# Organized Play: Can You Learn To Love It?



## Ahnehnois (Aug 3, 2013)

> So, what do you think -- is Organized Play awesome? A means to an end? Or not worth touching with Piratecat's 10' pole?



I'm going to go with that last one. I'm not big on doing any noncompetitive hobby in organized fashion, but especially D&D. The experience is built on personal relationships and individual creativity. I imagine one could play a game and call it D&D, but I don't see even a great organized game giving the same opportunities as a weak home game for personal growth, creative fulfillment, social engagement, and sheer recreational value.

Moreover, while the "meeting new people" aspect probably meant something in the '80's and '90's, it's now very easy for people to connect online and meet in a non-organized setting. It makes more sense for people to meet up and some local venue and play their own game that to go to a large convention, and it makes more business sense to support that.

If I were in charge of the brand, I'd do away with any semblance of organized play.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Aug 4, 2013)

I may be a little biased given I volunteered as a Triad member for a couple of years in LG and was a regional admin in LFR for a couple of years as well.  However, here is my Organized Play experience:

I found out about LG from random posts on the internet and I investigated it because my D&D group had mostly fallen apart and wanted to see if there was a way to meet new players which I couldn't seem to find in any local stores or online.  It may be that Winnipeg only has 600,000 people and our D&D Community is likely only a couple of hundred in the whole city.  It's hard to estimate given that Winnipegers in particular don't seem to want to leave their houses or meet new people.

So, I eventually figured out what LG was and I ordered 2 adventures and ran them at a games day, but my friends and 2 random people we managed to convince to play were the only ones who would play.

Still, the adventures were interesting and I liked the flavour of Ket(our region of Greyhawk).  We decided to order some more adventurers and ran it at another games day a couple of months later.

Then, I moved to Australia in 2002 because I met a woman online that I decided to go visit.  I was there for a year and had no friends there and wasn't really sure what to do while my gf was at work.  So, I looked for events in Sydney on the WOTC web site and found a store that ran LG games on a regular basis.

I showed up at the store and found out when they ran games.  I showed up to every game and over time became good friends with the store owner as well as a number of regular D&D players.  I joined a weekly D&D group in addition to showing up to all the LG gamesdays they put on as I enjoyed it so much.

Don't get me wrong.  There were some bad DMs, a couple of bad adventures, and a couple of quirks from people that got annoying over time.  However, the rules of LG and of 3e D&D kept a minimum quality of game, IMHO, so it never dropped below a threshold where I hated it.  A couple of times I lamented that I had a particularly bad gamesday.  But I shrugged and came back the next week to a really awesome adventure or DM that made it all worthwhile.

Eventually the 40 or so regular players at our local store became a community.  I'd hang out with them outside of gaming and played board games with them or go to see movies.  It was good to play with different people all the time.  I got to see a lot of cool ideas for characters and meet a lot of people I never wouldn't have without LG.

Unfortunately, I had to leave Australia.  But right before I left, I posted on the official LG mailing list that I was looking for anyone who wanted to play LG back in Winnipeg since I knew there was no group already doing so because I looked before I had started it myself.  I found a player who said that they used to play LG in Winnipeg, but with just a small group of 6 people who only ran them as home games.  He said he'd love to play again because they stopped when his DM left town.

So, I asked every D&D player I knew and him to come to a game.  The people who showed up enjoyed it so much that other people started becoming more and more interested in it.  Our local group grew to about 30 regular players.  Our largest gamesday had 4 full tables of 6 players and 4 DMs.

During this time I also realized that there were other people doing the same things in other cities and if you went to them you could play more adventures.  So, I played at GenCon.  I made a trip to Fargo, ND for a concert and while I was there, looked up some local people who played LG and played a game or two.  I became fast friends with a group of 15 or so regular players in Fargo.  They came up to Winnipeg a couple of times to play our adventures too.  We even created a yearly convention that took place at the International Peace Garden(which is on the border between ND and Manitoba) just so we could all meet halfway and play both adventures that MUST be played in ND and ones that MUST be played in MB since you can freely cross the border while in the gardens.

During this time we also had people from Edmonton/Calgary come to our Garden Games convention and became close enough friends with them that we made a couple of trips to Edmonton to play over there.

I eventually applied to become Triad since I was enjoying the friendships I had developed as part of LG and wanted to give back something.  This allowed me to become better friends with the group of players in Toronto and surrounding areas and I visited a couple of their conventions.  It also allowed me to become friends with some people from other regions who I still like to at least say hi and hang out with at GenCon every year.

