Is WotC's layoff policy creating a D&D death spiral?

[Zinegata]

No comment.

Lago, stop deluding youself that someone like Frank will save D&D and it will suddenly sell in the hundreds of millions if only someone would give them a chance and properly market it.

Do that that and your life will be a lot simpler, mmkay?

Again, some hobbies really shrink and consolidate. Don't want the Monopoly comparison? Go with the wargames one. From 50K, to 2K.

What exactly is the point of having a loyal fanbase if it's shrinking? Do you not understand how much harder it is to gain a profit by increasing sales to a small base than it is to increase the base?

Fun fact: GMT is more profitable than the old Avalon Hill, despite selling about 2K copies per game instead of 50K.

Volumes are not the only way to sustain profits (and profits are different from revenue, and "a fuckton of unsold stuff"). This is what you totally fail to understand. Some products don't make money by becoming mass-market.

Bigger is not always better.

Do you not get that if you lose a third of your fanbase, the remaining 2/3rds will need to buy 50% more to make up for the loss? That is really difficult, especially considering how PHBII will never sell as many copies as PHBI and PHBIII would have fewer still. It's just not a viable business strategy.

I'll need to explain a totally different model for you someday, but I'm busy right now.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Lago, stop deluding youself that someone like Frank will save D&D and it will suddenly sell in the hundreds of millions if only someone would give them a chance and properly market it.

First of all, your hard-on with becoming some sort of Frank Killer again is showing again.

For the record: I don't like Tome material. I think it sucks for many reasons and that I'll never use it. I personally think that people holding up Tome as some kind of panacea is extremely irritating.


Secondly, I facepalmed because you used an example regarding a game that is over 70 years old and staked out a market before most people even had fucking television and then tried to hold it up as some sort of 'no one will ever approach that example!'

It's such an inane and useless example that I didn't even feel the need to refute it. It's seriously like going, 'Star Wars, made in the 80's, has to date been a billion-dollar franchise that nearly everyone has seen. The New Star Trek only made in the tens of millions of dollars. Therefore people are not interested in science fiction and Star Trek should go back to pleasing its pre-existing fans.'

If you wanted to use the board game comparison, a smarter approach would've been to show the sales of board games over the last ten years or so, including Settlers of Catan. Right now you just pulled out an intensely stupid comparison and then are upset when people find it so dumb that they're not even going to dignify it with a response.


I just did it because I really hate your whining.

Fun fact: GMT is more profitable than the old Avalon Hill, despite selling about 2K copies per game instead of 50K.

Great! This actually helps prove your case for once.

So. First question I should ask is 'cite?'

Second question I am going to ask is 'why is it more profitable?' Because on the face of it it just doesn't make any sense.

I'll need to explain a totally different model for you someday, but I'm busy right now.

I'd personally really like to know.

[Kaelik]

Second question I am going to ask is 'why is it more profitable?' Because on the face of it it just doesn't make any sense.

The easy answer is they pay the same amount to design 50 crappy games as one good game, and then they sell 2k copies of each game, and it's not that much more expensive to produce the 2k of each game, because they have modular tech that can change what game it's producing really easily.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The easy answer is they pay the same amount to design 50 crappy games as one good game, and then they sell 2k copies of each game, and it's not that much more expensive to produce the 2k of each game, because they have modular tech that can change what game it's producing really easily.

Fair enough. This has two responses, though.

1) I'm not sure that it's really transferable over to pencil and paper games. Unlike crafting miniatures or writing video games, writing TTRPGs costs about the same whether you churn out a crappy product or a good one. Yes, actual stuff that inflates the production values like artwork and color pages does cost more, but this has been shown multiple times to increase sales beyond what it costs. The only thing that you can really control for is the quality of the writing and unless you have a big-name writer like Gary Gygax you don't really save any money by intentionally writing shitty products.

I mean, really, I'm sure the Complete Champion cost almost as much to product as 3E' The Player's Handbook II, but the latter almost certainly sold more.

