Do you think this applies to us? Why RPGs Suck

[Rob Lang]

post regarding roleplaying games sucking because so many of them are creatively bankrupt. He blames the industry and the existing player base for it. The argument is quite long but it reads well.

Do this apply to authors and players of free RPGs? With setting material is wild as Metropole Luxury Coffin, the French Invade Texas, the City in Verge, Dog Town, The Artefact and (if CA ever GETS US A RELEASE FFS!) I am not sure we're creatively bankrupt.

But then again, I have made super-generic sci fi who's popularity is down to its pretty pictures. Perhaps I'm not one to judge?

What do you think?

[Groffa]

I don't have thirty years of experience with RPGs or insight into the industry, but does "creatively unique" always equal "fun"? I'd rather have a fun game than one that's really innovating but boring. It's the people playing it that makes it unique and fun, not the product in itself.

[Onix]

[misterecho]

If you're having fun, you're doing it right.

Perhaps the author is looking for his buzz in the wrong place. Of course DnD feels tired, there are loads of mainstream games out there doing really unique things. The Laundry files, Dresden Files, Hot War/Cold City. Then there are the 1km1kt freebies, a gold mine of off the wall design.

[Onix]

I'm tired of this guy, he really doesn't have anything useful to offer and doesn't have a well defined argument. There are no actionable items in his post or his answers. Unless he's about to turn out something truly revolutionary this post is just whining. We know we don't have any money to do a big media campaign. We know we don't have editors to make a perfect book.

Over and over again, people ask him "So what's your solution?" and he doesn't say anything intelligent.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Part One: Do I believe it?
No.

Books that say everything is fine don't sell. We have clay tablets from Babylon that complain we are in a wicked age seeing the death of civility and respect. So I tend to take such pronouncements with a grain of salt.

The biggest fault of D&D 4th edition – one of gaming most conservative titles and run by one of the largest businesses - is innovating a bit too much! Almost every game for 30+ years has had some limit on mages, be it Vancian spells per day or limits of a manna pool – at will/per encounter breaks the whole pattern of how we normally see wizards – limited use artillery. Rather than the usual each person has their moment to shine we’re used to, everyone can stay at the front a lot longer. The fighter is no longer unique for absorbing damage and one hit melee kills – all classes con do that to some extent through “healing surges” and the new mook rules for monsters.

If D&D/Hasbro can do it, I don’t think innovation is a problem for the rest of us.

Frankly, even if it’s something you’ve seen before, that doesn’t make it bad. Onix also has a good point about motifs and tropes - they work. Having familiar elements lets people ease into the game. We could design cars with a steering wheel like bicycle handlebars so you can shift with your thumbs and never move a hand away to the column on the floor - but everyone is familial with industry standard and it works quite well.

It’s the participation that makes games interesting.

However, there are certain trends that do build up to Mr. Sheppard’s case.

Part Two: Why this seems to be the case:
The problems mentioned in the article are not only systemic to role-playing games, but most media. If you replaced "RPGs" with Video games, or movies, the post would pretty much still apply, word for word. In the case of visual/computer media its a top down desire for money, mass appeal, and to streamline production by making only slight variants of the same thing. Looking at "First Person Shooters" we're up to how five or six iterations each of Call of Duty and Medal of Honor (both of which have abandoned their WWII roots). Halo finished its story arc, yet they need to add a prequel (Reach) and a side story (ODST) and an RTS. I've had long discussions with friends about how Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls IV are inferior to their prior incarnations. (Partially from adopting to consoles, so fewer controls/less description are problems.)

On our side, there we don't always have the corporate masters, and (aside from D&B) three to six year multi-million dollar development cycles. But we are looking at a fairly niche market and therefore each individual work shared makes up a larger portion of our sales/readership. People with video game systems are a double digit percent of our population, role-players a fraction of one percent. So there is a lot of competition within a small area, and thus things may seem to run together.

Way to address this Perception One: Make people aware of game niches
There may also be a perception problem based on niche. Games are basically designed for you and your friends, along with anyone who just happens to have similar interests. There is plenty of innovation in both the free and paid for games, but most people don't necessarily find it or know what to look for.

If the problem is a matter of games too narrowly focused on friends or a certain play style, then Mr. Sheppard needs a complete 180 on the concept of minutia/game theory and appealing to groups. It is truly wonderful that RPGs don't have an ESRB/MPAA/National Media Registry or a great need to self-censor. But perhaps we do need some system that indicates "comedic violence", "heroic bloodshed" or "world editing" as features so its understood what game you're playing. Video games are categorized by how they're played (FPS/RTS/turn based strategy etc.) rather than genre. We need a better way of classifying what games are for which players.

Way to address this Scenario Two: Product Refinement
Videogames would probably not suffer if they presumed the average player had a modicum of intelligence. Many of these games don’t offer living/realized worlds, regardless of how graphics and computer memory has advanced. In Oblivion, a country with a functioning military can’t scrape together more than a few guards to help the final showdown, and certainly get send well equipped expeditions through the hell gates to get the macguffins themselves. In Fallout 3, someone decided to locate a water purifier in a salt marsh. Most computer morality systems flip between “Saint” and “Eats babies for breakfast”. There are all endemic of a world that is neglected in favor of graphics and game play.

