Pitch Your D&D Killers

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
David Johansen

David Johansen

Legendary Pubber
Joined
May 4, 2017
Messages
5,986
Reaction score
12,187
Inspired by a thread elsewhere that asked what the potential D&D killers are and have been. MERP, Traveller, WFRP, Vampire, Star Wars IMO with all having various reasons why they didn't kill D&D.

But this thread isn't about that as much as how they should have or could have gone about it.

My big one is Games Workshop, which as a company certainly has the resources and the capacity but lacks the will or the interest.

I think I'd argue that Games Workshop was in a really good position to kill D&D for about 20 years and never did. The reason was that they didn't see rpgs as profitable enough and ditched that part of their business. Even Dark Heresy didn't do well enough to keep in house from GW's perspective. But in terms of a longstanding gaming company with popular IP, they really could have taken the top spot if they wanted to.

The obstacles I see are that WFRP is a bit too fiddly, the typical edition and supplement churn issues of the rpg industry, and the material is not very family friendly. Not that its full of awfulness but it's visuals will scare Karen. Something more like Advanced Heroquest (not Warhammer Quest) that plugged more directly into the wargame and was simpler in play would probably have been a better fit. Put in modular character sprues, use single sprues from army sets for monsters to make a killer starter box. Probably do 40K instead of fantasy. Alternately they could just pick up the Lord of the Rings rpg license.

In any case, if they were really smart, they'd make the book under $20 and have booster packs around $10. So the core line is a fully playable book. A series of booster packs and adventures with maybe one sprue of monsters and a map or a character figure and some cards with powers and equipment on them. There's a price point issue but one of the major advantages of Magic the Gathering is cheap starters and boosters. It might work to make the boosters random. They'd have to be boxes to prevent parcel pinching then but you could avoid the issue with assortments where there's a popular item and an item you get stuck with in every box. One thing to bear in mind is that GW's packaging costs them more than the contents so foil baggies or something might be the way to go.

One interesting thing about GW is that their Black Library fiction has been profitable enough to keep going but rpgs weren't which mirrors 90s TSR.
 
I also think GURPS could get into the position to seriously contend with D&D though that sits firmly in the territory of just about anyone could do it with the right product at the right time.

The product I would suggest is a pared down GURPS with packages on cards and no points system in sight :o Pick a career, race, and specialty and you've got your character. Humans probably get two specialties to make up their points so races and specialties would be built on the same point totals. The product I think you'd need is a strong setting or license with strong visuals. Hitting the Zeitgeist is tricky at the best of times but I think you generally do better with a serious setting than a comedy one. The problem is that all rpgs devolve into slapstick and don't really need help or permission to do so. Personally you're always better off with a license you own rather than one you're leasing but you'd want to be hitting what's popular and hip at the moment. Breaking new ground and leading the way can work, indeed you might have the next hula hoop* on your hands, but it's an expensive way to find out that you don't so let's pick something hot and match that look and feel.

From SJG's core competencies I think you'd want to do a game with a short rulebook and cards. Probably booster pack supplements with setting specific new advantages, equipment, and so forth. If you wanted to be daring and try to break new ground I'd suggest modular action figure kits. I've suggested it before but you've got a game where character's can crouch and crawl and wrestle and it would be way cool to be able to show that on the table. Ideally these would be in 1/36 scale and there'd be a modular vehicle kit that let you make various cool vehicles. Now, that might sound like a pipe dream but you're really just talking about a couple sprues to start with. The only thing is that plastic joints in 1/36 would be super fiddly** and fragile but you want at least as much articulation as a GI Joe with swivel arm battlegrip. I'm afraid the Kenner Star Wars figure articulation wouldn't cut it. It's expensive and high risk so you'd want to kickstart it. You might not want to say GURPS on the packaging, I' think SJG is right that the brand name baggage isn't an advantage here.

Right at the moment, if I were picking a genre, it would be a pulpy apocalypse, probably not zombies. Oh, there'd be zombies but I'd lean towards Mad Max. Not Car Wars, sorry, maybe Crossbow and Chassis but not Autoduel America. Generic movie dystopian future maybe? That'd let you do modern human figures with a mix of military hardware and improvised weapons with improvised armour being easy to just stick on and not needing a lot of specific parts to do specific armour. If you can do two or three spues I'd probably do the flesh tone parts on one and clothing and gear on another. That way you could cast the spues in a variety of colors and avoid having to paint anything.

