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.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

You can always go the Siembieda route and just, like, ask for your fans to just give you money. Worked for him.

He’s shameless in that regard. I am amazed that Palladium fans keep believing the tales he weaves over and over again.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

This was back in like 2006 during the "Crisis of Treachery" as Siembieda called it (eye roll inducing, I know) . He put out a call to elicit donations to save the company. Nominally you got a "limited" signed art print, that wasn't limited.

I should also note that Palladium then years later repaid its loyal fanbase by absolutely ripping them off through that Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter mess.

So, yeah guys, there's your blueprint.

I was also shocked that so many people backed that Kickstarter. Anyone who had the slightest knowledge of Palladium and Kevin should not have touched the Kickstarter with a 500ft pole. It ended exactly how I expected it to.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I think those are also real jobs, but it's more a vocation than a job imo. As a school teacher or a nurse. I said that I choose IT because I choose the "easy way of life", as I'll probably never fear to have no jobs at all (it depends on automation in fact) and/or I'll never fear not being able to pay my bills.

But, at the same time, the middle age crisis makes me wonder what it could have been like to do something that I would "love" to do. I had a website like this one for more than a decade and it was a lot of unpaid work but it was fun. It became too popular to stay as a sideline and working at the same time so I had to make a choice (again). At some point in the future, the UBI will allow all those crafters to do their art but right now, working in the TTRPG is really a leap of faith. It was the same in videogames industry in the '80, so who knows what the future will bring.

A real job is one that allows you to live a real life. (And, yes, I know how unpopular that statement will be.) And, again, school teachers and nurses are well paid in the countries in which I have lived; the USA is abnormal in many ways.

As for a vocation, I'm 51. I discovered certain charitable work when I was 22. I knew I couldn't do it as a 22-year-old so I worked my guts out for the next couple of decades so I could transition into the vocation of my choice which does not pay well but impacts lives. There has been an enormous opportunity cost, but that cost has been ameliorated by the fact that I got a haircut and a real job for two+ decades so that I could then spend the rest of my life doing something that is both important and that satisfies me.

 

[DaveMage]

I’ve never got a death threat for simply doing my job (especially given some of the stupid reasons for those threats). That, combined with low pay, would probably be enough to get me looking at another industry.

Good point.

But then that's the rub of gaming, right? It's all emotional, and passion + unhappiness (sometimes) leads to acting poorly.

Also, there is such a glut of product because everyone wants to make their own game products, and, now they can. Great talent can be overlooked and its products underappreciated (not purchased) due to the incredible volume of content - especially if that content is priced higher than other stuff.

And, there's the age-old issue that you really don't need to buy anything if you homebrew. (Although, I haven't had the time to homebrew in 25 years.)

 

[dragoner]

17K for a starting teacher?

Are you in the Third World?

If not, emigrate to Australia (or Singapore or Scandinavia).

Feels like the 3rd world. I was offered a teaching position at a uni in Bratislava ten years ago, which is a not very 1st world-ish city, for more than that. Thing is here, if they can hire them part time, then they can avoid giving them retirement and health care, the schools have been so defunded that I was talking to a university student here who had done badly in math, where she had graduated public school without being able to reduce a fraction.

 

[Umbran]

17K for a starting teacher?

Are you in the Third World?

It varies widely here. In Texas a starting teacher (bachelor's degree, no experience) has a minimum starting salary of $33,600 per year. In Chicago, the same teacher will get $54K.

Hint: Don't go to Australia - go to Chicago. Their pay schedule is pretty awesome. Or Boston, we are pretty good here, too, though we weren't so hot when I was looking for a teacher job around here a decade and more ago.

Mind you the pay schedule looks good, but it can be a barrier. Because they don't have great funding, schools are often looking for starting teachers. If you come in with a Master's degree and a few years of teaching under your belt, they have to pay you more (like 1.5x what a green recruit would be). Since that may not fit the budget, you may not be hired. This happened to me, when I was looking for a teaching role here some years back.

 

[Fenris-77]

Where I live the starting teacher salary is more like 75K, but the cost of living chews that up and spits it out pretty quick. Teachers are generally not paid particularly well, despite what public sentiment might have to say about that.

 

[Umbran]

Where I live the starting teacher salary is more like 75K, but the cost of living chews that up and spits it out pretty quick.

That holds for Boston and Chicago, too. But, same could be said for any starting salary in a major city.

 

[Fenris-77]

That holds for Boston and Chicago, too. But, same could be said for any starting salary in a major city.

Yeah, true. I live in the Canadian Arctic, home of $8 tins of beef stew and scuzzy $2000 a month bachelor apartments. It's not a major city, but the CoL is on par or higher than some major urban centers. It's on par with London, generally speaking.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Yeah, I did.I ordered one Boxed Set, one Rules Tome, and one each of the Advanced books to fit in my Boxed Set.

Planning on acquiring a handful more Rules Tomes for table use.



Who's "we" in this hypothetical, consumers or publishers? Either way, I should hope not, but that's two very different conversations.

I mean... I've already staked out a position here on subscription/hostage models, and I don't want to develop tunnel vision and potentially miss out on other potential solutions, but the roleplaying industry-- outside of Wizards and Paizo, and maybe the top 1% of the rest of the 99%-- needs to start looking for and adopting business models where publishers can pay creators healthy rates and still make healthy profits independent of unit sales and per-unit profit margins.

Unfortunately, that has ugly goddamned repercussions for guys like me who don't have the established reputation and fanbase to really leverage those models... effectively bringing the barriers to entry back up after the PDF/POD markets and the OGL brought them down.

On the subject of OSE, I'm still tossing around Advance Labyrinth Lord or that. Going to email the group to talk about switching from Swords and Wizardry, which is a great game, to something with a bit more bite which would be one of those two sets. Both are based off B/X mixed with 1e so I think they will work.

On the second point, I was just asking for clarification about the comment about economic systems and all that to better understand what was being said. For me subscriptions services don't work as well since I rarely need much past the core rule book. But it would all depend on specifics of a designer/publisher. I support a few creators on Patreon that are in a perpetual state of being demonitized but they put out regular content I watch. It will be interesting to see how the market shakes out going forward.