Gone and almost forgotten

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Bunch said:
Of the Sine Nominie games I'd say the one about England was the most flash in the pan. Wolves of something? Came, went. So forgotten.
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I have a copy. Could see myself playing it/running it under the right conditions. Definitely not Spears of the Dawn in either case. This isn't a refutation of your post.

While I don't know the motivation behind Wolves of God, I feel it's too close to Lion & Dragon in terms of overt premise not to potentially be a direct response. Plus the book itself is just beautiful. Probably Sine Nomine's best produced book (speaking specifically of offset prints, of course any offset print is going to beat POD trash) and one of the nicer looking books on my shelf.

It's nice enough that if I were going to run a game I'd get POD copies to use instead of potentially sullying my offset print with Cheeto fingers and orange soda at a table. Something I'm happy Crawford supports in his production plans generally.
 
A Fiery Flying Roll said:
No, there's more copies of the Marvel RPG being bought than CoC. That makes sense to me; not all CoC players are going to have updated editions. Because of Roll20 discontinuing their report actual play data is much harder to come by. (The way to do it would probably be to look at r/lfg and r/lfgmisc but that would be incredibly time consuming).
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I can see those numbers if we are talking about current (the last few months) purchases of core rulebooks. Once you get into third-party products for game lines, in print or PDF, though, my bet is that CoC sales far outstrip the Marvel RPG ones.
 
carpocratian said:
I can see those numbers if we are talking about current (the last few months) purchases of core rulebooks. Once you get into third-party products for game lines, in print or PDF, though, my bet is that CoC sales far outstrip the Marvel RPG ones.
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Yeah, I think the big issue with ICv2 figures is that they don't include Drivethru to the best of my knowledge.
 
Hard to tell what people are really playing out there.

Sales data will flatter newer games, and you'd have to account the different channels. Convention site up lists will flatter games that are well suited for one-shots. Online game platforms like Roll20 often contain a bais towards systems they support or for which there is a critical mass of players.

However if take all this data and cross reference it, it seems to indicate not a lot of people are playing Amazing Engine.
 
PolarBlues said:
Hard to tell what people are really playing out there.

Sales data will flatter newer games, and you'd have to account the different channels. Convention site up lists will flatter games that are well suited for one-shots. Online game platforms like Roll20 often contain a bais towards systems they support or for which there is a critical mass of players.

However if take all this data and cross reference it, it seems to indicate not a lot of people are playing Amazing Engine.
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Yep. It is impossible to tell the difference between sales figures for games versus how much they get played, since GMs tend to purchase the majority of them, but may never have the opportunity to run them. Buying games to mine for ideas (or just to read) is really common.
 
EmperorNorton said:
Honestly wish it had took off a bit more. Probably one of the best written toolkit RPGs I've seen.

But, I think it changing hands (owners wise, Cam was still the designer the whole time through) multiple times didn't do it any favors from a publicity standpoint.
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It's a beautiful system but the way it's currently handled has put me off it for the foreseeable future. I was really looking forward to some kind of open license. Instead, we have a walled garden environment, and the releases I've seen lead me to think the current management thinks they are just going to keep selling stuff, subscription style. It's such a strange situation... I would guess the Kickstarter was 90% fueled by people who had been jonesing to hack the system since MW lost the Marvel license.
 
Anything published after 2010 is largely invisible to me. I may have heard it mentioned, I may have even had a look, but yeah. I stopped in 2009 and am blind to new hotness (or the less new hotnesses...warmnesses?)
 
I was really enthusiastic about the new Aeon Trinity stuff, but now I'm just angry. I think I finally got my last Kickstarter rewards last month, and promptly unloaded them. I'm sure there are fans out there, but everyone I know who tasted it, found it bizarrely complex, and with lots of rules problems.
 
arjunstc said:
Inspired by the "Can someone please catch me up?" thread...

What are some of the darlings of recent years that no longer get a mention these days?

I'm talking about the "3:16 Carnage Among the Stars" and "Dogs in the Vineyard" of the 2020s, IYKWIM.
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q.v. the "dodged" thread.
 
Lofgeornost said:
I wouldn't dispute that about games-store shelves, and I think GURPS is fading, though with a loyal fanbase (you mean a fanatical fanbase which will attack you if you don't want what they want) that will stick to it until death. But so much of RPG sales these days happens in electronic format through Drivethru (or other vendors) or via Kickstarters that I'm not sure how much actual store shelves matter in tracking a games' popularity. Any game that gets stocked a lot probably is popular (though there is also the phenomenon of copies of a game sitting on shelves for years, unbought) but there may be some very popular games that don't show up in physical stores at all.
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Fixed that for you Lofgeornost! The fans of GURPS are their own worst enemy for growing more following for GURPS.

