# Owen Stephens Continues 'Real Game Industry' Posts



## Dire Bare (Jul 4, 2020)

Again Owen, thanks for the nuggets of reality in our hobby.



> The most common retirement plan among full-time ttRPG professionals, freelance and on-staff both, is "Work until you die."
> People who constantly struggle to have enough money to cover basic needs, with no job security, while being bombarded with community demands to do more, be better, and make games just for love and not money... are generally too stressed to make their best games.
> You don't HAVE to have a spouse with good benefits and insurance to be a full-time freelancer in the ttRPG industry. But it's the most common answer on how to survive doing so.




Not to detract from Owen's statements, but this is true for any career in the arts. It's incredibly difficult to make enough money to live comfortably and responsibly prepare for retirement. On one hand, why should we consider artistic pursuits as full-time work rather than part-time interests? On the other, the products of artistic expression can generate a lot of money, which often gets claimed by those other than the artists themselves. Our society values art, but undervalues and takes advantage of artists. And yes, game design is art. Fight me.


> When a ttRPG pro makes a change or comment regarding the real-world impact of game themes or ideas, people come out of the woodwork to strongly present their view (in the real world) that real-world concerns (presumably like theirs) should not impact the game.
> Some ttRPG storylines, setting, themes, & even rules concepts are so tainted by racism, bigotry, and sexism that they cannot be redeemed. Even revised versions serve as a dogwhistle to toxic fans. There's no broad agreement about for which concepts this is true.




Especially right now. This is happening in several threads right here on ENWorld at the moment. The latest is fans questioning the recent testimony of game designer Orion Black, a former WotC employee.


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## univoxs (Jul 4, 2020)

I have asked quite a few authors, both of ttrpgs and of novels about buying from Amazon or B&N and whether they would like me to buy from a different source. The answer I have always received is sort of "w/e you want". If I am not mistaken, this is usually because creators that are _no_t self publishing have already been paid and where it gets sold from at that point does not matter? The deals made between creator and publisher assuredly vary but if anyone has a light to shine on that, I would appreciate it.


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## Morrus (Jul 4, 2020)

univoxs said:


> I have asked quite a few authors, both of ttrpgs and of novels about buying from Amazon or B&N and whether they would like me to buy from a different source. The answer I have always received is sort of "w/e you want". If I am not mistaken, this is usually because creators that are _no_t self publishing have already been paid and where it gets sold from at that point does not matter? The deals made between creator and publisher assuredly vary but if anyone has a light to shine on that, I would appreciate it.



I can’t speak for anybody else, but we make more money when people buy directly directly from our website. But that’s speaking as the publisher. That said, we’re happy when somebody buys our stuff from anywhere.


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## billd91 (Jul 4, 2020)

univoxs said:


> I have asked quite a few authors, both of ttrpgs and of novels about buying from Amazon or B&N and whether they would like me to buy from a different source. The answer I have always received is sort of "w/e you want". If I am not mistaken, this is usually because creators that are _no_t self publishing have already been paid and where it gets sold from at that point does not matter? The deals made between creator and publisher assuredly vary but if anyone has a light to shine on that, I would appreciate it.




Might depend on how closely related to the publisher they are and if said publisher has its own sales outlet. If they’re freelance, they might care a bit less than if they’re a permanent employee of the publisher. They also might have ideas about supporting the local FLGS (or not). Honestly, there are a lot of variables potentially in play.


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## Emirikol (Jul 4, 2020)

Great article.  I wish I'd been nicer to game developers over the years.  Not that I was mean, I just wish i'd thanked them more.


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## Espadadelaaurora (Jul 4, 2020)

After reading this I have Owen in an even greater regard.


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## DammitVictor (Jul 4, 2020)

Emirikol said:


> Great article.  I wish I'd been nicer to game developers over the years.  Not that I was mean, I just wish i'd thanked them more.




Hell, I've been mean. I don't have much remorse for the people I was mean to, or any regret that I won't be working with _them_ in the future, but I hate to think about all the bridges I'll never know I burned because the people I was mean to had friends of their own... or because uninvolved third parties _rightfully_ judged my character based on how I treated people whom I _wrongfully _felt didn't deserve courtesy. 

I'm not worried about losing work as a freelancer, because I never was any good at working for other people-- but there are a lot of industry veterans that I admire the hell out of, and I hope I haven't already lost any chance of working with them for striving to always be the second-biggest naughty word in the room.


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## Haffrung (Jul 4, 2020)

There are fields that attract large numbers of aspiring creators with the promise of engaging work doing something they love. These fields almost all pay poorly, for the simple reason there are a great many people willing to do them, and only a finite amount of money people are willing to spend on the products they create.

This is not new. While I sympathize with the frustration expressed by people struggling in those industries, I do have to wonder what they expected. Did they really think being an RPG designers would be a normal job, with the security and long-term benefits of an insurance adjuster or city planner?

And if this an unjust state of affairs, If we want most RPG designers, novelists, musicians, theatre directors, etc. to make a living wage, then we the consumers better be prepared to pay more - a _lot_ more - for those experiences. How many more RPG books would need to be sold, and how much more would publishers need to charge for them, to afford even 100 people in the world secure, long-term middle-class livelihoods in the industry?


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 4, 2020)

And when I think there are streamings earning money only playing videogames....


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 4, 2020)

> If you write work-for-hire on a ttRPG in the US, you can expected your work to be edited. Usually with no consultation or warning. You'll find out when the book is published. That's normal. For everyone.



In fact, this is normal for most sorts of writing in the US (which is where most of my writing experience is from). 

It's always a great deal of fun telling someone who's very mad at you that, despite your name being the only one appended to a piece they're upset about, it actually passed through one or more additional hands and that one of them changed the piece and that you not only can't tell them why the change was made but even who did it.

(To be fair, most of the time, those other hands actually save your butt and make you look better, although not editors are created equal -- not even close.)


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## rknop (Jul 4, 2020)

I suspect Amazon is selling at a loss.  I think they can afford to sell a whole lot of stuff at a loss.  And I think they do it consciously.  Not because they have an interest in putting other sellers of RPG books out of business -- RPG books are too small for them to notice.  But, because they have an interest in putting _everybody_ out of business that isn't them.  Their goal is to control commerce.  I suspect that routinely they sell a lot of things below their cost, because it serves their goal of increasing dominance, which so far has worked really well for them.

The last time I remember buying an RPG book from Amazon was something like 20 years ago.  I do buy things from Amazon, because, well, it's so convenient, and often it's almost the only option.  But I feel bad every time I do it.

When I buy RPGs online, I usually try to buy them from the publisher directly.  (Sometimes I buy them from DTRPG.)  I have bought some used books from Noble Knight Games.  (And other places, although not in recent years.)


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## Paragon Lost (Jul 4, 2020)

*"The most common retirement plan among full-time ttRPG professionals, freelance and on-staff both, is "Work until you die." *

Pretty much looking around that appears to be the new norm for a majority of people in the US these days. Retirement benefits aren't the norm nor very good these days for most. :/


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## Longspeak (Jul 4, 2020)

> Most TTrpg professionals get a lot more hate mail than praise or notes that their work is appreciated. BUT Those few notes hold a LOT more weight, per-word, than the ranting and whining. One person letting me they enjoyed a thing gets through 2-3 weeks of bile.




I will have to praise the stuff I enjoy more often.


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## Von Ether (Jul 4, 2020)

Haffrung said:


> This is not new. While I sympathize with the frustration expressed by people struggling in those industries, I do have to wonder what they expected. Did they really think being an RPG designers would be a normal job, with the security and long-term benefits of an insurance adjuster or city planner?




Living out on a farm in the 1980s that got sold off soon after I left for college? I assumed the arts could not be less stable. And being a journalist in the 90s wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. This was just the beginning of the pensions being closed down for 401ks because the good days were going to last forever. (This was also the nail in the coffin for the facade of company loyalty to employees.)

Before then, many households in Oklahoma believed you could work a good wage at a foundry or the airlines (never mind those fancy insurance or planner jobs) and get a medical plan and pension and that was it. 

Hindsight is 20/20 and I don't think anyone was planning on getting rich, but they also didn't think it was paycheck to paycheck either. It's not like a binary choice, there's a middle ground. 

And for this to be such open knowledge, Owen's words seems to be opening a lot of eyes. So I am pretty sure there's a good chunk of people who are unaware how the TTRPG, Video Games, and Comic Book industries work.


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## Dire Bare (Jul 5, 2020)

Haffrung said:


> There are fields that attract large numbers of aspiring creators with the promise of engaging work doing something the love. These fields almost all pay poorly, for the simple reason there are a great many people willing to do them, and only a finite amount of money people are willing to spend on the products they create.
> 
> This is not new. While I sympathize with the frustration expressed by people struggling in those industries, I do have to wonder what they expected. Did they really think being an RPG designers would be a normal job, with the security and long-term benefits of an insurance adjuster or city planner?
> 
> And if this an unjust state of affairs, If we want most RPG designers, novelists, musicians, theatre directors, etc. to make a living wage, then we the consumers better be prepared to pay more - a _lot_ more - for those experiences. How many more RPG books would need to be sold, and how much more would publishers need to charge for them, to afford even 100 people in the world secure, long-term middle-class livelihoods in the industry?



A lot of folks go into the arts or creative fields knowing that it will likely be a financial struggle for them, but . . . . they might be young and foolish, they might value "working the dream" over financial stability (more likely when young), might be hoping to hit it big (in the RPG industry, working for WotC), or just not have a real great understanding of the financial downsides to pursuing the arts. High school and college career counseling isn't always top-notch.

And there's a difference between knowing and _knowing_ . . . I'm a teacher. I knew going in that teachers don't make a lot of money and face a lot of frustratingly unnecessary hurdles between them and the actual education of children. But after a few years on the job, I began to really KNOW and understand not just how difficult teaching can be, but how unnecessarily so. And it wears on you after a while . . . when you are fresh and young (or at least a newb) you can convince yourself the hardships can be overcome and outweighed by the benefits . . . but as you get older and spend more time in the field . . .

Art types and teachers are far from the only underpaid and under-respected professions out there, society is pretty good at undervaluing groups of people. It's why I favor universal healthcare and universal basic income in the U.S., so that everybody gets a baseline of health, food, shelter, and retirement regardless of what career they pursue.


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## dragoner (Jul 5, 2020)

One could make money at RPG's, and it would be cool for a minute and then be extra bad, as burn out set in and the joy for the hobby died inside you. Like anything, it would take knowledge of business and startup capital, restaurants are worse for failing, even a gravel pit one isn't starting that with a used hammer from the flea market. What is happening across the board is that people are scrambling to make ends meet, all areas of employment.


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## Richards (Jul 5, 2020)

That's why I'm glad I only ever worked in the RPG industry as a freelancer.  I made a fair bit of money over the years, but it was bonus money coming in from a hobby, not my only means of support.  (I wouldn't have been able to support myself, let alone my family, had that been my only source of income.)  And I got to work on the projects I was interested in writing (assuming my proposal letters generated enough interest for the magazine editors to agree to let me send in an article or adventure - I got quite a few rejections over the years).  I don't think I'd have enjoyed actually working for an RPG company full time, where I'd likely be given assignments I was much less enthused about.  Same thing with any hobby, really - once I'd have to do it for a living, I suspect it wouldn't be as much fun.

Johnathan


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## aaronm (Jul 5, 2020)

So this is probably going to sound like I'm trying to be insulting, but I truly don't mean it that way.  Is this really surprising to most folks?

Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern.  No manual skills, no technical knowledge, not even mathematical proficiency (thought it really, _really _should require math, given the probability work -- remember 4E skill challenges?), etc.  At most it requires somewhat above average writing ability. Further, there are no educational, certification, or entry requirements.  A "fun" job with low barriers to entry leads to a high supply.

Meanwhile, the market for RPGs seems quite small compared to, well, pretty much any other sort of creative endeavor.

*High supply + low (and highly elastic) demand = low equilibrium price*.  It seems rather obvious that the pay would be bad, no?  I always just figured most RPG designers do it as a hobby or as a labor of love.


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## Dire Bare (Jul 5, 2020)

aaronm said:


> So this is probably going to sound like I'm trying to be insulting, but I truly don't mean it that way.  Is this really surprising to most folks?
> 
> Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern.  No manual skills, no technical knowledge, not even mathematical proficiency (thought it really, _really _should require math, given the probability work -- remember 4E skill challenges?), etc.  At most it requires somewhat above average writing ability. Further, there are no educational, certification, or entry requirements.  A "fun" job with low barriers to entry leads to a high supply.
> 
> ...



Huh? No skills?!?!

That is a pretty absurd claim. Game design requires writing and design skills, which can be performed poorly or well. If the job required no skills, then there would be no quality difference between products.

There are actually a few programs on game design at various universities, although they don't focus on tabletop RPGs specifically. At nearly 50 years in, the hobby itself is still relatively "new" and there aren't standard qualifications to get a job at one of the few companies that hire designers full time.

But the idea that game design is essentially unskilled labor that any bloke off the street could do equally well . . .


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## Von Ether (Jul 5, 2020)

aaronm said:


> So this is probably going to sound like I'm trying to be insulting, but I truly don't mean it that way.  Is this really surprising to most folks?
> 
> Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern.  No manual skills, no technical knowledge, not even mathematical proficiency (thought it really, _really _should require math, given the probability work -- remember 4E skill challenges?), etc.  At most it requires somewhat above average writing ability. Further, there are no educational, certification, or entry requirements.  A "fun" job with low barriers to entry leads to a high supply.
> 
> ...




As a long time creative, I hear this comment levied to more than just RPGs, but also fiction writers, other artists -- and even teachers. There was even the story of a novelist being introduced to a rich matriarch, who proclaimed, "all you do is write and tell tales? That's a skill I picked up at four."

And in my life, when someone says, "How hard can it be?" It's more a sign of what we used to call ignorance but now goes by the phrase, "The Dunning-Kruger effect." I've also noticed that for many professions have certs and education can be as much about being  methods of social gatekeeping, and adding prestige than ascertaining mastery.

So those who ask such questions, I posit to publish your own RPG core book and be willing to be judged on the writing, the layout, the editing and the design. Most (of the very few) who take this challenge probably won't even finish the first draft.

And since I mentioned teachers I'll just drop this classic here.


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## aaronm (Jul 5, 2020)

Von Ether said:


> As a long time creative, I hear this comment levied to more than just RPGs, but also fiction writers, other artists -- and even teachers. There was even the story of a novelist being introduced to a rich matriarch, who proclaimed, "all you do is write and tell tales? That's a skill I picked up at four."
> 
> And in my life, when someone says, "How hard can it be?" It's more a sign of what we used to call ignorance but now goes by the phrase, "The Dunning-Kruger effect." I've also noticed that for many professions have certs and education can be as much about being  methods of social gatekeeping, and adding prestige than ascertaining mastery.
> 
> ...




Happily, we don't have to speculate or rely on dubious analogies.  The market has spoken, and the pay for designing RPGs sucks.  If you have plausible explanation for why this is the case -- other than supply and demand -- I'm all ears.

