An interesting piece about the #ttrpg media landscape: https://personable.blog/media-crowdfunding/
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@Taskerland
The argument that GMs are very designer-like but "consumer"-facing "content" sells games to *players*, though I may hate the terminology used, does still have a point that reminds me of a common GM lament: "I have so many *other* games I want to run, but my players refuse to play anything but D&D!"I've seen that dynamic and it lead to a group split, with the experimentalists on one side and a "we play DnD, and CoC" on the other.
It was quite amicable, but a lot of it was about people's investment of their time in what they perceived as worthwhile. Some people who only gamed once a week didn't want to play a "might be absolutely trash" game with their one session, and I'm not ill disposed to that reasoning in a short life*
*this is a lie, screw them
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An interesting piece about the #ttrpg media landscape: https://personable.blog/media-crowdfunding/
The elephant in the room is noticed quite early on: Why is so much rpg media designer-facing rather than ordinary gamer-facing?
Everyone seems to want to be in a conversation with designers (even when it doesn't make sense) and I think that's a social media hierarchy thing. In ttrpg social circles, designers matter. Everyone else is a feckless hog who exists purely as a source of monies.
Interesting article.
I’ve noticed this void in media addressing published products from a gamer‘s point of view. In spite of all of TFP‘s faults and my disillusionment with the OSR, this is/was a strong point of Ten Foot Pole. Bryce actually reviews things, and he does it from a GM‘s POV, incorporating game design but from the angle of impact on GM relevance. Once you get where he’s at, you can gauge what he‘s reviewing.
I think that’s what made the site relatively popular. -
Interesting article.
I’ve noticed this void in media addressing published products from a gamer‘s point of view. In spite of all of TFP‘s faults and my disillusionment with the OSR, this is/was a strong point of Ten Foot Pole. Bryce actually reviews things, and he does it from a GM‘s POV, incorporating game design but from the angle of impact on GM relevance. Once you get where he’s at, you can gauge what he‘s reviewing.
I think that’s what made the site relatively popular.On another tip, I think the continued stream of new games and their marketing hype is self deprecating.
There’s something to be said for collecting games for the sake of collecting, but I buy games to actually play them, and I’ve got this Pile of Joy waiting for me to discover it.
The downside of CF-Hype is these games get a halflife, dictated by the next new thing being hyped. Depending on the audience, they‘ve either never heard of the game, or they’re old news after 6 months.
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On another tip, I think the continued stream of new games and their marketing hype is self deprecating.
There’s something to be said for collecting games for the sake of collecting, but I buy games to actually play them, and I’ve got this Pile of Joy waiting for me to discover it.
The downside of CF-Hype is these games get a halflife, dictated by the next new thing being hyped. Depending on the audience, they‘ve either never heard of the game, or they’re old news after 6 months.
@Morgunin Yes... I've noticed that after the Critical Role games, people are getting wise to the phenomenon of games that sell well but don't actually get played.
CF stuff has also completely hollowed out a lot of ttrpg social media. Look at the hashtag on bluesky and it is nothing but calls for crowd-funding and artists looking for work.
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@Morgunin Yes... I've noticed that after the Critical Role games, people are getting wise to the phenomenon of games that sell well but don't actually get played.
CF stuff has also completely hollowed out a lot of ttrpg social media. Look at the hashtag on bluesky and it is nothing but calls for crowd-funding and artists looking for work.
To me, the online TTRPG space appears to be largely composed of makers, hardcore fans and collectors. It’s like any indie music scene with a core of creatives in various subcultures and a ton of consumers on the fringe. CF platforms function like Indie distributors.
There’s a couple of major players siphoning talent and ideas to incorporate them into, and sell their commercial product to a ton of consumers, who are just fine with getting the distillation in a palatable pop format.
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To me, the online TTRPG space appears to be largely composed of makers, hardcore fans and collectors. It’s like any indie music scene with a core of creatives in various subcultures and a ton of consumers on the fringe. CF platforms function like Indie distributors.
