Two interesting posts were made recently which I thought were probably of interest to folks here:

Owen KC Stephens' Tabletop RPG Truths

and

Owen KC Stephens' Tabletop RPG Truths #2

I'm sorry you have to click-through because I didn't think it would be polite to just copy and past his thoughts here without asking him. But if people are grumpy about having to click I can ask Owen if he's OK with me re-posting it elsewhere. I suspect he'd be OK with it. I strongly suspect he wouldn't care if people just quoted short tidbits of things they found interesting to discuss (and I do so as an example below).  

The short of it is the observations and brutal though sometimes depressing truths of working as a freelancer in the RPG industry for many many years.

Some may be labeled as truth but are not in the opinions of others. Some I think are truthful. Some of the observations will outrage some people who are anti-SJW. I am guessing that stuff will be of interest to people here, in terms of disagreeing with it.

Some of the observations will resonate with those who have found it's just a crapload of work for a mostly thankless crowd and mostly thankless employers. Some may get "Oh, that's why so-and-so left the industry after so many years...because it sucked!" from it.

Some may recognize their own industry in the comments, and I suspect the "It sucks that not everyone gets work based on merit" will ring true for a lot of industries out there.  For example, this comment struck me as truthful, "TTRPG careers are advanced the most during after-hours bar gatherings at big cons. Nothing else is as effective. By not going to drinks early in my career, I set it back 5-8 years. Club soda would have been fine, though the industry does drives folks to drink." His comments about people giving work to friends and that implies you need to make friends in the industry to get consistent work (and be treated better for that work) also rings true for me. That's true of the three different industries I've worked for in my adult life. It's not a truth that makes me happy though.

Point 3 first article, shows he's talking out of his ass.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134268Point 3 first article, shows he's talking out of his ass.

"Tabletop RPG books are not overpriced. They are specialty technical creative writing social interaction manuals. At double the current prices, they would not be overpriced. This is why most TTRPG creators leave the industry. Along with constant fan harassment."

Why do you disagree with that?

Quote from: Mistwell;1134244Owen KC Stephens' Tabletop RPG Truths

Is this guy a writer? Because there's some terrible writing on this list. I don't even know what he's talking about half the time.

I do agree with this one: "The majority of TTRPG professionals--staffers, freelancers, owners, et al., are substantially underpaid for their skills. Saying "they shouldn't be in this industry if they want to be paid more" is saying "I don't want any professional RPG content to be made."  

Yes, I do not want any professional RPG content to be made. This isn't an industry. It's a hobby business and should stay that way.

Quote from: Mistwell;1134271"Tabletop RPG books are not overpriced. They are specialty technical creative writing social interaction manuals. At double the current prices, they would not be overpriced. This is why most TTRPG creators leave the industry. Along with constant fan harassment."

Why do you disagree with that?

  Because at double, you are talking 120 bucks for alot of books.  For the more mainline prices you are talking 80 bucks. An average of around 100 for D&D.  That is over priced.  I can go with not overpriced as is, but to say at double they would not be overpriced?  Well I suggest all the stuff he writes he just charges double what he does now, and tells the publisher to retail them for double.  I think he will very quickly over priced does not mean what he thinks it does.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1134273Is this guy a writer? Because there's some terrible writing on this list. I don't even know what he's talking about half the time.

Yes, he's written a metric crapton of RPG books. I don't think he's concerned with editing his comments. They're mostly just off the top of his head sort of observations. Pretty sure that is not paid work on behalf of anyone.

Quote from: Mistwell;1134277Yes, he's written a metric crapton of RPG books. I don't think he's concerned with editing his comments. They're mostly just off the top of his head sort of observations. Pretty sure that is not paid work on behalf of anyone.

  Well, he did say editors are the real heros of writing.  I guess he wanted to prove it.

Quote from: oggsmash;1134274Because at double, you are talking 120 bucks for alot of books.  For the more mainline prices you are talking 80 bucks. An average of around 100 for D&D.  That is over priced.  I can go with not overpriced as is, but to say at double they would not be overpriced?  Well I suggest all the stuff he writes he just charges double what he does now, and tells the publisher to retail them for double.  I think he will very quickly over priced does not mean what he thinks it does.

