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Well, that and you can't create a game-manual-as-software out of your kitchen as a single non-programmer working out of your kitchen.
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Oct 27, 2015 19:42
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Ebooks cost about as much as physical books in most of the world. RiotGearEpsilon posted:Yeah, actually producing and distributing the physical object is a surprisingly small portion of the cost of most books.
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Oct 27, 2015 19:47
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Plus, what will nerds read while pooping? I am building a collection of 1st ED AD&D books just to put in the bathroom.
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Oct 27, 2015 19:47
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Terrible Opinions posted:I don't know where you're from but as soon as something is popular enough to say be in Barnes and Nobles instead of some indie print run the ebook will be 30-50% off of the physical book's cost. I always thought it clever that you could read eBooks for free on your Nook while connected to B&N wiFi in their cafe. Want to keep reading when you leave? Just tap here. Oh, and buy a $5 coffee and a $4 Rice Krispy Treat while you're here.
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Oct 27, 2015 19:52
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Rand Brittain posted:Well, that and you can't create a game-manual-as-software out of your kitchen as a single non-programmer working out of your kitchen. Bingo. What is startling to me is how few RPG developers have figured out that they need a particular skillset that is readily available on the market. I bet there are actual programmers who are RPG fans that would be happy and willing to help develop apps to support a cool game system for little or no cost. The same goes for technical writers. One of the biggest problems in the RPG industry today is that it is full of businesses run by people lacking business acumen (see: this thread), producing products using the writing processes that nonproffesionals are comfortable with (Microsoft Word), and then dumping poorly-produced product in tiny numbers into a market utterly saturated with exactly that kind of product, earning little to no money, and then paying little to nothing to the creators. It feels like a crowded market but I don't think it actually is. I think there's a lot of room for high-quality professionally-produced game products that take maximal advantage of modern technology, modern theories of information access and presentation, and modern business expertise. Even the big companies like Wizards, Paizo, GW, etc. are pretty bad at this stuff. Wizards put together D&D Insider and then managed to severely cock it up after a couple of years of really really promising work. The big game publishers are still functioning as publishing houses. The biggest names in RPG writing still regularly produce poor-quality products focused first and foremost on a print-book publishing model. Nobody seems to have quite figured out that the boom-and-bust cycle of making a new edition of your game, spamming out supplements, and then bloating the poo poo out of it into unplayability is a really bad way to both make and support a good game, and maintain a stable, predictable revenue stream. I mean, really; if you published all your mechanics online, you could update them on a continuous ad-hoc basis, addressing bugs, advancing plots and narratives, improving mechanics, and giving customers a reason to maintain their subscriptions. e. It's true that you can't re-sell a Kindle book. But, there is the Kindle Lending Library, which allows you to check out a book for free for a while. RPG publishers could take advantage of that model, if they want their customers to be able to temporarily access their content without them just wholesale copying it or giving it away. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 19:53
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Leperflesh posted:I mean, really; if you published all your mechanics online, you could update them on a continuous ad-hoc basis, addressing bugs, advancing plots and narratives, improving mechanics, and giving customers a reason to maintain their subscriptions. 
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Oct 27, 2015 19:57
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Leperflesh posted:Actually though, I secretly believe that books are the wrong way to document a game system.
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Oct 27, 2015 20:15
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Leperflesh posted:What is startling to me is how few RPG developers have figured out that they need a particular skillset that is readily available on the market. I bet there are actual programmers who are RPG fans that would be happy and willing to help develop apps to support a cool game system for little or no cost. The same goes for technical writers. I live with a tech writer, and two of my closest friends are professional coders who game. The industry might need people with their skills, but it can't afford them. The one who has made programs for personal and group use does so on a time scale that ranges into years, because he'd rather spend the time playing games than spending the rest of his days and weekends working on code for a third party.
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Oct 27, 2015 20:22
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gradenko_2000 posted:So I guess the question is, what would a DRM-enabled PDF alternative even look like? I realize this has mostly been shot down by this point, but I want to specify that "DRM-enabled PDF alternative" is basically the opposite of what I was going for there. Bieeardo posted:I live with a tech writer, and two of my closest friends are professional coders who game. The industry might need people with their skills, but it can't afford them. The one who has made programs for personal and group use does so on a time scale that ranges into years, because he'd rather spend the time playing games than spending the rest of his days and weekends working on code for a third party. Yep. I do free RPG-related coding in my spare time, but not a lot of my spare time, and only when it's specifically relevant to my needs. Otherwise, pay dollar dollar and we can talk.
