D&D General D&D "influencers" need to actively acknowledge other games.

[overgeeked]

Isn't the process of:

• Doing the initial search to find this heap of games.
• Reading and sorting through said heap, to find the one you think will work for the scenario you want to present.
• Coming up with said scenario, or finding a pre-written one(In which case that's more on the reading pile.)
• Going out, pitching the concept to friends to get them interested, or pitching your current play group, who may or may not be interested in playing.
• Scheduling the time to play it.

A fair bit of leg-work?

Only if you make it difficult. A simple Google search will give you all the games you could want. Pick-up games are designed to be picked up and played. You certainly can do deep-dive research on all of them up front, but that's a choice you make, not something that must be done. Many pick-up games come with in-built scenarios, so you don't have to come up with one yourself. Or they have simple scenario generators to use, or you can easily find them online with a simple Google search. Pitching people to play a game is a one-minute affair. Send texts or emails to people you know or post something on any one of dozens of players with looking for group options. Scheduling is the only real hurdle if you're playing with other people, but there's also solo RPGs.

But that's my point. People who don't regularly do these things complaining about how hard it is or how impossible it is to do these things when it's anything but. Because they're stuck in the D&D bubble and wrongly assume all RPGs are as difficult to learn, run, and play as D&D. That's simply false.

But on the flip side we can't discount the fact that this stuff isn't as simple as picking out a new show or reading a novel.

It absolutely can be that simple and easy as I've repeatedly explained. That people choose to make it harder than that isn't a universal law of reality. It's a choice. And a bad one. Mostly predicated on assumptions made by people inside the D&D bubble with zero desire to look outside that bubble.

Case in point. I got a group text on Monday that asked if people were interested in playing a new-to-almost-everyone game Saturday night (tomorrow). Everyone agreed so we're playing a new game tomorrow night. One person has read the book (me). The referee has maybe partially read the book. None of the 3-4 other players have read the book.

It can be literally that easy. It can be even easier if people let it.

I can certainly see why people who have already put in the work and effort (Someone like myself) to get a D&D campaign wouldn't exactly be chomping at the bit to start over again with another game. If my D&D game works for 80% of the stuff I want to do.. Isn't it natural I may look for a home brew solution to get the other 20% rather than throw away the whole thing for another game which may have it's own problems, or perhaps fall short in other areas?

If people were cool with their game of choice and left it at that, it wouldn't be a problem. It's people who are cool with their game of choice opting to have big opinions about games they don't play, haven't read, and likely never even heard of before another poster brings them up that's the problem.

As seemingly always, we return to Snarf's refrain of "it works in practice but doesn't work in theory." There's a lot of people who clearly don't like and don't play the games I'm talking about who have real big opinions about how they suck and don't work and can't this or that.

 

[Umbran]

No, he’s not because no they don’t. There are heaps of games you can sit down and play with zero prep or prior knowledge.

This reads like you are addressing what you expect I (and others) have said, rather than what was actually said. For example, I haven't brought up preparation as an issue at all.

Pickup RPGs exist. Solo RPGs exist. Rules light and ultralight RPGs exist. Referee-led blackbox RPGs exist. The argument assumes, wrongly, that none of these exist and all games are roughly equivalent to D&D.

"The argument"? There is one "the argument", never mind that we make several different arguments?

That’s not what I said.

Yeah, well, you aren't addressing what we've said either, so....

 

[Umbran]

CRPGs are not known for being on the shorter end of video game play.

I thought I already said as much.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I thought I already said as much.

Not in the post I quoted at least. You gave one as an example, but there was nothing to suggest you were distinguishing them from strategy games or point-and-clicks.

 

[GrimCo]

Out of curiosity, what games can you pick up and run with zero prep work? As in, you pick it up, get people together and then you do all the reading and character creation at the table.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Out of curiosity, what games can you pick up and run with zero prep work? As in, you pick it up, get people together and then you do all the reading and character creation at the table.

The Maid RPG. The rpg where you play a maid.

 

[mamba]

The Maid RPG. The rpg where you play a maid.

I always invite people over to play it when I need the house cleaned

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Out of curiosity, what games can you pick up and run with zero prep work? As in, you pick it up, get people together and then you do all the reading and character creation at the table.

First time I ever played the Sentinel Comics RPG using the original starter kit (not the new one that just dropped - this was pre-COVID) the GM bought it and had us playing a half hour later after he did a quick skim of the mechanics and the adventure he picked to run (it came with six). We used pre-gen characters, so no time spent on that. Pretty normal for better-made starter kits without complex game engines (eg Pendragon) IME, although the experience is probably better if the GM has actually read everything the day before.

If your GM is familiar with the system already the SCRPG core book would do the job just as well. It has pregen characters and a couple of starter adventures right in the book, but the full rules are about 32-40 pages and would take most GMs more than a half hour to digest on first read.

FIASCO is 100% pick up and play with a few minutes reading and explanation if no one's ever played it before. The very idea of prepping for it would feel weird. Same goes for Baron Munchausen unless you're going to declare it a non-RPG (which I wouldn't really argue strongly one way or the other).

Over the Edge could get you playing within a half hour including character gen and a real basic run-down of Al Amarja, although the GM would probably want to have everyone playing newly-arrived tourists rather than more in-the-know natives. The session's likely to be more about encountering and dealing with your first bits of weirdness than advancing personal schemes, but that's okay. I've had several good times just getting through the airport in past campaigns.

There's plenty of others if you allow the GM to be familiar with the system already. Explaining the basics and using published pregens or a simple chargen system can be a 10-30 minute process even with newbies. If the GM is just picking up the book for the first time then the game options are more restricted, but I don't generally consider "reading the rulebook" as session prep myself.

 

[Meech17]

As seemingly always, we return to Snarf's refrain of "it works in practice but doesn't work in theory." There's a lot of people who clearly don't like and don't play the games I'm talking about who have real big opinions about how they suck and don't work and can't this or that.

I feel as though I've lost the plot.. If not the passion for the novel.

Perhaps I missed the transfer in 20 pages of the thread, but I thought the discussion was,

"D&D/TTRPG content creators, when covering ways to address D&D short comings/parts of the system they dislike/struggle with, should consider instead promoting other games which do whatever thing better."

Then the reply is,

"Well learning new games can be challenging and time consuming"

Which is a fair response I think. If I'm trying to fix part of my D&D game I don't want to throw the whole thing away if I don't have to. Your response was,

"Well no.. Actually not all games are challenging and time consuming to learn."

Which is also a fair response. A one page solo play RPG may be lots of fun, and an easy thing for me to do on a free afternoon.. But it doesn't get back to the root issue of the cause.

Content Creators promoting ways to spice up games of 5e needn't be obligated to cross promote other games.

And for what it's worth.. I don't see that many people poo-pooing on non-D&D games. Especially not here. I've learned a lot about other games here. Even on reddit.. They're more often not liking and not playing D&D whilst throwing around their big opinions about it.

 

[jdrakeh]

Eh. Let influencers choose the scope of their content. If they want to focus solely on D&D, so be it. I can find other influencers to view/listen to when I want non-D&D content.