[No date. Dated material. Rambling post. Check, check, and check.]
It’s out there. The only problem is that it’s not the same game for everyone. It depends on what you want out of an RPG.
Power gamers want lots of options and complex character builds. Ease of play is totally secondary to creating and enhancing their characters. Game companies love these guys. They buy all the books. So, you’ve got plenty of choice in choosing a system. The downside of catering to the power gamer is that it’s your entire market. Everyone else is pretty much shut out, including potential new gamers. Without a basic, simplified version of the rules to learn from, it’s going to be hard to expand beyond the base. Of course, present day marketers hate this kind of brand confusion, and the designers of power games aren’t the people to go to for an easier, teachable game.
For the frustrated actor, there needs to be built in emotional attachments to their characters and to the group. There need to be directorial hooks in the character to cue performance. Rewards and advancement are more narrative based than character based. Conflict is more about drama and intense character interaction. Unfortunately, there’s no mainstream RPG that provides this that any other type of player would want to play. Oh, there’s plenty of disconnected, irrelevant mechanics in most games to rift off of to annoy the other gamers, but nothing cohesive or integral to the game. There are highly praised, low selling indy RPG’s that specialize in theatrical play.
For Old School players, the good news is that there’s plenty of choices for D&D-ish systems. The bad news is that no two groups are playing the same game. An Old School game has to be less complex than the power gamer’s, because the more detailed, complex, and definitive the rules, the less room there is for house ruling them. The point of the Old School game is the ability to modify it to the group’s liking. Negotiation between player and DM is part of the game. Modern professional game designers hate that. They make games with “simple, but elegant mechanics” or “a high degree of crunchiness.” They don’t produce games with the tag, “Some assembly required,” or “Build to taste.” Other than competing against free games and trying to sell them to gamers who want their own specific version of the rules, I can’t imagine why more game companies aren’t marketing to this group.
What about the DM’s? Well, the systems that were DM centric were pre-3e. After that, the players had too much of an edge and the rules were too sharply defined for the DM to be the final arbiter of events. How could you arbitrarily kill a new character that it took the player an hour to build or create a backstory for? It cuts both ways though. Given the amount of time it takes to create a 3e or 4e encounter and the improbability of improvised or random ones, the characters are going to have little choice of action. So much for DM’ing by the seat of your pants. A frustrated novelist, control freak, railroading DM might do well here, except that the DM is as constrained by the rules and setting as the players. Certainly no one would want an adventure blown up by a failed spot check or skill check. Would a dungeon full of whimsical tricks and traps even work in this setting, or would the set up be too arduous for most DM’s to bother with?
Finally, what about new players and casual players? Their perfect system needs to be quick to learn, simple to master, and easy to remember. Unfortunately, there’s a reason why tabletop RPG’s are called a hobby. They’re just not like board games kept up in the closet. It takes time and tutelage to learn most of them. Anything simple will eventually bore most players after a few sessions without more character options or more emotional involvement. A simple RPG will also require a fairly nimble, clever DM to keep things running smoothly in the absence of concrete rules. That’s a pretty tall task for a novice or part-time player. But without new user-friendly versions of the game, not written for power gamers or drama queens, how does the game grow?
It doesn’t.
Continued.
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