Owen KC Stephens' Tabletop RPG Truths

Multi-award winning game designer Owen Stephens (Starfinder, Pathfinder, Star Wars) has been posting a series he calls #RealGameIndustry on social media.

• Most TTRPG game company's art archives are not well indexed... Or indexed.
• Yes, the RPG book could have had ONE more editing pass. There would still be errors, you'd still complain, it would cost more and take longer, and not sell any better. And people would download it for free illegally because "it's too expensive."
• Tabletop RPG books are not overpriced. They are specialty technical creative writing social interaction manuals. At double the current prices, they would not be overpriced. This is why most TTRPG creators leave the industry. Along with constant fan harassment.
• Quality, effort, marketing, and fan fervor cannot change this. Ever. That's not to knock, or praise, D&D. It's just a fact.
• Impostor syndrome is hugely common in the TTRPG industry for two reasons. One: Studying and modifying RPGs often appeals to socially awkward shut ins who become broken professionals. Two: There's a sense that if you were a REAL professional you could afford a house, and insurance, and a retirement account, but that's not true for 99.9% of TTRPG professionals.
• People who are passionate about making games for other people, people who are good at making games, and people who are good at the business of game sales and marketing don't overlap much in a Venn diagram. Most game company failures can be attributed to this.
• A TTRPG professional with enough experience and credibility to criticize the industry as a whole is normally tied to one company so closely that the criticism is seen as biased, or unwilling to do it for free, or too naughty word tired to care anymore. Many are all 3.
• If you are a TTRPG creative, you aren't paid enough. Thus, if you find people listening to you and apparently valuing your words you owe it to yourself to make sure they know there is an option to pay you for them. Also, I have a Patreon. https://patreon.com/OwenKCStephens
• There are beloved, award-winning, renowned, well-known TTRPG books with total print runs of 2000 or fewer copies. That did not sell out.
• Most RPG creators cannot afford the upper-tier of RPG accessories. Colossal dragons, scale sailing ships, and custom-built gaming tables are not for those of us who create the hobby. We are too poor to enjoy even a fraction of the things our creativity sparks.
• The ability to master a game's rules has no correlation to the ability to write clear or interesting rules or adventures. Neither has any correlation to being able to produce 22,000 words of focused, usable content about a specific topic on a set deadline.
• There are 65 people in the Origins Hall of Fame. Most fans can't name 5 of them. Most creators can't name 10. They are overwhelmingly (though not quite entirely) white men.
• TTRPG companies generally have no interest in your ideas for products. They went to all the trouble of starting, or staying at, an RPG company to publish their ideas, even if they need you to write them. They certainly didn't stay for the money or respect.
• Asking RPG freelancers to publicly call out a publisher is asking them to reduce their tiny chance of making enough money in RPGs to survive. Sometimes it's a moral imperative. But it's always painful and dangerous. It's more dangerous for women and minorities.
• Occasionally, male game designers who do streams or vlogs or podcasts find themselves disconcerted receiving unsolicited commentary about their appearance. It happened to me. Or, in other words, they get a tiny taste of what women in every field face every day.
• Freelancers aren't paid enough by game company employees and managers, who themselves aren't paid enough by their companies, which don't make enough from distributors and stores, that don't make enough from customers. This never improves. It can get worse.
• Fantasy and scifi art has sexualized women for decades, so many pro artists assume that's what you want. Explaining otherwise takes more words that describing the art piece. I had to go with "No skin should be exposed except on the face." It was 75% effective.
• Most RPG work is "work-for-hire," This includes most work I commission from freelancers myself. This means that, legally, the writer isn't the author. They have no rights to it. No royalties. No say in how (or if) it is used. It never reverts to them.
• I have received 3 death threats in my 21+ RPG career. One for not listing the fans preferred length for the Executor SSD. One of having a male succubus (not an incubus, with that game system) drawn in a seductive pose. And one for being fat and on video streams.
• Once, at Gen Con, a fan interrupted [Amanda Hamon] at the Paizo booth to ask her to point me out. She kindly did so. They came and asked me if I was the Starfinder boss. I pointed them back to Amanda, and noted she was my Managing Developer, and direct superior. I followed that by pointing out Lisa Stevens was an owner of Paizo but that I also worked for Nicole Lindroos and Miranda Russell at other companies, and that Lj Stephens was my project manager for my own company who kept me on schedule, The fan seemed upset.
• I have been extraordinary lucky and well-treated in my RPG career. I love most of the companies and people I have worked with. It's just a harsh industry. This hashtag isn't intended as complaints. They're facts and alerts I wish I had gotten 20 years ago.

 

[dunlin]

As a 10-year-old kid living in early 2000s Poland, as a birthday gift I got a Warhammer FRP rulebook and a set of dice. We were living frugally, and for RPG's it was all I could afford - I skipped all adventure modules or the RPG zine that used to be published back then. But the basic rulebook was everything I really needed. I played and ran games, I read the book many times until the covers started to fall apart. I wasn't a rich kid, but I had fun.

Affordability is a virtue of RPGs. The books shouldn't be more expensive.

 

[TheSword]

Let’s be honest the rpg books (or even more so their pdf copies for companies that release that way like Paizo) are incredibly cheap for the amount of time that goes into using them. I can’t think of a single book I’ve ever owned that’s been referenced as much as my 5e players handbook or 1e Pathfinder rulebook.

