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Broken Base Lookback #5: Or...Wow...I got old too quickly...
- Thread starter GreyLord
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GreyLord
Legend
Now that would be one that I might actually agree to go too...no way my kids are going to convince me to go to a normal retirement home or community, but I MIGHT agree to one of those someday...if they ever existed.
saskganesh
First Post
Retroclones fit my lifestyle and who I am today, etc. heh.
In general, I sympathise, but people who are busy choose not to play.
I know guys my age - 40 something -- who play hockey, are in running clubs, play in bands, writing circles, and have a careers and families, and so on. Somehow they have time, maybe not enough time, but some time, for much of the above. They are just going for what they want.
A 4 hour RPG session every 2 weeks is not hard to schedule in the big picture. Going to see a movie once a week and going out to dinner takes a similar time commitment. People who like movies and restaurants do that. And we all know people who watch NFL for 6 hours plus every Sunday. People who like football do that. Somehow they found time to make a choice. Why are gamers any different?
To get game, recognising that this is a niche hobby and not a mainstream pursuit ... and never was... one might have to get outside of the comfort zone and meet new players who actually like playing and really want to play. This is probably easier in a larger centre than a smaller one. But then it's a demographic argument, and not a system one.
In general, I sympathise, but people who are busy choose not to play.
I know guys my age - 40 something -- who play hockey, are in running clubs, play in bands, writing circles, and have a careers and families, and so on. Somehow they have time, maybe not enough time, but some time, for much of the above. They are just going for what they want.
A 4 hour RPG session every 2 weeks is not hard to schedule in the big picture. Going to see a movie once a week and going out to dinner takes a similar time commitment. People who like movies and restaurants do that. And we all know people who watch NFL for 6 hours plus every Sunday. People who like football do that. Somehow they found time to make a choice. Why are gamers any different?
To get game, recognising that this is a niche hobby and not a mainstream pursuit ... and never was... one might have to get outside of the comfort zone and meet new players who actually like playing and really want to play. This is probably easier in a larger centre than a smaller one. But then it's a demographic argument, and not a system one.
Because RPGs call for more coordination than most other passtimes. It isn't enough for the individual to have time available, but a group of individuals all must have the *same* time available.
Your running or writing club, if you can't make it, go on without you. If you have a bunch of guys over to watch football on Sunday, you don't blink an eye if one or two of them can't make it. Going out to a dinner and a movie with your spouse is usually just two people who have to get time free, and they already tend to have schedules that match up.
And RPG, however, tends to fall apart if a significant core of people cannot make it to games consistently, and that takes more than the other things mentioned above.
Hussar
Legend
I know that it was tongue in cheek to say gamer retirement communities, but, we're already seeing things like Gamer Adventures - Caribbean or Mexican Riviera vacation, with fun games - lots and lots of games! - Gamer cruises and the like. So, it's perhaps not that far out of touch.
The other thing though, in response to saskganesh's point is that it's generally very, very easy to get your signficant other to accept that you play baseball on Saturday nights with your team and that they really need you. It can often be a much more uphill battle to explain to your SO that you really are needed to pretend to be an elf for four or five hours Saturday night and could she watch the baby?
The other thing though, in response to saskganesh's point is that it's generally very, very easy to get your signficant other to accept that you play baseball on Saturday nights with your team and that they really need you. It can often be a much more uphill battle to explain to your SO that you really are needed to pretend to be an elf for four or five hours Saturday night and could she watch the baby?
delericho
Legend
There's an awful lot of truth in this article. And it's also something I've had to grapple with fairly recently, as the game group I've been with since university has gradually dropped away down to the minimum number of players we could work with... and then below that point.
That's definitely a factor. To a large extent, it's about priorities - if someone really wants to carry on gaming, they can probably find a way to make it work. But if gaming comes below other things on the list of priorities (and it probably does, and certainly should) then things get harder.
When you have to coordinate six people, each of whom has to work around work commitments, many of whom have SOs who are more or less supportive, and several of whom have children... yeah, it's difficult.
But it's not impossible...
