This year I’ve decided to cut things back to the most promising, personally relevant stuff. In cause you’re interested:

I’m giving Aeternal Legends to Stew Wilson. I made my money back and the game has great potential, but I’m not really into marketing things any more. Now I never “owned” the game, as Stew retained the rights (minus my writing and design, and the art) but I’m looking into ways to make sure he can freely use all the writing and art assets to develop supplements and a new edition. He’ll be able to sell the current version himself, too (he was always able to do this, but this time I won’t get any of the money). I look forward to handing it over to get the attention it deserves.

I’m looking for help on Knights of the Hidden Sun. In order to get this monster ready in a timely fashion, I’m looking through my connections so I can find the right person to finish development. I have high standards and no budget, but I have faith I’ll find the right person to fine tune Chris Challice’s vision.

I have three projects in mind, minimum. I already have one big-ish contract coming this year. Beyond that, look for some saucy game-related fiction and at least one original game this year. The fiction is almost ready. The game is designed. The contract is presumably in the mail.

I’m letting go of most publishing projects — but not the creative end of things. Knights of the Hidden Sun may be my last commitment to the full process of bringing a game to market. I tossed out a bunch of stuff that wasn’t very good and a few things that were. In the end, I learned that I’m not interested in constantly trying to sell people things, build communities, start profitable conversations, or manage various business-oriented bells and whistles. I’ve done these things in and out of nerd-related trades (at one point I managed a couple of dozen blogs simultaneously) and feel good about my performance, but nowadays I’d rather devote my time to the words.

That said, I’m interested in working with people who want to do all that other stuff. I just want to write and design. Over time, this site will change to reflect that.

• Halfassed bragging that they’re doing great no matter what anyone else says, in order to use the situation as a marketing opportunity.
• Triumphal, aggressive ignorance courtesy of some jackoff or other who wants their far-from-real conception of the RPG industry to fail so that something stronger, and equally unreal, can take its place.

(I’m thinking of two specific people and even named them in a previous draft, but one of them is a content scraper who doesn’t deserve any publicity, and the other is an utter moonfruit who occasionally stalks me, so no links for either of them. Sorry!)

If there’s anything wrong with Schwalb’s analysis — and I’m only going here for the sake of discussion about something that was pretty much spot-on — it’s that it treats RPGs like something radically different from the rest of the writing and content field. Truth is, the situation is the same everywhere, at least in the realm of comparable work. Want to write fiction? Rates are about the same, problems are about the same. Nonfiction? Yep. General content? Yessir. Where RPGs fall down is that the very top isn’t that high up; there’s no Stephen King up there to give everybody false hope.

Now the assholes in my bullet points will counter with a number of stupid arguments. The first will be to blame some hypothetical RPG business model even though the same problems exist everywhere else. This is a 21st century issue, not an RPG industry issue. In our case, the D20 bubble just disguised it for a while. No, some “indie model,” won’t do it, especially since every notably successful indie-branded game uses practically the same distribution model as the Bad People (I mean, if it’s good for your conscience to pretend IPR isn’t a distributor, I suppose you can pretend in that sad,maybe-the-booth-babe-IS-into-me way).

Next? Bullshit about how such and such a job pays some huge per word rate. Yes, this may even be true, but no, it doesn’t matter, because this factoid is almost always disingenuous garbage. Short form journalism, technical writing and high level marketing writing do in fact pay Big Bucks, yes. They also have tough ancillary duties that get folded into the wage for convenience’s sake, like the costs involved in hauling ass in a car to cover a story. I’ve done some of these things, so I suppose I could demand tender loving from every multiclassed business major/fanboy around. They paid well on paper, less so in terms of effort/reward ratio.

It’s like how models make ludicrous amounts of of money per hour, but we somehow don’t live in a modelocracy. Think of the reasons for that. Christ’s sakes, folks.

