Thanks for that overview.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;845712And by then Midgard had taken on a RQ or RM stance, being a rather dry, simulationist game quite divorced from its wargame roots.

Can you elaborate? "Simulationist" has a few different meanings, but the one I favor is hard to distinguish from a wargames approach.

Quote from: RPGPundit;845693I wonder if that "players shouldn't fail" is some kind of German cultural thing.

I don't think so. The idea of characters who are supposed to succeed no matter what isn't particularly different from the concept of " balanced" encounters specifically designed to not challenge the characters too much but only require the investment of a certain amount of ressources. WotC-D&D and Pathfinder use explicit rules for the design of encounters (as well as the very concept of "an encounter" as a disrete event within the game) as a fixed and by design strictly reglemented element to prevent that characters die too frequently, if at all.
TDE does not use explicit rules like these at all - even the concept of granting XP for defeated foes is by no means binding or used consequently in all editions or publications. Instead, the game is based on  the implicit or explicit suggestion to manipulate the outcome of an event instead of the original design. But, effectively, the result is very much the same: the inner plausibility of the game is twisted and warped to avoid any serious setbacks for the players and create immediate rewards

Quote from: Bren;845819It sort of made sense to me.

The audio plays and the soccer sound like they are grounded in 19th century Romanticism where everything is sweeping grandeur, flowing words, images, sounds, music, and FEELINGS.

The Duck Tales sounds like it provides the continuity of character and deus ex machine salvation that counters the 19th century tragedy inevitably leading to a fatal Wagnerian ending.

No, that doesn't really fit it.
The audio-dramas are common, but they are, for the most part, not any more emotional than any other medium primarliry meant for children and young adults. The language is different and tends to be a bit more flowery but that is a result of a medium that requires a descriptive while efficient language and has no visuals to support the mise-en-scene by any means.  
The Duck Tales stories are usually produced in Italy, and only translated. I have no idea how popular they are in Italy, though.
Also Football isn't a unique German past time, by any means, either. I won't deny that it is kinda important over here (up to and including long-standing regional feuds and rivalries)  but since Football is the most dominant team sport in the world, that is hardly a specific German trait. Treating other sports as if they were as relevant as Football is the actual deviation, on a global level.

I can't tell you much about the Disney-inspired comics - I grew up with franco-belgian comics, so the adventure stories of my childhood included slightly less anthropomorphic ducks and more sixties' technical gadgets and drug smuggling.
There is by the way almost no domestic comic production in Germany, and most of the better known comics are not targeted at children (during the eighties and nineties, the most well-known German comics dealt with biker gangs (humorously so), gay men, and a character that was lovingly and quite desriptively called 'the little asshole'.

However, what Settembrini said about audio-dramas is very true. So much so, that mature, serious dramas are a not too frequent, but by no means rare feature on several more serious radio stations.

Audio dramas (or Hörspiele, if you like to know the German term) are incredibly common, for pretty much all ages, including programs for pre-schoolers (about talking elephants and friendly witches, if I remember correctly). Older audiences will usually geow up to the numerous junior detectives solving all kinds of crimes (the favorites of my particular childhood included Alfred Hitchcock as a fatherly mentor figure and narrator in the earlier stories),  to almost edgy (and deliberatly cheesy) stories about demons and ghost hunters for older (but not neccessarily more mature) audiences.

 Of course, the latter genres are explicitly gameable: a troupe of reoccuring characters solve a mystery or defeat the monster of week. It is perhaps a very episodic format, but it can work very well within the contexct of an RPG, if that is your goal and you plot your game sessions very carefully, you can easily adapt the format to the gaming table, turning each session into one episode of the ongoing series/campaign. Speaking from experience, it is not particularly difficult.

The more interesting aspect however (at least to me as a linguist) is the language of the medium: like audio-plays, RPGs are basically almost exclusively based on direct langue - having no visuals and little to no text requires the use of a very descriptive and efficient language - long narrations with no action are tedious, so the narrator (or gamemaster) has to establish the location  - only through his description, and maybe the use of some sound effects - as fast and efficient as possible, before the players take over again and need to interact with that environment. Likewise, occuring side characters (like NPCs) need to be identified and, at least to a certain degree characterized by their voice alone, which again is something an aspiring gamemaster can learn from a well made audio play.

Worth mentioning.
That immunity to failure thing in DSA, only means the player characters are likely to survive the adventure. Success as a professional adventurer would define it is not a given. There have been plenty of modules over the years where failure to reach the objective you start with is 100% guaranteed. The party gets hosed half a dozen pages in and the rest of the adventure is about barely getting out alive, with nothing to show for it. I've never seen that in a D&D module.

Quote from: Arminius;845824Can you elaborate? "Simulationist" has a few different meanings, but the one I favor is hard to distinguish from a wargames approach.

Midgard had rules that tried to model real-world physics - not as good as GURPS, and some things plainly didn't work (the endurance points rule could lead to a "15 minute adventuring day"). The writing was dry, the setting was a (rather bland) hodgepodge of fantasy counterpart cultures which was interesting as an example but as I usually play my own settings I never needed it.
I played Midgard for a long time, and by that time the game was exactly what I was looking for - the ideal mix of what I felt "realistic", and playability. (Btw, I still value the first intro box of Midgard as one of the best intro boxes ever written.)

