I followed one of Jason Fried’s Twitter links to an article at Inc. magazine about his workday habits. Jason runs 37signals.
Among relative banalities like what kinds of tea he drinks and how often he goes to the gym, there’s this:
In the software world, the first, second, and third versions of any product are really pretty good, because everyone can use them. Then companies start adding more and more stuff to keep their existing customers happy. But you end up dying with your customer base, because the software is too complicated for a newcomer.
This is exactly how it is with established roleplaying game lines.
This seems true only for very different values of “everyone” and “newcomer”; I don’t know of any “established roleplaying game line” that can be used by as many people as can, say, flickr.
I’m suggesting that early and pre-expansion versions of established roleplaying game lines are relatively accessible—”everyone can use them”—whereas once we see splatbooks by the dozen and edition creep, those same games become “too complicated for a newcomer.”
No comparison intended between software and RPGs.
You might just be telling me this at exactly the right time.
> No comparison intended between software and RPGs.
Shame, that.
Re: “edition creep”
Ideally, a new edition takes the best of all the supplemental material from the previous edition and puts it right in the core products. So that you don’t need the Complete Guide to Robots anymore, because the important stuff from that book is a first-class part of the core game.
Of course, in order to do that without making the new core impenetrable, you have to be willing to drop things, and that’s where you start having to deal with rumblings from your installed base.
Every so often, I take a line I’m working on and ask how I’d drop the whole thing down to a 64 page newbie-focused core. It’s a hard exercise. It usually produces valuable insights.
Even if we discount the edition creep, we can see this is the straight-up curve of a line’s accessibility. The more books that are out — the more the original customers have been served — the more impenetrable a new game line can seem, if nothing else.
We worked hard in the early days to make Vampire: The Requiem accessible even as more and more books were coming out, so you didn’t think you needed a covenant book to start your campaign. The goal, then, was to make the additional books seem valuable and relevant, instead of like add-ons that didn’t actually “count” toward the line’s identity. I’ve seen players who feel both ways—that the supplements are too important or that they are irrelevant.
Either way, though, the number of books already out can make a game seem impenetrable or unnavigable beyond the core.
That sounds like a great and fruitful exercise, Russell.
If we consider core RPGs to be like AAA top-shelf video game releases, and like supplements as optional but hopefully coveted DLC, we arrive at an analogy that is useful and contemporary and arguably apt for a strong, sturdy, and lean RPG. But it’s not the kind of model that has traditionally kept RPG companies in business for very long, so we’ve all seen games built to thrive on supplements — if only because supplements generate the cash flow necessary to sustain business operations, or if only because some games call out for multiple books the way that some novels do, or if for some blend of the two. The point being that the growth into impenetrability doesn’t require more than a single edition to occur.
There is a fine line between a game being well supported, and it becoming overwhelming. For example, when D&D 4th Edition launched, I bought the core books, and started buying the books as they came out. But a few months ago I decided to stop, as I wasn’t playing any D&D games. Now, just thinking about the books that I don’t own is overwhelming. A new player looking at the shelf must feel lost.
But Wizards make the mistake of making the three core books feel incomplete.
Shadowrun, on the other hand, has handled it’s newest edition well. The core book is all you need for a great game, and it feels that way. But each of the expansion books are still fantastic, and worth picking up at some point. Now Catalyst is moving into more focused fluff oriented books. Eventually, though, they’ll probably be facing the same problem.
“Even if we discount the edition creep, we can see this is the straight-up curve of a line’s accessibility. The more books that are out — the more the original customers have been served — the more impenetrable a new game line can seem, if nothing else.”
Which, I think, is really what we’re up against. Not a game’s actual learning curve, but it’s perceived learning curve. (This is different from some MMOs, which get you nicely through the tutorial and then drop you off the learning cliff.)
I’d like to see the supplements-as-DLC model take over: it suits me well as a gamer and a designer. But DLC itself remains an infant model. The figures I’ve been shown suggest that it’s a small market, even for titles for which it’s been very successful.
And, unfortunately, it goes against the mythology-building kind of RPG that I love so much. I like big book worlds, dammit. I like a game that can be interpreted by dozens of writers in its lifetime. But I don’t think they’re really the future of the hobby and industry.
You need a big name to hold one down… a name from when the concept was a lot more viable. You know, the nineties.
Not only is perceived learning curve an issue, but the fact of the installed player base’s perception of the necessity of the various complicated supplements.
