Are there Fun/Unique/Interesting Differences in American vs. UK gaming sensibilities?

[Neonchameleon]

One difference I believe to be true (I've never played in an RP tournament) is that in a US RP tournament, the winner is the most successful - in a UK tournament, the winner is the person the other players most want to play with again.

 

[Bullgrit]

I noticed a distinct difference between US D&D and UK D&D back in the 80s. (Things may have drastically changed since then.) For examples:

Classic modules from the UK (that I own and have read):

Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (1981)
- Danger at Dunwater (1982)
- The Final Enemy (1983)

Beyond the Crystal Cave (1983)

The Sentinel (1983)

All that Glitters (1984)

The above are some of the best designed/written adventure modules of the classic era, (even of all time). The stories/plots/premises of these adventures are distinctly different than many US modules of the same time period. I've always thought these UK adventures were smart, clever, and well written. These were designed for campaign play, not first for tournament play, and the style is glorious.

Bullgrit

 

[Anselyn]

it does seems many in the UK like to play 'tormented' heroes whereas it is percieved those in the US like 'shining' heroes

Hmm. Of course, Elric is tormented (Moorcock: British) but what about all those angsty goth vampires in V:TM? Did those (US) players need their own particular sandbox before they could express that sort of hero in RPGs?

 

[Anselyn]

Interesting that it is mostly the poms posting here

Where's Charles Ryan when we need him ....

 

[malcolypse]

A very good point but I have to say that because of
A) HG Wells' "Little Wars"
B) Tolkien
C) Our continued abilty to use capital letters

You wouldn't have D&D if it weren't for the UK.

Clearly, as in sport, we invent things so others can be better than us at them.

i would like to address the points of your statement one at a time.

little wars is still amazing to this day. i think that i'll try to get some friends to play it soon, as a matter of fact.

tolkien. (i am aware that what i'm about to type is the worst kind of blasphemy, and will probably get me crucified.) i could take or leave tolkein. while i appreciate what his writings have done for me, like making d&d possible and all, the actual middle earth books are a sheer pain for me to read.

capital letters were an invention of the crown(and what could be more american than making an obviously invented and quite likely insane statement like that, hmmm?), and if all the extra sorts hadn't been necessary for typesetting, the colonies taxes wouldn't have been raised and we would still be british citizens. my refusal to use them is a continued protest of our people's harsh treatment by george iii, definately not laziness and forgetfulness on my part.

heck, we wouldn't even have a usa if it wasn't for the uk.

we don't perform better at the things we steal, we alter them until they achieve a form that we can perform better at, then we pretend we invented the whole shebang.

 

[pedr]

heck, we wouldn't even have a usa if it wasn't for the uk.

Methinks if it weren't for the UK, you'all'd be speaking French and Dutch! (and Spanish, of course)...!

 

[nedjer]

Ranulph Fiennes - that'd be the dude who set off across icefields pulling the sledge all by himself - wtf?

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Hopefully I can answer this question with some direct evidence after I've run my Mass Effect game at GenCon in a couple of weeks.

My own take is that the UK scene can be a bit "snobbier" about D&D - lots of UK gamers see it as something you might start out with before going on to more complicated or deeper systems. YMMV, of course, and personally I like a dungeon bash just as much as my friend's long-running and very open Mage game.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

1) Games Workshop used to sell D&D stuff!
before they became...
well, sort of like drug dealers except wearing red jersies selling THE LATEST MUST HAVE OVER PRICED MINI LINE WITHOUT WHICH YOU CANNOT WIN (tm)!!!!
kind of like oh, evil security guys from Star Trek meets the Mob. Some kind of diabolic reincanration?
They also had an asosrtment of good minis for RPG, old Citadel minis had some classics like this hydra

2) Here in UK, alas yes RPGs aren't "cool", but neither were they believed to make you worship Satan!
UK has a very weird attitude to things that may be socially "Uncool" that is kind of opposite in ways to the USA's cultural outlooks.
UK is supposedly a more liberal culture full of eccentrics...but especially in last few decades, such are seen more as "Uncool" and there's a very false/dumb "pretence of being cool", that has become de reigeur.
I can't easily explain it. Kind of like there is MORE fear now of being socially different, even as there's less tolerance for racism, sexism etc.
So no one bothered if you were a "RPG player/nerd" back in my
younger days, but now, they do.

3) I only found out about RPGs because of "Dragon Warriros Land of Legend" a paper back in local library, assume someone there thought it was one of the adventure game books, or an actual fantasy novel by it's cover (which was a greta piece of art)

You don't see D&D in stores except Waterstones (large book seller) and actual game stores.
Exception: I was lucky, back in the 80s a HUGE toystore opened very close to my house, they had 1st ed AD&D and Grenadier minis otherwise I could never have got into the hobby (no FLGS, no EBay/Amazon back then)

4) Glasgow has "The Dragon & George" and now "Static Games" on Parnie Street, behind the Tron. The Dragon & George is ye genuine olde FLGS
as a pal said, he really does expect there to be a Gate to some mystic world in the Dragon & George cellar, lol.
Owner is very eccentric but great fun and genuine lover of games

5) Well I've rarely ever played anything but D&D, by far my fave.
Personally while my games are often gritty and very damn gory (what do you expect swinging bloody great swords and throwing Fireballs?! Jeesh, lol!) I'm not much into killing PCs, except if they are stupid In which case I strongly believe in Darwinism, muhaha
So I think the low PC death rate is also my pals knowing this and not being dumbasses

I like heroic fantasy, I know enough ugly stuff in RL and therefore, my games are more about fun and "Butt kicking for goodness!" as Minsc would say
Gritty doesn't have to = "icky".
Bad guys shouldn't be dumb without good reason (or they'd be dead!). Good folk have mortal weaknesses. etc etc.


Edit to fix damn typos and put in pic I missed out, sorry!

 

[Mark CMG]

I doubt UK D&Ders use American accents for their PCs when roleplaying. So there's one difference.