*you might also have the next Turnip Twaddler on your hands which is why trying to be the next big thing wouldn't be the ideal business model.
** it might be possible to use small steel pins that pop into the joints but the plastic around them would still be pretty fine and weak. 1/32 is a better supported scale for anything but military hardware but you'd need bigger hexes on the maps.
 
A D&D "killer" can't really be D&D but better, or something that appeals to the exact same audience I think. It needs to basically create it's own audience and be something different but equally popular.

World of Darkness and Vampire in particular were able to challenge D&D because they did something different and new and which appealed to a different, if overlapping audience.

It also, I think, and importantly, needs to not just do a genre but partially create one. That was the other thing about Vampire, it created it's own mythos. A lot of games that try to do genre emulation are too faithful.

So potential avenues for something that might break out:
- Some kind of urban fantasy to fill the spot that World of Darkness left open (although the window for this might have already closed) but it would need to have a killer distinctive setting rather than just something that feels like it's made to do all the urban fantasy that's already out there).
- You would think superheroes, given their popularity, but it would again have to be an original take on superheroes I think. (But again this may be too far behind the cultural curve here - it probably needn't to be done earlier).
- Something Zombies and Post Apocalypse but with does something extra and wholly original.

But the thing is it wouldn't be enough to 'do' these genres. You'd need something wholly new built on top of them, and structures of play that work and are intuitive. What do you do? Needs to have an obvious and clear answer and it needs to not be the same thing as D&D.

The system's not a big deal - 5e's popularity shows that you don't need a good system to be successful it just needs to be straightforward.
 
Last edited:
The Butcher said:
“Killing D&D” is bullshit. I’ve said it in the past the D&D hate is the Oedipus complex of the hobby and this post strengthens my belief.
Click to expand...
But speculating is fun and pitching mad marketing schemes is fun, so have fun with it. I'm a long avowed D&D hater but even I've accepted that it's not going anywhere. I could link to the thread on therpgsite that inspired my thread but, honestly, it's a bit dull and dreary and not so much what could be as what could have been and wasn't.
 
One other note, I think lore sells more books than mechanics. To stimulate people's information addiction you need to parcel out information. There need to be secrets to reveal and conspiracies to unmask and backgrounds to expand. This is another reason licensed games are limited as a product. The information is generally available elsewhere and all you're really doing is codifying it and tying it to numbers and mechanics. GURPS Discworld's value as a guide book is rather limited as there's already beautiful non-game guidebooks. Sure it's great if you can get the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it blows up into the next big thing but that's a once in a generation opportunity and I wouldn't bet the house on it.

There's a story my grandpa told me about a kid from the sticks who went to the big city looking for work. The interviewer looked at his resume and said, "isn't there anything you're good at?" The kid replies, "well I was the best circle sticker in the county." His interest piqued, the interviewer, asked, "what's a circle sticker?" "Well," the kid said, "you draw a circle on the barn wall with a bit of chalk and then you go out in the field and pick something up and throw it at the circle and see if it sticks." The interviewer excitedly declares, "you're hired." The kid, incredulous, asks, "Really?" "You bet," comes the reply, "we've got a whole lot of guys throwing it but none of them can make it stick."

Throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks can get pretty expensive.
 
Last edited:

Pitch Your D&D Killers

You might as well ask what's the next blockbuster movie or chart-topping song gonna be like?

The only thing I can say with certainty is that anything replacing D&D will be something remarkable, a zeitgeist with strong and enduring cultural impact. Vampire the Masquerade is the only candidate I can think of that came even remotely close.
 
David Johansen said:
One other note, I think lore sells more books than mechanics. To stimulate people's information addiction you need to parcel out information. There need to be secrets to reveal and conspiracies to unmask and backgrounds to expand. This is another reason licensed games are limited as a product. The information is generally available elsewhere and all you're really doing is codifying it and tying it to numbers and mechanics. GURPS Discworld's value as a guide book is rather limited as there's already beautiful non-game guidebooks. Sure it's great if you can get the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it blows up into the next big thing but that's a once in a generation opportunity and I wouldn't bet the house on it.
Click to expand...
This is true, MERP was huge when it came out. The art is still better than anything you saw in D&D at the time and since, sadly (since I have a fondness for RoleMaster) the system is what killed it.
 
I'd say that a huge missed opportunity for GURPS was In Nomine. if they had originally brought that out as a standalone game using the GURPS engine rather than then system it had.