For a campaign that lasts 18 months and we’ll play 8 hours a month. With five people. Even a luxury hardback Campaign at say £40 costs about 6 pence per hour of play per person. I don’t believe I know any hobbies that cost less than that.

The actual written creation part of the hobby is only a fraction of the money I spend on the game including minis, sound effects, patreon’s for maps, dm screens, d&d beyond subscriptions and electronic modules for it. I guarantee someone is making money out of the hobby, it just doesn’t sound like that someone is the writers, which is a real shame.

Speaking of Warhammer FRP I’m on the discord servers fro WFRP 4E and some of the writers engage with fans there. Same for Paizo and I feel like it encourages a greater respect as it hammers home that the writers are people, with their own opinions and feelings. It is a real privilege to hear from the designers and writers themselves if they have time to spare it - that always impressed me a lot.

I also do believe that some writers have hurt the industry as a whole by taking advantage of the crowdfunding option not being honest... I specifically refer to Fire Mountain Games. Where fan support is harvested for financial resources and then taken advantage of. These individuals hurt writers as a whole as it encourages skepticism and distrust.

I suspect the money situation is locked into the industry and I don’t really see how it can be changed unless writers can get better control over the businesses that publish their work. On the other hand I suspect most of us can be a little bit nicer in the forums when we are critiquing what people write.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

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

Oh My God Save Us From This Bigotry Disguised As Politically Correctness.

EDIT:

Oh My God Save Me From What I Humbly Consider An Hardly Credible As Sincere Expression Of Politically Correctness

Or, in other words, to show women skin is not to sexualize women. Sexualization depends upon what kind of connotation you give to the subject. Maybe is a matter of culture. In Italy we are sourrounded by art and many of this artistic expressions involves women body.
Would you say that this is "sexualized woman"?

I stop here 'cause I'm going off topic. I know. But I was very impressed by the "No skin should be exposed except on the face." statement.

 

[TheSword]

What I will say is, taking to heart the outrageous views of a fringe of people who clearly don’t live by the same social norm, who think it acceptable to send death threats, or belittle women, or are homophobic is a fools errand. It sounds like he did the right thing and corrected them but letting it bring you down or equating the outliers with the majority of fans doesn’t help.

I work in public service and my team and I are constantly amazed by the outrageous things some rare individuals expect or say and think are perfectly normal. I could use a quote about the price of free speech but I prefer Bronn of the Blackwaters more eloquent... “There’s no cure for being a...”

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I suspect the money situation is locked into the industry and I don’t really see how it can be changed unless writers can get better control over the businesses that publish their work.

RPG products needs ART. This is a great problem for a writer who wants to publish his work with Kickstarter. No matter the goodness of your concept, you still need a pro artist who decides to believe in you or still need some money to invest to create a pair of illustration that captures the spirit of your work. Otherwise is unlikely that someone give you some money.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Its the whole problem with doing job you love. That said, that post feels kinda hypocritical if you buy any rpg products since you can't really expect rpg developers and writers do great quality as sidejob :/

You don't really do logic very well, do you?

No, I am not being hypocritical. (Will you be calling me racist next?) What a fatuous statement. The "industry" clearly only supports a very small number of people on incomes that allow them to live. A normal person - not the sort of person who reads something and responds "hypocritical" to a straw man of his own creation - would therefore conclude that maybe he should be looking for a job in an industry where he and his family are no longer at risk of starving to death.

I made no comment about the quality of the products I buy (as you will note if you actually read what I wrote); I commented on a basic bit of life strategy which involves making sure you get paid enough to live.

 

[DaveMage]

I think (as the article indicates) that pirating of content is the #1 cause/reason why it sucks to be in the industry. (Today)

 

[MGibster]

George Thorogood got it right: "Get a haircut, and get a real job."

The main thrust of that song is that George stuck with doing what he loved and ended up more successful than his big brother Bob who "has a haircut and has a real job."

 

[Morrus]

Or any other sort of professional or skilled worker.

If there is no money in RPGs - plus fan abuse - then why persist with the job? At some point it needs to be accepted that a wiser choice of employment needs to be made. Enduring decades of low income and internet insults does not rational sense.

George Thorogood got it right: "Get a haircut, and get a real job."

There are many reasons to do a job, other than money. Why be a teacher or a nurse? Why be a writer? Why be an artist?

 

[DammitVictor]

I think (as the article indicates) that pirating of content is the #1 cause/reason why it sucks to be in the industry. (Today)

It is really, really not. And... as much as it sucks to compare the number of people downloading your work illegally to the number of people paying good money for it, the latter number is the only number that matters in an economic sense-- those huge number of downloads are not lost sales, because there isn't a pirate in existence who could afford to legally purchase a small fraction of what they illegally download and the people who uploaded them in the first place did purchase them legally.

If you imagine that a tenth of a percent of the people who illegally download your work go on to purchase it, or to purchase something else of yours-- and I reckon that a conservative estimate-- and you compare the number of legal sales to the number of illegal downloads again, you'll see that a substantial portion of your sales, the only number that matters, come from pirates.

The economic reasons that it sucks to be in this industry-- leaving cultural attitudes aside-- is that the nature of our industry has always been that almost all of your customers want to be your competitors, and the technical limitations that prevented them from doing so are vanishing. The reason that this industry sucks is that for every professional trying to earn a living... they're competing with dozens or hundreds of people who don't have to.

Retail sales for intellectual property, especially low margin IP like roleplaying books, are a dying business model. Blaming piracy only makes us feel better about it at the expense of putting off finding a model that will allow us to survive.