Good Gaming!
Jim Butler, President
Bastion Press, Inc.
http://www.bastionpress.com
>Woodelf wrote:
> >Jim Butler wrote:
> >My gut tells me that these rules-tinkerers are either a.) a subset of
> >what I think are those looking for new rules systems, or b.)
> >non-purchasers that have been disenfranchised from any game system.
If
> >either of these are true, they're the last people I'd want to try and
> >market my products to.
>
> either terminology is getting in the way, or we're talking past each
> other. i'm not talking about those who look for new game systems,
> nor those who are compulsive tinkerers. i'm talking about exactly
> the sorts of gamers you are--those who are interested in new material
> for their current game--*except* that their current game happens to
> be something other than D&D/D20.
I really believe that the kinds of gamers you're referring to are a very
small segment of the audience. If they were a larger share of the RPG
marketplace, there would be more room for independent game systems. And
while there are other game systems out there, writing to a non-d20 game
system limits your potential audience. I'd rather market a product to
the 2 million or so D&D players than to try and attract a new audience
to a new game system.
> >I'd say that the reason you don't see more products that are
rules-free
> >is because they don't sell. I know that when I go out to buy new
gaming
> >products, I'm looking for things I can easily adapt into my game. I'm
> >not looking for something I'm going to have to put a huge amount of
work
> >into (because I don't have the time to devote to it). I realize that
I'm
> >not our typically consumer, but I know that if time and work wasn't
an
> >issue there would be no reason for anyone to buy any manufacturer's
> >product; players and DMs would just create them on their own.
>
> agreed. here's the point of disagreement: i can lift a scenario,
> setting, NPC, or other non-mechanical bit with essentially no effort
> beyond reading through the original. it often takes considerable
> effort to adapt a new rule or mechanical widget to my game, even when
> using the same system (due to house rules, or differences of power
> level or style, or whatever). so, i, too, look for the
> easily-adapted content when buying RPGs--and for me that means no
> mechanics.
There are plenty of novels you can read that are full of interesting
concepts and ideas that could be easily adapted into a campaign world.
But crafting _game_ products means that you're buying some kind of game,
and that entails rules of some sort. You can boil material down as much
as you'd like, but the more sterile the material, the less useful it is
to gamers.
When I look for new game products to bring into my game, I'm looking for
someone else (the designer) to do as much work for me as possible. If I
have to take a rules-less product's Minko the Merciless and calculate
his level, Base Attack Bonus, skill selections, feats, and other
essential information, then that product is much less useful to me as a
DM than a product that has done this work for me.
In fact, even if I've significantly changed my campaign through house
rules, I'd rather have a product that was written to the baseline rules
that I can then drop into my world and adjust then to have to start from
scratch.
Minko the Merciless written for CHILL is actually less useful to me than
a novel entry about the same character (since I don't understand the
rules system enough to convert the material between different rules
systems). Given this choice, I'd agree with your assessment that a
rules-less system is better (but immaterial, since I wouldn't buy either
the CHILL product or the rules-less product).
Good Gaming!
Jim Butler, President
Bastion Press, Inc.
http://www.bastionpress.com
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