Edit:  That's also not really how Dunning-Kruger works.  But whatever.


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## aaronm (Jul 5, 2020)

Dire Bare said:


> Huh? No skills?!?!
> 
> That is a pretty absurd claim. Game design requires writing and design skills, which can be performed poorly or well. If the job required no skills, then there would be no quality difference between products.
> 
> ...




"Any bloke off the street" is a bit of a straw man.  But I would argue that anyone with an aptitude for language and some interest could become relatively proficient in a very short time. 

But assume for a second that I'm wrong, and RPG design is an uncommon skill.  How, then, do _you _explain the terrible pay?


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## rknop (Jul 5, 2020)

The vast majority of musicians who try to earn a living as musicians do not make very much money.

Would you say that just anybody who picks up a violin and tries to play is going to be anywhere close to as good as somebody who has a gig as a second violinist in a moderate but not large sized city orchestra?

There's a case where the pay is poor, but, unless you REALLY have no clue how hard it is to play the violin, you would never agree that the skills are common.


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## rknop (Jul 5, 2020)

Also, Dunning-Kruger : there are two parts to it.  One part is that somebody who is really good at something, particularly somebody who is highly experienced and trained (although I hate that word) tends to think that what they are able to do is easier than it really is.  Those folks tend to de-value their own abilities, because they think that more people have them than really do.

The flip side is that people who have very little experience and very little skill at something tend to overestimate their own skill at it.  Again, the result is that they think that more people should be able to do those things than are really able to do them, because how hard could it be after all?

You seem to think that you -- or anybody who's an above average writer -- could sit down and write an RPG that other people would want to buy.  This is exactly how Dunning-Kruger works.  Almost by definition, the people falling for it won't believe it's Dunning-Kruger, because they have misestimated how good they are at something.


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## whimsychris123 (Jul 5, 2020)

aaronm said:


> Happily, we don't have to speculate or rely on dubious analogies.  The market has spoken, and the pay for designing RPGs sucks.  If you have plausible explanation for why this is the case -- other than supply and demand -- I'm all ears.



The low pay is much like all the arts.  It's an attractive profession, and therefore many people are drawn to create content regardless of the demand. Unfortunately, only a few get paid the big bucks no matter how many highly-skilled individuals exist in the field.

There's a reason why WotC's books have dozens of names attached to them.  Game design is a monumental task requiring a lot of different types of skills.


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## aaronm (Jul 5, 2020)

rknop said:


> Also, Dunning-Kruger : there are two parts to it.  One part is that somebody who is really good at something, particularly somebody who is highly experienced and trained (although I hate that word) tends to think that what they are able to do is easier than it really is.  Those folks tend to de-value their own abilities, because they think that more people have them than really do.
> 
> The flip side is that people who have very little experience and very little skill at something tend to overestimate their own skill at it.  Again, the result is that they think that more people should be able to do those things than are really able to do them, because how hard could it be after all?
> 
> You seem to think that you -- or anybody who's an above average writer -- could sit down and write an RPG that other people would want to buy.  This is exactly how Dunning-Kruger works.  Almost by definition, the people falling for it won't believe it's Dunning-Kruger, because they have misestimated how good they are at something.




Dunning-Kruger is when one "lacks the meta-cognitive ability to recognize one's own incompetence."  Please note that I made no claims about my own competence; only an observation about the relative commonality of the apparent skill set.  But let's assume for the purposes of this discussion that I had.

In essence, you are correct:  I don't believe that RPG design is all that difficult.  Whether or not that is because I lack personal experience (and am therefore ignorant) is the subject of our disagreement.

Let's look at your example for a moment:  Playing a violin.  Despite a complete lack of any personal experience whatsoever, I recognize that playing the violin is an extremely specialized skill.  If I were suffering from Dunning-Kruger, my ignorance should mean that I would "tend to overestimate my own skill at it."  Yet I remain aware that I could NEVER just pick up a violin and play.

On the other hand clear writing is not an extremely specialized skill.  Nor is a grasp of basic probability, or understanding the genre in which one is working.  All of these are skills which are commonly used in a variety of other industries.  And while I do not doubt that there are some gifted individuals working in the field of RPG design, the barriers to entry for the field as a whole are _extremely_ low (as evidenced by the sheer number of indie RPGs). Low barriers to entry help to ensure wages stay depressed.

Could I be wrong? Of course.  But you're going to have to be a little more specific than just throwing "Dunning-Krueger" at me.

TLDR:  I've never run a marathon, but I know I couldn't just do it.  I've never worked as a cashier at Wal-Mart, yet I know I could.  Dunning-Krueger is more than a synonym for ignorance.


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## aaronm (Jul 5, 2020)

whimsychris123 said:


> The low pay is much like all the arts.  It's an attractive profession, and therefore many people are drawn to create content regardless of the demand. Unfortunately, only a few get paid the big bucks no matter how many highly-skilled individuals exist in the field.
> 
> There's a reason why WotC's books have dozens of names attached to them.  Game design is a monumental task requiring a lot of different types of skills.




I believe that you're arguing that the low equilibrium price (wages) is more attributable to (the relative lack of) demand than it is to supply.  Ultimately I do not agree, but I acknowledge that your position is a reasonable one (not to imply that you require my acknowledgement -- rather, I am conceding your point).


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## MichaelSomething (Jul 5, 2020)

You also have to factor in that art skills are different then business skills.  Making art and selling art are also separate skill sets, and many artists lack in the later.


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## rknop (Jul 5, 2020)

Sure, anybody who can write can write an RPG book and put it for sale.  Will it be any good?  That's a very different question.  Just as anybody can pick up a basketball and throw it through hoops, but, to paraphrase Winton Marsalis, they'd really be playing basketball, but it's not necessarily something you'd want to see.

You seem to be under the impression that anybody who's played an RPG and has some idea what they're about will be able to sit down and write an RPG book that will be comparable in quality (of text, at least) to anything else out there.  People who actually write RPGs have already said otherwise.  Whom should I believe?


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## Morrus (Jul 5, 2020)

aaronm said:


> Dunning-Kruger is when one "lacks the meta-cognitive ability to recognize one's own incompetence."  Please note that I made no claims about my own competence; only an observation about the relative commonality of the apparent skill set.  But let's assume for the purposes of this discussion that I had.
> 
> In essence, you are correct:  I don't believe that RPG design is all that difficult.  Whether or not that is because I lack personal experience (and am therefore ignorant) is the subject of our disagreement.
> 
> ...



Lots of people can write an RPG, sure (hell, even I've done it). Not everybody can do it well. I hope I have, but I know there are game designers who have done things that I look up to and admire immensely.

Lots of people can run. Far fewer of them can do it well.

Plenty of people can cook. Plenty of people can play football. Plenty of people can sing. That does not negate the achievements of chefs, professional football players, and opera singers.


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## aaronm (Jul 5, 2020)

Morrus said:


> Lots of people can write an RPG, sure (hell, even I've done it). Not everybody can do it well. I hope I have, but I know there are game designers who have done things that I look up to and admire immensely.
> 
> Lots of people can run. Far fewer of them can do it well.
> 
> Plenty of people can cook. Plenty of people can play football. Plenty of people can sing. That does not negate the achievements of chefs, professional football players, and opera singers.




And I dispute none of that.

As I've stated, my intention wasn't to disparage people in the field of game design, merely to explain why the industry doesn't pay well.  After all, the fact that the industry doesn't pay well was  mentioned in this thread as coming as a surprise to many fans, which in turn surprised me, as the reasons why this is the case seem fairly obvious.


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## aaronm (Jul 5, 2020)

rknop said:


> Sure, anybody who can write can write an RPG book and put it for sale.  Will it be any good?  That's a very different question.  Just as anybody can pick up a basketball and throw it through hoops, but, to paraphrase Winton Marsalis, they'd really be playing basketball, but it's not necessarily something you'd want to see.
> 
> You seem to be under the impression that anybody who's played an RPG and has some idea what they're about will be able to sit down and write an RPG book that will be comparable in quality (of text, at least) to anything else out there.  People who actually write RPGs have already said otherwise.  Whom should I believe?




You should believe whomever you like, though I would suggest that, in general, one is better served by considering the content of an argument rather than the source. YMMV.


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## DaveMage (Jul 5, 2020)

aaronm said:


> And while I do not doubt that there are some gifted individuals working in the field of RPG design, the barriers to entry for the field as a whole are _extremely_ low (as evidenced by the sheer number of indie RPGs). Low barriers to entry help to ensure wages stay depressed.




Yeah, I think this is a killer right now.  Over-supply is huge.  It's likely affecting all of the various markets for creative writing (RPGs, fiction, etc.).


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## rknop (Jul 5, 2020)

...and when the content of the argument is "I assert that this is true", then, yes, you should consider the source.


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## aaronm (Jul 6, 2020)

rknop said:


> ...and when the content of the argument is "I assert that this is true", then, yes, you should consider the source.




If you truly believe that is what my argument amounts to, then I'm afraid there is little point in saying more.  Except, of course:  Good evening.


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## Michael Dean (Jul 6, 2020)

Emirikol said:


> Great article.  I wish I'd been nicer to game developers over the years.  Not that I was mean, I just wish i'd thanked them more.




Ha ha, I feel the opposite! I usually walk away after meeting a creator at Gen Con kicking myself because I feel like I acted like a total kiss ass.  Glad to hear they actually like compliments.


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## dragoner (Jul 6, 2020)

"Supply and demand" sounds pithy, however, wages are not solely dependent on that factor, and many times not at all. One could cite talent being the biggest factor in any artist's success, nevertheless we know that isn't true.


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## Von Ether (Jul 6, 2020)

aaronm said:


> Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern.




Creating RPGs requires switching among several skill sets, especially if you're a one-person band. Just writing alone jumps between technical writing, aspects of fiction writing and marketing. It's also sitting in your chair and _getting. the. darn. thing. finished._ And then there's editing, which is a skill related to writing but also different. 

As well editing. Layout and design is another skill that goes beyond just slapping stuff on a page. There's a balance of white space and the grey wall of text. There is also understanding art direction to enhance the product and sell the zest for wanting to play. There's also the knowledge of the printing processes (CYMK vs RGB), etc. 

And the majority of this is on the job training, btw. If not also your own money. 

So if that is new information for some who judges that RPGs need no special skills ... well, we can agree to disagree on K-D then. 

I think there are two questions here. Why is the pay bad now? And why was the pay bad back then?

For both time periods, one of the factors is that creatives are irrational actors working in a system where publishers are gatekeepers.
In fiction publishing, it has always be a passive aggressive adversarial. For the longest time, publishers refused to let writers look at the spreadsheets to confirm if their royalties were correct. Also new creatives who don't know what they are worth don't help.
(PG-13 video for swear words)

RPGs are more of being over the map because a talent can become their own publisher.

The other universal constant is that our culture doesn't value art, or can't afford, depending on who you talk to. Or they do to some degree but want an added benefit*. Or if it's a pop cultural thing, then the consumer becomes their own irrational actor. It's like you are either Stephen King, a painting that happens to also match the drapes, or "I don't know you, you must suck." Not much middle ground there. 

Beyond those constants, In the past:

TSR's principals dropped the ball, leveraging the irrational actor bit to establish a low base line as they tried to turn Waldenbooks (or whoever) into an ATM. 
Other companies were so shoestring and/or small shops that profits were sorely meager. 
My guesses for today?

Owen said it in the post above, there's no solid data for overall sales. (TSR never even ran customer/demographic polls. They just created their product lines on what someone upstairs thought sounded cool that year.) And for those that do have some real data, they are not sharing it.  It is also a very fractured market with lots of smaller private companies that are leery of sharing their data and sales numbers. 

And thanks to Kickstarter and technology, the bar of hopefuls is much lower -- but it is still learn as you go. With streaming, now the path is "stream until you get a big enough audience, then make your own stuff." 

So it sort of like when  a graphic designers could make $60k in the corporate world back when Quark Express was a mysterious black box no one but the designer knew how to use (And cost hundreds of dollars to own.) Now InDesign is taught at the community college and the pay is third of what it used to be, which is good because you can barely afford the $60 monthly fee for Creative Suite. (Those names sound new to someone? Hello, K-D)

So it is a flooded job market in a small industry that is now probably even more fractured but still is very open to you becoming your own entrepreneur if you can master and juggle several different software programs.

If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if the industry is making more money than ever, but the pie is micro-sliced at the same time. So between traditional attitudes towards pay in the field and most smaller companies not seeing as much of a rise as they could, pay is still depressed. Which means the answer is one part culture and one part economic. 

*I have small press published and self-published fiction and RPG PDFs. The PDFs sell much more because people are more excited to get stuff for their game than a new story. 

Just my 2 cents. 
(Dang, I should have just made this a Pateron post.)


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## SavageCole (Jul 6, 2020)

There are certain game designers whose work I admire immensely.  I owe people like Gygas & Arneson, Greg Stanford, Kevin Ross, Oscar Rios, Graeme Davis, Gareth Hanrahan, Mark Morrison, and Gerard Christopher Klug so much for the great times I’ve spent at the table because of their work.  With a few exceptions, these guys did not see real financial rewards.  Not because they didn’t have absolute genius for this sort of work, but because the market for their product is so niche.   The reason it’s not a lucrative field is not that anyone can do it well.  It’s that done poorly or well, there’s just not that much of a market for it.


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## GrahamWills (Jul 6, 2020)

aaronm said:


> I believe that you're arguing that the low equilibrium price (wages) is more attributable to (the relative lack of) demand than it is to supply.  Ultimately I do not agree, but I acknowledge that your position is a reasonable one (not to imply that you require my acknowledgement -- rather, I am conceding your point).




The estimated size of the US and Canadian rpg market in 2018 was about $65m.  Now of that pie, how much pages to authors, artists and other creatives? In the overall book world, 10% is a pretty reasonable figure, so that leaves $6.5m. To pay a median US salary of $62K, that‘s pretty close to 100 people.

The RPG market is absolutely tiny. 100 full time creatives are all it can support. That’s less than 2 people per state/territory. That’s the level of demand that is there for RPG creatives. That’s why you have many people paid so little. That‘s why it is not true that writing RPGs is a relatively easy thing; you have to be ungodly good at it to have a chance to win out against the others who are only fantastically good at it. You have to be the lucky one among the other ungodly good people. And you have to work at it incessantly, because everybody else is.

Last year at about this time I thought Universal Basic Income a nice idea that was bit unrealistic. Now, especially seeing how COVID has highlighted how fragile our economy is, it begins to look like the best solution to making sure that people can do work that people value and that they want to do, without destroying their ability to actually, well, live. Imagine how much better an RPG freelancer’s life would be if they knew that they’ll still never be as rich as if they took that IT job, but at least their family will be fed and they won’t die from lack of healthcare. If UBI is a bit of a stretch for you, think about other ways our society could make it easier for those who simply will never get paid as much as the average person. Health care, obviously, but there are other ways too. This may feel a bit political, Nd even a bit left-leaning — if so, just ignore me and look for other ideas that fit your philosophy. But we have to find some way to make the economy work for all people, not just for some.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 6, 2020)

aaronm said:


> Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern.