There’s a couple of major players siphoning talent and ideas to incorporate them into, and sell their commercial product to a ton of consumers, who are just fine with getting the distillation in a palatable pop format.
@Morgunin I think I am alienated because I was hoping to be nurtured with new ideas and fresh approaches. What I get are products that all run together.
I think people fall over each other to gain a sense of belonging to the scene but I don't feel the benefit.
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@Morgunin I think I am alienated because I was hoping to be nurtured with new ideas and fresh approaches. What I get are products that all run together.
I think people fall over each other to gain a sense of belonging to the scene but I don't feel the benefit.
I think I understand.
That’s another parallel to music and it’s scenes. I’ve found that I don’t feel comfortable in that scene paradigm. I am happier doing my thing, meandering through scenes and looking at what’s happening. If nothing‘s interesting, I leave and check back later.
I’m back to gaming with friends at the table and folk-DnDing the input I collected in the past years. I mean, that’s what it’s always been about: Taking ideas and inspiration and making my own from it.
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An interesting piece about the #ttrpg media landscape: https://personable.blog/media-crowdfunding/
The elephant in the room is noticed quite early on: Why is so much rpg media designer-facing rather than ordinary gamer-facing?
Everyone seems to want to be in a conversation with designers (even when it doesn't make sense) and I think that's a social media hierarchy thing. In ttrpg social circles, designers matter. Everyone else is a feckless hog who exists purely as a source of monies.
@Taskerland That's a nice blog post.
As I read it, he is not criticising designer-facing media or even crowdfunding, but rather bemoaning the lack of media outlets aimed at ordinary people who just want to know which games are worth playing.
If he is criticising anything, it would seem to be social media, that has hollowed out the media space for gaming — as it has for all other spheres of news. Social media has replaced traditional journalism and rendered it unprofitable.
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@Taskerland That's a nice blog post.
As I read it, he is not criticising designer-facing media or even crowdfunding, but rather bemoaning the lack of media outlets aimed at ordinary people who just want to know which games are worth playing.
If he is criticising anything, it would seem to be social media, that has hollowed out the media space for gaming — as it has for all other spheres of news. Social media has replaced traditional journalism and rendered it unprofitable.
@strangequark Whilst also being completely unfit for purpose.
I don't mind industry-facing people having news outlets, but I am definitely not a fan of stuff for regular gamers being replaced by industry-facing stuff.
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@strangequark Whilst also being completely unfit for purpose.
I don't mind industry-facing people having news outlets, but I am definitely not a fan of stuff for regular gamers being replaced by industry-facing stuff.
@Taskerland To quote my bio, "I started playing RPGs in the 1980s, when the only form of social media was White Dwarf magazine."
In the early days (first ~100 issues), it was a magazine written by gamers, for gamers. Articles, reviews, a scenario or two, fan-contributed content. There is nothing like that any more.
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@Taskerland To quote my bio, "I started playing RPGs in the 1980s, when the only form of social media was White Dwarf magazine."
In the early days (first ~100 issues), it was a magazine written by gamers, for gamers. Articles, reviews, a scenario or two, fan-contributed content. There is nothing like that any more.
@Taskerland Online magazines were possible in the early 2000s. Facebook lured publishers in with a promise to drive more traffic to their sites, but once they were locked in, they did a bait and switch, keeping readers on Facebook. They fed off the work of journalists and bled them dry.
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@Taskerland To quote my bio, "I started playing RPGs in the 1980s, when the only form of social media was White Dwarf magazine."
In the early days (first ~100 issues), it was a magazine written by gamers, for gamers. Articles, reviews, a scenario or two, fan-contributed content. There is nothing like that any more.
Early WD was such a glorious shambles. There were fantastically weird articles. It was nice reading it back to back with Imagine as well. I remember never finding Dragon half as interesting because the professionalism diminished the mentalism
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The observations of Rascal are interesting case in point:
Writer views their crowd-funding coverage as an attempt to cover new releases but the fact that the coverage is never critical and never involves seeing the actual games means that it comes across to me mire as an attempt to court favour with designers.
