Changes in good old roleplaying?

[Enpeze]

My only true lament for the longevity of our hobby is that there are some games that have fallen by the wayside and we no longer find in the shops. I would love to be able to go and buy a copy of Ringworld and have it sat on my shelf. Or direct new players to purchase RQ2, IMHO the most complete RPG for the small number of pages in which it was contained. Still I guess that's what Ebay is for

Yep. God bless ebay. And the people which sell their rare roleplaying stuff at ebay. I have alot of old RQ/BRP from ebay.

Sometimes I thought about scanning it in to prevent it to be lost in time. and have the pleasure to read it still in 30 years too. (you know only digital data is REAL data at all)

[Enpeze]

I ran to the FLGS and purchased the gift set of the three core rulebooks for D&D 3.5.

You seem to be one of the younger gamers on the board, no? My first version of D&D has been the red box.

Nonetheless I am thankful that the answers here dont come solely from the generation 40+

Talislanta. WOW! So much setting, and yet so much freedom. Sechi's love for the world makes the reader love the world. He shows how vague detail can spark the mind. I ran it and my player, this time a very talented gamemaster I met while I lived in Japan, disliked how his magic was "too weak" and stubbornly pushed his magic into levels where Mishaps occured very often. This makes for a very un-fun game.

It looks like your GM has not been very sensible in those days.

Call of Cthulhu. The masterwork. My first games as a kid were AD&D 2nd Edition. Here were the stats I was so familiar with, and yet applied in a way that was so different. The game is a beautiful narrative system that places the power of the story squarely in the GM's hands (the Idea, Knowledge, and Luck rolls are powerful tools) and the slow spiral into insanity as characters explore the apathetic universe is breathtaking and entrenching. It's very hard to find players for this game where I am. d20 is really the only game and few players like failing and dying. Thanks to the path of games I've read I now find failure to be just as interesting as epic success, if not more so.

You are on an interesting and very good path I think.

My failures with Call of Cthulhu groups have been terrible. One player said he hated it because he didn't like failing. I looked at him oddly. What fun is a game where you can only win? This player was a fiercely competitive person and prone to sighing loudly when things did not go his way in-game and out-of-game. Another product of today's gaming.

I agree. I have a friend who has the same character trait as you described and I even if he asks me every half year or so, I dont let him participate in my games anymore.

Ugh. This kind of controlling, yet strangely controlled, gamer seems to be a product of the new kind of gaming.

This is my observation too. The modules of today seem overbalanced and "overdesigned" (sorry for the probably unsuitable term, but english is not my native tongue)

Sorry for the rant, but it felt good!

No prob. Feeling good is an excellent reason for posting here.

[Atgxtg]

It's the difference between a Short Story and a Series of Novels or a Film and a TV Series.

In a short story or film you have characters that are introduced, do something and then are thrown away. This is the equivalent to rolling up PCs for a one-off scenario. It's enjoyable and nobody much cares if the PC dies.

In a series of novels or a TV series you have characters that survive for several books/episodes, they develop and change and generally do not die. This is classic campaign play where PCs tend to survive for more than one scenario and players like to see them develop and add to the story.

Yes, that's it exactly.

[Atgxtg]

Maybe we should explain what "heroic" means in this. Or if non-heroic means that a character could get killed at every moment in the story or not. I think if you answer the question with "not" then the character is not non-heroic anymore. Its just a low skill hero in disguise.

That wasn't what I meant by the distinction. By heroic I was referring to the character's actions in the story. Many stories have normal people, or central characters who are less that noble. It's not really about if they can get killed or not. That is the thing, they really can't. It has to do with narrative structure. If you kill off the central character partway through the story, it derails the rest of the story. The loss of the main character can be dealt with in several ways, usually by promoting another character to central character status for the rest of the story. Other approaches are to use a non-linear story. An example would be in Pulp Fiction, where one of the characters gets killed in one scene, and they appears later in the movie n a story that is assumed to have taken place at an earlier time. That sort of solution is hard to implement in RPGs, and sort of makes it even hard to maintain suspension of disbelief. You can start a novel or movie with the main character's death and then go into a flashback, but the technique isn't very common in gaming.

I think it depends on the story and the flexibility of the GM/player if this happens. Additionally "story derailing" has a very broad spectrum of interpretation. Eg my interpretation of "story derailing" is that it is sometimes even necessary to play a story upside down and totally different from your plan in order to immerse players. I am always ready do this and change a plot for 180 degrees because of various cirucumstances (actions and ideas of the players, death of a PC or NPC etc.).

As a GM should be. THat is really a central point to a RPG. If we wanted to be spectators we could read a book, or watch a TV show or movie. It is the interactaive quality that makes RPGs appaelaing. The ability to do what yuo wouldn want to do (or what your character would want to do) rather than what action someone else has decied for the character that is fun.

But by story derailing, especially in terms of a long term, on-going story, I am talking about situation where adventures are tailored to the characters rather than just being something that characters are "plugged" into. For example, if a PC is out looking to find his long lost brother, that is an important campaign goal for that character. If that PCs dies, a lot of the interest in that particular storyline will die with him. Maybe some other PC could decide to take an interest, or find the brother to honor their deceased companion, but the whole stroy arc could just as easily be left unresolved. This can be a bit of a problem since the PCs are not only actors, but the audience as well. For instance, if Luke Skywalker got killed by the Wampa ice creature, the audience would still be interested in Darth Vader, even if the other characters don't have a personal motivation to go after him.

