Spinning off from the "WoTC is a crappy place to work" thread...

I've always seen the RPG community as composed of 2 not entirely equal parts: the hobby and the industry. Common thought is likely that the two are equal, feed off each other, or that the industry creates the hobby just as the hobby funds the industry. But I'd like to propose an alternate notion:

The industry is a parasite on the hobby.

In the 80s, when so many roleplaying games grasped desperately at metaphors to describe what exactly an RPG is (a circumstance that would, in my opinion, lead to a misunderstanding that for better or worse created the current sub-hobby of storygames convinced that they are "how RPGs are supposed to be played"), one of the most common fall-backs was to compare it to childhood games of "cowboys & indians" or "cops & robbers".

I'm not exactly certain if children play either of those any more these days, but no doubt exists that they engage in some similar form of imaginative play. The point is that this was something that came naturally to pretty much every child, possibly instinctually. What RPGs did was to provide a basic framework to play those same sorts of games, with rules to prevent the inevitable "I shot you!" "No you didn't, you missed!" arguments when the shared imaginative events came into conflict with individual player's impetus. The rules were a framework meant to be used by a referee, who adjudicated the events and set the framework for the shared imaginative space (i.e. "the gameworld"). This is the basis for the controversial concept of "rulings not rules"; the rules were meant to be utilized as an aid to the referee in their task. The task was implied by the similar role of a referee in wargaming, the pool from which the earliest roleplayers were drawn, and thus shared a similar set of unstated assumptions based on prior experience.

Thus we have OD&D: a game that can be seen as "hopelessly incomplete" or "bizarrely obfuscatory" to a modern audience, many of whom have come to expect a hand-holding set of binding rules from more modern RPGs that predetermines the process of GMing and, in some cases, reduces that role to another sort of player, sort of like the "banker" in a game of Monopoly. OD&D is based on the idea that its audience, wargamers, already arrive with a preconceived understanding of how to referee a game and make rulings.

As such, the original intention was that D&D would provide the framework and inspiration for how to play a roleplaying game, with individual group's imaginations taking it from there.

Reportedly, Gygax was initially surprised by the constant call for more rules he began receiving. More definitions, more classes, more stats for monsters, more, more. Whatever TSR could publish was eaten up by the surprisingly growing audience, and soon enough, it was discovered, they were more than willing to pay for it.

The rest is history. The late 70s and early 80s was the explosion of D&D,  bringing with it endless new rules, classes, and other eventually had Gygax proclaiming there was now an "official" way to play D&D and one should only trust the TSR-approved products. Meanwhile multitudes of new games sprang up to fill every possible niche. And things continued this way onwards until, inevitably, the fad died and RPGs ceased to be the "bright new shiny". The masses moved on to new fads, and what was left was the hobbyists. New games continued to spring up, battling over the the small core audience for their dollars, with D&D remaining at the top.

White Wolf managed to bring a brief influx of new money into the market in the 90s by appealing to the goth subculture, and found a new way of divesting the audience of its money with the "splatbook treadmill" method of publishing. It's arguable that many of the people buying the continual outpouring of material were actually making use of them for playing the game, but for a while White Wolf made the first claim to actually rivalling D&D in profits. Not that it lasted, but by the end of the 90s, White Wolf had plenty imitators of its own, and even D&D made a few attempts to extract elements from White Wolf's games.

(more in a bit...)

Regardless of White Wolf's relative success, a constant cry since the ending of the initial fad of D&D has been that's "roleplaying is dying". I heard it in '87, I heard in the early 90s, I read it in the first usenet groups, I saw it on AOL chats in the early aughts, and I've seen it on the forums as recently as this year. Articles have been published about it, "industry professionals" have blogged about it, fans have flamed about it.

Death always seems to be right around the corner for RPGs; killed by CCGs, murdered by MMORPGs, suicide by storygames, etc.

When will Hasbro decide D&D simply isn't a profitable enough venture and shelf it completely? When will the latest game company fans love close up shop, leaving those vital supplements so much vapourware? Will RPGs even live past Generation X? Sweet Jesus, what happens if 5th Edition fails?

Here is what I propose in answer to all of that: the industry was ALWAYS doomed to die. And that's OKAY. Because despite what the industry wants anyone to believe, it is not the Hobby. And the Hobby is not in any danger of dying, never has been. What could very well happen, and what would put the final nails in the coffin on the industry, is if the Hobby were to wake up and realize that it doesn't need the industry and never did.

To explain, let's go back to the very beginning again.

What OD&D provided was a new type of game. It had its roots in wargaming, but it didn't take long for RPGs to drop many of the unnecessary holdovers from its parent hobby. OD&D essentially provided a context for a group of gamers to get together and engage in shared imaginative play. It provided a manner in which classic fantasy games ubiquitous to youth could avoid the pitfalls inherent in a group setting. The rules themselves were never important; it was the philosophy behind the rules. Creativity didn't come from the games, it came from the players.

