Re: GenCon: Yet another review

At 09:32 AM 8/19/97 -0600, you wrote:
>

> FT's Future
> I was in some good discussions on FT and its future throughout the con
and 
> got some views from Jeff Gullion who also runs a retail game store. 
It was 
> agreed that GW is a miniatures company who creates rules to sell their

> minis.  They do a good job of making eye-candy minis that kids buy and
of 
> keeping something new always coming out.  FT minis are not selling
well at 
> Jeff's store but the rules do ok.  In his view, the casual players
pass up 
> on FT because of a lack of pre-designed ships and additional
supplements.  

This ties in with what I've seen locally. If you can get people to try
the
rules, they love it. However, they mostly don't want the trouble of
having
to invent the ships on their own. That's one reason the Star Trek, B5,
and
Star Wars backgrounds are so popular. You KNOW what weapons to use for
each
ship. You KNOW about how powerful each ship should be. You don't have to
work this out for yourself. 

There's one other thing: players like games with a lot of support. It
makes
no sense, but there it is. If a game has a ton of supplements out for
it,
they're likely to check it out. If it's only the main rules, they tend
not
to be as interested. This is NOT just me talking out my exhaust pipe. I
have
a friend who has written a set of RPG rules. He was told by distributors
that for his rules to be a success he had to get out a bunch of
supplements.
For whatever reason, a game with supplements will sell better than a
game
without, all things being equal and regardless of whether or not the
supplements are needed. I saw the same during college when I worked in a
comic store.

> They are looking to get quickly into a game but do not want to spend
the 
> time and effort designing a fleet.  Many members of the list will
disagree 
> with this but I would not clasify most of the list memebers as casual 
> gamers.  

I'm not sure that all that many people would disagree. At the con, a
bunch
of us were talking about this. We ALL said we'd buy a fleet book. In
fact,
if Jon came up with a fleet book for each side in the universe, we said
we'd
buy EACH book if for no other reason than to get ship ideas. One of the
reasons I don't play FT more than I do is that I don't have a big
library of
pregenerated, playtested, balanced ships. If I want to play FT, I have
to
think about it ahead of time. FT doesn't have any ability to just play a
pick up game with little pregame work. 

> When Jeff runs FT games at his store, they always fill up quickly 
> and the players have fun but no one else is running games there due to
the 
> lack of balanced fleet designs as the powergamers ruin the
design-your-own 
> pick-up games and the other gamers do not want to spend the time
designing 
> full fleets and scenarios.

I fully agree. One other thing Jeff mentioned: a new version of a game
often
canabalizes the sales of an earlier version if the versions are
relatively
different. Jeff saw this in his game store and I saw this at the comic
store. When Silent Death: The New Millenium came out, it tended to
alienate
the older players. Now Jon has argued that a new version of a game
doesn't
destroy the old version, and I agree with this. However, I tend to be an
early adopter and I would pick up the new version anyway. What happens
in
your game group if half the guys want to move on to the new version and
the
other half like the old version just fine? Well, experience indicates
that
your game group moves on to a different game entirely. Jeff saw this
with
Silent Death (SD seems to be recovering now, but it's taken several
supplements to do it). I saw it with RuneQuest back when Avalon Hill
released RQ3. If the follow-on product isn't an enhancement to the
existing
rules but a rewrite, it tends to divide the players playing the game and
can
lead to a decline in the playing of the game.

My fear is that the changes in FT3 will not be readily accepted. This
will
result in cons running FT2 and FT3. At some point FT2 will no longer be
for
sale so new players will only have FT3 available. The problem comes if
the
old guard mostly refuse to move to FT3. At that point there is no one
pushing the new version. Add to this a lack of fleet books and the game
could stop selling. We'd still have our ships and our rules, but it
would be
harder and harder to bring in new players. I don't know if this would
happen
but it's what I fear.

Jeff and I had a discussion about this and we came to the conclusion
that
there wasn't a lot wrong with FT. We'd like to see the point system
fixed
(there's the A battery over price, the unbalanced Kra'vak weapons,
etc.).
We'd like to see a campaign system and a fleet book (if not a whack of
fleet
books). I'd like to see some new systems and the real thrust movement
rules
(as an option only). However, if these were all rolled into a
combination
fleet book/second supplement I'd be happy. Jeff feels that DS2 needs a
revamp, with the command and morale system of SG2 grafted onto it,
before a
revamp of FT is needed.

> These comments are not intended to bash JT and GZG.  I think highly of
him 
> and his games.  I included them because I think they are valid views
from 
> the rest of the gaming world, including the retailer's front line
point of 
> view and the view of the casual gamer which is not represented by the 
> postings to this list.  In the end they want more material to support
the 
> well received rules.	As soon as the Fleet Book and Alien supplements
to 
> DSII and SGII come out, they will boost the sales of the rules and
extend 
> the life cycle of the rules which by some accounts have already peaked
and 
> are on the decline.

I couldn't agree more. As I said, I'd pick up FT3 without a second
thought.
So would a lot of list members, though a number of list members have
expressed antipathy towards some of the suggested rules changes. I would
like nothing more than to have the GZG games the most popular SF
miniatures
games on the planet. 

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage