TheRPGSite

I thought this would be of interest to folks here:

WotC's Mike Mearls on the History & Future of RPG Discusion & Design (http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3624-WotC-s-Mike-Mearls-on-the-History-Future-of-RPG-Discusion-Design#.V6dp3usrKJc)

by Morrus
Saturday, 6th August, 2016 09:22 PM

D&D 5E lead designer Mike Mearls has some thoughts to share on how roleplaying games are discussed and shared online. "It's interesting seeing reactions at GenCon to Critical Role's show in Indy. Illustrates a big divide in how designers grok TRPGs these days. It'll be great to see a higher level of awareness of how RPGs have transformed and what that means for their future."

He went on to elaborate:

"I believe that the rise of 3/3.5e and online discussion forums created a massive, fundamental shift in how RPGs were viewed and used. 3e, and then into 4e, D&D was very dense, rules heavy, complicated, and filled with character building options. That was the game. That spread to other RPGs, placing the baseline complexity of the typical RPG at the extreme upper end of what we saw in 80s/90s.

At the same time, online discussion veered heavily toward character optimization and rules details. It was a culture of read and dissect. Both the indie and old school design movements rose in counter to this, focusing much more heavily on actual play at the table. However, the prevailing, forum-based online culture made it very hard to communicate meaningfully about actual play.

That changed when streaming and actual play vids became accessible to the average DM. The culture of actual play had a platform. We can now meaningfully interact based on what we're doing when we play, rather than talk about the stuff we do when we don't play. This is HUGE because it shifts the design convo away from "How do we design for forum discussions?" to "How do we design for play?'

As game designers, we can actually watch how RPGs play and what rules and concepts facilitate the effects we're looking to create. The tension between theoretical discussion vs. actual play has always been a big part of RPG design. I believe at the table ruled for a very long time, swung hard to theory, and now back to table-driven design. Theory is useful, but it has to be used in service to actual, repeatable results in play. And I say this as someone who veered to theory.

So [...] that's why I see Critical Role at GenCon something that can be very good for the hobby and designers. All of this is IMO, based on observations from this specific perch over 16 years. Your mileage may/can/should/will vary.

This ties into the huge success of 5e and the growth of RPGs - people can now learn by watching. The rulebook is not a barrier. We don't learn sports like baseball or soccer by reading the rules - we watch and quickly learn how to play. The rulebook is a reference, like the NBA's rulebook. Comes out only when absolutely needed. Barriers are now gone. Design accordingly."

For me there are other elements to the topics he talks about. A rulebook - for me - needs to be a thing I can get pleasure from reading; it's more than a reference book. And forums are also about creating stable communities, not just dissecting rules (though they are getting fewer and fewer). One of the great effects of things like Critical Role, etc., is not only that it teaches how to play, but it helps to advertise and "mainstreamify" a hobby which is traditionally played behind closed doors.

[Edit - For what he's referring to with Critical Role, see here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3623-The-Effects-Of-Celebrity-On-RPGs#.V6dt5esrKJc).]

I think actual play mattering is cool. I am not so sure how valuable Play Vids are for design though. I think they could be potentially useful but I can see them running into the same pitfalls people at the forge ran into (thinking you are a social scientist when you are not, and developing more theory that isn't necessarily reflective of what goes on at most tables----because my guess is there is a self selecting thing going on with who posts these in the first place). Definitely don't want more people talking about 'good design'. Personally I would rather base things on what I see at live tables.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;911772and developing more theory that isn't necessarily reflective of what goes on at most tables----because my guess is there is a self selecting thing going on with who posts these in the first place). Definitely don't want more people talking about 'good design'. Personally I would rather base things on what I see at live tables.

Yeah. The Penny Arcade rpg sessions are a great example of RPG casts as entertainment for the audience as well as the players. But a lot of play isn't broadcast to the internetz.

Quote from: Mearlspeople can now learn by watching. The rulebook is not a barrier. We don't learn sports like baseball or soccer by reading the rules - we watch and quickly learn how to play. The rulebook is a reference, like the NBA's rulebook. Comes out only when absolutely needed. Barriers are now gone. Design accordingly.

All I know is 75% of the actual play podcasts/videos I've encountered were kinda boring, not very helpful for learning the game and even harmful to understanding its true potential.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;911780All I know is 75% of the actual play podcasts/videos I've encountered were kinda boring, not very helpful for learning the game and even harmful to understanding its true potential.

This. TRPGs are not spectator-friendly. I went on my own Twitter rant specifically to counter Mearls', hammering on this point. You can watch and be fully engaged with soccer, baseball, and other spectator-friendly games and sports. You can't with TRPGs; you have to play to be engaged. You can't fix this without making TRPGs into something else, so this "we can stream actual play" thing is limited only to those willing to go from watching to playing- which, again, is limited only to those already sold on the medium. Normie interest reliably dies if they watch first; there's no hook for them as there is with spectator entertainment, because the game is only there for those that play. The game does not exist for watchers, readers, or talkers; only for players.

Spectator-friendly entertainment exists for watchers (et. al.) and players alike; you need not actually do it to get full engagement from it. That's where Mearls goes wrong; he fails to see this as a curious normie would, assuming that one table is the same as any other, when that is not the case. (This is why spectator-friendly entertainment has a strong away-from-play authority, formal or not, to impose and enforce standardized rules for players- so that everyone's talking about the same thing. We know that TRPGs don't do this, despite the wishes of the Organized Play crowd and others wanting this medium to be something that it's not.) It's a pipe dream, and I suspect he will admit it if pressed.

Back in the day (hack kaf wheeze) there was this thing called PLAYTESTING.

Arneson ran BLACKMOOR for 2 years before showing it to Gygax, and we KNOW the rules were not static.  Gygax ran GREYHAWK for over a year before D&D was published, sometimes seven days a week, and we know THOSE rules were not static.

I'm convinced that somewhere in v. 3 or so, RPG writers stopped playing the damn rules they actually wrote.  That MUST be the case with Star Wars d20, because there are multiple places where the effect of the rule directly contradicts its description.  No, I don't remember, and I can't be arsed.

Most Hangout+ tabletop RPG sessions are metagamed. Hard to watch.

Never watched a video of other people playing. Would rather stab my eye with a fork. Video chat RPG sessions matter a lot more for focusing discussion on actual play.

Hmmm. I wonder if such a video could be made though. I really liked to watch Angry GM's Super Metroid playthrough (https://youtu.be/1b0Wm26f_DA), because he commented on the way the game was designed and how some of it could apply to table top RPGs.

So a series of game sessions, with commentary and asides about rules, design, play and whatnot.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911784Back in the day (hack kaf wheeze) there was this thing called PLAYTESTING.

Good Lord, this. So many games look like no one's had the chance to take a good shot at the engine. And contradictory rules irk the hell out of me, especially when spread across a game line (hello, Palladium).

Quote from: Daztur;911788Never watched a video of other people playing. Would rather stab my eye with a fork. Video chat RPG sessions matter a lot more for focusing discussion on actual play.

I quite liked critical role.  Of course I was in the vineyard for 6-8 hours a day and I had to have something to listen to to make through the day.  

I think there is a lot to the OP though.  Kind of a "the medium is the message" thing.

You know, I kinda want to record audio of my game sessions but then make little animatics to go along with it. I like drawing character portraits and illustrating the highlights of game sessions. I should put the drawings to audio and do simple tweening animations and transitions. Maybe have little characters hopping around like Arc System's Blazblue Radio (https://youtu.be/CooR-GvnWLo).

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;911782This. TRPGs are not spectator-friendly. I went on my own Twitter rant specifically to counter Mearls', hammering on this point. You can watch and be fully engaged with soccer, baseball, and other spectator-friendly games and sports. You can't with TRPGs; you have to play to be engaged. You can't fix this without making TRPGs into something else, so this "we can stream actual play" thing is limited only to those willing to go from watching to playing- which, again, is limited only to those already sold on the medium. Normie interest reliably dies if they watch first; there's no hook for them as there is with spectator entertainment, because the game is only there for those that play. The game does not exist for watchers, readers, or talkers; only for players.

Spectator-friendly entertainment exists for watchers (et. al.) and players alike; you need not actually do it to get full engagement from it. That's where Mearls goes wrong; he fails to see this as a curious normie would, assuming that one table is the same as any other, when that is not the case. (This is why spectator-friendly entertainment has a strong away-from-play authority, formal or not, to impose and enforce standardized rules for players- so that everyone's talking about the same thing. We know that TRPGs don't do this, despite the wishes of the Organized Play crowd and others wanting this medium to be something that it's not.) It's a pipe dream, and I suspect he will admit it if pressed.

Click on that second link I posted, at the end of the post.  Tell me again how it's not spectator friendly.

(http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=78818&d=1470530060&stc=1)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911784Back in the day (hack kaf wheeze) there was this thing called PLAYTESTING.

Arneson ran BLACKMOOR for 2 years before showing it to Gygax, and we KNOW the rules were not static.  Gygax ran GREYHAWK for over a year before D&D was published, sometimes seven days a week, and we know THOSE rules were not static.

I'm convinced that somewhere in v. 3 or so, RPG writers stopped playing the damn rules they actually wrote.  That MUST be the case with Star Wars d20, because there are multiple places where the effect of the rule directly contradicts its description.  No, I don't remember, and I can't be arsed.

Personal experience, and I'll stress as always, this is purely anecdotal, but I always felt the shift was during the 2e era.  All the 'optional' rules didn't feel optional to a lot of local players.

Quote from: The Butcher;911801Good Lord, this. So many games look like no one's had the chance to take a good shot at the engine. And contradictory rules irk the hell out of me, especially when spread across a game line (hello, Palladium).

Playtesting is still a thing, at least for some companies. I was surprised when I started reading 13th Age recently and saw the absolutely huge list of playtesters credited at the front. There had to be several hundred. I may not be too deeply interested in a lot of their stuff, but I have to give Pelgrane Press credit for making sure they put at least one of their games through a pretty thorough wringer before it saw the light of day.

But I get what you're saying. There's sadly way too many confusing rules out there that seem like no one ever actually sat down and tried using them before the book saw print.

As far as watching rpg sessions go, I'm happy to do it if I have lots of time to kill and the people playing are really entertaining. Unfortunately that just doesn't happen much if ever. The few times I've tried watching others play, I quickly found myself either getting bored or irritated. So watching other gamers scores pretty low as a spectator sport for me, personally.

Isn't Mearls overdue for the traditional WotC Xmas firing?

