Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[SweeneyTodd]

But this cuts to the core of the issue, at least for me. Those peripheral people will do whatever they do, and it is essentially impossible for a game company to meaningfully contribute to their experience. They're no more a viable market for the industry than people who can't read. What they do is (or at least should be) totally irrelevant to what game companies produce.

They don't need the game companies, and the game companies don't need them. They're non-interactive segments of the population.

So are the ground rules of the conversation that we're talking about RPGs that sell in large numbers? Basically, "stuff like D&D"?

Is the purpose of the roleplaying hobby to provide a market for regular supplements?

Are those people out there who play out of print RPGs not relevant either?

Look, a fair number of people in this thread are here because RyanD showed a rather profound lack of understanding about what rules-light games can be. If we're only talking about how to sell game books to people in an existing gamer market, and maybe growing that market a bit, I'll bow out.

But look at, to throw an example out, board games. Lots of people play board games, but if your friend owns the game, you don't need to spend any money on it. You don't buy quarterly supplements. You don't need extensive prep time to be ready to play. There's no "board game culture", in that lots of people play without identifying them as a focus in their lives. But there's a market for board games.

The games I've been playing are like board games in terms of market, although they're still roleplaying games. You buy the rulebook, you get friends together, you play. Now we do extensive campaigns, and there's a lot of things going on in the games, but most of those things we're coming up with use the rules as a guideline. We're not mining supplements for ideas for things to add to the games. We don't need to, because the system is simple but comprehensive enough for our needs..

These games are from small-press publishers, and while none of them support their designers full time, they do turn a profit. Commercially successful, I'd say.

Maybe this is just pie-in-the-sky, but I think that the potential market for people who would play games about "Fictional characters dealing with compelling situations" is a lot larger than the market for games about "Party of adventurers dealing with conflicts, including tactical realistic combat, to grow in power". But people in the first category aren't going to be interested in complex mechanics or extensive prep time.

If that potential market is as irrelevant to the roleplaying industry as people who can't read, then, okay, that tells me a lot. I grant you that they're irrelevant right now, but is there any value in trying to reach these people?

 

[SweeneyTodd]

No, I'm just trying to assert that, as Mearls and Dancey have been saying, there isn't necessarily any inherent advantage to one path over the other in the three areas that were cited. Any system is going to have to be dumbed down when being taught, especially to people new to rp'ing (which makes the chargen argument moot, IMO, as newbies should not be dealing with chargen right off the bat). Said newbies will then rise to the level of complexity that suits their sensibilities and capabilities.

Okay. I get it. You're talking about traditional roleplaying games, and I'm not.

I've got Primetime Adventures in my hand. It's a 75 page, paperback-sized booklet. Character creation is 8 pages with examples. The mechanics take up 23 pages, of which only 10 need to be read by someone other than the GM.

This is not a system that has to be dumbed down for a newbie. To the extent players increase in skill over the course of a campaign, it's not mechanics mastery, but things like characterization, framing interesting conflicts, and the like. I'm dearly looking forward to running a campaign with it soon.

If this isn't a roleplaying game, okay. Point me to another forum where I can talk about not-roleplaying games where you portray a character who grows through dealing with challenges and conflicts.

 

[Turjan]

If that potential market is as irrelevant to the roleplaying industry as people who can't read, then, okay, that tells me a lot. I grant you that they're irrelevant right now, but is there any value in trying to reach these people?

But this might, indeed, be the core problem. Ryan Dancey argued for rules-heavy games from the point of view of perceived player preferences. You and me, both, think that this is not the whole story. Nevertheless, I believe that rules-light games are much less interesting for companies than rules-heavy ones, because you cannot sell so many rules supplements. You can try your luck with settings and adventures, but even here, I think the market is smaller in the case of rules-light games, because you don't need pages and pages of stat blocks, like in d20; people can just use the latest novel they liked.

This means that the central point may simply be that rules-light games are not expected to make enough money to make them an interesting product for a larger company like Hasbro.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

This means that the central point may simply be that rules-light games are not expected to make enough money to make them an interesting product for a larger company like Hasbro.

Boom. Bam. I agree totally. Especially when you compare them to a product that you know can continue selling supplements for years. Focusing on the existing market is a guaranteed way to make bank; there's no incentive to look at other concepts.

