Bards R Us
First Post
Crothian said:
Good one
Reinventing Roleplaying Games
- Thread starter mythusmage
- Start date
Good one
Psion
Adventurer
Bards R Us said:Just mentioning the words "d20" or "DnD" on those sites is enough for people to pull out the pitchforks and torches
Oh no. No no no. Dunno about the forge, but on RPGnet, a few other stalwarts and myself have quite a little beachhead. There's plenty of folks there who don't care to play it, but the most persistent anti-DnD frothers like Funksaw and Kamikaze were basically laughed off the boards.
Actually, the RPGnet phenomenon is what makes me laugh at all these "D&D is going to hell in a handbasket" threads. At one time, it was much more hostile to D&D than it is now. But now it is somewhat different. Though lots of people don't like it, lots admit to playing it and liking it, even though they play other games. That tells me that 3e/d20 has an enduring attraction and is growing.
And that's not the first place I saw this phenomenon. I saw the local (DC) area mailing list go from a rabidly anti-d20 list to a fairly D&D/d20 friendly one.
Bards R Us
First Post
Psion said:
Yeah I've sorta noticed that too. Keep up the good work. It would be nice for a site that claims to welcome gamers of ALL RPGs to actually start living up to the name........
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
My university life. Summed up, in a nutshell. With a cherry on top.takyris said:
Exactly.
The biggest problem in life is figuring out what you want. Once you've got that worked out, the rest is easy.
mythusmage: preaching revolution is a sign of unclear thought. Once you know what kind of games (sorry, "activities") you want to play, you'll play them. If you have a vision of a kind of product that will turn RPGs into a huge new market twice the size it is now, follow it, and produce it.
But what it SOUNDS like you're asking for is for everybody else to change the way they do things. They're not going to, no matter how convincing your argument that it will grow the hobby may be. You need to come up with things YOU can do that will make a difference, not offer a prescription for everyone else to do the work for you.
Cause we're all kind of busy over here playing games, y'see....
Hjorimir
Adventurer
If it is any consolation, I’ve always considered D&D more of a hobby than a game. I think that when you spend so much time reading books, preparing adventures, painting miniatures, researching history, etc. that is has gone from game to hobby.
That being said, I can almost hear the frustration in your posts and I’ve been there myself. It is easy to become jaded with the game as it becomes repetitive. Add the fact that jaded players are infectious and it can really bring down the enjoyment of the game.
There are a lot of ways to address this. One is to try and get everybody playing D&D to change their perspective. I just don’t know how feasible that really is.
Another (my approach) is to work on a nuclear level to inspire this in those people you game with (yes I said game…it is a part of the hobby). I am constantly asking for feedback from my players about all kinds of issues within the campaigns I run (I have too many players to fit into one group, really).
I try and take that feedback and find better and better ways to make it fun for everybody involved. I’ve been DMing for over 20 years now and I am still learning and improving within the hobby. But the road isn’t smooth getting there. There are all kinds of different drives. Some prefer to go really, really fast and others like a slower scenic drive.
I am all for deep-immersion in a character and that is more interesting to me than many other aspects of the game. But I have players who are more interested in the numbers on their sheets, or the combats, or the treasures. Role-playing is sophisticated and draws different people for different reasons. The common goal among everybody? Have fun.
That being said, I can almost hear the frustration in your posts and I’ve been there myself. It is easy to become jaded with the game as it becomes repetitive. Add the fact that jaded players are infectious and it can really bring down the enjoyment of the game.
There are a lot of ways to address this. One is to try and get everybody playing D&D to change their perspective. I just don’t know how feasible that really is.
Another (my approach) is to work on a nuclear level to inspire this in those people you game with (yes I said game…it is a part of the hobby). I am constantly asking for feedback from my players about all kinds of issues within the campaigns I run (I have too many players to fit into one group, really).
I try and take that feedback and find better and better ways to make it fun for everybody involved. I’ve been DMing for over 20 years now and I am still learning and improving within the hobby. But the road isn’t smooth getting there. There are all kinds of different drives. Some prefer to go really, really fast and others like a slower scenic drive.
I am all for deep-immersion in a character and that is more interesting to me than many other aspects of the game. But I have players who are more interested in the numbers on their sheets, or the combats, or the treasures. Role-playing is sophisticated and draws different people for different reasons. The common goal among everybody? Have fun.
My advice, mythusmage, is that you not go into marketing.
You are correct that role playing games can be much more than games. They can stretch a great distance over into live-action role playing, off into live-combat role playing. But "more" is not necessarily better. You need to be somewhat more specific before you'll attract adherents.
When you do so, remember that even in our own comunity, there's a limit to what folks think is reasonable. A great many folks here feel that live-action role playing is too weird for them, for example.
You are correct that for many of us, "role playing hobby" is a more accurate description than "role playing game". But, in trying to reach the public or current gamers, accuracy may not be the issue.
Technically, the definition of "hobby" fits. However, it has altogether the wrong connotations. As others have pointed out, it has connotations of extreme amounts of time, effort, and money placed into the activity. Furthermore, I expect that the activities that most people think of when they hear the word "hobby" are not particularly dynamic. They think of coin collecting, railroad models, birdwatching, and suchlike. If you're trying to attract people to the dynamic role-play, adventure and story-telling aspects, you've really picked the wrong word.
Most folks who don't play RPGs don't really know what "role playing" is.
Everybody has at least a vague notion of what a "game" is. It is an activity you undertake. It has some rules. There will be choices to make as they play. They may be fooled that it also has victory conditions, but you can disabuse them of that notion soon enough. All in all, that's not a bad starting point.
If you call it a "hobby" though, what are you telling them about the activity? Exactly zero. "Hobby" covers everything from sailing and hiking to reading to stamp collecting.