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Oct 27, 2015 20:28
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Rulebooks are not the means through which we educate people on gameplay. They are the bulwark of numbers and math we use to keep filthy casuals and nerd tourists out of our sacred treehouse. It's like you people just don't understand this hobby.
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Oct 27, 2015 20:34
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Bieeardo posted:I live with a tech writer, and two of my closest friends are professional coders who game. The industry might need people with their skills, but it can't afford them. The one who has made programs for personal and group use does so on a time scale that ranges into years, because he'd rather spend the time playing games than spending the rest of his days and weekends working on code for a third party. This is me. My current project is making a Mutants and Masterminds 3e online character generator. Partially doing it for gaming reasons, partially doing it for learning new technologies and development techniques. e: Modeling power creation in that system is painful.
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Oct 27, 2015 20:38
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Leperflesh posted:Bingo. Counterpoint: Fyxt (https://fyxtrpg.com/) Edit: To be less snarky, let's look at the skills it would take to bring out a system that wasn't a book: 1) Decent programming ability and the wherewithal and time to complete it. 2) Writing ability 3) Business acumen Holy moly that's a tall order. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 20:49
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Among their many other failings, Fxyt and the now-forgotten Genesys are examples of how, in addition to modern presentation, marketing, and content delivery, you also need an actual game that is actually original.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:04
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Counterpoint: Fyxt (https://fyxtrpg.com/) Lord, don't remind me. They put a demo up on DriveThru but I ain't downloading it.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:04
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Halloween Jack posted:Among their many other failings, Fxyt and the now-forgotten Genesys are examples of how, in addition to modern presentation, marketing, and content delivery, you also need an actual game that is actually original. Well, with Fyxt it wan't just that it was a generic game that only thought of fantasy, or that the rules were bad, or that they were trying to fix D&D without even being remotely aware of any games other than D&D/d20. It was that, in order to play, you had to have an account on their website to access the rules and the attack builder and the gear lists and the interactive character sheet. They didn't have a book or an SRD that let you make poo poo, it was all webtools only.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:07
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Fyxt really amazes me because it is essentially a Fantasy Heartbreaker created in an era where the concept of the Fantasy Heartbreaker is supposed to be defunct. The market is flooded with self-published games, sure, but that's still better than blowing your life savings on producing your game through an unsolicited print run or a similarly expensive method as Fyxt has done. This is the kind of bad idea where you have to go through a long chain of specific bad decisions, wrong assumptions, and instances of willful stupidity to arrive at the conclusion that you should publish a game this way.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:13
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Terrible Opinions posted:I don't know where you're from but as soon as something is popular enough to say be in Barnes and Nobles instead of some indie print run the ebook will be 30-50% off of the physical book's cost. RPG PDFs are commonly sold for 50% of print retail, which is way better than most Kindle ebooks I think.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:17
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Halloween Jack posted:Fyxt really amazes me because it is essentially a Fantasy Heartbreaker created in an era where the concept of the Fantasy Heartbreaker is supposed to be defunct. The market is flooded with self-published games, sure, but that's still better than blowing your life savings on producing your game through an unsolicited print run or a similarly expensive method as Fyxt has done. This is the kind of bad idea where you have to go through a long chain of specific bad decisions, wrong assumptions, and instances of willful stupidity to arrive at the conclusion that you should publish a game this way. Also sticking your fingers in your ears and going "LALALALALALA" when the people you ask for feedback try to tell you to not do this and can provide examples of why it's a bad idea. Seriously, when you say "unlike D&D" every other paragraph of your rules explanation, you're just hosed from the get-go. e: or when you have this: quote:During the session, normally 2-6 hours for most games, the Game Master will present the story and the situations and manage the players as they work through it. These situations can be anything that the Game Master dreams up but they generally get broken down into three Game Modes. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 21:20
