I spent part of yesterday trying to watch an NFL game. Apparently once a year they hold an NFL game in London; I thought this had been a one-off a few years back, because I remember it being hyped in, I think, 2010ish, but it seems it's an annual event. Despite the Sky and Channel 4 trying to make a huge thing of stealth popularity of American football over here across the pond, I rather suspect Wembley was full of 80,000 American tourists and expats living in London rather than genuine local English fans, although I could be wrong.
In any case, out of curiosity, I watched.
Now, I'm really into sport. I love football, cricket, rugby, tennis, boxing, you name it. Generally speaking I can get into anything if it's on TV. It doesn't matter the sport or the teams. US sports have tended to pass me by, although I watched a lot of baseball in Japan. (Mainly for the atmosphere - I genuinely think baseball as a sport is actually objectively boring.)
Nonetheless, I found it really difficult to understand the point of American Football. It seemed way too stop-start and I couldn't work out why the action was stopping; every so often one of the multitude of referees would pause to explain why what was happening was happening over the PA, but he would do so in gibberish - the words seemed to be English, but arranged in a random order. Players would simply come and go on and off the pitch, apparently when they fancied a break. Each team seemed obliged to field a couple of big fat guys with beer-bellies, maybe as an anti-discrimination measure, or something. And just when things seemed to be getting interesting there would be a tea break and the action would cut to the studio where Colin Murray was being as annoying as he used to be on MOTD2 except with two Americans on the couch rather than Alan Shearer and Pat Nevin.
Anyway, I am of course prepared to accept that American football is a great sport. Enough people in the USA seem to love it and that many people can't be wrong. But without somebody there to explain what is going on, it's basically impenetrable to an outsider like me. I gave up after about 10 minutes.
The same must be true of cricket, I often think. Unless you're brought up with the sport, it must be pretty hard to understand the nuances. Many cricket fans don't even actually really understand all the ins-and-outs of what exactly is LBW, and what the difference between a leg slip and fine leg is, or what it means when the commentator says Pietersen is vulnerable to left-arm orthodox spin.
Of course, this is less true of some sports. Football is very easy to understand. As a first-time viewer you might not get what the offside rule is, but the concept is simple and the action is easy to follow. The same is true of basketball. The first time you watch it, you get the core concepts.
So some pastimes have bigger barriers to entry than others. To an extent, this seems to coincide with equipment. American football, and to a much greater extent cricket, require something of an outlay on complicated tools. Football and basketball do not.
I sometimes find myself wondering what the barriers to entry for RPGs are, and how significant. If you were to simply give a roomful of four strangers an 'average' RPG (let's say, for the sake of argument, Call of Cthulhu), what would they make of it?
To some degree, the core concept itself is problematic. While some RPG books go to considerable effort to explain what an RPG is, you can imagine that there would be a level of difficulty getting to grips with what is supposed to happen.
Then, there are the rules. People are used to games having rules, but Call of Cthulhu has a lot of rules, even though it is only, really, averagely 'crunchy'. A further barrier to entry.
Then, there is the genre. Most ordinary people have not read HP Lovecraft's fiction. Simply working out what is supposed to happen in the game, especially at the level of individual threats and problems, is not an immediately solvable task.
Some gamers fret about this, and wish for introductory games to the hobby. They worry that nowadays a kid couldn't just wander into a shop and grab a game off the shelf and play it. In part, I used to agree - I certainly think it is obscene that nobody is making a game like Red Box D&D any more - but on the other hand, I'm not so sure that this is something to worry about. The NFL is really popular. Cricket is really popular. Those pastimes thrive not because casual viewers like me turn on the TV and immediately work out what the heck those crazy Americans wearing helmets are up to. They thrive because newcomers (kids mostly, but I assume adults too) are introduced by people they know to the game, to the culture surrounding it, to the nuances, to what makes it fun and enthralling to watch. And that's okay. (The same is also true, when you think of it, of many more cerebral pastimes, like chess or poker or backgammon.) Why would you expect RPGs to be different?
A knowledgeable guide would certainly be best, but there are still several good introductions to RPGs available right now, such as the Pathfinder Beginner Box, which is amazingly approachable given the complexity of full Pathfinder. Also, I suspect video games serve as a fine entry point for many.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the gist of the Pathfinder beginner box? Is it very similar in approach to the red box?
DeleteYes. There are only three races and four classes (the ones that you would expect). The combat rules are simplified, slightly. Advancement to level 5 is supported, and the graphic design seems geared towards guiding new players through various processes (including a decent spread about dungeon creation for the referee complete with example map that looks like it was drawn by hand).
