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This thread has got me to think and write. Here lies the result.
https://elvenwizardking.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/systems-failure/
This is just my opinion, but I disagree the problem is availability of PDF's, the 'systems failure' as you term it, has only a small part to do with availability and more to do with a shift in entertainment expectations. Why would I engage my imagination when EA Games can show me being heroic in 1080p (or now 4k)?
TTRPG has had it's time, the T-Rex is dead and only us chickens are left...
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The "Systems Failure" is in systems going away, not in pdfs not being available.
I'm not in the business of arguing whether or not video games are more viable than role playing books. If I were, I'd be in the wrong.
But if I were making a case for a small business mismanaging it's resources, in such a case I'd be correct in omitting extraneous factors not having to do with said mismanagement.
Video games may be the wave of the future, but I think that speculation on Role Playing Games being "extinct" should be contrasted with a detailed account of when video games almost went away "forever".
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Role Playing Games being "extinct"
I never implied extinct, I implied that the 30 foot tall, 6 inch toothed D&D has evolved into a small feathered, flightless game. Still alive and well just unlikely to scare the pants off you.
I agree that systems are going away, and that was due to as you point out in the video market, saturation of a limited resource (i.e. people to buy your game).
I guess I focused on the last paragraph of your article, remembering people tend to remember the first and last item in a list, which hits out against WotC and their refusal to supply PDF's. I just don't agree that lack of PDF = peril. But your blog, your opinion, and that I have no issues with! But I reserve the right to disagree that is all.
S.
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Power of Imagination
Ironically, soon the people who watch the show will be in position to spoil it for the book readers.
PDFs are tricky things. They are convenient... they save trees... they're cheaper...
But they are EASILIY pirated and spread around the world at the speed of light. Honestly, releasing things like that... I'm shocked any company does that. I have seen just about every Paizo product online for free... I still pay for the ones that I really want, but I certainly don't have to. That's not even counting the PRD and D20pfsrd sites that give you all the crunch for free... and the Wiki pages that give you the fluff. Add in that a 'search tool' is a heck of a lot easier then ruffling through 10 books the info 'might' be in.
Back in the 80's and 90's, Games like this reigned because every player HAD to buy EVERY book. Or at least one or two copies per gaming group if you wanted to use those options. There was no internet sharing, there was no downloading or paperless... The closest you really got was if someone bought it and then Xeroxed it for you... but that wasn't much cheaper then just buying it.
If the TTRPG fails, I think it will be because so many people can play whatever they want without giving a dime to the company. Technology has made things easier for the players... but it's going to strangle the companies...
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PDFs are tricky things. They are convenient... they save trees... they're cheaper...
Compared to paper made from sustainable forestry PDF's are worse for the planet. You need to have a powered device to view a PDF and renewable power is still just a fraction of the global requirements. Do the planet a favor and buy a book.
That and after the zombie apocalypse, killer plague, meteor strike, alien envasion - I'll be whiping out my books and dice and playing D&D. I feel sorry for those in the post-apocalyptic world that need to wait for power generation to be invented again to play. Still, class this post as an open invite to my game :)
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I suspect just the energy that it takes to print the book and ship it cross country is more damaging than the fraction of my devices energy that's devoted to looking at pdfs.
Not in the long term. We have scrolls from thousands of years ago. Treated well a book will last thousands of years. The energy per life-span is far better for a book. That and books will always be readable, and electronic format can go out of vogue far fastest than the written word. Ever tried opening an Office 95 document in Word 2013...
The energy require to make an electronic device, if you include things like the mining and purification of rare metals is quite large. I can make paper and ink at home.
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I'll gladly carry around my iPad with all my RPG's and enjoy it.
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I'll gladly carry around my iPad with all my RPG's and enjoy it.
And I like using Masterwork Tools Pathfinder OGL on my android tablet!
But neither means you aren't invited to my D&D by candle light game with books and dice after civilization as we know it comes to an end.
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By then we will all live in the matrix anyway and can play in a full-fledged virtual reality chamber. Yay holodeck!
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Power of ImaginationIronically, soon the people who watch the show will be in position to spoil it for the book readers.
And do you think the people who watch the show will do as good a job of keeping the secrets? Probably not. Sorry, but "the show and books are going to be different by that point" is nothing more than a pathetic excuse to try and make themselves feel morally superior, and justify them blabbing.
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Role Playing Games being "extinct"I never implied extinct, I implied that the 30 foot tall, 6 inch toothed D&D has evolved into a small feathered, flightless game. Still alive and well just unlikely to scare the pants off you.
I agree that systems are going away, and that was due to as you point out in the video market, saturation of a limited resource (i.e. people to buy your game).
I guess I focused on the last paragraph of your article, remembering people tend to remember the first and last item in a list, which hits out against WotC and their refusal to supply PDF's. I just don't agree that lack of PDF = peril. But your blog, your opinion, and that I have no issues with! But I reserve the right to disagree that is all.
S.
Well of course. I actually opined that rather than cause peril, that a lack of pdfs was one of several mistakes that would lead to a weak and mediocre game plan for 5th edition.
