Owen KC Stephens' Tabletop RPG Truths #2

Last week I posted about Owen KC Stephens posting about the 'Real Game Industry' on Twitter. He didn't stop there though! Here are some more of his thoughts.

• While there are absolutely exceptions, there are two common paths to becoming a manager in the TTRPG world.
  One is to be a game creator who does that so well, that you are promoted to the entirely-unrelated field of managing people, with no management training.
• 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.
• Someone having tons of RPG writing credits is no guarantee they'll do a good job on the project you hire them for. They might have had amazing editors. Their day job may go into crisis during your deadline. They might burn out. Especially that last one.
• A freelancer absolutely mustn't cease communicating with their developer/producer or conceal how far behind they are on a project. When things go south as a freelancer, there is a huge urge to cease communication and conceal how far behind you are on a project.
• It is clearly unreasonable, and potentially inappropriate, to suggest freelancers make friends in the game industry to get more work and be treated better. People in the game industry tend to give their friends more work, and often treat them better.
• On some projects, the writing is easy but the research is hard. On some the reverse is true. For the other 80%, it's all hard. Some need new rules systems. Some need playtesting. Some need map sketches. Others don't. None of this normally impacts your pay rate.
• It is extremely common for gamers to offer to give professionals an idea, and offer to "let" the pro "finish" the work and the "split the profits." They rarely like being told coming up with an idea or starting a project is not the hard part of writing.
• There is a crucial difference between collaborating with someone on a project, and being their assistant. Either can be reasonable, legit work, but not everyone in the industry understands the difference (and how to say which of those a project is going to be).
• Editors are the most unsung heroes of the industry. The better they do their job, the less people notice. but without them, I'd be posting under @RealGameInustrya and $RealGameIndustry as often as #RealGameIndustry
• It's impossible for backers to tell from funds raised by a crowdfunding campaign raises how much profit it earns. Huge numbers can mean a minor miscalculation or change on the ground becomes a huge loss. Companies don't even always know until its all fulfilled.
• The majority of TTRPG professionals--staffers, freelancers, owners, et al., are substantially underpaid for their skills. Saying "they shouldn't be in this industry if they want to be paid more" is saying "I don't want any professional RPG content to be made."
• The reason you don't know how you are supposed to get your first gig, climb the ladder of TTRPG freelance, get the attention of developers and producers without annoying them, or improve your craft, is that game companies mostly don't know those things either.
• Many TTRPG fans are lovely to interact with. Some are so awful that many companies who brought me to cons told me their secret signs to indicate when you needed another staffer to pull you away from a horrible interaction. It is, of course, worse for women.
• TTRPG careers are advanced the most during after-hours bar gatherings at big cons. Nothing else is as effective. By not going to drinks early in my career, I set it back 5-8 years. Club soda would have been fine, though the industry does drives folks to drink.
• Though it is far from universal, many TTRPG creators have all the fun of playing games removed by deadlines, toxic fans, and an endless grind of monetizing their creativity. "Do what you love for work, and you can no longer escape work with the thing you love"
• Many RPG companies depend on "Institutional Knowledge," which means there are things done by people who know, but none of it is written down anywhere. Largely because budgets are so tight staff is always overworked, leaving no time for things like documentation.
• It is common for TTRPG professionals to think various other people in the industry are asshats. It is rare to say so outside of tightly-controlled comments to groups of trusted friends. This reticence can unintentionally spill over to not calling out bad actors.
• While there are absolutely exceptions, there are two common paths to becoming a manager in the TTRPG world. One is to be a an experienced manager from another field that is hired to be a TTRPG manager, with no prior experience in the TTRPG publishing industry.
• There are great managers in the TTRPG industry... and awful ones. Many TTRPG employees have such little experience working under a manager, they often can't tell the difference between the good ones and bad ones. Occasionally, company owners can't either.
• An example of how small, but important, things can be overlooked in the #RealGameIndustry.

Follow the Twitter hashtag here.

 

[TheSword]

GW is dealing with piracy too. Their rulebooks and novels are as easily pirated as anybody's, their miniatures get pirated by recasters (taking the model, making a new mold of it, and then casting more), and digital piracy of miniatures and IP is increasing as 3D printing gets better and cheaper every year.

I can't say with experience, as I don't work for GW or in the industry at all, but I bet that the creators behind their games and miniatures are STILL underpaid, despite GW successfully raising prices on their model kits and rulebooks. And if you hang out in GW fan forums, the #1 complaint is pricing . . . how GW is only concerned about money and is ripping off fans . . . .

GW has seen amazing success with their Warhammer games compared historically, just like WotC is enjoying with D&D. But that doesn't insulate them from the industry forces Stephens is talking about here. I have no doubt their decision to raise prices is to counter the problems we're talking about here, at least in part, but I really doubt they have "solved" the issues.

