maliszew: Pulp Cthulhu

James Maliszewski (

maliszew) wrote,
@ 2004-12-28 22:29:00

Pulp Cthulhu
This book is apparently in the works again. I'm glad to hear that. However, the update text on the Chaosium page includes the following statement:

The new Pulp Cthulhu book will be a stand alone Call of Cthulhu RPG. The format will be similar (but beefier) than our Cthulhu Dark Ages book. The book will no longer include d20 stats. The d20 stuff was a grand idea 3 years ago. Publishing a book with d20 material now seems downright silly.

Besides, we all like BRP better anyway don?t we?

Is it any wonder Chaosium is perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy?

(Post a new comment)

	Cool! tsob 2004-12-29 03:43 am UTC (link)
	Yay! Less d20 mean more meat! More red, delicious, steaming meat! aheh aheh aheh Um, that is, I prefer BRP to d20, myself. The odds are this is not the best business decision, though. The masses still like d20. they too shall suffer for their ignorance ... muahah-hahahahahahah (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: Cool! maliszew 2004-12-29 03:46 am UTC (link)
	That's the thing: as a business move, the abandonment of d20 is folly, but then this is Chaosium. I mean, WotC gift wrapped a possible key to financial solvency for them and they just chucked it away. sigh (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Cool! adamjury 2004-12-29 04:05 am UTC (link)
	I'm not so sure about that. I don't know how well CoC d20 did in the marketplace, but I don't think it really got people /playing/ CoC in any noticable greater numbers than before. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Cool!

irishspy
2004-12-29 03:37 pm UTC (link)

but I don't think it really got people /playing/ CoC in any noticable greater numbers than before.

It's hard to say, given that Chaosium's follow-through to the core book was pathetic. WotC had the rights to do only the CoC D20 core book, while Chaosium had sole rights to the supplements. Had they put out a series of supplements to take advantage of the moment, things might have been quite different.

But that depended on Charlie Krank being a smart businessman, and that's like depending on the sun to rise in the west.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Cool!

maliszew
2004-12-29 03:43 pm UTC (link)

It's a real shame that Chaosium is run by the people it is. While d20 CoC might not have made the company rich, it probably, if there'd been follow-up at the time, would have done well enough to ease some of Chaosium's debt load. D20 CoC was, after all, WotC's showpiece game, an attempt to show both that d20 could handle something like Cthulhu and that WotC wasn't out to destroy smaller game companies. A pity none of that initial promise was borne out.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	mearls 2004-12-29 04:18 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, Chaosium is easily the stupidest company in gaming, and that's saying a lot. It's also interesting to see AEG move away from d20 L5R, even after WotC made it the official Oriental Adventures setting. How they messed that up... the mind boggles. In both cases, I think we're seeing RPG properties in the middle stages of death rather than any sign that d20 is fading. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	maliszew 2004-12-29 04:30 am UTC (link)
	You care to elaborate a little? I don't disagree, but I'm curious as to why moving away from d20 is a sign that a particular RPG property might be dying. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	bcwalker 2004-12-29 04:33 am UTC (link)
	I'll second that request. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

mearls
2004-12-29 05:03 am UTC (link)

It's more a sign in the specific cases of these games.

Both d20 CoC and d20 L5R received full-color, hard cover releases from WotC. Both of these books achieved significant penetration into game stores and book stores thanks to WotC. Oriental Adventures was a core D&D book.

Given those factors, that neither company was able to achieve success with either of them suggests a couple possible scenarios:

A) The WotC books tanked. No one bought them, so there was no audience to chase after. In this case, both games are already dead. Given the wide penetration into the retail market, the excellent production values, and the positive reviews for both, this likely means that the property just doesn't arouse much interest.

B) The books did well, but the supporting material tanked. In this case, both companies are still screwed. People like the core game, but they hate the supplements and didn't buy them. In this case, a new core book isn't going to revive much interest. Your market has already dwindled. Unless you invest in a deep, structural change to R&D, you're going to get the same result.

My gut feeling is that d20 CoC did rather well, but Chaosium was too inept to take advantage of it. They see d20 as a threat to BRP and don't want to support it.

I'll talk about AEG below, so irishspy sees my response.

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	maliszew 2004-12-29 02:15 pm UTC (link)
	I was under the impression d20 CoC did well also. It's not longer generally available on the market, which suggests to me that it sold through a goodly chunk of its print run. You can still get it if you poke around or go through eBay or whatever, but it's not like you can just walk into a game store and find it on the shelves. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	irishspy 2004-12-29 03:39 pm UTC (link)
	My gut feeling is that d20 CoC did rather well, but Chaosium was too inept to take advantage of it. They see d20 as a threat to BRP and don't want to support it. Having had some experience of Chaosium, this is where I'd bet my money, too. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	irishspy 2004-12-29 04:38 am UTC (link)
	Actually, I'm more interested to hear why AEG is giving up on D20. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

mearls
2004-12-29 05:09 am UTC (link)

I think sales of the d20 L5R books probably dropped below a sustainable level. They need to do a new edition to pump more money out of the property, and the designers probably would prefer to work with the original system. I could also see them arguing that d20 was the reason why sales dropped, as opposed to quality or design issues in the L5R books. That'd be an easy, CYA response.

