I see that less of a DIY and more of a time when it was acceptable to have a crummy products. It's like people bragging about how much better cars were because they were easier to work on while ignoring the fact that you knew they were easier to work on because they needed their first major repair before they hit 30,000 miles.
I'm getting a game with functional rules, which I would argue is an improvement. It's still a DIY game though. In my last campaign, I had a Mind Flayer who was a good guy and only ate the brains of animals. You can still run your campaign how you want.
Nope. Missing the point. First, you asked whether it was ever a DIY hobby - which ... c'mon. It was a totally different ethos. As has been recounted previously, it used to be more of a toolkit for creating games than a game itself.
Next, it's great that you modify things a little. The point is ... that's less common than it used to be. For a lot of reasons. Partly because there is a standardization of play due to "better rules." Partly because of 3e and its progeny. Partly because of the shift to using on-line and computerized resources (which require homogenization). Partly because of the shift of more tables to using official product, especially APs. And partly because there is increased fetishization of RAW (and or "player empowerment").
None of this is bad, but it is. In fact, many people would argue that this is a feature, not a bug- as people have less time to devote to the hobby, they want to spend more time playing, and less time DIYing.
What's weird is that you are arguing the point (now with a different argument). But hey- feel free to conduct your own survey! When you get the results, please post them.
What's weird is that you are arguing the point (now with a different argument). But hey- feel free to conduct your own survey! When you get the results, please post them.
One small thing I notice whenever I go on the DMs guild is how everything looks the same, because everyone uses the wotc fonts and formatting template. Compared to a lot of non 5e games it's really noticeable how homogenized everything is.
I think we might come to terms with this if we consider what points the comparisons are between. After all, as of 2e, TSR had gotten into the supplement-bloat model. I think we would likely find that the increased demand for "official" is based on when there was a lot of "official" to work with. And that's back in the late 80s.
OD&D, AD&D - a lot of DIY, mostly because there was no choice. 2e+, lots of choice, so less need to DIY.
Or, I should say, less need for DIY setting and rules, specifically. There's now more time to DIY on adventures, if you like, and execution of play.
What do you all think? Am I wrong to find something distasteful in consumerism in the hobby (even my own)? Is there a line to be drawn somewhere (perhaps at NFTs)? Is it still a DIY hobby, or has that not been the case for some time now?
Fundamentally , I agree with Oofta's point that people want to make money, and that people want to be able to buy things that give them pleasure. Also to point out that D&D, like all other leisure activities, is entirely an optional luxury product -- if you cannot afford it, you should not buy it (and, conveniently, there are massively multiple ways to play TTRPGs without spending a dime). D&D is also pretty good about things in that, while that accessory material does open new doors to the game, it is imminently playable with only the basic or even only the free material. Compare that to a lot of recent video games* that are theoretically cheap or free, but if you don't drop several times the starting cost on DLC, you basically can't complete them. *From what I hear. my personal knowledge ends in the SNES era
Regarding NFTs and collectables: look, collectables in generable are a confidence game people play on themselves (often with help from others). Every economics course will tell you the same thing -- unless you are gambling on being the outlier, there is a better return on taking the funds you would put to collecting and instead put it in diversified stocks over the same time period. Sure, we all know the guy who had went back to their childhood baseball/basketball/MtG collections and found that Willie Mays/Michael Jordan/Black Lotus* card and sold it for a mint, but that's selectively neglecting the 49 other people you know that dropped serious money on Spellfire cards, Beanie Babies, or Death of Superman issue thinking that would be the next great thing. Unless you enjoy the process, collecting is foolish, and I've yet to meet anyone who enjoyed the process of collecting NFTS (except when they thought that made them the smartest person in the room, see how well that went in the long run...). *I don't know how old people here are, so I'm doing an assortment
Regarding luxury gaming products -- Here I mean the gilded mahogany gaming tables and such (not an investment, just a high-value purchase). I have odd mixed feelings about this. I am a manager in a tech department, and I have a lot of people below me that are young, well-compensated nerd-aligned individuals, and boy do some of them spend on these kind of things. I have noticed over the past decade or so some behavior I would summarize as "I didn't know this product exists, but now it is something I have wanted my whole life," and also, "two other guys at work have one of these, I have now convinced myself I am lessor for not having one." In a small way, this makes me upset, because, even at their income, this (along with the non-gaming related things where this behavior shows up, such as in cars) is clearly going to come out of the saving for retirement, first house/upgrade from bachelor pad when they decide to family-up. However, it is not my job (or my place) to tell them what to do with their own damn money, and as I said, it's not exclusive to luxury gaming products.