Yet for over 3 decades what the gaming industry has sold us is the 2 things that in the end either aren't important or we already possess: the rules and the creativity.

(continued in a bit)

So far so good.

Yes, back in 75 and 76 Gary, Dave, Rob, et al were gobsmacked at people asking for more rules.  Which led to conversations like:

Gary:  Some guy wrote and asked "how far does a dwarf move in armor?"
Brian Blume:  If it's horse armor, he doesn't move at all.

It's your world.  You decide.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy that him being shocked by wanting more rules, and thinking it was simply a "framework" and all that revisionist BS, along with how OD&D/whitebox was the holy grail of RPGs before it got tainted by the ignorant masses who wanted more classes and stuff.

Have you looked at OD&D? It has lots of rules, for things that no one really wanted. OD&D had rules that EGG liked and he wanted. Not a framework, but what he thought was necessary because it presumably suited how he played.

For instance, something like 6 pages for Naval combat? How many times has naval combat come up in your D&D game?

What was different back then was that people were more than happy to make up stuff themselves, not wait for official rules.

Look at all the multitude of classes people came up with. Thief, Assassin, Druid, Ranger, Bard, Illusionist, all of which got added to the official rules in AD&D, and then some others that didn't, like the Samurai (but was popular enough still to get a mention in Holmes)

Look at all the early people basically publishing their house rules for D&D early on. (Warlock and Arduin most notably).

That was actually that big thing of 3e and its OGL. It got people making their own stuff again, rather than just relying on "official" stuff. Oh sure, you had things like netbooks in the early days of the internet/BBSes, but it was pretty slim.

After the rise and fall of White Wolf the industry was delivered 2 blows that will in the long term, I believe, prove to be fatal. The first was the internet itself. Suddenly the barrier for gamers to produce and share materials for games was gone. Publishing was not important; anyone could set up a free web page and offer their own set of rules. And sometimes it seemed like everyone was doing just that. The rules-lite explosion of the early aughts online (which seems to be getting ready for another comeback judging by some of the conversations on various forums I read) led to seemingly hundreds of games showing up almost overnight.

Meanwhile, the second blow ironically came from the Industry's biggest name itself: the OGL. This provided the means to not only make any new system one wanted and get it to an audience, but to also recreate any number of systems from the past. The OGL was a stealth move that ensured that no matter what happened to the D&D brand, the game itself would always ultimately be in the hands of the Hobbyists. When the industry gave us D&D 4e, a game that was practically D&D in name only, the OSR rose to new heights provided multitudes of options for hobbyists to play any older edition of D&D they liked. One didnt even need to seek out the old books on Ebay anymore.

In the previous thread I stated that I could game for the rest of my life easily just with what's been provided online, by hobbysists for hobbyists, with no thought to profit, merely a shared love of this strange activity that the rest of the populace abandoned with their youth. Thats if I even needed someone else's rules, I could easily cobble together a workable system in an afternoon that, combined with a GM who exhibits any degree of common sense, can be used to craft any sort of game my group could imagine.

I think there's a third group in play here Tristram.  I was going to call them sheep but I think consumers or collectors is probably a fairer term.  I don't think the creative people who are putting their own stuff out there are in the same camp as the people who lack the time, inclination, creativity, or intelligence to make their own stuff or go sifting through the endless reams of small press stuff to find what they want.

I think we often sell ourselves short.  When I look at hobbyists who can put together coherent rules, settings, and adventures and put them in visually pleasing formats I can't help but think  they're not representative of gamers on the whole.

It makes me sad that there isn't greater demand for the stuff people are creating.  It disgusts me that full color hardbacks full of regurgitated content will always outsell new ideas.  Admittedly "new ideas" are relative and I've written my share of generic fantasy though in my defense, that's usually what people want or are willing to accept.

I suspect, and cannot prove, that the great dividing line is literacy.  I find it's generally under represented in the gaming public.  All those folks who want to play D&D because they think they know how to play D&D even though they've never read a rulebook in their life.  Especially the upcoming generation who always have games and friends at the touch of a button on their phones.  But so very many of them don't read books or read with low comprehension levesl and it's the readers who are always trying to put their own ideas out there and the others who just want a nice shiny hardback full of pretty pictures.

Quote from: JeremyR;814616I'm sorry, but I don't buy that him being shocked by wanting more rules, and thinking it was simply a "framework" and all that revisionist BS, along with how OD&D/whitebox was the holy grail of RPGs before it got tainted by the ignorant masses who wanted more classes and stuff.

Have you looked at OD&D? It has lots of rules, for things that no one really wanted. OD&D had rules that EGG liked and he wanted. Not a framework, but what he thought was necessary because it presumably suited how he played.

