The peripheral community that is a f*cking pox on our hobby

[Engine]

I pointed to WW games earlier on this thread.

And actually, I did see that, at the time, and had forgotten about it. My apologies.

[Gunslinger]

I have many RPGs I haven't played but that doesn't mean I haven't gotten any use from them.  A fair portion of the collection is there for an inspirational value or at very least, material to steer my imagination down different avenues.  They are outlets for imagining possibilities of games I would like to play.

[Haffrung]

...rather than the "risk" of promoting a $10 or $20 game directed at 14 year olds with limited budget.

The risk in $10 and $20 RPG books is that there was an enormous glut of them with d20 and the open license, and retailers were burned badly with unsold stock. When you have 40 companies churning about small books of varying quality, how is the retailer supposed to judge which ones are worth stocking? Furthermore, retailers have told publishers that they can't properly display 32 page softcover books, so they get stuck in stacks where the customers has to flip through them. And these aren't comics, that can be sorted by title and issue. In the experience of retailers,  small softcover RPGs end up as a mess of bent books that don't sell. The market has spoken.

And frankly, I find the qualitity of many small softcover RPG books to be low. Goodman's Dungeon Crawl Classics aren't much better than PDFs I could find for free on the net. I wish it weren't so - I happen to enjoy standalone adventures. But with such a low barrier of entry, there doesn't seem to be much quality control.

Nor does there seem to be a huge demand - DCCs are produced for the most popular RPG on the market, in a format that is easily recognizable for a large part of the customer base. And they don't exactly fly off the shelves. Necromancer Games stopped publishing small standalone adventures a few years ago, after their sales dropped below the viable level (I'm guessing well below 1,000).

Finally, I don't think there was ever a business case for a $10 to $20 game. Moldvay Basic, adjusted for inflation, was about $35. I don't know that RPGs have ever been popular among kids who couldn't afford a single Nintendo cartridge, or who couldn't talk their parents into buying them Risk or Axis and Allies.

No, the folks who complain about $40 hardcover, full-colour RPG books are hardcores with a serious RPG book habit who feel a need to buy book after book after book, but who maybe don't have the money to buy everything they want, and so resent the publishers of premium books and the people who are wealthy enough (or who buy fewer books), and so can afford them.

[Mike S.]

This is precisely my position on the issue.

The problem with "collectors" is that a gaming companies knows it will sell a couple of thousand copies easily by making a 900 page full-glossy gold-plated ultra-slick total-colour hardcover with leather binding that's priced at $150 a pop; rather than the "risk" of promoting a $10 or $20 game directed at 14 year olds with limited budget.

I would agree that this is true. The problem is that companies are about making money and the reason they do this is because it works.   It sucks, but its true.

Kids don't play RPGs anymore not because they've abandoned the RPG hobby; the RPG hobby abandoned them, as in, any serious and well-thought-out attempt to be directed at them, decades ago.

I would partly agree with this.  Part of the problem is that the hobby has abandoned them by not making games that help bring new gamers into the fold at a reasonable cost.  Part of it is that kids have abandoned rpgs simply because there are way too many choices for entertainment these days.

I am not arguing that rpgs are not a good value for the entertainment value you get from them, I am simply pointing out an aspect that is true, as much as it sucks

And now the same people who whine about how the "hobby is dying!" are the ones who bitch and moan if their RPG isn't hardcover and full-colour, and will consider any game priced under $50 to be "low quality", as if that affects how you play the motherfucking game.

RPGPundit

I would agree 100% with this.  I have played games in the past (like the Marvel Superheros RPGS and the like that weren't hardcover, full color and had a blast with them.  

Some of my best memories are from games like those and they were the games I learned to game with.

If companies want to make full cover hardcovers, etc fine but also make games to help bring people into the hobby.

[Pseudoephedrine]

A game being based on something like movies and comic books?  That's crazy talk.  Surely games should be based on things like Chekhov, Dickens and Shaw - and nothing else.  This is especially true if it's a game about killing monsters and taking their stuff.

You mean like Beowulf, or the Nibelunglied, or the Odyssey?

Your problem is exactly what I said: You haven't read enough books. Otherwise you'd know the wealth of great monster-slaying and gold-thieving literature that's out there.

[Aos]

re this argument: I agree with everyone, really. Chew on that.

[Haffrung]

A game is only what happens at the table. Writing it down is like codifying fairy tales. As a story process, it's more defined by the fact that there're are a lot of things that could happen that don't.

There are great games that try to do things differently, but it always seems a little like a ballet about archetecture. Media that don't suit the content.

What he said.

Trying to make an RPG game follow the structure and motifs of the Iliad is like trying to make a tennis match into the Nutcracker.

