Monte Cook on target audience of RPG Supplements

[F5]

A game designer who doesn't play games is like an alien with a perfect command of English but zero cultural knowledge. Sure, he knows the words, but he doesn't speak the language.

I like that. Very sig-able...

 

[Banshee16]

What about good DMs who have lives outside of gaming (ie. wives, maybe kids, maybe an important job, etc. etc.)?

I've been told by a wide range of players over the years that I was one of the best DMs they've had. But I also have a full-time job that often requires overtime, a wife I'd like to pay attention to, and a need to do other things outside of the game....tend to the property, house upgrades, exercise, etc. So I can't afford to spend 20 hours a week or whatever writing custom rules etc. It's far more convenient to find something that codifies the kind of thing I'd like to implement into my game, instead of spending the time writing it and balancing it from scratch.

I'm sure I'm not the only DM in that category.

I'm not sure I agree with that analysis. I can understand the primary concept....which is that great DMs are creative enough that they will make their own stuff up. But that assumes that the DMs in question don't have other time commitments, and devote their free time to thinking up cool stuff for their games. The only people I know personally with that kind of commitment often don't have anything going on in their lives other than gaming.....and I'm not 100% convinced that they're any better for it.

Banshee

 

[SiderisAnon]

I think that some people have misunderstood what I read to be Monte's point. He is not saying that needing these accessories makes one NOT a good DM, but that good DMs are more likely to be able to work without such accessories. By targeting the "average" DM, they aren't saying, "This product makes you average," just that the typical "average" quality DM is more likely to need a product than a "good" quality DM.

Now, the subject of "want" is something else entirely.

It's a question of how you write these products. You don't want to write them assuming the DM already has good DMing skills if your typical purchaser is actually only an "average" DM.

Though I'll admit, how to determine these skill levels is beyond me. One gamer's "awsome" DM is another gamer's "horrible" DM.

 

[Doug McCrae]

You should never tell your customers that your product is aimed at the average GM, even if it is, because everyone thinks they're above average.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

You should never tell your customers that your product is aimed at the average GM, even if it is, because everyone thinks they're above average.

Then explain the success of the "Dummies" and "Idiots" lines of books.

I had an instructor who broke people down into four categories when it came to their skill at something and their ability to self-evaluate:

Ignorant Incompetent: Bad at something and don't know it, so think they are better than reality.

Conscious Incompetent: Bad at something and they know it. Often the most accurate in self-evaluating.

Ignorant Competent: Good at something, but are not aware of it, usually sell themselves short

Conscious Competent: Good at something and they know it - tend to inflate their assessment of themselves some.

 

[Erik Mona]

In my experience, "I don't play D&D anymore" was epidemic at TSR and among some of the people who came from TSR to Wizards, but it has been almost utterly eradicated among the current crop of designers at Wizards of the Coast.

A lot of dead weight got cut out around 2000 or so (and a lot of good people, too, to be fair), and the home-grown WotC designers seem to play all the time.

This is a good thing.

--Erik Mona

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You should never tell your customers that your product is aimed at the average GM, even if it is, because everyone thinks they're above average.

Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the DMs are above average.

 

[Delta]

Well they actually did, even if not by 1995, certainly in the last 5 years. The on-line multiplayer games and the counsole game markets dwarf pen&paper RPGs by orders of magnitude. Electronic games did take over from RPGs just not in the way people thought they would.

My attitude for a long time has been that "computer games are to paper RPGs" as "movies are to theatre".

The former are bigger, more popular, more expensive to create, easier to reproduce and deliver the experience to a mass audience. The latter came first, inspired the former, are more of a unique live-experience, and have a more passionate following. Professionals in the former are frequently themselves the biggest advocates of the latter (movie actors frequently say they prefer Broadway; all the computer game companies I worked at had regular RPG game sessions).

In other words, they didn't "take over" so much as just massively outgrow, like other similar entertainment industries.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My attitude for a long time has been that "computer games are to paper RPGs" as "movies are to theatre".

The former are bigger, more popular, more expensive to create, easier to reproduce and deliver the experience to a mass audience. The latter came first, inspired the former, are more of a unique live-experience, and have a more passionate following. Professionals in the former are frequently themselves the biggest advocates of the latter (movie actors frequently say they prefer Broadway; all the computer game companies I worked at had regular RPG game sessions).

In other words, they didn't "take over" so much as just massively outgrow, like other similar entertainment industries.

I think that's a great analogy and it mirrors my experience at the big game company I worked at.

 

[RodneyThompson]

As the "new guy" here at the WotC offices, I can tell you that I'm gaming more now than I ever did back home. I'm playing in two D&D campaigns (one run by Christopher Perkins, and one run by mearls that periodically devolves into nonsensical ramblings about pop culture) and running two Star Wars games. In fact, it seems like WotC is the land of Too Many Games, Not Enough Nights. I had to make my Star Wars games into 2-hour lunchtime games just so people could play, because it seems like every night there are several D&D games going on. Not to mention the fact that I've already been invited to a couple of games run by Paizo employees, and some of them come down to the offices to play as well...just not enough time in the day!

I kind of feel sorry for Monte having to get his start in that kind of environment. I can't imagine working in a workplace where your coworkers don't share your excitement was very fun, especially if you are genuinely excited about what you're doing. It's bad enough when your friends don't share your passions, but when your coworkers at a dream job don't it's got to be a drag.

I don't think there's a person in R&D, at least, that doesn't play in or run at least two games, completely by choice (we don't have any mandatory gaming here or anything, although I doubt even if we did anyone would call it "mandatory"). I know it's the same up at Paizo, and with the Green Ronin guys too. I can't speak for any other companies, but I don't ever get the vibe that actually playing your games has become passé from anyone. In fact, over the last six years of freelancing for various companies I almost always dealt with people who were passionate about what they were doing, not just going through the motions or discussing their work in an un-playtested vacuum.