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Bieeardo posted:I live with a tech writer, and two of my closest friends are professional coders who game. The industry might need people with their skills, but it can't afford them. The one who has made programs for personal and group use does so on a time scale that ranges into years, because he'd rather spend the time playing games than spending the rest of his days and weekends working on code for a third party. Yeah I mean, I'm a technical writer, I get it. I've toyed with making my own games many times, and usually what it comes down to is that I don't care to do that kind of work in my leisure time. That said, a long time ago when D&D 3.0 was new, an XML buddy of mine actually built a D&D DTD which we could manipulate using standard XSL tools etc. It became moot when 3.5 came out and the D20SRD went up online, but the point is: this was a programmery information modeling nerd willing to put personal time into this kind of project. And I'm talking about more than just "let's make a character generator." I'm talking about building an RPG information system around modern information modeling concepts like DITA. The tools are already there; I think if you are familiar with working with a content modeling tool, you can use an off-the-shelf option. If you're familiar with writing short, interlinked articles, you can do so with no more effort than it takes to write a book. Skilled professionals do expect to get paid for work, but as we've seen, there are a lot of hobbyists willing to work for free, and I can't help but think that there must be some intersection of the two worlds. Evil Mastermind posted:Also sticking your fingers in your ears and going "LALALALALALA" when the people you ask for feedback try to tell you to not do this and can provide examples of why it's a bad idea. Yeah it's a terrible shame because Fyxt is at least attempting to use the sort of content model I'm talking about, but it's wrapped up in such a huge fuckup of a game design.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:27
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Leperflesh posted:at least attempting to use the sort of content model I'm talking about, but it's wrapped up in such a huge fuckup of a game design. Let's be fair here. They could make every rpg ruleset into a hyperlinked web of wiki articles tomorrow, and the above would still be the case 98% of the time.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:34
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Has anybody here actually used the Fyxt system or looked at it in depth? It appears to be a bland D20 derivative. You can usually tell you're looking at a cargo cult game company when they make a bombastic announcement about how their game lets you do literally anything, but never ever talk about those actual rules (except maybe to say it's D20-based). Genesys did the same thing. The whole thing is starting to remind me of when Eric Gibson bought the West End Games properties, and decided at some point along the line that he should make D6 an open system, with extremely vague, Underpants Gnomes ideas for "online developer tools" that would somehow monetize this process instead of immediately reducing the value of his copyrights to $0, which is what happened. Leperflesh posted:Yeah it's a terrible shame because Fyxt is at least attempting to use the sort of content model I'm talking about, but it's wrapped up in such a huge fuckup of a game design. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 21:37
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Leperflesh posted:I bet there are actual programmers who are RPG fans that would be happy and willing to help develop apps to support a cool game system for little or no cost. The same goes for technical writers. On the other hand, if all we're talking about is a straight rulebook replacement, the technology exists to do that with little to no technical knowledge. It's called a wiki. The problem is you'd be in pretty much uncharted territory as far as monetizing that goes, on top of the time it takes to properly hyperlink the thing. I like where you're going though, and I mostly agree with it. Just last night I cracked open a PDF for Shadowrun 5e to look at the rules for making a character and it was extremely painful to parse.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:44
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clockworkjoe posted:RPG PDFs are commonly sold for 50% of print retail, which is way better than most Kindle ebooks I think. It depends if you're going direct or through a distributor. If you're using direct sales 50% or better is industry standard. Take for instance the book I'm reading right now 1177 BC, the hardcover initial release cost was 30 dollars, paperback reissue was 15, and kindle is 10. This price gap between paperback and ebook drops as the book becomes more popular and economies of scale cause the production price of the book to not matter. So for instance Dresden Files paperbacks and ebooks are identical, but that's because super simple paperbacks are so cheap to make as to be practically free. The hardbacks and oddly shaped books that can't be steam rolled out on the standard airport novel machines will always have a significant material cost. Now not everything from the manufacturing of normal books can be applied to rpg books. Most best seller novels are set up to conform to a standardized airport novel size when a softcover version is released, whereas rpg books tend to be awkwardly large hardbacked affairs more resembling text books than novels. Additionally most American books contain few if any illustrations beyond the cover while RPG books are expected to be illustrated throughout. Both of these factors drastically increase the cost of RPG source books; the former increasing the cost of actual print runs, while the latter increases the cost of initial development. The closer you get to normal novel size and shape though the cheaper print runs become, and consequently the smaller ebook discounts should be. Hence why hardcover RPG books tend to have fairly massive discounts for their ebook version compared to softcover, and while Frostgrave has a positively tiny price for being a wargame rule book. Frostgrave benefits from having a format identical to practically all of Osprey Publishing's other small hardcover books.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:49
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ImpactVector posted:I've done this as well for games I've been really enthused about (or, in the case of 5e, really annoyed by), but it's an insane thing to base a business model on. At that point you're not really any better than the publishers paying freelancers pennies a word.