Edit: Also I think A Fiery Flying Roll A Fiery Flying Roll nailed it. SJG mostly exists for Munchkin production. Everything else they do these days is a half assed hobby side deal.
 
pawsplay said:
I was really enthusiastic about the new Aeon Trinity stuff, but now I'm just angry. I think I finally got my last Kickstarter rewards last month, and promptly unloaded them. I'm sure there are fans out there, but everyone I know who tasted it, found it bizarrely complex, and with lots of rules problems.
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I felt the same after checking out the Adventure! 2nd ed. Its like some kind of bloated rules addicts took over all the White Wolf games.
 
More questions than hard suggestions

Is the whole “kids on bikes” phenomenon done?

Everyday Heroes appears to have imploded.

Warlock! Possibly everyone interested in that kind of thing has just gone back to WFRP?

The One Ring 2e. I’m sure it sells because Tolkien. Pretty superfluous. Possibly not many players?
 
SJB said:
More questions than hard suggestions

Is the whole “kids on bikes” phenomenon done?

Everyday Heroes appears to have imploded.

Warlock! Possibly everyone interested in that kind of thing has just gone back to WFRP?

The One Ring 2e. I’m sure it sells because Tolkien. Pretty superfluous. Possibly not many players?
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For me. I think I'd rather use Warlock! because its so much lighter than the current WFRPG or Zweihander rpg for that matter. I'm aware of some TOR 2e being played north of me at a newer gameshop. Don't know of any at the other gameshop. Both due to location of where they are from me aren't worth the effort to go to anymore, unfortunately. Dealing with terrible traffic at the time I needed to go to either shop and the amount of mileage just made it a nope after averaging 250 miles a week to make the effort.
 
Lofgeornost said:
So we're looking for things newer than 3:16 and DitV that have faded away, at least somewhat? I'm more a trad-system gamer, so I don't necessarily keep up with the latest stuff. But off the top of my head:
  • Lamentations of the Flame Princess is not dead by any means, but the output of adventures and supplements for it has really slowed down over the last few years. Ditto for Savage Worlds and Fate (as @AsenRG mentioned). Both of those are older than 3:16, but it seems to me they really had their heydey in the 2010s.
  • The White Hack and the Black Hack seem to attract less interest, and fewer spin-offs, than they did 5-10 years ago.
  • There was a time on TBP that any 'what system would you use for this' thread would get many recommendations of Unisystem, which is now moribund. Again, it may be too old for what the OP has in mind.
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Savage Worlds third party support has tapered off, but all of Pinnacle's Savage Worlds crowdfunding campaigns (save for a misfire on Legend of Ghost Mountain not having a digital version) have all been successful. Their online community is still strong, and Pinnacle as a company has more full and part time employees (not freelancers, employees) than it did at its "peak".
The Mad Hatter said:
View attachment 80768
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This game in particular? Or Unisystem in general? Because this game was bought by 10 people and played by 5. I don't think people were bending over backwards saying TERRA PRIMATE CAN DO THAT.
sureshot said:
Not to mention Margaret Weis productions rpg licenses then not being able to hold to them did not help matters in increasing Cortex Prime popularity.
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Cortex Prime was the post-Margaret Weis, unlicensed toolkit that unfortunately never seemed to gain traction for multiple reasons.
 
In the days when I'm feeling very grumpy, I wish that the "dahlin's" of places like TBP---Savage Worlds, FATE distros, PbtA, and even D&D---would have every thread about them turning into a criticism of the respective system. Especially the generic ones like Savage Worlds and FATE (distros).

Tommy Brownell said:
Cortex Prime was the post-Margaret Weis, unlicensed toolkit that unfortunately never seemed to gain traction for multiple reasons.
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I'm intrigued. Why do you think that this is the case?

I Kickstarted Cortex Prime primarily because it wasn't (a) FATE (distros) and (b) I thought that it might be a good entrance into the "lite" version of a generic/customisable system. I was mistaken, but for reasons that are entirely my own baggage rather than a problem with the system.
 
SJB said:
Warlock! Possibly everyone interested in that kind of thing has just gone back to WFRP?
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That might be a factor but I think less so because of the relative levels of crunch.

It's rare I complain about too much line support but I think one issue Warlock! had is that they need to slow it a bit with the supplements. I know I eventually gave up trying to keep up because it just felt overwhelming and decided to wait and see if it appears on Bundle of Holding at some point instead.
 
Kage2020 said:
In the days when I'm feeling very grumpy, I wish that the "dahlin's" of places like TBP---Savage Worlds, FATE distros, PbtA, and even D&D---would have every thread about them turning into a criticism of the respective system. Especially the generic ones like Savage Worlds and FATE (distros).



