|
Joe Slowboat posted:This assumes a number of things about how a group works which I think are a bit much. For one thing, people can try new things and decide if they like them or not, and people will enjoy games that other players are passionate about. Secondly, you don't have to play the same game every time - if you're really that split on what better options exist than D&D, you can try a few and decide if any of them are worth a longer game for everyone. They can do, which is OK for fantasy heartbreakers and the non-DND classics like Shadowrun, etc. But the very genre specific indie games tend to be very much "one man's meat and another man's poison".
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 03:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 12:37 |
|
|
hyphz posted:They can do, which is OK for fantasy heartbreakers and the non-DND classics like Shadowrun, etc. But the very genre specific indie games tend to be very much "one man's meat and another man's poison". The only game I've actually had that issue with is Swords Without Master, which is legitimately deep into the weird zone. Everything else has maybe had one person go 'I'll sit this round out,' and that's not the end of the world for a one-shot.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 03:59
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:All media peaked when you were 14 and has been going steadily downhill ever since. Let's se... when I was fourteen Batman: The Animated Series premiered. So, yeah, that checks out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 04:09
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:All media peaked when you were 14 and has been going steadily downhill ever since. Pop music is so much better now, jesus christ. Also, D&D is and isn't the most popular game, because most groups rarely play D&D by the rules. It's hard to say how popular D&D as a ruleset is because the vast majority of groups just start either making mechanics up instead of checking the books or just freeforming poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 04:23
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:Pop music is so much better now, jesus christ. At this point D&D is like Coke in the US south. "We're gonna play D&D! Wanna join?" "Oh, cool, which game?" "Probably FATE."
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 04:31
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:I think I'm allowed to be a fan of someone's writing, theory, and contributions to one of my hobbies without having to agree with them on everything they've ever done or standing by every statement they've ever made. I don't know Alexander, I don't have an exhaustive knowledge of his post history or works, but he's written a lot of posts that have made me say "Huh, that interesting..." and many more that have improved my game. I don't agree with everything he's ever written, but I don't think I have to and I don't think I've seen anything so damnable that I have to disavow any iota of respect I have for somebody who had made things I like. Okay, so you're cool with it. Good to know.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 04:35
|
|
|
Justin Alexander writes like a dumb person's idea of a smart person.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 04:37
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:The only game I've actually had that issue with is Swords Without Master, which is legitimately deep into the weird zone. Everything else has maybe had one person go 'I'll sit this round out,' and that's not the end of the world for a one-shot. That’s pretty drastic though. It can’t so easily be a “try-out” one shot if accepting the try out would mean dropping a player. It’d be a dealbreaker for many groups, especially if there’s only one person pushing for the weird game, which there often is because of the split vote problem. I mean, Jimbozig talked about my group, and we had exactly that. Somebody suggested doing a cyberpunk (the genre) game, and I went through the PDFs, but when faced with choosing between Cyberpunk (the game), Eclipse Phase, Interface Zero, etc, they just.. decided not to choose, gave up on the idea and played DnD instead. Same with fantasy; if not 5e its a split vote between 4e, Pathfinder and GURPS and that’s without me throwing in any real weirdoes like Spellbound or Fellowship. It’s the restaurant/dessert problem but magnified by the fact it’s something that’s going to take up a fair hunk of leisure time for a potentially long period. And that means that RPG popularity is likely to be less about how meaty it is and more about how poisonous it isn’t. 5e’s basic design principle seems to have been to make it as little as possible of either.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 06:52
|
|
|
...I really feel like your group is exceptionally bad at trying new stuff out, based on your description. Like, these just aren't problems I've run into in my relatively extended space of RPG experiences. In fact, I've had more bad results from people agreeing to try out a homebrew system and that dragging on badly than games not happening because they were too new or different. e: Also, once you've tried out a system in a one-shot, longer-term games can be more easily made palatable to people who now know you have experience with it. If they're just not compatible with the game, well, a one-shot has its own value and you can run more. Or, y'know, run two games on alternating weekends, which also lets two people take on GMing responsibilities for games with heavy GM overhead.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 06:58
|
|
|
hyphz posted:That’s pretty drastic though. It can’t so easily be a “try-out” one shot if accepting the try out would mean dropping a player. It’d be a dealbreaker for many groups, especially if there’s only one person pushing for the weird game, which there often is because of the split vote problem. Sometimes personal problems are just that, personal problems, and not indicative of a larger issue. Everything you've ever posted here about your gaming group sounds fuckin miserable and dysfunctional and I'd literally rather stay home and shitpost on a dying forum than try to play games with a group like that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 07:06
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Sometimes personal problems are just that, personal problems, and not indicative of a larger issue. Everything you've ever posted here about your gaming group sounds fuckin miserable and dysfunctional and I'd literally rather stay home and shitpost on a dying forum than try to play games with a group like that. Could hyphz's posts be exactly that?
