Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Nickoten
Oct 16, 2005

Now there'll be some quiet in this town.
Make simple classes that are really effective at one thing with maybe a small number of other choices of easy to use powers. For example, in a game like 5e maybe you got DPS Fighter and DPS Wizard. Both classes are already designed to do lots of damage and you don’t have to make any decisions to achieve that outside of maybe what kind of weapon you want to use or whether your blast spell is a fireball or a lightning bolt. Other than that, you get maybe a few less archetype-defining choices. I don’t see anything wrong with having that.

5e supposedly attempts this but we get the Champion Fighter who’s worse at nearly everything you’d want them to do than some other class, and the Warlock who could be very simple but you’d have to make a bunch of choices to get that (including the choice to take their class-defining spell), which defeats the purpose. And on top of that, the book never feels you which classes are simple which, again, defeats the purpose. But just cause 5e fails so spectacularly at doing this, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible or not worth trying to do.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004

коммунизм хранится в яичках
You also still have the problem that Bog Standard Wizard has limitless narrative control.

Willie Tomg
Feb 2, 2006

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Trying to please people who explicitly view what you're making as a chore and an obstacle isn't ambition, it's lack of self-respect.

I think this is uncharitable.

thetoughestbean posted:

I don’t think trying to make a game that has both a satisfying option for a more simple class and a satisfying option for a more complex class is being less ambitious, tbh.

You're not wrong, but you're not really refuting anything either. People with the systems mastery to make the complex class work will make the simple class work 10x (arbitrary value) as well relatively, unless the system is so basic or abstracted that notions of "simple" and "complex" are an absurdity.

thetoughestbean
Apr 27, 2013

Keep On Shroomin

Willie Tomg posted:

You're not wrong, but you're not really refuting anything either.

To be honest I’m not really trying to. I’ve already said that my group has a member who prefers more simple characters and who doesn’t contribute a whole lot, who wants to be there and who we want to be there despite him not really diving head first into the system. TC has made it pretty clear that they feel that something like that is bad, and there’s little point in trying to argue with somebody who doesn’t really seem that interested in what other people have to say beyond having the chance to condescend when we dare to not fully agree with them.

Nickoten
Oct 16, 2005

Now there'll be some quiet in this town.

Liquid Communism posted:

You also still have the problem that Bog Standard Wizard has limitless narrative control.

Definitely! I’m just saying even within the context of 5e such a thing would’ve been possible and they opted not to do it in any meaningful way.

Warthur
May 2, 2004



Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Your reasons boiled down to "I can't convince people to play something else" and "RPGs tend to be more financially successful if they do it my way", which sounds less like a statement of tastes and more like despairing at the possibility of better gaming. I sympathize, but I'd prefer a more ambitious standard.
If you're going to torture the interpretation of my posts to this extent to score points you're basically not arguing in good faith any more but I'll reiterate my reasons for defaulting to Watcher mode in some games: "I tend to find I shift more to Watcher mode in games where I dislike engaging with the system enough that I'd prefer not to bother with it as much as possible, but I enjoy the company enough and the story enough to want to stick around and the group hasn't reached a consensus to shift to a different system."

Nothing about financial success there (you seem to have gone a little loopidyshit on this point, possibly forgetting that this is in the context of a conversation about the design of D&D, the biggest game in the market, and as such a game whose designers are under constraints most designers aren't because if the result of their design work is anything less than "D&D remains biggest game in the market" that's a failure). Also positive reasons to wish to play the game anyway, rather than simply "I can't convince people to play something else", with the positives delivering enough net enjoyment that this bit of gaming qualifies as good gaming anyway. Your insistence that whatever I am doing cannot possibly be fun for me but is instead a torment I endure for the hope of a different campaign once we move on from the current game is a fun caricature, but not helpful to discussion. Maybe if people tell you they are enjoying themselves and having fulfilling, fun experiences at the gaming table, believe them rather than insisting that philosophically speaking they cannot possibly be enjoying what they are doing as much as they claim to be enjoying it?

To get back to "the game is the system": no, not really. The game is the sum total of activity happening at the table. The system is a part of it, but also the social contract is a part of it, house rules are a part of it, table conventions on how much emphasis is placed on which part of the system/mutual agreements to ignore bits, etc. This isn't a radical idea, by the way, it's been a part of RPG theory since early Forge days.

