The Narrativist Community

[Christopher Kubasik]

I have no idea where to dump this thread, so I'm putting it here.

Whither GenCon?

Sure, RPGs are where all our gaming concerns grew from. But when I read about The Questing Beast or Wuthering Heights, I'm absolutely certain something is happening independent of, or at only parrallel to, what we normally think of as the "gaming market."

This came to mind, because in another thread I suggested I might bring The Questing Beast to help fellow students with tool we're learning about Screenwriting.

Let's see:

* The rules for these games don't require a weekend to read. Ron wraps up the rules for TQB in eight sentences.

* They're counterintuitive for people who like, or are used to, Simulationist designs (which means people who've never liked what we think of as RPGs might actually like these)

* Many people in the RPG market have already made their preferences clear, while we have no idea how a english teacher might react to the opportunity of setting up a program with The Pool for a creative writing class.

What I'm getting at, too delicately perhaps, is...

* There's a reason RPGs were dominated by people with pocket calculators in the shirt pockets in the early years (Simulationists, right?)

* People in the humanities might have been turned off by all those calculators (my mom does PR for computer software, and she's explained that getting new, good, programs into English classes is almost impossible while folks at tech fairs go gagga over software they'll never use)

* Having read the touchy posts from people responding to GNS, and the GNS posts being touchy back (and I include myself -- I know how grating portions of the The Interactive Toolkit were, and I can't blame it all on Inphobia's "In your face, muthafucka' " editorial agenda) maybe everybody should take a look at the last page of Ron's tome and remember: maybe most of the people at GenCon don't want to play your game. Maybe we should leave them alone.  Maybe we could be happier finding our own tribe.

(Go to GenCon, of course, because some people will see them as mana from heaven.  But...)

Maybe there's a whole fuckin' world of people who don't need to be converted, dragged in, exposed.  Maybe you'll just show them the game and they'll go... "Oh."  And sit down and play.

I mean, it is possible.

A pipe dream, perhaps.  But I really, really think, even if that' market is still no larger than the current RPG market, it probably has yet to be tapped.

Think of it as four-color long john comic books vs. scratchy black and white angst comic books.  Same thing kind of.  But mostly selling to different people, with animosity flung back and forth because they're being sold in the same store and each group doesn't know what the hell that crap is over on the other side of the shop.  Wouldn't it be nice just to hang out in a store for us?  No video games.  Oak tables, brandy sniffers, shelves lines with books.... Jesus, where the hell's my brain going...?

I'm talking about marketing, I'm talking about target audience.  I can read both kinds of comic books, and I'm sure all of us like different kinds of games.  I'm saying, "What about all those people who will inately like Narrativist games and would never play the others?"

I don't have a game to sell, so I'm just tossing it out there to you guys.

****

As a side, but pertinant, arguement, remember, the games at this site are not an "advancement" over other games.  This, I think, is what has slowed the progress of Narrativist games -- the need to keep building on old design premises.  Over at RPG.net I was having a discussion with someone about Nobilis, saying it could be someone's intro to RPGs instead of D&D.  He didn't buy it.  He saw Nobilis as something you grow into out of the other games.

But that's like assuming you need to first use a lawn mower to cut grass before you use it to get cross town.  You're really better off using the tool designed to cut grass for the one, a tool designed to get cross town for the other.  Some of these new games are different enough that you don't have to "grow" into them.  They're just ready to go -- but different.

And so, again, might appeal to markets no one has really thought about yet.

[joshua neff]

Christopher--

First of all, I don't know if you know this, but the Forge has this rep for being pro-narrativist & anti-simulationist & gamist. I don't think it's true at all. It's just that we narrativists tend to get kind of carried away with enthusiasm over new, narrativist design. (The only equal zeal I've seen so far is over Clinton's gamist Donjon Krawl, which I really, really wanna play.) Now, I mean this in the best possible way, but boy, you aren't going to help that rep any with posts like this.

That being said, I totally agree with you.

Jesus, where do I even start?