So, "role-playing gmae" tells the person a lot more than "role playing hobby", even if for most practitioners, the latter is more accurate.
And, to be honest, RPGs are different enough from most activities that I'm of the opinion that you should not introduce folks to them by tossing them into the deep end of the pool. It swamps them with more than they can comprehend at once. This only works as a learning tool if you're rather forced to continue. For a leisure activity, making things too complicated at the start scares people off. It is better to start them with a game, a thing they comprehend, and then teach them other things later.
So, leave it a "role playing game". Those who don't know about them will find that easier to grasp. Those who do know about them are not really limited by the term.
You are correct that role playing games can be much more than games. They can stretch a great distance over into live-action role playing, off into live-combat role playing. But "more" is not necessarily better. You need to be somewhat more specific before you'll attract adherents.
When you do so, remember that even in our own comunity, there's a limit to what folks think is reasonable. A great many folks here feel that live-action role playing is too weird for them, for example.
You are correct that for many of us, "role playing hobby" is a more accurate description than "role playing game". But, in trying to reach the public or current gamers, accuracy may not be the issue.
Technically, the definition of "hobby" fits. However, it has altogether the wrong connotations. As others have pointed out, it has connotations of extreme amounts of time, effort, and money placed into the activity. Furthermore, I expect that the activities that most people think of when they hear the word "hobby" are not particularly dynamic. They think of coin collecting, railroad models, birdwatching, and suchlike. If you're trying to attract people to the dynamic role-play, adventure and story-telling aspects, you've really picked the wrong word.
Most folks who don't play RPGs don't really know what "role playing" is.
Everybody has at least a vague notion of what a "game" is. It is an activity you undertake. It has some rules. There will be choices to make as they play. They may be fooled that it also has victory conditions, but you can disabuse them of that notion soon enough. All in all, that's not a bad starting point.
If you call it a "hobby" though, what are you telling them about the activity? Exactly zero. "Hobby" covers everything from sailing and hiking to reading to stamp collecting.
So, "role-playing gmae" tells the person a lot more than "role playing hobby", even if for most practitioners, the latter is more accurate.
And, to be honest, RPGs are different enough from most activities that I'm of the opinion that you should not introduce folks to them by tossing them into the deep end of the pool. It swamps them with more than they can comprehend at once. This only works as a learning tool if you're rather forced to continue. For a leisure activity, making things too complicated at the start scares people off. It is better to start them with a game, a thing they comprehend, and then teach them other things later.
So, leave it a "role playing game". Those who don't know about them will find that easier to grasp. Those who do know about them are not really limited by the term.
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Sargon the Kassadian
First Post
Changing the name changes nothing, it would still be the same game (not hobby). The public would just think it was even more nerdy/exclusive (hobbies are generally not for the general public). Not to mention that RPH and roleplaying hobby just don't sound very good.
Actually yes. Just sounds like renaming each word...like in teh White Wolf system how in one game it's Rage, anotehr it's Taint, another Paradox....each system has one "bad" trait that you don't want to get too high or you become an NPC. Everything you're saying is just different wordings of things many ALREADY do.mythusmage said:
Why should I? I mean seriously. The example I gave is a pretty common one for me and probably at least 2/3 of the folks who just sit down like that with us end up as regular gamers. I don't think we need to get all 100% of the populace involved. While that could potentially be cool as you would never lack for people to game with, there are plenty of people who are naturally going to not want to sit around a table pretending to be other people. (We call these people Republicans *wink* Yes I'm joking.)mythusmage said:
I'd say at least 2d6 damage, possibly 3d6 if it was a really big windmill.mythusmage said:
Hagen
Uhm dude...hatet o break it to ya but that same info is ALREADY in damn near every RPG book out there produced since the early 90s. The second paragraph is EXACTLY what current books do.mythusmage said:
BTW I know how RPGs are competitive...it's us against the monsters or us vs the DM (if you prefer the KotD version) *grin* You go on adventures (sometimes in dungeons) and such, kill things, take their goodies...this describes the core of probably 70% of the campaigns out there for ANY system.
Why exactly is it that you're trying to do this again? SO far I've seen no one who thinks the game vs hobby thing is an issue and most agree that the connotations implied by hobby (lots of time invested, money, collecting stuff) are less attractive than the ones implied by the word game. Probably less attractive would be a description of the stereotype of a D&D player. Of course, if you then point out yourself and your 6 friends who the individual knows to be decent and interesting people who dont' fit this BO-ridden, socially inept goober description, they won't sweat it.
To put it all another way, the burden of proof of a problem with the word game being used as part of the description of our collective hobby (b/c we've all spent WAY too much time and money on this to be JUST a game anymore) is entirely on you and so far the proof is sitting in the corner farthest from the pudding complaining that pudding makes it break out in hives.
Hagen
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TheAuldGrump
First Post
You know, when I was a wee tyke there was a big push to change "Science Fiction" to "Speculative Fiction".
This idea sounds like it would be almost as successful.
It is a game, you play it for enjoyment. You play it with other people. And let us be honest - it is 'Advanced Let's Pretend'.
That it is also a hobby and an umbrella for other hobbies (wargaming, miniature painting, etc.) does not change the fact that it is a game any more than the fact that wargaming is a hobby changes it from being a game.
The Auld Grump
This idea sounds like it would be almost as successful.
It is a game, you play it for enjoyment. You play it with other people. And let us be honest - it is 'Advanced Let's Pretend'.
That it is also a hobby and an umbrella for other hobbies (wargaming, miniature painting, etc.) does not change the fact that it is a game any more than the fact that wargaming is a hobby changes it from being a game.
The Auld Grump