For instance, something like 6 pages for Naval combat? How many times has naval combat come up in your D&D game?

What was different back then was that people were more than happy to make up stuff themselves, not wait for official rules.

Look at all the multitude of classes people came up with. Thief, Assassin, Druid, Ranger, Bard, Illusionist, all of which got added to the official rules in AD&D, and then some others that didn't, like the Samurai (but was popular enough still to get a mention in Holmes)

Look at all the early people basically publishing their house rules for D&D early on. (Warlock and Arduin most notably).

That was actually that big thing of 3e and its OGL. It got people making their own stuff again, rather than just relying on "official" stuff. Oh sure, you had things like netbooks in the early days of the internet/BBSes, but it was pretty slim.

OD&D isn't the "holy grail" of RPGs. It was the product that introduced the concept of rpgs, and that was what was important about it. I'm not suggesting we all go back to playing OD&D, I'm saying that the philosophy behind it was introduced to the world and one need not look to the next D&D (or gameline of your choice) product to do what anyone can do for themselves ever since that genie got let out of its bottle.

Essentially what the industry has been selling us for a long time is merely newer and prettier bottles.

Quote from: David Johansen;814619I think there's a third group in play here Tristram.  I was going to call them sheep but I think consumers or collectors is probably a fairer term.  I don't think the creative people who are putting their own stuff out there are in the same camp as the people who lack the time, inclination, creativity, or intelligence to make their own stuff or go sifting through the endless reams of small press stuff to find what they want.

Do you not think that lackof time or inclination is largely a quality of us older more experienced roleplayers who have to balance our hobby with the demands of our lives? As an adolescent, I had all the time in the world to devour anything and everything I could get my hands on.

QuoteI think we often sell ourselves short.  When I look at hobbyists who can put together coherent rules, settings, and adventures and put them in visually pleasing formats I can't help but think  they're not representative of gamers on the whole.

Well, to compare it to miniature wargaming, the parent of our hobby, its something that requires an investment: demands something of the participants in an active way contrary to passive entertainment spoonfed us like videogames and TV. Certainly that won't be every gamer, but I think it represents the gamer who sticks with the hobby in the long term. A gamer for life rather than the casual gamers that come and go, seduced away by World of Warcraft or other "easier" routes to getting their fantasy fix.

QuoteIt makes me sad that there isn't greater demand for the stuff people are creating.  It disgusts me that full color hardbacks full of regurgitated content will always outsell new ideas.  Admittedly "new ideas" are relative and I've written my share of generic fantasy though in my defense, that's usually what people want or are willing to accept.

I suspect, and cannot prove, that the great dividing line is literacy.  I find it's generally under represented in the gaming public.  All those folks who want to play D&D because they think they know how to play D&D even though they've never read a rulebook in their life.  Especially the upcoming generation who always have games and friends at the touch of a button on their phones.  But so very many of them don't read books or read with low comprehension levesl and it's the readers who are always trying to put their own ideas out there and the others who just want a nice shiny hardback.

Yeah, I mostly agree here. I also must admit perhaps to being a bit of a gamer elitist. I want the best, not the tourists, to game with. I want to game with and read games by people who are filled with passion and overflowing with creativity. I don't want nor expect RPGs to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Quote from: Old Geezer;814614It's your world.  You decide.

It's not as simple as that.

I'll give you an analogy.  Places called "diners," "restaurants" and "fast-food joints" exist.  Why is that, when most of us are perfectly capable of preparing our own meals, and most of us have the tools and ingredients necessary to do so?

Simple: because some of us don't have the time.  Because some of us don't want to take the time.  Because sometimes it's inconvenient, because sometimes we're on the road, because some of us don't have the facilities to do so.  Sometimes it's what's expected of us.  Sometimes we want a larger meal than we can manage. Sometimes we'd like a meal in a style we don't know how to prepare.  Sometimes we want a meal that's a good bit tastier or fancier than we have the skill to prepare.  Sometimes we feel soothed by a meal prepared exactly the same way every time, with exactly the same ingredients and the same no matter the location.  Sometimes we just want something special.

And the same applies to RPG rules.  We want fancier rules, better rules, more rules, rules in other genres, rules with better production values, rules that are the same from group to group, and rules we didn't have to whip up ourselves.

And may I suggest that the bewilderment of Messrs. Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz et al that people would want more rules was misplaced?  You could aim the same argument at OD&D itself: why was it necessary to write over a hundred pages of rules that people could just have made up on their own, and why would they think there was a market for it?  Heck, I've got a copy, if you will, of GURPS Ultra-Lite -- a playable RPG on a single sheet of paper, one-sized, and a quarter of that is taken up by the title "page" and the indicia.

