The other night I played the Game Master at game night. We played on for about 9 hours this time (one of the player's worked the night before, and was tired). We got through about 2/5 of the way to the end of the first book of six. It's been a long while since I had taken the seat as the MC, as it were. Perhaps it was too long.
The game itself went well, although a little rocky at the end, when the players had to recognize what the Non-player characters (NPCs) had thought about them. There are egos at the table, and discussion can get a little heated, even if entirely fictional. Here is something obvious: anyone who creates has a bias toward their creation, and the players have a bias toward their characters. This is entirely natural; after all, if you don't look out for it, nobody else will. At any rate, it was a little difficult for their characters to be seen as second-class by anyone, yet they were. It was rockier than any battle they got themselves through, which says something about their proficiencies. What exacerbates this situation is that there is no civilization to speak of in this adventure path, save for the very NPCs they now must deal with.
I feel as though I need to get faster on my toes regarding NPC attitudes, so I can quickly think and make the decisions that they would make. This is a core competency that would serve me well leading these guys from here on.
I mentioned before in this blog how I'm not a big fan of the game industry attitude. There is a huge sense of entitlement and a colossal arrogance running through the minds of executives and hardcore gamers alike. So here's the general premise for the industry right now: used game sales suck, and we need to either stop it, or we need to get a cut of the deal. Yup, I'm serious.
It should not surprise you, then, to know that I agree with the counterpoint; if the games were worth keeping, they wouldn't be resold. Furthermore, trying to weasel your way into their hands for good will only make people not buy your product in the first place. People don't want to be tricked into owning a game, they want to want to own the game. Playing games with your customers will lose said customers right quick. Nobody wants to be hassled like the industry wants to hassle their customers. Games are expensive already, and making things worse by taking a cut of used sales only increases the price of used games. Threatening specialty retailers like Gamestop to go download only is not really hurting Gamestop anyway; they'll just sell the prepaid online cards instead of your games, take up less shelf space, and get the same profit margin they had before. On top of that, you're losing sales from people who want a physical media copy of your game. There's no winning against what the people demand from your business, just ask the RIAA how they did when they went against what the people wanted. The music industry was dragged kicking and screaming into digital distribution, because that's what people decided that they want for their music.
If the people decide that your brand of gaming is worthless, you must accept that.
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