The Game for Non-Gamers: (Forked from: Sexism in D&D)

[resistor]

I haven't read most of this thread, but I thought I'd toss out my own pet theory on how to expand the audience of TTRPGs. I think the hobby would appeal to a broader audience if we moved away from a competitive mindset and more towards a collaborative approach to making a story/game.

To make some concrete suggestions:

- We need to move towards less randomized mechanics. At the extreme end would be something like Amber Diceless that is completely deterministic, followed by games like Spirit of the Century where the variance is pretty low.

- We need to move towards conflict resolution over task resolution. Don't bother "resolving" whether you hit the monster or not. Only resolve narrative conflicts between characters.

- Don't artificially build up the rules for combat/violent activity. Model everything with the broad mechanics, subject to the earlier points.

Basically, I think a lot of people are turned off by the game-y nature of TTRPGs. You don't hit the ogre, you try to hit the ogre and then roll a bunch of funny dice to see if you succeed. There's a competitive streak in there, even if everyone is ostensibly collaborating to have fun.

I think we could attract more players to the hobby if we toned that down and actually made playing an RPG more like collaborative storytelling than a wargame or boardgame.

 

[Bumbles]

To make some concrete suggestions:

- We need to move towards less randomized mechanics. At the extreme end would be something like Amber Diceless that is completely deterministic, followed by games like Spirit of the Century where the variance is pretty low.

Mind if I ask for this to be firmed up a bit? Mostly because I'm not that familiar with these systems, so I'd like to understand where you're going with it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm pretty sure that randomization in RPG mechanics is so far off the radar that its not even an issue.

After all, most boardgames and card games have randomization in them, and some even celebrate it. One could even argue that most RPGs are less random than the typical boardgame.

And the same could be said of card games- RPG players control more of their destiny than in a typical game of Poker, Blackjack, Go Fish, Mille Bornes or almost any other kind of card game bar CCGs.

If there is one overarching issue that keeps people away, its probably the complexity of most RPGs. Even within the hobby, there are complaints about some systems' "mathyness," and cheers for "rules light" versions of certain games.

That, and the perception that "playing pretend" is something adults are supposed to grow out of.

 

[xechnao]

In a combat you either lose or win. If you win you gain "combat XP" because this means that you learned what it works. It is that simple.

In the social situation things are not that simple. Most of the time resolution is not about winning or losing. And one could even say that you are constantly learning by socializing.

So rules like combat wont do it. I guess what remains here are some campaign rules. So instead of focusing on player rules try to focus on DM rules. Hope this helps.

 

[Umbran]

I wasn't implying that my "Superbness" placed me outsie the pack...the point I was trying to make is that if you run the game in a way that you find interesting and do it well, by and large you will attract players that enjoy your style.

There's lots of cows in the US Midwest, so there steak is common and relatively cheap. But not everyone lives in Ohio, TB.

Unless you are playing in a public space, the game itself doesn't do any of the attracting. It isn't like gaming sessions emit a specific gamer-attracting pheromone, such that random gamers off the street will be drawn to you, cool as that might be. Attracting is done by the GM and the players.

If you have a whole bunch of gamers in your social circle, and if you and your players talk a lot about your game, then that subset of those gamers who enjoy what your game sounds like may start asking to join, if they are the type forward enough to do so.

Do you see how may filtering steps there are in there, TB? Easy access to may eager players does not seem like the normal case. Judging by the talk on these boards (anecdotal, admittedly, but what we have) most of us have smaller circles of gamer-friends, and getting new players is not easy. If there aren't many you can get, you may have to alter your style in order to have some fun with the ones you can get.

It is all well and good that you don't have to, or may feel it somehow unacceptable to change what you, yourself, want to do for the sake of your players. But somehow I don't think most of the people on these boards live in your world - we live in a world where some adaptation to the needs or desires of others is often the best way to a good gaming experience.

 

[Rel]

It is all well and good that you don't have to, or may feel it somehow unacceptable to change what you, yourself, want to do for the sake of your players. But somehow I don't think most of the people on these boards live in your world - we live in a world where some adaptation to the needs or desires of others is often the best way to a good gaming experience.

TB doesn't need me defending him but I don't think that he's quite saying this. I think it's one thing to adapt your style a bit to best meet on the common ground of what works for your group. I think it is another to have to alter your style beyond your "enjoyment zone" to accomodate those who don't wish to play the sort of game you enjoy.

