TTRPG Settings: A Canny Valley of Playability?

[Snarf Zagyg]

Did TSR actually run the convention back then?

Yep. Which is why the numbers are hardly surprising. Again, though, TSR ran "the" convention (GenCon), TSR had "the" Magazine (Dragon), and TSR had the best distribution outlets, by far. Which is why far people tend to be familiar with lesser TSR products from that time- any person with access to a Waldernbooks or a B Dalton or a KB or even a Sears could probably locate a copy of Gamma World (plus it was plugged in Dragon and AD&D), but I can't recall seeing Traveller at any regular store or even the FLGS (which had RPGs and a lot of more esoteric things, along with the usual Avalon Hill-type stalwarts).

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

@Cadence

But to give you an idea why these conversations tend to be anecdotal, and why I eschew anything but the most banal observations (D&D was really big!) and opposed unsupported factual assertions, it really does depend so much on where you look.

If someone was one sort of avid gamer- say, living in a location in the US, able to get D&D books from mass market purveyors primarily, having a subscription to Dragon Magazine, perhaps attending a convention here or there (which was very very different back then), the idea that Traveller was some sort of giant #2 is not just wrong, but laughable.

On the other hand, imagine a gamer in the UK, who reads White Dwarf, and has a thriving local community that uses Traveller because it prefers SciFi. The idea that Traveller isn't #2 might seem absurd.

And then someone else might say, "Hey, remember Ken St. Andre? Tunnels & Trolls? No one talks about him and that game anymore, but a lot of people played that in the 70s."

Etc. Without actual sales figures which no ones has, it is remarkably difficult to say what "all players" were playing.

 

[Wasteland Knight]

So, the canny/uncanny valley is about emotional reaction - whatever technical definition may be being used, the colloqual parlance is mostly how about something in the uncanny valley stikes us not just as something we don't care for, but wrong. Often to the point of revulsion, or finding the thing to be creepy.

That's not happening here. People don't typically react to settings with outright disgust (however much they may use that word hyperbolically - folks don't pick their feet off the floor at the site of a settign book the way they do with, say, a creepy-crawly bug).

I don't think we need to invoke the canny or uncanny valley here. Simply noting accessibility should do the trick. How much new and different information do we need to absorb to work within the setting. For both highly historical and ahistorical games, perhaps there's more information to absorb than is worth the effort...

Spot on.

It has everything to do with accessibility and nothing to do with the canniness of the valley.

Generic D&D is incredibly easy to access.

Certain D&D settings with more to process than just “here’s Viking land, here’s Egypt Land, here’s Ninja&Samurai Land, here’s etc”require more effort to access, but the bar is still relatively low.

Start having settings that approximate future, present or past actual complexities, then the energy to understand and access the setting spikes exponentially.

 

[Aldarc]

So maybe the issue is not a canny valley but is instead a pedantic valley of people who focus on tangential issues and poorly constructed analogies.

 

[MGibster]

So maybe the issue is not a canny valley but is instead a pedantic valley of people who focus on tangential issues and poorly constructed analogies.

Why focus on the substance of what you're trying to say when it's so much more fun to discuss whether or not we're discussing the right thing? (And I hope you know I'm not being serious here. I'm on your side with this. We have another thread where we've spent a lot of time disagreeing on whether Alien is a horror movie or not.)

 

[aramis erak]

So, the canny/uncanny valley is about emotional reaction - whatever technical definition may be being used, the colloqual parlance is mostly how about something in the uncanny valley stikes us not just as something we don't care for, but wrong. Often to the point of revulsion, or finding the thing to be creepy.

That's not happening here. People don't typically react to settings with outright disgust (however much they may use that word hyperbolically - folks don't pick their feet off the floor at the site of a settign book the way they do with, say, a creepy-crawly bug).

THe reaction range I've seen in the FLGS does rise occasionally to revulsion and incredulity that someone would play Sci-Fi or Supers RPGs (both of which I've run in store)... And I've seen a number of people walk out rather than take an open seat at a non-D&D table.

There is a level of uncanniness for Sci-Fi and Supers.

