One Grump's Perspective
raga...@lords.com
alt.games.whitewolf and alt.games.frp.advocacy. Since I have been out in the
world having rich life experiences and not really being online very often, I
find myself now having an overflow of things I'd like to just put out there to
the general populace to see what response I get.
Last time I did this was with my big melodramatic polemic about how some
role-playing game companies mismanage their human resources. The point now, of
course, is fairly moot.
In my studying of the State of the Industry today (reading web sites, looking
at game stores, talking to folks who play - admittedly an unscientific
methodology with quite a few flaws) I am starting to come to believe that the
days of paper-based roleplaying games are coming to an end and are about to
be relegated to the dustbin of history right alongside 8-Track tapes.
This is not to say that roleplaying will cease. Or that some people will not
continue to turn a small profit making small, handcrafted games. But, I
believe that the roleplaying game industry as a whole had its chance to make
it to the big leagues of media and has subsequently failed miserably.
And yet, I am not pointing any fingers of blame to any one company here, all
RPG companies could be blamed for these events taking place.
The failure is one of vision and scope for the industry's leaders. It is a
mistake on a level that Microsoft was about to make a few years ago when it
nearly failed to recognize the importance of the Internet.
The nature of this cosmic error in judgement is exemplified by a simple Web
search engine search. Go to any major search engine and enter the term RPG,
and you will see that most of the hits generated will not be about
pen-and-paper RPGs, but rather about PC-based roleplaying experiences. Taken
at face value, this should worry the roleplaying industry.
Many 8-10 year old boys are growing up playing Playstation and Nintendo 64
games and not entering into the track which will turn them into purchasers of
paper-based RPG's in the future. There's an entire generation of potential
RPG industry customers who just aren't joining the party.
Diversity of product choice in the industry is narrowing, not widening. Game
stores are closing. Layoffs are taking place. Everyone is struggling
hand-over-fist to try and reverse the trend to non-existence.
Below are ten reasons I am citing for this state of affairs and some
constructive ideas as to how they may be addressed.
1. Lack of future vision and leadership on the part of industry leaders
This is a bit broad, but still apt. Basically, the RPG industry leaders spent
more time looking at the bottom line than trying to promote the industry as a
whole, more time thinking about their profit margin than working on creating a
sustainable market.
My solution? Form a casual group of CEO's of all the remaining industry
companies and try to somehow coordinate efforts. It is obvious that more
formal groups, while valuable in their way, aren't accomplishing what they
need to accomplish.
2. The relative failure of industry marketing to penetrate mass-market media
venues and thus diversify product offerings.
No matter what happens, until roleplaying games are offered at Toys R Us,
Wal-Mart, and Kmart, until your children can see an RPG on the shelf at the
supermarket, the industry as a whole is limited in scope. Do everything you
can to get into those venues. Be persistent.
3. Ignoring the "Second Curve" of roleplaying: the PC-based and online
interactive RPG market.
Selling your license to PC game companies is one thing - it is an obvious
choice for those with a limited viewpoint looking to cash in for easy bucks.
The truly innovative industry leader would instead seek to create
partnerships or even acquire a PC game company in order to create RPG's that
break the digital-to-analog barrier and combine the technology of a PC-based
system with the experience of a paper-based RPG.
Until I open up my paper-based RPG and see a shiny CD pocket in the back, I
will not be impressed. Or heck, take it a bit farther - until I see the first
engine which uses key-based licensing and encryption to allow downloadable
RPG supplements, I won't be truly impressed.
4. Poor quality standards in the areas of content, production, and consumer
value.
A problem throughout the industry is the uneven quality standards for
products. It is very well and good if you are going to remain in the kiddie
pool to keep producing an inconsistent product. But if you are going to go
into Wal-Mart and try to make it on the national stage, you are going to have
to have consistency and excellence. You also have to take care of your
current customer base and not alienate those who brought you along this far.
Sounds tough? Try extinction.
5. "Scorched earth" philosophy on developing talent and human resources.
Keep using up people and it will all come around to haunt you. Enough said.
6. Wasting the "inheritance" gifted the RPG industry through CCG's. Creating
"signature editions" of games, blowing a wad of dough on your own web server,
puffing up your employee roster only to later slash budgets (and jobs) - all
of these were sins of the post-CCG gold rush. Did anybody stash any money
away for a rainy day? Did anybody put any money towards advertising, public
relations, improvement of the industry as a whole? If so, please spend it on
growing the industry, not just making another edition of your old cash cow.
7. The arrogance of the industry "creating" a market demographic instead of
the industry discovering the true demographics and creating products based on
them.
You don't create your demographic, your demographic shapes what you create.
Period. You can get away with tap dancing for a while, but in the end, you
will have to ride the wave of public opinion.
You start with your base audience and then you do things to expand your
audience, not limit it. OK, let's say your main base is 13-16 year old males
with a lot of extra money to spend - what are you doing to attract them? Why
should they bother? And what about the young women? You're ignoring them.
When I was 16, if I had a choice between spending time with a female or
playing RPG's, I would spend time with a female. What are you doing to get
the women involved? Very little. Precious little. Meanwhile, the PC-based
gaming industry have already picked up on the girls' market (Purple Moon,
Barbie) and they are seeing the considerable revenue rewards as a result.
8. A general lack of cooperative competition between and amongst RPG industry
corporations
Can we not as an industry agree to cooperate? If IBM and Apple can do it, why
can't we? Each and every industry company needs to be willing to put aside
past differences and work together, or the entire industry is dead.
9. Extremely poor manufacturer-to-retailer relations and support.
Your retail outlets are your lifeblood. Treat them as such. Break through the
barriers that distributors create and aggressively seek the retailers with
real incentives and a air of partnership.
10. Egomaniacal suppression of innovation and new ideas by those empowered to
actually release innovative, fresh product.
Encourage entrepreneurial spirit and don't step on the good ideas. The next
hit games are simply brewing in the back of your people's minds - and all you
have to do is sign the check, take a risk, and actually do something about
it.
The only reason I'm writing this is because I feel like it is very possible
that somebody, somewhere, can perhaps read it and turn things around. I do
not feel it is too late.
If I am wrong, and it is too late, then you will still find me, along with
the other dinosaurs, running a game in my local comic shop, a coffee house,
or a living room. We will have come back to basics - holding on to dearly
loved, dog-eared copies of our now-out-of-print favorite games, buying and
selling rare supplements on eBay, and trying not to sound *too* ancient when
we say, "Why, in my day, we had *real* roleplaying…"
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Jason Corley
: I really feel like an "Oldtimer" when I wander back online and read
: alt.games.whitewolf and alt.games.frp.advocacy. Since I have been out in the
: world having rich life experiences and not really being online very often, I
: find myself now having an overflow of things I'd like to just put out there to
: the general populace to see what response I get.
This is probably the best damn evaluation of the RPG market and it's
limitations I have ever seen. I agree beginning to end. Let me add one
more thought:
If we could somehow make it into the mainstream market, RPGs have the
possibility of -stomping- computer-game RPGs in sales. Here's why:
1) Price. Computer game RPGs, new, will run you a minimum of $35-50, and
have a minimum of replayability. Paper and pencil RPGs, new, run you a
-maximum- of $30.
2) Flexibility. Many parents see computer games as just plain old too
violent, and despite the 'no-gore' option in some games, there's the
feeling that all you're doing is shooting stuff. If parents could see RPGs
as 'advanced make-believe' then I think they would prefer to have their
kids playing that than the latest Doom or Diablo clone. Note that this
will also mean adjusting people's expectations of paper RPGs a bit, too.
3) Replayability. Enough said.
4) Socialization. Online games produce only the very -basest- of
socialization, when you compare it to a well-run tabletop game. This is a
key factor in my mind. You're not alone when you play a tabletop game -
you have your friends, your snacks and your fun in a big group. The image
of a gamer as a solitary person must go by the wayside - the real 'loner'
will be the kid with all the computer games.
That said, I don't think it'll ever happen. I'll be one of the dinosaurs,
too, I guess.
--
"He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man,
but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."
-----Benjamin Franklin, 1783
Jason D. "cor...@tau.lpl.arizona.edu" Corley isn't John Adams.
Thomas Cook
<cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
: 1) Price.
Most RPGs don't give you much for that first volume. Although overall,
in a well-supported game, I agree that the $/adventure is better in a
tabletop game (especially once you throw in the price of the computer).
: 2) Flexibility.
They are, however, playable right off the shelf without requiring a lot
of set-up and customization. One of the hardest concepts for me to wrap
my head around is that most gamers don't *want* to spend hundreds of
hours designing and maintaining a campaign.
: 3) Replayability. Enough said.
But CRPGs have *playablity* - few people accumulate a collection of
CRPGs that they've never played. You don't need to find a gaming group,
you don't have to wait for other people to decide what they are going to
do at every step: it's like having the GM's complete attention (mind
you, a really railroading GM).
: 4) Socialization.
Trouble is, the loner gamer is *too* accurate a stereotype - tabletop
RPGs require a group of people you can tolerate and can manage to get
together with. Now all of us here are perfectly sociable people [:)]
but the majority of people out there find they don't mind playing alone.
Personally, I would love to see tabletop RPGs become more common and
more respected. I certainly continue to putter away on my ideas - but I
have little confidence that they are going to sweep the world.
Thomas.
Sakura
Jason Corley <cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
>1) Price. Computer game RPGs, new, will run you a minimum of $35-50, and
>have a minimum of replayability. Paper and pencil RPGs, new, run you a
>-maximum- of $30.
Hmm. Interesting world you live in. I think I'd like to go there some
time.
Try $30 -on average- and I think you'll be closer. Maximum...well,
ignoring supplements (i.e. just getting the 'core rules' to play) you
could wind up spending probably over $60 on AD&D (what do the core rules
run nowadays? PH+DMG+MM, er, MC, all hardback, probably closer to $75,
no?). White Wolf is at about $30 for one of their hardbacks, but of
course the game is more playable if you drop another $25 on a 'Player's
Guide' (what a misnomer, since you need to get that /and/ the core rules
to do things a player would want to do, like create characters). I think
Multiverser is close to $50, and there are a bunch of other expensive RPGs
to choose from.
>That said, I don't think it'll ever happen. I'll be one of the dinosaurs,
>too, I guess.
Yup. Because pencil&paper RPGs actually require effort from the player,
whereas Doom/Diablo/etc just let you 'veg out' and have everything
hand-fed to you.
J
--
Hostes aliengeni me abduxerent. Jeff Johnston - je...@io.com
Qui annus est? http://www.io.com/~jeffj
robin_...@my-dejanews.com
which may take then burden from the industry itself to some degree.
I believe that, if you see the youth of today (meaning those under 20 or so)
as the target group for role-playing games, you have to take into account
something I have observed: the average intelligence level compared to when I
was that age seems to decline rapidly. And before I am flamed, please hear me
out, especially if you are in that group.
I have started studying to become a teacher and I hopped off that train after
two years (I am in Germany and we do such things a bit differently here). In
my observation, the kids today want to consume. They do not want to think. My
wife is a teacher as well, and what I hear from her and other friends of the
same persuasion seconds this. Now, role-playing is about thinking. You have
to think on your feet to be a good player and you have to think and do
research a lot if you want to be a game master. Role-playing definitely is
not about consuming. You cannot just consume if you are game master, and for
a player it gets at least difficult, although it may be possible. Now, with
computer RPGs it's just the other way round. In my experience, thinking gets
in the way of CRPGs. You don't think 'How can that problem be solved' rather
than 'What devious plot device may that programmer have had in mind now to
keep me from solving that game in half an hour?'. If you use logic and reason
when dealing with CRPGs you end up with frustrating no-go situations. The
computer just is not flexible enough.
All right, I'll concede that some of you might be able to think, even if you
are in the group mentioned above. ;-) That you're reading this post means that
you are frequenting one of two newsgroups primarily frequented by thinking
persons. Then again, you are role-playing, so this doesn't concern you in the
first place.
In another post on this thread, someone mentioned the bad press RPGs take
from D&D days, satanism and the like. While this is practically unknown in
Germany or at least doesn't get any press at all here, the whole satanism
scare point just is another symptom of that utter stupidity which engulfs us
from all sides. This is consumerism on an organized religion scale,
mindlessly repeating what some church is telling you.
A dark age of flatheaded consumerism is upon us...
Pessimistically yours,
Robin
http://homestead.dejanews.com/user.robin_pfeifer/home.html
GeneSys general roleplaying rules system & World of Darkness resources
Dave Nalle
> In my studying of the State of the Industry today (reading web sites, looking
> at game stores, talking to folks who play - admittedly an unscientific
> methodology with quite a few flaws) I am starting to come to believe that the
> days of paper-based roleplaying games are coming to an end and are about to
> be relegated to the dustbin of history right alongside 8-Track tapes.
>
> This is not to say that roleplaying will cease. Or that some people will not
> continue to turn a small profit making small, handcrafted games. But, I
> believe that the roleplaying game industry as a whole had its chance to make
> it to the big leagues of media and has subsequently failed miserably.
I think you may be making the mistaken assumption that it was ever
possible for roleplaying games to make this leap. I think that the format
is fundamentally unsuited to a mass market. It's just too specialized a
form of entertainment and too inaccessible for too many people.
> And yet, I am not pointing any fingers of blame to any one company here, all
> RPG companies could be blamed for these events taking place.
>
> The failure is one of vision and scope for the industry's leaders.
This shouldn't be a surprise. Vision rarely comes from the so-called
leaders in an industry, and this is particularly true of gaming.
> It is a
> mistake on a level that Microsoft was about to make a few years ago when it
> nearly failed to recognize the importance of the Internet.
>
> The nature of this cosmic error in judgement is exemplified by a simple Web
> search engine search. Go to any major search engine and enter the term RPG,
> and you will see that most of the hits generated will not be about
> pen-and-paper RPGs, but rather about PC-based roleplaying experiences. Taken
> at face value, this should worry the roleplaying industry.
Try searching for 'roleplaying game' instead of RPG. When I did this
virtually every site that came up was related to face-to-face, socially
interractive roleplaying games.
> Many 8-10 year old boys are growing up playing Playstation and Nintendo 64
> games and not entering into the track which will turn them into purchasers of
> paper-based RPG's in the future. There's an entire generation of potential
> RPG industry customers who just aren't joining the party.
I'm not convinced that this is the case. I suspect there is a portion of
that audience which will pretty quickly get bored with the limitations of
those machines and look for more. Even the most square-eyed kid will
start to want some social interraction in his games if he has even the
germs of a personality.
> Diversity of product choice in the industry is narrowing, not widening.
Absolutely untrue. There are more new RPGs hitting the market today than
at virtually any time. They're also getting better mass market exposure,
as factors like Lightning Print move RPGs more into mainstream bookstores
rather than pure gaming stores.
> Game
> stores are closing.
I keep hearing this, but none of the long-time game stores I keep contact
with seem to be having problems. The stores that are closing are the ones
that were built by Magic the Gathering and never grew beyond that. Magic
has plateaued and is contracting, and that's putting the squeeze on badly
managed stores which were created with an emphasis on short-term profit.
> Layoffs are taking place.
Not always a bad thing. Streamlining usually makes companies more efficient.
> Everyone is struggling
> hand-over-fist to try and reverse the trend to non-existence.
>
> Below are ten reasons I am citing for this state of affairs and some
> constructive ideas as to how they may be addressed.
>
> 1. Lack of future vision and leadership on the part of industry leaders
> This is a bit broad, but still apt. Basically, the RPG industry leaders spent
> more time looking at the bottom line than trying to promote the industry as a
> whole, more time thinking about their profit margin than working on creating a
> sustainable market.
True of the 'industry leaders', but I think that they're largely
irrelevant. They were never going to be the companies to bring innovation
to the industry anyway.
> My solution? Form a casual group of CEO's of all the remaining industry
> companies and try to somehow coordinate efforts. It is obvious that more
> formal groups, while valuable in their way, aren't accomplishing what they
> need to accomplish.
Believe it or not, this kind of thing has been going on for some time
behind the scenes, though mainly with mid-tier and smaller companies.
> 2. The relative failure of industry marketing to penetrate mass-market media
> venues and thus diversify product offerings.
>
> No matter what happens, until roleplaying games are offered at Toys R Us,
> Wal-Mart, and Kmart, until your children can see an RPG on the shelf at the
> supermarket, the industry as a whole is limited in scope. Do everything you
> can to get into those venues. Be persistent.
This ain't going to happen. WotC/TSR can keep trying to do this, but
they're going to fail. When their products were in Toys R Us and Wal-Mart
they didn't sell that well, and they got dropped. That means they aren't
coming back. It wasn't because of a failure in the specific products, it
was because that type of game isn't suited to the audience these stores
cater to. The place breakthroughs are more likely to happen is in
bookstores and computer-game stores.
> 3. Ignoring the "Second Curve" of roleplaying: the PC-based and online
> interactive RPG market.
>
> Selling your license to PC game companies is one thing - it is an obvious
> choice for those with a limited viewpoint looking to cash in for easy bucks.
> The truly innovative industry leader would instead seek to create
> partnerships or even acquire a PC game company in order to create RPG's that
> break the digital-to-analog barrier and combine the technology of a PC-based
> system with the experience of a paper-based RPG.
Not likely to happen any time soon. Every implementation of this sort of
technology which I've seen has been far inferior to playing face-to-face.
As for acquiring a PC game company, given the relative revenues of the two
industries I suspect it's more likely to be a PC company acquiring a RPG
company.
> Until I open up my paper-based RPG and see a shiny CD pocket in the back, I
> will not be impressed. Or heck, take it a bit farther - until I see the first
> engine which uses key-based licensing and encryption to allow downloadable
> RPG supplements, I won't be truly impressed.
There are already a number of RPGs which come with a CD or which have
materials on CD available for them. Mostly CD based products have not
been a big success because they offer limited accessiblity compared to
printed books. Maybe a PDA based game would work better, but personally I
find PDA screens too small and too hard to read to be practical.
All of our products are available on CD. We give out a free RPG in etext
format with many of our CD packages (see our current ad in Dragon), and
will soon have a couple of CDs with substantial rule and setting
compilations on them.
> 4. Poor quality standards in the areas of content, production, and consumer
> value.