ZeroCount
Aug 12, 2013


Kai Tave posted:

Honestly, which games actually have good pregens and/or character building advice laid out for new players? I can't think of a single one I've ever owned that had pregens that made sense or weren't in some way built incorrectly.

Chuubo's has genuinely good precon characters but character building for new players is absurdly hard, probably more than it needs to be.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Yes.

Both because I think Johnny as you've defined him is a rare-nigh-mythical creature -- he won't be satisfied with any other game, even one that would deliver more of the stuff he actually enjoys, but at the same time, he's only here for pizza and company? And he wouldn't be satisfied with any of the alternative ways of onboarding we've discussed?

But also because even if Johnny existed, I see no problem (and many benefits) to prioritizing an audience who actually like and enjoy systems when designing that system. You can't please everyone and I think pushing the medium forward and refining a particular niche is more valuable and rewarding than universal appeal.
Uhm, I've had several Johnnies. And talk about patronizing. Dude.

He wants to be there and enjoys most of the game except detailed system interactions. Other players like having Johnny there, and enjoy more of the system stuff. They all want to play together.

And you don't think that they should, because you're placing abstract system design ahead of the desires of the people spending their time together playing the game.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.
The takeaway here is that we wouldn't even be having this argument if D&D weren't the primary funnel all emergent RPG players slide through and therefore it has to accommodate an impossibly wide range of conflicting play styles and preconceptions people bring to the table.

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



My take away is that having friends who want to just hang out is an utterly alien and disturbing idea to some.

:yikes:

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



We generally rotate games, and I'd love options for players who don't want to study the intricacies of a system before they're allowed to play it.

More onramps, fewer senior projects.

neaden
Nov 4, 2012

A changer of ways

Nuns with Guns posted:

The takeaway here is that we wouldn't even be having this argument if D&D weren't the primary funnel all emergent RPG players slide through and therefore it has to accommodate an impossibly wide range of conflicting play styles and preconceptions people bring to the table.

Of course we would. There is always going to be issues of compromise about the system we play with because for most people the system is the least important part of the RPG experience.

Warthur
May 2, 2004



dwarf74 posted:

And you don't think that they should, because you're placing abstract system design ahead of the desires of the people spending their time together playing the game.
Yeah, this. Any an RPG designer starts acting like they know better than the people actually at the table, I think they're at best going out on a limb, at worst making a complete jackass of themselves. By all means people should take pride in the art and craft of RPG design, but it should be remembered that a game must be played in order for any artistic merit it has to actually flourish. Sure, there may be artistic merit in the presentation of the game - sweet prose and nice pictures and whatnot - but the game itself is a dead, inert body unless someone plays it.

The people at the gaming table, consequently, are not just your audience - they're also your collaborators. If you want to write for an "audience" - a passive consumer of your craft - game design is 100% the wrong field, unless you like the idea of writing coffee table books that sit on the shelf but never see action at game night.

If you want to design RPGs for actual play, you need to treat the referees and players as partners in the creative process - and partners with a veto as to what happens at the their table, since you're not present to stop them if they want to take your game off into some entirely unenvisioned tangent. (If anything, when it comes to what actually happens at their gaming table you are very much the junior partner in the equation - if the assembled participants are sufficiently annoyed by your poo poo, they'll stop playing your game altogether, whereas no matter how perverse and demented a take on your game they come up with, you can't stop them playing it no matter how many angry letters you send demanding that they stop torturing your magnum opus.) If you want to see your game see a significant amount of actual play, you need to be comfortable with the idea that all of those collaborators will have at least a mildly different take on things from you, and a proportion will have a very different worldview - otherwise you end up with an RPG which only really works best if it is played by you and your four clones.

Warthur fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Oct 10, 2019

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

Warthur posted:

Yeah, this. Any an RPG designer starts acting like they know better than the people actually at the table, I think they're at best going out on a limb, at worst making a complete jackass of themselves. By all means people should take pride in the art and craft of RPG design, but it should be remembered that a game must be played in order for any artistic merit it has to actually flourish. Sure, there may be artistic merit in the presentation of the game - sweet prose and nice pictures and whatnot - but the game itself is a dead, inert body unless someone plays it.

The people at the gaming table, consequently, are not just your audience - they're also your collaborators. If you want to write for an "audience" - a passive consumer of your craft - game design is 100% the wrong field, unless you like the idea of writing coffee table books that sit on the shelf but never see action at game night.