EDIT: To add, this is why, in part, both companies are so eager to expand their franchises beyond the tabletop into movies, TV, and video games. The amount of money they can make by simply licensing their IP out to others likely dwarfs the profit made by the games themselves.

I Have followed GW for 30 years and their current solution to piracy is to continually innovate and explore new methods of reaching customers (which funnily enough is the same a everyone else’s). They are not struggling at all. Their share price has gone from 300p five years ago to 7400p. Through new product ranges, licensing and better engagement with fans.

For the record the number one issue with Gw for fans is not price of models it’s the quality of ruleset for 40k.

Whether someone pays for luxury goods is almost never about whether they can afford it, but rather whether they consider it value for money. It’s why I find the whole pricing question around this subject a little unrealistic. The suggestion that a players handbook will sell at £30 but not at £40 has no basis in fact.

 

[dragoner]

...

 

[Dire Bare]

Small digression. While GW is still not a cheap hobby, it was eventually facing some serious issues with their strategy being "just raise prices." Stores were closing, they were essentially down to three product lines and revamping one of them because it was bringing in only 15% of the profit.

For more than five years now, they've been under new management offering several types of mini games/ mini heavy board games and listening to their customers and their business had gone from ailing giant to turbo-charged giant.

I agree, GW's current success isn't only because they have raised prices. They've been raising prices for as long as I've been playing . . . . The company is riding the wave of the general tabletop surge, has vastly improved marketing, and is making fun games and great model kits . . . and raising prices!

I Have followed GW for 30 years and their current solution to piracy is to continually innovate and explore new methods of reaching customers (which funnily enough is the same a everyone else’s). They are not struggling at all. Their share price has gone from 300p five years ago to 7400p. Through new product ranges, licensing and better engagement with fans.

For the record the number one issue with Gw for fans is not price of models it’s the quality of ruleset for 40k.

Whether someone pays for luxury goods is almost never about whether they can afford it, but rather whether they consider it value for money. It’s why I find the whole pricing question around this subject a little unrealistic. The suggestion that a players handbook will sell at £30 but not at £40 has no basis in fact.

Never said GW was struggling, just that I'd bet good money that their creatives aren't paid all that well. Like every other company in the industry.

GW fans can be a cranky lot, or at least the cranky ones take up a lot of space on the forums. They complain about everything, I'm having to take a break now that they're all having fun ripping apart the images of new models for the upcoming 9th Edition of 40K. The toxicity can get neck deep. Which complaint is #1? To be honest, there's so much complaining it's hard to tell. But bitching about GW's prices is right up there, and has been for decades, as long as I've been playing.

 

[dchart]

But it doesn't change the sad state of the business, and many other creative business as well - though this is all part of the "democratization of content production". The barriers to entry have been massively lowered, and we have access to the content creators themselves as never before. This is both good and bad. While I believe that the former outweighs the latter, it does mean we need to negotiate new relationships between audience and creator. We're... not quite there yet.

I completely agree with that. We shouldn't, per impossibile, go back to the way things were; we should develop a new structure that retains the benefits of low barriers to entry and access to creators, while fixing creator payment and, as far as possible, harassment. As you say, we still have some way to go, but we have only just started trying and the environment is still changing rapidly.

David Chart

 

[imagineGod]

I feel like this is (almost) every "ladder industry" - did you have to eventually cave to it, or did you, despite the mentioned setback, manage to climb to the top whilst avoiding it? - @Owen K.C. Stephens

Yes, an unfortunate by-product of frat boy culture.

I never used to drink the alcohol and never bothered following the team to bars . Then noticed several times at the office that all colleagues were aware of a new business decision that I did not know about. When I asked them when was that decision made, since our last office meeting did not mention it, they would say, last Friday at so and so bar. :-(

 

[Dire Bare]

Yes, an unfortunate by-product of frat boy culture.

I never used to drink the alcohol and never bothered following the team to bars . Then noticed several times at the office that all colleagues were aware of a new business decision that I did not know about. When I asked them when was that decision made, since our last office meeting did not mention it, they would say, last Friday at so and so bar. :-(

"Frat Boy Culture"? No.

Networking over drinks predates college fraternities by centuries, millennia even. Goes back to the invention of alcohol, which goes back pretty much to the invention of civilization.

If you want to get ahead in life, learn to be a social drinker. Or, like Owen suggested, order a club soda (or diet coke) and fake it till you make it.

 

[Lylandra]

"Frat Boy Culture"? No.

Networking over drinks predates college fraternities by centuries, millennia even. Goes back to the invention of alcohol, which goes back pretty much to the invention of civilization.

