Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. You can find the text of his Nobel lecture, Art, Truth, and Politics, in the link below. It starts out talking about writing and the relationship of art and truth, then dives into an amazingly poignant political rant of the sort so utterly lacking in American media. If you are lefty, angry, and disenfranchised, I encourage you to check it out:

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html

As those of you who know me can surely attest, I am not shy with my opinions, though I am careful about what I say in public. Experience has proven that it’s not worth the trouble to comment on certain topics or engage with certain people. I am, however, often solicited for my opinion on goings-on at WotC because I worked there for four years and have some insights into what the place is like. As time marches on though, my experience becomes more remote. Next March it’ll be four years since I left WotC and I know the company as it stands today isn’t the same one I worked at. So what do I think I still know about WotC?

First, I think I general corporate environment is quite similar. Last week’s Christmas layoffs were certainly nothing new. I’ve also heard that many of those laid off were blindsided by the loss of their jobs. Sounds like all too familiar corporate politics to me. Second, I know some key folks still working there and know the sorts of decisions they are likely to make. Third, I know the R&D; culture and how that affects everything from design decisions to release plans.

What I don’t know is anything specific about WotC’s plans or long-term goals, or what the state of the WotC/Hasbro relationship is currently. Since I have ties with Games Workshop, it’s not like anyone is going to let me in on that info. So I can comment based on my experience, but much of what I say boils down to simple observation and what I hear from other sources. It’s obvious, for example, that miniatures are taken much more seriously now than when I was there. When we were trying to launch Chainmail, none of the other departments wanted anything to do with miniatures. Now minis have clearly become a central part of the overall D&D; strategy. There are also some clear implications to the yearly increase in the number of D&D; products released.

If you ask me when 4th edition is coming out and whether or not the new rules will be released under the OGL though, I can’t tell you. If you ask me if d20 Spectaculars is a deliberate assault on what Green Ronin has built with Mutants & Masterminds, I can only speculate (and for the record, my speculation is that no, M&M; had nothing to do with their decision to do that book). If you ask me why people of proven incompetence still have jobs and decent, hard working folks do not, I can only wonder.

For the record.

Remember last week when I mentioned how a lot of game stores have closed over the past couple of years? Well, I heard about another one today, the Game Keep in TN (www.thegamekeep.com). The owner, A. Karl Myers, posted an explanation on his website and I thought it was a cogent summation of the issues faced by retailers today. While I don’t necessarily agree with all the points of his analysis, I think it provides a useful perspective on game retailing today so I’m reposting it here. I’m sorry to see yet another game retailer go out of business, though I can’t blame him either. Here’s the announcement:

Game Keep Announcement

The gaming industry is changing. A few years ago our game room was filled with gamers of all sorts. Card games were popular, as were miniature battle games. People were collecting clicky-based miniature games, and anxiously waiting for the next release of their favorite role-play game. The next new game was just on the horizon.

Then… nothing! Nothing new hit the market. Card games sputtered with a number of weak releases that added to the already-waning interest in the hobby. The card companies countered by releasing a whole new wave of card games based on every cartoon show having more than one fan. Most card players were not interested in taking up a new collectible game, after having felt that they wasted so much money in earlier games.

The miniature game manufacturers took a different approach. While holding off on releasing anything unique or ground breaking, most of them sought to increase their revenues from their existing customers merely by raising their prices. Fantasy gaming stagnated to near zero level while Sci-fi gaming carried the load until price increases drove players to seek different, less expensive, games. Some manufacturers rose to fill this void but had difficulty gearing up production to supply demand.

The role playing book market was flooded with a plethora of new material after Wizards announced their open gaming license. This required stores to double the amount of books they stocked, and as time wore on, left many shelves full of unsellable merchandise, especially as version 3.5 replaced version 3.0. Eventually, it was the consumer who decided that enough was enough and rpg books began to lose steam. The increasing prices of book publishing accelerated this dwindling trend.

The advent of the internet also brought its own level of challenge to this industry. With internet sales came a new breed of retailer, the internet discounter. These small companies kept overhead low by not needing prime retail space to sell their wares. Cost-conscious customers were drawn to these sites from advertisements in the very magazines and games sold in brick and mortar stores.

The internet also gave some game manufacturers a route to sell direct to the public, bypassing the old three tier manufacturer/distributor/retailer system. Soon they were distributing web-sales addresses on all of their product. Retailers were selling the seeds of their own demise with every product they sold. Some manufacturers went so far as to send out free give-away products designed to lure consumers to their websites.

The third strike from the internet was the advent of on-line role playing games. A large portion of our customer base was absorbed into block buster games like World of Warcraft and Everquest. The need to trek down to the friendly neighborhood game store to play was replaced with a stay-at-home mentality. This reached its peak during this late summer as gas prices soared following the Katrina-Rita punch.

The solution for these changes was a simple one. Diversify or close. Retailers moved into carrying game related merchandise such as tee shirts and bumper-stickers. Some even went so far as to carrying lines of non-game products such as statues and action figures.

Comic books also moved in to fill the gap. Others began dealing in used video games and supplies.

Of course, the events of recent history have also played a major role in defining the nature of the gaming industry. From the war on terror, to our recent rash of devastating storms, each event has changed the dynamic of business in America.

All through these changes The Game Keep has continued. Since we opened in October of 1996, we have managed to gain a reputation of being a complete game store, with a product selection second to none. We have been known as the place to get the hot new releases as soon as they come out. We have prided ourselves in being a hub of Nashville’s gaming community, offering, not only games, but a place to play them.

But things change.

All through 2004, revenues dropped, as certain games fell from popularity. As time went on, staffing was cut back to cut overhead expense. By the time of the Jeremy debacle last fall, I was practically running the store without help. Shortly after that, my last employee moved on, needing to find work that paid a living wage. By December I was considered closing the store, but the holiday revenues seemed adequate to continue and I opted to stay open.

This last year has been a struggle. Spring was the time when things began to become difficult. I cut back on expenses and managed with a bit of clever, “pay my Visa with my Mastercard” style, financial tricks, to survive until the summer, which is usually strong for game sales. Summer began slowly as it usually does and then went crunch as the economy faltered and parked when gas prices hit the stratosphere. Then fall hit and sales dropped further, to levels half of the previous (weak) year. The back to school September doldrums marched on through October and November. Even the last week in November that included the infamous “retailer Black-Friday”, was lackluster.

Put a fork in it.

After long and arduous soul-searching, I have decided to close the store following the Christmas Holidays.

Commencing Monday December 5th, a liquidation sale will commence here at the Game Keep offering modest discounts on our remaining inventory. As the sale progresses through the month, the discounts will increase. Customers are encouraged to purchase early, as these items will NOT BE RESTOCKED. All merchandise, including gaming terrain and the store equipment will be sold.

Dear Electronic Arts:
I enjoy your Medal of Honor games, but I would enjoy them a LOT more if you would put some goddamn checkpoints in the missions. Greasing Nazis with PPsH? Fun. Getting to the final part of a mission, dying, and having to restart all the way the beginning? Not fun.

Dear ACLU:
Nicole and I support civil liberties and have in the past given money to causes we believe in. That does not mean we want to receive three phone calls a day that try to guilt-trip us into donating money. And if we ignore the calls IDed as coming from the ACLU, don’t then call us as “Hilary” to get through because we are ignoring you for a reason. The same goes for anyone who wants to bug me at home.

Dear Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon:
Walk the Line was a great movie and you both nailed your roles. If you had told me that you were both going to do all your own vocals, I would have said that you’re crazy. Then I would have eaten my words, because damn the singing is spot on. Johnny and June would be proud.

Dear PDF Publisher:
Don’t use the OGL to create a “new” product based on a rules set Green Ronin designed and then promote yours as being one of kind. It’s obviously not, since you took the rules from one of our books. Also, do not get the title of our book wrong in your Section 15. That’s just adding insult to injury.

Dear Cult Master:
You and your minions really need to stop comparing what you do to punk rock. Autocracy and conformity are not punk.

Paul Tevis interviewed me for his podcast, Have Games, Will Travel, when I was at GenCon SoCal. The interview is now up on his site for cheers and jeers.

http://havegameswilltravel.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=37587

It’s snowing in Seattle, which is weird. It happens maybe once a year and usually melts by the next day. In the spirit of the winter holiday, WotC is doing one of its traditional layoffs today. Looks like the news just broke:

http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=19503

My condolences to those that lost their jobs. I now have even fewer friends that still work there. The game industry, the more it changes, the more it stays the same.

When I worked at WotC, I usually went to the nearest game store, Wonderworld in scenic Burien, every Wednesday. It was right down the street from an Australian Meat Pie shop, so it was easy to check out the latest game releases and grab a meat pie or two. I bought something almost every week, as did many of my cohorts. I usually went with a posse of graphic designers, which was quite entertaining. They were the snarkiest bitches imaginable and I say that with love. Watching them stand around the new release section picking apart the graphic design gaffes of the competition was a spectacle to behold. Since leaving WotC, I don’t get down to Wonderworld very often, as it’s not exactly close to where I live. Yesterday afternoon, Rick and I drove down there to see what was new.

