I was asked to post about this in a thread of its own...

Several times, when discussing the advantages and disadvantages of having a game with perfect niche appeal vs. a game that has broad popular appeal but might make compromises to do so, I've drawn comparisons to this article from an homage site to WABC, the #1 Top 40 station in the US for many years, on the day WABC stopped playing music and the death of Top 40 radio in general (edited to highlight the point of comparison that I want to make):

   WABC stopped playing music on May 10, 1982 a date known as "the day the music died". The main reason is really quite simple: FM Radio.

Radio is a medium of technical advancement. [...] Throughout the country, particularly in major markets, the growth of FM stereo increased dramatically in the 70's. This technical improvement had two effects:

First, FM stereo sounds better. The same music played on AM vs. FM clearly sounds significantly better on FM. [...] If the music on WABC did not sound as good as the identical music on another, better sounding station on FM, what chance did it ultimately have? And, of course, FM radios themselves just kept getting better and better.  [...] Of course AM stations did (and still do) have a further reach, but the difference was now insignificant as far as the local radio market was concerned.

Second, and I believe this point is frequently overlooked: With the advent of FM stations you introduced another 20 plus radio stations into the market. When AM was by itself, there were simply fewer radio stations. Those fewer stations needed broad appeal formats to survive; whether it be music, talk, or news you had target your format to be generally appealing. Now, what happens when you add more radio stations? You end up with a different kind of programming.

Today, radio stations generally do not try to program to everyone. Instead they target a specific demographic group and program to it. So, rather than playing all the hits you pick and choose from that list to fit your demographic. Today, instead of traditional "Top 40", you have Alternative Rock, Classic Rock, Urban Contemporary, Classic Soul, Adult Contemporary, Hot Adult Contemporary, Contemporary Hit Radio, Dance, Oldies and so on. Musicradio WABC tried to reach the audiences of all of this music and successfully did so for many years. But now with so many radio stations, music is fragmented into separate stations each targeting their own small piece of the music audience. This was the ultimate downfall of all the great AM Top Forty radio stations like WABC (and many others like WLS Chicago, CKLW Windsor/Detroit, KHJ Los Angeles etc.).

Was something lost? This is, of course, debatable. In my view, yes. Whenever "we" do things together we have a bond. We all listened to these great Top 40 radio stations in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Ask anyone over the age of 30 if they ever heard of the Beatles, the Four Tops, Elvis Presley, or the Beach Boys and almost everyone can name their hits. Do the same for most any of today's stars and even the 14-25 year olds won't know the stars' names from the "other" formats. Of course, the plus side is that you don't have to listen to a lot of music you don't like just to hear the things you do like. That is the basis for today's music radio programming. Yet, a lot of the fun of a station like Musicradio WABC has been lost. Instead of trying to find that magic formula of what will appeal to most of us, we try to find some combination that won't offend only a few of us. In my opinion, that's too bad.

I miss the jingles, the personality disc jockeys, the grand promotions, and, the feeling that I got when I walked into a place where I had never been before and heard the sound of the Musicradio WABC chime ringing in the background from a stranger's transistor radio...

Another thing you'll notice is that radio stations now change format more frequently, too.  As one genre of music rises and another falls, you may find your classic rock station has suddenly become a dance music station.  

Is the music industry better than it was 30 years ago?  There is certainly more variety and it's easier to listen to exactly what you want, but as the person who wrote that homage page asks, was something lost?  And in a social game where you need to find other people who share you tastes to play with, I don't think that's simply a idle concern.  In many ways, have D&D being the Beatles, Four Tops, Elvis, or the Beach Boys has been good for the hobby because it gives role-players a common experience and the RPG equivalent of the iPod is people sitting at home playing World of Warcraft rather than sitting around playing D&D with their friends.

As with sales figures, commonality as such is an abstract concept that means nothing.

One must always ask: How does the commonality come about, what does it rest on, are/were alternatives even available?

As someone whose defining moment in music was listening to the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, and to whom the only listenable radio show in all of Europe during the better part of the 1980s was John Peel, a Top 40s commonality isn't one I ever wanted to be part of.

Nor did this make me an isolated snowflake.

Because the alternative to a regime of taste based on the smallest common denominator is not the atomization of an audience into singular monads.

On the contrary, it's the creation of subcultures, which are by definition group practices and styles.

Whether in gaming or in music: you have this cultural dichotomy going on between utter conformity on one hand, utter dispersal on the other. The factual existence of subcultures contradicts that. Just as the alternative to the bestseller list isn't "vanity publishing," so the alternative to Top40s charts isn't "vanity music."