Please allow me to sell you a $50 book culled together from random blog posts and see if you can discern the difference from the "unskilled" folks WotC put together. _I'll bet you can._


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 6, 2020)

aaronm said:


> But assume for a second that I'm wrong, and RPG design is an uncommon skill.  How, then, do _you _explain the terrible pay?



This is a terrible metric.

Veterinarians go through the same degree of schooling as human doctors do, have to diagnose patients without them being able to talk about their symptoms and get paid significantly less.

The degree of skill and training involved has almost no relationship to how much one is compensated. Otherwise, someone who looks pretty and is decent-enough at looking scared of imaginary transformer robots in a Transformers movie would somehow be vastly more skilled than a brain surgeon, which is clearly not true.


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## clearstream (Jul 6, 2020)

aaronm said:


> So this is probably going to sound like I'm trying to be insulting, but I truly don't mean it that way.  Is this really surprising to most folks?
> 
> Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern.  No manual skills, no technical knowledge, not even mathematical proficiency (thought it really, _really _should require math, given the probability work -- remember 4E skill challenges?), etc.  At most it requires somewhat above average writing ability. Further, there are no educational, certification, or entry requirements.  A "fun" job with low barriers to entry leads to a high supply.
> 
> ...



Your question is something like: why are RPG designers paid so little? Without evidence, you speculate that it is because it "_requires no special skills_", positing a firm valency between skill and pay (itself doubtful). Like others in this thread, I believe there is a more compelling alternative. The market is very small (<$100m), so as @GrahamWills pointed out there's only room for a hundred or so well-paid people in the industry.

It might also be a factor that there is a low barrier to entry - so that there are far more novices trying their hand than can be sustained commercially. Once we factor in the quality of the work delivered, the picture becomes more nuanced. _Doing RPG design *at a novice level* requires no special skills._ It takes great skill to perform RPG design at a high commercial level of quality. 

The range of skills involved is more than you might think. Designers frequently hold relevant degrees, and will model their game systems in software as one (of many) strategies to test and refine them. They will be expert both in doing the writing, and in structuring the approach to the writing. I can often tell the skill of a designer before they write anything, just from their plan of attack. Designers apply a toolkit of specialised methods. They will be able to estimate up-front roughly the effort and iterations needed to deliver a given piece of work. Usually, they have familiarity with IP law - the applicability of trademark and copyright, the meaning of licensing versus assignment, the moral rights, the inapplicability (in most cases) of patents. They will know the field and be able to list and critique the more important or avante-garde works of the year. Some designers pair their day job - designing - with PR work for themselves and their company.


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## rknop (Jul 6, 2020)

aaronm said:


> If you truly believe that is what my argument amounts to, then I'm afraid there is little point in saying more.  Except, of course:  Good evening.




What evidence have you provided that anybody who's able to write can sit down and write an RPG product that will be comparable in quality to the ones that actually sell halfway decently?  You've just stated it as if it were self-evident.  If you think that that is a more cogent argument than asserting that something is true and everybody should believe it, then I have nothing more to say to you than: I'm sorry.


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## Eminence_Grise (Jul 6, 2020)

I think there's a reason why online forum became less and less popular over the years. It's because there's always at least 1 stubborn person with a baseless strong opinion, that gets 3 pages of counter-arguments, and the discussion is still going nowhere.


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## Von Ether (Jul 6, 2020)

To get back on track, Owen touched on retirements and other benefits. 

Now a days, we look to employers to provide that. But there used to be/is an option that fell out of vogue, professional organizations. 

The gaming industry has GAMA, so the question there is what are GAMA's hurdles to providing something to individual members and company members.


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## aaronm (Jul 6, 2020)

Eminence_Grise said:


> I think there's a reason why online forum became less and less popular over the years. It's because there's always at least 1 stubborn person with a baseless strong opinion, that gets 3 pages of counter-arguments, and the discussion is still going nowhere.




Allow me to present an alternate hypothesis to explain the forum's decline in popularity:  Contrary opinions, no matter how well-reasoned or politely expressed, and are often met an insular response...just like this one.

But message received; I'll show myself out.


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## Von Ether (Jul 6, 2020)

Eminence_Grise said:


> I think there's a reason why online forum became less and less popular over the years. It's because there's always at least 1 stubborn person with a baseless strong opinion, that gets 3 pages of counter-arguments, and the discussion is still going nowhere.




And I'd add that if a strong opinion eventually changed their mind, most simply ghost on the discussion than give closure or vindication to the counter argument. After a while, people get tired of shouting at the wind when they don't see results.


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## R_Chance (Jul 7, 2020)

aaronm said:


> Allow me to present an alternate hypothesis to explain the forum's decline in popularity:  Contrary opinions, no matter how well-reasoned or politely expressed, and are often met an insular response...just like this one.
> 
> But message received; I'll show myself out.




What you should have said (as opposed to it taking no skills), is that there are no clear professional requirements (degrees, apprenticeships etc.) for the job and the lack of gate keeping leads to a higher supply of would be designers than otherwise. Combined with the (lack of) market size, the indie / amateur game scene, the high production costs / low profits of physical products, and other factors and you get low wages. My 2 cp.


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## dragoner (Jul 7, 2020)

Wages are stagnant across all industries, if game designers are in a vulnerable group previously, then the economic downturn will exacerbate that trend. For example theaters were under fierce competition from streaming services, the pandemic has devastated their business. As previously posted, the RPG market is relatively small, without the ability to support too many full time designers, so any losses will seem large.

The real solution is to grow the total market value, thus enabling designers to increase their revenue stream without changing the competitive mechanisms.


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## Dire Bare (Jul 7, 2020)

dragoner said:


> Wages are stagnant across all industries, if game designers are in a vulnerable group previously, then the economic downturn will exacerbate that trend. For example theaters were under fierce competition from streaming services, the pandemic has devastated their business. As previously posted, the RPG market is relatively small, without the ability to support too many full time designers, so any losses will seem large.
> 
> The real solution is to grow the total market value, thus enabling designers to increase their revenue stream without changing the competitive mechanisms.



Wages are stagnant across MOST industries, but not all. There are pockets of the economy that are doing better than ever.

Not really sure how the pandemic and economic turmoil is affecting the RPG industry overall . . . but we are seeing a surge in online play and interest in D&D and other RPGs. I would be curious to hear from industry professionals how they feel the pandemic is affecting their company and the industry at large.


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## Morrus (Jul 7, 2020)

Dire Bare said:


> Wages are stagnant across MOST industries, but not all. There are pockets of the economy that are doing better than ever.
> 
> Not really sure how the pandemic and economic turmoil is affecting the RPG industry overall . . . but we are seeing a surge in online play and interest in D&D and other RPGs. I would be curious to hear from industry professionals how they feel the pandemic is affecting their company and the industry at large.



Well, the pandemic closed down game stores, and that in turn closed down some distributors, who in turn delayed paying publishers, who had to find the money elsewhere to pay staff and freelancers. So there's that!


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## Zardnaar (Jul 7, 2020)

Dire Bare said:


> Wages are stagnant across MOST industries, but not all. There are pockets of the economy that are doing better than ever.
> 
> Not really sure how the pandemic and economic turmoil is affecting the RPG industry overall . . . but we are seeing a surge in online play and interest in D&D and other RPGs. I would be curious to hear from industry professionals how they feel the pandemic is affecting their company and the industry at large.




 It's still too early really. 

 Online play is booming compared to what it was but you can see how many games are being run. 

 Gamestores are closed, there's Amazon but how many people are gaming in person? 

  I've got that luxury, the movie industry I suspect will be hit hard even if they do figure out how to film stuff. Even if theaters can open who's gonna go in similar numbers.


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## Owen K.C. Stephens (Jul 7, 2020)

Dire Bare said:


> I would be curious to hear from industry professionals how they feel the pandemic is affecting their company and the industry at large.




I gave my US-focused thoughts on that at my blog last month.









						The Game Industry “In These Uncertain Times”
					

(Photo by Tab10) I’m interrupting this week’s at-your-table game content to discuss the state of the industry. We’ll get back to fund stuff, but this is important. I’ll star…




					owenkcstephens.com


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## macd21 (Jul 7, 2020)

Morrus said:


> Well, the pandemic closed down game stores, and that in turn closed down some distributors, who in turn delayed paying publishers, who had to find the money elsewhere to pay staff and freelancers. So there's that!




There’s also supply chain issues. Books that were meant to be on shelves were trapped in warehouses, or not printed at all, because staff were in lockdown.


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## Zardnaar (Jul 7, 2020)

Owen K.C. Stephens said:


> I gave my US-focused thoughts on that at my blog last month.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




 I liked you toss a coin to your writer line.


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## jasper (Jul 7, 2020)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Please allow me to sell you a $50 book culled together from random blog posts and see if you can discern the difference from the "unskilled" folks WotC put together. _I'll bet you can._



I am currently reading a gaming book which was blog posts. I glad I paid under $4 for the kindle version.


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## Windjammer (Jul 7, 2020)

aaronm said:


> So this is probably going to sound like I'm trying to be insulting, but I truly don't mean it that way.  Is this really surprising to most folks?
> 
> Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern.  No manual skills, no technical knowledge, not even mathematical proficiency (thought it really, _really _should require math, given the probability work -- remember 4E skill challenges?), etc.  At most it requires somewhat above average writing ability. Further, there are no educational, certification, or entry requirements.  A "fun" job with low barriers to entry leads to a high supply.
> 
> ...




This is obviously and unarguably true. Especially because you wrote, "Designing RPGs" and not "Designing RPGs that sell well" or "Designig RPGs that win awards like the Ennies." You didn't, and yet that's the goal posts people moved to, to more easily dismiss your post.

The other point you made is "requires." You didn't say "RPG designers don't have skills" or "Published designers don't have skills." Yet that's the opinion you got attacked for. Very typical for this forum where people become extremely defensive when they smell an affront to their beloved hobby.

It's a fact that there's no quality control inherent in the RPG industry. None whatsoever. It's worse than journalism or academic publishing which have internal quality control (like peer review) or writing standards (like the Chicago Manual) in place; or require writers to get certified, join a professional association, or what have you. Still a far cry from how lawyers and doctors get certified, etc., but it's there. Not so in RPGs.

RPGs are a "free for all." There's a reason we talk about the d20 glut. And that was 2001! Talk about 2020. With self-publishing PDFs, the RPG "industry" has become a quagmire as rudderless and unmoderated as Facebook. Ironically, this means we have greater diversity of content, but it's also completely out of control. My favorite recent work is Gene Weigel's self-published book on Amazon which you can buy for $40. Go ahead, click on Preview, and you'll see that the author is illiterate of even the most basic Word formatting functions. Even using bold font is too much.  That's cool. It's still a better dungeon than a lot of other stuff people put up for sale.

None of that is a knock against authors like Owen. Quality in this hobby obviously does exist, but it fights an uphill battle against every last person who thinks they can publish their home brew and charge money out there.

The final ingredient is sheer quantity overload. Someone once analyzed how long it must have taken Hogsmead Publishing (?) to put together Warhammer 1st RPG. I think it took years. And they were shy putting out supplements, which were equally labor-intense. These days, the recipe is: throw as much sh_t on the wall and see if any of it sells. Of course there's not much time that way to get playtested. That, I think, was one of Owen's points here too. And he makes the great point that often 3PP publishers playtest MORE than the big publishing houses. I think FFG gave up playtesting and proof reading (I'm serious) for their product in 2008 or so. It just wasn't worth their dime.

In short, the industry's lack of internal and external regulation is hurting the very people who want to make a living in it. That's not a knock against the people who try to enter the industry; perhaps the only mistake in your post was to not make that clear from the get go. Other than that, I find it hard to argue with your point.


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## Morrus (Jul 7, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> Very typical for this forum where people become extremely defensive when they smell an affront to their beloved hobby.




We can't all be as clever as you. Also, please don't insult other users, even en-masse. Thanks.


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## Von Ether (Jul 7, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> It's worse than journalism or academic publishing which have internal quality control (like peer review) or writing standards (like the Chicago Manual) in place; or require writers to get certified, join a professional association, or what have you. Still a far cry from how lawyers and doctors get certified, etc., but it's there. Not so in RPGs.




There's GAMA, but it's a bit broad and includes all games and even retail. 

SFWA (Science Fiction Writers Association) has also tried to be more welcoming to game writers but it seems heavily slanted towards video games by dint of:
1. Minimum qualifying pay is $3k, which most TTRPG writers have told me that if they can repeatedly earn that much in a year, they're networked in enough to not need a professional organization
2. The last two years of Neb nominations only had one TTRPG selected.

And there's a unspoken hierarchy. So much so that a media tie-in fiction organization has popped up as competition.

But an organization could help on the retirement and benefits front.

As a side note, more and more TTRPG companies are following WotCs lead and are adopting the Chicago manual. Which kills me an old AP guy like me.


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## dragoner (Jul 7, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> In short, the industry's lack of internal and external regulation is hurting the very people who want to make a living in it.




No. What you are describing are market forces, competitive mechanisms to make the best survive. The surplus and low barrier to entry are a feature, not a bug. Changing it, would not necessarily make for better games, and would for the creatives, saw off the branch they sit on, because how did they get in? Things like the d20 glut are just how the system works, either work with the system or find something else? Innovate, even in the worst of situations there is opportunity. You are also going to hear more from the unsatisfied than satisfied, that is also how things work. "What place does bad art have in a free society?" Is the age old question.

I am for ubi, uhc, and programs to make society less cut throat; they are the right thing to do to lessen people's suffering, as well as pennywise and pound foolish not to do, except that is another discussion.


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## Windjammer (Jul 7, 2020)

Von Ether said:


> snip



Thank you, very informative post!


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## aaronm (Jul 8, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> This is obviously and unarguably true. Especially because you wrote, "Designing RPGs" and not "Designing RPGs that sell well" or "Designig RPGs that win awards like the Ennies." You didn't, and yet that's the goal posts people moved to, to more easily dismiss your post.
> 
> The other point you made is "requires." You didn't say "RPG designers don't have skills" or "Published designers don't have skills." Yet that's the opinion you got attacked for.




I actually had no intention of returning to this thread (or this board, really), but I do feel the need to do so in order to say* thank you*.  All too often "logic" on the Internet amounts to dog-piling; it's nice to see the occasional exception.


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## R_Chance (Jul 8, 2020)

aaronm said:


> I actually had no intention of returning to this thread (or this board, really), but I do feel the need to do so in order to say* thank you*.  All too often "logic" on the Internet amounts to dog-piling; it's nice to see the occasional exception.




To say what has been said very often, the internet lacks the context clues of either face to face or (even) voice communication. People will "define" (or interpret) what you say through their own lenses / bias. All you can do is offer further explanation and have patience. It's happened to many of us. This would all be easier if we were sitting around talking it out. But, this is what we have, and I would argue it's (considerably) better than nothing. So, hang in there. Or here. And relax.


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## wingsandsword (Jul 9, 2020)

Dire Bare said:


> Huh? No skills?!?!
> 
> That is a pretty absurd claim. Game design requires writing and design skills, which can be performed poorly or well. If the job required no skills, then there would be no quality difference between products.
> 
> ...



