RSDancey replies to Goodman article (Forked Thread: Goodman rebuttal)

[PaulofCthulhu]

Take HP Lovecraft. He was a bad, bad writer.

No he wasn't. Bad writers don't end up in Penguin Classic editions or in the Library of America. You may not like him, but many others do.

Do forthcoming technologies signal the end of book reading? No, but then it appears 2% of the population buy 50% of the books. There are also people I know of who will proudly tell you they have never read a book unless they were forced to (at school). Future technologies will make it ever easier to avoid books. (something you have to actively do: read, rather than passively take in: TV).

The key issue, as always with Tabletop RPGs is having enough "gamer density" left to form a group to play with. Many times I've heard in the past few years "I want to play, but there's no one nearby to play with".

I saw Ryan Dancey's seminar at Gen Con 2006. "The video games industry spends more on stationery than the entire US budget for roleplaying games". I'm sure hyperbole, but with massive marketing, the hearts & minds of future gamers follow.

Anyway, lots of navel-gazing, lots of analysis, view & counterview in many threads across many sites, but now what?

What can be done about it?

What are the answers to ensure people who want to play tabletop RPGs will have sufficient "Gamer density" in the future to be able to actually play?

 

[Dausuul]

The key issue, as always with Tabletop RPGs is having enough "gamer density" left to form a group to play with. Many times I've heard in the past few years "I want to play, but there's no one nearby to play with".

I saw Ryan Dancey's seminar at Gen Con 2006. "The video games industry spends more on stationery than the entire US budget for roleplaying games". I'm sure hyperbole, but with massive marketing, the hearts & minds of future gamers follow.

Anyway, lots of navel-gazing, lots of analysis, view & counterview in many threads across many sites, but now what?

What can be done about it?

What are the answers to ensure people who want to play tabletop RPGs will have sufficient "Gamer density" in the future to be able to actually play?

Internet gaming. A "virtual game table" with videoconferencing is one possibility. Perhaps a more likely scenario, however, is the continuing development of MMOs with user-generated content; add the possibility for a GM to run a storyline live, and you have a true RPG. It lacks the spontaneity of a tabletop game where the GM can create an entire city off the cuff, but it has much better visuals and is less demanding in terms of system mastery.

Neverwinter Nights tried this with middling success, but if the genre does take off, I suspect the breakout hit will be an MMO moving toward RPGs rather than an RPG moving toward MMOs. And the MMO that does it will have to have a much cleaner, simpler interface for adventure design than anything I've seen so far.

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

Internet gaming.

My own interest remains the "traditional" people round a table, conversing (hence tabletop RPG). Your answer would suggest its end. Maybe I'm just naturally chatty.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Isn't the biggest obstacle to D&D not getting players interested but getting players interested who actually want to DM?

I've been playing since 1e and all through the years, getting players has never been the problem. Finding one of them who wants to DM though? There;s the trick...

That seems to be something WotC has identified as an issue, hence their work to make DMing in 4E easier - or at least make it appear easier. easier to use tools, more advice on what to expect as a DM, a lot of displaying the work of a DM not just as work but as rewarding and fun.

I always liked parts of being DM and I don't like others. Coming up with a story and an environment is very rewarding. Getting lost in the tedium of rules minitua was something very off-putting.
Sometimes, the crash of "DM concept" and "player reactions" can damage the experience, too. Sometimes on the contrary. The better prepared I feel, the more relaxed I am, and the more I can enjoy being the DM at the table.

 

[billd91]

One thing that might have changed over the year is the number of children in a neighborhood. The advent of the pill changed the number of children people have a lot. And this results in less children that are around overall, and so less chances to make social contacts to kids of similar age.
But that's why kindergartens and schools can be so valuable, too. They bring all the kids together, even if they do not normally live close to each other, and eliminate that problem again.

Well, at least that's my working thesis. But I am not sure that this relates strongly to RPGs - as I said, kindergartens and schools ensure that children still have others of similar age to play with. That they don't necessarily have a close-knit neighborhood might not matter at all.

Oh, there are still plenty of neighborhoods stocked with kids, but there are differences. More of them go to different, not necessarily neighborhood schools, so their friendship groups aren't always immediately local.

Dancey's comment about scheduled times away from unscheduled neighborhood play is pretty important. Soccer leagues, swim clubs, karate classes, after school/day care programs, all pull away from the local neighborhood dynamic as well as take up potential game time. They put the kids in touch with a wider-spread peer group, but one that's harder to just get together with and play games because parental involvement in transportation is usually necessary. On the other hand, they can get together and interact on on-line games easily enough, if so inclined, because that transportation requirement is taken out of the picture.

For me, this isn't a huge change. I lived in rural Wisconsin. My closest fellow-player was a couple miles away. And it was another couple miles from his house to our 3rd player. But it appears to have been a trend for (sub-)urban over the 40 years of my life.

 

[Dausuul]

My own interest remains the "traditional" people round a table, conversing (hence tabletop RPG). Your answer would suggest its end. Maybe I'm just naturally chatty.