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 07:32
|
|
|
Ostensibly hyphz actually plays with this group in addition to posting here.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 07:40
|
|
|
The scary thought is that the TTRPG community has so many problems because hyphz's experience is actually common.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 08:36
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:The scary thought is that the TTRPG community has so many problems because hyphz's experience is actually common. Just look at how many times DMs ask for ways to be ever more passive aggressive about trouble players instead of actually talking to them like adults.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 08:43
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:i only liked D&D when I was 12 because it was the rpg most like roguelikes, This is the thing that most editions of D&D is actually (theoretically) good at. I wish they would explain that to people.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 08:48
|
|
|
Hobbies benefit from having a "gateway drug." They expand the overall size of the hobby. When I'm introducing someone to single-malt scotch, I do not start with Lagavullin, and when I'm suggesting someone could learn to work on cars, I don't them off with rebuilding an automatic transmission. A good introduction to gaming would serve to "give someone the idea" without heavily emphasizing just one aspect - even if it's a prominent or popular aspect. If we generally agree that D&D as a game isn't a great gateway drug, than what is? I understand that one could interrogate the A 12-year-old Speyside is smooth, not particularly peated, universally available, accessible, and just generally nice and inoffensive. Sure, if someone is going to loving love super-peaty whisky, they aren't going to taste that; but a strongly-peated whisky is gonna turn off a bunch of people to scotch entirely, so it's not the first thing to reach for. If someone is gonna learn to work on cars, I'm going to have them learn how to rotate their tires. It requires learning how to safely lift the car, which they need in order to do a ton of other stuff, it doesn't require a ton of tools, everyone needs to do it regularly, and even someone really hesitant and worried can do it in under an hour. If I had to pick something, and understanding that my games knowledge is pretty specific and limited and I'm not even really an "RPG Hobbiest" the way most of you guys are, I might go with PDQ. It's fast to get started, flexible with setting, introduces some basic game mechanics that you can learn and understand in an hour or two of play, and if you want to play on a table with some minis for combat you totally can. I thought about maybe Fate Accelerated, but my gut tells me it's a little less introductory... I'm not sure I can articulate why. I also feel like maybe a lot of people don't arrive in this hobby by thinking to themselves one day "hey I'd sure like to try pen & paper roleplaying games, let me just google what kinds of games exist." Surely most people are introduced? By a friend or acquaintance, someone who says "hey man, we're gonna play X next weekend, you wanna join us?" Or I guess they caught a random video or podcast, or they saw it in Stranger Things and remembered hey, that's something I always was curious about back in the day, I should check it out. Or maybe their mom braved a local game store and asked them what a 12 year old would have fun with. A good store with good staff should be able to introduce a parent to something that isn't necessarily in the D&D family. What should it be? Assume Mom isn't going to be able to say whether little Susie would like more detailed turn-based combat mechanics, or a game that focuses more on cooperative worldbuilding. If you were going to invite a co-worker to come play an RPG, would you really try to get into those sorts of questions with them? I think if I was going to do that, I'd invite them to play what my group was playing, and only do that if I thought what my group was playing might appeal to them. It'd be kinda weird to ask my buddies "hey I know we've been playing Traveler the last few months, but I was thinking of getting Bob from Accounting to come play, and after I talked with him over lunch about his genre preferences and his thoughts on improvisational theater, I think the best game for him would be 7th Sea, so, how about we invest in the rules and someone (probably me I guess, huh?) spend a couple weeks prepping a basic adventure? I think we'd be way more likely to invite Bob to come play Traveler with us, and I bet that if Bob decided he just didn't care much for the experience