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Explain "20 Minutes of Fun over 4 Hours" to me
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<blockquote data-quote="JustinA" data-source="post: 3489932" data-attributes="member: 51618"><p>My understanding is that he's referring to a couple of different things:</p><p></p><p>1. Many gaming groups will spend a lot of time during the session doing things which aren't fun in order to start having fun.</p><p></p><p>2. The DM usually spends a lot of prep time compared to the amount of time it takes for the players to actually chew through that prep.</p><p></p><p>I find there's a minor problem with Dancey's thesis (and I'm generally a Dancey fanboy): It makes assumptions about what is and isn't fun for people.</p><p></p><p>For example, as a DM, I <em>enjoy</em> my prep work. As a player I <em>enjoy</em> tinkering with my character.</p><p></p><p>That being said: The solution lies in tools which will make it easier to prep games and get to the fun stuff.</p><p></p><p>Dancey's later comments about how to design efficient game systems is important.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>AFAIK, this is the original use of the quote: <a href="http://mearls.livejournal.com/105311.html" target="_blank">http://mearls.livejournal.com/105311.html</a></p><p></p><p>I find his analysis of MMORPG's growing impact on the RPG market to be the more interesting part of his post. I think it's spot on. MMORPGs don't compete with the type of RPG play with character immersion and high quality DMing, but it does compete with the hack 'n slash style of RPG play... and the hack 'n slash style of RPG play is notably the gateway drug of the RPG market.</p><p></p><p>When I was first attracted to RPGs, I bounced off several games because I literally couldn't figure out (at 10 years old) what I was supposed to <em>do</em> with them. The 1984 D&D Basic Set finally got me addicted because it gave me a simple formula:</p><p></p><p>(1) Draw rooms on graph paper.</p><p></p><p>(2) Put monsters in room.</p><p></p><p>(3) Fight monsters.</p><p></p><p>The dungeon crawl is the secret of D&D's success because it's what makes the game easy for beginning DMs to prep and intuitive for beginning players to play. But that simplistic style of play is completely out-performed by MMORPGs, which do the exact same thing without the inconvenience of getting together and with the awesomeness of really cool graphics.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JustinA, post: 3489932, member: 51618"] My understanding is that he's referring to a couple of different things: 1. Many gaming groups will spend a lot of time during the session doing things which aren't fun in order to start having fun. 2. The DM usually spends a lot of prep time compared to the amount of time it takes for the players to actually chew through that prep. I find there's a minor problem with Dancey's thesis (and I'm generally a Dancey fanboy): It makes assumptions about what is and isn't fun for people. For example, as a DM, I [i]enjoy[/i] my prep work. As a player I [i]enjoy[/i] tinkering with my character. That being said: The solution lies in tools which will make it easier to prep games and get to the fun stuff. Dancey's later comments about how to design efficient game systems is important. AFAIK, this is the original use of the quote: [url]http://mearls.livejournal.com/105311.html[/url] I find his analysis of MMORPG's growing impact on the RPG market to be the more interesting part of his post. I think it's spot on. MMORPGs don't compete with the type of RPG play with character immersion and high quality DMing, but it does compete with the hack 'n slash style of RPG play... and the hack 'n slash style of RPG play is notably the gateway drug of the RPG market. When I was first attracted to RPGs, I bounced off several games because I literally couldn't figure out (at 10 years old) what I was supposed to [i]do[/i] with them. The 1984 D&D Basic Set finally got me addicted because it gave me a simple formula: (1) Draw rooms on graph paper. (2) Put monsters in room. (3) Fight monsters. The dungeon crawl is the secret of D&D's success because it's what makes the game easy for beginning DMs to prep and intuitive for beginning players to play. But that simplistic style of play is completely out-performed by MMORPGs, which do the exact same thing without the inconvenience of getting together and with the awesomeness of really cool graphics. [/QUOTE]
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