Why RPGs are Failing

[Thornir Alekeg]

No, I'm asking that D&D® change to fit a larger audience. Big difference.

I don't understand why you think D&D, which seems to have a good following, needs to change to suit you and this larger audience. If you know what the larger audience wants, as you seem to claim, then why don't you just put together your own company and start gaming the way you seem to feel so many out there want to do it? Create your own rules set (or lack of rules set or whatever it is you want), get together a PDF of them, get it onto RPGnow and watch the masses beat a path to your door.

If you are in fact correct, then WoTC and D&D will inevitably follow suit and you will get your wish. Lead the way rather than complain that others will not lead for you down the path you want.

 

[Corinth]

I could be cruel and quote Paul Simon, but I shall refrain.

The dominant theme I'm hearing here is, "That's how it's done." With a few exceptions I don't see anybody stepping back and asking, "How else could it be done?" From the examples given here one would have to conclude that the D&D® community is a conservative one, and very conservative on a number of subjects.

There's a reason for that: the conservative approach is what guarantees that a gamer shall actually get to play the game, game it for a long time and actually get to make full use of what the game offers. It's been that way from the get-go, and 30 years of proven results is hard to ignore. All other takes are gambles, gambles that don't pay off nearly as well as one might imagine.

How many other ways can you think of to play D&D®? How would you implement them? How would you handle characterization, combat, interpersonal relations? How would you detail, describe character creation or conflict resolution? (Conflict in this case involving the question, "Does he succeed or fail at a task?" Conflict at its most basic form.)

I can think of many. Very few are worth bothering with, however, because the average gamer is there to play a game and nothing more. He's there for the dungeon crawling, the tactical gaming and the leveling up. WotC knows this which is why they went with their "Back to the Dungeon!" approach in 2000- an approach that met with great success and continues to be the most successful approach in the business.

D&D® doesn't appeal to enough people to replace those that leave the hobby for one reason or another. I submit that's its because D&D® as presently constituted has nothing to offer those people. It needs to be reinvented. Become more an exercise in imagination and less an exercise in gaming.[/b]

This is a lie. D&D works best when it focuses upon gameplay and avoids all hints of amateur thespianism. The core competancies of D&D is team-based gameplay in an open-ended milieu where the user--the players and their GM--can do what they want within the rules of the game. The further away you go from that core, the more you run into business and community problems.

The videogame manufacturers are aware of this fact, which is why there are so many developers out there now seeking to emulate features such as the open-ended gameplay of the last two Grand Theft Auto games and the super-powergaming gameplay that's par for the course in Square Enix' CRPG franchises (such as the world-famous Final Fantasy franchise) and is so prominent in MMORPGs such as Everquest or PC RPGs like Diablo. While there's a lot of talk about dramatic elements and storytelling, all of the relevant experts on the business agree that it's gameplay--not drama--that makes for overall success and creates the iconic games of the industry.

The most successful tabletop RPG publishers also know this, which is why all of them deliver the gameplay that the majority of tabletop RPG gamers want- and why D&D has always been on top of the hobby throughout its 30 years in existence. Anyone that tells you otherwise is lying.

 

[mmadsen]

Lots of games attempt to simulate alternative realities, some of them quite mundane, like the WW2 Wehrmacht play-by-mail RPG I used to play in. The (simple) rules were designed to mimic closely the action-reaction cycle of squad level combat and encourage the use of realistic tactics - dash down spot & fire, when in doubt grenade it out, fire suppression, bounding overwatch etc. It did this without complex rules though, just a few pages, much less than the D&D PHB's Combat section.

Could you share the gist of those rules? And could you share what simple-but-realistic fantasy rules might look like? (Where "realistic" is in quotes, naturally.)

 

[mmadsen]

How many other ways can you think of to play D&D®?

I can think of plenty of Little Changes With Big Flavor.

 

[mythusmage]

Man, everyone else did such great stuff in their past lives. Me, I've been nothing but ignorant pig farmers. You name a turning point in history, a critical fork of the road, an age of heroism and adventure, and I guarantee, I was dressed in rags, covered in hog manure, and nowhere close to the action.

Why, I'll bet you have a whole STRING of cool incarnations --- sorta Highlander meets Hawkman meets Young Indiana Jones --- while I have been cursed to walk the myriad worlds of the multiverse as the Eternal Ignorant Pig Farmer.

