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

[bento]

I've got a breakdown of how I do this on my blog, but the short version is you can get an awesome game experience by trying to follow a story structure - introduction, exposition, rising action, climax, coda - within a single night's session. You do this by remaining flexible and using scene cutting to push the game along, as well as introducing and pushing conflict at the characters. Metagame mechanics also help a great deal by giving the players more authoritarian control. Fast simple rules help as well.

But the problem with this structure is when you're GMing a multi-session adventure. There is no introduction, players most likely won't reach an end point, and GMs have to deal with players wandering away from the adventure at any time. While some GMs have the experience to fit a multi-session adventure into episodes, I'm in a group that stops at midnight, not when the episode is complete.

The more I read these threads the less attractive my own TRPG experiences feel. While there are some sessions that are gold, these are maybe one out of four. More likely its driving over an hour to get to the game, waiting up to an hour for everyone to show up, social talk and order pizza, and only three hours of TRPG, with much of it spent trying to keep the players on track or having them deal with a resource issue.

If anything, I'd like to see a change in mindset about how TRPGs are run, beginning with giving players an overview of the adventure (tonight you're going to go to a castle and kill a vampire) and shrinking character management with tools to minimize valuable play time. Maybe TRPGs should be more like board games where there are pre-set paths to travel and player options fit on one card. I didn't like the board game Descent, but maybe there are some things that game offers that should be considered.

 

[RFisher]

Arguably, a game like Final Fantasy X does the storytelling thing better than TRPGs. So, I don't know that focusing more on the storytelling aspects is really focusing on the strengths of the medium either.

 

[gizmo33]

It's strange that a lot of us have been playing for decades and we still can't solidly define what RPGs really are.

I don't like "story telling game" - reminds me too much of railroading, and if I wanted railroading and limited options I'd go with a MMORPG. I play RPGs because it's a chance to explore an imaginary setting with a limitless set of options (hopefully). And you're not just exploring physical terrain - you explore (and interact with) magic systems, political systems, social systems, ecological sytems, etc. Plus you can roll dice, level up, manage resources, make jokes, see what NPCs will do in response to what you do. I don't want the DM to have an agenda when he's adjucating all of this.

So my character could, for example, come across a dragon in charge of a band of wizards (social system) who have developed a network of portals (magic system) to try to dominate the local region (political system). My character gets to talk to rulers, fight the monsters, figure out how the portal system works. He can kill all the monsters, take over the thing, and use it as a base for further exploration - or just blow the thing up, marry the local duchess, and outfit a ship for further exploration. Or find an alternate dimension within the portal system. Or whatever - the ideal situation IMO is the flexibility I have to define the events. The basic problem with MMORPGs IMO is that even a bad DM is nearly infinitely more intelligent and creative than a computer.

IMO a good DM reacts to the situations and allows players to choose their own actions. This makes story telling pretty much impossible because there's no story to tell until after the action is over and at that point folks are probably to busy declaring actions for the next round of events. If any story telling goes on, it's after the game, not a part of it.

MMORPGs also have too many PCs, AFAICT. And those PCs aren't immersed in the setting at all - they're obviously just metagaming and building up their characters (except for a few crackpots that are too used to RPGs). Large hordes of people meandering about, clubbing things. No one seems to have any investment in the world other than accumulating stuff and becoming more powerful. To me, it doesn't resemble any sort of real fantasy world in the least.

 

[wedgeski]

I don't like "story telling game" - reminds me too much of railroading, and if I wanted railroading and limited options I'd go with a MMORPG.

And the sooner that 'railroading' loses this ridiculous extreme-end-of-the-spectrum connotation that it seems to have acquired, the happier I'll be. Different thread I guess.

 

[pawsplay]

The future of TRPGs:

1. Kill the story.
Stories are the realm of books and movies. In a game, stories are told after the fact. In an RPG, the purpose is to GAME the setting, not to tell stories in it. Things like plot, theme, and character development can be used as analogies, but really RPGs are about setting, events, experience, and decision making. RPGs are not "storytelling games."

2. Bring on the game.
No one complains about a game of chess "killing the story." An hour long fight against monsters is exactly the point of many RPG sessions. The central issue is to make it a fun game, not a boring one. Talking is fun, and so exploring and creating an imagined environment, but roleplaying is about experience and decision-making. True "storytelling games" are just play-by-post affairs. An hour long fight is not a half-assed recreation of a MMORPG battle, it's something quite different. Options are more numerous, reactions less predictable, tactics less reliable.

