Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[Akrasia]

.... I don't think there's any theory that the newest edition of WFRP will expand the market for roleplaying games (or even Warhammer much), as opposed to selling to those who are/were already interested in it....

Well, it might introduce RPGs to the WFB crowd. That is a huge market that exists, that is already familiar with the world, and for the most part does not play RPGs.

 

[Akrasia]

...
And I think that's Ryan's point. You can keep making these games, and their older audience will continue to play them, but if you want a growing business, you're barking up the wrong tree.

Actually, based on Chris Pramas' comments in this thread, I think WFRP *is* meant to appeal to new players. One of his points (iirc) was that GW was one of the few companies out there that could compete with WotC in this way.

WFRP is certainly more 'newbie friendly' than the 3e PHB. And all those shiny colour pages are, similarly, meant to appeal to new/young potential players. WFRP can also be found in 'general bookstores' where, previously, only WotC and WW books could be found.

 

[RyanD]

WFRP is certainly more 'newbie friendly' than the 3e PHB.

I picked up the WFRP book today at my local B&N. I have not read it cover to cover (I haven't really read it at all, just a quick glance) but I gotta tell you, there's >no way< that book is "newbie friendly" if the 3E PHB is used as the baseline.

I can tell you based on lots of readily available data that "percentages" are less "user friendly" than whole numbers - that's not an RPG thing, that's just a math thing. And percentages are one of the first things you see when you open the book. That's just one of many, many things that makes the game "complex".

I'm not at all disparaging the book - I'm just saying that it is no paragon of entry level easiness. (The >game< may be easier to play, but the presentation of the >rules< isn't.)

"Entry level" games have to be designed to be understood by the lowest common denominator - the person who has never played an RPG and does not have anyone to help understand the material. Such products do not look like WFRP (or D&D, for that matter).

WFRP can also be found in 'general bookstores' where, previously, only WotC and WW books could be found.

Frighteningly, I picked up my copy right next to the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

(That store has a remarkably good RPG selection, including Shadowrun, a whole bunch of Green Ronin product, lots of S&S stuff in addition to WoD and Exalted.)

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I picked up the WFRP book today at my local B&N. I have not read it cover to cover (I haven't really read it at all, just a quick glance) but I gotta tell you, there's >no way< that book is "newbie friendly" if the 3E PHB is used as the baseline.

I can tell you based on lots of readily available data that "percentages" are less "user friendly" than whole numbers - that's not an RPG thing, that's just a math thing. And percentages are one of the first things you see when you open the book. That's just one of many, many things that makes the game "complex".

Whole numbers vs. percentages does not make a whole game simple or not of course. 3e adds magnitudes of complexities in other places that WFRP keeps dead simple.

 

[Akrasia]

I picked up the WFRP book today at my local B&N. I have not read it cover to cover (I haven't really read it at all, just a quick glance) but I gotta tell you, there's >no way< that book is "newbie friendly" if the 3E PHB is used as the baseline...

If you're claiming that WFRP is not 'newbie friendly' in that someone who has never played RPGs before is going to have a hard time getting the hang of the game, you're probably right. But that was not really my claim.

If you're claiming that WFRP is not as 'newbie friendly' as the 3e PHB, I could not disagree more.

If you read the rules, you will see that (percentages aside) the rules are a 'lighter' than 3e in *many* important respects -- *especially* in terms of character generation, the magic system, and the kinds of modifiers that apply to skills.

Also, ironically, WFRP is easy to run *without* minis (unlike 3e combat).

...I can tell you based on lots of readily available data that "percentages" are less "user friendly" than whole numbers - that's not an RPG thing, that's just a math thing. And percentages are one of the first things you see when you open the book. That's just one of many, many things that makes the game "complex"...

Well, I'm not going to dispute your data, but it strikes me as odd that people have difficulty understanding the idea that 'climb skill of 80 percent' = 'the PC has an 80 percent chance of succeeding at climbing' (sorta like how most people understand that '80 percent chance of rain' means that there is an 80 percent chance of rain on the daily weather forcast).

At any rate, I suspect that newbies have an easier time understanding WFRP's skill system (skill percentage = percentage chance of success) than 3e's skill system (where it is not immediately clear what 'climb +4' means in terms of likely success).

Frighteningly, I picked up my copy right next to the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

(That store has a remarkably good RPG selection, including Shadowrun, a whole bunch of Green Ronin product, lots of S&S stuff in addition to WoD and Exalted.)

