Play Something Else

[Reynard]

I don't think people should be pressured to play other games. I do think people who lack experience or who play games without attempting to fully embrace the model of play they present do not give very incisive feedback about how a given game plays. I also believe that comparative claims about how broad or specialized a game is in extended play are not well formed from folks who lack the experience of playing and really embracing a game's core model. I also believe that if you are not willing to approach a game as intended you likely should avoid playing / running it.

The point is that trying new things is good for you, even if afterward you go back to the old thing.

 

[Reynard]

I feel I have maybe learned more from other groups playing the same game though. There are some big differences in playstyle…

That's a good one too. Luckily today there are so many people plating games on YouTube you should be able to find someone playing a game you like and seeing if they do it differently. As usual I would generally caution folks against watching professional streams for that purpose, though. Those people aren't playing only for their enjoyment, they are performing. That's going to change the way they play.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

That's a good one too. Luckily today there are so many people plating games on YouTube you should be able to find someone playing a game you like and seeing if they do it differently. As usual I would generally caution folks against watching professional streams for that purpose, though. Those people aren't playing only for their enjoyment, they are performing. That's going to change the way they play.

I don’t watch much of those actually. Years back I watched several episodes of acquisitions incorporated.

But I have had some interesting experiences playing at cons and seeing how others run things. Less variable recently than say in the AD&D days…

 

[Reynard]

I don’t watch much of those actually. Years back I watched several episodes of acquisitions incorporated.

But I have had some interesting experiences playing at cons and seeing how others run things. Less variable recently than say in the AD&D days…

I run at cons a lot and I really hope I am.doing it differently.

 

[Autumnal]

I run at cons a lot and I really hope I am.doing it differently.

“So there I was at CONtraterrene, and this guy had listed a game of Adventure, which I almost never got to play rather than GM. First we had a bidding war to be the battleship or the shoe…”

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

No. No no no no no. Monopoly might bore someone to death. But if you want to destroy long lasting friendships and all trust in people, it's Diplomacy all the way.

Death by boredom is a distinct possibility in Diplomacy too if you don't use a timer to keep the negotiation phase down to a non-geological time scale.

Really does lend itself to old fashioned Play By (Snail) Mail even today.

 

[SableWyvern]

I don't think people should be pressured to play other games. I do think people who lack experience or who play games without attempting to fully embrace the model of play they present do not give very incisive feedback about how a given game plays. I also believe that comparative claims about how broad or specialized a game is in extended play are not well formed from folks who lack the experience of playing and really embracing a game's core model. I also believe that if you are not willing to approach a game as intended you likely should avoid playing / running it.

I agree with everything you said, except for the final sentence.

If I play a game, it's because I have decided it's suited to allowing me to achieve some particular purpose, whether that's dungeoneering, or hexcrawling, or high-action supers slugfests, or cthonic investigation, or whatever. How the author intended it to be played is beside the point -- I'm using the game to meet my needs, not theirs.

It's certainly true that if I'm not using it as intended, I don't have any right to turn around and complain it's faulty or poorly designed if it turns out it doesn't do what I want after all, but that's a separate issue entirely.

 

[Wolfpack48]

How the author intended it to be played is beside the point -- I'm using the game to meet my needs, not theirs.

Totally agree. Gygax used to hold forth on this all the time back in the day -- "if you aren't playing using the official rules, you can do so, but you aren't playing D&D." I'm not sure where it came from, either copyright protection (they slapped TMs on everything and sued liberally back then), or whether it was a nod to tournament play in conventions. Every game ever written should have in big green letters at the start, "House Rules Welcome."

 

[Reynard]

Totally agree. Gygax used to hold forth on this all the time back in the day -- "if you aren't playing using the official rules, you can do so, but you aren't playing D&D." I'm not sure where it came from, either copyright protection (they slapped TMs on everything and sued liberally back then), or whether it was a nod to tournament play in conventions. Every game ever written should have in big green letters at the start, "House Rules Welcome."

That was only true for a short time under a specific set of circumstances that amounted to EGG trying to maintain control of the company and product.

 

[Cadence]

Is it like this in other things besides RPGs?

If someone plays a lot of Bridge are they missing out on a lot if they haven't spent a sizeable portion of that bridge time trying out other card games? (Same with Chess -> other board games, Tennis -> other racket sports, Football [your choice] -> other running with a ball sports, etc....).

Take someone who has a favorite RPG, classic card game, CCG, and table top game and plays a lot of those four. Are they more or less well rounded than someone who plays a lot of different RPGs but no classic card games, CCGs, or board games? (I obviously left off the athletic activities there, but personally anyway, that's a different type of well rounded -- and I admit that OP has already addressed this somewhat by saying they are only talking about RPGs).

Is there a huge swath of board gamers who are really into trying everything (even more than most of the poly-RPG folks?).