As I mentioned above, this is patently foolish. The L5R setting received an unprecented level of exposure in Oriental Adventures. If AEG couldn't take advantage of that, the property is dead as an RPG. In comparison, both Spycraft and the vaporware fantasy setting (Accordlands) are still d20.

IMO, both CoC and L5R are stuck with dwindling fan bases of grognards. There's little, if any, new blood flowing into them. Their times have passed. AEG killed off 7th Sea d20 because the CCG is dead. Since the L5R CCG is still active, they probably think they can re-energize interest in the RPG with a new edition.

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	irishspy 2004-12-29 07:29 am UTC (link)
	IMO, ... CoC ...(is)... stuck with dwindling fan bases of grognards. Weep...for I am a grognard. (Now I know how Napoleon's Old Guard felt. :) ) (Reply to this)(Parent)

maliszew
2004-12-29 02:19 pm UTC (link)

As a possibly useless data point, OA made me look at L5R for the first time ever. I still didn't get into it, for reasons many and apparent to those who know me, but I find it hard to imagine that OA didn't have a positive effect on L5R's visibility. My feeling is that, like CoC, the follow-up material wasn't that great, or at least wasn't what the potential d20 buyers were looking for.

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irishspy
2004-12-29 03:45 pm UTC (link)

As far as I know, there was no follow-up material specific to the D20 version of CoC. And you're right about most of their recent material: other than Beyond the Mountains of Madness and Unseen Masters (? Bruce Ballon's opus), their new material isn't very good. Some of it's awful. When reprints of 20 year old material that most of your fans already have is among the best you can do, things are bleak.

(And the new material added to these reprints is often of questionable quality, making it problematic for all but the most rabid fans to buy.)

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maliszew
2004-12-29 03:47 pm UTC (link)

The only follow-up to the release of d20 CoC was a GM Screen, which was actually useful in that it contained errata and some material dropped from the core book. Otherwise, everything else they did for d20 was in the form of dual-stat appendices added to older books and in every case, these books came out years after the release of d20 CoC. It's little wonder they didn't see a sales spike after the release of WotC's book.

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	irishspy 2004-12-29 04:36 am UTC (link)
	Well, I am a well-known BRP-uber-alles fanatic, so I have no trouble with this decision from a personal preference standpoint. :) Still, one has to wonder at the lack of business sense. How tough is it to include a D20 conversion chapter? (Reply to this)(Thread)

heliograph
2004-12-29 05:03 am UTC (link)

From industry folks I've spoken with, adding the d20 material irks your non-d20 fans and doesn't materially add sales. That is:

Sales From d20 - (lost sales from non-d20 + cost of adding d20) != a positive number.

I've also heard industry folks complain about how long it takes to do monster stats by the book... maybe that's a cost thing.

We'll be doing Zeppelin Age as Tri-Stat first, and if what it costs to convert it to d20 looks like it'll result in a profitable book, we'll do a d20 book separately. Suppliments? I dunno yet. We'll be including plenty of real-world info so that the books will be generally useful.

I think there's also a perception that the folks who'll use d20 don't want to do the conversion work themselves: they want those d20 stat blocks, so the conversion chapter option isn't a pull.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	irishspy 2004-12-29 07:28 am UTC (link)
	From industry folks I've spoken with, adding the d20 material irks your non-d20 fans and doesn't materially add sales. That is: I've heard that from the early days of D20, but I thought that was just based on the ravings of a relative few anti-D20 psycho-fans on the Internet. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

heliograph
2004-12-29 01:25 pm UTC (link)

I've heard it from folks who've done dual-statted books at this year's GenCon. While I agree with Mearls (they should have done more to leverage d20), I don't agree that you need to have d20 rules to make money or expand your base. The healthiest game company I'm aware of has never used d20: Eden Studios.

What makes less sense to me is why they're making it a stand-alone, unless they're doing a major makeover of BRP, which seems pretty unlikely to me.

Lastly, you don't do a pulp project to make buckets of money. The same six people who'll buy Pulp Cthulhu will buy Zeppelin Age and Pulp Hero.

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	maliszew 2004-12-29 02:13 pm UTC (link)
	Eden did do several d20 products. Heck, they even licensed (and never produced) some French d20 products to produce in English-language editions. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	heliograph 2004-12-29 02:15 pm UTC (link)
	Dual-stat? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	maliszew 2004-12-29 02:16 pm UTC (link)
	No. These were pure d20 books. You are right, though, that I can't think of any company who did dual-stat books and came out smelling like roses. But then just about every dual-stat line was half-assed in its execution. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	heliograph 2004-12-29 02:19 pm UTC (link)
	It's better to not do it at all then to do it badly, yah? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	maliszew 2004-12-29 02:21 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, true -- and Chaosium definitely did it badly. Still, you'd think there'd be somebody out there who could do it right for them. CoC is one of those games that game designers love, even if the wider public is more lukewarm. (Reply to this)(Parent)

maliszew
2004-12-29 02:11 pm UTC (link)

Not very, but that'd require attempting to understand d20 and Chaosium, like a lot of companies, don't think that's worth their time. I can sympathize, as d20 is a very rules-heavy game system. However, when it's your business to learn these kinds of things, it might be worth it to, you know, learn these things.