That sounds like a good bookstore.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I think it's likely a mistake to equate lack of mechancial complexity with newbie friendliness when it's really conceptual complexity that's the bugbear. RPGs are a unique form of game in their open-endedness; in all the other games you start playing as a kid (other than cops and robbers) you've got a defined range of choices and outcomes available to you: you roll dice and move around a board in Monopoly or Life; you move one piece at a time in well defined ways in chess or checkers.

But in RPGs you can do anything. How do new players (and particularly new gamemasters) possibly resolve all the rules conflicts in a game like that when their previous model is games like Clue?

D&D's thick rulesbooks are an educational tool and a crutch -- rules cover jumping, how to assign difficulty based on jump distance and conditions -- many of the other skills have fairly lengthy lists of modifiers to help adjudicate the DC. Many of the different things players will try in a fight are covered in the combat section. And the DMG even tells the DM how to determine if an encounter is too hard or too easy.

Finally, the back to the dungeon model helps young DM's immensely. Players get the benefit of being able to immerse themselves in a fictional environment and make their own choices while the structure keeps them in an area where the DM has stuff already prepared to run. I thought the B1 module with its partially fill-in-the-blanks adventure did a nice job easing my young self into the game.

I think a game like Over the Edge, while very easy to absorb the rules and create characters, is newbie unfriendly since you already need to know how to run and play roleplaying games to use it.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I think there's something inherently "Warhammer" about rolling vs. your own WS score to see if you "hit" independent of what your opponent might be doing or wearing (i.e. - there is no equivalent of Armor Class).

And it's funny, because for me (as a person very familiar with WHFB but who never played the original WHFR), this is totally un-Warhammer! In the wargame, characters compare their weapon skills against each other to determine if they hit or not. 'Armor making you harder to hit' would be just as un-Warhammer, but a central tenant of the wargame is that, say, a high elf general has an easier time hitting a snotling for the exact same reason the snotling has a hard time hitting the elf.

If the game is similar enough to the core d20 system outlined in the SRD that it actually retains those "networking efficiencies", then the mechanics are significantly different enough that (while you may be playing "d20 Warhammer") you're not really playing "Warhammer". For someone who plays Warhammer as much for the system as the setting, that's just not good enough.

And for the vast majority of gamers, who never played WHFR but are at least familiar with the Warhammer brand, it's totally meaningless.

This is the attitude that I have a real problem with. Many d20 fans feel that Warhammer (and CoC and Traveller and Gamma World and Runequest and etc.) are nothing more than cool settings/genres with inferior rulesets tacked on. Again, I call this d20 elitism in its most snobbish and unappealing form. I think lots of d20 fans and publishers would like to think that every other popular game made its mark only based on its "fluff" and not on having a well designed rule system and that the world will thank them when they swoop in and "save" the game by retaining the great fluff and replacing the "inferior", "unevolved" rules with a "better" system.

In Shadowrun's case, that's sorely needed. I'm not sure about WHFR.

However, it doesn't change the fact that those settings, especially Warhammer and Call of Cthulu, ARE cool settings that made their mark based on their "fluff" - both being, after all, far more famous for their non-RPG products than their RPG products. To say otherwise is no different from claiming that OGL Conan is trading on the strength of its d20-based system, not Robert E. Howard's iconic hero.

Traveler, Gamma World and Runequest all, to the best of my knowledge, originated their settings with the games and haven't been more famously used in other mediums, so that doesn't apply to them.

Excellence in game design did not suddenly begin and just as abruptly end in the year 2000. :\

Certainly not! Even the previous edition of SilCore was superior to d20, and I'd give the previous version of HERO about even odds (the current version being superior, IMO). True20 is considerably better than its d20 roots, too.

But the point about "networking inefficiencies" still holds. I may prefer SilCore to d20, but I know of several games/worlds I'd love to see in d20 since I know they'll never be done in SilCore.

Exactly, the only thing you absolutely can't replicate about Warhammer with other mechanics is.....the Warhammer game mechanics. Which, IMHO, are vastly superior to the core d20 system in just about every aspect. I'm sure YM will V.

Haven't played the current version yet, never saw the old one. But I do know I'd be hugely dissatisfied with a Warhammer-licensed game that didn't give me solid tactical wargaming and minis use, since those aspects are inextricably entwined with MY conception of Warhammer.

 

[Ourph]

Haven't played the current version yet, never saw the old one. But I do know I'd be hugely dissatisfied with a Warhammer-licensed game that didn't give me solid tactical wargaming and minis use, since those aspects are inextricably entwined with MY conception of Warhammer.

