The World of Old-School RPG's is Entering Its Twilight

[Saving Throw]

The internet is changing game publishing in a big way. PDFs dont go away the way print publications do.

I have a boatload of old print RPGs.... Powers & Perils, Bunnies & Burrows, Tunnels & Trolls.... it was a very special time. All of them are print and I'm the only one that will 'benefit' from them. If I leave the market I take my games with me and new games dont have to compete against the old.

PDFs are different. They take up virtually no space, labour or upkeep. They can be sold as cheaply as you can transfer any file. Today a new game competes with every previous pdf that has never left the market.

I think the results are a general depression in the sale price of RPGs. In many cases there is always a 'free' option available to players. To turn players from the free option companies have to lower their prices or raise their hype.

In that sense we are seeing the Twilight of the old market. The D20 license sped up this process. It reduced the market value (We are not talking quality in any of this) of every game that wasn't D20. It generated hype for itself mostly by making it easier for people to publish in the one system with clear legal and publishing guidelines. It soaked up a lot of talent. Just look at Monte Cook - who wrote some great Role Master modules - and consider that every one of his fans recently Ptolus etc... has been a supporter of D20. Had he continued to write for a competing company Ptolus might be a Rolemaster or Runequest project. With its marketing clout it tied up paper distribution channels - Chapters\Indigo by me has almost no non WOTC RPG products - and starved other game companies.

I think the market wants to move to a 'lingua franca' for role playing games. The Pen & Paper role playing market has shrunk, especially considering the game market has grown (Think computer games here). A shared language for adventures so that you can enjoy them like novels. Good adventures will still sell but competition is more fierce.

Even its profits from this successful strategy have not made it content. I think fundamentally that WOTC is too demanding for the shrinking market. Some say this was TSRs flaw too. It needs to generate new sales every month to sustain itself but most players won't buy new books every month and the number of players doesn't grow fast enough. I don't think most purchasers (You dear reader are not necessarily included in this) have read their gaming publications very closely at all. The average RPGer would get more out of staying home with his old books than going out to buy more.

So the market leader sees a decline in sales & profitability. The competitors are pinched for market space if they don't publish D20 material. Faced with a uniform market, I think players start to think of RPG gaming as vanilla.

So what is a sustainable business model for RPGs? What is tenacious enough that it will keep producing material for ever and ever? I think the new model demands a very stripped down almost non profit approach. There is almost no money in game publishing because games are a luxury that few people will pay for especially given so many free options. Rather than Wizards of the Coast we have a new Strategic Review. Publishing has never been cheaper. People have never been more connected and shared authorship has never been more easy. The internet sets new rules and find new players.


The new market demands a lingua franca. That was to be D20, I think it should be anything else. It needs to be something that no one company controls.


Anyway, Thats my .02

This is off the cuff so its a little disorganized (I apologize)

[drohem]

PDF's are definitely a great boon to the RPG industry. However, there are plenty of people out there that still will want hardcopy of their favorite RPGs. One of the drawbacks of PDF format is that it is difficult to read a huge PDF. I am one of those persons would still like to have hardbound copies.

WotC is going to be more restrictive with their open license with 4e D&D. I think this will have an impact on the RPG industry. We probably won't see such a great influx of d20 materials once 4e D&D is released. I think that the few successful d20 material companies/publishers may continue, but all the little ma-and-pa operations will diminish. I think the new trend in RPGs is the 'Indie' movement.

[rust]

Originally Posted by Saving Throw

To turn players from the free option companies have to lower their prices or raise their hype.

I am not so sure about this, because sometimes it could be more useful to
have a good and innovative idea.

Over here a group of fans wrote an RPG named "Ratten !" ("Rats !"), where
the players' characters are, well, rats. They published the game as a free
PDF, used the feedback to expand and improve the game, then published
a print version (on demand), and now are working on a translation into Eng-
lish, and have started to create several other RPGs, including a new gene-
ric system.

What first seemed to be a really stupid idea (I mean, rats ?) has turned into
an - albeit still very small - business success, because the authors had a lot
of truly good and new ideas, a fresh approach to RPGs.

