Ryan Dancey speaks - the Most Successful Year for Fantasy RPGaming ever. However...

[Belen]

Your response amounts to "but I've played some really good games!" Yes, so have I!

But here's the clincher: are they outnumbered by the boring ones and the poor ones? If you can honestly say they are, I accuse you of being easily amused - and those hundreds or thousands of hours of design are what our average DM is competing with, after having got home from work, looked after the partner or done homework etc.

Boring games are as much player fault as DM. Fact is, D&D is a cooperative RPG. The players themselves need to provide a good story and good characters for that story. The DM manages overall plot and background, but no DM, however good, can provide a good story that covers everything.

A good D&D game depends on everyone in the group.

IMO, even a boring D&D game provided more fun than a MMO.

 

[Belen]

Refer to above:

No, they're not devoid of railroading, but the fact remains that these games offer a lot more choice than virtually any P&P campaign modules (unless you consider what corridor to go down next a meaningful choice) and homebrews which aren't improvised.

In terms of degrees of railroading, these beat most P&P D&D campaigns into a cocked hat (published ones at least, YMMV for homebrews). The Adventure Paths of WOTC and Paizo, for instance, feature not just one "campaign starting railroad", but no choice of what adventure goes next whatsoever, and no detailed side treks to explore or skip....and that's been the rule, not the exception.

I don't want this to be the case, but it is. At least recognise the problem already!

You do not really recognize the problem. I agree with you to the extent that some DMs are nor capable of effective improv. However, you need players to want to go on side quests and who will actively participate in the game. If the players do not care or are focused on the task at hand, then there is a problem in actually do side quests etc.

Your argument comes from the side of an individual player. You are comparing the RPG to a computer game where you are the only focus of the game. You do not need to interact with anyone to explore where you will.

However, more often than not, it is the players who shut down other players on the side quest front. Maybe Zog does not want to follow Lara to find the secret flower of york. He wants to go elsewhere etc.

You cannot compare the two experiences. Heck, you cannot even compare the experiences with the MMO because your still on set story line, so the choices remain limited.

The choices in a D&D game are limitless, but it depends on both the DM and the players to make those choices live.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

IME all CRPG's are railroads and limiting in what you can do to effect the story. However the good onces, BG, NWN, Fallout, & KOTOR, all do give you some choice and hide the fact that you are being railroaded with good story and fun gameplay.

 

[SteveC]

Point me to even one computer game that is not a total railroad.

Darklands. Here is a game that starts you off in a city in Germany and let's you just go from there. There is a plot, but you are not required to get involved with it in any way. You can keep adventuring with a group of characters until they get old and die...and then start up a new group.

There are a finite number of types of encounter in the game, but you're never required to deal with any of them. For example, you might be asked to overthrow a robber baron near a particular town, but you're not actually required to deal with the problem at all: the game goes on just fine whether you deal with this issue or not.

I would say that this game ultimately has more freedom of choice for what to do and how to develop your characters than most real face-to-face games.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The Elder Scrolls games are not rail roads. You can play for hundreds of hours and never even do what would be considered "the main quest". Actaully they were so open ended that I got bored with them since I couldn't find any stories.

 

[Mercule]

Baldurs Gate I & II for instance represent much, much more meaningful player choice than Dragonlance Chronicles....and they're small beer compared to worldspanning games. To compete with this, the DM must improvise (or use sparse macro-level notes covering a lot of territory, the details of which must be improvised, which is nearly the same thing), and then it's all down to your opinion on improvisation quality versus prepared material.

Quality is entirely subject to opinion. If you're going to poo-poo improvisation as being of subjective benefit, then you may as well throw in the towel for this discussion. No one is claiming that improvisation is universally a good thing. Some GMs are not best left to their own devices. A bad GM results in a bad game, just like bad programers result in a bad CRPG. If you want to compare the cream of the CRPG crop (WoW, BG, et al.), then you need to be comparing them to the cream of the TRPG crop, and that includes GMs who are able to improvise well.

As for railroading, I can't imagine that anyone could seriously argue that CRPGs inherently do this less than TRPGs, at the present. Do you want to play an awakened animal? Use D&D. Build a keep? Use D&D. Dabble in politics? D&D. Swap out your 1st level fighter's armor proficiencies for the monk's flurry of blows (or a similar exchange)? D&D. What about creating your own demiplane? Or converting the BBEG to your religion rather than killing him? Open a new trade route and live as a merchant? All D&D.

The major advantage that good CRPGs have over good TRPGs is that they can reach a broader audience simultaneously. Scratch that. They can just reach a broader audience. It's not possible for any GM to run a game for as many people as a CRPG can host. That, and CRPGs require a significantly lower player investment in the mechanics of the game.

On the down side, most CRPGs require you to join a guild (#1 reason I'll never MMORP) to accomplish anything. If you create a new character, you're facing many of the same challenges you did with your last character. And, you have to deal with PCs with names like "Jigglybear", "Ramjet", and "Reverend Jim Beam". No thanks. At this point in time, MMORPGs offer no value to me.

 

[Turjan]

Point me to even one computer game that is not a total railroad.

