Zachary is one of my daily reads, mostly because he's rather level headed for this hobby (it's certainly not because we like the same games). With this post however I was rather puzzled.
With D&D 4E at the top of the sales charts, and games like Shadowrun, HERO System, Dark Heresy and GURPS still highly represented on the game shelves- what sort of cool-aid has Zachary gotten into? The assertion that the gaming world is going Lite seems rather baseless from everything I see.
But Zachary isn't dumb, so what's going? Has Gencon really shifted towards Lite rules, are most of the events running things like FUDGE or FATE (i.e.... FUDGE + a house rule or two)? Or has he fallen into the trap of self-selecting data? He's going lite and thus hangs out with others going lite and therefore thinks everyone is going lite?
He likes reading this blog and perhaps will answer for himself. It should be interesting.
As I've said before, predicting the future of the hobby is difficult at best because it is a such a small hobby and thus subject to shifts from rather small sources. But I will go out on a rope and say one thing- if the future is Lite, the hobby will shrink to an even further degree of insignificance. When even the most basic MMORPG can provide a more detailed environment for gaming, when even the most inexperience gamer can match the published designs on first try, when gaming books ofter nothing but the endless repeating of the same lame advice and fluff- people who actually are interesting in playing an rpg will go elsewhere.
From an industry point of view- if the future is Lite, the future is DEAD.
Oh and one other comment about 'resolution lag'.
It doesn't exist for people who know their game system inside and out. I run the most complex systems in the hobby- and have the same limits on my time as Zachary. The difference is that I am still running the games I've been running for decades, I know them very well indeed. If however you're always chasing the latest thing- well you won't know it well and that brings 'resolution lag'.
So time is a problem- the solution isn't going with something so easy that time doesn't matter (because the game isn't taking any time, i.e. it's not doing anything). Rather the solution is focus and knowledge of what it is that you're doing in the first place.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
9 comments:
I recently introduced some new people to tabletop role-playing via classic D&D—who were all avid World of Warcraft players. One thing this confirmed for me is that MMORPG players understand that computer and tabletop RPGs are very different animals with very different strengths/weaknesses. The computer game can present visually immersive experiences and manage complex rules. Tabletop games have to get by on imagination and simpler rules yet have nigh no limit on scope or flexibility. Among other things.
In other words, what MMORPGs can do doesn’t have any impact on what they expect a tabletop game to do.
I don’t think that heavy or light determines whether there is anything new to be said. Endless repeating of the same heavy-weight stuff isn’t any better than endless repeating of the same light-weight stuff.
Perhaps going “lite” will kill the industry, but that doesn’t mean it will kill the hobby. I’m not convinced that this isn’t a hobby that is better off without an industry.
All that said, I don’t know if that is the way things are going or not. I only know that that is the way my gaming has been going since the mid-1990s. There was a point at which I did think I was going to stop buying new gaming stuff, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Hmmm. I don't think he said everything is going "lite", only that "lite" games have grown their presence (there are more "lite" games available and there are more people talking about them).
I agree. Bloggers and podcasters (myself included) are covering an ever-growing body of RPG products, switching and testing systems so they can be well-versed enough to provide comment and review.
In my group, we've dropped a lot of the newer systems in favor of more familiar systems we've played for decades -- namely GURPS and Hero. Both took a considerable investment to learn, but game pacing moves by at a nice clip.
I don't think that the future is Lite, but I think that there is becoming a larger market for Lite among gamers who are in their 30's, Professionals, Married, and have kids.
For me, I like to change up games, and I am not one who can play the same game year after year. Because of that, Like becomes appealing to me. Sure I have played more complex games in my current personal situation (2 kids, wife, career).
I don't think that rule complexity is the driving factor towards Lite games it is session prep. There is only a nominal difference in learning a Lite combat system vs a complex combat system. But if a complex game takes me 10 hr a week to prep, in part due to the complexity of creating NPC/Monsters, that becomes a factor. Most Lite games also have Lite prep, which is attractive to me.
I think that 4e tried to address this, for better or for worst, and I think that Mike Mearls did a decent job of this in Iron Heroes with the Villain classes.
The best of both worlds for me is the complex game that has a streamlined approach for creating NPC's and encounters, for a GM who does have limited time. I will invest the time to learn the rules, if the prep is going to be "Lite".
FWIW, my own move towards lighter systems wasn’t driven by a lack of time. It was because of what I observed in my group at the time. (Back when I still had lots of spare time.)
When we played a heavier system, there were times when all but two or three of us would become disengaged. When we played a lighter system, the whole group tended to stay engaged the whole time. Those of us who enjoyed the heavier systems seemed to enjoy the lighter systems just as much. If not more because it was more fun when everyone was engaged.
(Ironically, my current group is heavy on people who like heavier systems, so the effect of using a lighter system with them is less noticeable. Heavier systems can be a better fit for this group.)
Anyway...just another perspective on possible “whys” of any trend however big or small.
IMO you've got it backwards: MMORPGs do complicated better than 4E or any other system out there - they do it so well, in fact, that you hardly notice it - but they do a very bad job of replicating the experience of a rules lite game, which is a spontaneous, highly social, gonzo sort of mess with cheetos. And as Robert Fisher pointed out above, when you're dealing with newcomers, kids, old grognards coming back again or 20 or 30 somethings with less time to spend poring over rulebooks, the rules lite games offer serious advantages.
Hey now, we both like Rolemaster and MERP! :) And that AoH game by whatshisname...
Anyhow, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that's all there is out there. But I think rules-lite games continue to up their presence in the hobby. And I can understand why.
Personally, I still battle back and forth with rules-heavy vs. rules-lite. Support vs. time, detail vs. speed of play. The two are not mutually exclusive--I run a mean, quick game of Rolemaster--but there are some differences.
The thing with "resolution lag", I find, even if you and I are on it as GMs, our groups might not be. It only takes 1 or 2 people to introduce that lag to a game.
I've found that as systems become more complex, the outcomes become more predictable. Kinda like adding more dice to a roll; the more dice you have, the steeper the results curve becomes. The more variables you have, the more predictable the eventual outcome becomes.
Its the main reason I finally dropped my WoW subscription; between talents, gears, enchants, gems, glyphs, etc.; it got to the point where you could tell how an encounter or pvp match or whatever was going to end by just doing the math. Its like seeing the wizard behind the curtain, and it ruins the fun for me.
I think you have still have an incredibly versatile and complex game and still not have incredibly complex resolution mechanics. So, in that sense, I think there is a trend to move towards more "lite" systems.
Lots of good comments today, so much so that replying to them is worth a full blog post or two.
:)
Post a Comment