The writing and design skills are fairly common.  They're common enough that most gaming groups have someone in them that possesses the skills to at least a mediocre level.

I've seen SO many homebrew game systems that were at least as good as mediocre professionally published games, and I've seen plenty of homebrew game worlds and game settings that were at least comparable to the bulk of (not the best, but as good or better than at least some products on the shelves).

One big reason that tabletop gaming as a hobby has SO many people wanting to get into it as a business is because, quite bluntly, most gaming groups have at least one person in them that can cobble together a playable, passable setting, and people who can make a workable (if not exceptional) new game system aren't horribly rare either.

The best stuff out there is better than homebrew, but there's been a lot of junk on the shelves over the years that would definitely be of the same quality as decent homebrew (assuming it had a decent editors and production staff to polish it up).

Are there skills needed?  Yes.  Not horribly rare one though.


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## dragoner (Jul 9, 2020)

Luck counts more than skill, why the rich rule.

edit: There is some skill, that might not be immediately thought of, such as the skill in taking 50k of one's own money, writing a 80 page business plan, and getting 450k in grants and loans, then paying someone else to write out their ideas. They will go much farther at making a successful game rather than someone writing and starting from zero, or with limited resources; so luck is important there too.


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## Tyler Do'Urden (Jul 11, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> RPGs are a "free for all." There's a reason we talk about the d20 glut. And that was 2001! Talk about 2020. With self-publishing PDFs, the RPG "industry" has become a quagmire as rudderless and unmoderated as Facebook. Ironically, this means we have greater diversity of content, but it's also completely out of control. My favorite recent work is Gene Weigel's self-published book on Amazon which you can buy for $40. Go ahead, click on Preview, and you'll see that the author is illiterate of even the most basic Word formatting functions. Even using bold font is too much.  That's cool. It's still a better dungeon than a lot of other stuff people put up for sale.




I just went and pulled that one up... it actually doesn't look too bad, it just looks like he was purposefully trying to make the adventure look "OSR", like a D&D module from 40 years ago. The font, the formatting, everything screams that, and from what I saw flipping through the preview it's not too badly formatted once that's taken into account.

Have we moved beyond that, though? Well, yes. If you want to see the pinnacle of current quality, don't even look at WotC or Paizo - look at Monte Cook Games. Everything he publishes these days is a work of art. I'd leave them sitting on the coffeetable if I didn't think my five year old son might inadvertently rip them apart!

(And Broken Castle... looks like fun. I'd probably buy a copy if it was available in PDF; I generally don't buy modules in print as I run them from my laptop.)



> None of that is a knock against authors like Owen. Quality in this hobby obviously does exist, but it fights an uphill battle against every last person who thinks they can publish their home brew and charge money out there.




This is where gatekeepers are helpful - one reason many people won't touch "third party content" is because they see being published by WotC or Paizo as being a clear mark that they're getting a quality product. There are smaller press that do just as good (or better) work - see Monte Cook or Kobold (all ex-WotC people, of course!), but it's an understandable prejudice.


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## basilforth (Jul 12, 2020)

Dire Bare said:


> Not to detract from Owen's statements, but this is true for any career in the arts. It's incredibly difficult to make enough money to live comfortably and responsibly prepare for retirement. On one hand, why should we consider artistic pursuits as full-time work rather than part-time interests? On the other, the products of artistic expression can generate a lot of money, which often gets claimed by those other than the artists themselves. Our society values art, but undervalues and takes advantage of artists. And yes, game design is art. Fight me.




This seems true.  Creative industries are harsh.  I wonder how many artists enter the field with different expectations?


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## Quickleaf (Jul 12, 2020)

Thank you @Morrus! Some great wisdom from Owen here. I've been a fan of his work since Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas line and WotC's Star Wars SAGA Edition.



> Amazon sometimes sells ttRPG items cheaper than retailers can get from distributors. No one admits to selling them to Amazon at this price. Either Amazon is taking a loss (perfectly possible), or there's a hole in a distribution tier. This pisses off retailers.




I'm unfamiliar with how distribution to retailers works. Can anyone explain what he means – or might mean – by "a hole in a distribution tier"?


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## Enevhar Aldarion (Jul 12, 2020)

Quickleaf said:


> I'm unfamiliar with how distribution to retailers works. Can anyone explain what he means – or might mean – by "a hole in a distribution tier"?




I think this means that Amazon buys things like a wholesaler does and then turns around and retails them directly, so they fulfill both roles, rather than the producer selling to a wholesaler who sells to the retailers who sell to the customers. One less person in the supply chain means more flexibility for Amazon, and other big online companies who do this, for what they can sell items for and still not lose money on the sale. Direct sales can sometimes mean better prices for the consumer, so getting rid of the middleman/wholesaler can mean more profit for the producer and lower prices for the customer.


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## clearstream (Jul 12, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> This is obviously and unarguably true. Especially because you wrote, "Designing RPGs" and not "Designing RPGs that sell well" or "Designig RPGs that win awards like the Ennies." You didn't, and yet that's the goal posts people moved to, to more easily dismiss your post.
> 
> The other point you made is "requires." You didn't say "RPG designers don't have skills" or "Published designers don't have skills." Yet that's the opinion you got attacked for. Very typical for this forum where people become extremely defensive when they smell an affront to their beloved hobby.
> 
> ...



I think you just arqued that his words were devoid of meaning. Brain surgery requires no special skills. Unless the patient cares to survive the experience...


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## Windjammer (Jul 12, 2020)

aaronm said:


> All too often "logic" on the Internet amounts to dog-piling



Yes it's frequent and I've come to accept it as a given. I would encourage you to not take it too personally though. As Christopher Hitchens once said, "When my opponent moves for the ad hominem in a debate, I know that I have won. Because they have no substantive argument left." That's how I decipher online debates once the name calling starts. The argument is over but one side is too proud to admit it. At other times, the argument is too opaque for certain people to understand, so they attack what they think they _do_ understand. That's what I think happened to you. You made a point that made people very uncomfortable (you even led with "this may sound insulting" so you were aware of it), and most people go for the shortest route to get rid of things they find uncomfortable--attack and dismissal. 


clearstream said:


> I think you just arqued that his words were devoid of meaning. Brain surgery requires no special skills. Unless the patient cares to survive the experience...



Haha, ok, funny come-back. Great example. It doesn't hold up to muster, and I hope I can be forgiven for trying to write a serious response. (Though again, I did find your reply genuinely funny.)

His point was that certain professional activities have lower thresholds to be categorized as a bona fide instances of that activity than others. _And that's all his post needed._

Consider the difference between these activities: "Swim 100m" versus "Swim 100m at the Olympics." It's safe to say many people like you and me and others can swim 100 meters, given time and occasion, yes? But if you or I showed up at the Olympic games and jumped into the pool, that wouldn't qualify as swimming the 100 at the Olympics. It wouldn't even qualify as attempting to do that. At best, it would be a funny publicity stunt. Why? Because we're not in contention for that activity. We didn't go through the formal qualification to be in contention.

If that sounds like Captain Obvious, you need to ask why the point needs to be made in this thread. Apparently because making it is deserving of scorn and ridicule.

Now, when it comes to brain surgery or playing Mozart's piano sonatas, the distinction is even clearer. There's no such thing as a botched "attempt" at these activities by someone with no training in surgery or piano playing. All such people are doing is something else altogether--like a monkey at a zoo, they are mimicking the overt physical behavior of someone else.

The point you're responding to, and that some in this thread were deriding, is that RPG design is a lot closer to swimming 100 meters at a public swimming pool than being a concert pianist. That's not to say that there can't be people who do the former exceedingly well--they do it so well that we give some of them Olympic gold medals. But it's also to say that for someone to put something forward that qualifies as a bona fide instance of "RPG design" is so minimal that a Capitalist economy does not attach high monetary value to it _as such_. It's only when, e.g., they have proven in competitions over and over that their ability to perform it at certain levels is literally outstanding. Which is _that other activity_ we were talking about.

That's an extremely basic, and not even that value-laden, observation about basic economics. That it should get attacked as severely as it did seems to be something in need of an explanation. My explanation was that the post got mis-read, and the distinction between doing an activity at all and doing it exceedingly well got glossed over. But maybe that was too charitable?


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## Morrus (Jul 12, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> Haha, ok, funny come-back. Great example. It doesn't hold up to muster, and I hope I can be forgiven for trying to write a serious response. (Though again, I did find your reply genuinely funny.)
> 
> His point was that certain professional activities have lower thresholds to be categorized as a bona fide instances of that activity than others. _And that's all his post needed._
> 
> ...



It didn’t get misread. The basic concept was obvious and non-contentious. Then people expanded on it, as happens in conversations.


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## GrahamWills (Jul 12, 2020)

Tyler Do'Urden said:


> I just went and pulled that one up... it actually doesn't look too bad, it just looks like he was purposefully trying to make the adventure look "OSR", like a D&D module from 40 years ago.




I am an associate editor for a journal; this piece of writing so bad that I would reject it with no encouragement, and not even consider sending it out to review. I might check if English is the person’s first language and if not suggest that they find a co-author who is a native speaker. I only looked through the first 3 pages (including cover) but it would take me more words to comment in what is wrong than are actually present in the material.

I can understand buying it purely for the content (if you are willing to decode it) but the writing is unsalvageable. I’m sorry if the author happens to read this for being so blunt, but honestly, this is not his skill and I’d strongly encourage them to find a different way to express their creativity.

Now a lot of people may not care about poor quality in writing, but since this thread is all about how difficult the business is, suggesting that being a bad writer or even merely a good writer is not a problem is just ... wrong. Any professional rpg writer is light-years above this author, and above the average and even talented rpg enthusiasts. It is a business I know I would absolutely fail in, and I have ~60 publications, a book and a play to my name.


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## Enevhar Aldarion (Jul 13, 2020)

GrahamWills said:


> Now a lot of people may not care about poor quality in writing....




Considering how much money those very poorly written 50 Shades of Grey books made, no, I don't think people mind poor quality in writing.  lol


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## Windjammer (Jul 13, 2020)

Tyler Do'Urden said:


> I just went and pulled that one up... it actually doesn't look too bad, it just looks like he was purposefully trying to make the adventure look "OSR", like a D&D module from 40 years ago. The font, the formatting, everything screams that, and from what I saw flipping through the preview it's not too badly formatted once that's taken into account.



This is actually where I think the product fails hardest. Even by Judges Guild Ready Ref standards, there's so much missed opportunity here to re-create a genuine throw-back to retro design it's painful. See below for what I concretely mean.


GrahamWills said:


> I can understand buying it purely for the content (if you are willing to decode it) but the writing is unsalvageable.



Gabor "Melan" Lux wrote a wonderful review of Gene Weigel's book; his review came down on exactly that note. Because of my great respect for Melan as a writer and reviewer (and I do think Weigel is a significant figure in our hobby, controversies of old aside), I gave the product a more serious look myself. I found I disliked it so much visually I couldn't engage it productively. So I took the published preview and reformatted it for my own reading pleasure. Results see below. This took about 2 hours, and started with a font choices etc. all selected for the OSR retro effect. This can be done very quickly and takes not much effort. The fact that the author didn't go through this process themselves means they're either incapable or unwilling to do it. Because it's Gene Weigel, I think there's a certain grunge attitude in his product, and I like that a lot as such - just not enough to read his product page by page.


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## clearstream (Jul 13, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> His point was that certain professional activities have lower thresholds to be categorized as a bona fide instances of that activity than others. _And that's all his post needed._



I like your summary above - it is neat and incomplete. His contention was not about whether a given RPG designing activity is / is not a genuine instance of that activity. He is silent on what counts as authentic RPG designing activity. His point is that certain professional activities have lower thresholds to be _paid _than others. It relies on a fundamental assumption that skill = pay.

The obvious problem this faces is the notion that skill and pay are close-correllants. Strong factors in pay include the economic value of the industry itself, the organisation the activity is performed in, and its location. Game designers exercising similar skill in pen-and-paper RPG, and in videogames, will be paid very differently. Game designers working in more commercially successful companies are often paid more than those working in less commercially successful companies. Those working in Geneva might be paid better than those working in Dundee. A person working in oil or finance will be paid much more than a game designer with a similar number of training hours or peer-recognised mastery of their field.

And it is worth reiterating that what he wrote has to be taken as about professional, and not amateur, game designers. We certainly could claim that amateur RPG design is _bona fide _RPG design, without claiming that it is _professional _RPG design. It is paid game design - _professional RPG design_ - that is at the heart of his claim. He is offering an explanation, so we should seek explanatory power. Yet the explanatory power of his explanation is extremely doubtful. He offers one simplistic correlation - skill = pay - without detailing what skill is, or what multivariate factors might influence pay. Far from his post providing _all that's needed_ it is far too simple to do any decent lifting work at all.



Windjammer said:


> Consider the difference between these activities: "Swim 100m" versus "Swim 100m at the Olympics." It's safe to say many people like you and me and others can swim 100 meters, given time and occasion, yes? But if you or I showed up at the Olympic games and jumped into the pool, that wouldn't qualify as swimming the 100 at the Olympics. It wouldn't even qualify as attempting to do that. At best, it would be a funny publicity stunt. Why? Because we're not in contention for that activity. We didn't go through the formal qualification to be in contention.



Most Olympic athletes earn nothing for participating. So the key term of his explanation - skill = pay - turns out to be the one-legged stool that it is, and falls over.



Windjammer said:


> The point you're responding to, and that some in this thread were deriding, is that RPG design is a lot closer to swimming 100 meters at a public swimming pool than being a concert pianist. That's not to say that there can't be people who do the former exceedingly well--they do it so well that we give some of them Olympic gold medals. But it's also to say that for someone to put something forward that qualifies as a bona fide instance of "RPG design" is so minimal that a Capitalist economy does not attach high monetary value to it _as such_. It's only when, e.g., they have proven in competitions over and over that their ability to perform it at certain levels is literally outstanding.



Subject to the criticism above. It's straightforward: if one wants to argue that skill = pay, so that low-skill = low-pay, then one has to show that, that is true. Ideally by using examples across a wide range of activities showing very clearly that skill = pay. And equally show - in order to have offered a worthwhile explanation - that this one factor (skill) is the sole or strongest factor in predicting pay.


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## Windjammer (Jul 13, 2020)

clearstream said:


> His point is that certain professional activities have lower thresholds to be _paid _than others. It relies on a fundamental assumption that skill = pay. [...] the explanatory power of his explanation is extremely doubtful. He offers one simplistic correlation - skill = pay - without detailing what skill is, or what multivariate factors might influence pay.



Thank you for such an astute and well-argued response. Pay certainly doesn't correlate with skills, I completely concede that.
I'm less certain that point was made in the post I was responding to. That post seems to not mention individual pay at all; instead, it talks about an macro-economic equation that has implications for individual pay levels:


			
				aaronm said:
			
		

> High supply + low (and _highly _elastic) demand = low equilibrium price.



