Inspired by the Challenge thread, and Warren's post therin, I bring you the lastest, and therefore BEST theory about gaming there is today!

UNOism!

See, RPG's are very much like games of cards.  You've got decks of cards that are used to play a variety of games, like poker. If you don't like poker, that card deck can be used to play a different game without any difficulty at all. Of course, all the players have to try to play the same game, but as long as everyone agrees, the rules can change.

Then you have card games that are based on their own decks. UNO comes to mind, as do collectible card games. Now, unless you want to spend all day coming up with new, and probably hard to implement rules, its pretty hard to play another game with the UNO deck.  There are RPG's that are much like UNO cards in this, they play their own game very well, but are rather limited in their application outside of it.

Now, UNO is a fun game, no bones about out, and many CCG's are fun as well.  Are they more fun than Poker or any other 'generic card' game? Well, that is a personal call. But they are different.

So this then in the meat of the theory:  You can make a game that uses RPG conventions, but isn't really compatable with conventional RPG gaming, and it can be good. Or you can make a game that uses conventional RPG gaming as it's foundations.  If you make the former, you may get plenty of fans, but people can only play if they know your game, while the more generic one will appeal to more people but had better be damn good to stand up to the 'old standards'.


Using this theory we can easily explain the sudden rise in popularity among game designers for the 'indie' mentality of 'UNO' style games. They don't have to compete with Poker and all the other greats, they just have to get people's attention once. Once you have the UNO deck, it's easy to get players to play UNO... just break out that deck.

Viola!

I don't know whether that's strangely topical or not, but I remember playing a game that beared an uncanny resemblance to UNO with normal playing cards. You just had to memorize what each card meant instead of user-friendly iconics.

It wouldn't work the other way 'round, grasshoppers

Quote from: SosthenesI don't know whether that's strangely topical or not, but I remember playing a game that beared an uncanny resemblance to UNO with normal playing cards. You just had to memorize what each card meant instead of user-friendly iconics.

It wouldn't work the other way 'round, grasshoppers

Ah.. now for my dirty little secret: I haven't played UNO in, erm, twenty years?  Close too it anyway. I haven't got a damn clue how to play it, only that the cards were pretty colors and it involved matching stuff by color or number, I think...

Maybe I should wait for the theory to catch on before blowing my credentials out of the water, eh?

UNO was called Mau-Mau in my Kindergarten, and played with a regular deck of cards.
There is also a game called Great Dalmuti, which also was a Kindergarten favorite, at those early times called "Arschloch" = Asshole.

Quote from: SettembriniUNO was called Mau-Mau in my Kindergarten, and played with a regular deck of cards.
There is also a game called Great Dalmuti, which also was a Kindergarten favorite, at those early times called "Arschloch" = Asshole.

Ah yes, the hidden secret of UNOism... UNO can be played just fine with a regular deck of cards.  I thought I'd mentioned it?


Because you can play these UNOist games with regular RPG's. You just don't get the pretty cards to go with.

UNO was called Mau-Mau in my Kindergarten, and played with a regular deck of cards.
There is also a game called Great Dalmuti, which also was a Kindergarten favorite, at those early times called "Arschloch" = Asshole.

There´s a lot of games that used to be played with regular cards.

Those cards aren't pretty. They're simple and come in bright colors. Which isn't entirely off-topic, either

Quote from: SpikeBecause you can play these UNOist games with regular RPG's. You just don't get the pretty cards to go with.

I'm in general agreement with you theory, but this is the only thing I would kinda disagree with here. Mainly because the card metaphor breaks down a (little) bit, even with traditional games. I'll get to that in a bit.

Whilst you could play Uno with a deck of regular playing cards, it would require a bit of tweakage to get it to work. Trying to play Top Trumps with regular playing cards, on the other hand, is going to require a lot of modification to get anything like a fun experience (hell, I think it's pracically impossible). It's just easier to buy a Top Trumps deck, in that case.

Similarly, if I want to play a Polaris style game, I could either go and hack around with D&D for ages and try to get that kind of experience, or I could just go out and play Polaris instead.

My secondary point is that most (if not all) regular, pundit-approved, proper RPGs tend to work better for some goals than for others. As I said in the parent thread, if you wanted a fast-paced game of cinematic combat, I would pick Feng Shui over, say, Phoenix Command. That is akin to having a deck of cards that favor some ways of playing over others; I dunno, like a deck that doesn't have Jokers or any card ranked under a 7 would be very suited to the playing of Skat, but would produce quite a different game if you tried to play Poker with it (but I think it would still work, mechanically.)