Now Wonderworld is what you’d call a “destination store”. It has huge amounts of product going back two decades. If you like games or comics, there’s a lot to delve into. And I do mean delve, because there is so much backstock that it’s literally piled up throughout the store, with action figures sitting atop boxes of comic back issues stacked three high, game backstock boxes nearly obscuring the miniatures cases, and anime DVD sets riding on TCG displays behind the counter. I must admit I have never understood the hows and whys of their ordering system. They obviously like to stock in depth, but it always looked like this philosophy went out of control. I think they must have two full bookcases of d20 products from a single publisher. You see row upon row of $35 hardbacks, with 6 of each title sealed in plastic bags. You’d think it would have been clear at a certain point that the stuff wasn’t selling, but it seems the ordering continued.

It was thus not a huge surprise to hear that the store is closing. They may open a smaller storefront or they may just start selling through their stock on Ebay or some other type of e-store. It sounded like the latter is more likely. The current location is open all this month and then closing in January. As Rick and I were sitting in the meat pie shop, I realized this was likely the last time we’d do the game store/meat pie twofer. It’s the end of an era and another in the long line of game store closings that have been plaguing the industry the last couple of years. I hope Wonderworld can reinvent itself in the new retail environment.

This is the three R’s
The three R’s:
Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

The Fall, “Repetition”

Sunday Ray and I played Advanced Squad Leader. We manage to squeeze in a game every 3-4 months. Predictably, I got hammered, due only in part to my usual pathetic dice rolling. The larger problem is that I don’t play ASL often enough to gain any mastery of the rules. Each time I find myself doing stupid things because in the intervening months I’ve forgotten the rhythm of the game and how key rules interact. To really know a game, you need to spend time with it, to play it over and over, and to try out different strategies. If the game has depth, that is. Once you figure out that you should always take the center square in tic tac toe, for example, there’s not much more to master. You can play Diplomacy fifty times though and still not know all the angles though.

Some games stand up to repeat play and some don’t. Some have long term issues that are not apparent at first. And sometimes these things matter and sometimes they don’t! I have a copy of Settlers of Canaan, for example, which is a Biblical variant of Settlers of Cataan. Cataan-heads don’t care for it much because the board is fixed, whereas the original has tiles so the board is created anew each time you play. I can see the issue but it doesn’t bother me because I don’t play the game enough for it to matter. Similarly, I’ve heard fans complain the West End Star Wars RPG breaks down with very experienced characters, Jedi in particular. I never played in a game that lasted longer than a few months, so it was never an issue to me.

Still though, I like to understand games in depth and that requires replay and analysis. This is one of the reasons I wish I had more time to game, even though I usually play at least once a week. When I was in college, I didn’t own too many games, but I knew most of them very well because they were played and replayed. I was quite comfortable redesigning Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, for example, because I played the hell out of that game for years and years. Now the number of games I own has grown exponentially, but my experience with each one tends to be shallower. I’ve played things like Fantasy Flight’s War of the Ring boardgame and White Wolf’s World of Warcraft RPG once each, for example, and chances are I won’t play them again anytime soon.

One thing I do miss about working at WotC is lunchtime gaming. It was nice to be able to play a quick game of Mordheim, for example, and easy to find other players at a company WotC’s size. I was able to enjoy weekly games of Mythos, Formula De, and other games that I wouldn’t have gotten to know well if I didn’t have that opportunity. Since most of Green Ronin’s employees work remotely, that really only leaves me and Nik and I’m pretty sure she’d laugh at me if I suggested playing Legends of the Old West at lunch.

I have toyed with the idea of going to a convention or two just to play games, which may seem ridiculous on its face. Leaving aside all the industry bs for a few days to just go play some old favorites and hopefully find some new ones sounds pretty attractive though. I’d be particularly interested in attending one of the historical minis shows, like Fall In or Salute. Maybe next year.

I am back at last from GenCon SoCal in Anaheim, so those of you waiting for e-mails back from me should be seeing them soon. The show went pretty well, thought it would have gone better if we had a new product there. Still, it was good to get out and spread the GR love. Also nice to catch up with folks like Bruce Harlick, Christian Gossett, Jeff Tidball, Ken Hite, Keith Baker, Stan!, JD Wiker, Jim Pinto, and Paul Tevis.

This year the dealer’s hall was only open three days. To make that up to us, someone decided to extend the hours of each day, which meant 10-7 Friday and Saturday and 9-4 on Sunday. With only Nik and I there and her out of the booth doing Blue Rose demos Friday and Saturday that meant I did a lot of booth duty. Saturday I was at the booth from 9:30 am until 7:15 pm. I don’t know how it was with other vendors, but I didn’t find the extra hour a day too helpful. I don’t think we got extra sales and I’d have rather have knocked off at 6 pm and gone to dinner earlier.