It's clearly an affront to you, but you need to face the fact that there are viable communities out there which, even though they do not share your cultural values one little bit, are nonetheless viable communities.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityOn the contrary, it's the creation of subcultures, which are by definition group practices and styles.

That is certainly an option, provided the subcultures are large enough, because as their number approaches 1, the closer it becomes to atomization.  I don't think that the subcultures would be large enough to be healthy if they simply form out of parts of the existing role-playing culture.  I do think that they could be large enough if they bring new people into the hobby.  But then the community that plays subculture X games would likely have as much in common with people who play subculture Y games as fans of the Sex Pistols have in common with fans of Neil Diamond.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWhether in gaming or in music: you have this cultural dichotomy going on between utter conformity on one hand, utter dispersal on the other. The factual existence of subcultures contradicts that. Just as the alternative to the bestseller list isn't "vanity publishing," so the alternative to Top40s charts isn't "vanity music."

Contradicts what?  The point isn't that subcultures can't happen (of course they can) but that two subcultures can have very little in common.  Sure, I know the name "Sex Pistols" and even the name of the album, but I can't tell you what their music really sounds like or name a single song.  And I'm not sure if you could name songs in some of the genres I like.  But I bet we could both name a Beatles song or an Elvis song and hum a bit of it.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityIt's clearly an affront to you, but you need to face the fact that there are viable communities out there which, even though they do not share your cultural values one little bit, are nonetheless viable communities.

Define viable.  At what point does a subculture cease to be viable, in your opinion?

Quote from: John MorrowI was asked to post about this in a thread of its own...

Thanks John!

Here's a first thought that is somewhat similar to what I said in the other thread earlier: I think it's no wonder this industry is not growing (and many contend it is slowly shrinking) when Elvis (D&D) remains king for 30 years. This industry needs more hits. And I'm not saying necessarly indie or experimental hits... but you need fresh faces once in a while. We've had few recently. Since the mid 90s, it's pretty bleak, IMO.

As for the analogy, I think the first thing would be to establish the parallels, would you agree?

So, the games are analoguous to music artists.
We can map retailers to music stores.
Internet impact can similarly be mapped, right down to piracy.

But where's the broadcasting of RPGs? Internet forums are definitly not it. Too much freedom (they play pretty much the role music forums do). There's never been anything like Radio for RPGs, IMO.

I don't think things have changed much in this hobby. We're seeing the same kind of diversity, the same lack of broadcasting and Elvis is still reigning at the top of the charts

QuoteThat is certainly an option, provided the subcultures are large enough, because as their number approaches 1, the closer it becomes to atomization.  

Abundant empirical evidence in music and gaming proves this idea, while sounding reasonable, is anything but. Bunches of people have been listening to bunches of music styles. And the Forge, the very origin of story games, has been a collective endeavor. Whatever else one may dislike about it: it wasn't individualism but community, whether as publishing advice, design critique, or actual play, has been central to the storygames subculture from the get go.

QuoteContradicts what?  

Contradicts precisely what I said it did.

QuoteThe point isn't that subcultures can't happen (of course they can) but that two subcultures can have very little in common.

I could hum a Beatles song because once upon a time that stuff was inescapable. That I can now hum other tunes, together with like-minded people, I consider a major asset. I don't miss a commonality that was imposed on me & mine.

And it's not as if before 1982 people's music interests had been marching in lockstep. I mean, early Pink Floyd? Captain Beefheart? Decades of non-mainstream Jazz and Blues? That grace of cultural cohesion from which you're seeing us all falling is a myth. For a while it was enforced more rigorously in some quarters than is possible any longer. Good riddance.

As for our rather more cozy corner of culture: ditto. Look at WoD vs. D&D. Look at the rpg.net D&D edition wars. At least Elvis fans can agree on which are his greatest hits. But when it comes to D&D, even the mainstream is divided against itself.

Not that the mainstream knows that story games even exist. After half a decade, their impact on mainstream game design has been nigh-zero. Their siphoning off of mainstream gamers, ditto.

So, story games aren't eroding the values of Western culture as we know it. For one thing, because they're way too marginal. For another and far more important thing, because "we" and "our" culture have been far more diverse all along than you claim.

QuoteDefine viable.  At what point does a subculture cease to be viable, in your opinion?

Viable = continues to generate original, creative activity among its members. Once it doesn't, once it's content merely to repeat the same riffs, song lengths, dress codes, design patterns, attitudes, catchphrases, it's no longer viable. See Punk rock. See WoD. See OSRIC.

