How Would You Reinvent Roleplaying?

[howandwhy99]

Apart from that players could take a much more active role in determining the plots for their characters. Rather than ask the DM for a homeland, they could detail the people, places, and culture of the area their character comes from and add it to the world. Or design their character's nemisis. And be certain to add lots of plot hooks for the DM to take advantage of. And in general be willing to express their own desires on the game setting and pursuing their characters own goals and ambitions rather than just doing 'tonight's adventure'.

What you've stated is an absolute must for most games I have played in. I think if you put more into the game, you invariably get more out of it.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I think I'd get rid of the table all together. Instead all players should be standing up all dressed in black mime suits. The DM should be allowed a stand for a few documents but the players should have characters so easy to memorize that papers would be redundant. There will be no miniatures, no snacks, and no dice.

Dude, can I join your group?

 

[JohnSnow]

Well I'd need a Goat, some Duct Tape, a Clothes hanger, and a holo-deck from Star Trek, Run the game in the Holo-deck, and you don't wanna know that other stuff is for

I've pointed out to my geeky friends that, if you accept the future history of Star Trek, roleplaying outlasts television as a form of entertainment. I wonder if that speaks to the bias of the writers. Interactive, improvisational storytelling (like on a Holodeck) is roleplaying. It just substitutes computer simulations for dice and the ship's (very smart) computer for the DM.

It would be a shame if technology eventually does away with the need for imagination to envision the scene though. That's one part of classical roleplaying that I (personally) would miss.

Just my two cents.

I've felt for a few years that some kind of nerd clubhouse (game store/lounge/pub/bar) is a business idea waiting to happen. The folks at Virtual World had a good idea that was, I think, a little ahead of its time. The theory was a good one though. A game area combined with a lounge where people could sit and chat (and drink...the game's not grown-up past its geeky youth unless booze can be involved).

It would be like a real-world internet site...

 

[Insight]

Know the rules
show up on time
be ready and willing to role play
don't get sidetracked
pay attention during the sessions

pester the heck outta the referee ahead of time. about rules/mechanics they don't know or may try to use.

wear depends so the bathroom isn't needed

ply the referee with bribes and/or phat lewt

You guys are both talking about things they can do during the game (or maybe just prior to starting the game). I'm talking about things the players can do to positively affect the game session. Just like how a GM prepares to run a game, what can players spend time on to further the game?

 

[Crothian]

You guys are both talking about things they can do during the game (or maybe just prior to starting the game). I'm talking about things the players can do to positively affect the game session. Just like how a GM prepares to run a game, what can players spend time on to further the game?

We are talking about the same thing though. The best thing players can do is in session. Learning rules and familarizing themselves with the world they can do out of game, take notes and write story hours from a players point of view to help flesh out their character and get more involved with the game could help. But really players are in session stuff.

 

[Insight]

We are talking about the same thing though. The best thing players can do is in session. Learning rules and familarizing themselves with the world they can do out of game, take notes and write story hours from a players point of view to help flesh out their character and get more involved with the game could help. But really players are in session stuff.

That's why there is a disparity, and why it needs to change. Players need to realize that they are part of the game prep too. Not just show up expecting everything to be done for them. I think quite a bit of this attitude changes when players start to GM and/or mature, but not always.

I would like to see my players ask more questions about the setting, what's going on outside of the PCs' little circle, and less about metagame concerns (although those are welcome too, to a certain extent).

 

[Gothmog]

For years now -- since the mid-80s, at least, I've thought it might be fun to play a game in which the players actually didn't have character sheets (although the GM would) or know their stats -- just a pretty good idea of what they were good at, what they were marginal at, and what they sucked at. GM would make all dice rolls too. The hope was that this would be a more immersive experience, with the players putting the metagame out of their heads, and concentrate on what's really happening in the way that their characters would.

I don't know if today I'd do that or not, though, to be honest with you. And I doubt it would really reinvent roleplaying. Honestly, I don't want to reinvent roleplaying -- I kinda like it the way it is, for the most part.