Like I said: RPG freelancing — and producing RPGs independently, and running some ancillary business selling them or building communities, or whatever — are pretty normal. If there’s any difference, it’s when prideful dorks and manipulative asses insist on them. That’s why we don’t have any conception of the pro, semipro and amateur tiers in the field, even when they clearly exist (HINT: 2 cents a word ain’t “pro”). If we did that, lots of penny a word freelancers would cry. And it’s why we have trouble admitting that excepting a couple of fads, it has never been a good idea to make RPGs your bread and butter. People have been failing to make careers out of it long before Forge marketing dogma crawled out of the Internet’s asshole. The reason early creators migrated into fiction, electronic games and other fields is not because they were arrogant fucks — it’s because that’s what creators do to make a living. We are rarely monogamous. A guy like Chuck Wendig is positively media-slutty. In fact, I’d say that the main danger we face is that practices from other media might screw with RPG-specific craft that works.

Me? I get around. I have a nice contract right now, in fact. I spent six years making nearly every cent from writing (in other years, it’s been more like 30%-60%). Wasn’t easy or hard, just normal. Maybe I’ll do it again.

Sorry I haven’t been around. I’ve been busy. I have a bunch of interests that have nothing to do with games or media nerdery; one of these caused an ulnar nerve injury, making extended typing an incredible pain in the ass.

But I feel good again, and as the balance of the cosmos reasserts itself, my renewed pleasure will no doubt lead to someone else’s pain. So here’s what’s what lumbering through my mental/creative stomping grounds:

Aeternal Legends: The Spheres supplement is delayed, and this is pretty much my fault. But Stew has come through with a free PDF to respond to fan demand for running spooky creatures in the game. Download it (along with lots of other stuff) at the Aeternal Legends downloads page.

Conventions: I’ll be a guest at Fan Expo again this year, and will try to put in an appearance at my local convention, Phantasm as just a community gamer-type guy.

Dungeon Crawly Fiction: I’m readying a chapbook to sell cheaply, dirtily and zinely at Fan Expo. If you think 10 x 10 rooms don’t have enough sex or class consciousness in them, you probably won’t hate my work.

Knights of the Hidden Sun: You have to understand, this game is now about 3x the size I expected it to be, but it’s over half developed. I hope to have an ashcan-style draft for Fan Expo.

100 Million Days: The game’s still running — I just don’t like reporting my “Actual Play.” The PCs are 5th to 7th level and appear to be getting into the classic GDQ arc. I’m starting to chop away some rules I liked better at lower levels, and plan to blog about that a bit.

Creative Work: I have a few irons in the fire right now, but nothing I can talk about much. I wrote some material for an upcoming squad-based MMO, for example, but it’s busy doing whatever business stuff such things do before they surface.

http://booklifenow.com/2011/05/against-professionalism/

Hope this clears things up!

In AD&D1e, social systems exist to determine whether an NPC is going to attack or shake hands, hang tough or flee, or be loyal or treacherous. They don’t take the form of a character resource (like 3e’s Diplomacy) marshalled against NPC resources. The situation instead creates modifiers to a 50/50 default, and break points (enemy reduced to half hit points, henchman given cheddar) arise where you check for a change in the social weather.

Function

Where does Vampire come into this? On one hand, the game could benefit from strong social systems — including systems that affect PCs — but you can’t overshadow supernatural powers and compulsions — the Beast, or Presence. One of the best ways to do this is to get out of the socialize-as-combat model and explore other constructive things and ask: What do Vampire PCs do socially? Answers:

• Wheedle information and favours
• Embarrass enemies and give friends status
• Change what people think of them
• Meet people and create social networks

Form

I thought of breaking these down into three domains based on Attribute, but that’s not how Storyteller works; attributes measure things we can talk about in concrete terms instead of metagame conveniences. If we go for the method favoured by Storytelling and newer games we lose the ability to reflexively determine dice pools, because we end up with attributes that don’t mean things we can grasp without mastering the system.