I actually further disagree that video games made certain role playing companies go away. I intend to elaborate on that next week in my blog post. Role Playing companies are interesting creatures, and I think that there are many that do not appreciate the ecosystem that they inhabit.
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That dude in the interview said "story" so much it kind of lost all meaning. >_> Sorry, two adventures a year is not enough. What a depressing interview.Yet some people here can't stop fanwanking over Paizo's APs. The Module line is an afterthought for both the fans and the company.
And how many of those APs does Paizo put out per year? Let me get out my counting fingers....
The AP thing is pretty brilliant for the modern RPG market, though. Like i said earlier, it's an aging hobby with adherents with less prep time than ever (kids, jobs, other entertainment options like a wife that will take half your stuff if you game like a college kid), and having an entire career laid out for the players, with modules to fill the dead spots is probably the most useful thing Paizo provides for their customers. I mean, the rules really did just come to be to keep the AP thing going, and won't really become Paizo's until their second edition can put the vestiges of 3x compatibility to bed.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the Paizo think tank knew where the hobby was going and knew their market intimately when they settled on the AP model. It definitely paid off if that was the case.
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Trying to be as objective as possible, I think a lot of gamers still bear a lot of animosity towards WOTC for the poor execution of their transition from 3E to 4E, and want to see them fail.
I admit I was biased against 4E for precisely that reason. I eventually got roped into playing it and bought a fair number of hardcovers and modules. But it just wasn't as good as Pathfinder or 3.5 in my experience, so I focused on Pathfinder.
Having done that once, it's extremely hard to want to go back and do it again, even if it appears WOTC has put out in 5E a far superior gaming experience to 4e.
Enough time has passed for me that I now longer begrudge WOTC their success, and in fact recognize it is better for gamers as a whole for them to be successful, to bring in new participants.
So back to the topic at hand, I do feel that WOTC in not putting out more adventures is limiting growth opportunities, in that I believe that a sizeable proportion of old and new gamers would like to have more adventures available.
Eh, 4e was just an attempt to make the game more visual with the emphasis on minis and movement. It definitely turned non-mini users like me off, as it added narrative burdens on my DMing if I resisted minis. The biggest problem with 4e, though, was the marketing campaign. It was really tone deaf and kind of messed things up before they got started, and a large part of the base, rightly or wrongly, was already in their feelings before the game was even released.
A lot of gamers would like more material, but I think WotC is trying to get the OSR crowd back into D&D a bit, and they're a DIY bunch. Less pressure on WotC D&D staff to perform could lead to better (if less) product in an edition (that Gorbacz I think has correct) is a "placeholder" to keep things breathing (if only just) until 2024.
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I am unlikely to be playing PF in thousands of years.But isn't it cool to think if you are here in thousands of years that you COULD still play Pathfinder if you wanted to? That printed Core Rulebook might come in handy.
The Core Rulebook's spine does good to survive a couple of years of intermittant use.
Frog God Games books will be around for centures. The Post-Apocalyptic game of choice will be Sword & Wizardry.
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And do you think the people who watch the show will do as good a job of keeping the secrets?Power of ImaginationIronically, soon the people who watch the show will be in position to spoil it for the book readers.
I hope so. And by that I mean I hope they bombard book-only forums and take utter glee in spoiling the books. Much as many of the book readers have done through the entire series run (admittedly, with a lot more vehemence in the first couple of seasons).
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I hope so. And by that I mean I hope they bombard book-only forums and take utter glee in spoiling the books. Much as many of the book readers have done through the entire series run (admittedly, with a lot more vehemence in the first couple of seasons).And do you think the people who watch the show will do as good a job of keeping the secrets?Power of ImaginationIronically, soon the people who watch the show will be in position to spoil it for the book readers.
You know nothing...
Fortunately, I don't frequent those sites. Though, I'll probably have to avoid Facebook, YouTube, TV, and people.
Role Playing Games being "extinct"I never implied extinct, I implied that the 30 foot tall, 6 inch toothed D&D has evolved into a small feathered, flightless game. Still alive and well just unlikely to scare the pants off you.
I agree that systems are going away, and that was due to as you point out in the video market, saturation of a limited resource (i.e. people to buy your game).
I guess I focused on the last paragraph of your article, remembering people tend to remember the first and last item in a list, which hits out against WotC and their refusal to supply PDF's. I just don't agree that lack of PDF = peril. But your blog, your opinion, and that I have no issues with! But I reserve the right to disagree that is all.
S.
Worth pointing out - as the entry points out, Video Games did not almost go extinct. Game Consoles almost went extinct. Basically home computers are now a reasonably affordable price and they are better at games in every imaginable way. They have far superior games that look far superior and the home computer can be used by the whole family and has non-gaming applications as well.
The console market was facing essentially the same problems as video arcades would face about 10 years later - the home computer was just so much better for games. The fact that the console market was compounding this by not just naturally having inferior games because the consoles could not compete with home computers in memory, graphics, etc. but then going out of their way to make sure that the games where really exceptionally inferior by creating tons of truly awful games to go along with their far inferior systems and that the market was saturated by large numbers of really inferior consoles made the bust that much worse but it would have been hard to compete in any case.