Reinventing Roleplaying Games

[med stud]

The good thing about RPGs being called games is that lots of people enjoy playing games. So far I have only met a few people who doesnt like to play any kind of games. Some of these people will get curious when they see a role playing game and some of the curious people will get hooked. Most wont get hooked, either because it is too time consuming, takes too much logistics or that it is just not their cup of tea. I think it's a delusion to think it's possible to make RPGs much bigger than they are now.

But, as others have said before, hobby is a vague term that is generally used to describe things that most people dont enjoy. And if someone who picks up the book that says "Role Playing Hobby" and finds out that what he buys has much in common with a game he may be confused to what he has bought.

The more I think about it the more confusing the term Role Playing Hobby appears. I can see where you are coming from but the changes you have proposed so far wouldnt do anything to increase sales.

 

[mythusmage]

You know, if you went by some of the responses this thread has gotten you'd think the RPH makes Fundamentalist Christians seem positively progressive.

And as for missing the point, oy!

Now that I've riled up the pond again, I'm off to compose a comprehensive reply to my 'fans'.

 

[mythusmage]

Some People Aren't on the Same Page

After thinking about it for awhile, I've decided to address each point raised separately. This time around I'll be dealing with the misunderstanding regarding my comparing the roleplaying hobby with real life.

First of all, I'm not talking about 'realism' or 'simulationism' in any sense of the words. What I am talking about is a feature RPGs already share with real life. In that you cannot reliably predict the outcome of an event before it has occurred.

Let me reiterate: In an adventure, as in real life, the course of events cannot be reliably predicted. You can hope for the best, but it's not guaranteed.

Nothing about simulating reality. An RPG already simulates reality in one particular, in that you cannot, with any degree of certainty, determine what will happen. Unless you stack the deck in favor of an event going the way you want, and even then things can always turn out differently.

This last is called 'manipulating events' and it occurs in real life too. Doesn't always work.

No call for realism, no call for simulating anything. Only a simple fact. RPGs are like real life because of a feature they share with real life. That's all. Are we clear now?

The first person to claim I'm calling for realism in RPGs gets from a visit from Laurence Simon's cats. All four. You don't want a visit from Lair's cats (especially Nardo).

 

[Umbran]

Let me reiterate: In an adventure, as in real life, the course of events cannot be reliably predicted. You can hope for the best, but it's not guaranteed.

Yep. This is why we use dice (or occaisonally cards, or rock-scissors-paper, or whatever). So far, no need for "reinvention". We already have it.

 

[trollwad]

There have been some excellent posts by Umbran, etc. and I wish I could address each one. However, although the guy who started this post is maddeningly vague, I think he does have at least one relevant point. Our hobby/games needs to attract an influx of young people to remain viable and vibrant. TO ME (this is NOT a scientific assessment), it seems that D&D, and other rpgs (even fantasy lit like comics) are less visible than when I was a child. I remember such being carried by 7-11 and Wal-Mart as a kid. Practically, every kid that I knew growing up at least tried d&d even if they 'outgrew' it.

There are many potential causes of such. One obvious one is the ever-increasing role of videogames. Nowadays, when I visit the houses of one of my friends who has children, I am usually STUNNED to see how widespread nintendo, playstation, etc are. Think about it, look at the difference between Temple of Elemental Evil (the pc game and the only one I own) and Combat or one of the really old video games 10-15 years ago. What do you think the video games of 10-15 years in the future will look like? Simply put, the exponential rise in pc processing power makes them ever more 'realistic' and visual -- and ever more competitive with our beloved hobby/games.

Not to betray my business orientation, but how do you compete with the video game onslaught -- how do you market against it? Already, I notice that the one teenager in our gaming group and at least one other older guy automatically assume the 'right' way to play rpgs is as a video game because it is what they are acculturated to -- it is the modern default and gamers are slowly being squeezed into a niche. The teenager is actually very bright and a very good kid but he averages losing one character every 2 sessions or so (video games have a save function), he doesnt really roleplay too much (rp options limited in video games), his characters are always tricked out specialists (who die because they always have absurd weaknesses), gets frustrated when he doesnt advance rapidly (video game powerpills), and has trouble playing any alignment other than chaotic neutral/evil (video games dont have many repercussions for such). Having watched d&d evolve since the little brown books over two decades ago, 3.5e is a decent edition but it is very video-game like in some areas.