My experiences are different. Its not that I want somebody see dying, but I am a believer of dice rolling and destiny. Never fugding the dice is my credo. Fudging dice means railroading and this I absolutely hate. In your system the players are dealing the whole time with dangerous stuff and live dangerous lives but they should not suffer any consequences untill they approach some idealized final fight. (if this concept of final fight is always necessary is another can of worms) I would not call this a very realistic resolving of situations. Its sounds rather scripted.

Not really. Like I said earlier, it is a balancing act. I don't fudge, or have done so very infrequently. I've reversed a ruling a re fought a few battles when I felt the PCs weren't given a fair shake. For instance, one of my players was blind and sometimes he thought that he was at one part of the room instead of another, so I accommodated when he did something that seemed suicidal. But generally, I let the dice (and the PCs) fall where they may. As a GM I also do a lot of prep work to avoid that, though. If the PCs die every week then no one has fun. So I usually set the adventures up with a strong bias for the PCs. Everyone really does that. If it were 50-50 every fight, then 90% of campaigns wouldn't last 6 weeks.

Of course style and lethality varies by genre and game. I have run RQ and L5R campaigns where I literally wiped out half the group each week ("You can't fix stupid."). I've run Morrow Project and have generally wiped out over 95% of the PCs with only a single session being successful for the PCs. I've also run games like Marvel Superheroes where not a single PC was killed in the running of the adventures. Beaten senseless and buried under 40 tons of rubble, swallowed whole by a dinosaur or abducted by aliens, sure--but not killed.

But not too many, no?

THe key word being "too". That's subjective. You could have an exciting RPG game by having everyone wake up with amesnia and knowing nothing. Maybe even spending points on skills or rolling attributes during play.

I absolutely agree and this was one of the main points of my question in my first thread post. (the point "refusal to let a player die")

Well, I see two differernt issue here. One is simply providing variety buy coming up with something else to risk besides the character lives. That is good. If the players can get into something other that fighting and care for something you have tension and things can be exciting. There is nothing wrong with a high stakes poer game that won't lead to violence, or a contest of some sort. It is the challenge that is important. The stakes (the characters lives or not) are really only important for keeping the players interested. That why killing characters isn't fun, just a unpleasant duty that is required tomaintain the excitement of a campaign. But, if another meaninful contest is substituted for combat, that's fine.

On the other hand, some RPGs do go out of the way to make characters invulnerable, and that can be a bore. But then one of the biggest exmples of this is the most popular RPG out there. Not too many other games let you shrug off a .50 caliber bullet like D&D. At least not many that don't dress characters up in capes and tights.

Thanks. Now we are at one of the main reasons of the change. Cinema! I am convinced that gaming is for many people just a replacement for interactive movies/TV. It was different 25 years ago because movies/TV has been not so prominent in our brains because there were fewer shows. A good example of this is that every even slightly successful TV show, book and movie gets his own roleplaying game today. 1980 there was not much sign of this. The players didnt play "firefly", "buffy" or "Battlestar Galactica" immortal serial heroes. They didnt play anime heroes or Conan d20. They played generic characters in generic worlds like dwarfs, fighters in ravenloft or a traveller merc.

I disagree. I think film/cineman is the most noticeable expression, but really the concept comes from the narrative structure. Rpgs are probably inspired more by literary sources than TV Or cinema. We expect Conan, Aragorn, John Carter, King Arthur, and such characters to live through their adventures (most if not all) and for good to triumph over evil and feel cheated and surprised in they were to bite the dust on page 8. The film/TV tie in RPGs might demonstrate that, but the source goes back to older forms of story telling.

If Tarzan of the Apes had ended with the Apes bashing the baby's brains out against a tree in the first chapter, or Tarzan getting eaten by a lion during his "first adventure" the story does work. THe same feeling does accompany RPGs.

Keep in mind RPGs are not really a game/contest. It's a rigged game. It isn't about who wins and looses, but how they do so. Any GM can wipe out any character at any time. The GM holds all the cards.

[Trifletraxor]

PULP...

What is pulp? What makes a story pulp? :confused:

It's come up so often now I just gotta ask.

SGL.

[Atgxtg]

PULP...

What is pulp? What makes a story pulp? :confused:

It's come up so often now I just gotta ask.

SGL.

Pulp is a genre named after it's the "pulp" (newspaper grade) magazines that it was populized in. Characrer like the Shadow and Doc Savage started in the "pulps" and pulps were the ancestors of modern comics. Stories were generally considered low brow, and sensationalism was the norm.

You head about it a lot, because Pulps and RPGs cover a lot of the same ground. In fact, most of your early Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Western and Detective authors probably did work for the pulps. There is also a fairly strong tie to cinema, since the movie series often used pulp characters and story lines (and vice versa).

Pulp store is tended to be a bit fast and loose. In large part because of the demands to get enough material to fill out out the whole magazine , some of which came out weekly.

Generally if you like a fast, freewheeling style of play with action being more important that detail, you probably would find something of interest in pulps.

A lot of it (probably most) was crap, but there was some classic stuff that came out of the pulps too.

Hows that?

Oh, and I actually wasn't referring to pulp fiction, but to Pulp Fiction the movie. Specifically how John Travolta's character gets killed part way through the film, only to reappear later, as the film is a collection of segments rather than a single narrative.

BTW, Do you want to know about bondage covers?