On a lower tier, there's just the whole D&D branded can cozies, caps, t-shirts, ampersand waffle irons*, dice bags, posters, and so forth. These... well, it's the same stuff you have for your alma mater or your favorite local sportsball team -- you want to advertise that you are part of team <fandom> even when you aren't actually doing said fandom activity. I lump this under conspicuous consumption that is probably not the best use of your money, but eh, you probably aren't breaking your own budget to do so. *probably don't exist, and would be one of the few things I would buy just because the idea amuses me.
Back to D&D/TTRPGs as a DIY hobby -- From he get-go, there have been people who have grabbed the core rules, never bought anything else, and gone on to homebrew amazing things. There have also been people who buy everything that comes out, as it comes out. There have also been, since day one, people who have fallen in love with the hobby and decided 'there's got to be a way to make my living doing this.' And there's always been just a few too many people with that idea compared to how much people really need to spend to play the game. That's why being an indie game developer is (on average) a pretty risky venture, but also why there are so many more kickstarters for resin products and fancy dice and knick-knacks and so on than just games.
Yes, you are probably wrong. It is a game you can still play at very low cost. Additionally, the ability to monetize had created and explosion and creativity and quality. Yet, it still hasn’t slowed the amazing amount of free content and i I’m tact it has helped it. Ever check the UA Reddit? Tons of creative free stuff there
For me, the real heartbreaker is all these art students (or self-taughts in the same vein) that post a fantasy art picture on reddit wanting you to then commission them to draw yours as well. Each one seems to have made about three sales, are spamming the gaming reddits (and annoying the heck out of everyone that isn't interested), and don't seem to be making a living (or even recouping the efforts the spend on selling themselves) off the deal.
I think we might come to terms with this if we consider what points the comparisons are between. After all, as of 2e, TSR had gotten into the supplement-bloat model. I think we would likely find that the increased demand for "official" is based on when there was a lot of "official" to work with. And that's back in the late 80s.
OD&D, AD&D - a lot of DIY, mostly because there was no choice. 2e+, lots of choice, so less need to DIY.
Or, I should say, less need for DIY setting and rules, specifically. There's now more time to DIY on adventures, if you like, and execution of play.
I'd say it's slightly different than that, in that while back in the day your viable options were pretty much down to "official" or "homebrew from scratch", now your viable options also include "unofficial 3rd party" and "kitbash"; with the last being to take a published setting from any source and alter it to make it your own - which is way less work than homebrew from scratch!
She got the Front Room TV, so I took everyplace else for my entertainment. We bought the house specifically because of this room, the previous owners converted the garage into a "play room".
(Actually, she wants a sewing room nowadays, but we have to kick the college kid out first...)
If you demonetize the hobby, the creators will make even less (and they are already underpaid, as a few articles on this site have described). The conflict between Apollo and Mammon goes back before capitalism--artists and writers used to have to get rich patrons.
If you have money to burn, buy works from creators you like. That way they get the money, as well as DriveThruRPG or whatever middleman.
I linked to it in the OP, but the Satine Phoenix/Jamison Stone situation is a good example of the concrete negative effects of Dnd as a monetized lifestyle brand. Look at the Kickstarter page for Sirens: Battle of the Bards.
Look at how glossy everything is! So many add ons! Dice, Syrinscape, Wyrmwood trays, VTT support, etc etc. Endorsements from people in the hobby. A $3000 support tier that includes the "opportunity" to play a game with Phoenix and Stone. And then, two pro-forma paragraphs of possible risks...which of course didn't include the possibility that the creators would be outed as unethical and abusive people. Their celebrity status is what allowed them to both raise $300,000 for this product and mistreat the freelancers who worked for them, as they were actual gatekeepers to those freelancers being able to make a living in the hobby. If you go to the comments page, you'll see that Phoenix/Stone has shut down their discord page and probably won't deliver the product, let alone all the fancy dice and stuff people pledged for.
