Death or Glory?: the Future of RPGs

[nedjer]

If you've used Wordpress you'll be aware of the danger of hitting Publish instinctively before you're ready - and the half hour of harassed corrections that follow as you curse at having screwed up your feed. Joy

Anyway, the source of this was a blog post which started out a while ago as 'Death or Glory?: the Future of RPGs'. It's been adapted to make a post on design gaming but the original premise remains unaltered.

For those not strong enough for the lengthy post the question for the thread is: following the unveiling of Sims 3: Medieval, is it not time to accept that Tabletop RPGs 'days are numbered' unless the industry and its community make Tabletop RPGs more accessible and more focused on TRPGs' unique selling points?

For those strong enough here.

 

[Umbran]

For those not strong enough for the lengthy post the question for the thread is: following the unveiling of Sims 3: Medieval, is it not time to accept that Tabletop RPGs 'days are numbered' unless the industry and its community make Tabletop RPGs more accessible and more focused on TRPGs' unique selling points?

Not having played the game, but assuming it goes like other "Sims" things, I'd say no. The basic experience of playing an RPG isn't much like Sims. The technology to replace having actual people face to face, or a human GM, is a long way off yet.

 

[Ariosto]

Having looked at your essay, I think that heading in the direction you suggest actually makes RPGs less accessible.

Universalis might seem "accessible" because it involves no preparation. It is totally about the personalization, design activities, and "springboarding" you laud.

I fear it's also totally for geeks who already hang out at RPGnet.

I think the "design game" -- what we used to call "making up cool stuff" -- has always appealed in its extremes to a limited demographic. The original D&D game and T&T and so on were for many just too much of that. As folks are more likely to put it, there was too little to them.

What has actually succeeded is going in the opposite direction. As indicated above, I think that has probably appealed in the long run to a bigger audience. More significantly, perhaps, it appeals to a customer base more likely to fork out money for product than people who prefer to "roll their own".

It's not that people don't keep on being creators as well as consumers, or that there is no money in providing tools for the DIYers. That is still what RPG rule books in essence are. From Judges Guild's debut to the present, though, gamers -- to the surprise of Gygax and co. -- have been eager to buy "canned" scenarios.

I think RPGs have largely lost the segment that really was not after them in the first place. Video game consoles and personal computers also hit the scene in a big way in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the graphics and other features had a long way to go to become what they are today. I think a lot of people played RPGs at one time because it was the closest thing to a generation of video game that had yet to arrive.

Computer games often don't even kill old computer games, in terms of people continuing to play them. However, there is a huge gulf between what is viable for an individual or two of modest means to make as a hobby -- including things that could have been big sellers in the 1980s -- and the Hollywood productions that commercial offerings have become.

 

[Sunseeker]

Tabletop ANYTHING has been dying for a while since the internet age. I'm certain there are quite a few here who have found they've begun to participate in more online RP sessions than IRL ones.

Computer games give something to gamers that they would otherwise have had to do themselves, world, story, NPC creation. For all intents and purposes, it is a pre-boxed RP story, with fancy graphics and you can play when you want and stop when you want.

It still however lacks what RPs have widely available. That is: the utilization of imagination, and on-the-fly gaming. If you drop into a game, and you want to do X, that game may not be programmed to allow you to do X, however, in RP gameland, you can do X, assuming that you can find, or devise proper mechanics for it, or suitably role-play it.

Yes, for the player who has never once been interested in anything outside your basic medieval fantasy, someone who has never wanted to play anything more than the knight, or the assassin, or the druid, then yes, video games have everything they'll ever need.

But for everyone who wants more, even a little bit, the video game will never let them do that. And they find the freedom they want in tabletop games.


But by nature, tabletop games have always struggled against the argument "why do I need so-in-so's manual to make up this game?" But then that is a typical market, you need to show people that it's better to play within the game's limit, than try to make your own. Video games and tabletops have the same strategy, they just offer different levels of freedom. People who desire less freedom in their games end up going to the pre-packaged stuff, while people who want more go to the more free-form stuff.


Eventually, I'm sure tabletops will die, but they will be replaced, IMO, with a similar system that takes place online. Once you can develop a 3D animation system that allows you to create any kind of character you can imagine, any kind of work you can imagine, then "tabletop" will transition to "desktop".

 

[nedjer]

Not having played the game, but assuming it goes like other "Sims" things, I'd say no. The basic experience of playing an RPG isn't much like Sims. The technology to replace having actual people face to face, or a human GM, is a long way off yet.

Not out yet but the advanced material points to a much more RPG structure than typical Sims 2 games. The Sims 3 World Adventures tried parts of this, pretty badly, but they've a habit of improving and the medieval version is all "create heroes, choose quests, fufill kingdom's ambitions". So it's looking like a play and 'make' your own Zelda Twilight Princess adventures.

There's no comparison in terms of the quality and social interaction in a f2f RPG, (brains v's machine has only one winner for a long time to come), but it looks so close to an RPG 'design kit' that the boundaries are starting to blur. To me, the 'drag and drop' designing is what looks likely to make a difference. For example, making a Neverwinter Nights level is a lengthy process, making a decent RPG scenario takes several hours, pulling together a Sims 'scenario' is more like a couple of hours tops.

