Saturday, July 18, 2009

Trek and The Great RPG Debate

I had no intention whatsoever on weighing in on this week's Great RPG Industry Debate (short version: "The RPG Industry is Dying and the Enemy is Us" vs "No, You're Just Full of Shit") for two reasons. First, it seems like this comes up every year. Is it always right before Gen Con? Second, I'm annoyed that all of this seems to have sprung from a discussion about Poor Editing in RPGs, and the contention that we should all just suck it up and accept that because The RPG Industry is Dying has now been overshadowed.

Wait, don't go!!! This post isn't what you think. It is not my take on the whole thing. Rather, I just wanted to point to a related piece of wisdom that seems extremely relevant to Trek tabletop RPGs in particular. Over at Trollsmyth there is a post in response to The Debate entitled Supply, Demand, and the Teetering RPG Industry. Note this set of excerpts (emphasis mine):


Even if everything he says is true, it doesn't matter. Why? Because there is a huge number of kids out there reading, writing, and yes, even roleplaying right now...

...But you'll notice I mention nothing about games. Regular readers know what I'm talking about: fanfic and free-form roleplay. It's easy to laugh and dismiss this sort of thing (just as RPGs were laughed at and dismissed in my youth, when they weren't being blamed for suicide and devil worship), but here are a bunch of kids so desperate for roleplay that they have built websites and software and communities to facilitate their play. They've done it all on their own...

...The future is now, and these kids have already, on their own, created the roleplaying experience he's talking about. While they don't yet incorporate things like augmented reality, they take full advantage of cellphone texting and similar echnologies that are available today. That, ladies and gents, is all set to be the roleplaying of tomorrow, and it's got no interest in your rulebooks, dice, or character sheets, thank you very much.
Just last night I had written the following to a friend:


You know, it's not even the endless debates over The Movie that has me down. It's seeming disinterest from those who would rather ponder the effects of the 18 available hand-phaser settings or debate why System X sucks and System Y rules.

And then they wonder why the vast majority of Trek fans decided to forego dice completely and just "sim" on internet boards. Or did they even notice?

I've started a project and every day I just keep thinking of cooler stuff to add to it. It could become pretty big, but now I'm at the point of asking myself whether or not it's worth it. It may only be of interest to a dozen people. I don't really want to do another Enterprise-like project if there's no audience.

Anyway, back to writing and pondering on this. Go check out that link.

7 comments:

  1. It's worth it. Don't let this crap get you down; I've been there, and it always passes. I was this close not to doing my CODA site. I was this close not to working on SotSFTM. I've said "No" to my TAS book countless times.

    This will pass. There will be people out there who want the Next Big Project, whatever it happens to be. Don't give up.

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  2. Thanks for the link!

    While I have a lot of respect for the free-formers, from my (very limited) experience with that sort of gaming, it's not for me. There's too strong a push there to preserve the status quo. When I'm playing an RPG, and we give a certain amount of authority to a GM, it gives us all sorts of freedom to really color outside the lines. We don't have to preserve the status quo, because it's our game, and we can do wacky things like blow up Vulcan or kill Spock's mom if we want to. ;)

    That, I think, is the big strength that RPGs have over free-form, which is even larger than avoiding the I-shot-you-no-you-didn't arguments. As it's also the strength that pen-and-paper play has over computer games, I believe it should be a central theme to what people aim for in the stuff they make for RPGs. It's one of the reasons I love Jeff Reints' crazy random tables so much, even though I rarely use them much myself.

    - Brian

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  3. Don't give up if you think there's value in it. It's definitely worth it. To be honest when I started doing a Savage Worlds conversion, GURPS Star Trek and my FASA crewlist monstrosity I wondered the same thing but if you find value in it and pleasure in the writing and creative effort then stick with it. In comparison to many games, i've played very little Trek over the years, but i've done far more writing and figuring out for it than any other game. And it always give me the most pleasure. If others find value in your project, as i'm sure many of us will, then all the better. Any chance of a hint btw?

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  4. Don't let the debate get you down. Have fun with what you are doing, and play games to play games. I find the whole debate to be an exercise in futility, and even though I chimed in, I still maintain that this industry is not as dead as others want you to believe.

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  5. That was some heavy reading, thanks for the multi-links. If simming is as big as I'm hearing, I can believe the Doom of RPGs is Nigh.

    I need to get to work on sucking my boys and the neighborhood kids into PnP games!

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  6. Thanks guys. Between catching up on sleep, some common sense encouragement from you guys and others, and the inevitable burst of creativity over the weekend, I'm much better now. Hint coming soon, Steve.

    I still think this simming thing is a pen-and-paper steamroller. Looked into it more this weekend and can't believe how much is out there. There was one discussion on one board that echoed exactly what I said: one guy was asking about PbP with an RPG system on their board, and everyone who chimed in was just confused. "Dice? What are these dice of which you speak???"

    I was going to do a post on it, but best for me just to move on!

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  7. Hey, not sure if this is still on anyone's mind, but I just stumbled onto the debate.

    I'm a bit of a 'simmer' as you guys put it, or 'freeformer' as I've always heard it. It was how I got into roleplaying, and is still more or less 99.9% of what I do.

    I'll say this: Even if I don't use the rules, I've still got quite a few PDFs I've purchased purely for setting info. While rules and dice might die out as popular methods, the idea of books with nothing but useful setting info and ways to use it aren't gonna die. I know quite a few people who make heavy use of things like official encyclopedias and wikis for various media settings for this reason.

    Also, as to the thing mentioned about a preservation of the status quo: This only happens in larger stuff based in media settings, or with those scared to go a little nuts. Anything /I/ do(and if anyone's curious, I'm always up for running a one-on-one game) is going to end with the setting looking nothing like how it started. When you get people willing to get outside the lines, or given a lack of lines(a non-media setting with no 'canon' to conform to), things get nuts.

    If people are still following this whole mess and are curious about things, I'll try to answer as many questions as I can.

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