Radio Hour: Two Many Vampires

Episode 43 of the Rascal Radio Hour invites Christopher Hutton from TTRPG Insider to join Chase in running down a dense couple of weeks for hobby news. Luckily, the pair of newshounds are more than up to the task of discussing two recent layoffs within Wizards of the Coast, UK Game Expo's news AI policy, and Renegade's relinquishing of the World of Darkness games license to White Wolf. That last item sparks a discussion regarding timelines and uncertain plans for the future.

Later in the episode, Chris found some interesting figures regarding Patreon's actual play ecosystem while a massive d20 rolled down a California hill, and a second PAX Unplugged convention taking place in Houston raises questions of economic viability and existential safety for designers and publishers.

Finally, a trip through the Question Dungeon sees the pair contend with questions about past predictions of 2025's three fantasy heartbreakers — Draw Steel, Daggerheart, and Cosmere RPG — and occupational frustrations with tabletop reporting.

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Here's an excerpt:

Chris: If you're a major company like Chaosium, you must decide it's worth adding [PAX South Houston] to your schedule, but it also offers another option for smaller people who can't get into Gen Con. That's that's always a net gain from the economic perspective because I've talk to a lot of people who wish they could vendor there. Gen Con is expanding in this next year, but is that going to be enough to account for as many people? What is that going to look like? We just don't know yet. Thankfully, the construction site should be mostly finished by 2027. So, it'll be economically interesting, but is it draw enough fans? I don't know.

Chase: See, this was the problem with PAX South whenever it ran. It started in 2016 or 2015 and ran until 2020. It was already sort of failing and was ultimately killed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But even in the couple of years leading up to that, a lot of people wondered about it having enough of an identity to draw people out to Texas, when they were already going to PAX East and PAX West and maybe even PAX Australia,

If you're a mid-sized or smaller company, conventions appearances can be expensive. Oftentimes they are good for business, but they are not good for making money. PAX South always struggled to have enough identity enough to draw people there instead of somewhere else if their finances were such that they needed to make a decision. Those same affordances are true for tabletop folks.

Paizo will probably show up, but if you're Kobold Press or Green Ronin, will you choose to go to PAX Unplugged Houston as well as PAX Unplugged Philly? I'm not sure if there will be enough draw to get people down to Texas. That said, I also have spoken to enough smaller folks, teams of two to ten people, who say every convention is worth it. They will happily add another one because they actually do make money at conventions.

Chris: The other question is the evolving political state of Texas, which is arguably increasingly conservative and holds policies that are not friendly to LGBTQ attendees [and exhibitors]. I've seen people who have said, I can't go there because they have very strong anti-trans policies. And I think it's a completely valid approach. I am so curious: would that affect it? Because at least a lot of the creator space is notably people of color and pro-LGBTQ in my experience. I'm not gonna say it's necessarily going to draw a conservative crowd, but could that create enough of a barrier?

Chase: As someone who who grew up in Texas, this is a constant contention especially within the state's large urban centers, which largely skew more progressive — or at least liberal. They are wonderful cities full of culture and food and lovely people and music, but they exist within a state whose legislature, whose congresspeople, whose elected officials on every level are the most horrendous conservative ghouls you can imagine. Texas becomes this weird dichotomy. You want to go to these cities because they can be incredible places, and Houston is one of them. Houston has been a city of music culture, rap and RB culture for at least 30 years now. And yet I can totally understand anybody, especially any queer people of color, who like look at going to Texas and go, nuh-uh. Absolutely not.

It creates an interesting question beyond the economics. I don't think it'll be enough that Pax Unplugged Houston is going to be the conservative show where you're only gonna get the folks who feel comfortable going there. That said, I have spoken to Soulmuppet, at least, and they said they will go there because it makes money, but also they have the privilege of people who travel to shows as white and can be cis-presenting if they need to in order to not draw that unwanted attention. People are going in there with their eyes open. But it's just another set of problems and considerations for smaller creators to do. It's just more work for them to do in order to make this work as a business.