Huh, WotC has found new depths of my disinterest in their products. Impressive.

The most I've tolerated e-tools for TTRPGs is Discord. Tried several of the other suites, feels like a part-time job to learn them enough to make them sing. And even still I find, like conference calls and video meetings, that being in person is less exhausting, more enriching. It's a compromise if necessary, not for fun.

No gaming is better than tiresome gaming. I'd rather a pick-up game at the local game shop or local buddies down for some snacks and bullshitting around than scheduling a multi-hour "work" conference call.  But that's just me being old, I guess.

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 10, 2024, 01:39:31 AM

Quote from: M2A0 on August 09, 2024, 02:09:05 PMI was speaking of the print industry, which TTRPGs are a microcosm of.

I have been hearing that the print industry has been about to go extinct since the first e-reader devices came out back in the 90s.  It keeps not happening. 

Books are tactile. Their scent triggers our memory centers. They don't require power to operate. Their storage medium can last centuries instead of decaying to uselessness in a decade.

Anything written or static visual art that you want to keep in unaltered form for long periods is cheaper in the long run as a physical copy.

Put another way, twenty years after a nuclear or bio-apocalypse all your SSD stored PDFs will be gone (if you even have power to charge the reader), but your books will still be perfectly useable (minus the typical wear and tear of use).

Electronic media depends on way more infrastructure and lacks the sensory queues that normal humans enjoy. That's why it will endure, even if only as a specialty product.

This is what we've been waiting for. With WotC fucking off into videogame land, the OSR can claim its proper place atop the throne of tabletop RPGs. Then, we can REALLY entertain all our woke friends.

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 10, 2024, 01:39:31 AM

Quote from: M2A0 on August 09, 2024, 02:09:05 PMI was speaking of the print industry, which TTRPGs are a microcosm of.

I have been hearing that the print industry has been about to go extinct since the first e-reader devices came out back in the 90s.  It keeps not happening.

Except it has been happening, slowly, for years now.

Quote from: Opaopajr on August 10, 2024, 02:51:57 AMHuh, WotC has found new depths of my disinterest in their products. Impressive.

The most I've tolerated e-tools for TTRPGs is Discord. Tried several of the other suites, feels like a part-time job to learn them enough to make them sing. And even still I find, like conference calls and video meetings, that being in person is less exhausting, more enriching. It's a compromise if necessary, not for fun.

No gaming is better than tiresome gaming. I'd rather a pick-up game at the local game shop or local buddies down for some snacks and bullshitting around than scheduling a multi-hour "work" conference call.  But that's just me being old, I guess.

Greetings!

Yeah, my friend! I totally agree. All of the computer programs, the widgets, fuck all that. It is so alien to how I like to run and play games at the table. WOTC can get fucked with their new VTT D&D.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 10, 2024, 09:35:04 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 10, 2024, 01:39:31 AM

Quote from: M2A0 on August 09, 2024, 02:09:05 PMI was speaking of the print industry, which TTRPGs are a microcosm of.

I have been hearing that the print industry has been about to go extinct since the first e-reader devices came out back in the 90s.  It keeps not happening. 

Books are tactile. Their scent triggers our memory centers. They don't require power to operate. Their storage medium can last centuries instead of decaying to uselessness in a decade.

Anything written or static visual art that you want to keep in unaltered form for long periods is cheaper in the long run as a physical copy.

Put another way, twenty years after a nuclear or bio-apocalypse all your SSD stored PDFs will be gone (if you even have power to charge the reader), but your books will still be perfectly useable (minus the typical wear and tear of use).

Electronic media depends on way more infrastructure and lacks the sensory queues that normal humans enjoy. That's why it will endure, even if only as a specialty product.

Greetings!

Very true, Chris!

I love the feel of books. The covers, the pages. The artwork, if any. Even just pages of text, can inspire wonder and joy at what lies within the pages. Reading the book is a pleasure and adventure itself. What knowledge, what ideas, what interesting wonders will I discover? The actual experience of holding the book, and leisurely reading a book, soaking up the text, chewing on the story, is a joy all its own.

