Why Buy?

 

RPG  R&D  & Development Notes / Why Buy? 

I showed a prototype for my role-playing game product to a local game store. 

The feedback was that nobody is gonna buy it because nobody knows me. A suggestion that I come into the store more often, so that people get to know me.

I identified the guy recognises the role-playing games industry is about people, as in, individuals. 

I did start to go into the store more often, where I was told by the same guy there’s no point sitting in the store distracting people, I might as well be painting miniatures. This would involve purchasing miniatures from the store. 

Clever store owner. 

Attempting to arrange sessions to play the game in the store, his advice was they don’t like miniature-free, imagination-based group rpg sessions because although it brings a lot of people into the store, most of them are not buying anything. Also, it means they have to keep the store open later. It’s a hassle for them. 

They can charge per-seat-at-the-table which in my experience is 1) at an extortionate rate and 2) the demand outweighs the service, resulting in game-lag due to too-many-players. 

It’s boring waiting an hour for your turn to roll a combat dice taking up the whole session. No actual character-based roleplaying can develop in those conditions.

Going back to the original point. “Nobody is going to buy my product because nobody knows me.” 

I’m willing to bet most people who read this will have heard the name Gary Gygax. Some fans of old school might even have heard of Dave Arnoldson, and almost all original oldschool generation will know the names Larry Elmore and Tracy Hicks and Margret Weiss. There is a large list here who all deserve mention. 

  

None of those names know me and why would they? I do not use my real name for the purposes of this of anyway because I am reclusive and prefer anonymity. 

That’s not my point. 

The point is this: 

How many people who bought role-playing games industry products this year, off the top of your head name the person who created that product.  

I am willing to bet the answer is within one percent. Even were at 10 times that Number, 10% is a minority, not the vast majority. 

On this principle, the vast majority of people who buy role-playing game products do so not because they are loyal fans of a name of an individual person who created it, but for other reasons.

What those reasons are is very much worthy subject matter for more than one dedicated blog. Suffice to say it, the reasons are many. 

So, why do people buy RPG products? 

A Game Around A Game

 

A Game Around A Game

D&D and the OGL (open game license). 

A lot of hype has been made about the promotion and retraction of an idea known as Open Game License. 

I studied contract law. Contract Law comes down to two factors;

“No Contract, No Comply” 

and 

“Always Read The Small Print.” 

Also known as; 

“The Devil Is In The Details.” 

A contract is a contract. 

Those who sign it are bound by what it says, as a formal agreement exists that both parties will do as they agreed to do by signing the contract. 

In USA law ‘a game system cannot be patented’ and ‘only specific orders of words can be copyrighted’.

A game rule system can not be patented (owned) on the legal and moral premise that game rules are owned by everyone, otherwise people would not be allowed to play games without consent of the copyright owner, consent is automatically given to everyone as a human right. 

However, the order of words used to instruct how to play that game, can be copyrighted (privately owned). As such, therefore can be sold, leased, lent or given to others to use. 

WTF is the relevancy of the OGL within that legal framework? 

The idea of an OGL where an attempt is made to put people into a contract by not having a contract, is technically an offence to the intention of Law. 

It creates an arena of confusion where black and white are replaced by tones of grey. This is not a healthy thing to become entangled with. It is a manipulation. 

Why would any party be periodically promoting and then retracting such a thing? 

Because they are exhibiting diagnostically controlling behaviour. 

Because they are creating hype to advertise their associated product.

Because they are attempting to maintain an illusion of control, by attempting to extend their remit to beyond the legal remit. 

Black and White:

You can write a book teaching how to play a game (eg; chess or the banging the rocks together game) only if you use your own words. 

You can not write a book teaching how to play a game (eg; chess or the banging the rocks together game) if you use somebody else’s words, which they used in their previously published book on the same game. 

Black & White and Red (Additional Content):

If a third party makes a product compatible with a game rule system and does not use the copyrighted order of words (to instruct the game rules) or any copyrighted content (such as names of specific characters and monsters made up specifically for that product), no law has been broken. It is legal. 

If a third party makes a product compatible with a game rule system and does use the copyrighted order of words (to instruct the game rules) but does not use any copyrighted content (such as names of specific characters and monsters made up specifically for that product), copyright infringement of intellectual property has occurred; it is illegal. 

If a third party makes a product compatible with a game rule system, and does not use the copyrighted order of words (to instruct the game rules) but does use any copyrighted content (such as names of specific characters and monsters made up specifically for that product), copyright infringement of intellectual property has occurred; it is illegal. 

You can make a game compatible with everybody’s favourite roleplaying product so long as you do not directly copypaste its content or use any bugbears, or they will troll you like an imp. 

Any indie RPG product aimed at the System Agnostic market containing generic staples and yet which contains character stats specific to a game system rules falls under the category that game system rules cannot be copyrighted. It’s legal. 

An indie RPG product which is an unofficial bolt-on to an established campaign setting, including or not including monsters and characters specific to that franchise, is likely illegal. 

On this principle; 

The future of the RPG industry is customisable worlds and adaptable adventures for system-agnostic generic products. 

The community of rpg players, Gamesmasters, world-builders and game-designers are encouraged to do this in a modular system, so that modules can be tweaked and sequenced (connected together) by the wider community. 

This distillation process of play-testing and improving upon what is already out there occurs inevitably, regardless how much anyone tries to control or limit it. We may as well be honest about that and build from it with awareness. 

One lesson I can promote from a lifetime of games design is this: 

“The more complicated any rules system, the more open it is to manipulation.” 

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