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the emergence of the Retro Clones
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philotomy
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:04 pm

sauromatian wrote:Okay, [not counting C&C as a retroclone] is an interesting perspective - why not?

That's a perspective I share, so I'll answer.

The goal of a retro clone is to re-present the game mechanisms of the original system with the highest fidelity that is legally possible. A retro clone tries to avoid introducing new rules, "fixes," subsystems, innovations, updates, et cetera. It's aim is truly to "clone" the original. For example, the idea behind the OSRIC trademark on a module was that OSRIC would be a "code" that really meant "hey, this is for AD&D."

Games like C&C fall into a slightly different category, in my mind. They are more like "derived" or "inspired by" games. While loose or general compatibility with the original system may be a goal, cloning that system is not. Such an approach embraces the addition of updates, new subsystems, fixes, et cetera. The highest degree of fidelity to the original system is not the primary goal. (Pathfinder is another game in this category; it's not a 3.x retro clone, it's more of a 3.x derived game. Some people even characterize it much like a "3.75," just like some people characterize C&C as the "third edition that should have been.")

Last edited by philotomy on Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

philotomy
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:06 pm

sauromatian wrote:Good to hear there's still a Nan's Games in Houston, they were what got me into gaming. Around the time the original Star Wars debuted, they were located next to the Galleria theater, leading to some darn significant synergy.

Yeah, Nan's is still my favorite game store, around here. (And worth the drive; I'm way up north in Spring.) And speaking of synergy, I often combine a trip to Nan's and the Hobbit Cafe.

Mythmere1
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:37 pm

Nan's is good, but there's another place nearby that's very close (Blue Planet? Third Planet?).

Swords & Wizardry (retro-clone of 0e) will be hitting the brick and mortar stores fairly soon (it's already available at the distributor, just not in catalogues yet).

There's a lot of good old style art in Knockspell Magazine - the traditional pen and ink work.

sauromatian
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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 10:34 pm

philotomy wrote:Games like C&C fall into a slightly different category

Aha! That would explain the confusion. When I said 'retro-clone' (actually when Badmike brought it up) I meant everything with an old-school approach: OSRIC, C&C, LL, & so on. To that I would add stuff with a new-school approach but old-school content, such as Mongoose's Runequest & Elric RPGs.

With that in mind I'll rephrase my original question: given the snowballing (maybe it's a little snowball, but a significant one) amount of RPG product with SOME AMOUNT OF OLD-SCHOOL D&D, but which is not actually official D&D, would Hasbro ever want to exploit this market for their own ends?

And barring that, what would be the best way to preserve the old original line art for future re-publication?

philotomy wrote:Yeah, Nan's is still my favorite game store, around here. (And worth the drive; I'm way up north in Spring.) And speaking of synergy, I often combine a trip to Nan's and the Hobbit Cafe.

Ah yes, the Hobbit Hole Cafe, a few blocks across Highway 59. A name that sounds completely obscene, but is particularly well-suited for gamer clientele. I remember the veggie 'Gandalf burger.'

Mythmere1 wrote:Nan's is good, but there's another place nearby that's very close (Blue Planet? Third Planet?).

Yeah, Third Planet was there when I lived in Houston, it was also a record store back then.

Badmike
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 12:21 am

Games like C&C are called "Simulacrums" instead of Retro-Clones.

No Hasbro will never try to tap this market. There is really no profit in it for them; D&D itself (3E and 4E) barely make them enough profit to worry about. Imagine 1000 times less and they would be severely disinterested.

Mike B.

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sauromatian
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:33 am

Badmike wrote: There is really no profit in it

I'll take that as the word of an experienced dealer in the stuff.

wavemotion
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 7:48 am

Badmike wrote:Games like C&C are called "Simulacrums" instead of Retro-Clones.

Yep... we're currently adding retro-clone to the RPG Geek public glossary and someone suggested that games like C&C were "pseudo-clones". But when you google "Castles & Crusades pseudo-clones" vs. "Castles & Crusades Simulacrum" you see a weighting towards Simulacrum.

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ashmire13
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 8:37 am

Much like red_bus, I'd just be glad to have shops like the US that have shelf stock of anything RPG that isnt Warhamster! Even the most local LGS (20miles away) only had 4e when I contacted them.
Esdevium games are only 10miles away, but seem unresponsive from my initial contact attempts, so hopefully they haven't gone bust!