I think the idea that D&D is the best RPG to start anyone on is so laughable it hurts. It boggles my mind that people can even believe that. It's the best game to start people who would like D&D, sure. But what about all those people out there (& there are a lot of them, be sure about that) that won't ever in a million years be into D&D. Does that mean they'll never like RPGs at all? Not just no, but hell no. Why not start them with Story Engine or The Pool? I think either of those would be great games to start people with. I could see starting someone with Nobilis, too. (Sure, some of the concepts are kind of hard-to-grasp, although Gareth runs it at cons & that's in Ireland*. Besides, the mechanics are pretty simple. I bet I could put a bunch of Sandman freaks who have never played RPGs in a room & get them playing Nobilis in no time. And if I couldn't, I bet Gareth could.)

What turns a lot of people off to RPGs who might otherwise enjoy playing them? I think gaming stores, for one thing. They're only friendly to gamers & guys-who-should-be-gamers (you know, those guys Jared can't stand). I've met countless numbers of people (to be honest, mostly women) who have expressed a curiosity towards RPGs, but then wrinkle their noses & say, "I had a brother/cousin/boyfriend/roommate who played D&D & when I watched him & his friends play, it looked so boring. All those numbers & stuff." If I explain, say, Story Engine to them, they light up & say, "Oh, well, that could be interesting."

Now, I don't think narrativists are a separate breed or anything. I don't think most people are one thing or the other. Sure, I almost exclusively enjoy story-generating games. But I can play other stuff & enjoy it, too. Most people can. So, I'm not in favor of seceding from the hobby or anything. But I think branching out to other areas--the bookstore crowd, the coffeeshop crowd, the indie music store crowd, etc--would be a good thing.

* That's a joke, by the way. We all know the Irish are smart. Well, most of us know it, anyway.

[James V. West]

This came to mind, because in another thread I suggested I might bring The Questing Beast to help fellow students with tool we're learning about Screenwriting.

Which thread, Christoper? I've been Forge-delinquent for a few days.

I do use my games to design stories. My comic ANOMALIC (ran for 6 issues) was loosely based on an old game I ran. I'm using the TQB rules to write some sample Romances for the new version. Its friggin fun.

* The rules for these games don't require a weekend to read. Ron wraps up the rules for TQB in eight sentences.

Ron has a habit of taking something I wrote in 11 paragraphs and making one sentence out of it that makes more sense and is cooler. Damn his eyes.

And I certainly do agree that story games do not get marketed to the right crowd in most cases. Exactly like comics. Nothing snooty about it, it's just the truth. If I want to sell a comic about the grief of losing a grandparent PREVIEWS is not really the ideal place to do it..and yet there are few alternatives.

I sense the same thing is going to hold true for rpgs more and more in the near future.

[Mike Holmes]

Hey, I am one of those calculator-toting types for whom the Game Store was created. Yep, you might even call me a Simulationist (I like to think that I'm an Omni-ist, but that's another story). The point is that The Forge is about Indie RPGs, not just Narrativist RPGs. And GenCon is a fine place to get the word out about a lot of this stuff (and to gt together with all these crazy folks).

OTOH, I totally agree with your point about the potentially large "non-gamer" market.

Now, if you'll just point the way to the "non-gamers" game convention, maybe I can attend that too. What's that? I'm not invited? Well, I never...

;-)

Mike

[Christopher Kubasik]

Joshua,

I know there are plenty of reason why people won't bump into these new games.  I'm just trying to offer up some energy for getting them out of the expected channels and into new hands.

Also, I know the post could be interpretted to mean bad blood -- but what to do?  Ron's right.  Play with the people you want to play with, and stop making yourself and others unhappy by trying to make a mix that doesn't work.  It's not a judgement.  It's taste -- and there's nothing to do about that.

Mike,

As I've made clear in several posts, I too am a omni-ist (everybody is to one degree or another).  And as I said in the post, everyone should go to GenCon -- for the exact same reasons you mention.  Plus -- It's fun!  My post is about trying to get out of the box of thinking in terms of RPG channels as being the propper, and only, ones to use.

For example, if anyone thought that the educational market was a good option, there are teachers conferences that look just like the retailer area of GenCon all over the country every year.

(It is just so tricky to discuss one type of gaming without people interpretting you as dissing the other types, isn't it? I know I didn't denigrate simulationists in the first post -- I just said there are different type of people with different tastes, and so far RPGs have catered to one kind, and Story Games might cater to a different kind.  Is there really a way out of this?  I'm beginning to think not.)

