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.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

This has been an illuminating conversation to read.

Despite the typo in my name, I recently graduated with honors + awards from a Masters program in English. I have run a successful Kickstarter for my RPG product that earned 1000% of its required goal. I have fully committed to writing as my art form. And this thread has just further proven to me that I will never be paid the money that I think my art is worth because people just don't value writers.

That's the bottom line of it. People don't value writers, authors, designers, etc, because many people, even if they won't readily admit this, don't think writing skill is worth all that much. They think because they are native speakers and can write a 5 paragraph essay that their writing ability is above average and that they don't need to go the extra mile. You have to be someone of impossible talent and experience in order to convince people that your written words are worth more than the average (and the average is quite low).

And then people will tell you that art isn't worth money and that you should accept being poor if you are an artist. Because they don't value you. They say they will, they'll cite their books and their collections and this and that, but they don't really value you like they do visual artists (of who are literally always in demand) or their figurine armies or their tokens and so on and so forth.

Everything Owens has said I've either experienced or have expected (as I'm still quite new to the industry). But what amazes me is that I've experienced all of this in other fields that deal with the written word as well. Publishing, editing, so on and so forth, all of it leads to the same place, and that's undervalued work, rude clients, and a total lack of regard for the amount of training, skill, and ability it requires to make a clear, effective, concise, and good piece of writing.

If this comes off as elitist or snubby, I don't intend that. Much like Owen, I'm just stating a fact - writing is not valued in our culture(s).

That's one way to look at it. I value quality writing but there is a limit to what I'm willing to pay for it, especially when I have shelves of books that do largely the same thing with some variations.

 

[Umbran]

That's a positively Umbranesque conclusion that has nothing to do with what I wrote.

In any communication, there are three texts - what you wanted to say, what you actually write on the page, and what the audience actually gets from it.

I do not know what you actually intended to say, because I cannot read minds. However, as to what you wrote - you said that choices have consequences, and that having made choices you don't complain about the consequences (bolding yours). "Don't complain when the consequences are unfair," is merely a subset of the blanket, "don't complain about the consequences".

That, I'm afraid, is real logic at work - if you claim a thing is overall true or correct, then any subset of that thing should also be true or correct. This is not a weird conclusion*. It is, dare I say it... a logical consequence... of what you wrote.

Broad statements or generalizations often have inconvenient bits. If this inconvenient bit wasn't what you intended, then the issue is in the broad statement, not me.





*If, "Umbranesque," turns out to be, "thoroughly logical," I'm okay with that.

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

However this is a leading figure at the second biggest company in our industry telling us things that a lot of you don’t seem very surprised about at all judging by the twitter feeds. I genuinely hope there will be a response from Paizo as a business as regards these issues. I always saw them as a pretty wholesome company that did right by there staff and now we are led to believe that they aren’t, and neither are any of the others?

I am not a Paizo employee. Haven't been for a year.
I am a freelance writer, developer, and consultant.
I am the Publisher for Rogue Genius Games. If you want to ask a game company to respond, the one I run is really the only reasonable option.

I am not discussing the business practices of any one game company--hopefully as evidenced that multiple people at multiple positions in the industry, who have worked for many different companies in many different positions, have responded in agreement with most of my observations.

As for how Paizo treated me, even in this article which collect my first sets of #RealGameIndustry posts, I note "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. "

Paizo is not the problem. WotC and Green Ronin and Steve Jackson Games and Kobold Publishing are not the problem. The problem is a series of decisions, changes, coping mechanisms, expectations, results and realities going back decades. No one company can do anything of note about them.

I strongly believe it in harsh in ways many people outside or just entering the industry have no idea. When I got my start in the 1990s, i had no idea. I have worked to find ways to mitigate that harshness for years, and largely (honestly, I'd say entirely) failed.

ESPECIALLY if I cant change things, I do feel that it's better to be open about the reality I see so people getting into the industry do so with their eyes open.

Not only does the way things are now risk frightening off new talent, it uses up, burns out, and drives away experienced veterans, often in anger and depression.

I believe that's worth illuminating even if I have no solutions to offer.

 

[MGibster]

Do those that have made it to the top of their profession have a responsibility to look out for support and encourage those starting out in it?

I think they have a greater responsibility to be truthful about the realities of their working conditions.

Starting out as a musician, or actor or artist is also pretty tough and challenging, with terrible pay and lousy conditions. However successful musicians, artists and actors provide real support to people in those industries. I’m not seeing a lot of legs up from those who have made it among you. Maybe it’s just too soon and this will all come out.

The reality for musicians, actors, and many other artists is that it's very difficult for them to make a living at their chosen vocation. Most musicians cannot make a decent living solely relying on gigs. Either they have another job unrelated to music or they give music lessons, sell instruments, or something like that. And actors? Holy cow, what a competitive field! Most of them will never make a decent living at it and those who manage it will likely have a somewhat short career.

 

[Umbran]

That's one way to look at it. I value quality writing but there is a limit to what I'm willing to pay for it

Yeah. The value we personally put on the artist is not the only thing we consider in our purchases.

 

[Shardstone]

That's not what I'm getting at, and rereading what I typed, I guess I wasn't very clear.

Customers are not the clients. The clients are the companies purchasing us, usually - the people who hire us as freelancers.

I guess if I had to oversimplify everything I'm getting at is people don't feel strongly about how good writing is good, and that means that businesses, who only care about what clients feel strongly about, don't pay freelancers or artists all that well - and writers get paid the worst of all.

The customer has, as Umbran pointed out, a lot more to worry about when purchasing a product. The client does too, but could likely afford to pay more in almost every scenario. But that goes against the current method of economy we've chosen, so, at the end of the day, there's no way to really change it.

It sucks though. Just because this is the way things are doesn't mean its good, or even preferred. Its just the way things are. And if artists like myself didn't have the overwhelming need to make art, there'd be a loooooot less of us given in many cases, we lose money on these ventures instead of gaining it.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

When I buy a game book I want good writing, aka good rules and good clarity and organization for use at the table. And nearly as important, strong binding.

The customer has, as Umbran pointed out, a lot more to worry about when purchasing a product. The client does too, but could likely afford to pay more in almost every scenario. But that goes against the current method of economy we've chosen, so, at the end of the day, there's no way to really change it.

What does that mean though? We should be required to pay more by some coercive economic system?

 

[dragoner]

no solutions to offer.

Maybe there are none

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Maybe there are none

The only "solution" is for tabletop RPGs to sell way more than they do. The "industry" is way too small financially to support the number of those who want to make game design/RPG writing into their career.

And, quite evidently, that is not a solution but it is the reality of the situation - and also why friends shouldn't let friends aim for a career in tabletop game design (unless they are already independently wealthy). As countless parents have told their kids over many generations, if you are aiming at a career in a creative field, make sure you have a fallback career choice. (Weird Al Yankovic, for example, graduated as an architect on the advice of his father to have a fallback career option.)

Who knows? If Hasbro/WotC doesn't screw the pooch on the next movie, maybe tabletop RPGs will boom again as they did when even TSR was able to make money? (On that note, I would love to see Pelgrane's Night's Black Agents made into a TV series. There is other IP in the industry beyond D&D and its brands.)

 

[dragoner]

The only "solution" is for tabletop RPGs to sell way more than they do.

The way to do that is to make something people want to buy, for a lot of the reasons given of "why this ..." the simplest solution is that Sturgeon's Law is in effect.

Sturgeon's law - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And it is not enough to be good, but to be marketed correctly, as the OP states, the venn diagram of creatives and business professionals rarely overlaps. I recognized the designer of Zweihander was a professional, right as their campaign started.