WHFRPv1 was OK on this score. Chris's WHFRPv2 is miles better in this regard than both v1 and D&D AFAIAC. In fact, I would say WHFRPv2 is an excellent example of a heavily tactical combat system that avoids the pitfalls of D&D3e combat (i.e. - it offers tons of options without being overly complex).

In fact, the only criticism I have of the entire game is that the Talents section and some of the spells fall into the d20 trap of "over modifying" everything the way Feats and buff spells do in D&D3e.

Traveler, Gamma World and Runequest all, to the best of my knowledge, originated their settings with the games and haven't been more famously used in other mediums, so that doesn't apply to them.

IIRC, the Glorantha setting for Runequest originated in association with a boardgame (Something Bear, Red Moon? Can't recall the name off the top of my head) before its advent as an RPG. Not that that contradicts your point - just a little trivia FYI.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

WHFRPv1 was OK on this score. Chris's WHFRPv2 is miles better in this regard than both v1 and D&D AFAIAC. In fact, I would say WHFRPv2 is an excellent example of a heavily tactical combat system that avoids the pitfalls of D&D3e combat (i.e. - it offers tons of options without being overly complex).

In fact, the only criticism I have of the entire game is that the Talents section and some of the spells fall into the d20 trap of "over modifying" everything the way Feats and buff spells do in D&D3e.

Sounds great.

I've wanted to take a look at WHFR2 for quite a while, since I'm a big fan of the setting and I love its monster book. Now I'd very much like to.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I think it's likely a mistake to equate lack of mechancial complexity with newbie friendliness when it's really conceptual complexity that's the bugbear.

Those are very interesting points. And I think that most games out there now are really lacking in explanations that actually help someone who wants to pick up a book and learn how to play (much less run) a game without someone who's done it before around to help them figure it out. A lot of games have lip service "How to play/How to GM" that assume you know what to do.

If you look at Buffy, or Primetime Adventures, the conceptual complexity issue is very different. These are games that are set up to produce games like a series of TV episodes, and they explain to players and GM alike how to do that. Buffy has an existing framework; if you've watched the show, you know the things Heroes and White Hats do, how a session is structured, etc. In PTA, you aren't going to get "off the map" as far as task resolution, because the resolution mechanic is tied to resolving the conflict within a scene, and there are clear rules for how to handle that. Also, both games have a catch-all mechanic (Drama Points or Screen Presence) that everyone can fall back on if they're not sure how to handle a specific case.

I think that "back to the dungeon" and "like your favorite TV show" are both helpful constraints that help new players get their footing. They limit scope and keep things focused. That leads me into some thoughts about scenario creation.

I think it's interesting that traditional party-of-adventurers RPGs have two primary elements of structure: resolution mechanics, and scenario creation. Scenario creation is a large part of "how we play", and it's not an easy skill to learn in traditional RPGs. You have to weigh challenge fairness vs. vermillisitude vs. pacing and narrative arc. If I want to make a D&D 3.5 dungeon, I need to understand CRs, adjust for the class composition of the party, make sure environmental challenges are surmountable at the party's level and with their skills, etc. Prepackaged adventures help with these problems, but they're definate issues.

In Primetime Adventures, there's no benefit at all in using a "module" except as inspiration. Players and GM talk together about the kind of series they'd like to play, make characters (which involves writing down a few traits they're skilled at, like "CIA Operative"), and go. Scenario balance and the narrative arc are tied together -- as challenges come up in a scene, the GM spends his Budget to decide how difficult they are, starting off easier and building to a high difficulty at the climax. Whatever the challenge is, it's resolved using Screen Presence + a relevant trait vs. the Budget spent. That doesn't simulate reality, but it does simulate the TV shows it's based on.

What I guess I'm trying to say is that conceptual complexity relates heavily to the mode of play. Getting your head around a D&D style model can be tough for some people -- are we trying to play our characters to "win", or to have them act like they were real people, or to have an interesting "story" happen? What if those goals conflict? We see posts about these kinds of things all the time on this forum, often from long-time players and GMs. Something like "It's going to be kind of like Firefly" still needs group consensus on some points, but it's easy to relate to.

Not to push PTA so hard -- it's just the book next to me when I was thinking of examples -- but I think it'd be interesting to explore different conceptual models. I think a good rules-light game can present a clear, limited conceptual model, and contain mechanics that let you resolve play within that model.