The Death of Warhammer RPG's

[Ars Mysteriorum]

I was utterly shocked to hear that Black Industries is ceasing production of RPG's as of September 2008.

I simply cannot believe it. Especially after the highly successful sale of their new Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy RPG.

Is anyone else as distraught as I am about this?

[PK Games]

A whole forum full of people on the Black Industries Web Pages, at least two yahoo groups Im on, Me, You and about anyone who plucked down $50 for a book that starts a RPG Line that got cancelled 3 days into its release.

Guess I will need to buy 40K Table Top Codexes for source material now. Thats what we did in the 90s for WHFB. We used the 4th/5th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles Army books for sourcebooks and used the conversion charts in WHFRP Bible. We were also fortunate enough to have Warhammer Quest for supplemental material and ideas.

With a really good OCR scan of a book you can go in and just change some of the entries enough to make it into any game system you want.

Not that Id ever do that.

[drohem]

It is strange that a RPG that sells out is considered not profitable and by the parent company and excised immendiately. It makes you wonder what GW was thinking.

[PK Games]

Not necessarily GW. GW set up a sub company to handle non-table top books (ie, non miniature, fiction, comics etc) and they in turn set up sub companies to handle the RPGs independently. Someone at company one decided the success of the novels out weighs the RPG and decided to focus on the novels only.

Its there business, its there decision. However, if enough fans complain and request more, well its 2008 not 1988. I have a good faith (60/40 here) that by the time the next 4 (and last 4) of Black Industries books are released Green Ronin will absorb the license and continue to support the game line.

Maybe nothing major, but a book here and there to keep the RPGers and Miniature game players interested in the novels.

What they are missing is a good $30 sourcebook for a RPG with say 100 pages can support a series of 4 or 5 novels.

Anyway.....

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by drohem

It is strange that a RPG that sells out is considered not profitable and by the parent company and excised immendiately. It makes you wonder what GW was thinking.

That is pretty much what happened with Decipher's RPG line too. In Decipher's case they were new to the RPG field and had unreasonable expectations. They thought that since they could compete with WotC in the CCG field, that they would get the same sort of market share in the RPG field. So the lines were canceled for not succeeding enough.

But the people behind Warhammer would have known better than that.

[Hedgehobbit]

From a business point of view, GW should have just considered the RPG as advertisement for the novels and mini-game. I'm actually surprised that they let Green Ronin change the RPG to make it less compatible with the mini-game.

In any event, GW should have known when they went into this what the costs were going to be. Maybe the market's changed significantly since a year ago.

[Ars Mysteriorum]

I feel absolutely crushed. Games are what I do. I loved Warhammer dearly and the way it reminded me of games of yore.

I bought so many supplements for it... and I decided to hold off on Warhammer 40K and wait for a reprint.

I really feel like I've been punched in the gut, as I've heard many others say.

[PK Games]

Originally Posted by Hedgehobbit

From a business point of view, GW should have just considered the RPG as advertisement for the novels and mini-game. I'm actually surprised that they let Green Ronin change the RPG to make it less compatible with the mini-game.

In any event, GW should have known when they went into this what the costs were going to be. Maybe the market's changed significantly since a year ago.

Green Ronin just revamped the 1985 RPG rules for the same game and setting. What surprised me was the lack of support from the actual Games Workshop web page and White Dwarf.

Perhaps they will bring back the Citadel Journal or even create a GWRPG Quarterly magazine.

[PK Games]

Originally Posted by Ars Mysteriorum

I feel absolutely crushed. Games are what I do. I loved Warhammer dearly and the way it reminded me of games of yore.

I bought so many supplements for it... and I decided to hold off on Warhammer 40K and wait for a reprint.

I really feel like I've been punched in the gut, as I've heard many others say.

I dont feel physically or even emotionally hurt here. Im a bit upset because I spent a good deal of time hunting down a copy of the 40KRP rule book and the day after I succeed in finding, buying and beginning to await for delivery of what i was hoping was a great and long line of books, I hear its gone.

[drohem]

Sorry PK, I empathize. That has to leave a sour taste in your mouth; especially with the cost for new RPG core books these days.