2) This doesn't really paint fanboys in a good light. It's less 'listen to the hardcore fans, because they have good ideas that will ultimately make what you have a quality product' and more 'pander to a small group of fans, because they're retards who will buy even bullshit like Magic of Faerun III by Bruce Cordell & Sean K. Reynolds as long as you stroke their egos.'

[Zinegata]

First of all, your hard-on with becoming some sort of Frank Killer again is showing again.

Lago, why did you take 6 days just to repeat the well-known fact I'm totally not impressed with Frank or designers of his ilk? And on the very same day you're off licking Frank's ass again on another thread by saying "Fuck you" to me after I had just apologized?

If you want to stop being treated like a Frank cock-sucker, stop going to his defense even when what he's saying is actually wrong?

Secondly, I facepalmed because you used an example regarding a game that is over 70 years old and staked out a market before most people even had fucking television and then tried to hold it up as some sort of 'no one will ever approach that example!'

I was referring to the boardgame market as a whole. And a lot of people who lived 70 years ago are in fact already dead. That Monopoly has still been played by over 500 million living people merely demonstrates how fricking huge the family board market is compared to the Euros.

500 million Monopoly players vs 60 million Catan players. That's a drop down to about 10%.

For wargames (the example you're accepting), it's 50K to 2K. A drop down to 4%

A more or less similar situation.

Great! This actually helps prove your case for once.

So. First question I should ask is 'cite?'

Second question I am going to ask is 'why is it more profitable?' Because on the face of it it just doesn't make any sense.

A friend of mine used to know the guys from Avalon Hill, and he cited the 50K figure. When said friend buys something like 1,000 of their wargames... you get known .

The total market for wargames peaked in 1980, with about 2.2 million wargames sold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_wargame

Annually, 50K was more or less the bench mark for a good game, so at its peak there were about 44 different titles that were selling very well each year.

The problem is, a quick glance at the 1980 Avalon Hill catalog shows that they are producing well over 100 different titles annually.

And they're not the only wargame company out there. There was SPI and a couple of others.

This means that while 44 titles sold very well, the other 60+ didn't. So you've got huge stocks of wargames sitting in warehouses, doing nothing.

(And just how much stock was left over? Well, let me put it this way: There was so much leftover wargames when Avalon Hill died, that an entire company - MMP - was built out of buying unsold Avalon Hill stock)

And that's why Avalon Hill became unprofitable. By making too many games that didn't sell, their costs soon overtook their revenues. It is not healthy for a company when half of your products don't actually sell.

With GMT, by contrast, every single copy of their game is more or less guaranteed to have a buyer. So even though GMT only makes 2,000 copies of the game, every single copy of that game is gonna be sold.

I'd personally really like to know.

I already posted it. It's the pre-order model I described in the thread I started several days ago.

[Zinegata]

The easy answer is they pay the same amount to design 50 crappy games as one good game, and then they sell 2k copies of each game, and it's not that much more expensive to produce the 2k of each game, because they have modular tech that can change what game it's producing really easily.

Fair enough. This has two responses, though.

1) I'm not sure that it's really transferable over to pencil and paper games. Unlike crafting miniatures or writing video games, writing TTRPGs costs about the same whether you churn out a crappy product or a good one. Yes, actual stuff that inflates the production values like artwork and color pages does cost more, but this has been shown multiple times to increase sales beyond what it costs. The only thing that you can really control for is the quality of the writing and unless you have a big-name writer like Gary Gygax you don't really save any money by intentionally writing shitty products.

I mean, really, I'm sure the Complete Champion cost almost as much to product as 3E' The Player's Handbook II, but the latter almost certainly sold more.

Except that TTRPGs actually cost less to produce than a wargame. You don't even need a paper version. Just release a PDF (see my thread for details.

In the case of wargames, it's less about the design fee and more about the cost of actually producing a copy of the game. (in wooden blocks, paint, and cardboard)

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you want to stop being treated like a Frank cock-sucker, stop going to his defense even when what he's saying is actually wrong?

