The Business: No, That Foreign Darling Is A Loser In The Real Market

Look, I love the story of how Sword World, Dragon Warriors, and The Darkest Eye came to be. That doesn't mean that it's worth the time and resources to do more than make them available on a non-commercial basis (i.e. just a self-funding POD/ebook offering like Basic Fantasy) because the Anglophone Market is the real market in Tabletop and that's the Imperium of Man to your shit-tier pocket empire.

The problem with all of them is that they stake out the same space in the hobby as The Only Game That Matters.

There was a time when their historically and geographically specific circumstances allowed for their existence to justify itself. That died with the Internet and the proliferation of electronic publishing, with viable online play being the Mercy Stroke to finish the job. None of these games can now justify their existence, and everyone knows it.

It's most obvious with Sword World, as it is an obvious outgrowth of Basic D&D (or even Chainmail) due to its Lodoss War roots. Just use Chainmail w/OD&D, B/X, or AD&D1e.

It's a bit harder to blaze that path, but ultimately it's the same thing. Just use D&D.

"But-"

Shut up. The hobby's not about YOU. Everyone else gets a vote, and the majority now--as has always been the case--Just Wants D&D. As I said yesterday, there's 25 years of data backing up the argument Ryan Dancey made in 2000 in the ramp up to the launch of D&D 3rd Edition and the d20 System (and the Open Gaming License): It's The Network Effects, Stupid!

25 years of being proven right, time and again, despite every screw up, self-own, incompetent management, death culists dogma, and everything else that could go wrong that Wizards of the Coast could possibly do to wreck that Effect. Even at the present moment there is no competition for The Only Game That Matters. There are Also-Rans, there are Never-Weres, and there are third parties sensibly feeding niches that WOTC itself doesn't find profitable enough to bother with.

"But 4th-"

4th Edition got into Walmart. 5th Edition got into Walmart. Your Favor Indie Darling can't even get into Game Store distribution half the time, and certainly won't now that Diamond is dead and taking Retail with it.

Meanwhile, Paizo (and a few others) struggle to find their way into the Normiesphere and stay there if they do bumble into it. Can I find your crap in Costco? No? YOU ARE NOT IN THE NORMIESPHERE!

That's fine if you're positioning yourself as an upscale product for elite players (e.g. ACKS). It's another if you're trying to be the Pepsi to WOTC's Coke, which is what most of these people try to do and wonder why they fail at it.

Just stop. 50 years of trying. 50 years of failure. You cannot win within the hobby. Only an external force can pose a threat now.

Go non-commercial or quit, and I would prefer that you people just quit.