My frustration in the thread has been that I can't tell a lot of the times whether people are takling about "worth Hasbro publishing", "worth a small press publishing", "worth my group playing and enjoying", and "worth exploring as a concept".

Hasbro's got a good thing going with D&D, as they do with Magic. But I feel like a lot of the conversation in the thread, especially the quote from RyanD at the beginning, was like someone saying "Simple card games aren't as good as Magic" and you find out the reason is because Hearts doesn't have mana resource allocation or counterspells. And *then* you find out the real reason they're not as good is because once you have 52 cards, you don't need more. But there are games that are not card games, that are not Magic, and some of those games are fun.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

What I'm talking about is:

a) Games that can turn sufficient profit to support their creators, publishers and publishers' staff full time. Board games are an example, as are many CCGs, D&D, Warhammer Fantasy/40k and the Storyteller games.

a.1) Products within that category that can be sold to the RPG market. That's probably limited, at the moment, to D&D/certain d20 or OGL (such as Mongoose) and Storyteller, and possibly Palladium, GURPS and WHFR.

Or:

b) Products that sell to a similar market to a.1), but which do not sell in sufficient quantities to regularly be a subset of a). This usually includes SilCore, Tri-Stat, HERO, Unisystem and the like.

Note that I'm not sure where the dividing line falls. D&D, Storyteller and GURPS are the only systems I'm sure are a.1), and particularly in the third case I'm not sure how true that is for freelancers.

My interest (and, I assume, Ryan Dancey's) is in finding out what separates a.1) from b), and how a.1) can improve.

 

[Warbringer]

Why the Discusson?

OK, I'm sure I'll flamed because I read only the first 3 pages and the last 3 pages of the post, but I'm left with the lingering question... Why the Discussion? Why did Ryan initially post (or whatever forum) and why was this playtest facilitation being performed?

It's now the Summer of 2005 and back in the days of rumored 3.5 release there was a feeling that 4.0 would possibly appear late 2006/ early 2007? Is 4.0 if the offing? and is it likely to be rules lite?

Are we looking at the possibility that 4.0 is build around the miniatures game (which as far as I can tell is rules lite 3.5 w/o roleplay).

just a question...

 

[Psion]

Boom. Bam. I agree totally. Especially when you compare them to a product that you know can continue selling supplements for years.

Coincidentally, there is a thread going on over on RPGnet talking about how unfair it is that FUDGE is being given the short end of the stick when it comes to support.

 

[Zudrak]

I give up. I made it to page 15 and I quit. I started reading yesterday and I wanted to make it to page 19, but I wave the white flag. :\

I don't hate 3e, but I am switching to C&C because of the time saved in prep time and in combat. My brother and I are grognards. The other two in our group are not. But we have all agreed to switch to C&C when (if? -- personal goings-on) we resume gaming. I want to play a game that is like 1e in terms of pace and fun while having some of the cleaner elements of 3e (AC increases and becomes the number "to hit", etc.).

Happy gaming,
Zudrak

 

[JohnSnow]

In fact, he does not. He was not on the core design team and he did not get involved in the development of the rules even to the extent of Peter Adkison.

...<snip>

First off, Bill didn't design WEG's Star Wars, Greg Costikyan did. Second, the d6 System that powered it wasn't even really created by Greg Costikyan, but the the guys at Chaosium (specifically Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Greg Stafford). Those guys designed the Ghostbusters game under contract for West End. That came out in 1986 and it is commonly credited with pioneering the difficulty number concept. Costikyan took this basic system (while not crediting the Chaosium crew by the by) and based the Star Wars game on it. First edition of that came out in 1987.

I'm all for credit where it's due, but Bill's role in all these developments was peripheral at best.

Fair enough, and I stand corrected.

My (albeit inaccurate) assessment was based on Bill's involvement in the products. I recalled that he was part of the WEG Star Wars effort, but didn't have my books handy to check what he did for it. He was Director of RPG R&D for WotC when 3e (and 3.5) came out (so, in the parlance of WotC, he's a developer, not a designer), a position he still holds, AFAIK. I assumed that meant he had something to do with guiding the efforts of the design team. If he didn't, I was mistaken and I'd be fascinated to hear from Bill (or others at WotC) what it is that Bill does.

