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

[hawkeyefan]

I think I find the idea that learning the rules is such a bother to be odd. I actually like learning a new game. Ideally, the basics are easy to grasp, and then there are other elements that take some time to learn.

And while I can get the idea that some games may be so complex as to not be worth learning, I think using D&D as the bar is a strange choice. There are many games that are easy to grasp and get going that don’t take anywhere near the effort that D&D might take.

 

[Arilyn]

I love learning new games. I'd hate to just stick to one system, as system does matter in many cases to get the tone right. And I've learned many different ways to play and run games. That's valuable.

I have absolutely no problem spending money to support game designers. And we have so many differing styles and voices in the industry creating some really great games. I can't imagine wanting to trim that back.

 

[MGibster]

Well my paradigms for soap operas are Days of Our Lives, Neighbours, and Home and Away. Also comedy soap operas like Scrubs. These don't involve teams and they don't involve adventures. They follow the interactions and interpersonal dramas of various more-or-less closely related protagonists.

You're telling me that the doctors and nurses of Sacred Heart Hospital weren't a team? And what you call adventure I just call the plot. There was one episode of Scrubs where Turk, JD, and Elliot each had a patient who was going to die and they had to figure out a way to cope with that. That was the adventure.

 

[MNblockhead]

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

Will do. Thanks!

 

[DrunkonDuty]

You're telling me that the doctors and nurses of Sacred Heart Hospital weren't a team? And what you call adventure I just call the plot. There was one episode of Scrubs where Turk, JD, and Elliot each had a patient who was going to die and they had to figure out a way to cope with that. That was the adventure.

IIRC in this ep they all work separately to try to achieve their similar goals but they are not working to the SAME goal.* Their stories barely overlap at all within the ep. It would be fairer to say they run in parallel to one another; A, B, and C plots. Except, unlike normal A and B plots, there was no particular weight given to one plot over another in terms of screen time of importance. It was one of their better eps.

I think Scrubs is a pretty good example of what people have been describing as a non-party party. Yeah they ARE on the same team. Dr. Kelso frequently says so. But at any given moment they are not necessarily all working on the same project. It's actually rare to have all the cast involved in the one plot line.


* Yes, broadly speaking they're all trying to save a life. But not the same life.

 

[Campbell]

Far better examples include stuff like Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy and Smallville where even if in fiction the characters consider themselves a team each main character has their own agenda, and the characters often work at cross purposes. Usually, the situation has the potential to put the characters at odds with one another. Less group problem solving and more each character deciding how to position themselves, so they achieve their personal desires for themselves as well as their desires for the other main characters.

What is essential to this sort of play is a social contract that allows to independently choose what their agenda is and how they hope to achieve it. Also, that when you are not actively advocating for your character that you can detach enough to be a fan of the other player characters even if they are working at cross purposes to your character. Finally, that you are able to accept how things shake out when they do not go your way.

 

[pemerton]

I think Scrubs is a pretty good example of what people have been describing as a non-party party. Yeah they ARE on the same team. Dr. Kelso frequently says so. But at any given moment they are not necessarily all working on the same project. It's actually rare to have all the cast involved in the one plot line.

Far better examples include stuff like Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy and Smallville where even if in fiction the characters consider themselves a team each main character has their own agenda, and the characters often work at cross purposes. Usually, the situation has the potential to put the characters at odds with one another. Less group problem solving and more each character deciding how to position themselves, so they achieve their personal desires for themselves as well as their desires for the other main characters.

I know Scrubs but not the shows Campbell mentions (other than by reputation).

Another example that I would think of would be Season 7 of Arrow (perhaps I'm the only person ever to have watched that far into the show! I'm not up to Season 8 yet). Three PCs could be John, Oliver and Dinah: each has their own position, their own set of associated NPCs and subordinates, some overlap in antagonists but not completely so. Their paths obviously cross, sometimes they team up, but sometimes they're opposed.

 

[MGibster]

I think Scrubs is a pretty good example of what people have been describing as a non-party party. Yeah they ARE on the same team. Dr. Kelso frequently says so. But at any given moment they are not necessarily all working on the same project. It's actually rare to have all the cast involved in the one plot line.

I get it. It's just, to me, they're still a team. It's a party. And I think we've really gone about as far as we can go with this.

 

[amethal]

A somewhat similar example is smoking in old scifi novels. Ingenious authors with amazing creative minds never stopped to wonder if maybe people would stop smoking in the future. SOME authors did, but many (or most IMO) did not.

I've never understood the fixation with smoking some authors had.

You'd have characters who were little more than cyphers, created solely to illustrate whatever idea, philosophy, gadget or gimmick the author was interested in exploring. They had no hobbies, would never drink a cup of coffee or scratch an itch, eat a snack or decide what to wear, but they were forever lighting cigarettes. Including on space-ships. (Although google tells me that people used to smoke freely on submarines until at least the 1970s.)

I recently read Pattern Recognition by William Gibson (published in 2003 and also set around then) and the second-most glaring thing about it is people smoking in restaurants. (The first-most glaring thing is, of course, laptops, mobile-phones etc. coming with user manuals.)

 

[payn]

I've never understood the fixation with smoking some authors had.

You'd have characters who were little more than cyphers, created solely to illustrate whatever idea, philosophy, gadget or gimmick the author was interested in exploring. They had no hobbies, would never drink a cup of coffee or scratch an itch, eat a snack or decide what to wear, but they were forever lighting cigarettes. Including on space-ships. (Although google tells me that people used to smoke freely on submarines until at least the 1970s.)

I recently read Pattern Recognition by William Gibson (published in 2003 and also set around then) and the second-most glaring thing about it is people smoking in restaurants. (The first-most glaring thing is, of course, laptops, mobile-phones etc. coming with user manuals.)

Smoking was rampant in the 50's and up to the 80's. Now its unthinkable for a restaurant to allow it. I recall working in a warehouse in the early 2000s where it was allowed wherever. I was in an office some years later where they had just taken the ashtrays out. It might seem strange now, but smoking was the old coffee. By that I mean all those stupid ass memes we are bombarded by "dont talk to me until I have my coffee" were about cigs decades ago.