I've been absent from the forums and out of touch with recent developments; after reading through a few threads, it appears that:

1) NRC is revoking CGI's license to produce Harn material in the future?
2) NRC is putting out WAY overpriced pdfs of HMG revised + new material
3) CGI is still putting out Harn material
4) Golotha has been revised--I already have the original version, why do I need the new version?

I'd very much like to be informed of what's going on with Harn and its future. I'm concerned about the compatibility between the various editions, and want to know if HMG includes mounted combat, or if it's only in HM3. I have HM1 and 2 (never played 1). I don't see any reason to buy both HM3 and HMG, so which is superior? I heard HMG has superior character creation rules to all other editions?

As far as the pdf market goes, based on RPGNOW.com, any gaming pdf priced over $10 is a guaranteed sales disaster (most are around $5.00-$6.95). Customers still have to pay through the nose to print them out, which is pretty much a requirement to render them useful at the gaming table.

There are no free downloadable previews of any of the NRC pdfs, so there is no way to know what the quality of the pdf actually is, or the measure of its usefulness. Sure, NRC does good work, and those of us familiar with it make our assumptions accordingly, but newbies have no clue, and even those familiar with NRC and Harn would probably like to see a preview before making a buying decision, especially with the outrageous prices of Harn vs. any other RPG (CGI as well as NRC).

I understand prices are high because sales are low, but it seems to me that not enough is being done about promoting Harn to the mainstream gamer. Frex, right now many in the online d20 community are screaming for gritty low fantasy/magic rare rules AND settings, and many d20 companies are rushing to fill that void. Conan d20 is coming out any week now, Monte Cook's Malhavoc Press is working on one, and FFG's dark Tolkienesque Midnight setting is doing well. Green Ronin came out with a Biblical Old Testament setting, and is working on a Medieval Europe one as well for release in a few months. Harn World "for d20" should be pushed now more than ever before, yet I see the exact opposite being done by CGI (kudos to NRC for providing d20 rules for Evanekin). Harn should be remade for d20 as an OGL system game, allowing NRC to tweak the d20 rules and class/level/XP system much moreso than the standard d20 license). OGL licensed games are proving just as popular as d20 with Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed (another low fantasy setting). While I know Harn purists would be vocally against this, bringing Harn to the masses in a d20/OGL incarnation (perhaps through a publishing/distribution deal through one of the larger d20 companies like White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery, Mystic Eye Games, or Mongoose) might be the ticket to really making some money and getting Harn the exposure it deserves. CGI did a lousy job of promoting/distributing its d20 Harn stuff (dual-statting was a good idea, though), and the Harn purists sabotaged Auran before it could get its Harn.de project really going. Yes, some sacrifices would have to be made here and there, but such would be necessary to make Harn palatable to the mainstream. It COULD work, properly done. I want to see beautiful, hardcover Harn books, and this is the only way I ever see it likely to happen.

Hello Agrikan Fury, been a while...

Lots of stuff has been bandied about as to the situation between CGI and NRC. It's going nowhere I think...at least for now.

I agree that most of what you propose for taking Harn mainstream could quite possibly work. What you are suggesting is separating Harn from its rules to become just another game world, another d20 supplement. The problem is, I enjoy Harn because it isn't mainstream. Making it like all the others out there might just sink Harn for good. What makes Harn interesting to start with is its difference from most other systems. Take that away and I don't know how long Harn would last.

I have no idea how rare my personal opinion is amongst our brethren on this forum, but I'd like to think a few would agree.

I think you're wrong, AF. Hârn.de is still in existance:

http://www.harn.de

_________________
Steer me straight, O German one.
O flamer of mail, O Carver in Stone...

Spartan on HârnChat

Does it exist? I went to it and got a Pormo hyper link. Is this a Morgath-ian folly?

AF's points are by and large fair:

* The combination of HM3 and HMG on the market creates confusion. This would be more of a problem if "the market" didn't consist almost entirely of HarnFans who know the difference anyway.

