The Culture: What The Collapse of Conventional Play Will Be Like

Yep, we're beating this topic good and hard because folks aren't getting it.

What The Collapse Looks Like

It's going to be slow at first. Think of the second or so immediately after killing your engine after you've been rolling at 100 mph for a while. Now put yourself on a clean, dry, well-maintained road that is perfectly flat. If you don't touch the brake, but just let the car roll on, it will slow to a stop all on its own but not right away. You'll go on for a while, maybe a mile or two or longer, before you come to stop.

That's how this collapse will first manifest. SOBS abandoning Tabletop for Vidya is no different than turning off the car's engine while at a high speed on that road. You will not maintain your speed because there's no more energy coming into the drive train to counteract the friction from where the wheels touch the road. With every inch more energy is lost than gained, slowing your speed. More energy lost means more speed lost, and you get slower faster over distance until you stop.

SOBS does all of the heavy lifting for the Cargo Cult of Conventional Play. SOBS does all of the Public Relations for the hobby in commercial spaces. SOBS does all of the recruitng of prospective hobbyists out of the pool of Normies and funnels them into the hobby via their own offerings, from which every other publisher takes the scraps for their own marketshare- confirmed again recently.

GW does not advertise its core games; it forces its audience to do that. Catalyst does not advertise Shadowrun at all or tabletop BattleTech; it forces the audience to do that. Palladium doesn't advertise at all, and doesn't even merit inclusion when other Brand channels do Robotech or TMNT recaps. Most people do not know that tabletop games other than Current Edition exist at all. It's as if it were still 1999 and Dancey is looking over the survey results.

The "energy going to the drivetrain" thing? That's your sales, marketing, and Public Relations work- the thing Conventional Play publishers do not do at all. SOBS leaving Tabletop means they're not getting their new customers and audience members anymore because SOBS takes all of the prospects instead of most of them.

None of these companies have any plans to pick up that slack. Hell, they still think that brick-and-morter retail matters. (It doesn't, not when Amazon alone makes them irrelvant and this is a world where Print On Demand is a thing and DriveThruRPG offers it.)

Which leads to the other manifestation: retail death.

SOBS drives the commercial viability of the hobby. It's not just Current Edition that's going to go all-digital. If you think the card game isn't going to follow, you're not tall enough for this ride. Stupid British Toy Company won't be enough to save the retail end of Conventional Play, as even their own stores are shrinking in size and number now, and now the conventions are depreciating such things (and pivoting away) or ceaseing to operate.

Already these stores are pivoting away from Tabletop Adventure Games. Right now it's diversifying into Manga (which has no problems pushing product at all), related merch, and boardgames but these are stopgap measures because Amazon and Direct Sales are eating that margin up fast. (Amazon already sells 50% of all books, and TAGs are mostly books, and Direct Sales means the same sticker price goes more to the publishers as most middlemen are removed.)

So what does retail offer the hobby long-term? Meeing space.

Specifically it offers event space, which means that those retail stores that don't collapse will pivot from pushing product to providing space rental or by going private via the transition into a Members Only Clubhouse, a model already long-perfected by private golf clubs, rifle & shotgun clubs, and other hobby clubs that require space to perform and benefit from having a place for people to meet and network.

Yes, there will be consequences for doing this, but the other option is that the hobby goes entirely online over the course of 10-20 years as every existing in-person group falls part with no willingness or ability to replace that lost in-person group due to online organizing being easier, cheaper, and far wider ranging (and thus superior for all intents and purposes).

All this because SOBS decided to just throw Tabletop into the trash.

It will take time for everything to come to an end, but it will come because SOBS isn't there to keep the entire thing going and viable anymore. Retail dies or pivot away. Publishers die or pivot away. The talent, such as it is, either goes to Vidya (where the make-a-living money is) or finds employment outside of Tabletop. Play groups falls away, and with it Conventional Play.

SOBS will be better than fine; SOBS will thrive because it will be where Line Goes Up Best. The Real Hobby will be better than fine; being non-commercial and underground, it can carry on better than before and achieve all that promised potential unhindered by a retarded Cargo Cult.

And I will not miss it.

Tonight Dunder Moose Hosts Alexander Macris- BE THERE!

Dunder Moose has what you need if American Election Drama is too much for you.

Because who doesn't think about Rome every day? (Boring people you don't want to be around.)

