Quote from: Abyssal Maw;356452What I got out of it is that when you have a game that is actually a game, it's a lot easier to play and to get inbterested in if you aren't already some self-declared Thespian. Being all pretendy and making up stories can be a lot of fun, but it in itself isn't a game. If you don't have a game to hang it on, and that's all there is.. well, that's not enough.

Funny thing is, a lot of indie games, even the narrative ones, have a decent amount of crunch, and built-in design purpose, at least compared to old-school D&D.  They just require a more thoughtful approach, is all.  I'd say Burning Wheel is a lot more game-y than D&D because it has lots of bits to tinker with and subsystems that play out like mini-games, but the way it goes about it is different (focus on themes and beliefs to drive play rather than encounters or locations).

It really just comes down to how much thought someone wants to put into their character or the game in general -- even on the mechanical/game end.  Thespian-ism has nothing to do with it. Tell someone they can roll 3 six-sided dice and start playing, and they'll probably go along with it.  Tell someone they have to think hard about their character's beliefs/background or that they have to allocate points and have to decide which section of their character sheet gets which point-caps and...yeah...game or not they're going to be disinclined.

So I don't think the whole roleplay focus puts people off, it's the amount of work expected.  I know lots of people who roleplay well but hate writing background material for their character if the GM asks for it.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;356452Controversial point: This is why "rules lite" has limited appeal with new players. New players counterintuitively (well, only if you aren't paying attention) will choose the game with well defined rules over the "rules lite" thing, because they recognize it the one with rules as a game, and games can be learned.

Definitely.  One of the reasons D&D has always been a good newbie game is it has a solid rules structure that lets you play without roleplaying.

That's not saying it's not an rpg, it is saying that a newbie can say "my guy hits the orc" and not have to worry about much else, until they want to.

By contrast, Risus or somesuch really requires you from day one to give creative input, but on day one you may well not be ready to do so.

That said, there's a happy medium.  Too many rules, too much game if you will, can also put new players off.  I wouldn't want to introduce a new player with Earthdawn say, there's just too much you'd need to understand to play.  D&D avoids this by backloading complexity, to start play I only need to understand a little bit, the rest comes naturally with time.

I've seen rules-light games really shine with new players though.  Dread is pretty much my go-to game for nongamers.  The GM typically hands out archetypes - "I've got a smart college kid, a drunk salesman, and a 'cougar' divorcee who will all end up in the same motel.  Who wants to play what?"  Each player gets a questionnaire that asks specific questions.  They are typically designed to lead the player in certain directions, but gives them a free hand in filling in the blanks.

For the actual rules, you just play Jenga.  Want to do something?  Pull a block.  Tower falls?  You're toast.  That's really all there is to it.

I think it works because it asks for specifics.  One thing I've learned is that most players will go dark, darker than you expect.  If you have "What happened when you were 10 that you still haven't forgiven your father for?" you'll get ten times the "What he made me to with his poker buddies watching" or "beating me so bad I went into the hospital, and said if I told anyone he'd do the same to my sister" than you will "He missed my Little League game, the bastard".  But its their choice to go that way, so they will just run with it.

I've played the game with my 60 year old mother and 10 year old daughter, as well as plenty of nongamers.  I have a few friends that are decidedly not gamers, but they'll show up with bells on for Dread.

On another subject, there's a fun little game that was sort of meant to be a player trainer for this kind of thing.  The author said that his group was starting to play more Indie games, and they weren't too comfortable setting scenes and such.  So he made this up for practice.

Its called Zombie Cinema, and to me it occupies space between RPG and party game.  There's a simple linear board and each PC has a token on the board.  The group decides the concept for the zombie movie - a mall, an old farm house, zombies in space, whatever.  Everyone draws three cards with personality traits on them to make a character.

The PCs start in the middle of the board.  Get to the top, and you escape with your life!  At the bottom is a zombie token.  Each square has a different level of zombie action.  Starting out, the PCs are hearing news reports and rumors of zombies, but nothing else.

So how do you move on the board?  By introducing conflict.  There's no GM here, each player takes a turn setting a scene.  They describe what is going on, where the PCs are, and so on.  When two players come into conflict, they roll a d6 to resolve it.  The other players can take sides, offering their dice to the player they think is 'right'.

This is conflict resolution, not task resolution.  If a player says "I'm going to shoot the zombie in the head" and everyone agrees he could do that (maybe he's a soldier or something), then he does it, no conflict.  However, someone else could say "No way man, you're just a college kid you couldn't make that shot".  If there's a third player, he could take sides.  He agrees that the college kid doesn't have a chance and give his die to the second player.  College kid rolls a 4, the second player rolls a 3 and a 5, taking the highest.  College kid misses.