* Kelestia's PDFs are much more expensive than average, even considering that Harn products carry a premium due to the small market.

* There is effectively no marketing of Harn by either CGI or Kelestia.

* Harn was never successfully introduced to the d20 market.

If CGI, NRC, and those of us in the Harn community are content to keep Harn to ourselves, letting it slowly die as our collective interest in it wanes, then I'd say we're doing great.

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Keith Mann
I really must get around to changing my .sig

(This idea has probably been hashed before...)

Wouldn't it make sense to radically change the business model and give away the rules for free in pdf format, charge only to cover printing for hardcover copies of the rules, and concentrate on supplements? Isn't that the market segment where the money is, regardless of d20, OGL or whatever? The market wants well designed game worlds, and it might be that the two producers of Harn stuff will have to give up HarnMaster in order to see Harn survive...

As for the price structure, do the members of this forum really think $28+ for a PDF version of a role-playing game is competitive? I don't. I've bought HMG PE, but none of the Harn devotees I know will even consider paying SEK 250 for a PDF.

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Peter Brink
Rollspelshörnan

I will have to throw in my 2d as well.
I agree with AF on this, that the .pdf is far too expensive as is and is even more so with the added addition of printing.

I fail to see the logic of NRC's pricing, given the fact the free fan based material is simply fantastic these days. (which by the way I would pay for but appreciate that it is free)

NRC,By pricing it in this manner, it assures that market will be small, not the other way around as some have argued.

Anyways.....
Put the PayPal button on the front page

This part of the AF post went unanswered. The answers would intrest me very much as well. Thanks!

P.S. I agree that the pdf's are overpriced compared with the rest of RPG pdf's. I also agree that more effort should be put into making harnworld better knwon: more promotion and more web support. It seems to me that a lot could be gained by simply linking all excellent free fan material and making it easily accessible via websupport to Harnworld products.

While it is strangely true that pricing a product TOO LOW decreases sales because it devalues the product in the eyes of the consumer, pricing an item TOO HIGH also decreases sales because it destroys impulse buying. If the potential customer is forced to start thinking "can i really afford this? will it deliver enough value to warrant the price tag?" then you are going to lose a lot of sales. The trick in pricing products is charge just as much as you think you can reasonably get away with without angering your customers; to that end, it must be priced close to your competitor's products. If you have no competitors (as some poor, deluded souls might wrongly argue is the case with Harn), then go ahead and charge through the roof. People who don't have a choice and want your "totally original" product badly enough will still buy it, even if they grumble.

Recently, Atlas Games has given away the core rulebook to Ars Magica for free as a pdf. I guarantee a lot of fence sitters took advantage of that offer to check out the Ars Magica rules set and it brought new players into the game. With a wider player base hooked, Atlas can rake in money from producing expensive supplements. Wizards of the Coast offers its d20 system reference document (just the rules) free of charge and lets other companies produce support products for it as well as new games (OGL or d20). Guardians of Order released their Big Eyes, Small Mouth d20 rules as Open Game Content, allowing others to produce support product. Monte Cook has opened up his ArcanaUnearthed setting to third parties.

Open Gaming is a good thing, not only for fans and publishers, but also for the companies that create the games. One company cannot possibly provide all the support its games need or its fans demand, so why bother? We all saw what happened to TSR when it tried to do too much and most everything they produced suffered as a result.

NRC and/or CGI need to do something *more* if they ever want Harn to last. This group of 1,000 or so fans, no matter how devoted or intelligent, on this forum is not enough to support it indefinitely. It only keeps it on life support, IMO.

Some suggestions: The encyclopedia format has to go. Softcover or hardcover editions have to come in; people demand books and it is industry standard. Core rules as pdf given away for free as a teaser perhaps (and only one set of *definitive* rules, mind you). Bring in third party support by making it OGL or d20. World setting all in one or two books (eastern/western harn), with expansions like Shorkyne, Trierzon, Azeryan and Emelrene to follow. Use Wizards' FR as an example of how to release product and support product; you could follow worse business models.