3. Play a role.
People play RPGs to play a role, period. Whether they identify with a character or simply empathize with one, that is why they play. Indeed, in my view, even the GM plays a character; the GM's personality and beliefs shape the reality of the world, such that is has a morality, a mood, a consistency of nature, a personality.

4. Creative endeavors.
RyanD's chart is flawed in one important way. It shows sales. People continue to play games for years and years and years, often out of proportion to the number of rulebooks owned. His chart doesn't show RPGs are doomed; it shows his "sell corebooks to the masses" business model was flawed. One thing drives the RPG industry; new products that people want. Not "customer service." Not "brand." Both of those things are important, but I don't buy music CDs based primarily on customer service or brand. I don't want a "music service." I buy a CD because I value the creativity that produced it. Monster manuals may be geared toward GMs, but players buy them, too... not for nefarious purposes, I think, but simply because they enjoy reading about monsters. That's why the "encounter format" versions of monsters and the dearth of world-specific information and ecological stuff has made monster manuals less popular now than they ever have been. People enjoy the FR setting and Eberron and such because it puts that information back... in a sense, the Monster Manuals are mainly reference cards for the published settings.

RPGs are readable in a way MMORPGs are not. Above all else, they are books about games, and should cleave to the fact that they are books.

Trying to sell an RPG "service," whether in the form of a subscription to game supplements, pay for play, even magazine subscriptions, has never been a source of great profit.

5. It's the product, stupid.
Look at how the poker industry makes money. You sell cards. You sell books about poker. You sell poker chips. You have poker conventions. The same goes for baseball: You have ticket sales. You have TV. You have actual baseballs. You have little league.

So to make money, the RPG industry should produce a lot of products catering to both the enthusiast and the enthusiastic novice. I don't know what kind of profit they turned, but D&D for Dummies was a fanstastic idea for a product.

Game books, supplements, dice, minis, T-shirts, events, novels, how-to guides.

Selling "customer service" is the same as selling air. How is the RPG industry going to service a customer better than the GM?

 

[maddman75]

But the problem with this structure is when you're GMing a multi-session adventure. There is no introduction, players most likely won't reach an end point, and GMs have to deal with players wandering away from the adventure at any time. While some GMs have the experience to fit a multi-session adventure into episodes, I'm in a group that stops at midnight, not when the episode is complete.

Part of what led me to this structure is a long series of fizzling game groups. We'd get some people together, I'd have some big long multisession arc to set up, and it would die off before we got anywhere. I changed my perspective. I would not spend much time setting future games up - most of my effort needed to be to make *tonight* a completely awesome game.

The trick is to control the flow so that when midnight rolls around, the episode is complete. That, or you throw in a twist or complication and announce a 'To Be Continued' episode. Next game, your recap is the introduction and you start right back in the action. Again, this is not railroading because you aren't pushing them at a paticular conclusion, rather you are pushing them toward an emotionally satisfying one. The players come to love this, and I've been threatened with a dice-pelting for doing the TBC on more than one occasion. Players want to finish the episode tonight!

The more I read these threads the less attractive my own TRPG experiences feel. While there are some sessions that are gold, these are maybe one out of four. More likely its driving over an hour to get to the game, waiting up to an hour for everyone to show up, social talk and order pizza, and only three hours of TRPG, with much of it spent trying to keep the players on track or having them deal with a resource issue.

I've found that by planning for social time it makes everything go a lot smoother. If you game at six, plan to get together to eat and hang out, maybe play a card game or video games or something. Then when its time to game, you can game!

If anything, I'd like to see a change in mindset about how TRPGs are run, beginning with giving players an overview of the adventure (tonight you're going to go to a castle and kill a vampire) and shrinking character management with tools to minimize valuable play time. Maybe TRPGs should be more like board games where there are pre-set paths to travel and player options fit on one card. I didn't like the board game Descent, but maybe there are some things that game offers that should be considered.

I don't know if it needs to go down that far. You can also have asynchronous rules. Cinematic Unisystem, what I'm running now, has a fairly complete character rule system. But the bad guys can be put on a quick sheet, and can effectively be run with just a half-dozen numbers. This'll fit on a 3x5 card easily. This lets the game be run fast and loose while giving the players plenty of options.

As I was reading through my blog again when digging up the link, I thought maybe I could put something more formal together, like a scene creation form. Establish the set, the conflict that is explored, and the characters involved. Simple, but might be effective.

 

[mhensley]

Perhaps we also need to look at how many people have played an MMORPG then moved on to tabletop gaming as a result?