If you want to design RPGs for actual play, you need to treat the referees and players as partners in the creative process - and partners with a veto as to what happens at the their table, since you're not present to stop them if they want to take your game off into some entirely unenvisioned tangent. If you want to see your game see a significant amount of actual play, you need to be comfortable with the idea that all of those collaborators will have at least a mildly different take on things from you, and a proportion will have a very different worldview - otherwise you end up with an RPG which only really works best if it is played by you and your four clones.

This touches on something I've been feeling for awhile: there's a huge, huge gap between products actually created for the table and worked through at it, and stuff designed in an ivory tower. Running Basic D&D has been kind of a revelation because I can tell my players "no seriously all these odd little rules and things actually have a use in play, and you'll find it out as you go" and that actually working. Everything on the equipment list actually has a purpose, someone used it once and it was actually useful. It sticks out in comparison to Pathfinder where a lot of things are just made up by the designers and it's like that's a cute idea but it's not actually going to go anywhere in play.

This is also a big part of why I like the Realms, all of Ed's oddball stuff comes from things that actually come up in his games and so on. Why are there strange exotic places? Well, I needed foreign ambassadors for intrigues at court in Cormyr. That kind of stuff.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Arivia posted:

Running Basic D&D has been kind of a revelation because I can tell my players "no seriously all these odd little rules and things actually have a use in play, and you'll find it out as you go" and that actually working. Everything on the equipment list actually has a purpose, someone used it once and it was actually useful. It sticks out in comparison to Pathfinder where a lot of things are just made up by the designers and it's like that's a cute idea but it's not actually going to go anywhere in play.

As someone who's done a lot of deep dives into the history and (speculated on the) design decisions behind old-school D&D, this resonates with me. I can't say that the gameplay aspects/rules were always something that I'd want to engage in (encumbrance, strict time tracking), but part of the "fun" was understanding what it meant and how it all goes together.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

gradenko_2000 posted:

As someone who's done a lot of deep dives into the history and (speculated on the) design decisions behind old-school D&D, this resonates with me. I can't say that the gameplay aspects/rules were always something that I'd want to engage in (encumbrance, strict time tracking), but part of the "fun" was understanding what it meant and how it all goes together.

Yep. And it works much better in play than it might read, in contrast to later things that read great and play terribly. Time-tracking is a cinch with a laminated tracker sheet. "Hey Arivia what makes us get those rolls for possible monster encounters?" "I track time and every 20 minutes in game is one, as well as whenever you make a lot of noise or do something else to attract attention." Show the sheet, point out the marks every two ticks (two turns) and they get it instantly.

For encumbrance I'm using a simplified system from B/X Essentials - containers matter, everyone can carry 160 pounds of loot in general, but at the GM's decision (something particularly bulky or 80 pounds), you become encumbered and you move at half speed. That way people aren't worrying about how many pounds of rations they're carrying but the actual important thing - how do we get treasure out of the dungeon - is preserved.

Warthur
May 2, 2004



gradenko_2000 posted:

As someone who's done a lot of deep dives into the history and (speculated on the) design decisions behind old-school D&D, this resonates with me. I can't say that the gameplay aspects/rules were always something that I'd want to engage in (encumbrance, strict time tracking), but part of the "fun" was understanding what it meant and how it all goes together.

Classic example: why, in old editions of D&D, do dragons have special rules for subduing and domesticating them but other monsters don't? Largely it's because someone chose to try and tame a dragon back in the original playtesting campaigns, and Arneson or Gygax had to come up with a rule on the fly for that and then added it to the rules, without necessarily considering whether it made sense to just generalise it as a "how to domesticate/enslave monsters" rule.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

neaden posted:

Of course we would. There is always going to be issues of compromise about the system we play with because for most people the system is the least important part of the RPG experience.

Compromising on the player side will always be there, but this is on whether or not it's worthwhile for game itself to provide an array of simple or straightforward options to accommodate the little brother/friend who just wants to hang out, in addition to an array of intricate rules for the invested players to toy with.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

a computing pun posted:

Like, one of my players is a sysadmin. He's on call 24/7, and even when there's no emergency, he's usually behind on his work. He takes his laptop out and codes when it's not his turn in a fight, or if someone else has a big segment of RP spotlight that he doesn't need to contribute to. He sometimes shows up to the game so tired that he falls asleep at the table.

This sounds like a loving advertisement for why unions should be manadatory for all workers.