I'm intrigued. Why do you think that this is the case?

I Kickstarted Cortex Prime primarily because it wasn't (a) FATE (distros) and (b) I thought that it might be a good entrance into the "lite" version of a generic/customisable system. I was mistaken, but for reasons that are entirely my own baggage rather than a problem with the system.
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Good question. The main book is a completely usable toolkit if the system is to your liking. But I know ownership of the system changed a couple of times and, as I recall, there was no PDF for it, but a website based rules repository that you had to log into, which didn't prove to be very popular. Or maybe I'm mistaken and it just wasn't on DriveThru. The promised follow up Masters of the Universe game never materializing certainly didn't help.
 
Tommy Brownell said:
Good question. The main book is a completely usable toolkit if the system is to your liking. But I know ownership of the system changed a couple of times and, as I recall, there was no PDF for it, but a website based rules repository that you had to log into, which didn't prove to be very popular. Or maybe I'm mistaken and it just wasn't on DriveThru. The promised follow up Masters of the Universe game never materializing certainly didn't help.
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There was a PDF, at least at one time, which I saved a copy of. I haven't logged into the website in a year, because... why would I?
 
pawsplay said:
It's a beautiful system but the way it's currently handled has put me off it for the foreseeable future. I was really looking forward to some kind of open license. Instead, we have a walled garden environment, and the releases I've seen lead me to think the current management thinks they are just going to keep selling stuff, subscription style. It's such a strange situation... I would guess the Kickstarter was 90% fueled by people who had been jonesing to hack the system since MW lost the Marvel license.
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Yeah the licensing situation is another reason I've not looked at it as much recently. It was way too restrictive. And the reality is that they kind of shot themselves in the foot with it, because they talked like it wasn't going to be that way, and then when the actual text came out it was like... this is very far from what you guys were saying.

I feel like people would have been less bothered by it if they hadn't made it sound like it was going to be more open that it ended up being.

Also: Who the fuck DOES own Cortex now?
 
Tommy Brownell said:
Good question. The main book is a completely usable toolkit if the system is to your liking. But I know ownership of the system changed a couple of times and, as I recall, there was no PDF for it, but a website based rules repository that you had to log into, which didn't prove to be very popular. Or maybe I'm mistaken and it just wasn't on DriveThru. The promised follow up Masters of the Universe game never materializing certainly didn't help.
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Wait. We might be talking about a different system, in which case it's totally my fault.

When I see "Cortex Prime" I'm thinking of the Cam Banks work, e.g.:


cortex_prime.png
 
Tommy Brownell said:
Good question. The main book is a completely usable toolkit if the system is to your liking. But I know ownership of the system changed a couple of times and, as I recall, there was no PDF for it, but a website based rules repository that you had to log into, which didn't prove to be very popular. Or maybe I'm mistaken and it just wasn't on DriveThru. The promised follow up Masters of the Universe game never materializing certainly didn't help.
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The last change in ownership is what killed the MotU game. When the ownership of the system was sold, the license to make a MotU game didn't go with it, so the new owners couldn't make the game.
 
It's really harder to see what's popular now.

We seldom get sales data other than companies folding due to not enough sales. We can't really separate out sales data from companies who have multiple game lines.
We can't trust company forums now, because the discussion of games is now fractured into a myriad Discords (the Free League company forum is a wasteland, the various FL discords display a much healthier landscape)
We do have the forums (like here) but this is a real mix of 'new and shiny' and 'necro'.
I'm solely a small operator in games dev (and deliberately avoid the limelight) but really not that far off being able to be solely rely on RPG supplement sales to buy biscuits and wine.

It's a weird industry (if even it can be considered an industry in itself).

I'd love to see licensing data for some of the big IPs we have seen recently. I've tried on three different licenses and more or less abandoned them because the up front costs were prohibitive. I can see why licenced games might be popular and the die on the vine later.
 
finarvyn said:
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like a lot of the titles mentioned in this thread were never really that popular. I thought that the focus was really popular stuff which has faded away, not just short-splash games. There are always fad games which appear and vanish quietly all of the time, but not so many big sellers which suddenly go away.
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I think a lot of the games mentioned were never really intended to be forever games. Unlike games like Traveller, D&D, or GURPS; games like Band of Blades, My Life With Master, or even Blades in the Dark are intended to be games that you experience and then go and play something else. Their designers move on to playing other games, and developing different experiences, rather than working on the same game and splats for it for decades.

They're popular like films are popular, rather than like sports are popular.
 