It was not old school in the OD&D, Matt Finch "rulings not rules" meaning, but then I guess Midgard never really was, as The Eternal Game (the wargame that it grew out of) used to abstract quite a lot, like a rock-paper-scissors-thing with the three possible types of foot soldiers (axe vs. spear vs. sword).

Does that help, or do you need more info?

Quote from: Korgul;845752Then why one should bother to throw the dice at all?

Because the world runs on excluded middles, not preposterous extremes.

Quote from: Beagle;845855However, what Settembrini said about audio-dramas is very true. So much so, that mature, serious dramas are a not too frequent, but by no means rare feature on several more serious radio stations.

Are German audio dramas any different than Western radio dramas like The Shadow?

Quote from: Beagle;845855There is by the way almost no domestic comic production in Germany,

Domestic comic production happens in the field of cartoons, graphic novels, and manga. But not in comic books for children - that market is in the hands of Panini/Marvel/DC/Simpsons and Disney. (And, to a lesser extent, Franco-Belgian comics such as Yakari and Smurfs.)

QuoteHowever, what Settembrini said about audio-dramas is very true. So much so, that mature, serious dramas are a not too frequent, but by no means rare feature on several more serious radio stations.

And yet, I was extremely surprised what BBC4 is offering British audiences. A few days ago I listened to a Homeland-style, 45 minute, audio drama, that was aired following one of the inevitable daily soap opera series, The Archers.
It was way more nuanced and complex than what German radio audiences get!

QuoteOlder audiences will usually geow up to the numerous junior detectives solving all kinds of crimes (the favorites of my particular childhood included Alfred Hitchcock as a fatherly mentor figure and narrator in the earlier stories), (...)

The Three Investigators are more famous in Germany than in the country of their origin, I would guess.

Quote from: WikipediaThe radio actors, who have been narrating the plays since 1979, toured the country multiple times to perform plays in front of a live-audience. They broke their own Guinness World Record when performing Phonophobia – Symphony of Fear in front of 20,000 people at Berlin Waldbühne during 2014.

The juvenile detectives genre (The Famous Five, The Three Investigators, et al) spawned a small press RPG, 1w6 Freunde.

Quote from: Beagle;845855(...) to almost edgy (and deliberatly cheesy) stories about demons and ghost hunters for older (but not neccessarily more mature) audiences.

Of course, the latter genres are explicitly gameable: a troupe of reoccuring characters solve a mystery or defeat the monster of week. It is perhaps a very episodic format, but it can work very well within the contexct of an RPG,

And the most famous series of those is John Sinclair, a mix between Supernatural, X Files and Scooby Doo. It is based on a long-running pulp novel series (1935+ issues) and was made into a beginner-style RPG by the Dark Eye publisher, Ulisses:


The minimalistic game system is made for storytelling and moodgaming, and it has been said that it would be a much better fit for the playstyle of the Dark Eye modules than the TDE rules themselves...

Quote from: Beagle;845855The more interesting aspect however (at least to me as a linguist) is the language of the medium: like audio-plays, RPGs are basically almost exclusively based on direct langue - having no visuals ...

A lot of people use pictures of NPCs, PCs, and locations as well as maps, the occasional 3D building or ship, character and monster miniatures, and sound effects and background music. There is also quite a bit of nonverbal communication for any in person game and even for video chats. Language is important, but it isn't by any means all of the communication or even nearly all.

Quote from: Beagle;845855The more interesting aspect however (at least to me as a linguist) is the language of the medium: like audio-plays, RPGs are basically almost exclusively based on direct langue - having no visuals ...

A lot of people use pictures of NPCs, PCs, and locations as well as maps, the occasional 3D building or ship, character and monster miniatures, and sound effects and background music. There is also quite a bit of nonverbal communication for any in person game and even for video chats. Language is important, but it isn't by any means all of the communication or even nearly all.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;845866The Three Investigators are more famous in Germany than in the country of their origin, I would guess.

I remember them from my childhood. IIR it was Jupiter Jones a couple of his buddies, and a Rolls Royce limo with driver that Jupiter won in a contest. I think the book I read was called something like, The Mystery of the Green Ghost.

Listening & Feeling is the cultural technique that is key here to understand German exceptionalism. Beagle, as you obviously speak from a GM perspective, you are sort of missing my point here.

But what you say on being inspired on the langugae part might just as well be used to more efficiently railroad your players;-)

I think that on a very basic cultural level, German mainstream society is not a fan of debate and arguments. Audio plays just feed into that.

Britain has Melvynn Bragg, Germany has the preachy Essays of Deutschlandfunk.

Crossroads vs. roundabouts.

Right of way vs. negotiation.

The GM in TDE always has right of way, i.e. right of talking. The players have the right to listen & feel.

Quote from: Settembrini;845926The GM in TDE always has right of way, i.e. right of talking. The players have the right to listen & feel.

What the hell does that mean?

Because it just sounds like a railroad.

And that's what it is. Think Dragonlance turned to 11.

We have a winner!

I just wished that TDE would reach a level of realness and stop trying to foster a gaming style that needs to die.

Let's hope that this English version of TDE bombs yet again (the first version did) and the publisher realizes that they can't hold a candle to D&D.