People watching other people play games (that they could be playing themselves) has been a thing for some while. Consider Stampy Cat.

A long time back I listened to a Mongoose Traveller podcast where they took the time to discuss rules at appropriate moments. I found it an excellent way to get to know the rules in association with reading the book. I felt at the time, and continue to, that it's been a lost opportunity for companies to advertise their games and facilitate rules comprehension. Consider how software companies like Microsoft use walk-through videos to explain functionality. It's not rocket science to do such videos and if I was publishing a game I'd be sure to have a video for each major rule mechanic.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911784Back in the day (hack kaf wheeze) there was this thing called PLAYTESTING.

Arneson ran BLACKMOOR for 2 years before showing it to Gygax, and we KNOW the rules were not static.  Gygax ran GREYHAWK for over a year before D&D was published, sometimes seven days a week, and we know THOSE rules were not static.

I'm convinced that somewhere in v. 3 or so, RPG writers stopped playing the damn rules they actually wrote.  That MUST be the case with Star Wars d20, because there are multiple places where the effect of the rule directly contradicts its description.  No, I don't remember, and I can't be arsed.

What is this play testing you speak of? ;)

Critical Role is amusing sometimes but the average viewer might fail to realize that all of the participants are actors. They see the show, go buy the game then sit down to play only to realize that they didn't read the fine print : THE COOL ACTORS NORMALLY SEEN PLAYING THIS GAME HAVE BEEN SECRETLY REPLACED WITH SHLUBS FROM THE OFFICE.

Those completely unfamiliar with actual play may not know that the quality of play depends on what the participants put into it even more than the quality of the game itself.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;911782...TRPGs are not spectator-friendly. I went on my own Twitter rant specifically to counter Mearls', hammering on this point. You can watch and be fully engaged with soccer, baseball, and other spectator-friendly games and sports. You can't with TRPGs; you have to play to be engaged.

Extremely disagree with this. I am bored to tears by watching soccer or baseball or most other sports...but i can watch Critical Role with no problems. If actual play is done as well as by Mercer and his crew, than it is highly spectator-friendly...and i am engaged more than in any sports (maybe excluding a very very good Tennis match).
And i'd say the "you have to be engaged"-line is as applicable to sports in any case. I'd rather play tennis/soccer/what have you than watch it. So that's not a very good counter-argument in the first place.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911784I'm convinced that somewhere in v. 3 or so, RPG writers stopped playing the damn rules they actually wrote.  That MUST be the case with Star Wars d20, because there are multiple places where the effect of the rule directly contradicts its description.  No, I don't remember, and I can't be arsed.

Or at the very least one designer isnt paying attention to what the other designer on the same book is doing.
TSR near its end was not playtesting much, if at all by mandate of Williams. And White Wolf near the end sure as hell wasnt.

And hate to say it. But all the playtesting in the world IS useless if the designer ignores it, or listens to the wrong feedback, or tries to cater to ALL feedback, or all of the above, ad playtestium.

And to add to that, all the playtesting in the world will only tell you if the system is self-consistent and whether it creates odd balance issues or interactions (if the playtesters can successfully think like the general gaming population and break the game in the same ways as they would). What is won't do is predict how the gamer population will react to the system, what they will do with it, or whether it is what they want*. For that, watching people game is at least trying to address the issue. Whether it is the right way of attempting this remains to be seen.

*Using 3e as an example, more playtesting would have caught the spellcaster-mundane imbalance that lead to the tier system being a recognized issue in the game. It would not have caught the issue that the designers and gamers had differing opinions regarding PrCs and how they should work, or whether wealth by level and magic item allotments were hard and fast expectations.

I think thats part of why 5e works so well overall. It went through a long process of playtesting by the public and those parts that were feel often the most well honed. While those that werent sometimes feel occasionally a little... ord.

After the fact "fixes" have so far felt not so great. (Ranger)

Quote from: Willie the Duck;911973And to add to that, all the playtesting in the world will only tell you if the system is self-consistent and whether it creates odd balance issues or interactions (if the playtesters can successfully think like the general gaming population and break the game in the same ways as they would). What is won't do is predict how the gamer population will react to the system, what they will do with it, or whether it is what they want*. For that, watching people game is at least trying to address the issue. Whether it is the right way of attempting this remains to be seen.

Not all playtesting is created equal. Most playtests, I see just focuses on rules and for adventures the balance of individual encounters. An acquaintance of mine is playtesting a set of rules based on 5e in this manner. He is aware of the how things flow and hang together. He has given considerable thought to this area and done a lot of work with it, but in my opinion it will not be properly playtested by the release date he wants.

However to do it "right" requires more time, a LOT more time a least a year of steady play with a variety of groups. Because for RPGs and RPG related products to properly playtests you have to test it under a variety of conditions. And there will be a tension throughout between what you want the product to be versus how people actually treat it. You can't ignore how people use it, but there is a limit before it is altered so much that is becomes something different than what the author intended.

Next doing this level of playtest means that experience has an outsized impact. I been refereeing for 30 years, so I got a pretty good idea of what to look for and what just normal player griping about the outcome of the game. For example if you have a playtest session where everybody is rolling 1s and 2s the whole damn session, I don't care how stellar your rules are, most players will come away with a negative first impression of your game or product. While it never that extreme, you have to keep an eye out for when the gripes a result of bad luck.

In the end, sometime to get the return on your time and budget, you make do with the time you have. Because of the roleplaying aspect, RPGs are very fuzzy games to behind with. A group that cooperates closely and employs superior tactics and techniques could ace an adventure that will result in a TPK for a less organized group.

In my book, the award for most outstanding playtest is the Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG by Goodman Games. Those guys playtested long and they the playtest right. The result was a superior game for its niche.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;911973What is won't do is predict how the gamer population will react to the system, what they will do with it, or whether it is what they want*.

Daniel's Maxim of Gaming is that regardless of the playstyle, tone, setting or genre a game was designed for, the first thing the player base will do is try to play D&D with it (cf. Fantasy HERO, BRP Classic Fantasy, Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic Roleplaying/The Old School Job, etc., etc.)

Wasnt it the designer of Cyberpunk 2020 that complained that the players werent playing the game as intended?

Quote from: daniel_ream;911998Daniel's Maxim of Gaming is that regardless of the playstyle, tone, setting or genre a game was designed for, the first thing the player base will do is try to play D&D with it (cf. Fantasy HERO, BRP Classic Fantasy, Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic Roleplaying/The Old School Job, etc., etc.)

Or they try to play Gurps with it. :D

Quote from: daniel_ream;911998Daniel's Maxim of Gaming is that regardless of the playstyle, tone, setting or genre a game was designed for, the first thing the player base will do is try to play D&D with it (cf. Fantasy HERO, BRP Classic Fantasy, Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic Roleplaying/The Old School Job, etc., etc.)

Well maybe, but the designers of 3e expected people to play 2e, the next generation with it, and people not only didn't do that, but absolutely ripped them a new asshole for it not working well at the playstyle that the designers had no idea people were going to use it for. And then the designers said, "okay, okay, you want an extremely balanced game and are willing to give up sacred cows like vancian casting and 20 levels of play here you go. You'll like this, right?" and then had then had themselves another new asshole ripped into them for 4e. No wonder, as Omega said, they spent a lot of time figuring out what people wanted for 5e (and the complaints have been mostly tame--balance for a specific class like ranger or mechanic like save progression, a little kvetching about it not having a distinct feel of its own).

I agree with Mearls' assessment of where 3E and 4E went off the rails into rules-heavy theorycraft. I disagree with watching live play on the internet played any role in addressing the excesses of rules-heavy D&D. 5E returned the game to 'the play is the thing' because the polling data collected by WotC, and the huge D&D Next playtest, revealed that char-op number-crunching wasn't nearly as popular as online forums had led many in the industry to believe.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;912021Well maybe, but the designers of 3e expected people to play 2e, the next generation with it, and people not only didn't do that, but absolutely ripped them a new asshole for it not working well at the playstyle that the designers had no idea people were going to use it for. And then the designers said, "okay, okay, you want an extremely balanced game and are willing to give up sacred cows like vancian casting and 20 levels of play here you go. You'll like this, right?" and then had then had themselves another new asshole ripped into them for 4e. No wonder, as Omega said, they spent a lot of time figuring out what people wanted for 5e (and the complaints have been mostly tame--balance for a specific class like ranger or mechanic like save progression, a little kvetching about it not having a distinct feel of its own).

I think with 4E the problem was the internet was still new to a lot of folks, and WOTC didn't realize how much noise a small group of people can make about a problem most people don't have. Another issue was I think they lumped the people calling for tweaks and changes to reduce some of the optimization madness in with the people calling for radical overhauls of the system.

Is there a maxim/law yet that all design discussions eventually become debates over 4th edition D&D? If not I'd like to finally have my name attached to one.

Two observations:

(1) Unless we're positing game designers with time machines, there are some weird assertions of cause-and-effect in there.

(2) The idea of designing games that play great on heavily edited Youtube video shows and Twitch streams makes my head hurt.

That would be like a board game designer saying, "I really want to focus on making sure this game plays great on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop." or a video game designer saying, "I'm less concerned about people having fun while playing this game than I am in making sure that it makes for entertaining Twitch streams."

There's nothing wrong with Critical Role or Tabletop. But designing games with that sort of play in mind is like arguing that all action figures should be designed around using them in animatronic films.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;912028Is there a maxim/law yet that all design discussions eventually become debates over 4th edition D&D? If not I'd like to finally have my name attached to one.

Bedrock's Maxim: Any tabletop RPG design discussion of sufficient length will eventually turn into a debate over the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;911784Back in the day (hack kaf wheeze) there was this thing called PLAYTESTING.

This, Ishtar's Teats, this.

So Mearls is telling us that instead of Live Playtesting, designers were engaging only in forums.  This explains much.
Now he's telling us that after games are released, designers can watch 20-somethings with colored hair and marine glasses play the game ironically to find out what it's like.  This explains much more. (As Justin said, namely that he's unaware of the linear flow of time).

Say what you want about Zweihander and whether or not it desecrates WFRP's grave, the guy playtested the fucker for 5 years.

Kenzer and Jolly, Loz and Pete, Sine Nomine, Zak, Washbourne, Cakebread and Walton, hell all the Modiphius boys and girls, to name a few - these are all active gamers who play their own games.

