Why aren't Star Wars and Star Trek dominating the RPG market?

[Atom Again]

Something I've been wondering about a lot lately...

Why aren't Star Wars D20 and Star Trek (Decipher) dominating the RPG market?

If you think about it, it makes sense that they should. I mean, Star Wars and Star Trek are easily *the* two most popular SF franchises in the history of the genre, with legions of devoted (some would say rabid ) fans. Toys, books, models, lego sets, t-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, bobble heads...you name it, it probably exists for Star Wars and Star Trek.

Why haven't the thousands (millions?) of Star Wars/Star Trek fans eagerly gobbled up the RPGs? Isn't it every Star Wars geek's dream to be a Jedi? Or ever Trekker's dream to captain his own star ship?

I don't get it. Discuss.

 

[Pbartender]

Simply put, because it costs a lot of money to get a hold of the licenses, and the intellectual owners of those two particular bits of fiction exert an extraordinary amount of control over the content of the resulting products.

Not many companies are willing to put up that kind of dough, for such a small amount of control. Hence, few products of either brand get made.

 

[Atom Again]

Simply put, because it costs a lot of money to get a hold of the licenses, and the intellectual owners of those two particular bits of fiction exert an extraordinary amount of control over the content of the resulting products.

Not many companies are willing to put up that kind of dough, for such a small amount of control. Hence, few products of either brand get made.

I don't think you understood my question. I'm wondering why Star Wars and Star Trek *fans* aren't fanatically buying and playing the RPGs. If every die-hard Star Wars and Star Trek fan bought the RPG version, those games would easily be #1.

 

[Pbartender]

I don't think you understood my question. I'm wondering why Star Wars and Star Trek *fans* aren't fanatically buying and playing the RPGs. If every die-hard Star Wars and Star Trek fan bought the RPG version, those games would easily be #1.

Oops... Gotcha. Sorry about that.

In that case, I would guess it's a matter of the descrepancy between what the characters of the movies/television shows/novels are capable of doing, and what your typical RPG adventuring PC can do.

I've never played Star Trek, but I can speak from personal experience that anyone who wants to play a Jedi (in any version of the RPG) after seeing the Star Wars movies will be sorely dissappointed.

 

[Crothian]

I don't think you understood my question. I'm wondering why Star Wars and Star Trek *fans* aren't fanatically buying and playing the RPGs. If every die-hard Star Wars and Star Trek fan bought the RPG version, those games would easily be #1.

As video games go I hear Warcraft and Everquest are pretty popular, yet they don't sell that well as an RPG. stargate right now is the most popular sci fi show on TV, and Its not a big one either. Farscape had thousands of highly devoted fans but that RPG did not sale well I believe.

Liscense games are a big gamble becasue while the liscense might be huge, it is hard to get people to try out the RPGs. One of the best liscenses in the past year or so has to Buffy. But its not as big as many other RPGs.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

As a die hard ST and SW fan, I feel I can answer the question.

Simply put, not all fans can agree on an RPG system that suits the world/setting.
Similar to LOTR.

Granted d20 is the closest and best anyone has come for starwars, but fact of the matter is, Wookies are equal to humans and Jedi are not balanced to Scoundels, nor should they be.

Anywho, that aside. Its frustrating to play starwars or startrek in a rulesset that doesnt portray the movies as you see them in your mind. Add to the fact that everyone has a diffrent opinion on how the world should work.

I personally dont like running/playing Starwars because I'm too much of a book whore. I love the stories laid out by the writers of Starwars and I never feel comfortable playing in a world because I can never trust a DM to play between the lines of the universe as written.

Not all DM's want too, and none of them have too, its just me.

Similarly for Startrek, I dont see any good system for it. Humans have tons upon tons of skills in Startrek. At least the ones in the federation do. Despite how many years its been around I dont think the exact requirements for Starfleet have ever been placed in cannon, nor the standard skills for your avarage midrank officer. Though nearly all of them know quantum physics, warp theories, and various combat skills.

For some reason, I just feel more comfortable playing those settings in computer/consol games, then I do on pen and paper.

I stick to D&D/FR/Eberron/d20modern.

 

[Pbartender]

Not to mention that's it a very narrow setting related to each of them. Since they are games adapted to very popular well-known sci-fi, it's hard to adapt the game to any other setting.

Whereas a more generic game like D&D (generic fantasy, rather than sci-fi), can be played in any number of settings.

But even if you name them something else and move them to another galaxy, if you include guys wearing brown robes with psychic powers and glowing laser-swords, everybody's going to be thinking of them as Jedi.

 

[Mythtify]

Another factor could also be that the games just aren't designed very well. I think that the West End version of Star Wars is a better game than the d20 for Star Wars.

You have to also keep in mind that just because you are a fan of Star Wars or Star Trek, does not mean that you are a born gamer. If all the Lord of The Rings(book and fim) fans bought a players handbook, D&D would give Magic the Gathering a run for it's money.

As much as many gamers are into sci-fi, gamers are still a fringe group with in the sci-fi community.

 

[Umbran]

Another factor is that being a fan of a movie does not make you into a player of RPGs, even if it is a sci-fi/fantasty movie. The only ones you'd expect to run out and play the RPGs are those people who are both gamers and rabid fans of the movies. That's a smaller subset than you'd think.

 

[Psion]

Another factor could also be that the games just aren't designed very well. I think that the West End version of Star Wars is a better game than the d20 for Star Wars.

Well, back when it came out, we gave up Star Wars d6 after we got it out of our system and went back to the better designed SF games we were already playing.

To me, the balance between jedi and other classes is much better in d20 SW, the force is modeled much better in d20, and the movie characters aren't as clearly beyond reach as they are in d6. In d20, being strong doesn't give oyu better defense than armor. And so on. IMO, d20 SW is a much better game.

As much as many gamers are into sci-fi, gamers are still a fringe group with in the sci-fi community.

I don't know about anyone else, but I typically don't enjoy games of the same thing that I watch. I feel a lot less freedom to act when there is a stronger canon out there. Further, one thing that discourages me about SW is the rabid fans. They just aren't fun to play with. They do things like drop names, say "Whatabout" every two seconds, and so on.