Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

[payn]

Oh, I actually have a thing that is both extremely traditional and 100% always bad without exception: Railroad adventures.

Don't write adventures that have a story already spelled out for the players and then has the players play the guessing game of "what does the GM want us to do?"

People like to say that you can't play an RPG wrong and that all playstyles are viable. This one is the exception. It's always awful and a perfect example of doing it wrong.

To bad it's the only kind of adventure that is commercially published and the only kind of adventure most people have ever known for the last four decades.

Guess I'll just have to continue having my badwrongfun.

 

[kenada]

If that’s what everyone wants to do, then why not? That’s not my thing (because my instincts as a player would be to derail the train, so I’m being self-aware by saying I’d rather not), but I don’t see why other people couldn’t (or shouldn’t) enjoy it.

To bad it's the only kind of adventure that is commercially published and the only kind of adventure most people have ever known for the last four decades.

Are you just considering official D&D adventures? That’s not necessarily true across the board. I know Necrotic Gnome has put out some good adventures for Old-School Essentials that are not plot-driven and do not prescribe outcomes. I think @pemerton has written about some others for other systems he’s ran.

 

[Umbran]

Papa GM, Papa GM! Can you tell us another hour-long story about this genre and its most unique qualities, so that we have proper context when we…

Are we already back to the “but the game rules protect little old me from the big bad referee” nonsense?

Mod Note:
The two of you should ask yourselves whether, to others, you look like 1) wise people who know RPGs and should be listened to, or 2) condescending people who are too stubborn to stop butting heads over issues that neither one of you are going to change your minds on.

After asking yourselves that, maybe you'll approach the discussion more constructively.

 

[pemerton]

Are you just considering official D&D adventures? That’s not necessarily true across the board. I know Necrotic Gnome has put out some good adventures for Old-School Essentials that are not plot-driven and do not prescribe outcomes. I think @pemerton has written about some others for other systems he’s ran.

On adventures - it's not true that published adventures/scenarios must be railroads.

The main source of scenarios I've used in recent years is the Prince Valiant Episode Book. Some of the scenarios in that book are railroads, and hence need reworking to be used. But some are not. The best, which I think is a candidate to be the best scenario ever published (of those I've come across) is The Crimson Bull by Jerry Grayson.

Another examples I've mentioned before is Demon of the Red Grove in Robin Laws's Narrator's Book for HeroWars.

 

[pemerton]

On the debate between @overgeeked, @Aldarc and @loverdrive:

For me, the difference between having it on my PC sheet and asking the GM isn't about capacity to communicate, nor about provenance in the abstract,but rather is about authority at the table here and now.

 

[Jd Smith1]

...genre as in genre of the story. What you can or cannot do and what kind of character you can or cannot create in a slasher flick is very different from a game that tries to capture the feeling of a Hong Kong action cinema. The consequences of the same action would also be different.

I understand what 'genre' means. And my answer is still the same. People are capable of both constructive learning and abstract thought.

There are few hobbies you can't explain, and involve at a basic level, a complete newbie in a very short time.

 

[aramis erak]

Nonsense. I've had countless players over the last 45 years who not only didn't grasp the genre, but who had never played an RPG before, but they picked it up quickly. This is not that complicated of a hobby.

I've had similar experiences.
There are some, however, who never grasp the setting, and others who never grasp the mechanics.

 

[delericho]

It's too soon to do away with them completely, but we should start moving away from books.

The best approach is probably a fairly slim starter rulebook (such as the Essentials Rulebook for D&D - 64 pages covering 5 levels for 5 classes), and then everything else online.

Also: that's a terrible idea, and we absolutely shouldn't do it.

 

[kenada]

Look at the situation with the 4e character builder. The online version is dead. The technology is obsolete, and you can’t even signup and use it if you wanted. The content is only not completely gone because people have figured out a way to load custom content in the offline builder. It would terrible for the hobby if content were available only via such an ephemeral medium.

 

[delericho]

Look at the situation with the 4e character builder. The online version is dead. The technology is obsolete, and you can’t even signup and use it if you wanted. The content is only not completely gone because people have figured out a way to load custom content in the offline builder. It would terrible for the hobby if content were available only via such an ephemeral medium.

I know. It's a terrible idea.

And yet books really aren't a great medium either - as soon as the first supplement is published looking anything up becomes more challenging, and it only gets worse with time. Much of this material should be available in some sort of cross-referenced electronic form. Especially as more and more games move online, or at least have easy access to internet-capable devices.

(And add to that the problem that a hardback book needs to be of significant size to be worth publishing, which means it needs material to fill out those pages, even if all they have are a bunch of random name tables. Electronic publishing means no need to hit an exact page count, which gives more flexibility.)