[Sunwolfe]

Relativity and perspective. What are described as changes to roleplaying have a lot to do, IMHO, with the personal circumstances and experiences of the player doing the describing. What is a change to one is really only a matter of perception and subjective opportunity to another.

“Doesn’t that cloud look like a dolphin?”

“Naw, reminds me of the endoplasmic-reticulum of a capi-barra in heat.”

From my point of view roleplaying has changed most in how it is perceived by those who don’t play, the over all age of player, its bloody price tag and in the loss of its, and I use this term loosely here, innocence.

A little bit of history here. I’ve been blessed with low player turn over in the games I’ve been involved in and predominantly have only really played with two groups of about 12 peeps collectively, some of whom sat in on both groups. In the first group I was more of a player than a GM and there I cut my teeth on RPGs. We had a GM who intended from early on to get involved with the gaming industry (he eventfully hooked up with Pondsmith and Talsorian games for a time). He had a good paying job too and consequently whenever we played in his games we were treated to a buffet of different systems and different worlds: Gamma World, Travellor, Tunnels and Trolls, D&D, CoC, SB, Hawkmoon, The Fantasy Trip, Star Wars RPG (D6), Cyberpunk, Chivalry and Sorcery, The Empire of the Petal Throne, etc., etc. He’d see a movie or read a book and we’d be off and running, riding with Wee-Hawk for the Land of Scorch or assaulting a tavern with the Rolling Stones’ caricatures from the Rodney Matthews’ calendar. Usually the setting or system would last a session or three and then we’d be off on to something new. We called it “world for a day.” At the time we bitched about the turn over, but looking back on it now, I’m thankful he was so driven to try everything (at the time) that was available.

And there was a lot available. We’d haunt the local game store and the RPG section like my daughter tells me today’s goth-types haunt the manga section of the Barnes and Noble where she works—in a word “obsessively”. Each month we were rewarded with a new system, scenario or chapter in a setting…Columbia Games, Fantasy Games Unlimited, I.C.E., FASA, Games Workshop…weird little pocket games and other bizarreness. It seemed anybody with the gumption and two dollars to rub together was publishing, little companies popping up like mushrooms with dreams of giving TSR a run for its money with games that, though they may have had a limited shelf-life, were fun to try on for size.

And we’d try anything…remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle RPG, or Steve Jackson’s Kung Fu 2100, Metagaming’s MicroGames: TFT Melee, TFT Wizard and the solo modules Death Test 1 and 2. Ram Speed anyone? How ‘bout the obscure “Treasure of Unicorn Gold” that for a time entertained a young gaming community with the possibility of finding a “…unicorn…hidden somewhere in the U.S.A….” and a “…$10,000 cash prize from Metagaming…” for the lucky one who deciphered the clues in the module and actually found the damn thing! I never did hear what came of that contest or the one involving a solid silver dragon they’d hid earlier. You just don’t see that kinda, fly-by-the-seat-of-yer-pants, wacko publishing or such gimmicky eclectic offerings. Now, that being said, remember this was before the rise of the Internet as the force for RPG good, justice, equalization and porn that it is today! The phenomenon of the .pdf file had yet to make its advent in a big way, which is presently the way for any swingin’ dick to go who wants to see his name in lights—albeit if only in the light of the computer monitor.

Naw, what I’m talkin’ about is the three-dimensional, hold-in-your hands, it’s-got-a-cover…kinda thing. The supplement you know someone might have risked every cent they had to get published. These things ran the gambit in quality, some were crap and to make them even remotely playable you had to come up with house-rules and additional material or they were completely overwhelming, almost god-like in proportion: the first edition of The Temple of Elemental Evil comes to mind (30 years of RPGin’ and I’ve yet to get through the whole thing and fight the bosses at the end!).

“Back-in-the-day” the whole scene was so new…rough and raw…edgy. The RPG world was still trying to define itself and decide if its face was, in fact, DnD…or was it something else: Arduin, M.A.A.R. Barker’s Tekumel, live action role-playing, golden unicorns, mutant amphibians or Elric and his sword? Were we simply “pretend games” gone mad, pseudo medieval nostalgia gone 3D, a plague that would soon pass, or something else? Though there were systems and settings to be had (cue the music: The City State of the Dread Overlord/World Emperor…by Odin’s Bronzed Balls, I miss those fun, and sometimes goofy, Judges Guild supplements!), most of the DM/GMs had to roll their own and come up with unique settings, a reason I love the conversations happening here about what worlds peeps would like to see developed for play. The group I gamed with at home and at the convention created like that all the time. Thankfully, it seems that has changed little.

But at the time we were rebels; we were geeks; we were odd-balls; son and daughters of darkness, disenfranchised mutants who couldn’t attempt to kick a soccer ball without tripping and falling, flashing our monster manuals at little old ladies to see them blanch and turn in horror. We played all night for days at a stretch, slept in convention hall ways and shook our head in pity at those how forgot to hydrate and got “dungeon fever.” We were a major nose tweak to the conservative community and that was all icing on the cake. We were having a blast playing the latest and weirdest pretending to be Conan, Arthur or Beowulf, Captain Kirk, Buck Rodgers or Captain Nemo. Now…it’s all old hat to the world. I swear, when my kids (both in the class room and in my family) either find out I game or talk to someone about my hobby, it’s with a sense of pity, as if they feel sorry for me, like I’m some sort of over sized puppy who had his paw slammed in the door. “Ahhh you poor thing, you.” When did that happen?! When did Role Playing become old hat and pen and pencil RPGs old school?

