Our varied play experiences -- then and now

[Dausuul]

These last bear some consideration. I think they reveal a bit of bias in our thoughts.

How many people play "Living" games? How many people are paying for the character builder? I think we tend to overestimate such things - just because we on EN World go to cons and play Living games, and use computer aids. But I don't know if those impose a similarity of experience throughout the entire gaming population.

By themselves? Certainly not. I've never played a Living X game in my life and don't particularly want to, and I'm not about to let the Character Builder get in the way of homebrewing up some races if I feel like it.

Nevertheless, they do contribute to a homogenous experience. They help spread the popularity of a specific style of play.

I will note one other thing - there were few games out there when AD&D was king. These days, people looking for a variant experience could alter D&D, or they could play another game entirely.

*blink* You must not have been playing AD&D in the same world I was. My recollection is that there was a ton of other games. Games ranging from Vampire to Rifts to GURPS to Shadowrun to Amber to Ars Magica - and God knows how many others - all got their start in the AD&D era.

Back then, every gamer and his dog thought they had what it took to found their own game company and make a go of it. Some of them were even right. Meanwhile, lots of players who had been sucked in by the D&D craze were getting bored with AD&D and looking for the new shiny, and MMOs hadn't yet siphoned off all the casual gamers, so there was enough money sloshing around the market to support a lot of startups... for a while.

From what I've seen, while there may be more non-D&D games today in terms of number of products on the market, the number of popular non-D&D games has drastically declined. There was once a time, as TSR spiraled toward bankruptcy, when White Wolf looked like it might actually mount a challenge to topple D&D from its throne. Can you even remotely conceive of any tabletop game being in a position to say that today?

 

[Dragonbait]

Maybe it's more popular on US.

Nope. Most gamers here do not even know what you mean when you say "Living Grayhawk".

 

[Umbran]

*blink* You must not have been playing AD&D in the same world I was. My recollection is that there was a ton of other games. Games ranging from Vampire to Rifts to GURPS to Shadowrun to Amber to Ars Magica - and God knows how many others - all got their start in the AD&D era.

Check your timelines.

AD&D (1e) was published in 1978.

GURPS was first published in 1986.

Ars Magica was first published in 1987 - and I don't recall this one ever being a big seller.

2e was published in 1989.

Shadowrun was first published in 1989.

RIFTS first published in 1990.

White Wolf opened it's doors in 1991.

Amber Diceless RPG was published in 1991.

So, 1e was around for a decade - and the only one of the games you mentioned that was really big enough to be considered a major alternate was GURPS, and that was only around for a couple of the years of 1e. Looks to me that the RPG world took off with major variants in the 2e era.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Perhaps because the experience of many, like myself, is that it is not true. Or, at least, it is not true often enough to be sustainable.

That could be. My comments weren't meant to imply anything other than beleif that a change in perspective has taken place.

2e offered sourcebooks to create almost any world the DM might imagine. When 3e was being planned, I am certain that the designers (and WotC) felt that this type of expansion would be expected by D&D players (and thus necessary to support). The OGL served this function, in part, allowing 3pp to expand where WotC would not or could not (i.e., niche markets).

This caused, I think, a backlash of sorts. First off, WotC lost money to 3pp, and some 3pp produced (IMHO) noteably better materials than those produced by WotC covering the same, or similar, topics. This probably didn't sit well with WotC. WotC was also unhappy about some niche markets (i.e., Book of Erotic Fantasy).

At the same time, the factors outlined in the previous post (3e's focus on balance, loads of naysaying on the InterWeb, some poor 3pp products) made the climate less alteration-friendly. It was, in fact, a perfect climate for WotC to pull back from the OGL, create some new, non-OGC IP, and run with a game that only they could modify.

The climate was also perfect for a "Old School revival" to counterpoint the direction WotC went in.

Bullgrit's observations in the OP shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, IMHO.


RC

 

[Dausuul]

So, 1e was around for a decade - and the only one of the games you mentioned that was really big enough to be considered a major alternate was GURPS, and that was only around for a couple of the years of 1e. Looks to me that the RPG world took off with major variants in the 2e era.

Yes. And? We were talking about AD&D, which encompassed both 1E and 2E last time I checked.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Bullgrit's observations in the OP shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, IMHO.

They don't surprise me at all. I've been all up in (or quietly lurking around) some of the conversations he's referencing.

The design perspectives or the business perspective behind the changes are interesting, but secondary to something simpler: a fun game is a fun game and the rules behind it are secondary.

For example, I've been reading your perspectives on this board for a while, and I've read some of the rules in your .sig and I can conclude that we think about games a bit differently. That makes sense considering these various threads lately have established that our gaming histories could not have been more different if we were trying.... but I imagine I could sit at your table, roll up a character, and have a good time. I'd like to think I could run a game you would enjoy using different rules, as well, though I need to get some more DMing experience under my belt before I would put money on that.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I imagine that you could run a game I'd enjoy. The only hard-and-fast rules I have are:

1. Don't Remove Player Agency: When a player comes up with a cool idea, don't veto it simply because it wasn't part of the script.

2. Don't Remove Player Agency: When I do something stupid, and should die, let the dice fall where they may.

3. Don't Remove Player Agency: When I do something smart, and make the final battle easier, don't ramp things up to counteract what I've done.

And

4. Don't Remove Player Agency: Don't run a railroad.

Other than that, I am pretty easy to GM for.


RC

 

[billd91]

Beyond that, however, WotC has made a deliberate effort to push the game toward a more consistent play experience:

They have, but they're not the first. In the Dragon Magazine, Gygax himself stated that AD&D was intented to push toward a more consistent play experience as well in contrast to D&D. The idea was that, as a more refined set of rules, it would lead to a truly progressive game system - progressive in the sense that experience would lead to further refinement and improvement of the rules.

WotC took things a step further by making Skip Williams one of the 3 main development leads of 3x. In an interview, Skip remarked that he was a proponent of codifying the rules more than in previous editions so that players could set their expectations properly for how the game works and how their planned actions could be expected to pan out.

So while 3e and now 4e go father than any previous edition in attempting to provide a common baseline experience with the game, the tendency exists long before WotC got its hands on the game.

 

[the Jester]

Check your timelines.

(snip)

So, 1e was around for a decade - and the only one of the games you mentioned that was really big enough to be considered a major alternate was GURPS, and that was only around for a couple of the years of 1e. Looks to me that the RPG world took off with major variants in the 2e era.

Well, but there were other games during the 1e timeline.

Palladium, Gamma World, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, Top Secret, TMNT, Champions, Marvel Super-Heroes, etc...

The specific examples you gave may not have shown up til later, but there were other games around. There were tons of alternatives, and most of the gamers that I knew tried many or all of the ones they could find.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not convinced that there was a consistant play experience in 3e.

The reason I'm not convinced about this is I remember the 3e vs. 4e edition war that broke out as we started to get previews, and one of the consistant claims made by those less than excited about 4e is that they didn't believe that they could easily adopt the game that they had been playing over to 4e.

In particular, I remember one poster complaining about removing crafting from the core rules because he'd been playing a campaign set in the stone age in which Craft was one of the most important skills in the game because nothing was available for purchase.

And I've seen alot of highly original campaigns out there over the years at EnWorld.

Plus, I know that there are campaigns at EnWorld that revolve around mega-dungeon crawls, and others which are entirely event driven and never see the inside of a dungeon.

Plus, I know I played 3e very differently than alot of people on this board.

So, I'm not convinced the homogenity is really there.