The book's scent! Yes, indeed. Strangely, that also adds to the sense of joy, of tranquility, and of wonder.

Yes, I love books! I have a rather large personal library, with many bookcases stuffed with books of all kinds, covering many subjects. I normally try to be cautious and prudent with purchasing whatever in life, though strangely, it doesn't bother me much at all to pop 60, 80, $100 or more for an individual book. Besides game books, of course, my collection is primarily based on History books. $80 and more is a common price for many history books.

I agree, though. Technology and electric gadgets will satisfy the common masses, but genuine, physical books will remain with a devoted fan-base and following.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on August 10, 2024, 03:38:43 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on August 10, 2024, 02:51:57 AMHuh, WotC has found new depths of my disinterest in their products. Impressive.

The most I've tolerated e-tools for TTRPGs is Discord. Tried several of the other suites, feels like a part-time job to learn them enough to make them sing. And even still I find, like conference calls and video meetings, that being in person is less exhausting, more enriching. It's a compromise if necessary, not for fun.

No gaming is better than tiresome gaming. I'd rather a pick-up game at the local game shop or local buddies down for some snacks and bullshitting around than scheduling a multi-hour "work" conference call.  But that's just me being old, I guess.

Greetings!

Yeah, my friend! I totally agree. All of the computer programs, the widgets, fuck all that. It is so alien to how I like to run and play games at the table. WOTC can get fucked with their new VTT D&D.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I won't be touching it with the proverbial 10 ft. pole. I'm sure my group will want to continue with D&D, so I'll have a slightly shittier version of the 2014 core books to use at the table. I'm more than happy to run a hex crawl in the Greyhawk that's coming in the DMG.

Having to only deal with the 3 core books at the table is preferable. I won't have to drag along splatbooks, adventures, monster books. 3 Evergreen books, with an explicit recognition that I haven't been the target audience for a very, very long time. Hence, why I can not give 2 rat fucks about the VTT and microtransactions. They aren't for me, I don't want them anyways.

The only people who should really be up in arms about this entire thing is the OCD completionist that have to have every god damn option available. If most of you actually practiced what you preach when it comes to your gaming purchases the small press you love so much would already be more vibrant and expansive.

WotC leaving traditional tabletop is the BEST news for the RPG hobby...and much of the industry.

However, let's be bluntly honest.

Overall, 3PP for 5e were superior to WotC 5e releases. Far more interesting 5e books were being launched on Kickstarter than from Woketard Washington.

I suspect the same happened on DM's Guild.

As I said back during the "OGL Crisis", those publishers who pay their rent selling "current D&D" products will agree to whatever shitty 6e OGL exists to keep paying their rent.

And if the 6e OGL is too super shitty, then we'll see a "6e clone" arrive for the publishers to keep publishing as "compatible with the sixth edition of the world's most popular RPG" 

So WotC getting out of the physical book business just opens the door to 3PP peeps selling their physical books next to the 6e core books in the game stores.


Of course, that's just until WotC's VTT dreams of eternally increasing profits implode with mass firings at Hasbro, probably by mid-2026.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 10, 2024, 09:35:04 AMElectronic media depends on way more infrastructure and lacks the sensory queues that normal humans enjoy. That's why it will endure, even if only as a specialty product.

I don't know anyone that buys a book thinking "This will be best after the bombs fall and society goes to shit."

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 10, 2024, 02:07:49 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 10, 2024, 01:39:31 AM

Quote from: M2A0 on August 09, 2024, 02:09:05 PMI was speaking of the print industry, which TTRPGs are a microcosm of.

I have been hearing that the print industry has been about to go extinct since the first e-reader devices came out back in the 90s.  It keeps not happening.

Except it has been happening, slowly, for years now.

I have been hearing people predict the imminent death of print for over 30 years.  Print sales are still a large majority of the overall book market after all this time.  Print books are going anywhere any time soon.

