An interesting piece about the #ttrpg media landscape: https://personable.blog/media-crowdfunding/
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I'm pretty sure RPGs were a placeholder game for a lot of people till the surge of boardgames, LAN games, MMOs, and CCGs
@Printdevil Yeah... what people with thosextaste once got out of ttrpgs they now get out of other systems but the bulk of the industry is still chasing them. @pteryx @cy @foolishowl
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@Printdevil Yeah... what people with thosextaste once got out of ttrpgs they now get out of other systems but the bulk of the industry is still chasing them. @pteryx @cy @foolishowl
@Taskerland @Printdevil @cy @foolishowl
Which I feel is a mistake. It's a classic "pizzaburger" problem.(To clarify that one: https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/ )
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The whole combat effectiveness type approach to gaming is why I find it hard to chat to local gamers, in a gaming shop, who are gaming.
Because it just looks like an RPG
But it isn't.
@Printdevil @pteryx @foolishowl @Taskerland It's a computer game ethos. If you play [insert name of currently popular computer game] you are playing _exactly_ by the rules. That's how a lot of modern D&Ders seem to play too. But even when I still played D&D, and in basically everything I've played since, the overwhelming ethos was "if there is a conflict between rules correctness and what the GM wants, the GM wins". Sometimes that meant you didn't play with that GM again, fair enough.
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@foolishowl @Printdevil @Taskerland
What bugs me the most is that *because* of a combination D&D tunnel vision and people's refusal to learn new systems (which is less about "system mastery" as *I* understand the term and more about sheer laziness combined with a failure to understand the concept of "right tool for the right job"), people *try to design games* that are supposed to be very different from D&D, yet use 5e mechanics because they don't understand the distinction between them and RP.@pteryx @foolishowl @Printdevil @Taskerland Yeah, they drift into the GURPS forums and ask "is this character build legal", and get very surprised when everyone replies "ask your GM".
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@Printdevil @pteryx @foolishowl @Taskerland It's a computer game ethos. If you play [insert name of currently popular computer game] you are playing _exactly_ by the rules. That's how a lot of modern D&Ders seem to play too. But even when I still played D&D, and in basically everything I've played since, the overwhelming ethos was "if there is a conflict between rules correctness and what the GM wants, the GM wins". Sometimes that meant you didn't play with that GM again, fair enough.
There's a tremendous antipathy towards GMs in currently RPG-Company circles because they tend to be the only ones who buy stuff, and that doesn't suit corporate who love VTTs and things everyone should "have to sub or buy"
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@pteryx @foolishowl @Printdevil @Taskerland Yeah, they drift into the GURPS forums and ask "is this character build legal", and get very surprised when everyone replies "ask your GM".
"is this build legal" is a terrifying thing.
It sounds like an MOT
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There's a tremendous antipathy towards GMs in currently RPG-Company circles because they tend to be the only ones who buy stuff, and that doesn't suit corporate who love VTTs and things everyone should "have to sub or buy"
@Printdevil @pteryx @foolishowl @Taskerland That's a whole separate thing. I think that this whole wail of "GMing is really hard and unrewarding", "GMs are often terrible", and "nobody wants to be the GM" is actually much rarer than one would think, but is selectively promoted to push people towards computer GMing.
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@Printdevil @pteryx @foolishowl @Taskerland That's a whole separate thing. I think that this whole wail of "GMing is really hard and unrewarding", "GMs are often terrible", and "nobody wants to be the GM" is actually much rarer than one would think, but is selectively promoted to push people towards computer GMing.
That's because if you can GM, or you are in a group with a good GM - which could be 90% of gamers, you don't spend your time on youtube trying to find out how to GM or wondering if your GM is bad. You aren't the target audience for the beardlord's slop.
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@pteryx @Printdevil @Taskerland I kind of meant to point to system mastery in the sense that it's something valued at all.
As in, I've seen it said of some narrative-style games that it's not really necessary to understand the rules, it just helps things go more smoothly if you do. Some rules light systems are intended to be too simple and consistent for system mastery to be the interesting part. Some OSR systems, I suspect that confusion is an intentional part of the experience.