I do like three categories, though, so let’s go with:

Relationship Building: Two or more characters try to build a social advantage between themselves. Examples:

• Romance (they develop mutual rapport)
• Covert communication (they build a “secret language” of innuendo or other factors)
• Institutions and ideologies

Storyteller already has rules for acting in concert and combining successes. We’ll use these for relationship building. Passing on a message through innuendo might require a Manipulation + Expression from the sender, and a Wits + Expression from the receiver, with a target of 3-5 successes. Creating a cult that mostly runs itself might require a dozen of more Charisma + Occult successes. These are measures of how impressive the feat is, not how hard each step is to take — that’s a function of difficulty rating.

Impressions: The character tries to modify his status in the community — this is a matter of type, not just degree. Examples:

• Escape notice (or be extra notable)
• Be popular (or unpopular)
• Be a certain kind of popular (known to be badass, smart, etc.)
• Saving face

To make this system work you need to measure how strong an effect the character needs to achieve (successes), and how hard it is to get done in the relevant scene (difficulty). I’d use trait-based signals to establish thresholds here. 3 or 4 + the Status Background of the person or group you’re trying to impress might be suitable to make an impression at a party.

Sway/Power-Over: Lastly, we’ve got the “social combat” stuff folks go for — sometimes it’s the right way to go. Like standard combat, the core engine is a series of opposed rolls, but there isn’t  Health analogue and an inescapable consequence — and thanks to the role of Disciplines, there can’t be. If controlling your mind is a power, straightforward social sway makes that power kind of suck.

You might get around this through a “damage or dare” system. The player can choose between performing an action or applying a penalty linked directly to the system: Willpower loss, a dice roll penalty, etc. The game or Storyteller could apply a price list based on service, or five degrees of general severity, and room for haggling.

Combine Them

Develop interactions between each subsystem. Examples:

• When you build a relationship, its value in combined successes becomes the number of successes you need to fracture it through sway-type social attacks.
• Build a powerful institution with a strong impression. A successful stunt to get attention creates a “seed” of successes that can be increased by allies’ efforts.
• Use social “combat” on the ability to steal the successes used by your enemy to make an impression. He builds himself up — you tear him down.

I can think of more specific systems for create social durations, resistances and so on, but they all spring from using these three “channels” in concert. And even if these specific methods don’t hit you, stepping outside of “social fight” thinking has plenty of potential.

On the other hand, I have been busy. I assembled a bunch of short stories to self-publish, (not conventionally saleable since they’re about gamerly things so I figured, what the hell) ran some excellent 100 Millionth Day AD&D sessions and caught up on a number of creative projects. A new supplement for Aeternal Legends is edited and nearly ready for layout, and I’ve been continuing to work on (the admittedly delayed) Knights of the Hidden Sun.

Anyway, I feel like writing now, so here we are! I’d like to tackle the question of creative leadership in tabletop RPGs because I think it’s a major factor in the bad stuff. I’ll do more Toy Dogma, write about more about the 100 Millionth Day game, (I’m three sessions behind and after a recent, awesome combat scene, the players want me to set it down) throw up more short fiction, and maybe talk a bit more about media. We’ll see.

Depends on if I feel like it.

• In TRPGs, participants communicate using rules and customs to establish details about related fictional narratives that are not yet defined.

. . . but there’s one more thing: our guard against absurd arguments about some impossible tabula rasa:

• In TRPGs, participants communicate using rules and customs to establish details about related fictional narratives that are not entirely defined.

We need guidance right from the beginning, though these bits (genres, mission statements, core stories) are subject to interpretation. Bad game theory promotes these initial definitions into a kind of church; follow the doctrine or fuck off. Play is obedience is play.

But this wasn’t always what we meant by play. What happened? It would be too easy to get into sappy talk about child’s play. Child’s play can be vicious; kids haven’t learned who has status, when to speak and when to shut up. They can be casually cruel. It’s the land of Lawrence Kohlberg’s first two stages of moral development, and a bit of his third.

