What does it take for an RPG to die?

[soviet]

If I became a billionaire I would get the rights to RM2 and reprint it, and try to do the same with MERP.

 

[aramis erak]

I GMed some WFRP 1e two years ago and still plan to run a continuation in the near future. I GMed some MERP/RM2 a couple of years before that and still plan to return to it some day. I also ran AD&D second edition a few years before that.

It has its fans - but most of the people I've seen online hate it for Middle Earth as a game system because there's WAY TO «BLEEP»ING MUCH magic available for Middle Earth.

I found that I like it as a game, provided I don't tell the players it's intended for Middle Earth.

Of the hundreds of gamers I knew in Anchorage, none liked MERP for plaing Middle Earth. Many of the fans of Middle Earth on other sites express similar. That you didn't, well lucky for you...

Note the number of people using it as a D&D replacement? They're not running Middle Earth with it. And D&D is even worse for doing Middle Earth.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Nope, Knights And Berserkers And Legerdemain. A game with absolutely nothing to recommend it that's been out of print for 40 years. I am not sure if that or the two Islandia scenarios by The Companions are the rarest things I own.

Amazing. I wonder if in some way the numerology in the book is related to the Kaballah?

 

[SableWyvern]

It has its fans - but most of the people I've seen online hate it for Middle Earth as a game system because there's WAY TO «BLEEP»ING MUCH magic available for Middle Earth.

I found that I like it as a game, provided I don't tell the players it's intended for Middle Earth.

Of the hundreds of gamers I knew in Anchorage, none liked MERP for plaing Middle Earth. Many of the fans of Middle Earth on other sites express similar. That you didn't, well lucky for you...

Note the number of people using it as a D&D replacement? They're not running Middle Earth with it. And D&D is even worse for doing Middle Earth.

I've used it for fairly conventional D&D-esque adventuring through Mirkwood, Moria and places in between. For low-powered urban hijinks in Tharbad. For extremely high level play as Noldor, Vanyar and others conducting special forces actions into Melkor's domain.

As others have said, it's not necessarily suitable for emulating the Lord of the Rings but, as far as I'm aware, it was never really intended to do this. ICE intentionally set it in a different period, and provided information about regions outside the main novels, so that there are options for various different types of adventuring, from political intrigue to dungeon delving. I don't think it's an accident that the game is called Middle Earth Roleplaying and not Lord of the Rings Roleplaying.

In general, I think it's very difficult to make sweeping statements about who use what for what. We're all limited to knowledge of the people we have interacted with online or in person, but there are vast swathes of the hobby that aren't interconnected with everybody and it's possible for two people with decades of experience to have had vastly different experiences.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Nope, Knights And Berserkers And Legerdemain. A game with absolutely nothing to recommend it that's been out of print for 40 years. I am not sure if that or the two Islandia scenarios by The Companions are the rarest things I own.

KABAL is not dead.

And have no further comment.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It has its fans - but most of the people I've seen online hate it for Middle Earth as a game system because there's WAY TO «BLEEP»ING MUCH magic available for Middle Earth.

I found that I like it as a game, provided I don't tell the players it's intended for Middle Earth.

Of the hundreds of gamers I knew in Anchorage, none liked MERP for plaing Middle Earth. Many of the fans of Middle Earth on other sites express similar. That you didn't, well lucky for you...

Note the number of people using it as a D&D replacement? They're not running Middle Earth with it. And D&D is even worse for doing Middle Earth.

It did have some pretty cool lore for Middle-Earth. Not necessarily accurate, especially given current Tolkien scholarship, but cool. And Rolemaster itself is an interesting system. I'm interested in revisiting it, but I'm not sure what version I should look into.

 

[Bedrockgames]

We've seen various clickbait titles that "D&D 5e is dead!" or "is the OSR dying?" which, I know, is just there to get a reaction. But the question is interesting to me because of how different this hobby is from many other electronic gaming hobbies where a core company controls the fate of a game.

So what does it take for an RPG to die in this hobby?

I think its actually a spectrum. Here's my indicators ordered by the least impactful to the true death of an RPG to the most impactful.

• A game's popularity (sales, search popularity, games played, or other metric) goes from a steep incline to leveling off.
• A game's main publisher no longer publishes material for it.
• Third party publishers no longer publish material for it.
• It's hard to find groups playing it at conventions.
• It's hard to find a group to join as a player anywhere.
• It's hard to put together a group and run it as a GM.
• It's hard to find the core material for the game at all.

For you, what determines when a game is "dying" or even "dead"? What are some examples of games you consider dead.

I think about some truly resilient games like Ironsworn. It's playable solo so you don't even need a group. The material is in PDF and freely available to download. I think it takes an awful lot for this game to truly "die". As long as a person who wants it has it and plays it -- it lives.

I think there's value in thinking about this because it helps us scope our own reactions when we see a beloved RPG fall off the radar or consider whether the game we love is on the decline and therefore "dying" when it's really not. By my own definitions, I think there's only one version of D&D I would say is "dead" and that's 3.0. I can't seem to find legal digital copies anywhere and I don't know that I've seen anyone running 3.0 instead of 3.5. That feels pretty dead to me, but just about every other version of D&D is still available and still played.

What do you think?

Games don’t die anymore. The internet pretty much means fans of a game can always connect. You can usually very easily find used copies of out of print games, and people can make retro clones to satisfy the desire for the type of gameplay the system provided. A game simply not being super popular doesn’t make it was in my opinion. If you are playing it and having fun, it is very much alive

 

[SableWyvern]

I'm interested in revisiting it, but I'm not sure what version I should look into.

Rolemaster Classic is a fairly safe starting point -- it's basically RM2 cleaned up a little. At it's core it's a well balanced, relatively simple and very usable system. Start adding stuff from the companions and it's all over the place though.

I'm a fan of RMSS/RMFRP, but I've done significant work cleaning up and streamlining the skill system for my own purposes. I'd say the biggest strength of this edition is that the expansion material is of a much more consistent quality. The elemental system from Fire and Ice is a really bold, well-thought out metaphysical system for six elements instead of the traditional four. While I'm a fan of the skill category system, I feel it's too big and complex as originally presented (hence my changes). I use extremely complex spreadsheet character sheets to simplify all the complex back-end maths for my players. In play it's just d100 + mods, like every edition.

If you want something really accessible, Against the Darkmaster, though more MERP-focused, might be worth a look.

I wasn't overly impressed with what I saw of the new RMU, although it quite some time since I last checked. I felt they were adding complexity where it wasn't needed and removing detail where I wanted it kept. That's just personal preference though. The RMU art has pretty much been universally panned; that may or may not matter to you.

 

[dbm]

(Thread too long - didn’t read!)

I think RPGs are like Pratchett’s gods - as long as one person somewhere is reading a game and planning running it, or even a better a group is running it, that RPG is still alive.

 

[chuckdee]

I wasn't overly impressed with what I saw of the new RMU, although it quite some time since I last checked. I felt they were adding complexity where it wasn't needed and removing detail where I wanted it kept. That's just personal preference though. The RMU art has pretty much been universally panned; that may or may not matter to you.

Same. I was just getting ready to type this. I was excited when I heard of it, and now only have the first book, even though three(?) are out now.