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Blizzard has the advantage of an unrestricted view of player behavior. So if Dungeon B is getting 300% more traffic than Dungeon A, it doesn't matter how many top 1% players say A is just better, when B is actually where players spend time.
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Jul 3, 2018 14:33
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I’m kind of on the edge of starting a long-running Dungeon World campaign cause I do want to try going the distance, but getting enough people together regularly is like pulling teeth.  Players have a tendency to skip for the night, show up late, drop out, not be good fits, etc. I’ve been sticking to oneshots and the like specifically because us millennials are terrible at commitment and attendance...among a couple other issues. One day I’ll get to do a campaign.
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Jul 3, 2018 14:37
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How to get people to try things other than D&D came to mind fairly recently when I posted my previous rant after the group I was in carefully ignored any attempts to pitch Strike! and then jumped instantly on a D&D game when it was offered by someone else (heaven forbid we try anything I'd feel initially uncomfortable GMing, so much for practice making perfect (grumble grumble snip)) What a friend did point out to me at the time is that when people say "I don't really care what system we play.." they don't mean that. They mean "I want to play a system we already know.", because learning a new system would be  and, since they don't care, they have no reason to make it. (Which is much better that what I'd previously assumed, which was "they don't care what system we play, so I'm the problem.")But the problem is that like it or not, there are factors other than network effect which make D&D popular, which indies could address and don't - usually to do with organic feel-based properties of the rules. The fact that there's a different "feel" to playing a wizard than playing a fighter is important, and while they're unbalanced, relatively few systems try to retain that feel difference while balancing them - and if they do, they inevitably do it the exact same way D&D did. The fact that there's a Strength or Intelligence or whatever number that goes up apart from text blocks is important. The fact that there's standard adventures is important. Video games generally do acknowledge this much better (I remember reading that Bejeweled, the old puzzle game, spent a fair while deciding that the objects in the game should be jewels and found that people enjoyed it more just because they were)
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Jul 3, 2018 14:49
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I'm glad my group just goes along with whatever system I suggest to them
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Jul 3, 2018 15:04
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I do most of my gaming online now, so assembling a group is just a matter of posting a recruit thread here or finding an online community for the game I want to run and making a post there. I do remember after my group stopped playing when we graduated I used to look at the corkboard over at the LGS and it was nothing but D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder. I keep looking whenever I go in and now it is nothing but D&D 5e and Pathfinder, with one lonely game of Vampire.
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Jul 3, 2018 15:09
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I mean, the solution is don't play or run D&D or D&D-likes, and pitch games that are not those things to your group, and if no one in the group is interested in playing or running things that are not D&D, find another group. There's no other way forward than for people to individually choose to push non-D&D games.hyphz posted:But the problem is that like it or not, there are factors other than network effect which make D&D popular, which indies could address and don't - usually to do with organic feel-based properties of the rules. The fact that there's a different "feel" to playing a wizard than playing a fighter is important, and while they're unbalanced, relatively few systems try to retain that feel difference while balancing them - and if they do, they inevitably do it the exact same way D&D did. The fact that there's a Strength or Intelligence or whatever number that goes up apart from text blocks is important. The fact that there's standard adventures is important. There are plenty of games that maintain meaningful differences between characters that aren't "fighter" and "wizard" classes, or that have published adventures, so I don't think this point is in any way true. The only people who specifically want wizards and fighters and STR and INT are people who want to play D&D specifically for some reason or another, and those people generally fall into two categories:
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Jul 3, 2018 15:13
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gradenko_2000 posted:it's funny because the people who realize need to pay attention to high-quality production values and marketing are folks like Paizo and Monte Cook, so you do end up with moderately popular RPG alternatives such as ... Numenera and Pathfinder!!! That also comes from having a real actual company built up. And they got the fans to support that.... by being big names in 3e D&D first.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:00
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Spiteski posted:I think part of that is intentional, no? Like, trying to capture the massive market by appealing to the DnD masses with nifty taglines "It's like DnD, but with BETTER ROLEPLAYING" or, "Imagine DnD but good!" Blockhouse posted:"I'm not saying it's bad just that D&D being popular makes me sad" Edit: And also recognize that they contain superficial features I enjoy but are fundamentally a loving wreck most of the time. moths posted:Blizzard has the advantage of an unrestricted view of player behavior. So if Dungeon B is getting 300% more traffic than Dungeon A, it doesn't matter how many top 1% players say A is just better, when B is actually where players spend time. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Jul 3, 2018 |
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Jul 3, 2018 16:06
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In terms of what is played on Roll20, the most popular RPGs after D&D all have at least two and usually all of the following characteristics: - they're high-crunch games - with extremely recognizable settings - that also have the advantage of being old / having name recognition Fantasy Grounds is (apparently) very similar except that they have a surprisingly large Savage Worlds playerbase. Physical sales according to ICv2 are also similar, except with an even stronger emphasis on "recognizable settings" -- Star Wars and Lord of the Rings pop up a lot. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Jul 3, 2018 |
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Jul 3, 2018 16:15
