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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

D&D vs. Mainstream Fantasy

There's an article on the Time website (don't know if it's in the print edition) musing about why fantasy movies have been getting more successful, but Dungeons & Dragons has kind of been languishing as a fringe activity. Of course, I've seen some people comment on this already, suggesting that they'd hate it if D&D became more mainstream, because they like the fringe aspect of D&D. You can't like something if lots of other people like it, right?

But I'm not really going to talk about elitist attitudes like that. I want to address the question in the article: Will Dungeons & Dragons become more popular and break out ifs sense of isolation? I think the question ties into the same distrust of system issues I've raised before, including the recent examples of buff spells we've been discussing. It may sound absurd, but I think that as long as there are buff spells and things like them, you aren't going to see D&D getting more mainstream appeal.

See, the Time article puts forth the idea that, since The Lord of the Rings movies are popular and The Game of Thrones TV series is popular and it looks like The Hobbit is going to be popular, Dungeons & Dragons ought to be more popular; after all, it's got the same themes, the same tropes. But, as the article goes on to explore, D&D is a whole lot more than just playing in a fantasy world, or at least it has become more than that. The dominant strain of D&D right now is, as the article puts it, obsessed with "Endless streams of books filled with classifications and measurements". It has become focused on system master and system tweaking, instead of on having a fantasy adventure.

Maybe I'm just crazy, but I think most mainstream people dislike obsessing over the guts of a game system. They see something like The Hobbit and think "man, it's fun to think about adventuring in a fantasy world," and then they look at D&D and see that it's currently about finding the best character build and learning about synergistic power combos -- in other words, it isn't about the same thing at all.

And I'm not even going to get into the whole isolationist/paranoid mindset of many groups, or their disdain for people who don't learn all the rules and use them to maximum effect.

21 comments:

  1. Once more, hear hear.

    The most fun I've ever had roleplaying has been with rules light (Basic edition / OD&D) or completely rules-less systems.

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  2. Wow - spot on. Why i look fwd to cyclopedia DnD to come back - one book does all. old Red box set enough for curious and casual players rather than born again edition hoarders. I found the new version of that box set to be utterly unreadable and alienating - I dont want a complex tactical board game. I dont want to enter an arm race of collecting books and cards with my peers.

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  3. On the one hand, I agree. Casual gamers coming to the adventure gaming hobby are more interested in adventure than in game. To that end, the flagship adventure game, D&D, should certainly be much less of an exercise in number-crunching than it currently is. B/X (or BECMI, or Cyclopedia) might be the ideal version for that purpose, in fact.

    On the other hand, though, there is obviously a place for more game-interested players. There are any number of games that reward "system mastery", and many of those sell quite well. In addition, complexity and game-involvement is not a "new school" approach by any means. Complex, game-oriented games have been around from nearly the first. C&S, AD&D, Rolemaster, Space Opera, and many more were all part of the first explosion of the hobby. In almost all cases, of course, players would start with a simpler set of rules, then if they wanted to get more deeply involved they would move on toward the more complicated systems. (A lot of people started with a game that was nominally AD&D, but was actually B/X with AD&D classes and spells.)

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  4. This kind of implies that it's the genre that drives D&D; maybe if Dave and Gary had made a catastrophe-based rpg--or whatever was popular in the early 70s--D&D would have gone mainstream toot sweet. Movies and TV are passive entertainments; as long as you have a good story and good production values, people will sit their and enjoy it.

    RPGs require you to pretend that you are someone you are not. It involves you actively creating the images and interacting with them. Some people love that concept--we call them nerds and drama geeks--but lots of people just never will. Regardless of the rules.

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  5. Good post... I agree though that roleplaying, being an somewhat creative/active endeavor rather than passive observation is always going to have a much smaller footprint. Similar (kinda) to how many folks watch football games on TV vs. how many actually go out to the park and play with their friends (nice friendly touch-football).
    The fetish for 'optimization' and 'system mastery'... and folks who toss out terms like 'casual players'... are gonna keep it micro-niche as well.

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    1. Do you have a better term to use for people whose interest in adventure gaming is along the lines of an evening of pretending to be an hero in the vein of whatever fantasy film they just saw?

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    2. OK. If you won't differentiate between differing expectations, then I guess that you have little to add to the discussion of differing expectations between (as Talysman put it, so I suppose this is a good enough alternative to "casual gamers") "mainstream people" and hardcore gamers.

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    3. I think you can discuss different expectations and styles of play without labeling people. Particularly with labels that HAVE been used in insulting ways by so called 'hardcore' gamers.

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    4. (thread necromancy) @faoladh, I'm not sure how to put this respectfully: for me, reading knobgobbler, of course anybody playing a RPG is pretending they're a hero in whatever fantasy film they just saw. What else is there? Whether I'm playing something light or something requiring system mastery, if there isn't that level of identification and empathizing I might as well be playing, oh Fire Emblem Tactics or whatever on the computer.

      Could you be clearer about the differentiation *you* are trying to make?

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    5. Just that. There are some people who want games that they can "game". There are other people who could care less about the game portions and just want the experience of "being an adventurous person". Those expectations are not necessarily incompatible, but they are different.