They also move on the board.  In this case, player 2 moves forward one space because he won the conflict.  Player 1 lost, so he moves back one.  Though he took sides, player 3 wasn't involved, so he doesn't move.  If they tie, the zombie token moves forward, making the zombies more prevalent.  Also, if you ever end up in the same square as the zombies, you get eaten.  Each player has the privledge and right to describe how they are eaten by zombies .

Anyway, if you've got players that could use some practice setting scenes and/or love zombies, its a fun little game.  Runs in an hour or so usually.

Quote from: Balbinus;356489Definitely.  One of the reasons D&D has always been a good newbie game is it has a solid rules structure that lets you play without roleplaying.

That's not saying it's not an rpg, it is saying that a newbie can say "my guy hits the orc" and not have to worry about much else, until they want to.

Sure, but could that not be also seen as instilling bad habits from the start and maybe pushing away potential players who might be more interested in roleplaying than orc slaying?

I remember I was playing in a Call of Cthulhu game in a club and two new players, obviously friends, joined our game. One of the two, clearly the more experienced one was helping his friend out, but some of his advice, clearly drawn from D&D, was very suspect. For instance after a fight with some cultists, he explained to his mate how he now should have his guy loot the dead cultists for gold and treasure.

PS:

I guess what I am saying is that playing an RPG as a wargame isn't necessarily more newbie friendly than playing it setting hte wargame as the entry point may discourage a lot of potentially good players from the hobby and might go some way to explain why there is such a marked gender bias in the hobby.

Quote from: Soylent Green;356639Sure, but could that not be also seen as instilling bad habits from the start and maybe pushing away potential players who might be more interested in roleplaying than orc slaying?

Why do you suppose these are two different activities?

Quote... he explained to his mate how he now should have his guy loot the dead cultists for gold and treasure.

..Or clues. Right? I mean, it's the same.
 

QuoteI guess what I am saying is that playing an RPG as a wargame isn't necessarily more newbie friendly than playing it setting hte wargame as the entry point may discourage a lot of potentially good players from the hobby and might go some way to explain why there is such a marked gender bias in the hobby.

Here's where the needle goes off the phonograph. "As a wargame"? Also, reread that part where Mandy says "fuck this". The gender bias has been a self-imposed thing from the start, but I really think the deciding factor has very little to do with rules and everything to do with presentation and subject matter. Online roleplaying communties (and let's go out on a limb and suggest roleplaying circles on Second Life) are absolutely dominated by women, but not because they lack rules. It's because they are about Twilight and Harry Potter and dressing up.

Quote from: Soylent Green;356639Sure, but could that not be also seen as instilling bad habits from the start and maybe pushing away potential players who might be more interested in roleplaying than orc slaying?

I see the logic, but given that's how almost all of us started, I'm not too worried.  

Besides, who says D&D has to be just about orc slaying?

Quote from: Soylent Green;356639I remember I was playing in a Call of Cthulhu game in a club and two new players, obviously friends, joined our game. One of the two, clearly the more experienced one was helping his friend out, but some of his advice, clearly drawn from D&D, was very suspect. For instance after a fight with some cultists, he explained to his mate how he now should have his guy loot the dead cultists for gold and treasure.

Well, no system is perfect, we managed to work out the difference between D&D and CoC before we were 14, I figure today's teenagers aren't any dumber than we were.  There's always a few who won't get it, whatever they start on.

QuoteI guess what I am saying is that playing an RPG as a wargame isn't necessarily more newbie friendly than playing it setting hte wargame as the entry point may discourage a lot of potentially good players from the hobby and might go some way to explain why there is such a marked gender bias in the hobby.

It's not really playing it as a wargame.  It's playing it as a game.  You have a piece, you move it, you roll dice, it's highly intuitive.  There's nothing wargamey in all that.  As you gain confidence, you can invest some personality in your character, try more stuff within the game space, it's a very easy entry.

I'm talking about what helps teenagers get into the hobby, people aged say 13 or 14, maybe younger.  They're not looking for something deep, they're looking for something fun.  Deep generally comes later.

If you're being introduced to gaming by adult friends the best system is one those friends know well and the best setting is one that works for you.  So, the answer may well be that the best thing is PTA with a setting based loosely on The Office, or whatever.

If you're 12 years old learning with your friends and a 13 year old who played once on holiday, D&D is about as good an introduction as it's possible to get.

Oh, on gender, how are women represented in boardgaming (Ameritrash particularly), computer gaming?  It's not just an rpg thing, games are male dominated for reasons that are much broader than anything D&D brings to the party.

Eurogames may be an exception, though I'd bet even there it's mostly men among those who play regularly.

Quote from: Balbinus;356670Oh, on gender, how are women represented in boardgaming (Ameritrash particularly), computer gaming?  It's not just an rpg thing, games are male dominated for reasons that are much broader than anything D&D brings to the party.