>
> A problem throughout the industry is the uneven quality standards for
> products. It is very well and good if you are going to remain in the kiddie
> pool to keep producing an inconsistent product. But if you are going to go
> into Wal-Mart and try to make it on the national stage, you are going to have
> to have consistency and excellence. You also have to take care of your
> current customer base and not alienate those who brought you along this far.
> Sounds tough? Try extinction.
Have you looked at any RPGs recently? The quality of the rules and
backgrounds being produced these days is better than it ever has been
before. With the exception of relatively stagnant lines like AD&D, Hero
and WoD, more and more new system which are being produced these days have
simple, flexible mechanics. Take a look at CORPS or Oroborus for examples
of very playable games that area easy for new players to learn.
> 5. "Scorched earth" philosophy on developing talent and human resources.
> Keep using up people and it will all come around to haunt you. Enough said.
>
> 6. Wasting the "inheritance" gifted the RPG industry through CCG's. Creating
> "signature editions" of games, blowing a wad of dough on your own web server,
> puffing up your employee roster only to later slash budgets (and jobs) - all
> of these were sins of the post-CCG gold rush. Did anybody stash any money
> away for a rainy day? Did anybody put any money towards advertising, public
> relations, improvement of the industry as a whole? If so, please spend it on
> growing the industry, not just making another edition of your old cash cow.
Sounds very much like you've got it in for WotC. That's the only company
I can think of that many of these comments apply to.
> 7. The arrogance of the industry "creating" a market demographic instead of
> the industry discovering the true demographics and creating products based on
> them.
>
> You don't create your demographic, your demographic shapes what you create.
> Period. You can get away with tap dancing for a while, but in the end, you
> will have to ride the wave of public opinion.
Wrong. One of the major past errors in this industry has been designing
games to fit a demographic rather than designing good games. If you
design mediocre games about stupid topics because that's what happens to
be popular in another industry you're just providing an inferior
immitation of an already existing product. When this industry has had
real successes, it has been because those games defined themselves with
new ideas and created their own identity. That's where strength and
success is likely to be found in the future as well.
> You start with your base audience and then you do things to expand your
> audience, not limit it. OK, let's say your main base is 13-16 year old males
> with a lot of extra money to spend - what are you doing to attract them? Why
> should they bother? And what about the young women? You're ignoring them.
> When I was 16, if I had a choice between spending time with a female or
> playing RPG's, I would spend time with a female. What are you doing to get
> the women involved? Very little. Precious little. Meanwhile, the PC-based
> gaming industry have already picked up on the girls' market (Purple Moon,
> Barbie) and they are seeing the considerable revenue rewards as a result.
Have you seen the Sailor Moon RPG?
> 8. A general lack of cooperative competition between and amongst RPG industry
> corporations
>
> Can we not as an industry agree to cooperate? If IBM and Apple can do it, why
> can't we? Each and every industry company needs to be willing to put aside
> past differences and work together, or the entire industry is dead.
There's enormous cooperation within this industry, far more than in the
computer games industry.
> 9. Extremely poor manufacturer-to-retailer relations and support.
>
> Your retail outlets are your lifeblood. Treat them as such. Break through the
> barriers that distributors create and aggressively seek the retailers with
> real incentives and a air of partnership.
On this one we have little choice, since the distributors have basically
vanished from the scene.
> 10. Egomaniacal suppression of innovation and new ideas by those empowered to
> actually release innovative, fresh product.
>
> Encourage entrepreneurial spirit and don't step on the good ideas. The next
> hit games are simply brewing in the back of your people's minds - and all you
> have to do is sign the check, take a risk, and actually do something about
> it.
Again, you're talking about a couple of big companies and ignoring most of
the rest of the industry.
Dave
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I write both as an individual and as a company representative
Scriptorium Fonts & Art: http://ragnarokpress.com/scriptorium
Oroborus Universal Roleplaying: http://www.oroborus.net
red
> That said, I don't think it'll ever happen. I'll be one of the dinosaurs,
> too, I guess.
>
Question: Given the number of RPG writers on this and other groups, and
the relative prevalence of decent graphics/DTP packages, why do we need
a commercial industry at all? I' seen ideas as-good, and often better,
given away for free on the net than many I find marked at £15-20
retail. So OK, it's cool to have a nicely bound and printed book on the
shelf, but the sophistication of affordable desktop printers, binders et
al is constantly improving - in a decade or so the final production
values from desktop are going to be very high indeed. Even if the
industry dies, I don;t think RPGing will.
Jeffrey Howard
: The failure is one of vision and scope for the industry's leaders.
Perhaps. I'd argue that it's more complex than that. All levels of
the production of an RPG have effects of its value, cost, schedule, and
market appeal. I don't believe that the owners and CEOs of the RPG industry
are completely capable of determining the course of their industry for the
better or worse.
However, were they capable of doing so, it'd probably not be better off.
I have little direct experience with upper management of RPG companies, but
I'm under the impression that you are largely correct about a tendancy
towards the narrow view.
: The nature of this cosmic error in judgement is exemplified by a simple Web
: search engine search. Go to any major search engine and enter the term RPG,
: and you will see that most of the hits generated will not be about
: pen-and-paper RPGs, but rather about PC-based roleplaying experiences. Taken
: at face value, this should worry the roleplaying industry.
:
: Many 8-10 year old boys are growing up playing Playstation and Nintendo 64
: games and not entering into the track which will turn them into purchasers
: of paper-based RPG's in the future. There's an entire generation of
: potential RPG industry customers who just aren't joining the party.
Yes, it is true that many (actually, most) kids growing up these days
would much rather have a Playstation or N64 than an RPG. On the other hand,
I've heard the PC computer game industry worry that their market is
disappearing to the N64 crowd as well. Why buy a $2000 computer to play
the latest games when you can buy a $200 console game box?
Before this gets too irrelevant, my thought is that it's not just a
choice of judgement in RPG industry leaders. Suppose RPGs required solely
better marketing and production choices on the part of the RPG industry
leaders. That implies that on some level, RPGs are just as viable a product
for the target audience of young men with spare cash as are N64s and
Playstations. I don't believe that's the case.
I do agree that these kids are not entering the track that will turn
them into RPG purchasers. But I don't believe that the industry can
directly affect that. If I were not already taught to enjoy subtle stories,
good characters, and mental challenges... in short, if I didn't have a
decent imagination, then I'd rather have a box that paints my adventure
in vibrant 3D graphics and 64-bit stereo surround sound on a big screen
TV, too.
I'm going to avoid the question of whether engendering such an
enjoyment of verbal stories is something innate to a person or part of
good parenting during childhood or whatever. (That path leads to patting
myself on the back because I play RPGs and therefore I'm special.) I don't
know what creates the preference for a tabletop story to a video game, and it
doesn't really matter here. I do think it's safe to say that there's little
that the RPG industry can do with its present resources to shape the
preference, on a large scale, of children to set them towards fairy tales,
make-believe, and RPGs.
: 1. Lack of future vision and leadership on the part of industry leaders
: This is a bit broad, but still apt. Basically, the RPG industry leaders
: spent more time looking at the bottom line than trying to promote the
: industry as a whole, more time thinking about their profit margin than
: working on creating a sustainable market.
: My solution? Form a casual group of CEO's of all the remaining industry
: companies and try to somehow coordinate efforts. It is obvious that more
: formal groups, while valuable in their way, aren't accomplishing what
: they need to accomplish.
There are two sides to this, as best I understand it. One is that I'm
told you're correct about RPG industry leaders. (Again, with the caveat
that I haven't talked to any RPG CEO's, so I don't know from firsthand
experience.
The second side, though, is that they must be so focused. Herein
is the theme that will probably ride under most of the post. On the whole,
I agree both with your assessment of the industry and your recommendations
to steer a better course. The consistent question I have for most of the
recommendations is, how does the industry bootstrap this? Or, more
plainly, where does the money for it come from?
My understanding is that most CEO's of RPG companies spend so much
time thinking about their profit margins because they are always riding the
edge of actually having a profit margin.
: 2. The relative failure of industry marketing to penetrate mass-market media
: venues and thus diversify product offerings.
: No matter what happens, until roleplaying games are offered at Toys R Us,
: Wal-Mart, and Kmart, until your children can see an RPG on the shelf at the
: supermarket, the industry as a whole is limited in scope. Do everything you
: can to get into those venues. Be persistent.
Here again, my understanding is that there is a problem with the
economics of the situation. For example, the first time I saw a few White
Wolf books in a B. Dalton (large chain bookstore), I was delighted. Of
course, I asked the friend with me, "Why haven't RPG companies always
done this? Sure, I've seen a few other things, like TSR supplements, from
time to time, but why isn't there a whole shelf of RPG stuff?" That friend
used to work for a publishing house, so he explained. It's more than just
convincing the bookseller that it's worth the shelf space to stock those
books.
The hardest part isn't the persistence to break into those distribution
channels. The hard part is that large book chain stores like that will
order large numbers of books to stock on their shelves. However, when
those books haven't sold for a while, they'll ship them back to the
producing company and ask for a refunds-worth credit towards their next
purchase of books.
It's fine for Del Rey or Bantam Books to soak up that loss -- they
can find ways of getting the books to other stores and eventually sell them
off one way or another. But RPGs sell to a fairly small niche market.
Most RPG companies can't afford to pay printing cost on a couple forklift
loads of books that may come back to their warehouse for a refund.
I don't know for certain whether other large chains of stores, such
as KMart or Wal-Mart or Toys 'R' Us, for that matter, do the same thing,
but it wouldn't surprise me.
: 3. Ignoring the "Second Curve" of roleplaying: the PC-based and online
: interactive RPG market.
: Selling your license to PC game companies is one thing - it is an obvious
: choice for those with a limited viewpoint looking to cash in for easy bucks.
: The truly innovative industry leader would instead seek to create
: partnerships or even acquire a PC game company in order to create RPG's that
: break the digital-to-analog barrier and combine the technology of a PC-based
: system with the experience of a paper-based RPG.
Again, I don't want to sound like I'm nay-saying your recommendations.
They're certainly very sound ideas and a good path for the industry.
Hoever, there are difficulties in implementing this one too. I have yet
to see an RPG company with an acquisitions department. Most PC game
companies (certainly the ones that do decent work) are making much more than
RPG companies. Therefore, the purchase price is such that no RPG company
is likely to be able to afford a PC game company. And given that PC game
companies have the deeper pockets, it's much easier for them to dictate
terms and say, "We want to license your game. How much?" than to try
to negotiate any sort of even partnership.
It's doubly so easier for the PC computer game company to just license
the RPG world and not have to deal with nearly so many issues of creative
control with the original RPG company.
I don't think any RPG company has the kind of venture capital to throw
into developing their own PC game spinoff side company from scratch. PC
games are being produced with budgets that rival Hollywood these days.
That does, however, leave room for a partnership between a PC game
company and an RPG company. I know I said above that it wasn't very likely,
since PC game companies find it easier to buy licenses to the RPG worlds,
but it could be done. Then the problem is, as you suggest above, combining
the technology of PC's with the experience of paper RPGs. I'd love to see
it happen, but speaking as a programmer, it's a long way off. People telling
a story in an RPG setting are inherently reactive. No matter how strange
a tangent or direction the characters want to go off in, the storyteller
(perhaps with a break to grab chips and a chance to think) can come up with
*something* to happen next. A computer game must have its behavior
rigidly defined. With a little cleverness, one can definitely avoid a
hard and fast script, but there are always bound to be more actions one
can't take than those that one can. We're a long way off from being able
to say *anything* to an NPC in a computer RPG and have them respond
well and appropriately. (The above paragraph is, of course, deeply
rooted in my assumptions about what an RPG would need to be able to do on
a PC to mimic the experience of a regular RPG. Your mileage may vary.)
This is largely a technical problem, though, and not one that any amount of
leadership in the RPG industry can readily solve.
: Until I open up my paper-based RPG and see a shiny CD pocket in the back, I
: will not be impressed. Or heck, take it a bit farther - until I see the
: first engine which uses key-based licensing and encryption to allow
: downloadable RPG supplements, I won't be truly impressed.
This one may not be so far off. The idea of publishing RPG material
via credit card transaction on the web (or other internet service) is
probably not too far off. The biggest problem I imagine is one of piracy.
RPG companies already have a problem with photocopies of books and
reproductions of whole swaths of source material ending up on the web,
posted to usenet, or emailed. RPG companies are a still a niche market
(hence the need for a post like yours about how to become a larger market)
and thus feel the loss of each sale for each ripped off copy more keenly
than some other companies.
There are a number of tricks with serial numbers, requiring CDs, etc.
that can be used to cut down the amount of piracy of material, but with
CD replicators in home PCs and a little spare time, one could copy a
digitally distributed RPG. At least with books one has to sit at a
photocopier or keyboard for a long time to do any real harm.
It bears noting that the desire to copy RPG material is much stronger
then the desire to copy conventional published material. A good scifi
paperback costs a few dollars and would take a long time to copy the four
hundred pages (or so). Published electronically, yes, more people would
copy it 'cause it's easier. But the book would probably still be cheap
enough that plenty of people would go the honest route. An RPG book,
however, costs between $10 and $30 USD depending on the company and
source book, and it can be used over and over again for new source
material and rules clarifications, whereas the paperback is read-once, most
likely. Therefore, there's more incentive to copy RPG stuff, should it
be digitized. (In thinking about it, there's always the thought that
pricing of RPG supplements might be radically different if they were
released electronically, since all the traditional production costs
associated with printing would be different. So my paragraph above
may be based on incorrect assumptions.)
: 4. Poor quality standards in the areas of content, production, and consumer
: value.
: A problem throughout the industry is the uneven quality standards for
: products. It is very well and good if you are going to remain in the kiddie
: pool to keep producing an inconsistent product. But if you are going to go
: into Wal-Mart and try to make it on the national stage, you are going to
: have
Hear hear! There is a lot of inconsistent (sometimes downright poor)
quality in the RPG market. However, there are a myriad of reasons for it.
Some of these reasons are very hard to solve problems. It's not simply a
matter of deciding to do it right -- no one sets out to make a bad product.
(At least, they have not admitted it to me...)
Rather than at the managerial level, lets start with the authors of the
RPG books, since they're really the roots of the quality of product. (I'm
putting artwork aside, not to marginalize its impact on the quality of the
product, but because I know considerably less about how artwork is handled
in the RPG industry than I know about the writing.) Most companies rely
heavily on freelance writers to write their books. As a small amount of
anecdotal evidence, I offer the writers all call that White Wolf had a while
ago, the page on Steve Jackson Games' web site that advertises guidelines
for submitting book proposals, the guidelines that Chaosium has for
sending proposals to them, and so on.
Many RPG freelancers are very good writers, very professional about their
work, and that's great. However, many RPG freelance writers are also
hobbyists who start writing for gaming companies. Some of them are very
bad writers. Some of these hobbyists are very good writers, but treat their
work like a hobby, missing deadlines and producing good, but technically
flawed (bad grammar, spelling not check, unclear wording, etc.) Some of the
hobbyists are both professional and talented, and go on to become regular
industry writers (if they desire). But even among the industry
"professional" freelance writers, for every competent, talented writer
who meets their deadlines, there are dozens or more who miss deadlines,
turn in incomplete or unusable manuscripts, or just up and disappear
without bothering to tell their editors. All this before the manuscript
comes in from the author and goes into production.
If the manuscript was late or has large unusable portions, it must
be corrected, assuming that the editor, developer, or whatever the position
is called at that RPG company has time. If not, you may just end up with
a shoddy book getting printed. If the developer does have time, then
they're probably staying up till 2AM every night trying to read through
and correct a manuscript. They may not be able to write top quality product
either with their schedule, so even if the manuscript is patched, it's still
likely to have problems.
An RPG company could hire more staff, but that'd take more money that
they likely can't afford. They could put out fewer books, but in addition
to impacting their revenues, they might lose fan interest by not keeping
up a steady flow of new material. They could raise the price of the books,
but already every time they raise the price of the books people complain that
they're too expensive. Every time they lower the price of the books,
people complain that there aren't as many pretty full color pictures.
: to have consistency and excellence. You also have to take care of your
: current customer base and not alienate those who brought you along this
: far. Sounds tough? Try extinction.
This is something that a lot of RPG companies could do better with.
The best example I have is the tendancy towards bashing RPG players called
"twinks" "munchkins" "powergamers" etc... Yes, it's not my style of play.
Yes, I can understand why writers and designers who pour love and attention
into every detail of a worlds political and economic and religious structure
and so on get very unhappy when the one question they're asked over and over
is where the list of bigger guns is.
But, on the other hand, don't most RPG books shipped include a
clause about how, "it's your game. Do what you want with it..."
Ultimately, many of the people that RPG companies seem to dislike and
rant against most are the very people who pay the money to buy the books
that keep these RPG companies in business. Yes, you may not like someone
who spends every point to have a "kick-ass" character, but if so, just
take their money and smile at them. Don't tell them that you think
they're ruining your beautiful and creative work. They might take your
point and stop buying your beautiful and creative work. Then you're
out of work.
The short version would've been for me to say, "Entirely agreed." But
as long as I'm burning up the bandwidth, I might as well be thorough.
: 5. "Scorched earth" philosophy on developing talent and human resources.
: Keep using up people and it will all come around to haunt you. Enough
: said.
Here we are agreed again. There's the very real constraint that most
RGP companies can't afford to hire more staff and make the workload lighter,
and they can't afford to let the quality they have drop or they'll stop
selling supplements. But beyond workload, there's a lot of really nasty
and cruel treatment of people in the RPG industry. Thankfully, most of my
experience with it has been third-hand at closest. (But then, maybe that
makes me less competent to comment on it, so I'll abbreviate this paragraph
here.)
: 7. The arrogance of the industry "creating" a market demographic instead of
: the industry discovering the true demographics and creating products based
: on them.
: You don't create your demographic, your demographic shapes what you create.
: Period. You can get away with tap dancing for a while, but in the end, you
: will have to ride the wave of public opinion.
The problem here is that public opinion is often difficult to determine.
By your own words above, if RPG companies were to really follow the extreme
of public opinion, they'd all stop putting out books and start putting out
N64 cartridges. We're a niche market. As such, we're difficult to define.
Is the niche market people who like reading and listening to stores? Or are
we a group of people who have the above but also like to solve puzzles?