James--

I really think it depends on how hard and how interested you are in getting your game out there.  There's a clothing designer who couldn't get into the department stores.  He set up shop in a trailer on the streets of Manhatten, told the police he was with a film crew (he got the permit for that), and started selling his wares.

The angle I was taking was not about game stores per se, but but literature, books, teaching, writing programs. Things like that.

[Christopher Kubasik]

More:

James --

I can't remember where I mentioned my screen writing class, but I think its in the GNS folder, under Abstract Premise.

Everyone --

And I think I can safely say the only people who came off bad in the first post are the English teachers who won't look at good software because they don't "get" technology.  (Whever that means.)

Finally,

The threads called the Narrativist Community because I'm thinking: "How do I get more people playing these kinds of games, because that way I could have more people to play with?"

I didn't mean to imply I was staking out this Web site for only such games -- though I can see how some people might read it that way.  Sorry if there's was confusion.  

No. This is like... Oh... Having a discussion thread for Buffy over at the Yahoo TV site.  We could put everyone who watches any TV all in one discussion thread, or we could have certain threads focused on one show or one kind of show.  

People in the Buffy thread, who probably talk mighty gushily and with great admiration about Buffy, might even, gasp, watch other shows and other kinds of shows.  But for the moment, they're focusing on the joy and concerns of Buffy.

They dont' hate Sixty Minutes.  They don't hate Monday Night football. They might even watch those shows.  (They might even watch Monday Night Football and still note, "Per capita, I've noticed more women watch Buffy than Monday night football."  They're just focusing the topic to Buffy right then, because it makes conversations -- you know -- possible.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Couple ideas along this line I've had (mentioned briefly in my game description over in the Design forum - I even labeled them as likely pipe dreams . . . weird) -

Turn your game into a "Make your own RPG" computer program and sell it in the computer game channel.  Might be a hard sell, and it would probably need tons of very good (i.e., expensive) art to stand a chance.

Find a way to package your game like a board game - even have the play be a little more like a board game.   Sell in the "normal" toy/Monopoly-like game channel.  Maybe use a licensed-property tie in.  Again, I imagine this would be expensive (packaging and components for a board game *must* be more than an RPG book), especially if you're following the license path.

None of this precludes the "regular" RPG-hobby markets - but it sure would be nice to see our hobby move beyond that box.  I'm an SPI/Avalon Hill wargamer from way back, and I sure have nothing against "traditional" RPGs - I'm playing plenty o' DD3e lately - but neither do I think that needs to be "all there is".

Gordon

[joshua neff]

Christopher--

Yeah, you're right, there's probably no way out of this one. Heh. Welcome to my world. ("No, but what I meant was...was...oh, bugger.")

That being said--you're right. The name of the thread is "Narrativist community", and that's what we should be discussing.

So...yep, I agree with you. Completely. We should move narrativist games out of the gaming store (not remove them, just spread them out). I don't think it should be a case of "Roleplaying games? No way, man. Them's is for geeks. I do something else." (Which goes along with your point about how narrativist games aren't better, they aren't an evolution, they're just something else. We're not talking about hierarchies here.) Just explore other ways to spread the narrativist groove.

[Christopher Kubasik]

For the purpose of a handle for promotion, wouldn't Story Games make a lot more sense?

I suppose, at least, that's what I'm talking abut.  When I think of, say, TQB, I'm thinking about a game where the process of making the story is distributed around the table, with each person having a concentration for the story as well.

I mean... Story Game sounds so cuddly!

(Note that this is different from Storyteller.  As that name implies, there's someone telling the story.  In this schema, the story is being told by all.)

[mearls]

So...yep, I agree with you. Completely. We should move narrativist games out of the gaming store (not remove them, just spread them out).

I really agree with this. I think part of the problem of "pushing the envelope" in terms of narrativist design is that the core audience for games like D&D, Warhammer 40k, Magic, and so on, aren't necessarily looking for the experience offered by narrativist designs. The issue right now is that people tend to "evolve" their tastes to narrativism, rather than hopping right to their place of best fit, so to speak. I wonder how many potential players have been turned off by D&D when a game like The Pool would've been much more in line with what they wanted. I really think that designers and publishers should do a better job of branching out to non-traditional venues for marketing, sales, promotion, exposure, etc.

