In 1990, West End Games published a tabletop RPG called TORG. This was a game that, for the time, was a daring experiment in now only playable multi-genre adventure gaming but also in a more direct participation of the customers in the development of the property over time.
The rules of that original edition, to this day, remain a solid basis for an adventure game that is not slaved to the mechanical design legacy of Dungeons & Dragons, Traveller, or Call of Cthulhu.
It had one notable flaw in its rules design--a Glass Ninja problem; what it took to hit a dodgy target would guarantee a one-hit kill every single time--but we had a fix for it by the time the game went out of print.
When the new owners announced a revival, all they had to do was put out a fixed version of the original game.
They did not do this.
TORG Eternity introduced a whole set of completely unnecessary changes.
The first was a completely unnecessary reset of the setting, down to what happened in the backstory, merely to justify an initial board state that follows a scenario that almost happened in the original edition.
Rather than just use what was already there, they indulged in the urge to introduce fanfic and justified it as "Muh Infiniverse"; the cynical will point out that this is how they can explain wasting all sorts of money writing new content instead of just cleaning up the original manuscripts and thus justify selling product at higher-than-reasonable prices.
The second was unnecessary rule changes across the board, rather than just putting in the necessary fixes in the original rules.
They compounded this error by using justifications that, in turn, made the new version a storygame and not a proper RPG. This was done to justify not only putting in a new version of the original gimmick, but to justify the product release model that extends that gimmick and with it the expense of buying into the game far beyond the proven audience of people wanting to play adventure games as a reason to socialize.
The additional rules and widget complexity took a game that was already on the higher end of tolerance for such things and pushed it over the line, which means that--surprise, surprise--there was now a plausibile excuse to add a smartphone app as well as addon modules for online tables such as Roll20, all of which further adds to the expense of to buy in as well as the time required to learn how to operate the game's mechanics properly. (We're talking "Not back over your own feet" levels of skill, not even "Get from A to B".)
Naturally, this is a massive turnoff for most players, and thus it is no wonder why the game isn't exactly a household name in the tabletop world. At least the original edition only looked bothersome; it didn't play that way. That's not the case now.
Let me make this clear: they made these changes for no other reason than because they could. They excuse their wholly useless changes as "Muh Updating" and "Muh Value-Add" and similar business bullshit, but the reality is that they were enamoured of some Eurofag gaming stuff and thought that they could shove them into an existing game without pushback and rake in the cash. They "fixed" what was not broken, and failed to fix what was.
Compare this to BattleTech.
Despite multiple owners and long periods lying fallow, the game has remained the same. Someone like me that hasn't played on the tabletop in years can walk into a game right now, using the shiny new books published by Catalyst Game Labs, and they will not miss a beat. The game has remained the same for about 30 years; a Wasp published in 1985 will still play the same here and now.
Catalyst Game Labs has not (yet) succumbed to fucking with a proven product just because they can because they had the idea of throwing in some shiny geegaws that they like, and in the process making the game into something it is not and making it harder to acquire and use as well as damaging the appeal of the product to its proven audience of customers.
Now, tomorrow I will build on this further by showing how malevolent actors can and do exploit this for their own ends.
"When the new owners announced a revival, all they had to do was put out a fixed version of the original game.
ReplyDeleteThey did not do this."
Interesting that while they have been decent stewards of Battle Tech, Catalyst has been absolutely horrible with Shadowrun.
There is nothing in the 3e rules that can't be fixed. But catalyst went and changed how the diepool worked for no reason because they failed to deal with the underlying complexity issues that have plagued the system. (In their defense Fasa failed to do this as well for 3 editions.)
So now 6e lands with a wet flop because while people still have fond memories of the IP, so they'll give the game a look, but when they see that the system is still a hot mess - they walk away, again...
You can bring them in with fond memories of the IP - but turn them away with the system.
Vampire is another similar case of this when they changed editions - they somewhat fixed the system, but then they went and changed the lore that everyone liked. Another split fanbase fail.
Warhammer fantasy roleplay is going for back to back own goals. 4e is not the disaster that 3e is but instead of fixing the known issues with 2e, and adding new features that actually enhance the game at the table, C7 said "Nooo... why would we do that!"
4e adds all new features, on top of adding more mechanical complexity - thereby introducing all new issues that need to be fixed! This just serves to keep WHFRP a 3rd tier also-ran RPG that has a great setting, but is perpetually held back by mediocre systems..
Referencing Catalyst: Battletech vs. Shadowrun stewardships.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the difference has a lot to do with the fact that when they got a hold of the IP, Battletech was already a very mature product compared to the Shadowrun RPG.
A wargame will get live play tested on a level that most RPG's cannot hope to match. Tournament play alone will refine a system and reveal all its shortcomings in a way that most RPG groups do not, or are even capable of.