Hey all,

I started following this guy's blog, in which he writes about his quite old-school D&D campaign, and you can find many amazing ideas for places, NPCs and magic items, and really interesting analysis on RPGs. Now, I wanted to bring to your attention this post on why, though he likes many indie games, he won't be able to play them with his crew (made of porn actresses and actors, as he works in the adult industry):

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-much-do-you-want-to-be-wizard_15.html?zx=86a9e38d1461f582

I specially liked this part:

Quote from: Zak Sabbath in his blogIn the gaming community, I would guess that 90% of people who have that particular kind of faith in their own on-the-spot creativity or who are unselfconscious and faithful enough not to worry or who are always sure their imagination is more fun than their xbox are GMs or prime GM-material.

Basically, these are the people who run the games, own the books, and write the blogs. These are the people who like to think about the game when they aren't playing the game and who know who Kevin Siembieda and Ookla the Mok are.

And, if you haven't noticed by now, this blog is largely about how you can play and have lots of fun with only one or two of those people at the table and have the rest of the people just be players.

At least, you can play D&D that way.

Also I agree on his final conclusion on the differences between indie games and D&D games, regarding the level of involvement needed from the players.

Seriously, I like his blog.

Ok, seriously, i don't get your point...
D&D is a RPG that uses common fantasy tropes?
A no-brainer with respect to "creativeness" that's needed to have one's character survive an adventure?

Or what is this thread about?

Definitely true, IMO.  Hell, I've been gaming for 8 or so years now, I'm the GM for my group, and some indie RPGs still make me go "huh"?  Sorcerer is especially guilty of this.  I don't know why, but I read through the PDF out of curiosity going "This is supposed to be fun?"  It just doesn't click with me -- I don't understand how thematic role-playing is fun if analyzing philosophical outlooks about vague concepts is part of the exercise.  I'm not at the table for therapy or academic reasons, I'm there to kill shit and do cool shit and who gives a damn if any "higher" concepts make their way to the table.

D&D, though, I got it from day one.  You make a character, you are responsible for that character, and you go on adventures and explore ruins and dungeons.  It's rewarding because the act itself is fun, not because you have some ulterior motive you're trying to fulfill, and you really don't need a long ass essay to prove whether something is "fun."  It either is, or it isn't.  Why that's such a hard concept for some people (Edwards) to grasp, I'll never know.  Yes, in sports and other games there is a winning and a losing side.  But play for most people at the recreational levels isn't about winning, it's about having fun and being social.  I really don't understand why pointless fun for the sake of fun is a problem for some people.

Read the post. It's quite good, thanks for posting the link.

Quote from: Phantom Black;355897Ok, seriously, i don't get your point...
D&D is a RPG that uses common fantasy tropes?
A no-brainer with respect to "creativeness" that's needed to have one's character survive an adventure?

Or what is this thread about?

No.

This thread is about how, for many people, playing D&D is a more easy and rewarding experience, as they can pick their level of attention and involvement and escalate it from there. A shy player may be a perfectly valid participant in a D&D game, while it would have a tougher time in an indie game which requires a higher level of authorship on every player (like, say Universalis).

On that, I agree. I also agree that D&D is articulated around an easy to grasp concept, which is more newbie-friendly.

Quote from: Peregrin;355901Definitely true, IMO.  Hell, I've been gaming for 8 or so years now, I'm the GM for my group, and some indie RPGs still make me go "huh"?  Sorcerer is especially guilty of this.  I don't know why, but I read through the PDF out of curiosity going "This is supposed to be fun?"  It just doesn't click with me -- I don't understand how thematic role-playing is fun if analyzing philosophical outlooks about vague concepts is part of the exercise.  I'm not at the table for therapy or academic reasons, I'm there to kill shit and do cool shit and who gives a damn if any "higher" concepts make their way to the table.

Well, I've ran many Sorcerer games (is one of the fav games for my crew) and I can tel you that the philosophical analysis starts and finish when the GM and/or group define what's Humanity and how sorcery works. Once you start the game, is like any other RPG. Player input is mainly used during chargen and setting creation.

QuoteI really don't understand why pointless fun for the sake of fun is a problem for some people.

[/QUOTE]
I don't think that fun for fun's sake is a problem for Edwards or any other indie designer.

Oh, ok, failed my notice roll...
Now i get what's the matter...
Hmm...
Controversial topic.
I played Burning Empires 2-3 times with my D&D group.
Astonishingly, it worked, even better than what i would've expected, although it's more like a traditional RPG and maybe not as forgy as Sorcerer or similar games.

Regarding my fellow players... they're mostly indifferent to theory, they rather act improvisingly, they don't prewrite character dossiers or such...

Interesting Blog, bookmarked.

I completely agree that as long as there are a couple of people who know what they're doing around the table, anyone can play old-school D&D with minimal knowledge of the game and bring as much input as they are comfortable during play.

