The Culture: Tabletop Makers Need To Work Harder To Justify Their Existences

I am thinking of something that should be talked about.

Put away the Theater Kid faggotry and its performative signalling. Put away Braunstein. Put away the Cargo Cult and its stupid norms.

Think like a Normie that isn't in the hobby, but only sees it as the precursor to the Vidya versions. Specifically, think of the single-player adventure game where you control one man, doing things by himself without superpowers or items that emulate those effects. In short, your classic Fighting Man (or a boy growing into one); this is the sort of tale you see in the old days, almost all of which are in the Public Domain now.

What does that game look like?

"That's-"

No, not really. You're not looking at easily scaling things up from man-to-man to mass combat and this isn't a musou so he ain't a one-man army either; if he's facing two on one, he's in trouble, especially if they just pile on like it does in real life- and that's just other men. Monsters can easily be too much to handle even if it's just one of them.

"GURPS?"

No, not really; it, and HERO, are Dev Kit products. They are not games. They are tools to develop ideas into games.

You're looking at a ruleset that gets into the weeds a bit. Like Palladium, this is a circumstance where blow-by-blow matters. Like Traveller, this is a circumstances where you taking a hit is a serious problem. Your Pace of Decision is at the Second level, not the Minute or greater level, because the level of abstraction you're after here is one where what you wear, where your gear it, how hurt/hungry/thirsty/tired you are matters, and all of that factors into your man's performance. This is a level of abstraction that--normally--is anti-thetical to good, satisfying, or proper gameplay.

Yet few products that attempt to get this close to the single man perspective try to be readable technical manuals that Normies can read, comprehend, process, and apply in minutes and in small amounts as required. (Rolemaster being a particular offender here.)

If you're going to insist on publishing adventure game products, the least you can do is justify your existence by getting away from the space utterly consumed by D&D and its Network Effect as well as those already occupied by products/brands with similar status (e.g. HERO, Call of Cthlulhu, Traveller, BattleTech, RIFTS).

You lot need to sit down and think through what justifies your product being independent of those Networks and their Brands. Me doing this think-aloud piece above is that sort of work, because none of them do it well and few of them even comprehend the question- nevermind try to answer it.

Try to answer the question above: "What does the adventure game focused on one adventurer, with no powers, look like?"

Right now, it looks more like Sword World (and that's still a far cry from the answer) than anything else. You need to carve out the niche you claim to champion BECAUSE IT DOES NOT EXIST!