@foolishowl @pteryx @Printdevil @Taskerland Gary valued it highly. I would much rather have a player with a clear vision of the world, who says things like "I try to sneak up behind him" or "I want this strike to go home even if it means I get hit in return" rather than "stealth check" or "all-out attack"
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@foolishowl @pteryx @Printdevil @Taskerland Gary valued it highly. I would much rather have a player with a clear vision of the world, who says things like "I try to sneak up behind him" or "I want this strike to go home even if it means I get hit in return" rather than "stealth check" or "all-out attack"
"Announce what you are going to do in character, not rule parlance" would stop a lot of "i get +3 if wear my trousers which can boil water in a 100 yard radius"
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That's because if you can GM, or you are in a group with a good GM - which could be 90% of gamers, you don't spend your time on youtube trying to find out how to GM or wondering if your GM is bad. You aren't the target audience for the beardlord's slop.
@Printdevil @pteryx @foolishowl @Taskerland Arguably they're also the audience for the Robin Laws Argument System. He's got a new thing out, I've forgotten the name, but it's basically Hillfolk for two players.
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"is this build legal" is a terrifying thing.
It sounds like an MOT
@Printdevil @RogerBW @foolishowl @Taskerland
In 3.x, I'm more likely to be asking, "This build bends rule X here, for this reason. Can I do it anyway?"A big reason why organized play bugs me, aside from the whole "we scarcely have time to RP, we have to speedrun the adventure (fragment) today for it to count", is that one *can't* do that, so it *does* play more like a video game. A lot of the attraction of TTRPGs is that you *can* bend the rules.
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CCGs wrecked the club landscape
@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl @pteryx Just as RPGs parasitised and wrecked the wargaming club landscape in the 1970sā¦
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@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl @pteryx Just as RPGs parasitised and wrecked the wargaming club landscape in the 1970sā¦
Did it? Culturally they co-existed here with beady untrusting eyes.
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Did it? Culturally they co-existed here with beady untrusting eyes.
@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl @pteryx I have heard the grognards singing, each to each.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl
What gets me is how the reaction to CCGs, and then to online gaming, has not been "we need to do what only TTRPGs can do better than ever!", but "we need to appeal to competitive combat-obsessed types despite the other media stealing our market share by doing that being better-suited for it!"I'd thus be inclined to blame various suits who control pursestrings for the decline of TTRPGs more so than the actual CCGs and online games.
@pteryx @Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl Similarly I think the conception of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. People aren't not playing GURPS because it doesn't have a dungeon bash ready to go, they're not playing it because they already have a dungeon bash system they're happy with _and_ it has a constant stream of adventures and supplements so they never have to invent anything.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl @pteryx I have heard the grognards singing, each to each.
I think given when Warhammer started there was a fair amount of Wargaming infiltration going on always.
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@pteryx @Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl Similarly I think the conception of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. People aren't not playing GURPS because it doesn't have a dungeon bash ready to go, they're not playing it because they already have a dungeon bash system they're happy with _and_ it has a constant stream of adventures and supplements so they never have to invent anything.
Also possibly because they don't like GURPS.
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@Printdevil Yeah... what people with thosextaste once got out of ttrpgs they now get out of other systems but the bulk of the industry is still chasing them. @pteryx @cy @foolishowl
@Taskerland @Printdevil @pteryx @cy @foolishowl One of the problems is money. If you have an RPG division you see as a profit centre, you have to chase the mass market who will constantly be buying stuff, and you have no incentive to publish a one-off set of rules that people can then play with forever.
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@Taskerland @Printdevil @pteryx @cy @foolishowl One of the problems is money. If you have an RPG division you see as a profit centre, you have to chase the mass market who will constantly be buying stuff, and you have no incentive to publish a one-off set of rules that people can then play with forever.
They knew that from the beginning, that's why RPGs should have focussed on popular gargoyle/drwho crossover merchandising opportunities for the delight and entertainment of all.
