Everyone's a Gamer: A Rant

[ADGBoss]

What if everyone doesn't play roleplaying games?  What if some people know what RPGs are, and aren't interested?

You are right, of course.  Everyone enjoys roleplaying but everyone may not enjoy roleplaying games.

Well I think maybe we can take that argument a bit deeper. Fundamentally not everyone likes to pretend.  Yes I know these people and they hate having to use their imagination. Put them in front of a video game and they play it, either alone or in a group but never once does suspension of disbelief ever come into play.  Yet many of these non-pretenders like to play role playing games. Go figure cause I sure have not figured out why yet.  The best I can come up with is a social justification because it is what their friends are doing or its considered edgy (geeky? lol) and non-mainstream.

Ethan you threw down a wide range of things in my opinion and then convieniently said you don't want to talk about them.  Frankly, I get the impression that Issue #1 & Issue #2 are completely irrelevant to your initial rant.  That is to say there is something deeper going on here.

So, here's the basic premise: Everyone enjoys role-playing. Everyone. There are no exceptions. Every child pretends. Every culture has traditions of storytelling. Everyone enjoys role-playing, period.

If that's true (and it is), the obvious question is, why is the RPG gaming industry such a tiny portion of the entertainment industry? Why is role-playing a niche market in a niche market?

Ok first as noted I am not sure that this IS true.  Everyone does not role play or enjoys role playing, even if they play role playing games.  I suppose thats debatable but lets just say I am not sure everyone likes to pretend in the way you suggest.

So the real question is why does the Hobby not have a much larger market share? Simple answer is it's sexy but not SEXY.  It involves thought and time, both of which are in short supply these days.  That we are even here having this discussion is pretty amazing considering the popularity of Halo and MMORPG's and the video/visual game Industry.  Also we lack a beach head in some of the niche markets, like Africa for instance where they still do read books :) Now I know there are a great many more issues with why RPG's may not be selling hard in Africa but I would think they could if a way could be found to break down language and cultural barriers.

Ok sorry for the digression.

So in simple terms I answered the question as best I can and none of the answers are rage worthy. So I ask, why the rage? Hey I feel it myself some days but it seems you have some more.... much more to say about the Hobby / Industry.

So what is it you are really trying to get at here? I for one am definitely interested in hearing it.

Thanks

Sean

[JackBauer]

Another problem is that Christian Fundamentalists (AKA, "Fundies", as irreverent people like me call them) have raised a giant fuss over anyone playing any kind of RPGs. They have convinced a lot of people that all "gamers" are satanists, nasty, or just wierd, and probably all child molesters as well, this has created a giant stigma that makes people who want to play them shy away from them, and overbearing Fundy parents have made it so that their children, who actually may NOT have had the creativity beaten out of them by their parents allready, can not get their hands on gaming materials.

To commemorate their, ahem, "Contribution" to the closed-mindedness to RPGs, I suggest making an irreverent game about them.


A title I had in mind is
"Damn Fundies: Beat those Beady-Eyed Bible-Beating Bastards Bloody"
AKA "DF:BBEBBBB"

[ethan_greer]

Tony, I think we're agreeing. I see high-level roleplaying games like tap shoes, or balerina slippers or whatever. I see Monopoly or chess being your average sneaker. Somewhere in the middle is where I'd like to see role-playing games eventually positioning themselves. I suppose progress is being made towards that end, but it seems painfully slow and often hampered by the people who would most benefit from that end being reached.

Sarge, I think you're also basically agreeing with me and Tony on the issue, am I correct? That basically the role-playing hobby isn't as popular as it seems like it should be?

I 100% agree that playing role-playing games is not a universal thing. But role-playing is a universal thing, so shouldn't marketing games and pushing them into the mainstream be easier than it has been thus far?  I think so, and I blame the factors I listed in my first post.

Sean,
Gah, I do this a lot. I get all puffed up about something, and go off like a balloon being let go. Then I get talked back down to a calmer sort of discourse in the ensueing thread. Ah well.  I did say it was a rant at the very beginning.

So, to speak to your point: I think that everyone enjoys pretending. All children pretend. Some are better at it than others, but they all do it. I think it's very likely that at some level, much of that pretending could be considered role-playing. Now, I'm assuming the people you're talking about who don't like pretending are older people, no longer children, and have followed the cultural currents that deemphasize imagination and pretending among adults. I don't know for sure, but that's my guess. When these people you mention were two and three-year-olds, I imagine they spent a lot of time pretending, and quite likely some of it was role-playing.