*shrug* You asked for a solution to the gamer density problem. Online gaming eliminates the problem, and I think it's where the future of the hobby lies. As the cleric said to the psychotic halfling, evolve or die. Keep in mind, though, that as webcams and headsets with microphones become more commonplace, the degree of interaction possible over the Internet will continue to increase. I mentioned a virtual tabletop with videoconferencing; that's already possible with today's technology. It isn't as good as being there, but it's a lot better than pure text-based chat.

What it boils down to is that the realm founded by Gygax and Arneson splintered a few years ago; the grognards and dedicated roleplayers became the Kingdom of Tabletop, while the casual gamers crossed the sea to the Empire of Mmo. The Kingdom of Tabletop has not been a very friendly place for the casual gamer for a while now - especially compared to the Empire of Mmo, which under the current Emperor Warcraft has gone to great lengths to reduce the barriers to entry.

So, either the Kingdom has to find a way to drastically lower its barriers to entry; or it has to find a way to exist with only the grognards and dedicated roleplayers. I honestly don't see how it achieves the former while remaining a tabletop game. The latter demands a way to maintain ties in a small community scattered across a very large area... which pretty much means the Internet.

I'm not saying tabletop gaming as we know it will ever die out completely. But if you think it's a niche hobby today, wait till you see it twenty years from now.

 

[xechnao]

As often, I begin to lose understanding of what you want to say or express.

I think a lot of your theoretical discussions would be better if you posted some descriptive examples.

What does a "fuzzy aproach towards complex patterns" mean? "Assign and value options or approaches probabilistically"? How does this relate back to the simple rule that creates a complex pattern?

Fuzzy math. I tried to explain it. You cannot just perceive the ideal solution and just go for it. Humans do not operate like this. Instead you expect more than one thing to happen, you ready yourself to have a response or a solution for more than one possible situation. You evaluate things of course and this is why probabilities are relevant to the human way of being. If not we would not understand or use probabilities.
If things become so complex or complicated that the effort to figure things out becomes immense -like the loop example you are talking about- we will approach things in a fuzzy way. Now, if group-social dynamics are important -cooperation, tactics, various other needs etch- we will be following the line of the group dynamics. This is another field of information, and I would say that many times it functions as a statistical one since the group has more distinct and distinguishable members.

 

[Windjammer]

Despite the somewhat insulting tone of your post (it might not surprise you to learn that I've read a book or two in my day, and understand the power of the inner eye), I stand by what I said.

My apologies. I didn't want to insinuate that you (or Ryan) had never read a book or didn't know about the difference between the respective attractions of the and outer eye (to use your terms). What I said was: as long as people feel the attraction of the former, and they will as long as they read books, then I don't think anyone should feel the risk of these things being supplanted by entirely different things.

Books and roleplaying games exercise different imaginative muscles anyway. Roleplaying... putting yourself in a situation, empathising with those around you, employing in-character dialogue, shutting out your own meta-knowledge... these things are hard. They take practice, certainly a lot more practice than reading a good book, where the author uses words to entice you into a world of his own making. And like anything that's hard, something that's easier, more immediately gratifying, and at least as much fun, will win. If WoW can do it, then a future, much more immersive simulation which creates a roleplaying scenario on the fly, translates your actions into photo-realistic imagery, and allows you to share that environment with your friends, bloody well will do it as well.

Here's the catch. I used to play quite a bit of Guildwars (another Fantasy-MMO). It was quite a thing to logon on a Friday evening and get in touch with the other members in one's guild. We would talk and form groups to go through missions, during which we'd communicate using head sets. Obviously 90% of what we'd say would be incidentally in-character and informed by in-game considerations ("you [meaning, your rogue] need to watch out - there's a monster behind you" etc.). True, everything thereof would only regard combat situations, but that has been my experience with most of 4E as well.

So, I'm with Ryan that MMOs get on top of these interpersonal aspects of P&P RPGing to a greater extent than so far. (The only thing that's missing is the DM, so I'm still wondering how he comes into the equation.)

And that would be why I focused on supplying one's own visuals. That is for me the only thing that MMOs won't ever (want to) accomplish.

 

[xechnao]

I honestly don't see how it achieves the former while remaining a tabletop game.

I see it. You need the right game. Of course such a game would not be a game that tries to capitalize out of a segment of the market that follows it but a game that tries to expand and remain in the market. It is the difference of a classic product (Monopoly) versus a commercial product (M:tG)

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

*shrug* You asked for a solution to the gamer density problem.

You may have mis-read. I was asking specifically with reference to the "Tabletop RPG" gamer density issue, rather than electronic. Virtual stuff of course can obliviate that issue, but I'm more concerned from my "traditionalist" stance. To me the two experiences are not the same and of course it is the traditional experience that interests me (and probably some others) most.

if there are less and less over the years, it will be an unfortunate thing in my book. Rather I hope things stabilise to a certain, functional level. Otherwise the ultra-hardcore wlll just have to grow their own, as some of my friends are doing.