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General Tabletop Discussion
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Pros and Cons of going mainstream
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6056383" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think it's more than that. I think "canon" has, for some (many?) become an end in itself.</p><p></p><p>When Arneson ran Temple of the Frog, and Gygax was running games in Maure Castle, they weren't aping anyone else's game. They weren't recycling anyone else's play experience and passing it off as their own? So why has this now become the measure, for a large group of RPGers, of the quality of an RPG experience?</p><p></p><p>As I said, I think this is where there has ben a move away from creativity to formulaic, pre-packaged experiences.</p><p></p><p>Looking at it from an edition point of view, I think that 4e was self-consciously built to provide a setting that was transparent to the players in its rationale and basis for adventure, and that lent itself to GMs doing their own thing with it. There is no metaplot.</p><p></p><p>Some 4e supplements head in a more 2nd ed-ish direction (aspects of Manual of the Planes, the Plane Below and (to a lesser extent) the Plane Above) but overall I think it has been fairly consistent in its approach to setting and its abjuration of metaplot.</p><p></p><p>Why? How would this make his game better for his players? How would it make it a more interesting or useful example of GMing?</p><p></p><p>If anything, his column is better for demonstrating that "canon" should be the <em>output</em> of play, not its input.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6056383, member: 42582"] I think it's more than that. I think "canon" has, for some (many?) become an end in itself. When Arneson ran Temple of the Frog, and Gygax was running games in Maure Castle, they weren't aping anyone else's game. They weren't recycling anyone else's play experience and passing it off as their own? So why has this now become the measure, for a large group of RPGers, of the quality of an RPG experience? As I said, I think this is where there has ben a move away from creativity to formulaic, pre-packaged experiences. Looking at it from an edition point of view, I think that 4e was self-consciously built to provide a setting that was transparent to the players in its rationale and basis for adventure, and that lent itself to GMs doing their own thing with it. There is no metaplot. Some 4e supplements head in a more 2nd ed-ish direction (aspects of Manual of the Planes, the Plane Below and (to a lesser extent) the Plane Above) but overall I think it has been fairly consistent in its approach to setting and its abjuration of metaplot. Why? How would this make his game better for his players? How would it make it a more interesting or useful example of GMing? If anything, his column is better for demonstrating that "canon" should be the [I]output[/I] of play, not its input. [/QUOTE]
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