Now, it’s seems, IMHO, as if the RPG-world is trying to understand if there is “anything else”? Almost as if it were collectively bored. I mean, no one can deny that there’s a plethora of choices out there that dwarfs anything available during the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, setting after setting, game after game, but it’s all so blasé. The term “Dungeons and Dragons” is almost an antiquated household word…common place. For cryin’ out loud William Shatner and Mr. T. are adverting WoW on TV! It seems that every Scifi movie or TV series spawns it’s own RPG (Stargate, Buffy), “…based on the ever popular D20 system…”, but nothing truly “new” is happening in the pen and paper market, not like long ago. I sometimes wonder how much of the market is fueled by those of us who love the sport, always have and always will. When we don’t or can’t play anymore…? I realize I’m excluding a massive sub-culture by not including computer/internet gaming in my observations and rather focusing on the true play-it-in-yer-heed RPGs—maybe that’s fodder for another thread.

Today it seems different. For the most part, the dust has settled and the present incarnation of the “big boys” rules the roost. The companies in power today didn’t even exist back then. I mean, damn, even the once-upon-a-time almighty TSR has gone the way of the doh-doh. We’re more “sophisticated” and demand more from an RPG—equal to, I suppose, the demands of the gaming industry on our wallet. The price tag on games today blows me away. Like an earlier posting alluded to, you gotta shell out the casheesh to break in a new RPG. I remember the DnD DM’s Guide, Player’s Book and Monster Manual costing a whopping $45.00 altogether…LOL! I priced the essential rules book for the latest version of the Star Wars RPG, $40.00 alone :eek:

The age demographic has changed too. Back in the day there were few if any, adult players save the closed cadre of mover-and-shaker game authors, Gygax and Hargrave types, dudes who’d converted from the military strategy games that inspired the likes of Chainmail or the odd ball teacher (like me now…lol). Most players were young, young, young. I think that’s changed a lot…hell, I bet the average age of posters on this forum is around 45…LOL!…and is indicative of a sizable, for the most part mellow, majority with more mature tastes…the very same who as young gamers were condemned by the religious right as “imps of Satan” . Personally I think that lends itself to more quality in what does come out on the market. Like I mentioned above, we’re more discriminating in our choices and what we’re willing burn up our time on. I want to look back at the time I spend gaming or creating for gaming and feel it was worth not hanging out with my wife, practicing my bagpipes, writing, or playing with my granddaughter for a few hours once every so many weeks (this is probably the reason I gave up playing WoW and have been glad for it ever since). I want to feel it was time well spent, so I’m a little more wary than I was before about what I buy (On my honor, I have never owned Daughters of Darkness!).

I think that’s why I’m so excited about DBRP. Since the heady times of “world for a day,” I’ve stayed pretty true to Chaosium games and BRP: Rune Quest III sans Glorantha, Stormbringer first edition (that should date me hardcore), treasured Ring World, etc. and it warms the cockles of my heart to hear their echo in Jason’s work. It lends itself to that mentality which after seeing a movie on the Sci Fi channel that tickles the imagination can quickly whip up a game in that milieu without the need for slick and over-priced supplements. It’s a return to those gritty, fly-by-the-set-of-yer-kilts days when it was world-for-a-day and memories for life.

[Simlasa]

RPGs have a lot in common with fiction.

If you WANT them to... otherwise no, they don't.

Not everyone plays RPGs to tell a 'story'... a lot of people play them for the immersive experience of being in a different place or time... sure, there's still a story to tell when you look back on it, but it's being written as it moves along without the overarching authorial care that goes into a written novel.

The hero, if there is one, might not be apparent until the end of the tale.

This whole idea of a roleplaying campaign telling some grand story with epic heros and memorable characterization is just one approach to it. It's not inherent to the game, it's a matter of taste.

That being said I've played in games that did all those things and had loads of fun... but to say a game group is in any way 'less' if it doesn't aim to carry that off... meh, I don't agree.

[TrippyHippy]

RPG books definitely getting fatter these days.

[Atgxtg]

If you WANT them to... otherwise no, they don't.

Not everyone plays RPGs to tell a 'story'... a lot of people play them for the immersive experience of being in a different place or time... sure, there's still a story to tell when you look back on it, but it's being written as it moves along without the overarching authorial care that goes into a written novel.

The hero, if there is one, might not be apparent until the end of the tale.

This whole idea of a roleplaying campaign telling some grand story with epic heros and memorable characterization is just one approach to it. It's not inherent to the game, it's a matter of taste.

That being said I've played in games that did all those things and had loads of fun... but to say a game group is in any way 'less' if it doesn't aim to carry that off... meh, I don't agree.

I never said that it has to be a grand story. THat is an misconception. It you look at a book, TV show or film around non heroric characters the same rules apply for the most part.

All the emements of a stroy are there. Generally they have to be. The immesnion experience not only involveds being someone else someplace else, but doing something interesting. You don't see CPA the Role playing Game on the shelf.

If the characters die off too fast, you can't accomplish much of anything. The overarching care is certainly there. It's called the GM. THe Gm's priamry job is to priovide challenges for the PCs to attempt to overcome (and to usually be successful in doing so). Adsvenutres are tailored towards the abilities of the characters.

Hoow often does a GM throw a 90% villian up against a group of starting characters. Fairly never. Why, because it would ruin things.