Because, obviously, they figured there was a market for a unified set of detailed rules.

Quote from: Ravenswing;814623

Because, obviously, they figured there was a market for a unified set of detailed rules.

Yet, sadly, Palladium has always outsold GURPS.

Quote from: TristramEvans;814622Well, to compare it to miniature wargaming, the parent of our hobby, its something that requires an investment: demands something of the participants in an active way contrary to passive entertainment spoonfed us like videogames and TV.

As for miniatures gaming.  Well, I'm a miniatures gamer and really, miniatures painting is just coloring books for grownups.  I love painting minis but time and inclination are the main limiting factors rather than intelligence or creativity. Hence the continuing popularity of Warhammer.  A more apt comparison to the rpg hobbyist would be sculpting or again game design or period research.

Quote from: TristramEvans;814622Do you not think that lackof time or inclination is largely a quality of us older more experienced roleplayers who have to balance our hobby with the demands of our lives? As an adolescent, I had all the time in the world to devour anything and everything I could get my hands on.

It'd be nice to always have the option of playing with the crème of the crop, but in reality that end of the scale tends to have a lot of high strung egomaniacs like myself in it and tends to wind up in group killing tug o wars.  As ever, social skills, might be more valuable than time, inclination, creativity, and intelligence.

Still, I  used to get a lot of flak for saying that D&D as a brand dying would be the best thing that could ever happen for the hobby.  I think, under the narrower definition of hobbyists that's probably still true.  On the other hand that Salon article by John Tynes drips with the scorn and self hatred that was endemic in the industry since the late eighties.  D&D's been getting much better press just recently and perhaps the stigma is slowly dying out.  Now if they'd just drop this 5th edition nonsense for Dark Passages we could finally achieve gaming nirvana.

Great thread Tristram:)

Quote from: TristramEvans;814611when so many roleplaying games grasped desperately at metaphors to describe what exactly an RPG is

I agree with what you were getting at here.

Quote from: David Johansen;814625Yet, sadly, Palladium has always outsold GURPS.

1. Why is that sad?
2. Palladium is more fun than GURPS.
3. Who cares?

Thing is. A brand name helps sell the product.

FATE, GURPS, World of Darkness, whatever.

And it tells you what system the product is basing on.

Now. Does roleplaying need the brand name past the core product?

Yes, No, Maybee.

Yes: because there will allays be those who want to run the game without the prep needed for one reason or another. They lack the time, the knack for this or that, or just really dig the setting and want more. To dismiss them is the worst of elitism.

No: because a good core product can see you along. FOREVER. IF you have the creativity to keep the ball rolling. I am still running 2e Gamma World, Star Frontiers and BX D&D games.

Maybee: because sometimes the core product lacks some element that the GM needs. Sometimes intentional, sometimes accidental, sometimes because the designer just assumes everyone is a creative genius. A supplement or expansion book can fill in the gaps.

Tristram - that is a good set of articles - well written, insightful, and pretty accurate.

Quote from: TristramEvans;814611The rest is history. The late 70s and early 80s was the explosion of D&D,  bringing with it endless new rules, classes, and other eventually had Gygax proclaiming there was now an "official" way to play D&D and one should only trust the TSR-approved products.

I would add to this the proliferation of organized gaming whether that be specific con adventures and RPG contests or the development of organized open play RPG groups. Organized open gaming required a uniform rule set and setting rather than the every GM has their own setting and set of house rules that predated organized gaming. Official games provided additional impetus to TSR's desire for an official way to play.

Quote from: Ravenswing;814623It's not as simple as that.

I'll give you an analogy.  Places called "diners," "restaurants" and "fast-food joints" exist.  Why is that, when most of us are perfectly capable of preparing our own meals, and most of us have the tools and ingredients necessary to do so?

Simple: because some of us don't have the time.  Because some of us don't want to take the time.  Because sometimes it's inconvenient, because sometimes we're on the road, because some of us don't have the facilities to do so.  Sometimes it's what's expected of us.  Sometimes we want a larger meal than we can manage. Sometimes we'd like a meal in a style we don't know how to prepare.  Sometimes we want a meal that's a good bit tastier or fancier than we have the skill to prepare.  Sometimes we feel soothed by a meal prepared exactly the same way every time, with exactly the same ingredients and the same no matter the location.  Sometimes we just want something special.

In addition to the reasons above, sometimes we just want someone else who does it for a living to make it because we assume they know what they are doing and that usually means skipping a lot of trial and error. Also, until we get good at winging it, buy in from friends is easier if a system that people pay for is being presented as the agreed upon rules.

It is like the difference between "hey come over and we can play D&D" vs. "hey come over and play my homebrew game that no one has ever seen." The homebrew will most likely be to a specific person's ideals, or we could be playing something that we have a reference point for and is likely to have broad appeal.