The announcement of the end of LG(due to the end of 3.5e D&D) hit everyone hard.  I've mostly lost touch with my LG friends.  We don't run Garden Games anymore because it's entire purpose was to "get around" LG rules.

We tried to start the same sort of community for Living Forgotten Realms and for a while there it looked possible.  However, there was no incentive to travel to conventions or even games days to play.  So all our truly "Organized" play fell apart and we just ended up playing LFR adventures at people's houses.  Until even that fell apart as people I knew slowly decided they didn't have time to show up on a regular basis or just didn't like 4e and stopped coming.

I'm currently not involved in any OP.  I wanted to play at least a couple more LFR adventures this year at GenCon, but they decided not to have any there.  I'm taking that as a sign of the end of OP, at least until whatever Living Campaign they come up with for D&D Next.  Though, I'm awaiting its introduction eagerly.  Hopefully it can help bring back the community I built up a couple of years ago.


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## Umbran (Aug 4, 2013)

Ahnehnois said:


> I'm going to go with that last one. I'm not big on doing any noncompetitive hobby in organized fashion, but especially D&D.




It seems to me that any hobby you do, competitive or otherwise, that takes multiple people takes *some* organization.  There's scheduling and all to do, if nothing else.  So, like most things, it isn't all or nothing.  It is more a matter of how much organization there is, and how many people you're going to wrangle.



> If I were in charge of the brand, I'd do away with any semblance of organized play.




Ah.  So, it doesn't float your boat, so nobody should have it?  If you were in charge of the brand, I'd hope you'd base decisions on a bit more objective data than that.  I don't play much tabletop at cons*, to be honest.  But at the cons I do go to, the tabletop spaces generally seem pretty busy - it would seem to me that failing to take advantage of what folks are going to do at cons anyway would be a poor business decision.  


*Other than "house cons" like EN World gamedays, that is.  I do occasionally play live-action games at standard cons.  Heck, I go to cons that are _only_ live-action games.


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## Stormonu (Aug 4, 2013)

My attempts to be part of the RPGA in the 90's - and afterwards - were such a disaster, I will not touch organized play with a 20' pole.  I've also tried Living Greyhawk and a living Pathfinder, but never found them to my liking.  Organized play is so different, in a way so foreign to how I game from home gaming that I find it repulsive.  I will say that out of all the organized play I endured that Pathfinder came the closest to something I could stomach.  I can see why game publishers relish organized play - it puts eyes on their game, which is likely to generate sales of their product - I just really, really dislike what I've been involved in.

As for the reasons, it was all a mixture of all 3 of the downsides listed; with #3 being the biggest offender for me (and #2 not far behind).


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## Ahnehnois (Aug 4, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Ah.  So, it doesn't float your boat, so nobody should have it?



As you point out, it is entirely possible for people to organize themselves if they choose,  perhaps through local gaming stores or the internet. What we're talking about is a standardized game experience provided by the company making the game, which I think is not a worthwhile endeavor for the company.



> If you were in charge of the brand, I'd hope you'd base decisions on a bit more objective data than that.  I don't play much tabletop at cons*, to be honest.  But at the cons I do go to, the tabletop spaces generally seem pretty busy - it would seem to me that failing to take advantage of what folks are going to do at cons anyway would be a poor business decision.



Not necessarily. If you've decided that your core game experience is a small group of people playing at a private location you want to support that. You don't necessarily want to support other options that detract from that, like online gaming or convention gaming.

What if the organized game at a convention is so "repulsive" (in the words of [MENTION=52734]Stormonu[/MENTION]) that it detracts from your core gaming experience? What if people who do like it become used to it and don't move on to play in other venues.

If that's the case, you want to put your resources into encouraging those same people to purchase products and run their own games, rather than dumping a bunch of money into creating and running your organized game.


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## Radiating Gnome (Aug 4, 2013)

I'm perfectly willing to understand that some people don't care for OP, and some really like it. There are a lot of different reasons people game, lots of different styles and tastes, and no one is right.  

But this is something Ahnehnois said that I don't understand:



Ahnehnois said:


> What if the organized game at a convention is so "repulsive" (in the words of [MENTION=52734]Stormonu[/MENTION]) that it detracts from your core gaming experience? What if people who do like it become used to it and don't move on to play in other venues.
> .




I don't understand how the way other people choose to play can detract from your own experience in your own home game -- any more than my inability to stop making bad choices in my diet will make you any fatter when you're not eating with me. 

Seriously -- if my dietary choices made other people fat, there'd be an obesity epidemic.... oh, wait.....