Strangely enough, the hardcore game Republic of Rome is much the same.

I can see how it holds for earlier editions, do folk think it still holds true for 3e and 4e?  Those seemed to require a lot more choices, but that may be my misimpression.

I tried creating a character for Earthdawn today, that game badly needs a simple option, I'm not yet bought in - but I can't just play a guy who hits things, I have to have magic.  Too much work for a game I'm not yet sold on.

Quote from: Balbinus;355925I can see how it holds for earlier editions, do folk think it still holds true for 3e and 4e?  Those seemed to require a lot more choices, but that may be my misimpression.

Well, this guy plays a mishmash of 3.5 and 1st ed AD&D so I can see it holding true on that cases.

The important thing is, how easy is it to do the chargen? In 3e or 4e is not harder than any other game (though more complicated that previous editions, obviously). As the player gets more experience the rules get more complicated, but that in turn makes the next chargen easier...

QuoteI tried creating a character for Earthdawn today, that game badly needs a simple option, I'm not yet bought in - but I can't just play a guy who hits things, I have to have magic.  Too much work for a game I'm not yet sold on.

Playing a guy who just hits things without any other schtick should be a constitutional right or something.

I think veteran roleplayers sometimes forget how dense D&D lore is. I guess since the LotR movies and WoW have made high fantasy more mainstream, but I recall how totally confusing it was for me when I first played with all the races and seemigly arbitrary restrictions. Even the basic concent pf "adventuring" in the sense of going into a dungeon, killing all the monsters and taking all the gold seemed like a very alien thing to do.

Something like Star Wars of James Bond is much more accessible and places no crazy lore barriers between the novice player and the setting.

Quote from: Balbinus;355925I can see how it holds for earlier editions, do folk think it still holds true for 3e and 4e?  Those seemed to require a lot more choices, but that may be my misimpression.

For me, 3e and 4e require those "in the know" to help guide new players, although they're certainly learnable by non-gamers if they have the initiative.  The problem is most people associate games with easy-to-learn mechanics and simple concepts.

From what I've observed, it's harder for a player new to 3e to get their head around the mechanics and character creation, but they're much more comfortable at the table since they don't have a crap-ton of options creating stress for them, and the more experienced players generally help them along.  

4e, while character creation is a little easier (especially with the builder), at the table new players often choke because when they deliberate about which powers to use, their limited understanding of the system acts as a barrier.  This also causes a bit of trouble during character creation, because trying to decide whether to take a power that does "3[w] damage" and "2[w] damage + slide target three squares" is only comprehensible to someone who understands how these bits lock into the meta strategies/concepts surrounding play.

Quote from: Imperator;355927Playing a guy who just hits things without any other schtick should be a constitutional right or something.

Indeed.  Steve D said once that in a new game he creates someone who hits people in the face, it's mechanically simple and another one of them is always welcome.

In Earthdawn, you're a guy who hits people in the face WITH MAGIC!  It lacks a simple option.

Re 4e, to all those who responded to that bit of my post, am I right that it allows a degree of revamping your character when you level up?  Something else I noticed with Earthdawn is that it clearly has optimal build strategies, which means it has suboptimal ones, and I really don't fancy being three months in only to find that choices I made in chargen are now crippling my character.  3e as I recall had the same issue, but I heard 4e had addressed it, is that right?

If you don't have to worry about optimisation, that in itself reduces necessary buy-in before you can start play.

Quote from: Imperator;355927Playing a guy who just hits things without any other schtick should be a constitutional right or something.

Yeah. I mean, when I am not GMing (which means you have to entertain a tableful of people for 5+ hours - no mean thing), I am usually a Thief guy - evasion, out-of-system problem solution, a backstab now and then, but sometimes, it is just so satisfactory to lay back and hit things. Then, when I'm not hitting things, I can still do the whole out-of-system things, the negotiation, role assumption and all that.

Give me that "I've got a character in 10 minutes and ready to play" experience, and I will be fine. With a bit of practice, I could do that for 3.0, but it needed some time investment at the beginning before I got there.

Quote from: Balbinus;355925I tried creating a character for Earthdawn today, that game badly needs a simple option, I'm not yet bought in - but I can't just play a guy who hits things, I have to have magic.  Too much work for a game I'm not yet sold on.

Yep. And it has sub-systems growing on sub-systems, sprouting off sub-systems.

So we can see that by the 90s the hobby was already veering into the heavy side. Earthdawn's fans don't consider it a heavy game, but it's way, way more mechanically complex than Basic D&D.

Good link Ramon. I really like what this guy has to say. And he's spot on about Forge/Trad games and the level of player investment. In fact kyle has more or less said the same thing. I'm going to keep visiting this guy and of course carry on with the Evil DM's blog

Regards,
David R