Rascal buys land for its sixth news factory

Episode Six of the Rascal Radio Hour finds the crew in a new year but the same old chaotic energy, discussing the tabletop news of the week—both on the website and in the wider industry. Games Workshop expands its plastic empire's production as if its playing (and winning) a 4X strategy game, whereas the Pokémon Trading Card Game has maximized its cardboard printers to match a truly mind boggling public demand measuring in the billions. With a "B".

Elsewhere, the crew discuss their own roles and obligations as tabletop press as clarified by Chase's recent article and a legitimate strain of concern that rose in its wake. The Question Dungeon's foes proves challenging and push every member of the Rascal team to not reinvent an already existing video game while also admitting their own ignorance around VTTs.

You can find Rascal Radio Hour on Apple, Spotify, and all the other various podcatchers. Leaving a five-star review helps us climb the charts and convinces our friends that this is, in fact, a legitimate career choice. Come on, we really need a win.

Here's an excerpt:

Thomas: Yeah, it was interesting to see also a lot of people post after the addendum came out going, yeah, I too was annoyed and I'm glad that you took that seriously and clarified that you were not being condescending to me and people like me. So that's good. I'm glad we added that addendum. Generally, I do think that there were some calls for thinking more about how Rascal fits in terms of the broader systems at play. And I think that's something that we should figure out. And we do plan to write about it because in some sense for me, I do think like everyone deserves engagement with their work—critical engagement, coverage. I genuinely wish I could do that for as many people as I can.

And I do try to, but all the same systems that apply to them apply to us as well, in the sense that we are trying to make a sustainable site. We have to balance news and criticism because there is very clearly a difference of what people will pay for and what they will subscribe for. We are also negotiating that and figuring out that stuff, and that's ongoing. We have not done that yet.

Rowan: Yeah, I think Lex Roman did a repost of it, which I found really interesting. Lex Roman is a person who works a lot in the reader-supported, worker-owned space for journalism. They made a really interesting point about how, because of who we are within the ecosystem, we are able to engage directly with our community and our audience. They are both our shareholders and the source of our income, and also the people that we are covering and beholden to. We're not just like the New York Times, which is just like oh, we're gonna throw something out there. People are gonna get angry about it, but it doesn't matter because we're up in our ivory tower. We're here alongside everyone, and we have to reckon with the impact that we have and if that impact is negative we have to realize that.

We figured out this wording a bit in the article, but it is kind of a position of power that we hold to leverage things in the space, what we put in front of people and what we spend our time on. Being able to do that because of who we are and what our organizational structure is like is a really nice benefit that other people don't have in other spots of the industry.

Thomas: Yeah, it's a responsibility as well. I think that's what people were pointing to.

Chase: Yeah, I am really happy that people pointed out. I think it's something that I need to sit with, that responsibility, because I agree. Where I bristle up about it is that it kind of sucks that we're the only one... Let me say this: In talking about it beforehand, when we were first concepting the piece, Thomas, you brought up something that you remember me saying back whenever I was at Dicebreaker, which is, "I'm sorry that I'm the best you've got."

I still kind of hold that sentiment because I am a single person on a team of four people (and this is by way of explanation not excuse) that are not quite to our first year, almost to our first year of running a site and paying ourselves fairly little to do it in order to make this thing go. Like y'all said, we are still working under the same systems even though we do have privilege and power given that we have a platform and a voice.

I wish there were more of us so that the responsibility was more evenly spread amongst different press, different outlets, instead of it all kind of coming down to us. Which is part of the responsibility piece, that until that happens, we do need to sort of be aware of it. We need to be vigilant of the fact that it's kind of just us. And I guess I still hold that sentiment that like, I'm sorry that we're the best you've got for now. And I really hope that changes in the future.

I want to have more conversations. want to have more industry conversations amongst different people writing about things instead of being one of two or three voices in the scene anytime something happens. But until then, people have said that they want us to be more vigilant and more aware of that position of power, and they're right.

Rowan: Yeah, I think with my second job that I have right now at Polygon, Chase and I have talked a lot about the crippling pressure of feeling obligated to this space and how you have to be able to navigate that. Because I've personally had a lot of rough nights where I feel like I'm not doing enough for people and that is debilitating to trying to actually write anything. You're just kind of stuck in this self-defeating loop of like, I'm not doing enough for people. And so balancing that internal guilt with the actual responsibility of the work that we have to do is really hard.

I did see a couple people online being like, we need to make our own thing. Like we need to have other voices in the space, and we agree! I would love to see another Rascal in its own form pop up in the space. I would love to see another group of people go, we're actually going to cover the space our way. I would truly love nothing more than to see other people like take up the mantle and do that.

Caelyn: I think there's one thing I want to talk about with the rest of the team, because we said we wanted to get out an initial addendum to the piece and talk about things more long term. I think there is a real difficulty, or at least a real gap in our language, about how we talk about different sizes of companies and individuals within the tabletop roleplaying industry. Because it's very much that it sort of defaults to D&D and there's everything else. And that's so not the case. It does not even begin to cover the range of things that exist in that everything else.

Because that everything else does include reasonably sized publishing companies churning out plenty of books for big established systems who just aren't as big as Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro. And then right down to individual creators publishing their stuff on itch and what have you. And yeah, I think that sort of language is something that maybe we need to look at and figure out how we refer to things.