So, at PAX East (whatever that is) various bigwigs, high-ups, grand poobahs and éminices grises got together to discuss What is Happening to Tabletop Role Playing Games?
It's worth reading the transcript of the discussion between Ryan Dancey and Mike Mearls on EN World, because it's interesting, but I think it's just more of the same: the established order, who rely on RPGs for a living, panicking and trying to repackage something that is fundamentally old in character as something that is new.
What do I mean when I say that RPGs are fundamentally old in character? Partly I mean that they're from a predigital age, but really what I mean is that they've been superseded by technology at the instrumental level. RPGs have become like vinyl, like typewriters or antique fountain pens, and like board games and books are becoming: an inferior format for people who are instrumental about their entertainment.
What do I mean by that? If what you are interested in is being challenged, solving puzzles, engaging in tactical play - in other words, if you take an instrumental approach to games - then video games are better than RPGs. If what you are interested in is an entertaining narrative that will distract you from your boring life and help you relax after a hard day at work, then TV is better than a book. If what you want is to hear a lot of good pieces of music, then mp3s are better than vinyl. If what you want to do is write a letter, a laptop is better than a fountain pen. If what you want to do is communicate in a written form, an email is better than a letter. Etc.
But not everybody engages in everything in a purely instrumental way. People get attached to different technologies because of more ephemeral and emotional concerns. Vinyl is not a dead technology. People collect fountain pens and typewriters, because they like them. Some people still write letters because they prefer the personal touch and there is a nostalgic charm in doing so. Some people buy old vintage cars and spend hours doing them up. I know somebody whose hobby is to buy broken antique watches, fix them up, clean them and sell them - and who made enough to live off for 4 years of university. I know somebody else who was a semi-professional (a semi-professional!) scrabble player. In the morning sun Maggie May's face really showed her age, but Rod Stewart still wanted to shag her.
The extra games and entertainment options will distract people from RPGs if all they ever did was play RPGs for instrumentalist reasons. Arguably, that process is more or less complete anyway. But there will be people who don't play RPGs for instrumentalist reasons. And the format will go on.
I am utterly and completely comfortable with RPGs occupying a vinyl-esque niche. Mike Mearls and Ryan Dancey will want something more because their careers are to a certain extent wedded to there being this lumbering, near-dying arthritic beast called the RPG industry, but for the rest of us I think the message really ought to be: Keep calm and carry on.
I don't think rpgs ever were anything but a niche. Now it's just a more nostalgic niche, and like you, I'm okay with that.
ReplyDeleteIn the early 80s, D&D had a nationally syndicated Saturday morning cartoon, colouring books and toys in department stores, and RPG books pretty much everywhere. Every school had a gang of kids who played it in the lunchroom. It was a pretty big niche.
DeleteEvery niche can be a short lived fad (pet rock). Something that survives it's fad becomes not a niche, mainstream.
DeleteYou're totally wrong about instrumentality. If what you are interested in is being challenged, solving puzzles, engaging in tactical play - in other words, if you take an instrumental approach to games - then you will usually find video games frustratingly easy and limited things that can generally be beaten by sheer nerdery instead of creative problem solving. RPGs are way better.
ReplyDeleteIt's just most people aren't into that. Or they are but the effort is too big.
You're playing the wrong video games then. Mainstream video games maybe. But there isn't an RPG or tabletop wargame that can beat Steel Panthers: World at War if you want a really good tactical war game. I'm taking a broad definition of video games here. Of course, competing against an AI is going to be easy eventually. Competing against other human opponents is where video games really shine.
DeleteSomething that RPGs (and maybe some board games) are better at is being able to have human interaction while solving puzzles, engaging in tactical play, and so on. Without a game centering around human interaction, video games really are better instruments. This is why I enjoy D&D better than video games, especially as an adult: I can sit around drinking and talking with my friends but we're doing something far more fun and engaging, namely playing D&D, than just sitting around talking about topical matters. Frankly, sitting and blathering about TV gets old. Telling constantly changing stories and finding out what happens to your imaginary character is just more fun than cheering a sporting event. That's also why old simple editions are good- they allow for a new player to sit down and start playing really fast and reinforcing the social aspect: you and your DM can negotiate out what's likely to happen, and that's part of the fun. Looking up some rule is not necessary in a primarily social interaction game, but it would be for a wargame/videogame.
DeleteI dunno. I understand that those are virtues of RPGs, sure. But really, do you think video games can't centre around human interaction? Have you had 4-8 friends over and played on a wii? Or had a 4-player game of Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64? Listen, we all reading this blog love RPGs, but there are reasons why video games are more popular and becoming ever more so.