This has very little to do with D&D though, in that it is not a consequence of D&D or its marketing but of the Social Media/YouTube influencer phenomenon. The issue here is that Social Media needs content to get eyeballs. It needs the eyeballs to harvest data to sell ads but will not pay for the content or at least it will pay as little as possible for content. So these people will try other stuff to make producing content worthwhile and most of them cannot manage a business then you get various screwups and sometime these people are pretty screwed up themselves and that gets outed also.
When these sort of situations go disastrously wrong, they are treated as exceptions and 'scandals.' What I'm wondering, however, is if the way that dnd is monetized creates the conditions for these types of situations. If, when the kickstarter launched, one had criticized it for its influencer-based commercialization, I think the response would have been 'well, if you don't like it don't back it.' Which is a fair response, as it's not like one could predict what would happen. But it leaves aside the connection between that monetization and the way they were allowed to operate as a business.
The going disastrously wrong is a feature of the whole nature of social media economy. The skills needed to build up a following on Social Media are not necessarily the ones to manage that success and very likely not the ones needed to turn it into a more sustainable business.
Jamison Stone and Satine Phoenix might never had an issue if they understood budgeting and basic project management.
One small thing I notice whenever I go on the DMs guild is how everything looks the same, because everyone uses the wotc fonts and formatting template. Compared to a lot of non 5e games it's really noticeable how homogenized everything is.
If you want TTRPGs to be hobbyist, then support the hobbyists. There are hundred of people out there making stuff for the love of it and they would appreciate your support.
Sorry, I'm not seeing it. The luxury and collector markets have always been there, in D&D and any hobby. But I see it more in older players and we know that most of us regular posters tend to be older and more likely to have discretionary income to pour into our hobbies than we did when we were young.
My middle-school son and his group make their own adventures and homebrew and barely spend anything on the hobby. My son could borrow any of my books, but he never has. They have their own thing going on and that's awesome.
Also, the very nature of TTRPGs leads to homebrewing in my experience. You already have to use your imagination and make so much stuff up, both as DM and player, just to play the game. It naturally leads to "what if" tinkering. If you add to that the increased time and fewer responsibilities of youth, it is fertile ground for creation.
Even for for an "older" player like myself, I got back into TTRPGs when 5e came out after not playing since 1990/1991. Very soon after getting bit by that bug, I was looking at other games, including many that were free. Just to explore very different styles of TTRPG.
I would say its the same as it always was, but that's not true. The internet, especially with social media, VTTs, video conferencing, and other modern tools provide an endless sea of free content and ways to share your own DIY and find players to try your DIY out. That fact that some people spend as much on a gaming table as nice used car, or that there are collectors who buy everything WotC sells plus premium, leather-bound books from lots of Kickstarters has no perceptible effect on this ocean of DIY creativity. It has never been easier to play for free.
Regarding luxury gaming products -- Here I mean the gilded mahogany gaming tables and such (not an investment, just a high-value purchase). I have odd mixed feelings about this. I am a manager in a tech department, and I have a lot of people below me that are young, well-compensated nerd-aligned individuals, and boy do some of them spend on these kind of things. I have noticed over the past decade or so some behavior I would summarize as "I didn't know this product exists, but now it is something I have wanted my whole life," and also, "two other guys at work have one of these, I have now convinced myself I am lessor for not having one."
For me, the real heartbreaker is all these art students (or self-taughts in the same vein) that post a fantasy art picture on reddit wanting you to then commission them to draw yours as well. Each one seems to have made about three sales, are spamming the gaming reddits (and annoying the heck out of everyone that isn't interested), and don't seem to be making a living (or even recouping the efforts the spend on selling themselves) off the deal.
Great post, pulling out these bits. I think this disparity in income and economic security, seen across all levels of society, is what rankles me a bit about the luxury products. The conspicuous consumption on one end, and the precarity on the other, is a symptom of this disparity, and if the $600 DM screen--more than the average American has on hand for an emergency--isn't exactly harmful in itself, I still find it a little bit gross. It is true that one is funding creators in buying these products, but that also strikes me as a small scale version of trickle-down logic, where the creators have to rely on the largesse and peculiar tastes of a patron class in order to secure basic healthcare. In other words, buying a golden toilet would support the creators of golden toilets, but it's still garish, pretentious, and unnecessary.