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drrockso20 posted:It is good, or at least most of the editions that aren't 3rd or 5th that is Nobody's playing those, though.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:18
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:In terms of what is played on Roll20, the most popular RPGs after D&D all have at least two and usually all of the following characteristics: One thing I've noticed is that Savage Worlds has a very active community. I follow their G+ community and there are daily posts, oftentimes a dozen or more, which is huge in comparison to the non-D&D communities I follow.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:19
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That's probably an anglosphere thing bc if anything I have trouble convincing people to play 4e and 3.5/5E if anything are just as popular as like loving Iron Kingdoms
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Jul 3, 2018 16:19
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:In terms of what is played on Roll20, the most popular RPGs after D&D all have at least two and usually all of the following characteristics: I'm not sure how important that truly is in terms of figuring out overall trends based on roll20 data, since it's impossible to play e.g. D&D online without a VTT but you don't really need one for non-crunchy/-tactical games.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:20
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Actually, is WHFRP big in the UK? I assume so since it's the birthplace of that franchise
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Jul 3, 2018 16:21
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Lemon-Lime posted:I'm not sure how important that truly is in terms of figuring out overall trends based on roll20 data, since it's impossible to play e.g. D&D online without a VTT but you don't really need one for non-crunchy/-tactical games. It probably matters quite a bit, which is why I went back and looked for something on physical sales as well. Unfortunately surveying what people play in Discord channels and PBP doesn't really have an easy hook, but let me see about DriveThruRPG sales.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:22
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My point is that roll20 is naturally going to skew more heavily towards crunchy games because it's a tool that you need to run crunchy games online, but not to run stuff that doesn't require a grid. Doesn't change that D&D and D&D-derivatives are the most popular thing in the hobby, of course.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:27
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DriveThruRPG top sellers list: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/top_100.php tl;dr -- Mostly Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, OSR stuff, RuneQuest, Star Trek, World of Darkness, Genesys, along with a couple of especially well-known light RPGs (Dungeon World is right up there along with Blades in the Dark.) There's probably a lot of churn as new titles come out, and obviously systems with a lot of books stand out more than ones that are one-and-done, but there you are. Lemon-Lime posted:My point is that roll20 is naturally going to skew more heavily towards crunchy games because it's a tool that you need to run crunchy games online, but not to run stuff that doesn't require a grid. Sorry, what I meant by that was that what you pointed out about Roll20 probably makes a big difference -- I misread the phrasing of your post, I think.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:29
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Plutonis posted:Actually, is WHFRP big in the UK? I assume so since it's the birthplace of that franchise Not in my experience. There was a moment where it was a thing but it really is pretty challenging to get people out of the comfort zone of DnD.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:36
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I'm sorry but the most famous online RPG site is called roll20 and we're wondering if it's really D&D that is seen as the default RPG
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Jul 3, 2018 16:51
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Sion posted:Not in my experience. There was a moment where it was a thing but it really is pretty challenging to get people out of the comfort zone of DnD. There's also the problem that there's no current edition of WFRP - WFRP2 is 15 years old and you need pirated PDFs or to get lucky and find a second-hand copy in good condition, and 3 is even worse because you need to find a big/expensive box with custom components that only saw a limited print run because FFG.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:55
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Lemon-Lime posted:There's also the problem that there's no current edition of WFRP - WFRP2 is 15 years old and you need pirated PDFs or to get lucky and find a second-hand copy in good condition Humble Bundle put out a collection of official WHFR2 pdfs about a year ago, so someone is presumably selling them still.
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Jul 3, 2018 17:04
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I just want to find a WFRP 2e core pdf with bookmarks.
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Jul 3, 2018 17:18
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lol. Another Games Workshop success story.
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Jul 3, 2018 17:44
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Lemon-Lime posted:There's also the problem that there's no current edition of WFRP - WFRP2 is 15 years old and you need pirated PDFs or to get lucky and find a second-hand copy in good condition, and 3 is even worse because you need to find a big/expensive box with custom components that only saw a limited print run because FFG. Good news! Cubicle 7 is releasing WFRP2E PDFs on Drivethrurpg nice and legal.
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Jul 3, 2018 17:53
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Foglet posted:But enough about some of the most vocal figures in the so called OSR movement. Just because some of the people in the OSR movement are assholes doesn't mean everyone involved is one Lurdiak posted:Nobody's playing those, though. Depends on whether we count OSR/Retroclones in that regard, cause if we do I'd say there's a decent amount
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Jul 3, 2018 18:17
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fool_of_sound posted:Humble Bundle put out a collection of official WHFR2 pdfs about a year ago, so someone is presumably selling them still. GimpInBlack posted:Good news! Cubicle 7 is releasing WFRP2E PDFs on Drivethrurpg nice and legal. Good point, I forgot C7 got the rights to republish WFRP2 PDFs when they got rights to make WFRP4. That makes obtaining WFRP2 less hard, at least, though you're still asking people to devote time/money to a 15 year old game with no ongoing support, which absolutely does matter when it comes to getting new people to run it (as opposed to getting people who've played WFRP2 before to run WFRP2).