(Note that this little trip of mine is not dogmatic Kohlberg. He ain’t perfect — Carol Gilligan’s critique is the best known. He’s too focused on formal polities as moral instruments. His framework is interesting, and I’m warping it as I go.)

Kohlberg also talks about “higher” post-conventional morality and here discusses a concept whose name will excite certain gamers: the social contract. The notable thing about social contracts as Kohlberg defines them is that they have little to do with the failed RPG theory of social contracts. Focused on “being on the same page,” rigid sets of expectations, and reward/punishment systems, dead-theory mechanisms prod players through a stage one (moral choices from fear of punishment) to restricted stage four (code-driven — Christian Fundamentalism is an example) framework. Highly defined notions of genre and convention (“back to the dungeon,” or a “Golden Age” implying an inescapable historical process) have the same purpose, through it’s rendered less formally.

The term “social contract” is poisoned; we have to use something else. Fortunately, Kohlberg’s notion of the social contract also marks a point where we can look to his critics and pull back from an overly academic, political context (Kohlberg tends to identify “higher morality” with sheer scale, and with formal institutions that carry Big Moral Plans out — the problems are easy to see) and into a style of interpersonal relationships that recognizes:

1. We possess different interests, and that diversity usually tolerable, if not intrinsically valuable. (If everybody was the same, we’d get bored.)
2. We also possess common rational interests that can often be inferred from early-stage development. (Avoid pain, seek pleasure, play that utilitarian banjo.)

The natural conclusion is that we must fairly negotiate the role of our differences in various contexts. This unites our differences and our common self-interests into a single process. This fairness does not, however, require a fixed set of rules to “get on the same page” or any of that bullshit.

Kohlberg discusses a “prior to society” perspective, but this is a bit grandiose. Certainly, we must return to primordial, progressive honesty as best we can to evaluate the most fulfilling way to play from moment to moment, and  ideally, this region of our thinking comes before we apply rules and customs, but we’ll always get a little “dirty” with other concerns — we are never in a pure place.

We’re starting to create a process, answer a question from last time: What kind of communication takes place?

Negotiation. Constant negotiation. Simple and complicated negotiation. Negotiation where each party believes something different happened but it still works out.

Second question: How do participants use rules and customs while communicating?

The answers depend on our moral commitment to the game. Let’s come up with some stages:

1. Retaliatory (“You killed the Big Bad? ROCKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES,” or “Escalation.”)
2. Egoistic (“Look at me! Look at the GMPC!” or “Bringing the Awesome.”)
3. Peer Pressure (“This is how you play a proper Tremere,” or “I will never abandon you.”)
4. Fundamentalist (“System Does Matter” and D20-supremacist dogma)
5. Interpersonal (“How do you feel? How do you want to feel?” This mature mode of gaming is our realistic goal. Negotiation with a respect for difference.)

Beyond this, I could posit a Transpersonal Stage moral commitment, where social good and high level artistic achievements take centre stage, but Kohlberg’s already-shaky structure loses its grounding.

But what about those kids? A moment ago I looked down on idealized childhood roleplaying, but in the West (and maybe elsewhere) we’ve got life stages where we bounce around: adolescence where we roam around the first three stages as we try to find a place in the power structure, and early adulthood, where, conventional identities in hand, we appear to fall back into an antisocial low stage when we’re really arguing with cultural norms — and as often as not, that argument is a good idea.

Coincidentally, these life stages — these “Fuck the Law” eras — are also where most gaming takes place. That’s what some dated market research says, anyway.

Basically, we do most of our TRP gaming during volatile periods where we might be at our worst, but which also have the potential to liberate us from being boring, obsessed with social conventions and base reward/punishment cycles. When we’ve been hurt by this it’s easy to get stuck fixing things with rules — that’s how society, with its naturally low opinion of the us (the mob), already regulates our behaviour.

