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Good point about 4e vs. 5e, aramis — we can only hope Fria Ligan are willing to invest similar effort into getting this system just so.
If there ever was a product in their pipeline that merited it, this is surely it.

But it is still irrefutable that WotC's market share owes its lion's part to their considerable marketing muscles. What other RPG publisher is able to secure highly visible product placement in properties like Stranger Things, Critical Role, even Pixar’s Onward?

I decided to do a little informal impromptu market survey yesterday — some mates of mine run a fairly major local brick-and-mortar games store. The staff are also veteran gamers themselves.

I asked them what games sell, and who buys them.

Top of the list — D&D. Of course.

Interestingly, they didn’t refer to any merits of the system, however well researched, as the game’s main selling point! Rather, they pointed at the aforementioned product placement and (obvious, really) the marketing power of the stacks of beautiful books and boxes with the D&D logo that fill 1/3rd of the physical space in the shop.
So ... I stand by the gist, if not all the detail, of my earlier assessment.

Second? Call of Cthulhu!

Nothing else really compares to these two; the OGL 5e games don’t even feature on the list, even collectively.

Ergo, the two top games are one very rules light and one fairly crunchy game.

This would seem to nicely refute all the claims that the trend towards crunch-free systems is what drives today’s RPG market.

What are the main customer demographics, then?

• D&D — pre-teens and teens
• CoC — teens and adults

If someone comes in looking for a very simple, entry-level game for a budding gamer around ten or below, they tend to purchase Mutant; to a large extent because it’s in Swedish, and simple.


Of course, though large for being what it is, this is just the feedback from one single brick-and-mortar chain in one remote corner of the planet — hardly conclusive evidence.

But until more comprehensive market research is made, it still ought to give us pause, and reason to reflect on the question I pose in the thread’s title.

Where do we believe the main market for this game is?
Is “crunch-free” the be-all and end-all answer to reaching it? Or does the target market actually tolerate a bit more crunch?
Do they even demand it?

We also have something else fairly critical that roleplayers decades ago did not: powerful PCs. There are plenty of games out there that can model whatever you like in obsessive detail and make it manageable. A side effect is that it just makes bringing that back to the tabletop feel that much more painful.

Good point that. I took a look back at Dark Conspiracy 1E (which is the same system as T2K2.0)... and the armor and damage rules are not its strength. The fire combat rules otherwise playable... and the weapons book for T2K 2.x has so many weapons which differ only in mass and price from several others. Wasted space. Hell, that' book was gun-porn all the way. Nice illos, not good play value.

Not disagreeing with any of this. Rather, it highlights an important, even vital point: this isn’t a binary issue.

It’s not a question of that T2k must either be a rules-ultralight Prince Valiant, or a rules-superjumbo Phoenix Command, period.
Neither of these crunch-levels are appropriate for the subject matter.

It’s a question with infinite grey scales, where the core issue is finding the best compromise to make the game most likely to achieve the best penetration possible in its primary target market.

Solving that equation begins with understanding what that target market is.

Well, I would wager and assert two things, then:

1) the folks actually investing in bringing this to print have probably done at least a decent job of that market research, especially if you take the KS success into account.
2) they're under no obligation or responsibility whatsoever to share that information with us here, or anyone.

Well, I would wager and assert two things, then:

1) the folks actually investing in bringing this to print have probably done at least a decent job of that market research, especially if you take the KS success into account.
2) they're under no obligation or responsibility whatsoever to share that information with us here, or anyone.

Forum needs a like button so I don't have to post and agree, cos really QFT.

Back to failing to lurk...

Well, I would wager and assert two things, then:

1) the folks actually investing in bringing this to print have probably done at least a decent job of that market research, especially if you take the KS success into account.
2) they're under no obligation or responsibility whatsoever to share that information with us here, or anyone.

Are you offering me a bet, or how should I interpret that...? How large an operation do you think these guys are running, really?
But yes, the Kickstarter backer lists ought to give decent raw data to base an analysis on ... although, I don't know how detailed backer information Kickstarter actually shares with creators.

But I thought we were just engaged in idle speculation; solely for the benefit of those of us here who find that an amusing pastime — I certainly haven't seen anyone here demand that Fria Ligan divulge any such information.

Have you?

Well, I sense a tone in many of your remarks that FL have no idea what they are doing, are messing it all up, etc. Maybe this is not what you intend to express, but that is how it comes across.

We are all free to make our own interpretations, certainly.

I cannot — would not — deny you yours.

But certainly this is a subjective discussion that is a bit off topic, and better perhaps done by PM?

We are all free to make our own interpretations, certainly.

I cannot — would not — deny you yours.

But certainly this is a subjective discussion that is a bit off topic, and better perhaps done by PM?

Honestly Vader, it's how your posts come across, intentional or otherwise. There seems a trend that you're painting yourself into a corner from which the only recourse is to rage quit the forum. I hope that's not the case. I like to be wrong.

Returning to the topic of the forum, if not the thread, I think it's great to post what we'd like to see in the alpha but I do so with a large pinch of salt. What I expect of the alpha is a largely written game whose purpose is to have people play test it so that FL get feedback on how it plays, what could be written more clearly and errata. The chance that any wholesale rewrites could or will happen seems a remote to zero possibility to me.

If I want to play my perfect game, I need to write it myself. I've been doing this for a few years now, it still isn't finished

In the meantime, I look forward to sitting round a virtual table with friends and playing games like T2K 4e

Some points to think about:

• The game has already been written, for the most part. FL will not rewrite it because of feedback from the alpha-release. They may add some clarifications, maybe even change small things here and there, fix erratas and typos. The biggest change during an alpha-release I think is the magic mishap system in FbL and that change was still technically very minor if looking at the whole game.

• FL have said that the level of details in T2k4e will more more than in their other games but less than in the original game. Some of the details in the discussions in this thread (and in other threads about this) are a little bit to much to put it mildly. We also know (more or less) the system they will be using and what level of details that allows. We have seen some in the WIP playthroughs, even though they most likely missed a lot and forgot more than that.

• I do believe that many people that have backed this, know what types of games FL makes and will be perfectly happy with the level of details in the game. They want a light-prep game that still offers some details and realism in a WWIII environment. Most players don't care for details like, Italians got extra water for their pasta (some old war game reference, sorry, it just came to me), or things like that.

Also, from the moderator me: Keep a civil tone. I have enough problems will stupid links and BS like that. This is not directed at any one specific, just a friendly note

Almost 60, Cold War kid, and a former game store owner who sold a fair amount of T2000 stuff back in the day. Paradoxically, selling games didn't leave me a lot of time to play them so I've read more RPGs than I have played.

In my tradition of using rpgs for purposes other than their main one, what I'd use as a campaign is "travelling theatre troupe in post-WWIII Europe".

Although... it might be an interesting system to run a Girls Last Tour-inspired game. GLT is not as upbeat as T2000.