A lot of the WoD fans at my store were eager for In Nomine, and those that picked it up liked the concept and setting. It just had a terrible system that I never saw people play for more than a session or two. A stripped down version of GURPS would have been preferable, and it would have gotten people playing GURPS without realizing it.

I don't think WFRP could ever have huge mainstream success and remain WFRP. It's too steeped in '80s British cynicism.
 
David Johansen said:
One other note, I think lore sells more books than mechanics. To stimulate people's information addiction you need to parcel out information. There need to be secrets to reveal and conspiracies to unmask and backgrounds to expand.
Click to expand...
This hasn't been true since the before times, in the long long ago of the 1990s.
 
sharps54 said:
This is true, MERP was huge when it came out. The art is still better than anything you saw in D&D at the time and since, sadly (since I have a fondness for RoleMaster) the system is what killed it.
Click to expand...

The funny thing is that the core book for MERP had very little lore in it. It would be a rare exception in the gaming industry but I suspect the modules outsold the core book.
 
Baulderstone said:
I'd say that a huge missed opportunity for GURPS was In Nomine. if they had originally brought that out as a standalone game using the GURPS engine rather than then system it had.

A lot of the WoD fans at my store were eager for In Nomine, and those that picked it up liked the concept and setting. It just had a terrible system that I never saw people play for more than a session or two. A stripped down version of GURPS would have been preferable, and it would have gotten people playing GURPS without realizing it.

I don't think WFRP could ever have huge mainstream success and remain WFRP. It's too steeped in '80s British cynicism.
Click to expand...

Which is why I pitched something more board / wargamey like Advanced Heroquest.

In Nomine is an interesting case. Was the system the same one used in the French version? It might have been part of the licensing deal. I suspect SJG could have done their own angels and demons game using GURPS lite as the core and done better. They used their own art and altered the setting. The one review I recall (probably from Shadis) had the line "It's like doing Gone With The Wind but it's set in Paris and they're all Dogs." I think the system wasn't the only misstep on SJG's part when it comes to In Nomine.
 
I have no great love for D&D and just the same I don't hate it either, but if I really wanted to kill it, I'd look to the past examples of games that nearly accomplished the feat: Magic the Gathering, Vampire and more recently Pathfinder. The three characteristics I see are, be quick to play and addictive, be cool, or be D&D when D&D decided to not be D&D anymore. In each case they all seem like they caught lightning in a bottle or were opportunistic when the powers that be were fumbling at TSR or WotC. I don't really see any product development path that took out the market leader. My best guess is that if andybody is ever going to knock off D&D again from the top spot, WotC is going to have step on their own dicks again and somebody steps in with a shiny game that promises a lot of the same experience. Namely, a fairly easy to learn, zero-to-hero experience with medieval super-heroes, running around collecting shiny magic items, gold, and probably some slick artwork, and probably a pretty good sounding name.
 
Last edited:
I think WotC's doing very well with their approach to modules these days though it's the mechanical stuff that's being parceled out rather than setting material.
 
My real D&D killer is an AI GM (or AI augmented), in a fully realized VR environment, that's not a MMO, but something with emergent properties and everyone is more or less LARPing, but the costumes don't suck.
 
Nick J said:
Namely, a fairly easy to learn, zero-to-hero experience with medieval super-heroes, running around collecting shiny magic items, gold, and probably some slick artwork, and probably a pretty good sounding name.
Click to expand...

I think the action/reward mechanism would need to be as compelling and quantifiable but not necessarily equivalent. If you were using some kind of cards in play, the rewards could even be tangible like ante in Magic. The sense of progression, simple to complex transition in play and cultural significance of the rewards would need to be as evocative and easily understood.

Treasure and power are hard to match but winning the cup and fame have a lot of cultural cachet as well.
 
Nick J said:
My real D&D killer is an AI GM (or AI augmented), in a fully realized VR environment, that's not a MMO, but something with emergent properties and everyone is more or less LARPing, but the costumes don't suck.
Click to expand...
I've long said World of Warcraft for the Kinect was a huge missed opportunity. Just thing of all those sweaty geeks getting fit by jogging in place and flapping their arms to make the griffin fly.
 
Some kind of 'Magic: The Gathering' official RPG which can incorporate some mechanic or details from the cards as well as the art and layout. Kickstart it and it will blow previous records out of the water.

