Shelfjacked or "Dude! Where's my game?"

[seneschal]

"As for Chaosium, sure times are tough. Especially in the RPG field. But Chasoium has been in limbo-land for decades. Other RPG companies produce product, and there are other methods of getting stuff out to the public (print on demand for one), and for attracting new players. Other companies actually have people in house who create new things, and products that go in new directions. But what innovation there is with D100 has come from third parties.

Okay, so CoC carried Chasoium for the last couple of decades. So what? If Chasoium had gone under twenty years ago, what real difference would it have made to the D100 players? As has been said before, the gold book is a nice toolkit, but all the tools in it already existed.

Okay. Hope that ends this. If not, please rebutt in a new thread."

Despite his dislike of all things Lovecraft, Atgxtg has a point. Despite the D100 renaissance, the advent of the Big Gold Book, the wonderful award-winning product put out by hard-working third-party publishers, the birth of POD, PDF, and Internet downloads there is a dearth of readily available D100 product. Sure, if you're an established gamer, you can find all these things online (but we've all read the sob stories about international shipping). But if you're a potential gamer, someone we'd like to recruit, you probably don't know that Chaosium, Mongoose, et.al., exist. Rpg.net has hosted numerous "this is the Golden Age of gaming" threads, but if we don't get new people playing, the delightful abundance of well-crafted games to play is ultimately for naught.

While it is great that Call of Cthulhu is barn-burner in France (Paris, overrun by Deep Ones? Who knew?) I live in the southwestern United States. In my Oklahoma community, one game store carries no D100 product, the other merely a stray CoC third-party supplement or two (but not the core rulebook). Trail of Cthulhu and its supplements occasionally show up briefly. I recently traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, on vacation -- another southern college town with two gaming stores. One -- a general hobby store -- had three thin hardbound volumes for Mongoose RuneQuest II Deluxe (including the main game). The other -- a comic book shop -- had three softbound copies of CoC 6th edition but nothing else.

Since I'm looking with the eyes of non-gamers, who aren't likely to hunt down a game store or a RPG publisher's website anyway, what about Barnes & Noble, ubiquitous purveyor of all things publishable? Well, at my local store, I see add-on modules for the board game Arkham Horror (but not the core game). And I see Pathfinder, Gama World, D&D, and Rogue Trader. So if I'm a tweener or teenager of the type to be attracted to role-playing, those are the options available to me. No Call of Cthulhu. No RuneQuest of any numeric value. No Legend. No Big Gold Book or The Laundry or BRP Rome. No D100 product of any stripe. It doesn't exist as far as I know, as a potential new gamer.

So, Cthulhu or not, Gloranthan or not, Melbournean or not, Open or not, we must get D100 product on shelves -- non-specialty shelves -- so that potential customers know it exists, so they'll say, "Gee, that looks kinda neat," so they'll buy it and take it home and play it and get their friends interested in it.

[Atgxtg]

Yup, but how?

RQ3 was supposed to do that ages ago, and failed. I actually saw more RQ2 stuff in mainstream bookstores than RQ3. I have seen an occasional copy of CoC on the shelf at a mainstream store (there's some ammo for the CoC fans), but that turned out to be because somebody on the staff was a gamer and got the store to order a more varied selection of RPG books than normal (WotC and White Wolf).

About the only idea I can think of that might work would be to license out a popular setting. But third party licenses are expensive and, apparently, not very successful. Chaosium certainly can't come up with the big bucks to do it.

Even if Chasoium could get some books intot he stores, what book should it be. The BRP rulebook, while a good tool for those in the know, is not really a great introduction to the system. With all the tweaks and options, it ends up being the most confusion and complicated version of the D100 system out there. Not becuase it is badly written or anything, just becuase it covers so much ground and has so many options.