That's my #badwrongfun point of view and I'm sticking to it!
The more they focus their efforts on lifestyle products to grift money out of that market, the less temptation for WoTC to involve in pointless edition churn so I'm all for it.
Great post, pulling out these bits. I think this disparity in income and economic security, seen across all levels of society, is what rankles me a bit about the luxury products. The conspicuous consumption on one end, and the precarity on the other, is a symptom of this disparity, and if the $600 DM screen--more than the average American has on hand for an emergency--isn't exactly harmful in itself, I still find it a little bit gross. It is true that one is funding creators in buying these products, but that also strikes me as a small scale version of trickle-down logic, where the creators have to rely on the largesse and peculiar tastes of a patron class in order to secure basic healthcare. In other words, buying a golden toilet would support the creators of golden toilets, but it's still garish, pretentious, and unnecessary.
That's my #badwrongfun point of view and I'm sticking to it!
it’s my personal version of what might be a problem with the TTRPG hobby, namely it’s relationship with consumerism, collecting, and exhange.
<snip>
What do you all think? Am I wrong to find something distasteful in consumerism in the hobby (even my own)? Is there a line to be drawn somewhere (perhaps at NFTs)? Is it still a DIY hobby, or has that not been the case for some time now?
Grift requires dishonesty in the transaction. I isn't grift to make a product, be honest about what it is, and sell it to people who want it.
I purchased, and am running, Beadle & Grimms' Silver Edition of The Wilds beyond the Witchlight - clearly a premium product. They were quite up front about what I was getting, and my group is enjoying the extra touches. There is no grift in it.
It already was a "specialist product for collectors and lifestyle hobbyists". That's what it was before 5e! The only people who bought products and played them were long-term diehards - there was little room and difficult entry for "casual" players.
I don't really agree, personally, but it hinges very heavily on definitions, so obviously it's arguable.
Personally, if I look at 4E D&D, it does not look to me like a product for "collectors and lifestyle hobbyists" by my definition, in terms of the actual books released. It looks like they're very much trying to serve an actual player-centric (even more than DM-centric) market, rather than pumping out stuff that's going to go straight on to someone's shelf to be read once and admired, but not used.
4E is interesting because miniature stuff was absolutely about collectors and lifestyle hobbyists (not that the latter, I'm using hobbyist in a term that's differentiated from people who actually necessarily play).
Long-term diehards are not "lifestyle hobbyists" as I'd define them, because they still pretty much only buy stuff they intend to use, and they don't typically buy peripheral "style" products, like, say, plushies that relate to D&D. Do you see the difference I'm getting at? I imagine it's on me and my poor explanations if you don't.
As for "little room and difficult entry for casual players", I'm just not sure that's entirely true, if we're claiming that's not true for 5E. 5E is only different from 3E/4E in one way - the rules themselves are fairly accessible, whilst still toward the crunchier end of complexity by RPG standards (like, maybe 7/10 where something like PtbA games are usually a 4/10 in complexity, and Rolemaster, some versions of Shadowrun and the like would be 10/10 - 3E with anything beyond the basics would be at least 9/10 if not also 10/10 - I would say there are a handful of eccentric games drastically more complex even than those but they're so far outside even the niche hobby "mainstream" they can be disregarded). The big difference in open-ness is just cultural, and pre-existed before 5E (we've got a whole other thread on why it came to have so much impact, but the rejection of gatekeeping and so on has nothing to do with 5E's rules or even DMing suggestions or the like).
I think what makes the difference between targeting people playing the game, and people collecting the game, or using it as a lifestyle thing would be shown in what material is focused on.
I think if D&D leans more and more collector/lifestyle-oriented, we'll keep seeing books like Spelljammer - high production values, very pretty, low amounts of actual material, and we'll see adventures keep being produced with a reading-centric approach, rather than a functionality-centric approach, possibly even amping that up.
Personally I think Dragonlance will be particularly interesting to see, because it looks like with the wargame associated with it, it's definitely targeting collectors/lifestylers rather than players/DMs primarily, but maybe it'll actually be eminently practical?