Or maybe to be in the target demographic, you have to be someone who likes
sitting around a table with pencil, paper, and a bowl of chips in front of
you ... but that describes people playing pictionary too, doesn't it? I
may just find this difficult because I have no training in marketing, but
it doesn't seem easy.
: You start with your base audience and then you do things to expand your
: audience, not limit it. OK, let's say your main base is 13-16 year old males
: with a lot of extra money to spend - what are you doing to attract them? Why
: should they bother? And what about the young women? You're ignoring them.
: When I was 16, if I had a choice between spending time with a female or
: playing RPG's, I would spend time with a female. What are you doing to get
: the women involved? Very little. Precious little. Meanwhile, the PC-based
: gaming industry have already picked up on the girls' market (Purple Moon,
: Barbie) and they are seeing the considerable revenue rewards as a result.
Yes, but the PC gaming industry had deep pockets to be able to pull that
off. They were able to say, "We really think this'll work, and we're
willing to sink the money into a project to prove the concept." The RPG
equivalent would be, "Well, we think this'll really work, but if it
doesn't we're all out of a job." "I dunno, Fred, think maybe we should
just stick with what's put food on the table for a few years now?"
"Yup."
Even the PC games industry didn't start marketing games for a wider market
until a while after people started pointing out that PC games were only
designed for young males with too much money to resist. I believe that you
are correct that it's the way to attract more people to roleplaying, but
I think it's getting by day to day that concerns most RPG companies.
: 8. A general lack of cooperative competition between and amongst RPG
: industry corporations
: Can we not as an industry agree to cooperate? If IBM and Apple can do
: it, why can't we? Each and every industry company needs to be willing
: to put aside past differences and work together, or the entire industry
: is dead.
Agreed here. The industry could cooperate more. But wait, did you
say IBM and Apple cooperated? When did that happen?
: 10. Egomaniacal suppression of innovation and new ideas by those
: empowered to actually release innovative, fresh product.
: Encourage entrepreneurial spirit and don't step on the good ideas. The
: next hit games are simply brewing in the back of your people's minds -
: and all you have to do is sign the check, take a risk, and actually do
: something about it.
I can't speak to the egotism. I don't doubt that it's there, but I don't
know enough to comment about it. Signing the check, however, I can
make a note about. Signing the check is the hard part. As usual, in
the RPG industry, it's never as easy as just deciding to do something
about it. Most RPG's could go ahead and sign the check for an innovative
only if they were willing to bounce the check. Most freelancers who write
fiction for RPG companies expect several months of delay in getting paid
for their work. All to often, the check may never even come at all. Sounds
like a horrible way to do business? Well, yes, it is. In some cases, it's
because the RPG companies are being as unprofessional as freelancers who
never turn in their manuscripts complete or on time. On the other hand,
often it's because the RPG company doesn't have the money to pay those
freelancers until several months later. They just do the best they can.
: The only reason I'm writing this is because I feel like it is very possible
: that somebody, somewhere, can perhaps read it and turn things around. I do
: not feel it is too late.
I hope so. And many of these ideas are very possible, though
they would require the backing of some serious venture capital. The problem
in getting venture capital is that this industry already has a decades long
history of being a niche market with limited profit potential at best, and
a high rate of failure altogether. In short, it's not a good investment.
Even without that, many of these ideas are good ones that the industry
should take to heart. I just had to toss a word or two in about why, beyond
bad leadership, it might be difficult for most RPG companies to take the
steps you recommend. Much of it stems from the fact that they are not
big or wealthy companies.
: If I am wrong, and it is too late, then you will still find me, along with
: the other dinosaurs, running a game in my local comic shop, a coffee house,
: or a living room. We will have come back to basics - holding on to dearly
: loved, dog-eared copies of our now-out-of-print favorite games, buying and
: selling rare supplements on eBay, and trying not to sound *too* ancient when
: we say, "Why, in my day, we had *real* roleplaying…"
And I'd be right there with ya. But I don't think it'll come to that.
Cheers,
Jeffrey
arch...@netcom.com
(I don't read news all that often, so if any reply is needed, it might be
best to send a copy via e-mail...)
Doug Beyer
Convenience seems to be one of the spots where tabletop RPGs just can't
compete. Why try to coordinate schedules, do hours of reading and prep
time, and learn complex settings and rules, when you could just install
Diablo and spend 20 minutes killing monsters? Why move all your friends to
one location at the same time when you could just hop on Battle.net?
At the same time, you can't write computer RPGs that compare to a
well-run tabletop game. You just can't.
So let's work on cheap, high-bandwidth net connections and move RPGs
into VR.
-- Doug Beyer
omnidou...@writeme.com
http://www.paccs.binghamton.edu/doug
Mary K. Kuhner
Doug Beyer <omnidoug...@writeme.com> wrote:
> At the same time, you can't write computer RPGs that compare to a
>well-run tabletop game. You just can't.
> So let's work on cheap, high-bandwidth net connections and move RPGs
>into VR.
Seems to me that one of the things which makes a well-run tabletop
game good is that you have a consistent set of players putting serious
time and energy into it, at the same time so that they can interact.
VR doesn't cure the scheduling problem.
I believe White Wolf actually tried something like this, didn't they?
But a random mix of random players works better for CRPG than for RPG,
where you really want continuity and focus, and where one bad player
can easily spoil the experience for everyone.
Being able to play by, essentially, videophone would increase my
base of potential players a bit, but I would still need to get
everyone together at the exact same time, on a regular basis. (And
if I put together my dream playing group, we'd turn out to be in
five different time zones, at least one of them European. Tricky.)
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Dave Nalle
> In article <785o0u$kmk$1...@news.ccit.arizona.edu>,
> Jason Corley <cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
>
> >1) Price. Computer game RPGs, new, will run you a minimum of $35-50, and
> >have a minimum of replayability. Paper and pencil RPGs, new, run you a
> >-maximum- of $30.
>
> Hmm. Interesting world you live in. I think I'd like to go there some
> time.
>
> Try $30 -on average- and I think you'll be closer. Maximum...well,
> ignoring supplements (i.e. just getting the 'core rules' to play) you
> could wind up spending probably over $60 on AD&D (what do the core rules
> run nowadays? PH+DMG+MM, er, MC, all hardback, probably closer to $75,
> no?). White Wolf is at about $30 for one of their hardbacks, but of
> course the game is more playable if you drop another $25 on a 'Player's
> Guide' (what a misnomer, since you need to get that /and/ the core rules
> to do things a player would want to do, like create characters). I think
> Multiverser is close to $50, and there are a bunch of other expensive RPGs
> to choose from.
There are also more and more RPGs which are available in a playable version
for free or next to nothing. Check out Oroborus, CORPS, Fudge, Prism and
Fuzion, just to name a few. Oroborus and Fuzion even have adventures and
world background material available for free.
Sakura
Dave Nalle <gra...@ccsi.com> wrote:
>In article <787er9$kua$1...@hiram.io.com>, je...@dillinger.io.com (Sakura) wrote:
>
>> In article <785o0u$kmk$1...@news.ccit.arizona.edu>,
>> Jason Corley <cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
>>
>> >1) Price. Computer game RPGs, new, will run you a minimum of $35-50, and
>> >have a minimum of replayability. Paper and pencil RPGs, new, run you a
>> >-maximum- of $30.
>>
>> Hmm. Interesting world you live in. I think I'd like to go there some
>> time.
>>
>> Try $30 -on average- and I think you'll be closer. Maximum...well,
>> ignoring supplements (i.e. just getting the 'core rules' to play) you
>> could wind up spending probably over $60 on AD&D
>
>for free or next to nothing.
Yes, I'm completely aware of this. It doesn't invalidate my point, which
was that $30 is closer to the average cost for picking up a new RPG. It's
/certainly/ not the maximum, even if we're just talking about core rules.
I didn't say anything about the minimum.
AD&D, WoD, and Rifts have bigtime exposure that the free RPGs just don't
have. They get carried by big chain bookstores, small bookstores, comic
stores, and hobby/gaming stores. The free RPGs get carried over the net,
and that's pretty much all.
So, the average non-gamer looking to pick up an RPG is probably going to
get one of the high-exposure ones that they've heard about elsewhere,
which probably means AD&D or Vampire, and then branch out from there.
Sakura
Mary K. Kuhner <mkku...@kingman.genetics.washington.edu> wrote:
>In article <36a75...@bingnews.binghamton.edu>,
>Doug Beyer <omnidoug...@writeme.com> wrote:
>
>> At the same time, you can't write computer RPGs that compare to a
>>well-run tabletop game. You just can't.
>> So let's work on cheap, high-bandwidth net connections and move RPGs
>>into VR.
>
>Seems to me that one of the things which makes a well-run tabletop
>game good is that you have a consistent set of players putting serious
>time and energy into it, at the same time so that they can interact.
>VR doesn't cure the scheduling problem.
It might alleviate it somewhat, as you can find a group of players that
fit your schedule. But if you want to game with a specific set of people,
yeah, you still have the schedule problems. (Heck, I have schedule
problems running a 1-person game for my girlfriend...)
>I believe White Wolf actually tried something like this, didn't they?
>But a random mix of random players works better for CRPG than for RPG,
>where you really want continuity and focus, and where one bad player
>can easily spoil the experience for everyone.
Are you thinking of the MUSHes and such that are out there? Having been a
wizard on one, I can confidently say that it is a very different
experience than tabletop roleplaying. The focus is much more on character
interaction and socialization than it is on the plot, so really the game
is more akin to a large, loosely-plotted LARP going on 24-7 than it is to
anything tabletop. It's sometimes very difficult to deal with...
John Kim
Sakura <je...@dillinger.io.com> wrote:
>Jason Corley <cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
>> 1) Price. Computer game RPGs, new, will run you a minimum of $35-50,
>> and have a minimum of replayability. Paper and pencil RPGs, new,
>> run you a -maximum- of $30.
>
>Hmm. Interesting world you live in. I think I'd like to go there
>some time.
>
>Try $30 -on average- and I think you'll be closer. Maximum...well,
>ignoring supplements (i.e. just getting the 'core rules' to play) you
>run nowadays? PH+DMG+MM, er, MC, all hardback, probably closer to $75,
>no?). White Wolf is at about $30 for one of their hardbacks, but of
>course the game is more playable if you drop another $25 on a 'Player's
>Guide' (what a misnomer, since you need to get that /and/ the core rules
>to do things a player would want to do, like create characters).
AD&D runs $55 for the PH + DMG, which is almost certainly
the top end of the scale. Other popular games include:
Ars Magica $30 Call of Cthulhu $30 Changeling: TD $30
Deadlands $34 GURPS $25 In Nomine $25
Mage: TA $30 Mage: TSC $28 Over the Edge $25
Pendragon $27 Star Trek: TNG $30 Vampire: TM $30
Vampire: TDA, Werewolf: TA, Werewolf: TWW, Wraith: TO $28
As for _needing_ the Player's Guide to play WW games... I
don't know what world you're living in, but I've played _Vampire_
just fine without any player's guide. Complete character creation
rules included with the core rulebook in every case.
Of the above, you could argue that GURPS is incomplete because
all the other games include a world background while GURPS does not.
James C. Ellis
red wrote:
>
> Even if the industry dies, I don;t think RPGing will.
I wish I could be so sure. Even as the industry is fading, I am
noticing the number of active gamers (unscientifically obtained by
attendance totals at the now-defunct local gaming con) also declining.
I am definately having problems filling open slots in my ongouing
campaing that I wouldn't have had ten years ago.
And this is with the industry still being relatively healthy thanks to
the overflow from the CCG influx of a few years back.
If 'the industry' dies, what is the result? No more local gaming
supply shops. No cons. In short, no easy way to meet local gamers.
Slop-over from computer-based quasi-RPGs, MUDs, PBeMs, etc. will help
to some degree, but without new blood the current 'live' gaming
population will become ever more fragmented and inbred.
Barring some way to re-attract the next generation, I think this hobby
will be clinically dead in 20 years.
Pessimistically yours,
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Tzu
robin_...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>I believe that, if you see the youth of today (meaning those under 20
or so)
>as the target group for role-playing games, you have to take into
account
>something I have observed: the average intelligence level compared to
when I
>was that age seems to decline rapidly.
This is a problem of sampling. Several factors make it (IMHO) an invalid
conclusion. In case anyone is wondering, I'm 33, and therefore not part
of the targeted group.
1. My generation isn't all that full of people who love the life of the
mind either.
2. But when I was in school, I could clump together with my like-minded
peers. Generally we went off into the corners and stayed out of others'
way.
3. When you look into _any_ group from the outside, you first see the
noisy ones. But they are seldom representative. Most religious believers
are not the zealous, often hate-mongering, sorts that one runs into
prostelytizing rudely. Most people with political convictions are not
the fanatics who dominate partisan discourse. And so on and so forth.
If anything, one can safely conclude that whatever it is the masses are
up to, it's _not_ what the noisy ones who claim to speak for them all
say.
In my high school of 700, there were perhaps a dozen or so gamers. As it
happens, one of the high school close to me has about 900 students, and
the local game store manager tells me that they have about two dozen
regular customers from there, plus some who tend to go to other stores.
Overall, gaming sales are down from their peak about 10-15 years ago.
But then there are more alternatives available, and I wonder how many of
us can say with a straight face that for sure we would as teens have
preferred gaming in every case to the currently available alternatives.
I, at least, would have loved some of the computer games now on the
market, using the Internet, and so on.
I don't think the current generation of teens has much, if anything,
less on the ball than mine did. It takes different expression in some
cases, that's all.
As a side note, I remember that I as a teen was very sensitive to
perceived slights, and tended to clam up the moment I felt someone older
was being condescending or supercilious. I've noticed that I've become
more aware of teenaged gamers since I started forcing myself to hold the
sneers back and actually _listen_, maybe even ask honest, open
questions. When they can tell I'm not going to make fun of them, but
really want to know how they see things, I get interesting feedback.
This isn't criticism, really, just a reminder to myself at least as much
as to others: if you want to find out what people not in your own
subculture are up to, you have to avoid alienating them at the outset.
This is particularly true when dealing with people who are shy and
probably not very good at social interactions.
--
<*> ICQ 27599289 <*> http://www.sff.net/people/bruce-baugh
"I know it's a dead horse, but it makes a neat sound when I thump it."
-- David Bolack
Bruce Tzu
>I think you may be making the mistaken assumption that it was ever
>possible for roleplaying games to make this leap. I think that the format
>is fundamentally unsuited to a mass market. It's just too specialized a
>form of entertainment and too inaccessible for too many people.
I agree. There's a fairly smooth correlation between the number of
people involved in an activity and the amount of sustained effort it
requires. More people watch a given professional sport than learn all
the statistics, for instance. More people fix frozen dinners than engage
in gourmet cooking.
People spend a lot of _time_ playing computer games, but it's generally
not time that requires deep thought or creative effort. (This is not a
slam, or an inference that if it's not demanding it's not worthwhile.
Identifying differences is not, in the cae, a value judgment.) So more
people are likely to do that than play tabletop or LARP roleplaying
games. Within computer games, strategy games sell fewer copies than
action games.
I see no reason to believe that rolegaming can ever become mainstream,
and at this point it would take a lot of convincing. My vision of a
healthy future for rolegaming involves opening up more available niches
and serving them well.
>This shouldn't be a surprise. Vision rarely comes from the so-called
>leaders in an industry, and this is particularly true of gaming.
Right. One simple benchmark is that there have been two big successes in
gaming this decade - Vampire: The Masquerade and Magic: The Gathering. I
have yet to meet _anyone_ who can plausibly claim to have predicted the
success of both upon first hearing about or seeing them. As an industry,
we have no real clue what works and what doesn't, just accumulated
scraps of pragmatic lore and a fair amount of superstition.Very few
gaming creators seem to have more than one viable idea in them (pause
for a joke about those who don't have that many).
Innovation happens at the margins, generally.
>Wrong. One of the major past errors in this industry has been designing
>games to fit a demographic rather than designing good games. If you
Agreed. I've remarked from time to time that the market responds more
reliably to honest passion than to actual quality. Every breakthrough in
reaching new audiences has come because the creators did something they
felt strongly toward. Detached targeting demonstrably doesn't work.
>immitation of an already existing product. When this industry has had
>real successes, it has been because those games defined themselves with
>new ideas and created their own identity. That's where strength and
>success is likely to be found in the future as well.
Well put.
Sakura
John Kim <jh...@cosmic.ps.uci.edu> wrote:
>
> AD&D runs $55 for the PH + DMG, which is almost certainly
>the top end of the scale. Other popular games include:
Don't forget the Monstrous Manual or whatever they're calling it these
days. Or are there some monster/creature stats in the DMG?
> As for _needing_ the Player's Guide to play WW games... I
>don't know what world you're living in, but I've played _Vampire_
>just fine without any player's guide. Complete character creation
>rules included with the core rulebook in every case.
It's all in the context. If you look at what I said right before that, it
was about the Player's Guide name being a misnomer. When I think of a
'Player's Guide' I think of a book that's got all of the information
needed for a player in the game - which is most certainly /not/ what the
various WW 'Player's Guides' are.
Compare WW's 'Player's Guide' to the AD&D Player's Handbook or even the
GURPS Players Book (if you can find it). Both the AD&D PH and the GURPS
PB have the rules and tools that a player would need: mostly character
creation, equipment lists, and the like. They're a book that a player (as
opposed to a GM) could buy if he didn't want to shell out for the entire
system.
WW's 'Player's Guide' is useless without the core rules, which is why I
consider the name to be bad. 'Vampire Companion', 'Vampire Expansion',
'Big Book of Kewl Stuff for Vampire'...all of these would more accurately
reflect the contents of the book.
Jason Corley
: I do agree that these kids are not entering the track that will turn
: them into RPG purchasers. But I don't believe that the industry can
: directly affect that. If I were not already taught to enjoy subtle stories,
: good characters, and mental challenges... in short, if I didn't have a
: decent imagination, then I'd rather have a box that paints my adventure
: in vibrant 3D graphics and 64-bit stereo surround sound on a big screen
: TV, too.
