Quote from: dekaranger;462733There not being a Marvel rpg out right now.  With all the success their movies are seeing, toy lines out forever now boosted by those movies and all the other marketing.

Not with Marvel asking a mint in licencing costs. They tried to make one in house and it flopped. DC's been nicer about it so M&M3E is about as close as your going to get for now.

That or play ICONS for the oldschool feel.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;463000I don't think that's entirely fair: rpg's are different. They require a great deal of study, many are complex or at least esoteric. Their appeal or mechanism are not readily apparent and there's a lot of work involved in preparing the play experiene - and most games do not put that across well enough at all. Someone drawn to WFRP3e that visits the bookshop nearest me is going to have to pay £80 for a box of delights and a game unlike anything they've played before.
Someone drawn to 40k, perhaps through the tabeltop game, is going to have to deal with FFG's insanity and eye bleeding msitakes (god love these games, they are riddled with errors).
Someone drawn to D&D will need to buy books for something that isn't quite a book. Then there's all the card bits, essentials, and all the various accoutrements WotC sells without explanation.

But this is not a problem inherent in RPGs in general; it's a problem inherent in RPGs which, like the ones in your examples, are doing it wrong.

Or let me be fair: not necessarily wrong, but certainly in a way that strictly limits their potential audience. Boardgames do that as well: Advanced Squad Leader is, I hear, extremely complex and slow to play.

But, and this is the important part, not all boardgames are Advanced Squad Leader. There's also Settlers of Catan, Carcassone and [insert a million other titles here] for people who want to have a fun game which takes much less time and requires much less studying of the rules than ASL.

So it ought to be with RPGs: there's should be a sizable chunk of the market that doesn't require enormos buy-in costs, that doesn't force you to buy miniatures, and that isn't full of fiddly, strange, or just plain overcomplicated mechanics that won't win over new people to the hobby.

The main problem is that the top dogs of the industry have bought into the only-for-serious-gamers mindset of ASL, and - unlike in the boardgame industry - they actually do have the weight to choke any alternatives around them.

Quote from: Premier;463003But this is not a problem inherent in RPGs in general; it's a problem inherent in RPGs which, like the ones in your examples, are doing it wrong.

Or let me be fair: not necessarily wrong, but certainly in a way that strictly limits their potential audience. Boardgames do that as well: Advanced Squad Leader is, I hear, extremely complex and slow to play.

But, and this is the important part, not all boardgames are Advanced Squad Leader. There's also Settlers of Catan, Carcassone and [insert a million other titles here] for people who want to have a fun game which takes much less time and requires much less studying of the rules than ASL.

So it ought to be with RPGs: there's should be a sizable chunk of the market that doesn't require enormos buy-in costs, that doesn't force you to buy miniatures, and that isn't full of fiddly, strange, or just plain overcomplicated mechanics that won't win over new people to the hobby.

The main problem is that the top dogs of the industry have bought into the only-for-serious-gamers mindset of ASL, and - unlike in the boardgame industry - they actually do have the weight to choke any alternatives around them.

I would agree.
If you go back to the Harry Potter example. A set of spells based on the books 'Expieramus' and all that and a simple roll to suceed. 2d6 for 3 stats, Prowess, Guile and Lore (or Mind Body Spirit etc ) a 6 point wound system with stuff doing set number or wounds or maybe based on a d6. Simple task resolution like Clasic Traveller (2d6 vs a target number), simple combat system that looks just like the task system but maybe add a dodge roll or something for a bit more excitement in combat.
The rest is fluff. You don't need to design a rules engine to handle games of Quiddich that covers the speed of broomsticks in 3 dimentional space based on realistic vector geometry and accelleration rates, you don't need to have complex crafting rules etc etc

One of the problems with new games is they always seem designed for old gamers. Yes you could do a GURPS Potter conversion but how exactly would that bring in new players especially new 10 year old players.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;463000I don't think that's entirely fair: rpg's are different. They require a great deal of study, many are complex or at least esoteric. Their appeal or mechanism are not readily apparent and there's a lot of work involved in preparing the play experiene - and most games do not put that across well enough at all. Someone drawn to WFRP3e that visits the bookshop nearest me is going to have to pay £80 for a box of delights and a game unlike anything they've played before.
Someone drawn to 40k, perhaps through the tabeltop game, is going to have to deal with FFG's insanity and eye bleeding msitakes (god love these games, they are riddled with errors).
Someone drawn to D&D will need to buy books for something that isn't quite a book. Then there's all the card bits, essentials, and all the various accoutrements WotC sells without explanation.