As to what I'm really trying to get at, I think my second post in this thread is me getting off the soapbox and initiating the discussion. (Thanks to Jonathan for the prodding!) I don't know that I have a lot of rage about the hobby and industry, but some of the trends in role-playing do get to me sometimes, and that's what a large part of my first post was about.

[ethan_greer]

Hi Jack,
It's true that groups of people get worked up about things that other groups do.

But, for the sake of this thread, let's please, please, PLEASE not go there.

[JackBauer]

Another good use for bible pages: Sopping up the blood of dead Fundies.

Okay, there we go, my anti-"Christian" rant has ended.

I just get sick of people who claim they are such good "patriots", and then trash the very freedoms that our founding fathers fought for *COUGH*republicans*COUGH*((Okay, now the rant is REALLY over.))

[ADGBoss]

As to what I'm really trying to get at, I think my second post in this thread is me getting off the soapbox and initiating the discussion. (Thanks to Jonathan for the prodding!) I don't know that I have a lot of rage about the hobby and industry, but some of the trends in role-playing do get to me sometimes, and that's what a large part of my first post was about.

Ethan

Ok cool to comment on the seoncd post, I think they are "reactionary" but that doesn't mean they do not have merit.  My impression is fundamentally your list is attempting to take some of the Hobby, even if that "some" is yourself and take the art in a new direction.  A bit of revolution or evolution is a good thing.

You have to be true to your Art and I believe that to be true for all of us. Generic Advice but I hope it was worth the electronic space. :)

Sean

[lumpley]

Ethan: cool!  I agree with you absolutely that roleplaying games could reach a wider and more mainstream audience, if they were designed to be less, y'know, sucky.  (Although I'm not a "wider audience" guy myself - I want more non-sucky games so I can play them, not so that some audience somewhere can.)

I suppose progress is being made towards that end, but it seems painfully slow...

I've been meaning to post for a while about our impatience here at the Forge vs. the actual pace of innovation in roleplaying.  Which is, in fact, slow, because innovations depend on actual play, which is a months-and-years thing, not a weeks-and-months thing.

-Vincent

[Erick Wujcik]

I love, love, love this!

Great job, Ethan!

A couple of comments before I get to my main points:

1.

So, here's the basic premise: Everyone enjoys role-playing.

I'm not totally sold on this point.

While 'everyone' may enjoy role-playing, there are subsets of the population who (1) are a bit too literal or concrete to participate in a role-playing game, (2) while just as imaginative as anyone else in their own heads, lack the social skills or tools to participate in group role-playing, (3) for whom the step-by-step, procedural, conventions of role-playing are boring, or (4) have other quirks that will keep them from being functional group role-players.

At least that's been my experience.

2.

...why is the RPG gaming industry such a tiny portion of the entertainment industry? Why is role-playing a niche market in a niche market?

Consider that reading itself is a 'niche,' and you've got part of the answer.

Even a mega-blockbuster like "Harry Potter" only sells to a fraction of the total population (not a bad fraction, over 5 million initially in the U.S. for #4, but out of a population of nearly 300 million).

Most telling are the annual recountings of Science Fiction book sales in Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction, where the market just keeps dropping and dropping.

Take the general population, sort out (1) those who read, (2) those who read fiction, (3) those who read non-realistic, fantastic fiction, and then (4) those with the patience for procedural rules and the social skills for group role-playing. In sum, role-playing is "a niche market in a niche market."


Now, back to Ethan's Manifesto:

1. I will stop calling them RPGs.  I don't write RPGs; I write story games.

2. I will not sell in the normal "gaming" channels.  I will not sell my for-download products at RPGNow.  I will sell them at Lulu.com or some similar general-interest venue.  I will not sell my for-print products (if I ever have any) through standard gaming distribution channels.  I will sell them through Borders and Amazon.com.

3. In my texts, I will not explain what role-playing is.  I will limit myself to explaining how to play the game in question.

4. In my texts, I will make no assumptions about the reader.  Everything gets explained at least once.

5. I will not adhere to the conventions of the hobby. (i.e. you won't see NPC, PC, XP, GM, RPG, XdY, or the like anywhere in my games.)  I will create conventions for the individual game as appropriate when necessary (which will be rarely, I suspect).

I really, really like this list!

Let me take a stab at a re-write, probably a bit too wordy, and posting my rationale for changes below:

Ethan Greer's Manifesto, Version 2.0[/b]

1. I will stop marketing what I do under the label of RPG, Role-Playing Game, or anything commonly found in our genre market. Heck, let me see if I can even stop calling what I do games or gaming. Instead I'll be creative, descriptive and flat-out entertaining.

