D&D 5E (More) ruminations on the future of D&D

[RevTurkey]

Starter Sets...birthday, christmas and rainy day presents.

let children and folks have a look and see if it interests them.

if it does, help them try by maybe running a game.

don't get all pushy or righteous about how they must enjoy themselves.

if they like it, great...if they don't ....buy em a boardgame next.

 

[pemerton]

That is, at best, a superficial assessment

<snip>

the comparison of RPGs in general and jazz is entirely reasonable. Both G1 and G3, for example, offer considerable opportunities for improvisation, exploring one method of exploration until it plays out, jettisoning it, and exploring another.

By the same token, playing cricket is like jazz, because there is scope for improvisation and the bowler has to choose, from ball to ball, what sort of delivery to use to try and take the wicket.

Or even crossing the road is like jazz, because there's scope for improvisation around j-walking vs waiting for the lights to change, waiting on the median strip or weaving around the oncoming traffic, etc.

All the comparison is really showing is that both RPGing and jazz involve decisions. But then, to the best of my knowledge, so does playing computer games.

If the claim is that RPGing involves creative or artistic decisions, somewhat like those involved in being an improvisational musician, then I think that depends very much on which RPG you're playing. G2 is not really about creativity in an artisitc sense at all (and for that reason is often regarded as the weakest of the G-modules, although it happens to be my personal favourite). It requires tactical or "military" creativity, but then so - I assume - can computer gaming. Wargaming and boardgaming certainly does.

I GMed a session of Burning Wheel on the weekend. In the course of the session the players had to come up with multiple goals and motivations for their PCs (as part of the PC-building process) and had to participate in generating campaign backstory, including history and NPC names and personalities (as part of the action-resolution process for knowledge skills and streetwise-type skills).

As far as artistic creation is concerned, this was more demanding than any classic D&D module (which do not require PC goals or motivation, but rely solely on the XP system to generate player buy-in to the scenario, and which put backstory creation, such as it is, firmly in the hands of the GM). But I stil wouldn't compare it to playing jazz. There is none of the discipline (of rhythm, tone, etc) that is involved in playing, even improvising, music. A better comparison might be to sitting around a campfire or a dinner table playfully composing a light-hearted chain story.

 

[Mercurius]

[MENTION=6778280]neonagash[/MENTION], I think this is a case of you taking offense when none was intended. I refer you to [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION]'s post as he addresses this quite well. Although let me clarify, the analogy of CRPGs : TTRPGs :: pop music : jazz shouldn't be taken too strictly or definitely. I'm not as much comparing CRPGs to pop music and TTRPGs to jazz, but comparing the relationship of CRPGs to TTRPGs to the relationship of pop to jazz. Even that is stretched, but the point is this: One pair (pop, CRPGs) requires far less inner activity, is generally less sophisticated artistically, and allows for far less range of experience and improvisation. But you could really replace these with something else that makes more sense to you (a couple of which I'll suggest in a moment).

Let me be clear: I am not criticizing younger generations. But I am making a judgment about video games. It isn't a "moral" one - I'm not saying they are "wrong" or "bad" or "evil." I am saying that they are comparatively lacking depth of experience, imagination, and creativity.

I think perhaps a better analogy would be junk food to healthy food. Video games are akin to junk food in that they artificially "fill you up" but, by not allowing the user to create anything, to generate any kind of creative experience from within, the individual is left without any "nutrition" (I realize that there are some exceptions and, like anything--including junk food--it is more of a spectrum; organic potato chips are healthier than non-organic, but they're still not exactly "healthy"). Table top RPGs can be extremely "nutritious" - especially for DMs, but also for players - in that they involve self-generated imaginative experience, creativity, improvisation, and of course socialization.

I've also used the analogy of movies and books, because there is a similar quality. And this is an area where I can't be accused of negative bias or generational snobbery because I love movies! But I'll be the first to admit that reading a book is far more "imaginatively nutritious," and generally a more satisfying experience - but one that requires more from me in terms of internal experience (and this is why it is more satisfying!).

I can tell you as a parent to two children I am far more likely to moderate junk food and movies than I am nutritious food and books. I'm not going to say "absolutely not!" to the former because A) this will inspire the "Forbidden Fruit Effect," and B) there's nothing wrong with movie-watching and a bit of junk food in moderation.

But I'm also not going to say "everything the same" and that there is no difference between these different activities, because there most certainly is.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think if anything the younger generation should be primed for D&D.

Compare them to my generation (early 30s): we grew up on video games, but we were still a huge part of the 3e "silver age" boom. The biggest difference in that respect is that fantasy and comic-book sci fi were less mainstream (until the LotR movies); tactical/Rpg games tended to be single-player rather than cooperative; and content-creation "games" like Minecraft were less popular.