: I'm going to avoid the question of whether engendering such an
: enjoyment of verbal stories is something innate to a person or part of
: good parenting during childhood or whatever. (That path leads to patting
: myself on the back because I play RPGs and therefore I'm special.) I don't
: know what creates the preference for a tabletop story to a video game, and it
: doesn't really matter here. I do think it's safe to say that there's little
: that the RPG industry can do with its present resources to shape the
: preference, on a large scale, of children to set them towards fairy tales,
: make-believe, and RPGs.
Now that's an angle I hadn't thought of. Perhaps to some degree you have
to -learn- to like tabletop RPGs. I consider myself to have only an
average degree of imagination, intelligence and energy, so it can't be
that 'kids today is just dumber'.
But there's a problem with this - kids' books have improved dramatically
since I was a child. (I know, my mom is a first grade teacher.) Even at
around the junior high level, there is a much greater variety of books
available to read, and books are generally considered the 'imagination
starter' for kids.
Do gamers just have better -parents- than non-gamers? ;-)
---
Jason Corley
: In article <787er9$kua$1...@hiram.io.com>, je...@dillinger.io.com (Sakura) wrote:
: > In article <785o0u$kmk$1...@news.ccit.arizona.edu>,
: > Jason Corley <cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
: >
: > >1) Price. Computer game RPGs, new, will run you a minimum of $35-50, and
: > >have a minimum of replayability. Paper and pencil RPGs, new, run you a
: > >-maximum- of $30.
: >
: > Hmm. Interesting world you live in. I think I'd like to go there some
: > time.
Well, more or less. I ignore all supplements.
Basic GURPS: $25
Vampire 2ed.: $25
Star Wars 2ed.: $24
Conspiracy X: $28
I agree AD&D breaks my rule - I forgot you have to buy both Player's and
DM's books to run that one. However, it also is the only absolutely
necessary 2-volume set. Of course you can spend zillions of bucks on
games. That's not the question. The question is how much you'll spend
and how much material you'll get in comparison to computer games. I think
RPGs win very, very, very decisively.
: > White Wolf is at about $30 for one of their hardbacks, but of
: > course the game is more playable if you drop another $25 on a 'Player's
: > Guide' (what a misnomer, since you need to get that /and/ the core rules
: > to do things a player would want to do, like create characters).
Not to defend White Wolf unnecessarily, but this is wholly untrue. My
group had played Vampire for a year and a half before anyone owned a
Player's Guide.
: There are also more and more RPGs which are available in a playable version
: for free or next to nothing. Check out Oroborus, CORPS, Fudge, Prism and
: Fuzion, just to name a few. Oroborus and Fuzion even have adventures and
: world background material available for free.
Right.
Jason Corley
: Of the above, you could argue that GURPS is incomplete because
: all the other games include a world background while GURPS does not.
I actually found a very generic (natch) fantasy 'world' in the GURPS book.
That is, I didn't feel I needed GURPS Fantasy to run a fantasy game after
reading it. A science fiction game on, on the other hand...
Anyway, computer games are -way- more expensive.
Mary K. Kuhner
>I don't think the current generation of teens has much, if anything,
>less on the ball than mine did. It takes different expression in some
>cases, that's all.
The eleven-year-old son of a friend of mine is a keen gamer--he runs
_James Bond_ and _Star Wars_--but he doesn't find it at all natural to
talk to me about this, and neither of us is likely to invite the other
to a game. We're too much in different worlds. I only found out by
the accident of recognizing a map he was drawing and asking him about it.
My twenty-two year old brother is also a gamer, and we talk shop now
and then, but we aren't in the same groups or doing the same sorts of
things, and again we don't invite each other to games. I think I could
easily not know about his gaming at all if he didn't feel inclined to
talk shop.
So I agree with Bruce--it's not so easy to judge what young people are
like, especially once you realize that just like any other generation,
they're not homogeneous. And the noisy, obvious ones are particularly
unlikely to be gamers.
One thing that would improve the future of gaming is a breakdown of the
social taboo against mixed-age recreational groups of any kind. But
that would take a pretty major change in society, not just a little
shift in marketing. At the moment you can have "family games" but adults
are not encouraged to take those seriously: and kids seem to be actively
discouraged from interacting outside their age group except with parents.
Maybe the new wave of really good family boardgames coming out of Germany
will help there. My household (me, husband, adult sister, adult brother,
brother's girlfriend) has been doing a lot more gaming since we picked
up "Bohnanza", and "Kill Dr. Lucky" also looks like being a hit.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
John R. Snead
: I really feel like an "Oldtimer" when I wander back online and read
: alt.games.whitewolf and alt.games.frp.advocacy. Since I have been out in the
: world having rich life experiences and not really being online very often, I
: find myself now having an overflow of things I'd like to just put out there to
: the general populace to see what response I get.
: Last time I did this was with my big melodramatic polemic about how some
: role-playing game companies mismanage their human resources. The point now, of
: course, is fairly moot.
: In my studying of the State of the Industry today (reading web sites, looking
: at game stores, talking to folks who play - admittedly an unscientific
: methodology with quite a few flaws) I am starting to come to believe that the
: days of paper-based roleplaying games are coming to an end and are about to
: be relegated to the dustbin of history right alongside 8-Track tapes.
You know, I've been seeing this sort of thing for years now and we're
not dead yet. These sentiments might have made sense in the early 90s, but
things have changed. The CCG boom made lots of money for many RPG
companies, but they also put a big dent in RPG sales. Well, except for
Magic, which is slowly shrinking.
As Dave Nalle said, there are as many or more games than ever before,
they are better written, better illustrated, and more available. Walk
into any Borders, B. Dalton, or Waldens in the nation and you'll see a
goodly number of the things.
From a personal perspective I've got more free-lance work than I can do,
and I'm watching the large companies I work for continue to do well, and
the small ones grow. Last year was definitely a growth year in the
industry and pretty much all the companies I know were quite happy with it.
OTOH, this is never going to be a much bigger industry than it is now.
There is clearly a maximum size for the market, and it's likely not much
bigger than it is now. We could get more women into gaming, it would
certainly be nice if we could get more minorities, the Cons look a bit
too much like KKK meetings in terms of racial balance, but I'd be
surprised if it was possible to grow the market by more than a factor of 3.
Gaming is for geeky kids, college students, and adults who read a lot.
Given that few people read more than a couple of book a year, we are not
mainstream. No amount of working with the computer game industry will
make us mainstream. Computer games are interactive TV, with all the
virtues and (many) flaws of TV, and with a similar audience. Given that
most folks in the us watch between 25 and 40 hours of TV/week (yes, those
figures are quite true and I also find them horrifying), there's a lot of
room for computer game growth.
Gaming is a niche industry, this will never likely change. Sometimes it
will grow some, other times it will shrink, but it's been doing pretty well
for the last 25 years, and I've run into a goodly number of gamers between
16 and 22. If you haven't, it's likely because you're hanging out with
older folks, this is true of most people as they get older.
-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
John Kim
Sakura <je...@schultz.io.com> wrote:
>John Kim <jh...@cosmic.ps.uci.edu> wrote:
>> AD&D runs $55 for the PH + DMG, which is almost certainly the
>> top end of the scale. Other popular games include:
>
>Don't forget the Monstrous Manual or whatever they're calling it
>these days. Or are there some monster/creature stats in the DMG?
I'm not sure -- I haven't played AD&D for many years.
However, since I didn't consider a bestiary supplement as a
neccessary addition for any of the other games, it seemed wrong
to consider it as neccessary for AD&D. It is perfectly possible
to play AD&D without owning the Monstrous Compendium -- I
certainly did so the last few times I played.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>> As for _needing_ the Player's Guide to play WW games... I don't
>> know what world you're living in, but I've played _Vampire_
>> just fine without any player's guide. Complete character
>> creation rules included with the core rulebook in every case.
[...]
>Both the AD&D PH and the GURPS PB have the rules and tools that a
>player would need: mostly character creation, equipment lists, and
>the like. They're a book that a player (as opposed to a GM) could
>buy if he didn't want to shell out for the entire system.
>
>WW's 'Player's Guide' is useless without the core rules, which is
>why I consider the name to be bad. 'Vampire Companion', 'Vampire
>Expansion', 'Big Book of Kewl Stuff for Vampire'...all of these
>would more accurately reflect the contents of the book.
Ah. Well, personally, all the _Vampire_ players I have
talked to knew pretty much what was in the player's guide even
if they didn't own it. I suspect the problem is at least partially
a bias from AD&D -- i.e. if you started playing _Vampire_ first,
you would be surprised that the AD&D _Players Handbook_ didn't
contain any new stuff.
Adam Morse
> I believe that, if you see the youth of today (meaning those under 20 or so)
> as the target group for role-playing games, you have to take into account
> something I have observed: the average intelligence level compared to when I
> was that age seems to decline rapidly. And before I am flamed, please hear me
> out, especially if you are in that group.
I wouldn't describe this as intelligence; except for things like
malnutrition, head trauma, and certain drug consumption, it's tough to
lower actual intelligence. That said, it's easy to not develop advantages
fully; the increased reliance on television certainly contributes to
this.
>
> I have started studying to become a teacher and I hopped off that train after
> two years (I am in Germany and we do such things a bit differently here). In
> my observation, the kids today want to consume. They do not want to think. My
> wife is a teacher as well, and what I hear from her and other friends of the
> same persuasion seconds this. Now, role-playing is about thinking. You have
> to think on your feet to be a good player and you have to think and do
> research a lot if you want to be a game master. Role-playing definitely is
> not about consuming. You cannot just consume if you are game master, and for
> a player it gets at least difficult, although it may be possible. Now, with
> computer RPGs it's just the other way round. In my experience, thinking gets
> in the way of CRPGs. You don't think 'How can that problem be solved' rather
> than 'What devious plot device may that programmer have had in mind now to
> keep me from solving that game in half an hour?'. If you use logic and reason
> when dealing with CRPGs you end up with frustrating no-go situations. The
> computer just is not flexible enough.
First, I'm not sure that you can't make interesting, thought-provoking
puzzles for CRPGs; they are just the equivalents of paper and pencil
puzzles (i.e. here is a pattern of shapes; how can you build X shape? Or
the connect the dots in minimum numbers of lines puzzles). But I agree
that they are less engrossing than role-playing games, at least from my
perspective.
But I partially see them as part of the solution, as opposed to seeing
their marketting disadvantages as part of the problem. When I have
children (no time soon; I'm only 22, and single), I will probably teach
them how to role-play as a way of developing mental skills (and because
it's fun :) ).
>
> A dark age of flatheaded consumerism is upon us...
>
Well, okay, this is depressingly true much of the time, but nothing
requires it to be so. At least on a small scale, we can fight to push
back the problem; if enough people do, the problem can be dealt with, at
least partially.
Adam Morse
Travis S. Casey
>robin_...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>> I have started studying to become a teacher and I hopped off that train after
>> two years (I am in Germany and we do such things a bit differently here). In
>> my observation, the kids today want to consume. They do not want to think. My
>> wife is a teacher as well, and what I hear from her and other friends of the
>> same persuasion seconds this.
As someone else pointed out, few of us hung out with a representative
sample of teenagers when we were teens ourselves. From my own memories of
being a teenager (I'm 28 now), I'd have to say that most kids just wanted
to consume and not to think then too.
People have been bemoaning the awful state of the next generation and
saying how much smarter/nicer/more moral/etc. people were when they were
young since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, and probably well
before then.
Personally, I'm inclined to think that the mix is about the same as it's
always been, but that as adults we deal with a more random sample of
teenagers instead of with a selected clique. I'd imagine that to be
especially true of the original poster -- teachers *have* to deal with
whatever kids they're given.
>> Now, role-playing is about thinking. You have
>> to think on your feet to be a good player and you have to think and do
>> research a lot if you want to be a game master. Role-playing definitely is
>> not about consuming. You cannot just consume if you are game master, and for
>> a player it gets at least difficult, although it may be possible. Now, with
>> computer RPGs it's just the other way round. In my experience, thinking gets
>> in the way of CRPGs. You don't think 'How can that problem be solved' rather
>> than 'What devious plot device may that programmer have had in mind now to
>> keep me from solving that game in half an hour?'. If you use logic and reason
>> when dealing with CRPGs you end up with frustrating no-go situations. The
>> computer just is not flexible enough.
IMHO, it's not the computer -- it's the programmers. It's possible to
make much more flexible computer games now, and there are people working
on it. However, most innovation in computer games (especially in
commercial games) has been in graphics, animation, and sound -- with the
result that you've got full-motion 3-D versions of the same types of
primitive adventure games that were being written in the '70's.
(What's worse, there are people making computer games who think that
puzzles *should* be inflexible -- that the players should basically have
to guess what the author intended the solution to be. This seems to be a
case of "I played games that were like that and liked them, so you should
like them too.")
>First, I'm not sure that you can't make interesting, thought-provoking
>puzzles for CRPGs; they are just the equivalents of paper and pencil
>puzzles (i.e. here is a pattern of shapes; how can you build X shape? Or
>the connect the dots in minimum numbers of lines puzzles). But I agree
>that they are less engrossing than role-playing games, at least from my
>perspective.
I find such puzzles in CRPGs (or in paper RPGs, for that matter) to be
just annoying -- mainly because there's rarely a good reason for putting
them in. To me, puzzles like "how can we get into this extremely
well-guarded base" are more fun, because they have a solid grounding in
the game world and allow for creative thinking. It's possible to do this
sort of thing in a computer game as well -- not easy, to be sure, but
possible. The real question is whether players will like that sort of
flexibility more than they like improved graphics and sound.
>> A dark age of flatheaded consumerism is upon us...
>>
>Well, okay, this is depressingly true much of the time, but nothing
>requires it to be so. At least on a small scale, we can fight to push
>back the problem; if enough people do, the problem can be dealt with, at
>least partially.
Amen to that!
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efi...@io.com>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
Bruce Tzu
>So I agree with Bruce--it's not so easy to judge what young people are
>like, especially once you realize that just like any other generation,
>they're not homogeneous. And the noisy, obvious ones are particularly
>unlikely to be gamers.
Thanks, Mary. As always in this kind of thing, it's good to talk about
one's own experience - I know better than to assume I'm representative.
:)
>One thing that would improve the future of gaming is a breakdown of the
>social taboo against mixed-age recreational groups of any kind. But
Agreed, and agreed about the difficulty. It occurs to me that I had a
leg up into rolegaming because of my older brothers, eight and ten years
older than me. I picked up wargaming and sf/f reading habits from them,
which were the matrix of my interest in rolegaming.
The Caltech gaming club was tolerant of teenagers as long as there were
just a few of us, and pretty well-behaved. As the numbers rose and
quality control went down, they naturally tightened up on this. I wonder
if mixed-age gaming is just plain easier in an environment where it's
relatively new for everyone.
Bruce Tzu
>: methodology with quite a few flaws) I am starting to come to believe that the
>: days of paper-based roleplaying games are coming to an end and are about to
>: be relegated to the dustbin of history right alongside 8-Track tapes.
>From a personal perspective I've got more free-lance work than I can do,
>and I'm watching the large companies I work for continue to do well, and
>the small ones grow. Last year was definitely a growth year in the
>industry and pretty much all the companies I know were quite happy with it.
Yeah. My gut-level sense is that we have some more shakeups coming in
the next couple of years - the existing distribution network still has
room to get worse, amazing as that sometimes seems, and Wizards of the
Coast is gradually crowding nearer the wall as the card-game boom fades
and they have nothing to take the place of Magic.
But yes, things are looking up. Partly this is because of what looks to
me like signs of *gasp* professional competence in gaming companies -
more attention to whether a line is profitable, and figuring out what to
do if not, collecting debts in a timely manner (and sometimes paying
bills in timely manner, too), and so on. Part of it is just that sales
do seem to be up at the moment.
>OTOH, this is never going to be a much bigger industry than it is now.
I dunno, my feeling is that there are untapped niches out there, and
maybe a lot of them. On the other hand, we're already at a point where
there's scarcely a "gaming market" as such, but rather multiple
communities that overlap very seldom. I can see more of that happening.
>Gaming is for geeky kids, college students, and adults who read a lot.
Bingo.
>for the last 25 years, and I've run into a goodly number of gamers between
>16 and 22. If you haven't, it's likely because you're hanging out with
>older folks, this is true of most people as they get older.
Just so. The only times I cross paths with younger gamers is at the
stores...and in e-mail. Being a gaming writer with an accessible e-mail
address lets me get some of the most fascinating mail, from wonderful to
execrable. :)
Marizhavashti Kali
>
> One thing that would improve the future of gaming is a breakdown of the
> social taboo against mixed-age recreational groups of any kind. But
Recently, one of the groups I regularly game in has managed to acquire two
14 year olds. This is approximately half the age of the remainder of the
group. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, although our styles do clash
somewhat, it's not insurmountable.
When I was in my teens, I generally gamed with people 25+. I really didn't
relate well to those in my own age group.
--
Deird'Re M. Brooks |xe...@teleport.com | cam#9309026
Lydia Morales (Brujah)|It's 106 miles to Stygia, we've
Madelynne (Malkavian) |got 20 oboli, half a tank of pathos
Sif Stormbringer (Get)|and we're wearing soulfire masks.
Aileen E. Miles
> Do gamers just have better -parents- than non-gamers? ;-)
Hey, I'd be willing to subscribe to that theory. I know that I and my
gamer friends all seem to have really great parents who've been
supportive of our gaming habits (and careers).
But I know this is just overgeneralization. I'm sure there are plenty of
parents that limit TV watching and encourage reading, but that's so
their kids can read the Bible (my uncle is this way and he likely still
believes I'm destined for hell).
-Aileen
Steve Fu
"John R. Snead" wrote:
> Gaming is a niche industry, this will never likely change. Sometimes it
> will grow some, other times it will shrink, but it's been doing pretty well
> for the last 25 years, and I've run into a goodly number of gamers between
> 16 and 22. If you haven't, it's likely because you're hanging out with
> older folks, this is true of most people as they get older.
>
> -John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
I'm 30, I've been role-playing in one form or another since I was 12, and I've
listened to all the commentary on this thread. There are a few constants the RPG
industry can count on (whether they use them or not is another story):
1. Role-playing games were never mainstream. They will never be mainstream.
2. They are bought and devoured by an often fanatic (some would say rabid) niche of
society who are of above average intelligence and possess a creative agility that
most people either do not have or are too lazy to exercise.
