Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

[mythago]

If ensemble television can do it, an RPG can do it.

The purpose of a television show is to entertain the viewing audience, not the actors.

I suspect you’re getting pushback because you’re using “party” to mean a specific, narrow type of ensemble - the Fellowship-style group of assorted people who have little in common other than working together for a common goal, even one as loose as seeking adventure. But it’s fairly easy to adjust the LOTR model into the kind of thing you’ve counter-proposed. (Delta Green famously started because making all the characters FBI agents was the best way to explain why a party had any reason to exist in a CoC scenario.)

Lots of games have mechanics that require spotlight scenes in a round robin manner, with other players assigned or choosing to step in as secondary PCs or NPC when it’s someone else’s spotlight. By the Author of Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Town Called Malice, and Under the Mountain, off the top of my head. Having spotlight time assigned in a formal way helps alleviate the problem of other players having not much to do.

 

[pemerton]

When they're not, I'm having a hard time seeing why you guys are even playing as a group.

As I posted, because it's fun to play RPGs with your friends.

The players don't all have to be working as their PCs on the same problem in order to enjoy declaring actions, seeing what happens to their PC and that of the other PCs, etc.

 

[pemerton]

Let me by an adventure with some rule that I can play through and move on to something else. Doesn't seem to be a lot of that on the market.

I enjoyed the Green Knight: The Green Knight: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game

 

[MGibster]

As I posted, because it's fun to play RPGs with your friends.

I get that. But if we're all doing our own thing, I don't feel like it's a game where we're all participating as a group. If my character has no connection to Rob's character, why do I want to watch his adventure play out? If Rob's character shares something in common with mine I'd certainly care. But the way you descrive it, we're not really interacting in any meaningful way because we don't work togther and we have no shared goals. But, again, maybe this is a miscommunication issue over terms like team and adventure.

 

[Aldarc]

Any rules beyond "let the referee decide" and "roll opposed 2d6, higher roll wins." Everything else is extraneous. Even the dice are extraneous. You could sub in the table for the referee, but then you have more moving parts and more possible points of failure.

I don't know. That still sounds like too much rules. We should cut it all to achieve the ultimate expression of "let the referee decide." Roleplaying games should just be the GM dictating the story to the players. If players don't like that, then they can walk away from the table, which is likewise the ultimate expression of player agency. So now we have distilled rules to "sit and listen to my story about your characters or walk away from my table/game."

 

[overgeeked]

Wouldn't that just be a novel? Or a history book? Or speculative future book?

Precisely. Only one used specifically as an inspirational source for gaming.

As customer of games, I am a sucker for new settings, but I want a system attached to it. The system is often very important to creating the feel of the settings.

For you, but not for me. I see most systems (especially crunchy ones) as more of a hindrance to play. The number of threads about loving a setting but hating the attached system seem endless. I'd prefer a simple universal system that can cover most everything and be done. Picking three books at random from my shelves, I'd love to be able play something based on 1491, As Told at the Explorer's Club, and Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse without having to learn three different systems. I'm infinitely more interested in worlds than rules.

As for the indisputable fact that there are more systems out there than I could reasonably expect to play in what remains of my life...so what. There are more books than I can hope to read. More movies and TV series than I can hope to watch. More music than I can hope to listen to. I wouldn't expect others to stop creating new stuff.

Nor would I. I'm simply commenting on the fact that there are already more games than any of us could ever play. That we don't need more has no bearing on whether people will make more. Of course they will.

Actually, I appreciate when someone has taken a variety of influences and synthesize that into their own vision.

I wish. It mostly seems to be exceedingly minor variations on systems that have been around for decades. Some version of D&D, plus these house rules, minus those rules. New game. Some version of WEG Star Wars, plus these house rules, minus those rules. That old game with the IP scrubbed, plus these house rules, minus those rules.

But there certainly is a lot of cool stuff going on with worlds and adventures. Lots of wild, bizarre, and surreal craziness happening. And I love it. But on the system side? Yawn.

I find that what I'm looking for outside of 5e these days are not new, rich, detailed settings and systems to run new campaigns in, but rather small, well designed, self-contained systems and adventures that I can pick up and just run a game or two in. I would like to see an adventure book with a rules-light rules system printing in the adventure book. I haven't bought any of the Awfully Cheerful Engine booklets yet. They seem to offer what I'm looking for. Though I'm not sure if you have to by #1 (the ACE core rules) to play the other books.

