What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Aldarc]

Assuming, of course, that it really weas defeated and not just driven off...

And after that campaign's kinda run its course and needs to end you pull the tarrasque out from where it's been recovering from its wounds (as it wasn't really defeated last time) and let it TPK the party.

Then you start over. Same setting, same situation, new characters, 5 years later...lather rinse repeat for a lifetime of fun gaming!

I would probably go with defeat or the usual slumber for another millennium once it was sated. The tarrasque is more of a plot device than actual foe.

 

[pemerton]

The tarrasque is more of a plot device than actual foe.

I don't think I agree with this.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't think I agree with this.

...in the case of this campaign setting premise.

 

[Campbell]

Hey sorry it took so long for me to reply but I was away from the interwebs for the holiday weekend here.

To answer your question I eventually ended up talking about both. You are correct in that originally I was speaking about players that are just not invested in roleplaying and/or story to the degree that games such as FATE require one to be (Where require means to get the most out of it). In the 5e DMG they list 7 areas in the game that can engage players (and yes I realize there may be other areas but that's kind of tangential to my overall point)... Acting, exploring, instigating, fighting, optimizing, problem solving & storytelling. Games like FATE, MHRP, etc. seem to prioritize storytelling and to a lesser extent acting as primary experiences to the extent that many of these other areas are only mildly catered to or not catered to at all. For me and my group I'd rather have a game that doesn't necessarily push one of these aspects (even if it does that by not strongly supporting any one particular experience) than to have a game that does. My players have a wide variety of what they enjoy and honestly. This is where I tend to differ with those people who feel a game has to have a defined and precise playstyle in order to be a good game. Sometimes a game that doesn't necessarily focus on or push a playstyle is a better fit for a group with diverse likes and expectations for fun than a game with a narrower focus or more defined playstyle.

To bring this back around to new/casual players... I have a casual player in my group, he plays a champion fighter most of the time, loves combat and really isn't down to act except in the most cursory sense and is more about adventure than creating a "story". FATE would not be a good fit for him because it pushes and focuses in on the experiences he findsa the least enjoyable in rpg's... but we enjoy playing with him, and with D&D those who want deep characterization can do so by stressing and engaging their ideals, flaws and bonds... while he plays his grim and gruff warrior with a mysterious (mostly blank...lol) history and neither really affects the fun of the other.

I feel you vastly overestimate the narrowness of the designs you see outside of the mainstream and grant mainstream designs a flexibility that I have not experienced in the real world. I think you assume that the things that make Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, Masks, Moldvay B/X, Stars Without Number, Blades in the Dark, Sorcerer and even Fate great games are things you can meaningfully experience in the mainstream culture of play in a meaningful way. I think you are way off in that assumption because I have never had the same sort of fun that Sorcerer provides in a mainstream game for any significant measure of time.

I'll have more on this later. Probably in its own thread.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I feel you vastly overestimate the narrowness of the designs you see outside of the mainstream and grant mainstream designs a flexibility that I have not experienced in the real world.

'Mainstream' just sounds funny in the context of our hobby. Sure, D&D - I assume that's the 'mainstream RPG' in this context - has mainstream name recognition, but actually playing it, not so mainstream at all.

Anyway, the way we've all played D&D over the last 40 years or so /has/ been extremely varied, so there's been a great deal of flexibility forced upon it, in spite of how little innate flexibility it may actually have, by virtue of the 70s technology of it's system. Or, to put it another way, we have exercised a great deal of flexibility in playing D&D, that we have not with other systems, not because the systems aren't more flexible, but because we've played or been aware of them little, if at all.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

'Mainstream' just sounds funny in the context of our hobby. Sure, D&D - I assume that's the 'mainstream RPG' in this context - has mainstream name recognition, but actually playing it, not so mainstream at all.

Anyway, the way we've all played D&D over the last 40 years or so /has/ been extremely varied, so there's been a great deal of flexibility forced upon it, in spite of how little innate flexibility it may actually have, by virtue of the 70s technology of it's system. Or, to put it another way, we have exercised a great deal of flexibility in playing D&D, that we have not with other systems, not because the systems aren't more flexible, but because we've played or been aware of them little, if at all.

I think its easier to explain than that. There's value in playing D&D, due to its network effect. Everyone kinda knows the game, and even if you play this or that variant they can pick it up and they'll know what you mean when you say "lets play D&D." So there's incentive to bend it and stretch it. There's no such incentive with other games. If you want to play Traveller it is because you want to play that exact game, not Star Wars, not Stars Without Number, etc. If you want to play some other flavor of sci-fi, there's a game for that too, but there wouldn't be much point in hacking Traveller to become that other game. The 'brand' of Traveller is just not that strong, nobody cares which sci-fi game they are playing.

Now, there are other games which have acquired some level of brand identity within their niches, and ones that are RPG licensees of big IP like Star Wars and Star Trek, but the very niche nature of all these games still means people only want to play them for the specific experience of playing Star Wars/Trek (or whatever). So very few other games have really evolved much. WoD, and to some extent RQ, are borderline exceptions.

 

[Bedrockgames]

'Mainstream' just sounds funny in the context of our hobby. Sure, D&D - I assume that's the 'mainstream RPG' in this context - has mainstream name recognition, but actually playing it, not so mainstream at all.

