[WotC's recent insanity] I think I've Figured It Out

[Ariosto]

double post

 

[Ariosto]

Sounds intriguing but I'm honestly not sure what you (and evidently TaiChara) are talking about. What sort of story-telling games are you referring to?

I'll bet TaiChara is more "with it". There are names I can almost remember, including a site that had several formally organized games, but I am not into the scene.

Just looking around now, though, I found these items:

Just a sample of the free form RPGs on sorcery.net IRC channels:
[FONT=verdana,arial,arial]#BLKDRAGON*Inn [/FONT]BlkDragon.com - Home
#Axalon*Station: Axalon Station - Home

[An accidental graphics thing I can't get rid of]:






Storytelling Game at Dragonica Forum: Storytelling game - Dragonica Official Forum

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Yahoo! articles (no links to current game sites, AFAIK):

Here is a 4-page "Interactive Online Storytelling: A Guide to Freeform Roleplaying": Interactive Online Storytelling: A Guide to Free Form Roleplaying - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

And two pages on "Play By Forum Role Playing Games": Play by Forum Role Playing Games - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

Harry Potter Roleplaying: Harry Potter Role-playing - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

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Here's "The INFJ Cafe Storytelling Game": [INFJ] The INFJ Cafe Storytelling Game - PersonalityCafe



City of If:

Storygames are different than other types of free online RPGs. Instead of rolling dice to determine the outcome of an action, the author of each story posts a chapter up to a "decision point." Players then describe the actions they would like to take, which is then put into a poll and voted on. The outcome of each poll determines where the game goes from there. The end result is like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure gamebook, but with a group of players choosing together which path to take, and with each chapter being written as the game is played.

You can play in our interactive stories, or you can write your own and have others play in yours.

From the same site, here's an essay, Myth and Roleplaying Games: Seven Treasures and Five Dragons Myth and Roleplaying Games: Seven Treasures and Five Dragons .

A Wikipedia article on a broader category that includes the more free form games: Online text-based role-playing game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Ariosto]

Anyhow, the immediate thing is that many people not only don't feel a need for 1000+ pp. of rules, but if they are aware of the phenomenon they may dislike it or find it wanting.

The longer-term possibility to which I alluded is that our current fetish for Official Rules -- upon which the big business end of RPGs has been built -- may turn out to be an exceptional phase. The "hobbyist" culture prior to the fad may better exemplify the norm to which "the market" shall return.

I don't mean a state in which nobody is a hard core follower of the D&D branded product line, but one in which that's a niche market. Just as there are few under-20s today acquainted with Avalon Hill type games, so a "critical mass" of kids for whom D&D figures as a hobby among their peers may no longer (or soon not) be there.

I'm not sure that is likely, but it occurs to me as a possibility.

Note that RPGs rose to prominence during the great era of commercial wargames, especially of boardgames. Board wargames still appear, and historical miniatures games go on, but with nothing like the volume or visibility there was prior to sometime in the 1990s.

 

[MrMyth]

The fact that WotC *apparently* sees no features in D&D outside of Fighting Encounters is alarming to me. Because it, more than anything, makes me think eventually they'll just decide "screw it, let's make everything a board game."

I said it before, and I'll say it again - you can argue that 4E should have more emphasis on stuff outside of 'Fighting Encounters', but arguing that it doesn't exist is flat-out incorrect. We've got an Adventurer Vault with an entire section of items designed to decorate strongholds. We've got a skill challenge system designed to provide ways to handle all sorts of non-combat encounters, up to and including mass combat scenarios. We've got a DMG2 with lots of advice on running non-combat elements. We've got Epic Destinies which are absolutely a in-game goal for characters to aspire to, many of which include significant story-based elements. We even have some Paragon Paths along these lines, such as the Guildmaster Thief.

Now, things that I would like to see?
-Some rules for Paragon level goals comparable to Epic Destinies, but smaller in scale. Stuff like the keeps and armies you've mentioned - we'll see how well the Dragon article on Strongholds pulls it off. Or a general refocusing of Paragon Paths to be more along these lines, rather than just generic elite dudes.
-Some options for PCs to have non-adventuring specialties, without having to undercut their adventuring skills to do so. We see bits and pieces of this in backgrounds and themes, and Player's Option: Champions of the Heroic Tier, is rumored to have stuff along these lines. Again, hopefully they can condense some of these elements into a solid unified system.