If you want to get ahead in life, learn to be a social drinker. Or, like Owen suggested, order a club soda (or diet coke) and fake it till you make it.

I know that this is and has been a thing, but I would love to let it die in a fire. Because this practice is highly exclusive towards people with a family (worse: single parents...) or introverts or people who simply don't like hanging out in a bar. If you got business to discuss, this should take place in an official, scheduled meeting, or else it should be just a cool chat with friends.

Yes, an unfortunate by-product of frat boy culture.

I never used to drink the alcohol and never bothered following the team to bars . Then noticed several times at the office that all colleagues were aware of a new business decision that I did not know about. When I asked them when was that decision made, since our last office meeting did not mention it, they would say, last Friday at so and so bar. :-(

I would call this really unprofessional. Unless said event was scheduled as a business event. important decisions (i.e. something that relates to a whole team) should never be made during an informal "leisure time" event unless a) everyone was present and b) everyone was okay with it.

 

[rknop]

You can safely assume that anyone currently creating TTRPGs professionally loves creating TTRPGs.

You make a good point about freelancers needing to hustle to stay in, so perhaps inertia isn't the right way to phrase it.

But a lot of the rest of what I said still applies.

I think you CAN safely assume that nobody currently writing TTRPGs professionally who really doesn't love it is NOT going to admit that in public, or even to more than a few of those they trust most, or perhaps not even to themselves. If they did, it would almost certainly make it harder for them to get future jobs... and if they're in a state where they're still looking for future jobs, even if it's killing their soul, they probably won't do that. The result of that will be the same as the result of what you are assuming. So, no, I do not assume that ereybody still creating TTRPGs professionally loves it. That assumption is based on the same documented-false "rational actor" hypothesis that far too much of our modern economic assumptions are based on.

 

[dchart]

You make a good point about freelancers needing to hustle to stay in, so perhaps inertia isn't the right way to phrase it.

But a lot of the rest of what I said still applies.

I think you CAN safely assume that nobody currently writing TTRPGs professionally who really doesn't love it is NOT going to admit that in public, or even to more than a few of those they trust most, or perhaps not even to themselves. If they did, it would almost certainly make it harder for them to get future jobs... and if they're in a state where they're still looking for future jobs, even if it's killing their soul, they probably won't do that. The result of that will be the same as the result of what you are assuming. So, no, I do not assume that ereybody still creating TTRPGs professionally loves it. That assumption is based on the same documented-false "rational actor" hypothesis that far too much of our modern economic assumptions are based on.

Let me put it slightly differently.

If you see someone who is producing TTRPG material professionally, then they are putting a lot of active effort into continuing to do that, and they are successfully doing something that simply cannot be done mechanically. Further, they are doing something that is very hard work for little reward, of any type, and, as you say, they claim, when asked, to enjoy doing it. What is more, they put up with people insulting them and (sometimes) sending them death threats for doing it.

Given that this is clearly not enough evidence to make you confident that someone enjoys (some aspect of) what they are doing, what would be?

(I should, perhaps, also note that a "safe assumption" is not necessarily always true. It is usually true, and it does not cause problems in the cases when it is not. If you're a fan, you can safely assume that the creators are doing it because they enjoy it. If you're managing creators, that should still be your starting point, but you should be paying rather more careful attention — and that's not easy, even with the extra information you have. As I said, in my first post I was oversimplifying for rhetorical effect, because I was responding to someone wondering whether anyone in the industry liked their jobs. I think that was a serious misreading of Owen's point.)

David Chart

 

[rknop]

Given that this is clearly not enough evidence to make you confident that someone enjoys (some aspect of) what they are doing, what would be?
David Chart

OK, to me, this is a very different thing from what you originally said. Yes, it's strong evidence that they love some aspect of what they're doing. But you can love some aspect of what you're doing while as a whole it's eating you up and making you overall unhappy.

Anecdote: I knew somebody in grad school a number of years ago. This person had more or less figured out that they weren't going to go on professionally in this field. Grad school, if you're lucky, pays... but is another case where you can make more money socking shelves. This person said that they were determined to get the PhD because they'd told themself since the end of high school that they were going to do that... even though the actual experience of grad school was miserable for this person.

People sometimes stay in what they're doing because it's what they thought they always wanted, because their sense of who they are drives them to keep trying something they would have been much happier to give up. That may be the only thing that they love about what they do- plus, perhaps, the hope that this is a bad spell, an investment for better times to come later.

This is why I really don't believe that people writing TTRPGs (or doing anything else) must love what they're doing logically follows from the fact that they could easily get another higher-paying job. And, from personal experience, it is a bit disconcerting to have people say things like "at least you're doing what you love" because they've made an assumption like that.

Yes, I would agree that they must love some aspect of it, but that's very different from loving it overall.