DeleteSo I had a great long comment and clicked the wrong button here that deleted it (argh blogspot comments). Bottom line: video games can have a lot social interaction, but you're clicking buttons and watching reactions on a screen. In RPGs, your interactions with other human beings ARE the game. So RPGs are analogous to dinner parties with certain set topics or charades much more than video games. Let's not confuse the shared thematic content (fantasy or scifi action stories) with what the games are. I think in the eighties or before video games, people scratched the itch to "play" fantasy adventures with RPGs because it was the only game in town. Now they can go off and play video games and that works for them. But that's not going to scratch the itch of someone who wants to have fun by socializing/interacting. With RPGs over video games, I'm having a social gathering that has a bit more fun/purpose/theme I like. Playing a video game against/with other players is great, but it's much more like playing tennis or soccer or something. The medium is the message, right?
DeleteI know what you mean. But in the end I'm not sure that you're overegging the difference: are dice and a hexmap and a character sheet all that different from buttons and screens and menus? In both cases a group of people are using a certain medium/media to facilitate a game they're playing. It's just one is inside their heads whereas the other is inside the PC or whatever. (I'm playing devil's advocate here because I much prefer RPGs to video games, obviously.)
DeleteNo, you're totally wrong, Noisms.
DeleteEven with player vs player, video games are pathetically limited in what you can do and what options you can bring to the table.
No human being could DM a game of Football Manager or Europa Universalis or Steel Panthers. So it depends what your definition of "pathetically limited is". That's beside the point, though - I know RPGs allow a player to bring more options and that, in many senses, video games are pathetically limited. You're preaching to the choir. But clearly there are other things that video games are better at, and that people prefer. Because otherwise they'd be playing RPGs more.
DeleteWell RPGs have a huge overhead: you need 3-4 friends, one of whom knows how to run the game and has the free time to do so.
DeleteAnd "Has lots of free time and friends" and "Is obsessed with imaginary worlds" don't overlap that much.
It's not that the _activity is undesired if available_ it's that _availability is limited because of what it requires.
I've seen it a billion times here in LA--all kindsa people crave the option and just can't hook it up.
You're not offending me because you disagree, so no need to caveat. I just don't think you yourself think that RPGs are a different version of video games. Email is a different version of mail, but fundamentally its the same thing with a different technology. For those players of RPGs who just want a mechanical DM narrating for them the rules as laid out in the books, yes, maybe RPGs are just a different-technology video game. And there are those players, who I would argue are better off with WoW and Skyrim than RPGs. But most RPGs I've played in or DMed are actually a totally different beast than video games. RPGs are much more experiencially like playing pub trivia or having a political argument than playing a video game. It's like the difference between watching a Lord of the Rings movie and playing a Lord of the Rings video game or reading the books. These are simply entirely different activities. Dice and a hexmap are aids to the fundamental activity of talking about imaginary adventures with your friends. It sounds like you're arguing that going for a run is an outdated activity made obsolete by driving a car. Clearly, some people who would have run now have replaced that with driving, but the activities are so actually different that it's not meaningful to say that the only reason people run is because they're attached to the experience of an outdated technology.
DeleteAnd I agree with Zak about the "prefer" argument. I play video games, but often times it's because coordinating getting together with 4 other people who share my interest in playing these games is extraordinarily difficult, and with a video game I can just fire it up and don't have to commit to an evening of that activity. Convenience in the modern lifestyle explains much of video games' prevalence, not just desirability.
DeleteZak, all that is true and I agree. But that sounds like an instrumentalist argument to me: I want to get a certain type of entertainment. What's the best way of getting it? I could download a game off Steam, or try to coordinate my diary with 4 other people who I know are nerdy enough to want to play D&D. Oh but I have to draw up a dungeon...Oh but I have to stat up monsters...Ah, easier to just get my fix off a video game.
DeleteBy that logic most people would rather jerk off than have sex.
DeleteNot really, but it's often just more convenient.
The trick is getting the right people together--and that, like _all social_ activities, is hard.
Like many people would probably rather play soccer or lazer tag or pinochle with friends than a video game but the video game is just easy and right there. And video games (as played) are experiencing a great leap in quality that soccer hasn't been.
It's not about "rather play" it's about an easier fix.
The difference between rpg's and other 'technologies' is that the RPG is an intrinsically social event (like other no-tech games like boards or cards), but one that is coupled with collaborative storytelling, which is probably one of mankind's oldest social events... MMO players in headsets don't necessarily get the same experience. Therefore, the RPG makers are in the business of selling 1) a framework within which to tell stories; and 2) the stories themselves, that the PCs become part of.
ReplyDeleteThe publishers' challenge is not so much the new tech, but providing captivating rulesets and environments for play/story. Their 'real' competition is keeping a slice of the pie in the face of the amount of diy and indie creativity out here.