3. The niche will invariably be there. There will always be another group of 11-16
year-old kids who discover this stuff and decide its the best thing anyone ever
thought of.
4. If the quality of the RPGs released remains high (this means intelligent and
engaging writing), they will stay interested in them
5. For God's sake, somebody at TSR or WW hire a proofreader. I'm an editor and it
drives me insane trying to read some of this stuff.
All that just to get to #5.
Fu
Sea Wasp
>
> I really feel like an "Oldtimer" when I wander back online and read
> alt.games.whitewolf and alt.games.frp.advocacy. Since I have been out in the
> world having rich life experiences and not really being online very often, I
> find myself now having an overflow of things I'd like to just put out there to
> the general populace to see what response I get.
>
> Last time I did this was with my big melodramatic polemic about how some
> role-playing game companies mismanage their human resources. The point now, of
> course, is fairly moot.
>
> In my studying of the State of the Industry today (reading web sites, looking
> days of paper-based roleplaying games are coming to an end and are about to
> be relegated to the dustbin of history right alongside 8-Track tapes.
{snip long rant}
Nicely written... but I saw it first in, oh, '82 I think. And about
every three or four years thereafter. It's like the Imminent Death of
the Net. Old timers predict it all the time. It never happens.
I expect RPGs to continue as they have for the forseeable future -- a
small fringe hobby which will never break through into the real
mainstream, because it's far too demanding a hobby. Not that you
necessarily have to be a superior person to play, but you DO have to
devote a lot of time and effort to the game... and, as others have
noted, unlike the computer games you have to get OTHER people to devote
a lot of time and effort to it too... SIMULTANEOUSLY.
That's the pain I keep encountering. Getting all the players together
and doing so regularly.
So the RPG world will remain pretty much as it is. The major corporate
players may slowly change, but the industry as a whole won't.
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
Nightshade
mkku...@kingman.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
>Being able to play by, essentially, videophone would increase my
>base of potential players a bit, but I would still need to get
>everyone together at the exact same time, on a regular basis. (And
>if I put together my dream playing group, we'd turn out to be in
>five different time zones, at least one of them European. Tricky.)
I'd like to agree with this; having been involved in mushing over the
last few years, it does make it easier in some respects to get people
together, but it doesn't make the scheduling issues go away.
Nightshade
bruce...@sff.net (Bruce Tzu) wrote:
>Overall, gaming sales are down from their peak about 10-15 years ago.
>But then there are more alternatives available, and I wonder how many of
>us can say with a straight face that for sure we would as teens have
>preferred gaming in every case to the currently available alternatives.
>I, at least, would have loved some of the computer games now on the
>market, using the Internet, and so on.
I'd like to specifically comment on this; I think when I got into
gaming (my early college days rather than high school, but then that
was more characteristic in the mid 70's) I was sufficiently
introverted that at the very least I'd have _started_ with, say,
MUDding because in a certain social sense it's 'safer'. I wouldn't be
suprised if some of that goes on now.
Nightshade
Marizhavashti Kali <xe...@teleport.com> wrote:
>Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
>>
>> One thing that would improve the future of gaming is a breakdown of the
>> social taboo against mixed-age recreational groups of any kind. But
>
>Recently, one of the groups I regularly game in has managed to acquire two
>14 year olds. This is approximately half the age of the remainder of the
>group. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, although our styles do clash
>somewhat, it's not insurmountable.
>
>When I was in my teens, I generally gamed with people 25+. I really didn't
>relate well to those in my own age group.
I also think this is only really pronounced toward the bottom end; I
regularly play with a group ranging in age from 30 to 50+, and we've
been playing together for some time now. There tends to be a somewhat
sharper line of demarkation between teenagers and adults, though,
generally.
Ratspaw
> Of the above, you could argue that GURPS is incomplete because
>all the other games include a world background while GURPS does not.
The whole point of GURPS is writing your own world background. We've
played GURPS a dozen campaigns in as many worlds written by the GM or
a GM-and-player combo. While you were perfectly free to cull from any
of the many supplements available, you certainly didn't have to. The
basic book had everything you needed to set yourself up a functional
character.
Ratspaw
The humble rat stands as proof that survival of the
fittest is about so much more than mere strength.
Ratspaw
(Mary K. Kuhner) wrote:
>My twenty-two year old brother is also a gamer, and we talk shop now
>and then, but we aren't in the same groups or doing the same sorts of
>things, and again we don't invite each other to games. I think I could
>easily not know about his gaming at all if he didn't feel inclined to
>talk shop.
If it makes you feel better, when I was twenty-two I was in a gaming
group with people who were moving up on things like driving and voting
and also with people who above thirty by a not inconsiderable margin
and we all got along without any problem. Our best GM's were one of
the over-thirties and one of the under-twenties. Different people
mature at different rates.
cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu
shado...@white-wolf.com wrote:
> Jason Corley wrote:
>
> > Do gamers just have better -parents- than non-gamers? ;-)
>
> Hey, I'd be willing to subscribe to that theory. I know that I and my
> gamer friends all seem to have really great parents who've been
> supportive of our gaming habits (and careers).
My parents were (and are) dead-set against gaming, but I think that only
encouraged me. In general, though, they're fanatical about reading, which
rubbed off.
It's an interesting question, anyway...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason D. "cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu" Corley - man of many news
servers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Ratspaw
wrote:
>Personally, I'm inclined to think that the mix is about the same as it's
>always been, but that as adults we deal with a more random sample of
>teenagers instead of with a selected clique. I'd imagine that to be
>especially true of the original poster -- teachers *have* to deal with
>whatever kids they're given.
eight years apart. My eldest sister turns 33 this year, I turn 25, my
younger brother 17, and my youngest brother 9. I saw my sister's
friends growing up, I see the friends of my younger brothers, and I
can put names on them equating to the people I knew growing up. Same
attitudes, same arrangements, different faces. The people don't
change. The trappings do.
>IMHO, it's not the computer -- it's the programmers. It's possible to
>make much more flexible computer games now, and there are people working
>on it. However, most innovation in computer games (especially in
>commercial games) has been in graphics, animation, and sound -- with the
>result that you've got full-motion 3-D versions of the same types of
>primitive adventure games that were being written in the '70's.
From a corporate standpoint, they're easier and faster to
make, they look good on ads, they're comfortably familiar to consumers
and they bring in money faster than trying to develop complicated,
intelligent games or new styles of games that haven't had all the
errors flushed out yet. I mean, it's hard to come up with a
completely new idea and then implement it. Carbon-copy games go to
supporting efforts like that, too. They drive the industry so that
occasional sparkling gem can work its way out.
When I saw Tomb Raider for the first time, I thought it was a
fantastic new idea. And then I watched my roommate at the time
playing it for a while and I thought, "Oh, no, it isn't. It's 3-D
Prince of Persia." Some games don't even go that far in concealing
their mimicry of past games. Might & Magic 6 is only marginally
different from Might & Magic II, which I played on my Sega Genesis.
It's so similar that when my current roommate was first playing it,
he'd ask me what things were and I'd know without looking and be able
to predict future things he'd run into, too. The thing is that as
generations turn over and the sales base of the computer gaming
industry expands every year you find a lot of people haven't seen the
origins of the gaming ideas that so many modern games are based on and
are actually seeing them for the first time in modern reproductions.
It's not necessarily bad.
Ratspaw
Corley) wrote:
>But there's a problem with this - kids' books have improved dramatically
>since I was a child. (I know, my mom is a first grade teacher.) Even at
>around the junior high level, there is a much greater variety of books
>available to read, and books are generally considered the 'imagination
>starter' for kids.
Maybe it's not just the books, but how they get used. My sister used
to read to me from when I was less than a year old and had me reading
books coherently on my own by two. Reading was a family experience.
I'd read to her, she'd read to me. As we got older and our target
books changed, we'd discuss and argue with each other and our parents
about stuff we'd read. Reading wasn't just a solitary experience; it
was a conversational one.
Ratspaw
<shado...@white-wolf.com> wrote:
>Hey, I'd be willing to subscribe to that theory. I know that I and my
>gamer friends all seem to have really great parents who've been
>supportive of our gaming habits (and careers).
weird habit to be tolerated at best and my father just never mentions
it. They never stopped me actively, though.
Mary K. Kuhner
>If it makes you feel better, when I was twenty-two I was in a gaming
>group with people who were moving up on things like driving and voting
>and also with people who above thirty by a not inconsiderable margin
>and we all got along without any problem. Our best GM's were one of
>the over-thirties and one of the under-twenties. Different people
>mature at different rates.
I don't see my brother's and my not being in the same game as a
maturity difference: more a difference of style, interests, and
social circle. (And a little familial embarrasment.)
The main point I'm trying to make is that it's dangerous to say
"such and such group doesn't game much" unless you know them well:
they may game plenty, but not in the same circles you do. Same
problem as in trying to estimate number of gamers from convention
attendance. I would never be noticed in such estimates, because I
only go to conventions to wargame anymore, never roleplay.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
John Kim
Bruce Tzu <bruce...@sff.net> wrote:
>Dave Nalle <gra...@ccsi.com> wrote:
>> This shouldn't be a surprise. Vision rarely comes from the so-called
>> leaders in an industry, and this is particularly true of gaming.
>
>Right. One simple benchmark is that there have been two big successes
>in gaming this decade - Vampire: The Masquerade and Magic: The
>Gathering. I have yet to meet _anyone_ who can plausibly claim to
>have predicted the success of both upon first hearing about or seeing
>them. As an industry, we have no real clue what works and what
>doesn't, just accumulated scraps of pragmatic lore and a fair amount
>of superstition.
Agreed. The original poster (Ragabash) suggested that
marketing was a matter of bringing RPG's out into the "mainstream",
as if the mainstream were actually homogenous and as if it were an
obvious thing what will appeal to the mainstream. The success
stories we have (V:tM and M:tG) don't correspond at all to the
advice he gives: such as computerization, liscensing, and
non-niche retailers.
By and large, I think that rather than trying for a
generic "mainstream", RPG's need to target specific niches.
I am doubtful at the prospect of making RPG's "trendy" by
tie-ins to computer games or popular liscenses. There are
undoubtably untapped markets out there, but simple answers
aren't going to tap them.
Adam Morse
(John Kim) wrote:
> Sakura <je...@schultz.io.com> wrote:
> >John Kim <jh...@cosmic.ps.uci.edu> wrote:
> >> AD&D runs $55 for the PH + DMG, which is almost certainly the
> >> top end of the scale. Other popular games include:
> >
> >Don't forget the Monstrous Manual or whatever they're calling it
> >these days. Or are there some monster/creature stats in the DMG?
>
> I'm not sure -- I haven't played AD&D for many years.
> However, since I didn't consider a bestiary supplement as a
> neccessary addition for any of the other games, it seemed wrong
> to consider it as neccessary for AD&D. It is perfectly possible
> to play AD&D without owning the Monstrous Compendium -- I
> certainly did so the last few times I played.
>
Actually...I think you only need the Player's Handbook. The DMG does not
have monster stats (first ed. did, but that's way OOP :) ). But if humans
on humans is good enough for you (or humans on elves and dwarves and even
orcs, if you call orcs' stats those of dirty humans :) ) I think the PHB
is sufficient; it certainly has most of the important rules (combat,
skills, advancement (although experience points are unexplained, but you
can get a sense of them by rifling through a copy of the MM in a store
without buying it)). I know that's how TSR designed Alternity (although I
haven't actually read the Alternity stuff) and I believe that's true for
modern AD&D as well, although it will require fudging some, and requires a
clever GM willing to spin game out on their own. Also, no setting in core
book. Also, if there are used book stores or yard sales in your area, you
can generally get all of the core AD&D books (1st ed., PHB, DMG, and MM)
for a total of about $5; there's a lot of copies floating around. I know
I've got several, since I tend to buy them if I can get them for under a
dollar; helps to have extra copies for when I'm gaming in groups where
several people don't.
Anyone else mourn the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia (ca. '92, maybe?)
Wonderful single volume RPG; complete rules, plenty of spells, tons of
monsters, tons of magic items, all under $30 in a quality book.
> -*-*-*-*-*-*-
> >
> >> As for _needing_ the Player's Guide to play WW games... I don't
> >> know what world you're living in, but I've played _Vampire_
> >> just fine without any player's guide. Complete character
> >> creation rules included with the core rulebook in every case.
I agree with this; I played and ran V:tM without getting the Player's
Guide, and it went just dandy. It was maybe less like WW's published
world, but that didn't bother me much. And although it feels more natural
to me to call it "Vampire: the Masquerade Companion" or some such, I think
that's mostly prejudice from previous games. The Player's Guide is chock
full of useful information.
Personal gripe about Vampire publishing (2nd ed...I haven't looked at the
new version: The Sabbat sourcebooks are packaged terribly for a GM who
wants Sabbat as villains/antagonists in a Camarilla campaign. You either
get both, at a heavy cost, or get only one, and are missing crucial info.
<shrug> oh well.
Adam Morse
pup...@niia.net
cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu (Jason Corley) wrote:
> Jeffrey Howard (arch...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
> : I do agree that these kids are not entering the track that will turn
> : them into RPG purchasers. But I don't believe that the industry can
> : directly affect that. If I were not already taught to enjoy subtle stories,
> : good characters, and mental challenges... in short, if I didn't have a
> : decent imagination, then I'd rather have a box that paints my adventure
> : in vibrant 3D graphics and 64-bit stereo surround sound on a big screen
> : TV, too.
> : I'm going to avoid the question of whether engendering such an
> : enjoyment of verbal stories is something innate to a person or part of
> : good parenting during childhood or whatever. (That path leads to patting
> : myself on the back because I play RPGs and therefore I'm special.) I don't
> : know what creates the preference for a tabletop story to a video game, and
it
> : doesn't really matter here. I do think it's safe to say that there's little
> : that the RPG industry can do with its present resources to shape the
> : preference, on a large scale, of children to set them towards fairy tales,
> : make-believe, and RPGs.
>
> Now that's an angle I hadn't thought of. Perhaps to some degree you have
> to -learn- to like tabletop RPGs. I consider myself to have only an
> average degree of imagination, intelligence and energy, so it can't be
> that 'kids today is just dumber'.
>
> But there's a problem with this - kids' books have improved dramatically
> since I was a child. (I know, my mom is a first grade teacher.) Even at
> around the junior high level, there is a much greater variety of books
> available to read, and books are generally considered the 'imagination
> starter' for kids.
>
> Do gamers just have better -parents- than non-gamers? ;-)
I don't know that I would say that gamers have better parents, but I wonder
if there is a greater percentage of parents that read to their children at a
young age among the gaming community. This sort of early development might
foster an enjoyment of participating in a (pardon the term) storytelling
experience. How about the rest of you? Did your parents read to you when
you where young, and do you feel that it influenced your role-playing later
on?
Thank you for your time,
Shawn
>
> ---
> "He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man,
> but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."
> -----Benjamin Franklin, 1783
> Jason D. "cor...@tau.lpl.arizona.edu" Corley isn't John Adams.
>
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
Jo Hart
cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu wrote:
>My parents were (and are) dead-set against gaming, but I think that only
encouraged me.
My parents were in favour of anything that kept my sisters and I quiet. If
you'd ever met all three of us together, you'd understand why this was :)
jo
Dag
>Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
>>
>> One thing that would improve the future of gaming is a breakdown of the
>> social taboo against mixed-age recreational groups of any kind. But
>
>Recently, one of the groups I regularly game in has managed to acquire two
>14 year olds. This is approximately half the age of the remainder of the
>group. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, although our styles do clash
>somewhat, it's not insurmountable.
My old game group there was one 16 year old and the rest of us were 19-20 and
you did notice a maturity drop which sometimes got in the way of the game.
I'm not saying that all 16 year olds are more immature than all 19 year olds,
but in this case it was so, and sometimes caused problems. So I think the more
important thing to worry about is that all the players have a constant maturity
level as opposed to age.
Dag
Dag
> I expect RPGs to continue as they have for the forseeable future -- a
>small fringe hobby which will never break through into the real
>mainstream, because it's far too demanding a hobby. Not that you
>necessarily have to be a superior person to play, but you DO have to
>devote a lot of time and effort to the game... and, as others have
>noted, unlike the computer games you have to get OTHER people to devote
>a lot of time and effort to it too... SIMULTANEOUSLY.
While I agree that RPG's will never break into the mainstream I do believe that
there are a bunch of new products out there that will help introduce RPGs to
new groups of people. One such game is Hogshead's new game, `The Adventures
of Baron Munchausen', which is one the most creative and fresh games I have
seen in a long time. For those of you who don't know the game here's a quick
summary.
Gather a bunch of friends together either at a pub or bring a crate of
beer/wine/whatever to someones house (the drinks are not mandatory, but add
to the game). One person starts by going something like "So Baron, tell me
about the time you defeated the entire French navy using only a small herring
and the queen of Englands hairpin", and then the person next to him has to
weave a story around the topic he's been giving (he can decline, but then he
has to buy a round of drinks).
Then as he tells the story other players can ask questions that the player can
chose to incorporate into his story, using simple system of wagers and betting.
The great thing about this game is that it includes all the aspects of
role-playing like story telling, thinking creatively, playing characters, and
so on, while avoiding everything that turns people off role-playing like
weirdly shaped dice, obscure tables and "roll 2d10 plus base Dex modifier,
against table 7c....". And considering the book contains something like 30
pages and costs well under $10, it could make a great intro game to recruit new
role-players.
Another game that I would be consider great for introducing new players is
GURPS Discworld. I can think of a half dozen people I could talk into playing
Discworld, that would never be persuaded to play any other RPG.
So although role-playing will never be main stream, there are plenty of new
games coming out that have the potential to bring over a new set of gamers,
all of whom would never have considered the hobby when all there was was
killing Orks in Dungeons.
I think RPGs are here to stay
Dag
Sea Wasp
>
> On Thu, 21 Jan 1999 22:47:39 -0500, Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net> wrote:
>
> > I expect RPGs to continue as they have for the forseeable future -- a
> >small fringe hobby which will never break through into the real
> >mainstream, because it's far too demanding a hobby. Not that you
> >necessarily have to be a superior person to play, but you DO have to
> >devote a lot of time and effort to the game... and, as others have
> >noted, unlike the computer games you have to get OTHER people to devote
> >a lot of time and effort to it too... SIMULTANEOUSLY.