All kidding aside, how does organized play at a convention mess with your home game? Have you had players that come to you expecting some of the trappings of organized play that you don't like? 

-rg


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## Umbran (Aug 4, 2013)

Ahnehnois said:


> As you point out, it is entirely possible for people to organize themselves if they choose,  perhaps through local gaming stores or the internet. What we're talking about is a standardized game experience provided by the company making the game, which I think is not a worthwhile endeavor for the company.




Upon what financial or marketing data do you base that opinion?  



> Not necessarily. If you've decided that your core game experience is a small group of people playing at a private location you want to support that.  You don't necessarily want to support other options that detract from that, like online gaming or convention gaming.




Ah.  You've yet do demonstrate how convention gaming has any negative impact whatsoever on home gaming in a private location, much less a negative business-significant impact.  



> What if the organized game at a convention is so "repulsive" (in the words of [MENTION=52734]Stormonu[/MENTION]) that it detracts from your core gaming experience? What if people who do like it become used to it and don't move on to play in other venues.




What if you did research to find out if that experience was at all common before deciding what you'd do to the business?   Recall - "anecdote" is not the singular of "data".  A couple of people with bad experiences does not mean the thing is not positive for the business on the whole.  Though, I note that his presence here to post suggests that the experience didn't drive Stormonu from the hobby...



> If that's the case...




IF.  If it is, then you either want to change how organized play runs, or eliminate it.  But you didn't start with an if.  You didn't start with options other than outright ending organized play.  I have no issue with you saying, "I don't personally like organized play."  I only have issue with passing such judgement on it that you'd take it away from people who do like it because of your own personal experience.


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## Ahnehnois (Aug 4, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Upon what financial or marketing data do you base that opinion?



None whatsoever. This is a "what do you think" thread. Thus, the "if".



> What if you did research to find out if that experience was at all common before deciding what you'd do to the business?   Recall - "anecdote" is not the singular of "data".  A couple of people with bad experiences does not mean the thing is not positive for the business on the whole.  Though, I note that his presence here to post suggests that the experience didn't drive Stormonu from the hobby...



Such research is unlikely to exist even for WotC. It's very difficult to determine how many people the hobby might capture if it did things differently, or how many people gave it a shot and left, or what drove such people away. Again, this is a thread for speculation and opinions, as the OP's question makes clear.



> I have no issue with you saying, "I don't personally like organized play."  I only have issue with passing such judgement on it that you'd take it away from people who do like it because of your own personal experience.



What if I told you that I don't like "reality shows", and if I were in charge of CBS, there never would have been a "Survivor"? Or that I'm a vegetarian, and if I were in charge of McDonald's, there would be no meat on the menu? Am I then "passing judgment" on those things? Am I taking them away from people who do like them, hypothetically?

The people who actually are in charge of making these decisions have a lot of evidence at their fingertips of varying quality, but it is only a part (often a small part) of their decision-making process. People have opinions. I'm merely opining as to what I think is the best thing to do in this case.


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## kitsune9 (Aug 5, 2013)

For the OP, #1, 2 and 3 for the downsides, I've experienced them, but I found them more tolerable and not too often for tournament play. What I hated about organized play was waaaaaay back in the Ye Olde Days of Living City where the most vocal and aggressive player took the certs at the table. I played at one table where one guy who was playing a bard or some such character threw a fit about the certs and he got them all, but at other games, one or two players pretty much dominated in taking the certs for themselves while the rest of us got to pick over the coins.

What I truly enjoyed about the living campaigns was that the stakes were real. If your character died, it was up to you to have enough funds to get him raised and if you didn't have the money, oh well, new character. Also, some of the modules were killer modules so you could play an entire con's worth of modules, get close to your next level, play the last module, get killed and now it just erased all the experience you cumulated from your weekend and possibly then some. You also had to effectively manage your time you spent with your character with time units as well. I truly enjoy games where the threat of dying and having it cost you makes for a more emotionally intense game.


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## Radiating Gnome (Aug 5, 2013)

kitsune9 said:


> I truly enjoy games where the threat of dying and having it cost you makes for a more emotionally intense game.




Actually, while I was often annoyed by the bookkeeping involved, I do miss that element of the LG campaign from time to time.  It was possible to really build a character -- over a period of years playing in local home games and at conventions, picking up weird certs and obscure items here and there.  An 8th level character that developed organically was a much more interesting thing than one that was just whipped up to play at that level.  