Yes, we see many a tale here about those who lament their lack of players and perhaps it would behoove them to be more inclusive in terms of playstyle if they really want to be gaming. But I think we see as many or more situations where people are not having a good time as a result of incompatable playstyles with those already in their gaming group. A frequent (and wise IMHO) bit of advice to those folks is, "You're better off not playing at all than playing in a group that frustrates you."

The topic of this thread being "The Game for Non-Gamers" seems to suggest that the game needs to be expanded to include styles of play that have, historically, been unsupported or less than fully supported. If those currently playing the game desire those styles of play, either because they themselves would enjoy them or because it would help draw in players who currently find no interest in what the game offers, then I encourage them to look for ways to incorporate them or find other systems that already do.

But I also think it is a reasonable position to desire no real shift in that direction because it is a style of play that they don't enjoy. Just because they don't enjoy that style doen't make them rigid or uncaring of the enjoyment of their current or prospective players.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's only my personal preference; I enjoy games where the details matter. I personally find that they give more rich, engaging, and dynamic games as opposed to those games where the details are glossed over.

Would non-gamers like that kind of game? I have no idea. I don't think there are any studies to prove it one way or the other!

In my mind, those details still exist, even if you're glossing over them, just as they do in combat. If a critical hit is "I hit him in the head," a critical success on a social encounter is "I know exactly what makes him squirm."

The difference is that players don't have to collect and memorize bits of lore and have a dramatic personality to influence their success.

In a combat you either lose or win. If you win you gain "combat XP" because this means that you learned what it works. It is that simple.

In the social situation things are not that simple. Most of the time resolution is not about winning or losing. And one could even say that you are constantly learning by socializing.

So rules like combat wont do it. I guess what remains here are some campaign rules. So instead of focusing on player rules try to focus on DM rules. Hope this helps.

I think that's kind of missing the thrust of it.

In the social situations we've been talking about, things ARE that simple: either the PC gets what they want, or they don't. The rules come up when something has a chance of stopping the PC's from doing what they want.

I don't think we need to replace every instance of character conversation with dice rolls, but I think where there is conflict (social or otherwise) the rules should be used to govern who succeeds.

I believe this is a key to attracting a wider audience who isn't so much into combat: to make things that aren't combat part of the GAME, with RULES, that you can PLAY, rather than to make it something that's binary or governed by a DM's whim. Once I can make a character who is a foppish prince, who can engage in political machinations as dramatic and engaging as any combat (without relying on a good DM), and who could play a game of D&D without ever venturing into the dragon's cave, we're starting to hit a broader base. Not that the foppish prince WOULDN'T venture into the dragon's cave, jut that the player could also enjoy their thing.

I think it's one thing to adapt your style a bit to best meet on the common ground of what works for your group. I think it is another to have to alter your style beyond your "enjoyment zone" to accomodate those who don't wish to play the sort of game you enjoy.

I agree with this. That's part of why, in my mind, we need mechanics that work alongside the butt-kicking rules, rather than ones that require you to be a detail-focused dramatist when your sword is sheathed. That's no better than requiring you to be an overly-specific anatomist when your sword is unsheathed (and both have a way of alienating the more casual players).

 

[Ariosto]

There's probably not a monolithic demographic of "non-gamers". The one safe bet is that if people don't like the current product, then whatever they would like would be notably different. (Of course, the key difference for some might be just a matter of marketing to produce a different perception of the product.)

From RPG to STG
I see several aspects to resistor's suggestions. One is that a move away from task resolution and toward conflict (or, perhaps more aptly, "scene") resolution is a move away from a role-playing game and toward a story-telling game. That's in keeping with the "making a story" emphasis.

Now, there is some overlap in appeal. However, the gulf between those who prefer one or the other is pretty significant -- sometimes openly hostile -- among gamers. I don't know whether that would be true among "non-gamers", or whether STGs would (or will, eventually) in fact prove more popular. I think, though, that the notion that people are likely to be drawn to one via the other is pretty dubious.

Competition and Complexity
Another is that "competition" of some sort is essential to a game -- but need not be player versus player. Players can collaborate as a team in competition against the game itself.

That is in fact the default mode of RPG play. There can be conflicts between character-players with the game master as referee, but those are usually discouraged.

In narrative games, though, there's been some development of approaches that take the GM "out of the loop". It's possible in that case to keep the "game as opponent" model, but variety is rather limited without either a human or a computer devoted to running the game. Put another way, "the GM is the rules" is a way to keep complexity manageable. If every rule in a traditional GM-run RPG had to be stated explicitly, then the corresponding statements would end up making Acts of Congress look like models of brevity.

