Ryan Dancey on Redefining the Hobby (Updated: time elements in a storytelling game)

[Bagpuss]

So Ryan's RPG data is an estimate of a 50% reduction over 6 years from an original estimate? Yeah that's going to be an accurate figure.

 

[Belen]

Brilliant!

Mike, I think your analogy is flawed.

A better analogy would be to say "the point of going to the movies is to see pretty pictures". The game part of roleplaying game has the same relationship to the value proposition as the motion pictures do to the movies. You have to have them - that's the medium involved in the art form. But they're NOT THE POINT of the art form. The point is to tell a great story. Movies are 1 to many. 1 entity tells the story, and many people receive it. Storytelling games are many to many -- a group tells a story collectively, and they all enjoy it collectively. Expand that to a community, and a group interacts with a community story, telling a small part of a larger tapestry which they are a part of but not all of.

Focusing on the "game" part of the equation as the value driver is to miss the forest for the trees. On the other hand, take the story out of the equation, and you might as well be playing chess.

 

[Belen]

Did he say where did the sales data for the chart on the hobby games business came from?

I think you should listen to him. He seems to have hit the nail on the head to where my own personal thoughts have been moving and why WOTC has slowly been pushing me to look at older editions of D&D again.

Current D&D seems to sacrifice story for rules.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Current D&D seems to sacrifice story for rules.

To me, it seems more like current D&D gives you rules and lets you work out the story.

Of course, there's no way at all to say if people PLAY this way or the opposite beyond anecdotal evidence and that's not terribly helpful.

For my part, I prefer this approach. I can do the story part just fine on my own and would very much prefer to have the rules good and spelled out so its one less thing to think about while keeping the story, itself, going.

 

[Bagpuss]

Now there may well be active subscriptions without active players, but I doubt Blizzard cares very much.

Heck there are cases of people with multiple subscriptions so they can go on raid's with their other characters run via scripts.

 

[Belen]

If that is correct (and I know it isn't), then Mongoose has a huge, dominating share of the market.

And we don't.

We're good, but not _that_ good

Dude....I have not met anyone who buys or uses Mongoose products in 2 years. That may just be my area, but from conversations on ENW and CM, I believe you're smoking crack.

 

[TerraDave]

I think this is a good thread inspired by some great blog posts. I dont agree with much of it. But I like that is being posted.

I also think mearls full reply is worthy of reposting here.

"The goal of most of the people in the hobby is not “play a role”. The goal of the hobby community is “tell a great story”. "

I think this is a horribly, horribly flawed view of why people play games like D&D. It's akin to saying that people play football to tell great stories. Great stories may arise as a consequence of play, but they aren't the reason why people play in the first place.

It's a simple observational bias. The game sessions we hear about are the ones that make good stories, because we are naturally wired to communicate stories to each other. Yet, that doesn't mean that all worthwhile, intersting game play experiences are stories.

Frankly, I think game creators across all media continue to conflate good story with good game simply because we have yet to evolve an understanding of games that isn't rooted in an understanding of story due to the observational bias present in discussing game experiences.

 

[Belen]

To me, it seems more like current D&D gives you rules and lets you work out the story.

Of course, there's no way at all to say if people PLAY this way or the opposite beyond anecdotal evidence and that's not terribly helpful.

For my part, I prefer this approach. I can do the story part just fine on my own and would very much prefer to have the rules good and spelled out so its one less thing to think about while keeping the story, itself, going.

Well, we may have to agree to disagree. IME, the wealth of rules have impeded the breath and types of stories that can be run with D&D. In addition, the rules have severely limited the story aspects I receive from my players. A good portion of players tend to be far more insular and attentive to character building rather than interaction with one another or the game world.

I am not saying that rules are bad; however, the sheer focus that WOTC places on them has had a negative effect. I would say that this is fairly true for my area. I have gamed with a lot of people in my area when I was a WOTC delegate.

 

[TerraDave]

So, I can't help to think that what Ryan means by "storytelling games" is not what I believe gamers today think of as storyteller games; either World of Darkness, or the short games such as Baron Münchhausen.

That'll create confusion, no doubt.

/M

Who says its confusion? As soon as you say something like the point of role-playing is to "tell great stories", your entering the world of darkness, and in more ways then one.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I think one problem with trying to put RPGs across as "storytelling" is that there are a number of people who are less interested in "storytelling" than in "being part of a story." Most of the players who do not GM that I've played with over the years are people who want a GM to weave a story that they get to take part in. They have no interest in telling the story themselves.

Obviously by taking an unscripted part in the story, they are in fact contributing to the story, but I think if you were to ask most of them, they would not agree that they are "storytelling," and would probably be intimidated by the suggestion that are. Many players want a more passive role in the storytelling, leaving the GM to take the active role. This I think is the appeal of the MMORPGs to so many people - they get to take part in somebody else's story without some of the inconveniences of setting up a TRPG (players, schedules, someone willing to GM, etc.)

I understand that there are a number of hurdles, both real and perceived, to growing the industry, but I'm not sure that a shift from portraying the game as roleplaying to storytelling will remove many of the hurdles and not just replace them with new ones. I do think there is merit in trying to increase understanding of the game and its advantages, and not just trying to be an offline version of a MMORPG.