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 11, 2024, 01:46:18 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 10, 2024, 02:07:49 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 10, 2024, 01:39:31 AM

Quote from: M2A0 on August 09, 2024, 02:09:05 PMI was speaking of the print industry, which TTRPGs are a microcosm of.

I have been hearing that the print industry has been about to go extinct since the first e-reader devices came out back in the 90s.  It keeps not happening.

Except it has been happening, slowly, for years now.

I have been hearing people predict the imminent death of print for over 30 years.  Print sales are still a large majority of the overall book market after all this time.  Print books are going anywhere any time soon.

I think we might be talking at cross-purposes here. I definitely agree that print books are still going to be big, what I'm saying is that the traditional big-house publishers who used to hold a total monopoly on what books you could buy have been slowly dying for decades, and since PoD, kickstarter, social media and other tools allow for someone to write a book and sell it without that voracious middleman, this truth combined with hard left/woke turn of most traditional publishing houses means they're sinking into irrelevance.

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 10, 2024, 01:39:31 AM

Quote from: M2A0 on August 09, 2024, 02:09:05 PMI was speaking of the print industry, which TTRPGs are a microcosm of.

I have been hearing that the print industry has been about to go extinct since the first e-reader devices came out back in the 90s.  It keeps not happening. 

Some magazines have faded out. But not as many as predicted would. And a few came close like National Geographic, who were busy augering their cable channel into the dirt and trying to rebrand themselves as "Nat Geo"...
 
Sometimes it feels like alot of companies are hellbent on self destructing.

I stare at a computer screen at work all the time. When I get to game, it is in person, with books and papers. Gaming is an escape from the screen that I won't be giving up. WOTC seems very proud of the technological terror they have constructed, but its power is insignificant compared to the power of human connection.

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 11, 2024, 05:09:49 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 11, 2024, 01:46:18 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 10, 2024, 02:07:49 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on August 10, 2024, 01:39:31 AM

Quote from: M2A0 on August 09, 2024, 02:09:05 PMI was speaking of the print industry, which TTRPGs are a microcosm of.

I have been hearing that the print industry has been about to go extinct since the first e-reader devices came out back in the 90s.  It keeps not happening.

Except it has been happening, slowly, for years now.

I have been hearing people predict the imminent death of print for over 30 years.  Print sales are still a large majority of the overall book market after all this time.  Print books are going anywhere any time soon.

I think we might be talking at cross-purposes here. I definitely agree that print books are still going to be big, what I'm saying is that the traditional big-house publishers who used to hold a total monopoly on what books you could buy have been slowly dying for decades, and since PoD, kickstarter, social media and other tools allow for someone to write a book and sell it without that voracious middleman, this truth combined with hard left/woke turn of most traditional publishing houses means they're sinking into irrelevance.

This is correct, recently there was a thread about why straight men don't read novels, started by someone in one of the publishing houses.

They got swamped with basically this:

"We do read novels, you don't publish what we like so we buy from independent authors."

Or the equivalent from said independent authors.

Newspapers are dying, including specialized media, there's still a market, but they abandoned it.

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 11, 2024, 05:09:49 AMI think we might be talking at cross-purposes here. I definitely agree that print books are still going to be big, what I'm saying is that the traditional big-house publishers who used to hold a total monopoly on what books you could buy have been slowly dying for decades, and since PoD, kickstarter, social media and other tools allow for someone to write a book and sell it without that voracious middleman, this truth combined with hard left/woke turn of most traditional publishing houses means they're sinking into irrelevance.

I am talking about all of the predictions that print media will soon become extinct and be replaced by digital media that I have been seeing since the first html based ereader devices came out in the early 90s.  People have been saying this with great confidence for decades but there's no sign that it will actually happen any time soon.  Even by 2023, user penetration for ebooks had only reached about 1 in 8.  The book market has been much more resistant to the idea of going to digital books than a lot of people predicted even for periodicals where digital versions arguably make the most sense.

It's true that technology has made it much easier for independent authors to reach their audience directly.  I also think that there are large market segments that are simply not being served by the big publishers.  I think that's a whole different conversation than predictions of the imminent death of print.