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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NerfedWizard" data-source="post: 4562911" data-attributes="member: 68865">Mainstreaming RPGs:- A Plot for World Domination[rant] I have to say that I find it rather saddening that RPGs are not thoroughly mainstream. To me, the pertinent facts are simple:- PnP/tabletop RPGs are the 20th century evolution of traditional storytelling. The storytelling exercise has become interactive and is shared among the group. The credibility and consistency of the fictional world and the feeling of "game-play" or "challenge" are created through the use of rules and shared assumptions. The experience is entertaining and social and exercises both imagination and intellect. Live Roleplay takes it all one step further - to the 20th century evolution of [very] amateur dramatics, with a healthy dose of physical exercise. Forget for a moment the fact that the average LARPer has the acting talent of a damp squib:- even surrounded by mediocre LARPers, the average LARPer can easily suspend disbelief and finds the LARPing experience far more immersive and absorbing than PnP RPGs, which (though I have written several myself) must be admitted to be the poor cousin of Live Roleplay. In principle, PnP RPGs are more highly evolved than storytelling, and LARP is the most highly evolved and interactive form of entertainment yet devised. If anything, the real surprise is that a form of entertainment so simple in its basic concept took until the 20th century to develop at all. With playwrights and storytellers in abundance, one can only imagine that it was the ancient and sinister Guild of Free and Illuminated Storytellers and Playwrights whose monopoly on all forms of narrative and dramatic activity prevented roleplaying from emerging into the spotlight. But seriously, how on earth could it take until the 20th century for such an obviously genius idea to take hold even on the fringes of society? How could anyone prefer the dull, abstract number-crunching of the immensely popular Sudoku to the experience of roleplaying? Why do people prefer the abstract exercise of soccer to the immersive, absorbing experience of light-contact Live Roleplay? [/rant] Answer:-mainstreamers never get into roleplaying in the first place because it's not sufficiently accessible. This has to do with the inherent characteristics of roleplaying games in general and of specific roleplaying games in particular, and also network externalities. If ALL their friends and acquaintances played and there were no stigma, the average joe would play too, without complaining. So, all we have to do is take over the world... People play Sudoku because the basics can be explained in a minute or less. People play Chess because, though a little convoluted (but far less so than many RPGs), it is time-hallowed. People play soccer because all you have to do is throw a ball at someone's feet and they've started to get the basics, and the rules are few and mainly simple (off-side aside). The same people who might watch and love Alien v. Predator or The Matrix may never get into PnP RPGs because it's just too much work for them. Whereas a video game can be instantly switched on, has instant appeal, is very easy etc. I have a theory that, given the relentless Flynn effect, one day humanity may evolve to the stage where LARP is accepted as THE main form of entertainment; where PnP RPGs are regarded as acceptable when LARP is not practicable; but where Internet-based MMORPGs are [still?] seen as the haven of social recluses, geeks and introverts who lack the need for external stimulus. Perhaps in several hundred years' time, something rather like the Star Trek Holodeck will be the site of the recreational activity of choice - with in-character dialogue expected as "good form". But in the next hundred years at least, we are unlikely to get to that point with polyhedral dice, or even with convincing quasi-medieval costumes and latex weapons.  Just as video games and online chat serve as an introduction to MMORPGs, so we have in paintballing and Laserquest-type games the perfect springboard for developing LARP. Ditch any gamist rules that can't be handled by your computerised chestplate/backplate and/or by blobs of paint and painful bruses (OK:- no grappling, for health and safety reasons), and just try to develop the storyline. As for PnP, how to mainstream it - ditch all but a modicum of rules. I think even Risus maybe needs to be toned down in terms of rules in order to generate that kind of mass appeal which can reach out even to Grumpy Granny. I have a dream. One day, all dinner parties of the social elite will close with an invitation to retire to grounds not to hunt foxes, but to battle orcs. Those who cannot rise to the challenge of LARP and PnP RPGs will be castigated as knuckle-dragging throwbacks. Those who titter and giggle at our rubber swords and green face-paint will be assigned to labour camps for re-education. We may not reach the promised land in my lifetime, nor even in ten lifetimes, but we shall strive forward, we shall persist, we shall never relent. Gamers of the World Unite! Throw off your sweaty string vests. Wipe your brows. Cast out your 4th rashers of bacon from your daily fry-ups! Remember for all time that "my paladin is 18th level with Charisma 19!" is not a chat-up line. You who bear the torch now, you may be nerdish, geeky outcasts, but the banner you hold aloft is the flag of hope for the future! In eons to come, the Beautiful People will hail your memory, and give praise to the Blessed St. Gary! If it takes five centuries, or if it takes five millennia, whether on earth, or in some far-flung solar system, one day, Minions of Mine, O ye Masses who I call to my service in this sinister plot, WE shall reach the Promised Land!</blockquote>

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