Thinking about White Wolf’s relatively recent trend towards limited lines, I started wondering how GMs view this approach. Limited lines are those which have a predetermined (and announced) endpoint, which the publisher sticks to; White Wolf’s first game like this was Orpheus, which was capped at six books. They’ve since carried this approach through with Promethean, Scion and the upcoming Changeling revamp.
On the one hand, limited lines are nice because you know you won’t need to buy a jillion books to have the whole thing. And in theory, the publisher has and executes a tight, planned theme or backstory — rather than milking every corner of the setting or every game mechanic to create more books.
On the other hand, some games benefit from having a multitude of sourcebooks: Would the Forgotten Realms be the same world if there weren’t oodles of books available for GMs? And some gamers (GMs and players alike) enjoy buying into game lines that continue indefinitely.
Where do you fall on this spectrum?
A lot of it for me would depend on the quality of the material. A lot of sourcebooks can be “here is an upgraded thief!, you get sneak, but with a different name!” If that is what is being put out, then I’m not so much interested. However, if there is lots of characterization and backstory, maps and npcs, new powers and abilities, or some new rules (Like how to run flight, or how to make creature types into characters, etc.) then yeah that is the kind of source book that I would buy from here to eternity.
Something that is fairly narrowcast though doesn’t need all that kind of stuff bogging it down. A themed setting that follows a very specific path can’t continue on forever. It will either move outside the boundaries it set for itself, or it will keep re-churning the same stuff over and over again. I think it is great that whitewolf is doing their non-lead lines as more focused products and not attempting to milk them.
Really, Limited line systems aren’t. Sure, the particular line is ending in 6 months, or whatever, but is the publisher going to stop producing books? Heck no! they’re just going to produce DIFFERENT books. In a way, this is a MORE profit-centric model than in unlimited lines because while in an unlimited line, additional books are simply “suppliments” which you don’t “need”, in a limited line each book is of more importance. There’s your main book or two and the most important expansions. They never get to the point where they’re making books primarily about fluff, or incredibly esoteric subjects that only one in a hundred games will make use of. In addition to that, the consumer will never get to the point where they feel burnt out on the product or simply don’t care about one more suppliment. All the books come out when you’re still in that stary-eyed “gee wiz” period. Further, the system when looked at from a “Whole system” perspective seems like an incredible deal when compared to the infinite cost of an unlimited line.
The risks here, however are enough that not every publisher is jumping on the concept. First, you’ve got to have a loyal enough player base that they’re going to be interested in further lines from you, or be a big enough name that they’re not going to overlook your offerings. Further, you’re eventually going to have to innovate in some way. There’s only just so many big name monsters/mythologies for White Wolf to rip off for example. Now that they’ve finished vampires, werecreatures, mummies, mages, ghosts, Faries, special humans, mages, gods, and children of the gods, where now? I’m sure they’ll find some other public domain intellectual property to rip off, but sooner or later unless you plan on publishing “Christmas Elf: the toymaking” or “Smurf: the smurfening” (which actually existed online at one time I’m told) you’re going to have to make up original material and not only does that take more effort, but it’s harder to sell.
Huh. I guess I’m not quite that cynical. I see “Creatively building on shared mythology” where some people see “Ripping off public domain”…..
I own a few Exalted books, but that’s it for WW. I never really liked their system.
But I own two “RPG properties” in depth for reasons that have nothing to do with game system: Forgotten Realms and Harn. To me, these settings are much more important than any particular implementation of the game system. I’ve used both in Fate, GURPS, and Unisystem, with ( apparently ) reckless disregard for the authors’ intentions regarding game system.
I guess I’m funny that way.
It’s definitely an interesting approach, and (now that I’m aware of it) I’ll keep an eye on how it plays out in the marketplace.
Personally, I think the “unlimited” approach makes a few assumptions and leads to a few consequences that I’m not a fan of (complexity = goodness, power creep, more time spent “keeping the munchkins at bay”, etc). This may help avoid those.