This is a topic I've been thinking over, and I made a rather primordial presentation of my basic ideas over on Gaming Outpost. To summarize my feelings, I don't think the term "game" fits for narrativist designs. If you ask someone to play a game, I think they come to the table with a few assumptions:

* Rules that act to keep the action "fair" while covering every possibility in the game.
* Competition between players.
* Resolution: someone wins.

(Sound familiar?)

Despite claims to the contrary, D&D and games like it fill these roles (or at least give the illusion of filling them.) People most definitely win in D&D. At my weekly game, you can easily define winning as "defeating monsters and gaining levels" and losing as "getting a character killed."

I think that, in the long term, evolving a new term for narrativist designs and a separate but not superior identity would help the users and producers of both methods of design.

- Mearls

[Dav]

This is more geared toward the theory of Josh's statement of moving Narrativist Games into other venues in addition to traditional outlets.  


While I agree wholeheartedly with the claim that Nar. Games can be effectively marketed and utilized by the average norm (non-gamer), on the whole, there exists a problem with logistics.

While Apophis does some of its best business out of 99th Floor, Evil Clown, and Medusa's Circle (for those of you in the Chicago EBM or Bondage Scene), there remains an issue of 1) respectability (which, honestly, is not really an issue, but many people have a problem selling their books next to dildos and nipple clamps); and 2) introduction.  It takes a dreadful amount of effort to obtain enough trust with a shopkeeper who has no idea what the fuck an RPG is, much less who the hell you happen to be.  I argued and bitched for some time, and the great deciding factor happened to be the fact that I am a regular at these shops.  However, I am suggesting (and going out on a limb here) that most people are not going to be regulars at shops such as these.  

While the universal maxim of: friends are the best suckers largely holds true for the purposes of selling product, recruiting them to become representatives and agents for a product that really likely cannot afford to compensate their time is rather trying on the nerves.  Also, while Sorcerer, Obsidian, Little Fears, and many "mature" (oh, quotes were never so aptly used) themed games fit perfectly in subcultural outlets and venues, I am hesitant to suggest that they may sell from the store to the public.  Moon Mystique, in Chicago (and Iowa City, if any unfortunate bastard happens to be near *that* particular hell), and other "magick" shops or alternative lifestyle shops (see Dav.  See Dav be politically correct.) are what I would suggest as the best bet for bringing non-traditional gaming publics to the forefront.

However, I am thinking that many may be targetting more "respectable" (and by this I mean, more profitable and public) outlets as viable avenues of sale.  I argue that, largely, they are not.  While Ingram distribution (which handles Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.) will take ANYTHING, they only take two copies.  If those move in good order, they take four, then eight, then sixteen (any calculators or tech-heads should see a pattern).  Trust me, I have special ordered a total of 10 copies of my own product to gain visibility and decent distribution through Ingram.

While punk attitudes face us in terms of openness with our concepts, production, and standard distribution, most of us seem to lose our basement-style techniques when faced with the larger public.  I think that before we can truly discuss viable avenues of secondstream selling, we need to first come to reasonable consensus of what constitutes our concept of alternative buying markets.  I also think the gloves need to come off in terms of our polite terms and thinking.

For instance, Obsidian sells in EBM and Bondage scenes due to art and high gore factor.  Not what I like to see in my own sweat and tears going to find new homes, but money creates a fine balm for ideals.  CONTENT is what sells Obsidian.  It is not system, it is style.  Apophis enjoys a nice secondstream market because we can don the leather and spikes and talk their language.  Attitude and setting.  I am selling window dressing in hopes of gaining respectable recognition later.  I think this is, by and large, the ONLY way to gain any type of secondstream exposure in any great degree.  

Vampire, for all its reviled hellishness and corporate cool-sucking power, sells on IMAGE.  So?  You move product, maintain sustainable business, and eventually, someone actually reads that fancy green book and says "holy shit, this is a GAME!"