Like, holy poo poo.

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Covok posted:

This sounds like a loving advertisement for why unions should be manadatory for all workers.

Like, holy poo poo.

I'm imagining how many more games I could be playing in if we collectely cut the working week in half and I'm getting mad (again)

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

Nuns with Guns posted:

The takeaway here is that we wouldn't even be having this argument if D&D weren't the primary funnel all emergent RPG players slide through and therefore it has to accommodate an impossibly wide range of conflicting play styles and preconceptions people bring to the table.
I'll flip this around and argue that one of the main reasons D&D and its derivatives have remained popular is because they offer a range of system engagement to the player base.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.
Jesus. Tuxedo wasn't saying that Johnny shouldn't be able to play with you guys. Just that the game doesn't need to be designed around Johnny. And that designing around Johnny makes the game worse.

The game is better when all the classes allow for meaningful engagement. Making the fighter into the "little brother" class means that when I want to play a fighter and I want to be engaged, I'm poo poo outta luck and I'm sitting there bored out of my mind. That's a problem. That was my original problem that started this whole debate.

And Johnny? The fact that a class allows for complex and engaging decisions doesn't mean that Johnny can't play it. Johnny can look up from his computer touching, use his favourite at-will and move on, never delving into the mechanical depths available. But it's good that those mechanical depths are there because Jane might want to play that class and Jane loves optimizing the gently caress out of her synergies.

Desiden
Mar 13, 2016

Mindless self indulgence is SRS BIZNS

Kai Tave posted:

Honestly, which games actually have good pregens and/or character building advice laid out for new players? I can't think of a single one I've ever owned that had pregens that made sense or weren't in some way built incorrectly.

Not pregens, but one thing I really liked about Unity was all the sidebars that helped contextualize the power choices and why you might opt for them. One flaw I see in a lot of tactically-heavy games is that, especially starting out, is that the value of a lot of options isn't going to be terribly clear (i.e. damage types, comparing different conditions, etc.). There's also a tendency in a lot of those games to look for party synergies, which can be daunting for someone trying to figure out one class to play, let alone how all of them fit together. Unity also helps with that in giving some suggestions about how some of those powers pair well with, or interact with, other roles. It's not perfect by any means, and it benefits from having a more limited powerset than say 4e, but I still found it useful.

Speaking of 4e, one thing I've found with my group is helping to distill down "builds" less in terms of the powers and more with a walkthrough of what you're trying to achieve and how to go about it to get some of the best results. One of our players tends to get analysis paralysis going through all the powers available in 4e. I wouldn't consider her a "watcher" or "kid brother" so much as someone who tends to freeze up when tossed a zillion options and asked to sort them out in the way 4e sprawls. She doesn't need a "simple" character in the sense of just rolling to hit, but she's very much someone who benefits having a walkthrough of how to use her powers together and understanding when and where they shine. I wish more games provided support along those lines.

Desiden fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Oct 10, 2019

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Jimbozig posted:

Jesus. Tuxedo wasn't saying that Johnny shouldn't be able to play with you guys. Just that the game doesn't need to be designed around Johnny. And that designing around Johnny makes the game worse.

The game is better when all the classes allow for meaningful engagement. Making the fighter into the "little brother" class means that when I want to play a fighter and I want to be engaged, I'm poo poo outta luck and I'm sitting there bored out of my mind. That's a problem. That was my original problem that started this whole debate.

And Johnny? The fact that a class allows for complex and engaging decisions doesn't mean that Johnny can't play it. Johnny can look up from his computer touching, use his favourite at-will and move on, never delving into the mechanical depths available. But it's good that those mechanical depths are there because Jane might want to play that class and Jane loves optimizing the gently caress out of her synergies.

Yeah, like how in 4e if you chose Fighter there was this whole section at the start of fighter that was all "So you want to be a [Sword & Board] Fighter. Great! Take these two at-wills, this encounter, and this daily. Also take this feat. Have your stats like this. Okay have fun(heck, 3rd edition also did this)."