2. I will sell my product at every available general-interest venue, through Amazon.com, and wherever I can. In fact, I'll set up shop anywhere and everywhere, on the web and in person, conduct entertaining demonstrations to whoever comes my way, and 'sell' what I do without setting preconditions on my audience.


3. In my texts, I will not explain what role-playing is. I will limit myself to explaining how to play the game in question.

4. I will not adhere to the conventions of the hobby. You won't see the alphabet soup of NPC, PC, XP, GM, RPG, XdY, or the like anywhere in my texts. Nor will I use any such concepts as 'character,' 'Game Master,' 'wandering monster,' 'treasure' or 'trap,' unless the design of the product absolutely requires it; and even then I will customize such things so they fit invisibly into the overall tone and writing of the texts. I will create or include conventions for the individual game as appropriate, and only when necessary.

  4a. I will eliminate, to the maximum extent possible, any mechanisms associated with the genre, including the use of dice and mechanical resolution methods. Indeed, I will attempt to eliminate anything physical or mechanical that serves as a barrier to casual play.

  4b. I will attempt to eliminate look-up or reference tables; statistics or attributes; percentiles, ratios or odds; character sheets, tokens or counters; indeed, any accepted genre conventions.

5. In my texts, I will make no assumptions about the reader. I will explain everything clearly, at least once, so there are no preconditions or prerequisites.

  5a. I will attempt to provide an opportunity for people to exercise their creativity and imagination, their sense of humor and their story-telling ability, to the most novel and personally fulfilling extent possible, I will encourage my readers and consumers to make maximum use of their own ideas and concepts.

  5b. I will trust that my reader is my equal, fully capable of recognizing a fun activity, and fully capable of organizing groups of people to share in it, and fully capable of spreading and perpetuating what I have created.

Notes:

#1: it seems better to leave 'game' out of the assumptions.

#2: From the previous postings, it's clear that #2 needed to be ammended so there was no prohibition against selling through conventional RPG channels. I personally think that the 'demo process' is critical (I've had a couple of game concepts 'go national' after just a handful of playtests; the first Gencon "Amber Diceless" mini-campaign, for example, spawned at least a couple of dozen groups all over the U.S.), so I added that in. I thought "lulu," and even "Borders," were too specific, especially if this Manifesto becomes widely distributed... but "Amazon" is a worldwide.

#3: Perfect as is.

#4 (Previous): This seems out of sequence to me. So I shifted it down to #5.

#4 (formerly #5): I love this, but I want to go beyond simply deleting the acronyms, and try to dump all the other baggage.

#4a: This is based on my own experience with Amber, since I've found that eliminating dice has brought many new people into the fold. This especially applies to women, many of whom have told me that they were uncomfortable with the mechanisms of role-playing (and the domineering attitude of male gamers telling them "roll this," "look up that," and "let me explain the rules"). Also, it seems pretty obvious that the fewer physical requirements to the product, the wider the possible applications (in the car, in the dark, etc.).

#4b: Again, a lot of this stuff is a turn-off to people who are, at some level or other, repulsed by wargames, or even parlor games. There are math-phobics who hate numbers, even to the extent of having to substract or multiply single digits. And lots and lots of people are turned off from games in general because of bad experiences with chess or Monopoly (as an arrogant child, I probably soured hundreds on gaming in my quest to crush any opponents in a wide range of games).

#5: I very much liked what was formerly #4 ("I will make no assumptions about the reader. Everything gets explained at least once"). Of all the elements of Ethan's Manifesto, this is the strongest and most compelling. I'm just trying to make it more specific when I refer to "preconditions or prerequisites."

#5a: Maybe this isn't necessary, but it's one of my main goals.

#5b: My opinion, but I believe it needs to be stated that the reader must be respected as a partner and participant.

Please, folks, feel free to steal, modify, and put up your own versions of Ethan's Manifesto. I like where this is going!

Erick

[Jonathan Walton]

Damn.

I'm just going to have to print out a copy of the Greer/Wujcik Manifesto and paste it on the wall of my room.  It's almost an exact description of what I, as both player and designer, want from "second wave," "post-Forge" indie RPGs.

Nice job, both of you.

[rafial]

Woah...  It's "Dogme '04".

(to be less cryptic -- it sounds in spirit similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95 applied to "what it is we do here.")

[ethan_greer]

Golly! Thanks for the kudos, fellas!

Erick, you make some good points about the size of the market. The examples and numbers you cite kinda puts it in a better perspective.

