Reinventing Roleplaying Games

[mythusmage]

Perhaps the biggest barrier to changing perceptions lies in the hobby's name, Roleplaying Games. Games about roleplaying. When most people hear the word 'games' they tend to think of games such as chess, parcheesi, or Clue®. Exercises that rely on game balancing through rules design. Games that must provide a fair chance at victory. Something RPGs needn't do.

You could say that RPGs are not games. Not as most understand them. They have game-like elements, they can be 'gamed'—as so much of life is, but are not, strictly speaking, games. But since they are called games people get the wrong impression, including many who design RPGs. Thus we have RPGs that are more game than roleplaying.

So here you have my proposal, that we rename the hobby. To something more in keeping with what it is we're actually doing. The Roleplaying Hobby (RPH). Each game would then become not a game, but a set of instructions for roleplaying in a particular setting or set of settings. They would no longer be games per se but instructions, guidelines, bibles if you would, for assuming a role in an imaginary world.

 

[d4]

no thanks. i prefer playing games.

edit: let me be more explicit.

if i have to choose between an "exercise that relies on game balancing through rule design and provides a fair chance at victory" and "assuming a role in an imaginary world" -- i'd rather have the former.

i don't you dare tell me that what i'm doing isn't role-playing.

i don't understand how you can say the designers of role-playing games don't understand what role-playing games are. they designed the game; they knew what they were doing! they designed the game they wanted to play.

just because it doesn't meet with your approval doesn't mean it isn't a role-playing game.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Sounds good so far.

What's in this whole Roleplaying Hobby thing? I'm intrigued. What sort of skills do I need? Should I dress up? It sounds like a lot of work.

 

[mythusmage]

no thanks. i prefer playing games.

edit: let me be more explicit.

if i have to choose between an "exercise that relies on game balancing through rule design and provides a fair chance at victory" and "assuming a role in an imaginary world" -- i'd rather have the former.

i don't you dare tell me that what i'm doing isn't role-playing.

i don't understand how you can say the designers of role-playing games don't understand what role-playing games are. they designed the game; they knew what they were doing! they designed the game they wanted to play.

just because it doesn't meet with your approval doesn't mean it isn't a role-playing game.

No, dammit, it doesn't meet with my approval. When it limits its potential audience, when it limits choice of action for all intents and purposes (and don't tell me it doesn't), when it gives people a skewed vision of what it's all about, and all that it could be, I disapprove.

You prefer it as a game. Fine, I hope you have tons of fun with it. But don't tell me I have to. Don't tell me I can't point out the many and various flaws that, as a game, keep it from a greater audience.

How dare I accuse the sainted game designers of treating it like a game? Because they do! 'Fairness', 'balance', that's game talk. Well I say it's parcheesi, and I say the Hell with it. You want to stay with the game paradigm, fine by me. I'm going with the 'hobby' paradigm thank you very much.

So stick with your buckboard, I'm looking for an SUV.

 

[Hypersmurf]

You prefer it as a game. Fine, I hope you have tons of fun with it. But don't tell me I have to. Don't tell me I can't point out the many and various flaws that, as a game, keep it from a greater audience.

So... Roleplaying Games are being treated as games by game designers. That sounds like all is right with the world.

Nobody's telling you you have to play a game. You're absolutely free to become a Hobby Designer, and design Roleplaying Hobbies, and treat it as a Hobby. Good luck. I hope it sells well.

Why should anything change about the games that currently exist? Why can't RPGs and your new RPH exist simultaneously?

-Hyp.

 

[Corinth]

No, dammit, it doesn't meet with my approval. When it limits its potential audience, when it limits choice of action for all intents and purposes (and don't tell me it doesn't), when it gives people a skewed vision of what it's all about, and all that it could be, I disapprove.

Your way would drastically shrink the size of the hobby community because the people that would want to get into your brand of hobby already have far more viable and established outlets. The writers have a score of different publishing channels while the actors have the theater and cinema- and the directors have their niche through that part of the culture. There is no way that you'd get nearly enough of those folks to come into the hobby to replace the gamers that you'd drive away if you got your way. This is fiscal and subcultural suicide, and most of us--be we just common gamers or someone more involved in the hobby (publishers, retailers, etc.)--recognize that to be true. The gamers always were, are now and ever shall they be where it's it.

You prefer it as a game. Fine, I hope you have tons of fun with it. But don't tell me I have to. Don't tell me I can't point out the many and various flaws that, as a game, keep it from a greater audience.

No, we already have that greater audience. Your way would replace that greater audience with a far lesser one.

How dare I accuse the sainted game designers of treating it like a game? Because they do! 'Fairness', 'balance', that's game talk. Well I say it's parcheesi, and I say the Hell with it. You want to stay with the game paradigm, fine by me. I'm going with the 'hobby' paradigm thank you very much.

The theater is that way, and your histronics are far more suited to that subculture than this one.

So stick with your buckboard, I'm looking for an SUV.

No, you're looking for a reason to justify why you can't get any lasting satisfaction with the gaming hobby when the answer is in the mirror- you. If you don't like what you see, then get lost and go do something that fits your wants better.

 

[mythusmage]

Sounds good so far.

What's in this whole Roleplaying Hobby thing? I'm intrigued. What sort of skills do I need? Should I dress up? It sounds like a lot of work.

Actually it's a lot like RPGs, only instead of saying "I did 8 points to the ogre." you say things like, "With a mighty blow to his upper (left) thigh I lay a smackdown of 8 points! Does it get through his armor?"

 

[Hypersmurf]

Actually it's a lot like RPGs, only instead of saying "I did 8 points to the ogre." you say things like, "With a mighty blow to his upper (left) thigh I lay a smackdown of 8 points! Does it get through his armor?"

Is there a feat I can take to increase that 8 to something substantial? Or preferably a combination of Prestige Classes?

-Hyp.

 

[mythusmage]

So... Roleplaying Games are being treated as games by game designers. That sounds like all is right with the world.

Nobody's telling you you have to play a game. You're absolutely free to become a Hobby Designer, and design Roleplaying Hobbies, and treat it as a Hobby. Good luck. I hope it sells well.

Why should anything change about the games that currently exist? Why can't RPGs and your new RPH exist simultaneously?

-Hyp.

Why not? Because in my considered opinion such as D&D®, Vampire®, and the rest could have a larger audience, as hobbies.

 

[d4]

Why not? Because in my considered opinion such as D&D®, Vampire®, and the rest could have a larger audience, as hobbies.

and it seems that the rest of us are in agreement that they would not.

look, if making RPGs more like play-acting would result in a larger audience -- it would have already happened.

it's been tried, and those RPGs never did as well as the ones that were, you know, games.