WTF is Mearls drinking?  He needs to switch.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;912036Bedrock's Maxim: Any tabletop RPG design discussion of sufficient length will eventually turn into a debate over the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

You're worse than Hitler.

Quote from: Cave Bear;911821You know, I kinda want to record audio of my game sessions but then make little animatics to go along with it. I like drawing character portraits and illustrating the highlights of game sessions. I should put the drawings to audio and do simple tweening animations and transitions. Maybe have little characters hopping around like Arc System's Blazblue Radio (https://youtu.be/CooR-GvnWLo).

Thats crazy enough it just might work.
On a related note still haven't gotten a group together to play test your game at all my life has been stupid.

Quote from: Mistwell;911908Click on that second link I posted, at the end of the post.  Tell me again how it's not spectator friendly.

(http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=78818&d=1470530060&stc=1)

Thanks i never even noticed it.

Quote from: Anglachel;911938Extremely disagree with this. I am bored to tears by watching soccer or baseball or most other sports...but i can watch Critical Role with no problems. If actual play is done as well as by Mercer and his crew, than it is highly spectator-friendly...and i am engaged more than in any sports (maybe excluding a very very good Tennis match).
And i'd say the "you have to be engaged"-line is as applicable to sports in any case. I'd rather play tennis/soccer/what have you than watch it. So that's not a very good counter-argument in the first place.

Same i cant stand most sports nfl nhl fifa ect.
But i can get a huge thrill from watching the likes of the Pokemon world tournament, or league of legends pro scene or my new love overwatch.

Quote from: Omega;911948Or at the very least one designer isnt paying attention to what the other designer on the same book is doing.
TSR near its end was not playtesting much, if at all by mandate of Williams. And White Wolf near the end sure as hell wasnt.

And hate to say it. But all the playtesting in the world IS useless if the designer ignores it, or listens to the wrong feedback, or tries to cater to ALL feedback, or all of the above, ad playtestium.

Definatly you need to see through a lot of data to find what was actually going on.

Quote from: daniel_ream;911998Daniel's Maxim of Gaming is that regardless of the playstyle, tone, setting or genre a game was designed for, the first thing the player base will do is try to play D&D with it (cf. Fantasy HERO, BRP Classic Fantasy, Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic Roleplaying/The Old School Job, etc., etc.)

Quote from: Omega;912002Or they try to play Gurps with it. :D

What madness is this next6 you will have peaple thinking there are games other then dnd and gurps :P

Quote from: Justin Alexander;912035Two observations:

(1) Unless we're positing game designers with time machines, there are some weird assertions of cause-and-effect in there.

(2) The idea of designing games that play great on heavily edited Youtube video shows and Twitch streams makes my head hurt.

That would be like a board game designer saying, "I really want to focus on making sure this game plays great on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop." or a video game designer saying, "I'm less concerned about people having fun while playing this game than I am in making sure that it makes for entertaining Twitch streams."

There's nothing wrong with Critical Role or Tabletop. But designing games with that sort of play in mind is like arguing that all action figures should be designed around using them in animatronic films.

I see that comment and raise you a video.
A damn entertaining one at that.
 [video=youtube;ziteaVKe6pE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziteaVKe6pE[/youtube]

Quote from: kosmos1214;912053Thats crazy enough it just might work.
On a related note still haven't gotten a group together to play test your game at all my life has been stupid.

Life has been pretty stupid on this front as well, so don't feel bad. :)

I've also been scratching out ideas and compiling notes for a rewrite. If you would like to hear some of those ideas, please let me know. I am eager to bounce them off of somebody.

Quote from: Cave Bear;912055Life has been pretty stupid on this front as well, so don't feel bad. :)

I've also been scratching out ideas and compiling notes for a rewrite. If you would like to hear some of those ideas, please let me know. I am eager to bounce them off of somebody.

Sure im in for the long hall throw them at me.
You still have my email right?

Quote from: kosmos1214;912056Sure im in for the long hall throw them at me.
You still have my email right?

That I do! Will send you some thoughts right away, if you don't mind taking a look at them.

Quote from: Cave Bear;912058That I do! Will send you some thoughts right away, if you don't mind taking a look at them.

Yeah i probably wont get to them for a few days but ill get back to you as soon as i can.

Just not a huge fan of watching other people play. Sooooo....I guess this wouldn't work for me on almost any level.

Quote from: CRKrueger;912043WTF is Mearls drinking?  He needs to switch.

He's obviously right, look how 5e is doing.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;912063He's obviously right, look how 5e is doing.

He's very not-right about the videos of sessions being a factor.

Again, temporal mechanics. Whatever this is or what it will be good for, it didn't create 5e. It might inform the decision on where they are going. I'm not sure if I like it or think it will be successful, but hey, they are engaging with the gaming public and trying to see if things are working like they expected. It's not a replacement for playtesting, but as a supplement it probably doesn't hurt.

All I'm reading in mr. Mearls statement is : the way rpgs are played is not the way they are discussed in public forums, emphasis is not placed on the same things. People can wank for hours on forums about rules, but once play starts it's not really there. I really don't think there is much to see beyond that.

And the part about how people can now see how a rpg  is played is a good point. Yes your game is more likely to look like an Acquisitions Incorporated game than a heavily scripted and edited Ashes of Valkana game.  But as far as I'm concerned it still looks better than the "what is a roleplaying game" drivel that you can find in most game manuals.

Quote from: kobayashi;912105All I'm reading in mr. Mearls statement is : the way rpgs are played is not the way they are discussed in public forums, emphasis is not placed on the same things. People can wank for hours on forums about rules, but once play starts it's not really there. I really don't think there is much to see beyond that.

And the part about how people can now see how a rpg  is played is a good point. Yes your game is more likely to look like an Acquisitions Incorporated game than a heavily scripted and edited Ashes of Valkana game.  But as far as I'm concerned it still looks better than the "what is a roleplaying game" drivel that you can find in most game manuals.

I think as a tool for showing how to use the system or explaining role playing as a concept, they make sense. It is using them as a design tool that makes me wary. There I think they are subject to some of the same illusions of consensus that forums create. The reason people are paying attention to this statement and reading into it, is they view it as possibly leading to the same mistakes they made with 4E---which a lot of us think stemmed from overconfidence in RPG theory (which Mearls mentions he got into) and in forum discussions as representing what most groups are thinking. What you see on a play vid isn't necessarily a good indication of how most people are playing and they made knowing that an audience is watching (and many are edited). The bigger issue I think is what I mentioned before: game designers mistaking themselves for social scientists. Just because you watched a bunch of play vids, doesn't mean your analysis of them will be accurate or (worse) produce a viable model/theory of play and design. To me the statement reads like: okay theory rooted in forum discussions were off, but play vids are the real deal. I could be wrong. But those were my immediate and honest reactions.

I see your point but I have, let's say, a more "charitable" view of his statement, being : what people say is important in rpgs when you read forums has nothing in common with what happens at the (or at least some) table(s).

But your point remains valid, a gaming vid cannot be a good basis for designing a game but rpg forums fare no better in my opinion. Like any community on the internet, the rpg forums are mostly a toxic cesspool (I just read the ENworld thread following Paizo annoucements about Starfinder : 90% of it is people basically whining).

What interests me about all these gaming vids is not what happens at the table but how much people enjoy watching them. Because scripted or not, people seem to love watching gamers enjoying themselves and enjoying the game. That's less depressing than reading threads after threads of "If you play this your a poopiehead", "Designer X sucks balls", "Wotc raped my dog, really, I have pictures", "Only morons can play system X", "The ranger in D&D5 sucks, let me show you these charts I made".

Take two people who haven't heard of rpgs : show the first one an Acquistion Incorporated game and let the second one only read threads on any rpg forum. Then, in all honesty, tell me which one will want to play rpgs.

So, when Mr Mearls says "it shifts the design convo away from "How do we design for forum discussions?" to "How do we design for play?", all he means, in my opinion, is "stop designing games as a tiny fraction of the community wants us to make them".

But as I am a participating member of the internet rpg community myself I'm probably talking outta my ass.

Quote from: kobayashi;912110I see your point but I have, let's say, a more "charitable" view of his statement, being : what people say is important in rpgs when you read forums has nothing in common with what happens at the (or at least some) table(s).

But your point remains valid, a gaming vid cannot be a good basis for designing a game but rpg forums fare no better in my opinion. Like any community on the internet, the rpg forums are mostly a toxic cesspool (I just read the ENworld thread following Paizo annoucements about Starfinder : 90% of it is people basically whining).

I think forums are useful for finding tools and techniques for specific problems and being exposed to ideas that you can try. Designing for forums, I think, isn't a terribly good approach. In RPG discussions on forums, people tend to use best and worst case scenarios, and they often say things just to win an argument (so it isn't like their players are standing behind them to confirm or contradict what they just said). To me, 4E is an example of what can happen when you design around forums and around RPG theory.  

QuoteWhat interests me about all these gaming vids is not what happens at the table but how much people enjoy watching them. Because scripted or not, people seem to love watching gamers enjoying themselves and enjoying the game. That's less depressing than reading threads after threads of "If you play this your a poopiehead", "Designer X sucks balls", "Wotc raped my dog, really, I have pictures", "Only morons can play system X", "The ranger in D&D5 sucks, let me show you these charts I made".

Maybe. I have to admit I do not understand the attraction (just like I don't understand the attraction to unboxing videos).

I do agree though that optimism is more attractive than pessimism and a lot of the stuff that happens on online forums is more about what people don't like than they do (and I think that is because online you often have clashes over play style). But I would argue some of that might be due to the fact that too many games have been designed in response to forum discussions (so people people perceive the stakes of a debate over optimization in 3E as being very real and potentially influencing the ultimate design of 6E). Also, fights are fun. People like to debate and fight. It doesn't necessarily make them bad or toxic, it just make them fiesty. As much as I'd rather see more optimistic discussions online, I think people are way, way too sensitive to other peoples negative opinions about things they like.

But, I think youtube videos almost have the opposite problem of forums. If forums tend to focus on the negative, youtube is overly positive and artificial. One of my pet peeves is how much people edit youtube videos for flow. Unless it is done to give a video a certain rhythm, I'd rather watch someone who just leaves the camera rolling so I can see the mistakes. People project persona's and brand themselves on youtube. There are some you tubers out there I follow because they are either entertaining or seem genuine, but I think youtube and other online video formats are just as misleading as forums. Except the problem is people are projecting their 'best self' and 'best game' forward.