Rather than reduce the enterprise to what would otherwise become highly stereotyped, perhaps even a mere solvable puzzle, designers have turned their focus to distributing "authorial" power among players.

Games "Non-gamers" Play
That can be done with a simple round robin: now it's your turn to say what happens next. There appear to be quite a few online games like that, pretty popular with the primary- and secondary-school set.

A "problem": They don't look to be in the market for rules! Authorial power is vested the same way as power in other social networking, a real-life "game" in which the participants (mainly teenagers and "tweens") tend to be heavily involved.

In my experience, putting "gamers" into such a scheme tends to result in competition directly at the narrative level -- which is the game equivalent of thermonuclear war.

The reason, I think, is simply that they are GAMERS; they want to play a GAME; and just sitting around the campfire telling stories doesn't scratch that itch. Winning friends and influencing people probably doesn't do that either (which is not to say they disdain it, just that they hunger for something else as well).

"Indy" Innovations
So, the distribution of authorial power tends to involve a more conventional game of dice, cards, chips, or whatever. For some people, this "gamist" aspect -- because of its purity, its dissociation from "simulation" -- draws distractingly too much attention to itself. Combining the approach in a hybrid with GM moderation does not seem to help very much.

Determinism in a GM-run game seems often (as illustrated in previous posts in this thread) to draw attention to the GM's power. Rolling dice does not actually put power in players' hands, instead ceding it to the dice, but simply taking it away from the GM clearly pleases some folks very much.

(For myself, I appreciate the opportunity, even as GM, to be surprised by the results of fortune!)

There are some potentially interesting developments in 4E in particular that seem to parallel trends in board-game design -- but this post is long enough!

 

[LostSoul]

I will number the questions so I don't have to split up the quote.

1. Ok, so why do you like requiring it? 2. Can the GM not get a desirable result without being so restrictive? 3. Do you find the idea that "It's nice if the player can describe things, and let them matter, but the GM don't have to require them" unacceptable as you indicated you did earlier? 4. If so, why? I can understand liking descriptions, truly I can, I can even understand giving them some weight, but demanding seems a bit strong.

1. I like requiring it because it means that one must always consider the in-game perspective. That, I find, leads to more dynamic and changing situations in the game.

2. I'm not sure what you mean by a "desirable result". The result that I desire is one where the fiction - the in-game situation - is engaging and grabs the players. I think it's harder for any player to engage with the fiction when there isn't as much attention put on it.

3. I have played in games where you didn't have to describe your action in order to proceed. Sometimes this would result in things like "I roll my Intimidate to scare the girl away from my rival". There is a danger of back-sliding away from the fiction to just focusing on the mechanics.

It's not that I find it "unacceptable" in the sense that "you are playing wrong". I think that it is easier to get that kind of engaging fiction when you put the focus of the mechanics on the "fluff".

4. The reason why I'd personally want it to be impossible to proceed in this hypothetical game is so that there's no chance to backslide, to play on through a game without considering the in-game situation.

For example, Skill Challenges in 4E seem to work really well for me when I the players describe their actions and we roll the dice to resolve those actions. When it becomes a situation of just dice rolling, ie. "I roll my Intimidate", "That's a success", "I roll my Diplomacy", "That's a failure", etc., I personally find it less satisfying.

I ran a skill challenge a while back where the PCs were trying to build a rope of climbing. The end result was that they created a cursed magic item. In the beginning of the skill challenge I never would have imagined that was where we would end up; we only got there because I (the DM) was playing off the descriptions of their actions and rolling with it.

If the player had simply said, "I want to infuse the rope with magic; I roll my Arcana" instead of "I gather some snakes then sacrifice them, taking their spirit energy and putting it into the rope; I'll roll my Arcana to see if it works", we wouldn't have ended up in the same place.

 

[LostSoul]

I believe this is a key to attracting a wider audience who isn't so much into combat: to make things that aren't combat part of the GAME, with RULES, that you can PLAY, rather than to make it something that's binary or governed by a DM's whim. Once I can make a character who is a foppish prince, who can engage in political machinations as dramatic and engaging as any combat (without relying on a good DM), and who could play a game of D&D without ever venturing into the dragon's cave, we're starting to hit a broader base. Not that the foppish prince WOULDN'T venture into the dragon's cave, jut that the player could also enjoy their thing.

I agree with this.