I’ve been running smack into that in the D&D 4e campaign I’ve been running. I’d be happy (by which I mean, “grateful”) if the players would stick to core races and classes while we’re figuring out the game systems (none of us has played 4e before this campaign), but the party contains exactly one core book class, and everyone else is all over the map. Ditto for PC races.
Magic: The Gathering is another good (albiet non-RPG example). Sure, you can play the game with a modest collection of core set cards, but good luck finding opponents, or even people to talk about the game with.
The frustrating thing for a publisher is that it can’t particularly control which supplemental material the player network deems essential. Atlas Games, for example, could release a 64-page beginner edition of Ars Magica tomorrow, but the newbies who picked it up would barely be able to speak the same language as the game’s grognards. Given that a strong player network is key to a game’s success, that’s a huge issue for a publisher.
Well now it sounds like an inevitable consequence of the publishing/distribution model. If individual supplements must be purchased one by one, then won’t the intersection of the sets of books each player owns always get hinky?
How about the system that Greg Stolze uses for REIGN? Each supplement is planned and announced on his website, and he puts up a time limited donation box. If he gets enough money from that, then he releases it as a set of free pdfs, distributed with a “roll of heroes” listing all the people who donated. He has also taken to packaging all the supplements for a given year in a beautiful hardcover (“The First Year of Our REIGN”). So people buy them, but there’s nothing that can’t be easily downloaded and shared between all and any players.
(I’m also reminded of Fantasy Flight’s “LCG” idea, intended to avoid these sorts of problems, but with card games. The difference being that you need to purchase cards to play with them, which isn’t so with RPG supplements, so maybe the example isn’t helpful.)
That is not something that has personally stopped me from getting software but it has stopped me from getting into some games. Jeff Tidball makes the point about Magic: The Gathering and I couldn’t agree more. Magic is a game I wouldn’t mind getting into but wouldn’t be able to talk to the talk or connect with most people on the topic.
I think it’s the bane of our hobby we ourselves get so absorbed into the rules and intricacies of our games that we forget about the newcomer. The more I read about D&D 4e the more I want to play it, but with so much of a time and monetary investment I just stick with what I know, and become more of a gonard.
I think that the distribution model for RPGs is significantly different enough from software that the barrier entry is entirely perceived. A player, or group, can just pick up the core books and play with the 1.0 version of the game. Grabbing a few splat books increases it to v 1.2. The new rules don’t necessarily change the old rules, more likely they add onto them or provide new options.
Also, the group always has the option of only taking some elements from the supplements and discarding others. The issue is that everyone has to agree upon the set of rules they are using beforehand. Only one person may want to upgrade the rules they are using. Not generally a major issue, but it still can be an issue.
It can also be an issue when the majority of the group wants to use updated rules and the newbie isn’t familiar enough with the base to keep up. That is always my barrier to getting into 4e. The groups I could join are so ingrained into the supplements that the original doesn’t seem worthwhile to them. While there is nothing stopping me from just making a character out of the core book, but it seems so far behind everyone else.
@John Arcadian – I would say that what you’re seeing is a corollary to the fact that crunchy books sell the best for games like D&D. Something that 4th Edition has built it’s entire line upon.
But there is a growing market for rules light games, where fluffy books sell better. Savage Worlds is quickly becoming the king of this type of play. It’s popular among an older audience will less time and patience for the rules.
But this has produced a somewhat different publishing model. Much of the Savage Worlds market is core setting books, PDF adventure modules, and campaigns. So far, no Savage Worlds game has hit that entry barrier, possibly because it’s expected that the audience will readily move on to another setting.
@Jeff Carlsen, One could argue though that Savage Worlds lacks the house hold name that D&D has which I would argue is why you don’t see the barrier to entry. Less word of mouth is less books sold, which in turns means less books to build around the setting. Rules light settings will need to stand the test of time before we really see how the hold up to D&D.
I would think the problem isn’t the number of books sold but the number (and type) of different books published and sold. The barrier we’re talking about is erected in many games with smaller market share than D&D.
I wasn’t aware that was how Greg was doing the Reign supplements, Nick, but that’s a great idea. He gets paid, but the supplements are also very widely available. Greg’s a pioneer in thinking up crazy new ways to extract money from games.
John, why do you think the barrier to entry for games is only perceived, but is more real for software? Plenty of people out there are still using older, or even ancient, versions of Photoshop, for example. You could almost argue it the other way: That it’s much less important for software users to be using the same version (given exchange formats like RTF and TIF), whereas the individual players at an RPG table can’t very well choose different versions of the ruleset to use.
