Retro Post: The Party Game Continued

Previously.

[I'm not sure if I wrote this post before or after the previous one, so it's a bit dated. Anyway, no major breakthrough on how to create this fictional game unfortunately, but I still think it's a good idea. It's probably going to take some mainstream game designers like at Hasbro to figure out how to do it correctly.]

My local Barnes & Noble recently remodeled. They've cleared out a large swath in the center of the store and installed a selection of games. These are kid's, family, and party type games with a broad appeal. Where's D&D in the store you might wonder. It sits on one shelf in the Fantasy Vampire/Sci-Fi Vampire/Vampire novel bookcases. The selection was almost entirely 4e, though without a Players Handbook 1 or a Dungeon Masters Guide 1. No Basic Essential Box Sets either.

What I take away from this is that D&D and other RPG's are purely hobby games for dedicated RPG players. 4e has some appeal outside of this group, which is solely due to the hooks within the game that appeal to collectible card game players, WOW players, and miniatures gamers (not Napoleonic, I mean superhero "clickies"). (Not just a WOTC invention, an early playtest version of Paizo's Pathfinder actually did attempt to put video game like combo moves into the game. The players revolted.) So 4e's outreach to non-pen and paper RPGer's was just to other obsessive gamers.

I believe that RPG's could have more appeal than this. Ironically, the RPG computer games that were inspired by the analogue RPG games make the concept easy enough to grasp for just about everyone. Certainly D&D has been around long enough that best practice rules for easy comprehension could be written. Old School had the play style and the simplified play right. 3e brought in the D20 mechanic and got rid of the matrix tables. 4e removed Vancian magic and brought in a fairly good method for resolving non-standard combat and non-combat maneuvers.

What each version also brought was baggage. Old School is ripe with piles of little wonky rules for events that never happen, and no rules to handle things that often do. D20 is a simple mechanic buried under a preponderance of 3e effluvia of skills and feats. 4e? I'm convinced WOTC attempted to literally merge D&D with Magic the Gathering before cooler heads prevailed (for now). For every rule 4e streamlined or clarified, they added other elements that seemed to demand a control pad and infinite patience, such as whittling down a base goblin with 29 hit points.

Why can't a version of D&D be written with easy to learn, consistent rules? Further, where is it written that Basic boxed RPG sets have to be crippled versions of the full game? Why can't there be full advancement in a 64-page booklet?

My ideal Box set features a character booklet with rules and a full range of classes and races going up to 20th level. Advancement rules would be very simple, with the additional option of generating characters of specific levels. Necessarily, their powers will be simplified (especially magic users). Under these circumstances, maybe playability won't predictably break down at higher levels. There's a monster and magic items book, similarly cut down in stats. Finally, there's an adventure book. There's a sample adventure, but the main value of the book would be several large random tables and geomorphs for generating dungeons, traps, wildernesses, towns, and plots. Adventure and character generation should only take a matter of minutes. (Perhaps there could be a website companion for this.) Utility items, such as graph paper, tokens, dice, and a wipe sheet and marker (not that the rules should demand exact placement of combatants), should also be included.

The point is that this would be a complete game, not even easily compatible with the main line. This almost seems to cry out for a licensing tie-in. Conan has plenty of recognition and is low magic (no massive spell lists) to boot. Character, monster, adventure, and setting supplements could be produced, but won't be necessary for continuing the game.

Ideally, the box set sits up in the closet with Monopoly and other board games. It can be taken out, set up, and taught within 15 minutes. Play could last from an hour to however long you could stand it. Maybe the players play again tomorrow or next week with the same characters. Maybe it goes back in the closet for a few months and they play again new characters.

Hobbyists will always have their game (and even their preferred version of their game). Why can't there be a version for the casual player too?