D20 saturation at an end?

[johnsemlak]

First off, let me prefice this post by saying I have never purchased a Monkey God product so I can't comment on quality. I have heard they're good so I may have to buy a book before it goes out of print. Not to pick on MonkeyGod games directly because I know that people are hurt by this announcement and they're has to be a sense of personal defeat and dissappointment associated with this news, but here goes. I think their next product release Frost and Fur is a perfect example of what is wrong with the d20 market and they're not the only publisher doing this.

They publish a product on artic/cold adventuring, Frost and Fur. They beat WOTC to the punch before the 300 lbs gorilla releases its product, Frost Burn. I am generally a canonnist and tend to buy 3rd party products only if they offer something NEW and/or DIFFERENT. If your going to compete with the maker of my game, ie WOTC, directly one on one, you'll lose. They have more marketing, distribution, advertising, etc. You could have come up with the idea first, had better writing/editing, and an overall better book. The bottom line is this is not a good decision to compete with the Mike Tyson of RPGs.

That being said. Don't get me started on the failure of TSR due to their expanding product line. It seems strangely similar to the current WOTC race/class/elemental books now coming out. I thought all the prestige classes were the downfall of TSR......oh I mean kits.....oh I mean WOTC.....you know what I mean.

One thing about Frost and Fur-it was delayed for a long time (like may 3rd party products from many companies. I imagine that the majority of the time (or all?) the product was being developed MonkeyGod was unaware of WotC planes to do an overlapping product.

 

[dreaded_beast]

Well, I'm not sure what to think about this.

My only non-WotC d20 purchases occurred during the first year of 3rd edition. They consisted of the following:

Dragonlords of Melnibone
Deadlands d20
Campaign Magazine
Players Guide to Kingdoms of Kalamar
Ravenloft Campaign Setting
Book of Eldritch Might PDF
The Quintessential Fighter
Mystic Warriors

I was one of those that bought every new d20 book that came out during that year until I realized that some were better than others, in my opinion. In addition, cash is always scarce and I didn't have the money to spend on so-so books. I would rather spend my money on "canon" material that would get support from WotC and be considered "official".

That was my general feeling during the first year, when I was buying everything and ended up being disappointed by mediocre product in my opinion. However, I realize that there are MANY good products out there based on reviews here and what I have read at the FLGS. Unfortunately, money is still tight and my own personal preference would be to purchase WotC products. As one poster put it, I am a "canonist".

From the above list, I ended up selling some of it. I kept the magazine and PDF as well as:

Dragonlords of Melnibone
Ravenloft Campaign Setting
Player's Guide to Kingdom of Kalamar

 

[BSF]

I didn't realise board games other than the obvious ones like Risk, Cluedo, and the like sold that well. I consider my self a gamer, in that I buy multiple RPG's, wargames, miniature games, card games, computer games, console and some board games, but I can't say I buy that many boardgames.

Is there some massive group of boardgame enthusiasts that I've never heard of? Do they have conventions, websites and message board where they chat about the new releases? I'ld never heard of Face 2 Face before this announcement and having looked at their website I can say I've never seen a single one of thier games in any shop.

I have a group of friends that meets bi-weekly to play board games. We play a lot of stuff by Rio Grande Games. (Go figure, the guys that owns Rio Grande Games lives here.) We also play a lot of other board and card games. But something like Risk? I think somebody has brought that once in the last 5 years. That was kind of a fluke too.

So yes, board games have a certain degree of popularity as well.

 

[Akrasia]

Prediction: 20 years from now there will be NO rpg industry, and we'll all be playing 1st edition DnD with free pdfs.

You heard it here first.

 

[Crothian]

Prediction: 20 years from now there will be NO rpg industry, and we'll all be playing 1st edition DnD with free pdfs.

You heard it here first.

But why would we beusing the pdfs when we have the books?

 

[Incenjucar]

I think one of the major issues is that everyone was trying to be a Dungeons and Dragons company, when they should have focused on being a d20 company. If you have to compete directly with WotC materials, you're going to have an uphill battle. If you just use the shortcut of having a well-known system, but make your own game off of it (like BESM and Everquest and Midnight and Conan etc etc etc), you'll have much less competition, and maybe even be bringing more people in to RPGs (people who read the books and play the videogames see what they like on the cover of something, and -wham-, potential new customer.) Trying to beat WotC to the punch is a waste. Trying to do something they can't do is gold. Serpent Kingdoms is very popular; some 3rd parties should make their own SK-style books on their own original monsters, in similar detail. Not only does it present a good chance for sales, but if you start having an iconic monster that is identified with your company, you'll be well on your way. Mascots are powerful tools.

 

[philreed]

But why would we beusing the pdfs when we have the books?

But we won't have the books. In the "Great RPG Purge of '06," brought on after the announcement of D&D 5th Edition at GenCon creates one of the largest riots the U.S. has ever seen, pen -n- paper RPGs were banned and the books rounded up and destroyed. By then, gaming will have gone underground and all that will remain are the various PDF files stored on system NOT connected to the net. The P2P systems carrying illegal RPG PDFs were some of the first targeted by the government's secret "NerdBusterv7.23" virus.

It's a sad time but the hardcore, still playing gamer punks are really sticking it to the man.

 

[Incenjucar]

I have a group of friends that meets bi-weekly to play board games. We play a lot of stuff by Rio Grande Games. (Go figure, the guys that owns Rio Grande Games lives here.) We also play a lot of other board and card games. But something like Risk? I think somebody has brought that once in the last 5 years. That was kind of a fluke too.

So yes, board games have a certain degree of popularity as well.

...But has anyone accused your board games of being tools of the Devil?



But yeah, heck, they have card games on (ESPN?) now.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Competition, good, sure we had a lot of products that were almost the same but each one was different and appealed to different DMs and players, the problem here was market; great products may have gone by the wayside because no one heard of them and did not see them in their local stores. While reviews and internet sells help, store sells still matter.

Innovation, luke warm, too many product the same. I feel that very few companies went out of their way on risk, they played it safe putting out items they knew would sell, the problem; so was everyone else.

What I see? Silos, companies are now established, they know what they are good at and will now focus on those items. Down the line you may see some movement into other markets and cross over but this is the time to strenghten your hold on your market.

 

[Crothian]

I think the true sad thing is that many companies were actually starting to do D&D better then Wizards, but they never got the market pentration and few people realized they were doing that good. For psionics I much perfer the Green Ronin stuff to Wizards, for monsters aside from the MM all the other monster books I use are from other companies, the Wizard class books are okay but I really perfer the FFG Path books, and even Wizards epic rules I find not as good as the Sword and Sorcery ones. I imagine once I see the Malhovic planes book that will replace Manual of the Planes for me. Its not that these books by Wizards are bad, on the contrary many are quite good but the third party people are just better.