>
> While I agree that RPG's will never break into the mainstream I do believe that
> there are a bunch of new products out there that will help introduce RPGs to
> new groups of people. One such game is Hogshead's new game, `The Adventures
> of Baron Munchausen', which is one the most creative and fresh games I have
> seen in a long time. For those of you who don't know the game here's a quick
> summary.
>
> Gather a bunch of friends together either at a pub or bring a crate of
> beer/wine/whatever to someones house (the drinks are not mandatory, but add
> to the game).
If they're alcoholic, by definition they're going to detract. While
others have apparently had different experiences, *ALL* my experiences
with gamers who drank at any point immediately before or during a
roleplaying session was that they got stupider, louder, more annoying,
shorter attention spans, and in short became worse players.
One person starts by going something like "So Baron, tell me
> about the time you defeated the entire French navy using only a small herring
> and the queen of Englands hairpin", and then the person next to him has to
> weave a story around the topic he's been giving (he can decline, but then he
> has to buy a round of drinks).
> Then as he tells the story other players can ask questions that the player can
> chose to incorporate into his story, using simple system of wagers and betting.
> The great thing about this game is that it includes all the aspects of
> role-playing like story telling, thinking creatively, playing characters, and
> so on, while avoiding everything that turns people off role-playing like
> weirdly shaped dice, obscure tables and "roll 2d10 plus base Dex modifier,
> against table 7c....".
Odd, the fact that most RPGs *DID* give you a structure to work with
was what drew me into it. If I wanted to do a freeform tall-tale let's
pretend, why would I need a set of rules at all?
> Another game that I would be consider great for introducing new players is
> GURPS Discworld. I can think of a half dozen people I could talk into playing
> Discworld, that would never be persuaded to play any other RPG.
While I can't think of anyone in my immediate circle who even LIKES
Discworld. Discworld's a very British sort of thing; I find it
occasionally mildly amusing, but hardly something to draw anyone in.
Kenneth Close
> > >> top end of the scale. Other popular games include:
> > >
> > >Don't forget the Monstrous Manual or whatever they're calling it
> > >these days. Or are there some monster/creature stats in the DMG?
> >
That's why their CD-Rom is such a good Idea, you can pick up nine books for
$40. Too bad WW's CD didn't do as well.
Kacey
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kenneth "Kacey" Close ka...@unt.edu
I like photography, FRPG's and Oingo Boingo...
They're all on my web page ===> http://people.unt.edu/~kacey
William H. Stoddard
>
> I don't know that I would say that gamers have better parents, but I wonder
> if there is a greater percentage of parents that read to their children at a
> young age among the gaming community. This sort of early development might
> foster an enjoyment of participating in a (pardon the term) storytelling
> experience. How about the rest of you? Did your parents read to you when
> you where young, and do you feel that it influenced your role-playing later
> on?
>
myself to read when I was four. From then on I constantly had my nose in
a book, and my family had shelves and shelves full of books, including two
or three Oz books, the Jungle Book, and a children's reading book series
from the previous century (I think) called Journeys through Bookland that
had everything from Norse myth to an abridged Pickwick Papers. So I spent
a lot of my childhood quite spontaneously living in a world of the
imagination that I discovered for myself. Had Dungeons and Dragons
existed in the 1950s I would have been hooked for sure. Discovering The
Hobbit on school library shelves in sixth grade completed the process, I
think.
--
William H. Stoddard whs...@primenet.net
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.
(T. S. Eliot, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats")
Sakura
Adam Morse <ahm...@is5.nyu.edu> wrote:
>In article <7884k3$b...@news.service.uci.edu>, jh...@cosmic.ps.uci.edu
>(John Kim) wrote:
>> Sakura <je...@schultz.io.com> wrote:
>> >John Kim <jh...@cosmic.ps.uci.edu> wrote:
Piggybacking to reply to two people at once. Saves time with a slow
connection.
>> >> AD&D runs $55 for the PH + DMG, which is almost certainly the
>> >> top end of the scale. Other popular games include:
>> >
>> >Don't forget the Monstrous Manual or whatever they're calling it
>> >these days. Or are there some monster/creature stats in the DMG?
>>
>> I'm not sure -- I haven't played AD&D for many years.
>> However, since I didn't consider a bestiary supplement as a
>> neccessary addition for any of the other games, it seemed wrong
>> to consider it as neccessary for AD&D.
Well, note that most of the other games you mention have 'Bestiary'
sections in the rules - I know GURPS and the various WW books do, as does
Deadlands, Ars Magica, Castle Falkenstein, etc, etc.
>Actually...I think you only need the Player's Handbook. The DMG does not
>have monster stats (first ed. did, but that's way OOP :) ).
Ah...they seem to have reorganized - I honestly haven't looked at the 2nd
Ed PHB. I just know that for 1st Ed you definitely needed both PHB and
DMG to even think about starting. They put the combat rules in the PHB?
One point in TSR's favor I suppose.
>Anyone else mourn the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia (ca. '92, maybe?)
>Wonderful single volume RPG; complete rules, plenty of spells, tons of
>monsters, tons of magic items, all under $30 in a quality book.
I don't need to mourn it...I have a copy, bought for nostalgias sake since
my old D&D boxed sets had fallen apart. In many ways I think Basic D&D
was superior to AD&D...
>> >> As for _needing_ the Player's Guide to play WW games... I don't
>> >> know what world you're living in, but I've played _Vampire_
>> >> just fine without any player's guide. Complete character
>> >> creation rules included with the core rulebook in every case.
>
>I agree with this; I played and ran V:tM without getting the Player's
>Guide, and it went just dandy.
Explained in another post...to recap, the Players Guide is not the book
that a Vampire player would want to buy first, even though the title
implies that it is.
J
--
Hostes aliengeni me abduxerent. Jeff Johnston - je...@io.com
Qui annus est? http://www.io.com/~jeffj
Heather Grove
*sound of hysterical laughter*
okay, okay, I really shouldn't laugh that hard...I after
all do have one really good parent. She likes my rpg
writing, for goodness' sake. (I haven't spoken to the
other parent in almost two years, thank god; I don't think
he even knows where I live any more.) but I know
plenty of people involved in roleplaying who would have
some real issues with that question.
but then, I've noticed that lots of people at MIT seem
to have had bad parent experiences, so maybe I'm looking
at a biased sample. otoh, there also happen to be a *lot*
of roleplayers around here...
______________________________________________
heather grove
part-time freelance writer
part-time gourmet cook
part-time student
full-time secretary
Quotes Jon Milton on the walls in the victim's blood
The police are investigating at tremendous cost
In my house he wrote his "red right hand"
That, I'm told is from Paradise Lost [Nick Cave, Song of Joy]
Ethan Skemp
> : 1. Lack of future vision and leadership on the part of industry leaders
> : This is a bit broad, but still apt. Basically, the RPG industry leaders
> : spent more time looking at the bottom line than trying to promote the
> : industry as a whole, more time thinking about their profit margin than
> : working on creating a sustainable market.
> My understanding is that most CEO's of RPG companies spend so much
> time thinking about their profit margins because they are always riding the
> edge of actually having a profit margin.
Your understanding is correct. Go to any old-timer in the industry and
ask them about the long list of RPG publishers that have gone under or
been bought out. It's a *long* list. Loving what you do is great, but it
doesn't put food on the table. My wife and I both work in the industry,
and even with our dual-income, no-kids household, we live *comfortably*
at best.
> : 2. The relative failure of industry marketing to penetrate mass-market media
> : venues and thus diversify product offerings.
>
> : No matter what happens, until roleplaying games are offered at Toys R Us,
> : Wal-Mart, and Kmart, until your children can see an RPG on the shelf at the
> : supermarket, the industry as a whole is limited in scope. Do everything you
> : can to get into those venues. Be persistent.
>
> Here again, my understanding is that there is a problem with the
> economics of the situation. For example, the first time I saw a few White
> Wolf books in a B. Dalton (large chain bookstore), I was delighted. Of
> course, I asked the friend with me, "Why haven't RPG companies always
> done this? Sure, I've seen a few other things, like TSR supplements, from
> time to time, but why isn't there a whole shelf of RPG stuff?" That friend
> used to work for a publishing house, so he explained. It's more than just
> convincing the bookseller that it's worth the shelf space to stock those
> books.
> The hardest part isn't the persistence to break into those distribution
> channels. The hard part is that large book chain stores like that will
> order large numbers of books to stock on their shelves. However, when
> those books haven't sold for a while, they'll ship them back to the
> producing company and ask for a refunds-worth credit towards their next
> purchase of books.
Again, correct. Returns from those large chains do to an RPG publisher's
finances what the Assyrians did to their neighbors. Flaying, torturing,
beheading, that sort of thing.
> I don't know for certain whether other large chains of stores, such
> as KMart or Wal-Mart or Toys 'R' Us, for that matter, do the same thing,
> but it wouldn't surprise me.
I'd imagine they do. We got some of Rage into Toys 'R' Us, and that
wasn't what we'd hoped for.
> : 4. Poor quality standards in the areas of content, production, and consumer
> : value.
>
> : A problem throughout the industry is the uneven quality standards for
> : products. It is very well and good if you are going to remain in the kiddie
> : pool to keep producing an inconsistent product. But if you are going to go
> : into Wal-Mart and try to make it on the national stage, you are going to
> : have
>
> Hear hear! There is a lot of inconsistent (sometimes downright poor)
> quality in the RPG market.
Yeah, well, most of the writers capable of making a truly good
impression on outsiders can make a lot more money for a lot less effort.
The ones with talent who *do* decide to work in the industry often get
overloaded and burned out at alarming speed.
And don't get me started on the publishers who seem to think that good
art doesn't draw attention, or that the writing quality and production
values are insignificant next to the ideas presented. Yes, you need good
ideas for a game that has longevity. But nobody will ever see those
ideas if you make them labor to get the slightest hint of what's going
on.
Ethan Skemp
WWGS
Jason Corley
: Yes, you need good
: ideas for a game that has longevity. But nobody will ever see those
: ideas if you make them labor to get the slightest hint of what's going
: on.
: Ethan Skemp
: WWGS
I will not make ironic comments. I will not make ironic comments. I will
not make ironic comments. I will not make ironic comments. I will not
make ironic comments.
Dag
>Dag wrote:
>> Gather a bunch of friends together either at a pub or bring a crate of
>> beer/wine/whatever to someones house (the drinks are not mandatory, but add
>> to the game).
>
> If they're alcoholic, by definition they're going to detract. While
>others have apparently had different experiences, *ALL* my experiences
>with gamers who drank at any point immediately before or during a
>roleplaying session was that they got stupider, louder, more annoying,
>shorter attention spans, and in short became worse players.
There's a difference between drinking and getting drunk. But since the setting
of the game is a pub, actually being in a pub I'm sure would add an
interesting touch (I'll admit I've never tried playing in a pub yet). Just
a few glasses of wine or beer spread out over an evening shouldn't affect
anybodies ability to play. Sure seven pints in the space of a couple of hours
is bad, but 3 or 4 over an entire evening can't hurt.
<SNIP>
> to incorporate into his story, using simple system of wagers and betting.
>> The great thing about this game is that it includes all the aspects of
>> role-playing like story telling, thinking creatively, playing characters, and
>> so on, while avoiding everything that turns people off role-playing like
>> weirdly shaped dice, obscure tables and "roll 2d10 plus base Dex modifier,
>> against table 7c....".
>
> Odd, the fact that most RPGs *DID* give you a structure to work with
>was what drew me into it. If I wanted to do a freeform tall-tale let's
>pretend, why would I need a set of rules at all?
Fair enough. I wouldn't want to give up rules and structure either, but for
most people 350 page books of rules and tables are intimidating.
>
>> Another game that I would be consider great for introducing new players is
>> GURPS Discworld. I can think of a half dozen people I could talk into playing
>> Discworld, that would never be persuaded to play any other RPG.
>
> While I can't think of anyone in my immediate circle who even LIKES
>Discworld. Discworld's a very British sort of thing; I find it
>occasionally mildly amusing, but hardly something to draw anyone in.
Culture thing I guess? I guess you have to be brutish (or at least have a
British sense of humor) to `get' it. My point was only that I can think of
half a dozen people, that I know, who think Pratchet is the greatest and would
probably be at least curious enough to try a game based on and around the books
they love. I guess Pratchet has a bigger fan base her in Europe than in the
States.
Dag
pup...@niia.net
Ethan Skemp <alpha...@white-wolf.com> wrote:
> Jeffrey Howard wrote:
>
> Yeah, well, most of the writers capable of making a truly good
> impression on outsiders can make a lot more money for a lot less effort.
> The ones with talent who *do* decide to work in the industry often get
> overloaded and burned out at alarming speed.
>
> And don't get me started on the publishers who seem to think that good
> art doesn't draw attention, or that the writing quality and production
> ideas for a game that has longevity. But nobody will ever see those
> ideas if you make them labor to get the slightest hint of what's going
> on.
This is sad state of affairs. I can personally attest to the art and
production value of a book getting in the way of the content. I just simply
cannot enjoy the artwork of John Cobb, and too much of his work will ruin any
book that I might buy. If art didn't influence the readers, then why aren't
there any successful RPG without any artwork in them? The same thing goes
for production value and writing quality (I am usually quite satisfied with
WW in regards to these, but there have been a few instances). Basically, it
comes down to the fact that humans like pretty things.
I believe that someone earlier in this thread suggested a sort of corporate
cooperation among the RPG industry. Even though I can never see this
happening, I think it could be a start. What the big heads of these copanies
need to realize is that when one game becomes popular and brings new gamers
to the hobby, these people will almost always branch out from their first
game and at least try other games. Whatever is good for one game is usually
good for the entire industry (the exception of course being the Defiler Wyrm
commonly refered to as Magic: the Gathering).
So as it stands now, all any game company can do is try and produce a good
product, and focus more on expanding the fan base rather than competeing with
each other.
Viva la Josh Timbrook art,
Shawn
>
> Ethan Skemp
> WWGS
Rev. Keith Johnson
Dag wrote:
> While I agree that RPG's will never break into the mainstream I do believe that
> there are a bunch of new products out there that will help introduce RPGs to
> new groups of people. One such game is Hogshead's new game, `The Adventures
> of Baron Munchausen', which is one the most creative and fresh games I have
> seen in a long time. For those of you who don't know the game here's a quick
> summary.
>
> Gather a bunch of friends together either at a pub or bring a crate of
> beer/wine/whatever to someones house (the drinks are not mandatory, but add
> to the game). One person starts by going something like "So Baron, tell me
> about the time you defeated the entire French navy using only a small herring
> and the queen of Englands hairpin", and then the person next to him has to
> weave a story around the topic he's been giving (he can decline, but then he
> has to buy a round of drinks).
Honestly, I'd rather use "Once Upon A Time" by Atlas Games to introduce people to
the concept of spontaneous storytelling rather than what you said about "The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen".
Mind you, I am not a puritan when it comes to drinking, but I fail to see how a
drinking game is going to introduce RPGs to the mainstream. I realize the point of
this game isn't to get drunk, however I doubt that you will retain a high ratio of
new RPG players when you substitute the alcohol for dice, pencil and paper. Now, I
am sure that it will get a few players into the hobby, but CRPGs, MUDs and fantasy
novels (rpg or otherwise) probably have a higher success ratio.
When it comes to inducting new people into the hobby, marketing for RPGs is almost
always aimed at people already in it, and in media related to the hobby (like
magazines and internet sites). I doubt that even with the "corporate giant" WotC
showing M:tG tournaments on ESPN2 and running a few ads for M:tG, that it would be
enough to start an avalanche of new players.
From what I have seen, virtually every new player into the rpg world is introduced
by a friend who is already in it. While it's great to get your neighbor into the
game (whether it is through a drinking game, CRPG, Tolkein novel, ect..), word of
mouth just doesn't have the ability to spread the game like the mainstream media
could. RPG manufacturers don't have that kind of budget to get even .01% of the
world to notice it.
It's hard to admit, but Furbies have a bigger impact on people than rpgs do.
====================
Rev. Keith Johnson
kejo...@ucdavis.edu
Highway Star
On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 09:40:34 -0500, Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net> let
loose and wrote:
> If they're alcoholic, by definition they're going to detract. While
>others have apparently had different experiences, *ALL* my experiences
>with gamers who drank at any point immediately before or during a
>roleplaying session was that they got stupider, louder, more annoying,
>shorter attention spans, and in short became worse players.
I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with you on that one. In a number of
the games that I've played and run, some, if not all, of the players
have drank and it's never detracted from the game.
Of course, my friends drink responsibly. They don't get drunk, and
use the alcohol as much as a prop as anything. This includes:
In Vampire, having red wine...
In Deadlands, drinking at the bar...
Of course, in Dark Conspiracy we all just drank constantly, but we ran
it as a more "hack and slash" style game. That was also with some of
my (more redneck) friends that had never role-played before - the
first time we played, they were a little embarassed to get too much
into character until after a few beers, then had fun. The next time
we played they dove straight into it (without the beer).
SeanMike
--
SeanMike Whipkey - all kinds of various stuff here.
I don't speak for my employer unless I say otherwise.
What else do you need to know?
dbac...@ionet.net
nigh...@mit.edu (Heather Grove) wrote:
> > Do gamers just have better -parents- than non-gamers? ;-)
>
> *sound of hysterical laughter*
>
> okay, okay, I really shouldn't laugh that hard...I after
> all do have one really good parent. She likes my rpg
> writing, for goodness' sake. (I haven't spoken to the
> other parent in almost two years, thank god; I don't think
> he even knows where I live any more.) but I know
> plenty of people involved in roleplaying who would have
> some real issues with that question.
>
> but then, I've noticed that lots of people at MIT seem
> to have had bad parent experiences, so maybe I'm looking
> at a biased sample. otoh, there also happen to be a *lot*
> of roleplayers around here...
The bad individual parent thing seems to be more a function
of our times (and that is a multi-decade reference) to me.
I do agree that I have known a fair number of people who
had shitty parents (my perspective) who roleplay.
LSC SUCKS!
