Discussion about use and development of Playtools for RPG Software at http://thesoftworld.com/playtools/ ()

Cory Dodt | 26 Aug 2007 09:03

Flagship game systems

When we talk about Playtools, we are going to focus on a finite and small number of rules systems that our developers actually use.

Which ones should these be? D20 will be included, but I'd like to know what other popular systems should be treated as first-class. It's difficult to even get a sense about which ones are the most popular; except to go by the "I've heard of that" rule, which is somewhat unscientific.

Consider this a poll. What do you play, and how would you rank those systems by popularity? How much mindshare do they have among your friends?

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Christopher James Halse Rogers | 26 Aug 2007 09:35

Re: Flagship game systems


On Sun, 2007-08-26 at 00:03 -0700, Cory Dodt wrote:
> When we talk about Playtools, we are going to focus on a finite and
> small number of rules systems that our developers actually use.
> 
> Which ones should these be?  D20 will be included, but I'd like to
> know what other popular systems should be treated as first-class.
> It's difficult to even get a sense about which ones are the most
> popular; except to go by the "I've heard of that" rule, which is
> somewhat unscientific. 
> 
> Consider this a poll.  What do you play, and how would you rank those
> systems by popularity?  How much mindshare do they have among your
> friends?

I've played a fairly wide variety, from d20 to HERO to some rather more
obscure ones such as Earthdawn and Con:X.  Out of them all, d20 & HERO
are the only systems that I'd regularly play, and d20 certainly rates
higher than HERO.

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Christopher Armstrong | 26 Aug 2007 23:20

Re: Flagship game systems

On 8/26/07, Christopher James Halse Rogers <chalserogers <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> Consider this a poll.  What do you play, and how would you rank those
> systems by popularity?  How much mindshare do they have among your
> friends?

I've played a fairly wide variety, from d20 to HERO to some rather more
obscure ones such as Earthdawn and Con:X.  Out of them all, d20 & HERO
are the only systems that I'd regularly play, and d20 certainly rates
higher than HERO.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as CHRis here. It's interesting to note that apparently the top two systems being played at Gencon this year were D&D and HERO, according to Steve Long's latest herogames.com update:

"During the con we had 99 HERO System games being run, the most of any game system other than D&D — much thanx to Joe, Matt, and all the rest of the crack GMs who put together and ran these events!"

I'm actually somewhat surprised, and very glad, to hear that HERO has that position.

As far as data models go, it's interesting to note the differences between D20 and HERO here. My impression is that D&D would have many of its basic rules represented well as data, since so much of it is defined with tables. HERO, on the other hand, seems to rely less on enumerated data and more on equations. It's certainly possible to store equations as data in N3 files, but I wonder how applications which use either ruleset will differ.

--
Christopher Armstrong
International Man of Twistery
http://radix.twistedmatrix.com/
http://twistedmatrix.com/
http://canonical.com/

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Jonathan Lange | 27 Aug 2007 02:45

Re: Flagship game systems

On 8/27/07, Christopher Armstrong <radix@...> wrote:
> On 8/26/07, Christopher James Halse Rogers
<chalserogers@...> wrote:
>
> > > Consider this a poll.  What do you play, and how would you rank those
> > > systems by popularity?  How much mindshare do they have among your
> > > friends?
> >
> > I've played a fairly wide variety, from d20 to HERO to some rather more
> > obscure ones such as Earthdawn and Con:X.  Out of them all, d20 & HERO
> > are the only systems that I'd regularly play, and d20 certainly rates
> > higher than HERO.
>
>
> I'm pretty much in the same boat as CHRis here. It's interesting to note
> that apparently the top two systems being played at Gencon this year were
> D&D and HERO, according to Steve Long's latest herogames.com update:
>

Ditto. It should be noted that our sample space is skewed.

If you don't know the HERO system, their website has a free PDF intro
and 2-page combat summary. They also have PDFs & books for sale
(support independent game publishers!).

jml

headers

Cory Dodt | 31 Aug 2007 18:39

Re: Flagship game systems

Did a little ad-hoc research on this topic. Results at http://wiki.thesoftworld.com/GamePopularity

On 8/26/07, Jonathan Lange <jml-yY3BSXyb5hReoWH0uzbU5w@public.gmane.org> wrote:

On 8/27/07, Christopher Armstrong <radix-wgPraSjSqjuEakHPNWoOSQC/G2K4zDHf@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 8/26/07, Christopher James Halse Rogers <chalserogers-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org > wrote:
>
> > > Consider this a poll.  What do you play, and how would you rank those
> > > systems by popularity?  How much mindshare do they have among your
> > > friends?
> >
> > I've played a fairly wide variety, from d20 to HERO to some rather more
> > obscure ones such as Earthdawn and Con:X.  Out of them all, d20 & HERO
> > are the only systems that I'd regularly play, and d20 certainly rates
> > higher than HERO.
>
>
> I'm pretty much in the same boat as CHRis here. It's interesting to note
> that apparently the top two systems being played at Gencon this year were
> D&D and HERO, according to Steve Long's latest herogames.com update:
>

Ditto. It should be noted that our sample space is skewed.

If you don't know the HERO system, their website has a free PDF intro
and 2-page combat summary. They also have PDFs & books for sale
(support independent game publishers!).

jml
_______________________________________________
Playtools mailing list
Playtools-6jERelQEh3RICGm3nVZjAw@public.gmane.org
http://thesoftworld.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/playtools

headers

Jonathan Lange | 1 Sep 2007 04:18

Re: Flagship game systems

On 9/1/07, Cory Dodt <corydodt+playtools_spams@...> wrote:
> Did a little ad-hoc research on this topic.  Results at
> http://wiki.thesoftworld.com/GamePopularity
>

A site like http://www.frpgames.com/ might give you different skewed
data to Amazon or B&N.

jml

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Cory Dodt | 1 Sep 2007 06:14

Re: Flagship game systems

On 8/31/07, Jonathan Lange <jml-yY3BSXyb5hReoWH0uzbU5w@public.gmane.org> wrote:

On 9/1/07, Cory Dodt <corydodt+playtools_spams-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Did a little ad-hoc research on this topic. Results at
> http://wiki.thesoftworld.com/GamePopularity
>

A site like http://www.frpgames.com/ might give you different skewed
data to Amazon or B&N.

Is there an way to figure out the popularity of a given title from there?