I think there are two key factors:
Firstly, roleplayers tend to be a fairly clique-y bunch. Many people simply will not play with some other gamers. Many simply will not play particular games (and the 4e/PF split is particularly damaging here). But, more than anything else, most people have a game group that they play with, they're happy with that group, and they don't therefore bother making any connections to the rest of the gamer network.
That's fine... but game groups don't last forever. Gradually, people will drift away, or move, or otherwise leave. And as that happens, the group either needs to recruit some new blood, or it will die out.
Secondly, the default model for RPG play is the campaign, where you have a fixed bunch of players who have to commit to regular play across several months. That's a big ask, and something that a lot of people just can't do. And so, you have a lot of people who want to play, but who just can't make the commitment, and so they drift away...
I think there are three things that will help:
1) More communication between groups, between players, and in the network generally. The internet helps immensely with this - via ENWorld I have contact with thousands of gamers, most of whom I've never met; via first Meetup and then Groupspaces I've been able to assemble a player pool of 30 people local to me, where two years ago I knew no other players in or around Falkirk.
Having more people available makes it much easier to fill a campaign - if your group is you, Al, Bob and Chris, you need to coordinate 4 schedules to have a campaign; if your group consists of 30 people, you only need to coordinate any 4, which is a much easier proposition. Also, it makes people less likely to drift off - if Bob's work pattern changes so he can no longer join the only game in town, he'll probably be an ex-gamer pretty soon, but if there are several other games out there, hopefully one of them can accomodate him?
2) I've said it before, and been more or less shouted down, but a greater willingness to at least play games other than your favourite is a must. 90%+ of the enjoyment of roleplaying comes from the people around the table anyway!
3) Something really needs to be done about the level of commitment required to play these games. The default assumption is that people will sit down with the same group for regular sessions of several hours each, over the course of several months or even years.
That's a lot of commitment required, and many people won't be able to commit to something like that. Indeed, some people won't be able to commit to any regular pattern of attendance - their schedule just won't permit it.
So, what's the answer? Good pre-gen adventures intended for play in a single short-ish session? Shorter campaigns? An 'open' campaign (as discussed on the Alexandrian's blog)? More flexibility in dealing with absences? More support for online play via VTTs?
The answer is probably "Yes - all of the above." Basically, we need some means by which groups can get together as and when they are able, and to have as good a time as possible in whatever time they have. And it needs to be possible to do that even if there can be no assumption that they'll be able to get together again to continue the adventure (or, perhaps, ever).
cracked said:
This ties in to Ryan Dancey's old "20 minutes of fun crammed into 4 hours" rant. And, again, there's a lot of truth in that - any "non-fun" activities in the game should be streamlined out as effectively as possible.
The problem there is that what amounts to "non-fun" will depend very much on the group. I know a lot of groups love the tactical mini-game that is combat in 4e. Personally, I hate it - too much micro-management of conditions. Likewise, while lots of people love the sheer range of options for customising characters in 4e, I hate it - give me a handful of big, meaningful choices with a decent range of options and I'm sorted; I don't need or want 5,000 different ways to marginally customise my character. (And I particularly hate that I have to use these options or I'm behind everyone else - yes, I could just not choose a background for my character... but then he's objectively worse than the other PCs. Some choice.)
I have an answer to this, but it only works for me. Other people will need other answers. But, again, I think it's an area where work needs to be done:
- The buy-in to learn a new system needs to be reduced (since people may not play often, they may not play much, and they may have to change systems often)
- The role of "system mastery" needs to be sharply reduced, at least for groups who are hitting against time constraints - if I'm playing six times a year, I have neither the time nor interest to get up to speed on 100 supplements for the game, nor do I care enough about the intricate details of housing in Waterdeep.
(Of course, for groups with lots of time on their hands, neither of these is a problem, and the latter may be positively beneficial. It shouldn't be surprising that different groups have different needs, and neither should be surprising to suggest that one game cannot suit all-comers!)
Desdichado
Hero
Which is exactly why we need system diversity. I know one of the earlier articles in this series decried that as a "base breaker" but as I pointed out there, and this thread highlights even more; the fault lines of taste and preference will exist no matter what else you do. As you get busier, you have to do a mental kind of cost/benefit analysis of gaming vs. other things you could spend your time on. If the game isn't a good match-up for your tastes and preferences, that cost/benefit analysis is not going to turn out well for gamin. Folks either quit gaming as they get busier, unless they really enjoy it, or find another game that they enjoy more. Any "solution" for the broken base of taste and preferences and the "getting older and busier" broken base problem have to take each other into account; they run a real risk of being mutually exclusive.
