Quote from: Piestrio;645933For the "Comic book game" to work it would have to be semi-disposable, like actual comics.

but again, merits aside, it's a dying format. During the comic boom it would have been smart because it could piggy back with comics into various stores (when I was growing up comics were in nearly every gas station and grocery store, FREX), now you could piggy back into the handful of comic stores left and probably sell to the same shrinking market you have with game stores.

That's a fair point, but I think if the product were cheap enough (to produce, and to purchase retail), you could get it into other stores.  Substitute "magazine" for "comic book", for example.  Magazines are absolutely not dead, even if the current comic-book-industry model is a direct-sales weirdness nightmare.

I want the kid on the cross-country driving vacation to go into the truck-stop with his/her parents and choose the "Maze of the Emerald Dragon" solo-quest gamebook magazine which is shelved between the Tiger Beat magazine and the Invisible Ink activity book.  If that makes any sense.

Mechanoid Invasion got a partial new edition in Caliber's The Mechanoids comics.  Palladium's original releases were in this format and TSR even tried to put out comics with some gaming content.  They were pretty dreadful but that's beside the point.  

I think it would be a cool format for a supers game.   Do it like the Marvel Universe Handbooks with game stats.  Build a history for the setting with big events and such and then integrate them into the character write ups.  Do a new edition of the rules every year in a Giant Sized Annual.

I did look into getting Web press printing done about ten years ago.  10000 copies was in dodgey minimum territory and a thirty page book was far too much.  The cheap newsprint comics really only made economic sense in the days when books were selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

Quote from: David Johansen;645932I don't know.  I've always wanted to see cheaper products but that's partly because I've never been rich.  I think it might not be durable enough.  And comics and magazines and books are all feeling the digital pressure these days.

So release a digital version as well.  Free with the book, even.

Frankly, now that all these twelve-year-olds have freaking iPhones, you absolutely have to have a digital version of pretty much anything.

Tangentially-related, I've been thinking about the Skylanders model a lot lately, too.

Quote from: David Johansen;645944I think it would be a cool format for a supers game.   Do it like the Marvel Universe Handbooks with game stats.  Build a history for the setting with big events and such and then integrate them into the character write ups.  Do a new edition of the rules every year in a Giant Sized Annual.

D&D and Comics both need to find a way to ride the hipster retro band-wagon.

If you can get people to ride fixed gear bikes, wear thrift shop clothes, drink tab/PBR, and use 90's Macintosh computers, buy records, and ditch their TVs, you can get them to play D&D and read comic books.

Actually they needed to find a way to ride that wagon about 5 years ago but as is usual they're too late.

Quote from: VectorSigma;645947Tangentially-related, I've been thinking about the Skylanders model a lot lately, too.

I can say for sure that the kids I work with LOVE that kind of physical/digital offering.

Quote from: Piestrio;645948D&D and Comics both need to find a way to ride the hipster retro band-wagon.

I'd say that catering to thirty-year-olds over twelve-year-olds is what got comics in the shit-hole it's in now.  

GET OFF MY LAWN etc etc

Quote from: VectorSigma;645950I'd say that catering to thirty-year-olds over twelve-year-olds is what got comics in the shit-hole it's in now.  

GET OFF MY LAWN etc etc

Word. Can't see the point of suddenly getting serious after 50 years of wacky adventures and script immunity. Plenty of space for good comics for adults - I mean, graphic novels (although the fact that Sandman is a comic because it was released in issues only proves mootness of the term "graphic novel").

Hells, Quenada (sp?) gave old Spidey even an abortion storyline. I think I defended it once for lulz. I am an evil troll when hungry.

Quote from: VectorSigma;645950I'd say that catering to thirty-year-olds over twelve-year-olds is what got comics in the shit-hole it's in now.  

GET OFF MY LAWN etc etc

Nononono... You misunderstand.

The Retro-hipster band wagon is 15-25 year olds who like to pretend that they experienced the childhood culture of 30-40 year olds.

It's why Target sells this:



It's also why I have a He-Man Avatar despite really being too young to have ridden the He-man wave

Quote from: Piestrio;645952Nononono... You misunderstand.

The Retro-hipster band wagon is 18-25 year olds who like to pretend that they experienced the childhood culture of 30-40 year olds.

It's why Target sells this:



It's also why I have a He-Man Avatar despite really being too young to have ridden the He-man wave

Maybe they have just been born in a post - Soviet state? I mean, I thought Gameboys are still the thing in USA until today.

Quote from: Piestrio;645952Nononono... You misunderstand.

The Retro-hipster band wagon is 18-25 year olds who like to pretend that they experienced the childhood culture of 30-40 year olds.

It's why Target sells this:



It's also why I have a He-Man Avatar despite really being too young to have ridden the He-man wave

Well, either that or they are from a post - Soviet country .

Seriously,

This:


Needs to be on the shelf next to this:



Why it's not is beyond me.

Quote from: Piestrio;645957Needs to be on the shelf next to this:


Why it's not is beyond me.

Fair enough; it occurs to me that I've never seen even a 'D&D 80s Cartoon' t-shirt in Target or Wal-Mart, despite similar stuff being ubiquitous.  That is indeed a missed opportunity for the IP holders.

I'm content to ruminate on chasing anybody with some disposable income, and that's that.  I do think hooking 'em young is always the way to go.

Quote from: VectorSigma;645959I'm content to ruminate on chasing anybody with some disposable income, and that's that.  I do think hooking 'em young is always the way to go.

Sure, but that's the genius of retro-chic. In my school there are 9-11 year olds wearing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirts and playing NES games. Which is awesome for Mattel and Nintendo even if they weren't actively exploiting the phenomena (which they, of course, are).

If your game is rules medium to rules heavy, it should come with comprehensive gameplay software(even the most rules heavy RPG out there has math far less complicated than that of even the simplest video games, and even teenagers crap out working video game engines all the time).

Character generation, some kind of game table plug-in that will do most of the mathematical calculations for you on the fly. To use D&D as an example, it would track flanking, magical materials and other damage reduction stuff, immunities, special abilities, which bonuses stack or don't stack, apply or don't apply in most situations(easy GM overrides for things left unclear in the rules or difficult to include on the game table itself would be a must, of course), how feats affect everything, all that crap you'd normally have to keep track of manually every time you make an attack, cast a spell, or use a skill. Then of course various effects and their duration(no more tracking duration manually = awesome).

Yeah, technological world. Take advantage of it so we can get through your combats in a more reasonable amount of time.