Is the niche that d&d survives in 20 years from NOW the niche of improv theater that this post originator is sorta intimating? Is that desirable? Or do we just end up dooming ourselves even more by emphasizing the things video games have trouble with (acting, spontaneity), we end up reducing our appeal to newbies even more because we are 'weird'? Dont we need a bridge to the rest of the world?

I THINK that C&C from the troll lords isnt a bad idea. What about a really simple, fast & fun game to get newbies into the game, expand our base at least until processing power and AI crunch our hobby in 20 years or so?

Other thoughts are welcome. I hope this is a little less vague.

 

[trollwad]

Originally Posted by takyris
"Then, as I got better at writing, I tried to be original and inventive and new and different, and I wrote a whole bunch of anti-stories -- heroic stories from the point of view of the bad guy, stories where the hero completely loses or fails to change, stories entirely devoid of dialogue, stories that were too deep for anyone who wasn't me to understand, and so on. I didn't sell for awhile.

And then I realized that I was writing stuff I wouldn't actually want to read.

My university life. Summed up, in a nutshell. With a cherry on top.

Exactly.

The biggest problem in life is figuring out what you want. Once you've got that worked out, the rest is easy."


Barsoomcore and Takyris really hit the nail on the head (at least in describing my life)! The only problem is that if you never experience something that you COULD really like or experience it in a light that you WOULD like it (like roleplaying), you never have that option. Many cool things die or are marginalized simply due to a lack of knowledge about them.

 

[mythusmage]

A Question

This occurred to me while I was playing a game of DX Ball (Mac version).

Are RPGs really games? I know that they're called games, and that they have gamelike features. But, strictly speaking, are RPGs games? By any definition?

Are RPGs games? How are they games? Please show your work.

 

[mythusmage]

...how do you compete with the video game onslaught -- how do you market against it?.

You don't. You find your own niche and market to that. Not everybody plays video games. Some of them might like roleplaying. Video games have their strengths. The roleplaying hobby has its strengths. Why play to the other guy's hand when you've got a good one of your own.

Instead of trying for the video game market why not create a market of our own?

 

[Umbran]

But, strictly speaking, are RPGs games? By any definition?

By some definitions, yes, by others, no.

Let us look at the Dictionary.com definition of game. It includes:

1.An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime: party games; word games.
2a. A competitive activity or sport in which players contend with each other according to a set of rules: the game of basketball; the game of gin rummy.
6a. Informal. An active interest or pursuit, especially one involving competitive engagement or adherence to rules: “the way the system operates, the access game, the turf game, the image game” (Hedrick Smith).
8. Mathematics. A model of a competitive situation that identifies interested parties and stipulates rules governing all aspects of the competition, used in game theory to determine the optimal course of action for an interested party.

RPGs certainly fit definition 1 and 6a. Qualifying as a game under definition 2a and 8 may seem a bit more difficult, until one realizes that the players are frequently a team competing against the challenges set by the GM (who is, in this sense, also playing the game).

 

[Umbran]

Instead of trying for the video game market why not create a market of our own?

Because there's a finite number of possible players, and each player has a finite amount of leisure time available, and a finite amount of money to spend on that leisure.

In this sense, all entertainments are in competition with each other. The time I spend reading a novel is time I won't spend in a movie theatre. Time I spend playing a video game is time I won't spend playing RPGs. Same goes for my hard earned cash.

You are correct, in that there's little point competing for devotees of other entertainments when there's little or no indication that there'd be strong interest among them - RPGs aren't going to gain much if they set to trying to draw new people away from numismatics or bird watching.

However, if my memory serves, market research shows a reasonably strong correllation between certain passtimes. Folks who like RPGs also tend to like science fiction and fantasy literature and media. They also tend to like video games.

If you are looking to increase your sales, you market to people who you expect will like your product - in this case, video game players would not be a bad choice. But now you're trying to get the $$ and time they spend on video games for yourself, and you are in competition...