As it is, the pricing of Harn products is INSANE. It guarantees no one but the same 1,000 people (if that) will buy their product. CGI pulling Harn from stores was stupid, too. The reason Harn didn't sell well in d20 is because CGI dropped the ball on distributing and marketing it, producing it in a bizarre (some might say, cheap and crappy) loose leaf format that was packaged in such a way that the poor consumer had no way of knowing it wasn't a book until theyt tore off the plastic and all the pages fell out on the floor! Granted, that encyclopedia format is standard for Harn, but not for d20. Loose leaf, while it has its merits, is not and will never be industry standard. In fact, nobody else produces their games like that. Why? Because it looks cheap and crappy and turns off customers who want and EXPECT beautiful glossy hardcovers.

There is a sizable backlash brewing against D&D/FR style "uber fantasy" that smart publishers are cashing in on by providing quality alternatives. Harn should riding that wave into a glorious future... The Conan d20 game is going to be BIG; half the people buying it are buying it not for the Hyborian setting, but for the Howard-esque rules for their own fantasy homebrews. Even Wizards of the Coast is getting in on it with Unearthed Arcana next month (modular optional rules to support various styles of play beyond default "uber Tolkien" and a new, non-Vancian magic system---the book will be almost 100% Open Content). Wizards is dropping hints on how to play low magic or historical games in last month's The Complete Warrior hardcover.

Harn and HarnMaster are fantastic (note that I didn't say perfect); the quality of the content is not in question. The only excuse for Harn not being a success lies with the poor business skills of CGI, NRC, combined with a vocal minority of overprotective, elitist fans afraid of anything new or making compromises. Harn must grow or it must die. As it stands now, it's in a weird quasi-state of limbo, cut off from the mainstream who, if they've heard of it all, think of it as a game for super-nerdy elitist snob brainiacs hell bent on "the slogging through the mud while dying of disease" type of uber-reality simulation RPG... which it's not (unless you want it to be).

I'm not trying to step on any toes here, I'm just trying to say how I feel and express my frustration at how something as cool as Harn could be so badly bungled for so long by so few, even if it was done unintentionally and with good intentions. Nor am I suggesting I have all the answers to "fix" the problem. Quality products should succeed, but they don't sell themselves! Otherwise, Betamax would've beaten VHS, right?

IMHO, this argument is a two-edged sword. Due to Harn's small market and demand, those of us who do produce and publish fan material on the Internet are allowed to do so with the only condition being that we acknowledge CGI and NRC copyrights on the documents.

If this product were a more popular product in the scope of D&D or even some of the smaller companies that sell in the more popular stores, you can bet we would not be allowed to publish such material without stricter control or outright bans.

_________________
Roy Denton - the title says Baron, but Queen for a year. (Cheselyne I)

"Nathamh na hoibre an t-eolas"
(Knowledge comes through practice)

The definition of what constitutes "good" is subjective. What I think of as "good for Harn" and what you think of as "good for Harn" can be two different things.

Auran didn't go out of business, AFAIK. They released their Harn.de adventures but rewritten for a different setting. The adventures were praised, including Shades of Grey. I don't think they were big hits, but then I don't think the world is ready yet for ".de" (CD-Rom gaming enhancements + printed adventures).

AF, all your points are valid opinions, but I would argue against two of them quite strongly. First, Harn doesn't need d20 at all; there are other systems out there that could do the job of conveying the feel of Harn much better than d20, which (along with the whole OGL concept) I view as nothing more than a good marketing ploy and a very bad idea for roleplaying as a whole. (I have this really big issue with companies that monopolise markets, and then exploit those markets at the expense of everything, including their customers, just to make an obscene amount of profit in the next quarter).

The second is your emphatic statement that Harn must grow or Harn must die. My reply is "Nonsense!".


While it would be nice for CGI and NRC to have more customers, it's been going along like this for 20 years, and there's no reason at all that it can't continue like that. Yes, there is a greater than normal chance that it MIGHT die out, especially given the current situation, but there's no reason on Earth that it MUST die. My argument isn't so much with the sentiment behind the statement, as with the statement itself.