DeleteRunning it as a complete game (something like E5) is on my list of things to try at some point.
That could be quite cool. I guess it is quite similar to core 3rd edition then?
DeleteI think the rules are simpler than core 3E, and there are certainly fewer character options. I'm not an expert on 3E though, as I didn't play RPGs almost at all from 1999 to 2011.
DeleteThat's an interesting parallel you make here. It stuck a nerve: as a long time gamemaster, some of my regulars want me to introduce new people to the hobby. I'm always concerned about this, mainly because of those barriers to entry. How can you introduce someone who's not sure if they'd like it to a game like Rolemaster? or Shadowrun?
ReplyDeleteAD&D (2e) was so much simpler for a new player (and older editions even more so). On this, I think D&D Next might be a blessing.
as a side note: In american football, the fat player's don't need to move, so the bigger they are, the more effective they are at blocking the defensive linemen (yes, the defensive line is the one attacking).
I do like that sport a lot (used to play also), but there is something really anticlimatic about it, most of the time, by the end of the game, when the winning team gets the ball, it can just stall the game for many minutes, effectively killing any chance at getting back for the other team.
Compared to soccer (just to distinguish between football or football) or hockey, in which you can score goals at only seconds of interval, where the games mostly remains suspenseful until the very end, it removes a lot of intensity.
I always found it unsportsmanlike
I expect that you'd find it not too difficult. That said, I've only really introduced one person to the hobby and I wasn't even the GM, so I don't speak from great experience.
DeleteInteresting what you say about the fat players. They should get sumo wrestler dropouts to take those positions.
Back when RPG's were a mainstream fad (by which I mean the mid-1980's) I was able to have people with no gaming experience playing in my sessions of AD&D and CoC in a matter of minutes. I just handed them a premade character and said, "Here, be this person and try not to get killed." The rules don't matter that much in Old School games anyway (and certainly not in MY games).
ReplyDeleteIt would be a lot harder without a mentor I guess (although I did originally teach myself D&D using the Basic set and the DMG, so it's not impossible).
I'd love to experiment with a two-way mirror watching non-gamers figure out what to do with D&D.
DeleteI wonder if it would be easier or harder for experienced CRPG players. Many concepts are carried over. But there are many things that the computer handles behind the scenes that would be early stumbling blocks (e.g. math, tracking conditions). On the other end, TTRPG offers you absolute freedom without worrying about dialogue wheels and railroaded stories (typically).
DeleteTo extend the analogy, is it easier or harder for a hardcore cricket fan to figure out baseball?
Hard to test because in most cricket playing nations we're familiar with the children's game rounders, which is essentially the same thing as baseball. It's basically rounders but with strikes and bigger bats.
DeleteYou're right. I can see the parallels there.
ReplyDeleteI love RPGs and american football (and I'm from Spain, so I should love football instead), and I have similar problems getting my friends to try both of them with an open mind.
However, when the game (be it american football or an RPG) finally clicks into their minds they're irremediably hooked.
Once you've been hit by a fat man, the fat man needs no explanation.
ReplyDelete(I think this is deep, but I was once the fat man.)
It's now been thirty-five years since I've seen anyone have to pick up an RPG cold. Even then we at least were approaching it from some of the more esoteric wargames, which consisted largely of rule books. I think I can count on one hand the people I've met who started that way.
I also have vague memories of integrating what we'd figured out with what other people had figured out in independent networks of gamers. A bit like that first five minutes of monopoly where you establish house rules about free parking. A lot of time spent reading a paragraph like lawyers debating the language of a bunch of Cheeseheads who could have used a better editor.
I was recently trying to interest some new people into giving the game a go. It's gotten a bit easier than it used to be, most people have at least seen Lord of the Rings these days. Epic fantasy isn't the ghetto it used to be. So the battle was a bit easier than it was when you had to explain the basic mythology of the world. Even when you've explained the mechanics of play, you still see that disbelief in their eyes as you lay out the idea that there is no winner or direct competition, that there is no "end." That is what makes an RPG unique, that is always the hardest part to explain. That it isn't a game like football or chess, but a game like "let's all play guns."
Oh and watching new sports is half of what the Olympics is all about.
Yes, but thankfully most Olympic sports are brutally simple or you have a commentator providing info. Watching American football as an outsider is like watching Martians play sport.
DeleteMy friend's big brother was a key instigator for me so I have no idea what being completely 'new' is really like.
The odd thing is, I think that CBS did a better job explaining rugby one weekend last spring, when they showed an intensive tournament, that was basically New Zealand rodgering everyone. They should start you out with the lingerie league and a primer.