Quote from: John MorrowThat is certainly an option, provided the subcultures are large enough, because as their number approaches 1, the closer it becomes to atomization.  I don't think that the subcultures would be large enough to be healthy if they simply form out of parts of the existing role-playing culture.  I do think that they could be large enough if they bring new people into the hobby.  But then the community that plays subculture X games would likely have as much in common with people who play subculture Y games as fans of the Sex Pistols have in common with fans of Neil Diamond.

Well, my favorite gaming convention at this point is AmberCon NorthWest.  It's only usually around 90-100 people, but it is a great time.  The Amber set seem more of a separate gaming sub-sub-culture than indie RPGs are.  For example, the biggest gathering of indie gamers and publishers is still GenCon Indy, whereas Amber has its own conventions -- ACUS, ACUK, ACNW, and TBR.  (There are dedicated indie gamer gatherings, but they're small compared to GenCon.)  

Is the Amber RPG community healthy?  I'm not sure how one would judge.  I guess one definition of "health" is there being a growing number of participants.  However, that seems to attach an unfair stigma of "unhealthy" to old-fashioned hobbies that are going out of style, when I don't think that there's anything wrong with that.  Alternatively, there is Pierce's definition of generating original creative activity which seems reasonable to me.  As for Amber -- I don't have a picture of the wider community, but everyone enjoys themselves at ACNW, and the numbers seem fairly constant though not particularly growing.  It is barely generating commercial published works, but people continue to develop stuff for campaigns.

Quote from: Consonant DudeHere's a first thought that is somewhat similar to what I said in the other thread earlier: I think it's no wonder this industry is not growing (and many contend it is slowly shrinking) when Elvis (D&D) remains king for 30 years. This industry needs more hits. And I'm not saying necessarly indie or experimental hits... but you need fresh faces once in a while. We've had few recently. Since the mid 90s, it's pretty bleak, IMO.

Well, arguably we've had three variations on Elvis but I think your point is valid.  The industry does need more hits.  And I think it's going to get hits one of two ways -- either by appealing to the mainstream of the hobby or by bringing new people in.  Ideally both.  And that's pretty much was WW did.  So, yes, I think that's a very cool observation from my analogy

Quote from: Consonant DudeAs for the analogy, I think the first thing would be to establish the parallels, would you agree?

Sure.

Quote from: Consonant DudeSo, the games are analoguous to music artists.
We can map retailers to music stores.
Internet impact can similarly be mapped, right down to piracy.

Yes, I think that's correct.

Quote from: Consonant DudeBut where's the broadcasting of RPGs? Internet forums are definitly not it. Too much freedom (they play pretty much the role music forums do). There's never been anything like Radio for RPGs, IMO.

I think the analogy is that the GM is the broadcaster and the players are the audience, in that the GM was generally the person who bought the books and the players wouldn't spend nearly as much on the game.  At least that's the sort of "party radio" that the article was talking about, hearing it at the beach or park or in cars driving by.  And the iPod is basically World of Warcraft, where you can buy your game and play by yourself, without anyone else in the room if you want.

Quote from: Consonant DudeI don't think things have changed much in this hobby. We're seeing the same kind of diversity, the same lack of broadcasting and Elvis is still reigning at the top of the charts

I think that's a very good point.  The hobby doesn't need a new edition of D&D.  It needs another Vampire that speaks to the younger potential players to bring them in.  And the indie/story-oriented games aren't going to fill that role unless they cover subjects with broad appeal and are explained in a way that beginners can get, not only to play with experienced players but to learn from the books.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityAnd the Forge, the very origin of story games, has been a collective endeavor. Whatever else one may dislike about it: it wasn't individualism but community, whether as publishing advice, design critique, or actual play, has been central to the storygames subculture from the get go.

That had been happening for years in other venues (e.g., Alarums and Excursions in particular) and the idea of story-oriented games, player empowerment, and GM-less games had been tried by other games before, including, notably, Theatrix and Baron Munchausen, and there was publishing advice going back at least into the mid-1990s, as well.

Philip Masters wrote an article that went into some of the terminology being used on A&E and among game designers for [i[Interactive Fantasy[/i] in the mid-1990s called On The Vocabulary of Role-Playing.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityI could hum a Beatles song because once upon a time that stuff was inescapable. That I can now hum other tunes, together with like-minded people, I consider a major asset. I don't miss a commonality that was imposed on me & mine.