The BRPlite book is, supposedly, a streamlined version of the system that should fit the bill, but I for one can't say. TO get it one has to register with Chaosium and downlaod it from them. I didn't want to go through that hassle, and I'm already a fan. I can't see anybody not already familiar with BRP doing it.

It would seem to me that BRP Lite, something along those lines produced by somebody else, should be the thing to get out on the shelves.

[smiorgan]

Seneschal,

I think that making BRP / d100 visible on the shelves is an hopeless battle. 90% of RPGs on the market are in the same situation. If it's not Pathfinder or D&D chances are people get to know it from the internet, from fellow gamers, from conventions. Mongoose tried to compete in that game but they had to drop the ball. I think it is inevitable that d100 games are a niche product catering for existing gamers.

[soltakss]

It is unlikely that a mainstream bookshop will stock RPG books. At least I have not seen any in Waterstones or WH Smiths, the two major book chains in the UK.

As for the FLGS, Waylands Forge has a reasonable RQ/Legend/BRP collection, including independent supplements from Alephtar Games, D101 Games and so on. I don't go to other games stores (no need), so I am not sure how they are doing. On the odd occasion that I venture to London, Leisure Games normally has some D100 game books.

[soltakss]

Okay, so CoC carried Chasoium for the last couple of decades. So what? If Chasoium had gone under twenty years ago, what real difference would it have made to the D100 players? As has been said before, the gold book is a nice toolkit, but all the tools in it already existed.

At the risk of offending most of the people on this forum, losing Chaosium would not have made a lot of difference.

Sure, we would have lost CoC, which might have upset some people. Elric/Stormbringer might have been affected, but it wasn't doing a great deal. The BRP ruleset is good, but is more of a rehash of other rules rather than anything really new. Apart from that, what D100 gaming have they produced?

Mongoose have produced more D100 games material in 10 years than Chaosium has in twenty. Other games companies keep producing D100 supplements, some under the BRP banner, some under OpenQuest or Legend, some under RuneQuest. Add these up and they amount to a fair number.

What would happen if Chaosium stopped supporting BRP tomorrow? I reckon that most of the games material would be produced for Legend, or something similar, under the OGL banner, perhaps without OGC. D100 gaming would continue.

[seneschal]

The Big Gold Book, useful to established gamers, isn't a good entry point for new players. I was going to suggest a series of inexpensive genre books based on the Quick-Start edition. But Chaosium and the third-party companies are already covering multiple genres with their product. We've got horror (Call of Cthulhu, The Laundry), fantasy (RuneQuest, Legend, Magic World, Chronicles of Future Earth, OpenQuest), martial arts (Dragon Lines), ancient Rome (BRP Rome), ancient China (The Celestial Empire), Vikings (Mythic Iceland), Westerns (Aces High, Devil's Gulch), Cold War espionage (Berlin '61), 17th century intrigue (Clockwork and Chivalry, Renaissance). We've got pulp adventure (Astounding Adventures) and sword-and-planet (Interplanetary) in the pipeline. Most of these are license-free content, and many of them include a full version of the rules needed to play, no core rulebook required. So which books to promote isn't a problem (the answer is: all of them). But those books need to make their way to the public. The D100 community needs to become as fanatical about getting its stuff to market as it is about producing it in the first place. Saying "It can't be done" is a non-starter. It can be done. It must be done. Internet sales, print-on-demand, and PDF downloads are part of the mix. But there is simply no substitute for tangible, touchable, browsable product on store shelves -- game stores, Toys R Us, Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, McDonalds if we can swing it. Anyone up for a Cthulhu or RuneQuest ducks McDonalds toy series? Historia Rodentia cries out for one.

[smiorgan]

At the risk of offending most of the people on this forum, losing Chaosium would not have made a lot of difference.

Sure, we would have lost CoC, which might have upset some people. Elric/Stormbringer might have been affected, but it wasn't doing a great deal. The BRP ruleset is good, but is more of a rehash of other rules rather than anything really new. Apart from that, what D100 gaming have they produced?