Eurogames may be an exception, though I'd bet even there it's mostly men among those who play regularly.

I know more women (attractive women) who are utterly dedicated to WoW and Guild Wars than I do men. Boardgaming I have no idea about that- I play carcassonne and Ticket to Ride with my girlfriend on a regular basis though.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;356673I know more women (attractive women) who are utterly dedicated to WoW and Guild Wars than I do men. Boardgaming I have no idea about that- I play carcassonne and Ticket to Ride with my girlfriend on a regular basis though.

Good point.  I was thinking single player, not MMORPG, because I play single player and not MMORPGs.  Online, it's a whole different demographic.  Thanks for the correction.

Quote from: Balbinus;356680Good point.  I was thinking single player, not MMORPG, because I play single player and not MMORPGs.  Online, it's a whole different demographic.  Thanks for the correction.

Again, depends on the game. If I look at my facebook page I can see 6 of my female friends gushing over Wii bowling and baseball (someone won a new wii in a raffle and everyone is giving her advice about which Mario games to get, they are planning get togethers and so on). When I see guys talking about computer gaming it's always like.. Halo or Resident Evil or something.

The top creators on Spore (if you look at Sporepedia they have a content library and contests and such) are almost 3/4 female.

I think women are fairly well represented as fans of the Sims. Most of the big time clothing designers and coders I met on SecondLife were female.

That's not to say there aren't guys.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;356683Again, depends on the game. If I look at my facebook page I can see 6 of my female friends gushing over Wii bowling and baseball (someone won a new wii in a raffle and everyone is giving her advice about which Mario games to get, they are planning get togethers and so on). When I see guys talking about computer gaming it's always like.. Halo or Resident Evil or something.

The top creators on Spore (if you look at Sporepedia they have a content library and contests and such) are almost 3/4 female.

I think women are fairly well represented as fans of the Sims. Most of the big time clothing designers and coders I met on SecondLife were female.

That's not to say there aren't guys.

By definition, all breakthrough games are played by women, that's what makes them breakthrough games.

The wii is played by women, but isn't anything I recognise as computer gaming, of course that's in part why it's played by women.

Sims is a breakout game, Secondlife is online, Spore surprises me - though from the reviews I'm more surprised anyone's bothering.

All that said, single player computer gaming is a heavily male dominated hobby, the games women are playing are ones that encourage social interaction in a non-competitive way - sharing stuff, getting together and having a laugh while "bowling" and so on.

I think that's to do with societal trends wholly unrelated to D&D, going back to the original point.

Quote from: Soylent Green;356639I remember I was playing in a Call of Cthulhu game in a club and two new players, obviously friends, joined our game. One of the two, clearly the more experienced one was helping his friend out, but some of his advice, clearly drawn from D&D, was very suspect. For instance after a fight with some cultists, he explained to his mate how he now should have his guy loot the dead cultists for gold and treasure.

The correct GM response: "You find some golden coins with arcane runes carved into them.  You also find a book filled with half-mad rants and bizarre diagrams, and the cover is made of some sort of unusual leather.  You think if you studied it you could learn some magic spells from it."

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;356452Controversial point: This is why "rules lite" has limited appeal with new players. New players counterintuitively (well, only if you aren't paying attention) will choose the game with well defined rules over the "rules lite" thing, because they recognize it the one with rules as a game, and games can be learned.

Of course, "rules light" is a relative thing.  For someone used to D&D 3e or 4e, OD&D is a rules light game.  Back in 1975, OD&D had more pages of rules than most other games in existence -- and certainly far more pages of rules than chess or checkers or poker or spades, the type of games non-wargamers who stumbled upon D&D were familiar with. Wargamers of the era, at least, were used to "complex rules" like those of OD&D.

I've found with my Korean schoolkids that D&D is the way to go. Most of them have lots of experience playing a MMORPG like Maple Story, and are familiar with concepts like hit points, level, etc. The only thing I really need to explain before actual play are chargen and polyhedral dice mechanics, which I've put in a Powerpoint presentation to streamline it down to a single 40-minute session, along with class-specific handouts for spells, equipment, etc. . Compare that with WFRP or Traveller, which take at least 2 hours just for chargen and maybe another hour to explain mechanics.

Quote from: Kellri;356774I've found with my Korean schoolkids that D&D is the way to go. Most of them have lots of experience playing a MMORPG like Maple Story, and are familiar with concepts like hit points, level, etc. The only thing I really need to explain before actual play are chargen and polyhedral dice mechanics, which I've put in a Powerpoint presentation to streamline it down to a single 40-minute session, along with class-specific handouts for spells, equipment, etc. . Compare that with WFRP or Traveller, which take at least 2 hours just for chargen and maybe another hour to explain mechanics.

40 mins still seems ridiculously long to me.

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