You're the one who brought up Frank for no reason, guy. It's just stupid of you to go 'well, you stop sucking Frank's cock!' as a response to I just said 'stop bringing him up for no reason!'

Aside from being a meaningless tu quoque, it completely misses the point as to why the person asked you to stop doing it in the first place. Seriously, it's like someone accusing you of being obsessed with their penis when you ask them to not jerk off so loudly in the bathroom.

I was referring to the boardgame market as a whole. And a lot of people who lived 70 years ago are in fact already dead. That Monopoly has still been played by over 500 million living people merely demonstrates how fricking huge the family board market is compared to the Euros.

Notice that I didn't say that you were wrong, it just means that you haven't proved anything.

Maybe boardgames are a dead/dying medium with only the zombie boards being able to make it big. Or maybe the reason why zombie games like Monopoly are such a big deal is because they've had 70 years to establish themselves.

It's really like going 'People aren't interested in commercialized blended drinks because Mike's Hard Lemonade isn't popular/doesn't have a future because it doesn't sell as many bottles as Bud Light!' Well, maybe that's true, maybe that's not. You do need a better comparison though. A better point of comparison would be comparing sales of that to sales of similar drinks or showing the rate of growth of sales of light beer compared to Lemonade. At this point you're just throwing two vaguely relating statistics and not really proving anything.

By making too many games that didn't sell, their costs soon overtook their revenues. It is not healthy for a company when half of your products don't actually sell.

Okay, but I don't get how expanding your outreach out to get a bigger share of the nerd pie will do this.

Except that TTRPGs actually cost less to produce than a wargame.

I don't know about wargames, but I do know that books in an RPG line have a rate of diminishing returns. Monster Manual II will not sell as many copies as Monster Manual I and Monster Manual III will sell fewer copies still.

Now while there will always be a contingent of fans who will buy up to Monster Manual 12, marketing your products to these people is a bad idea. It costs you just as much money to make monster manuals 6 through 12 as it would making a product line for D&D. And you would probably sell more copies of that.

Yeah, Capcom releasing seriously 8 versions of Street Fighter II alienated non-fans of the game, but those iterations were cheap. It made sense for them to do that, at least until it started hurting their reputation. Kaelik's strategy, while it may work for other mediums, probably won't work for TTRPGs. Otherwise people would still be making 3rd Edition books.

[Josh_Kablack]

For the record: I don't like Tome material. I think it sucks for many reasons and that I'll never use it. I personally think that people holding up Tome as some kind of panacea is extremely irritating.

I want to take this off on a small tangent:

Well the Tomes are reasonable quality fan-produced public game content that can be used or not in a modular way. And they are not the only such content - and that's an issue with the industry.

If I were ever to run 3.x again, I would approach houserules and setting/mechanics interface I would be able to approach it as more of a librarian than as a writer. I don't need to write my own mods, because others in the "mod community" have already come up with so many that I can pick and choose, mix and match among pre-existing material to build the game I want to create.

And while that's pretty damn awesome for me as a GM, it's also a major drawback to the profitability, universality and even legitimacy of the hobby as a whole. The fact that as a DM, I can just copy and paste classes out of Tomes, feats off the D&D wiki and setting material from random netbook of whatever, means that I am less motivated to buy official material. In effect all the quality fan-made stuff is competing at a price point of FREE with published hardcopy at a price of NOT FREE. And that drives down sales, profits and wages in the industry. I've remarked more than once how I did not pursue RPG freelancing because I could make more per hour with more reliable payment flipping burgers - and that the industry works on such poor margins is a notable reason why the field doesn't attract many game authors/designers who are good at math. The only real "career path" in gaming is to use it as an internship on your way to a real author's job (see Aaron Allston) and *we* are a notable part of the reason why.