For one, I am happy that the BRP ruleset exists and that there is still a BRP CoC (at least until 7th edition comes out). Stormbringer was dead dead dead since around 2001. If it lived a second life it was thanks to the license moving to Mongoose. Among other things this gave us two very nice games 'MRQ1 Elric' and 'MRQ1 Hawkmoon' (I do not like that much MRQ2 Elric: it's a bit bloated). As for Stormbringer's mechanics, I'm glad they will relive in Magic World.

I believe that the D100 Renaissance was triggered by two independent events. In order of importance: 1) Mongoose releasing MRQ1 and especially the MRQ1 SRD; 2) Chaosium letting the BRP BGB happen. Without the first event we would not have had any renaissance. Without the second it would have been very different.

As for Chaosium... I am not privy to their books (in the accountant's sense), but it seems to me that they have never been in better shape since around 1996. I remember very well when they were a CoC only company and most of their output consisted in d20 conversions of old books and in horrid tape-bound photocopied monographs. Now, they fare much better, it seems.

Are they a very creative or innovative company? Not anymore. I feel they have somewhat lost connection with the design aspects of their games after so many years relying on freelances. Also, they don't seem to communicate a lot with fans (on forums, blogs, etc.). Compare with Mongoose's Matt Sprange popping here and there inforums to defend his games, defending the broken combat system or the sturdiness of their in-house hardcovers. Recently, Chaosium have released one err... somewhat broken product: The Magic Book. Zomben, who is a freelance, has apologized and taken responsibility for the errors ... but Chaosium? The accident apparently did not even register with them.

Edited September 1, 2012 by smiorgan

[Thalaba]

I live in the southwestern United States. In my Oklahoma community, one game store carries no D100 product, the other merely a stray CoC third-party supplement or two (but not the core rulebook). Trail of Cthulhu and its supplements occasionally show up briefly. I recently traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, on vacation -- another southern college town with two gaming stores. One -- a general hobby store -- had three thin hardbound volumes for Mongoose RuneQuest II Deluxe (including the main game). The other -- a comic book shop -- had three softbound copies of CoC 6th edition but nothing else.

Isn't this more a function of educating your local shop-owners and get them to order product? My local FLGS has no problem stocking Chaosium products. Alephtar and Cublicle 7 are also well represented - and I don't even consider them a particularly good store, as their pretty clueless when it comes to RPGs. Surely if a store in Canada can throw darts at a distributor's catalog and order Chaosium material, so can one in Oklahoma.

That said, I do think Chaosium could do a better job of outreach - both to customers and to writers.

[draven]

In the world of open gaming license what company really matters if it shut down. The content for the game will be available else where. Look at D&D it has gone through at least three companies that own it now and it is the most pushed RPG on the market. I learned of Chaosium just recently myself and i have been roleplaying for over 20 years. I learned of it through Mongoose publishing mentioning runequest in it legend rpg. Then again when looking for a game that copies King Arthur and I found Pendragon was made by them.

As for the BGB it is a generic roleplaying rule set. These are never meant to get new players. They are not attracted to rules but settings. Then they get bored with the rules of that setting and they start to look for rules they like better then they find generic rules like GURPS and the BGB.

On a personal note I quite like the BGB and it is easy from someone new to BRB to use just not someone new to role playing but it is a generic system. I have not yet played any d100 products and I understand the BGB easy as a rule set.

[seneschal]

In the world of open gaming license what company really matters if it shut down. The content for the game will be available else where. Look at D&D it has gone through at least three companies that own it now and it is the most pushed RPG on the market. I learned of Chaosium just recently myself and i have been roleplaying for over 20 years. I learned of it through Mongoose publishing mentioning runequest in it legend rpg. Then again when looking for a game that copies King Arthur and I found Pendragon was made by them.