You might if you had trouble finding like-minded people to hum along with.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityAnd it's not as if before 1982 people's music interests had been marching in lockstep. I mean, early Pink Floyd? Captain Beefheart? Decades of non-mainstream Jazz and Blues? That grace of cultural cohesion from which you're seeing us all falling is a myth. For a while it was enforced more rigorously in some quarters than is possible any longer. Good riddance.

Not a myth at all.  There was a mainstream and there were subcultures.  But what happens when there isn't a mainstream?  All Pink Floyd, Sex Pistols, non-mainstream Jazz and Blues and no Elvis or The Beatles?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityAs for our rather more cozy corner of culture: ditto. Look at WoD vs. D&D. Look at the rpg.net D&D edition wars. At least Elvis fans can agree on which are his greatest hits. But when it comes to D&D, even the mainstream is divided against itself.

Well, sure, but that's because the owners of D&D, three times now, have said "The King is sounding old.  Let's crown a new King."  And while they may play a lot of the same cover songs, the sound is a bit different and some people like the new sound and some people prefer the old.  I'm not saying that we should listen to Elvis forever.  Elvis was eclipsed by the Beatles.  The hobby can move on.  But there aren't any more Elvises or Beatles because rather than appealing to the mainstream, most artists just appeal to a smaller niche.  And rather than listing outside of their niche, everyone just sticks to the format that they like.  To listen to the variety that I used to get with one Top 40s station, I need to shift between an oldies station, a rock station, an adult contemporary station, a dance station, a rap station, and so on.  I also sometimes listen to the top songs on iTunes for all of the music genres looking for gems.  I can find stuff on all of those stations I like but I have to go looking for it.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityNot that the mainstream knows that story games even exist. After half a decade, their impact on mainstream game design has been nigh-zero. Their siphoning off of mainstream gamers, ditto.

Well, yes.  There are two angles to what I'm talking about.  The first is the reality that they don't have a huge impact.  The second is the "what if" "coherent" games became more dominant and games started being created for niches rather than mainstream appeal?

Quote from: Pierce InveraritySo, story games aren't eroding the values of Western culture as we know it. For one thing, because they're way too marginal. For another and far more important thing, because "we" and "our" culture have been far more diverse all along than you claim.

I never claimed that there wasn't diversity.  You're the one who seems to be implying that the Forge was the origins of a lot of things that had been around a lot longer in general.  Experimentation has been going on since the very first days of role-playing which was, itself, an experiment in wargaming.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityViable = continues to generate original, creative activity among its members. Once it doesn't, once it's content merely to repeat the same riffs, song lengths, dress codes, design patterns, attitudes, catchphrases, it's no longer viable. See Punk rock. See WoD. See OSRIC.

Then I have a different definition of "viable" than you do.  My definition includes "sustainable" past the current members dying off.

Quote from: jhkimIs the Amber RPG community healthy?  I'm not sure how one would judge.  I guess one definition of "health" is there being a growing number of participants.  However, that seems to attach an unfair stigma of "unhealthy" to old-fashioned hobbies that are going out of style, when I don't think that there's anything wrong with that.

There isn't anything wrong with that if you don't have a problem with the inevitable extinction of the hobby.

Quote from: jhkimAlternatively, there is Pierce's definition of generating original creative activity which seems reasonable to me.  As for Amber -- I don't have a picture of the wider community, but everyone enjoys themselves at ACNW, and the numbers seem fairly constant though not particularly growing.  It is barely generating commercial published works, but people continue to develop stuff for campaigns.

How many people in that community would love to play an Amber game but can't find anyone to play with?

From my Livejournal account:

Quote

• The majority of gamers that played tabletop role-playing games are, in general, the sort of people that (as WOW players) post things like "LOLRP" and name their character "Backstabber". Role-playing is not, never has, and never shall be an attractive component to RPGs; the stuff that sells, the stuff drives the business in every medium where RPGs thrive, are the games that minimize role-playing as such and maximize gaming and gameplay. The "interactive movie" formula of Mass Effect is as close as the majority shall ever accept- and ever go.


• The minority of gamers that played tabletop role-playing games to actually portray a character, the sort that the Story Games folk purport to pursue, are increasingly finding that the free-form, forum-based RP toys (because there's no game to them, really) more to their liking when not writing fanfic or dabbling in theater.


• The very idea of what we know as role-playing games was, in truth, an unstable fusion of two subcultural trends that really have no business sharing space together. Once the technology arose that allowed both parties to part ways, they would do so- and that's just what's happening now.


