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<blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5249848" data-attributes="member: 55271">You might want to check your reading glasses. I didn't say anything about being a tactical game.Let me elaborate on this:Laying aside the RPG industry for a moment, let's look at every other successful game in history: Every single one of them always provides a concrete answer to the question, &quot;What are we supposed to be doing now?&quot; at every single point in the game.Chess: Somebody is supposed to be moving a piece.Poker: Make a bet or drawing cards.Monopoly: Roll the dice, and then a whole subsidiary selection of actions based on the outcome of that dice roll.And so forth. This is not a quality which limits the market of RPGs. On the contrary, it is the lack of this quality which limits the market of so many RPGs. Neophytes get their hands on a typical RPG and they literally have no idea what they're supposed to do with it.The Catch-22 here, of course, is that the unique strength of a tabletop RPG is its flexibility: The ability for individual players to surpass the limitations of the rule system. If you get rid of that, then you're just left with Descent -- which is a decent enough board game, but which I find virtually pointless compared to the essentially identical experiences I can get with less hassle, more bling, and a wider flexibility in play options (solo, local, and international) with CRPGs. (And even more pointless when I compare it to the identical-yet-so-much-more experiences I get with any dungeon-crawling RPG you'd care to name.)But if you fully embrace the &quot;do whatever you want&quot; nature of RPGs, then I'm afraid you're creating a product is impenetrable to a group of entirely new players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Beginning of the End, post: 5249848, member: 55271"] You might want to check your reading glasses. I didn't say anything about being a tactical game. Let me elaborate on this: Laying aside the RPG industry for a moment, let's look at every other successful game in history: Every single one of them always provides a concrete answer to the question, "What are we supposed to be doing now?" at every single point in the game. Chess: Somebody is supposed to be moving a piece. Poker: Make a bet or drawing cards. Monopoly: Roll the dice, and then a whole subsidiary selection of actions based on the outcome of that dice roll. And so forth. This is not a quality which limits the market of RPGs. On the contrary, it is the [i]lack[/i] of this quality which limits the market of so many RPGs. Neophytes get their hands on a typical RPG and they literally have no idea what they're supposed to do with it. The Catch-22 here, of course, is that the unique strength of a tabletop RPG is its flexibility: The ability for individual players to surpass the limitations of the rule system. If you get rid of that, then you're just left with [i]Descent[/i] -- which is a decent enough board game, but which I find virtually pointless compared to the essentially identical experiences I can get with less hassle, more bling, and a wider flexibility in play options (solo, local, [i]and[/i] international) with CRPGs. (And even more pointless when I compare it to the identical-yet-so-much-more experiences I get with any dungeon-crawling RPG you'd care to name.) But if you fully embrace the "do whatever you want" nature of RPGs, then I'm afraid you're creating a product is impenetrable to a group of entirely new players. [/QUOTE]

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