RPGs are not about win or lose they are about playing a role. Thats acting and that means a story. Maybe a partially free form story, but a story nonetheless.

There there is the problem of intergrating new characters into the old party. Changes in the balance of power that the GM needs to account for. It is really for the best if the PCs don't get killed.

That said. I consider the responsibility to avoid death to rest mostly on the shoulders of the players. If someone wants to hit the dragon tho "see what will happen" I don't have any sympathy for him,. Lots for the six other people who will probably get caught in the fray, but not for the stupid guy.

But really all of the narrative stuff is there, just under the guise of the GM.

I

[Simlasa]

I never said that it has to be a grand story. THat is an misconception. It you look at a book, TV show or film around non heroric characters the same rules apply for the most part.

I'm thinking of the recent film 'No Country For Old Men'... not a story with 'heroes', not a story that unfolds according to a 'heroic' scheme... mostly because of the focus. A few of the 'protagonists' die in that in ways that would seem to throw the story off kilter... but doesn't... unless you are locked into it being a certain sort of story... traditional, heroic... something.

If the characters die off too fast, you can't accomplish much of anything.

Well, I've never played in a game that had people being fed into a wood chipper one after another... the presence of real and present danger usually serves to make them act cautiously... which tends to reduce the likelihood of them dying in droves.

The overarching care is certainly there. It's called the GM. THe Gm's priamry job is to priovide challenges for the PCs to attempt to overcome (and to usually be successful in doing so). Adsvenutres are tailored towards the abilities of the characters.

Of course, but in the sense of it being 'literature' the GM doesn't (usually) try to guide the PCs along a carefully crafted dramatic storyline he/she has worked out... instead the story unfolds according to the actions/choices of the characters... both success and failure.

Some games, like COC, might require more upfront structure... to carry off that onion-skin of mystery... but from what I've seen/played... there is usually more than one solution and any particular failure may be a setback but nothing than can 'ruin' the game.

Especially with horror games... a total party kill and triumph of evil might very well be the correct outcome to capture the spirit of the genre.

RPGs are not about win or lose they are about playing a role. Thats acting and that means a story. Maybe a partially free form story, but a story nonetheless.

That's generally how I like to play, but I think a LOT of people play them in more of a 'win or lose' sort of way... more like a wargame... or a video game.

Even COC... much as I love it, is often less about character development and more about stopping the cultists... a definite win or lose situation.

But like I said... a story is going to come out of it, one way or another... failure is just as much a story as success is.

There there is the problem of intergrating new characters into the old party. Changes in the balance of power that the GM needs to account for. It is really for the best if the PCs don't get killed.

A new character can always be started with extra points/abilities if balance is really that big of a concern.

That said. I consider the responsibility to avoid death to rest mostly on the shoulders of the players. If someone wants to hit the dragon tho "see what will happen" I don't have any sympathy for him,. Lots for the six other people who will probably get caught in the fray, but not for the stupid guy.

Total agreement there... though if the guy has obviously been stupid up to that point I'd have to question why they continued to be around him... standing next to 'stupid' could be seen as a stupid action unto itself.

There are lots of real life consequences to hanging out with stupid, violent people.

But really all of the narrative stuff is there, just under the guise of the GM.

I'd agree... but 'narrative' of an RPG sort... not necessarily literature or film or video game... if I want to have great dramatic story with tight plotting and well defined characters I'll read a book... watch a film. If I want lots of cool action I'll play a video game...

An RPG should be able to exist as it's own form... without trying to reign in the conventions of some other medium. (I realize that's not what you were saying, I'm must babbling)

Really, I'm just trying to say that games that allow for character death, even absurd character death... are not better or worse than the purely cinematic kind where the hero is defined from the first and is obviously going to come to no real harm.

It's a matter of taste.

BRP allows for both sorts, and all shades in between... and I'm happy about that.

If I wanna play a Lensman game I can... if I want to play something nihilistic and deadly... I can do that too.

[RMS]

If you WANT them to... otherwise no, they don't.

Not everyone plays RPGs to tell a 'story'... a lot of people play them for the immersive experience of being in a different place or time... sure, there's still a story to tell when you look back on it, but it's being written as it moves along without the overarching authorial care that goes into a written novel.

The hero, if there is one, might not be apparent until the end of the tale.

This actually highlights something that I see as a change in RPGs over the years. In the early years, and to this day for me because I'm stuck in my ways, our character's stories were what happened to them during the game. We had some background, including families, some vague description of what experienced characters had done, etc. that could be summed up in a paragraph or two. (Well, in SB we didn't, and in fact characters didn't come up the NPC sheet until they'd survived an adventure or two due to the mortality rate. >:-> ) However, now I see a lot of people showing up with multipage backgrounds telling their character's story. I frequently feel like the character's entire story has already been told and there's nothing else interesting to explore with the character. While I appreciate the idea of some plot hooks from the players for their characters, it's easy to get overboard too.

I think this ties into the modern trend to put lots of 2nd rate fiction *fluff* into game books. I'd much prefer a good barebones set of rules with some good feel, direction to them. To me, RQ2 still hits exactly the right amount of setting for examples, feel, etc. without overwhelming me with it. (Despite being a huge Glorantha fan, it and the Young Kingdoms are the only premade worlds I've ever played in and much of them is my own invention. World creation is a lot of the fun for me, and that even seems like a bit of a lost art from what I've seen....though that may more that it was a necessity way back and isn't so much anymore.)

