"Support", who needs it?

[Li Shenron]

One of the reasons why I prefer playing with casual gamers.

 

[Griffon86]

If I may, I'd like to submit a "support" conundrum relevant to the original poster's Star Wars RPG concerns (Edge of Empire, Saga/d20, or West End D6) tied directly to this particular online community.

Click on the "Games" tab at the top of this very page. Under "Other RPGs" it lists "Star Wars: Edge of Empire" (a currently supported game) and "Star Wars (Saga/d20)" (a currently unsupported game as generally defined by discussion in this thread). Yet there's no "Star Wars D6" category for yet another unsupported game, one, as the original poster notes, that still has players with nostalgic interest, if not active fans (as evidenced by other online venues). Obviously this online community at some level determined which such games get listed in that menu (and I'm sure there's a policy/procedure for what lists in that menu). I'll posit that the excuse that this community focuses primarily on D&D/d20 and game derived from that rules tradition remains invalid considering Edge of Empire does not seem to have any game engine roots in the D&D/d20 tradition beyond being a roleplaying game (though I don't speak from firsthand experience).

Why are some unsupported games "more equal" than others?

Clear skies,
Peter

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, for me an actively supported game system is important because I get to play only about once per month. My enthusiasm for a game starts to wane if I don't find a way to engage myself in some way with it at least once a week. Visiting an online forum to discuss the game helps a bit, but it's best if there is a somewhat steady, regular flow of new material to read. Theorycrafting and re-reading books over and over gets old really fast, otherwise. It's slightly less important as a DM if you're using your own setting. Then you can kill time by worldbuilding, writing adventures and designing encounters.

But as a player I need constant input, otherwise I'm losing interest and start forgetting how the rules work or eventually even how to properly play and evolve my character...

 

[Umbran]

Obviously this online community at some level determined which such games get listed in that menu (and I'm sure there's a policy/procedure for what lists in that menu).

No, I think that list is more probably Morrus' personal best guesses, modified when folks tell him he missed something.

Why are some unsupported games "more equal" than others?

Well, there's a little bit of practical realities of User Interface here - drop down lists cease to be useful if they get too long. If we tried to be exhaustive, and list *every* game ever published, nobody would be able to find anything in the list, and nobody would use the feature. So, that list will contain the ones perceived to be the most useful. If folks here were discussing D6 enough, it'd probably get an entry. But I cannot remember the last time we had a D6-specific thread, so I am unsurprised it is not listed.

 

[Morrus]

No, I think that list is more probably Morrus' personal best guesses, modified when folks tell him he missed something.

Yup. No science involved! I did do a bit of browsing backwards through the Tabletop forum for inspiration, but mainly it was "what games have I seen discussed here?"

The way it works is I need to be able to find a bunch of threads before I can add the link to them, though. So I can't add something there until folks have actually started discussing it - otherwise there's nothing for the menu to link to. I'm always happy to add new stuff, though!

 

[JediSoth]

Most of the people with whom I have gamed* will not play a game for which they do not have books, and most are not willing to buy a player's guide for a game I want to run if it's not D&D. It's probably one reason I've started drifting towards games for which I can acquire multiple copies of player's books on the cheap (Savage Worlds, FATE Accelerated, etc.); I can have many table copies and remove the excuse of "Well, I couldn't find the player's guide, so let's just keep playing D&D [Current Edition]). As the main GM & host of the games, I feel I should get some considering for the types of games I want to run. I'm not saying "My way or the highway." I'm just saying to dismiss out-of-hand anything I want to run after years of running D&D just because it's a little more obscure and NOT D&D is not fair to me.


* This is over the course of years, my current group is extremely open-minded in comparison to the way things have been for the last 30 years or so for me. We've already played Star Wars D6, Savage Worlds (Space: 1889), Gamma World, D&D BECMI, D&D 4E, and Pathfinder. Previous groups I've been in would have balked at everything that wasn't current edition, in-print D&D or Pathfinder (which didn't actually exist yet).

 

[Alzrius]

It is a network effect? Is it being afraid of being unable to find players? For a relatively rules light game with a popular setting (like WEG d6 Star Wars) I can't see that as a problem. I took first-time roleplayers and had them playing that game in 5 minutes, and all they knew going in was the 3 movies that existed at the time.

Knowing the three movies gave them a massive set of player knowledge going into the game, which is a huge advantage in getting people interested in playing a game. That wouldn't be the case if you wanted to run, say, Call of Cthulhu for people who'd never even heard "Cthulhu" referenced in popular culture, let alone read any Lovecraft.

The first part of getting people to play a game is locating/generating a sufficient level of interest, and in-print materials have a natural leg up there, simply because there's a greater chance that people have come across them of their own accord and developed that interest on their own. It's harder (albeit sometimes not much harder) to get people excited about something they have no knowledge of than for something they already think that they might like.

Moreover, ease of access to the materials is also a thing. I don't like letting people borrow my books, since I've had things come back looking quite a bit more beat up than when I lent them out. That's when they come back at all. That restricts things to passing around one book at a table so people can read about both a setting, and the character creation/advancement rules...and that can take a long time when you have a larger group. Now do that every time anyone ever wants to consult the rules during game-play, and it can quickly become burdensome.