That's a viewpoint I see a lot of at rpg.net: "Who cares about the industry? The hobby will be around as long as I want to play." Using the poster's decades-old copy of whatever game he prefers. But it ain't necessarily so. Physical copies of games wear out, get lost or destroyed or lost in a move. Existing gaming groups drift apart, move away, or die off. The Internet, business websites, and downloadable PDFs are all very recent things. The OGL exists only because Hasbro thought it could make more money with Dungeons & Dragons that way. Dungeons & Dragons exists only because a handful of hobbyists decided they could make money by publishing and selling it. That they did a good job of marketing it is demonstrated by successive companies being willing to buy it. The hobby exists because publishers produce, promote, and sell exciting new product that draws in new fans -- games, supplements, maps, monster books, miniatures. The availability of old, out-of-print games in PDF format exists only because folks like DriveThruRPG figured they could make money doing it. Without new product and new players, table-top role-playing games would go away. And the demand for PDFs of existing and aging games would go away, too.

That's why makers of board games keep putting out new editions of Candy Land, Clue, Scrabble, etc., with new art and revised rules and nifty new counters -- to draw in new players and keep the game fresh and alive. Sure, if its publication had ceased years ago you could still play Candy Land with a vintage 1949 set you found in an attic. But you and your friends would be the only ones enjoying it, and eventually it would wear out and that would be that. There aren't too many folks playing the "Lost in Space" board game I loved as a child. The TV show went off the air, the game company stopped making and promoting the game, it is tough to find extant copies, and my little sister destroyed my set long ago.

You see the analogy.

[Atgxtg]

Isn't this more a function of educating your local shop-owners and get them to order product?

Not always. While most shops will special order stuff, most won;t stock stuff unless they get a good number of requests. And they won't keep stocking the product if it doesn't get a good reaction. I got one of my FLGS to order MRQ1 for me, against the shop owner's advice, as he wasn't impressed with Mongoose, I hated it, and that poisoned the well for any RPG with the word RuneQuest on it. Nor did it help BRP, when I told him that it was related.

[Atgxtg]

It is unlikely that a mainstream bookshop will stock RPG books. At least I have not seen any in Waterstones or WH Smiths, the two major book chains in the UK.

It's quite common in the US for mainstream book chains to have a small gaming section with RPG books. Usually a meter or two long section stocked with mostly D20 and WoD stuff. Maybe one or two other books. Typically with no rhyme or reason. You could easily find such stores stocking supplements for a system but not the main rule book.

[SDLeary]

It's quite common in the US for mainstream book chains to have a small gaming section with RPG books. Usually a meter or two long section stocked with mostly D20 and WoD stuff. Maybe one or two other books. Typically with no rhyme or reason. You could easily find such stores stocking supplements for a system but not the main rule book.

This does seem to be going away. We have lost one large chain (Borders) and only have one left (Barnes & Noble), and its section has shrunk dramatically, only a copy of Pathfinder and some D&D stuff at the local shop. Amazon has a lot of impact... good for availability, but only if you know what your looking for.

Luckily, around here we have several top FLGS, lead by Endgame in Oakland.

SDLeary

[Heimdallsgothi]

As a newcomer to the BRQ/RQ lines, I found out BRP existed through RPG.net. Having read BRP and RQ6 at this point I am probably going with RQ6 as a more coherent integrated system. BRP strikes me as a hodge podge of different rule sets, which is largely what it is. Half the threads here refer to books which havent seen print since the 80's, its all very confusing. It needs a complete work over into a far more integrated rules set. Currently it strikes me as very similar to a Palladium copy/paste creation.

My preferred store actually stocks multiple CoC products, and even has 1 copy of BRB on the shelf which they reorder after it sells. They stock legend, have several copies of RQ6 on order, and try to support many indie games. Currently they have over 15 copies of the new Savage worlds book on the shelf, for $10 its hard to compete and you can do most of what BRP does. If it wasn't so light it may have been my chosen system.