QuoteTake two people who haven't heard of rpgs : show the first one an Acquistion Incorporated game and let the second one only read threads on any rpg forum. Then, in all honesty, tell me which one will want to play rpgs.

I don't know. I've never met anyone who has come to RPGs through either. So I can't really weigh in on that.

QuoteSo, when Mr Mearls says "it shifts the design convo away from "How do we design for forum discussions?" to "How do we design for play?", all he means, in my opinion, is "stop designing games as a tiny fraction of the community wants us to make them".

I think what worries me is he seems to think these vids are giving him a bigger sense of the community than forums are, and I don't think that is the case. By all means design for the table, but that is something that you can do through play testing and running your own campaigns. Talking to gamers, checking out videos and going to forums can compliment that, but none of them should be the focus. And they should all be taken with a hefty dose of salt.

Admittedly I could be reading too much into it. He may have just been speaking casually and gamer are going to put what he says under a microscope (which is probably unfair). But he is in charge of D&D now and people are paying attention to what they are thinking.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;912114By all means design for the table, but that is something that you can do through play testing and running your own campaigns. Talking to gamers, checking out videos and going to forums can compliment that, but none of them should be the focus.

Amen to that.

And yes, people disagreeing and still trying to talk to each other is a good thing, thanks for reminding me of that. It reminds me of Testsubo's videos (as he doesn't edit them). I don't always agree with him but he makes clear statements and he doesn't force them down your throat. I like that.

Quote from: kobayashi;912117And yes, people disagreeing and still trying to talk to each other is a good thing, thanks for reminding me of that. It reminds me of Testsubo's videos (as he doesn't edit them). I don't always agree with him but he makes clear statements and he doesn't force them down your throat. I like that.

Tetsubo is who I had in mind actually (personally i am a fan of his stuff, and like you even when I don't agree I still find his statements engaging and not overly forceful).

This just confirms my opinion in some of my previous 5e threads that this edition of D&D was not designed for folks like me. No worries, it'll circle back to my neck of the woods at some point, in the meantime I got what I need.

Let's not mistake the fact that Mearls does have different design constraints that are impacted by a higher monetary requirement threshold than most other RPG companies, many of which require their creators to maintain "day jobs" and do it for the love of the game. Not that I'm saying that Mearls and co. don't love D&D, but they're certainly not designing the game for their own personal tastes over what will best sell and appease what they perceive as the largest ongoing segment of the playerbase that will continue to shill out the most bank.

TL/DR - they played it safe by using the methods cited, they appear to be doing relatively well. 5e is not made for me (but it's playable).

Play on, says I.

I think Mearls is missing the two major design goals hidden under his nose.

The irony is that Mearls is discovering what the people at SPI discovered 3 and a half decades ago. Anything substantially nerdy exists in two fundamentally different spheres, theorycrafting/armchair gaming/metagaming/solo play and actual on the table gaming, which receive roughly equal playing time. The major fun of metagaming is trying to imagine your largest possible impact on the on the table gaming, it's an expansion of the character creation minigame every RPG has. I think a major problem with a lot of RPG designs is that the people who make them have long standing, stable, gaming groups. For the most part, they are works of passion. However, this is quite distinct from the normal gaming experience, which centers around inconsistent gameplay, people dropping in and out, ect. During the height of wargaming, in the mid 1970's SPI realized that 90% of its wargames were being played solo. However, it took wargaming in general decades to really start making an effort to make solo play easier or viable. To return to RPG's, theorycrafting and forum work is so popular because you can do it solo. There's no designated slot for it, no 4 hours on a saturday. You can just open up the book and try to create the most broken character possible. It's a fun metagame. However, when it bleeds to heavily into the on the table gaming, it can often ruin the experience for non meta-gamers. It also creates pressure for people new to the game to conform to the tiers, especially by the Gaming Den crowd. In short, despite solo play probably seeing more time spent on it, games should be designed around on the tabletop, while integrating solo as much as possible

A possible lesson from this is to offer other paths for solo play. Procedurally generated rogue-likes, for example, fit in very well with dungeon crawlers like DnD. We already offer these tools to GM's, why not create either a 1- text based rogue like, using dice or 2- create a computer version of it, where the player can input the character he has created to test it out in combat. This bleeds back into the metagame strategies of making the strongest possible character. For more story based games, offer "choose your own adventure" paths so that players who couldn't come to a session are still playing out in the world, gaining XP and making character development choices. The player could then send some of the results to the GM, who could work it into his campaign. This way, you offer more than meta-gaming to the solo player.

A second aspect, and one that a lot of people have touched on here, is that streamed rpg sessions are fun in part because they are edited (and have people who are trying to make it as interesting as possible, instead of being fucking timmies or pink mohawks trying to derail the campaign by murder-hoboing everyone, but I digress). A major problem of TTRPGs is time to content (story/development/player choice making/fun) ratio. This is especially bad for the complex games of the 90's. Classic Deadlands took 1-1.5 hours to resolve even simple mook stomps. Meanwhile, a game like Shadowrun Returns can cram a yearlong campaign's worth of content into 15-20 hour experience because encounters go by quickly, and often are more tactical than PnP encounters. Minimizing the choice to result time span (I swing my sword at the orc.....the orc takes X damage) would be a crucial part of this. A possible solution is greater tablet or smartphone integration. Amazon is now selling Fires for sub 40$ on sales. This isn't that much more expensive than good sets of dice. If buying a copy of the rulebook also got you the game app you could use this to increase book sales. This isn't suggesting a move to virtual tabletops. Rather, you save your character into the system, and the DM saves his enemy. You tap "swing sword" and "the orc", the DM chooses to add bonuses or subtract things, based on what he sees on the tabletop, and the probability gets handled by the system. While you lose the tactile feel of dice, you greatly reduce the non-content part of gameplay.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;912135I think a major problem with a lot of RPG designs is that the people who make them have long standing, stable, gaming groups. For the most part, they are works of passion. However, this is quite distinct from the normal gaming experience, which centers around inconsistent gameplay, people dropping in and out, ect.

oh thank god.  I thought I was the only one on here that experienced role playing as soap bubbles.  Beautiful while they last but oh so fragile.

Quote from: Headless;912142oh thank god.  I thought I was the only one on here that experienced role playing as soap bubbles.  Beautiful while they last but oh so fragile.

Perfect image.

I think all my future campaigns will be designed in short episodic arcs in anticipation of collapse at any moment. Leaves the players with a sense of having completed something.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;912150Perfect image.

I think all my future campaigns will be designed in short episodic arcs in anticipation of collapse at any moment. Leaves the players with a sense of having completed something.

The Malifaux RPG game, into the breach (awesome system), does it really well by designing campaigns around the idea that they are going to end. It adds structure and really benefits episodic game styles, with each character getting the spotlight. The exact sort of innovation TTRPGs need to adapt to the realities of play.

Quote from: Mistwell;911908Click on that second link I posted, at the end of the post.  Tell me again how it's not spectator friendly.

A bunch of already-invested gamers watching what they invested in is NOT the same as me throwing on any fucking FIFA-compliant soccer match, even if I neither know nor care about the sides on the pitch. I know exactly what rules they're using, what is and is not allowed, and never needed to look up a fucking thing to learn it; just by watching I got fully engaged in the sport, learned how to play by observation, and and can talk about that game with anyone else who's seen (or is seeing) the footage. It's the same thing that makes it worthwhile to watch WOW streamers, or talk strats with other players: everyone's engaged in the same game. That is impossible for TRPGs; every table is different, every game is different, and every session is just different enough to cause cognitive friction--even dissonance--in casual observers (i.e. normies). Those folks are watching one specific thing, and they can't get the full effect because they're not at the table making those calls; no medium of virtual life experience allows for it.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;912135A possible lesson from this is to offer other paths for solo play.

Step 1: Buy a video game console.

Step 2: Buy a video game.

Step 3: Play the video game.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;912035Two observations:

(1) Unless we're positing game designers with time machines, there are some weird assertions of cause-and-effect in there.

(2) The idea of designing games that play great on heavily edited Youtube video shows and Twitch streams makes my head hurt.

That would be like a board game designer saying, "I really want to focus on making sure this game plays great on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop." or a video game designer saying, "I'm less concerned about people having fun while playing this game than I am in making sure that it makes for entertaining Twitch streams."

There's nothing wrong with Critical Role or Tabletop. But designing games with that sort of play in mind is like arguing that all action figures should be designed around using them in animatronic films.

Critical Role is unscripted and unedited.  And even a single viewing of any random episode would reveal that immediately.  They show things like pausing to look up a rule, or a dude coming in late due to LA traffic, or a guy saying he's going to do X and then after a long while explaining it realizing he can't do that and nevermind. I mean they were playing for a year before they even got the idea to film it. They're just some voice actors who dig D&D.  Nobody gathered them for the purpose of filming something, they just started filming something they were already doing for just themselves - just playing D&D (or actually originally they were playing Pathfinder).

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912207A bunch of already-invested gamers watching what they invested in is NOT the same as me throwing on any fucking FIFA-compliant soccer match, even if I neither know nor care about the sides on the pitch. I know exactly what rules they're using, what is and is not allowed, and never needed to look up a fucking thing to learn it; just by watching I got fully engaged in the sport, learned how to play by observation, and and can talk about that game with anyone else who's seen (or is seeing) the footage. It's the same thing that makes it worthwhile to watch WOW streamers, or talk strats with other players: everyone's engaged in the same game. That is impossible for TRPGs; every table is different, every game is different, and every session is just different enough to cause cognitive friction--even dissonance--in casual observers (i.e. normies). Those folks are watching one specific thing, and they can't get the full effect because they're not at the table making those calls; no medium of virtual life experience allows for it.

The FIFA football rules, a 210 page book with no pictures (http://www.fifa.com/mm/Document/FootballDevelopment/Refereeing/02/79/92/44/Laws.of.the.Game.2016.2017_Neutral.pdf).

And yes, I believe people watch Critical Role even if they have no idea how to play D&D (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/02/22/critical_role_is_flat_out_great_tv_even_if_you_don_t_care_about_dungeons.html).  

I've watched professional basketball for about 15 years now, with several season ticket years in there.  I STILL find new rules I was unaware of about once a month.  And yet, I learned the broad strokes and basic most common rules of how basketball is played within the first month of watching basketball.

I think it's fair to say the same thing about D&D.  Watch a handful of Critical Role episodes and you will likely learn the broad strokes and basic most common rules of how D&D is played. Nobody is going to experience cognitive dissonance from watching Critical Role and then sitting down at a different table to try and play D&D.  The minor detail differences are just not as important as you make them out to be.