 

[aramis erak]

I've often made the argument that most players would not be interested in playing truly alien fantasy or science fiction characters. It's hard for most players to relate to such characters and it would require a lot of work to do so. There's a reason Star Trek aliens are just humans with odd coloration and bumps on their heads. When they do feature truly alien aliens, like the Tholians, the Sheliak, or the Crystaline Entity, the story is solidly focused on the people dealing with them.

I've had a few players who liked immersing themselves into characters as alien as possible. Specifically including Traveller's K'kree and Droyne.
I've also had a few others who used aliens as an excuse to simply ignore social norms and be jerks.

The number who pulled off the alienness are fewer than those who tried. The only all-aliens Traveller party I ran for was a one-shot K'kree party... it took 2 sessions just to get the 1000 ton merchant ship's crew's families and servants rolled up... and two more to provoke a shooting war with the system defense when they misjumped into the Glimmerdrift Reaches' various client states. One of the most surreal groups I've ever run for.

 

[pemerton]

In the light most favorable to the original statement, let's start the "late 70s" as being 1977, when Traveller was introduced, and the "early 80s" to be 1986.

Or you could ask what was meant. By "early 80s" I was thinking 1980 to (say) 1982 or thereabouts.

I really don't think you should be asserting your anecdote as fact ("In the late 70s/early 80s, the second-biggest RPG after D&D was Traveller.") because you definitely can't source it, and I do not believe it is true.

OK. I do believe it is true, at least for the UK I'm relying on representation in gaming magazines, and reports in those magazines from leading figures in the hobby at that time. It's not a claim grounded in scientific historical evidence, though.

As you know, it's hard to overstate how big D&D was back then. It's why "D&D" was a synonym for roleplaying in general for most people. If you treat it separately, it would take up the top four spots (OD&D, AD&D, B/X, DIY variations, in some order). If you treat it as a monolith, then it's going to be "D&D, then other stuff."

I am not distinguishing different forms of D&D. The fact that it is "D&D, then other stuff" dosen't seem to bear on the question of whether or not there is a second-most popular RPG.

I can also state definitively that no one I know played either Traveller because no place carried it; instead, Gamma World was our go-to. Doesn't mean Traveller didn't exist. But as a general rule, I wouldn't say, "Gamma World was the second-biggest game from the 70s to the early 80s" because that would be nothing more than unsupported anecdotal assertion, especially given that there are no reliable sales figures from back then (which is a continuing source of annoyance for some of us!).

Suppose that Gamma World was a popular game, after D&D: that seems to contradict the earlier assertion, to which I responded with reference to Traveller, that one thing we often ask is why (for example) "Sci-Fi" TTRPGs aren't very popular.

If you go too far away from what you know, you can't "just play" because your brain is always trying to translate. For example, if the world doesn't have normal rules for physics, or heat, or operates like Tenet, then it becomes increasingly hard to just play.

On the other hand, if the world is too accurate (a realistic depiction, or a ... I hate to use the word ... simulation of an actual period) then you have a similar problem with immersion. Instead of focusing on the play, you will be focused on "getting it right." It's really the same issue as the world being too alien.

Ars Magic is set in our earth, but I've never heard of an Ars Magica game being derailed because of a focus on "getting it right".

Likewise for CoC.

Two examples that have been given are 7th Sea and Tekumel. As I already posted, I think 7th Sea's world is pointless; and Tekumel relies on tropes and ideas that are not familiar.

@Aldarc's comments about attitudes towards children etc are (in my view) correct, but I don't think this is about familiarity. It is about distaste. I suspect for similar reasons there is little appetite for RPGs that invite players to sincerely occupy the role of (say) white supremacists or petty drug dealers, except perhaps for niche games that take an ironic approach to these features of contemporary society (eg Kill Puppies for Satan).

 

[Campbell]

At the end of the day all stories are really human stories. Especially one about aliens and creatures of myth. Those narrative devices ultimately serve as tools for us to say something about humanity.

 

[Umbran]

So maybe the issue is not a canny valley but is instead a pedantic valley of people who focus on tangential issues and poorly constructed analogies.

Dude. You made the analogy the title of the thread. It is not pedantic to come into a thread, and talk about the stated subject, and you probably shouldn't get shirty with folks for doing so.