I get why that sort of OP -- at least in the case of D&D (I'm not sure about PFS) -- has gone away.  In a lot of ways it's a lot more friendly to casual players than it used to be.  But I do miss it from time to time. 

-rg


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## Lord_Blacksteel (Aug 5, 2013)

So, much like the in-game world, one of the downsides of organized play is dividing the loot! That seems appropriate.

I've never spent time at an organized play event and I don't go to a ton of cons but I've been running home games for decades. I was somewhat interested in things like 4E Encounters and LFR but the non-con events were always scheduled (locally at least) on nights where it just was not an option. 

Overall I assume there's some value to it from the company's perspective or they wouldn't do it. Buzz, visibility, recruiting - I'm sure that's a big part of it.


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2013)

Ahnehnois said:


> None whatsoever. This is a "what do you think" thread. Thus, the "if".




Just so we don't start talking past each other - my initial reaction was due to the lack of if in your original statement.  



> Such research is unlikely to exist even for WotC.




Organizations can, and do, get feedback from the people involved.  If people playing organized games were regularly telling them, "Hey, this stank, and the players I was with also literally stank!" I suspect they could draw some conclusions from that.  It will not tell you about people who kept their mouths scrupulously quiet, but if you had a horrible game, and failed to give feedback, well, that's your own fault, now isn't it?



> It's very difficult to determine how many people the hobby might capture if it did things differently, or how many people gave it a shot and left, or what drove such people away.




See above - in an organized situation, it is easy as pie to find out if the people who were involved were generally happy or not.  Details may be fuzzy, but the basic generalities are not hard to come by.



> Again, this is a thread for speculation and opinions, as the OP's question makes clear.




Yeah.  So, my opinion that we should not base business decisions on personal preferences fits right in, now doesn't it?



> What if I told you that I don't like "reality shows", and if I were in charge of CBS, there never would have been a "Survivor"? Or that I'm a vegetarian, and if I were in charge of McDonald's, there would be no meat on the menu? Am I then "passing judgment" on those things? Am I taking them away from people who do like them, hypothetically?




Bit of apples and oranges there - reality shows and fast food are available all over the place, from many vendors.  Taking away one venue of such isn't going to significantly impact access to the genre.  The same is not currently true of organized D&D play.

Also, if you were McDonalds, and decided to turn the entire chain vegetarian, I expect the economic crash-and-burn would lead to your quick exit as He Who Is In Charge.  So, when you use this as your analogy to taking away organized play, well, you aren't doing yourself many favors, now are you?


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## Balesir (Aug 5, 2013)

Ahnehnois said:


> What if I told you that I don't like "reality shows", and if I were in charge of CBS, there never would have been a "Survivor"? Or that I'm a vegetarian, and if I were in charge of McDonald's, there would be no meat on the menu? Am I then "passing judgment" on those things?



Well, you _*are*_ passing judgement on those things, but in a thread of comments responding to a request for opinions, that's really not such a bad thing.

The nub, though, comes when you express the opinion that the operators of those businesses are wrong to do what they do - which you are effectively claiming by saying that "it's not what you would do" (presumably because, despite any identified business advantage - which there must be for any business to countenance the activity - *you think* it's wrong _for anyone_ to do these things). In doing this, you are being intolerant. Tolerance is pretty unambiguously a good thing, but plenty of folk are intolerant. Objections to intolerance are themselves, of course, intolerant (ironically) - but they are proof that even intolerance must, on some limited occasions, be tolerated...


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## Lwaxy (Aug 5, 2013)

Never been part of organized play. But I have randomly joined games at conventions which is pretty much the same "bad player" risk. 

I suppose I could like it if done well, and if there was a regular event in my area I'd probably give it a try.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Aug 6, 2013)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> Overall I assume there's some value to it from the company's perspective or they wouldn't do it. Buzz, visibility, recruiting - I'm sure that's a big part of it.



People like me who really got into OP would create events at our local stores.  They'd call all their friends to remind them to show up.  They'd post flyers at stores across the city to encourage people to come.  We certainly brought more than a few people into the hobby.

Plus, it has the benefit of being fairly casual while still having the possibility of being extremely deep.  For instance, we'd run games days weekly at our game store for a couple of years.  A bunch of people would show up every week.  They'd buy new books as soon as they came out so they could try new classes and get new options for the characters they were playing.  The dedicated players had 5 or 6 regular characters at various levels so that no matter what level the adventure was that we played, they'd have one that was appropriate.  These are the same players who would make trips to other cities to get more and varied play experiences.