A profession with low entry barriers (such as absence of certification or educational requirements) frequently results in high supply. That high supply is met with demand that is both

low: people don't shop for RPGs like they do for groceries (publishers attempt to offset this by offering subscription services, like 4e did with DDI or Paizo does with Pathfinder etc)
and elastic: a publisher can reject with minimal consequences a RPG writer's demands for higher pay; a RPG customer is unwilling to pay a twice-as-skilled writer $100 instead of $50 for the same 200-page hardcover (though certain exceptions are made for absolute star designers).
This doesn't directly correlate pay with skill. It correlates (a) the combination of high supply and low demand with (b) low pay. Skills are but one factor for high supply (a); the suggestion was made that higher skill and entry requirements would lower the supply, which would then offset the supply/demand ratio towards better pay. So no, I don't think the post equated pay with skill, quite the opposite.

Is that argument a bit quick and overlooks pertinent factors? Absolutely. For one, it's empirically false that low entry requirements always generate high supply. You also need market agents' willingness to enter a low-barrier market that's oversaturated. That's something the above equilibrium equation is silent about, and where Owen's posts do so much to help us understand better. Even if RPGs retained their low entry barriers but there were only five people each year willing to write RPG products for the entire industry, you can bet that those writers would be paid a lot, lot more - for now you've just wiped out a key factor in elasticity.

And that goes to your point, that pay doesn't equate skill. In a weird way, I think all of us agree on that, we just put the emphasis on different points in the overall equation. I'm certainly grateful you made me step back and think that equation through more thoroughly than above - so, thank you.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jul 15, 2020)

[B said:
			
		

> aaronm[/B]] So this is probably going to sound like I'm trying to be insulting, but I truly don't mean it that way. Is this really surprising to most folks?
> 
> Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern. No manual skills, no technical knowledge, not even mathematical proficiency (thought it really, _really _should require math, given the probability work -- remember 4E skill challenges?), etc. At most it requires somewhat above average writing ability. Further, there are no educational, certification, or entry requirements. A "fun" job with low barriers to entry leads to a high supply.
> 
> ...




This is it in a nutshell. 

I never really considered RPG designers to be a career in the arts before reading this thread, but it fits. 

The thing is, IMEO, RPG workers are at a much more difficult situation than those in the arts. Most of us will not (and should not) sing, draw, or act. We purchase to fill our needs in that realm.

But in this hobby, we are all game designers. Every GM has written his our her own adventures. Many will have run a homebrew setting. Some will have homebrewed their own rules systems. 

These days, with much greater financial assets and the east of Net purchasing, I'm more inclined towards making tweaks to existing products simply as a convenience. I want products that are high quality, readily available, and cheap. Otherwise, I'll just do it myself.

It does not help that unlike the other arts, RPGs stay in use; you can purchase (or even get for free, legally) older settings and scenarios. So modern day RPG workers are still competing with writers who are are retired, dead, or just smell that way.


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## GrahamWills (Jul 15, 2020)

Jd Smith1 said:


> The thing is, IMEO, RPG workers are at a much more difficult situation than those in the arts. Most of us will not (and should not) sing, draw, or act. We purchase to fill our needs in that realm.



As an editor and a director of musicals, I disagree. A choir consisting of, say, the top 10% of all amateurs can produce a compelling and highly enjoyable work. A book or other form of writing written by a top 10% amateur will be pretty bad. Even the top 1% will only be just passable. For solo singing, about 1 in 100 people can produce songs that move me. If I look at self-published books, i have yet to find a single one that is more than passable.



Jd Smith1 said:


> These days, with much greater financial assets and the east of Net purchasing, I'm more inclined towards making tweaks to existing products simply as a convenience. I want products that are high quality, readily available, and cheap. Otherwise, I'll just do it myself.



it is absolutely easy to consume cheap music, cheap art, cheap books, cheap RPGs — whatever — nowadays. Everything is readily available. I really see no difference between RPGs and other art forms here. In terms of quality, when I read books like the *13th Age Bestiary, *and *Apocalypse World* and compare them to the average self-published work, it’s abundantly clear that quality comes at a price. Just like the other arts. Actually, more so, as the free music available on the internet is more than just passable.



Jd Smith1 said:


> It does not help that unlike the other arts, RPGs stay in use; you can purchase (or even get for free, legally) older settings and scenarios. So modern day RPG workers are still competing with writers who are are retired, dead, or just smell that way.



This again seems wrong. I play music I bought 30 years ago; I look at art that hangs in my walls that I bought at Gen Con in Milwaukee; I read books my family bought 50 years ago; I watch a DVD of Wagner’s Ring Cycle that was produced 20 years ago. Much of other art is out of copyright, especially books. All RPG material (except perhaps Little Wars) is in copyright. If anything RPGs have it easier


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## Jd Smith1 (Jul 15, 2020)

GrahamWills said:


> As an editor and a director of musicals, I disagree. A choir consisting of, say, the top 10% of all amateurs can produce a compelling and highly enjoyable work. A book or other form of writing written by a top 10% amateur will be pretty bad. Even the top 1% will only be just passable. For solo singing, about 1 in 100 people can produce songs that move me. If I look at self-published books, i have yet to find a single one that is more than passable.




Millions (literally) of Amazon sales alone prove you wrong on that point.



GrahamWills said:


> This again seems wrong. I play music I bought 30 years ago; I look at art that hangs in my walls that I bought at Gen Con in Milwaukee; I read books my family bought 50 years ago; I watch a DVD of Wagner’s Ring Cycle that was produced 20 years ago. Much of other art is out of copyright, especially books. All RPG material (except perhaps Little Wars) is in copyright. If anything RPGs have it easier




I didn't say in copyright, I said legally free. There are masses of quality RPG material *legally *available for free.

And as the 'file-sharing' phenomenon has established, legal ownership is no barrier on the Net. (Not approving or supporting, just stating a fact).


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## GrahamWills (Jul 15, 2020)

Jd Smith1 said:


> Millions (literally) of Amazon sales alone prove you wrong on that point.
> I didn't say in copyright, I said legally free. There are masses of quality RPG material *legally *available for free.




Millions of people, buying something means it must be high quality? I think you’re on your own with that argument, dude.

Your argument was that RPGs have it easier. My statement is that there is more free material for other arts. my evidence was copyright, which you concede is correct. If you want to argue that there are more legally free RPG products than, say, free songs, go ahead and make that case. You are wrong, but I’m happy to talk evidence with you.

I’m ignoring and deleting your final comment as you have shown no evidence that it applies more to RPGs than to, say, music or film. But I do not want to legitimize criminal behavior by discussing it.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jul 15, 2020)

GrahamWills said:


> Millions of people, buying something means it must be high quality? I think you’re on your own with that argument, dude.




Well, 'dude', since selling is the metric involved in this discussion, it certainly applies, fer sher. Tubular. 



GrahamWills said:


> Your argument was that RPGs have it easier. My statement is that there is more free material for other arts. my evidence was copyright, which you concede is correct.




I didn't concede anything. You seem to have difficulty separating your opinions with what is actually written. Time to place you on mute.


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## dragoner (Jul 15, 2020)

GrahamWills said:


> If anything RPGs have it easier




RPG's are definitely newer, right now I am reading _The Good Soldier Schweik_ published almost a 100 years ago, and in my car I was listening to Rolling Stones _Sticky Fingers_; both older than the Classic Traveller game I am running.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jul 15, 2020)

dragoner said:


> RPG's are definitely newer, right now I am reading _The Good Soldier Schweik_ published almost a 100 years ago, and in my car I was listening to Rolling Stones _Sticky Fingers_; both older than the Classic Traveller game I am running.




Excellent book. If you can find Stefan Zweig's Buchmendel from the same period, it will likewise entertain.


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## dragoner (Jul 15, 2020)

Jd Smith1 said:


> Excellent book. If you can find Stefan Zweig's Buchmendel from the same period, it will likewise entertain.




Roth's _Radetzky March_ is also a great book from the period, and area of Europe. Though my Great Grandfather was a Czech-Austrian dragoon in that war, so it is a little more relevant to me.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jul 15, 2020)

dragoner said:


> Roth's _Radetzky March_ is also a great book from the period, and area of Europe. Though my Great Grandfather was a Czech-Austrian dragoon in that war, so it is a little more relevant to me.






			https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C6278Y?ref_=series_rw_dp_labf
		


Same period, well-written, and truly immersed in the grand confusion that was the AHE.


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## Windjammer (Jul 15, 2020)

dragoner said:


> Roth's _Radetzky March_ is also a great book from the period, and area of Europe. Though my Great Grandfather was a Czech-Austrian dragoon in that war, so it is a little more relevant to me.



That's the exact book I'm re-reading these days. Wonderful coincidence to see it mentioned in this thread. Btw there's an excellent movie trilogy of if with Max von Sydow, strongly recommended.

Also, if you're interested in the period RPG-wise, I know of two supplements that deal with it. One is Pelgrane Press's Dulce et Decorum Est, the other is Pegasus Spiele's Niemandsland (only available in German though).


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## GrahamWills (Jul 15, 2020)

Jd Smith1 said:


> You seem to have difficulty separating your opinions with what is actually written. Time to place you on mute.




Yes, that does seem to be your best plan; you have no respose to my points except to make ad hominem attacks, no evidence to propose and apparently are completely unwilling to consider changing your mind. I'm sorry you are unwilling to engage in debate and resort to being rude, but hey, it's the internet. 

I will iterate my point, just in case you do actually want to re-engage. Your statement "RPG workers are at a much more difficult situation than those in the arts" is wrong. I and others in this thread have experience of the arts and it's abundantly clear that the challenges you cite ("most of us should not [create]", ease of production of quality work, "unlike the other arts, RPGs stay in use") are actually *more* a problem for other art forms than for RPG. 

The last point, in particular, is not even vaguely plausible. Your inability even to admit that one point makes it pretty clear you just want to win arguments at all costs and don't have a desire to learn or help others learn. So, I guess, thank you for bowing out!


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## Windjammer (Jul 16, 2020)

That's interesting, I had not realized that legally free RPG content, like the d20 SRD, and now similar SRD's for Pathfinder, Swords & Wizardry, or what have you, have made it harder for RPG designers to charge good money. Makes sense though. Anyone writing a new RPG, and charging money for it, competes against an industry leader whose product is available, as a functional whole, in its entirety and free of charge. If you want to pay $ for that content, you do it for the artwork and layout, or because you're a bibliophile (like I am).

How much of this is true for the music or film industry today? Sure, we've moved away from a world that tried to shut down the sharing economy entirely (Napster) to one that facilitates low-cost micro-transactions (iTunes). But where's the analogue to an outright SRD where you obtain the one product you ever need, free of charge, and can forego all future purchases in that market sector entirely?


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## Enevhar Aldarion (Jul 16, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> That's interesting, I had not realized that legally free RPG content, like the d20 SRD, and now similar SRD's for Pathfinder, Swords & Wizardry, or what have you, have made it harder for RPG designers to charge good money. Makes sense though. Anyone writing a new RPG, and charging money for it, competes against an industry leader whose product is available, as a functional whole, in its entirety and free of charge. If you want to pay $ for that content, you do it for the artwork and layout, or because you're a bibliophile (like I am).
> 
> How much of this is true for the music or film industry today? Sure, we've moved away from a world that tried to shut down the sharing economy entirely (Napster) to one that facilitates low-cost micro-transactions (iTunes). But where's the analogue to an outright SRD where you obtain the one product you ever need, free of charge, and can forego all future purchases in that market sector entirely?




 You have the free Basic rules and the SRD for 5E D&D also. Probably why we see a lot more OGL settings for 5E than actual rules plus setting using the OGL. The companies/writers probably figure it is easier to sell something that adds to the free stuff, rather than replacing it. Unless you get the rare hit like with Adventures in Middle-Earth or Esper Genesis.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jul 16, 2020)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> You have the free Basic rules and the SRD for 5E D&D also. Probably why we see a lot more OGL settings for 5E than actual rules plus setting using the OGL. The companies/writers probably figure it is easier to sell something that adds to the free stuff, rather than replacing it. Unless you get the rare hit like with Adventures in Middle-Earth or Esper Genesis.




Don't forget all the free conversions of 5e for modern, Star Wars, and other settings available.


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## GrahamWills (Jul 16, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> How much of this is true for the music or film industry today? Sure, we've moved away from a world that tried to shut down the sharing economy entirely (Napster) to one that facilitates low-cost micro-transactions (iTunes). But where's the analogue to an outright SRD where you obtain the one product you ever need, free of charge, and can forego all future purchases in that market sector entirely?




Well, that presumes you are a “one system“ fan, and it also assumes you don’t want adventures, expansions, art, modules, character options, etc. So that’s totally not me.

But if you are looking for a one stop, all-free, all the music you want across multiple genres, there are a fair number of options. I use Free Music Archive myself. I directed a play last year and had a very specific need for a dance song that mentioned time and preferably loss, and was able to find it there with a pretty short search. (Dangerous Corner was the play)

When I search for ”time” in the site, I get 1600 songs returned. Browsing there can be an all-day event ...


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## Windjammer (Jul 16, 2020)

GrahamWills said:


> Well, that presumes you are a “one system“ fan, and it also assumes you don’t want adventures, expansions, art, modules, character options, etc. So that’s totally not me.



Me neither. In fact, buy rulebooks just for the art and improved lay-out - not to mention modules, like you do, because I want to see what other people do with the same rules. I know plenty of people who home-brew though and they don't. Others are happy to hop from one system to another and only use the preview PDFs for each of those systems, SRD or not. I tried that last year with 7th Sea 2e and it worked wonderfully (2 large core rulebook PDF excerpts, 80 pages each, plus tons of free mods) without paying a single $ except for the d10s. I wish this was the world we lived in back in the '90s when most new RPG stuff was unaffordable on a teenage budget. On that note, do we know if freelancers were better paid in the RPG industry back then?


GrahamWills said:


> I use Free Music Archive myself.



Thank you! Great site. Just started browsing the Classics selection.


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## dragoner (Jul 16, 2020)

Jd Smith1 said:


> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C6278Y?ref_=series_rw_dp_labf
> 
> 
> 
> Same period, well-written, and truly immersed in the grand confusion that was the AHE.




Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for them. I picked up Schweik as I was in a Czech history group and someone mentioned that no Czech reads it anymore. I had read the original in Czech 30+ years ago, and this is my first time reading it in English, I can tell it is probably a translation of the German version, because some passages only work in a German and English manner.

Coming from a military family, I used to design wargames 20 years ago, one a Czech company made into a browser game recently, I did try to model realism. I have been giving away my military history books, I just gave away Lost Victories and Panzer Leader to a German friend who is reading his uncle's war diary, and who wanted to know background of the war.


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## dragoner (Jul 16, 2020)

Windjammer said:


> That's the exact book I'm re-reading these days. Wonderful coincidence to see it mentioned in this thread. Btw there's an excellent movie trilogy of if with Max von Sydow, strongly recommended.
> 
> Also, if you're interested in the period RPG-wise, I know of two supplements that deal with it. One is Pelgrane Press's Dulce et Decorum Est, the other is Pegasus Spiele's Niemandsland (only available in German though).