So, no lowered price (from free PDF to print version) and no raised hype (al-
most no hype at all), and still at least a remarkable success.
And "Ratten !" is only one example of several successful projects of this kind.
Sure, the market is changing rapidly, but in my opinion for the better.

[Saving Throw]

Originally Posted by drohem

I think the new trend in RPGs is the 'Indie' movement.

I absolutely agree. I see the Indie movement will be the drive for a shared system. Without a common game system to work from (Lingua Franca) players will have to learn a new system for every little game - too much work. If the small publishers want to compete with big systems they'll need one of their own - a shared game mechanic.

Saving Throw

[Saving Throw]

Originally Posted by rust

I am not so sure about this, because sometimes it could be more useful to have a good and innovative idea.

The point is that new good and innovative games compete with old good and innovative games as never before. Because we are talking about enjoyment not physics a game can only hope to capture the attention of the reader - there is no objective "improvement" or "better game". I mean no disrespect but 'Rats' seems like much the same draw as Bunnies and Burrows did after Watership Down.

I wish you continued faith and success in your product. As a product (not an object of faith) however it competes in a way that early D&D never had to. If you are a small operation you will have lower costs and more profits. Stay small and you can play nice because you have little to lose.


Saving Throw

[rust]

Ah, "Ratten !" is not my project, and it has no similarity with "Bunnies and
Burrows". In fact, the rats of the game are rather mean creatures - more
"World of Darkness" than "Watership Down", I think.
Unfortunately I cannot explain here what makes it special (I do not want to
clutter the thread, and I would run into language problems), but it really is
different from the average run-of-the-mill RPG.

And there I see the problem for companies like WOTC. To make the profits
they need they have to produce for the mainstream market and cannot af-
ford to take risks and make experiments. WOTC will have to ride the D&D-
"horse" until it drops dead.
This opens the doors for small companies, which can try out new ideas in
new ways (PDFs etc.), and some of these new projects will one day have
the potential to win against then outdated and dull games like D&D.

[fmitchell]

Originally Posted by Saving Throw

I absolutely agree. I see the Indie movement will be the drive for a shared system. Without a common game system to work from (Lingua Franca) players will have to learn a new system for every little game - too much work. If the small publishers want to compete with big systems they'll need one of their own - a shared game mechanic.

On the other hand, I don't agree. I think indie games will drive to simpler systems, something one can learn in 15 minutes. However, one of the points of indie systems is to push the boundaries of gaming, which almost requires creating systems from the ground up. Complexity arises when you have some sort of detailed system of modifiers, or a complex combat system ... but most indie games shy away from those.

A shared language of systems might help. Let's face it, every game has some set attributes/characteristics/skills/abilities/etc with a numerical value. In most conflicts you roll dice to get a number to compare to a difficulty factor or target number (which might also be randomly determined); an applicable a/c/s/a/e, and other factors determine the number of dice, the target number, and/or the total value of the dice roll. Comparing the dice result to the target number determines the success or failure of each party. The fact that there's no consistent terminology for anything I described in this paragraph makes it harder to explain a second RPG to someone who's already learned their first.

[drohem]

As far as a common system goes, the RPG industry has gone back-and-forth. After the hobby was established, there was the movement where the game companies created House Systems so that their fans could easily transition between the product lines. The Indie movement is a reaction to the House System movement. There is always going to be this back-and-forth in the industry. There are always going to be people who like the standardization of House Systems, and there are always going to be people who want to push the boundries and play outside the of the box.

[fmitchell]

Originally Posted by drohem

After the hobby was established, there was the movement where the game companies created House Systems so that their fans could easily transition between the product lines. The Indie movement is a reaction to the House System movement.

And let's not forget WotC's "One System To Rule Them All" attempt, which backfired in a couple of ways:

1. The glut of d20/OGL material resulted in a bubble and a bust, causing some companies to retrench and others to go under entirely. (Except WotC.) The PDF market allowed many companies to sell their products without printing overhead, but that means less visibility in mainstream outlets (unlike WotC), and the dreaded paradox of choice.
   
2. More seriously (to WotC's mind), other companies dared to put out competing derived works like True20 just because the license allowed them to. That's why D&D 4e's license will be more restrictive than OGL.

[drohem]

Good points.