Ron Edwards’ two posts on The Forge regarding “Fantasy Heartbreakers” has got me taking a very critical look at my most recent projects… Both at work and for DW.
Probably very old news to some (the articles were posted over ten years ago), but still hold some good advice for game developers!
First article: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/
Second article: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/10/
It’s all about the business model. When your game is basically “D&D with some house rules and a new setting”, and you get a 10,000 copy print run made for a lot of money, chances are you’re going to end up with lots of unsold copies and sunk investment. (That’s the heartbreaking part!)
But times have changed a lot since those articles. PoD and PDF sales make any game publishable with much smaller investment. Kickstarter (or other preorder systems) can virtually eliminate risk. And so on.
It’s a great time for RPGs 🙂
I made a similar blog post this morning, Stefan, and came up with the same conclusions Christian Griffen did. Add to his list the now massive network of blogs and forums that exist, compared to FIDOnet and a couple usegroups in the early 90’s, and you have a sounding board for your ideas — heck the entire concept of “crowd-sourcing” was effectively impractical in the 90’s.
Yeah I totally agree with the changes that have come about in the last ten years; PDF sales and Kickstarter, or even just great online communities such as the DW Tavern.
With OGL systems like Dungeon World readily available, many of these Heartbreakers could thrive as settings or hacks (compatible with the original), rather than new systems in their own right.
I think the points still hit home for me on the basis of value to the end user. If I am going to add or change core rules and make a DW hack, I need to ask myself “what’s the benefit to the game/GM/player? Is this something crucial to the setting I want to portray, or am I just appeasing my own preferences?” If its the latter, maybe the content would be better served as a straight-up campaign setting?
J. Walton and Johnstone Metzger did a good job of this with Dark Heart of the Dreamer and Dungeon Planet (respectively). The rules hacks in these two publications serve to convey the setting/themes/atmosphere rather than just say “here’s how I would have handled xp (or whatever).”
Stefan Grambart What he said.
I think one should stay true to the core rules, and only introduce new rules when absolutely needed by the new setting. Lets say you build a stealth character. You want him to have a backstab move. I think you should have a very good reason not to give him the move that already exists in the core rules.Â
What’s great about kickstarter is not only do the games that are worthy get the funding they need to be successful, but its a good indicator for someone when their game isn’t going to sell well too. Now these people making their personal games can find out early on before they’ve invested too much that in fact this is a bad decision.
Now I feel old, Dawnstar was a runner up in that WoTC sweepstakes thing.