Add a layer of MMO play and the gap between Tabletop RPGs and 'desktop' RPGs seems to be closing quite significantly.

I'll be sticking with tabletop play, but I guess I'm anticipating that a load of potential tabletop players are going to settle for a less 'rich' experience if TRPGs don't come with the means to 'construct' as quickly and as slickly as games like Sims 3: Medieval.

It's maybe possible things could work the other way round, with Sims 3: Medieval 'priming' players for TRPGs, but not unless TRPG 'design kits' are as quick and easy to use as Sims like titles.

 

[nedjer]

Having looked at your essay, I think that heading in the direction you suggest actually makes RPGs less accessible.

Universalis might seem "accessible" because it involves no preparation. It is totally about the personalization, design activities, and "springboarding" you laud.

I fear it's also totally for geeks who already hang out at RPGnet.

I think the "design game" -- what we used to call "making up cool stuff" -- has always appealed in its extremes to a limited demographic. The original D&D game and T&T and so on were for many just too much of that. As folks are more likely to put it, there was too little to them.

What has actually succeeded is going in the opposite direction. As indicated above, I think that has probably appealed in the long run to a bigger audience. More significantly, perhaps, it appeals to a customer base more likely to fork out money for product than people who prefer to "roll their own".

It's not that people don't keep on being creators as well as consumers, or that there is no money in providing tools for the DIYers. That is still what RPG rule books in essence are. From Judges Guild's debut to the present, though, gamers -- to the surprise of Gygax and co. -- have been eager to buy "canned" scenarios.

I think RPGs have largely lost the segment that really was not after them in the first place. Video game consoles and personal computers also hit the scene in a big way in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the graphics and other features had a long way to go to become what they are today. I think a lot of people played RPGs at one time because it was the closest thing to a generation of video game that had yet to arrive.

Computer games often don't even kill old computer games, in terms of people continuing to play them. However, there is a huge gulf between what is viable for an individual or two of modest means to make as a hobby -- including things that could have been big sellers in the 1980s -- and the Hollywood productions that commercial offerings have become.

I'm kind of suggesting there's a huge market for 'making up cool stuff', so long as there's enough ready-to-go building blocks to make it easy to mix, re-mix and then add flavour. This is what Sims 3 or Free Realms as a whole deliver and it's hugely popular.

Univeralis doesn't seem comparable, as it's focused on delivering mechanics for competitive player choice.

I'm thinking more in terms of a 'standard' RPG where there's preparation, but real fast to carry out and not locked down/ linear; plus a 'balance' or 'creative tension' between the part of the GM and the players. The humans are mediating guidelines rather than handing off the part of a GM to mechanics.

AD&D is, perhaps, a relevant example of where it's still quite hard work to pull together a decent homebrew setting and scenarios quickly. If it worked like Sims (on some levels) you'd have a basic setting (Freeport-ish), then you'd drag major NPCs in, carrying with them a 'cluster' of underlings and organisations. Then drag/ overlay several events/ missions hooks . . .

All a bit like making a trifle, except that instead of buying a module and receiving a pre-made, regulation trifle - with sponge, strawberry jelly, yellow custard, cream and cherries; you can quickly and easily drag and drop in raspberry jelly, gooseberry custard and top with 'hundreds and thousands'.

 

[Reynard]

Technology will allow us to play the games we want, how we want and when we want - just not quite yet. VTT tech will make "table top" games more popular, not less. The ability to play Encounters or the Ravenloft board game over X-Box Live will be huge. I am often surprised there aren't more board games, both new and traditional, available to play over the Internet. A niche hobby game like Zombies! could become a phenomenon if made freely available online.

 

[Ariosto]

If it worked like Sims (on some levels) you'd have a basic setting (Freeport-ish), then you'd drag major NPCs in, carrying with them a 'cluster' of underlings and organisations. Then drag/ overlay several events/ missions hooks ...

This reads to me like less creativity. Just what you are after is not quite clear, but the continual reference to computer programs does not suggest to me something "focused on TRPGs' unique selling points".

I am very interested in reading more of what you have in mind. My sense is that it is not yet quite coherent even in your own mind, that you are "thinking out loud" while exploring a sort of fuzzy apprehension of something that could be brilliant or (the way brainstorming goes) could be a bit daft for having not taken something else into account.

It may even be that the something else is a history of actual products close enough to what you are talking about to get some idea of market reception.

 

[Ariosto]

Computers don't bring pizza.

 

[nedjer]

This reads to me like less creativity. Just what you are after is not quite clear, but the continual reference to computer programs does not suggest to me something "focused on TRPGs' unique selling points".

I am very interested in reading more of what you have in mind. My sense is that it is not yet quite coherent even in your own mind, that you are "thinking out loud" while exploring a sort of fuzzy apprehension of something that could be brilliant or (the way brainstorming goes) could be a bit daft for having not taken something else into account.

It may even be that the something else is a history of actual products close enough to what you are talking about to get some idea of market reception.

Well put in an excellent 'train the laser sight on me' sort of a way I'll return to give a proper reply later.

By coincidence things became less fuzzy today while reading EN World and I'd explain now if I wasn't off to Treasure Towers, Scottish HQ of Treasure RPG, for a celebratory game of D&D 5e