Owen's poem is a great name for a supplement, Sassoon was another great poet:

*Suicide in the Trenches*

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

S. Sassoon

Roth's whole trilogy is great, and it is difficult not to get totally fascinated by Fin-de-siecle Austrian Empire, Crown Prince Rudolf said it best: "The Empire still stands, a mighty ruin, waiting for the next great storm to wash it away." Gustav Klimnt I think is still one of my favorite artists of all time.

I don't much go for mixing war games and rpg's though, like recently the players in my game were spanked by a light mortar and tactics from Napoleon at Ulm.

That said, the last CoC adventure I ran involved Mad Baron Ungern, poison whisky, and zombies in Mongolia; was a hit with the players.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jul 16, 2020)

dragoner said:


> Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for them. I picked up Schweik as I was in a Czech history group and someone mentioned that no Czech reads it anymore. I had read the original in Czech 30+ years ago, and this is my first time reading it in English, I can tell it is probably a translation of the German version, because some passages only work in a German and English manner.
> 
> Coming from a military family, I used to design wargames 20 years ago, one a Czech company made into a browser game recently, I did try to model realism. I have been giving away my military history books, I just gave away Lost Victories and Panzer Leader to a German friend who is reading his uncle's war diary, and who wanted to know background of the war.




Those are excellent books. For a ground-level view, I would recommend Blood Red Snow by Gunter Koschorrek.


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## dragoner (Jul 16, 2020)

Jd Smith1 said:


> Those are excellent books. For a ground-level view, I would recommend Blood Red Snow by Gunter Koschorrek.




My dad fought in the war, was a tanker, wounded too. I have talked to a lot of people on each side. I think it was funny with making accurate war games, people from the west would say it is too hard to win as the Germans, and some of the games I had a lot of help from Czech, Polish, and Russian historians, where the west gets only the view from the Germans. Plus I have walked many of the battlefields, the best story was at Mamayev Kurgan overlooking Volgograd/Stalingrad, a groundskeeper who had fought there, said when they were digging for the monument, they found a Russian soldier who had broken the neck of a German soldier who had simultaneously stabbed the Russian in the heart. 








						Mamayev Kurgan - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## Owen K.C. Stephens (Aug 18, 2020)

Quickleaf said:


> I'm unfamiliar with how distribution to retailers works. Can anyone explain what he means – or might mean – by "a hole in a distribution tier"?




I can!

The "classic" three-tiered tabletop game distribution model works like this.

A game company makes a product. They sell it to distributors at a discount. This may be as much as a 65% discount. The distributor then sells it to retailers, and a lesser discount (perhaps 45% off). The distributor makes thier money in that margin. (The exact discounts vary on a whole slew of factors)

When Amazon sells a product at 50-60% off, they are selling it at a price so cheap, a retailer CAN'T match the price. That is literally less than they can buy it from the distributor.

The theory of a "hole in distribution" is that either a company is selling directly to Amazon (which WotC does IIRC, and Paizo does not) for less than they sell to distributors (these terms are normally secret), or a distributor is selling things to Amazon for a bigger discount than they offer retailers. It's a "hole in the buck" kind of thing -- product is leaking out in ways the classic model says it shouldn;t.

And if retailers don't know where that hole is, they don't know who to apply pressure to in order to get the same deal for themselves, so they can compete.


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## Pleroma (Feb 27, 2021)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> And when I think there are streamings earning money only playing videogames....





Dire Bare said:


> Huh? No skills?!?!
> 
> That is a pretty absurd claim. Game design requires writing and design skills, which can be performed poorly or well. If the job required no skills, then there would be no quality difference between products.
> 
> ...



Not unskilled labor, just very low-skilled white collar labor. Moderate writing ability. Organizational ability sufficient to plan, execute, and complete a medium-sized to large (usually only largish) project, including enough skill to use some common electronic publishing tools. Familiarity with genre, something bright 15-year-olds are often already overqualified in. Basic arithmetic for most games, plus stats knowledge at a "Fun With Stats and Probability!" middle-school level.  A lot of this can be ripped off and "repainted" from the material you used to get genre familiarity. 

And much of this work is handled for you if you work for WOTC: you create content to pre-defined specs, much as you would for any corporation. At most media firms, this job is largely handled by young, junior folks with occasional older/senior supervision. That gets improved upwards a _little_ bit at WOTC, since job demand is higher and market several orders of magnitude smaller, but not too much. Basically, WOTC can get a little more bang for their buck--but not too much, because the real talent won't do something as crazy as work on pretend elf games. Play 'em, sure, but Goldman's a better place to work. Or Spotify.  

'Cause here's the thing. "Quality" doesn't matter. It's a complete cliche to complain that 5e books are a tsunami of flaming hot garbage. Of _course_ they are! That the extended modules/adventure paths/whatever are overcomplex, difficult and ungainly to run, and railroad-y. Of course they are! They're not designed to run, but to read and think about running if you could ever get a group together/have friends to do this. Sure, if that ever happens, yeah, you could run it, sure, knock yourself out. But if we published these things optimizing them to be played, we'd go broke. You'd probably be all like, "Well, I'm in the middle of this thing that will take a year to resolve, so I'm not going to buy any year-long things for a while." Can't have that! Oh and here, have another dog's breakfast of game-breaking crap. We know you'll lap it right up, you gun-toting warlock artificer tiefling-draconid-tortoiseperson you. We Make Lonely Fun(tm).

I'll put it this way. If you read Brandon Sanderson, who after writing several million words has heroically clawed himself up to the standard of a prep-school ninth-grader's command of written English, you don't _know_ what quality is. (Anyone reading this read "Sharks in the Time of Saviors?"  Go read it. It even has magic shapeshifters in it. That's quality fiction, folks.) The audience for RPGs doesn't know what quality is, not in any way that matters and that is economically sustainable. It's _possible_ things would change if that were so, but probably not. The market's too small.


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## Marc Radle (Feb 27, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> Not unskilled labor, just very low-skilled white collar labor. Moderate writing ability. Organizational ability sufficient to plan, execute, and complete a medium-sized to large (usually only largish) project, including enough skill to use some common electronic publishing tools. Familiarity with genre, something bright 15-year-olds are often already overqualified in. Basic arithmetic for most games, plus stats knowledge at a "Fun With Stats and Probability!" middle-school level.  A lot of this can be ripped off and "repainted" from the material you used to get genre familiarity.
> 
> And much of this work is handled for you if you work for WOTC: you create content to pre-defined specs, much as you would for any corporation. At most media firms, this job is largely handled by young, junior folks with occasional older/senior supervision. That gets improved upwards a _little_ bit at WOTC, since job demand is higher and market several orders of magnitude smaller, but not too much. Basically, WOTC can get a little more bang for their buck--but not too much, because the real talent won't do something as crazy as work on pretend elf games. Play 'em, sure, but Goldman's a better place to work. Or Spotify.
> 
> ...



 ... wow


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## Dire Bare (Feb 27, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> Not unskilled labor, just very low-skilled white collar labor. Moderate writing ability. Organizational ability sufficient to plan, execute, and complete a medium-sized to large (usually only largish) project, including enough skill to use some common electronic publishing tools. Familiarity with genre, something bright 15-year-olds are often already overqualified in. Basic arithmetic for most games, plus stats knowledge at a "Fun With Stats and Probability!" middle-school level.  A lot of this can be ripped off and "repainted" from the material you used to get genre familiarity.
> 
> And much of this work is handled for you if you work for WOTC: you create content to pre-defined specs, much as you would for any corporation. At most media firms, this job is largely handled by young, junior folks with occasional older/senior supervision. That gets improved upwards a _little_ bit at WOTC, since job demand is higher and market several orders of magnitude smaller, but not too much. Basically, WOTC can get a little more bang for their buck--but not too much, because the real talent won't do something as crazy as work on pretend elf games. Play 'em, sure, but Goldman's a better place to work. Or Spotify.
> 
> ...



How . . . . snobbish and elitist.

Fantasy fans and RPG fans simply don't know quality work . . . . okay.

Thank goodness we've got upstanding folks like you to show us how we can't recognize quality art in writing or game design, or perhaps anywhere.

_EDIT: Ah, first post. Welcome to the boards, I suppose? Way to make an entrance!_


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## dragoner (Feb 27, 2021)

Yes, we are the peasants and workers of gaming, _and we like it that way._ So?


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## Morrus (Feb 27, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> Not unskilled labor, just very low-skilled white collar labor. Moderate writing ability. Organizational ability sufficient to plan, execute, and complete a medium-sized to large (usually only largish) project, including enough skill to use some common electronic publishing tools. Familiarity with genre, something bright 15-year-olds are often already overqualified in. Basic arithmetic for most games, plus stats knowledge at a "Fun With Stats and Probability!" middle-school level.  A lot of this can be ripped off and "repainted" from the material you used to get genre familiarity.
> 
> And much of this work is handled for you if you work for WOTC: you create content to pre-defined specs, much as you would for any corporation. At most media firms, this job is largely handled by young, junior folks with occasional older/senior supervision. That gets improved upwards a _little_ bit at WOTC, since job demand is higher and market several orders of magnitude smaller, but not too much. Basically, WOTC can get a little more bang for their buck--but not too much, because the real talent won't do something as crazy as work on pretend elf games. Play 'em, sure, but Goldman's a better place to work. Or Spotify.
> 
> ...



You sound nice.


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## whimsychris123 (Feb 27, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> Not unskilled labor, just very low-skilled white collar labor. Moderate writing ability. Organizational ability sufficient to plan, execute, and complete a medium-sized to large (usually only largish) project, including enough skill to use some common electronic publishing tools. Familiarity with genre, something bright 15-year-olds are often already overqualified in. Basic arithmetic for most games, plus stats knowledge at a "Fun With Stats and Probability!" middle-school level.  A lot of this can be ripped off and "repainted" from the material you used to get genre familiarity.
> 
> And much of this work is handled for you if you work for WOTC: you create content to pre-defined specs, much as you would for any corporation. At most media firms, this job is largely handled by young, junior folks with occasional older/senior supervision. That gets improved upwards a _little_ bit at WOTC, since job demand is higher and market several orders of magnitude smaller, but not too much. Basically, WOTC can get a little more bang for their buck--but not too much, because the real talent won't do something as crazy as work on pretend elf games. Play 'em, sure, but Goldman's a better place to work. Or Spotify.
> 
> ...



I bet you’re fun at parties.


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## Marc_C (Feb 27, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> Not unskilled labor, just very low-skilled white collar labor. Moderate writing ability. Organizational ability sufficient to plan, execute, and complete a medium-sized to large (usually only largish) project, including enough skill to use some common electronic publishing tools. Familiarity with genre, something bright 15-year-olds are often already overqualified in. Basic arithmetic for most games, plus stats knowledge at a "Fun With Stats and Probability!" middle-school level.  A lot of this can be ripped off and "repainted" from the material you used to get genre familiarity.
> 
> And much of this work is handled for you if you work for WOTC: you create content to pre-defined specs, much as you would for any corporation. At most media firms, this job is largely handled by young, junior folks with occasional older/senior supervision. That gets improved upwards a _little_ bit at WOTC, since job demand is higher and market several orders of magnitude smaller, but not too much. Basically, WOTC can get a little more bang for their buck--but not too much, because the real talent won't do something as crazy as work on pretend elf games. Play 'em, sure, but Goldman's a better place to work. Or Spotify.
> 
> ...



We would like to read a short story, a novel or a rpg ruleset written by you. Don't be shy.


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## Haffrung (Feb 27, 2021)

People are giving Plemora a hard time, but is s(he) wrong? Take one industry luminary and four experienced GMs who have a modicum of the skills he cites. Send them each away to a cabin for 60 days to develop and write a game system. Publish them all online under pseudonyms with exactly the same production values and publicity. How easy do you think it would be to identify which was written by the professional?

The quality that matters most in selling RPG books (besides the obvious one of marketing) - and not coincidentally the only part that's handled by genuine professionals who don't have trouble finding work in other industries - is the art design. Just look at the number of kludgey, half-baked systems (-cough cubicle 7-) that fans gush over because they have great production values and read well. Or the very fact that people will go bananas for a kickstarted game or setting before they've spent one minute playing it.


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## Morrus (Feb 27, 2021)

Haffrung said:


> People are giving Plemora a hard time, but is s(he) wrong? Take one industry luminary and four experienced GMs who have a modicum of the skills he cites. Send them each away to a cabin for 60 days to develop and write a game system. Publish them all online under pseudonyms with exactly the same production values and publicity. How easy do you think it would be to identify which was written by the professional?



I mean I’d be able to tell the difference between something by Greg Stafford or Robin Laws, compared to something by me. I can tell the difference between setting material written by Ryan Nock and the same by me. I’ve edited enough manuscripts over the years to see a wide range of quality, both in prose and in mechanical innovation.

So... yes. There is little doubt in my mind that there are skill sets and experience involved. No, maybe it’s not rocket science, but other than brain surgery, what is? Writing is skilled work. It always has been.


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## Marc_C (Feb 27, 2021)

Haffrung said:


> People are giving Plemora a hard time, but is s(he) wrong? Take one industry luminary and four experienced GMs who have a modicum of the skills he cites. Send them each away to a cabin for 60 days to develop and write a game system. Publish them all online under pseudonyms with exactly the same production values and publicity. How easy do you think it would be to identify which was written by the professional?
> 
> The quality that matters most in selling RPG books (besides the obvious one of marketing) - and not coincidentally the only part that's handled by genuine professionals who don't have trouble finding work in other industries - is the art design. Just look at the number of kludgey, half-baked systems (-cough cubicle 7-) that fans gush over because they have great production values and read well. Or the very fact that people will go bananas for a kickstarted game or setting before they've spent one minute playing it.



I had an ex-brother in law who held the same discourse. He downloaded the InDesign suite and declared he was a graphic designer, just like me who had years of experience and actually studied art. Well let's just say it didn't go well with his first (and last) contract. He discovered it was much harder than he thought it was.

Expertise is expertise. You can't fake it. It shows.


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## rknop (Feb 27, 2021)

dp = m dv - v dm...

What's so hard about rocket science?


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## Paragon Lost (Feb 27, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> Not unskilled labor, just very low-skilled white collar labor. Moderate writing ability. Organizational ability sufficient to plan, execute, and complete a medium-sized to large (usually only largish) project, including enough skill to use some common electronic publishing tools. Familiarity with genre, something bright 15-year-olds are often already overqualified in. Basic arithmetic for most games, plus stats knowledge at a "Fun With Stats and Probability!" middle-school level.  A lot of this can be ripped off and "repainted" from the material you used to get genre familiarity.
> 
> And much of this work is handled for you if you work for WOTC: you create content to pre-defined specs, much as you would for any corporation. At most media firms, this job is largely handled by young, junior folks with occasional older/senior supervision. That gets improved upwards a _little_ bit at WOTC, since job demand is higher and market several orders of magnitude smaller, but not too much. Basically, WOTC can get a little more bang for their buck--but not too much, because the real talent won't do something as crazy as work on pretend elf games. Play 'em, sure, but Goldman's a better place to work. Or Spotify.
> 
> ...




