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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nork" data-source="post: 5520109" data-attributes="member: 59879">I think the biggest problem for RPGs is the spotlight concept.  D&D is a team based game, yet the big theory on how to run it has nothing to do with teamwork.Alternating spotlights on people isn't teamwork.  It is a table full of people playing many different single player games.The stereotypical means for learning teamwork is through sports.In theory team sports are supposed to teach you how to accomplish a goal as a group, where you as the individual look at the goal and the situation on the field and then find a way to assist in making sure the goal is reached.  The point isn't to take equal turns being ball-hogs so each person can feel like a special snowflake for awhile.  The point is to be a group that is so good at adapting to assist each other on the fly that it becomes very hard to stop your group from accomplishing their goal.4E is a much more of a teamwork oriented game.  You have positions like Defender, Leader, Striker, and Controller.  Each position has the tools to assist the other positions to make the party as a whole into a killing machine without relying on one or two characters rolling combat monsters so they can ball-hog during combat.  Skill challenges could be better, but I think the goal is to have everyone contribute without turning traps/puzzles into the thief's time to ball-hog, or social encounters into the bard's time to ball-hog.Spotlighting in general practice, normally done via things like awards,  is used to encourage people to strive towards exceptional behavior.   Which is to say: doing something hard.  If you try to give an award to  someone for something that did not take any effort, they generally don't  want it.  People think badly of awards given for doing nothing, and  they think very badly indeed of people who those awards mean anything  to.  For example, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal was deeply  frowned upon in the Army.  You already had a National Defense Service  Medal for just being in during a period in time when you could be called  upon to do something, giving a second award for just being in was  insulting.  They actually had to go around forcing us to add the  ribbon.  The point being, that rolling a mage or a thief, or whatever  didn't represent hard work.  Casting fireball because that is what your  class does isn't normally what one would call "spotlight worthy"  behavior, and accepting the spotlight for it seems a bit off to many people.  It seems like taking pride in getting an award for doing nothing of note.Personally, I think the spotlight theory is why a lot of people tend to not be into RPGs.  I don't think people who get the standard socialization via things like sports see the point to sitting down around the table with 5 other people to play some game that involves some sort of weird interaction-less cooperation and putting attention on people for just doing something that anyone playing that class would do as standard.Not that an RPG has to have spotlighting.  People love stories, and people love team based gameplay, neither of which need deliberate spotlighting.  I think 4E tried to move somewhat in that direction for a broader appeal, and now it seems like they are trying to reverse course.  I don't know if it is a calculated decision or if now people are in charge and are simply pushing the game in the direction of the game that they personally want to play.</blockquote>

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