[RosenMcStern]

The most important reason why I decided to co-publish with Cubicle 7 and Chronicle City is that they are a valuable partner when it comes to getting your products on the shelves. Everyone in the gaming industry knows Angus and Dominic, so the chances are high that your FLGS owner will order a copy of your BRP book along with Doctor Who or The One Ring. Getting your product on the shelves is hard, but it is not Mission Impossible.

That said, I have one simple question to ask everyone here:

"Why on Earth do you think that gaining visibility on the shelves - as opposed to visibility on the Internet - is the right way to attract new players?"

If no one had noticed, sales of PDFs have surpassed sales of physical books at Amazon.com this year. You can draw your own conclusions. I will keep all of the Alephtar products on store shelves for as long as said shelves exist, with the help of Angus and Dom for marketing, but my current plans include Alephtar Games outliving brick and mortar game shops.

[Thalaba]

Why does it need to be one or the other. If, as you say, Amazon e-books (pdfs?) have just over-taken physical books this year, then that means the market for each is about 50-50. Why provide only one format and potentially lose 50% of your market?

But I guess the real issue isn't where or in what format you make products available for sale - but how you get the word out that these things are for sale. The FLGS has traditionally been a good place to come to the attention of browsers - targeted marketing, as it were. I suppose on-line forums are, too. Forums only attract a small percentage of gamers, it seems. Open question: Where else do you go to advertise to potential customers?

[Atgxtg]

That said, I have one simple question to ask everyone here:

"Why on Earth do you think that gaining visibility on the shelves - as opposed to visibility on the Internet - is the right way to attract new players?"

Because a new player isn't going to be able to stumble across a copy of BRP on line and thumb through it.

As mentioned earlier, in order for someone to go out and buy a BRP book, they sort of have to know what they are looking for and go hunting for it. Somebody just doesn't come across the BRP Gold book just anywhere on the net (maybe BRP Porn would do it?). Most people, even gamers don't just wander over to the Chaosium website. Nor do most gamers browse the BRP category at RPGNow, DriveThru and similar sites. Heck, most gamers aren't aware the BRP exists. ANd that is where shelf space helps.

If therew was a way to give BRP a higher profile on=line it would help. If Chasoium could partner up with a company with more "net presence" it would be great.

[RosenMcStern]

Nor do most gamers browse the BRP category at RPGNow, DriveThru and similar sites. Heck, most gamers aren't aware the BRP exists. ANd that is where shelf space helps.

I see no reason why a gamer should browse the shelves for a game system that is not D&D and instead refuse to look at its entry on DriveThru. Moreover, now that D&D is no longer available in PDF, you have way more room for competition online than in the shops, where physical room is limited and almost invariably occupied by WotC and WW. Wrap the product in a nice cover and people will look at it and wonder "What is this Basic Roleplaying, after all?" without the need to persuade the shop owner.

The point, my friends, is that people up to 20 or 25 year old do not shop the same way as we do. Once you take this into account, you will see that FLGS are a good thing, but no longer the main thing.

If therew was a way to give BRP a higher profile on=line it would help. If Chasoium could partner up with a company with more "net presence" it would be great.

You mean Cubicle Seven? They already partner with them.

[Atgxtg]

It's not a question of refusing to look at. It is more a case of the possiblity of running across the game unintentional. Peopel generally don't buy RPGs that they don't know about. To find BRP one has to be looking for it.

Yes, us old timers can bring in some new players, but in my excperience most 20-25 year old don''t game with the old timers-so there isn't as much of a possibility for that.

Higher profile on the net is good. Heck, the best thing for BRP would probably be a computer RPG based on the BRP game mechanics (Where's Darklands when we need it), that could grab the attention of the modern RPGer. But that's not likely.

Whatever method Chasoium is using now isn't helping much, though. So how do we raise BRP's profile?

[RosenMcStern]

Your avatar hints at a very good solution.

