The Business: Why Too Many RPGs Sell Gimped Rulesets

Cirsova made it clear why the OSR has issues with the #BROSR.

If the rules don't mean anything anyway, reading good books undercuts the only grift "game designers" have left.

— Cirsova: Winter Issue Out 12/15 (@cirsova) December 13, 2022

If that wasn't enough to make it clear, here you go.

Pundit and people like him's angle, though, as a game developer, you need to be sold settings and supplements in order to play out those fantasies. If you can use what you want on the fly without buying supplemental game products, you've kneecapped "the product-driven OSR."

— Cirsova: Winter Issue Out 12/15 (@cirsova) December 13, 2022

This is the legacy business model for tabletop RPGs summarized.

Before the arrival of both digital distribution and Print On Demand technology, the only way to get product into a prospect's hands was to use traditional publishing technology, techniques, and practices--including distribution via Diamond to speciality stores--and that itself arose from another legacy issue.

The issue was that the presumed shared knowledge of '70s-era wargaming turned out to be a false one. TSR and then its competitors got deluged with letters--we're talking snail-mail year, kids--asking questions about the rules that expose a lack of awareness of those presumed shared norms.

This, coupled with the sudden pressures to actually make this a viable business--complete with all that entails--is what those old-timers back in the day decided to solve by selling them the solutions. This is the origin of the Product Supplement Treadmill business model.

Why did this turn into edition churn?

Take a Normie into the store. Assuming that merely entering the store isn't repellant enough, looking at the shelf space would repel many of those left, and store staff--never trained in how to do sales, and hilariously biased in their preferences--would filter out many more getting wrong what is actually needed to play either out of a desire to max out a potential sale, our of spite for a property they hate, or simple incompetence at the task.

Put simply, asking a Normie for more than--in today's money--the price of a videogame console and at least one game is a losing proposition. It always has been; it's just that, for the longest time, tabletop could get away with it becuase There Was No Alternative and tabletop was vastly cheaper than videogames.

Some kid had the Christmas of his goddamn life in 1981 and I have the receipt. pic.twitter.com/FiNsyhhmne

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) December 13, 2022

Just 20 years ago a complete set of rulebooks for D&D3.0 were $60+tax (US). Those rulebooks for Current Game combine to $150+tax now and that is still not enough because you are expected to buy supplementary material--mandatory supplements--and services now.

Or you can spend $50 for the latest Globe of Gankcraft expansion and pay that subscrption, get superior convenience and product support (yes, seriously), have full control over your time commitment and a superior gameplay experience than Current Game.

I know what the Normie sees as a better value proposition, and so does everyone else with two functioning braincells and the ability to look at a user graph since 2004.

The #BROSR breaks this pattern.

"You don't need Current Game. You need only a proper wargame you can get for the price of Current Gankcraft Expansion or less and to enjoy some other time reading classic adventure literature."

You can see how the OSR sort, still married to the legacy business model and making some or all of their living from it, would object to this as it directly attacks their source of revenue- it fucks with their money.

"You just need to master these slim rules, and you will benefit from enjoy these classic stories."

Your typical OSR guy sees this and hears "You don't need to buy their shit to have fun. You can play the old games, read the old books, pay less money and have as much or more fun playing a real game."

Therefore I share what BDubs said a while ago: Every OSR sort will either join the #BROSR or turn into a Cult shill for Current Game. The axis of this split will be their ability accept the fact that the #BROSR speaks the truth about RPGs.

Either way, selling gimped RPG rulesets in the hopes of doing the Stupid Britsh Toy Company method of milking customers dry over an edition and then tossing them aside is done because--on both ends--this model is being rendered obsolete and thrown on the heap.