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Oct 27, 2015 21:55
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not a programmer or technical writer myself, so just to be clear...are we talking about publishers doing what Hero Lab is doing, but for their own games instead of waiting for a third party to capitalize on the opportunity? I think their Realm Works product (http://www.wolflair.com/realmworks/) may be the better ask as with it you can maintain rules and content and presumably when they have the market open, publishers can release both in a non-book format.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:06
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Leperflesh posted:Skilled professionals do expect to get paid for work, but as we've seen, there are a lot of hobbyists willing to work for free, and I can't help but think that there must be some intersection of the two worlds. I mentioned this conversation to my housemate before stepping out for an hour, and she had an interesting idea... after offering to break into games at her going rate. Games companies doing outreach to schools with strong tech writing and comp sci faculties, like Waterloo, looking for interns. Places like that are bound to have some of that overlap you're looking for, and even if not, you've got someone who is professionally compelled to point out that section X, paragraph 3 is confusingly worded, where a lifelong gamer might not even register it. My concerns, mainly, are persistence and effectiveness. If you have one coder, and he doesn't document well, that's going to make getting a new one up to speed that much harder. If you've got a bunch of people contributing to a single project, you need to manage them, or bring someone else on to do it. Since it's a hobby project, it's probably going to be pretty low priority for most of them, too.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:15
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Leperflesh posted:I bet there are actual programmers who are RPG fans that would be happy and willing to help develop apps to support a cool game system for little or no cost. I've wanted to make a networked Paranoia setup for years... one day...
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Oct 27, 2015 22:17
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm not a programmer or technical writer myself, so just to be clear...are we talking about publishers doing what Hero Lab is doing, but for their own games instead of waiting for a third party to capitalize on the opportunity? On the other hand, this conversation started with how awful rulebooks are, both as references and learning guides. If you're just looking to replace that with a knowledge base-type format you don't really need all that much technical skill as long as we're ignoring the monetising aspect. I mean, I'm sure a skilled technical writer would do a much better job, but you can't really do much worse than a lot of coding KBs, which are still light years beyond a textbook. ImpactVector fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 22:22
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I'm thinking along the lines of what's being done with API documentation these days. Here, check out this Twilio tutorial: https://www.twilio.com/docs/howto/search-and-buy This is a tightly-focused "how to" document. It directly addresses a type of operation a developer might be trying to implement using their technology (do an advanced search for a phone number). At the top is a brief overview of the task. Then there's a list of concepts involved in this task, with links to the documentation for those concepts. Then there's a brief statement about usage. The Overview serves as both a table of contents for the rest of the How To article, and an illustration of the flow of data between two servers. And it's clickable. At a glance you can see "what is going on" and if you are seeking information on just one part of the flow, it's trivial to click directly to that part. Then you get a series of steps. Each step has boxes you can click to see how it could be implemented in each of three different languages. When you click a box - PHP, for example - you see code samples specific to that technology. And the code is copy/pastable. There's also a link if you want to just download a file with the code in it that you can put directly into your IDE. The whole thing is pretty short. On the same page are visible markers that help you navigate elsewhere, if you're in the wrong place. YOu can get to API docs, quickstart info, and since security is a common concern, it's got a top-level tab to click on. Then within the Tutorials section, you have a full list of all the tutorials available (and there's a lot of them), organized by content and placed into context. If I wanted to learn how to play an RPG, this would be a good way to go about it. I've even seen API documentation where in addition to the sample code presented, you have forms you can literally type in your own data to, and it modifies the code on-the-fly to show you how your own data would look in the example. Translate that to an RPG: you show me a section of a character sheet, with an example showing (say) how to calculate attack bonuses. I can just look at the example if I want, or I could modify a base stat to see how that changes the calculation. Imagine a player's handbook that is integrated with character creation that way. Or a combat example that shows how line of sight works with a built-in mini-app interface that lets you move tokens around on a little map and it shows you what their LOS cones are. Or a sample encounter setup that shows you dynamically how different enemy character roles mesh to present an easier or tougher challenge. And since it's all online, it's indexed and searchable. If I want to look up a rule it's probably faster to type keywords into a search box than it is to flip through a couple of rulebooks. Let's see now, which splatbook was that feat from, again? This looks expensive, and it's not free, that's for sure. But most of the work is in the UI design of the website, combined with off-the-shelf content management tools, and content writers who understand how to use them to maximum effectiveness. It does not require a lot of coding time to put a site like this together anymore, and coding time is the most expensive part. Technical writers cost a lot less than programmers, and UA/UX experts are often even less expensive.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:27
