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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dchart" data-source="post: 8038452" data-attributes="member: 6706071">No, I'm not. I'm saying luck is one of the important factors.As dragoner said later, people hate to acknowledge luck when they have succeeded, because it robs them of agency. (When you fail, however, it's great.) That's why the comparison is useful."Well, I worked hard, but so did he. I'm a talented writer, but so is he — have you seen his [Book Name Here]. I did a lot of research, but so did he. I put in long hours, but so did he. I kept at it for years without much to show for it, but so did he. Hmm. I guess I was just lucky."Now, obviously, the speaker wasn't just lucky, but that's the factor that made the difference between financial success and its absence.In terms of financial success, I would wager that you cannot find a single example of someone who has been a financial success without luck (in the sense of positive factors outside their control). You can find people who have been a financial success based on, essentially, pure luck. (Lottery winners, or people with inherited wealth.) Thus, the only thing that consistently distinguishes financially successful people from financially unsuccessful people is luck.Of course, that is loading a lot into "luck", and it probably shouldn't be asked to support that much. There might well be other factors that are controllable, that people do not often think about. It would be nice to know what they are, but in order to find out, you have to look at people who were not successful, and compare them to people who were. We do, in fact, have good evidence that talent and hard work substantially increase your chances of being a success, as does competent financial management. It would be an equally serious mistake to neglect them and claim that it is just a matter of pure luck.There are two reasons why I am harping on this point.First, the article gives the distinct impression that, if you work hard and have a Patreon, Kickstarter, podcast, and stuff on DTRPG, you too are likely to make a living in the RPG industry. This is not true, and we know it is not true, because we have lots of examples of people who are not making a living despite doing it. It is possible, and your chances are rather better than your chances of winning the lottery, but they seem to be lower than your chances of rolling a critical hit. (Probably more likely than a party of 1st level characters taking down Orcus, as well. Maybe 3rd level?)Second, if people who have been a financial success in RPGs claim that their success is all down to their talent and hard work, then that implicitly says that the people who are unsuccessful are not talented enough, or not working hard enough. You'd better believe that the people who have not succeeded see that implication very clearly, even if the successful people do not notice it. I think that is unfair, and I think it is demonstrably unfair.</blockquote>

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