And hey, you also mention Harry Potter.  Harry Potter is cool. You know what I think sucks? I think it sucks that out of that 5 million who buy the books, when and if a role-playing game is licensed (which seems inevitable), only a small portion will buy the game. And of those who do buy it, only a handful will actually play it. Why? Because they'll look at the rules, with its three hundred pages of weird numbers, when to roll this die for that statistic but only on Tuesdays when it's raining, all fluffed up with material they already know from reading the books. And then they'll say, "WTF is this supposed to be?" and go do something fun.

If you're not sold on "Everyone enjoys role-playing," as several of you have stated, how about, "Everyone enjoys pretending at some point in their lives?"

Altering the basic premise changes the question a little bit. Instead of asking why RPGs aren't totally mainstream, one might ask why RPGs are such a hard sell to most people.

*  *  *

Anyway, regarding Erick's stab at the manifesto:

1: Dunno about eliminating "game." Depending on the product, it could probably go either way. But I agree that "gaming" as a label for what we do could stand to go.

2: I really, really like this spin on my original #2. Excellent!

3: Yep.

4 and 5: I agree with the change in order.

4: Cool. The only complaint I have here is a very vague one - it seems like the wording could be softened a bit, but I'm not sure how.  I'm totally on board with the general idea (obviously), but as written it comes across as a bit extreme. However, I've been trying for ten minutes, and I can't come up with a way to soften it to my liking. Somebody wanna hook me up?

4a: While I agree that a lot of games take the amount of required paraphernalia too far, this clause is worded a bit too extremely for my tastes. I also think that 4b should be folded into 4a.

My proposed ammendments:

4a: I will not thoughtlessly embrace the use of extraneous paraphernalia, such as dice, minature figurines, maps, charts, reference tables, character sheets, and the like. I will include such elements only when they are absolutely vital in creating the play experiences I want the product to promote.

5: Beautiful. Rounds out the concept I was going for perfectly.

*  *  *

I'm with Erick: Copy, modify, augment, whatever. But do share!

[SlurpeeMoney]

I've been thinking about this for some time, basically from when I first entered the hobby some fifteen years ago. How do you make "interactive social entertainments" more accessable to the general public while keeping them available and enjoyable for long-time participants?

I've had a few thoughts of my own, that I will add into the base that Messirs Greer and Wujcik have built. Justifications will be found below.

(On a side note, I hate writing names I cannot pronounce in my head; how exactly does one pronounce Wujcik?)

Greer/Wujcik Manifesto, Version 2.1

1. I will stop marketing what I do under the label of RPG, Role-Playing Game, or anything commonly found in our genre market. Heck, let me see if I can even stop calling what I do games or gaming. Instead I will market my product as an entertainment medium, and bring no attention whatever to the fact that it is, indeed, an interactive story-telling medium.

2. I will sell my product at every available general-interest venue, through Amazon.com, and wherever I can. In fact, I'll set up shop anywhere and everywhere, on the web and in person, conduct entertaining demonstrations to whoever comes my way, and 'sell' what I do without setting preconditions on my audience.

2b. I will utilize the tried-and-true techniques of other entertainment venues to sell my products. My books will be the same size as other books, fitting nicely on the same shelf as "American Gods" and "Of Mice and Men." Should I have an appropriate budget, I will advertize in general-interest arenas: television, magazines, the internet and, most importantly, I will do everything in my power to ensure word-of-mouth consideration.

3. In my texts, I will not explain what role-playing is. I will not explain that it is, in fact, a game. I will limit myself to describing how to use the medium to best effect, while maintaining that there is no one way to go about it. It can be as silly as a stick figure, or as passionate as a Van Gough; the only thing that matters is that it is entertaining, however the participants choose to interpret enteratainment.

4. I will encourage the participants to use or create conventions of paticipation as neccessary, as it is impossible for me, as merely the designer of a particular medium, to know what would be required for any given group's entertainment. I may provide suggestions ("Others have done it this way,") but will not suggest that any part of the medium is concrete.

4a. I will discourage, to a degree I feel appropriate for the specific medium, any mechanisms associated with games, including the use of dice and mechanical resolution methods. Indeed, I will attempt to discourage anything physical or mechanical that serves as a barrier to casual play.

4b. I will attempt to eliminate look-up or reference tables; statistics or attributes; percentiles, ratios or odds; character sheets, tokens or counters; indeed, any accepted genre conventions.

5. In my texts, I will make no assumptions about the reader. I will explain everything clearly, at least once, so there are no preconditions or prerequisites.

5a. I will attempt to provide an opportunity for people to exercise their creativity and imagination, their sense of humor and their story-telling ability, to the most novel and personally fulfilling extent possible, I will encourage my readers and consumers to make maximum use of their own ideas and concepts.

