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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 7700916" data-attributes="member: 3285">We <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3470-Rise-of-the-RPG-Professional" target="_blank">previously discussed</a> how the hobby industry of role-playing transitioned to a full-blown business, and with it, an entire cadre of professions: game designers, writers, and artists. As tabletop RPGs have increased in popularity and scope, these professions have benefited.  And yet, the code of conduct that governs the hobby is still being formed -- and for evidence of that we need look no further than the two companies who have stewarded the Dungeons & Dragons brand.[ATTACH=full]154870[/ATTACH] <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/games-games-company-play-fun-4112094/" target="_blank">Picture courtesy of Pixabay.</a><h3>The TSR Years</h3>As we established in the previous installment, TSR was only too happy to provide ethical guidelines to its writers. But those rules didn't always apply to the company's leaders. Co-creator of D&D, Gary Gygax himself, would grapple with the definition of professional conduct in the company he helped create.It was largely because of Lorraine Williams' professional experience that she was brought into the company, as told by David Ewalt in <a href="http://amzn.to/2bnTH5T" target="_blank">Of Dice and Men</a>:Things went south after a few months:Gygax was in California at the time attempting to establish a Dungeons & Dragons movie. This was beneficial to the D&D brand in the short-term with successes like the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, but it came with a high price tag:If Gygax was the proto-game designer, he was certainly the most financially successful one at the time. Unfortunately, Gygax's expenses were eventually no longer tolerated by TSR's management:The conflict between Williams and Gygax would continued well beyond the company:In the end, the conflict between the two could be characterized as a dispute between running TSR as a hobby company or a ruthless business. Williams' efforts firmly established TSR as a business first -- to eventual disastrous effect.  Gygax may have taken an unorthodox approach to the brand, but he understood what gamers wanted because he was one. When Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR, there was a promise that things would be different. But in many ways, the struggles that TSR went through were repeated by WOTC years later.<h3>The Wizards of the Coast Years</h3>Wizards of the Coast's ascension largely parallels what happened with TSR, in which people who joined the gaming industry for fun were gradually disappointed to learn that the hobby had become a business, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2001/03/23/wizards/" target="_blank">as per John Tynes' article in Salon</a>:Peter Adkison had a vision for his company that eventually clashed with the HR policies of a corporate infrastructure. He learned this the hard way by playing a game of Truth or Swill with his employees. Meant to break down boundaries and encourage social bonding, Truth or Swill involved confessions about intimate encounters in the workplace. It was something friends might do in private:The incident was a flashpoint between doing what you want and toeing the line in a business setting. <a href="http://www.salon.com/2001/03/26/wizards_part2/" target="_blank">The results reverberated throughout the company</a>:In the end, Peter moved on, as did many of his employees at the time, and Wizards of the Coast was sold to Hasbro. Peter stated in the article that he has no regrets:The drama inside Wizards of the Coast -- what might be appropriate in how someone engages with mature topics -- has also been taking place online.<h3>Mature Content in the Marketplace</h3>Adult content in the tabletop publishing world is not new; White Wolf had long dominated the topic with its Black Dog imprint, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dog_Game_Factory" target="_blank">which dealt with controversial subject matter</a>:As we discussed in the previous installment, the Book of Erotic Fantasy tested the boundaries of WOTC's D20 System Trademark License...and those boundaries were violence, gore, sexual themes, and prejudice. When WOTC rapidly changed its STL to include this new language, publishers moved to the Open Game License, which has no such standards. And of course, WOTC later published The Book of Vile Darkness, which dealt with similarly adult-themed content.This gave rise to the OGL movement and later, the Old School Renaissance, unfettered by WOTC's standards. Eventually, those standards were tested again with a controversial product on DriveThruRPG. Stewart Wieck, CEO of OneBookShelf and DriveThruRPG spoke out about the controversy, acknowledging that they had <a href="http://oneblogshelf.blogspot.com/2015/09/offensive-content-policy.html?_sm_au_=iSVvT4VDv4H4tPtN" target="_blank">never engaged with content policing before</a>:Once again, history was repeating itself. Just as WOTC discovered that it took just one high-profile publisher to cause controversy, DriveThruRPG encountered a similar problem. It was nearly impossible to police such a high volume of publishers, so when one product sparked controversy, DriveThruRPG was forced to reexamine its entire system. Here's where DriveThruRPG ended up:Like the changes with the STL, DriveThruRPG's new policy affected professionals who relied on their products for income -- some of which feature adult themes. Wieck acknowledged this change in his post, with the promise of a reporting feature in the future:It remains to be seen if there will be a competitor to DriveThruRPG that provides unfettered access to more mature content.<h3>Now What?</h3>In some ways, the onus on what content was appropriate for certain audiences shifted from publishers like TSR and WOTC to distributors like DriveThruRPG. In the brick-and-mortar world, the barriers between these markets are strictly defined on store shelves; on the Internet, there are much fewer barriers to viewing and finding mature content. If DriveThruRPG's experience is any indication, the RPG community is still figuring out how to navigate the world of mature and kid-friendly content. In the final installment, we look at how the geek communities have created and implemented their own codes of conduct.</blockquote>

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