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<blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2027567" data-attributes="member: 27012">If you want to design a good beginners game, listen to what the &quot;typical online forum pundit&quot; has to say on RPGnet, The Forge, etc. and do exactly the opposite.What they all seem to miss is something even far more fundamental than a focus on tactics or story.&nbsp; The beginning role-player needs to know how to do this role-playing thing.&nbsp; &quot;Figure it out yourself,&quot; something I hear often from low-rules advocates, just doesn't work.&nbsp; It's like an experienced driver getting into the passenger seat with a person who has never driven a car before and saying, &quot;Let's drive to the mall.&quot;&nbsp; Yes, driving a car is second nature once you get the hang of it but expecting driving to be second nature to someone with no experience is just silly.&nbsp; The same goes with role-playing.&nbsp; Telling a beginner to &quot;just wing it&quot; is silly.&nbsp; If they knew how to &quot;just wing it&quot;, they wouldn't need to buy any rules.Training wheels help a person learn how to ride a bicycle without falling over.&nbsp; Once you know how to keep the bicycle from falling over yourself, they only get in the way.&nbsp; Rules can be the same way.&nbsp; If you can learn how to do what the rules do without using the rules, then the rules only get in the way.&nbsp; But in role-playing, it's as if upon learning how to ride a bicycle without training wheels, a bicycle rider suddenly turned into an evangelist for learning how to ride bicycles without them, even though they learned how to ride with them.I think that's yet another problem.&nbsp; I think that's a fragmentation of an already small base.&nbsp; Rather than trying to produce games with a broad appeal that allow different styles to co-exist, we have people writing games that essentially tell other styles, &quot;Go find another table to sit at.&nbsp; We're not interested in what you want.&quot;&nbsp; In a hobby as small as role-playing that relies on getting a group of people together to play, I think that's a disaster.&nbsp; We need games that make it easier to put a group together, not games that make it harder.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Morrow, post: 2027567, member: 27012"] If you want to design a good beginners game, listen to what the "typical online forum pundit" has to say on RPGnet, The Forge, etc. and do exactly the opposite. What they all seem to miss is something even far more fundamental than a focus on tactics or story. The beginning role-player needs to know how to do this role-playing thing. "Figure it out yourself," something I hear often from low-rules advocates, just doesn't work. It's like an experienced driver getting into the passenger seat with a person who has never driven a car before and saying, "Let's drive to the mall." Yes, driving a car is second nature once you get the hang of it but expecting driving to be second nature to someone with no experience is just silly. The same goes with role-playing. Telling a beginner to "just wing it" is silly. If they knew how to "just wing it", they wouldn't need to buy any rules. Training wheels help a person learn how to ride a bicycle without falling over. Once you know how to keep the bicycle from falling over yourself, they only get in the way. Rules can be the same way. If you can learn how to do what the rules do without using the rules, then the rules only get in the way. But in role-playing, it's as if upon learning how to ride a bicycle without training wheels, a bicycle rider suddenly turned into an evangelist for learning how to ride bicycles without them, even though they learned how to ride with them. I think that's yet another problem. I think that's a fragmentation of an already small base. Rather than trying to produce games with a broad appeal that allow different styles to co-exist, we have people writing games that essentially tell other styles, "Go find another table to sit at. We're not interested in what you want." In a hobby as small as role-playing that relies on getting a group of people together to play, I think that's a disaster. We need games that make it easier to put a group together, not games that make it harder. [/QUOTE]

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