However, on the flip side, a bunch of more casual players knew that although we played weekly that there was no requirement to show up every week.  They didn't have to dedicate themselves to a weekly group just to play D&D.  They could play one LG adventure and then show up 2 months later with that same character and know that we'd accommodate them and they won't have lost any of the progress on their character that they got from their last session.

Some of these casual people picked up at least a PHB intending to play, even if some never showed up again.  Maybe they went on to start home games...who knows?  But a number of them would likely never have played D&D at all if they had to make a dedication to a play group.

Meanwhile, it opened opportunities for more play for the people who were heavily invested in it.  If you have a level 13 character that you've leveled from level 1 in OP, you want to play it.  As much as possible.  Most D&D play groups only meet once a week or once every second week for a couple hours at a time.  At our height, we were playing 4-5 adventures a week, each was 4 hours long.  When you play a game that much, you're more willing to spend money on it(just look at the Free to Play video games that exist these days, they make lots and lots of money simply because players are so invested in the game).  Plus, the OP games allowed almost every option in every book, so they had the assurance that they could use material in any book they bought.


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## Ahnehnois (Aug 6, 2013)

Umbran said:


> It will not tell you about people who kept their mouths scrupulously quiet, but if you had a horrible game, and failed to give feedback, well, that's your own fault, now isn't it?



People aren't that simple. Sometimes they tell you what they think you want to hear. Sometimes they lie. Sometimes they're limited by their knowledge. Getting feedback is hard. Getting honest feedback is really hard. Getting honest and informed feedback is really really hard.

More to the point, if your business is built on getting people to buy products and play at home, information about what happens in an organized play setting is not really relevant.



> Yeah.  So, my opinion that we should not base business decisions on personal preferences fits right in, now doesn't it?



It does. It just strikes me as naive. Research is not some all-seeing objective lens through which we view the world. The vision of the people in charge decides what research will be done and how, and it's then for them to decide how they'll interpret and use that information. There's no such thing as an opinion-free business model, for better or for worse.



> Bit of apples and oranges there - reality shows and fast food are available all over the place, from many vendors.  Taking away one venue of such isn't going to significantly impact access to the genre.  The same is not currently true of organized D&D play.



But, as I've noted, unlike those items, D&D is freely available to everyone. If someone really likes an organized play campaign, they can set one up themselves and perhaps disseminate it widely, and it'll succeed or fail on its own merits without the company making any input into it whatsoever. Which leaves the company to focus all its time and energy on the game itself and make it better. Everybody wins.



> Also, if you were McDonalds, and decided to turn the entire chain vegetarian, I expect the economic crash-and-burn would lead to your quick exit as He Who Is In Charge.  So, when you use this as your analogy to taking away organized play, well, you aren't doing yourself many favors, now are you?



Maybe. But the goal of life is not to make money. Throughout all businesses, there is money to be made by widely disseminating poor quality products and services, keeping cost low but finding various ways to entice people to buy anyway. D&D has moved strongly in the McDonald's direction in that regard. I don't believe in doing that stuff.

If I were in charge of a food company, I'd focus on providing quality, healthy food, treating everyone in the company fairly and keeping them happy, and providing the best possible experience for customers. I expect that any large company would quickly dispose of me on that basis. I say that's a good thing.

If I were in charge of a game company, I'd focus on providing the best game possible and providing products and services to support its use. I wouldn't try to create a separate, marginalized, and standardized game experience as a promotional tool. Would WotC hire me as their top man? Probably not. But again, I think that says something good about me.

All of which goes towards the point that I don't like organized play. If there are other people that do, that's fine, but they're unlikely to change my mind. I dislike it on principle, because (as in the original post above), I think that personal relationships and individual creative freedom are inherent to the experience, and that those are compromised in organized games. If someone played in an organized game and had fun, it doesn't falsify that principle, and it doesn't mean that their experience wouldn't have been infinitely more rewarding in a home game. I suspect that providing these types of organized games loses WotC a lot more money than it gains them, but that's purely speculative and it could be the other way around. I don't care. My only stake here is in supporting the kind of positive experience that I've had in gaming.


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## Balesir (Aug 7, 2013)

Ahnehnois said:


> People aren't that simple. Sometimes they tell you what they think you want to hear. Sometimes they lie. Sometimes they're limited by their knowledge. Getting feedback is hard. Getting honest feedback is really hard. Getting honest and informed feedback is really really hard.



All that is true, but your answer seems to be to replace it with your own view alone - how is that better from anyone's viewpoint but your own? Basing policies on feedback and evidence, however flawed that feedback and evidence may be, seems to me to be much superior to basing it off of one persons views. The only area where I can think that the "lone vision" is better is art, and that is because the feedback/dispersed judgement comes after the creation.