It would be like watching professional basketball and then playing a game of pickup street ball - there will be differences, but not so many that it will be a major issue.

And I don't think we need to stick to theory on this one.  I think people really are learning about D&D from Critical Role and a new sub-generation are then playing it and finding they love TRPGs. I mean, I think you're declaring something impossible that's already happening, and will continue to happen at an increasing rate from here on out.

For example (https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/3yp6ki/no_spoilers_need_your_help/):

QuoteI happened to stumble across Critical Role by accident while browsing Twitch on that first Thursday night. I had never played D&D or any other RPG before, but after watching this group of voice actors have so much fun, I knew I had to jump in. Now I'm DMing my own storyline for a group of other Critical Role fans. It's been crazy growing with this show, I've found a ton of new friends and it's just a whole new world that opened up to me because of Dungeons and Dragons. At the age of 21 I now have friends online who range from late teens to their 30s and 40s. It is the weirdest experience seeing a game such as this bring this many people closer together as one community.
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And there is more of that from others.  A lot more.  I mean read through that thread.  It's pretty eye opening.  For example you have this sort of stuff too:

QuoteOn May 8th of 2015 I had my first game. It was planned on May 1st and I was the DM. One week prep for my first game ever.
I bought the Player's Handbook and the Monster Manual and the Dungeon Master's Guide. I read the Player's Handbook twice over the span of a day. It made sense but it was also dry as bones.
So I looked into podcasts and YouTube videos of people playing. Through sheer luck I found Critical Role. And I watched two or three episodes a day. After a few days I re-read the books and they made a lot more sense.
I have modeled my DM style after Matthew Mercer. These days I run three groups: 1 every Thursday and 2 alternating on Tuesdays. My fiancée started playing too and uses Critical Role as a model to break out of the videogame ideas that there are rules to follow.
And I'm proud to say that these days, in the span of less than a year, people follow my Facebook page to see my viewpoints. To see my maps. To read about my storyline. To have a player randomly tank me for DMing a great game. It's awesome.
I only regret one thing: that's waited until I was 33 years old.
Matthew, and all the rest of the CR crew (in front or behind the cameras): thank you for the inspiration to do what I do.
Sincerely,
The Canadian GM!

Like all testing, you have to test for the right things, and the only issue that matters in RPG design is how player behavior is affected.

Whatever problems The Forge may have had, testing for the right variables was never one of them, and things have only gotten worse since. Sure there are designers like Cam Banks, Greg Stolze, and Vincent Baker who know what to test for, but they're the minority. Most of the it's someone who played nothing but D&D derivatives and is making the same rookie mistakes because they never bothered to research previous work.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;911782TRPGs are not spectator-friendly.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;911782Spectator-friendly entertainment exists for watchers (et. al.) and players alike; you need not actually do it to get full engagement from it.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;912035The idea of designing games that play great on heavily edited Youtube video shows and Twitch streams makes my head hurt.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;912035There's nothing wrong with Critical Role or Tabletop. But designing games with that sort of play in mind is like arguing that all action figures should be designed around using them in animatronic films.

Quote from: cranebump;912060Just not a huge fan of watching other people play. Sooooo....I guess this wouldn't work for me on almost any level.

But not being engaged in what other players are doing at the table when it's not your turn has been a core problem in tabletop RPGs since forever, so damn right we should be designing/testing systems which increase inter-player engagement. And it just so happens that many of those systems also lead to more photogenic sessions.

Quote from: kobayashi;912105the way rpgs are played is not the way they are discussed in public forums, emphasis is not placed on the same things.

Exactly. And design should never be based on what people say but why they're saying it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;912114I think forums are useful for finding tools and techniques for specific problems and being exposed to ideas that you can try.

Forums are great for designers who know (or want to learn) how to spot real needs and put those into words. For everyone else... not so much, as those design discussions tend to be more about personal opinion than applicable science.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;912208Step 1: Buy a video game console.

Step 2: Buy a video game.

Step 3: Play the video game.

This. Videogames do a lot of things better than tabletop RPGs. The future of the business of TRPGs focuses on what this medium does better than rival RPG media.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912377This. Videogames do a lot of things better than tabletop RPGs. The future of the business of TRPGs focuses on what this medium does better than rival RPG media.

I'm not sure I buy this. I'd like to know what precisely you mean by saying Videogames do a lot of things better than TRPG's? If you mean - "give you a single-player experience better." Sure, because TRPG's are designed to do that. What else could you be implying? I'm genuinely curious.

The "Future Business of TRPG's" doesn't appear, to me, to have anything to do with videogames other than perhaps distribution or setting ideas. TRPG's are about people rolling dice and interacting. Whether that is happening over Roll20, or at a table doesn't change that fact. That's why I'm wondering what exactly are you referring to?

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912377This. Videogames do a lot of things better than tabletop RPGs. The future of the business of TRPGs focuses on what this medium does better than rival RPG media.

Yeah riiight.

PC/Console games do about one thing better than a TTRPG. They handle all the dice rolling and background mechanics and free the player to just play.

But a PC game is never going to equal a TTRPG because you can not do things that you can in an actual RPG. And all PC RPGs. Well. Arent RPGs. They amount to a pick-your-path storybook at best and others are little more than a slightly interactive movie.  

Console games are so far a totally different media from TTRPGs. Even the SSI or Capcom D&D games are still not actual RPGs.

heh that's why I asked. It's like being told that airplanes do a lot things better than my lawnmower. Although I guess I could have my lawn cut with the blades of a Cessna...

Quote from: Omega;912421Yeah riiight.

PC/Console games do about one thing better than a TTRPG. They handle all the dice rolling and background mechanics and free the player to just play.

Don't underestimate the power of striking visuals, well-timed music, lightning fast combat, no group scheduling hassle, and NPCs that don't all look and sound like a bearded butterball in a Megadeth T-shirt. :D

Quote from: tenbones;912418I'm not sure I buy this. I'd like to know what precisely you mean by saying Videogames do a lot of things better than TRPG's? If you mean - "give you a single-player experience better." Sure, because TRPG's are designed to do that. What else could you be implying? I'm genuinely curious.

The "Future Business of TRPG's" doesn't appear, to me, to have anything to do with videogames other than perhaps distribution or setting ideas. TRPG's are about people rolling dice and interacting. Whether that is happening over Roll20, or at a table doesn't change that fact. That's why I'm wondering what exactly are you referring to?

Every medium does some things better than others. Videogames are strong in presentation of audio and visual spectacle, handling complex mechanics, and offering immediate as well as wholly user-controlled convenience. The Dragon Age series is a good example of this. As are all MMORPGs. But they are terrible at speed of content release, have hard arbitrary limits to player agency, and as a consequence rarely approach what a human GM running a proper campaign at the table is able to do. The hitch is that most players are not pro-active; they don't make plans and carry them out, but rather react to events and follow instead. (There's also the known issue of scheduling your fun, which is a big deal, and contributes to the friction.)

If TRPGs are to remain at all viable, when videogames are getting ever-closer to doing competently all that tabletop does, identifying and emphasizing those qualities that tabletop does better than videogames (or better than RPG-like boardgames, e.g. Descent), while mitigating or flipping weaknesses (such as that scheduling issue) somehow into selling points, is required.

Quote from: Omega;912421Yeah riiight.

PC/Console games do about one thing better than a TTRPG. They handle all the dice rolling and background mechanics and free the player to just play.

But a PC game is never going to equal a TTRPG because you can not do things that you can in an actual RPG. And all PC RPGs. Well. Arent RPGs. They amount to a pick-your-path storybook at best and others are little more than a slightly interactive movie.  

Console games are so far a totally different media from TTRPGs. Even the SSI or Capcom D&D games are still not actual RPGs.

So long as the servers are up, I can play WOW anytime I want for as long as I wish. I don't have to schedule a damned thing. I only need to do so if I want to engage in high-end PVP or PVE gameplay. If I want to play D&D, I have to find other players and schedule a time and place to meet; for most people, this is work and not congruent with any gameplay form of entertainment. You underestimate the power of convenience at your peril.

Most people don't want to study to play. The normie perception of tabletop RPGs is just that; there is little, if any, idea that you can just learn as you play and be good enough. That's the key; no one wants to be the dead weight that has to be carried. They also don't want the commitment; they want to come and go as they wish. The play culture we have is notorious for that, and normies aren't keen on scheduling time to pretend to be an elf. Videogames are better fits for their entertainment wants, so they prefer them.

We have solutions at hand: restore the original play culture, as seen in the Ars Ludi posts on the West Marches and Justin's Open Table posts at his blog. Do that, promote that, run tabletop games that exploit that. Then get them excited; excited players make and execute plans, being the drivers instead of the driven, and that compels that necessary speed of content creation that TRPGs are good at doing. Play to the medium's strengths, and we have a viable RPG medium for years to come.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;912424Don't underestimate the power of striking visuals, well-timed music, lightning fast combat, no group scheduling hassle, and NPCs that don't all look and sound like a bearded butterball in a Megadeth T-shirt. :D

This. Videogame RPGs are multi-milllion dollar franchises for damn good, sound, and easy to grok reasons. Tabletop can't beat that, so it should not try; it needs to emphasis what it does better than videogames and appeal to those strengths in all marketing thereof.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912425But they are terrible at speed of content release, have hard arbitrary limits to player agency, and as a consequence rarely approach what a human GM running a proper campaign at the table is able to do.

I'm curious if you could expand on this. One of the major selling points in my view of video games is that their time to content ratio is exponentially higher than TTRPGs. VTM Bloodlines or the Shadowrun returns series compress about a year long or more campaign into a tightly crafted 15-30 hour experience. This is especially apparent in combat, where VRPG encounters taking far less time and often being more tactical due to the greater time put into each map. VRPGs just slice apart the time delay between action (I swing my sword) and consequence (the orc takes 10 dam). Due to the time that goes into designing each level, they also offer a degree of flexibility in problem solving (besides the motherfucking Nosferatu Warrens, goddammit Troika) that would take a GM putting a substantial amount of work into each session. On the other hand, they miss out the human factor of interpersonal interaction and the players driving the story. Yet, this requires players to walk a balance between Timmy the murderhobo and the guy who just sits there in order to work. It's why I tend to advocate baking in VRPG style choices and options into games for new ish people.

