Quote from: CRKrueger;814929Oh Crom's Hairy Nutsack,

Quote from: Omega;815187Any Conan RPG that uses or references Carter/De Camp is an instant no-sale for me.

Add Robert Jordan to that list for me as well.

I'm also leery of anyone using Funcom's Age of Conan's ideas for the setting.  They've never understood what Sword and Sorcery was.

Quote from: hellraezer;870249It's PLAYED like an RPG but doesn't really FEEL like one. This idea of attribue +skill=target number rolled on 2d20 vs number of successes to BE successful is like playing D&D:

D&D isn't an RPG now?

"GM: "Okay, you need a 12 to hit AC2"
PC: "I hit!"
GM: "Great! Now roll again to see how successful you were. You need 3 successes, so roll 2-more times and be successful, otherwise you fail."

- this is not how 2d20 works. You roll once with your dice to get a number of successes. You then spend the successes (Momentum) to do damage, add more damage, do cool stuff etc

Quote from: Ravenswing;870254Seriously, can anyone think of a licensed property that became a major, permanent player in the RPG industry other than CoC?

My understanding is that Call of Cthulhu is successful because it is not licensed. It is public domain which is why Cthulhu gets into everything. And it is the one modern myth that isn't locked up behind a paywall.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/06/they-took-our-myths.html

Quote from: Tod13;870306My understanding is that Call of Cthulhu is successful because it is not licensed. It is public domain which is why Cthulhu gets into everything. And it is the one modern myth that isn't locked up behind a paywall.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/06/they-took-our-myths.html

Although Cthulhu is not as public domain as people think - a lot of what people believe is public was actually created by various authors or Chaosium themselves and so this is actually licensed from them

Quote from: ChrisBirch;870307Although Cthulhu is not as public domain as people think - a lot of what people believe is public was actually created by various authors or Chaosium themselves and so this is actually licensed from them

I'm specifically talking about Cthulhu stuff written by Lovecraft.

Chaosium has the Derleth edited stuff, but most/all (depending on where you live and who you listen to) of Lovecraft's actual work is in the public domain. In the US, that's for sure anything published before 1923.  In Australia, that's everything that Lovecraft wrote. Cthulhutech, for example, references public domain Lovecraft works and states they are still public domain.

And "Cthulhu" itself has always been used by lots of writers. I love the short stories that Lovecraft and (IIRC) Bloch wrote "at each other".

Here's a good starting point for the subject: http://www.aetherial.net/lovecraft/index.html

WEG Star Wars had a pretty good run for a licensed product.

Quote from: Nexus;870311WEG Star Wars had a pretty good run for a licensed product.

Good call. That's still popular today.

Quote from: Tod13;870306My understanding is that Call of Cthulhu is successful because it is not licensed. It is public domain which is why Cthulhu gets into everything. And it is the one modern myth that isn't locked up behind a paywall.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/06/they-took-our-myths.html

Lovecraft's stories are in the Public Domain. However, many of the creatures and gods in Call of Cthulhu are not.

The conglomeration of entities and stories that make up Chaosium's version of the Cthulhu Mythos was licensed from Arkham House and is based on the work of many authors other than HPL.

Additionally, some elements of Chaosium's Cthulhu Mythos are owned entirely by them and are designated as original IP, such as the visual depiction of certain creatures, names given them by Sandy Petersen, etc.

Quote from: Nexus;870311WEG Star Wars had a pretty good run for a licensed product.

And Call of Cthulhu. Interestingly, both are extensively supported by prewritten adventures. I think that helps overcome the usual issue with people dealing with licenced material.

Quote from: Skywalker;870321And Call of Cthulhu. .

Oh, I thought the question was aside from CoC.

Quote from: Nexus;870311WEG Star Wars had a pretty good run for a licensed product.

And WEG collapsed for unrelated reasons.

WotC's Star Wars appears to have ended largely because the company couldn't justify making profits on Star Wars when they could spend the same resources and make even more profits on D&D books.

I think CoC works partially because it's based on a fairly loosely associated grouping of short stories rather than a particular series of tales about an individual or group. It also doesn't try too hard to recreate any particular tale. Only a few of Lovecraft's stories involved anything like what usually happens in a CoC session.
There's no worry about who is going to play the Dr. or Buffy or Captain Kirk... there's no single iconic spaceship or location that HAS to feature in the game to convince Players of the setting. It can be set just about anywhere and anywhen you like. The 'canon' is wide open to interpretation.

I'd happily run/play a Star Wars game that didn't feature The Alliance, a Death Star, Jedi, Wookies or light sabers... but I'm thinking most folks would rather have all or most of those elements.

Quote from: Simlasa;870361I think CoC works partially because it's based on a fairly loosely associated grouping of short stories rather than a particular series of tales about an individual or group. It also doesn't try too hard to recreate any particular tale. Only a few of Lovecraft's stories involved anything like what usually happens in a CoC session.
There's no worry about who is going to play the Dr. or Buffy or Captain Kirk... there's no single iconic spaceship or location that HAS to feature in the game to convince Players of the setting. It can be set just about anywhere and anywhen you like. The 'canon' is wide open to interpretation.

I'd happily run/play a Star Wars game that didn't feature The Alliance, a Death Star, Jedi, Wookies or light sabers... but I'm thinking most folks would rather have all or most of those elements.

The thing is, what you're thinking is actually incorrect.  There's been enough Sword and Sorcery types of story that most fans don't want to be Conan or Valeria, but the issue with S&S is deeper than just the types of characters.

First, although D&D is based a lot on Conan's style of world creation (The Forgotten Realms Faerun is a great example, you have Ancient Egypt with Medieval England which is beside a Germanic Barbarian nation so on and so forth), the problem is that the S&S Hero archetype is not a specialist in any one field.  They're broad generalists with a wide range of skills and aptitudes.

Secondly, Magic is always for the NPC's and almost always for the evil ones.  But invariably, a lot of people allow Magic to be taken by the heroes because someone ALWAYS wants to play 'The Wizard'.  (Funcom's Age of Conan for example is guilty of this sort of stuff.)

Thirdly, most adventuring party style fantasy games, like Runequest, D&D, Palladium Fantasy, Dragon Warrior et al. deal in groups larger than 3 for best effects and frankly, that's part of the fun of them.  Unfortunately most Sword and Sorcery heroes rarely gather in groups of more than 2, which make the stories very personal and engaging, but isn't as fun in a gaming environment.

So how do reconcile that?  I have no freakin' clue.  Cuz as much as I love BoL and find that it does a lot of the stuff right, it stumbles a teeny bit on my no.2 and falls over on no.3  All because of how we gamers are used to playing games.