and thanks guys but he's gonna bow out, we are probably not going to pursue that particular quest to get Bob to love role-playing games any further. I suspect the acquisition of a new hobby is pretty goddamn random really, and mostly comes down to what your parents or close friends are already doing, plus a heavy dose of circumstantial discovery, like, one day Youtube suggests you watch this video about making swords and two years later you're building a forge in your back yard, because it caught your imagination and really appealed to you and you're the kind of person who will try new things that way. So... if there's an RPG gateway drug, some clear shortlist or specific game that would serve as a broadly palatable first try that gives someone the general idea without strongly emphasizing any one aspect that could be de-emphasized or entirely absent in many other RPGs, what would it be? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Jan 26, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 08:55
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:This is the thing that most editions of D&D is actually (theoretically) good at. I wish they would explain that to people. Video game comparisons are only used negatively for RPGs though. Every D&D edition has been negatively compared to a contemporary video game accused of it being 'Nethack/Diablo/WoW on paper'.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 08:57
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:Video game comparisons are only used negatively for RPGs though. Every D&D edition has been negatively compared to a contemporary video game accused of it being 'Nethack/Diablo/WoW on paper'. The underlying presumption that goes unvoiced is always that pen & paper RPGs are inherently better than video games. They take brains to do, you see. Any idiot can play Mario. Only us smart, imaginative, creative people play RPGs; making one that is like a video game means making one that is dumbed down.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 08:59
|
|
|
I would think that generally the best way to introduce RPGs to people would be to build off their interests in other media. If they like comics use a superhero game, if they like heist stories run a game suited to heists, etc. Very few people coming blind into RPGs are going to be looking forward to a specific mechanical style, after all (unless they're used to improv, I guess, in which case you'd probably want a fairly rules-light game).
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 09:02
|
|
|
Roadie posted:Just look at how many times DMs ask for ways to be ever more passive aggressive about trouble players instead of actually talking to them like adults. Possibly a problem with an inherently social hobby being popular with people who tend who tend to have poor social skills.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 09:09
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:If we generally agree that D&D as a game isn't a great gateway drug, than what is? Feng Shui.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 10:07
|
|
|
I keep hearing good things about Fiasco, since it's half RPG half weird party game you can get into after a round of Cards Against Humanity.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 10:26
|
|
|
Roadie posted:I keep hearing good things about Fiasco, since it's half RPG half weird party game you can get into after a round of Cards Against Humanity. Fiasco is definitely a possibility but through cultural osmosis I think that even people new and unfamiliar with RPGs expect there to be more in the way of incredible violence and things exploding than Coen Brothers homages. I'm 100% sincere in my recommendation of Feng Shui as a gateway game, based on my own personal experiences with Feng Shui (the original version) being my own gateway game. It's a fairly lightweight system that nonetheless gives players enticing toys to pick from in a way that's readily comprehensible for people passingly familiar with any sort of game, it uses nothing but a couple of d6s instead of more unusual dice that people might not own, character creation is largely a process of picking a mostly-built archetype and customizing it rather than starting from scratch, and while there are more esoteric setting elements to be had in the whole cross-time secret war for the fate of the world's chi flow, fundamentally it's a game which is about Hollywood blockbusters and east Asian action cinema and these are things that even people who aren't hip-deep in nerdy pastimes are liable to be familiar with. "Hey, did you see John Wick? Remember when we watched the Raid? It's like that but sometimes there's magic or cyborgs."
