On playing new game systems

Morrus · Jan 27, 2020

Ovinomancer said:
Is it? I mean, you press the thing and go and turn with that thing and stop with that thing. About as hard as learning a handful of mechanics, right?

I think we've gotten to the point where the argument includes different unspoken things as success states. For RPGs, in this thread, it seems to be very low at 'can you use this mechanics, great!' For cars, though, is seems to be 'can you drive this car without causing accidents and according to all the detailed laws of driving, evidence of duly witnessed and approved by government official.'

Now, granted, the failure state for a new RPG mechanic is pretty light compared to a motor vehicle's possible range of failures to drive. That's valid. But let's take care that we don't reduce RPGs to trivial interactions with a dice mechanic and use that to prove that RPGs are easy to learn. Like driving, there's a bit more to it than that. I mean, I learned to drive a car around an empty parking lot in about 15 minutes. That seems to be the comparison to learning a new RPG being made, yeah?

I think the difference there is that system mastery is a legal requirement when learning to drive a car, but it is not at all necessary (and indeed not even necessarily desirable) to play an RPG.

Ovinomancer · Jan 27, 2020

Morrus said:
I think the difference there is that system mastery is a legal requirement when learning to drive a car, but it is not at all necessary (and indeed not even necessarily desirable) to play an RPG.

Well, sure, I mean, I said that in my post, right? Driving and playing RPGs aren't the same. But, learning an RPG isn't as simple as 'roll this to do something' much like driving isn't as simple as learning to putter around an empty lot.

Morrus · Jan 27, 2020

Ovinomancer said:
Well, sure, I mean, I said that in my post, right? Driving and playing RPGs aren't the same. But, learning an RPG isn't as simple as 'roll this to do something' much like driving isn't as simple as learning to putter around an empty lot.

OK. Let me rephrase as I obviously wasn't clear enough, although I felt I was obvious. The requirements for playing an RPG are way easier than the requirements to legally drive a car on the road. Blimey.

Arilyn · Jan 27, 2020

Actually, I find grasping the philosophy behind a new rpg easier than remembering the rules. It's usually all spelled out in the first few pages. Then, if we get a few rules wrong at first, it's no big deal. Correct as we go. (unlike driving which could result in all kinds of mayhem on the road.)

GrahamWills · Jan 27, 2020

Step 1: Be clear about why you want to play something new
If you don't have a good goal in mind, you're not going to have much reason to try it, and when something seems wrong/hard/annoying, you'll have little motivation to get through it. So be really clear. Something like "I'd like to play in the modern world" give your the motivation to try something other than your current fantasy system, for example.

Step 2: Get other people to do as much work as possible
Learn how the game feels by playing at cons with competent GMs, where possible. If you cannot do that, find pre-generated characters and adventures to try out. Other people want you to try the system -- the publishers, authors and fans -- so take advantage and let them do the work of getting going

Step 3: Commit to finite evaluation period
So, you think you'd like to play the system. You played a couple of times at Gen Con and one GM was bad, but the other made you really enjoy the system. You ran a one-shot module for your friends and although you all screwed up a bunch of stuff and couldn't work out the rules for grappling, you had fun overall. Now is the time to give it a serious go: Pick a published adventure series or sourcebook or similar and ask your friends to commit to 3-6 sessions to try it out properly.

dragoner · Jan 27, 2020

Driving is not exactly a bad analogy when one looks at it like driver is the GM, passengers are players. Because also then it is like the gulf between "would you like to buy this car?" And "would you like a ride?"

Ovinomancer · Jan 27, 2020

Morrus said:
OK. Let me rephrase as I obviously wasn't clear enough, although I felt I was obvious. The requirements for playing an RPG are way easier than the requirements to legally drive a car on the road. Blimey.

Fun idea: assume I understood that from the jump and see if you get a different take from my posts.

pogre · Jan 27, 2020

When I am comfortable running a system and folks like it - it is tough to justify the time to switch. I switch systems when I am dissatisfied with whatever I am currently running. Note that I am almost always the DM, and prefer to be the DM. Switching systems as a player is easy.

GMMichael · Jan 27, 2020

Morrus said:
I think the difference there is that system mastery is a legal requirement when learning to drive a car...

You clearly haven't been to Arizona.

Ovinomancer said:
Driving and playing RPGs aren't the same. But, learning an RPG isn't as simple as 'roll this to do something' much like driving isn't as simple as learning to putter around an empty lot.

But let's take care that we don't reduce RPGs to trivial interactions with a dice mechanic and use that to prove that RPGs are easy to learn.

That depends on the game. And how flexible the GM is. Rules-lite games are easy to learn because their rules probably don't get more complex than the "core mechanic." So if you can figure that out, you can figure out the rest. Heavier games can be easy to play if you can grasp the basics, which I think is the important part of this thread, but learning them is probably a different story.

No, I don't care about the validity of the comparison to learning to drive.