As far as the Chaosium crew not getting credit for their work, in most industries and most cases, creative work done under contract is the property of the company doing the contracting, not the person or people doing the work. So I'm not surprised that WEG didn't feel any compulsion to give credit for something they owned.

I thought there were difficulty numbers in a game I owned back before 1986, but my recollection is fuzzy. So I'm willing to accept the "commonly credited" Ghostbusters until I know better.

In a sense, I think it's safe to say that the first "difficulty number" was Armor Class (although it went down instead of up, and you had decreasing THAC0 instead of an increasing attack bonus, but the principle is there). So identifying the actual NUMBER in most instances took pages and tables, unless you had an AD&D Fighting Wheel (TM) like I did/do (as an aside, I just discovered that mine, which is in superb shape, is worth over $100 to collectors - cool!).

However, I stand by the assertion I made that Alternity strongly influenced 3e, if for no other reason that many of the same people who were involved in the creation of 3e (and 3.5 & d20 Modern even moreso) worked on products for it. A quick list? - Rich Baker, Bill Slavicsek, Sean Reynolds, Monte Cook, Wolfgang Baur, Bruce Cordell, Rich Redman, JD Wiker, David Eckelberry, Christopher Perkins, and Andy Collins. Whew! I grant that leaves out Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet, and Peter Adkison, but still!

And now I'm wayyy off topic. I'll post something more relevant next time...

 

[JohnSnow]

Okay, here's my more relevant comment. As some of you know, Akrasia was the DM/CK for my gaming group for slightly more than a year. Obviously, he and I have some differences of opinion about what we like in our games. However, we were able to play together just fine. In hashing this out offline, I sent a comment to him trying to explain that I think is relevant to the rules-light vs. rules-heavy argument. I liked how it came out, so I decided to post it here.

I have a confession to make that I haven't before now: I REALLY wanted to like Castles & Crusades, because the prep time for 3e is daunting for me as well. However, as both a player and a DM, I find C&C to be "incomplete." I guess this comes down to personality types. I prefer giving detailed descriptions of things that I know about. Let me make the point by way of an example.

As an improv actor at the Ren Faire, I have to "extemporize" things ALL the time. If I have to make it up out of whole cloth, I stink at it. But give me something to hang my creativity on and I can be really creative. I grant this is just me. I have friends who are perfectly good at coming up with bits out of thin air. Not all of them are as good at incorporating new things as I am, but that's why we work well together.

For me and my form of creativity, the 3e rules provide that "hook" I need for MY form of creativity. By contrast, the C&C ones fall short. However, I'm terribly frustrated by all the "balancing" and "stacking" issues - I've mentioned I hate the 3e magic system, right?

That's why I'm looking forward to Iron Heroes. I know Mearls has addressed the spell system and "magic items as power-ups" issues. The Feat Mastery System and the skill groups should make feat and skill selection a lot more straight-forward. And some of the things he's added to the game are about giving people (both players and GMs) more "hooks" of the kind I like to have. That all sounds like it will really appeal to me. Of course, for those who prefer making things up with less guidance, it's probably not the system for them.

And that's what I think this debate comes down to - personal taste vs. what people can work with. I think it's better for a game to provide rules that a gamer can choose not to use rather than to come out with fewer rules than people want, unless you're trying to market to a smaller niche of gamers. If someone doesn't want or need that many rules, they can chop stuff out. However, if you want more rules, they're already there and you don't have to put a lot of work into developing them, balancing them and so on. If there's something the game doesn't address, someone can come up with a mechanic for it and market it as an add-on.

I hope that 4e, if/when it materializes will be complete but modular. You'll be able to buy it, and use everything in the books as is, but there'll be lots of side notes that if you want to remove A, then you should take out B as well, and so forth. Sort of "rules complete" with notes for how to remove rules in balanced ways. Want a different magic system? Take out the default one and use one of several alternatives. Sort of setting it up so that d20 is the OS and it comes bundled with a suite of "software" that you can uninstall with ease. Then the OGL market really takes off as companies make money developing and marketing "programs" that run on the d20 OS.

Personally, I think that'd be the ideal.