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 10:58
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:So... if there's an RPG gateway drug, some clear shortlist or specific game that would serve as a broadly palatable first try that gives someone the general idea without strongly emphasizing any one aspect that could be de-emphasized or entirely absent in many other RPGs, what would it be? I skipped most of that because of the unnecessary and long-winded metaphors but my recommendations for most first-time players is one of the PBTA games that doesn't include sex moves (unless you're dead sure they're into intimate relationship melodrama, which is a thing some people grok from poo poo like game of thrones). Fellowship or, honestly, dungeon world are decent, in particular because they hopefully get people into the habit of describing actions rather than describing the mechanical widget they want to interact with. The worst thing people can do here is wish things were a bit more detailed, which you can then give them if you move onto D&D or something, and when you get there they're not going to step into places and go "I roll Search. I'm going to Attack that monster." where you're left dungeon crawling in a formless void. Ghost Leviathan posted:Video game comparisons are only used negatively for RPGs though. Every D&D edition has been negatively compared to a contemporary video game accused of it being 'Nethack/Diablo/WoW on paper'. which is dumb because most videogames are infinitely more competently made than any TTRPG could hope to be.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 11:19
|
|
|
spectralent posted:I skipped most of that because of the unnecessary and long-winded metaphors but my recommendations for most first-time players is one of the PBTA games that doesn't include sex moves (unless you're dead sure they're into intimate relationship melodrama, which is a thing some people grok from poo poo like game of thrones). Fellowship or, honestly, dungeon world are decent, in particular because they hopefully get people into the habit of describing actions rather than describing the mechanical widget they want to interact with. The worst thing people can do here is wish things were a bit more detailed, which you can then give them if you move onto D&D or something, and when you get there they're not going to step into places and go "I roll Search. I'm going to Attack that monster." where you're left dungeon crawling in a formless void. They have to be, since the majority of the hobby's fans don't intuitively expect video games to ship horribly broken and in need of endless player-written patches. That's a failure state in video games, and almost a norm in TTRPG's.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 11:44
|
|
|
as someone who only just very recently dipped their toe into the miniatures wargaming scene, seeing the Age of Sigmar starter box as something that already contains figures good for BOTH sides of a game, plus the rules, plus all the other paraphernalia, was a great way to tempt me into giving the hobby a shot because it had everything I needed in a neat package
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 12:15
|
|
|
Pope Guilty posted:They have to be, since the majority of the hobby's fans don't intuitively expect video games to ship horribly broken and in need of endless player-written patches. That's a failure state in video games, and almost a norm in TTRPG's. Well, you say this and yet Bethesda exists. Perhaps we're finally reaching a point where video games have caught up to where the RPG industry has been all along.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 12:36
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:The scary thought is that the TTRPG community has so many problems because hyphz's experience is actually common. The tied vote problem is a big enough one in board games that it’s a running joke, and most groups do evolve their own “D&D” - a game that isn’t perfect for anyone, but everyone will accept, and that’s more fun than social deadlock. The point about trying new things holds up IF there’s an established commitment to “try a new thing”. If there isn’t, then any social friction is problematic because D&D is right there and would solve it all, so anyone pushing for something else is an rear end in a top hat who’s apparently aiming for deadlock over play.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 15:04
|
|
|
Would you mind explaining what this deadlock state is in more detail? You keep bringing it up but I'm not clear on what you mean. Like... is this 'nobody has a strong opinion so no decision gets made' or 'we are always evenly split on what to do next and totally incapable of compromising or taking turns?'
