Mass appeal is all the rage these days

came here to post this

Monsterhearts

I don't know, I'd think you'd have an easier time convincing people to play a high-school drama than a fantasy or sci-fi adventure

What, no, this is a recent and unprecedented catastrophe. It's not a tragic exile if it's literally always been that way.

FATAL has stolen too much of the awful game spotlight. Bring back Black Tokyo!

This. Even people that like it barely play it.

>I'd think you'd have an easier time convincing people to play a high-school drama than a fantasy or sci-fi adventure
Then why isn't it more popular than the hundreds of fantasy and sci-fi adventure games out there?

"Hey, remember how much fun you had in high school trying to fit in and not being able to control your body and emotions? Fuck being an elf wizard, I want to pretend to go through that torture again!"

GURPS

>use a regular deck of playing cards as random number generator, give the suits or at least colors significance. the deck is shuffled, and you pull a card instead of rolling a die.
>whenever a card is pulled, or used, or whatever you burn it. immediately.
>play by yourself, or with an AI (that you programmed/designed yourself preferably)
>the campaigns plot is more of a metanarrative on the rise and fall of existence. not the world or universe, but the actual fabric of existence.
>end your life as soon as you finish the campaign to make sure that you nor no one else can play anything like this, and make it appealing to the masses by mistake

Should be obscure and challenging enough for you

Yeah, but this time you're a witch or a faery.

>Monsterhearts
This, OP. Can't more outsider than an explicitly queer game with themes of sexual confusion and gender identity issues. This game is all about challenging ideas!
But I'm willing to bet that you think SJWs have taken over gaming and probably don't want to be challenged at all, like most of Veeky Forums

Isn't the Monsterhearts author an rpg.net moderator?

Just because everyone hates something doesn't mean it's good.

I don't know, I don't keep up with the drama of who or why Veeky Forums hates other sites.

>Mass appeal is all the rage these days.

What kind of statement even is this? As if appealing to as large an audience as possible wasn't desirable by literally every person trying to sell something since the first cave man tried to find out which of his neighbors would give him the most stuff for his roasted mammoth or whatever.

Anyway, if anything I'd say the case is the opposite. Niche games are far more common now than at the dawn of the hobby. Until very recently, there's been the prevailing philosophy of "RPGs let you do anything, so we need mechanics for everything!" With the growth of Kickstarter and the ability for small companies or individuals to self-publish, we're now getting a huge influx of small, tightly-focused games that were made on shoestring budgets and can turn a profit with relatively small sales.

I mean, look at Saga of the Icelanders. It's a game that allows you to play 9th-century Norse settlers in Iceland and explore social and gender norms in the context of a small settlement. And that's it. That's a game with a fucking tiny potential player base, one that couldn't exist in any real way back when the only way to get your book to the world was to convince an actual publisher to put it on paper. We're in a goddamn renaissance of games that can survive without "mass appeal".

>I mean, look at Saga of the Icelanders. It's a game that allows you to play 9th-century Norse settlers in Iceland and explore social and gender norms in the context of a small settlement.
Tell me more.

This is the only correct answer.