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Jul 3, 2018 18:25
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Pollyanna posted:I’m kind of on the edge of starting a long-running Dungeon World campaign cause I do want to try going the distance, but getting enough people together regularly is like pulling teeth. I play in an online weekly long running DW campaign and DM a long running weekly in-person 5E campaign (I know, I know). Here's a couple of tips I would give if you want to set up a on-going campaign 1) If possible recruit a couple of extra people over the number you are actually targeting for the campaign. Then when people have life happen you still have a quorum to play. Worse case everyone shows up and you have to tweak encounters on the fly a bit, which isn't too hard for most systems. 2) Choose one: Find out what night of the week and start time works for the most people and lock it down so it becomes a regularly scheduled thing for them. OR use something like whenisgood.com to schedule sessions a month in advance. This option is much harder to make work, YMMV. The key is make your sessions something people can plan around well in advance of the actual sessions. 3) If there is going to be a break in the regular game because you GM has a newborn, is getting burned out, or whatever have a plan for someone else to run a minicampaign or some oneshots once in awhile. It gives your GM a break and everyone else a low pressure way to try out that system they've been reading up on. Don't let your regularly scheduled sessions get cancelled entirely or you will have to restart building "schedule momentum" from scratch.
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Jul 3, 2018 18:28
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drrockso20 posted:Depends on whether we count OSR/Retroclones in that regard, cause if we do I'd say there's a decent amount "Nobody's playing 3.5 or 4e anymore." 'Ah, yes, but if we expand our definition of those absolute concepts, I'm sure we'll find something useful.'
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Jul 3, 2018 18:28
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Sion posted:"Nobody's playing 3.5 or 4e anymore." You're twisting my words around and I don't like that
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Jul 3, 2018 18:36
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drrockso20 posted:Just because some of the people in the OSR movement are assholes doesn't mean everyone involved is one Maybe you shouldn't choose to associate yourself with a "movement" where a not-insignificant amount of the highly visible voices are a collection of people who want to drag the hobby back 30-40 years in terms of both design sensibilities and demographics? Just go "I like AD&D" instead.
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Jul 3, 2018 18:49
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Lemon-Lime posted:Maybe you shouldn't choose to associate yourself with a "movement" where a not-insignificant amount of the highly visible voices are a collection of people who want to drag the hobby back 30-40 years in terms of both design sensibilities and demographics? Do you have a need to be such an rear end in a top hat all the time? I didn't like most of the retro clones I played until now but I don't make this kind of judgement.
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Jul 3, 2018 19:09
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Lemon-Lime posted:Maybe you shouldn't choose to associate yourself with a "movement" where a not-insignificant amount of the highly visible voices are a collection of people who want to drag the hobby back 30-40 years in terms of both design sensibilities and demographics? If I did that there wouldn't be a single thing I like I'd be able to continue associating with, every form of hobby and media has it's assholes, and in most of them it's just an obnoxious minority who are that way
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Jul 3, 2018 19:26
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It’s just a genre, not a movement. Anyway, gently caress I want to play a decent sci-fi game. Anything good that isn’t PbtA
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Jul 3, 2018 19:27
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SunAndSpring posted:It’s just a genre, not a movement. battle Century G
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Jul 3, 2018 19:27
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When it’s faster to list the people who claim the label of OSR and aren’t racist and/or sex pests the label might be a problem, actually.
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Jul 3, 2018 19:28
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It's fair to point out that one particular gaming niche has sheltered a particularly reactionary wing of hateful people or remained quiet about its existence over openly condemning or disowning them. They're not solely responsible for its ongoing existence, of course, and plenty of industry people working in other systems or companies have been just as willing to silence and dismiss concerns brought to them. It would be best for people in that niche to speak out, but it's a problem nobody wants to confront.
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Jul 3, 2018 19:29
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Also don't call membership in a consumer group a 'movement' ffs
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Jul 3, 2018 19:30
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SunAndSpring posted:It’s just a genre, not a movement. Fragged Empire is great
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Jul 3, 2018 19:31
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SunAndSpring posted:It’s just a genre, not a movement. I'm currently eyeing Stars Without Number. The Revised edition seems pretty great.
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Jul 3, 2018 19:33
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Can I get a sci-fi game with an actual setting? I don’t really care for system neutral stuff or bland stuff like Fragged Empire or SWN. Never really liked setting agnostic stuff in general.
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Jul 3, 2018 19:41
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