Agh. I share the cri de coeur of every gamer who wishes that Chaosium would just die so that someone else competent could create a big box Lovecraft RPG.

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	heliograph 2004-12-29 02:18 pm UTC (link)
	I imagine they hired someone to do the d20 version (as originally advertised) and then the author flaked. That seems to be the subtext of most of their messages. I think it's unlikely Chaosium will die anytime soon. They're finally getting out from under the mess caused by the CCG meltdown, so I suspect they'll start producing stuff in greater volume again. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	maliszew 2004-12-29 02:20 pm UTC (link)
	Probably true. I like Chaosium a lot, but I realize that much of that liking is nostalgia rather than anything else. It's been a long time since they've done much to earn my continued patronage. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

heliograph
2004-12-29 02:28 pm UTC (link)

I just looked at Amazon and they've got an enthusiastic release schedule. More on point is the very interested blurb from Amazon for Pulp Cthulhu... I guess we could ask John and Jeff what went wrong, eh?

---

Written by John D. Rateliff, James Lowder, Wolfgang Baur, & Jeff Tidball.

In 1933, the world lies in economic ruin and political chaos. A brave few fight a secret war on behalf of humanity. Alone or in small bands, anonymous heroes battle unspeakable cults, mad scientists, and their monstrous allies.Daring men and women are all that stand between us and those who seek to unleash dark horrors upon our planet. Their hard-won victories may yet save us. This is their story.

PULP CTHULHU presents background and adventures for the decade of the 1930s, melding the classic Chaosium CALL OF CTHULHU setting with the new CALL OF CTHULHU d20 rules from Wizard's of the Coast. It provides guidelines for the use of cults, mad scientists, and pulp heroes in a classic game of Lovecraftian Horror. It explains how to create secret societies of Investigators devoted to fighting the Mythos, and details three such groups, ready-made for dropping into any ongoing CALL OF CTHULHU campaign that has reached the fateful year of 1929. Finally, it provides three adventures involving pulp action in 1930s settings, including Shanghai.

PULP CTHULHU is fully compatible with upcoming d20 version of CALL OF CTHULHU published by Wizard's of the Coast, produced under license from Chaosium Inc.

Sales points:

First in a new series of books set in the 1930's Pulp Genre.

Based upon the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and his circle of Cthulhu Mythos writers.

Fully compatible with upcoming version of Call of Cthulhu published by Wizard's of the Coast produced under license from Chaosium Inc.

Great Cross over sales potential between D20 Cthulhu players and Classic Call of Cthulhu.

Serves as "Action-Oriented" setting for Call of Cthulhu fans old and new.

Only Chaosium Inc. can publish supplements for D20 Call of Cthulhu, so retailers won't be flooded with 3rd party D20 Cthulhu materials.

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	maliszew 2004-12-29 02:31 pm UTC (link)
	I remember those ads and thought they were pretty good at showing why something like this might have done well -- had it come out on time. Pulp itself isn't all that popular, but connected to the right property, it might work. It's still a gamble, to be sure, but CoC is something that could have enjoyed some success in a d20 pulp form. Now, who knows? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	irishspy 2004-12-29 03:48 pm UTC (link)
	I imagine they hired someone to do the d20 version (as originally advertised) and then the author flaked. That seems to be the subtext of most of their messages. That happens to them a lot. Trouble is, the more reliable writers are wary of working for them because Chaosium is so flaky about payments. (Or getting contracts out, or answering emails, or... &c.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	unseelie23 2004-12-30 05:57 am UTC (link)
	I imagine they hired someone to do the d20 version (as originally advertised) and then the author flaked. That seems to be the subtext of most of their messages. It seems more likely that the author wasn't willing to work on well-meaning but weightless promises of eventually being paid. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

heliograph
2004-12-30 02:58 pm UTC (link)

Oh, no doubt. In this interview on yog-sothoth.com Charlie Krank says:
------
YS: Some interviews with some ex-Chaosium writers have expressed unhappiness with the company's dealings. How do you respond to that?

CK:I agree with them. I hate where we are and where we have been. Much of the work that I do is never seen by the public, because it does not result in finished product. That is our Catch-22. Since we have no great cash reserves, and have yet to win the state Lottery, the solution for us is to maintain as much of a publication schedule as we can, to generate cash flow. We have been able to pay off some authors and we continue to work on them. I wish this could be faster but have found that whenever I devote too much money to old debt we can't publish books, then the cash flow dries up and is miserably difficult to restart.

Finishing our mandatory plans will help greatly.
----

In English, this sounds like "we haven't paid our authors in a long time... and we probably never will."

Still, that was hardly a secret at the time. Why committ enought to get your name on the product?

(Reply to this)(Parent)

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