Acmegamer said:
The fans of GURPS are their own worst enemy for growing more following for GURPS.
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I think this is a broader phenomenon. Look at the complaints up-thread about PbtA and FATE.
Once a system becomes popular (even minority popular) you seem to get a fan base that
is blinkered to anything else except that system being a solution to all problems and insists
you must use "their" system. Even the "you can do everything with D&D" crowd could be
categorised as part of this trend.
 
pawsplay said:
I was really enthusiastic about the new Aeon Trinity stuff, but now I'm just angry. I think I finally got my last Kickstarter rewards last month, and promptly unloaded them. I'm sure there are fans out there, but everyone I know who tasted it, found it bizarrely complex, and with lots of rules problems.
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Yeah streamlining Storyteller/Storypath for pulp genres would make alot of sense, as it would work to it's strengths.
However, from everything I read Onyx Path have gone the other direction and added more crunch to a system very ill-suited for it.
Ridiculous, totally ridiculous
 
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SJB said:
I think I’m right in saying that backers get a D&D 5e version with the Kickstarter.
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The book content and artwork is pretty much the same, but backers choose which version to have the stat blocks for - either TOR 2E or LOTR D&D 5E, depending upon what game they have. Both TOR 2E and LOTR 5E rpgs are published by Free League.
 
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robb said:
I think this is a broader phenomenon. Look at the complaints up-thread about PbtA and FATE.
Once a system becomes popular (even minority popular) you seem to get a fan base that
is blinkered to anything else except that system being a solution to all problems and insists
you must use "their" system. Even the "you can do everything with D&D" crowd could be
categorised as part of this trend.
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Well, you get some shouty idiots proselytizing on the internet. Calling that 'a fan base' is probably making a category mistake. Volume isn't everything.
 
Tommy Brownell said:
This game in particular? Or Unisystem in general? Because this game was bought by 10 people and played by 5. I don't think people were bending over backwards saying TERRA PRIMATE CAN DO THAT.
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It was a joke, in response to the post about how the Planet of the Apes game would revitalize D6. I could have posted it in the Fight Like Apes thread, but I choose not to. Not interested in Planet of the Apes, because I've never been a fan of the movies old or new.
I own Terra Primate but have never played it, only used stuff from it in my Unisystem games.
 
DeadBob said:
Heh, I like PbtA stuff, but I have that same, weird, gut level negative reaction to all things -Borg these days, for similar reasons.
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Back when it was relatively fresh, but already way over-hyped, I thought about writing a review of it on my blog. The funny thing about it was going to be admitting that I don't really talk about the art in my reviews in general (maybe I mention it in exactly one sentence) so sorry for the rather short article. I really thought about doing it, but I figured there would be no reaction whatsoever, and just pissing off people for the heck of it isn't really my style, so I dropped it.

IMHO it's kinda played out the same way as The Black Hack: a very simple set of rules with a generous third-party license giving birth to a myriad of slightly different variations. The only difference I can see is that TBH was popular because of its visual clarity, while MB is a darling because every page uses a different font.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
It was a joke, in response to the post about how the Planet of the Apes game would revitalize D6. I could have posted it in the Fight Like Apes thread, but I choose not to. Not interested in Planet of the Apes, because I've never been a fan of the movies old or new.
I own Terra Primate but have never played it, only used stuff from it in my Unisystem games.
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I gotcha.

I love Planet of the Apes, but fuuuuuuck D6.
 
Dr Jack said:
I think a lot of the games mentioned were never really intended to be forever games. Unlike games like Traveller, D&D, or GURPS; games like Band of Blades, My Life With Master, or even Blades in the Dark are intended to be games that you experience and then go and play something else. Their designers move on to playing other games, and developing different experiences, rather than working on the same game and splats for it for decades.

They're popular like films are popular, rather than like sports are popular.
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That's an important point, I think. Maybe it would make more sense to think of many of the PbtA spin-offs as something like modules or settings for a 'forever' game. You play this one for a while, then move on to another one.

It can also be a question of what the designer wants. With the exception of SWN, Kevin Crawford doesn't seem that interested in churning out supplements for his games; they get a core book and maybe a supplement or so, and then he starts a new project.
 
Fenris-77 said:
Shadowdark is still fine IMO. Lots of community involvement and new stuff getting written. Heck, I wrote something for it about a month ago and I don't even play it that much.
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I was initially surprised by this as I spend a lot of time at RPGnet, and Shadowdark went from 60 to 0 there in terms of discussion, even on the D&D board. Then I checked back in with the Arcane Library discord, and was like, "yep, there's the community."

EZD6 is the same way: super-busy discord, no broadband discussion.
 
Where now is GORE and EABA? Where is the Wheel that was Burning?
Where the Barebones of Fantasy, and Steel's Riddle's turning?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow,
Their day has gone down like Far West, behind D&D into shadow...
 
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