The Culture Beneath the Stairs

The Meaning of Christmas: Celebrating the year in Roleplaying

by Conan McKegg
December 25, 2001

Yo-ho-ho-ho! Meeeerry Christmas! Peace and Love to all! Hohohohoho!

Okay, enough of the goodwill guff time to take a look at the year in retrospect and see if we can develop any New Years resolutions. Now, before I continue I would like to inform everyone that young Conan here has had a liiiittle too much eggnog and so I won't be able to remember every event of this year. But I will try my darnedest to.

It certainly has been quite a year for the roleplaying industry, what with some companies falling out of the limelight and other new stars rising; Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf have charged into the lead, harkening this old boy back to the heyday of TSR and Westend Games. Also this year has seen an increase in the number of roleplayers out there -- hopefully adding more fresh blood to our goth-infested gene pool. I'm kidding... no. Really.

The Year of D20 -- why?

As those who have ever read my old column on Gaming Outpost are aware, I am not the world's biggest D20 fan. Quite frankly I feel that there are better systems out there than the level-up system of WoTC. Still, D&D3e did manage to inject fresh life into the industry as well as showed the other companies how it is done. If more companies were willing to release their house systems to free license like WoTC, I suspect that there would be an industry boom. Furthermore, WoTC's products have managed to raise the standard of all other products -- something that I think is great. Still, on the down side, WoTC will also become known as the company that a) killed Star Wars and b)Betrayed Dune. Oh, and c) created that damned Pokemon game. Shame on you!

Still the majority won and D20 has been proven to be a great money earner for many companies. So much so that there is no escaping the insane number of D20 products! I suspect that if you were to go into a games shop blindfolded and purchased the first book you found it would either be a D20 product -- or Deepak Chopra. (Don't ask me why, but everyone seems to be selling Deepak Chopra these days... )

Fall of the Mighty

On a down note, we also saw the fall of an industry great, FASA. Following in TSR, Hero Games and Target's footsteps, FASA was forced to close their doors near the beginning of this year. It was a great loss to the industry and yet also another warning sign to other major players about the risks that lie in over-flooding such a fickle market. I would personally suggest that the bigger companies start working together rather than see each other as competition. Look at the field:

Dream Pod 9: These guys have always been on the fringes of the big players. Their games are unique and original. Most players of DP9 games play other games as well, now if they could find a way to lower their prices word may spread about their games. However I must say that Gear Krieg remains questionable as a business move.

Guardians of Order: Cinematic/Anime style games. These guys should have done Star Wars and Dune. They have a superior understanding of how to design cinematic RPGs, they would have done a great job.

Steve Jackson Games: Come on. These guys know their stuff. One of the longest running roleplaying companies, their only fault lies in GURPS and its million and one iterations. On the other hand, GURPS is a big money maker for them and again, does not interfere with the sale of other products. In fact, its generic nature means that players often buy other game systems and convert them into GURPS.

White Wolf: Again, these guys have a market of their own, one that is fairly reliable. These guys handle horror sufficiently well to be able to supply that market, and to be honest -- Exalted beats the pants off Faerun and the other D20 worlds any day. (At least I feel it does... )

Wizards of the Coast: Has the licenses and the financial oomph. D&D is a guaranteed seller as WoTC has proven, and is a great game. They have nothing to fear and everything to gain from working with other companies.

The greatest problem here is that companies believe that they only exist to turn profit -- not provide goods. This is somewhat erroneous thinking on the part of executives. Sure, turning a profit is the payment for providing a good or service -- otherwise why would you work, but to turn an effective profit a company needs to respect its responsibilities to the customers that provide its income. Again, the more capitalist members of society may see things differently. Being an ethicist and existentialist I have my own semi-liberal views. (Although I still think that companies need to consider their profits, I just think their priorities are wrong. They have a greater responsibility to their customers than their shareholders. Hello, shares are about taking a gamble -- deal with it.)

New Games, New Worlds

Now I'll get down off my soapbox for a minute and play at being gushy... because, WOW were there a heap of great games released this year. If anything, D20 has inadvertently instigated a mini renaissance for fantasy. Exalted, Hackmaster, Talistanta 4e, Rune and of course Forgotten Realms for D&D3e -- fantasy was the darling of the year. Horror also got a great injection of fresh material thanks to Little Fears which showed that horror can be about more than existential goth angst and splatterpunk.