We must be shopping at different places. The retail cover price for the D&D Player's Handbook is $49.95 and it typically sells for $33.74 (and sometimes as low as $20 on Amazon). It's currently $28.33 with a coupon at Amazon (so double would be $56.66). What books are $60 right now for what they typically sell for?

Quote from: Mistwell;1134281We must be shopping at different places. The retail cover price for the D&D Player's Handbook is $49.95 and it typically sells for $33.74 (and sometimes as low as $20 on Amazon). It's currently $28.33 with a coupon at Amazon (so double would be $56.66). What books are $60 right now for what they typically sell for?

 Modiphius Conan, Mutant chronicles. Wrath and glory.  I just buy things you do not.
  I do my best to not buy anything from Amazon.  And at double prices Amazon will go ahead and execute your FLGS.

Quote from: Mistwell;1134271"Tabletop RPG books are not overpriced. They are specialty technical creative writing social interaction manuals. At double the current prices, they would not be overpriced. This is why most TTRPG creators leave the industry. Along with constant fan harassment."

Why do you disagree with that?

Welp, I fail at counting, I meant point 4, but I do disagree with that too, yes they are overpriced, because they inflate the page count and the fluff and I don't need all that art.

As for point 4, Yes, Quality and Fan fervor do change things.

Quote from: Mistwell;1134244Owen KC Stephens' Tabletop RPG Truths

Most TTRPG game company's art archives are not well indexed... Or indexed.

Yes, the RPG book could have had ONE more editing pass. There would still be errors, you'd still complain, it would cost more and take longer, and not sell any better. And people would download it for free illegally because "it's too expensive."

Tabletop RPG books are not overpriced. They are specialty technical creative writing social interaction manuals. At double the current prices, they would not be overpriced. This is why most TTRPG creators leave the industry. Along with constant fan harassment.

Quality, effort, marketing, and fan fervor cannot change this. Ever. That's not to knock, or praise, D&D. It's just a fact.

Impostor syndrome is hugely common in the TTRPG industry for two reasons. One: Studying and modifying RPGs often appeals to socially awkward shut ins who become broken professionals. Two: There's a sense that if you were a REAL professional you could afford a house, and insurance, and a retirement account, but that's not true for 99.9% of TTRPG professionals.

People who are passionate about making games for other people, people who are good at making games, and people who are good at the business of game sales and marketing don't overlap much in a Venn diagram. Most game company failures can be attributed to this.

A TTRPG professional with enough experience and credibility to criticize the industry as a whole is normally tied to one company so closely that the criticism is seen as biased, or unwilling to do it for free, or too fucking tired to care anymore. Many are all 3.

If you are a TTRPG creative, you aren't paid enough. Thus, if you find people listening to you and apparently valuing your words you owe it to yourself to make sure they know there is an option to pay you for them. Also, I have a Patreon. https://patreon.com/OwenKCStephens

There are beloved, award-winning, renowned, well-known TTRPG books with total print runs of 2000 or fewer copies. That did not sell out.

Most RPG creators cannot afford the upper-tier of RPG accessories. Colossal dragons, scale sailing ships, and custom-built gaming tables are not for those of us who create the hobby. We are too poor to enjoy even a fraction of the things our creativity sparks.

The ability to master a game's rules has no correlation to the ability to write clear or interesting rules or adventures. Neither has any correlation to being able to produce 22,000 words of focused, usable content about a specific topic on a set deadline.

There are 65 people in the Origins Hall of Fame. Most fans can't name 5 of them. Most creators can't name 10. They are overwhelmingly (though not quite entirely) white men.

TTRPG companies generally have no interest in your ideas for products. They went to all the trouble of starting, or staying at, an RPG company to publish their ideas, even if they need you to write them. They certainly didn't stay for the money or respect.

Asking RPG freelancers to publicly call out a publisher is asking them to reduce their tiny chance of making enough money in RPGs to survive. Sometimes it's a moral imperative. But it's always painful and dangerous. It's more dangerous for women and minorities.