Donald
Sakura
Dag <f98...@dd.chalmers.se> wrote:
>On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 09:40:34 -0500, Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net> wrote:
>>Dag wrote:
>
>>> Gather a bunch of friends together either at a pub or bring a crate of
>>> beer/wine/whatever to someones house (the drinks are not mandatory, but add
>>> to the game).
>>
>
Of course, this distinction is lost on a lot of my fellow Americans.
Also remember that Europeans tend to have a higher tolerance for alcohol
than Americans, simply because they by and large start drinking earlier.
(They also seem to drink more responsibly overall, but this is all a
separate topic really.)
>Just
>a few glasses of wine or beer spread out over an evening shouldn't affect
>anybodies ability to play. Sure seven pints in the space of a couple of hours
>is bad, but 3 or 4 over an entire evening can't hurt.
Depends on the person doing the drinking, really, but you're right and the
point stands. Drinking to get drunk (or even to get a buzz) and RPGing
don't really mix. Drinking 'socially' and RPGing can...but that sort of
'social' drinking doesn't seem to occur much here in the US.
>> While I can't think of anyone in my immediate circle who even LIKES
>>Discworld. Discworld's a very British sort of thing; I find it
>>occasionally mildly amusing, but hardly something to draw anyone in.
>
>Culture thing I guess? I guess you have to be brutish (or at least have a
>British sense of humor) to `get' it.
I guess so. Of course, my sense of humor was warped early on by MPFC and
HHGTTG and later by Blackadder, Red Dwarf and the like. And Pratchett, of
course. This just reinforces my belief that Wasp is a very different kind
of gamer from me...
John R. Snead
: While I can't think of anyone in my immediate circle who even LIKES
: Discworld. Discworld's a very British sort of thing; I find it
: occasionally mildly amusing, but hardly something to draw anyone in.
I'm comforted to hear this. The same is true for me and the folks I hang out
with, most of us find it bafflingly unfunny. However, most commentary
I've seen is how hilarious it is.
-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
John R. Snead
: In article <7894h8$363$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, pup...@niia.net wrote:
: >
: > I don't know that I would say that gamers have better parents, but I wonder
: > if there is a greater percentage of parents that read to their children at a
: > young age among the gaming community. This sort of early development might
: > foster an enjoyment of participating in a (pardon the term) storytelling
: > experience. How about the rest of you? Did your parents read to you when
: > you where young, and do you feel that it influenced your role-playing later
: > on?
: >
: I was read to in early childhood, but equally critical was that I taught
: myself to read when I was four. From then on I constantly had my nose in
: a book, and my family had shelves and shelves full of books, including two
: or three Oz books, the Jungle Book, and a children's reading book series
: from the previous century (I think) called Journeys through Bookland that
: had everything from Norse myth to an abridged Pickwick Papers. So I spent
: a lot of my childhood quite spontaneously living in a world of the
: imagination that I discovered for myself. Had Dungeons and Dragons
: existed in the 1950s I would have been hooked for sure. Discovering The
: Hobbit on school library shelves in sixth grade completed the process, I
: think.
Yep, same here, except substitute the 1960s for 1950s, and Andre Norton's
_The Time Traders_ for The Hobbit, and it's the same story. Most gamers,
like most SF literary fans learned to read early and were incredibly (at
least by our culture's standards) bookish kids. Of course, this makes
sense, because almost all gamers I know are also SF/Fantasy fans.
I'm betting that as long as such people exist there will be a niche for
RPGs. However, unless such people become a whole lot more common, the
market isn't going to be growing by more than a factor of (my guess) 2-4x.
Btw, has anyone ever met a serious gamer who didn't read lots?
-John Snead jsn...@netcom.com
Brandon Blackmoor
>
> If they're alcoholic, by definition they're going to detract.
I think you are using the phrase "by definition" rather loosely.
More precisely: this has not been my experience.
BBlackmoor
John or Christine Thompson
We've got one in our group. Big science and math type, will read to get
information but rarely for the sheer enjoyment of a good book. He claims to
literally be able to count the books he's read for fun on his fingers alone.
John W. Thompson
Backstage at the Theatre of the Mind
http://www.galactic-ent.com/backstage
Over 250 Links, Amazon.com associate bookstore,
resources, reviews and stories for gamers, by gamers.
Steve Fu
Sea Wasp wrote:
> Dag wrote:
> >
> While others have apparently had different experiences, *ALL* my experiences
> with gamers who drank at any point immediately before or during a
> roleplaying session was that they got stupider, louder, more annoying,
> shorter attention spans, and in short became worse players.
>
It sounds like the gamers you've seen drink while playing either (A) can't hold their
liquor, or (B) don't know when they've had enough (this usually goes hand in hand with
point A).
There is always a 12-pack on hand when my friends show up on game night. There is also
usually a pizza involved. A few beers has never detracted from any game I've played in (it
ain't like a dart catching contest), but then everyone involved has such a high tolerance I
don't think five or six beers over two hours does anything but maintain their circulation.
Fu
Mike Harvey
> Anyone else mourn the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia (ca. '92, maybe?)
> Wonderful single volume RPG; complete rules, plenty of spells, tons of
> monsters, tons of magic items, all under $30 in a quality book.
(raises hand)
Yeah, I won't play AD&D anymore since I discovered this.
Mike
Steve Fu
Ratspaw wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 09:40:34 -0500, Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net>
> wrote:
> > While I can't think of anyone in my immediate circle who even LIKES
> >Discworld. Discworld's a very British sort of thing; I find it
> >occasionally mildly amusing, but hardly something to draw anyone in.
>
> How bizarre. All my friends like it and anyone I introduce to the
> series has four books within two weeks. His books sell remarkably
> well in the States for being unappealing to an American market...
>
> Ratspaw
>
> The humble rat stands as proof that survival of the
> fittest is about so much more than mere strength.
I've never heard of a game for Discworld, but I read the books and thought they
were pretty amusing. And I was introduced to them by another American, who
recommended them highly--Douglass Glass meets Piers Anthony.
Fu
Thomas Bagwell
>On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 09:40:34 -0500, Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net>
>wrote:
>> While I can't think of anyone in my immediate circle who even LIKES
>>Discworld. Discworld's a very British sort of thing; I find it
>>occasionally mildly amusing, but hardly something to draw anyone in.
>
>How bizarre. All my friends like it and anyone I introduce to the
>series has four books within two weeks. His books sell remarkably
>well in the States for being unappealing to an American market...
I thought the first couple were hilarious. As I kept reading them
though, I found them less and less amusing. Not sure why. I enjoy
the style of humor.
Tom B.
Amber, Dan, Dare, or Julie
>
> It's hard to admit, but Furbies have a bigger impact on people than rpgs do.
Now that just screams ideas, yes?
Probably not furbies themselves, but, say, the Gremlins people?...
- Dare, GURPSist extraordinaire and plenipotentiary
* All typos in the previous message are to be considered edicts of Eris.
Please update your dictionaries accordingly.
* Hi! I'm a .sig virus! Join the fun and copy me into yours! :)
* Spammers looking for addresses? Try these: jamey...@hotmail.com,
ja...@hotmail.com Spam me and get your address here today!
William H. Stoddard
Snead) wrote:
>
> Btw, has anyone ever met a serious gamer who didn't read lots?
>
fan, mildly dyslexic (to judge by his spelling), not much of a reader.
One day he told Greg Bear that Bear ought to watch his current favorite
television show--I misremember the title, it was something about a cop
whose partner was a robot car. Bear said sure, if he'd read a book Bear
picked as a trade. So he said Yes, and Bear said Finnegans Wake--which
apparently really is one of his favorite books, not just something he
picked out of sadism. I give the fellow credit: He actually got a copy
and struggled with it.
Mind you, personally I'd enjoy reading Finnegans Wake more than watching
almost any television show you can name, but such pleasures are not for
everyone.
William H. Stoddard
cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu wrote:
>
> Why don't we see a well-packaged mystery game out there that would allow you
> to play a cop in a police procedural, a stuffy English detective in an Agatha
> Christie-style novel or other sorts of mysteries, for example?
>
I've seen several boxed "Host a Mystery" games, which may address some of
the same motives. But I think the mechanics are quite different.
I've thought about how one would design a romance rpg; my first thought
would be to get rid of the dice--resolve tests of skill with cards in some
way, possibly structured like hands of whist. Rolling dice evokes either
serious gambling or wargaming--and if gambling, I think most dice games
are played more by men, which doesn't fit your target audience.
William H. Stoddard
>
> One thing about alcohol that most people don't realize is that it's no
> fun being around people who are drinking unless you are drinking, too.
> Since most people drink, most people have not had the experience of
> being surrounded by a bunch of drunks (and it only takes a few drinks
> for most people to get drunk ... maybe not slobbering, but definitely
> loud).
>
> People who drink definitely get loud. The stare a lot and want to
> shake hands a lot. Everything becomes "we". And that's not even
> mentioning the bad breath and body odor.
>
> And, of course, if you've been drinking, this all seems normal and
> natural. You don't even notice a change.
>
My God, an intelligent and cogent comment with no smart-assed phrasing. I
didn't even guess it was you until I saw the signature line. If this were
how your comments typically sounded I would never have proposed shunning
you.
As a lifelong nondrinker, I feel quite the same way. Alcohol makes people
stupid and extroverted. I like being smart and introverted--call it
ego-syntonic nerdhood--so I prefer to avoid environments where people are
drinking; I've never been able to enjoy them, and I really don't like the
idea that mild intoxication is necessary to having fun.
I had one player who would go through half a dozen beers during an
afternoon's game, and who was a stunningly good roleplayer. But he was
the exception. Most people who drink and game pay less attention to the
game and have their characters do stupider things.
William H. Stoddard
(Ratspaw) wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 22:04:27 -0700, whs...@primenet.com (William H.
> Stoddard) wrote:
> >One day he told Greg Bear that Bear ought to watch his current favorite
>
> Greg Bear as in "Eon" and "Eternity" Greg Bear? The author?
>
Yes, that's the one. He used to live in San Diego.
Ratspaw
wrote:
>I've never heard of a game for Discworld, but I read the books and thought they
>were pretty amusing. And I was introduced to them by another American, who
>recommended them highly--Douglass Glass meets Piers Anthony.
Except that, unlike Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett's stuff is
well-written. :)
Ratspaw
<tnba...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I thought the first couple were hilarious. As I kept reading them
>though, I found them less and less amusing. Not sure why. I enjoy
>the style of humor.
the books centering around Rincewind and the wizards, the Night Watch,
or Death. The three witches, on the other hand, leave me cold, but
those are my father's favorites. He says I don't appreciate them
because I never really knew my grandmother or her sisters.
Some of my personal favorites are Mort, Sourcery and Guards, Guards.
Give them a whirl and see what spins off.
The absolute best Discworld book is Small Gods, which is as insightful
an analysis of the problems of organized religion as I've ever seen.
It's one of my top three favorite books of all time.
cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu
> Yep, same here, except substitute the 1960s for 1950s, and Andre Norton's
> _The Time Traders_ for The Hobbit, and it's the same story. Most gamers,
> like most SF literary fans learned to read early and were incredibly (at
> least by our culture's standards) bookish kids. Of course, this makes
> sense, because almost all gamers I know are also SF/Fantasy fans.
Well, there's part of the problem right there in front of us. SF/fantasy fans
are a relatively small part of the book-reading population to begin with.
Could 'mainstream' gaming's limited genre choices have something to do with
what we're talking about?
Why don't we see a well-packaged mystery game out there that would allow you
to play a cop in a police procedural, a stuffy English detective in an Agatha
Christie-style novel or other sorts of mysteries, for example?
I think the romance-paperback crowd reads for different reasons, so the
analogy may not extend that far. On the other hand, if you want to talk
about escapism, they've got the sf crowd beat hands down. (Everyone file out
slowly and in an orderly fashion, and no smart comments.)
I also think there might be room for a bit more resurgence in wargames. A
well- placed WWII game might bring in some of the fans of 'Saving Private
Ryan' or 'The Thin Red Line'.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason D. "cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu" Corley - man of many news
servers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sea Wasp
> Also remember that Europeans tend to have a higher tolerance for alcohol
> than Americans, simply because they by and large start drinking earlier.
> (They also seem to drink more responsibly overall, but this is all a
> separate topic really.)
Maybe, but if true it's quite relevant. However, I've noticed changes
in behavior after a single drink.
> I guess so. Of course, my sense of humor was warped early on by MPFC and
> HHGTTG and later by Blackadder, Red Dwarf and the like. And Pratchett, of
> course. This just reinforces my belief that Wasp is a very different kind
> of gamer from me...
Or a very different reader/watcher of fiction, anyway. I found a few MP
skits amusing (Spanish Inquisition, Spam) but most of them boringly
pointless. HHGTTG was mildly funny; the sequels beat the same dead horse
into the ground.
Funniest movies I've ever seen were Danny Kaye's work -- especially The
Court Jester.
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
Sea Wasp
>
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 20:23:54 +0000, Steve Fu <pa...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
> >I've never heard of a game for Discworld, but I read the books and thought they
> >were pretty amusing. And I was introduced to them by another American, who
> >recommended them highly--Douglass Glass meets Piers Anthony.
>
> Except that, unlike Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett's stuff is
> well-written. :)
Actually, Anthony's quite a good writer. The fact that he uses that
skill to crank out repetitious trash doesn't change his skill. Read
"Macroscope" sometime and then weep over the loss.
Sea Wasp
>
> </LURK>
>
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 09:40:34 -0500, Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net> let
> loose and wrote:
> > If they're alcoholic, by definition they're going to detract. While
> >others have apparently had different experiences, *ALL* my experiences
> >with gamers who drank at any point immediately before or during a
> >roleplaying session was that they got stupider, louder, more annoying,
> >shorter attention spans, and in short became worse players.
>
You're welcome to be one of those who've had different experiences. In
mine, ONE drink is sufficient to subtly change a person's behavior.
This, of course, is exacerbated by the fact that the SMELL of alcoholic
beverages makes me quite ill. UGH!
Caleb Archer
> well-written. :)
>
>
> The humble rat stands as proof that survival of the
> fittest is about so much more than mere strength.
>
Blasphemer! You will retract thine heretical statement!
(I actually ran a game based on the "Adept" series. Quite
entertaining. And what about 'Total Recall' {not the shitty movie, the
book}, the Space Tyrant series, Through the Ice, The Shade of the Tree, and
the Mode series? I'll admit, the Xanth series has started to get a bit out
of hand {does anyone know the current count of Xanth books? I left off on
'Harpy Thyme'}.)
~Caleb (It all started with "A Spell For Chameleon"...)
--
Send mail to Hellslayerattheglobedotcom or Calebatfoxinternetdotnet
Sakura
>Sakura wrote:
>
>> Also remember that Europeans tend to have a higher tolerance for alcohol
>> than Americans, simply because they by and large start drinking earlier.
>> (They also seem to drink more responsibly overall, but this is all a
>> separate topic really.)
>
> Maybe, but if true it's quite relevant. However, I've noticed changes
>in behavior after a single drink.
Well, it was based on my experiences in London. Of course, I didn't do
any gaming over there, so...(shrug) Undoubtedly there are people who
change in behavior after a single drink - my girlfriend has exceptionally
low tolerance due to her hypoglycemia, for example - and it depends on how
quickly you drink, how much you've eaten recently, and even your mood...
>>This just reinforces my belief that Wasp is a very different kind
>> of gamer from me...
>
> Funniest movies I've ever seen were Danny Kaye's work -- especially The
>Court Jester.
OK...maybe not completely different. I do have to be in a certain mood to
watch a Danny Kaye film, because the pace is so different from modern
films, but the Court Jester and the Inspector General are both sitting on
my video shelf...
J
I will defeat you like that! <snap>
Ratspaw
Stoddard) wrote:
>One day he told Greg Bear that Bear ought to watch his current favorite
Greg Bear as in "Eon" and "Eternity" Greg Bear? The author?
Ratspaw
Ratspaw
<caleb@foxinternetdotnetbaby> wrote:
>> Except that, unlike Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett's stuff is
>> well-written. :)
"your".
> (I actually ran a game based on the "Adept" series. Quite
>entertaining. And what about 'Total Recall' {not the shitty movie, the
>book}, the Space Tyrant series, Through the Ice, The Shade of the Tree, and
>the Mode series? I'll admit, the Xanth series has started to get a bit out
>of hand {does anyone know the current count of Xanth books? I left off on
>'Harpy Thyme'}.)
The problem with Piers Anthony is that he gets a good idea and then he
beats it to death in countless repititions over and over again until
you don't even want to think about the idea any more, much less read
about it. The first three Adept books were OK. But they went on, and
on, and on, and on... Same goes for Xanth, and to some degree even
the Incarnations of Immortality. The first was the best by far,
picking up a bit again for War and Satan, but largely declining into
tripe the longer it went.
And his puns get old.
Jason Corley
: cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu wrote:
: >
: > Why don't we see a well-packaged mystery game out there that would allow you
: > to play a cop in a police procedural, a stuffy English detective in an Agatha
: > Christie-style novel or other sorts of mysteries, for example?
: >
: the same motives. But I think the mechanics are quite different.
Many of those are not exactly 'host a mystery' games in the sense that
you're LARPing. Generally you're just reading from either a script or a
bunch of facts that your character knows, and there's a tightly-scripted
denouement at the end.
--
"He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man,
but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."
-----Benjamin Franklin, 1783
Jason D. "cor...@tau.lpl.arizona.edu" Corley isn't John Adams.
Bruce Tzu
>Why don't we see a well-packaged mystery game out there that would allow you
>to play a cop in a police procedural, a stuffy English detective in an Agatha
>Christie-style novel or other sorts of mysteries, for example?
Because handling mystery plots in real-time is damnably difficult.
Writers of mystery novels, plays, TV shows, etc., have time to work
things out, rewrite scenes, and so on. Actors don't have to invent the
plot, just deliver their lines, while players actually do have to
perform the feats of deduction in the game. (Shoveling them the answers
at dramatic moments just doesn't feel very satisfying.)
>I also think there might be room for a bit more resurgence in wargames. A
>well- placed WWII game might bring in some of the fans of 'Saving Private
>Ryan' or 'The Thin Red Line'.
That's possible, though in practice very few gamers seem to want to be
subject to an effective chain of command.
