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So What IS Happening to Tabletop Roleplaying Games? Dancey & Mearls Let You Know!
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<blockquote data-quote="Morrus" data-source="post: 7653550" data-attributes="member: 1"><p>Evil Hat's Fred Hicks posted some interesting stuff publicly on G+:<p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">[hq]Mike was talking about is the idea that the “time where you wanted to be doing something else” used to belong to RPGs, but doesn’t now. If I were to reword it I’d say the idea is essentially that nobody’s got time now for “lonely fun” (sitting around, making characters solo).</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">We’ve been feeling this change for most of our time as a company; it’s some of why we orient on character creation as a group play activity. It also informed some of the direction I gave to +Mike Olson when we kicked off the Atomic Robo RPG, w/ its “create characters AS you play” feature.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">What's interesting to me is that Mike’s take on all that sounds like “we should retake that smartphone time” whereas mine is “let’s stop needing that time”. </p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">The companies that are specializing in acquiring your attention for "smartphone time" are good at that and getting better. There ain't no RPG publishing company that's going to get as good at it as they are because that's not the core competency of RPG publishing, at the end of the day. </p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">We don't do software. We do stories and in-person/tabletop/hangout-driven play experience. That's where I want to "solve" the attention/time problem Mike's talking about — away from the smartphones.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">I want to see play structures and experiences that don't need that time. It used to be we could rely on it — but too many other things compete for that time now, and retaking it might well be a waste of effort.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">I will be super excited if I can be shown that retaking it can be done. But for today's designs, I think it's smartest (if you don't have the resources of Hasbro) to assume we can't, and to make deliberate design choices that work with the constraints of that assumption.[/hq]</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p><p></p><p>I agree with him that an RPG company trying to compete with large multimedia properties like movies and comics and TV is out of the core competency, as he puts it - or as I put it earlier, those things aren't D&D's strengths. I disagree that nobody has time for solo engagement with RPGs - that's exactly what [non-multiplayer] video games are. We have plenty of time for solo activities. What he refers to as "lonely fun" is very common these days - but it's electronically facilitated, not book-facilitated. The tech's changed, but people still have "lonely fun" (that sounds dirty!)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Morrus, post: 7653550, member: 1"] Evil Hat's Fred Hicks posted some interesting stuff publicly on G+:[INDENT] [hq]Mike was talking about is the idea that the “time where you wanted to be doing something else” used to belong to RPGs, but doesn’t now. If I were to reword it I’d say the idea is essentially that nobody’s got time now for “lonely fun” (sitting around, making characters solo). We’ve been feeling this change for most of our time as a company; it’s some of why we orient on character creation as a group play activity. It also informed some of the direction I gave to +Mike Olson when we kicked off the Atomic Robo RPG, w/ its “create characters AS you play” feature. What's interesting to me is that Mike’s take on all that sounds like “we should retake that smartphone time” whereas mine is “let’s stop needing that time”. The companies that are specializing in acquiring your attention for "smartphone time" are good at that and getting better. There ain't no RPG publishing company that's going to get as good at it as they are because that's not the core competency of RPG publishing, at the end of the day. We don't do software. We do stories and in-person/tabletop/hangout-driven play experience. That's where I want to "solve" the attention/time problem Mike's talking about — away from the smartphones. I want to see play structures and experiences that don't need that time. It used to be we could rely on it — but too many other things compete for that time now, and retaking it might well be a waste of effort. I will be super excited if I can be shown that retaking it can be done. But for today's designs, I think it's smartest (if you don't have the resources of Hasbro) to assume we can't, and to make deliberate design choices that work with the constraints of that assumption.[/hq] [/INDENT] I agree with him that an RPG company trying to compete with large multimedia properties like movies and comics and TV is out of the core competency, as he puts it - or as I put it earlier, those things aren't D&D's strengths. I disagree that nobody has time for solo engagement with RPGs - that's exactly what [non-multiplayer] video games are. We have plenty of time for solo activities. What he refers to as "lonely fun" is very common these days - but it's electronically facilitated, not book-facilitated. The tech's changed, but people still have "lonely fun" (that sounds dirty!) [/QUOTE]
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