But generally, I think this is a fair assessment of the two camps.

Quote from: warrenMy secondary point is that most (if not all) regular, pundit-approved, proper RPGs tend to work better for some goals than for others. As I said in the parent thread, if you wanted a fast-paced game of cinematic combat, I would pick Feng Shui over, say, Phoenix Command. That is akin to having a deck of cards that favor some ways of playing over others; I dunno, like a deck that doesn't have Jokers or any card ranked under a 7 would be very suited to the playing of Skat, but would produce quite a different game if you tried to play Poker with it (but I think it would still work, mechanically.)

But generally, I think this is a fair assessment of the two camps.

Thank you, Warren.  Props, by the way, for inspiring this.

Of course, you could bring up Pinochle... it uses a more or less standard deck of cards, heavily modified for the game in question.   If you have standard cards, you can make a pinochle deck (am I spelling that remotely correctly? Gawd only knows...)... which accounts for the differences in games like Pheonix Command and Feng Shui. Ordinary cards are quite flexible, you see.

Naturally, this theory is slightly tongue in cheek, and like any other is only as good as you make it be.  

I was actually quite surprised after I'd decided to put it to the forum about just how applicable it really turned out to be.

Remember, UNO is just an example. I mention CCG's as well, so really out there stuff, like presumably Polaris, you would prefer to attach to a CCG, such as Magic: the gathering, rather than to UNO itself.  A game with more conventional rules, dressed up in unconventional language (say, DitV) would be the actual UNO's.

The Marketing angle probably deserves more discussion than I gave it in the original post.

Do we need to change that one smiley with the "Go Back to the Forge" sign to just read "Go Play Uno"?

Works for me. Though JungleSpeedism might be more like it.

Interesting premise.  Although you can't really play Magic: The Gathering with a regular card deck, and most people know a lot of really solid rules for games they can play with their regular cards.  

It's been ages since I played UNO as well!

In many ways UNOism is just another way of stating the difference between "broadcasting" and "narrowcasting", which is hardly a new idea in any medium (let alone RPGs), but it's a really nice way of illustrating the differences.

Another nuance to it: you can play UNO with a regular card deck, if you try hard, as pointed out. But there's a good chance someone will say "Man, I'm not enjoying all this effort to play UNO - why don't we just play poker instead?" If you're playing with an UNO deck, however, it is far far easier to play UNO, and it's less likely that, once play starts, people are going to give up and play poker instead.

Similarly, while you can try and replicate the action in Forgey indie RPGs, you're going to have to work at it, and there's always the risk that the players will drift back to playing poker/looting dungeons again. Forge RPGs, while useless for playing poker, have better mechanics to make sure you don't accidentally drift into playing poker instead of UNO.

Quote from: warthurAnother nuance to it: you can play UNO with a regular card deck, if you try hard, as pointed out. But there's a good chance someone will say "Man, I'm not enjoying all this effort to play UNO - why don't we just play poker instead?" If you're playing with an UNO deck, however, it is far far easier to play UNO, and it's less likely that, once play starts, people are going to give up and play poker instead.

Similarly, while you can try and replicate the action in Forgey indie RPGs, you're going to have to work at it, and there's always the risk that the players will drift back to playing poker/looting dungeons again. Forge RPGs, while useless for playing poker, have better mechanics to make sure you don't accidentally drift into playing poker instead of UNO.

Then ideally you want to use your regular card deck (the classic RPG) to play games like Poker and not games like UNO.  If you want to play a game like UNO, you'd be better to get an UNO deck.

I don't think anyone will argue that one of the Poker type games for the RPG is the classic:
Explore the dungeon, avoid the traps, kill the monsters and collect the gold.

I think it's worth giving more thought to whether a game built with a traditional RPG is a "classic" like Poker, Bridge, Rummy, etc.  Whether it's highly specialized like UNO, or whether it's... sort of a mess.

QuoteAnother nuance to it: you can play UNO with a regular card deck, if you try hard, as pointed out. But there's a good chance someone will say "Man, I'm not enjoying all this effort to play UNO - why don't we just play poker instead?" If you're playing with an UNO deck, however, it is far far easier to play UNO, and it's less likely that, once play starts, people are going to give up and play poker instead.

As said earlier: Most German Kindergarten Kiddies play Mau-Mau, and not UNO. Mau-Mau is UNO with a regular card deck. Actually it´s the other way around, Mau-Mau is much older.

UNO is just clever marketing. Noone needs UNO.