This whole idea of a roleplaying campaign telling some grand story with epic heros and memorable characterization is just one approach to it. It's not inherent to the game, it's a matter of taste.

To me, the real art/beauty of an RPG is when this happens in the face of the odds, without me pulling any punches, etc. I have a longterm RQ/Glorantha campaign that's achieved this and part of the greatness of it is that the players pulled this off without me scripting it. That makes a richer story in the end to my mind.

I actually agree with the OP about railroading to a large extent. Even the basic old dungeon crawl isn't a railroad. The players have free choice about which direction to go at each crossroads. The classic Caves of Chaos (Keep on the Borderlands) from BD&D is a perfect example. It's a location and the players can do anything they want here: negotiate with the one group, make allies with one side to fight others, attack everything in sight, wander around the wilderness and never even make it to the caves, etc. There's no overarching plot that the GM has to force the players along. Most of the early published adventures were locales, including most of the RQ ones, and were completely open to how players wanted to interact with them. The Griffin Mountain and Pavis & Big Rubble campaign packs were full of this, with the notable exception of The Cradle adventure, which was very railroady but at least was a ton of fun. I've never been a big CoC player, but my impression is that most of those adventures fit the railroad description a bit more because you have plot points that require something to happen at one and then move on to the next. In fact, anything with a longterm plot is going to be more of a railroad than aimlessly wandering around, meeting creatures, killing them for EP, and taking their stuff (for more EP!).

Another thing that has changed from what I've seen is the free wheeling take on RPGing. I fit there, but in the early days there really wasn't a lot of choice. OD&D, T&T, and other early RPGs pretty much required a very open, interpretive take on rulings. RQ2 was a very tight, complete system at the time, and yet we still took the path of "what the author's meant" (or at least should have meant) over "what the author's said". (Traveler may have been more complete at this point, but I didn't discover it until the 80s and have yet to do more than character creation with it for some reason.)

Note: I should note that I discovered RPGs first out of my friends and have run ~90% of the games I've ever participated in, so my impressions can certainly be due to my interpretations and then teaching other people I game with...a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, most of my impressions of how games have changed haven't come from playing with other people, but from reading online discussions...however, I have done a lot of that over the years since I've been interneting since the old days of usenet (pre-web) in the late 80s, early 90s.

[RMS]

I remember the DnD DM’s Guide, Player’s Book and Monster Manual costing a whopping $45.00 altogether…LOL! I priced the essential rules book for the latest version of the Star Wars RPG, $40.00 alone :eek:

I don't have precise numbers available, but I'm pretty sure that the price in real dollars of RPGs hasn't changed much over the years.

The age demographic has changed too. Back in the day there were few if any, adult players save the closed cadre of mover-and-shaker game authors, Gygax and Hargrave types, dudes who’d converted from the military strategy games that inspired the likes of Chainmail or the odd ball teacher (like me now…lol). Most players were young, young, young. I think that’s changed a lot…hell, I bet the average age of posters on this forum is around 45…LOL!…and is indicative of a sizable, for the most part mellow, majority with more mature tastes…

I'd guess that the RPG hobby has aged, if for no other reason than it's been around long enough to have people grow up with the hobbie and continue in it. However, I'd guess that most of this observation is due to the fact that we've all aged and the people we interact with has also aged so naturally the people we see at the gaming table are older...like us! Any game board dedicated to a 30+ year old anything, like the original RQ/BRP, is naturally going to have an older demongraphic [typo intentionally left] than a board dedicated to a newer something, like current D&D or White Wolf for instance. I just wonder how much of the changes in RPGs we see is due to the fact that we've aged, along with everyone around us, as opposed to actual changes across the board. It's an interesting question.

the very same who as young gamers were condemned by the religious right as “imps of Satan” .

Funny BRP related story, I've posted on the net a few times before: my extended family is pretty hardcore religious right and were completely sold on "D&D is evil" in the early 80s. In fact, my cousins weren't allowed to participate at all with me when they visited. (I didn't play anything when they were around since it wouldn't have been polite to exclude them.) Their mother, my aunt, once came into my room when some friends were over playing Stormbringer. We made magic costly by emphasizing all the costs going into each summoning, which typically included human sacrifices: nothing too gory or detail - just enough to emphasize the cost and inherent evilness of magic in the campaign world. Anyhow, she walks in while the characters are down at the local slave market purchasing slaves for said sacrifice. We all stop mid-description. She asks what we're doing. I tell here we're playing Stormbringer. She asks if that's D&D, and I tell her truthfully that I don't play D&D anymore (total "no levels or classes" snob at this point). She looks around, smiles, and says, "Well, thats ok...just so long as you aren't playing D&D." It's all we can do to keep from breaking out in laughter before she leaves the room.

[Ken]

I think that for me this point needs clearing up.......... Railroading.

Is railroading a facet of scenario construction/writing or is it a type of GMing style?

To me it's the latter. It probably comes from one of 2 sources, either an inept/inexperienced GM that does not know how to integrate the PC's actions into the narrative of his game or the fact that the GM is a power-gamer and is himself playing to 'win'.

I've got most of those d&d/Ad&d modules (in PDF) and to be honest they are railroading scenarios. (Even though I love 'The Village of Homlett'). How many times did we see the closed boxes of text that GMs were to read out to players to tell them what was happening? Yes, players had choice to roam the dungeon at will but only after they had virtually been delivered to the entrance by Fed-Ex. In fact, Expert d&d acknowledged that it was more difficult to let the players do what they wanted by roaming wilderness areas, which is why it was introduced later and only on hex-maps.