DeleteOlympic fencing is both simple and impenetrable at the same time.
DeleteIt's a funny thing, but the simplest games don't seem to be made for beginners. Like Risus, for instance, assumes familiarity with all the common social unwritten rules of RPGs - that's how it can be so short.
My own approach is to start with pure let's pretend - describe a situation and then say "so what do you do?" And then add means of resolving unknowns etc one by one and as they come up - often by asking "would this work for you?" But doing that means I start by personally imparting culture, which as other commenters have noted takes the intriguingly difficult challenge of writing an introductory ruleset away.
Maybe I could write it up into a short text.
Chapter 1: let's play right away! (no rules, essentially just what I said in the above paragraph. Here's a situation, now what? Who gets to decide? Some improv constraints to keep it interesting/add challenge)
Chapter 2: some house rules I've personally found useful (character sheets, dice mechanics).
Chapter 3: some well-explored forms of adventures (locations, mysteries, wars, horror, recurring antagonists etc).
Trying to teach my girlfriend how cricket works (and also how to enjoy watching it) has been a hell of a battle. I think she kind of gets it now but she's probably humouring me.
ReplyDeleteI feel like there's a big divide between watching and playing a sport though which is the issue here. Like if someone who hadn't seen people playing DnD before watched some people playing DnD, I feel like they'd pick it up much quicker than handing them a rulebook.
Much like if someone watched some people playing football they'd pick up the whole "kick ball into the opponent's goal" point of the exercise, whereas if you gave them a rulebook they'd spend a lot of time trying to work out how offside works.
This is probably why the traditional dungeon-master-introducing-newbies-to-the-game thing works so well. At least when my friends and I started from scratch we started on 4e which is a nice gentle stepping stone across from video game.
My missus also humours me, I think. She just about knows what a 4 and a 6 are. I took her to a T20 game earlier this year and she got into waving the corresponding placards. And I've been working on her for absolutely ages.
DeleteI'm just sorry they foisted off two of our most pathetic teams on England this year. The 0-3 Steelers (now 0-4) versus the 0-3 Vikings (now 1-3). How could anyone expect to enjoy that? Would England export their worst local soccer teams to the USA as ambassadors of the sport?
ReplyDelete[not that Seattle needs it...we're the one soccer team in the USA that sells out its matches]
As for role-playing: the barrier of which you speak is the exact motivation for my most recent design choices. Most commercial RPGs are NOT accessible to non-gamers, in my opinion...not in the same way the games of the 30 years ago were. These days, when I pick up a new game...whether its Airship Pirates or Wild Talents or Mutant City Blues...I'm finding that I have no patience for learning the system, even though I may totally dig on the setting and even though I am perfectly capable (as a long-time veteran of many games) to digest a new rule set. I don't want to do it; they're simply too big, too cumbersome, and too...aaaaarghh!
But like I said, I've made it my personal mission to do it differently. Now if only I could find a little free time to write. Always tough during football season.
; )
True story: MLS has higher average attendances than the Brazilian Serie A.
DeleteAs an American, all I know about Cricket is that sticky wickets are bad. I have no idea what a wicket is or how it gets sticky, but I'm sure I heard about it on Doctor Who.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I'm a big baseball fan, but I can't figure out cricket for the life of me. It's even more boring than soccer, though I think most of the action has some point to winning the game in cricket. So yeah, a good analogy: an Englishman watching gridiron football gets as much as an American watching cricket.
DeleteGetting back to the topic, I did play my first D&D game ever cold, or at least at a group of all newbies. I did have a friend of mine in junior high explain it all to me, so I had an idea what to do when my grandma revealed that she had bought us the red box many years ago.
Basically a sticky wicket is one where there has been rain and the ground is soft, so the way the ball bounces is unpredictable and so it's hard for the batsman to select his shots. You don't get them so much nowadays in the professional game because if it rains within seconds they've got big covers on the wicket to keep it dry.
DeleteI think the true hurdle is that watching cricket and watching baseball are inherently different pass times. The point of baseball is drinking in the afternoon on a nice summer's day while skipping out of work. People watching cricket seem to care what is going on and there are no beers as large as my head.
DeleteI lived as an expat in Australia for a couple of years (normally I'm an American) and I tried a few times to get into cricket but experienced exactly what you did with the NFL. It's pretty hard to find a concise description that doesn't assume things even basic like, that most people in the world have no idea how long a "chain" is... no doubt it's the same thing with downs and fielding requirements in NFL.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to try though and at least I had a few good laughs (mostly at my expense) with some local Aussies and their pommie sport.
