The Gaming Ideal

[Zogg]

1. 4 players, 1 DM.
2. Twice a week - one weeknight, one weekend day.
3. 4 hours on weeknight, 8 on weekday with an 1-hour offsite meal (to break it up).
4. 70 crunch/30 fluff (want more fluff? read a novel)
5. More FRCS Deities information.

 

[d4]

Re: Re: The Gaming Ideal

There's also a very popular setting book I own that looks like they split up the world into several sections and told each contributing author to stay within their own section. So two bordering nations often have nothing to do with each other. What gives?

i know you specifically avoided naming the setting, but i've got to ask: which one is it?

 

[Garmorn]

In the past couple of days I've asked some questions about the past and current situation for your games. Now I would like to take the time to listen to your goals and desires. The following questions should help any publisher who reads the responses direct some of their production closer toward "The Gaming Ideal"

1.) What is the best number of players at the table, whether as a DM or player yourself?

2.) How often should you be able to game in an ideal world?

3.) How long should those sessions be?

4.) The poll handled percentage of Crunch to Flavor, but what are some of the specifics behind your vote?

5.) If you could choose the single best next book to become available to you, what would it be, what form would it be in (hardback, softback, PDF), and how much would that book cost (please be reasonable)?

Thanks very much for your time and indulgence...

1 - I like about 7 including the DM. Allows a unusal character or two with out being two large to get some roleplaying in.

2- Two times a week.

3 - Between 8 to 10 hours each.

4 - I don't like dark moody or very complicated plot lines. I think the PC should be hero's but don't care for the Race to Save The World types.

5 - I want a very good book that replaces the current econmic system with a better and is enlarge to include running temples, baronies, shops, ect.. I would prefere hardback and think $50 is close to my upper end.

 

[DaveMage]

1) 4-5 players + the DM
2) Once per week
3) 5-6 hours
4) Depends on the product. Campaign Settings should be mostly flavor (80%), while a "Player's Guide to Clerics" should be 90-100% crunch. At this point in the d20 life cycle, I think we're reaching a crunch saturation point. I'd rather see more adventures.
5) Campaign/Adventure in a Box. Give me a complete campaign that takes characters from levels 1-10, or even better, 1-20. If not a box set, then a book would be fine (either hard- or soft-back). No one has done this yet, and I'd like to see it.

How much would I pay? $49.95 - as long as I didn't have to buy something else to make it work (such as a separate Campaign Setting). Also, if a book, take a page from Kenzer (no pun intended), and make a portion of the book be "tear-away" player handouts (see the Kenzer city book by Ed Greenwood as an example for "tear-aways"). It does not have to be in color, but should have illos that show PCs what they're facing.

 

[d4]

5) Campaign/Adventure in a Box. Give me a complete campaign that takes characters from levels 1-10, or even better, 1-20. If not a box set, then a book would be fine (either hard- or soft-back). No one has done this yet, and I'd like to see it.

it's not d20, but Evernight for Savage Worlds is a complete campaign in one book, that should take the PCs from the equivalent of 1st level to about 15th-20th. (SW doesn't use levels per se, but that's about the power level the PCs will end up at.)

 

[Dyir]

1.) What is the best number of players at the table, whether as a DM or player yourself?
Since I always DM, my ideal number of players is four.

2.) How often should you be able to game in an ideal world?
Probably once a week.

3.) How long should those sessions be?
Ideally they'd be four to six hours long. Realistically, I think my groups can only afford to play for at little more than two hours at a time.

4.) The poll handled percentage of Crunch to Flavor, but what are some of the specifics behind your vote?
40 crunch-60 flavor is good enough for me. I really like flavor because it gives me lots of ideas to use in my game, often moreso than really inventive game mechanics. Sometimes its much easier to get my players to subscribe to flavor-issues than to teach them new mechanics.

5.) If you could choose the single best next book to become available to you, what would it be, what form would it be in (hardback, softback, PDF), and how much would that book cost?
Hmmm...that's a hard one. It'd probably be a hardback Planescape 3e (my favorite campaign setting) for about $30.

 

[Faraer]

1. DM + 3-4 players.
2. Weekly.
3. 4-8 hours.

4. I get nothing out of pure gameist rule-manipulation; I want an absolute minimum of mechanics to support the group storytelling. What you write as 'flavor' I'd call 'content'. How can 'crunch' be as emotionally satisfying as world and story content? That would be perverse. Spurious rules in excess of what they're representing, player-pandering prestige classes and feats, spells and monsters for the sake of pure senseless gimmicky variety, are the current scourge of the RPG business, and proliferating rules serve to enforce the limited demographics of the medium.

5. Pure source material for a world I like, such as vol. 1 of Ed Greenwood's millions of words of unpublished notes. Big hardback, price high enough to be profitable enough.

 

[Gothmog]

1.) What is the best number of players at the table, whether as a DM or player yourself?

2.) How often should you be able to game in an ideal world?

3.) How long should those sessions be?

4.) The poll handled percentage of Crunch to Flavor, but what are some of the specifics behind your vote?

5.) If you could choose the single best next book to become available to you, what would it be, what form would it be in (hardback, softback, PDF), and how much would that book cost (please be reasonable)?

1.) 5-6 players- enough variety that no one's abilities are replicated, but enough people for some interesting RP opportunities.

2.) Once per week

3.) 6-10 hours

4.) 30% crunch, 70% flavor. I can make up tons of rules on my own, and my homebrew is already very well developed, but new ideas for NPCs, locales, adventures, etc are invaluable to me. I think thats why I love MEG's Foul Locale series so much.

5.) A hardback 256 page book dealing with divine powers, servitors, rules for churches, congregations, and religious power bases. This has been sadly overlooked in D&D since its inception. Also, I'd love to see the current spell lists for the cleric done away with, instead reorganizing spells by domain, with 6-10 spells per level in each domain (I've started working on this, collating all the spells in all my D&D books and splats, but its a long way from being done). The current 3E/3.5 clerics are EXTREMELY vanilla, and are almost identical in all respects. Heck, even the 2E shperes system was better. Also, more uses for channeling divine energy with turning attempts.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

...
4. I get nothing out of pure gameist rule-manipulation; I want an absolute minimum of mechanics to support the group storytelling. What you write as 'flavor' I'd call 'content'. How can 'crunch' be as emotionally satisfying as world and story content? That would be perverse. Spurious rules in excess of what they're representing, player-pandering prestige classes and feats, spells and monsters for the sake of pure senseless gimmicky variety, are the current scourge of the RPG business, and proliferating rules serve to enforce the limited demographics of the medium.

This is terrific! I might just have to use part of this as a .sig quote. Such eloquence is refreshing! I can't believe I was chastized for using the word "utilize" in last night's game...

Let's see more posts from you Mr. Faraer!

 

[d4]

How can 'crunch' be as emotionally satisfying as world and story content?

as someone who voted the exact opposite of you, i'd like to address this.

of course "crunch" rules aren't as emotionally satisfying as world and story content. that's why i want to make up all the "flavor" or "content" on my own, instead of relying on someone else to do it.

i want the RPG book to give me the rules, so i don't have to waste my time designing the cold and boring stuff, and let me spend my time making the stuff that's worthwhile. on the other hand, i don't want the book to waste pages on "flavor" that i'm never going to use.