If role-playing isn't like fiction then it is just a single figure war-game with no narrative, only contextual background setting. If thats your thing fine, the hobby can cope with that because that was the embryonic form of role-playing that we know today anyway.

When I started Role-playing, I found RQ2 and CoC early on. These were the esystems that have led me down the path of the style of RPGing that I currently enjoy.

I dislike a scenario (and these are usually the published ones for obvious reasons) where everything is static unless interacted with by the PCs. Where the creatures operate in a limbo until 'spawned' by players. This is little more than power-gaming (or computer gaming) with a veneer of narrative painted over it. The PCs can see through this when badly implemented and therefore feel as though they are being manipulated, i.e railroaded.

For me scenario construction/writing is about filling in the world and a timeline where NPCs go about their own business and instigate their plans irrespective of PC involvement. IMO the trick for the GM is to somehow introduce to the PCs the hint that something is happening so that they 'feel' interested enough to get involved. The 'interactive story-telling' comes from the agendas of the PCs colliding with the agendas of the NPCs. To me this is what RPGing is about. The GM has to know the NPCs inside out so that the story can flow from players and GM in an interesting way that is bound by the coherent, consistent world that has been painted by the GM. (This why I would disagree that CoC scenarios are designed to railroad players, the cultists plans don't even incorporate the PCs usually and will happen anyway). In short a lot of responsibility lies on the GM so that he can interact with Player choice and not railroad them down a particular avenue.

I seriously think that if you remove story/narrative and in some sense character arc, (even if its just a check for experience) then you have got little more than a boardgame. And if you look at the evolution of boardgames over the past there are some that have begun to replicate the RPG character sheet /stat padding / item hording type of play.

This has been a bit of a rant but it does suggest to me that both styles of RPGing are alive and well for players and GMs. (Narrative/story lead/character arc against stat-padding/item hording/dungeon bashing). I think there is room for both in the hobby and all are welcome around the table, as long as, we get to articulate where we've come from and accept that other people can conduct their hobby in the way that they like.

So the differing opinions that I've found in this thread, well I think they are valid for their own style of play. If BRP is going to be a cross-genre RPG system with the best of them. Let's see deep-background books next to item-books and dungeon bash scenarios. I'd just like to see BRP be a real contender and battle it out with the other big boys in the market. (And it's true that is because I'm a fanboy that holds dear a system that I fell in love with 25 years ago).

Here's to taking my +20 vorpal magic broadsword and hitting Cthulhu in the hope I can decapitate him with it.

Ken.

(P.S. Sunwolfe, loved your post. Brought back memories of hanging about the gaming shop at 14 amazed by all these worlds that I could spend time in. I lament not getting SB 1st edition and just might seek it out so I can spend a bit of time frothing over it as I would have as a teenager).

[Trifletraxor]

That was a good one!

SGL.

[soltakss]

I've read scenarios where it says something like "at this point the party have defeated the bandits and ...." so it assumes a particular course of action. If that course of action is not carried out then the scenario is completely derailed.

It takes a lot of work to pick up some scenarios after that point. Most GMs should be able to do it, but it isn't always easy.

[BigJackBrass]

I've read scenarios where it says something like "at this point the party have defeated the bandits and ...." so it assumes a particular course of action. If that course of action is not carried out then the scenario is completely derailed.

In the mid-eighties Pacesetter put out several quite innovative RPGs aiming particularly at getting over the initial difficulties of learning to play and run role-playing games. CHILL is perhaps the best remembered and it included an adventure designed to be played before reading the rules! Naturally it led the GM by the hand and the players by the nose, but it was a great introduction... until the bit that basically said "Don't let the characters go upstairs yet!" No suggestions on how to stop them, you understand, just an instruction that they shouldn't go.

I certainly agree that we've seen a fair few changes in how games are presented and played, but I'm not sure that I'd say that things like an anime influence and heavy railroading are key points. As has already been mentioned the heavily scripted, linear adventure goes right back to the early days. What I personally miss is the idea that a 48 page rulebook gives you everything you need to get going... sometimes it's just a bit much to try to read an epic when you want to run a one off.

[Atgxtg]

I think the "anime influence" is really overstated. Most Anime RPGs are really just RPGs with Manga artwork. A few have special rules designed to reflect anime, but that's no different than a fantasy RPG having rules to reflect magic, a Sci-FI game having rules for space travel, or a superhero game having rules for lifting heavy objects.

It's not the anime per sey, but the genre that a particular anime is part of. Something like Gundam or Macross have a lot in comon with non-anime Sci-Fi shows and RPGs.

[Nightshade]

Maybe I played other D&D modules than you, but I remember modules like "adventures in the wilderness" or "dangerous island" (or whatever the names has been) in which you could go whereever you want in a generic country/island drawn on hex paper. (ok, only 6 directions to be honest) This I would call non-linear.

There were some of those, but for the most part they weren't really modules; they were effectively small setting books that just contained a few encounters and situations, and they were far and away the less common, especially from TSR.

My GMs in those days never fudged. They let you die with an evil grin.

That might be, but I saw plenty of early GMs who fudged like crazy; enough so that most of them would admit it outright if talked to, GM to GM.

[soltakss]

What were the individual scenarios like?

