It's something I've never really understood as the game seems to be one of the cleaner OGL "fixes", much more competently assembled than PF for sure, but not many people know about it and it seems to have completely failed to capture an audience. I've always been curious about the title and since stumbling onto the forums here I figured someone here might have a better understanding of the industry and what makes a game succeed then I do.

The big problem is that while it's a better version of the 3.x rules, at the same time, it basically breaks compatibility with them and D&D in general. Pathfinder 1e wasn't great, but it was basically D&D 3.75, so people who liked 3rd edition could keep playing it with little problem and get new material. Paizo also had an association with D&D (via Dragon and Dungeon magazines and making adventures), while Crafty Games did not.

I'm guessing timing. Spycraft was one of the more popular modern d20 efforts, but Fantasycraft came along quite a bit later at the tail end of the d20 craze, maybe even after D&D 4E had been released.

I remember seeing it at a convention and talking with a company rep about it when it was first released. That must have been like 2009-2010? I know Pathfinder was out and was already becoming the next big thing by that point because it was my wife's first con and she got into several PF games.

Is compatibility with other games material that critical to success? I see it mentioned here a lot but I've never considered that a factor in purchasing or playing games personally, neither has anyone I've played with in pretty much my entire adult life. I guess if I'm the odd one out on that it could explain why it seems so arbitrary for the game not to excel despite it's crunch competence.

I'm guessing because of when it was launched.  When 3E was launched, it was obvious that this was the version of D&D edging a little into the GURPS/Hero System way of playing, while still being D&D.  A lot of people thought that was what they wanted.  By the time Fantasy Craft was available, many of those same people had realized that edging even more into the GURPS/Hero System way of playing was the last thing they wanted.

It's not as if they marketed it intensely, or provided a ton of support for it, either.

Granted, I understand, they're a significantly smaller publisher than WotC or Paizo, but look at the support Spycraft got.

I've never seen a FantasyCraft print product in the wild, and on one single occasion, a Spycraft 2.0 book.

When 3E/3.5 was in its prime, I saw Spycraft and Shadowforce Archer stuff all over the place.

What does it do differently or better than all the D&D versions out there?

I think the biggest reason (not the only) Fantasycraft never took off was it was released in the same time as Pathfinder.

Otherwise I think it's best iteration of 3.x ever made.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1086710What does it do differently or better than all the D&D versions out there?

I know I've posted *extensively* about this... let me find one of my old posts.

This is one of the many threads we've talked about it at length!

It's also a very dense book, with a lot of jargon, released at a time the market was moving away from that kind of thing, and without the bright colors and neverending support of Pathfinder, or the customer loyalty Paizo had cultivated during years of making Dragon and Dungeon magazines for the hardcore D&D fanbase.

FantasyCratft core is a very cool book and a very cool system. But an RPG needs a lot more than a system to catch on. It needs a player-base, and it needs support in the form of setting material and adventures.

Pathfinder took off because of its adventure paths. If Paizo had used FantasyCraft as its system, then it would have taken off too with the same support.

Basically, system doesn't matter nearly as much as a lot of hardcore RPGers who hang on out on forums think it matters.

Quote from: Haffrung;1086716FantasyCratft core is a very cool book and a very cool system. But an RPG needs a lot more than a system to catch on. It needs a player-base, and it needs support in the form of setting material and adventures.

Pathfinder took off because of its adventure paths. If Paizo had used FantasyCraft as its system, then it would have taken off too with the same support.

Basically, system doesn't matter nearly as much as a lot of hardcore RPGers who hang on out on forums think it matters.

I never *really* believed this. But this particular event showed me my own bias because 1) I never run modules. 2) Because I never ran modules, the notion of world-building on my own was second nature. Sandbox is king for me. Fantasycraft in my mind, *should* have been a no-brainer.

It's because I made the mistake of assuming that GM's should/could/would be "into" building their own setting/sandbox adventures - I never really realized how much the new generation of players that came into the hobby during 3.0 needed/relied on them.

In hindsight I agree a lot with this being a much larger factor. And it's a real shame, because Fantasycraft kicked Pathfinder's *ass* in every mechanical way as a system. It's there to be a toolkit to create virtually any kind of fantasy setting you could want... it just has no modules to support it. It's made for folks like me, who happen to be an *extreme* minority largely by dint of age and experience more than anything else.

But now that we're in the 5e age... that ship has long sailed.

When life can choose between active and passive, assume most will choose passive. Easy conversion and modules makes all the difference in the world. Few want to have deep thoughts about their tools beyond "This job uses this thingie."

Quote from: tenbones;1086721It's because I made the mistake of assuming that GM's should/could/would be "into" building their own setting/sandbox adventures - I never really realized how much the new generation of players that came into the hobby during 3.0 needed/relied on them.

I disagree with the notion that a desire for published adventures and settings really only became a thing with 3E. The early TSR adventures like Keep on the Borderlands, Hommlet, White Plume Mountain, the Giant-Drow series, etc. not only sold bazillions of copies, they became the touchstones for people sharing their experiences with D&D even decades later.

If you and I play strictly homebrews, what do we really have to share when we talk about our roleplaying experiences? Not much. If we've both played the Temple of Elemental Evil, we probably have a lot to talk about. And that's not new. Even when people who haven't played D&D since 1984 talk to other players, they'll often rattle off the adventures they played to see if there's common ground. "Did you play Expedition to the Barrier Peaks? Man, that was awesome when you got lasers."

Quote from: tenbones;1086721I never *really* believed this. But this particular event showed me my own bias because 1) I never run modules. 2) Because I never ran modules, the notion of world-building on my own was second nature. Sandbox is king for me. Fantasycraft in my mind, *should* have been a no-brainer.

It's because I made the mistake of assuming that GM's should/could/would be "into" building their own setting/sandbox adventures - I never really realized how much the new generation of players that came into the hobby during 3.0 needed/relied on them.

In hindsight I agree a lot with this being a much larger factor. And it's a real shame, because Fantasycraft kicked Pathfinder's *ass* in every mechanical way as a system. It's there to be a toolkit to create virtually any kind of fantasy setting you could want... it just has no modules to support it. It's made for folks like me, who happen to be an *extreme* minority largely by dint of age and experience more than anything else.

But now that we're in the 5e age... that ship has long sailed.

If it makes you feel any better, reading your posts on Fantasy Craft made me want to take a gander at it even though I intensely dislike the medieval fantasy genre.  I bought the entire line in PDF and the core rulebook in print about a month ago, but I've spent most of my free time in Paragon City the past few weeks so I haven't taken a look at it yet.