Although Flexor mentioned it already, I'd like to point to Morrowind here. You can play 60 hours in that game without touching the main story. Actually, I personally know many people who refused to play the game because, after two or three hours of gaming, they stood somewhere on the big island and asked "What am I supposed to do?".

They were obviously expecting a railroad, and their expectations were not fulfilled.

 

[Mercule]

Although Flexor mentioned it already, I'd like to point to Morrowind here.

Daggerfall makes Morrowind look quite structured. It even drove me nuts. They are both very good games, though, for what they are.

Ultimately, though, Daggerfall was like going through random dungeon after random dungeon (ala 1E DMG, appendix A). That can be fun, on occasion, but it's not everyone's schtick. Morrowind seems much better, but I haven't played it enough to say for sure.

Either way, though, it's just like saying some DMs are better at improvising than others. Any competent (meaning not exceptional, but not a bumbling fool) DM could improvise as well as Daggerfall, if provided with the 1E DMG. Even then, a good DM could provide more freedom (and deeper roleplaying) than Daggerfall could hope to.

 

[jim pinto]

the sky fell somewhere around 3 and a half

I have not read this entire thread, so I apologize now if I'm reiterating something someone already said.

First, while Ryan is dancing around the topic of fantasy gaming denigration/deterioration, he isn't talking about the "death" of TRPGs (crap, I already hate that acronym). He's talking about the death of his paycheck. Guys like Ryan don't see gaming as a hobby, but as a franchise; something to make money from.

Gaming isn't going away. Profits are.

The downward trend of sales from 3rd parties is indicative of this shift, but not emblematic. Some of us have been seeing a decline in sales for 10 years (all jokes aside) as each book sells less than the previous one (this is the case with every game company). But now, the bottom of sales is so low -- for a number of reasons* -- that companies are cranking out more books each month just to stay afloat, making due with volume. OR… they pulling in the reins and cutting back production costs (cf. overhead, payroll, etc.) in order to be a leaner company.

* Distributors order less of Dungeons and Dragons expansion book 66 than they did of book 65; store owners don't push sales; gamers leave the hobby; stores go under with nothing to replace it; people buy product on Amazon instead of supporting the FLGS (which has obvious long-term effect); etc.

This hobby turned into an industry somewhere in the last 20 years and trying to make it obey the laws of supply & demand, economic viability, and mens rea mea culpa juris prudence is short-sighted and greedy; not to mention, ignorant of previous trends. The train hobby continues to thrive without much advertising or growth into the mainstream.

How?

By raising prices when necessary, employing a smaller staff, and understanding that hobbies are NOT necessities. People will buy what they want, when they want. Making trains collectible doesn’t improve the longevity of the hobby, just the short-term gains.

Splat-book publishing for d20 followed the (flawed) CCG model of a book a month (in most cases 10 a month), which is the equivalent of turning the consumer upside down and shaking the change out of his pockets. No one needs 16 books on slaying kobolds. I don’t even want to face 16 kobolds. Why do I need so many books on them?

Saturation does not equal quality, no matter how hard they try to sell you on the new iterations of books coming out now.

Gamers buy what they want; not what the publisher thinks they want (see recent sales of Vampire: Requiem for evidence of this). More on this another time.

What Ryan is also failing to see is the fantasy and superheroes are hot, "right now." If banality is the word of the day (we work boring jobs, etc.), then certainly escapism must emulate something less jejune than walking for hours and hours while killing crocodiles (cf. EQ). Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Spiderman, X-Men, etc. are all part of a trend, that may or may not stay. And should it go away, the inflated value of online fantasy gaming will disappear with it.

Another factor to consider is that $15 a month is a cheap distraction from melancholy. Contrast that to the unappreciated work-intensive, cost-intensive role of DM and what do you get? A cheaper, faster surrogate that doesn't get mad when you're late for a game, doesn't notice if you forgot to bathe or left your cell phone on, won't judge you for "leaping into the fray and getting everyone killed," and could care less if you "wreck the campaign" with your uber-drama.

As an extension, online gaming has fewer stagnation-dependent liabilities (gamers in bad moods, poor character concepts, without manners, and so on). And while the “fun quotient” is lower online then at the table top, the fun there is assured. A bad session (or simply people in a bad mood) can ruin an evening of gaming in a way that MMORPG gaming is practically immune to.

And at the end of the day, the numbers don’t lie. Over 1 million people bought the core books for 3.0

1 million.

All the while, 50,000 copies of the Monster Collection were sold and the average 3rd party company sold only 10,000 or so of similar products in the same year. And ever since, the numbers have declined.

That tells me people can game without buying product. That tells me that the $15 a month for WoW is essential to the enjoyment of that product.

Blue Orcs Gone Wild! by Malhavoc is not.

And if only 1 million people played WoW, it would only take 3 months at $15 a month to make the money of the PHB, MM, and DMG combined.

If only 1 million.

By contrast, there are 1.5 million people in China, playing WoW.

And who only plays for 3 months?

If you played D&D for 3 months, wotc wouldn’t see one additional dime. The game is paid for. And if you only need one or two sets of books per table it takes on average 3 times as many gamers to equal the sales potential of a MMORPG.

So.

If you measure RPG success like Ryan does, with $$$s. How can you conclude anything else?

 

[The Shaman]

Gaming isn't going away. Profits are.

I agree.