Toy Dogma is more optimistic. It craves the dangerous realm of play because post-fundamentalist play demands we listen to each other now, and not just during design or setup. It’s hard to listen when rules tell you to shut up, how to speak or what to say. We know we’ll bounce around different levels of commitment. Games help us; they don’t rule us. We play with them like toys.

A lot of Assholes Get Mileage Out of the Word “Death:” Basically, RPGs will never die, but the hobby and industry can become as attenuated into something you’d say wasn’t a part of 21st century culture if you didn’t care about it, like playing the Minister’s Cat (f you had to Google that you have acknowledged that I’m right). This is where things are going, but it’s really easy to drone on by saying that “death” is only about total extinction and argue that this won’t happen. Of course it won’t. It will simply be “alive” in the same way that the tradition of wattle and daub construction is. We’re talking about a zombie state (see, title reference!) where we’ll see historical traces in descendants and practitioners who gain value out of the novelty of an archaic practice as much as the practice itself (see: The Old School “Renaissance”).

Your Interest is Dying: One of the big denial arguments is all about gamers staying interested as the industry goes but as you can see the Google search volume for Dungeons and Dragons (yes, D&D is about the same) has dropped by half over the past six years. This is not a measure of who’s selling stuff; it’s a measure of who’s looking for stuff. You aren’t. You don’t care about GURPS either. (Cherrypicking can’t be helped to some extent here, because most RPG terms are either confused with other things or too piddling for Trends to register.) Finally, here’s the Insights listing for RPGs in the roleplaying games category. Yeah: that’s a drop from a 100 rating to a projection of 10 by 2011. Google weights this all strangely, but you can bet that the rough description is “bad.”

Anecdotally, I’ve definitely noticed slowdowns in communities. Sites where threads would fall down the line fast now keep them for longer. In any event, it’s not just an industry side problem is wrong. The industry isn’t doing your Googling for you.

But don’t worry, it’ll never die completely. You’ll continue to chat online about games, maybe kinda sorta play them but more often, pretend to play them and plan theoretical campaigns (“Setting Riff: Shut the Fuck Up Because You’ll Never Fuckin’ Play It”). Best of all, the kids playing fandom RPs on Livejournal and elsewhere will develop their own craft, build more original settings and become the non-MMO RPG scene.

Actually, scratch that: They probably did that four years ago.

I’ve had a breakthrough with my fiction but I’m not into sharing it yet. Lots of works in progress. Lots of tinkering. I have a much clearer idea of what I want to write and the place I want it to occupy in my life.

I am not kind, but I have my reasons. When you look at the tabletop RPG scene right now it looks for all the world like it’s at the creative endgame. This isn’t true — nothing ever dies — but I think RPGs had more potential a decade ago before the evolving internet established a drive to create camps and basically regiment all creative effort within a marketing program. Think of every blog you like that has “Bullet Point Tuesdays” or “Monsters, Magic Items or Other Genre Minutiae You Can Beat to Death for SEO Listed A to Z.”

The context is Google. Google is an ad company. We live in a culture of network marketing. It permeates our relationships. Some people I respect greatly are going to be mad, as if I’m saying their friendships are fake. I’m not, and they aren’t. But they’re mediated through that value system. Intentions don’t enter into it.

I experimented with that game. Definitely. I posted about Doctor Who. I took and own the term “Creator Owned RPGs” (and I expect certain people to *immediately* fight for it now that I’ve said so — it’s yours fuckers!). It’s easy, it basically controls what you consume 50%-90% of the time, and it makes you respond it the same format. Somebody LOLs. Somebody at the end of the money chain makes a few bucks.

My experiments worked pretty well. I was in marketing for a few years, you know? I always did a decent job of it. I never bothered getting myself money for this blog, though I got offers. I don’t have anchor text ads here. I haven’t done any compensated endorsements.

I used to have a colourful blog. Now it’s plain. I used to be optimized for keywords. I’ve dropped all of that except where it takes zero effort (through plugins that do various forms of housekeeping). Many people got in my face with the idea that my efforts were somehow about them, had to please them, or created some other kind of relationship with them. I’ve added these antisocial measures to dissuade readers who think I am all about whatever the fuck they want. No.

