Different Games appeal to different play styles

[Dykstrav]

I will preface this by saying that I am an avid beer and pretzels gamer. I play for the express purpose of sitting down amongst friends and having a raucous good time. I'm not in it to build a story with the narrative depth of Eco or Dostoyevsky, nor am I there to win a Tony for a tear jerking performance. I just want to have fun.

That's awesome and the exact same reason that I play. We all play RPGs for fun (I hope), and there's nothing in the world wrong with a beer-and-pretzels game as long as the players are all having fun. Over about the past five years, I've rgadually come to realize that the most "fun" type of D&D game to me is the classic huge, multilevel dungeon complex big enough to host an entire campaign. Not every game needs to be Macbeth or War and Peace--nor should every game aspire to be. Fun is the ultimate goal, not writing a novel.

On the subject of character background... I actually refuse to make the classic ten-page character backgrounds for 1st-level characters. I'll do a half-page to perhaps one page at best, giving a broad picture of the character's childhood, training in their class, and why they chose to become an adventurer. Maybe a formative event, such as a family tragedy or a bittersweet romance, and a hook or two for the DM to incorporate into an adventure. That's it. I firmly believe that the current adventure is more important and should be more exciting than what once happened to the character long ago, and long, dramatic character backgrounds don't support that approach. As a DM, I flat-out tell people that I'm not going to read a biography longer than a page--and such players usually understand and condense their character backgrounds to the salient points.

Yet on many gaming community forums it seems that there is an under-current of sneering disdain towards people who play for anything less than total immersion and inspired theatrical exhibition. I'm not saying that this is the prevalent attitude in the EN World community, but I have seen it in other places as have many of you I'm sure.

Yeah, I've seen extremes on every side of conceivably every issue related to gaming. And although World of Darkness started this discussion... "sneering disdain" is about the most succint summary of the 4E-versus-3E threads of the past year as I can imagine. Most extremists of one play style as supreme aren't the sort of people that are worth listening to for very long. Anyone who tells me that I'm playing pretend the wrong way are usually missing the concept that not everyone has the same idea of fun. Why else would there be multiple versions of the same game, much less all the other games out there?

But I do agree that some World of Darkness games (particularly Vampire) have a reputation for pretension and melodrama. Enough players fit the stereotype that it sticks.

 

[Barastrondo]

Since Werewolf is a recurring theme here, I just have to chime in here:

You're absolutely right. It really, really depends on the players. I myself have had very mixed success in running Werewolf for players I didn't know at conventions and the like. And this isn't even a matter of running it the same way all the time! Sometimes I'd go for moody and social: and either I get a fantastic group of players who love the fragility and odd bonds of playing an all-Kinfolk group, or I'd get a Queen Bee roleplayer who resented any challenge to her authority when I would say "No, that's not actually how it works." But I also tried running a pulp adventure Werewolf: The Apocalypse game set in WWII! Once I got a fantastic group that really melded the Garou bloodfury with the pulp archetypes. The other time I got a guy demanding to play the Shadow Lord pregen, reading the character sheet, and then asking "What's a femmy fay-tallee?"

I felt pain that day.

 

[Dykstrav]

Oh yes, I'm sure we could fill books with all the horror stories about some of the players we've met.

I really don't think that it's a problem with Werewolf as much as certain players that gravitate toward Werewolf, for whatever reason that may be. I've seen some real chumps blunder through Vampire games and literally groan at having to speak in character, I've seen Mage players that couldn't pronounce "arete" or "paradigm,", but didn't care because they did understand that they could set things on fire. It's a mixed bag.

Still, I'd love to play in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse game at some point. I still have several ideas for characters that I never got to play.

So now I'm jonesing to do an old World of Darkness game...