What Does the RPG Hobby Need Now?

[R_J_K75]

I think it is time to.finally kill prep. Games and adventures should be designed such that they can be used with little to no preparation. That can mean a lot of different things, but definitely includes embracing layout and art/cartography that informs. It means ending "paid by the word" style walls of prose. And it means tearing down the explicit divide between players and GMs.

I'd even go one step further and eliminate adventures that are written for a specific level or level ranges. They usually require some modifications to suit the needs of one's individual campaigns, and they're rarely a level I can use. I'd prefer a general outline, with suggestions to modify as needed at a quick glance. Thats why I very rarely use pre-made adventures. Last Monday I did run an old adventure from Dungeon Magazine and even though its only 14 pages it took me 4-6 hours of prep (reading, taking notes, familiarizing myself with the maps, printing, etc.) By the times I was almost done, I started getting lazy and burned out. It was to the point I didn't even want to play so I just stopped, and ran it, but winged parts of it. Back in the 2E days, we had a group of players that we all knew the rules and played enough that I could DM a session with no prep. Not anymore. I'm not saying one edition of D&D is better than another but, 5E2024 doesn't lend itself to short and quick prep, at least not for me. I'm curious to see what the adventure in the new starter set will look like. I think it's time WotC takes a long hard look at how they format and write adventures. I own quite a few 5E adventures, but I've run only parts of maybe 2 or 3. I just don't have it in me anymore to initially read a 250+ page adventure, then prep and refresh my memory between sessions. I used to like writing adventures and prepping but not anymore, it's gotten to the point I don't enjoy it, and it feels like a chore. So, anything they can do it minimize or eliminate reading and prep time would be welcome. Realistically, there's always going to be some prep required but 15 minutes or less would be ideal.

 

[R_J_K75]

50%+ of players in a group should be eagerly, positively, looking forward to their turn to GM

IME, you'd think this would be the case, but it rarely is. Every once in a while, one of my players will mention that they want to DM, but it's usually a one and done adventure and I get stuck behind the screen for another year or two before I get to play again. I think that a lot of times players don't realize how much prep time it takes, add to that real world things, that once they realize this, they don't want to do it more than once. Let's face it, not everyone is cut out to DM.

I've really enjoyed Mothership the past few months, and it is so night and day different from D&D both in theme, setting and mechanics. So what's a prep session look like for Mothership?

We played 1 or 2 sessions of Mothership last year. I bought an adventure off their website and found it somewhat lacking, it was a rough outline with little details, and I had to fill in a lot of blanks. I think the game was so different than most RPGs that my players didn't like it too much. I liked it and suspect that had we played a few more sessions it may have grown on us. At the end of the game one of my player's said they wanted to play D&D again and the 2024 revision was coming out sooner than later and we decided to play that, and have been plating it since last September.

 

[R_J_K75]

I’ll add my take: a fundamental understanding of how to tell stories. The “rules” of drama.
I feel an almost complete lack of understanding of the structure and tricks of good, efficient and effective storytelling permeates even the top tier of published adventures.

My biggest gripe with published adventures, is that you never know the quality until you buy, read it and then decide if you want to run it. In 40+ years of playing various genres of RPGs by various companies I'd be hard pressed to think of a really great adventure from any of them.

 

[R_J_K75]

I just don't have the time or desire to learn a new game...I'm already overwhelmed remembering the DnD rules for this version vs the other ten (exaggeration?) versions I've played.

Yeah our group at this point too. Last year or two, we went through a period where we were trying other games, GI Joe, Modern AGE, Shadowdark, Mothership. It just seemed like on top of creating characters, writing adventures, everyone was also learning the systems rules. We moved on from one to the next before too long and always ended up back to D&D. Some of those games were better than others, GI Joe and Modern AGE had some strange design decisions. I can sympathize with the struggle to keep the rules straight of all the versions of D&D I have played.

 

[R_J_K75]

So I agree the hobby needs an official Star Wars RPG that TTRPG fans like and is well supported.

The West End Games version of SW got quite a bit of support from what I recall. We played the 2E version and I don't remember it being overly complicated or having any strange rules. There were over 100 books for that RPG

Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[NN]

Seems to me that the fundamental problem with the hobby is that the most popular, market-dominating rpg is just too damn complicated.

With perhaps a catch-22 that you have to suffer overcomplexity to understand the virtues of simplicity.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I'm not saying one edition of D&D is better than another but, 5E2024 doesn't lend itself to short and quick prep, at least not for me.

We all have our way of prep, of course. I’ve spent a lot of time digging into prep and find my own eight step method to work well for me in lots of systems.

I was interested to find out that it’s as easy for me to prep a D&D 2024 and Tales of the Valiant game as it is a Shadowdark or Numenera game.

Trying to rework a published adventure can take time depending on how different it is. It’s certainly not easier than coming up with an adventure from scratch.

Whether one is playing online or in person matters too — particularly if one uses a feature-rich VTT like Foundry or Roll20. People love those tools but their features definitely lean towards higher prep time a lot of the time.

 

[Reynard]

The West End Games version of SW got quite a bit of support from what I recall. We played the 2E version and I don't remember it being overly complicated or having any strange rules. There were over 100 books for that RPG

Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's been 30 years and 4 different games since.

 

[R_J_K75]

It's been 30 years and 4 different games since.

4? There were the two WotC versions and the FFG versions, which one am I missing?

 

[R_J_K75]

We all have our way of prep, of course. I’ve spent a lot of time digging into prep and find my own eight step method to work well for me in lots of systems.

Interesting, it never occurred to me to create a method for prepping. I just do it haphazardly, but I'll give it some thought.

I was interested to find out that it’s as easy for me to prep a D&D 2024 and Tales of the Valiant game as it is a Shadowdark or Numenera game.

I'm sure I read the 3 core books for 5E2014, but I've only read some of the 5E2024 version. I just have a hard time reading and retaining the core books these days. When we're playing other games last year I had the same problem. But, those system were somewhat different from one another so I had to refer to the core books quite a bit when prepping which took quite of bit of time.

Trying to rework a published adventure can take time depending on how different it is. It’s certainly not easier than coming up with an adventure from scratch.

I probably write my own adventures more often than not, I'd say probably close to 95% of the time, it's just easier and less time consuming. Even when I use pre-published modules its usually more for ideas rather than running them whole cloth. It's frustrating when I do look on DMsGuild for something short I run with little prep and the quality just isn't there. So, I've wasted time searching for something and then the time spent reading at least a portion of it.

Whether one is playing online or in person matters too — particularly if one uses a feature-rich VTT like Foundry or Roll20. People love those tools but their features definitely lean towards higher prep time a lot of the time.

We play in person, but we do use D&DB and Maps sometimes. It definitely ads time due to learning curve and just loading maps, etc. I've really considered going back to more of an older school approach of strictly pen and paper, with no electrical devices as I've questioned if they're worth the distraction to the players. Nothing like the feeling of spending a lot of time coming up with material for a session only to see your players glued to their cell phone, tablet or laptop.