The game already did that! The only thing missing is the part where it tells you what to take at level 2. And that's where players like me come in. If I see this rare and wonderful Johnny puzzling over level 2 utility options for his slowboat fighter, I am here to say "Boundless Endurance. There's better options but you won't want to keep track of them. It's in the PHB". One thing about the Johnny archetype is that it can't exist in a vacuum. You can't have a D&D table of four Johnnies, they'd be doing something else. So hooray for designing around the fact that there's probably gonna also be a Spike.

theironjef fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Oct 10, 2019

Gerund
Sep 12, 2007

He push a man


I'd rather a game design around having two or three solid players and then a rotating cast of in-and-out mutual friends. I find that this is a similar enough problem that you can treat both issues- that not everyone wants to do the reading of the entire game textbook as if the table is a class- without trying to stretch out the anecdotal of a singular case into some universal issue.

The person that wants a class that doesn't require an immediate tactical success every round is looking for a system that doesn't treat each person's individual combat turn like a solo ship at sea. Lazylords and Voice-on-the-Mic tacticians and, at least when I played, a house-ruled combo Shadowrun Rigger/Decker that can both drive the car and do the hacking contributes without needing to be locked into what the person immediately before you did.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Desiden posted:

Speaking of 4e, one thing I've found with my group is helping to distill down "builds" less in terms of the powers and more with a walkthrough of what you're trying to achieve and how to go about it to get some of the best results. One of our players tends to get analysis paralysis going through all the powers available in 4e. I wouldn't consider her a "watcher" or "kid brother" so much as someone who tends to freeze up when tossed a zillion options and asked to sort them out in the way 4e sprawls. She doesn't need a "simple" character in the sense of just rolling to hit, but she's very much someone who benefits having a walkthrough of how to use her powers together and understanding when and where they shine is beneficial. I wish more games provided support along those lines.

Quoted for truth; I really love systems that let you build a character from parts and have huge flexibility, but it's incredibly useful when they have 'packages' or something like that to give new players a sense of what some standard ways to approach the game are. Exalted 3e is a real offender - there's immense choice paralysis from the immense charm number, and having a section on 'here's a suite that will make you effectively Good At (Thing)' would be really good. Especially if they were structured around genre archetypes rather than just skill sets, so that you can plug in Conan Package 1 or Elric Sorcery Booster or whatever.

That would honestly be kind of a silver bullet for most groups in these contexts? Obviously these packages are likely not to be optimized but that might matter less than having an easy access point. As long as they're not terrible garbage.

Darwinism
Jan 6, 2008


Gerund posted:

I'd rather a game design around having two or three solid players and then a rotating cast of in-and-out mutual friends. I find that this is a similar enough problem that you can treat both issues- that not everyone wants to do the reading of the entire game textbook as if the table is a class- without trying to stretch out the anecdotal of a singular case into some universal issue.

The person that wants a class that doesn't require an immediate tactical success every round is looking for a system that doesn't treat each person's individual combat turn like a solo ship at sea. Lazylords and Voice-on-the-Mic tacticians and, at least when I played, a house-ruled combo Shadowrun Rigger/Decker that can both drive the car and do the hacking contributes without needing to be locked into what the person immediately before you did.

The key to this, and D&D fails utterly at it, is managed expectations. Like, people aren't gonna get mad at a game of Ars Magica when one person's playing their mage because it's part of the explicit framework of the game.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Kai Tave posted:

Honestly, which games actually have good pregens and/or character building advice laid out for new players? I can't think of a single one I've ever owned that had pregens that made sense or weren't in some way built incorrectly.

Mutants and Masterminds, depending on the edition, aren't bad... with a but. In that they're all made under the 'gentleman's agreement' you kinda have to have in M&M to not make bathroom psychics or break the system in a number of hilarious ways. And some of them were made incorrectly, especially in the sourcebooks.

So... none, I guess.

Edit: Upon consideration I'd probably vote for the ones in the Buffy game. They're pretty good and I don't recall any mechanical errors.

Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Oct 10, 2019

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Willie Tomg posted:

I think this is uncharitable.

Jimbozig posted:

Jesus. Tuxedo wasn't saying that Johnny shouldn't be able to play with you guys. Just that the game doesn't need to be designed around Johnny. And that designing around Johnny makes the game worse.

I was also getting cranky to the point where I wasn't communicating my point as clearly as I could, which isn't their fault.

I do however think that TRPGs have a wonderful property: you only need 4-5 like-minded nerds to get one running. They aren't an MMO where you need thousands of a players on a shard to form a community, or an FPS where you need thousands to keep queue times down. They aren't at risk of losing backwards compatibility to a new operating system like a video game -- most of the time they don't even have feelies to get lost like a board game.