[Blackleaf]

Your problem is exactly what I said: You haven't read enough books. Otherwise you'd know the wealth of great monster-slaying and gold-thieving literature that's out there.

Right.  I disagree with the assertion that games can only be based on classical literature, and that means I haven't read enough. :rolleyes:

Edit:

I kept on trying to strike up games at Queen's University, which is a bastion of old upper-middle class alumni families and new money parvenus.

So you're doing your undergrad in English right now, so everyone reads less than you.  Awesome.

[Aos]

Personally, I force nothing, there are always avenues and choices. I do draw inspiration from a number of sources ranging from pop culture to journal articles on the paleolithic.

[Blackleaf]

Trying to make an RPG game follow the structure and motifs of the Iliad is like trying to make a tennis match into the Nutcracker.

Yes.  And why is Sett arguing the classic "Swine" argument that he's raged against for so long?  A game isn't a piece of literature.

[David R]

Trying to make an RPG game follow the structure and motifs of the Iliad is like trying to make a tennis match into the Nutcracker.

Well in my case I'm not trying to follow the structure of - insert title here - but rather drawing inspiration from the source material be it themes, character motivations, plot elements etc. This of course reached it's apogee in my old Hunter campaign based on the early works of John Carpenter. Now , I'm not really suprised when my players tell me that my Aces game feels like a Sam Fuller movie.

Regards,
David R

[Aos]

Yes.  And why is Sett arguing the classic "Swine" argument that he's raged against for so long?  A game isn't a piece of literature.

Trying to fathom set's logic is like trying to jerk off a blender. You can push buttons all day long, you'll even get it to make appreciative noise, but in the end all you've done is waste some energy.

[Engine]

You mean like Beowulf, or the Nibelunglied, or the Odyssey?

Ooh, snap!

I do draw inspiration from a number of sources ranging from pop culture to journal articles on the paleolithic.

I don't want to speak to what makes the "best" GM, because it seems to me "best" is one of those words that sounds objective but which is ultimately subjective, so I'll just say I think the GMs whose games I like the most draw inspiration from the greatest variety of sources possible. Taking the best of real life, Futurama, Beowulf, Guns Germs & Steel and A Practical Treatise on the Steel Square makes for the broadest, and thus most interesting to me, experience at the table.

[Vadrus]

I probably qualify as a collector, even though I've been Gming and playing for over 20 years I have amassed hundreds of different systems probably 2/3rds of which I will never run (usually because I've found I either didn't like the rules or setting or just an existing game already did the same just as well) but bizarely I can't think of a single one that I would consider was created just to read and not to play.

What specific examples are people talking about when they say games created for collectors rather than for gamers?

Or is it just putting in a few extra pieces of artwork or occasional short stories that is winding people up? Should the only 'worthy' games look like semi-professional homebrews?


Vadrus

[Grimjack]

Stuart's post (and Pundit's) re the comic industry really hit home with me.  I used to "collect" comics back in the 80's and I bought into the hype about how some of them were "edgy and cool".  As a result, I now have a basement full of high gloss crap....anyone who says "you can't polish a turd" should read my comic collection.

Because I wasted so much money on crappy "collectors" comics I had less to spend on good but less hyped and polished titles (e.g. First Comics..."Badger" and "Grimjack"...gone but not forgotten).  

I think the same is true about my rpg's but with a slight difference.  I've been gaming for about 30 years and in that time I've purchased a lot of games and related materials that I haven't played, which means that I had less money to buy other gaming stuff and in the process I probably propped up gaming companies that were putting out crap.  On the other hand, I think collecting has had value for me since I've gotten some good inspiration from games like Arduin, EPT, Jorune, Ringworld, Earthdawn, etc., and I certainly don't regret that I bought up nearly every Judges Guild and Chaosium product made.

I think the biggest difference for me though is that now I have access to reviews of games here and elsewhere so that I can educate myself and avoid buying crap.  That is why I appreciate anyone who takes the time to review a game since I shudder to think how pissed I would be if I had actually paid money for a Blue Rose or 'shudder' FATAL.

Bottom line, while I don't think collectors are necessarily bad, I think anyone who doesn't do their homework before wasting a chunk of cash on a crap game these days is harming the hobby to a degree by artifically inflating demand for games that should die a quick death.

As to another point in this thread, in law school my sadistic criminal law professor for our final exam made us watch Mel Gibson's "Hamlet" and identify all the crimes and defenses relevant to different characters.  Since I had to dissect that entire fucking play/movie I have to say that Hamlet does have some good usable plot devices for games but I would need an insanity defense myself if anyone ever used them in a game I was playing.  Ugh.