White Wolf came closest with Vampire in the 90s, Call of Cthulu has always knocked about in the background and in certain markets may have the slight edge and you could argue D&D nearly killed itself with the OGL that let Pathfinder and a zillion clones loose then shot themselves in the foot with 4e. They clawed it back (and then some) with 5e so it's difficult to see anything right now that could challenge D&D.
 
Jenx said:
Some kind of 'Magic: The Gathering' official RPG which can incorporate some mechanic or details from the cards as well as the art and layout. Kickstart it and it will blow previous records out of the water.

White Wolf came closest with Vampire in the 90s, Call of Cthulu has always knocked about in the background and in certain markets may have the slight edge and you could argue D&D nearly killed itself with the OGL that let Pathfinder and a zillion clones loose then shot themselves in the foot with 4e. They clawed it back (and then some) with 5e so it's difficult to see anything right now that could challenge D&D.
Click to expand...

That's better, there's too much deconstruction of the premise in this thread and not nearly enough mad pipe dreams. Sadly this thread is basically turning into a rehash of the one on therpgsite.
 
Last edited:
Middle Earth always sells.
Not sure if it will be a D&D Killer however, as one can already portray a generic version of Middle Earth with the D&D core books.

As a teen I remember that MERP (one of my favourites) was a big contender for second base, although both later Middle Earth rpgs of LOTR CODA and TOR/AiME never quite reclaimed that same level of success (despite both TOR and AiME being great Middle Earth rpgs, even with the films exposure)

Back in the 1980s MERP was a heavy contender for 2nd place for a while, sitting alongside Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, (and Shadowrun a bit later).
Then they were all replaced by World of Darkness for a decade.

In recent times the biggest commercial threat to D&D has been Pathfinder, which is just a version of D&D 3E.
At least that's how it looks on the shelves of most game/comic shops I visit:

Usually prime real estate shelf space is devoted to D&D 5E, predominantly displaying most of the current line of WotC books (usually multiple copies of each).Then below them are usually a range of assorted Pathfinder books. The coolest shop also has a few D&D third-party licencees here, perhaps Goodman Games 5E Fantasy or DCC titles, but most don't stock them, keeping this space mainly for WotC and Paizo books.
This is followed by the less prominent rpg shelves, which have a mish-mash grab-bag of Everything Else - almost an afterthought - usually in the most immediate part there are some random Modiphius titles (like Dune, Star Trek Adventures, Fallout, Conan, etc), followed by one or two Call of Cthulhu 7E books. Then below this, in the 'rpg dregs' section, there is a spattering of smaller titles like Fate Core, Monster of the Week, Blades In The Dark, Kids On Bikes etc on the lower shelves, sometimes accompanied by old out-of-date rpg titles that no one wants

That's a description of one of the better game shops.
There aren't too many of them where I am, although there is a reasonable abundance of console/pc game stores, and they usually have a small tokenistic rpg shelf devoted to WotC D&D 5E books, typically just stocking the D&D 5E PHB, DMG, MM core books, with perhaps two or three recent other WotC titles for D&D 5E. The remainder of that shelf space is usually devoted to WotC merchandise such as coffee mugs with WotC Red D20 emblems on them, or Critical Role coasters etc. It's very sad to see, as the D&D coffee mugs must make them just as much if not more money than D&D books. They could be stocking that shelf with more actual D&D 5E books to increase their meager variety, or heaven forbid, a rpg title from a non-D&D rpg line

It's hard to know what a potential "D&D Killer" looks like at present, because there really isn't anything out there opposing it.

I suspect the biggest gorilla in the corner is actually WotC itself, depending upon how the next edition of D&D is received by the gaming public.
(We only have to remember D&D 4E as an example of this, which led to Pathfinder to flourishing on the game shop shelves, and also the OSR became much more prominent in online sales).

So it may not be Video killing the Radio Star, but the Radio Star killing the Radio Star :grin:
 
Last edited:
Brock Savage said:

Pitch Your D&D Killers

You might as well ask what's the next blockbuster movie or chart-topping song gonna be like?

The only thing I can say with certainty is that anything replacing D&D will be something remarkable, a zeitgeist with strong and enduring cultural impact. Vampire the Masquerade is the only candidate I can think of that came even remotely close.
Click to expand...
To follow up on this, I think VtM not only hit a bit of cultural zeitgeist, but also brought people back who had been D&Ders as kids in the Fad Period (Late 70s-early 80s). Many of those were now in their late teens/early 20s and were looking for a different kind of "fantasy" than the one D&D was still offering, one that appealed to the age they were at when it came out, the way that D&D had appealed to their tween selves.