All of which is to say, as a player there's less reason to care about the popularity of an RPG than any other kind of game.

also

Nuns with Guns posted:

The takeaway here is that we wouldn't even be having this argument if D&D weren't the primary funnel all emergent RPG players slide through and therefore it has to accommodate an impossibly wide range of conflicting play styles and preconceptions people bring to the table.

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Oct 10, 2019

Sionak
Dec 20, 2005

Mind flay the gap.

Kai Tave posted:

Honestly, which games actually have good pregens and/or character building advice laid out for new players? I can't think of a single one I've ever owned that had pregens that made sense or weren't in some way built incorrectly.

Pretty much all the Pelgrane Press Gumshoe games do this. They have some character build guidance built in, along with skill packages.

I haven't reverse-engineered all the characters, but the pregens in Pelgrane Press' Free RPG day games are also high quality. There's ones for most of their systems, from Trail of Cthulhu to TimeWatch to 13th Age. They're all well formatted and usable right out of the book/adventure.

In particular, the 13th Age ones have reminder text to help out new players.

For ones like the TimeWatch pregens, the author Kevin Kulp's philosophy is to never write a pregen that he wouldn't want to play. So they're enjoyable, both in terms of stats and backstory. The full game isn't out yet, but the pregens for his co-written fantasy game "Swords of the Serpentine" at the GenCon playtests were amazingly fun.

The Delta Green pregens are also great out of the starter book (Need to Know). I've run 6+ games using them and everyone's been able to find someone they liked who could contribute in some way. ArcDream also released a whole product full of additional pregens, though I have not really looked at that one.

neaden
Nov 4, 2012

A changer of ways

Tuxedo Catfish posted:


I do however think that TRPGs have a wonderful property: you only need 4-5 like-minded nerds to get one running. They aren't an MMO where you need thousands of a players on a shard to form a community, or an FPS where you need thousands to keep queue times down. They aren't at risk of losing backwards compatibility to a new operating system like a video game -- most of the time they don't even have feelies to get lost like a board game.

All of which is to say, as a player there's less reason to care about the popularity of an RPG than any other kind of game.

also
Honestly my experience is the exact opposite. The internet is a big place so even if only one in a million people is interested in something you can find hundreds of them. If I want to find a random server that is hosting Ultime Online like it was when I was a kid I can find it and hang out with the other couple dozen people in the world interested in doing that right now. If I want to play an RPG the only pickup group in my town is D&D at the local game store. If I want to play anything else I have to find people willing to learn a new system, convince them to play it, then teach it to them.

CitizenKeen
Nov 13, 2003

easygoing pedant

neaden posted:

If I want to play anything else I have to find people willing to learn a new system, convince them to play it, then teach it to them.

If they're not willing to do that, though, then they're not "like-minded".

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

neaden posted:

If I want to play anything else I have to find people willing to learn a new system, convince them to play it, then teach it to them.

This is basically what I've been doing for the past 2-3 years. I literally haven't run the same system twice. It's not without its downsides (I GM a lot more than I play) but it's also really rewarding -- and illuminating. If you're not shackled to any particular system you have way more freedom to treat games and their rules as tools for creating a particular experience.

I recruit and play online, but from a community that I know and participate in as a community rather than just grabbing total strangers, which I think makes for a good balance; I've got one IRL friend who plays in most of my games and a bunch of recurring players who rotate in or out depending on schedules and whether the particular system I'm running at the time suits them. I always pitch my games with a description of what the gameplay loop is like and why I chose the system / what I'm getting out of it in terms of personal enjoyment. I've had really good results with this approach.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

dwarf74 posted:

I'll flip this around and argue that one of the main reasons D&D and its derivatives have remained popular is because they offer a range of system engagement to the player base.

I don't disagree that the options exist and will always exist with D&D in the future because people like that they're there. I do think a lot of the current extremes in feature complexity are incidental effects of cutting down subsystems in the melee classes across D&D editions though.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I recruit and play online, but from a community that I know and participate in as a community rather than just grabbing total strangers, which I think makes for a good balance; I've got one IRL friend who plays in most of my games and a bunch of recurring players who rotate in or out depending on schedules and whether the particular system I'm running at the time suits them. I always pitch my games with a description of what the gameplay loop is like and why I chose the system / what I'm getting out of it in terms of personal enjoyment. I've had really good results with this approach.