Meme.

Don't feel too bad, I've got a feeling one of your incarnations ate one of mine. (You know what it's like being swallowed alive? It's dark!) 'Sides, without pig farmers some folks would go hungry.

 

[mythusmage]

All the things you're asking for are present imc, yet I run the 3.5 ruleset with almost no house rules.

It's just how you play the game. If your players always attack the goblins, maybe you should talk to your players about your expectations. Or play, and try to talk to the goblins.

Was it through your encouragement, or the game's?

 

[JPL]

Don't feel too bad, I've got a feeling one of your incarnations ate one of mine. (You know what it's like being swallowed alive? It's dark!) 'Sides, without pig farmers some folks would go hungry.

A pig farmer eating a Jewish holy man would surely violate some sort of ironic anti-Kosher, wouldn't it?

 

[mythusmage]

Which means that you presume your prescription is what the larger audience wants.

I can't claim to have polled all players everywhere, but as for me and my group, your prescription is not what we want.

Who's talking about only the players? I'm not talking about those who currently play, but of those who might play if given a good enough reason to. Currently D&D® doesn't give the general public reason to play.

 

[mythusmage]

I don't understand why you think D&D, which seems to have a good following, needs to change to suit you and this larger audience. If you know what the larger audience wants, as you seem to claim, then why don't you just put together your own company and start gaming the way you seem to feel so many out there want to do it? Create your own rules set (or lack of rules set or whatever it is you want), get together a PDF of them, get it onto RPGnow and watch the masses beat a path to your door.

If you are in fact correct, then WoTC and D&D will inevitably follow suit and you will get your wish. Lead the way rather than complain that others will not lead for you down the path you want.

Because D&D's following could be better. For all my disagreement with how the game is currently, I still like it and I would like to see it have a larger presence. You see, I'm not convinced we need to keep D&D to ourselves, only letting others in if they pass the test. This could be a more open hobby, and I intend to help open it up.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Is a closed rule set superior to a set of guidelines?

Yes. Especially when that 'closed rule set' is fundamentally flexible enough to be virtually open.

The videogame manufacturers are aware of this fact, which is why there are so many developers out there now seeking to emulate features such as the open-ended gameplay of the last two Grand Theft Auto games and the super-powergaming gameplay that's par for the course in Square Enix' CRPG franchises (such as the world-famous Final Fantasy franchise) and is so prominent in MMORPGs such as Everquest or PC RPGs like Diablo. While there's a lot of talk about dramatic elements and storytelling, all of the relevant experts on the business agree that it's gameplay--not drama--that makes for overall success and creates the iconic games of the industry.

Got it in one. Case in point, one of those CRPG's, Final Fantasy II, had a great epic storyline about a deposed family and an evil empire and an epic war. But the gameplay was weak -- it relied for character advancement on a 'you get better at what you use' mechanic. Swing a sword, get better at it. Cast a spell, get better at it. Get hit, get better at taking damage. There were inherent flaws in this system, such as spells could only be cast a certain number of times per day (and thus would always lag behind swords and the like, which could be swung indefinately), and that you only got better at evading blows that you dodged (and since your dodging ability started out at 0, it almost never increased). This game suffers because of playability -- it's considered not one of the greats in the series. Similarly, Final Fantasy VIII was rejected by many because of it's spellcasting system, where the spells you knew were based on the monsters you encountered, and instead of filling up slots or costing points to cast, you just had a certain number of them that you could cast. These gameplay elements turned people off, despite really solid plots in both games.

Because D&D's following could be better. For all my disagreement with how the game is currently, I still like it and I would like to see it have a larger presence. You see, I'm not convinced we need to keep D&D to ourselves, only letting others in if they pass the test. This could be a more open hobby, and I intend to help open it up.

I think the main things keeping D&D from being accepted by everyone is that, fundamentally, it requires people to sit in a room with little motion for 4+ hours, at least once a week. This is a time dedication, and a lot of inaction, simply for imagining yourself as Billy Badass in someone else's story. Something like Scrabble doesn't do that, and so it's more popular -- it's more approachable. Those who want more dramatics in their D&D aren't a big section of the market, or the designers of 3e would've followed in their footsteps, rather than designing it as a *game.*