I think this situation requires a core mechanic that can be dropped into almost any setting (Fudge, GURPS, d20, Hero, True20, Savage Worlds, etc). I like the idea of self-contained books/series like the Black Company Campaign Setting, or ‘adventure path’ boxed campaigns that don’t take a lot of tweaking to run.
(Tweaking your game is a Good Thing, and should be done by every GM with the time and talent to do so. Designing a game that requires tweaking by the GM is a Bad Thing, at least in this busy gamer’s opinion.)
I am an unabashed fan and worshipper of Orpheus. The game was designed as a limited story line, but with infinite space for a continuing game. It’s well thought out, well planned and brilliantly executed. I only wish more people knew about it so I could more easily recruit players.
That being said, I don’t think the Forgotten Realms would be the same if they didn’t possess reams of material. Of course, I don’t like the FR material. It’s too much like walking into a movie mid-reel; I feel stunted by the mythology and history and bored by the metaplot. With Orpheus the great part is that it came out and now there’s no more. While we’re free to continue the storyline or world in our own games, there’s no ongoing metaplot to feel constrained by, or to explain to new players, “No that didn’t happen in this game. Elminster is dead from a magical venereal disease in my game.”
Personally, I was very turned off when the RPG supplement explosion occurred some time back. I think DM’s are creative people. Specifically, I’ve found the less a campaign has to do with prefab settings, the more interesting it is.
Of course, modules and magazines have always been great sources for ideas. However, I’d say 90% of the d20 material in print is fluff. -I don’t know much about WW.
Yet, instead of limited lines, I’d like to see a system completely playable with a solid core of 1-3 books. Following this, I’d like to see explicitly non-essential publications loaded with personalities, ideas or scenarios designed specifically for piecemeal harvesting.
I think a distinction needs to be drawn between “rules material” and “setting material.”
I’m generally a fan of consolidated rules, but I don’t mind tons of setting material.
That said, crunch sells.
Walt,
I’d really divide it up even more. I see a division between setting background elements, and “modules.” I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing that I think is valuable as unlimited is modules. A module might incidentally provide more setting detail, but endless setting detail that is not tied pretty closely to an example scenario is at high risk of being irrelevant. Having tried gaming with a few highly detailed settings (Glorantha, Harn, and Tekumel for some specific ones), I found that when I started play with a relatively lightly defined setting (both Glorantha and Harm), the setting was useful, and I could make my own extrapolations, as needed by actual play. When I started bringing in the exploding setting material (which was right off the bat with Tekumel), it quickly became apparent that the game was being lost in the details.
On the other hand, my successefull AD&D 1e play was heavily driven by modules. Actually, D&D modules also drove my successfull RuneQuest campaign, and a couple Cold Iron campaigns (the first was set in Harn, the second in Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor).
Expanding rules may have some benefit, but the benefit was best when the expansion was slow. Both D&D and RuneQuest had new rules (creatures, spells, magic items, and skills) introduced through modules. These were helpfull, but when supplements started to be about adding numerous new character options, the expansions became less helpfull.
Back in the 1e days, the games I generally saw, did incorportate the occaisional new class, but nothing like the rate of classes (originally prestige, but now core classes also) being added to D20. New spells were added somewhat faster, but still at a moderate pace (especially starting from AD&D, where the first significant addition of spells was Unearthed Arcana, with just a few spells here and there from modules, magazines, and our own invention in the meantime). Monster explosion was easier to handle, though honestly, I primarily included new monsters because they were in a module, and only rarely pulled something in from the Dragon or the Fiend Folio (I didn’t play very much after MMII was introduced, though many of the creatures in MMII came from modules and the Dragon and were already potentially in play).
Of course I’m also not interested in meta plot from supplements, which is what drives many of the setting supplements that come out these days. I would much rather that additional setting supplements provide additional detail to an otherwise static setting, where the dynamic element is provided in actual play. That does make modules hard to produce, unless they are old school “dungeons” that had little connection to setting. Modules describing localized incidents could also still be useful, perhaps allowing the actual game group to provide the bits that tie them into the overall campaign.
Frank
Frank, I share your sentiments. Modules were great for harvesting ideas.
