The Business: Conventional Play Slowly Realizing That Tie-Ins Aren't That Great

Last week, Roll For Combat talked tie-in Tabletop products for IPs external to the hobby.

Derik (yes, that's how he spells his name; blame his parents) got it: if you can nail emulating the feel of the source material, you will find sufficient success.

The Gold Standard for this is the d6 System iteration of Star Wars, which had the unique benefit of being designed and published in time for the 10th anniversary of A New Hope in 1987 but also in the lull time between Return of the Jedi (1983) and The Phantom Menace (1999) where Lucasfilm worked with West End Games to help achieve that end. (Oh, and Stephan nailed why Star Wars is so hard to get right.)

Very few licensors even bothered to do half as much, and it shows in the product; this is why almost all of them are dogshit that deserve to be relegated to footnotes or articles that come down to "It could have been cool, but it wasn't because they screwed the pooch."

Stephan had the other big thing driving this: most such product is bought because of Pop Cult dynamics; they exist to be Objects Of Worship and Adoration, not to be even read- let alone played. (Again, d6 Star Wars was the exception that proved the rule.)

Then Mark comes in with the reality check: even the best tie-in game utterly pales compared to Pink Slime Fantasy, especially D&D.

Also, I am reminded that post-2000 Tabletop design is terrible. Most people have no fucking clue what they are doing; I did an article abou this at the Clubhouse- read it.