Shut up and Play

Boy, this one is going to get me in trouble.

For the longest time, I've tried to be polite. I'd be talking to other game designers or people in the game industry, and they would say, "Well, I don't actually play those games anymore, I just work on them as my day job." I would just smile and nod, as though I understood. But I didn't. In fact, I was aghast.

Well, I'm not going to pretend anymore. I am disappointed and upset.

You would most likely be surprised how common this is. In the corner of the game industry that is d20, I need two hands to count all the game professionals I know who are working on products but do not play the game regularly. I can think of at least a few who -- I'm fairly certain -- have never played a session of 3rd Edition D&D.

Why, there are a surprisingly large number of people just down the street from me at Wizards of the Coast who -- aside from the occasional mandated in-house playtest -- never play the game. And these Wizards people are, as I type this, working on D&D and d20 products. (But this sort of "I don't actually play roleplaying games" comment is far more common from non-d20 and non-Wizards game professionals.)

Now, a lot of these game designers retort, "I'm a professional. I don't need to play the game in order to create products for it." While that is demonstrably true, one has to put the quality of those products in question. This claim of professionalism is akin to a professional novelist who doesn't read, a professional athlete who doesn't train, or a professional accountant who doesn't do his own taxes (okay, I'm just being a silly with that one -- I have no idea if most accountants do their own taxes).

Another excuse might be, "I've been doing this for years. It's all the same. I don't need to keep playing." If you say it, it is so. If you think that all RPG adventures or sourcebooks are the same, then all of them that you write most certainly will be. But those of us who are big enough fans of RPGs to know better... well, we know better. They don't have to all be the same. There's lots of room for innovation and fresh ideas.

Or perhaps the old, "Hey, I have a life now," retort comes up. But there are plenty of people with full-time jobs not in the game industry who also play in a regular roleplaying game. Do these people not have lives? I don't think that's the case. There are thousands of us gamers who manage a family, a career, outside interests, and a weekly (or bi-weekly or monthly) campaign. That excuse just doesn't cut it.

I have to guess that, deep down, these people don't actually like the game they work on anymore. I'm sad to say that, but it's hard to come to another conclusion.

This isn't a condemnation of the industry. I think I'm only talking about a small minority here. And I'm also not talking about people in the industry who work as artists, graphic designers, marketers, sales people, and so on. I'd like to think that these people all have at least tried the games that they do such great work for, but I certainly don't think a weekly campaign is absolutely necessary for them to do their job well.

Here's what you get if you play in a weekly game:
1. You see how people actually play the mechanics, characters, and scenarios that you create.
2. You see where the game is lacking.
3. You encounter ideas and suggestions that you never thought of -- couldn't think of -- just sitting alone in front of a computer.

But the vast majority of you, either game players or game designers, already know this stuff. And of course, I'm not saying that playing the game is the only qualification a good game designer needs. Despite what some people think, not everyone who has ever created a house rule or their own home-brew adventure will necessarily make a great game designer -- although a lot of game companies have started and are starting right now based on that idea.

But that's Another Rant...

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