Damn necro posters.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Feb 27, 2021)

whimsychris123 said:


> I bet you’re fun at parties.



He's outsmarted you there. No one's inviting him to parties.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Feb 27, 2021)

Haffrung said:


> People are giving Plemora a hard time, but is s(he) wrong? Take one industry luminary and four experienced GMs who have a modicum of the skills he cites. Send them each away to a cabin for 60 days to develop and write a game system. Publish them all online under pseudonyms with exactly the same production values and publicity. How easy do you think it would be to identify which was written by the professional?



This is easily testable.

Go to DriveThruRPG and buy three or four RPGs by people you've never heard of before. Many of them are Pay What You Want and you can pay $0 if you believe that's what the work is likely to be worth.

I assure you, you can see there's more to making a game than what you're saying.

Honestly, it's disingenuous to argue this and _not_ attempt to test the theory, for everyone doing so.


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## Sacrosanct (Feb 28, 2021)

Man, Dunning Kruger in full effect here. I always love people who act like they are some authority or expert on game design who have never designed anything themselves.  Probably the same people who think anyone can pick up an iPad and digital pen and be a skilled artist.


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## Pleroma (Feb 28, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I mean I’d be able to tell the difference between something by Greg Stafford or Robin Laws, compared to something by me. I can tell the difference between setting material written by Ryan Nock and the same by me. I’ve edited enough manuscripts over the years to see a wide range of quality, both in prose and in mechanical innovation.
> 
> So... yes. There is little doubt in my mind that there are skill sets and experience involved. No, maybe it’s not rocket science, but other than brain surgery, what is? Writing is skilled work. It always has been.



This is the only competent response so far. Well, this and Haffrung's comment about not being able to tell the difference between four offerings, which is damn astute and recognizes that marketing is the distinguishing factor, something every other industry on earth knows.

Issue is, Morrus, you're an expert. You have a distinguishing sense, i.e. you can recognize Stafford or Laws from an anonymous sample. (Not as confident about Laws' genius ranking, but OK.) You have that true genre familiarity as someone who's pretty immersed in RPGs and RPG products, since you run this board.  But the hard truth--and tell me if I'm wrong--is that that _doesn't matter_ even to you. You buy things that turn out to suck, and I'd be willing to bet that you buy things that you KNOW will suck. Now, part of this is because you sort of have to keep a pro eye out, kinda have to know what's going on as an editor, and just reading reviews won't cut it. But part of it is...what? Believing things will be better than they are. I'm talking stuff you buy rather than stuff you get for free as a pro, but even the free stuff counts here too. (@Whizbang, it's not that I'm tired of paying $0, though I am, it's that I'm tired of paying $5 or $10 and hoping it will be different this time.)

Most people don't even have your level of expertise, Morrus. So they have correspondingly less ability to judge. And so "quality" becomes less and less valid of a concept. Because it should be obvious that RPG products are, on the whole, a flaming tsunami of hot garbage. It's a whole garbage chain: people don't take it seriously because it's garbage, which means nobody will pay for it, which means people who try to change it don't get paid, which means the people who keep making it learn to love garbage or leave. --I might add there are a lot of fans of garbage, the same sort of people who think it's rude to complain when they get served a poop sandwich by their boss or mom or Congressperson or other authority figure, and get REALLY mad when someone points out how terrible poop sandwiches are. We've met a few already on this thread. OK. You do you.

To bring it back around: if game design required a high degree of skill, it would be taken more seriously, in no small part because it would attract more talented people--people who could make a lot of money in other fields. It doesn't attract 'em, folks. Look: if you're a truly genius RPG designer, you should be pitching spec scripts to TV, full stop. No better time in history. Running media campaigns for national audiences. Hell, even breaking into _comics_. And oh um yeah, video games.

Throwing the parties, not waiting for invitations.

And yes, first post. Entering the arena at 112 mph is also an excellent Car Wars strategy.


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## MGibster (Feb 28, 2021)

Thank you to all the writers, artists, editors, and others who have contributed to the production of role playing games.  I've been playing RPGs for a little over thirty years now and I still look forward to game night with my friends.  It's difficult to make a decent living producing RPGs and you've got to deal with increasing pressure from fans to provide them with what they're demanding.  So hats off to the men and women who make our games.  I appreciate your work.


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## Marc_C (Feb 28, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> And yes, first post. Entering the arena at 112 mph is also an excellent Car Wars strategy.




Tire shot and you loose the game before it started. Did that in a tournament, eliminated the top dog who kept saying over and over 'I have a need for speed'. He left the table after 15 minutes of play. His car did front to back flips for the rest of the game until it was a wreck.

So, again, don't be shy, we would really like to read any gaming or fiction document you wrote. Your proficiency must be astounding. I'm waiting to be enlightened by your "savoir faire"!


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## Morrus (Feb 28, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> Issue is, Morrus, you're an expert.



I thought there was no such thing?

It's also the first time I've ever heard the argument that someone is wrong _because_ they know what they're talking about it.


Pleroma said:


> But the hard truth--and tell me if I'm wrong--is that that _doesn't matter_ even to you. You buy things that turn out to suck, and I'd be willing to bet that you buy things that you KNOW will suck.



I definitely don't do that. There's so much choice out there these days that I have the luxury of choosing.


Pleroma said:


> To bring it back around: if game design required a high degree of skill, it would be taken more seriously, in no small part because it would attract more talented people--people who could make a lot of money in other fields. It doesn't attract 'em, folks.



That's because the market is too small. The very concept of a roleplaying game is niche. If the market were bigger, people would get paid more. But that's starting to change, as million-dollar Kickstarters mean that publishers can afford to pay better.  That's not a function of quality, though, but one of size (and no, before anyone says it, the two are not directly correlated -- that's plain to see from _any_ industry, not just this one).


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## PsyzhranV2 (Feb 28, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> Nonsense not worth reading





Pleroma said:


> More nonsense not worth reading



Okay, this is definitely a longshot, might have to put on my tinfoil hat for this one, but anybody wanna bet that this is Luke Crane's sockpuppet throwing a hissy fit and slagging off his colleagues after what happened yesterday with that joke of The Perfect RPG Kickstarter that turned out to be a smokescreen for an attempt to smuggle Adam Koebel back into the industry?


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## Warpiglet-7 (Feb 28, 2021)

The discussion about supply and demand and talent miss an important point.

generally If it does not cost anything to gain a skill or set of skills it will pay less.  If you need an MD, PhD, JD, masters or bachelors you are investing and generally a job requiring this will pay more.

I think this can be the case too for lengthy apprenticeships in trades.  

you cannot tell me my favorite musician or author is not skilled!  It’s just that in those fields skill does not guarantee success.  At all.

it _is _about supply and demand.  Not everyone who could get through medical school will do so or want to.  Lots of people enjoy playing music for fun and the material outlay is not huge to get started.

As to some “unskilled jobs” that don’t require much training or investment or particular talent...they can often hire kids for a first job experience.  Tons more people fall into this category.

it’s not about value of the person but the rarity of the qualification and ability to do the job.  I suspect there are a number of people with talent and skills to design games.  If you whittled it down to those that had forked out a bunch of money to train for the job ahead of time and fewer people qualified, the wages would be different.

you cannot part time your way into becoming a surgeon.


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## Morrus (Feb 28, 2021)

Warpiglet-7 said:


> you cannot part time your way into becoming a surgeon.



Well you're kinda drifting into public safety legislation there. You can't part-time your way into become a surgeon _by design_, because it's important that somebody other than 'the market' evaluate your skills due to the cost of failure. It's a risk thing. In theory you _could_ have a society that lets anybody be surgeon and have the market decide which ones succeed and which don't, but we choose not to.


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## Warpiglet-7 (Feb 28, 2021)

Sure.  But I think my argument generally holds.

talent is not equivalent to pay and whether a profession requires outlay for public safety or some other reason, it will usually demand more pay.

it’s not 100%.  I am in a regulated profession that does not demand as much pay but it’s popular and people clamber to get into it.

but it’s also not bottom of the barrel either.

I am the same person I was when I held entry level food service jobs but it’s only now that I have lots of training and paid for a
Bunch of school that I can demand more.

my raw ability did not change that much.  It’s talents/skills that are refined that generally demand more from the outset imho.

otherwise there is too much competition


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## Emirikol (Feb 28, 2021)

Pleroma said:


> That's quality fiction, folks.) The audience for RPGs doesn't know what quality is, not in any way that matters and that is economically sustainable. It's _possible_ things would change if that were so, but probably not. The market's too small.



I wish I could disagree. Many of us here think we are professional writing critics and because we wrote a couple crap-ass adventures for our game group, we think we know how to make useful commentary to a process that we expect is someone "making a few clicks on a computer." But hey, "I've been playing this for a fek-tillion-decades!" It's the same mentality when I call into the phone company and ask a remote person, "why does my phone have static?" Then I unload about how stupid they are and how they don't know quality and the cell phone (designed by a different company) . I've bought cell phones for 15 years so that makes me an expert. I also used a plunger once, so that makes me a plumber and all plumbers are assholes when they tell me not to put pistachio nuts and feminine products in the drain.
I get your bitter [honesty]. I see it in the typical inappropriate criticisms of game materials of any company--there's a spelling error so I expect free products (make inappropriate sound here)!  We mumble under our breaths 'OK Karen.' 
To be constructive, I would simply say, "We're not perfect and neither is the process. Please help us out by keeping up constructive comments and fan-errata where possible."  Toxic fans and assholes will emerge and well, try to help out those who aren't.


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## whimsychris123 (Feb 28, 2021)

Marc_C said:


> We would like to read a short story, a novel or a rpg ruleset written by you. Don't be shy.



My guess is they are more critic that creator. I just wish they could even write quality criticism. They pontificate with no  evidence and barely a point.


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## Dire Bare (Feb 28, 2021)

Emirikol said:


> I wish I could disagree. Many of us here think we are professional writing critics and because we wrote a couple crap-ass adventures for our game group, we think we know how to make useful commentary to a process that we expect is someone "making a few clicks on a computer." But hey, "I've been playing this for a fek-tillion-decades!" It's the same mentality when I call into the phone company and ask a remote person, "why does my phone have static?" Then I unload about how stupid they are and how they don't know quality and the cell phone (designed by a different company) . I've bought cell phones for 15 years so that makes me an expert. I also used a plunger once, so that makes me a plumber and all plumbers are assholes when they tell me not to put pistachio nuts and feminine products in the drain.
> I get your bitter [honesty]. I see it in the typical inappropriate criticisms of game materials of any company--there's a spelling error so I expect free products (make inappropriate sound here)!  We mumble under our breaths 'OK Karen.'
> To be constructive, I would simply say, "We're not perfect and neither is the process. Please help us out by keeping up constructive comments and fan-errata where possible."  Toxic fans and assholes will emerge and well, try to help out those who aren't.



Eh.

Are there fans, of any art form, who take on an air of expertise they don't possess, and use it to unfairly criticize art they consume? Sure. I certainly see plenty of that on this and other RPG forums. I don't think that's what @Pleroma is talking about however. I think they are saying that the average person, or perhaps the average RPG fan, couldn't recognize quality it it walked up and bit them on the nose. Which is utter elitist crap.

Many of our most revered pieces of art over the centuries began as "trash loved by the ignorant masses", only over time and popularity they take on the patina of unquestioned quality. Shakespeare is a great example of this. I'm not saying that any particular RPG book is the next "Hamlet" . . . but to dismiss what the "average person" likes as not possible of containing quality, and to dismiss the "average person's" ability to recognize quality . . . utter elitist crap.

What makes something a quality piece of art is pretty damn subjective. What's quality to me? Something that I like and gives me pleasure. It might be riddled with spelling errors and bad grammar, it might be derivative of other art, it might be illustrated with "cheap" drawings . . . but if I get enjoyment and pleasure out of it, it's a quality piece of art. You might not take the same pleasure and enjoyment out of the same work, and find that it's not a quality piece for you. Doesn't make me wrong.

Expertise in art is real . . . but overrated. How many cult-classic movies were trashed by the expert reviewers? The entire sci-fi and fantasy genres were denigrated for decades by literary experts, and now they are a dominant art form in books, comics, movies, television, and games.

When an expert reviews a work of art, including a tabletop role-playing game book, they aren't really telling you whether it's quality or not, objectively. They are telling you whether THEY find it a quality work, according to THEIR tastes. The only value their opinion holds is that if, over time, I find that their tastes tend to align with mine, and I can trust that their judgement is a valid predictor of my own enjoyment of a work. That's it.

_EDIT: I'll add . . . an expert can, sometimes, deconstruct a work and point out elements of it that I might not notice on my own. This can be useful when I'm deciding whether I'll enjoy the art myself. This doesn't require expertise, but is more easily accomplished with expertise. I certainly don't mean to say that expertise itself is a fantasy, but I do feel that it's often overrated.

The "false expertise" or "unearned expertise" you mention some fans take on . . . . attempts to deconstruct a work in such a manner, but often focuses on things that are not really there or not going to overly affect someone's enjoyment. The best RPG example I can think of is all the cries of "it's broken!" when assessing new rules elements for D&D, or any other game. Are they? Are they really? To the point where my fun will be ruined if I use them in my game?_


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## Sacrosanct (Feb 28, 2021)

The dragon magazine review of conan the barbarian (1982 one) lambasted the movie as awful. So maybe gamer critics don't know everything lol


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## Dire Bare (Feb 28, 2021)

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Okay, this is definitely a longshot, might have to put on my tinfoil hat for this one, but anybody wanna bet that this is Luke Crane's sockpuppet throwing a hissy fit and slagging off his colleagues after what happened yesterday with that joke of The Perfect RPG Kickstarter that turned out to be a smokescreen for an attempt to smuggle Adam Koebel back into the industry?



For those who have no idea of what you're talking about . . . summary? Or link?


----------



## Aldarc (Feb 28, 2021)

Dire Bare said:


> For those who have no idea of what you're talking about . . . summary? Or link?



Long Story Short: Luke Crane put up a Kickstarter for a series of zines called Perfect RPG. Adam Koebel's name was (likely intentionally*) buried in the list of contributors, and a number of other contributors for the project were unaware that Adam Koebel would be a contributor, and once they found out, they (e.g., Sean Nitter, Sage LaTorra, Carol Mertz, Vincent and Meguey Baker, etc.) began quitting the project en masse. [insert additional stuff happening on Twitter here] And in basically the span of a single day, the Perfect RPGs Kickstarter was cancelled.

* Contributors were weirdly listed in reverse alphabetical order by first name, which put Adam Koebel's name at the bottom.


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## MGibster (Feb 28, 2021)

Sacrosanct said:


> The dragon magazine review of conan the barbarian (1982 one) lambasted the movie as awful. So maybe gamer critics don't know everything lol



Arnold's hair was the wrong color!