We need to test settings, not just do the rules make sense/flow together. Are the places interesting, do NPCs have realistic motivations, is there a reason to travel about the world, does the metaplot leave room for the player’s story?
Rifts is the Ur-Example of a "just throw it in without considering the effect on the world" mentality. Ancient super weapons are cool, modern super-science is fantastic and powerful magic, awesome. But bring them together and then you have problems - is new stuff good enough that searching ruins is pointless, or is the old stuff so great that no one should bother manufacturing? Where is the point of a mage that can throw one fireball a round, when a robot can launch thirty incendiary missiles in one salvo? This is why we don't have mint ice cream topped lasagna dipped in cranberry juice - good separately, not so much together.

Aside from the clinically depressed/lazy/distractions aspects of my life – the desire to create a living and logical world has slowed it down. I've got this inkling that things need to be worked on, but I've played the game all of - Once. That doesn't make for a good frame of reference when considering options that will completely rebalanced how combat works or if I’ve adequately described places so they can be used.

Also, that I write two page forum posts, then decide it’s too off topic, so I paste it into MS Word and rewrite to make a second doesn’t help either, but does show commitment to my craft.

[SheikhJahbooty]

I don't know.

He may be right, in that the last commercial game I played in was Amber.

And the last commercial game I bought was Faery's Tale, from Firefly Games.

The only game currently on my wishlist is Ancient Odysseys, from PIGames.

But I suspect he's dead wrong in that the only thing that makes Faerun awesome is how heavily supported it is. I mean, Drizzt clone is a phrase that people use who have never read any of the Drizzt novels. If Eberron had novelists of Forgotten Realms caliber working on it, I doubt he would try to denigrate it.

The problem is probably the economy. Moneys aren't coming as freely as they once did so if you can shorten the sales cycle (offer a product that sounds familiar, a RPG based on a TV show, a movie that is a remake of a previous movie, a computer game that could conceivably fit the same title, etc.) you will do that. This way you spend less money on marketing and you still make sales.

They may have run that tactic into the ground though. I know they have for me. SAGA Star Wars was, for me, the end of me caring about new RPGs of old intellectual properties. For computer games I think it was the second Sands of Time (so horrible). And for movies it was The Day The Earth Stood Still. The one sci-fi movie that made perfect sense. "I have a message for Earth. Given the incredible destructive potential of one person with a space ship, even just dragging a comet into a collision course, I am going to have to insist that you stop making war or stop exploring space. It's out of my hands. Gort will incinerate you." And they turned it into something ridiculous. "Humans are polluters so we will save the Earth from you by... disassembling it on a molecular level... yeah. I'm not really sure how that's saving it, but... whatever. Cool robot! Nanite swarm!"

So yeah, I've become wary of all media, but especially if I see something rehashed. And if he thinks the "we realize we don't need you" attitude of RPGs is a problem, wait until we see websites like 1KM1KT for musicians, or film makers. Because people are starting to realize they don't need those guys either. It's going to get weird.

[koipond]

[Rob Lang]

Some fantastic points here, everyone. Glad to be part of such a community.

Unlike Onix, I think it's fine to proffer the question without knowing the answer or to outline a problem without having the solution.

I think Malcolm's article is very interesting not only for the points he makes but for the reaction to it. Are most RPGs creatively impoverished? Possibly. Is it the fault of the creators and the consumers? As horrible as the thought is, I think it might just be true. Does it apply to us?

A confession.
I don't like to play fantasy games; for years I've had to try and explain why. At a very subconscious level, I want to explore a philosophical idea that reflects on my own life when I play. I feel that the tropes of fantasy are too deeply ingrained to do that well. The settings tend to be too familiar and resulting stories predictable. Endless reworking of European folk tales are the norm. I prefer Sci Fi (including Post-Apocalyptic - CA, when are you going to release Dead... And Back?) because you are less constrained by the tropes. Sci Fi doesn't have to have aliens. The apocalypse doesn't have to be nuclear. If someone would show me a truly different fantasy to "D&D"-esque Tolkein or Warhammer Tolkein-with-blood then I might change my mind. Given that most people play fantasy RPGs, I think Malcom's argument is justfied.

We're having fun!
Although I agree that as long as your having fun, it doesn't matter - that only works for people inside the hobby. For anyone looking in from outside, the amount of choice isn't that great - especially for a genre that is based in the imagination. People outside are important, they're going to carry the hobby onwards. We were all outside once.

The original question
To return to my original question, I do not feel the problems outlined by Malcolm apply to us as free RPG authors. We're not trying to use our free games to put food on the table (I know there are some pro authors on here, please don your free hat). The triumvate of Money, Time and Talent are interesting but don't apply in quite the same way. Cost can be very low as software is free and CC images can liven up your game; Talent is a difficult quality to measure and can only be identified when a game is produced*; Time is not as important as one might think as we as authors can chip away at a game until it is finished - no deadlines are imposed. We also have a more proactive community that want to help - commercial products need to pay for that service.

Although the problems Malcolm shows do not quite apply to us, we are affected by the hobby as a whole. If the commercial side goes to the wall, there will be a smaller player base for us. We are, after all, the fringe of the fringe.

* Although I'd also say that everyone has a superb game in them, if only they can get it out (CA, I'm looking at you right now).

[Onix]