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...

Multi-award winning game designer Owen Stephens (Starfinder, Pathfinder, Star Wars) has been posting a series he calls #RealGameIndustry on social media.

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  • 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.
 

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Retreater

Legend
You can always go the Siembieda route and just, like, ask for your fans to just give you money. Worked for him.
I've bought my share of Palladium books, and TMNT was my first RPG. But nope, not going to do that. (Donating to a charity for a designer in need for medical bills, etc., is a very different case.)
 

How much should we be willing to pay for RPGs? I'm one of those people who feels as though I get a pretty good value for games these days. I recently paid $50 for the Alien rpg and it was well worth the money, and hell, I would have happily paid $60. But if the price was $100? No way. I could certainly afford it but I wouldn't be willing to pay that much.
No idea. There are many ways to determine a product's price. And in the end it is market forces that (in our society) decide.

Are you willing to pay on hourly basis? Is RPG entertainment worth $2 per hour for you? Are you going to get 10 hours or 100 hours or more from the product?

Or perhaps the price should be determined by what the product price needs to be so that those involved make a living wage (whatever such a wage is)? You could simply take the number of books to be sold (say 2000 copies) and divide by all the costs (shipping, printing, etc) and the creator wages (2000 hours at $20/hr?) for their efforts and maybe that would be $150 each. (Other threads have done the math on this, no idea what it was/is.)

Or, do you compare the price to what you have paid before for similar items? This is generally the way I 'intuitively' judge value. Do you account for inflation? If so, that $10 book we bought in 1978 would cost about $40 in today's dollars, just for inflation alone.

Whatever "we" decide it is, "we" know by these statements and numerous others that the prices we currently pay are not resulting in the vast majority of creators being paid better than minimum wage.

Do we really feel that those RPG creators we feel produce quality products should be making less than a waiter/waitress?
 

eyeheartawk

#1 Enworld Jerk™
I've bought my share of Palladium books, and TMNT was my first RPG. But nope, not going to do that. (Donating to a charity for a designer in need for medical bills, etc., is a very different case.)

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.
 

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍⚧️
But if you are doing a job we all recognize is desperately needed, needs significant training, or our society depends on getting wants done? Then you get to complain.

Honestly, without the edits above, it’s uncomfortably close to saying “some people should be poor and not get to complain about it”. I don’t care if a worker is mopping floors, flipping burgers, or delivering pizza - all of them fulfill functions the rest of us want done. They should certainly be able to complain if paid poverty wages, even if what they do isn’t desperately needed or require significant training.
 

Flexor the Mighty!

18/100 Strength!
As someone who has done "work for hire" for an RPG company in the past, it still hasn't stopped me from wanting to design and write. However, it's not my main job. It's a hobby, like a guy who plays dive bars for free beer (which I've also done). I don't envy those who try to do it professionally and make a living from it.
Honestly, I'd be fine going in the opposite direction. While I can appreciate high production values, I don't need them. Cut the full color art. Cut the glossy pages and incredibly padded word count. You're not trying to appeal to casual buyers on the shelf of a Waldenbooks or Sears anymore.

Yeah, I think the game book I've gotten the most out of in the past several years is B&W with line art and no glossy paper. I sometimes feel that most RPG books are more designed to be read that quickly used at the game table.

I'm looking at Old School Essentials as new game to switch my campaign over to and I'm loving the amazingly clear layout designed with one goal, usability. The entire set will run about 70 bucks to get and I'm OK with that. But if I tell the group "hey, lets get a couple more core books of this system, 40 bucks each" and can hear the excuses already.
 

Grazzt

Demon Lord
Yeah, I think the game book I've gotten the most out of in the past several years is B&W with line art and no glossy paper. I sometimes feel that most RPG books are more designed to be read that quickly used at the game table.

Funny you say that. I saw a post somewhere recently (probably on here) where someone from WotC said pretty much that. It was related to DnDBeyond and how print books still make way more $$ by a mile than digital and even people that don't play buy the books so they are basically constructed in a way that makes them easy to read.
 


MGibster

Legend
No idea. There are many ways to determine a product's price. And in the end it is market forces that (in our society) decide.

My question was how much should we be willing to pay for an RPG not what they should be priced at. My question was prompted by your statement that what we were willing to pay for RPGs was one of the reasons you were beginning to think we didn't deserve quality products.

Do we really feel that those RPG creators we feel produce quality products should be making less than a waiter/waitress?

I'm not an industry insider, but I have been under the distinct impression that very few people make their primary living working on RPGs instead working on them part time. This is certainly the case with many writers as well as even successful ones often have a day job. I'll answer yes, I want RPG creators to be able to make a good living off of producing quality products. But I don't know if the economic realities will allow very many people that opportunity.
 

Flexor the Mighty!

18/100 Strength!
Funny you say that. I saw a post somewhere recently (probably on here) where someone from WotC said pretty much that. It was related to DnDBeyond and how print books still make way more $$ by a mile than digital and even people that don't play buy the books so they are basically constructed in a way that makes them easy to read.

Easy to read is good, but I've used some glossy beautiful books that were not very friendly at the table.

Mostly modules that are put out today annoy me for that reason. Sure pretty maps with backgrounds and all that are nice to look at, but give me old school maps that are blue or black with nothing to clutter them up. Much more useful at the table.
 

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