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<blockquote data-quote="Consonant Dude" data-source="post: 5958173" data-attributes="member: 6688791">That sounds like a good idea if you want the hobby to have fewer players&nbsp; instead of more. &quot;Expanding things instead of streamlining&quot; is the&nbsp; reason we are in this mess to begin with. The first thing you have to realize is that gamers and designers have&nbsp; been doing just that, trying to expand and change the things RPGs can do&nbsp; since... forever. It's not a new concept. Doing it without care for&nbsp; handling and prep time is what has led the industry to cater exclusively&nbsp; to hardcore gamers and ostracize average Joes while racing toward the&nbsp; thickest rulebooks possible. I'm not against improvement, but there are serious questions to be asked before doing so:1. Does it really improve the experience?2. At what cost as far as your time is concerned?Even the best RPG creators out there can't design hours in our&nbsp; schedules. Roleplaying is an investment of time and energy. You need to&nbsp; learn how the games work, then you need to prepare the sessions, then&nbsp; run them, then maintenance is required in between sessions. This is at the heart of what is required to roleplay.Nonsensical concepts like Monte Cook's &quot;Rule mastery&quot; need to die in a&nbsp; fire because they actively make all those steps harder instead of&nbsp; easier, which is what good design should strive for. The payoff for the investment is how many lands you traveled too, all&nbsp; these cool adventures you lived, traps you got out of, vilains' plots&nbsp; were foiled, alliances were made... it's all about adventure, intrigue,&nbsp; the growth of your characters and the environment they live in, created&nbsp; and maintained by the GM and impacted by the PCs. And the cost of that&nbsp; is gameplay. The more hours spent actually creating things and&nbsp; adventuring instead of bean-counting, arguing and memorizing. You wanna talk about expanding roleplaying? Expand the payoff! Expand&nbsp; the things characters can do in a session by not having a 5 minute&nbsp; game-time combat between a bunch of irrelevant goblins and the&nbsp; characters take 120 minutes of real time.You'll have happier players and a lot more of them if the games are easy to learn, to prep, to run and to maintain.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Consonant Dude, post: 5958173, member: 6688791"] That sounds like a good idea if you want the hobby to have fewer players instead of more. "Expanding things instead of streamlining" is the reason we are in this mess to begin with. The first thing you have to realize is that gamers and designers have been doing just that, trying to expand and change the things RPGs can do since... forever. It's not a new concept. Doing it without care for handling and prep time is what has led the industry to cater exclusively to hardcore gamers and ostracize average Joes while racing toward the thickest rulebooks possible. I'm not against improvement, but there are serious questions to be asked before doing so: 1. Does it really improve the experience? 2. At what cost as far as your time is concerned? Even the best RPG creators out there can't design hours in our schedules. Roleplaying is an investment of time and energy. You need to learn how the games work, then you need to prepare the sessions, then run them, then maintenance is required in between sessions. This is at the heart of what is required to roleplay. Nonsensical concepts like Monte Cook's "Rule mastery" need to die in a fire because they actively make all those steps harder instead of easier, which is what good design should strive for. The payoff for the investment is how many lands you traveled too, all these cool adventures you lived, traps you got out of, vilains' plots were foiled, alliances were made... it's all about adventure, intrigue, the growth of your characters and the environment they live in, created and maintained by the GM and impacted by the PCs. And the cost of that is gameplay. The more hours spent actually creating things and adventuring instead of bean-counting, arguing and memorizing. You wanna talk about expanding roleplaying? Expand the payoff! Expand the things characters can do in a session by not having a 5 minute game-time combat between a bunch of irrelevant goblins and the characters take 120 minutes of real time. You'll have happier players and a lot more of them if the games are easy to learn, to prep, to run and to maintain. [/QUOTE]

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