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 16:08
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:Would you mind explaining what this deadlock state is in more detail? You keep bringing it up but I'm not clear on what you mean. Like... is this 'nobody has a strong opinion so no decision gets made' or 'we are always evenly split on what to do next and totally incapable of compromising or taking turns?' It’s not “incapable” of compromising or taking turns; it’s that D&D is always the instantly obvious compromise. It also avoids any turn taking issues (since if we’re talking campaigns then turns might be months, and a series of one shots can be much rules learning for reduced enjoyment) Plus, it answers that question of “who plays the champion fighter?” The answer is “the guy who’s compromising”. hyphz fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jan 26, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 16:28
|
|
|
You do realize multiple campaigns can run at once on alternating weeks right? Like, there are other options.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 16:42
|
|
|
Joe Slowboat posted:You do realize multiple campaigns can run at once on alternating weeks right? Like, there are other options. "Ok, we can do alternating weeks. But then which one do we do on the alternating weeks? Bob wants Pathfinder, and Stan wants 13th Age, and Chris wants Champions, and nobody's sure who's going to run them, and a 4 week rotation would mean we were all forgetting what was going on. But honestly, JoeHyphz, everyone else is fine with D&D. Why are you being so awkward?"
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 18:13
|
|
|
Seems like a non-issue. The person running the game gets to decide what game to run.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 18:39
|
|
|
Honestly the whole "group nominally agrees to play not-Pathfinder/5e but complains about it the entire time so we just go back to Pathfinder/5e" thing is part of the reason I left a long running group I was in. Which is personally funny to me because the reason we kept going back was to not lose the guy who complained most of the time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 18:43
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:I'd literally rather stay home and shitpost on a dying forum than try to play games with a group like that. I'm sure it won't be an issue once Xenforo 2 is finally out. senrath posted:Honestly the whole "group nominally agrees to play not-Pathfinder/5e but complains about it the entire time so we just go back to Pathfinder/5e" thing is part of the reason I left a long running group I was in. Which is personally funny to me because the reason we kept going back was to not lose the guy who complained most of the time. Just become a GM. Maybe tell people 'oh I want to take a break and try a game for a few short weeks before we go back to our regular campaign,' and they're usually down for at least sampling for two or three sessions. And if they like it, you could run it longer. That's how I was able to run all the games I never got to play.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 18:59
|
|
|
hyphz posted:"Ok, we can do alternating weeks. But then which one do we do on the alternating weeks? Bob wants Pathfinder, and Stan wants 13th Age, and Chris wants Champions, and nobody's sure who's going to run them, and a 4 week rotation would mean we were all forgetting what was going on. But honestly, JoeHyphz, everyone else is fine with D&D. Why are you being so awkward?" It's probably not that hard to pick between your default and, like, one other system. Flip a coin or roll a die if you can't decide which alternating week to use and go from there? Not sure what to tell you honestly, this seems pretty solvable. Bedlamdan posted:Just become a GM. Maybe tell people 'oh I want to take a break and try a game for a few short weeks before we go back to our regular campaign,' and they're usually down for at least sampling for two or three sessions. And if they like it, you could run it longer. If you have a big enough group to handle it you can also run one-shots when some people bail, as they tend to do in adult life.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 19:22
|
|
|
I don’t think any adults are involved here.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 19:29
|
|
|
Biomute posted:Seems like a non-issue. The person running the game gets to decide what game to run. Again, given the assumption that the group has a forever GM, and that who runs isn’t tied to the game decision. Plus, D&D and its sample modules do have the advantage of being easy to run, and of having the modules to shift the blame from the person running. (If you’re a good GM you can make a bad module good; but if you’re a bad GM and a bad module goes badly, you can pass the blame on to the module.) If a system needs practice to GM, it’s going to take a committed group to get over the initial hump, and that probably precludes compromises.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 19:31
|
|
|
Mors Rattus posted:I don’t think any adults are involved here. It’s precisely because they are; leisure time is scarce, and leisure time for an activity lacking side benefits (ie, physical exercise) is even more so. The ROI requirement is much higher.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 19:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 12:37 |
|
|
hyphz posted:The ROI requirement is much higher. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2019 19:45
|
|