One of the best examples of what I'm talking about is Labyrinth, a single book that runs you through the plot of Jim Henson's movie the Labyrinth. It consists of the rules (which are easy to pickup) and a replayable adventure. It is also a beautiful book that any fan of the movie would be happy to have on their bookshelf. I don't need a lot more settings that I have to match with a system and come up with my own adventures or buy separate adventure material. Let me by an adventure with some rule that I can play through and move on to something else. Doesn't seem to be a lot of that on the market.

Sure. And to each their own. It's good to know what you like. I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum. I couldn't care less about "new" mechanics or focused games, but I do want new worlds to explore.

 

[overgeeked]

The purpose of a television show is to entertain the viewing audience, not the actors.

I suspect you’re getting pushback because you’re using “party” to mean a specific, narrow type of ensemble - the Fellowship-style group of assorted people who have little in common other than working together for a common goal, even one as loose as seeking adventure. But it’s fairly easy to adjust the LOTR model into the kind of thing you’ve counter-proposed. (Delta Green famously started because making all the characters FBI agents was the best way to explain why a party had any reason to exist in a CoC scenario.)

Lots of games have mechanics that require spotlight scenes in a round robin manner, with other players assigned or choosing to step in as secondary PCs or NPC when it’s someone else’s spotlight. By the Author of Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Town Called Malice, and Under the Mountain, off the top of my head. Having spotlight time assigned in a formal way helps alleviate the problem of other players having not much to do.

Right. And the comparison simply doesn't hold. Ensemble television is a bunch of actors paid to wait around until it's their turn to spout lines someone else wrote for them to say. RPGs are not that. They're a bunch of friends sitting around a table entertaining each other, importantly no one's being paid, there are no scripted lines (unless the referee is reading block text or the PCs have catch phrases), and the amount of time spent waiting around should be kept to an absolute minimum. I mean, if the referee is paying the players to sit there and do and say nothing for hours on end, sure...ensemble television suddenly becomes an apt comparison.

 

[pemerton]

I suspect you’re getting pushback because you’re using “party” to mean a specific, narrow type of ensemble - the Fellowship-style group of assorted people who have little in common other than working together for a common goal, even one as loose as seeking adventure. But it’s fairly easy to adjust the LOTR model into the kind of thing you’ve counter-proposed. (Delta Green famously started because making all the characters FBI agents was the best way to explain why a party had any reason to exist in a CoC scenario.)

I'm pretty sure that @Reynard is not using an overly narrow notion of "party".

I think @Reynard is contrasting party-based play with the sort of play that is fairly typical in Apocalypse World, or in the sorts of character-focused RPGing that @Campbell often posts about: where the PCs have their own individual goals and concerns, but those concerns are interlinked in various ways that result in interweaving "storylines", coming into some scenes with other PCs, etc.

 

[loverdrive]

If my character has no connection to Rob's character, why do I want to watch his adventure play out?

Because it's cool? And because actions of Rob's character will inevitably cause ripples and affect your character?

Rob the Gunlugger asks the GM for a gig to earn some quick buck, she smiles and tells him that the local warlord wants to, khm, "persuade" one particular guy to join his gang. The guy in question? Joe the Savvyhead, another PC, who, by the way, keeps YOUR choppers running.

 

[pemerton]

But if we're all doing our own thing, I don't feel like it's a game where we're all participating as a group. If my character has no connection to Rob's character, why do I want to watch his adventure play out? If Rob's character shares something in common with mine I'd certainly care. But the way you descrive it, we're not really interacting in any meaningful way because we don't work togther and we have no shared goals. But, again, maybe this is a miscommunication issue over terms like team and adventure.

I don't think that there's miscommunication over terms like "team" and "adventure".

There are ways that your character can be connected to Rob's character, and share something in common, without being part of the same team or on the same adventure. Maybe your character's boss is Rob's character's romantic partner. Maybe your character and Rob's character both need something - time, commitment - from that NPC and only one of you can have it. Maybe the reason that Rob's character discovers weird messages in his email inbox is the same as the reason why you're getting weird messages in the firm's email inbox.

Soap operas pull this sort of thing off all the time.

EDIT: Ninja'd by @loverdrive!