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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TheSword

Legend
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.

I think the reality is that with the advent of miniatures and online gaming, old school maps just don’t cut it anymore. All you need to do is see the forum responses when people do publish a map that isn’t suitable for minis or VTT it sours what is an otherwise great product.

The quality and usability of the Mike Schley maps for instance as opposed to the Dyson Logos ones is streaks ahead (though Dyson Logos maps are fine for the DM and planning) or theatre of the mind. You can tell this too because DM Guild is full of 3rd parties producing battlemaps quality maps which are invariably platinum best sellers.

Theatre of the mind is not ubiquitous and with the explosion of VTT it is becoming less and less so I am sure.
 

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Flexor the Mighty!

18/100 Strength!
I think the reality is that with the advent of miniatures and online gaming, old school maps just don’t cut it anymore. All you need to do is see the forum responses when people do publish a map that isn’t suitable for minis or VTT it sours what is an otherwise great product.

The quality and usability of the Mike Schley maps for instance as opposed to the Dyson Logos ones is streaks ahead (though Dyson Logos maps are fine for the DM and planning) or theatre of the mind. You can tell this too because DM Guild is full of 3rd parties producing battlemaps quality maps which are invariably platinum best sellers.

Theatre of the mind is not ubiquitous and with the explosion of VTT it is becoming less and less so I am sure.

For me its the opposite, when I'm trying to build a map out of tiles or on the mondomap a clean overhead map is very useful. An isometric view with all kinds of colors and whatnot hinders my efforts. But I see what you are saying.
 

DammitVictor

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

Well, here's the thing: it worked for him. Economically speaking, there are two separate issues at work, here: creators need to be adequately paid for the work they do, and consumers need to understand and expect that the quality and quantity of the entire industry depends on how much they're willing to pay for products they enjoy.

A lot of the problem here is that people are acting like this is only one issue. The retail sales business model for digital goods is becoming obsolete, and physical media as a means of distributing intellectual property is becoming a niche market.

There are customers in our industry who are willing to pay a lot more than the average to make products they want available-- even knowing that other people are "getting away" with paying less. There are customers who will happily pay more for a product if they know it enables other people to pay less. Crowdfunding business models actually encourage-- and capitalize on-- this behavior.

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.

I just bought the Box and the Tome... and yeah, I'm thinking about buying a few more copies of the Tome (1-2 at a time) for my table.

My ability to convince my group to purchase games took a major hit after I talked them into 5e. They like it fine, but they're still a little raw about shelling out for the core rulebooks for a system I decided I wasn't going to run again-- even if I ran it for a year and a half before reaching that point.
 

You get so much of enjoyment out of an RPG for the 60$ the core book ends up costing. Way more than that 1700$ army that took you 600 hours to paint that paid for a GW employee to buy another BMW. ( I know a few of these guys, they aren't in anywhere close of the same boat as the RPG guys )
 

DaveMage

Slumbering in Tsar
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.

I have tons of things I'll never run but enjoy reading. Sometimes it's the only way a GM gets to go on an adventure themselves. :)

(And, good to see you, Scott. :) )
 



MGibster

Legend
I don't mind it but when the price keeps going up and up til a single figure can be 20-30$ it's getting a little out of hand.

In the last 25 years I've owned Warzone, Clan War, War Machine, Great Rail Wars, Battletech, more recently Star Wars Legion, and those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Some of those I listed no longer exist and others are difficult to find players for. I agree that some of the individual GW miniatures are pretty pricey, but I'm confident I'll still be able to play some 40k five years from now. GW has been one of the only miniatures game I've consistently been able to find others who play for pretty much my entire adult life.
 

I've worked with Owen for years, and as depressing as his facts are... that doesn't change them from being true.

Honestly I'd be delighted to have a large segment of game industry professionals tell me "Oh, that's not our experience at all."

But that hasn't been the reaction.

And to Owen if you're reading this—love ya man! You continue to be an inspiration and a powerful force for good in the industry! You even made me like dwarves! :)

Thanks James! Miss you, and everyone else.
 

How is his one per week rpg for a few different games systems going? Maybe he’s burned out at all the work he committed to for it and not as much money as he thinks it should be....and probably be correct!

As a result of the world exploding, I am a few weeks behind. I also had to move this week, from Indiana back to my hometown of Norman, OK.
Moving does not make it easy to catch up.
My expectation is I'll still get 52 products (well, 208, since it's 52 titles each for 4 game systems) out in 52 weeks, just not quite as evenly. But products are still coming out.
Am I burned out?
I did a product a week for 5 years before working for Paizo. I stayed at the Paizo offices until 2am more than once to get Starfinder out the door on deadline.
Normally burnout for me means no longer enjoying what I do, and/or no longer being able to do it. I produced nearly 3,000 words today alone, so I don't feel burned out.
What I DO feel is a need for the people stepping into the industry for the first time to be told some of what it's like, with a clarity I did not get from anyone in the 1990s when I started.
 

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