Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8638501" data-attributes="member: 18">I'm pretty mystified as to how you'd formed that impression given I specifically said &quot;seemed&quot; not &quot;become&quot; to make it clear I was talking opinions not facts, but such is the internet!I don't think it is a coincidence at all.The fact is that PB-sim RPGs are inevitably more mechanically complex than RPGs that don't attempt that kind of simulation and typically benefit more from the players having a strong grounding in physics, engineering, chemistry, biology, and even disciplines like history than other RPGs. They're more restrictive, typically, in the audience who can appreciate them. Sometimes they benefit from specialist knowledge well outside of RPGs, like Millennium's End did (like proper tradecraft, how to breach &amp; clear and so on).That's never going to fit well with a broad, diverse (in the most purely literal, non-political sense) audience, because the reality is, most people don't have that kind of knowledge, and aren't particularly interested in acquiring it via RPGs. This unfortunately often includes the authors of PB-sim RPGs who often have outdated knowledge or just incorrect ideas about how certain things work, and instead have pop-culture or pop-science or pop-history assumptions about stuff (again, armour is a prime example here).So a truly mass-market RPG is basically never going to be a PB-sim RPG, because those are inevitably rules-heavy, and reliant on a greater level of engagement with the subject matter than most people are likely to have. Most people just aren't that interested in simulating stuff. The same applies to videogames. You can see how fast simulation videogames fell out of favour as soon as more arcade-y takes on similar subjects were available.The mass market doesn't want simulation. It's a significant market that does, but a niche one. Hence it's not a &quot;coincidence&quot;. Indeed I'd go as far as to say it's inevitability (given there is a mass-market RPG at all).As for &quot;shallow&quot;, well, that's obviously a subjective value-judgement - literally your choice of word is inevitably a value judgement, so isn't particularly helpful or arguable.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8638501, member: 18"] I'm pretty mystified as to how you'd formed that impression given I specifically said "seemed" not "become" to make it clear I was talking opinions not facts, but such is the internet! I don't think it is a coincidence at all. The fact is that PB-sim RPGs are inevitably more mechanically complex than RPGs that don't attempt that kind of simulation and typically benefit more from the players having a strong grounding in physics, engineering, chemistry, biology, and even disciplines like history than other RPGs. They're more restrictive, typically, in the audience who can appreciate them. Sometimes they benefit from specialist knowledge well outside of RPGs, like Millennium's End did (like proper tradecraft, how to breach & clear and so on). That's never going to fit well with a broad, diverse (in the most purely literal, non-political sense) audience, because the reality is, most people don't have that kind of knowledge, and aren't particularly interested in acquiring it via RPGs. This unfortunately often includes the authors of PB-sim RPGs who often have outdated knowledge or just incorrect ideas about how certain things work, and instead have pop-culture or pop-science or pop-history assumptions about stuff (again, armour is a prime example here). So a truly mass-market RPG is basically never going to be a PB-sim RPG, because those are inevitably rules-heavy, and reliant on a greater level of engagement with the subject matter than most people are likely to have. Most people just aren't that interested in simulating stuff. The same applies to videogames. You can see how fast simulation videogames fell out of favour as soon as more arcade-y takes on similar subjects were available. The mass market doesn't want simulation. It's a significant market that does, but a niche one. Hence it's not a "coincidence". Indeed I'd go as far as to say it's inevitability (given there is a mass-market RPG at all). As for "shallow", well, that's obviously a subjective value-judgement - literally your choice of word is inevitably a value judgement, so isn't particularly helpful or arguable. [/QUOTE]

Verification