The Business: The Problem Is The Endless Product Slop

Chubby Funster nailed the Conventional Play Endless Product Slop problem in less than five minutes.

This is summarized as "Meant to be read, not played".

Very pretty, very stylish, very "Show off on the coffee table or the bookshelf", very not actually useable at the table.

The solution I propose is simple: make "products" irrelevant by focusing time and attention on complete games whose very play procedure generates playble content. AD&D1e does that. Classic Traveller does that. A few others do that. Most Tabletop products pretending to be games do not.

This means that the Real Game has no supplements. No Endless Product Slop. Instead, designer and publisher outreach focuses on teaching users how to play the game and use the rules; that's what YouTube channels and various Short Form outlets (i.e. Tiktok) are for, and you can do that with a phone and some free software.

The consequence is that each group creates their campaign from scratch as they go; no one, including the Referee, knows what's going to happen before it happens and that means there is no preparation. You show up, you make choices, you roll the dice, you follow the rules, your man wins or dies, and you go home. Lather, rinse, repeat until someone wins or everyone loses. The Real Game is one that drives itself.

This is an anti-Consumerist paradigm.

You don't need more than a set of the rules. You just Read The Manual, use the rules, generate your setting and its Points Of Interest, generate factions for players to control, and then you have what you need to get on with it; roll mans, start somewhere on the map, and go. You'll get a Perpetual Play Process going in short order.

This solves the product problem at the source by refocusing "support" from the wrong avenue to the right one: showing users how to use the product properly, which is a One And Done affair because once you've shot your tutorial and uploaded it all you need to do is link to it when folks ask how to play. Specific rules and procedures can be done in short form format, strung together as a playlist, for short-form outlets; you can spin those out of a long-form video.

This hobby doesn't need more product. It needs better institutions.