Oh for a 'Half price bookstore' that seems so popular over there... although, I'd probably then be broke! :lol:

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Kingofpain89
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 9:06 am

ashmire13 wrote:Much like red_bus, I'd just be glad to have shops like the US that have shelf stock of anything RPG that isnt Warhamster! Even the most local LGS (20miles away) only had 4e when I contacted them.
Esdevium games are only 10miles away, but seem unresponsive from my initial contact attempts, so hopefully they haven't gone bust!

Oh for a 'Half price bookstore' that seems so popular over there... although, I'd probably then be broke!

The game stores over here seem to be pretty spotty when it comes to decent product nowadays. At least in the DFW area. Most of them are first and foremost comic book retailers so there is only a small amount of space dedicated to RPG's. Pathfinder, 4th edition, and strangely enough, GURPS seem to take up most of the shelf space. A bit of CoC, Warhammer, Battletech, Shadowrun, and a few of the new flashy games like Alpha Omega and Eclipse Phase fill out the rest. They took down their DCC carousel and dont carry Troll Lords product at all anymore.

And Half Price Books are always hit and miss. Especially if you are looking for anything in decent condition. I put back a couple of sought after CoC books not too long ago at one store because the covers were torn up and missing handouts. And of course there is the typical problem of the HPB employee that puts a $50 price tag on a mangled copy of B4. That happens far too often. Seems like the only people that ever find anything good there are the ones that have time to spend all day driving around to all of the stores in the city.

You don't like your job, you don't strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. - Homer Simpson

Gnat the Beggar
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 9:32 am

Not to mention that the Half Price employees tend to stick the HPB stickers directly onto the games/books/modules themselves.
Certainly causing a distraction from the perceived value of somewhat rare items and yes, they tend to heavily overprice many RPG items.

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Agent Cooper
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 9:38 am

Badmike wrote:Games like C&C are called "Simulacrums" instead of Retro-Clones.

No Hasbro will never try to tap this market. There is really no profit in it for them; D&D itself (3E and 4E) barely make them enough profit to worry about. Imagine 1000 times less and they would be severely disinterested.

Mike B.

I was under the impression 3E did pretty well for them, but that's just from internet rumor so who knows? Does anybody have access to any hard stats on this? And I wonder how 4E is doing now. Depending on the profit margin, I'm not so sure a retro release wouldn't make a profit in comparison.

I'm thinking about the bicycle industry. I'm a cyclist, and what I see in the bike industry is that there are levels of quality in the bicycles you can buy. Most are mass produced and relatively cheap, but there are boutique bicycle makers out there that will build you a custom bike built to your exact measurements, and also put any paint job on it you want. But they are NOT cheap, you will pay a premium for all that.

Naturally, the main customer base for these custom built bikes is older cyclists, who have been riding a long time, know bikes and know what they want, and also have the disposable income to spend on them. It's kind of like an older guy buying an expensive sports car, and that's the market they cater to. A smaller, older more affluent market.

I wonder if there might be a way to use the same model in the market for RPGs too. It's a small niche market, but what if you did small print runs of a very high quality retro product at a higher price? Give it that "instant collectible" appeal. They could do something nice with the books, like leather bindings and glossy pages, maybe some new artwork along with the old, etc. And then support it.

For instance, WOTC could say "Okay, we're opening up the vaults and re-releasing the AD&D rules in limited quantities" and then release some very high quality reprints of the core books and mods and then hire some talented folks to write some new mods to add in to the product line occasionally, in small print runs at a premium price.

I really have no idea how the game business works so I'm probably just pipe dreaming here.

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sauromatian
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 9:38 am

Kingofpain89 wrote:The game stores over here seem to be pretty spotty when it comes to decent product nowadays.

The LGS in this neighborhood is pretty huge, so it has pretty much everything. There were even new copies of Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip not long ago.

Kingofpain89 wrote:And Half Price Books are always hit and miss.. there is the typical problem of the HPB employee that puts a $50 price tag on a mangled copy of B4.

This really is a problem. They've heard that old-school RPGs are 'valuable,' so they put a high price on everything, well over the going eBay rate. Sometimes the clerks at the checkout refuse to sell me something when they suspect a shredded old comic is the equivalent of Spider-Man #1.

Gnat the Beggar wrote:Not to mention that the Half Price employees tend to stick the HPB stickers directly onto the games/books/modules themselves.

My otherwise mint copy of Chaosium's White Bear/Red Moon still has the residue of a HPB sticker. Naturally, this was one title they didn't recognize as valuable.

Agent Cooper wrote:I was under the impression 3E did pretty well for them, but that's just from internet rumor so who knows? Does anybody have access to any hard stats on this? And I wonder how 4E is doing now.