Housing in Waterdeep isn't system mastery, that's setting stuff. Setting books in particular (although this applies to a lesser extent to system supplements too) scratch another itch for the busy gamer. Where you see too much stuff for busy people to handle, that should be cut, I see an opportunity for busy people who have trouble making actual gaming sessions regularly to keep their foot in the door by picking up books and reading them in their spare time. It's a lot easier to read a game book than it is to make a session. I don't think its any accident that the player in our group who's got the busiest work and real life (mostly work) schedule in our group--the guy with the most absenteeism of any other player--also has the biggest collection of books, essentially having missed none of the 3.5 era books at all, as near as I can tell. And he's read them. He doesn't get to use them as much as the unemployed bachelor in our group, who's always available to play pretty much, but that's his link to the hobby when he's too busy for anything else, sometimes.delericho said:
delericho
Legend
Yep. You'll get no argument from me on that one.
Oops. You're right, of course - I drifted off my point!
One of my great peeves, though, is that so much of the setting material that is out there doesn't make it any easier to prep a session. The aforementioned article (by Ed Greenwood on the WotC site) is perhaps the most ridiculous example I can think of, but it's not exactly alone.
So, we have books with extensive 'adventure hooks' that turn out to be too generic (and so I could have come up with them on my own), or aren't even close to being fleshed out enough (so I have to do all the work myself anyway). We have books which address the mysteries in the setting, but rather than giving us answers they basically wind up saying "make up your own truth" (Vampire: the Masqerade was particularly bad for this). And so on.
(Not that I have anything against adventure hooks, you understand. But they need to be tied in to the setting that is presented, in such a way that it's clear how I might flesh them out. Simply providing me with a detailed write-up of a village, and then a hook "The miller's daughter has been kidnapped by goblins!" is useless to me.)
Now, it is fair to say that quite a lot of it is interesting in its own right, so that's fair enough. But typically RPG material is less interesting and less well-written than a good novel, so if I'm just reading for fun, I'm not going to go for an RPG book.
And I don't need a book that amounts to a wall of facts. Especially since those facts could be presented in a much better format. ("Sharn: City of Towers" is particularly poor in this regard. It's a great city, and a well-written book... but I'll be damned if I can ever find what I need in it.) What I need is something that will enable me to prepare next week's session at better than a 1:1 prep:game ratio. I need tools, not facts.
If they're going to "do it for me", then that's fine - give me pre-gen adventures (not hooks) and a setting with answers (not options). If they're going to "help me do it for myself", then that's also fine - give me toolkits so I can do the work myself. It's the middle road that's useless... and the one that settings most often seem to take.
Croesus
Adventurer
Yes, yes, yes.
(Can you tell that "system mastery" is one of my pet peeves?
)Note: this doesn't mean a game shouldn't require some effort to become proficient - pretty much all good games do so. I just feel that sometimes the current RPG's go too far, requiring far more commitment and time than my group is willing to give. Why not design a game that is fun when played just six times a year, rather than 60 or 160?
Rogue Agent
First Post
I doubt the Wii caused a significant number of people to "leave the fold". The Wii was extraordinarily successful at bringing new people into the console market. It created a new base.
Notably (and this really can't be repeated enough) this was not true of most early D&D players.
The huge boom in D&D's popularity? It came at a time when D&D was played around a model of variable adventuring parties delving into a dungeon each week. Somebody didn't show up? Guess they didn't go this time. Somebody new wants to try playing? Hop on board.
As RPG campaigns moved towards story arcs with tightly managed continuity, however, both of these things were less true: Now missing players were an issue. And letting new players try out the game was more problematic (because if they didn't get hooked, their absence would similarly disrupt continuity).
It became harder to schedule sessions; harder to pick-up an RPG and start playing; and harder to invite new players to try the game out.
D&D Encounters is one way for getting RPGs back to a place where the commitment doesn't have to be crippling. I think there are other solutions which can also be pursued.
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