Ahnehnois said:


> More to the point, if your business is built on getting people to buy products and play at home, information about what happens in an organized play setting is not really relevant.



But roleplaying games are *not* solely intended to be played at home. I remember playing D&D in a games club sometime around 1977, at the latest. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson I believe first started playing D&D at their wargames club. Conventions have been around for a loooong time. RPGs never were an "only ever play this at home, kiddies!" thing. They are a pastime as diverse in their location and circumstances of enjoyment as they are diverse in play style, game setting and system focus. You might personally like them best when played with a fixed set of players in the privacy of your own home, but that isn't the entirety of "D&D", or even of RPGs. You are mistaking the bit you see and like for the whole thing.



Ahnehnois said:


> Research is not some all-seeing objective lens through which we view the world. The vision of the people in charge decides what research will be done and how, and it's then for them to decide how they'll interpret and use that information. There's no such thing as an opinion-free business model, for better or for worse.



I can agree with all of this - but I could not disagree more with your conclusion that we should therefore disregard research. Some evidence - even flawed evidence - is better than no evidence at all. Always. The alternative to "research isn't perfect" isn't to discard research, just as the solution to the fact that my eyesight isn't perfect isn't poking out my eyes.



Ahnehnois said:


> But, as I've noted, unlike those items, D&D is freely available to everyone. If someone really likes an organized play campaign, they can set one up themselves and perhaps disseminate it widely, and it'll succeed or fail on its own merits without the company making any input into it whatsoever. Which leaves the company to focus all its time and energy on the game itself and make it better. Everybody wins.



Except that the company doesn't get a market grown by introducing newcomers to one aspect of a hugely diverse, vibrant and fulfilling hobby through a venue that features particularly _their product_. This is why the company may choose to materially support organised play -it's a marketing tool, like many others. And if they see benefit in using that tool, why shouldn't they?



Ahnehnois said:


> But the goal of life is not to make money.



No, but the goal of _business_ is to make money (specifically in competition with other businesses - which is where the democratisation of "good quality", or at least "good value", come from). The process, as it exists in the world, may not work perfectly, but see my earlier comments on that.



Ahnehnois said:


> Throughout all businesses, there is money to be made by widely disseminating poor quality products and services, keeping cost low but finding various ways to entice people to buy anyway. D&D has moved strongly in the McDonald's direction in that regard. I don't believe in doing that stuff.



"Poor quality" is in the eye of the beholder. As long as there is competition, good quality - as judged by the people in the market collectively - will always win out. If higher production values that involve more cost fail, that is a sign that people as a whole do not consider the additional investment of resources (represented by the money price) worthwhile for the added utility. You may, personally, disagree with the judgement of the consumer base as a whole. I know I do on several points. But to say that ones own opinion should be set above that of the rest of humanity is sheer hubris.



Ahnehnois said:


> If I were in charge of a food company, I'd focus on providing quality, healthy food, treating everyone in the company fairly and keeping them happy, and providing the best possible experience for customers.



Your first difficulty is going to be deciding what constitutes "quality, healthy food". The evidence is somewhat mixed and changes all the time. There are certain constants, sure - but almost all of them have exceptions. A friend of mine eats almost exclusively highly processed food, because if he doesn't he'll likely die (he has Crone's disease, as do thousands of others around the world).

The next issue will be that what you decide is "quality, healthy food" will almost certainly conflict with "providing the best possible experience for customers". Even assuming (and it's a big assumption) that I concur with your assessment of what is "quality, healthy food", I am one consumer whose experience would be marred by being told what I can eat "because it's good for me". I had that as a child, and can accept it as it was done then by my mother, but as an adult I would reject it coming from a stranger without hesitation.



Ahnehnois said:


> All of which goes towards the point that I don't like organized play. If there are other people that do, that's fine, but they're unlikely to change my mind. I dislike it on principle, because (as in the original post above), I think that personal relationships and individual creative freedom are inherent to the experience, and that those are compromised in organized games.



Personal relationships with people met for the first or second time are different from those with long time friends, for sure, and creative freedom my or may not be constrained by being with new friends rather than old, but I would say that makes the experience different, not "compromised". And variety is the spice of life.



Ahnehnois said:


> My only stake here is in supporting the kind of positive experience that I've had in gaming.



Which is fine, but you have expressed the wish to give that "support" by suppressing other kinds of positive experience that others have had in gaming. That is the wrong way to go about it. Competition among desired alternatives will generate a vibrant and diverse hobby with engaged, fulfilled participants. Only supporting one "approved" way to play will not.