On a side note, VRPGs do solo play much better than TTRPGs, no question. What I was advocating was for 1- a sort of "testing lab" where people trying to develop ultimate characters could see how it plays out in combat and 2- a way so people not able to make sessions could still engage with the story, gain exp and advance the group even without being there.

Quote from: Anglachel;911938I'd rather play tennis/soccer/what have you than watch it.

3.2 (http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/y=2015/m=12/news=2014-fifa-world-cuptm-reached-3-2-billion-viewers-one-billion-watched--2745519.html) billion people disagree with you.

Quote from: Mistwell;912211

Quote(2) The idea of designing games that play great on heavily edited Youtube video shows and Twitch streams makes my head hurt.

Critical Role is unscripted and unedited.

True. It is, however, a Twitch stream.

Quote from: Omega;912421Yeah riiight.

PC/Console games do about one thing better than a TTRPG. They handle all the dice rolling and background mechanics and free the player to just play.

But a PC game is never going to equal a TTRPG because you can not do things that you can in an actual RPG.

Sure. But at the moment what we're literally talking about are tools for solo play including:

- Procedurally-generated rogue-likes.
- Choose your own adventure paths.

And video games are so clearly better at delivering those experiences that it's the rhetorical equivalent of Muhammed Ali at his prime in a boxing match against a six-year-old quadriplegic.

Quote from: tenbones;912418I'm not sure I buy this. I'd like to know what precisely you mean by saying Videogames do a lot of things better than TRPG's?

Graphics. Sound. Speed/complexity of mechanical resolution. Real-time action. On-demand play. And, arguably, the execution of predetermined plot lines with a light patina of interactive content.

TTRPGs have three things they do better:

(1) Social interaction.

(2) Rapid implementation of unique creative visions, allowing for rapid prep of new material (and even improvisation of new material).

(3) The creative flexibility of human-mediated action adjudication, allowing for any action to be attempted.

Procedural content generators for creating solo-play scenarios take advantage of literally none of those things.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912425Every medium does some things better than others. Videogames are strong in presentation of audio and visual spectacle, handling complex mechanics, and offering immediate as well as wholly user-controlled convenience. The Dragon Age series is a good example of this. As are all MMORPGs. But they are terrible at speed of content release, have hard arbitrary limits to player agency, and as a consequence rarely approach what a human GM running a proper campaign at the table is able to do. The hitch is that most players are not pro-active; they don't make plans and carry them out, but rather react to events and follow instead. (There's also the known issue of scheduling your fun, which is a big deal, and contributes to the friction.)

So imagery and audio aside, which obviously are conceits of videogaming - I don't see the connection you're drawing. They're forms of entertainment that draw upon setting material, and they engage people, like all games ideally should. But the only material things I can agree with you on are the production deliverables. The point of TRPG's to give manicured experiences of their respective settings is problem that has always been part of TRPG's but with the advent of popularity of videogaming and MMO's in particular, somehow I feel people have misunderstood that as a function of videogames they've somehow projected that fact onto TRPG's where in reality it's a bit of a "beginner phase" (and please don't take that term to be some kind of perjorative or anything other than an observation about TRPG's in general over the last 30+ years on my part). Nearly everyone starts playing TRPG's with a very railroady mindset. Hence modules and adventure paths are wildly popular. But if you stick it out long enough - or if you're lucky enough to have an experienced GM, you get to a point where player agency grows beyond such things.

That is the entire reason why videogames are leaning heavier on open-world concepts by design these days. To give players that very agency. Does that translate to TRPG's? I still don't think it does. While it might inspire a GM to use elements of a videogame for fluff or even sub-system homebrew fodder, I don't know of any TRPG's that I'd draw some overarching connection to from videogames writ-large. Even the worst cases of 4e which has been argued to death are equally board-gamey as they are MMO-inspired. To whatever degree that it informed the design of TRPG's writ-large would kind of fly in the face of the fact it's a dead game. And while this is a singular instance, and there are certainly other TRPG's that have similar leanings, I still don't see how it warrants enough consideration to support your idea.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912425If TRPGs are to remain at all viable, when videogames are getting ever-closer to doing competently all that tabletop does, identifying and emphasizing those qualities that tabletop does better than videogames (or better than RPG-like boardgames, e.g. Descent), while mitigating or flipping weaknesses (such as that scheduling issue) somehow into selling points, is required.

What you're proposing here is essentially decades away. You're essentially talking about having an AI GM (which would be fucking FABULOUS) - but I think there's some false equivalency at play here. #1 TRPG's will *never* attract as many player (i.e. more to the point: CONSUMERS) than videogames. The conceits of even trying to do things like a videogame has almost zero to do with the production and play of a good TRPG. Production values aside. Mechanics for videogames require more and more sophisticated code. For TRPG's it requires more experienced GM's. Abstractly for these two things to meet eye to eye - your problem will still remain that TRPG's are not Videogames.

Of course... now where some rubber might hit the road will be VR/AR. Now that! is where the real discussion can/will begin.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912427This. Videogame RPGs are multi-milllion dollar franchises for damn good, sound, and easy to grok reasons. Tabletop can't beat that, so it should not try; it needs to emphasis what it does better than videogames and appeal to those strengths in all marketing thereof.

Well, yeah.  It's one reason I've moved entirely to "theater of the mind" on tabletop, I will NEVER rival the visuals of somebody who has an actual graphics budget.  And you can't beat computer, video, or online games for convenience.

On the other hand, my NPCs don't have canned responses.  That's the big advantage of tabletop.

Quote from: tenbones;912438Of course... now where some rubber might hit the road will be VR/AR. Now that! is where the real discussion can/will begin.

I don't know if VR/AR necessarily are required, but computer tools that allow a live GM to essentially 100% control a video game environment like they control a tabletop space will be a revolution.  EQ2 for a while had a system that picked up voice chat and made the character's mouth move, lots of mods for Skyrim allow for more "intelligent NPCs", etc...

If you basically combined all the computer RPGs, MMOs, Steam Mods, and toolsets from games like NWN but give them an interface actually designed for an end-user GM, not a coder, then at some point the capabilities of tabletop and virtual tabletop will merge.

No one on the computer gaming side of things currently sees enough potential to invest enough dollars in it at this point, so it will have to get to the point where the tech of modding A-list titles drifts down to where others can use it.  At that point, a good virtual tabletop might run 5 years behind the A-list games.

Now the people on the VR/AR side of things have already shown interest in Universal Tabletop Simulators, so like Tenbones says that's probably where the tech will come from.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;912440On the other hand, my NPCs don't have canned responses.  That's the big advantage of tabletop.

I dunno, a percentile table where 01-95 is "Tongue my pee-hole" seems a little canned. :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;912442I dunno, a percentile table where 01-95 is "Tongue my pee-hole" seems a little canned. :D

But with a human GM, each NPC can say that in a slightly different way.

Quote from: Bren;912445But with a human GM, each NPC can say that in a slightly different way.

"No matter how you slice it, it's still bologna." - Harlan Ellison

Quote from: Mistwell;911749I thought this would be of interest to folks here:

WotC's Mike Mearls on the History & Future of RPG Discusion & Design (http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3624-WotC-s-Mike-Mearls-on-the-History-Future-of-RPG-Discusion-Design#.V6dp3usrKJc)

by Morrus
Saturday, 6th August, 2016 09:22 PM

D&D 5E lead designer Mike Mearls has some thoughts to share on how roleplaying games are discussed and shared online. "It's interesting seeing reactions at GenCon to Critical Role's show in Indy. Illustrates a big divide in how designers grok TRPGs these days. It'll be great to see a higher level of awareness of how RPGs have transformed and what that means for their future."

He went on to elaborate:

"I believe that the rise of 3/3.5e and online discussion forums created a massive, fundamental shift in how RPGs were viewed and used. 3e, and then into 4e, D&D was very dense, rules heavy, complicated, and filled with character building options. That was the game. That spread to other RPGs, placing the baseline complexity of the typical RPG at the extreme upper end of what we saw in 80s/90s.

At the same time, online discussion veered heavily toward character optimization and rules details. It was a culture of read and dissect. Both the indie and old school design movements rose in counter to this, focusing much more heavily on actual play at the table. However, the prevailing, forum-based online culture made it very hard to communicate meaningfully about actual play.

That changed when streaming and actual play vids became accessible to the average DM. The culture of actual play had a platform. We can now meaningfully interact based on what we're doing when we play, rather than talk about the stuff we do when we don't play. This is HUGE because it shifts the design convo away from "How do we design for forum discussions?" to "How do we design for play?'

As game designers, we can actually watch how RPGs play and what rules and concepts facilitate the effects we're looking to create. The tension between theoretical discussion vs. actual play has always been a big part of RPG design. I believe at the table ruled for a very long time, swung hard to theory, and now back to table-driven design. Theory is useful, but it has to be used in service to actual, repeatable results in play. And I say this as someone who veered to theory.

So [...] that's why I see Critical Role at GenCon something that can be very good for the hobby and designers. All of this is IMO, based on observations from this specific perch over 16 years. Your mileage may/can/should/will vary.

This ties into the huge success of 5e and the growth of RPGs - people can now learn by watching. The rulebook is not a barrier. We don't learn sports like baseball or soccer by reading the rules - we watch and quickly learn how to play. The rulebook is a reference, like the NBA's rulebook. Comes out only when absolutely needed. Barriers are now gone. Design accordingly."

For me there are other elements to the topics he talks about. A rulebook - for me - needs to be a thing I can get pleasure from reading; it's more than a reference book. And forums are also about creating stable communities, not just dissecting rules (though they are getting fewer and fewer). One of the great effects of things like Critical Role, etc., is not only that it teaches how to play, but it helps to advertise and "mainstreamify" a hobby which is traditionally played behind closed doors.

[Edit - For what he's referring to with Critical Role, see here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3623-The-Effects-Of-Celebrity-On-RPGs#.V6dt5esrKJc).]

Its an incredibly myopic PoV. At the same time 3rd edition rose to fame, the internet also saw an explosion of "rules lite" games online. If anything the internet rpg discussions highlighted a distinct division between the RPG industry and the RPG hobby, and Mearls doesn't seem to be looking past the industry. I highly doubt even the majority of OSR games would rightly be compared in crunch level to games like D&D 3.5/4.

Quote from: kobayashi;912110I see your point but I have, let's say, a more "charitable" view of his statement, being : what people say is important in rpgs when you read forums has nothing in common with what happens at the (or at least some) table(s).