In other words, your average 13-year-old now probably has exposure to the things that make d&d tick that only an uber-nerd like me did in 1999.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Let me be clear: I am not criticizing younger generations. But I am making a judgment about video games. It isn't a "moral" one - I'm not saying they are "wrong" or "bad" or "evil." I am saying that they are comparatively lacking depth of experience, imagination, and creativity.

So are you speaking of video games as a medium, or just your particular experiences with individual games? Because that statement is obviously untrue of the medium itself. And, while I'm sure uncreative video games can be found and listed, does that matter since surely not all books are evocative of the imagination? Or is this down to a numbers game where X% of video games don't use player creativity at X value or higher, and so the medium itself is lacking depth until that is resolved?

 

[Mercurius]

So are you speaking of video games as a medium, or just your particular experiences with individual games? Because that statement is obviously untrue of the medium itself. And, while I'm sure uncreative video games can be found and listed, does that matter since surely not all books are evocative of the imagination? Or is this down to a numbers game where X% of video games don't use player creativity at X value or higher, and so the medium itself is lacking depth until that is resolved?

I'm talking about the medium itself, which I think is generally lacking in internal, self-generated creativity and imagination - at least compared to TTRPGs. As I said, there are exceptions and degrees, but I'm speaking in general.

And yeah, this applies to all forms, not just video games. But different mediums lend themselves to different internal experiences and degrees of inner activity. A book (or TTRPG) asks you to use your own imagination while a video game does not. But we could also talk about different types of writing, and how they evoke imagination differently.

 

[neonagash]

I think you're not really grokking the whole analogy. The idea here is that pop, particularly top 40 pop, is fairly formulaic and limited in format. This isn't a generational thing at all. It has always pretty much been this way (and artists have been chafing at the limited format of the single since the 1960s). There is relatively little room for experimentation. Occasionally there will be significant changes that will suddenly happen but soon everyone else will be imitating and the new sound will be the dominant sound. They're all chasing the big money that fitting the narrow slice of likeability that generates big sales.

By comparison, jazz, particularly free form varieties and improv, can be a pretty open format with musicians riffing off each other, developing new melodies in response to inputs from their fellows, often around a core structure like a chord progression or repeated element. This is fairly esoteric and one reason why jazz is rarely the moneymaker pop is.

These elements are why pop music and its confining format are more like computer RPGs and tabletop RPGs with GMs and players improvising as the situations change are like jazz. There is nothing really generational about it, nor is the analogy intended to be insulting to kids.

I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you werent actually TRYING to come off as condescending as hell towards something you dont really seem to like..... but if so you went pretty far off the mark.

Cause that reads as one big post about " i didnt mean to call this other thing shallow, immature, soulless and totally lacking in creative/artistic value..... but dude, it totally is. I just didnt mean to say so the first time, umm or this time i guess".

 

[aramis erak]

That is, at best, a superficial assessment, and possibly even a cherry picked one as well. While it may be true that G2 is probably the most straightforward of the GDQ series considering it has pretty well-defined objectives and relatively constricted paths of ingress, the comparison of RPGs in general and jazz is entirely reasonable. Both G1 and G3, for example, offer considerable opportunities for improvisation, exploring one method of exploration until it plays out, jettisoning it, and exploring another. And then D3 sits on top of that with very little plotted structure and an open space to act.

G1-2-3 can be readily run as a straightforward KTAATTS hack-fest. That's how we played it back in junior high... back when Moldvay Basic was the hot new thing.

 

[TerraDave]

Just one thing...

This is a long thread with long posts, and I haven't been able to get through, well, most of them.

But I thought it was worth pointing out something that Mearls has noted, over and over again:

Young people play D&D.

We, the ENWorld crowd, are not representative. We are kinda old.

That is all.

 

[Jer]

This is a long thread with long posts, and I haven't been able to get through, well, most of them.

But I thought it was worth pointing out something that Mearls has noted, over and over again:

Young people play D&D.

We, the ENWorld crowd, are not representative. We are kinda old.

Yes for the love of God people - this.

Young people don't come here and talk to us because we're a bunch of old weirdos. But that doesn't mean that young people don't play RPGs.

There are at least two high school RPG clubs in my neighborhood that meet at the local library to play - all kids between the ages of what appear to be 8 and 12 (I'm old so that might actually be 14-18 but whatever). There's an active gaming group at the college I teach at that has dozens of members who play RPGs. The local game store even has younger folks who come in and play Pathfinder weekly.

Don't assume that D&D players are all old. Mearls has also said that they've been doing some polling on this and the average player age is much closer to "college age" than it is to "grognard who's played the game for 40 years".