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Feb 28, 2021)

Sacrosanct said:


> The dragon magazine review of conan the barbarian (1982 one) lambasted the movie as awful. So maybe gamer critics don't know everything lol



No, it fails in many ways as a movie. But no critic is going to determine whether any individual person is going to enjoy something. That's not a failure of criticism itself, but it may be of what we're told the role that criticism actually performs.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Feb 28, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Long Story Short: Luke Crane put up a Kickstarter for a series of zines called Perfect RPG. Adam Koebel's name was (likely intentionally*) buried in the list of contributors, and a number of other contributors for the project were unaware that Adam Koebel would be a contributor, and once they found out, they (e.g., Sean Nitter, Sage LaTorra, Carol Mertz, Vincent and Meguey Baker, etc.) began quitting the project en masse. [insert additional stuff happening on Twitter here] And in basically the span of a single day, the Perfect RPGs Kickstarter was cancelled.
> 
> * Contributors were weirdly listed in reverse alphabetical order by first name, which put Adam Koebel's name at the bottom.



For those who don't know Koebel's name off the top of their head, like I didn't: Creator of Dungeon World, quit a WotC streaming show after he sprung a sexual assault scene on his players without warning.


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## MGibster (Feb 28, 2021)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> No, it fails in many ways as a movie. But no critic is going to determine whether any individual person is going to enjoy something. That's not a failure of criticism itself, but it may be of what we're told the role that criticism actually performs.



Yeah.  If you're a fan of Howard's Conan I can see why the movie was so disappointing.  Conan was a polyglot, literate (including some dead languages), a world traveler, and knowledgeable about history.  To see the character reduced to an unintelligent brute who had spent his formative years into adulthood as a slave was no doubt disappointing.

I'm sure a lot of people were upset about Dr. Doom in both Fantastic Four movies.


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## Warpiglet-7 (Feb 28, 2021)

MGibster said:


> Yeah.  If you're a fan of Howard's Conan I can see why the movie was so disappointing.  Conan was a polyglot, literate (including some dead languages), a world traveler, and knowledgeable about history.  To see the character reduced to an unintelligent brute who had spent his formative years into adulthood as a slave was no doubt disappointing.
> 
> I'm sure a lot of people were upset about Dr. Doom in both Fantastic Four movies.



I remember that “language and writing” were made available and Arnold debated philosophy as well as read scrolls in the film!

I will agree his martial prowess and strength however were the focus.

how much can be crammed into a film and have it still have an emotional impact is a reality.

but agree that the Conan I met when I read the stories looked different than the one I met in the film...and the sequel (shudder)


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## MGibster (Feb 28, 2021)

Warpiglet-7 said:


> I remember that “language and writing” were made available and Arnold debated philosophy as well as read scrolls in the film!



Conan did tell us what was best in life.  While Arnold's acting chops improved over the years, I don't think he had the ability to play Conan as presented in the books.  Which is odd because in real life I think Arnold's a pretty clever guy.


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## dragoner (Feb 28, 2021)

I think Kong ran over one of his own grenades, either that or did a bootlegger suffering severe tire damage, either way losing traction. I mean the logic circles back on not wanting to pay more than $5-10 and then complaining about quality? Otherwise it is all about preference, somebody may want a pseudo-intellectual, crypto-fash OSR paean to Ayn Rand, I certainly don't, it's not worth anything to me. I have gone to the FLGS and dropped a piece of change on DnD and others that were worth it in I gave some $$$ to my local game store, and even if I don't use the books in total, if there is a small piece of info or idea I can use, it is still value received by my judgement. If someone comes in complaining that something is good or bad, oh well. It is like about the Conan movies, I was entertained, if they are true to the books is a different deal; the first one is really a classic.


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## Emerikol (Mar 1, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I can’t speak for anybody else, but we make more money when people buy directly directly from our website. But that’s speaking as the publisher. That said, we’re happy when somebody buys our stuff from anywhere.



It should always be that way.  A middle man has to make money and if you are smart you don't undercut your middle men.  (And yes I just did say you were smart at least in that regard).  I also think if you are a real fan of a game it might make sense to buy direct if you want more stuff.  On the other hand, a good network that sells your stuff is a good thing.


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## Emerikol (Mar 1, 2021)

Von Ether said:


> As a long time creative, I hear this comment levied to more than just RPGs, but also fiction writers, other artists -- and even teachers. There was even the story of a novelist being introduced to a rich matriarch, who proclaimed, "all you do is write and tell tales? That's a skill I picked up at four."
> 
> And in my life, when someone says, "How hard can it be?" It's more a sign of what we used to call ignorance but now goes by the phrase, "The Dunning-Kruger effect." I've also noticed that for many professions have certs and education can be as much about being  methods of social gatekeeping, and adding prestige than ascertaining mastery.
> 
> ...



I would agree with you on a degree.  I'm a computer programmer and with the intense demand we hire people without degrees.  In my profession that ought to matter, but I see way too many with degrees that are incompetent and don't know the first thing beyond how to code a for loop.   I blame the institutions but why get better when every single graduate of a computer science department has a job the second they want one.   Full disclosure, I have a degree.  It did teach me mental toughness but what little I could use in an applied sense is no longer even used in the industry.

I think creativity is one of the most valuable skills in a lot of lines of work, very much so in programming.  If anyone thinks writing a novel is easy then get at it.  If you can write a half decent one you can make money.  Most can't.


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## rknop (Mar 1, 2021)

Mental toughness _is_ what you're supposed to get out of a degree.  Too many college students think that college is job training.  And, yes, there are vocational schools out there.  But that's not what a college education (as in liberal arts sorts of things -- and, yes, computer science fits into the liberal arts) is really about.  It's about learning how to think.  It's about learning how to learn things.  It's not about learning specific facts and techniques.

As you note, in many cases, you get 5-10 years out of college and the techniques have changed and there are a whole bunch of added facts.  College is way too expensive for it to be job training for the first job you get out of college.  It needs to be something more.  Alas, a substantial fraction of college students don't get this, and actively fight against it.  (How often have you heard "I'm never going to use this" as an implicit argument for not having to think about something in a college class?)


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## Dire Bare (Mar 1, 2021)

rknop said:


> Mental toughness _is_ what you're supposed to get out of a degree.  Too many college students think that college is job training.  And, yes, there are vocational schools out there.  But that's not what a college education (as in liberal arts sorts of things -- and, yes, computer science fits into the liberal arts) is really about.  It's about learning how to think.  It's about learning how to learn things.  It's not about learning specific facts and techniques.
> 
> As you note, in many cases, you get 5-10 years out of college and the techniques have changed and there are a whole bunch of added facts.  College is way too expensive for it to be job training for the first job you get out of college.  It needs to be something more.  Alas, a substantial fraction of college students don't get this, and actively fight against it.  (How often have you heard "I'm never going to use this" as an implicit argument for not having to think about something in a college class?)



Same thing in K-12. Certainly, practical skills are taught, but public K-12 education isn't intended as job training any more than university education is.

I teach middle school, and my students complain all the time, "When are we going to need this?!" My response, is, "I don't know, you might not. But I'm using this topic to try and teach you HOW TO THINK." There's a strong anti-intellectual streak that runs through American culture sadly, top-to-bottom.


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## dragoner (Mar 1, 2021)

I could not imagine an engineer who did not go to uni, it is where we learn to become an inhuman monster that will create the machines of your doom, DOOM!


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## Jd Smith1 (Mar 2, 2021)

rknop said:


> Mental toughness _is_ what you're supposed to get out of a degree.  Too many college students think that college is job training.  And, yes, there are vocational schools out there.  But that's not what a college education (as in liberal arts sorts of things -- and, yes, computer science fits into the liberal arts) is really about.  It's about learning how to think.  It's about learning how to learn things.  It's not about learning specific facts and techniques.
> 
> As you note, in many cases, you get 5-10 years out of college and the techniques have changed and there are a whole bunch of added facts.  College is way too expensive for it to be job training for the first job you get out of college.  It needs to be something more.  Alas, a substantial fraction of college students don't get this, and actively fight against it.  (How often have you heard "I'm never going to use this" as an implicit argument for not having to think about something in a college class?)




That only applies to the liberal arts, which is a questionable field to enter in any case. 

It all boils down to supply and demand. So long as colleges crank out far more debt-ridden graduates than a particular field needs, then the value of that education is minimal at best.

The gaming industry is hit by a triple S&D issue: first, our hobby has a small customer base. Not as small as it has been in years past, but still small.

Second, you don't _need _game designers for this hobby; there are free rules, half-price used books, Ebay, and of course, the GM's ability to write his or her own material. I've been playing since 1979, and my per-year investment in this hobby would, if pro-rated to the start, run about $100 a year. Yet I play every week. One thing I do, is read reviews of gaming material, which generally give the gist of the scenario; I take these, and fill in the details as my campaign dictates.

Third, the products, old and new, are available for free. I don't know what impact piracy has on the industry, but I don't believe it is small; I know two weekly F2F games in my area that are run purely on pirated material, and I suspect some of my players hoist the skull and bones. This latter suspicion makes me loath to purchase commercial scenarios, since the odds are very good the secrets have already been compromised.


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## rknop (Mar 2, 2021)

JD Smith1 -- when you say that the liberal arts is a questionable "field" to enter and "It all boils down to supply and demand....", in my opinion you're thinking about it all wrong in exactly the way that I say college students, and much of society thinks about it all wrong.  Implicit in these descriptions is that college is job training, and that the result of college is somebody who has been specifically prepared to enter the job market.

While that is the purpose of some (many) education and training programs, that is _not_ the real purpose of a liberal arts education (and, as Dire Bare says, earlier general education).  Indeed, the liberal arts is not a "field".  You don't get a job in the liberal arts.  A liberal arts education is supposed to help you think more broadly and flexibly, help you be a more informed citizen of the world, help you engage with the intellectual tradition of the history of civilization.  It doesn't prepare you for any job specifically.  But, if you do it well (and many students do not), it prepares you to be able to adapt to a wide range of jobs.  Yes, for a lot of fields, you will also need specific technical education and skills.  but that's not really what a liberal arts education is about.

Re: gaming, when you say you are loath to purchase commercial scenarios because the secrets have already been compromised, I submit that you really need a new gaming group.  Even without piracy, somebody in your gaming group could buy and read published modules without telling you about it.  Your model assumes a tightly information-controlled adversarial relationship between the GM and the players.  There has been a lot written about how the assumption of an adversarial relationship between the GM and players can be destructive to RPGs.  (If that's what you really want, you're better off playing things like wargames than story-focused RPGs.)  You have to trust your group.  You have to have a group that's in it to have fun, and that wants to play along.  They players have to want there be secrets they don't know if that's part of what makes it fun for everybody.  The solution is not tightly controlled information that players _can't_ get to, the solution is players who agree not to read spoilers about the adventures they're playing.


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## Jd Smith1 (Mar 2, 2021)

rknop said:


> JD Smith1 -- when you say that the liberal arts is a questionable "field" to enter and "It all boils down to supply and demand....", in my opinion you're thinking about it all wrong in exactly the way that I say college students, and much of society thinks about it all wrong.  Implicit in these descriptions is that college is job training, and that the result of college is somebody who has been specifically prepared to enter the job market.
> 
> While that is the purpose of some (many) education and training programs, that is _not_ the real purpose of a liberal arts education (and, as Dire Bare says, earlier general education).  Indeed, the liberal arts is not a "field".  You don't get a job in the liberal arts.  A liberal arts education is supposed to help you think more broadly and flexibly, help you be a more informed citizen of the world, help you engage with the intellectual tradition of the history of civilization.  It doesn't prepare you for any job specifically.  But, if you do it well (and many students do not), it prepares you to be able to adapt to a wide range of jobs.  Yes, for a lot of fields, you will also need specific technical education and skills.  but that's not really what a liberal arts education is about.
> 
> Re: gaming, when you say you are loath to purchase commercial scenarios because the secrets have already been compromised, I submit that you really need a new gaming group.  Even without piracy, somebody in your gaming group could buy and read published modules without telling you about it.  Your model assumes a tightly information-controlled adversarial relationship between the GM and the players.  There has been a lot written about how the assumption of an adversarial relationship between the GM and players can be destructive to RPGs.  (If that's what you really want, you're better off playing things like wargames than story-focused RPGs.)  You have to trust your group.  You have to have a group that's in it to have fun, and that wants to play along.  They players have to want there be secrets they don't know if that's part of what makes it fun for everybody.  The solution is not tightly controlled information that players _can't_ get to, the solution is players who agree not to read spoilers about the adventures they're playing.



If you are going to pay six figures for a 'education', it had better open employment opportunities with an earning potential worth the investment, or it is wasted money. Yet we see study after study demonstrating that LA majors are emerging from college with crippling debt levels and poor job opportunities.

 Because no landlord cares about what sort of 'citizen of the world' you are; they want a credit check, security deposit, and first month's rent, with subsequent payments on time. 

Thanks for sharing your opinion about my group, but we're been gaming together for years (19, for a couple of them), and you're completely wrong on all counts. As I noted, I've found solutions, and in any case, there are not many really good commercial scenarios out there. Gaming is my cheap hobby, and always has been. As I noted, I've probably spent no more than $100 per year going back to 1979, and probably a lot less. I seriously doubt I will spend that much this year.


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## Emerikol (Mar 2, 2021)

rknop said:


> Re: gaming, when you say you are loath to purchase commercial scenarios because the secrets have already been compromised, I submit that you really need a new gaming group.  Even without piracy, somebody in your gaming group could buy and read published modules without telling you about it.  Your model assumes a tightly information-controlled adversarial relationship between the GM and the players.  There has been a lot written about how the assumption of an adversarial relationship between the GM and players can be destructive to RPGs.  (If that's what you really want, you're better off playing things like wargames than story-focused RPGs.)  You have to trust your group.  You have to have a group that's in it to have fun, and that wants to play along.  They players have to want there be secrets they don't know if that's part of what makes it fun for everybody.  The solution is not tightly controlled information that players _can't_ get to, the solution is players who agree not to read spoilers about the adventures they're playing.




To me there is a high value to players not knowing things and discovering them as the campaign progresses.   One way I do it is to rename and reskin existing monsters.   Other times I invent some new monsters.   I also tend to hide the fact I'm using a commercial product so that if by chance one of them has seen the module they won't realize it.   I also change up somethings in any commercial product I use.

It's not a matter of trust.  It's the fact I don't even want to ask if they have heard of a module to tip them off.  I want a genuine sense of wonder to be maintained in the game.


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## Tyler Do'Urden (Mar 5, 2021)

dragoner said:


> somebody may want a pseudo-intellectual, crypto-fash OSR paean to Ayn Rand,




SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!


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## dragoner (Mar 5, 2021)

Tyler Do'Urden said:


> SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!


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## Tyler Do'Urden (Mar 6, 2021)

Not what I had in mind...


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## Rob Kuntz (Mar 6, 2021)

Yep.  Been there and still doing that.  Owen speaks the truth.  It's like that in most publishing fields.  Like Daily newsprint.  It's relentlessly long hours to get to print, last minute changes, the works, and the team sighs in relief after having put in 80-100 hour work weeks each.  Vacations? (translated): "Taking a bathroom break and then grabbing a sandwich on the way back to your desk."  There's this real sense of accomplishment even with (and especially because of) all the grind, "But Nobody Knows But Me" to quote Jimmie Rodgers.


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