This needs to be amended to add "except if the Pundit is the one saying it". Because that's been the entire basis of my philosophy. It's why theRPGsite is (curiously) the only major RPG forum that stigmatizes people who don't actually play.  That's why I opposed the theory movement so much, and the Cult of the Game Designer, and the OSR Taliban too for that matter. And it's why I've always been right, and all those other fuckers have always been wrong.

QuoteSo, when Mr Mearls says "it shifts the design convo away from "How do we design for forum discussions?" to "How do we design for play?", all he means, in my opinion, is "stop designing games as a tiny fraction of the community wants us to make them".

But as I am a participating member of the internet rpg community myself I'm probably talking outta my ass.

I'm pretty sure he also meant "RPG Designers really need to stop listening to "Theorists"".

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;912114I think what worries me is he seems to think these vids are giving him a bigger sense of the community than forums are, and I don't think that is the case. .

Yes, that's a good point. People who are trying to gain fame or monetize through making videos of being players are going to be not much closer to a realistic look at how real gamers game than the people who write complex (and wrong) RPG theories.  It's like saying that to learn about fishing, a movie about a fishing adventure is better than a book on theories of fishing, rather than actually just talking to people who fish.

Neither of these are the way to go.

Quote from: tenbones;912127Not that I'm saying that Mearls and co. don't love D&D, but they're certainly not designing the game for their own personal tastes over what will best sell and appease what they perceive as the largest ongoing segment of the playerbase that will continue to shill out the most bank.

I can absolutely confirm this.  Particularly at the time of 5e's creation (when some of the people there were still stalwartly defending the methodologies that they had been using up to that point, and I sensed resentful of the notion that it was a failure).  But in any case, I don't think this is a surprise to anyone: you  have to be a special kind of naive to imagine that a group of people working for a huge multinational corporation are going to be told "do whatever you want as a labor of love". With 5e, they were specifically looking for something that they thought would succeed as a game product where 4e had failed, which for some was a labor of love but for others wasn't.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;912135I think Mearls is missing the two major design goals hidden under his nose.

The irony is that Mearls is discovering what the people at SPI discovered 3 and a half decades ago. Anything substantially nerdy exists in two fundamentally different spheres, theorycrafting/armchair gaming/metagaming/solo play and actual on the table gaming, which receive roughly equal playing time. The major fun of metagaming is trying to imagine your largest possible impact on the on the table gaming, it's an expansion of the character creation minigame every RPG has. I think a major problem with a lot of RPG designs is that the people who make them have long standing, stable, gaming groups. For the most part, they are works of passion. However, this is quite distinct from the normal gaming experience, which centers around inconsistent gameplay, people dropping in and out, ect. During the height of wargaming, in the mid 1970's SPI realized that 90% of its wargames were being played solo.

This is true, but even in the case of wargaming I think it was ultimately a terrible, terrible mistake to have aimed the wargaming market at the theorists and hardcore-fans who wanted ultra-complex games they could pore over. Playing to the extreme-fans, the collectors, and the lone weirdos is almost always a losing proposition in the long term, made dangerous because their fanaticism sometimes brings the most short-term bang for the buck.  But it warps the entire field; hobbies that start aiming the industry at the fanatic end up inevitably being fucked up and weird and going into a death-spiral through lack of mainstream appeal.  That has happened at different times in most nerd-hobbies (but other areas as well).

In RPGs, also, the situation is even WORSE than with Wargames. Because wargames are ultimately an 'objective' pursuit. You can play a lot of wargames solo, objectively imagining each commander's move, rolling the dice and seeing what happens in clearly-defined rules.
But RPGs are a SOCIAL ACTIVITY. To be actually played, they require other people. You need a human GM, you need other human players, you need that interaction to make it work. So aiming the RPG industry toward the segment of the RPG hobby who are book-buyers but non-gamers is madness.

Personally I don't really watch vids of other people playing D&D like, ever. Even really professionally done ones with editing and graphics. Like BedrockBrendan said, TTRPGs are just not really spectator-friendly things.  They're incredibly engaging (ofc.) when you're in them, but watching them, well it's just a handful of nerds around a table throwing numbers at each other.  In fact I remember when I was learning the game from one of my teachers after school, other students would come in sometime and sit down and watch us for a while.  They usually left before the session ended and never came back after one time because D&D is just not interesting to watch from the outside.  Not even if you do voices!  

Obviously that's not universally true.  Play vids get made so somebody out there is watching them.  Still I think if Mearls is hoping this is a way for D&D to branch out to the Normies he's heading for disappointment.  To most people, other people playing an RPG is just this kibbitz of dorks interspersed with long pauses, in-jokes and "let's see, I'm elevated so that's +1, Joe cast aid last turn so that's +1... he should be flat-footed right?"  "He's not flat-footed."  "But he did a full move..."

Whats hilarious is last week on BGG there was a thread about DMs who record their sessions. Who then didnt want to run sessions because they thought they sounded or played badly when viewed. We had a bit of pep talking to re-assure these DMs that viewing yourself after the fact is sometimes not the best of ideas. Whats impoortant is to focus on the players. Are they enjoying themselves? Yes. You are doing great.

Even a few players have felt funny after hearing themselves recorded.

The other advice was. "Dont record your sessions!"

aheh...

Personally I think session reports and "replays" are more popular, and informative and entertaining than videos.

QuoteThat changed when streaming and actual play vids became accessible to the average DM. The culture of actual play had a platform. We can now meaningfully interact based on what we're doing when we play, rather than talk about the stuff we do when we don't play. This is HUGE because it shifts the design convo away from "How do we design for forum discussions?" to "How do we design for play?'

As game designers, we can actually watch how RPGs play and what rules and concepts facilitate the effects we're looking to create. The tension between theoretical discussion vs. actual play has always been a big part of RPG design. I believe at the table ruled for a very long time, swung hard to theory, and now back to table-driven design. Theory is useful, but it has to be used in service to actual, repeatable results in play. And I say this as someone who veered to theory.

This is very odd. He is speaking as though before youtube, nobody could see how games were played, as though there were never any playtesters. This would explain a lot about the games Mearls has designed, of course.

rpg theory dominated because a bunch of people who rarely or never played were designing games; certainly they rarely or never played the games they were critiquing, particularly when it came to critiquing D&D.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;912440On the other hand, my NPCs don't have canned responses.  That's the big advantage of tabletop.

Theres been some impressive headway with NPCs in MUDs.

Such as NPCs that remember what you talked to them about and will bring that up later. And a few other neet tricks that make them feel more alive.

Then there are the autonomous AI NPCs. As mentioned a few times. A friend way back had a private MUD set up and on it let loose an AI character. It acted just like a player. The tip offs were the speed of its reactions to questions and the sometimes telltale ELIZA style responses when it hit something it didnt know. Otherwise it chatted players up darn good. Years later saw someone else testing a similar approach on SecondLife. And theres at least one messenger virus that chats you up. Scary.

But they are still limited. Mainly in that a good one takes up alot of processor or memory space as it learns. And they can only learn what theyve been coded to remember.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;912135I think a major problem with a lot of RPG designs is that the people who make them have long standing, stable, gaming groups. For the most part, they are works of passion. However, this is quite distinct from the normal gaming experience, which centers around inconsistent gameplay, people dropping in and out, ect. During the height of wargaming, in the mid 1970's SPI realized that 90% of its wargames were being played solo. However, it took wargaming in general decades to really start making an effort to make solo play easier or viable. To return to RPG's, theorycrafting and forum work is so popular because you can do it solo. There's no designated slot for it, no 4 hours on a saturday. You can just open up the book and try to create the most broken character possible. It's a fun metagame. However, when it bleeds to heavily into the on the table gaming, it can often ruin the experience for non meta-gamers. It also creates pressure for people new to the game to conform to the tiers, especially by the Gaming Den crowd. In short, despite solo play probably seeing more time spent on it, games should be designed around on the tabletop, while integrating solo as much as possible

This is extraordinarily insightful, thankyou.

I think we can further say that many older games recognised how much solo play happened, thus the random dungeons in the AD&D1e DMG, lots of the classic Traveller stuff, the example games in players' books being a "choose your own adventure" sort of thing, etc.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912427This. Videogame RPGs are multi-milllion dollar franchises for damn good, sound, and easy to grok reasons. Tabletop can't beat that, so it should not try; it needs to emphasis what it does better than videogames and appeal to those strengths in all marketing thereof.

I concur, tabletop roleplaying strongest advantage is the flexibility of the human referee and ease of prep for creating original content.

Ease of prep? Video games take a team of people to pull off. There are many technical jobs in creating video games with non overlapping skill sets for example creating 3d models versus painting textures versus coding ai versus coding a graphic engine and so on. Since the beginning tabletop roleplaying has enabled referees to present a detailed setting that can be prepared within the context of a once a week hobby.

This combined with the flexibility of the human referee, and the social aspects of the game are tabletop roleplaying strengths in the 21st century. These are features are not the strength of computer roleplaying games or MMORPGs.

However as pointed out the convenience of solo play is a huge factor in gaming. And people figured out how to create a compelling role-playing experience on a computer. Not all CRPGs are good but enough are so that people keep being new games in the genre. The combination to make the CRPG industry several order of magnitude larger than the pen & paper tabletop industry.

And that OK, because with 21st technology tabletop RPGs can be indefinitely support as long as there is interest. The hobby doesn't have to have an industry in order to thrive. If need be we can take care of supporting tabletop roleplaying ourselves.

And note that except for a few rare cases, minecraft for example, this not true of CRPGs.  It take a lot of resources to do a CRPG by 2016 standards.

Quote from: Omega;914656Whats hilarious is last week on BGG there was a thread about DMs who record their sessions. Who then didnt want to run sessions because they thought they sounded or played badly when viewed.

Long ago I had a training job. Periodically we had to tape a class and watch it. All of us found watching ourselves a bit painful, but it was a great way to spot any odd verbal or body language tics that one has. I learned that I was a pacer.

QuoteEven a few players have felt funny after hearing themselves recorded.

I wonder how many tapes one has to listen to before one's voice doesn't sound odd.

Quote from: Bren;914716Long ago I had a training job. Periodically we had to tape a class and watch it. All of us found watching ourselves a bit painful, but it was a great way to spot any odd verbal or body language tics that one has. I learned that I was a pacer.

I wonder how many tapes one has to listen to before one's voice doesn't sound odd.

I occasionally do a podcast with a sci-fi/comic/game/store/bar/art-gallery around these parts and listening to myself (and watching my own youtube videos) the ahs and ums are painful.