Furthermore, if I as a DM pick and choose between Core, Published, Tome, Wiki and netbooks, I will be running a different 3.x D&D game than say Dragon Child (even though he did the exact same thing and we think along similar lines). That means that players in my game would not actually playing the same game as players in anyone else's game. That means that player knowledge and system mastery becomes less portable among groups. And that leads to gaming groups becoming even more insular and less accepted among non-gamers.

[Zinegata]

You're the one who brought up Frank for no reason, guy.

Like how you keep bringing up that I'm "secretly harboring fantasies of being a Frank-killer" for no reason? When I've said publically many times how I outright dislike the guy?

Or how you suddenly appear in the Cuba thread where I just apologized to Frank just to say "Hur hur, Zine doesn't really mean it"

Like how you necro'd this thread, even though I had already created a seperate thread a week ago explaining an alternate selling model (which you have read and replied to?)

Seriously Lago. You're the one obsessing over this. It's horribly simple: I don't like Frank very much, especially when he talks shit and tells people to shut up. Sometimes my dislike spills over and goes overboard.

Get over it and accept it as a fact of life.

Notice that I didn't say that you were wrong, it just means that you haven't proved anything.

Maybe boardgames are a dead/dying medium with only the zombie boards being able to make it big. Or maybe the reason why zombie games like Monopoly are such a big deal is because they've had 70 years to establish themselves.

Yeah. You only said it was an inane example because you didn't understand why I brought it up.

Monopoly was only brought up as a comparison to Catan. Again, newer stuff has only sold 10% of what Monpoly achieved.

It's really like going 'People aren't interested in commercialized blended drinks because Mike's Hard Lemonade isn't popular/doesn't have a future because it doesn't sell as many bottles as Bud Light!' Well, maybe that's true, maybe that's not. You do need a better comparison though. A better point of comparison would be comparing sales of that to sales of similar drinks or showing the rate of growth of sales of light beer compared to Lemonade. At this point you're just throwing two vaguely relating statistics and not really proving anything.

See above.

Okay, but I don't get how expanding your outreach out to get a bigger share of the nerd pie will do this.

Marketing to a bigger pie also costs a ton more money. You cannot target 100 million gamers without seriously shelling out more cash. And if they shrug and don't buy your product, all that money is wasted.

I don't know about wargames, but I do know that books in an RPG line have a rate of diminishing returns. Monster Manual II will not sell as many copies as Monster Manual I and Monster Manual III will sell fewer copies still.

Again, that's what the pre-order system is for. Look it up in the thread I made.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Like how you keep bringing up that I'm "secretly harboring fantasies of being a Frank-killer" for no reason? When I've said publically many times how I outright dislike the guy?

... and both times were in response to you trying to score burn points against Frank for no reason? Did you forget about that?

Seriously Lago. You're the one obessing over this.

You can try to flip it all you want in an attempt to weasel away from your label, but it's not going to take.

Monopoly was only brought up as a comparison to Catan. Again, newer stuff has only sold 10% of what Monpoly achieved.

Yeah, and I'm still baffled as to why you don't understand why this is a dumb comparison.

Monopoly has a huge marketing and history edge of Catan. It's really stupid to draw the conclusion of 'board games are dead' from the premise of 'a similar product did not sell as well as a monster product in a fraction of the time?'

The issue of 'why do some products have big sales and why do some products sell poorly' is... really broad. You gave an extremely specific answer to it. I mean, for fuck's sake, Monopoly has had several video games for it, is over 70 years old, came out at a time when there was little competition, has struck up licensing deals with several franchises (like that McDonald's monopoly game, you can't tell me that that doesn't at least increase sales), came out when the population of the United States was smaller, has been translated into other languages, etc..

It's extremely absurd to say 'Monopoly sells better than newer board games because the public has lost interest in board games!' When you say stupid shit like that, it implies that all of the above things don't matter. And you know what? It might be true, but YOU NEED TO ACCOUNT FOR THAT.

It's easier to control for as few variables as possible. You would be on better ground by going 'Settlers of Catan's market segment as has stagnated' or 'polls of players to the game show an increasingly negative opinion as the years pass, indicating a lack of interest in the game'. Granted, you still wouldn't have proved things 100% or even 75%, but you'd be in the ballpark.

Marketing to a bigger pie also costs a ton more money. You cannot target 100 million gamers without seriously shelling out more cash. And if they shrug and don't buy your product, all that money is wasted.

Uh? I didn't say that D&D or any tabletop game should go for this big of a pie. I said that D&D should market their game towards nerds (specifically heroic fantasy and videro game nerds) and kids. Yes, this is a bigger segment than whom they're currently making a game to, but it's still well within D&D's bounds to advertise to these groups because they are plugged into entertainment where D&D can advertise cheaply.

D&D doesn't have the kind of money needed to market to 100 million people and I doubt that anyone outside of kids or nerds would be really interested, at least until it grows beyond its stereotype origins.

I mean, I've written like three threads on how I think D&D's marketing strategy should go and they've all been aimed towards reaching a broad number of people as cheaply as possible. I'd be happy to talk about it again, but seriously, just read this thread for some examples.

[Zinegata]

... and both times were in response to you trying to score burn points against Frank for no reason? Did you forget about that?

What part of "sometimes it spills over" do you not understand?

You can try to flip it all you want in an attempt to weasel away from your label, but it's not going to take.

I'm now a designated wannabe Frank Killer? Yay! Wohoo! About time you figured it out!

You sir, however, are still seriously becoming a stalker.

Monopoly has a huge marketing and history edge of Catan. It's really stupid to draw the conclusion of 'board games are dead' from the premise of 'a similar product did not sell as well as a monster product in a fraction of the time?'

Lago, that's not the conclusion with Catan. I did not say "Boardgames are dead!" At all. Note how I said Catan actually constituted a boom?

What I'm merely saying, is that the current generation of games will NOT be able to replicate the success of the old ones. And if you read the thread I made, you'd understand why - there's too much stuff on the market to compete against.

You know Lago, I suggest you actually read what I wrote again. I have been kind and tried to provide alternate examples your head can wrap itself around with.

But seriously, I've noticed you never actually fucking read what other people say. You just keep rambling about what you want about D&D, and cherry pick facts about what supports your model.

So if you want to understand the real market forces behind tabletop instead of nitpicking BS, go to the thread I made on the TTRPG slump. Otherwise, you're just threading over old ground too.

[Username17]

Please, do not feed the Zinegata troll. He knows that the only reason I will read his tirades or even sections of his tirades is if he spams shit sufficiently retarded that other people quote him. Please, just stop. Stop doing that.

As for writing not costing more when it's better, that's not true. Writing is virtually free. But design is expensive. People can fill up the design space at ten thousand words per week per fanboy. It's not even hard. If you wanted to publish new material the length of the holy koran every day, you just could. You'd need a staff of 70 writers of no particular distinction to write on the weekdays after coming home from work or school. It's not even a deal.

But design work takes people actually considering implications and running tests and shit. People should be on salaries for that shit. And it's not cheap. At least, not as cheap as giving fanboys 3 cents a word for ranting about crystal goblins or something.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

Please, do not feed the Zinegata troll. He knows that the only reason I will read his tirades or even sections of his tirades is if he spams shit sufficiently retarded that other people quote him. Please, just stop. Stop doing that.

Oh please. It's not about you unless I specifically smash a sledgehammer to your face, you arrogant ass.

As for writing not costing more when it's better, that's not true. Writing is virtually free. But design is expensive. People can fill up the design space at ten thousand words per week per fanboy. It's not even hard. If you wanted to publish new material the length of the holy koran every day, you just could. You'd need a staff of 70 writers of no particular distinction to write on the weekdays after coming home from work or school. It's not even a deal.

But design work takes people actually considering implications and running tests and shit. People should be on salaries for that shit. And it's not cheap. At least, not as cheap as giving fanboys 3 cents a word for ranting about crystal goblins or something.

-Username17

Again, I already discussed how to do it in the other thread. But hey, you're not supposed to read it anyway. So fuck off Frank.

[Roy]

Oh please. It's not about you unless I specifically smash a sledgehammer to your face, you arrogant ass.

Hi Welcome

[Zinegata]

I see what you did there .

[fbmf]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Enough about Frank.

Love him. Hate him. I don't care.

Trash the Tomes. Defend the Tomes. I don't care, but do it on the merits or lack thereof of the Tomes.

Stop invoking his name. I am sure it gets a little frustrating to be discussed as if you are not listening.
[/TGFBS]

[mean_liar]

I want to take this off on a small tangent:...

...if I as a DM pick and choose between Core, Published, Tome, Wiki and netbooks, I will be running a different 3.x D&D game than say Dragon Child (even though he did the exact same thing and we think along similar lines). That means that players in my game would not actually playing the same game as players in anyone else's game. That means that player knowledge and system mastery becomes less portable among groups. And that leads to gaming groups becoming even more insular and less accepted among non-gamers.

While I think your analysis of the industry is correct (familiarity and modularity in the fan community bolsters interest in the product while undermining profitability), I don't think your social conclusion is as valid.

TTRPGing's best advertising is it's players' enthusiasm, and the reasons you cited for industry trouble are the same things that let players really claim ownership and comfort with the games they play - and the more players own their experience, the more enthusiasm and good play experiences they have to share.

As an industry I would think it would be wise to switch to smaller boutique game cores with modularity built in combined with encouraged fan participation, and subsisting on those cores. I would think that means games with tight genres so that each boutique modular game is a separate product for purchasing, but it's still something.


EDIT - More than anything, happy players bring in more new people to gaming than any other avenue. The foundation is the cultural mystique of TTRPGing (with all that means both positive and negative), but ultimately the sell is in the experience. Improving that experience with player involvement is a good thing for the industry even if it means that the previous models of money-making have to be altered.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Lago, that's not the conclusion with Catan. I did not say "Boardgames are dead!" At all. Note how I said Catan actually constituted a boom?

Look, when you compare a relatively new board game against an older one and say that the new product is not doing as well as the older product, it comes with the implication that 'the paradigm of breaking into the market new board games is a dead-end'.

What I'm merely saying, is that the current generation of games will NOT be able to replicate the success of the old ones. And if you read the thread I made, you'd understand why - there's too much stuff on the market to compete against.

Why didn't you say that in this thread then? That would've made a lot more sense than just waving numbers around. 'There are a dozen well-beloved board games already and SoC would have to pull off some miracle to muscle into the competition' makes a lot more sense.

Even if we accept that, though (which I'm prepared to accept) I still don't see what this has to do with TTRPGs, which certainly does not have a a handful of products having a monopoly on all of the other products. I mean, yes, during the 3E days it certainly seemed that way but seriously the second-best selling TTRPG right now is a fanmade revision of a dead edition. D&D still outsells it, but the gap between Paizo and WotC is much smaller than, say, the gap between Catan and Scrabble.

Also, any requests to 'I'm not going to answer that, read my thread' is going to be ignored. Bring that shit in here if you want me to read it.

But seriously, I've noticed you never actually fucking read what other people say. You just keep rambling about what you want about D&D, and cherry pick facts about what supports your model.

Psychological projection is an ugly, ugly personality flaw. Weep for this guy.

But design work takes people actually considering implications and running tests and shit. People should be on salaries for that shit. And it's not cheap. At least, not as cheap as giving fanboys 3 cents a word for ranting about crystal goblins or something.

I have to admit that I don't really know how WotC pays its employees in the upper echelon of the design team, but I was under the impression that they were already salaried employees whose job pretty much is to design and write.

1) If that's not what's going on, then what is going on?
2) If that is what's going on, then why does the current design team suck? Did WotC just have a bad luck of the draw? Or is this a 'you get what you pay for' kind of deal and that they would need to increase salaries before they got a good core design team?