That’s what I’d like: A solid core of rules, with an never-ending flow of modules.
System supplements might be interesting on an individual basis. However, I think they generally lead to a watered-down and less interesting system in the long run.
Frank,
I see your distinction and you make great points (and I almost wrote about similar experiences in my last post), but I was looking at it from a different perspective.
As a GM, I don’t mind a ton of setting material coming out, even if I don’t use it, since it’s unlikely to affect my game.
If a player reads a cool new supplement in the “Misremembered Lands,” it’s easier for me to shrug and say “looks great, but we’re not playing in that game world.”
On the other hand, if a new rulebook on “Super-cool Variant Special Abilities for Space Jockeys” comes out, it could directly affect my game (and my pocket, since I’d likely shell out another $30-$40 on it).
I guess what I’m saying is that, if a company were to say “buy these 1-5 books and you’ll have a complete system that we won’t alter until a new edition,” then it wouldn’t bother me if they released several setting supplements that I wouldn’t use.
Another point to make is that ever-expanding rules means that you have to lug more game books to the session. This might not be too much of a problem if you GM at your own place, but it’s still annoying to flip through three books to find some combat rule or spell.
Walt,
Ok, I see where you’re getting at.
Definitely good point about ever expanding rules. The nice thing in the early days with the slow expansion was that you could photocopy the one or two things from magazines you wanted and keep them in a binder. Much harder with the class book of the month that WOTC puts out these days.
I don’t think it helps much to be a non-class based system either. GURPS has a horrible supplement mill, though most of the supplements are different settings, still, someone always wants to use something from the latest setting. The Hero system also pumps out lots of rules supplements, and each new version comes out with a larger core book.
Unfortunately, it seems that basic economics, especially in these days of consumer demand for “the latest new product” are driving faster and faster release cycles and more and more new material.
Frank
I like the idea of limited-run systems. Keeps it short and to the point. But they are limited, and thus, can’t always net the detail I want. It happens.
But, as for the appeal, I think a lot of the appeal of limited-run comes from the fact that most of the ‘big’ companies are very solidly hooked into the supplement treadmill, and people occasionally want a release from that, but yet still want to buy from their preferred company. So it works well for the big guys, because it allows them to keep their marketplace happy, but also minimize the problem of devoting resources to relatively unpopular game lines, and a lot of the indie guys are producing stuff that’s so limited-campaign focused that for all intents and purposes, their stuff is just a limited run of 1 or 2 books.
I don’t have enough experience to really express a preference. Back in the ’80s, I was content with my 1e core books. They sustained me for well over a decade. I did buy modules, but created many of my own adventures, using those books alone.
Fast forward to three years ago. I returned to D&D after about a 20 year hiatus. The Eberron campaign setting had just come out and really hooked me. So far, I’ve picked up every supplement that’s been released for the setting, and look forward to the future ones. I’ve also picked up a few other non-setting specific 3.5 supplements that as a GM and a player wanted to implement in my games.
I did pick up Ptolus, which I think constitutes a limited line. Although it’s a d20 system, with it, I have everything I need to run a campaign without the need for additional supplements.
As a longtime participant in the D&D rules treadmill, and a sporadic participant in the White Wolf splatbook endurance race, I definitely appreciate knowing that I only need a couple of books to run a game.
Of course, you don’t need more than the core rules to run any game, but if there’s stuff out there that I don’t have, it gnaws at me. I know that’s not rational, but I’ve learned to accept it. 😉
I like the idea of a basic division between setting material and rules expansions. I definitely prefer more of the former and less of the latter in most cases.
Being a book slut in general, I’m not entirely sure why the limited line concept appeals to me. Closure, I guess? I enjoy having everything for a line, and limited lines make that goal easier to achieve. Again, not really rational.
Anyhoo, rambling, I’ll stop now. 😉
Another important distinction to make is that not all rules expansions are of the “splatbook” variety. In some cases, new rules actually improve upon the original. Unfortunately, this makes you lug around more books.
If you think about it. You really don’t need anything beyond core books (for d20) anyways. Everything else is just a supplement.