--
<*> ICQ 27599289 <*> http://www.sff.net/people/bruce-baugh
"I know it's a dead horse, but it makes a neat sound when I thump it."
-- David Bolack
Thomas Cook
: Btw, has anyone ever met a serious gamer who didn't read lots?
Yup. Me. Books don't take questions and they don't notice when I frown
at what they say.
Thomas.
Irina Rempt
> Btw, has anyone ever met a serious gamer who didn't read lots?
Yes, one, but he's a math geek. I even had a hard time to get him to
read handouts when he joined my campaign.
Irina
--
ir...@rempt.xs4all.nl
http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/frontpage.html (English)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)
Ratspaw
Stoddard) wrote:
>> >One day he told Greg Bear that Bear ought to watch his current favorite
>> Greg Bear as in "Eon" and "Eternity" Greg Bear? The author?
Cool. He writes good, if usually depressing by the end, stuff. I
liked the Hammer of God particularly. That was his, right?
bo...@rempt.xs4all.nl
: In article <78blql$97u$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu wrote:
:
:>Why don't we see a well-packaged mystery game out there that would allow you
:>to play a cop in a police procedural, a stuffy English detective in an Agatha
:>Christie-style novel or other sorts of mysteries, for example?
:
: Because handling mystery plots in real-time is damnably difficult.
: Writers of mystery novels, plays, TV shows, etc., have time to work
: things out, rewrite scenes, and so on. Actors don't have to invent the
: plot, just deliver their lines, while players actually do have to
: perform the feats of deduction in the game. (Shoveling them the answers
: at dramatic moments just doesn't feel very satisfying.)
:
I think I must disagree - it's not damnably difficult. It's enjoyably
difficult. Most of my games are mysteries, and they tend to go down
well. You just need a handful of intelligent players, playing
intelligent characters, working together, and a really well prepared
GM. I'd even say it's my favourite genre, and when preparing sessions
I take my cues from van Gulik, Dorothy L. Sayers and Paul Harding.
I don't know why there isn't a published mystery rpg - to be honest,
I don't even know whether there's a published mystery rpg. Could be
interesting to design one, though. I wonder - would there still be
enough readers of classical mystery fiction to make for players groups?
There's a world of difference between a Marlowe thriller and a Dorothy
L. Sayers mystery.
--
Boudewijn Rempt | www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt
William H. Stoddard
(Ratspaw) wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 23:43:40 -0700, whs...@primenet.com (William H.
> Stoddard) wrote:
> >> >One day he told Greg Bear that Bear ought to watch his current favorite
> >> Greg Bear as in "Eon" and "Eternity" Greg Bear? The author?
> >Yes, that's the one. He used to live in San Diego.
>
> Cool. He writes good, if usually depressing by the end, stuff. I
> liked the Hammer of God particularly. That was his, right?
>
Doesn't sound familiar, but then I haven't read everything Bear's
written. Recent books of his include "Queen of Angels," "Heads," "Moving
Mars," and "Dinosaur Summer" (that last sounds like fun--a century after
the discovery of dinosaurs in South America, the last dinosaur circus's
specimens are being returned to the wild--think about the rpg campaign
that would make!).
Robin Pfeifer
>In article <787jm8$ntm$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
>robin_...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
>>I believe that, if you see the youth of today (meaning those under 20
>or so)
>>as the target group for role-playing games, you have to take into
>account
>>something I have observed: the average intelligence level compared to
>when I
>>was that age seems to decline rapidly.
>
>This is a problem of sampling. Several factors make it (IMHO) an invalid
>conclusion. In case anyone is wondering, I'm 33, and therefore not part
>of the targeted group.
>
>1. My generation isn't all that full of people who love the life of the
>mind either.
That's true. It's my generation as well. But there was still more potential
for brainlessness, and the youth of today is using it.
>2. But when I was in school, I could clump together with my like-minded
>peers. Generally we went off into the corners and stayed out of others'
>way.
Which is what they do today as well, although I wouldn't say like-*minded*,
rather like-addle-brained. Oh yes, I'm in cynical mode today.
>3. When you look into _any_ group from the outside, you first see the
>noisy ones. But they are seldom representative. Most religious believers
>are not the zealous, often hate-mongering, sorts that one runs into
>prostelytizing rudely. Most people with political convictions are not
>the fanatics who dominate partisan discourse. And so on and so forth.
Well, talking to teachers, witnessing classes (when I was still studying for
becoming a teacher), and seeing the pupils of my wife isn't exactly a
selective process. If I was reduced to witnessing the noisy ones only, you
would be right, but it isn't so.
Example: one teacher I spoke with is working in a school where the same
teacher sticks with his pupils from 5th to 10th grade. He has done several
full rotations. He said, whenever he finishes 10th grade he can throw away
all the stuff he did in that grade because the next batch of pupils will
never reach that point. So with every 6 years, one year of knowledge,
intelligence or whatever you want to call it seems lost.
The pupils my wife teaches don't seem to have the attention-span anymore to
even read the tasks they get. Another example: this class was asked to
calculate the price of 7 eggs and 3 apples and were given a table giving the
price of one apple, pear and egg each. Although most of them even copied the
whole text of the task (which they were expressly told not to do) some still
managed to just add up the three single prices. That's what you get in 4th
grade today.
>If anything, one can safely conclude that whatever it is the masses are
>up to, it's _not_ what the noisy ones who claim to speak for them all
>say.
While that might be true, I have come to believe that any group is only as
intelligent as its most stupid member. Look at organized religion for an
example (my, I really *am* cynical today). At least
that will keep us safe from the Bavarian Illuminati.
>In my high school of 700, there were perhaps a dozen or so gamers. As it
>happens, one of the high school close to me has about 900 students, and
>the local game store manager tells me that they have about two dozen
>regular customers from there, plus some who tend to go to other stores.
>
>Overall, gaming sales are down from their peak about 10-15 years ago.
>But then there are more alternatives available, and I wonder how many of
>us can say with a straight face that for sure we would as teens have
>preferred gaming in every case to the currently available alternatives.
>I, at least, would have loved some of the computer games now on the
>market, using the Internet, and so on.
We have the luck to be the generation that grew up alongside the development
of personal computers. We witnessed the development of game consoles,
pocket calculators, cable and satellite TV, the Internet and whatnot.
Today's kids are born into an ever faster changing world. I confess it may
be difficult to keep pace with the changes. Maybe we will eventually develop
to a race of beings without memory but infinite capacity for change because
memory becomes obsolete in the face of quickly changing facts.
I'd hate being without the Internet. But 99% of today's computer games only
frustrate me.
Robin Pfeifer
Robin Pfeifer
Mary K. Kuhner schrieb in Nachricht
<7883j3$102c$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu>...
>
>One thing that would improve the future of gaming is a breakdown of the
>social taboo against mixed-age recreational groups of any kind. But
>that would take a pretty major change in society, not just a little
>shift in marketing. At the moment you can have "family games" but adults
>are not encouraged to take those seriously: and kids seem to be actively
>discouraged from interacting outside their age group except with parents.
>Maybe the new wave of really good family boardgames coming out of Germany
>will help there. My household (me, husband, adult sister, adult brother,
>brother's girlfriend) has been doing a lot more gaming since we picked
>up "Bohnanza", and "Kill Dr. Lucky" also looks like being a hit.
Interestingly enough, the target group for these German games has changed
from people younger than twenty to people older than twenty. The kids here
in Germany don't seem to play board games at all if you look at
advertisements for games or the annual games fair at the city of Essen.
And from what I've seen these games are not played by families but by
friends of like age.
>Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Bruce Tzu
>: Because handling mystery plots in real-time is damnably difficult.
>I think I must disagree - it's not damnably difficult. It's enjoyably
>difficult.
That would make you part of the third gaming group I know of to say
that. I still know a lot more who've tried and found it not viable.
>well. You just need a handful of intelligent players, playing
>intelligent characters, working together, and a really well prepared
>GM.
I have been part of several such groups, and found things failing
miserably. I have myself never witnessed a successful genuine mystery
scenario, though I've seen your account, Bill Stoddard's, and one more
I'm not thinking of right now online. I also know that when the subject
has come up among game designers, I know several who've also taken part
in unsuccessful ventures and none whose group came away really satisfied
with the outcome.
The only universal truth in gaming is that somewhere, somebody out there
is busily refuting any generalization on can make. But I didn't
generalize lightly. I know a lot of folks who _like_ to see mystery
work, and developed my theory about why it doesn't work well for most
gamers only after looking at a lot of failed efforts.
Bruce Tzu
>>1. My generation isn't all that full of people who love the life of the
>>mind either.
>That's true. It's my generation as well. But there was still more potential
>for brainlessness, and the youth of today is using it.
Well, we've got conflicting perceptions. I'm willing to believe that
your experience is what it is, but I don't see sign on your part of
being prepared to acknowledge that other careful observers have drawn
other conclusions on the basis of their own experience. This makes
exchange relatively difficult.
>Well, talking to teachers, witnessing classes (when I was still studying for
>becoming a teacher), and seeing the pupils of my wife isn't exactly a
>selective process.
Actually, yes it is. There's a large body of data on (honest and
unintentional) selection biases among teachers. The widespread
phenomenon of teachers calling more often on boys than girls on
scientific and mathematical questions, and yet feeling themselves to
have been even-handed, is well-known. (Note that this is NOT an attack
on anyone's character or integrity. It's about the subconscious
processes that distort our perceptions.)
>While that might be true, I have come to believe that any group is only as
>intelligent as its most stupid member.
Which is one of the big problems with looking at groups. Gaming is,
always has been, and always will be a fringe hobby, which means we have
to look at the individuals on the margins.
In short, your analysis sounds to me more driven by burnout than by a
fair assessment. Having been there myself I'm sympathetic, but there are
times when one has to say "I'm not in a position to make this
generalization right now."
Oh, another factor that affects all fringe subcultures is that they tend
to cluster. You'll find have a dozen people into {whatever} at one
school because on person brought it in and became the nucleus of an
interest group. Other schools the same size may have nobody into it. In
addition to individual location variations, there are variations on the
scales of municipalities, counties, states, districts, countries, and
continents.
cor...@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu
bruce...@sff.net (Bruce Tzu) wrote:
> The only universal truth in gaming is that somewhere, somebody out there
> is busily refuting any generalization on can make. But I didn't
> generalize lightly. I know a lot of folks who _like_ to see mystery
> work, and developed my theory about why it doesn't work well for most
> gamers only after looking at a lot of failed efforts.
Another generalization that it might be of use to look at is what we mean by a
'mystery' game.
A Sherlock-Holmes style mystery of deduction-from-clues (sometimes wildly un-
obvious clues and connection) will definitely have the problem you raise
(players have to make the deductions, which can be frustrating for everyone
involved.) But those aren't the only sorts of mystery stories out there.
Agatha Christie and the 'oh-so-British' school of mystery writers that she
spawned generally write character-driven mysteries, where the story is more
about exploring a cast of set characters. (There are exceptions - some of her
work is more along the Sherlock-Holmes line.) The Miss Marple stories are a
marvelous example of this. Marple probably couldn't even -see- a clue if she
happened to be on the crime scene, but she never is. All she does is talk to
people (and occaisionally send a nice young person round to ask someone
something.) So then it's a matter of trying to figure out everyone's motives,
getting everyone together in the drawing room, and making the accusation.
Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason series turns the mystery story on its ear
- the crime is committed, the police have investigated, and alas, the long
arm of the law has fallen on Perry's client. Perry's job is to prove him
innocent, and generally this means searching around the things the police
missed. There's also a good deal of interviewing and (for Paul Drake),
following-folks- around.
I don't think Raymond Chandler mysteries are actually all that far from
gaming. We've had them all the way back to Superspies and Private Eyes.
Although I think the game that has (so far) best captured the Chandler idea
has to be the Janus Games stuff for Cyberpunk 2020. So I won't go into them
in too much detail.
The Ed McBain police procedural is yet another mystery-paradigm. The
characters in those books sometimes have anomalous physical evidence that they
have to figre out, but generally their job consists of a lot of legwork. In
some mystery games, it might be appropriate to skim over 'you question the
staff but find nothing', but not in a police procedural. Finding the nothing
is the important part. Sometimes you can get 3/4 of the way through a McBain
'thriller' and the police have completely run out of leads. It's great.
There are a lot more you could look at that I haven't been able to read
enough of to really tell the difference. Ellery Queen and Columbo empitomize
the 'wander around and poke at things until something happens' mystery,
though that can be frustrating. Grisham-esque lawyer thrillers might have
some common thread you could work into a game, but they're too much like work
for me to read now, so I don't have much to say about them.
Bruce Tzu
>Another generalization that it might be of use to look at is what we mean by a
>'mystery' game.
Certainly. I tend to think of that specifically in terms of deduction
and problem-solving. But there are related genres (it's all a tangled
blur of overlapping boundaries) that would be well-suited to gaming. On
the other hand, this is perhaps the time to invoke S. John Ross' list of
the five elements a successful game must have. Not, he claims, that a
_good_ game must have them, just that a game that's going to sell enough
copies to be worth printing must.
1. Groups
2. Conflict
3. Anarchy
4. Cliches
5. Magic
"Groups" refers to well-dineated social factions. "Anarchy" means that
in practical terms the PCs can act with a largely free hand. "Magic" can
encompass super-powers and the like.
Mystery games are likely to do very well with conflict and cliches, and
probably well with groups. Not so well with anarchy, and not at all well
with magic. Gaming just doesn't seem to draw very many people interested
in playing "mundanes", and there've been enough efforts at it that I
think it safe to say this isn't just for lack of trying.
Now, a guide to using mystery elements in other games would be handy.
Heck, I'll be writing a bit about that for the Trinity Storyteller's
Guide.
Stunt Borg
> Except that, unlike Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett's stuff is
> well-written. :)
Anthony has his truly outstanding works. It's just that he's
unfortunately prone to writing about things long after he's
thought of interesting new things about them (Xanth being *the*
example here).
Paul Lowe Hlavacek
would also point out such things as "Soul Music" to show
that Pratchett has his own less-than-great works
Stunt Borg
> While I can't think of anyone in my immediate circle who even
> LIKES Discworld. Discworld's a very British sort of thing; I
> find it occasionally mildly amusing, but hardly something to
> draw anyone in.
Strange. I got turned onto it rapidly, and from there the
book-collecting spread like mad among my friends. Plenty of Yanks
like subtle wit, and I wouldn't have a hard time selling a
Discworld game to my players if the mechanics fit the mood (the
fact that GURPS made it ... disturbs me ... I'll give it a chance,
but the GURPS Magic system does *not* dispose me well to the idea).
Seriously, though, Pratchett kicks. For me and many, at least.
Paul Lowe Hlavacek
wonders how anyone can fail to laugh out loud upon
reading of the Necrotelecomnicon and its entries on
Yob-Shodoth, the Bloated Star-Toad with a Thousand Young
Eric Tolle
> "John R. Snead" wrote:
>
> I'm 30, I've been role-playing in one form or another since I was 12, and I've
> listened to all the commentary on this thread. There are a few constants the RPG
> industry can count on (whether they use them or not is another story):
We can exchange "old fogie" stories later, but in my time I've seen
pretty much the same phenomenon.
> 1. Role-playing games were never mainstream. They will never be mainstream.
Yep-when you look at the people who have and are playing
RPGs, that's very evident. Mainstream people go to football
games, or the beach, or whatever _normal_ people do. ;') We're
freaks for sitting inside a stuffy room rolling dice on a nice day- or
at least that's what my mom still says after 19+ years. ;')
> 2. They are bought and devoured by an often fanatic (some would say rabid) niche of
> society who are of above average intelligence and possess a creative agility that
> most people either do not have or are too lazy to exercise.
I don't think it's creative agility so much as creativity oriented in a
certain way. I've known artists and writers, many heavily involved
in the fantasy/SF field who can't understand the appeal of RPGs. I
even know some storytellers who feel the same way.
Hmmmm....to be brutal (and over generalize massively), it may be
that many RPGers feel comfortable with an environment where
social interaction is done within a circumscribed and ritualized
environment. Given the number of RPGers who have trouble
expressing themselves socially, it may be that RPGs are a "safe"
place to express themselves.
> 3. The niche will invariably be there. There will always be another group of 11-16
> year-old kids who discover this stuff and decide its the best thing anyone ever
> thought of.
And this is the biggie: For the hobby to continue to flourish, there
has to be games out there that appeal to, that are _designed for_
11-16 year olds.
Currently the game that is most obviously designed for that
entrance market is (no surprise) AD&D. So it's no surprise that
AD&D is still, after 20+ years, the biggest seller in RPGs. AD&D has a huge advantage
in that it has both a concept and a system
that can be explained to a 12 year old. While it's more complex
then it's supporters usually claim, it's a complexity arranged in such
a way that a 12 year-old can digest it.
The tendency for most RPG manufacturers these days is to go
after an older demographic- late high school and college, and even
denigrate younger players. I personally like playing games that
were designed for adults, but I understand their limitations in
introducing younger players. I can't see explaining Hero system to
a 12-year old, or the background of Kult; the complex
background themes of Mage or Ars Magica will have elements
that will go over the head of a youngster. On the other hand,
AD&D has a concept that's easy to explain-"you create
fighters/mages/etc, go on adventures and kill things, collect
treasure and become more powerful".
Vampire has a few of the advantages of AD&D-though it's
targeted to a somewhat older minimum age, it has themes that can
be grasped by a teenaged reader of Ann Rice and Co., and a
readily recognized subject matter;. In fact, I'd say the "teenaged
power gamers" older Vampire players complain about is a sign of
the broad appeal of the game.
There have been fairly few attempts to go for the younger players.
WW tried for that market with the Streetfighter game, which was a
nice attempt but flawed in execution. Everway with it's simple
system could also have gone for the younger crowd-if It hadn't
gotten caught up in the Joseph Campbell nonsense. Star Wars is
one of the few examples of a game that's as easy to explain as
AD&D- with an even easier to grasp background. In the future,
the realm of adventure video games may have potential to bring in
young RPGers. Something based on Final Fantasy or Mortal
Combat may have promise.
--
Eric Tolle sch...@silcom.com
"Where would we all be today if the Pilgrims didn't care about
American History?" - "Abraham Lincoln", 'The new Adventures
of Abraham Lincoln'