Occasionally, male game designers who do streams or vlogs or podcasts find themselves disconcerted receiving unsolicited commentary about their appearance. It happened to me. Or, in other words, they get a tiny taste of what women in every field face every day.

Freelancers aren't paid enough by game company employees and managers, who themselves aren't paid enough by their companies, which don't make enough from distributors and stores, that don't make enough from customers. This never improves. It can get worse.

Fantasy and scifi art has sexualized women for decades, so many pro artists assume that's what you want. Explaining otherwise takes more words that describing the art piece. I had to go with "No skin should be exposed except on the face." It was 75% effective.

Most RPG work is "work-for-hire," This includes most work I commission from freelancers myself. This means that, legally, the writer isn't the author. They have no rights to it. No royalties. No say in how (or if) it is used. It never reverts to them.

I have received 3 death threats in my 21+ RPG career. One for not listing the fans preferred length for the Executor SSD. One of having a male succubus (not an incubus, with that game system) drawn in a seductive pose. And one for being fat and on video streams.

Once, at Gen Con, a fan interrupted [Amanda Hamon] at the Paizo booth to ask her to point me out. She kindly did so. They came and asked me if I was the Starfinder boss. I pointed them back to Amanda, and noted she was my Managing Developer, and direct superior. I followed that by pointing out Lisa Stevens was an owner of Paizo but that I also worked for Nicole Lindroos and Miranda Russell at other companies, and that Lj Stephens was my project manager for my own company who kept me on schedule, The fan seemed upset.

I have been extraordinary lucky and well-treated in my RPG career. I love most of the companies and people I have worked with. It's just a harsh industry. This hashtag isn't intended as complaints. They're facts and alerts I wish I had gotten 20 years ago.

Quote from: Mistwell;1134244Owen KC Stephens' Tabletop RPG Truths #2

While there are absolutely exceptions, there are two common paths to becoming a manager in the TTRPG world.
One is to be a game creator who does that so well, that you are promoted to the entirely-unrelated field of managing people, with no management training.

I have been extraordinary lucky and well-treated in my RPG career. I love most of the companies and people I have worked with. It's just a harsh industry. This hashtag isn't intended as complaints. They're facts and alerts I wish I had gotten 20 years ago.

Someone having tons of RPG writing credits is no guarantee they'll do a good job on the project you hire them for. They might have had amazing editors. Their day job may go into crisis during your deadline. They might burn out. Especially that last one.

A freelancer absolutely mustn't cease communicating with their developer/producer or conceal how far behind they are on a project. When things go south as a freelancer, there is a huge urge to cease communication and conceal how far behind you are on a project.

It is clearly unreasonable, and potentially inappropriate, to suggest freelancers make friends in the game industry to get more work and be treated better. People in the game industry tend to give their friends more work, and often treat them better.

On some projects, the writing is easy but the research is hard. On some the reverse is true. For the other 80%, it's all hard. Some need new rules systems. Some need playtesting. Some need map sketches. Others don't. None of this normally impacts your pay rate.

It is extremely common for gamers to offer to give professionals an idea, and offer to "let" the pro "finish" the work and the "split the profits." They rarely like being told coming up with an idea or starting a project is not the hard part of writing.

There is a crucial difference between collaborating with someone on a project, and being their assistant. Either can be reasonable, legit work, but not everyone in the industry understands the difference (and how to say which of those a project is going to be).

Editors are the most unsung heroes of the industry. The better they do their job, the less people notice. but without them, I'd be posting under @RealGameInustrya and $RealGameIndustry as often as #RealGameIndustry

It's impossible for backers to tell from funds raised by a crowdfunding campaign raises how much profit it earns. Huge numbers can mean a minor miscalculation or change on the ground becomes a huge loss. Companies don't even always know until its all fulfilled.

The majority of TTRPG professionals--staffers, freelancers, owners, et al., are substantially underpaid for their skills. Saying "they shouldn't be in this industry if they want to be paid more" is saying "I don't want any professional RPG content to be made."