• To WOTC's credit, they do acknowledge this by their rebranding of D&D as a "fantasy adventure game" and refocusing D&D increasingly on the core skirmish-scale wargame and adventure board game fusion that Gygax and Arneson invented back in the early 1970s. To WOTC's detriment, they fail to realize that MMORPGs do it all better than they ever will, save for speed of content publishing, and even that takes a big backseat to convenience and persistence- something that's been cried for, as show by actions, since the beginning.


• Because the gamers are increasingly gravitating to MMOs, console and PC RPGs while the role-players have finally found an outlet that takes them away from the game stuff that they don't want, there isn't anything for would-be saviors of tabletop RPGs to rescue. The forum RP communities do all that any indie RPG could do better, and the MMOs do all that traditional adventure games can do better, so unless there's a major reversal or unexpected turn of events what we have now is the Twilight of the Gods and the End of an Age.

Quote from: John MorrowThat had been happening for years in other venues (e.g., Alarums and Excursions in particular) and the idea of story-oriented games, player empowerment, and GM-less games had been tried by other games before, including, notably, Theatrix and Baron Munchausen, and there was publishing advice going back at least into the mid-1990s, as well.

Sure, awesome. So?

QuoteYou might if you had trouble finding like-minded people to hum along with.

Not in the past 25 years, but hey.

QuoteNot a myth at all.  There was a mainstream and there were subcultures.  But what happens when there isn't a mainstream?  All Pink Floyd, Sex Pistols, non-mainstream Jazz and Blues and no Elvis or The Beatles?

Paradise, sheer Bliss.

QuoteTo listen to the variety that I used to get with one Top 40s station,

My memory of yon days is thankfully foggy, but your "variety" is my "uniform aural pollution."

QuoteI never claimed that there wasn't diversity.  You're the one who seems to be implying that the Forge was the origins of a lot of things that had been around a lot longer in general.  Experimentation has been going on since the very first days of role-playing which was, itself, an experiment in wargaming.

For a proper understanding of my actual position, I recommend you start reading my posts on therpgsite.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarityor a proper understanding of my actual position, I recommend you start reading my posts on therpgsite.

Well, you called The Forge, "the very origin of story games".  That depends on what you mean by "story games".  If you are defining that as the games produced by the Forge diaspora, then you are pretty much saying that games produced by the Forge community had their origin on the Forge community.  If, on the other hand, you were talking about that style of game (with a story focus, experimentation, writer-publishers, etc.) then that's been going on a lot longer.  So what exactly did you mean by that statement?

On second reading, I'm more troubled by my use of the word "origin." Am I not aware of its function as keystone in the history of Western logocentrism? Also, "very." The way I use it is for emphasis bordering on tautology. That's rhetorically irresponsible. As for "the" and "of," well don't get me started.

In short, John, you need to understand how words are used in a discussion between people. I'm afraid I can't point you to a link that might explain how that works.

Quote from: John MorrowThere isn't anything wrong with that if you don't have a problem with the inevitable extinction of the hobby.

The second great truth of the Buddha:

Everything changes.

Also, often expressed as, "Everything dies".

The extinction of the RPG hobby is, in fact, inevitable.  One day people will look back on it just like we look back on the Mah Jongg craze of the 30s.

All hobbies die.  Model railroading is experiencing its last gasp; most modelers are Baby Boomers, are therefore now Empty-Nesters, and have a huge amount of disposable income.

In twenty years when the Baby Boomers are on a fixed income, I expect the model railroad industry to have imploded.  Right now, it's about a half-billion dollar a year industry.  The decline will start in about seven to ten years.

And in marketing terms, the segmentation of the marketplace into smaller, more easily-targeted niches is a trend unlikely to reverse.  It's not just music and RPGs.  EVERYTHING is being segmented.

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerFrom my Livejournal account:

"they fail to realize that MMORPGs do it all better than they ever will,"

Sorry, Junior, you're off on this one.

What MMORPGS sell is the same thing that chain restaurants sell -- a reliable, consistent level of quality.  When I go to Olive Garden, I know I'm going to get a "pretty good" Caesar salad.  What I will NOT get is a FUCKING AWESOME one, like the one I got in the marina restaurant at Port Superior.

Of course, I will also not get the inedible pork chop I got somewhere around Mauston, Wi, either.

Most people are INCREDIBLY risk-averse, and happily forgo the possibility of ever having a wonderful meal to avoid the possibility of having a rotten one.

MMORPGs cater exactly to this mindset.  When I log onto WoW, I know exactly what I'm going to get.  It will never reach the abysmal depths of the worst TT experience I've ever had.

It will also come nowhere near the heights of the best TT experience I've ever had.

MMORPGs, the Olive Garden of games.