The Business: This Is What Conventional Play Competes With

Dear Conventional Play Publishers and Designers:

You do not compete with each other. You do not compete with SOBS directly. You compete with this.

That's right, you compete with videogames. BG3 is just the most obvious example. Larian's other two games, the others sharing that brand, and all other such games (going back to the 1980s) are your competition.

They offer everything that you do with your products. Furthermore, they are superior to what you offer across the board. They are socially acceptable. They don't require any form of scheduling, can be played when and for how long you like, and--given how expensive some of your products are now, despite being digital-primary or exclusive (a real failure on your part)--are either cheaper than anything you offer (some of them are both free and good) or no less expensive at worst.

Yes, including all those folks who'd rather play MechWarrior or PC BattleTech than tabletop. (Especially since MegaMek is free.) the SpaceMace/Fightstick counterpart examples are no less plentiful. "Not needing to schedule my fun", more than anything else, drives this rejection of Tabletop Conventional Play.

The Bros, and thus the Real Hobby, compete and win against videogames because all of those unfavorable comparisons do not exist. Furthermore, the Real Hobby focuses so much on the agency of the player that it becomes the driving force behind play and thus makes designer/publisher-driven content commercially impotent and therefore irrelevant. (It's why you Boomers had to lobotomize the Real Hobby to make it commercially viable in the first place.)

SOBS finally said "Fuck this. I'm going where the real money is."

Mongoose said "We can't do that, so fuck it we're going where the real hobby is."

What are you going to do, because "Carry on as we are" isn't going to be an option for much longer. SOBS' Big Move approaches. Choose. Tick. Tock.

The Culture: A Friendly Panel About Mega-Dungeons

Dunder Moose collaborated with the Women's Division Champion and a few others on to talk Mega-Dungeons last night.

This one is worth watching just to see the discourse.

There's plenty of divergence of opinion between the panelists, but nowhere near too much to have a useful panel discussion. Once you're tired of the sportsball and the last-minute election blather, tune in and hear the quartest give their takes. (If you're pressed for time, turn Speed to 2x.)

The big point of contention comes down to how big of a focus for player attention the mega-dungeon should have.

I'll make this plain: it depends a lot on the game you're playing. AD&D1e? Not so much. ACKS? Not so much. D&D3e? Works great. Palladium Fantasy and most not-D&Ds? Works just fine, even preferable. (Exceptions for Pendragon and those like it, such as L5R, where the focus of play is not on action but on the tension of conflicting virtues- yes, that's how L5R is meant to work because that's how the source material works.)

There is one other thing that I noticed during the panel discussion: the thing that makes this appealing on the tabletop is the strict timekeeping mechanic. If you don't use it, there is nothing that makes tabletop mega-dungeon play better than videogame dungeon-crawling. Be it as old as the original Diablo to the about-to-launch Path of Exile 2, and with games that have you playing a group vs. a solo character, it is not at all surprising to see why most people would find Conventional Play in a mega-dungeon to be boring as fuck when you can get the same itch scratched exactly as you like when you like for (often) cheap or even (for some) free.

And if there isn't something good enough for you, RPG Maker is right there: roll your own.

In short, for the tabletop experience to be worthwhile there needs to be Opportunity Costs that only time itself can impose. Mega-Dungeon or not, this remains the case; without it all other discussions fall apart because you get stuck on "Why do this when (videogame alternative) does it better?"

The Business: Mongoose Is Making A Move With Traveller

Check out this announcement by Mongoose.

Dive into RPG history and create Classic Traveller titles on our TAS programme at Drivethru!

There is an easy-to-use set of templates (inc. MS Word!), along with guidelines on what you are able to use and how.

You can find the template pack at: https://t.co/gdgiG8DlLA#ttrpg pic.twitter.com/0x4UymAFxt

— Mongoose Publishing (@MongoosePub) November 1, 2024

The link is here.

This is what that page says:

This package includes a range of templates with which you are licensed to use in content submitted for Classic Traveller to the Travellers' Aid Society programme and published under the Community Content Agreement for the TAS programme. You are not licensed to use these templates for any other purpose. All art owned by Mongoose Publishing.

You are allowed to use the Traveller setting as presented in the Classic Traveller edition books published by Games Designers Workshop as well as any Mongoose-published book using the Classic Traveller rules. This includes the names of all characters, species, and places and all gear, equipment and vessels; the capitalised names and original names of places, countries, creatures, geographic locations, historic events, items, ships, and organisations presented in those books.

