Why is BRP not that popular?

[Simlasa]

I agree that relentless marketing would probably drive up the number of BRP players... I mean, that's really the strength of companies like TSR and Games Workshop... having flashy product design and lots and lots of in-your-face ad copy everywhere... sometimes to the point that the product is an ad (like with GW's White Dwarf magazine). I don't think the strength of either of those companies has been their rules design nearly as much as it has been the constant barrage of support and good fluff/artwork (primary to selling, secondary to playing).

I also think, though, that deep down BRP is a slightly more rarefied taste. It's not, at it's core, based on the same cinematic ideals as D&D and a lot of other 'new' games... it doesn't pull it's punches and is more 'simulationist' than the current trends seem to favor. I think 'simulation' was more of a flavor-of-the-month a decade or more ago (would anyone try to put out Phoenix Command these days?).
I mean, especially for people in the U.S., the entertainment we get is fantasy versions of real life... where all problems are solved by the final reel and the hero almost never dies. It's built into our culture to want that kind of mythic superhero who the bullets always seem to miss but who never misses his target.
The popularity of video games and MMPORPGs just reinforces that sort of thing... you'll die, but only for a moment. It's been a long time since I played any video games that ended with GAME OVER flashing on the screen.

Gritty, deadly games are not so much the darling of gamers these days (if my reading of RPG.net is at all correct), so games like COC and RQ2 seem to increasingly rub players the wrong way.
Of course, BRP could be tweaked to play 'cinematic' but like was asked previously, would it still be BRP?

Personally, I want BRP to keep being rum-raisin to D&D's vanilla... I want my games to be gritty... I want character death to continue being the big stick that beats some sense into the player's choices... but then I'm not a huge fan of Hollywood blockbusters either.
I'll take less support if it's better support... sure the shelves are full of D20 books, but how many of those are worth reading?

I guess I'm saying that a lot of the reasons BRP is not the top dog are also closely tied to why I like it so much. It's a work of quality vs. just being 'product'. I hope Chaosium promotes the new book for all they're worth... I hope it's got good art to pull people in... I hope there are supplements and world books to follow... but I want them to be well made/thought out... and not try to compete with something they fundamentally (and thankfully) are not.

[badcat]

I mostly agree with you.

About gamers wanting larger-than-life heroes who are safe from the woes of 'simulation', though...do you remember Dark Conspiracy? It was a game of 'horror' which sort of went out of its way to not kill the PCs, versus CoC which we all know about. It tanked, CoC still thrives. That's kind of an exception to the above, don't you think? Anyway, the whole thing is complex and multi-faceted. Most everything everyone has mentioned here no doubt had some impact on BRPs' relative obscurity. How much of each factor is very open to debate. Debate on, everyone.

It's fun.

[Simlasa]

I think COC's strength is a fairly cohesive and colorful mythos... and the definitive flavor of the 20's and the pulp/jazz age (though it seems like modern settings are just as popular). I think it's been a good seller in SPITE of the spectre of near-certain character demise/insanity (though I don't think it has to be as common as a lot of folks seem to assume).
Maybe people mostly play it as one-offs... like Paranoia? Maybe they tweak it so the PCs can rape/loot/pillage the Old Ones into being just like orcs in D&D?

Dark Conspiracy looked great to me at first... but it never felt like it had that same cohesive feel. All these disparate urban-legends thrown together... seemingly without rhyme or reason (it's been a while so maybe I'm forgetting the reason... but that would suggest even if there was one it was forgettable).
I liked the attempts at 40's styling on some things... but that seemed like window dressing that didn't permeate the game and was easily overlooked.

A better example of that sort that got lots of good press was Unknown Armies. I'm not sure how popular it is but after reading it I felt like it was an attempt to make COC more cinematic and add some meta-gaming dice gimmicks. In ways UA is darker than COC while still letting the PCs be more 'heroic'...
Still, I don't see it arising to the levels of popularity COC has enjoyed... but then that would support your argument.

[badcat]

Complex, isn't it?

[Enpeze]

Well in Germany the phantastic CoC edition from Pegasus Press (which is even better than the Chaosium original) lured additional new players into the BRP trap, hehe. First they liked all the things Simlasa mentioned (Jazz, 20ties, Lovecraft...) and then they detected that there are games which also use their beloved CoC rules. Without CoC, BRP would not be known at all in Middle Europe. (except by some extreme nerds, like myself eg)

[Simlasa]

I wonder if it's also that the various BRP games have kind of skirted the traditional genre tropes...
I mean, for me that's a plus... I never went in for the Tolkienesque Eurofantasy all that much... but I never got into Glorantha all that much either...
I wonder if the interesting settings Chaosium has chosen to focus on have been just enough outside the mainstream to keep that mass influx of interest at bay... even if the promotion/support had been higher.
Ringworld didn't easily fit the expectations of a Traveller or Warhammer 40K player... Elric is kind of pale and wierd and where are the elves/dwarves/hobbits?... Runequest, 'you mean I HAVE to play a cleric?'... 'does COC really expect me to spend more time in the library than killing monsters?... What do you mean I can't kill the monsters?!!!'

[badcat]

Yeah, that's exactly why I think Chaosium 'missed the boat' back in the eighties when they didn't expand Magic World and Future World. I guess the one they did expand, Superworld, just didn't do well enough to justify expanding the others, or something.

[Simlasa]

Yeah, having expanded/fleshed out supplements for all the Worlds Of Wonder books would have been great...
They would have been really good 'Gateways' into the other Chaosium stuff...

Funny that even though I was a Chaosium fan back then... and have most all their other stuff from that time... Worlds Of Wonder was completely off my radar until last year... up till then I'd somehow not noticed it.

Originally Posted by Charles Green

If Chaosium had played their cards right, it was possible at one point to have had RuneQuest be the RPG instead of D&D.

I don't think RQ ever had the potential to rival AD&D/D&D. However, Worlds of Wonder was a reall missed opportunity to provide the gaming world with what Steve Jackson did later. If only they had nailed down the system as a good, solid basis for infinite spin-off settings. Not that I hate GURPS, but I don't think it hangs together as elegantly as BRP.

And that's the other trick Chaosium missed. WoW is a hell of a lot better as an acronym than either BRP or GURPS.

[Simlasa]

Well... Chaosium could still have called their new gamebook Worlds Of Wonder if they'd wanted to... right?
Though I think that name might turn some people off nowadays... not 'edgy' enough..