      Talysman's theory seems to be, approximately, that the latter sort are currently turned off by games that primarily appeal to the former sort. That may very well be the case.

      My points were always, from my very first post in this thread, that both sorts of gamer should be welcomed, that the sort of game that appeals more to the latter sort of person should be the flagship of the hobby rather than the current game-centered version, that there should be games that primarily appeal to each sort of person, and that game-centered games have been around since nearly the beginning of the hobby. knobgobbler seems to be reading a lot more into it than that simple set of points, seemingly based on an emotional reaction, which I wasn't even aware existed until this discussion, to a particular descriptive phrase ("casual gamers", used to refer to the people who are less interested in the "game" aspects).

      Is there a way that I can clarify it more than that for you?

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  6. Even OD&D, B/X etc are overcomplicated - they involve too much set-up. A version of D&D intended to bring in new players should absolutely minimise the time between opening the box and starting play. All the rules vital to the DM should be presented on a single side of paper. Character generation should take a couple minutes at most, and the instructions should also fit on a single sheet. That, plus a single-page primer for the DM, plus dice and graph paper, plus a starter adventure designed to teach how to play, sold together in a box for the price of a Monopoly set. Anything else is sold separately and non-essential.

    If you roll hit points and ability scores during play as they become relevant, and the adventure starts the players with no equipment forcing them to use what they find, you could probably streamline character creation down pretty close to "pick a name, pick a class, go".

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    1. I never found character creation in B/X (or OD&D) to be anything more than a few minutes and I've never had characters that went over a single sheet of paper until 2e (those character sheets they sold that were little booklets, which I quickly found only 1 page of which was needed).
      As for the ease of bringing players in, I have found B/X (Labyrinth Lord) to not be too complex for those new to the game. Aside from starting a D&D club at the school where I teach, I recently also have gotten my girlfriend and her friends to play as well. I have to say, I completely agree with Talysman here. If I had tried to introduce them to 4e or even 3e, they would not have gotten past character gen, let alone actually enjoy the game.

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    2. I'm with Rauthik here. I've run Moldvay Basic and B2 at a con with completely new players and it seemed to work just fine. (Sure, some helpful pointers from a slightly more experienced veteran player can be a good thing....) From a game mastering standpoint... I can run B2 for a dozen sessions with almost no prep. (It's very relaxing compared to the more story-oriented games I run where I'm always freaking out trying to come up with stuff.) Extremely high mortality rates combined with ten minute char gen combined with levels and xp-for-treasure... it just freaking works.

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    3. I really think if OD&D is too complicated they may need to start with checkers. I played with a friend in the 3rd grade just by picking up the box and getting at it. Some of the newer systems, I can see that. I think B/X or Labyrinth Lord to be great starting points.

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    4. @Rauthik: I said the instructions should fit on a single sheet, not the character. In B/X it takes nine or ten, not counting spell lists.

      You and jeffro are both missing the point. A DM who already knows how to play can induct new players easily, that's obvious. I'm talking about a version of the game designed to bring in new players. Brand new players means brand new DMs. Relying on trickle-down from existing DMs is not a good way to build a player base. (I'm not actually particularly interested in growing the hobby, but if I were this how I'd do it.)

      @Chris: Sure, when I was a kid, I read the DMG cover to cover. We're individuals, not representative of the whole. OD&D is simple? Compared to what? The most popular board games are chess, checkers, Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, and Cluedo. It's a big jump in complexity from any of those games to D&D.

      The easier the game is to get into, the more people will play. And you don't lose anything by it. The rules I actually use in play would fit on a single sheet of paper, it's just a matter of clearing away the chaff. If it's not on the rules sheet, adjudicate it yourself. Those who like guidelines can purchase the DMG separately.

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  7. To the OP, I think all kinds of players are required. Mixed groups are the best. I like having a min/max player because he can excel when need be and keep the party alive and the couple of guys who 'always play bards' get to roleplay to their hearts content. I have always felt its my job as DM to craft the gameplay and story to fit the party and also present enough of a challenge to make each PC face his shortfalls and weaknesses.

    I do enjoy its something we all still care enough about to blob/post/reply about. ;)

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  8. If games involving math really can't be mainstream, how do you explain the level of interest in Fantasy Football?

    The reason I prefer games like B/X instead of WotC D&D is that it a character sheet can be a notecard, and teaching someone to play involves a few abstractions about real world concepts and fewer rules in general.

    A game analysis that I saw once said that more good games involve a choice from about 3 options, and management of approximately 5 resources. Too many is too complex and usually reduces to less, and too few is just boring.

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    1. I have no interest in Fantasy Football and can't claim any special knowledge, but I believe the focus of Fantasy Football is the football stuff. You're pretending to be a manager of a football team. There's math involved, but it's the kind of math that a real football manager might use, selecting players based on their statistics. I bet the focus is not on the math itself and clever things you can do with math. Nor is the focus on other strategic ways of gaming the system, instead of managing the team.

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    2. In fantasy football there is the same spread of 'gamer' types. The min/max guys and the casual guys. It's really not all that different. the math is less intensive most of the time like you said.

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    3. enjoying the hell out of your blog.

      FYI.

      :)

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