5b. I will trust that my reader is my equal, fully capable of recognizing a fun activity, and fully capable of organizing groups of people to share in it, and fully capable of spreading and perpetuating what I have created. I will not hinder, in any way, their creation of matierals related to my media, as such materials are as valid and as imporatant as my own contributions.

The Justifying Bits

1. It seems important, to me, that we simply stop seperating ourselves, in the minds of potential gamers, from the rest of the entertainment forms out there. I mean, the only other entertainment we seem to have anything in common with right now is comic books, and that doesn't really sit well with the majority of casual readers.

2. No need for change on this point, but it doesn't seem quite done.
2b. Part of the reason gaming is such a "hard sell" as Ethan pointed out, is that few people have heard anything good about it. I mean, sure, the books are on the shelf, but what is it? Is it cool? "Is it like Dungeons and Dragons?" We need to get the word out; word of mouth only travels so far. Also, our books look funny. They're big, they're blocky and they look like class text-books. Not exactly a "sell-me" image.

3. If we're not calling them games anymore, we can't really tell people "how to play the game." I mean, if we're looking for something more "entertainment media" chic, we need to start presenting this as a medium, or an entertainment, or something "other" than a game. And we need to describe how it works without alluding to the fact that yes, it is indeed one of those geeky role-playing things.

4. Taking the conventions out of your text doesn't change the fact that the conventions are there, and they are there for good reason. It is an easy way for experienced gamers to understand what is going on; everyone here knows what an NPC is, and I'm pretty sure we could all pick up 5D6 without thinking about it, roll to save and do a million other things that we take for granted every time we game. While new gamers may not have these conventions, they should at least be able to make up some new ones, or be given suggestions on conventions that have worked in the past.
4a. Again, while it might be nice to get rid of the War Gamer paraphernalia, not everyone wants to play that way, and if we're making this open to everyone, we should at least include suggestions on how to impliment such "barriers to casual play." Don't encourage, simply facilitate.
4b. Fine just the way it is. Keep it fast, keep it dirty, and who cares if a Flamberge gets a +4 to strike when the wind is at your back, your standing on a hill, and your best girl is by your side? Just resolve the action and go.

5. Fine just the way it is. Again, one of the key points of this manifesto.
5a. Also, good the way it is. I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the wording, but I couldn't come up with anything better, so far be it from me to unduly criticize.
5b. I felt it important to include the fact that, as our equals, gamers have as much right to share their ideas about the game world as anyone else. I think it comes down to fair use: as long as you're not making money off of someone else's intellectual property, share what you think, share your ideas, contribute and pay your debts forward.

So there you go. That's my contribution to the world of interactive story entertainment media. ^__^

Kris Hansen
"Once upon a time, there was a guy who liked pocky. He died. It had nothing to do with the pocky... He just died... The end."

[Callan S.]

Everybody pretends.

Everybody breathes.

But you can't sell air.

You can't sell people what they already get for free.

However, you can sell a particular variety of something people get for free. For example, bottled water. It's supposed to come from some mysterious source.

Some people will see this as something they already get for free. Others see it as something they don't already have and will purchase it. The 'mysterious source' makes a difference. Right now the mysterious source employed in the RPG industry (whatever you might like to speculate it is) only seems to create a small industry. Then again, if everyone associated bottled water with cat piss man, it might not be where it is today (regardless of your mysterious source). Jeez, now I'm rambling!

[SlurpeeMoney]

I think we can rather equate this with the freeform movement that has been gaining some steady speed in the industry over the last few years, though. We need to start looking at gaming as less and less of a hobby and more like a powerful medium of communication. Games can help us get ideas from one place to another, and the more "artistic" the game, the more powerful that communication can be.

Magister Ludi gave us a goal. We can have a game as encompassing and as powerful as the Glass Bead Game, without having to deal with glyphs and strategic placements. We can make a game as powerful a tool, without bending to its weaknesses. In many ways, role-playing has illustrated a great many of Hesse's ideas in games-as-art (not just role-playing games, but any game), and we are getting closer to it with each new generation of gamers.

Do we get it for free? Damn right we get it for free. Should we then stop attempting to structure it? Should that deter us from trying to make something from our art? Does the fact that water comes from the tap make the Bottled Water Industry any less lucrative? I don't think so.

Messirs Greer and Wucjik have a great thing going here. And bottled water has been selling better and better for years.

Kris

[Mark Johnson]

I am not sure that things that are currently subclauses don't deserve their own line items in the manifesto.  (i.e. #2b could easily stand on its own as #3).  Or you could abandon the manifesto format and simply call it the Ten (or whatever number) Commandments.  

"Dude!  You just violated the Seventh Commandment."

And they say that the Forge is a cult!