Why RPGs are Failing

[Aaron L]

Well, I'd like to see evidence the RPG's ARE failing before I even attempt to respond.

 

[mythusmage]

Well, I'd like to see evidence the RPG's ARE failing before I even attempt to respond.

Check into sales and average player age.

You know, that would be just the thing for the Hasbro folks to look into. An industry wide multifarious survey into sales and average player age. Not only for D&D® but for RPGs as a whole.

A survey of the non-D&D® playing public could also answer a lot of questions.

 

[wedgeski]

Quite apart from the fact that I think your initial position is deeply flawed (there are a hundred reasons why RPG sales are slacking)...

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.

Fundamentally, as I'm sure others have said, you're asking that D&D should change to fit you. I would respond simply by saying that either you should change to fit the game, or you should stop playing the game. Find a system that agrees with you, where combat mechanics correctly reflect the brutal cut, thrust, parry, and downright dumb luck of 'real' melee, and go and play it.

Roleplaying is defined by limitless options (else, the DM is obsolete). A roleplaying game is defined by a closed set of rules. Those rules therefore define the style of *that* game. If you don't like 'em, or don't subscribe to the thinking behind them, you can change them (and make the game less like D&D), or make the game completely not like D&D by playing something else. Both solutions achieve the same thing: identifying what roleplaying 'aspect' most agrees with you, and finding the game that fits it.

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.)

There is one way to play D&D: that set of rules defined in the Core books. There are many ways to play a roleplaying game. I can think of lots of ways to design a roleplaying game, but that's not really what you're asking, is it?

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.

If you're asserting that a more free-form, less rigidly-defined game system will appeal to the mass market, I don't think you could be more wrong. The mass market likes rules. They like thick, thumbable rule books with top-notch artwork, something they can browse off the shelf and admire in their collection. To return to the videogame: if we assert that computer games have achieved a mass market that RPG's haven't (as I would), then you couldn't imagine a more closed system. The accumulated logic of CRPG's is inviolable. The programmer says it is thus, and thus it shall be, no matter what the player does (bugs not withstanding). This is comfortable for gamers. I have seen the confusion in their eyes when presented with a P&P RPG, and I have seen the many hours of play it takes before the sweet epiphany of understanding about what 'roleplaying' *really* is comes to them. Those long hours right there are the difference between the mass market and the niche.

How do I propose these changes be made? I have ideas. On which I shall say more later.

I wait with baited breath.

 

[mythusmage]

Sorry, Wedgeski...

Before I get to Wedgeski's post (which will require some thought before I reply) I will in this posting cause yet more consternation among my readers.

Before I start I have these two questions for you regarding what you do in an RPG. 1. What is it you're doing? 2. How do you know that's what you're doing?

Now, before you answer those questions I have this small favor to ask of you. Go wash the dishes. Wash the dishes, dust the furniture, take the dog for a walk, play with the baby. Anything that will occupy your attention, but not totally.

With that introduction out of the way we now go on to the body of the post:

What are Roleplaying Games

Theories abound, but I have yet to see a all-inclusive description of what it is we do. I submit, good reader, that if we are to make RPGs all they can be we must needs understand what the heck it is we're doing. What follows is not a simple description, for RPGs are too complex a matter to treat simply. By that token, it is as simple as I can make it.

You'll also note it closely resembles a previous description I posted on this forum many moons ago. There have, however, been changes made. Said changes should be obvious to those who read the original.

That said...

A roleplaying game is a pastime where the participants assume roles in an imaginary setting, with a set of mechanics that perform the following functions

1. Describes Conflict Resolution. Where conflict is described as the following question. Does an action succeed or fail?

2. Describes characters and, where necessary, character creation.

3. Describes the setting.

4. Describes the integration of character and setting.

While you're busy digesting that (you're sure you've done the dishes?) I'll be working on replying to Wedgeski's post above.

More to come.

 

[Fenes]

Tailoring the game and its rules to the taste of my gaming group is part of my job as a DM. Making sure we all have fun is part of everyone's job. I see D20 as flexible enough to accomodate my rather rules-lite game with heavy emphasis on social situations.
Trying to get roleplaying through rules will only result in the "gamer" people minmaxing roleplaying for the mechanical benefits. It won't make the game more fun since you can't really rule "fun" in a game. And since my stzance is that if a rule gets in the way of having fun out goes the rule I can't really support a stance that tries to enforce a change of playstyle through rules.
IMHO, if you are smart enough to play and DM D&D you are smart enough to change the rules to accomodate your own playtsyle better.

 

[adembroski3]

In terms of pure debate, mythusmage, you are capable of handling most comers, I can see that, but I'm not understanding your motivation here.

Are you trying to "win" or render a convincing arguement. It sounds more like you are seeing this as a competition.