It is an unprecedented hobby form and that is the problem. It hasn't fully crossed into the mainstream, even with the likes of Big Bang Theory or the scen in ET. People still don't understand it and so see it as 'nerdy' in a way that video games no longer are.

Which goes to show GW are the only crew who did not miss the opportunities. They turned White Dwarf into a house magazine (curse them), their stores, which can be found in every major UK town, only stock GW product, and a small selection of those same products can be found in most good department stores and toy shops. They are mainstream. OK, so this is not RPG - but it is a close relative sharing most of the same genes. Geeky, massive rulebooks, long play sessions needed, but actually rather more expensive to get into. GW long time back saw the potential market move, took it, and cut their competitors out in the process. Now my 11 year old son is becoming aware of WH, he's potentially an easy convert to RPGs because he sees his old man's 30-year collection of RQ stuff. But the same can't be said of his school mates who just have their eyes on their next WHFB army. GW have no real interest in converting their (mostly) young consumer base to RPGs as they get older, but the rest of the industry should have. As it is, some of them might stay with it, some will drift into 'proper' wargaming. Most will just grow up.

I, too, agree that the failure to launch a simple Harry Potter RPG was the biggest missed opportunity in decades. Nothing has captured young and old in recent time like Harry Potter has.
And there was an opportunity. After J.K. Rowling officially endorsed fan fiction one could have made such an RPG and released it in time to coincide with book six. We'd be drowning in new blood by now.

No, we wouldn't.  There've been big licensed RPGs before, released at the peak of a license's popularity, and they didn't bring in shit for new blood.

None of those have fanfic communities and freeform RPGs associated with them like the Harry Potter fandom has. That is the big difference.

Those communities don't want to play RPGs (speaking generally here). They might have been sold something that we might not recognize as an RPG, closer to the fanfic/"sim" experience, but not an RPG.

Quote from: JDCorley;463024No, we wouldn't.  There've been big licensed RPGs before, released at the peak of a license's popularity, and they didn't bring in shit for new blood.

Yeah. The problem is that licensed products almost always fail to capture the essential je ne sais quoi of what's been licensed. The experience feels flat and falls flat. Fans will certainly buy it for their collection, but existing as a living, breathing game? Naw.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;463037Yeah. The problem is that licensed products almost always fail to capture the essential je ne sais quoi of what's been licensed. The experience feels flat and falls flat. Fans will certainly buy it for their collection, but existing as a living, breathing game? Naw.

Seanchai

There are quite good licensed games around that capture the essence of the source material and are still fun games. Like Burning Empires, Mouse Guard, Bizenghast (especially relevant, as it is also a great introductory game)...

I was insanely happy when they released Star Wars 1st edition RPG. I remember buying both books on the day of release, reading and loving the fact that I and our group could finally play in one of the biggest sci-fi sandboxes of all time.

I ran it for what seemed like months and enjoyed every session. This was THE biggest rpg license of all time and they pretty much nailed it first time.

2nd edition tidied up some of the loose mechanics, but the supplements and adventures that followed deserve high praise.

They were as prolific with the Star Wars universe, as ICE were with Middle Earth.

Quote from: Seanchai;463037Yeah. The problem is that licensed products almost always fail to capture the essential je ne sais quoi of what's been licensed. The experience feels flat and falls flat. Fans will certainly buy it for their collection, but existing as a living, breathing game? Naw.

Seanchai

Not true, I have played and run licensed games that really felt like the original material, like for example Lord of the Rings and Usagi Yojimbo.

Quote from: JDCorley;463028Those communities don't want to play RPGs (speaking generally here). They might have been sold something that we might not recognize as an RPG, closer to the fanfic/"sim" experience, but not an RPG.

Of course, this statement only stands if we all accept your personal (and as yet undeclared) definition of what a roleplaying game is as universal.

Quote from: Premier;463045Of course, this statement only stands if we all accept your personal (and as yet undeclared) definition of what a roleplaying game is as universal.

It's obvious what he means.

It's also pretty obvious that he's right.

Quote from: Premier;463045Of course, this statement only stands if we all accept your personal (and as yet undeclared) definition of what a roleplaying game is as universal.

Sure, I don't have a clear definition of RPG, but most of what fanfic/"simmers" do really bears very little resemblance to most of the RPG play that I've seen over the last 20-odd years.  If you have a more expansive definition, then it would encompass more things? But I don't see where that's controversial or really what I was talking about.