Re: New Idea (was: Re: [DL] Combined format?$$$$$$$$$$ (GOFF))

["R. Serena Wakefield" <raistw@gate.net>]

At 11:42 AM 9/25/00 -0400, PEGShane@aol.com wrote:

>Remember, we still have a grand story being told here. Bringing our other 
>worlds to those of you who only got into the West is very important to that 
>story. If you're not interested in it and just want to play Boot Hill with 
>zombies, more power to you. But right now, there's a grand story to tell,
and 
>it's my job to make sure the whole tale is told.

Oh, whoa there ... there's a lot more to the Weird West than that!  The
setting is already a living, vibrant one, more so than a lot of other
company's worlds.

Unhappy truth is that you always gotta take into account that not everybody
is going to use everything you write.  I focus more on Black Magic villains
and manitou than on physical monsters, but that doesn't mean that there
shouldn't be books of critters -- just that I'm less likely to use them.
The books that I refer back to again and again, others may never touch.

Now, combining the three settings somehow is an interesting idea, and I'm
sure that if it's well done (and I'm sure it will be) a lot of people are
going to use it.  But a lot aren't; there are going to be people who are
only interested in one or two of the three games.

More particularly, when you're not working from a license, the more you
specialize a genre the fewer people are going to be interested.  It's just
a standard rule of publishing.  A "fantasy" game will interest more people
than a "Tolkien fantasy" game, which will interest more people than a
"Tolkien fantasy where you're elves" game, just because with each further
specialization you lose some people.  In this example, you'd lose REH fans
the first time and dwarf-lovers the second.

This doesn't mean that a generic game is necessarily better.  The more
specialized a game is, the more thoroughly it can treat its material
(witness Orkworld).  But a specialized book is necessarily going to have a
smaller target audience, since comparatively fewer people are going to find
it useful.

When you're creating your own new genre or putting an odd spin on an
existing one, your audience shrinks even more.  In this case, if you give
up the Western-only, post-apocalypse-only and sci-fi-only fans, aiming
SOLELY for those who are interested in ALL THREE ... well, that sounds like
a big, big risk to me.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do this; even though I know I'm not interested
in at least one-third of that amalgamation, it still sounds like it'll be a
sight to see.  Nevertheless, it's necessary to take into account that if
you make your primary target audience the intersection of the three games,
that target audience is going to be mighty small, while if you keep the
games distinct and provide SEPARATE sourcebooks just for those who want to
combine them you can do it all without alienating anyone.  All it'd take
would be a slower release schedule to be able to handle everyone.

If that doesn't matter, well ... all I know is that more than once I've had
a company tell me they were going to do something very cool, and they did
it, and it WAS cool, but it still wasn't something I'd want to happen in my
own campaign.  No harm, no foul, except that the company then incorporated
that idea into all future books.  Didn't end my use of their books, but it
ended my purchases from them.

Strictly speaking it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other.  I
own the books that I need the most, and I can keep running the game with
what I've already got till Judgement Day.  (Heck, I could run the game till
then with just the main rulebook.  It'd just be a LOT HARDER!  *G*)  But
since the company's goal is to sell MORE books ... I just don't know.

(Sheesh, these get longer every time I write one ... *sigh*)

-- 
R. Serena Wakefield (raistw@gate.net)
Visit Serena's Roleplaying Dojo:  http://welcome.to/serenasdojo/