Owen Stephens Continues 'Real Game Industry' Posts

I've been collecting together the Real Game Industry posts that game designer Owen KC Stephens has been posting on social media. You can see Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

• Full-time writing, developing, or producing in the TTRPG field means regularly having to create great, creative ideas, that fit specific pre-determined parameters, on command, whether you feel like it or not. This can be awesome and fulfilling... or awful.
• The board of GAMA, the Game Manufacturers Association, (the big non-profit trade organization for the hobby games industry) are unpaid volunteers with what time they can spare from trying to survive the harsh industry itself.
• Most TTrpg professionals get a lot more hate mail than praise or notes that their work is appreciated. BUT Those few notes hold a LOT more weight, per-word, than the ranting and whining. One person letting me they enjoyed a thing gets through 2-3 weeks of bile.
• No one, not any analyst, not any company, knows how many total copies of ttRPGs are actually selling in a given week, month, or year. Some big companies don't know the numbers for their OWN ttRPGs. Popular "rankings" are a compilation of unverified impressions.
• Even when I just had a couple of Dragon credits and no one knew me; at game pro gatherings I was NEVER asked if my girlfriend got me into gaming. Or if I was just there with a date. Which has repeatedly happened to women colleagues with decades of experience.
• When ttRPG professionals get to play RPGs together entirely for fun, the level of Ghostbusters and LotR quotes, bad puns, digressions to discuss recent movies and look at pet pictures, and fart jokes... is EXACTLY the same as when it's just fans playing.
• When a ttRPG professional makes a statement that is unpopular with a segment of fans there is always a group who, with no evidence, begin discussions to claim A: The pro is incompetent, B: the pro is lying to gain attention or sympathy, or C: all of the above.
• It is not unusual for ttRPG professional who like each other, and enjoy hanging out together, and live no more than 20 miles apart, to only see each other 1-2 times a year and only at after-hours gatherings during major conventions.
• The most common retirement plan among full-time ttRPG professionals, freelance and on-staff both, is "Work until you die."
• People who constantly struggle to have enough money to cover basic needs, with no job security, while being bombarded with community demands to do more, be better, and make games just for love and not money... are generally too stressed to make their best games.
• In ttRPG industry, you will find both employees who think the very games that cover their paycheck are "dumb," and CEOs who will move a meeting out of the executive boardroom so you can play a game there. But I've met many more of the latter than the former.
• Amazon sometimes sells ttRPG items cheaper than retailers can get from distributors. No one admits to selling them to Amazon at this price. Either Amazon is taking a loss (perfectly possible), or there's a hole in a distribution tier. This pisses off retailers.
• When a ttRPG pro makes a change or comment regarding the real-world impact of game themes or ideas, people come out of the woodwork to strongly present their view (in the real world) that real-world concerns (presumably like theirs) should not impact the game.
• Some ttRPG storylines, setting, themes, & even rules concepts are so tainted by racism, bigotry, and sexism that they cannot be redeemed. Even revised versions serve as a dogwhistle to toxic fans. There's no broad agreement about for which concepts this is true.
• Much less professional material from the big and well-known ttRPG companies is playtested than you thought, and playtesting takes more time and effort than you thought. Much more material from tiny 3pp- and Indy ttRPG companies is playtested than you thought.
• One advantage of being an established ttRPG freelancer is you can get as much work as you want. Of course most of it doesn't pay enough, so you now have the option of working 60-70-80 hour weeks to make ends meet. But unlike some folks, you DO have that option.
• You don't HAVE to have a spouse with good benefits and insurance to be a full-time freelancer in the ttRPG industry. But it's the most common answer on how to survive doing so.
• If you write work-for-hire on a ttRPG in the US, you can expected your work to be edited. Usually with no consultation or warning. You'll find out when the book is published. That's normal. For everyone.
• The more mainstream a ttRPG is, the more competition there is for jobs to design for it. For staff jobs, you're often one of several hundred applicants. Sometimes one of thousands. Of course, this also means you seem easily replaceable, even if it's not true.
• While doing contract work for a ttRPG company occasionally leads to a staff position, this is very much the exception rather than the norm. Especially if you don't already have many years of experience. It's normally a stepping stone, not a quick route in.

 

[Von Ether]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[aaronm]

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[aaronm]

Huh? No skills?!?!

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

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

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

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

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

 

[rknop]

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

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

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

 

[rknop]

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

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

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

 

[whimsychris123]

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

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

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

 

[aaronm]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[aaronm]

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

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

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

 

[MichaelSomething]

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

 

[rknop]

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

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