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

[Haffrung]

Take collectors out of the market, and most RPGs and publishers are no longer commercially viable. Period.

Now, I know Balbinus has a dislike of the commercial RPG industry to begin with, so no doubt he would be okay if most publishers stopped production. But other haters of collectors should stop and ask themselves if they enjoy what professional products add to their hobby.

Because the choice isn't between games that are published with an eye towards collectors, and games that are geared strictly towards players. The choice is between games that are just barely viable by trying to appeal to both sorts of customers, and no professionally produced games at all.

And of course, there's no reason to believe games designed by hobby publishers will be any more thoroughly developed and playtested than professional products.

[Settembrini]

I agree, the incredibly stupid argument you make is very easy to understand.  :rolleyes:

See? I told you so. Now, please give me an example of a DM who had only a single book and who blew your mind.

BTW, what´s your favorite system?

[Blackleaf]

Well, an OD&D DM would have had an extensive library of Novels, Wargames, Miniatures & non-fiction books all around "his" subjects.

I never played OD&D, so let's talk about two games I'm more experienced with.  B/X D&D and AD&D.  

How much of a collection is required for a good DM of those systems?

[gleichman]

See? I told you so. Now, please give me an example of a DM who had only a single book and who blew your mind.

BTW, what´s your favorite system?

Age of Heroes, there's only one 'book'  and I've played with a GM who 'blew my mind' running it...

Same with HERO System 5th edition although it has many supplements, etc. Almost none are needed or used IME.

I'm sort of in the reverse mindset. Anyone who needs all the books for a system to run great games is running low on creative talent...

[Settembrini]

I'm sort of in the reverse mindset. Anyone who needs all the books for a system to run great games is running low on creative talent...

The two arguments are not mututally exclusive.

[jgants]

See? I told you so. Now, please give me an example of a DM who had only a single book and who blew your mind.

BTW, what´s your favorite system?

Hmm...that's tough because I prefer to be the GM so I don't tend to enjoy being a player.  But I had a lot of fun when I was younger with friends who ran games and only owned the main book, or didn't even own a book at all (they'd borrow mine or someone else's).

Recently I've only found GMs I didn't care for, but they owned tons of books.

My favorite system...hard to say because I like variety (currently I have at least 4-5 games I'd love to run a campaign for, but I'm stuck playing for now).  I'd prefer to run several smaller campaigns for a few months at a time then one giant one for years on end.

[Thanatos02]

I don't really feel there's any correlation between amount of books owned vs. game running skill. I guess I'm a little leery of someone running a game they don't have books for, or only a .pdf of, but that's about it.

[Settembrini]

I never played OD&D, so let's talk about two games I'm more experienced with.  B/X D&D and AD&D.  

How much of a collection is required for a good DM of those systems?

You are parsing it backwards. Required? Not a single one.

But if the DM isn´t really deep into it, he´ll most likely suck. And I´ve never met a good DM who wasn´t ALSO a fan & collector of said system.

[wulfgar]

To be a good Moldvay/Cook DM you need:

Moldvay Basic
Cook/Marsh Expert

That's it for me.  Or you can just go with Labyrinth Lords and get it down to one, albiet longer book.  

Sure having a background in fantasy adventure is good, but you don't have to own a ton of books from Tolkien, Howard, etc.  There are such things as libraries.  

In my younger days I would have been much more inclined to agree with the "only collectors make good DMs" line, but ever since the end my few years running Earthdawn, I've come to the belief that a lot of times less is more in terms of rules and supplements for a game.  An overabundance of "canon" material suffocates the DM's creative mojo.  At least that's my take.

[Aos]

I tend to buy core only. I make everything else up myself. i did, however buy the true20 companion, and I might buy the 4e PHB2 for the Barbarian. I enjoy creating my own monsters and settings, it is a huge part of the fun for me. I only use commercial systems because I grew tired of my homebrews and tinkering with mechanics is my least favorite part of gaming.

