NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeapThaumaturgist" data-source="post: 2555248" data-attributes="member: 12332">I think there's also the adversarial nature of poker, American Idol, etc, that draw people to it.  RPGs, on one fundamental level, are largely cooperative games.  The "players" are there to cooperate with one another to accomplish some goal, as opposed to being there to pit their skill/luck/talent against the OTHER players to determine who is "superior" to the others.In some ways I suppose the game could be constructed as the GM vs. The Players, but this becomes a situation in which one person has all of the power and becomes a definate bad-guy.  If there WAS a World Series of D&D, it would have to be pretty different from the games most of us play on the weekends.  Like the Bridge Players Association Of America getting excited about World Series Of Poker ... if they're not playing the game you're playing at home, but using the same mechanics, what's the point?If we bring in 500,000 'new gamers' who think that D&D is a mental combat sport against the GM-cum-Enemy Combatant, how is that going to create interest in what the REST of us do?  Maybe I'm being pessimistic today, but I think one of the fundamental reasons things like CCGs and Minis Games are bigger sellers than RPGs is because their basic make-up pits one player vs. the other.  Somebody wins, somebody loses; somebody gets to feel superior to somebody else ... with RPGs you don't really get that.  There's the good feelings of having a good time, of overcoming adversity and coming together with people you like to enjoy a common past-time.If we created a richly detailed computer game, it would really just end up being that, a computer game.  If it were obvious to the viewers at home that the GM was in control of the "monsters" and "bad guys" it would STILL be hard not to cast him as some sort of opponent.Which, played to the hilt, would probably work.  Half the reason people watch shows like American Idol is to see at least one of the judges be absolutely scathing to the contestants.  I'm sure you could get a cult following for "The Dungeon Master" if you got some handsome, well-spoken sort of naughty bad-boy who dressed cool and made fun of the players' mistakes.  "Ohhhh, you didn't take the Balor's Magic Resistance into account when you cast that spell, Jamie.  Everyone knows Balors have SR.  Are you some kind of idiot?  Do you WANT Mialee to die?  If you had any sort of skill AT ALL, this would have been a walk in the park!  And your hair is ugly."They just wouldn't really be playing the kind of game I'd want people to come to my table expecting to play.--fje</blockquote>

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