I strongly disagree. Supplements are supplementary, that’s why they are called that. No game ever needs supplements and they do not add to the complexity of a game. The game is what it is.
@ Jeff Carlson: Rules light games can definitely work under a different publishing model. Each new Savage World setting brings something different with it and sometimes new rules. Realms of Cthulu has madness rules, Runepunk has a rune dynamic, and while I haven’t had a chance to look at it, the The Savage World of Solomon Kane book talks about a whole slew of new rules contained within its pages. The fluff is the main draw of the setting books, definitely, but they still modify the original game in some way. Kind of like different Distros of an operating system. The paradigm shift is enough that the additional rules are not the biggest new thing you have to learn.
@ Jeff Tidball: Jeff, I had actually contemplated using a Photoshop analogy in part of my original comment. It is definitely true that you can use older versions of Photoshop. I do all the time. You can come across issues when moving between different versions of Photoshop. A color filter or transparency blend done in CS3 may look entirely different in CS1, not to mention Photoshop 5. If a group of graphic designers were sitting around in an office and each making modifications to a document with different versions of PS, the interaction would get a bit wonky. I think the same thing could happen at a table, depending on how much the supplements changed the core rules. A software designer can’t swoop in and make changes to the operation on the fly. A game group is much more malleable. They can decide amongst themselves what to use and not use from supplements to get a level of compatibility. They can also say it doesn’t matter which exact bonus someone gets from which book and continue with the game and story going on. In the end, all the extra supplements are just extra. They don’t NEED to be used to play the game. If a player brings one and wants to use something out of it not everyone needs to know the particulars of the supplement.
I think it is a perceived barrier because the situation at the table doesn’t require complete compliance between the players. I can be a new player and play a Gangrel using my Vampire main book while another player uses the Mariner Gangrel variant from a supplement and gets different powers. I may perceive my options in the game as limited because I don’t have the supplement, but I am not prevented from playing the game because of it. I’ll certainly have a different experience, but having that player with different options can “upgrade” my play experience. I can start out with the basic options and halfway through decide I want to use something out of the supplement that another player bought. If the GM allows, I can change in the middle of the game and be working on the 1.2 version now, or somewhere in-between. No reboot or re-install required. I hope that makes sense.
I think if you simply compare an RPG rulebook circa 1981 to anything released this year (at least, mainstream games), you can see this principle in action.
HERO 6th Edition is two hardcover books, totaling 784 pages.
HERO 2nd edition was an 80 page rulebook. On top of that, it came in a box with a 16 page adventure, character sheets, map, and dice.
Magic is a good example of how to avoid this. The game looks daunting, but if you have a few packs of the new set and want to play, you have no trouble finding players. Magic regularly rotates old sets out of circulation in the typical tournament environment, so you can build a deck for a casual game (like Friday Night Magic) fairly easily.
On top of that, Magic has play formats, like drafts, that remove buying power and depth of knowledge from the equation (or at least mitigate it). I think that’s precisely why you see Magic continuing to grow.
@Mike Mearls: Magic also avoids the problem by taking up little shelf space and having a small ruleset. Moreover, it can let old sets fall away because they don’t mean much to the grand scheme of the game. An RPG that lets an old source book fade is letting a piece of the setting disappear. It may solve the problem of new players being daunted, but it leaves long standing players unhappy. They want more that builds upon what they have.
It also hurts new players that have crossed the fan threshold and want new material. They will want all that new content they now can’t find.
Let’s also remember that the supplement-publishing model wasn’t necessarily based on the notion that it was the best way to produce RPGs. It was built on the notion that cash flow is necessary to stay in business. RPGs don’t sell like video games — they don’t move enough copies to pay everyone to work on the next game, not all by themselves.
A lot of supplements coming out really fast doesn’t mean a game is really popular or that a lot of supplements is necessarily someone’s vision for the best way to clarify and promote a game. It means the sales window on each supplement is probably short. It sometimes means the company needs to get product out the door to maintain cash flow, to keep things paid.
Needs intervene. I know it’s crass to make decisions based on anything but The Good of the Game as Art, but there it is.
“Let’s also remember that the supplement-publishing model wasn’t necessarily based on the notion that it was the best way to produce RPGs.”
Exactly. It’s a model built from necessity.
There’s no doubt that it’s a model based on necessity. But it certainly does have ramifications, which is what we’re shedding light on. The holy grail of game marketing would be a game that can continue to collect money for content from existing players, while not getting in the way of new players entering the fold.