I think the trouble with American football for non-Americans is that it seems a lot like rugby union or rugby league, but it really isn't. So as somebody familiar with rugby you're expecting it to be really free-flowing but it's the opposite.
DeleteOddly, when watching Rugby I picked up on it quite easily. It was like NFL but faster!
DeleteAn interesting topic, and one I've wrestled with off and on for years, as I try to entice people to game. I think there are several barriers of entry. First is the perception of RPGs as nerdy, complex and esoteric. I think video games have actually done a lot to alleviate this, as people are at least vaguely familiar with the tropes of gaming. The second is the rules and minutiae, which can obviously seem overwhelming to a newcomer. The first is more an issue of getting people interested in the first place, the second is about getting them to understand what's going on and participate.
ReplyDeleteI tend to approach things from a the standpoint of collaborative story telling, or 'lets play make believe'. First, set the setting. Did you see the Lord of the Rings movies? Then you're most of the way there. Elves are elves, dwarves are dwarves, etc. We'll deal with the idiosyncrasies as we go. Now the rules. You tell me what you're trying to accomplish and how you'd like to do it, I'll tell you if you succeed and what the results are. The rules and details stay on my side of the table. I'll say "roll this d20, if you get over 12, you hit the orc". I do all the math on my side, at least the first time around.
The idea here is that you engage them with the activity, not the rules. I even hand wave things like stats and damage the first session or two, maybe dumbing it down to "this is a weak spell" or "this is a really big, powerful sword". I believe players who enjoy themselves will naturally gravitate towards learning the rules and what all the numbers mean over time. Besides, most people are going to talk about overcoming a band of orcs, not "I did 57 damage!", because 57 damage doesn't mean anything to them yet. Showing them a good time right off the bat without overcomplicating things is the easiest way to reduce the barrier of entry and keep people around.
To the sports analogy, I can say that in American Football, the goal is to move the ball to the opposing teams end zone, which scores a goal. You have four chances to move the ball ten yards. If you do, you get another four chances. If you don't, the other team gets the ball. You have the option of throwing or running the ball, or kicking it to the other team (which is a bit of a desperate act, since you'll no longer control the ball). If you hit the ground while holding the ball, drop the ball, or go out of the boundaries, play stops, and that's the end of one of your four chances. You're not allowed to cross the line where the ball is until it's 'snapped' (tossed to the Quarterback). Those are the basics, everything else is just rules - analogous to the setting, stats and damage in an RPG. Sure there are books and books of rules on top of that, but you can play and understand the basics of what's happening knowing a few simple rules.
Where the analogy breaks down for me is that in sports, the devil is in the details. The rules are not an abstraction in sports the way they are in RPGs, where you're trying to collect a multitude of things into a smaller set of rules. In sports, those things ARE the game. The challenge and enjoyment of sports is in trying to accomplish a simple goal under a complex set of dos and don'ts. At least for me, RPGs are about trying to accomplish (sometimes) complex goals under a simple set of rules. In sports, it pays to know all the rules, because you're bound by them. In RPGs, both the DM and the players can hand wave to their hearts content.
As for Cricket, I'm as lost as the rest of the guys in America :)
Interesting point about the difference between RPGs and sports. That may be the crucial difference between RPGs and any other game: YOU get to set the goals.
DeleteI posted my response on my blog; it came out a little incoherent for many things were on my mind tangentially connected to this topic. I will soon write about it in a more elegant form.
DeleteIn a sense, I'd say that American Football is closer to a wargame, to stretch the metaphor until it's membrane-thin -- it's particularly opaque to a new viewer because there's a great deal of strategic complexity to it, entirely because of the stop-start nature of the sport, which enables the coaching staff of each team to be much more involved and exert more control than they can in other sports, which leads to a great deal of feint/counter-feint thinking across multiple levels strategic levels (the people you see coming on and off the field are related to each team changing "packages" and the other responding to those changes -- generally the defensive team is the reactive one).
ReplyDeleteTo compare to "proper" football, much is made of coaches like Mourinho, Ferguson, Wenger, etc. (Sacchi if you're being a football hipster); however, it's really down to the players once the game actually kicks off, their interpretation of instructions, knowledge of when to break strategy, etc. In American football, the constant pauses allow the coach to make minute changes and adjustments -- each "play" is generally determined by one or more of the coaches calling a specific series of movements (possibly modified on the field by players if they're particularly cerebral) and is chosen to counter or take advantage of what is guess to be called on the opposite side. Add in the complexities of the rules of the game and this is why everybody winds up comparing American football to war -- there are generals, and sheets with lots of O and Xs and arrows going everywhere, etc. So it winds up being a lot more like 40K than D&D.