other potential ATE, DF, MH OR Action series?

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Some of that exists: Infinite Worlds: Worlds of Horror is published, and a second Ken Hite Horror product was mentioned, which is presumably Madness Dossier. That seems to also be the Ken Hite product mentioned here.

I remember an announcement of "three Horror support PDFs", of which Worlds of Horror was the first, though I can't now lay hands on it and I may be wrong. I think at this point it's reasonable to assume that Madness Dossier is the second, and that the third (whatever it might have been) won't happen since Ken is now full-time with Pelgrane Press.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

... and that the third (whatever it might have been) won't happen since Ken is now full-time with Pelgrane Press.

I think you're right.

[Rasputin]

Depends on how long you want the series to go, and how well Evil Stevie takes the idea.

Space Opera, of course, is the obvious choice. That would have a players'/template PDF, a GM PDF, one for aliens to kill (as opposed to racial templates, which should go in the players'), another one for tech goodies above and beyond the basic kit in the players' PDF. You could go for awhile with this one, like more aliens, breaking vehicles from the other tech, something like the old Space Atlas series.

For 1-2 PDF runs, there are others. Somebody already mentioned Westerns. That needs one for the players, which might be all that you need. Another is Pirates, which seems a natural considering Evil Stevie. Again, this is like Action, and you could do the whole thing in 1 or 2 PDFs.

One thing that needs to be obvious for these is the genre. If you can explain the genre in less than 10 words to someone mildly predisposed to gaming or geekery in general, you're good. Victorian Horror? I'm not sure how well it would sell, but folks don't need an explanation. The gaming opportunities are pretty clear for that.

World War 2, however, is a bad choice, even ignoring the 3e line. Since you have to explain to me what my character would be doing in more than a short sentence, it means that you have too many options for this since my idea of a WW2 adventure won't mesh with the next guy's, which won't mesh with someone else's. Am I catching spies in London, defending Stalingrad, escaping from Stalag 13, what? Just being in a platoon is really structured in terms of adventures for this idea; it will get tiresome fast.

Also, the lack of a place to go wild with few social constraints hurts as well. Most military games have this problem. One of the takeaways we always have from war is that there are social constraints to killing folks and taking their stuff. Maybe not right away, but it catches up to folks. It's flat-out wrong, and we shouldn't be encouraging that. We're doing this to escape the grind for a few hours; realistic choices with realistic repercussions appeal only to a few gamers.

Dungeon Fantasy has a clear pitch: find evil monsters and take their stuff. If there is a society, you get to be a hero. You saved a village or a maiden or something.

Action is a little trickier: fight bad guys like in the spy movies, and show off cool moves and gadgets. Bond is always a hero.

Monster Hunters: go into the dark houses and kill the monsters and cultists. I might be doing an injustice here, since it don't have the series and have no interest in the works that inspired it.

After the End: survive in a post-apoc world. Folks are trying to kill you and take your stuff; hit them with your car.

Space Opera: much space opera is almost the same as dungeon fantasy. You can have more overarching plots with evil empires and space trading, which are more a part of space opera than dungeon fantasy, but there is always going to strange new worlds and fight the aliens instead of going into the dungeon and fighting the monsters.

Pirates: loot the enemy ships and maybe hit a port. There's some interaction with strange new cultures as well, especially for a Euro-centric crew in the Carribean or the Far East.

Westerns: defend against the settlers, fight the cattle rustlers. You could step on a few toes if you're not respectful to everyone here, and it's very American-centric.

[Grouchy Chris]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Narrowish genre focus
The game is about hunting monsters etc rather than say a complex game about the real 13th century.

I think this is the really distinctive element of both DF and MH. Even more specifically, both of those lines are focused on one particular type of adventure: "We're going to loot dungeons" or "We're going to hunt monsters." They each have a model adventure that the line is built around, which in turn tells you what kind of characters would be appropriate for those adventures.

So while I would love to see more supplements for space opera or pulp adventure, that's not a narrow enough focus to create a line in the DF/MH mold. And for those two genres, I don't know what the model adventure is. For space opera, it might be something like "We're going to explore new planets," that's both still pretty broad and at the same time much more restrictive than the general category of space opera, so there will be many people who were looking for something else from their game. And the same is true of pulp adventures. I can't think of a model adventure that's specific enough to base a series around, and yet general enough to capture the flavor of Indiana Jones, the Phantom, and Doc Savage all together.

I could see a series for superheroes, if the model adventure were "We're going to thwart crime," and it typically played out like the Batman TV show: so-and-so supervillain is plotting a big crime, leaving clues spread over the city, and the heroes need to get to the jewelry store or museum or observatory or whatever to have a climactic showdown. But I don't know if that's what other people have in mind when they think of a DF-style treatment for supers.

[vicky_molokh]

Heroic wuxia?

[Anders]

Maybe a social game. GURPS Rom-Com? :)

[Proteus]

"Space Opera" and "military sci-fi" seem way too broad to be successful.

...but I could see a GURPS Bug Hunt, with a book for player archetypes, a book for GMs looking to set up interesting tactical situations, a book with extra variations and different species of baddies, a book for integrating psychic powers, a book with extra equipment, etc.

Basically, I agree with the idea that successful lines are about obvious missions, not genres. Kill the monsters and take their stuff; break into protected locations, neutralize resistance, and secure the objective; find the monsters, kill them, and save the people. The mission has to be obvious, simple, and appealing. If GURPS Action isn't selling as well, then it may be because its focus is more vague than its companion lines.

GURPS Cyberpunk does seem like another obvious choice. It's got obvious archetypes; it's been the subject of successful, classic RPG lines that people may want to emulate; and it offers lots of room for expansion. Off the cuff, the line could include: a book with character archetypes, basic equipment, and rules for cinematic hacking, etc.; a GM's guide for campaign and adventure design; a catalog of additional weapons, equipment, and cyberware; a description of several corporations with adventure seeds; a "bestiary" of street gangs, corporate strike teams, and other NPC opponents; a book about integrating psi powers or magic, for those who like their cyberpunk that way; and so on.

I don't think of "Westerns" as a line so much as a one-off PDF like GURPS Supers, though it could certainly be helped by something like a GURPS Locations release detailing a small tone out of which to base campaigns, or a GURPS Thaumatology product describing Native American magic, etc.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Action is a little trickier: fight bad guys like in the spy movies, and show off cool moves and gadgets. Bond is always a hero.

GURPS Action is actually a bit broader than that. It also covers the player characters being the bad guys, e.g. an elite heist gang. A better summary might be: "Like an action thriller movie."

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

To an extent, Space Opera is just Action with Ultra-Tech. I'm not sure how much room is left for a space opera product line between those two when put together.

You'd want to deal with blending the conventions of Space Opera and Planetary Romance. You'd want templates, Adventuring Scholar/Scientist, Pilot Extraordinare, Psion, Space Swasher, ect. You'd want some Aliens, foes, allies, demi-gods, PCs, ect. You'd need some varrient tech levels. And you'd need Psi-options. You could get a few meaty titles.

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Can anyone think of any other potential ATE, MH, DF or Action series?

Did I miss something? Has After The End been released? Because that and Madness Dossier are what I'm currently aching for.

I just fear that ATE will turn out to be over-the-top mutant madness- a sort of a GURPS: Fallout or GURPS: Gamma World. I want more like GURPS: Aftermath! or GURPS: Morrow Project. Sort of the same way I was disappointed with Monster Hunters- which is a great product, just not what I was looking for. I wanted more normal-people-fight-evil and less demigods-fight-evil.