"The Skunk Works" was the name for Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Program, known for developing the U-2, the Blackbird, the Nighthawk, the Raptor and the Lightning II. A good account of the progress of the company can been seen with this video. The heart and soul of the skunkworks was Kelly Johnson, certainly one of the most brilliant men in aviation history. During his tenure, he built up a list of 14 rules and practices, which have since become famous among designers in many fields. On first glance, these rules may seem to have no application to the design of D&D, but there you would be wrong. Everything good and everything bad that has ever been applied to RPGs comes from following or ignoring the sentiment behind these rules.
Take number 1:
The Skunk Works® manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.
What does that mean? Well, to start with, the DM is the Skunk Works manager, Not the company that designs D&D. If this isn't clear, then watch the video linked above and compare the relationship that Kelly Johnson had with Lockheed Martin. It was absolutely necessary that LM had to back away and leave the Skunk Works to operate freely and on its own, if the team responsible for the design could have the freedom to work hands on. There is nothing worse than a manager who doesn't know what the hell is going on, who nevertheless feels it is their job to intervene.
Repeatedly, the WOTC has felt that it was its responsibility to solve the game problems that were cropping up with the WOTC's designs. Those designs were repeated failures at what they were meant to accomplish ... and this is because every design was fundamentally reactive in structure. Rather than approach the game itself with a pure, focused vision, from the late 1970s on, as D&D grew rapidly in popularity, both the first company (TSR) and the second felt that it was their role to "fix" the problems of its customers, rather than grant the tools to those customers who could then fix the problems themselves. This resulted in a repeated reinvention of the wheel, which is Still broken and Still needs fixing. Whereas there are thousands of DMs who have turned their back on the company and set about fixing it themselves, who are now running tight, workable, effective games without any further need of assistance.
I'm saying that the company has tried to lead this design project, when it should be following. We are the skunk works. All we really ask is that the company provide us with room and tools that will enable us to work independently. Rather than trying to turn every game con into a sports olympics, where the participants are encouraged to conform to a single group of pre-designed adventures, a smarter company would set up a venue that would let hundreds of DMs come in and run their own games ... and then have members of the company observe, record and learn from what is happening in those games.
Or, at least, that would have been a good strategy 35 years ago. Instead, the only participants at a game con are those who have already drunk the kool-aid ... and being poisoned, there is no chance that any of them will ever be able to design or teach anyone anything about this game.
What a resource wasted.
Lots of companies (generally, in the business sector, not game companies) have figured out myriads of ways to improve products (and build camaraderie and trust, etc). Especially those on the cutting edge like Lockheed Martin.
ReplyDeleteObviously not everything in corporate world is worth replicating, but there are many practices and principles that would serve us well in game design.
I don't doubt you know this already, Shelby, but as you didn't say it explicitly, I will for others. Lockheed Martin is on the cutting edge Because it has built camaraderie and trust among its workers.
ReplyDeletePrecisely. I can think of several other companies (Texas Instruments and 3M come to mind) that far outstrip their competitors specifically because they empower their research teams to strike out in new directions without asking permission. This open culture, supported by management and not stifled by bureaucracy, leads directly to innovation.
ReplyDeleteThe company benefits by having good products and increased value to customers and stakeholders. The workers benefit because they know their contributions are valued and their voices heard.
...And then there are companies that muddle along for years on fumes, never quite figuring out why all the money they spent on artwork and marketing never translated into deep insights or innovative design.
I find it interesting that I read this essay (again...I read it several years back) yesterday, shortly after reading your post:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.insaneangel.com/insaneangel/RPG/Dancey.html
Per wikipedia, Ryan Dancey was the chief originator of the Open Game License concept that allowed the D20 system to not only reinvigorate (reinvent?) the RPG industry, but also destroyed many smaller game companies that bought into the idea and crashed when the D20 market did (circa 2003).
[I heard from a former "insider" that this was actually part of the hope/business strategy based on one WotC executive's previous experience working with (for?) the monolith-that-was Comics Buyer's Guide but can't recall if this was Dancey in particular (it might be; Dancey was previously associated with Alderac Entertainment Group who published the magazine Shadis and - at one point - seemed to have had ambitions of being the CBG of RPG mags). Dancey's stated origins for the OGL idea are a bit different:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e
This column appears to have been written just prior to the publication of 3E. CBG ceased publishing in 2013 after dying a long, slow death.]
Anyway...I find it fascinating that the seemingly positive intentions of a company (we need to listen to our customers!) can conceal sinister consequences (making the consumer base reliant on company, rather than being empowered). From my reading, the D&D game appears to have been tainted...at least in part...ever since the originators first discovered they could make a bigger-than-small amount of cash off the idea.
Ryan Dancey was laid off from WotC in 2002.
There are people who would read that description from Dancey and feel heartache and nostalgic sorrow; and obviously Dancey wanted that because he waxes poetic about the life story of D&D at the start. And there are readers who would think that Dancey's discovery that TSR wasn't listening to their customers was the start of an enlightened, perhaps brilliant business strategy.
ReplyDeleteI don't. Partly because, living in the 1980s, and having had all those things in my hands at the time, I thought the product was mostly garbage. Only a third of the Fiend Folio was even usable; only a tenth of the Oriental Adventures was. The art, the writing, the approach to the game showed that something was VERY wrong in company headquarters, and it wasn't just that these guys weren't listening to their customers. They Clearly had no idea what they were doing; they were untalented hacks; and any company that willingly pays untalented hacks to do its design work Deserves to die a miserable, quick death. Unfortunately for us, it didn't.
Does anyone miss Blackberry because for a brief season it changed the way cellphones are designed? No. Because after a few hits, the company's design department buried that company, and good riddance.
Dancey promises that the company is going to do all these wonderful things, because now they're listening. Great. If I tell you to rebuild my kitchen, and you listen to everything I say, that doesn't mean a goddamn thing if you're a lousy carpenter. These last few staff members that Dancey talks woefully about ... did he fire them? Or did he just put them to work trying to write to the specifications of the reader.
I don't remember any great Renaissance that took place in 1998-2002. If you do, then I don't think you understand what "Renaissance" means. D&D did not suddenly bloom into a more remarkable game. I can hold up a splatbook from 1997 and one from 2002 and I promise you, they will both be full of new classes, new weapons, new spells and new magic items. And not much else. Same old shit with a different sticker.
For all his mooning about, Dancey doesn't read like a pioneer. He reads like a business manager who has read the 1990s business manager book. There's no vision; no discussion of what he thinks the game needs to be. It is nothing more than a desperate cry for someone in the great outside world to throw him a life preserver. Which I'm sure he didn't get, because after 17 years of shoving shit like the Oriental Adventures and Dragonlance down our throats (my gawd, it's like selling the genius of the artists who directed Pluto Nash and Ishtar), no one still reading the crap coming out of TSR was going to have a life preserver handy.
I have nothing to add except that your response to my comment made me snicker aloud. You seem in rare form today.
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