That's probably the way to do it. I've got so many games I'd like to run but it would basically all be PBP and people are just super flaky.

Tendales
Mar 9, 2012

theironjef posted:


The game already did that! The only thing missing is the part where it tells you what to take at level 2. And that's where players like me come in. If I see this rare and wonderful Johnny puzzling over level 2 utility options for his slowboat fighter, I am here to say "Boundless Endurance. There's better options but you won't want to keep track of them. It's in the PHB". One thing about the Johnny archetype is that it can't exist in a vacuum. You can't have a D&D table of four Johnnies, they'd be doing something else. So hooray for designing around the fact that there's probably gonna also be a Spike.

That might be a really good idea for presenting level progression in general. Instead of saying "At level 2 you choose a utility power", what if the game just said "At level 2 you get Boundless Endurance; you may trade it for any other level 2 utility power if you want." It's functionally the same, but players that don't want to engage in the theorycrafting of making a character will get a default PC whose powers are designed to all at least function together.

This way, instead of designating any particular class as the low-engagement class, just make it so every class is minimal complexity if you take all of the defaults.

neonchameleon
Nov 14, 2012



When we are talking about D&D and the limited number of games like it the major advantage of it being a class based system is that the player interacts with the gameworld through the class. This gives me a huge scope to tailor my classes to the wishes of different players by pointing them at different classes. Not designing classes that work differently and that are designed for different people with different tastes is a failure of the game designer - and I'm almost unable to comprehend in what way anyone could consider designing a game which can cover a huge range of tastes shows I lack self respect if I've already paid the price for that by making it a class based game.

And I don't care e.g. that Ferinus doesn't find scout and slayer to be simpler than the classic AEDU classes. He doesn't have to play them - but when he says that they aren't simpler for a significant group of player that find AEDU leads to analysis paralysis he's talking about him. I'll never play a 4e Slayer - I think in some ways like Ferrinus. But unlike Ferrinus I'm pleased when my friends have fun alongside me even if they are handling things differently.

Finally having a range of complexities also aids roleplaying. The clearest example here is comparing Iron Man to The Hulk in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. If I'm playing Tony Stark I'm almost continually playing dice manipulation games as I adjust the power levels in various parts of the Iron Man suit - and that feels like adjusting the power levels. Meanwhile if I'm playing the Hulk? Hulk Smash! Big dice, few tricks. Both feel good in part because they feel like the character. And before someone says "But fighters should be simple by this rule" no they shouldn't unless they are demigods. An archetypal fighter without superpowers who takes on dragon level foes should be more Batman than the Hulk; Hulk plays in that league while bulling his way through because he's got superpowers.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Tendales posted:

That might be a really good idea for presenting level progression in general. Instead of saying "At level 2 you choose a utility power", what if the game just said "At level 2 you get Boundless Endurance; you may trade it for any other level 2 utility power if you want." It's functionally the same, but players that don't want to engage in the theorycrafting of making a character will get a default PC whose powers are designed to all at least function together.

This way, instead of designating any particular class as the low-engagement class, just make it so every class is minimal complexity if you take all of the defaults.

It's funny because 3e kind of evolved to have that thanks to the alternate class features and alternate racial bonuses in later supplements. A class that's fully pre-built from 1-20 with advice on how to swap out or customize for a more specialized build would be a sensible next step.

BirdieBedtime
Apr 1, 2011

Sionak posted:

The full game isn't out yet, but the pregens for his co-written fantasy game "Swords of the Serpentine" at the GenCon playtests were amazingly fun.

Those pre-gens were amazing. I ran the playtest for my home group, and the 'mysterious sorcerer who's really just insecure' and 'priest-cop that wants to break the law, just to see how it feels' were a lot of fun.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

PST
Jul 5, 2012

If only Milliband had eaten a vegan sausage roll instead of a bacon sandwich, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Not content with getting banned by rpg.net, rpggeek and even :reddit: because of ranting about essjaydubs who dare to criticise his really, really lovely products It seems that 'Felixgamingx1' thinks[ this is a good free product to promote his company/game.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/290929/New-Horizon-Nasty-Habits-Vol-10?src=newest



In that his game seems to be in the worst traditions of lovely fantasy heartbreakers, he seems to be right.

Edit: Ohh boy, turns out this well goes very deep

https://www.reddit.com/r/tabletop/comments/aifnbx/revelation_ludens/?sort=old

PST fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Oct 11, 2019

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply