A Dustup over the State of the Hobby

It seems that Joseph over at Greyhawk Grognard has gone ballistic over a new blog written by someone going by the handle of fugaros that is taking wild swings at the RPG Industry as a whole and the OSR specifically.

Joseph comes off more poorly than he should with the sadly typical ad hominem attacks. I wish people realized how much weaker such things make them appear. Fugaros on the other hand is of the RPGPundit school of blogging, i.e. foul language and insults are more common than logic and good writing. In fact, Fugaros is similar enough to Pundit that I wonder if he's a sock puppet or just a student of his.

From where I sit, it's not worth the word count spent so far.

Joseph is right, people are free to do what they want and they answer to only two masters- the Market and their own desires. If they don't care about the former, they're free to do the latter in any way they wish. But that being the case, others may comment on their activities however they want, and it's not worth covering yourself in mud when someone like Fugaros does comment.

Fugaros on the other hand does have good points. The Market is fragmented, and the OSR is stagnant, unimaginative and so badly designed that the OSR actually claims it to be a feature in order to justify it.

Neither conditions are good for the Industry or for the quality of gaming as a whole. But there is little point in being a jerk about it. From what I can tell that's the hobby's natural state. Very few quality games were ever produced and when they were, the Market ignored them for lowest common denominator products.

When the hobby was large enough (early 80s), it could turn out some quality work for those able to make use of it. Take the automobile market as an example. Most will be buying boring and plain cars and trucks, but the Market is big enough to support high quality niche products for those with the money, skill, and need to make use of them.

RPGs aren't big enough for the automobile model. So all you got is the basics these days, and if you despair of that- you can design your own (and be the only one playing it given or take a handful)

Fugaros goes off the rails by thinking he can change this natural state. He can't. No one can. Rather than attacking the OSR guys, or any of the gaming companies- he should be spending his time working on his own stuff.

Yes, I know the OSR stuff is deadly dull, yes I want to see good games too. But one can't change the world, only your own little part of it. Take it from me (as someone who's spent too much time online in the past), doing your stuff  is a lot more fun and more a worthwhile way to spend one's time

The Fading of HERO

Anyone who's followed this blog or my writings elsewhere know that I've always been a fan of Champions and the HERO System. IMO, the best published game system ever.

Most are also likely aware that I was of the opinion that sixth edition was a mistake. A trip down a rabbit hole to fix things only Steve Long (and his personal fan base- as opposed to fans of the game) thought needed fixing. Combined with the the lost of map and mini support, horrid art, and an ugly layout- the final result was far from appealing.

Looks like I wasn't the only one with a negative opinion.

Nov 28th saw the following appear on their Hero Games website (There seems to be no direct link to the article, so I'll repeat their announcement here):


__________________________
Hero Games has been around for 30 years with ups and downs. The economy's been pretty rough lately, as has the gaming market. With declining sales and fewer releases, Hero has reached the point where it's no longer possible to maintain a full time staff of three, so it's scaling back.

Darren and Steve will be departing December 2nd, with our thanks for a decade of hard work that gave us 108 books, and best wishes for their future endeavors, which may include producing new books under a Hero System license. We'll keep you posted on that.

Jason will remain to continue shipping books and handling day-to-day matters. Existing books will continue to be available for purchase, and the company will continue in business, just a bit more slowly. The online store remains open. Steve will continue to answer rules questions on the Hero boards as "the guy who wrote the rulebook."

We're looking into doing a Kickstarter to print Book of the Empress, since it's complete and ready to go.

For the near future Hero would appreciate your kind thoughts and your patience. Transition periods of this sort take time, and Jason has a lot of work cut out for him, so the support of our fans is much appreciated.

Jason Walters
General Manager
__________________________

In a way they so deserved this.

Long was both the best and worst thing that ever happened to HERO. He was a fine editor and a work horse that personally put the game back on the map after the original owners gave up on it. Fifth Edition had some problems due to small changes he made, but on the whole was wonderful. It won awards and fans. It became a significant player in the hobby.

Success breeds hubris, and Steve Long bred it well. He grew to feel that it was *his* ideas that made the game a success instead of the game making him one. He thought he could change whatever he liked and he'd only go on to greater glory. He thought he could focus on rule changes, not settings or adventures.

Now we see the result. HERO is barely alive, it's future dim indeed.

I don't believe it had to be this way.

Will luck someone else will take over the reins in the near future.

• Someone who will return the design to the map and mini focus it had in 5th edition and before.
• Someone who will clear away the ugly art and layout
• Someone who will drop the cardboard settings that have plague HERO from the start
• Someone who will create the background and supplements that actually take advantage of HERO's ability to create the best published RPG experience I've ever seen

There's not much luck in the world. But HERO has my best wishes to find it. Without Long involved, there may be a chance it does just that. Success often breeds failure, but failure also often breeds success.

Can WotC and D&D go home again?

To their credit, it appears that WotC is willing to act after losing the top selling RPG, they've hired back Monte Cook to do future R&D. And that seems to imply that the future is the past, and that we'll see a 5th edition that is far closer to 3rd than to 4th.

Not that bad of move considering that 4th Edition is effectively a failure. But will it work? Yes, 4th edition was a poor design, likely driven by concepts taken  from the worse of the last decade's online game theorists. But it only existed because WotC gave D&D's core IP away to people like Pathfinder. It was in effect a Hail Mary pass to create a new replacement IP, hurled with the hope that the marketing and brand loyalty would turn the tide.

That failed. Will going old school suceeed?

Like anything in the market, hard to say. The brand loyalty is lost and it is now the other guy's club to beat WotC with.

Marketing they may still have-  deep pockets and the return of a well regarded by many (not me BTW, but hey- its D&D. No one could make that a good game IMO) designer. They'll certainly be able to create a lot of noise, and get a lot of people to try a 5th edition if that's where they're heading.

But the old saying is that you can never go home. And the simple truth is that they don't really control the old IP, and thus will in the end need to fight tooth and nail for every sale against an successful company who can offer want is effectively the same product.

If they go this path, they will at best split the D&D style market between them, better a half pie than any, unless the two half pies aren't enough to live on... and that may be the plan. Let Pathfinder die of hunger while living off the fat of the parent company, then everything flows back to WotC.

Can that work? In this age of Print on Demand and low cost market entry? And what about the fact that WotC still wouldn't control the IP and the problems that causes?

I wouldn't go this path. I'll give 5:3 odds WotC won't either in the long run.More likely we'll see WotC try the 4th edition Hail Mary again with a different enough system that's it's different. Maybe a almost good one this time.

But will that even work? I doubt it.

Maybe they'll do a change up. A 5th edition to kill pathfinder, followed by a 6th to stake out new ground. That's a long shot that already failed once.


Either way they go, they have a chance. An uphill against the wind chance. They need to be hit by lightning, but that's business in today's world. So let's give them a cheer for making the attempt.

I tell myself that gamers aren't worse than the common man...

...and from what I can tell, that's true. They're not. They just happen to be a group of people that I tend to have more contact with and so they seem worse.

Self-centered, entitled, thoughtless, clueless of their limits and immoral both in their fantasies and in their online actions. Children basically, in a modern world where Extended Adolescence defines the new common man. The impact is everywhere and is of course increasing.

• In the 70s gamers were a small crowd playing complex historical wargames
• By the 80s the wargames with their values of history and simulation had been replaced by complex table top fantasy RPGs
• By the 90s the assault on complex RPGs was well under way. Amber, FUDGE and the like.
• The 00 saw the rise of the Forge GNS movements, not only were the games mechanically simply in the extreme- they by design could only contain one campaign idea.

Same in video games. I played complex flight sims in the 80s and mystery games. Today we have Angry Birds.

Today the gamers say that the games of the early 80s are impossible to play. Too complex. No matter that people played them and did quite well. They remind me of people who claim mankind couldn't have built the Great Pyramids. Small minds thinking small thoughts. Of course they'd have to play small games.

The moral side of the hobby has decayed as well. It always had it's underbelly. But it was either by today's standards almost innocent (D&D's succubus artwork) or known to be a niche stupidity.

In the age of moral relativism, things can't be that simple. From Little Fears to FATAL to  poison'd  to LotFP we have the progress of fifth and increasing acceptance. Now days even the mainstream of online gaming is willing to accept artwork of women being torn apart from their sexual organs out as long as they think the game design displaying it is... what? A cool rewrite of original D&D?

That's how low we sell our morality. We don't even require a new game, just a fluffed up version of an old one.



What set off this, my latest rant on the subject? An experiment of a sort. I wanted to see if the OSR crowd was any different.

So I decided to respond to a recent post (together with this older one on the same site) that was something of a bugbear for me, the idea that a modern gamer can take history and remake it in their own image. Not a genre (like say Westerns), but history.

A timely concern, given today's efforts to rewrite history. Even Texas is considering removing the Alamo from being taught in school. Too offensive you know.

I wondered what response a call for respect of history, and the people who were part of it would receive from the OSR crowd. I got the same one I would have expected from the gaming world as a whole.

Self-centered, clueless, and lacking in any respect for others. They felt the dead were owed nothing.

I asked them if they were dead, would they feel that they would be owed something? What if what we considered horrid deeds today were accepted in the future? Would they then be accepting of future gamers labeling them with those deeds because it made them more acceptable to that future?

I got no answer, only claims that I was vile for asking the question. They hold their values dear, but they won't even accept the question asking if those standards should be applied to themselves.


In over 100 posts, there was not one person besides me willing to claim that people deserve the respect of truth after their death. Not one. We may as well get rid of the graveyards now, and let the vermin eat well. For that is now what we are.


Self-centered, entitled, thoughtless, clueless of their limits and immoral both in their fantasies and in their online actions.

Extended Adolescence indeed.

The Endless Search for a Game System

Saw this article over on the the RPG Blog II. I respond there, but thought I'd put my reaction with just a bit of expansion here as well.

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I agree and disagree.

I agree in that once you find a system that matches your needs- just stay with it.

I agree in that if you don't find a system that matches yours needs- create your own, in whole or as house ruled modification. Then just stay with it.

A different system is only required if the needs change. Most often some changes in your existing choice can meet those new needs just fine. I haven't changed game systems in 30 years save for version updates.

I disagree however that this is possible for most people. That's because they keep picking poor systems, but they never realize it. Dissatisfaction  builds, and off they going looking for a new game.

Visiting my FLGS because I needed to be depressed

The gaming stores in my area have fallen on hard times. Most have gone out of business. Unless you count the Game Workshop stores, only one remains open.That one was the crown jewel of the metroplex for over a decade. Large selection of in print and out of print items including some of the small press stuff now and then.

At one time I could walk in the door and pick up the full line of Deadlands, Shadowrun, or HERO offerings to say nothing of the tons of D&D stuff they had.

Now, many shelves are bare. The stock is looking old and worn. Much of the inventory looks to be in a "sell and don't replace state'. Except it doesn't seem to be selling. As to my favorite game, HERO? Some worn copies of 5th edition stuff (nothing core) is on the shelves. Nothing new.

They did have some of the latest Shadowrun stuff, and I picked up a hardback supplement of that with some minis to do my part in supporting them. They also had a good amount of WoD and D&D and of course what is now basically out print collector or treasure hunting items that is threatening to exceed the currently in print stocking.

It's easy to try and extend the local conditions to the whole world, and I'll avoid that. Also the reasons for things being what they are may be completely unrelated to the hobby itself (like the transfer of sales to online sources instead of hobby stores). I'd have to quiz the owner for details, and he's a rather nice upbeat guy. Asking why he's looking on the thin edge of going out of business wasn't something I wanted to beat him down with.

But whatever the cause, it's still a bummer.