Pulp adventure also got revived thanks mainly to Gear Krieg and Adventure! Both games managed to show vividly different elements of the genre and in doing so have managed to both secure somewhat of a share of the gaming market. Of interest to me was the unusually subdued release of Hong Kong Action Theatre 2nd Edition. Considering the subversive dominance of Hong Kong movies in recent productions -- hell, even Charmed got in on the whole kung-fu scene. Yet HKAT2 seemed to slip by unnoticed... odd.

What should the industry be doing?

Now, here is the part that will probably stir some people up. Considering the direction that gaming has gone, I find myself asking... what next? How can this industry continue if more companies start to feel the pinch? Steve Jackson Games had to shut down several of its projects recently and even WoTC found itself in strife due to a shortage of staff.

I have already stated it, but I feel that this needs to be mentioned again -- more game systems need to be made open license like D20. This works two-fold. It will firstly allow smaller publishers to produce their own unique games without needing to create new mechanics, they can simply use existing game mechanics -- thereby raising their chances of selling product. Secondly, it means that more copies of the rules systems are likely to sell also. At least that is the idea, naturally this would need to be investigated in more detail. It should be noted though that roleplayers rarely buy just one game system -- rather they tend to try most systems. As WoTC have deduced, if all the companies used the same base system, then it would be easier to sell new games. Why do you think DP9 and White Wolf do so well? Unfortunately it is the D20 system that has been made readily available -- a system that is not the most flexible as the Star Wars RPG showed. I think it is time for the other companies to come to the party.

Also, gamelines should start having a beginning and an end. By this I mean that companies shouldn't be eternally building up a single line until it bursts, they need to limit the number of products they produce before moving to a new game. Look at all the great trilogies out there that were then ruined because the authors continued to write more of the same rather than move on. White Wolf have begun to realize this, if only they'd just stop the World of Darkness now and move onto something else... I'm not saying cease altogether, but stop building up the setting.

World of Darkness is a perfect example of a setting that has become too built up -- face it guys there are simply waaaaay too many supernaturals running around. Add to this the inherent inconsistencies that are not the company's fault but rather the failure of some lines to admit that the other lines do exist in the same setting, and you can see why it becomes frustrating. My suggestion to White Wolf -- finish off the groundwork, end the lines and start building Exalted and Dark Ages up -- maybe revive Trinity or even a new horror game that uses the existing storyteller systems. Something along the lines of the KoE and Mummy: The Resurrection books -- no need to completely publish new rulebooks, simply where the rules change...

Another idea is for more freelancers. There are some great newbie authors who need to cut their teeth somewhere. Too many companies have a strictly closed door policy for new authors -- admittedly there are literally thousands of wannabes out there, and editors do have other things to do than spend all day reading appalling proposals. Maybe someone needs to look at forming a freelance roleplaying writers agency to help the companies find fresh authors.

I definitely would like to see more settings being created for gaming in. This brings me, once again back to open licensing -- face it; it's a damn good idea that could literally revive the industry back to the wonder days of roleplaying.

What should the players and consumers be doing?

Ho ho, didn't think you'd get away that easily, did you? Why did FASA, ICE and Target fall? Because they weren't selling enough product. Come on people, we need to show these guys our support. Sure, the publishers need to be publishing more products that we'll actually buy, but we ought to back them up. Write to the publishers. Tell them what you want to see from the product range. People are all willing to bitch and moan on forums and mailing lists -- unfortunately not all of this gets back to the writers. Come on! I'm a freelancer and can tell you right now, the publishers do listen. Give it a try.

And be ready to try out new games. There are a lot of people who treat each roleplaying purchase as a major investment. Admittedly, some books are quite pricey -- but they are still cheaper than most computer games and you'll get a lot more playing time from a roleplaying game than the next installment of counter-strike. (Although I do remember some friends who have been rabidly playing it for the last seven months non-stop... )

So there you have it, another year has almost gone by and we are seeing roleplaying beginning to come into its own. My final words for this month is to ask that all of you out there to go out and be nice to at least three people who you'd normally ignore. (Unless of course they are the kind that might start stalking you or something... ) Oh... and try to hook them into roleplaying. Viva La Revolution!