Anyway, the way we've all played D&D over the last 40 years or so /has/ been extremely varied, so there's been a great deal of flexibility forced upon it, in spite of how little innate flexibility it may actually have, by virtue of the 70s technology of it's system. Or, to put it another way, we have exercised a great deal of flexibility in playing D&D, that we have not with other systems, not because the systems aren't more flexible, but because we've played or been aware of them little, if at all.

D&D has the broadest audience, and you often end up with lots of different kinds of campaigns and styles being played with it as a result. Again, this is why 4E was such an atomic bomb for many fans when it came out (it either really heightened play for a narrow band of players, or it disrupted play for people whose play styles felt left out). With niche games, you don't have to worry about satisfying everyone. In my experience, 4E was a lot harder than other editions to adjust to play style. So I don't think it is simply a matter of all games being equally suited for adjustment. You can adjust any game you want. But you will fight more with some systems than with others.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think its easier to explain than that. There's value in playing D&D, due to its network effect.

That's a good way if putting it.

. WoD, and to some extent RQ, are borderline exceptions.

Storyteller was pretty much the headspace leader in the hobby in the 90s, as TSR was imploding, sure, and RQ was one of the first/strongest 'core systems' (BRP), and was essentially adapted into other games and genres the way d20 was 20 years later, just by a single company, rather than 3pps.

So very few other games have really evolved much

D&D has barely evolved, at all, and, while relatively few other systems go through multiple editions, those that do can evolve quite a bit - Hero went from an amateurish typewriter-font superhero game, to a Universal System the likes of GURPS, in 4 editions, for instance.
But, while so many other games just get published and never get a 2nd ed in which to incrementally change, in aggregate they've constituted a lot of evolution (with the kinds of indie games referenced by Campbell, above being 'more evolved' examples), which D&D has generally eschewed.

That's the downside of the network effect: to keep it going, the game can't afford to change much, even in a more flexible, 'evolved,' or more inclusive direction. So D&D, today, is not really all that different from the fad years, when we were brute-force adapting it to even the most wildly unsuited uses.

That's not just good for maintaining the legacy network and the decades of experience built into it, it's great for returning players, as well, still recognizably D&D, even if you've been away 20 or 30 years. But it does mean that the flexibility D&D does have (and that is confusing to Campbell, having experienced flexibility actually delivered by a system), is entirely delivered by the DMs constantly re-tooling it in spite of it's innate mechanical inflexibility.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's a good way if putting it.

Storyteller was pretty much the headspace leader in the hobby in the 90s, as TSR was imploding, sure, and RQ was one of the first/strongest 'core systems' (BRP), and was essentially adapted into other games and genres the way d20 was 20 years later, just by a single company, rather than 3pps.

D&D has barely evolved, at all, and, while relatively few other systems go through multiple editions, those that do can evolve quite a bit - Hero went from an amateurish typewriter-font superhero game, to a Universal System the likes of GURPS, in 4 editions, for instance.
But, while so many other games just get published and never get a 2nd ed in which to incrementally change, in aggregate they've constituted a lot of evolution (with the kinds of indie games referenced by Campbell, above being 'more evolved' examples), which D&D has generally eschewed.

That's the downside of the network effect: to keep it going, the game can't afford to change much, even in a more flexible, 'evolved,' or more inclusive direction. So D&D, today, is not really all that different from the fad years, when we were brute-force adapting it to even the most wildly unsuited uses.

That's not just good for maintaining the legacy network and the decades of experience built into it, it's great for returning players, as well, still recognizably D&D, even if you've been away 20 or 30 years. But it does mean that the flexibility D&D does have (and that is confusing to Campbell, having experienced flexibility actually delivered by a system), is entirely delivered by the DMs constantly re-tooling it in spite of it's innate mechanical inflexibility.

I think D&D HAS evolved more than MOST games though. A lot has indeed stayed roughly the same, but over time the game has diffused and branched into various flavors, all within an overall genre. As you say, mostly niche games have simply come and gone and been replaced by more polished or different games, vs evolving in and of themselves. That's kind of what I was talking about. There's not a huge amount of point in evolving niche RPG #12 when you can just write niche RPG #13 and steal as much from #12 as you care to, within reason.

 

[Imaro]

I feel you vastly overestimate the narrowness of the designs you see outside of the mainstream and grant mainstream designs a flexibility that I have not experienced in the real world. I think you assume that the things that make Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, Masks, Moldvay B/X, Stars Without Number, Blades in the Dark, Sorcerer and even Fate great games are things you can meaningfully experience in the mainstream culture of play in a meaningful way. I think you are way off in that assumption because I have never had the same sort of fun that Sorcerer provides in a mainstream game for any significant measure of time.

I'll have more on this later. Probably in its own thread.

Did you ever follow up on this? Just curious... since I don't think the fact that you haven't experienced something personally to be anywhere near ample evidence to discount its possibility.

EDIT: To further clarify where I am coming from... what is the "fun" that Sorcerer provides and have you ever been in a mainstream game where the GM/Dm was actually trying to provide this experience? From what I can remember Sorcerer is a game about bartering away one's humanity to attain power. Why would a game centered around this theme not be possible in D&D? I'm not claiming it is, but at first glance it certainly seems possible. What about D&D makes it impossible to explore this theme? Also what type of gameplay besides this theme of humanity for power does Sorcerer support?