[Non-Americans] Are the stereotypes true?

[hong]

The Dutch are like, 20 years ahead of us in RPGs. They are on the equivalent of D&D 6.0 right now. Roleplaying in the Netherlands is an experience a thousand times as powerful as the emotion you call "love."

D00d, that's not the gaming, it's the hash.

 

[reanjr]

I'm American and I'm as against the rules as the next guy. In my experience, there is a much bigger line of demarcation between DMs and Players than anything else.

 

[reanjr]

I mean what sorts of qualities do people who are not American share, other than, you know, being not American?

Exactly what sort of qualities do Americans share, for that matter, other than being American?

 

[reanjr]

I imagine as a Canadian, that I am really an American with a different flag

Yeah, I was wondering, do you think Canada will become a protectorate, like Puerto Rico, or will shoot for statehood when the whole inevitable consolidation thing goes down? Or do you think it will differ by province? (America probably wouldn't want those weird French-speaking Qeubec people, so they'd probably finally let that whole secession thing happen; maybe they'll give it back to France as a peace offering).

On a more serious note, the only startling thing I've noticed about Canada (as in differences from America) is its cleanliness and lack of ghettos. (both cultural deficiencies, of course )

 

[Staffan]

Well, I don't know about stereotypes, but I got bored when the largest con in the country almost only had free form RPGs for a couple of years. Not that it's anything wrong with free form, but because I like variety. There are things that work well in free form, and things that work better with rules.

I have heard people say stuff like "the moment anyone puts a die on the table I walk away". (Me, I like dice! )

Yeah, there's a vocal sub-sub-culture of gamers here in Sweden that are rabid free-formers. It's gotten a little better nowadays, but still at least half the games at the big cons are advertised as "free-form" or "system-less". Still, I miss the days when a con was a good place to try out games you hadn't played before but might be interested in.

 

[randomling]

I'm British, and I personally hate it when the rules get in the way of a good story or RPing opportunity.

That said, I've had some of my most anal-retentive, rules-lawyerish play experiences with British players, and some of my most cool, exciting and not-obstructed-by-the-rules games were in the US*. So I tend to think that the difference is minimal, if it's there at all.





*OK, GMed by Piratecat...

 

[Piratecat]

We were playing Feng Shui. If you get bogged down by the rules in Feng Shui, you deserve a short sharp kick to the naughty places.

 

[Samurai]

(And my Californian friend of 15 years told me once he came in France mainly because of the food here!).

Wow, that must be some REALLY good food!

 

[randomling]

We were playing Feng Shui. If you get bogged down by the rules in Feng Shui, you deserve a short sharp kick to the naughty places.

True - but we also played M&M, which can occasionally get bogged down by rules (OK not often!). And that was exactly the same, no bogging down in evidence.

 

[Mordane76]

We were playing Feng Shui. If you get bogged down by the rules in Feng Shui, you deserve a short sharp kick to the naughty places.

I read through Feng Shui... it made my head hurt.

I feel like I fit the stereotype on certain points - I like games with clearly defined rules, which is one of the reasons I wasn't too keen on my read-through of Feng Shui, with its dice pools and heavy reliance on subjective description. It's not that I don't like players to be creative... I just like that things are clearly defined so there is little room for argument on what must be rolled/accomplished to complete action X. It saves me time and headache. In instances where there isn't necessarily a rule for something someone wants to do, then I have no trouble adjudicating a "fair" way of accomplishing that task, but I'm far less likely to just let a player "do" something without there being some grounding in the rules and mechanics.