Yep...Umm..They...ah...sure are.

Quote from: RPGPundit;914595This is true, but even in the case of wargaming I think it was ultimately a terrible, terrible mistake to have aimed the wargaming market at the theorists and hardcore-fans who wanted ultra-complex games they could pore over. Playing to the extreme-fans, the collectors, and the lone weirdos is almost always a losing proposition in the long term, made dangerous because their fanaticism sometimes brings the most short-term bang for the buck.  But it warps the entire field; hobbies that start aiming the industry at the fanatic end up inevitably being fucked up and weird and going into a death-spiral through lack of mainstream appeal.  That has happened at different times in most nerd-hobbies (but other areas as well).

Yep. And the hardcore nerds who dominate discussion in the hobby don't even realize this is happening because they're too immersed in the hobby to recognize how unapproachable it has become. Some even take pride in their how hardcore they are. Wargaming only emerged from its death spiral when new, more casual-friendly formats of play emerged, like card-driven and block games. The largest publisher in the hobby, GMT, almost went bankrupt until it struck gold with a wargame/euro-game crossover hit in Twilight Struggle. The grognards contemptuously deny that it is even a wargame, while the money it makes helps fund esoteric monster games on the Great War in Serbia that will never be played by more than a couple hundred people.

It really is incredible how many nerd gamers have zero sense of perspective.There are threads all the time on boardgamegeek where someone wants to dip their toes in a wargame after playing something like Memoir '44 and asks for suggestions, and you invariably get guys suggesting two map games with a 4' x 6' footprint, a 32 page rule book, 1,000 counters, and a playing time for 12-15 hours. And the guys making the suggestion believe it's a moderate and casual game because they routinely play wargames with 64 pages of rules, 2,000 counters, and playing time of 30+ hours.

Quote from: Bren;914716Long ago I had a training job. Periodically we had to tape a class and watch it. All of us found watching ourselves a bit painful, but it was a great way to spot any odd verbal or body language tics that one has. I learned that I was a pacer.

I wonder how many tapes one has to listen to before one's voice doesn't sound odd.

After being in several bands from age 15 to 30, I got used to hearing my own voice. Now when I watch re-watch a review I've done on YouTube, my voice bothers me very little. The "Uhs" annoy the crap out of me though. Also, I need to look at the camera more. I'm used to public speaking. I teach Sunday School. But staring at a camera is a habit I am having trouble to develop.

Quote from: Bren;914716I wonder how many tapes one has to listen to before one's voice doesn't sound odd.

I've been a professional voice over/actor and I occasionally still do it on the side.

You never get used to hearing yourself. It's slightly better when you're doing character work, because then you're usually using a different voice and it's supposed to sound different.  But I cringe when I have to review my audiobook work.  I sound like Jim Henson.

Quote from: estar;914684I concur, tabletop roleplaying strongest advantage is the flexibility of the human referee and ease of prep for creating original content.

Ease of prep? Video games take a team of people to pull off. There are many technical jobs in creating video games with non overlapping skill sets for example creating 3d models versus painting textures versus coding ai versus coding a graphic engine and so on. Since the beginning tabletop roleplaying has enabled referees to present a detailed setting that can be prepared within the context of a once a week hobby.

This combined with the flexibility of the human referee, and the social aspects of the game are tabletop roleplaying strengths in the 21st century. These are features are not the strength of computer roleplaying games or MMORPGs.

However as pointed out the convenience of solo play is a huge factor in gaming. And people figured out how to create a compelling role-playing experience on a computer. Not all CRPGs are good but enough are so that people keep being new games in the genre. The combination to make the CRPG industry several order of magnitude larger than the pen & paper tabletop industry.

And that OK, because with 21st technology tabletop RPGs can be indefinitely support as long as there is interest. The hobby doesn't have to have an industry in order to thrive. If need be we can take care of supporting tabletop roleplaying ourselves.

And note that except for a few rare cases, minecraft for example, this not true of CRPGs.  It take a lot of resources to do a CRPG by 2016 standards.

Well yes and no depends on what you want for a video game for example the 1st harvest moon on the snes was made by 3 people in 3 months to be fair they where trying to save a project on the edge of being caned.
The real question is how grand do you want it and how long will it take to make.

Quote from: kosmos1214;914774Well yes and no depends on what you want for a video game for example the 1st harvest moon on the snes was made by 3 people in 3 months to be fair they where trying to save a project on the edge of being caned.
The real question is how grand do you want it and how long will it take to make.

The modern example is Minecraft and Angry Birds. But success is like the lottery and is pretty much nickles and dimes otherwise especially relative to the AAA releases.

While there are niches in video games that a small team can chip away at and earn a living, it pretty consumes their time. It is not a situation where you go to a group of friends and say "Hey lets code up some Neverwinter Nights and play!". Tabletop roleplaying takes several orders of magnitude less prep then the most basic of computer games. The best illustration of this is to take what you do to run a campaign in Roll20 vsersus Bioware's Neverwinter Nights. Roll20 a lot easier and more flexible than NwN because all it tries to is serves as an alternate means of communication for what happens face to face. While the automation, looks, and capabilities of NwN are incredible it comes at a huge cost in flexibility and prep time.

Another way of looking it at is using Dwarven Forge during a tabletop session. It looks great and you can build all kinds of stuff with it. But doesn't drag out the setup and it doesn't build everything that it is possible in a setting. I always have the option of falling back to dry erase or theater of the mind. The same with Roll20. However with NwN I am stuck with the Dwarven forge and I have to use it to run the campaign. If I want to do something different, I have to the software equivalent of carving a new model, casting the mold, finally cast the pieces and wind up painting the stuff. It doable but it will consume all my hobby time.

Quote from: estar;914811If I want to do something different, I have to the software equivalent of carving a new model, casting the mold, finally cast the pieces and wind up painting the stuff. It doable but it will consume all my hobby time.

Actually it's much easier than that.  NWN is the equivalent of having a large number of prefab dungeon pieces and monsters you can repaint with a mouse click and place however you like.

Where you are correct is that if you want a bit of dungeon dressing or a monster that you don't already have, you're going to have to build it from scratch.

Right. This is why PC/Console games and MMOs cant yet achieve the levels a real RPG can.

Great for telling stories and handling the mechanics virtually invisible. But you are on even more of a railroad than the worse of tabletop railroads with a few notable exceptions.

On the other hand. Some MUDs and systems like Second Life can work for NPC'less RPing where everything is player generated. They tend to collapse though eventually. More like an electronic LARP. Though with the system restrictions.

Quote from: daniel_ream;914823Actually it's much easier than that.  NWN is the equivalent of having a large number of prefab dungeon pieces and monsters you can repaint with a mouse click and place however you like.

Where you are correct is that if you want a bit of dungeon dressing or a monster that you don't already have, you're going to have to build it from scratch.

While technically you are right that the pre fabs and textures are a "mouse click" away. That is all in the prep, during an  actual session the software inflexibility rears its ugly head. At best it is as fast as a well organized set of dwarven forge. Often what you want to do is impossible during a active multiplayer session.

Quote from: Omega;914842Right. This is why PC/Console games and MMOs cant yet achieve the levels a real RPG can.

I don't agree with that. My view is that they are distinct forms of roleplaying game with strengths that the one has that the other is weak in  and vice versa. That in total, the strength of CRPGs and MMORPGS make that form of roleplaying game more popular.  A CRPG can be just as compelling for roleplaying an individual character as a tabletop campaign however it is achieved by different means. And more importantly in a way that doesn't appeal to everybody hence why tabletop roleplaying still has appeal.

Quote from: Omega;914842Great for telling stories and handling the mechanics virtually invisible. But you are on even more of a railroad than the worse of tabletop railroads with a few notable exceptions.

It not a railroad if you correctly anticipate how the vast majority of people will respond. The trick with plots in CRPGs and even LARPS is to make people WANT to go down the road and build in just enough flexibility to handle a variety of responses. This is characteristic of a  well crafted CRPG and a well organized LARP event

And so you know this is based on actually me trying to pull this stuff off not some theory bullshit I came up with. The main problem is that in the end it still involves a human being, me, guessing at what people will do so I can prepare for it. With tabletop it is easy for me to switch gears to respond to something unexpected that the players do. With CRPGS like Neverwinter Nights or LARPS like NERO it not that easy outside of a limited range.

Also with tabletop, I can deal with the true oddball player, the player that doesn't act completely rationally. There is a number of reasons why this happens. It is neither good or bad when this occurs. The point it does happen and tabletop roleplaying can handle this far more easily and seamlessly than CRPGs or LARPS. If this how the players mostly plays then it is highly unlikely a CRPG or MMORPG will satisfy them.

Also make it even more complicated, its matters what form the roleplaying game takes. There are people that would have a lot of fun with how a CRPG like Dragon Age plays out but really dislike the fact they have to do everything via a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Or a game controller and at tv screen. The same with LARPS, the costuming and makeup can be really good at time however at the end of the day it is still costuming and makeup for some it destroys the experience. Then there are more subtle variation like a person would be fine with out Dragon Age operates but despises how Neverwinter Night is setup with the keyboard and mouse. A person loves the social roleplaying of LARPS but considers boffer combat and the magic system to be terrible.

In the end it can be made to work for a large group of people, but it will never work for everybody. None of the different forms of roleplaying game will be THE roleplaying game to play. But they are in the end all roleplaying games where you are playing individual characters interacting with a setting.
 

Quote from: Omega;914842On the other hand. Some MUDs and systems like Second Life can work for NPC'less RPing where everything is player generated. They tend to collapse though eventually. More like an electronic LARP. Though with the system restrictions.

To make Neverwinter Nights work for a campaign, I had to treat it like how I ran my LARP events. After that I got it to work like a champ within its limitations.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;912114Designing for forums, I think, isn't a terribly good approach. In RPG discussions on forums, people tend to use best and worst case scenarios, and they often say things just to win an argument (so it isn't like their players are standing behind them to confirm or contradict what they just said). To me, 4E is an example of what can happen when you design around forums and around RPG theory.

Anyone in doubt of that, or who doubts that RPGnet was always extremely pro-4E, should read the current 5E threat on that site. It's full of 4E fans complaining about 5E, and has descended into the usual minutiae-obsessed theory-wank. The lack of self-awareness is remarkable. 5E has been successful because it didn't follow 4E down the rabbit-hole of balanced mechanical calibration of all aspects of the game.

I'll stick to doing play-reports on my blog.