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## Ahnehnois (Aug 7, 2013)

Balesir said:


> The only area where I can think that the "lone vision" is better is art, and that is because the feedback/dispersed judgement comes after the creation.



D&D is a creative medium, isn't it?



> You might personally like them best when played with a fixed set of players in the privacy of your own home, but that isn't the entirety of "D&D", or even of RPGs. You are mistaking the bit you see and like for the whole thing.



No, I'm aware of all the other venues. I just don't think they're as good. To say that organized play exists or has existed for a while doesn't mean that it should continue to.



> I can agree with all of this - but I could not disagree more with your conclusion that we should therefore disregard research. Some evidence - even flawed evidence - is better than no evidence at all. Always. The alternative to "research isn't perfect" isn't to discard research, just as the solution to the fact that my eyesight isn't perfect isn't poking out my eyes.



Not necessarily. Some research is so flawed that it functions as disinformation, and is better off ignored. And in any case, this whole argument about research is purely conceptual. AFAIK none of us knows about any research relevant to the thread topic.



> And if they see benefit in using that tool, why shouldn't they?



If they do, they should. I'm saying that I don't see that. I think the same dollars would be better spent elsewhere.



> "Poor quality" is in the eye of the beholder.



Yep. I'm beholding some poor quality. No more to it than that.



> As long as there is competition, good quality - as judged by the people in the market collectively - will always win out. If higher production values that involve more cost fail, that is a sign that people as a whole do not consider the additional investment of resources (represented by the money price) worthwhile for the added utility. You may, personally, disagree with the judgement of the consumer base as a whole. I know I do on several points. But to say that ones own opinion should be set above that of the rest of humanity is sheer hubris.



Whoa there, tiger. The market is not always right. If it was, "Avatar" would be the best movie ever. People can arrive at mistaken conclusions in a variety of ways, and indeed, businesses put a lot of money into fundamentally deceptive marketing, advertising, and other tactics designed to inflate perceptions of their products or otherwise induce people to buy them. This topic is likely to run afoul of the no politics rule if carried further, but suffice it to say, good quality sometimes wins but often does not.



> Which is fine, but you have expressed the wish to give that "support" by suppressing other kinds of positive experience that others have had in gaming. That is the wrong way to go about it. Competition among desired alternatives will generate a vibrant and diverse hobby with engaged, fulfilled participants. Only supporting one "approved" way to play will not.



Who's talking about suppressing anything? My whole point was that sufficiently motivated people can organize themselves, whether it's one play group or an organization of thousands. To say that a company should not be putting money into providing a standardized play experience and focus on rules is not to say that they should go into your local convention center and eliminate all the games that are not up to specs.

Just as with an edition change, if all organized play were eliminated tomorrow, people would be free to keep playing however they choose. And if enough people wanted to play in some big "living" campaign, it would work. You could call it the market deciding what's best.

What I don't think should happen is the company that makes the game doing anything other than make the game. If someone wants to make a setting, or some miniatures, or set up an organized campaign, let someone do it and let it succeed or fail on its own merits. Let the company that makes D&D focus on getting the D&D part right for a change.


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## Balesir (Aug 7, 2013)

Ahnehnois said:


> D&D is a creative medium, isn't it?



It's creative, sure, but it's done by a group of people, not by an individual. I should perhaps have said "individual art" - I was thinking of painting, but sculpture or the like could also qualify. And note that there is still no monopoly on "quality" - the judgement simply comes after the piece is complete.



Ahnehnois said:


> Not necessarily. Some research is so flawed that it functions as disinformation, and is better off ignored. And in any case, this whole argument about research is purely conceptual. AFAIK none of us knows about any research relevant to the thread topic.



Even poor research tells us what something is not - which is better than no information at all.



Ahnehnois said:


> Whoa there, tiger. The market is not always right. If it was, "Avatar" would be the best movie ever. People can arrive at mistaken conclusions in a variety of ways, and indeed, businesses put a lot of money into fundamentally deceptive marketing, advertising, and other tactics designed to inflate perceptions of their products or otherwise induce people to buy them.



The problem with your assessment, here, is that it assumes some external authority on what constitutes "quality". To say that evidence for such an authority is sparse would be a gargantuan understatement.

By it's own lights - which are the ones that matter, to it - the market _*is*_ always right. It has the final say; the only thing that can gainsay it is power and that proves itself wrong by its own execution.