As an industry I would think it would be wise to switch to smaller boutique game cores with modularity built in combined with encouraged fan participation, and subsisting on those cores. I would think that means games with tight genres so that each boutique modular game is a separate product for purchasing, but it's still something.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

[Zinegata]

Lago->

You're a hypocrite.

You tell me:

Bring that shit in here if you want me to read it.

And yet on the post just before that, you tell me:

I mean, I've written like three threads on how I think D&D's marketing strategy should go and they've all been aimed towards reaching a broad number of people as cheaply as possible. I'd be happy to talk about it again, but seriously, just read this thread for some examples.

Don't tell me to bring stuff for you to read, when you tell me "Go read my stuff first!"

-----------

Clearly, you're dragging this thread along for one of three reasons:

1) You have the memory of a goldfish. You participated in the thread I was talking about. You were even the last person to post in that thread

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51620

And yet you're claiming to have totally forgotten that I did, in fact say that "The current generation of games will not be replicate the success of the old ones".

2) Alternatively, you simply employ the Wall of Ignorance. Which wouldn't be out of character given how much you ignore facts that contradict your own.

3) You're attacking me again, because you like kissing Frank's ass.

Seriously Lago. The only reason "The current generation of games will not be replicate the success of the old ones" is not in this thread is because you necromancy'd this thread. Even though I had also said that I was starting a new one to explain it.

So, again, the chain of events

a) Zine participates in this thread, saying that Catan - while a boom - is smaller than Monopoly. Lago disagrees.
b) Zine promises to explain in a seperate thread
c) Zine creates a seperate thread. Zine explains. Lago participates in that thread.
d) Lago ressurects this old thread 6 days later, and then demands that Zine explains why Catan is smaller than Monopoly again. While at the same time making a big deal about me attacking Frank (on the same day you also attack me in the Cuba thread when I apologized to Frank).

Really Lago, you're a fucking amateur when it comes to personal attacks.

Whatever your motivations are (I suspect it's because you kiss Frank's ass so much, but maybe you have a misplaced sense of justice), you attempt to attack me here can only result in 3 conclusions:

1) You are very stupid.
2) You are so fucking obvious that this is just a character assassination attempt that you lose all credibility
3) You are both.

My vote is for #3.

Get smarter. You're still way below my level, dipshit. And no, I will not entertain you with the much funnier insult I came up with.

Now if you want to discuss market forces, instead of playing fucking games then go to my thread. You fucking hypocrite.

[Zinegata]

I want to take this off on a small tangent:...

...if I as a DM pick and choose between Core, Published, Tome, Wiki and netbooks, I will be running a different 3.x D&D game than say Dragon Child (even though he did the exact same thing and we think along similar lines). That means that players in my game would not actually playing the same game as players in anyone else's game. That means that player knowledge and system mastery becomes less portable among groups. And that leads to gaming groups becoming even more insular and less accepted among non-gamers.

While I think your analysis of the industry is correct (familiarity and modularity in the fan community bolsters interest in the product while undermining profitability), I don't think your social conclusion is as valid.

TTRPGing's best advertising is it's players' enthusiasm, and the reasons you cited for industry trouble are the same things that let players really claim ownership and comfort with the games they play - and the more players own their experience, the more enthusiasm and good play experiences they have to share.

As an industry I would think it would be wise to switch to smaller boutique game cores with modularity built in combined with encouraged fan participation, and subsisting on those cores. I would think that means games with tight genres so that each boutique modular game is a separate product for purchasing, but it's still something.


EDIT - More than anything, happy players bring in more new people to gaming than any other avenue. The foundation is the cultural mystique of TTRPGing (with all that means both positive and negative), but ultimately the sell is in the experience. Improving that experience with player involvement is a good thing for the industry even if it means that the previous models of money-making have to be altered.

You liked my GMT-style system then?

[mean_liar]

As an industry I would think it would be wise to switch to smaller boutique game cores with modularity built in combined with encouraged fan participation, and subsisting on those cores. I would think that means games with tight genres so that each boutique modular game is a separate product for purchasing, but it's still something.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Sorry, my drunk-posting is atypical.