The reason you don't know how you are supposed to get your first gig, climb the ladder of TTRPG freelance, get the attention of developers and producers without annoying them, or improve your craft, is that game companies mostly don't know those things either.

Many TTRPG fans are lovely to interact with. Some are so awful that many companies who brought me to cons told me their secret signs to indicate when you needed another staffer to pull you away from a horrible interaction. It is, of course, worse for women.

TTRPG careers are advanced the most during after-hours bar gatherings at big cons. Nothing else is as effective. By not going to drinks early in my career, I set it back 5-8 years. Club soda would have been fine, though the industry does drives folks to drink.

Though it is far from universal, many TTRPG creators have all the fun of playing games removed by deadlines, toxic fans, and an endless grind of monetizing their creativity. "Do what you love for work, and you can no longer escape work with the thing you love"

Many RPG companies depend on "Institutional Knowledge," which means there are things done by people who know, but none of it is written down anywhere. Largely because budgets are so tight staff is always overworked, leaving no time for things like documentation.

It is common for TTRPG professionals to think various other people in the industry are asshats. It is rare to say so outside of tightly-controlled comments to groups of trusted friends. This reticence can unintentionally spill over to not calling out bad actors.

While there are absolutely exceptions, there are two common paths to becoming a manager in the TTRPG world. One is to be a an experienced manager from another field that is hired to be a TTRPG manager, with no prior experience in the TTRPG publishing industry.

There are great managers in the TTRPG industry... and awful ones. Many TTRPG employees have such little experience working under a manager, they often can't tell the difference between the good ones and bad ones. Occasionally, company owners can't either.

An example of how small, but important, things can be overlooked in the #RealGameIndustry.

Quote from: Mistwell;1134244I'm sorry you have to click-through because I didn't think it would be polite to just copy and past his thoughts here without asking him.

 I copy and pasted them here for people to see what you were babbling about.

I'm impolite. And I don't like adding clicks to ENWorld.

Quote from: oggsmash;1134282Modiphius Conan, Mutant chronicles. Wrath and glory.  I just buy things you do not.
  I do my best to not buy anything from Amazon.  And at double prices Amazon will go ahead and execute your FLGS.

As my last remaining decent FLGS just shut down due to the death of the owner combined with the quarantine shut-down, that already happened. Though Spinachcat gives me hope that "No, there is another."

Modiphius Conan is $33.90 on Amazon. Mutant chronicles it depends on which book you mean but the range seems to be from $22 to $44 on Amazon. Wrath and Glory is $59.99, but damn dude that's Warhammer. Another word for Crack. Warhammer is already "double what others pay for their RPGs"

Quote from: jeff37923;1134289I copy and pasted them here for people to see what you were babbling about.

I'm impolite. And I don't like adding clicks to ENWorld.

Do you feel I stretched the truth in anything I said with this?

Quote from: Mistwell;1134290As my last remaining decent FLGS just shut down due to the death of the owner combined with the quarantine shut-down, that already happened. Though Spinachcat gives me hope that "No, there is another."

Modiphius Conan is $33.90 on Amazon. Mutant chronicles it depends on which book you mean but the range seems to be from $22 to $44 on Amazon. Wrath and Glory is $59.99, but damn dude that's Warhammer. Another word for Crack. Warhammer is already "double what others pay for their RPGs"

  Amazon is not retail, and Amazon uses leverage on volume to destroy brick and mortar, so their price is not relevant to what I buy.  I have several good FLGS close to where I live, and if they do not have the book I order it from them, or if it is an impulse buy I buy it from the company publishing it.   The thing you can say now is, Oh you are right, some RPGs do retail for 60 bucks.

Quote from: oggsmash;1134294Amazon is not retail, and Amazon uses leverage on volume to destroy brick and mortar, so their price is not relevant to what I buy.  I have several good FLGS close to where I live, and if they do not have the book I order it from them, or if it is an impulse buy I buy it from the company publishing it.   The thing you can say now is, Oh you are right, some RPGs do retail for 60 bucks.

Oh you are right, some RPGs do retail for 60 bucks.