It may be that you disagree with the market/masses. You have every right to do so. There may even be people who agree with you. But, unless you have some legitimate grounds for claiming superior authority as regards "quality", your consensus is merely a tautology. You agree with people who agree with you because they have the same views on the matter as you do. Everyone on the planet could say the same. But the final arbiter on what the market wants is always what people buy. Simples.



Ahnehnois said:


> What I don't think should happen is the company that makes the game doing anything other than make the game. If someone wants to make a setting, or some miniatures, or set up an organized campaign, let someone do it and let it succeed or fail on its own merits.



This is at odds with itself.

Suppose a company wants to produce a roleplaying game that is _primarily_ intended for the OP market. Its primary aim is to be played at clubs and as convention and gameshop play events. Why should they not "do anything other than make the game"? And why should WotC be debarred from making D&D with such an agenda?

If you were saying "not *all* game companies should support or focus any corporate effort on organised play", your point would be coherent. And, as an aside, I would agree with it. But you seem to be demanding that *no* RPG company should put any effort into organised play. That seems to be exclusive in a way that you claim that it isn't.



Ahnehnois said:


> Let the company that makes D&D focus on getting the D&D part right for a change.



Again the assumption that there is some absolute, external authoritative version of what is "right". I'm afraid you are destined to be disappointed, on that one.

Especially if you think that the predetermined "right" version is the one you currently envisage it to be. That's a situation that _never_ ends well.


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## Stormonu (Aug 8, 2013)

I lean towards [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] in that I worry OP has been detrimental to the RPG hobby, but until now, couldn't articulate my feelings about it.

As far as the RPG companies go, Organized Play is great.  It gets their product into the minds, if not the hands of the community.  It leads to sales, and bottom line the companies need sales to keep them in business.  Their interest is not in how the products get used, only that in it sells and that they can depend on selling more.  While I don't want poor quality game material, a company that's more worried about _how_ you use their products is being tyrannical, not helpful.  It's simply not their business, nor should it be.

However, I get the feeling that how RPGs are played have undergone the same sort of change that First Person Shooter (FPS) video games have undergone.  The first few FPS games (Doom, Quake) had fairly extensive single-player (or co-op) story modes. Multiplayer death matches (or modes like Flag Capture) were seen as "nice add-ons".  Trying to carry this analogy to RPGs, games like D&D were pretty much built with the intent you'd be playing in a long-term campaign with the same group at someone's home.  One-shot adventures were for Cons or tournaments.  

As the FPS games progressed, the multiplayer aspect became stronger and stronger.  Nowadays, it's not atypical to find FPS games that have such anemic single-player modes that they might as well not have that mode exist (Battlefield 3 comes to my mind).

Meanwhile, RPGs found themselves with the dilemma of "life".  People didn't seem to have the time or patience to sit through 8-10 hour sessions two to three times a week.  Getting people's schedules synched could be troublesome.  Computers could present many of the appealing factors of RPGs faster and quicker.  To survive, ways had to be found to decrease the obligations associated with table games - and Organized Play fulfills those needs wonderfully.

And as far as video games go, the evolution has been fine for those who enjoy the multiplayer PvP aspect of the game.  For folks like me, who prefer playing co-op or with a couple of friends against some bots it frankly sucks.  (Doubly so when you get stuck on a server, where after 30 minutes of play, you finally to just manage to score your first kill.  Triply so when everyone else playing around you purchased those upgrades your working your butt off to acquire in-game).

I feel pretty much the same way with RPGs that heavily push Organized Play.  OP has, to my experience, a completely different feel from at-home play.  Part of it seems to be a more detached approach to the game and a faster pace of advancement/acquisition in OP.    And I fear that companies that rely more and more on their OP products will ignore those who prefer "home campaigns", and may actually release material that is harmful to the latter style of play.  Harmful in what way?  Well, restrictive and/or riddled with power creep I would venture to say.

But I get the feeling that OP is the "wave of the future" and the model that future successful RPG companies will need to follow to survive.  I'm just not thrilled about being "dragged along" into it.  I want to keep my games geared towards a homey style of play.  To me, my home games just feel more personable than OP - in OP, for whatever reason, I don't feel close to the other players, and that detachment takes away from my enjoyment and actually alters my play style.


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## pogre (Aug 8, 2013)

My response might be a bit dated, as I have not run OP since the demise of 3.5. However, when I ran rpga games at conventions, including GenCon, it was a great time. The players in my games were fun people and we had a grand time. I probably ran a dozen or so RPGA games and never had a bad experience and met people from around the world.


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