I'm not sure how or if that fits with making a D&D Killer, but something worth considering.
Essentially, I'm saying you also have to make some guesses about what the audience is primed for due to factors outside of the game itself as well.

( Personally I would think that's nigh impossible to catch it in a way that a company could exploit, but 've been wrong many times)
 
DeadBob said:
Essentially, I'm saying you also have to make some guesses about what the audience is primed for due to factors outside of the game itself as well.
Click to expand...
Well yea. It is going to something new, fresh, and culturally relevant to a younger generation like V:tM was. Giving some old games and played out IPs a facelift ain't gonna cut it.
 
Well, if you want a mad pipe dream . . .
David Johansen said:
If you wanted to be daring and try to break new ground I'd suggest modular action figure kits. I've suggested it before but you've got a game where character's can crouch and crawl and wrestle and it would be way cool to be able to show that on the table. Ideally these would be in 1/36 scale and there'd be a modular vehicle kit that let you make various cool vehicles. Now, that might sound like a pipe dream but you're really just talking about a couple sprues to start with.
Click to expand...
Y'know, LEGO Minifigures are just about the same size as your heroic 28mm gaming mini. LEGO's output these days is about 80% licences, but they have developed one of their original themes into a perennial seller with tie-in cartoons, etc. With the right pitch they just might either commission a LEGO Ninjago RPG, or develop a new theme with an RPG tie-in baked in.

Whether that would kill D&D is another matter - I suspect whatever the true D&D killer ends up being will be analogous to the way D&D "killed" traditional wargames - it will come out of it, but be something new.
 
I suspect LEGO would cost too much. It makes Games Workshop look reasonable. The other issue is that you can go into the LEGO store and build custom minifigs from bits so it's hard to market sets outside of the LEGO company. Maybe Chinese LEGO knockoffs. LEGO did try to do some board games a while back but I suspect they went too low on the price point and made somewhat unimpressive games. I will concede that the LEGO corporation has the resources to make serious inroads into the rpg market if they wanted to. I guess that's basically the same issue as GW really, they could but don't see the value of doing so.
 
Endless Flight said:
Don’t worry. That Amazon show that’s coming out will take care of that.
Click to expand...
yeah judging from the chocolate box pics being spread across the interwebs, I don't think WotC will have anything to worry about anytime soon :worried::grin:
 
Brock Savage said:
Well yea. It is going to something new, fresh, and culturally relevant to a younger generation like V:tM was. Giving some old games and played out IPs a facelift ain't gonna cut it.
Click to expand...
One possible direction to consider is along the lines of:

1) who is the target demographic (usually age group, but more specific)
2) What are their unfulfilled real-world dreams and how can those be turned into a "fantasy" setting where they can pursue and perhaps accomplish something related to those? So basically a variation on "power fantasy" although perhaps not always direct and obvious power.
3) How to turn all of that into something "actionable"- the core activity.

I would caution against reading too much into "power fantasy" in that one line. I just don't have a better term at my fingertips.

For example, despite everything, call of Cthulhu RPG is a type of aspirational fantasy (IMO). In it Nerdy Skills used by Nerdy, Bookish People, who are the only ones who realize the Real Danger due to their Bookish, Nerdy Interests, potentially Save the World (or die heroically while trying to do so) when most of The Normies Don't Even Realize the Danger Exists !!!!

I mean jeez, how much more dead on can you be for your target audience? :grin:

So probably a factor in there somewhere among other qualities.

I mean, there were reasons I could probably break out that D&D was so very important to me and my pals at 10-13 years old during that Fad Era I mentioned, that undoubtedly had to do with stuff we didn't have ( or felt we wanted) in our real world lives.

Other smarter people than me have talked about how VtM especially paralleled stereotypes of High School cliques and their pop-culture interactions. Tie that back to my earlier comment and I think you see the connection I suspect was making VtM more popular back in the dy than merely its subject matter.
 
Simon Hogwood said:
Well, if you want a mad pipe dream . . .

Y'know, LEGO Minifigures are just about the same size as your heroic 28mm gaming mini. LEGO's output these days is about 80% licences, but they have developed one of their original themes into a perennial seller with tie-in cartoons, etc. With the right pitch they just might either commission a LEGO Ninjago RPG, or develop a new theme with an RPG tie-in baked in.