What specific elements are you looking for? More detailed rules for henchmen? Titles?

 

[Ariosto]

MrMyth, to me (not necessarily mattcolville) the key is in published scenarios and actual play.

Considering what a cliché it has become to aver that D&D back in the day was nothing but fighting, I reckon it's a really bad sign when old-time D&Ders find your game to be not much but a wargame.

"Encounter" now effectively means a game in itself, and in my experience it's not much of a game except with the fighting rules that are plainly the centerpiece.

The answer is not "more rules" or "fewer rules". The answer is actually to want something other than a Checkers/Magic TG hybrid with wargame "fluff".

See, if that were what WotC and their fans wanted, then that is what they would do.

What they actually do is line up one hour-long (or longer) combat game after another, with an occasional random Dice Challenge where other folks might put problem solving and conversations with NPCs.

 

[Shazman]

What they actually do is line up one hour-long (or longer) combat game after another, with an occasional random Dice Challenge where other folks might put problem solving and conversations with NPCs.[/QUOTE]

This is so true. It describes 4E to a T. Except for the fact that the combats will often take well over an hour.

 

[Shazman]

Oh please, not another one of these again. I suppose it's time to crawl out of my den of lurkerdom and address this tired and tiresome handwringing before disappearing once more into the ether.

I'm not addressing the WotC subject here; on that, I don't really give a damn. It's the other slant of the OP's post that I'm stepping up to.

Do you want to know where the creative members of the younger generation are, OP? That generation that you just tarred with a single solitary brush of having no imagination, no creative drive at all, brainwashed by needing CGI and having no idea what it's like to write, to create something?

They're spread across the Internet, oh yes. I know, because I'm right there with them and feeling old as hell. They're in messageboards and forums, on "journal" sites such as Livejournal, in real-time messenging systems such as AIM and MSN. And do you know what they're doing?

ROLEPLAYING.

They create entire communities filled with world information and play in real time or -- as often -- fill thread after thread with written posts. They create characters off the cuff or, depending on the game being played, fill out character applications that require background, personality, physical descriptions, strengths and weaknesses. Some games are completely original, some based in a published world. Some are both.

Post after post after post. Thread after thread, chatroom after chatroom. They're out there, and they are roleplaying. These youngsters are doing all of this with an enthusiasm and a fervor that I could only dream to see at a table these days.

And do you know why they aren't using the rules you want them to, the system you want them to?

Because they aren't using any system at all. They're just roleplaying.

Why would they want to shackle themselves to a system when there are uncountable freeform games out there that they can join or create? I've spoken to some of my fellow players and they find the idea incomprehensible -- and you know, if I had started in these games like they did, I'd be thinking the same damn thing.

So, yeah, maybe we old-timers are almost all WotC -- or any other game company -- happen to have. Because the younger generation, they don't need a tome of rules to get out there and create kingdoms and spelunk in dungeons and take down the BBEG.

But tarring everyone in a generation because you don't know what they're doing to roleplay, and -- sorry to say -- because, apparently, you Don't Get What Those Younguns Like?

That's pretty damn sad, you know. One more example for my fellow forum players to point at and say "why would we want to join you at the table? on top of limiting with rules, we're obviously not wanted".

Pfeh.

Are you really serious? Is this really an online phenomenon for adolescents? You may be right, but seeing my step kids online, I find this very difficult to believe. "Roleplaying" of the sort you describe would be the last thing they would do online. To be honest, it's hard for me to picture today's teenagers actually doing what you describe. This is the first I've heard of this so I may not be as common as you think.

 

[Argyle King]

The issue that comes with adding those rules to D&D's current set up is that having those outside sources of revenue and resources risks enabling a player to have more money and more buying power than the already established guidelines concerning what a character should have at a given level. You also have the issue of followers turning out to be worthless; in a 3.5 game, no amount of level 1 followers could hope to challenge someone a handful of levels higher. While 4E does lessen the power curve between levels, that same issue would still exist. You could create some sort of seperate minigame which handles such things, but then you have the current issue of not really getting what you want out of your non-encounter focused interests.

I will again stress that I won't say it can't be done. It can be.