My current gaming group has 4 members who started with crpgs and now play trpgs too. They haven't moved on, but play both WoW and D&D.

 

[mhensley]

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.

Perhaps you should check your own level of medication.

Do you realize that Mongoose produces a lot more rpg products than just for D&D? They make Conan, Runequest, and soon Traveller just to name a few. In a few years, they could easily be the number 2 or 3 rpg company.

And since he runs the company and knows exactly how much they sell, I don't doubt what he says one bit. It's much more likely that Ryan's numbers are off.

 

[Dragonhelm]

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 that depends on who you ask. As mentioned in prior posts on this thread, different people play RPGs for different reasons. Some like character builds, some are story or character-focused, some like world-building, and so on and so forth.

I guess the question to ask is what common theme links all these types of gamers together in the same hobby? Is it that one hobby has something to offer for many people? Is it just the spirit of adventure?

Personally, I think TSR's old tag-line of "products of your imagination" needs to make a comeback. To me, that's the selling point of RPGs. You can use your imagination to create characters (builds or story), create adventures, tell a story, and so forth. That's your common theme. That's what sets apart RPGs from computer games. The players and GM build the world and are the ones in charge, not some computer program. The limits are, literally, that of the imagination.

Therefore, I think we need to engage in metamorphosis from “roleplaying games” to “storytelling games”. And in that change lies the seeds of our success.

I think you're on the right track, though perhaps not in the way you were thinking.

I work at an ad agency who is very big into relevance. We're also very big into brand identity. What we're facing right now is whether or not RPGs are relevant to a young audience who has card games and computer games. As an industry, we could stand to have some new identity. Personally, I think a good ad agency could do wonders for WotC, which in turn would do wonders for the industry as a whole.

Redefine what a role-playing game is. Don't shy away from it being a geeky thing, because these days, being a geek is almost a badge of honor. Give a new face to RPGs. Show how it has its own niche. Show what it can do that other RPGs can't.

Advertising, advertising, advertising! Part of what makes the trading card games so popular is that they have cartoons doing the advertising for them. My son loves Yu-Gi-Oh even though the plot is the same from episode to episode. When was the last time there was a TV commercial for D&D? The 80's? WotC needs to tap into the Hasbro advertising budget and pimp their products in appropriate avenues. Sci-Fi channel and Cartoon Network are great avenues. How about some of the podcasts that Farpoint Media puts out? Maybe the smaller companies won't have the budget for this, but again, WotC can blaze a trail and the results will trickle down to other companies as well. The industry as a whole benefits.

Redefinition of our identity coupled with proper advertising is what our industry needs. Get the word out and pimp that identity, and the rest will fall into place.

(All in my all-so-humble opinion, of course! )

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I was just struck by a thought about perception of gamers.

When MMORPGs were growing, the image that came to most people's heads when you mentioned online gaming was some guy up all night in his parents basement. Not a flattering image. Today if you mention those online gaming, you are more likely to come up with an image of people comfortable in their living room using their XBox or sitting in a front of a nice computer with soft lighting while playing WoW or Second Life. The image has been shifted from an odd hobby played by odd people, to one of general entertainment.

Another example would be poker. Used to be poker evoked images of beer-swilling guys in the garage or seedy games in a dark room. Now people get the images from the TV poker tournaments. That image is much more flattering now than it used to be.

There has been no such shift in TRPGs. The only image that comes to most people's heads is four or five people around a table with odd looking dice talking and acting strange. Forget changing the game, we need to change the image. Maybe we need a "reality" TV show.

Cast with attractive people playing RPGs in a warmly lit room without a lot of clutter, they sit in comfortable chairs each with a small side table for some of their things while focused on the more "roleplaying" aspects. When it is time for combat, the GM (who is the show's host and must of course be very attractive, possibly a well-known personality) says, "Let's shift to the table." or something. Music builds the tension and everyone moves to a large table that looks like it would belong in an executive conference room. There the tactical part of the game takes place. The show adds somewhat blurry cut scenes evoking images of what is happening as the players describe it, but does not directly show the characters - an arm with a sword flashing towards some screaming beast, a hand raised and flames shoot forth etc. Good editing of course allows much more to happen in each episode than would in a normal hour of gaming. Each week a player is eliminated for poor roleplaying, poor tactical playing or poor teamwork. Behind the scenes shots give you a chance to meet the players, see them interacting socially with each other, confessional scenes etc. On the shows website, the story as played out on the show is transcribed into a narrative tale.​

It could work. At the least it can't do any more damage than the D&D movies.