No other editions of Traveller may be used at this time.

When publishing for Classic TAS, you must use the cover templates provided here. You are permitted to change the colour of the bands and the Traveller logo, and also the text labelled ‘Extended Title’ and ‘Main Title Here’.

You may not use Classic Traveller series titles (such as Book X, Supplement X, Adventure X, or Double Adventure X, etc), but may certainly create your own series for Classic Traveller!

Remember what I said about all these publishers having to make a choice? As Mongoose now owns all of Traveller, Mongoose has to make a choice on what to do about Traveller and it has made that choice. Those templates are free; you might as well snag and download them. The terms here are reasonable enough for practical use; there are Intellectual Property issues to consider, but note what is not in those terms: that you must sell them for profit.

You can give away the digital versions and sell print copies at-cost, so you can do this in a proper hobbyist mode if you want- and, quite frankly, you should.

Old-timers clearly see what the intent here is: to recreate the effect that the original Open Game License had for D&D3e. The idea was that by creating a vast network of people making useful stuff for that edition, adoption of that edition would increase exponentially via Network Effects. Dancey was right because that is what happened.

Mongoose has chosen. They chose the Clubhouse.

The Culture: The Braunstein In The Woods

Y'know, now that Spooky Day 2024 is over, I have to think about something aloud.

That something is Le Slasher Horror Scenario. Try as games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten (et. al.) try, it should not be surprising that videogames definitely do the most playable scenarios better than Tabletop such that it is the videogame that successfully named and labelled it: Survival Horror.

"But why?"

Because Survival Horror is everything that the Cargo Cult of Conventional Play says that Tabletop Adventure Games are, and videogames are superior to tabletop versions in every single way possible- especially as commercial products. Not only that, but until the Bros came along they actually had a superior understanding of how to make it better.

That's right, it was the videogame versions that figured out how to make Playing The Monster (i.e. handing off a hostile faction to another player) work first.

If there is anything new for the Bros to tackle, it is in how to do the Real Hobby model of play work for horror. The one-session Braunstein scenario is, for all intents and purposes, a tabletop precursor to the asymmetrical model that Dead By Daylight established in videogames, so while that is necessary it is not sufficient.

No, we need to make the entire model work and for that we need to figure out Faction Play on a strategic level and make it interaction with Session Play on the tactical. While I can point you to Chill and others like it (e.g. Delta Green), I again must say that another medium already has this figured out.

The difference is that, in the Real Hobby model, there are multiple hostile Factions and room for individual characters to act.

The problem? If you adhere to Conventional Play norms, there is no way in Hell you'll get a better play experience than just playing XCom or others like it. (Or, for those more into the Zombie Apocalypse thing, games like How To Survive.) You need the strict timekeeping and Faction Play interweaving with and directly affecting adventuring scenario play to get the desired results.

Which means that Le Horror Campaign cannot be one endless parade of hapless Normies bumbling into monsters and crazy people because you have players playing the monsters and Plot Armor does not apply (which is why, despite itself, The Cabin the Woods is a fantastic meta-commentary about Horror as well as the basis for a fantastic horror campaign).

I'm thinking aloud here. I'm certain that others may be quite different in their perspective, but given where we are now this question yet remains.

The Business: Conventional Play Is (Slowly) Catching On To The Shift

Conventional Play is (slowly) catching up to where I am.

(Video playback starts after the nearly 30 minutes of bullshit that didn't matter.)

At the 37th minute we get to the point: SOBS wants the CONSUME PRODUCT guy, not the hobbyist. Malenda is correct: they people are not hobbyists. They are Brand Fans, performative idolators who use the Brand and its signifiers to signal social status. Malenda nails it: "They want to buy their identity, not live it."

The Bros, the #BROSR, and the Real Hobby is antithetical to all of that.

SOBS gets 60% of their sales DIRECT TO CONSUMER. That's cutting out Amazon, nevermind the local stores. Next Edition, from SOBS' point of view, is a massive hit exactly as planned.

Listen to Malenda and Gleickman, people. They have the read on SOBS and why they're doing what they're doing. They are confirming what I've been saying, and continue to say: there is no future for Conventional Play. (And as they are Death Cultists, they want SOBS to win for their own reasons.)

When your fellow travelers admit that I am right, take the hint and prepare for the collapse. Tick. Tock.