But you can’t escape the modern media context. My efforts will not be pure — they can’t be. Still, I’ll do my best to do stuff we can all chew on, take our time with. I’m working on something to sell too. We gotta eat. I know you need your SEO-friendly, writergrindy stuff. I want to put those realities in their place, though. I think it’s better for me to do as I please, and produce something other than a reflection of your desires. I trust *you* to take care off your own desires. Look to me to see if there’s something new to like.

As I said, it feels like a creative endgame, where cheap stunts masquerade as enduring creative work, but must collapse in the gravity of the monetized attention economy. I have faith we’ll come out the end with something stronger, however, when people learn to take that influence into account, correct themselves and move on. We’ll drop the lists, the content breadcrumbs, all the crap. We’ll make good stuff, all of us.

OK, I admit I still might do one more about Doctor Who.

Some communities aren’t so bad. Company forums are generally okay, but lack the vitality of general communities. Others (like ENWorld) sacrifice vital critical discussion at the altar of bland affability, but in the end don’t do either well. There’s got to be another way. Here’s what I’d like.

(By the way, this may look like it’s all about forums, but it isn’t — it applies to blogs and general social hubs, too.)

Intelligent Antidiscrimination

A smart antidiscrimination policy is aware that racism, sexism and other issues are not just a subset of generic discrimination against any fucking thing somebody whines about. It takes historical and cultural realities into account. It doesn’t deprive people who’ve been attacked of the ability to defend themselves, or autonomously raise objections without begging for moderation. It’s administered as a collective ally, willing to adjust itself according to criticism — but not criticism coming from a reactionary sense of privilege.

Critical Categories

By tag, forum or dinner social, communities need to clearly differentiate between their different functions. Nothing fucks up serious critical discussion like participants who expect support for their sense of self-worth, especially when they confuse comments on their game as comments on their personalities. I know some folks think their games are precious pieces of themselves. Those people are weak. Still, there needs to be a place for them along with anyone else who just feels like shooting the breeze. So devote one section to casual discussion and one to high intensity criticism. Create another, separate section for making things — house rules, mods, whole games. Again, this sounds like online business but it can just as easily apply to conventions.

Fuck Actual Play — Just Play

It’s time to kick Actual (Capitalized) Play in the teeth. No other thing is as representative of the bankruptcy of gaming’s vocal minority than its fetish for play stories because this makes them a commodity in a community that has come to believe that the most common outcome of trying to play RPGs is some form of failure. Lots of things deserve their own forums, but Actual Play isn’t one of them. Instead, community values should uphold regular play as the objective: not be a special occasion that draws applause from other hobbyists. Not playing  should be a problem we work together to solve with all the social tools at our command.

Are play stories bad? No, but it’s time to break them out into a secondary form of entertainment and admit that it is a creative act above and beyond describing what happens in game sessions (which they don’t do well anyway). So let’s encourage the JRPG replay tradition and put in the “make things” category.

Sincerity, Not Selling

By clamouring for decorum at the expense of authentic conversations we’ve made communities which should burst with creative vitality into a place where the worst behaviours vomit themselves onto the public stage. Perpetrators expect some authority to deny it or let it slide. That’s why rather than being marketing resistant as some commentators naively believe, RPG communities have been vulnerable to calculated, insincere persuasion at all scales. Worse, this makes marketing something fans do to each other. Just the other day I read a fan blog for one game where the posts were mainly about delivering pitches to sell the game to other people.

If a game designer promotes this, he or she deserves your contempt. If a community emphasizes this, that community deserves your derision. Yes, boosting what you like is natural, but there are limits. Instead, demonstrate your enthusiasm by creating things, being sincere at the risk of being controversial, and valuing participation over hands-off commentary. Let’s be raw, inspiring and truthful. Let’s play.