However, for me, I still feel it's better to play a game other than D&D 4E if you'd like to place more focus on goals which aren't easily quantified in a combat encounter atmospher. There are games in which combat rewards and other types of rewards (as well as their respective risks) are weighed on the same scale and given equal prominence. Whether or not I can do things is not the issue -as I've said before. For me, the issue is whether or not the game can quantify the things I want to do a manner which is meaningful to me in the context of the game.


Example?

In a non-D&D game I'm involved in, the same resources are used to buy both combat ability and non-combat ability for a character. This does mean putting points in one area takes points away from the other; however, both areas are also equally supported. The game doesn't assume that combat will be a central focus (even though the combat system is rather robust,) nor does it assume other types of play will be. It doesn't make any assumptions at all. It places both aspects of my character in play at all times. I don't have different abilities and skills available depending upon whether the GM decides the game is in skill challenge mode, encounter mode, or rp mode. All are in play at all times.

For the player who has chosen to dump all of his resources into combat ability, that's not a problem. He has done so. However, there are times when hack & slash isn't the best answer. As such this allows the guy who spent more of his resources on other things to have a place in the party without feeling suboptimal.

Likewise, when I choose to spend some of my resources on stronghold building or political wrangling, the game can reward success (or failure as the case might be) just as equally as rewarding the combat monster and the skill monkey. There's not any sort of metagame (i.e. you should have X items worth Y at level Z) assuption which gets broken.

To be fair, there are a few things D&D does better than the other game. That's exactly my point though. Instead of continually hacking and chopping at a set of rules and coming away still feel somehow betrayed (How dare WoTC not think building a castle is cool!) it might be beneficial to see what things are like on the other side of the fence.

Note: I intentionally chose to not mention the name of the other game and be somewhat vague about the mechanics and details. I didn't want to turn this thread into a flame war about system preference, nor did I want to come across as though I was bashing one way of play or another. The point is that D&D is built upon certain design ideals. Other games are built upon different ideals. For me, I've found that -even if I intend to modify the rules anyway- I have a better experience if I start with a framework which has ideals about gaming which are more similar to what I want.

 

[Ariosto]

While 4E does lessen the power curve between levels

I don't remember an AC bonus by level in 3e, except as a variant in a supplement. In 4e, the sum of reciprocal chances to hit seems to stay about the same, so a bonus for me is a penalty for you.

My impression is that the Powers system has a similar effect, more pronounced than Feats in 3e.

Above all, the recovery of resources between "encounters" means that attrition is not the factor it used to be.

I'm not a 3e maven, but in AD&D a 13th-level fighter might have twice the chance to score a hit vs. plate as a 5th-level one -- but get worn down to half the hit points (or less). Heck, it's possible (if improbable) that the Lord would start with less at peak. (e.g., poor avg. 3 x 13 = 39, vs. good avg. 8 x 5 = 40)

If memory serves, h.p. recovery in 3e -- both innate and magical, the latter depending on caster level -- got a level bonus. However, both resources were still basically on the old daily time scale.

In a non-D&D game I'm involved in, the same resources are used to buy both combat ability and non-combat ability for a character. This does mean putting points in one area takes points away from the other...

... whereas in old D&D, x.p. and levels both are artificial constraints only on the particularly fantastic elements that figure in the "dungeon adventure" scheme.

If something does not earn x.p., then neither does it require them! My fighter can also be a lover, a scholar, a gentleman, a philanthropist and an intriguer regardless. He can go on to more such accomplishments even if he happens also to have hit the level limit for a Hobbit.

The point is that D&D is built upon certain design ideals. Other games are built upon different ideals.

D&D is other games built upon different ideals.

That is one big problem here.

 

[fumetti]

D&D cannot beat the computer games, except in three key areas: Self actualisation, improvisation, and arcane-ness. D&D's fun is NOT in the combat engine, but as a fantasy construction kit to make your own world, characters and adventures, and should support that more. Prep time is still ridiculous, and support for improvised play near nonexistent. D&D can never beat the computers at combat, so IMO they should just relinquish that pie in the sky and speed it up. The focus should be on epic quests, not 60 minute single encounters.

Truer words were ne'er spoken!

The selling point of DnD (the king of paper and pencil games) is that ANYTHING can happen. ANYTHING.

And that's because if the STORY.

But 4E removed the story and just left the action seens.