The industry of RPG's and why I'll opt out.

The Industry of R.P.G.s

Despite what I said at the game table a few months back, when Shards of Thimbral was just a bunch of ping pong balls bouncing around in my brain, and despite some thoughts I have had in the past I have an admission to make.

I'm never going to be part of the industry of Role Playing Games.

What that mean sis I don't think I'm ever going to ask anyone for money for what I do.

I don't think this is me going back on or giving anything up. In the past week or so I have reevaluated a few things about my self and about gaming. I would consider this a statement of self evaluation and an evaluation of what I really enjoy about this hobby.

I can not take the games seriously enough to maintain the focus it would take to put something out there.

Don't get me wrong, I write this blog, I play three times a week, I put a lot of thought and effort into the hobby. I don't plan on changing. What I'm changing is what I want to get out of it, I want to get joy out of the energy put out. I don't want to worry about page bleed, and cover color saturation, stock levels and printing sizes, and if every chart is exactly finished or not. Fuck that noise.

On top of that I have a wife, who deserves 100% of my attention, a home, and a job, a I'm not willing to put any of that second to the amount of work that publishing a quality product would involve.

What I want is to have a collection of stories from our games and an audience to share them with on this blog. A chance to talk about what we think about role playing games and how they work and what sucks and what doesn't.

I want to go to a convention or three, throw my game down and play it with a bunch of people. Not because I want to take their money sometime in the future, but because I want to add some fun to that groups convention experience. I would love it latter that weekend one of the players turned to another said, “That game with the random characters that was pretty fun.” For me the hobby is about fun.

There are people out there who I have read, who seem to be almost tortured by this hobby. Bitter, opinionated to a fault, and are not apparently having any fun. That's not me. My goal is fun with my friends period.

I was recently told "you win some you loose some" in regards to game playing a writing. Even though the person who typed it had no idea it would the point resonated with me. I don't want my hobby to become a win / loose proposition. I just want to keep dishing out and sharing the fun until I can't roll-em any more.

I have mentioned a game I am “working on” called Amazing Adventurers and Incredible Exploits (AAIE.) I don't want any one to get the wrong idea, it's never going to be $9.99 on drive through.

Eventually I'm going to give away PDFs and I hope somebody plays it, enjoys it, and tells me about their crazy RPG adventures. I have decided that's all I want out of this.

I'll package with the PDF links to my e-mail and this blog in hopes of collecting as many actual pays as possible. A mailing list of players would be an amazing success to me, a sharing of ideas and experiences, the perfect pay off.