I agree with your second paragraph and half agree with your first. Partly I think the MMO players in headsets simply don't want the same experience, because it takes more effort and they get what they want out of the game they're playing. But I think you're doing a bit of a disservice to video gamers, and I think we as RPG fans generally do, in playing down the 'story' aspects of video games. Go on any forum for any strategic video game you want and you'll see dozens of Actual Play reports, often written in a fictional style. Maybe I'm seeing things differently because I tend to only play war games and football management games...But on any give Football Manager forum there will be thread after thread written in a quasi-fictional way about one man's quest to take AFC Wimbledon to the Champions' League final or whatever. People make stories out of anything.
DeleteLook, for instance, at this guy. 351 youtube videos cataloguing his exploits on Football Manager. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KEv3wVSCAg
DeleteNice, looks like Leicester beat me to it about my social interaction point. I would like to make one distinction: it's not just the creation of story emerging from your play that is unique to TT rpgs, it's that the play IS the human interaction. You're right that a story can emerge from many things (just one example is after action reports/fictional sagas from complex wargames like Europa Universalis or Total War games) or from playing WoW, just like TT rpgs, but only in tabletop rpgs do we get (1) hanging out with people that's pleasurable like hanging out at a pub or at a house party, (2) engagement with a joint decision-making task like solving a problem in a group, (3) random excitement like watching sports, (4) creativity and imagination play, and (5) emergent stories. Video games are such a fundamentally lonelier activity than, but one with much better at graphics, tactical conundrums, and, often, empowerment through ass-kickery (e.g. Assassin's Creed or something). RPGs really need to focus on the fact that they're like a much better version of a party game, not a video game with "more imagination." Do RPG designers like Dancy actually play D&D?
DeleteSee above. Yes, those are the virtues of RPGs, I get that. But I think the argument you are making is not all that different to the arguments vinyl enthusiasts make: "It just sounds warmer"; "There's something about holding the record in your hands that an mp3 can't replicate"; "It just has a fuller sound", etc. Those things may be true. But clearly there are things about mp3s that most people find to be better than vinyl. Otherwise everybody would be sticking to vinyl.
DeleteMaybe for those people who want to play WoW or Diablo but can't for some reason. Then yes, D&D would be like a vinyl or paper and pen notebooks. It's throwback fun. But I get bored by WoW or Diablo, and not by D&D, although in a mechanical sense playing D&D is the same as WoW or Diablo (kill monsters, collect treasure, have stats, randomness, probabilities determine what happens to my character, etc.). So what's the difference? It's a different activity entirely than playing a video game. I'm not just making decisions in the game world, which both mediums share, and clicking buttons with correct timing (analogous with certain sports), I'm talking with people about the imaginary adventures. Just as much as the dice, it's peoples real time reactions and thoughts that are making the game happen. Thus, RPGs aren't just "old fashioned" video games, they're something entirely different.
DeleteYes, they're something different in the sense that letters aren't just old fashioned email. Or a vintage car is not just an old fashioned car. Or an analogue watch is not just an old fashioned digital watch. I don't mean that facetiously. All those things are something "different". But they've still been superseded by something similar.
DeleteI look at the comparison as the differences between 'consuming' and 'creating' in that the RPG requires active, creative participation by all parties - the players and GM. Comp gaming is still more 'consuming,' as the player follows another's story. (not that I computer-game - I know I'm making broad generalizations - but then again, I'm typing this on a Morse Code keyer and abacus in my log cabin).
DeleteAnd as others have noted - it takes a significantly larger effort to get a group of like-minded individuals together for either a single or serial gaming episode(s).
I completely get both sides of the argument - MP3 for the morning commute, vinyl at home - each thing has its place. Personally, sitting around a table with good friends, making a story develop between us, a DM reacting to where we take the story and creating new tangents to go off to...beats video games for me hands down. Plus it's a lot harder to break off mid-game of Call O'Duty to slag off work or talk about how the kids are doing...
ReplyDeleteBut mostly, what inspired me to respond to the thread was to acknowledge the Rod Stewart reference. Good call!
Absolutely agree - but most of the rest of the world doesn't!
DeleteSo I'm going to disagree with you, building off of the comment above by easilylead.
ReplyDeleteI have worked in a bunch of different media for gaming - tabletop, video games, live action, and so on - and what I've learned is that tabletop utterly crushes every other medium for the speed of its content creation cycle. Now, you may not care about this, and that's fine. But if you want a game with a narrative (a pure PvP game has _content_ in the form of other players, but no real narrative) and fully-responsive content (as opposed to running published modules and doing a shoddy job of it), no other medium even comes close. This is something video games are specifically trying to learn how to do, but it's very-nigh impossible.
I am not trying to sound like a bigwig. I am, demonstrably, not one. But video games are trying to bridge the gap into being art; one of their main paths is immersion. Because of their unavoidable limitations on player options (and every tabletop or live-action GM knows that players will always choose Option 8, the one you didn't prep for), video games find it incredibly hard to respond to the full range of player creativity.
Hopefully my most recent post answers this.
Delete