According the the Goodman Games guy, D&D peaked in 1982 & then again in 2001 in the wake of 3e. So he posits that this is a generational low for the game, & that any astute business plan on Hasbro's part should accommodate this.

Which could be good or bad in terms of widely divergent new product. Obviously they could decide to play it conservatively, but these situations sometimes produce new things - it's called the 'crisis' phase of pop-genre theory (sorry, I was a Radio-TV-Film major). When sales of a dying cash-cow go down, marketers sometimes respond with risky attempts to save it. Fonzie jumping the shark on the later Happy Days series is the example par excellence.

Agent Cooper wrote:I'm thinking about the bicycle industry..But they are NOT cheap, you will pay a premium for all that.

Odd you should mention that. A friend runs a recumbent shop just behind the local HPB. After looking for old modules, sometimes I go there & try to convince him to take up our long-ended RPG & Squad Leader games again.

Ector
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:38 am

ExTSR wrote:Heh. Reminds me that in my infamous Archive of Unique RPG Stuff there are two TSR mockups for boxes... the Dallas RPG (TSR version), and the figures for same. Never produced of course.

Frank

I am now eagerly awaiting their appearance at a collectibles auction!

sauromatian
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 1:02 pm

Now I wanna know about the 'Archive of Unique RPG Stuff'!

philotomy
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:47 pm

sauromatian wrote:â€¦given the snowballingâ€¦amount of RPG product with SOME AMOUNT OF OLD-SCHOOL D&D, but which is not actually official D&D, would Hasbro ever want to exploit this market for their own ends?

Anything is possible, but it doesn't look likely, at this point. Heck, WotC isn't even selling the PDFs of the old stuff, which is a no-brainer as far as exploiting the interest in older editions goes.

sauromation wrote:Ah yes, the Hobbit Hole Cafe, a few blocks across Highway 59. A name that sounds completely obscene, but is particularly well-suited for gamer clientele. I remember the veggie 'Gandalf burger.'

I think they officially changed the name (removing the "hole") some years back. The menu changed, too. They still serve vegetarian meals, but also hamburgers and such. My favorite section of the menu is still their sandwiches, though. And they have a decent beer selection. Any place where you can order a Gandalf, a Frodo, or a Strider while listening to Yes, drinking Belgian ale, and looking at hand-painted murals of wizards and such (even in the bathroom) is pretty cool, in my book.

Kingofpain89
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:54 pm

philotomy wrote:And they have a decent beer selection. Any place where you can order a Gandalf, a Frodo, or a Strider while listening to Yes, drinking Belgian ale, and looking at hand-painted murals of wizards and such (even in the bathroom) is pretty cool, in my book.

@Badmike
Why haven't you told me about this place before? Never been a fan of Houston (traffic is worse than Dallas and so is the humidity) but this sounds like a great place.

You don't like your job, you don't strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. - Homer Simpson

Badmike
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 8:12 pm

Kingofpain89 wrote:
@Badmike
Why haven't you told me about this place before? Never been a fan of Houston (traffic is worse than Dallas and so is the humidity) but this sounds like a great place.

Gulp.

I've been to Houston about half a hundred times and never eaten at The Hobbit. Passed it by a few times, but I was always going someplace else or in a hurry. Guess I need to put it on my "To Do" list next time in Helltown....

Mike B.

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sauromatian
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Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2010 7:16 pm

philotomy wrote:Anything is possible, but it doesn't look likely, at this point. Heck, WotC isn't even selling the PDFs of the old stuff, which is a no-brainer as far as exploiting the interest in older editions goes.

That could indicate that they intend to make money from it. After the Silver Ann. box and Dragon Mag. CD-rom were released, they said they wouldn't be reprinting any of it again. That was when they started with the free-download PDFs. I.e.:

No intent to make money from it = free PDFs
Intent to make money, possibly including by new reprints = no free PDFs

philotomy wrote:I think they officially changed the name (removing the "hole") some years back. The menu changed, too. They still serve vegetarian meals, but also hamburgers and such. My favorite section of the menu is still their sandwiches, though. And they have a decent beer selection. Any place where you can order a Gandalf, a Frodo, or a Strider while listening to Yes, drinking Belgian ale, and looking at hand-painted murals of wizards and such (even in the bathroom) is pretty cool, in my book.

A Google search shows a "Hobbit Hole Sports Bar," but it's out on Veterans Memorial. Of course, the location by Nan's Games always had the best paintings, but as a kid in the early 80s we would usually go to the location in the suburbs on Westheimer. I seem to remember the menus said the chain originated in California in the 70s (which would make a lot of sense, stereotype-wise).

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