But since there is an increasing number of female gamers, we should devise a second one, I suppose.

[smiorgan]

It's not a question of refusing to look at. It is more a case of the possiblity of running across the game unintentional. Peopel generally don't buy RPGs that they don't know about. To find BRP one has to be looking for it.

I started playing D&D because a friend of mine stumbled in a red box in a family-oriented games shop. But it was 1985 and D&D was at the peak of its worldwide popularity. Now many of those shops do not exist anymore and many of those that exist do not carry D&D anymore, let alone other rpgs. So, I believe this scenario is unrealistic for any d100 product.

[GianniVacca]

I started playing D&D because a friend of mine stumbled in a red box in a family-oriented games shop. But it was 1985 and D&D was at the peak of its worldwide popularity.

The fact is that no single system seems to be at the peak of its popularity these days. Heck, even D&D is divided into more sub-churches than Christianity.

[draven]

The problem still comes down to most others systems do not have the resources and push that D&D and Pathfinder seem to have. I agree that a method of both in stores and online is the way to go. Though still without any support from mainstream book stores this is going t be hard to do. Only a large push from fans and the company might get some of these books into stores other than a local game shop. With the fact that many places do not have local game shops the problem then boils down to how to get the books on the shelves.

As for most players would not buy a product they can not read first this is not true in my experience either. They want a clear idea of how the system work. So fans writing clear reviews on how a game works would help sale the pdf. The pdf is also a good bit cheaper making it more likely that someone will buy it to try a new system as long as they understand what they are getting first. Even the ability to thumb through a book does not mean my players will like it. So I for one would want to go the cheaper route to get a whole new system for my group.

[nclarke]

The best way to get BRP out to a more general audience would be to make access to a free basic attractive colour 4 page digest sized PDF very easy.

Look at the business model of some companies that use torrent sites to put their game out there for example. Put a link to a site offering said free entry level PDF in your sig at every forum you frequent. Push it at every con you attend by offering games, employ freelance sales/demo people with the offer of free points towards 'stuff' for running games at stores and cons.

If these BRP Disciples had a set of quick chargen/adapatable pregen characters and a 2-3 hour adventure, that they could run wherever they had a place and free time, that was replaced/refreshed on a monthly basis that would do a lot to spread the word.

However without the facilities behind such a push it's unlikely to prove more than transitory in effect.

[Zit]

That’s an idea. Vendors and GM bring newbies to the game. But I would propose more than a single 4-pages pdf: I would propose a 4-6 pages introductory pdf for each (or at least the main ones) BRP supplement, usable with the Quick Start. Or a few very simple stereotyped settings (medieval –or ancient- fantastic, super heroes, Mecha, Harry Potter). 3 pages setting, 3 pages scenario, no options, free downloadable. During conventions, print 1-2 of them + BRP Quick Start to give to the visitors who played a game (or not). Add a catalog of all the published BRP or BRP based games.

Gollum mentioned the French Cassus Belli: they published the Basic + 1 or 2 settings and scenarios as a section of an issue of the magazine. Can be used as an exemple.

What if all the BRP related games publishers unite their effort and share the promotion costs (well perhaps it’s already the case, I don’t know). What about a “BRP promotion society”, involving publishers, authors and fans (who are often the same people…) with the only goal to promote the BRP-based games? Authors and publishers could put a part of their gains into a common pot.

For the visibility: it is quite difficult to understand who makes what. We shall gather the different supplements into families, perhaps even across the different editors. For example, all the historical settings could belong to a “Fantastic Earth” series.

The question is: who has the time to do it…but may be if everybody gives a small part of his time. It could work? Or am I dreaming?

Anyway, no channel shall be neglected: buying a game on internet does not mean having been aware of it through internet, and conversely. Are there any marketing studies or surveys about how buyers went to a game?

BTW, does anybody have a good scenario to send to Peter Jackson ?