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This is a good idea, I like it a lot.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:30
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Leperflesh posted:A good idea. This would be cool. Maybe even expand into a mobile app for phones/tablets.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:46
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I have honestly considered self funding a rewrite of the 14-16 pages of rules for the Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit just so I can get people to play it with me. There is an excellent fan-made pdf that explains it very very well but it clocks in at like 80 pages iirc. I swear every paragraph of that loving thing is like a quarter acronyms.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:58
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I will still never understand the refusal for a company the size of WotC to fund a rudimentary Character Generator app for iOS or Android. Have it save and store 2 characters, additional slots for pennies (or GPs or Crystals or whatever you want to call your freemium currency). Fake Edit: Forgot about the official Magic: The Gathering app. If that's what they were able to create for their flagship product I understand why they wouldn't be bothered for DnD. That was hot, hot garbage.
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Oct 27, 2015 23:14
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They tried for at least the last two editions. Never on anything other than Windows, though. 4e had two, the first was broadly functional but based in a nearly-deprecated Windows-only technology the name of which I can't remember any longer. The second was web-based, in Silverlight, so again, MS-only. The original developers promised a lot more but there were... personal problems... to put it mildly, which halted development of the more impressive bits that were promised (character visualiser, virtual tabletop). They had a moderately well-maintained database of all the game elements to go with it; I was always baffled as to why they didn't just make a paygated API for the database and let their massive community of nerds write their own programme(s). 5e attempted to have one, but the company wildly over-promised and under-delivered, and it never got made. WotC have since C&Ded several 3rd party attempts. WotC's D&D division is TERRIBLE at the internet. For the longest time they refused to do digital copies of books to avoid piracy. Despite the fact that you could ALWAYS get a pirated copy of every loving book they released within days if not hours of the release date, because someone will always be willing to buy a copy, cut the pages out, and scan it. People who would happily pay for a legit digital copy would instead  them because Wizards wouldn't take their money.
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Oct 27, 2015 23:22
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Hell, the 3.0 handbook had a CD-ROM in the front cover with a functional character builder. And I still have my Core Rules and Core Rules 2.0 CD-ROMs of D&D 2nd edition, which had digital versions of a pretty good lineup of 2nd edition books. Refusing to do digital versions of 4.0 for so long was a major regression in usability. It was stupid as hell.
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Oct 27, 2015 23:45
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Speaking of which, they finally started selling the core 4e books in PDF again yesterday.
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Oct 27, 2015 23:50
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Yeah I remember the 3e character generators. Spent a lot of time rolling up different level 1-3s on it. I'm referring to a dedicated, portable, monetizeable app for platforms that people would reasonably use at a gaming table. Your character sheet, in the palm of your hand. Track HP, expended abilities, gear, etc. Hell, throw in a dice roller that pulls modifiers from the character sheet. Make it really fancy and have it link with a GM management app (yes, I'm aware the complexity that adds, fully understand it not happening). But I understand why it isn't happening. When a good freelance App developer can ask $60+ an hour to work on a project, a niche app with a limited audience tends to not manifest. Of course, if WotC was willing to embrace it as advertising... but I digress. It isn't happening, for reasons that are known.
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Oct 28, 2015 00:26
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As a friend of mine likes to say, "WotC has the very best software developers you can get for 40k/yr."
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Oct 28, 2015 00:39
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Bucnasti posted:As a friend of mine likes to say, "WotC has the very best software developers you can get for 40k/yr." They were, iirc, all Microsoft rejects, being in the same physical neighborhood.
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Oct 28, 2015 04:03
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I think this circles us back to how anyone / any team with the technical and creative chops to pull this off will be using it to develop full fledged video games instead.
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Oct 28, 2015 04:20
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