As far as my view, the primary reason RPGs are on a downturn is the "dork" stigma attached to them. They will *never* be mainstream, and I doubt most of us want them to be. Though none of the gamers I've ever played with actually represent the stereotype, the stereotype exists none the less, and this hurts the industry.

I don't believe it's the rules that hurt D&D, by any means. The rules are a tool, nothing more. That said, I can see your argument perhaps from a perspective that you might not have expected, and that is by looking at the presentation of those rules.

The authors of the 3.0 Core Rulebooks put an emphisis on the "return to the dungeon", it was a big advertising point. It was the central theme going into the release of 3rd edition, and the them did not lessen with 3.5. This, in my opinion, hurt D&D.

I don't think the majority of gamers WANTED to return to the dungeon. To me, at least, the whole thing kinda felt like reverse evolution. We had evolved the game from a fantasy skirmish game, little more than Warhammer with less figures, into an infinately deep engagement involving personaes and motivations. However little RP exists in a given game, it's likely that there is more than what existed when Gygax was running his players through Castle Greyhawk.

Yet this is what WotC seemed to be pushing. Lets go back to the stone age! We're sick of sophistication! We're tired of progress! Lets pack up some meat, park the car on the side of the road, and go find a cave to paint pictures on teh wall in for the rest of our lives!

The rules are not holding back D&D. The rules are abstract and unrealistic, but I have yet to come across a practical and realistic ruleset. It is the manor in which those rules are presented that is the problem.

 

[Maggan]

Back to the dungeon, godammit!

The authors of the 3.0 Core Rulebooks put an emphisis on the "return to the dungeon", it was a big advertising point. It was the central theme going into the release of 3rd edition, and the them did not lessen with 3.5. This, in my opinion, hurt D&D.

I don't think the majority of gamers WANTED to return to the dungeon.

My thoughts are quite the opposite. I think the "back to the dungeon" slogan helped sell D&D3e, simply because it is a simple concept to grasp, and it's always easier to market something like that.

Alert! Anecdotal observation approaching.

<anecdotal observation>

We have recently run an event called Dungeon of Doom at Sweden's two largest conventions (nothing compared to stateside offerings, but there were something like 1000 attendees at both cons). At both cons we set up our table and said "anyone want to enter the dungeon? You won't make it far, and it's hack and slash, do it for fun!".

People kicked down the doors to get in and play. They formed a line and we had to start having a queue list. The pcs kicked down the doors, battled the monsters and died. And people were coming back for more.

And if anyone asked us about what the adventure was about we said "go into dungeon. Fight monsters. Wanna join?". A quick and simple concept.

</anecdotal observation>

Today many gamers don't have time to immerse themselves in the hobby. They want to do something that is fun and doesn't eat up their entire lives.

So I think that a majority of gamers really wanted to go back to the dungeon, to the simple concept of opening a door and bashing a monster.

These gamers are the bulk of our hobby, and they are, for want of a better word, casual roleplaying gamers. They don't follow the rpg world at all, they just pick up the game, knock down a few doors, and kill a few monsters. And level up.

Cheers!

Maggan

 

[Bagpuss]

Check into sales and average player age.

Hmm average player age has gone up, so less people are playing is the conclusion?

How about this conclusion, the game first came out in the 70's when mainly teenagers started playing it. Its now the the next millenium and those teenagers are STILL playing it, although they gave up games like Buckroo years ago.

Buckroo keeps its young average player age, but RPG's player average player age is bound to go up as people keep playing them sometimes until they die! So now these teenagers are in their 40's and 50's, of course the average player age is going to go up. If the average player age was 40 something then I might be worried, but it isn't.

Sale's are down? Measured from when, from when D&D 3rd edition was released? Of course they are going to be down, they arn't low now they were artifically high then.

 

[wedgeski]

These gamers are the bulk of our hobby, and they are, for want of a better word, casual roleplaying gamers. They don't follow the rpg world at all, they just pick up the game, knock down a few doors, and kill a few monsters. And level up.

I agree entirely and although your anecdote makes an interesting argument, it may well have been that you tapped into what people are after at conventions, rather than from D&D as a whole. It isn't normally 'casual' gamers who frequent the cons.

 

[Psion]

Check into sales and average player age.

Which proves?

Even if those figures are as ugly as you suggest, I think you would be way off to suggest that the composition of the game is at fault. I don't see players leaving the game in droves because they miss their wired reflexes guy from cyberpunk who can hit you three times before you can react.

What I do see is people who are turning to (or remaining with) other RPG-like interests like console RPGs and rpg-like fiction and movies because it is easier for them than trying to get together with a gaming group and (for the younger folks) that's the sort of gaming that they were inducted into. RPGs don't exist in a vacuum.

That doesn't mean what the game mechanics are doing is wrong, and further, I find that implementing your suggestions would push more people away than anything.