A module can be quite open and yet have very closed scenarios.

[RMS]

Is railroading a facet of scenario construction/writing or is it a type of GMing style?

To me it's either and/or both. A scenario can be written either way, or at least to facilitate either style of play easiest. A GM can take either scenario style and run it either way, but it takes more effort to run a scenario different than it was designed.

Yes, players had choice to roam the dungeon at will but only after they had virtually been delivered to the entrance by Fed-Ex. In fact, Expert d&d acknowledged that it was more difficult to let the players do what they wanted by roaming wilderness areas, which is why it was introduced later and only on hex-maps.

I see those as two separate issues. Yes, the written adventures frequently gave very little information on how to get the players involved, but once the adventure started it was pretty much freeform. (I'd note that tournament modules by their very nature are railroaded and many of the early modules were exactly that.) I also don't think the early adventures are exempt from railroading, as you note. I just think it got worse later.

I dislike a scenario (and these are usually the published ones for obvious reasons) where everything is static unless interacted with by the PCs. Where the creatures operate in a limbo until 'spawned' by players. This is little more than power-gaming (or computer gaming) with a veneer of narrative painted over it. The PCs can see through this when badly implemented and therefore feel as though they are being manipulated, i.e railroaded.

I agree completely. I never ran adventures that way, even if written that way. In fact, when I was young(er) I really pissed off a group of players once because after they pulled back to recharge, I had the inhabitants of the (prewritten) scenario set up defenses, hire help (from the treasure the PC's wanted), equip with the magic items in the treasure, etc. It just made sense to me. To me, this is a lot like the above. In the hands of the right GM, the scenario works perfectly fine, but if it was written explicitly to make the inhabitants active, rather than static, it'd be a better adventure and would take much less GM effort to run well.

To me, the world has always been a dynamic place that moves along with things happening, even if the PCs don't get involved. Of course, the PCs can make their mark on the world, but if they sit home, the rest of the world doesn't wait on them. If they choose one path, the other may still be there later, but it most likely has changed significantly. I'm pretty sure I'm considered a die-hard simulationist, so I'm more interested in running a coherent, "realistic" world for the character to react against. The story is what the players do in that world, but I don't stage things directly around them. That's up to them: I have been lucky to generally have very proactice players who seize the initiative and push for their own agendas in the world. (I'd like to thing my GMing encourages this, but I may have just been lucky.)

[Atgxtg]

I think we are mostly in agreement here. I never liked the old dungeons where the party would have a massive fight in a room, only to open the net door and surprise the (apparently) deaf monsters who had faired to notice all the clashing steal, shouts, and bloodcurdling screams of the battle.

So I'd say linear "pulled around by the nose" adventures are really a relic of the old days, not a new wrinkle. I think the problem is that as a certain RPG that is noted for linear adventures has had a resurgence, so has some aspects of that game that were better left in the dustbin.

That the linear module approach is the easiest to write and run has a lot to do with it's longevity. Especially when you consider that a large percentage of DMs don't write adventures but prefer to buy something pre-written.

[Nightshade]

I think we are mostly in agreement here. I never liked the old dungeons where the party would have a massive fight in a room, only to open the net door and surprise the (apparently) deaf monsters who had faired to notice all the clashing steal, shouts, and bloodcurdling screams of the battle.

So I'd say linear "pulled around by the nose" adventures are really a relic of the old days, not a new wrinkle. I think the problem is that as a certain RPG that is noted for linear adventures has had a resurgence, so has some aspects of that game that were better left in the dustbin.

That the linear module approach is the easiest to write and run has a lot to do with it's longevity. Especially when you consider that a large percentage of DMs don't write adventures but prefer to buy something pre-written.

I think blaming it on 3e is misplaced; different companies just tend to have different tendencies in this department, usually dictated by editorial policy. For example, when FASA was still around, almost every scenario they ever put out for Shadowrun was notoriously linear, and often seemed to expect results that weren't the likely ones given typical PC abilities to boot. At most I think some of the more story-oriented game systems may lull scenario writers into thinking that's appropriate there, when its not any more true there than it is with a typical hack-and-slash game.

[Shiba Homer]

Wrote some really interesting stuff.

I enjoyed reading this, you have even made me think about getting WH! Are we really sure this is the same people that do the miniatures thing, the mind boggles.

PS didn't seem like a rant to me.

Adrian

[Atgxtg]

I think blaming it on 3e is misplaced; different companies just tend to have different tendencies in this department, usually dictated by editorial policy. For example, when FASA was still around, almost every scenario they ever put out for Shadowrun was notoriously linear, and often seemed to expect results that weren't the likely ones given typical PC abilities to boot. At most I think some of the more story-oriented game systems may lull scenario writers into thinking that's appropriate there, when its not any more true there than it is with a typical hack-and-slash game.

I disagree. If you look at the trend to towards lead by the nose adventures, you will see that it goes hand in hand with certain games. I haven't seen many, if any D&D adventures that weren't linerar. Nothing by TSR, nor by WotC. FASA adventures for any of their RPGS were very linear, too.

Probably the majority of RPG sceanrios are.

Some companies did put notes about running things differently, but there were (and still) are the minority. But I don't see linear adventures as a change in "good old gaming", more like the resurgence of "bad old gaming".

I'll point the finger at D&D more that other RPGs because there is so much stuff out for it, and practically all of it is linear. If most of the D&D stuff is linerar then by default most adventures are linear.