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Leitchy
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Well, to be perfectly fair, Leitchy, it hasn't. I think the state of Harn is a long way from where it was 20 years ago.

I don't agree with AF's conclusions about what ought to be done, but I do think it's reasonable to be concerned about the size of the market.

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Keith Mann
I really must get around to changing my .sig

When you say a long way from where it was 20years ago do you mean better or worse?

Well, lets see. 20 years ago they were just coming out with the issues of Encyclopedia Harnica. The rules set was still 7 years or so off I believe, maybe 10. The material that was coming out was taking about three to four months between maybe less in a few cases. However, once the last one came out was it was a very long ime between new stuff, much like now.

I had the impression back then that most of the stuff in the EH articles had been put together already and it was just funding keeping it from coming out on a more timely basis. That still may be the case now.

You could buy the stuff in hobey shops back then, but the one I frequented couldn't even remember how he came about them, just that his supplier just offered them one day, there was a year when he didn't even get a single item, even the old ones because he changed suppliers. I ended up writing and ordering direct after that.

So IMO, except for the beginning, things have been pretty much static as far as out put and marketing.

_________________
Roy Denton - the title says Baron, but Queen for a year. (Cheselyne I)

"Nathamh na hoibre an t-eolas"
(Knowledge comes through practice)

Oh guys... do you really need to discuss this again?

We're the fans, the customers. We shouldn't have to worry about the product.

But in this special case, we're even more than the fans - we're the authors! We're not only the authors of fan articles, but also the authors of canon material! It is us who keep the system alive, not any enterprise or original author!

If this thing should go down, that's absolutely fine for me. I already have more material than I could ever use for GMing and I already spent far more money than a grown man should on a game.

If I still need more material, I'll just visit some of the excellent websites and dl it. Period.

Or is any of you going to stop gaming just because in a distant future, Hârn might dissappear from the commercial sector of RPGs?

And apart from that, any such discussion will lead to absolutely nothing as long as we're stupid enough to pay such large amounts for the game. It's simple: If you think the game is too expensive - stop byuing it.

_________________
Steer me straight, O German one.
O flamer of mail, O Carver in Stone...

Spartan on HârnChat

I personally don't care much for the d20-system as such, but I do think that *if* you want to create a bigger customer base, one good way of doing it would be to produce Harnic d20 material. As for the OGL, Leitchy is right. It's much more a ploy by WotC to strengthen its grip on the role-playing market than a true Open Source initiative. Open Content on the other hand is some thing I think the role-playing industry should give serious consideration (including CGI and NRC). All this of course presumes that all players on this market wants the market and the products to grow, and I sometimes wonder if the customers really do...

As for the format of Harnic products, I never understood the reasoning behind the loose leaf format, I mean look at the endless discussions on how to get 3-ring binders etc. Loose the leafs and print books!

Lastly, to counter a myth (a common one on this forum): NCR and CGI do not own Harn! They own the copyright to the stuff they've printed, NCR may also have some unpublished stuff that's also copyrighted, beyond that there are no legal barriers - at least not in Europe - for third parties to produce Harnic content. But there are economic ones, the market isn't large enough to justify investments, and the customers seems a bit bitchy.

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Peter Brink
Rollspelshörnan

Sir Eldaen wrote:


This is of course true. In fact we, the fans, have the superior position. We don't need CGI and NCR, they need us... We can make anything of Harn, they can't make anyting out of Harn without us.

Why not accept this fact and turn Harn into Open Content? Such a move would a) settle the present conflict btw NCR and CGI and b) create a possibility for third-parties to produce new material which will expand the customes base and c) give the present producers a larger market to operate in.

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Peter Brink
Rollspelshörnan

CopperHook wrote:


As far as who owns the rights to the published material, this statement is true.

It is however not true as to who owns (morally, ethically and legally) third-party produced material. Unless such material is a plagiarism such material is owned and copyrighted by its author, period. Any claims otherwise is desinformation.

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Peter Brink
Rollspelshörnan