Graphical Discussion

[rob_donoghue]

Graphics are a fantastic way to make arguments. Not only do they express information in an interesting, digestible way, they are also hard to argue with because you end up engaging the graphic rather than the underlying argument. This becomes doubly problematic when the graphic is particularly clever, and the point of disagreement is strongly open

Comments

[joshroby]

What's the "Setting Engages/Setting Serves" dichotomy? It's not as clear as the "Player Empowerment/Player Challenge" pair...

[rob_donoghue]

This touches on the CoP discussion. Is the setting's "reality" an important part of play (as in the forgotten realms, the World of Darkness, Glorantha or any other setting-heavy game) or is the setting a lightly held, fluid thing that is just solid enough to support what's going on right now (Feng Shui, Donjon, Town-and-dungeon D&D - Amber's a weird case and maybe not the best example, but Amber's setting is hugely flexible so it sort of fits.)

[ex_gobi]

I'd like a clarification on the campaign/showcase dichotomy, too.

[rob_donoghue]

Are you exploring the setting, discovering and impacting it and seeing external results to your actions (campaign) or are all of those actions to better explore or display yourself.

If you beat up those cultists, which purpose does it serve - stopping the cultists because they have an agenda and impact within the setting, which you are stopping, or are you doing t because it furthers _your_ story (or possibly just shows off how awesome you are)?

(If I had not been sticking strictly to fantasy, Feng Shui might have been a better example of a showcase, and Chthulu might hav ebeen a better exampel of a campaign).

All that said, I'm not hugely happy with the specific terms, so I'm open to alternatives.

[ex_gobi]

I've opened my yap enough to know I can't contribute much to these theory discussions. :P

[rob_donoghue]

Bah. Comment away. Your perspective is one that always interests me.

[zdashamber]

Seems like asking for trouble to me to put games as the axises, because something different stands out about each game to each person who thinks about it.

I don't immediately get what "showcase" and "campaign" signify on your map... I am interested in hearing what stands out to you about these games you've listed.

[rob_donoghue]

(Hopefully, the answer above covers this)

[eynowd]

Actually, I don't find your observations about the lack of breadth in the old-school movement to be completely unsurprising.

In my experience, many D&D players will ONLY play D&D. They won't even consider the idea of playing another game. I've seen this firsthand at Gencon, when I was running a Dark Conspiracy game for the RPGA. I was a couple of players short for the session, and when I asked some wandering gamers if they wanted to play a new game, they decided that they'd rather walk around the shops or go to the movies than play something that wasn't D&D.

It's one of the main reasons I no longer have anything to do with the RPGA (the other being that I have absolutely no desire to play D&D in any way, shape or form any more, which is basically all they offer these days).

[rob_donoghue]

I admit I've been burned by RPGA events, but I have had an even scarier time with events from RPGA-like organizations, so there might be a bigger underlying issue.

Why? Well...

[eynowd]

I can't speak for others but I suspect that people who exclusively play D&D probably are very invested in the time the spent learning the rules which are fairly complicated and require a good deal of study. So if approached with a new game at a weekend event, I can appreciate that they might not want to get started learning a new rules system. Even if the new system is relatively easy... it may just be too much work for too short a period time for them to want to get into. This is not necessarily something about D&D so much as about time-benefit ratio at events like this. But then again... some people feel that they've spent enough time learning D&D and the rule carries over generally ... they don't care to spend even more time learning a new system. Maybe. Anyway, that's just a thought to consider. I have a feeling it's at least part of the problem, if not the lion's share.

-Mark

Re: Why? Well...

[eynowd]

Mark, I think you are right. I used to game with a bunch of people who were heavily invested in AD&D 1st Ed. Whenever I would suggest trying something different they would tell me that they didn't want to spend the time learning a new rules system. The problem is that they had only played AD&D 1st Ed, which IMO was tremendously complex and difficult to learn (and some of these folks had virtually memorised AD&D). So they assumed that any other RPG would be equally painful to learn, and decided they didn't want to put themselves through that. I suspect another factor is that they enjoyed being experts, and didn't relish the notion of becoming noobs again.

[rob_donoghue]

Well, it definitely went towards Player challenge rather than player empowerment - yes, you were saving the world, but you were doing so in a pretty strictly prescribed fashion. However, I think it started out on the "Setting Serves" end - initial DL has that classic kind of kitchen Sink worldbuilding that clearly has stuff throw in to justify adventures. However, over time those elements have been elaborated and examined and used to build a foundation of canon, to the point where if you were to play it now, it definitely ends up where the Realms are.

This is actually amusingly illustrative of the differences between viewpoints. From my view, the difference between DL and most of the classic D&D adventures is pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but if you zoom your view down to D&D (especially Old D&D only) then it's way the hell out in left field.

[chaosclockwork]

I've always seen the original Dragonlance adventure series as being - or, at least, having the potential to be - the best model of an epic, world-spanning, Tolkienesque (okay, maybe just Brooksian) fantasy story that a group of people can take part in interactively*. True, some of the modules in the series were just 'go through da dungeon to fight da new-colored dragon at da end', but several of them involved pretty interesting (and, for the time, innovative) ideas. Best of all, the climax had a good amount of customization to it, with several different Macguffins that could end up being the Important One, depending on how the campaign's gone