Due to my booth duties, I did not get a chance to do much else but eat and do some hanging out. I made one tour through the dealer’s hall and didn’t see anything that I just had to have. I was hoping to see more historical miniatures on hand, but it seems like those folks didn’t support the show this year. Did the usual trading at show’s end and brought home Spycraft 2.0, Iron Kingdoms World Guide, and A Game of Thrones Deluxe, all of which look quite nice. I also traded with a vendor who was selling foam swords. Not usually my kind of thing, but I thought Kate would enjoy them. I traded for two and will give one to her for Xmas and keep one to defend myself. Hope I don’t regret that!

Sunday Paul interviewed me for his Podcast, Have Games, Will Travel, and that was good fun. We finished the interview and then kept talking. Ten minutes later we realized we should have talked about that stuff during the interview, so he turned on the equipment and we got back into it. Not sure when it’ll be available, but I look forward to hearing the final result.

On my return I got right into the holiday spirit by going to court. Yeah, baby. As you may or may not recall, I got a ticket for opening the rear driver side door of a cab into a minivan that simply couldn’t wait for the cab to let us out. I argued my case in front of a judge yesterday, pointing out that if the cab had pulled all the way in or the minivan had been even a little patient, this accident would not have happened. He was sympathetic and reduced the ticket from $110 to $50. I was hoping he’d just throw the thing out, but the reduction was better than nothing. And here I never though opening a door could be a crime.

I went to a punk show at El Corazon with Rick and Jimmer tonight. I only knew the headline band, the show was on an off night, and the crowd was pretty thin, so I wasn’t expecting much. I’m totally glad I went though, because it turned out to be a great show from start to finish.

Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I saw a punk band from China tonight. Beijing to be precise. They were called Brain Failure and they smoked. Sharp musicianship, enormous energy, and a fierce desire to kick ass and take names on their first American tour won me over by the end of their first song. They mixed up punk, hardcore, and even a bit of ska. I guess you might call them China’s answer to Rancid. Good stuff.

The River City Rebels were up next. Originally from New England, they relocated to Tacoma six months ago so it seems like I’ll have more chances to see them. They were a total glam punk outfit, a modern distillation of New York City, circa 1974. Think New York Dolls and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. Hell, you could practically see the ghosts of Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan floating above the stage. There was also some glam hair in effect and hints of cross-dressing. They hit all the right notes stylistically. More importantly, they also rocked. Good trashy songs delivered with lots of attitude. They dragged out their last song a little too long, but otherwise it was a fun set.

The Street Dogs headlined. They are a fairly new band featuring Mike McColgan, the original singer of the Dropkick Murphys, and a couple of guys from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. As their name indicates, they do straight up Clash-influenced street punk. No surprise then that they covered “Career Opportunities” in the middle of their set. I’ve heard both Street Dogs records and they are pretty decent, but the band is better live than in the studio. I haven’t seen McColgan perform since 1996 or so and he’s developed a commanding presence. Great voice too, with a lot more range than the Murphys’ current singer. The band was tight, the songs were catchy, and the crowd was into it. I would definitely go see them again.

Now I’m back home and I’m packing for GenCon SoCal. Nicole and I have to leave at 4 frickin’ am. Another grand adventure in air travel I’m sure. I counted up tonight and realized this is my 11^th trip this year. Jesus H.

Before I go, I must share a few choice quotes from an article in the Stranger, one of Seattle’s free newspapers. The new issue came out today and it has a one-page story on Worldwide D&D; Game Day. It’s pretty funny, though I doubt this is the sort of PR WotC hoped would come out of the event.

Every once in awhile comes a rare press release hyping an event to which we wouldn’t send our worst enemy. Until now.

“This translates into vaginas healed over from disuse, penises ignored in favor of 20-sided dice, and just one…more…magic…missile!

“Can I crush my enemies and drink deep of their life force while laughing and toasting my allies?” I asked her.
“Sure!” she replied
“Can I live forever?”
“Of course! If you die, you can be resurrected!”
“Can I have sex?”
“Um…sure,” she said. “If it’s intrinsic to your character, or if you need to, I guess.”

As we left the Science Fiction Museum, Craig beautifully summed up our experience with the highest praise possibly paid to D&D;: “Had I discovered this game in adolescence,” he said, “it probably would have spared me from many a Saturday night spent masturbating alone in my parent’s basement.”