I'm saying that Zinegata's GMT example is a good direction for the industry to go in. That games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten are better for (small) companies and players and TTRPGs in general than 4e DnD (kinda-low-fantasy).

You still want to be able to hang your system on a solid core of mechanics, but that core should have a tight focus and the company should have main core product(s) with clear modular design direction, and then letting the fan base run with it. The excitement that an involved player base brings will sustain TTRPGs more than having badass supplements. If anything, you want your people collating and judging fan-created products and insights to create Official Company Supplements (OCS), than having parallel operations. OCS should be driven by measurable fan involvement and excitement rather than guesswork.

If your boutique game doesn't set people on fire, then you need a better integrated setting-mechanic game.


Here's an example. I'm working (forever) on my Heartbreaker. It's heavily influenced by discussions here at TGDMB, effects-driven, and although incomplete it's intended to be packaged in PDF with a handful of setting types that support the mechanics. If it were professional, you'd set up a forum and watch those settings like strings, and when they were pulled, you'd post. More pulling and public posting nets more company posting and support. Eventually you'd put together a few supplement offerings based on public interest and public ideas. If no one buys it, then you move on: it wasn't hot enough. Maybe transcendentalism is the new hot shit and your truly epic fantasy wasn't good enough (*sob*) - you accept that, design a new game around a few core mechanics and only supporting a few setting types, and wait to see who bites.

It's the public that ought to determine a game's direction, and you want to give them the room and ability to weigh in and tell you how to make money. Modular rules, metadesign direction, and interaction and encouragement of the public are vital to that.

...I think.

[Lago PARANOIA]

1) You are very stupid.

How long have you been under the impression that I'm smart? If I was I would've done what everyone told me to do months ago regarding conversing with you.

2) Alternatively, you simply employ the Wall of Ignorance. Which wouldn't be out of character given how much you ignore facts that contradict your own.

Nah. It's nothing that intentional or malicious.

It's more like... gosh... maybe it's because you're really not that interesting and I forget things that you say within a day or two? I mean, sure, you're provocative but I wouldn't exactly say extraordinary. I was kinda hoping not to go down this road by giving you a chance to repost, but you're all 'how dare you blah blah blah I'm Zinegata and I expect you to remember the boring shit I said a week ago'. So I'm just going to give you the naked truth and say that, yes, even though you say some things sometimes I forget because it's being said by you.

Sorry guy. It's not like you or anyone else here really thinks that much of you.

Get smarter. You're still way below my level, dipshit. And no, I will not entertain you with the much funnier insult I came up with.

I think it's more that you can't come up with anything besides some variant on 'suck cock' and 'kiss ass'. That's okay. Lago understands and will let you slink out.

I mean, don't get me wrong or anything, I'm an unimaginative guy too what with my AVGN-style 'humor' so I'm not saying that I'm witty and you're not (unlike the reverse). I'm just saying for you not to get all puffed up over your imagined superiority.

Whatever your motivations are (I suspect it's because you kiss Frank's ass so much, but maybe you have a misplaced sense of justice),

Stop invoking his name. I am sure it gets a little frustrating to be discussed as if you are not listening.

Damn, you are one thin-skinned SOB to keep bringing that up even after an official warning. I was just kidding the first two times; I didn't know my jibe was that on the money.

[Lago PARANOIA]

mean_liar, could you start another thread? I have a reply to your statement but I think this one is out of steam.

[Zinegata]

Lago->

Two things.

First of all, congrats on admitting you're stupid.

And secondly, congrats on continuing to demonstrate how you're just a second-rate troll.

Try stalking me some more and maybe you'll learn how to do it properly, cock-sucker.

P.S. I wasn't talking about Frank at all in that last post. I was talking about you.

Or more specifically, I'm just pointing out how you conveniently appear whenever Frank needs some extra defending.

So before you accuse me of violating warnings, maybe you should make your cock-sucking more subtle?