I see nothing wrong with rampant capitalism (which I know at least some of you are opposed to, but welcome to the world).  I feel confident in saying that those following the White Wolf marketing scheme can actually gain a noticeable increase in sales in less than three months.  It merely takes sweat and grime, and the hard sell.  However, I argue that you should examine what subcultures your game is geared toward, and whaat subcultures you know.  Start there, build a better mousetrap.


Dav

[wyrdlyng]

But I think branching out to other areas--the bookstore crowd, the coffeeshop crowd, the indie music store crowd, etc--would be a good thing.

An obvious way to generate interest in a game is by playing it in public.

Take a simple game which has minimal physical requirements (like not needing an entire bookshelf of books and supplements to play or needing a 2'x2' hexmap), get some friends together and head over to the nearby Starbucks. So long as you don't disrupt the other patrons and buy some coffee management will leave you alone.

Odds are pretty good that you'll get a few curious people come up and ask what you're doing. If you have a few premade characters which can slip into the session easily then they can join in on the spot. If the game's developer has a website you can hand out cards with the address. Even if you don't get anyone to ask you've still played a game and had fun.

For several years a friend of mine used this tactic to build a local community for the Shadowfist CCG. We'd play a game and have some beginner decks in case someone wanted to join in and learn. We met a lot of people who probably wouldn't be caught dead in your typical game store but were curious about these games.

The main thing would be to keep these open games small and non-rowdy to stay in the good graces of wherever you choose to play. If people become interested you can get together with them at someone's home for a larger game.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

A lot of different points of view and good ideas have cropped up on this thread, but I'm going to take it all the way back to Christopher's first. I suggest that things are brighter than they seem.

I suggest that quite a few people who are good "Narrativist market" still frequent game stores.

I also suggest that coherent RPG design of just about any sort could hit a wider market than its current demographic.

So that's two points that seem a bit counter to one another, but they're not - it strikes me that a store could do quite nicely by (1) hitting those folks in game stores who aren't that happy with most of the offerings (thus concerning oneself only with a subset of actual designated "gamers") and (2) hitting those folks "out there" who aren't in game stores who might like this New Sort of Stuff.

The situation is precisely the same as what faced comics ten years ago. Remember the typical comics store? Some still exist - all based on hype, movie tie-ins, massive speculation on designated collectables, and multiple titles for given properties. Most of these are now gone; they operated in a fashion guaranteed to destroy their own user base. Now, the successful comics stores emphasize a diversity of titles and proudly display their "creator-owned" sections, as well as focusing on what people (not "comics fans") like: biography, horror, humor, science fiction, surreal-fantasy, urban-fantasy, and sex. These stores do just fine; they have superheroes, sure, but nicely tucked away on a shelf in back without need for fanfare or blowup Wolverines in the window.

These stores are targeting (1) those unhappy comics readers of ten years ago who really wanted more and different stuff, whether it was Cerebus, Sandman, Omaha the Cat Dancer, Maus, Strangers in Paradise, or The Preacher; and (2) those previously non-comics-readers whose taste (shock!) accords nicely with #1. Since that taste is precisely what people buy in books, and happily watch in movies, these stores are selling to the real mainstream public. And look ... they can make the overhead for the better part of town, and they stay in business ...

Will this happen with role-playing? It might. Certainly, most of the stores with which I am familiar are headed the route of most comics stores of ten years ago, and the key to the success of those who will remain seems the same to me as well. When and if the big store-crunch comes, the few retailers who stay in business will be looking for the "little games who really sell," just as comics stores had to. Five years ago, or so, Dave Sim smiled broadly and provided a ton of Cerebus phone books to retailers who begged him to help save their stores. Tons of other self-publishers or small-press publishers said, "Why sure, I'll be happy to continue to provide my collected series paperbacks." Usagi Yojimbo sits proudly, collections #1-8 or so, in a nice row up front in the store - and it ain't the same eight copies every month.

So therefore I don't see much need to do anything besides provide as good a role-playing product as I can, and to get appreciation of the games' use as well-established as I can among the customer base. I am, in my way, both a patient and rather vicious man. I look across the way RPGs are sold, and across the way that people buy and play them. I think that I can read the writing on the wall. Time, as they say, is on my side.

Best,
Ron