[Blackleaf]

You are parsing it backwards. Required? Not a single one.

GM: "You read another of Settembrini's posts. Make a SAN check."

:confused:

[Skyrock]

See? I told you so. Now, please give me an example of a DM who had only a single book and who blew your mind.

I GMed Shadowrun and DSA for the longest time with just the core set of books, and I think that I faired fine.
Same with Savage Worlds, although I cheated a bit by mining conversions and other fan-created internet stuff.

Thinking of games I GMed with just one book, while there _are_ more, there's also Vampire... But I guess the sucktitude wouldn't have changed even if I had owned a bazillion of sourcebooks back then.

[Abyssal Maw]

I don't necessarily agree.


I do think that people who only participate in this hobby by buying books and talking about them.. aren't really participating in any meaningful or useful way, and may in fact be a pox. Eventually you end up with a culture almost entirely composed of reviewers and fan-fic writers, and pretend-designers.

But I'm agnostic on the rest. Have a collection? Great. No collection? great. It doesn't matter. What matters is what you bring to the game.

There was a good 18 months before I ever used (or knew about) a Rifts supplement, when I ran that game. I adapted things from other games, I wrote up new equipment, armor, weaponry, I created monsters on the roll up tables in the back, etc. I designed tons and tons of mechas and vehicles, I think I still have some of the art laying around.  All of this from the single corebook.

[Spinachcat]

games company producing books that appeal to collectors aren't necessarily producing books that work for gamers.

There is NO problem here.   If you don't like something, don't buy it.   Capitalism means the product that appeals to the most people makes the most money.   Those products that lack appeal die off.

Collecting is good. Only collectors can become great DMs.

There is zero correlation between buying books and being a great GM.   By your definition, every great GM suddenly loses his ability when he buys a new game.  

BTW, what´s your favorite system?

System is low priority.   Games of any sort do not sell because of their system.   Fun gameplay trumps everything and creates word of mouth regardless of system flaws.

[Jackalope]

Again: I´ve never encountered someone who wasn´t a collector of the system he DMs who was worth his salt.

That's been my experience, as a general rule, at least as regards D&D. It's a very general rule though, as I've met shit DMs who couldn't run a decent game despite having massive collections.

I could offer several explanations:
DMs with large collections of support material are, obviously, going to have more support for their game, and thus can devote more time and creative energy to creating original material.  These DMs spend less time re-inventing the wheel by using quality pregenerated material written by professional game designers.  The players cannot distinguish between the professionally written material and DM generated material, thus the DM is given creative credit for the total. EX: If I want to run a murder mystery in a good church, and I own Bastion of Faith (a 2E book the super-details a large sized good church), then I can spend more time developing the murder mystery, and not waste time developing a good church.  My players can't tell which parts I wrote and which parts TSR published.

Also, DMs who actually read their vast collections, whether specifically related to their game or not, are exposed to the voices of many different game designers, and may develop an understanding of adventure structure and design simply by reading large numbers of adventures -- DM growth through osmosis.  Furthermore, many supplements contain tidbits to entire sections of DMing advice, and reading the advice from several different designers almost has to give a DM a broader perspective than the DM whose entire understanding of the art is filtered through one designers perspective.  Much liek a fine artist develops not only through practice but through the study of other artists and ideas about art, so the game master learns by studying the work of other game masters/designers.

Finally, for most people a passion for a system or setting will translate into an investment in that setting or system.  If you love running D&D, you're probably going to find it hard to not buy stuff to support the game.  Sure, this isn't a universal tendency, but it's common enough.  A passion for the game will also tend to make for superior gaming, and obviously a bored or disinterested DM isn't going to lead to better gaming.

Natural talent can make up for lack of "education," and no amount of collecting can overcome a true deficit of talent, but it only stands to reason that well-read DM with plenty of ready support material is generally going to be the better DM.  The best DMs will inevitably have both natural talent and large support collections.