Whether that would kill D&D is another matter - I suspect whatever the true D&D killer ends up being will be analogous to the way D&D "killed" traditional wargames - it will come out of it, but be something new.
Click to expand...
I assume you're referring to Ninjago. That's a setting that's well setup for an RPG. The problem is I don't think the Lego group wants to appeal to kids(and kids parents) at all times so they limit the violence and themes to some extent.

They had a mini RPG line for a while called Heroica. Microfigures in a fantasy world. I have a ton of guys for it. I just doesn't have advancement very much or what to do with advancement.
 
David Johansen said:
That's better, there's too much deconstruction of the premise in this thread and not nearly enough mad pipe dreams. Sadly this thread is basically turning into a rehash of the one on therpgsite.
Click to expand...
I apologize if I seemed like I was being hostile towards or unfairly critical of your thread topic. To get into the spirit of things I will offer my wild speculation about future trends.

For a few years now I feel like co-op video games have been groping towards and hinting at "the next big thing" that will not only overtake D&D but traditional RPGs altogether. It will be akin to how RPGs were originally derived from and supplanted traditional wargames. The technology gets better every year. Significant creative and financial capital is working towards it. I feel it is only a matter of time.
 
Last edited:
David Johansen said:
Which is why I pitched something more board / wargamey like Advanced Heroquest.

In Nomine is an interesting case. Was the system the same one used in the French version? It might have been part of the licensing deal. I suspect SJG could have done their own angels and demons game using GURPS lite as the core and done better. They used their own art and altered the setting. The one review I recall (probably from Shadis) had the line "It's like doing Gone With The Wind but it's set in Paris and they're all Dogs." I think the system wasn't the only misstep on SJG's part when it comes to In Nomine.
Click to expand...
I believe it was an original system, which is why I am suggesting SJG should have stuck with a system that worked.

I think the tone and art of the game was actually great. Yeah, I know before it came out, a lot of WoD fans were anticipating a game of angels with the same gloomy tone, but I think SJG pitched it perfectly by making Good Omens: the RPG, appealing more specifically to Gaiman and Pratchett fans rather than Ann Rice fans.

There really was a lot of interest in the game in my area, it's just that most of the interest dropped dead after a session or two of the system.

And I should clarify, I don't think it would have been a D&D killer or even a WoD killer. I just think they identified a solid demographic of gamers with the tone and setting, but then dropped the ball on the mechanics. I'm with @Butcher in not really seeing the point in killing D&D.
Brock Savage said:
Pathfinder is D&D 3.75
Click to expand...
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
 
There have been maybe 3 chances for another game company to eat DnD's lunch, and in each case no one stepped forward with a good enough product and good enough production values and strategy to stick the landing:

1) the late 70's, when the concept of rpg's was out of the bag and well understood by a big community, but DnD itself was a pretty sketchy set and hard to interpret set of pamphlets. A bunch of companies took a run at them, but the best games (e.g., Runequest) were either too idiosyncratic and specific in their vision to fill the central role of generic fantasy game, or (e.g., TFT) good generic games but not produced in a way that could stand up to the tremendous jump in production quality and market saturation that came with the release of 1E ADnD

2) The mid 90's, when 2E had finally dissolved ignominiously into a shambling mound of splat books and several very good games could have stepped in. This was a real opening and lasted for several years before 3E's launch, but the overall market felt poor, particularly given the rise of video games and trading card games, and I think no one really had the urge and finances to go big with a wide-appeal product. This was a period of peak creativity for GURPS, but that was just never going to take over because the game is too complex and 'flat' in its power progression to serve as a general engine for fantasy settings.

3) The mid 2000's, when 3E had dissolved into a shambling mound of splat books and then 4E immediate shit the bed. This was another window when another game company could have jumped in. Piazo nearly did it with Pathfinder, but I consider that a false choice, as Pathfinder is just DnD with a couple of serial numbers filed off. That's more like a hostile takeover of an existing system than a genuinely new game that wins on its own strengths. I don't really understand why no one stepped forward decisively while we waited for 5E, but they didn't. Part of the answer might be the tremendous fragmentation of the hobby into thousands of different systems.

Now, of course, it is too late - 5E is a good enough game, on its own terms, and is wildly popular. So, it will be a good 5-10 years until another opening occurs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top