Hey Joshua, I actually did what you're suggesting (no stats, no chatacter sheets) starting in 1992 with 2e and currently still doing it with the same campaign in 3.5. It doesn't reinvent roleplaying, but it does make the game much less of a numbers and powergmaing exercise, and more about roleplaying and character development. It did wonders to cure two rampant powergamers of their obsession, and the players became much more invested in the campaign and viewed the NPCs and the world not as metagame concepts to manipulate, but as more complex and realistic entities.

 

[Crothian]

That's why there is a disparity, and why it needs to change. Players need to realize that they are part of the game prep too. Not just show up expecting everything to be done for them. I think quite a bit of this attitude changes when players start to GM and/or mature, but not always.

I would like to see my players ask more questions about the setting, what's going on outside of the PCs' little circle, and less about metagame concerns (although those are welcome too, to a certain extent).

But there really isn't anything the players can do to help the DM out. Asking questions creates more work for the DM as he has to answer them. Players are responsible for their characters and that's it. Unless you want to somhow place more responsibility on the players I don't see how they can prep more and help the DM.

 

[howandwhy99]

I had a couple novel campaign world ideas back in my senior year at college. One was based on the premise that 3 types of characters existed before choosing roles, races, etc. The first type was for all initial players who did not know of the distinction and needed to puzzle out the secret of the world. The other two were for standard players who already knew the secret. It was sort of a metaplot within the game. The gameplay was medieval D&D fantasy, but with odd quirks dictated by its hard-scifi/cyberpunk underpinnings.

The secret: In the near-future (say 100 years) life extension technology had progressed rapidly. As reconstructing the bodies of the entire [paying] human populace was infeasible, most elderly people elected to stay alive in "pods". Within, the human body could last potentially 100's of years, but only if the mind received normal stimulus. So entire generations of people existed primarily in Virtual Reality worlds.

I think the internet had just hit big when I thought this up, but it was before MMORPG's. Essentially the idea was: the players who were in on the secret played either real people or "bots" in a simulated D&D world. Those who did not know played illegal AI constructs, which believed they were "true" characters in the world. As "staying in character" in the VR world was part of the game, the VR characters were penalized (in the scifi world), if they directly referenced that world.

It was fun to create as I think predicting a hard-scifi future world is more fun than creating a fantasy world. Reading futurists and trying to accurately predict where the future will be like (mainly due to technological repercussions) was part of the reason I studied the idea. Another interesting part was having play explain away real world (sci-fi world) concerns. For example: those who were only visiting the VR world would "pop" in and out, so lots of unexplained teleporting took place when people were alone.

Looking at the existing MUDs of the day led me to the discovery of "bots". I thought these might be interesting to create using a ruleset the player had to follow. Meaning sometimes they were not as "human" as a normal person could be. This would potentially work for most of the NPC's too. In retrospect, it would have been nice to have MMORPGs around to see their own metaplay concerns. But I think having them exist takes some of the luster off the initial idea too.

I guess the point of all this is roleplaying could become a reality in itself.
(hello there behind the computer screen! *waves*)

 

[Sholari]

2) As already mentioned, up the advertising budget. More and more wide spread ad campaigns are needed to gain the wider audience that some game companies seem to think will magically appear.

Yeah, I have thought of this before as well. The caution is not just throwing more advertising dollars at a TV commercial. I'm not sure if awareness is the fundamental reason why people chose not to roleplay. Whatever the advertising, it needs to somehow affect people's fundamental biases toward the hobby. It is about identifying people's obstacles to trying it out or sticking with roleplaying, and changing these biases. Here is an example. For a long time in England they ran a TV ad trying to get people to wear seat belts. They ran your standard ad about how you are at greater risk if you don't wear a seat belt. While most people knew that they should where seat belts half of them didn't care to comply. It wasn't until they put forth an ad that very graphically demonstrated the risk to front seat passengers by the back seat passengers that it started to have an affect on behavior. Essentially, a good subset of people realized they weren't just putting their lives in danger, but the people they cared about sitting in front of them as well.

Another side note. Quite honestly, I'm surprised that the roleplaying industry isn't more involved in customer relationship marketing, since roleplayers are such a targetted group with a huge customer lifetime value. I think that is where the money is to be made in roleplaying.