Those are surmountable obstacles, to be sure, but issues of ease of access also affect how difficult it is to acquire something commercially. It's one thing if you can drive to the local bookstore (maybe after a quick phone call) to pick up the rules for yourself. It's another thing to have to call several local used bookstores, one after another of which doesn't have it, that the few sellers on Amazon.com are selling copies of dubious quality for inflated prices, and that there are some eBay listings, but they'll have open bidding for another nine days, and there are no legal PDF copies for sale.

"Supported" products aren't just games that have splatbooks coming out; that support is making their presence felt in the community, to try and do some of the work towards generating a sufficient level of interest in forming a gaming group and running a campaign, so that you don't have to work quite so hard to make that happen.

 

[innerdude]

I'm talking about "supported" games.

Today I was talking with a co-worker. I see him only rarely, but he's the only other guy at my regular job who I know is into gaming. He mentioned he was starting a Star Wars: Edge of Empire campaign. He asked if I was familiar with it.

I told him I'd not looked at or had anything to do with Edge of Empire. I had almost everything ever published for d6, had run d6 Star Wars for years, had every single book ever published for d20 Star Wars (all 3 editions), had run campaigns of each ruleset, and had a big shoebox full of WotC Star Wars minis and a separate shoebox of their Starship minis line.

I figured I didn't need yet another edition/ruleset and had no intentions of touching Edge of Empire.

He then told me he had equally complete collections of Star Wars games, but he figured he'd never play them again since they were out of print and "unsupported" and thus he felt it would be hard to find players for and hard to run a game without "support." I didn't have time for a long discussion, so I moved on, however that's been bugging me all afternoon.

What is bugging me is basically the whole idea of "needing" support in the form of a steady treadmill of supplements, constant errata to keep track of (I seldom kept track of errata for any tabletop game, I think the constant changing of Polymorph spells in D&D 3.0 trying to block tiny rules holes some rules lawyer somewhere was abusing, that my game never ran across burned me out on paying attention to errata for any game)

No one really needs this, per se. But there's a definite sense of "community" involved when you are participating with the "current" edition of a game, though this has been significantly mitigated since the advent of Web 2.0 (social media, forums, blogs, etc.).

When a game goes out of print, or a new edition comes out that people don't like, I've seen many posters be quick to point out you've still got your old books, nobody is forcing you to change. However, for many people, it's like the fact that there is no company out there still making it somehow strips a game of some of its worth.

It is a network effect? Is it being afraid of being unable to find players?

...snip...

Why is it that people won't play a game (or run one) if it doesn't have "support"? Even if they have run it before, or know the rules?

THIS, exactly THIS is why the "Edition Wars" continue. When your preferred version of a game is no longer "in," the principle of scarcity (whether real or perceived) comes into play. The perception is that phasing out an old edition signals something psychological to participants--"This is no longer the supported or preferred edition of the game. Anyone remaining with an old edition is no longer 'with it,' or 'up with the times.'" This may or may not be true, nor even intended by the company producing the edition / version change. But it's still a real phenomenon.

I've been using Adobe Creative Suite CS4 for almost five years now. They're two editions ahead of me now on CS6, or Creative Cloud, or whatever. Do I need CS6? No, not really; I'm perfectly happy with CS4, it's a powerful suite, and it does everything I need it to. But even now, all of the "front page" support and discussion on Adobe's Web site is around CS6. And there are times when I think, "Gee, maybe I DO really need CS6." It's psychological. And businesses use this to their advantage, and it's not even really unethical.

The point is, it's a natural instinct for us. People seem to WANT to move on, out of perception, when there's something "newer." "This is what's new, so it must be inherently better. Or even if it's not inherently better, it's what's going to give me the best chance to participate."

People argue, fight over, and stand up for their preferred editions because we perceive that there is a REAL VALUE in terms of time commitment and opportunity at stake, to participate in RPG play in way that will be enjoyable.

To be truthful, I actually find it mildly offensive when people say, "Really? You're arguing AGAIN about how to best pretend to be an elf?" Well, yes, I am. And you know why? Because I find RPG play to be a unique artistic and entertainment endeavor, one which provides a singular sense of enjoyment based on certain merits. It allows me to explore facets of ethics and values within an experimental structure that also allows me to engage in creativity. Upsetting the balance of that experience through changes in the codified rules (i.e., edition changes) bears the possibility that the total sum experience is disrupted if I move forward.

So why not just stay with the edition you like, you might ask. Well, I could--but again, due to the principle of scarcity, depending on one's situation, staying behind one edition may have a real, tangible impact on a person's ability to enjoy an RPG experience in the frequency and volume they might like. Is this effect often overstated and overblown? Yes, obviously, but that doesn't mean it's not a REAL THING. When we're arguing about RPG rules systems, we're arguing about their ultimate effects on our experience in play---because it's THAT EXPERIENCE on which we place value, and value the frequency and volume of having those experiences.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't think I've run a "supported" game in several years (to be fair, someone else ran Dragon Age once, which I think does count). Supplements were kind of fun when I was a teenager, but I rarely get excited for that kind of stuff now. Nope, don't much care whether a game is supported, just whether it's good.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

For me it's really a question of whether the core rules are still in print. I'm happy to play just about any system, but if we're going to play an ongoing campaign, I like to get a copy of the core rules. If these are out of print, its harder to get them, so there's a chilling effect there.