For me, this sits in tension with their fondness for producing 'industry watchdog' pieces that you have to pay to read.
@Taskerland It appears I've been ignoring emails from Rascal for months having completely forgotten who they were or why I signed up for that. I don't feel I'm missing out tbh.
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Early WD was such a glorious shambles. There were fantastically weird articles. It was nice reading it back to back with Imagine as well. I remember never finding Dragon half as interesting because the professionalism diminished the mentalism
@Printdevil Yes. White Dwarf was a beautiful painted cover wrapped around 36 pages of text set in a 5 point font with no margins. Some of the scenarios were genius (Albie Fiore's The Lichway is still my personal favourite) while others were just bonkers. You always had to sift through the dirt to find the gold.
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@Printdevil Yes. White Dwarf was a beautiful painted cover wrapped around 36 pages of text set in a 5 point font with no margins. Some of the scenarios were genius (Albie Fiore's The Lichway is still my personal favourite) while others were just bonkers. You always had to sift through the dirt to find the gold.
It also covered whatever games were on the go without favouritism beyond what people wrote. I quite liked their Barbarian class which always seemed more interesting than the Unearthed Arcana one. Much shouting in the D&D over that.
Dragon always seemed so bland. A pabulum of gaming.
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@Taskerland It appears I've been ignoring emails from Rascal for months having completely forgotten who they were or why I signed up for that. I don't feel I'm missing out tbh.
@devilsjunkshop I rate some of the people who write for them but they desperately need an actual editor.
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It also covered whatever games were on the go without favouritism beyond what people wrote. I quite liked their Barbarian class which always seemed more interesting than the Unearthed Arcana one. Much shouting in the D&D over that.
Dragon always seemed so bland. A pabulum of gaming.
@Printdevil I only realised quite recently that Mark Harrison who drew "The Travellers" in White Dwarf is the same artist who draws "The Out" in 2000 AD. But once I made the connection it's obvious it's the same artist.
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I've seen that dynamic and it lead to a group split, with the experimentalists on one side and a "we play DnD, and CoC" on the other.
It was quite amicable, but a lot of it was about people's investment of their time in what they perceived as worthwhile. Some people who only gamed once a week didn't want to play a "might be absolutely trash" game with their one session, and I'm not ill disposed to that reasoning in a short life*
*this is a lie, screw them
@Printdevil @pteryx @Taskerland I think this has been a basic split in the TTRPG scene since nearly the beginning, though I think indie games have become significantly more popular in recent years.
There was the "D20" period, in which they made an earnest effort to generalize D&D's core mechanics. But through most of its history, I think D&D has tended to emphasize its specific or idiosyncratic features. "System mastery" is closely related, but it also plays into something like nostalgia.
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@Printdevil @pteryx @Taskerland I think this has been a basic split in the TTRPG scene since nearly the beginning, though I think indie games have become significantly more popular in recent years.
There was the "D20" period, in which they made an earnest effort to generalize D&D's core mechanics. But through most of its history, I think D&D has tended to emphasize its specific or idiosyncratic features. "System mastery" is closely related, but it also plays into something like nostalgia.
@Printdevil @pteryx @Taskerland I saw a general gaming news site feature an article about potential changes to the ranger class in a future D&D edition. That's a big deal if you only play D&D and rangers are your favorite class. From the perspective of most indie games, I think it's kind of assumed that you'll tweak things on the fly and borrow ideas from other games; it wouldn't even make sense to write about a minor change in the text.
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@Printdevil @pteryx @Taskerland I saw a general gaming news site feature an article about potential changes to the ranger class in a future D&D edition. That's a big deal if you only play D&D and rangers are your favorite class. From the perspective of most indie games, I think it's kind of assumed that you'll tweak things on the fly and borrow ideas from other games; it wouldn't even make sense to write about a minor change in the text.
"Changes to Rangers" is the sort of thing that youtubers thrive on, and that feeds back into the problem with the hobby.
