Much of Fear is Found in the Unexpected

I was considering the nature of 'Horror' gaming, my own success with it (I've had players refuse to continue campaigns because they were in their words too frightening), the games of other successful GMs that I've played in, and the common advice given about them.

I've always found that common advice... stale and far less than useful. Why? Because that common advice is... well common. It's a known value and thus expected. As a 'horror' campaign progresses, it only becomes even more common and more expected. Thus they become more boring. And at least for me, fear is wrapped up in the unknown and not the known.

Let me give a example from my gaming experience.

I'm on record in many Internet exchanges as being a fan of tactical RPG gaming that include detailed battles. Indeed I've described my RPG campaigns as a individual war games linked by setting, story and role-play to provide meaning to the battles, and a method to explore their outcomes afterward.

A rather rare style these days, and given how different it is from dungeon crawls and such- likely it was always a rare style. As a result of this style, I use board and minis. Few things are normally hidden from my players.Unless I've switched to a Horror style event.

Then the maps and minis may disappear, leaving the players only with their impressions of my words. Or they may remain, but with highly constrained views, expanding only foot by foot and perception check by perception check. My rule of dice rolls always be in the open is suspended, and many of them now become hidden. While I normally never require rolls for typical actions (jump the fence on run, sure- spend 3" of your move please), suddenly I'm calling for agility checks for the same action.

For the players the world as they have known it, has in actual fact changed. Things they could count on, are now fuzzy and unknown. And there is something out there hunting them in the darkness.

It's a small thing. And added to other small things (different way of describing things, perhaps playing by candle light, etc) the result can be as intense as watching the best horror movie. I've had the most gung ho power gamer crawling away from any chance of battle hoping to reach that patch of light under the street lamp. Praying that someone, anyone, would arrive to help him.

For my style of gaming, at the end things switch back. Information is learned, understanding of the threat dawns. A course of action decided. Like the movie Predator, what begins as Horror typically ends up as Action. The map returns, things are resolved and the Hero is left standing (or not as the case may be).

I think it's the unexpected in this that impacts the players. Both during the 'Horror' part of the game, and then when that becomes expected- the switch back to the tactical 'heroic' style. Both styles are enhanced because they are at such contrast. If I normally used a simple non-tactical, map-less and fuzzy rule set, all that impact would be lost.


I don't run these types of games often. Indeed doing so would undermine their effectiveness. It's best to have an adventure go off like a sky rocket, then play a series of snap caps. At least for me.

It's enough to make me cynical

I was on a reading binge, and finished five books in the last week or so. Of these four were fiction. For any interested those four are: Origin, Breach, Beneath the Dark Ice, and Defiance. All were bad. I would have bet money that they weren't good upfront, but was hoping to steal an idea or two for gaming. In the end, I had almost nothing except for one concept from Defiance. I've lost a few hours from my life that I won't get back. Sigh.

To be honest, the Potboiler has been with us forever. But things seem a bit worse now. Self-Publishing has come to normal fiction as much as RPGs, and you can get stuff on the Kindle that no publisher would touch. I've now learned to watch out for these, although to be honest they aren't that much worse than the published stuff. But they are worse.

Here's my hints to any writers out there. It applies to GM's too as they are often in the same business. Making something rather common interesting to those reading or playing in it.

1. Interesting characters that hook the reader, that are believable, and that we can root for are key to anything. They can make the most redundant and unimpressive plots sparkle. Their absence will sink anything no matter how creative or otherwise well done.
2. Have those characters actually matter to the outcome unless your work is the darkest of horror. And really, this days the darkest of horror is so freakin' common that it should be avoided as the pointless exercise it is.

In one way, GMs should have a much easier time than writers. The players should take care of most of the first requirement although it helps to have a good NPC here and there. And really the second point is up to the players as well.

However the very control given to players is why GMs can run into trouble. Because they have to allow the players to achieve both items. Note- allow and is not the same as give. That balance is the most difficult thing in gaming. Here's hoping you find it.

Don't look now, but reality has changed...

…at least for some people who weren't all that strongly connected to it in the first place.

Oddly enough, I'm unchanged due to how the dates break- much like I was born and have remained emotionally 40 my entire life. The freakin' universe must alter itself to match me, not the other way around. If I ever get bored and decide to die, I imagine the resulting destruction of existence may cause you (the readers) problems. I suppose some would say that I should offer some sort of apology in advance, but really… it will be for the better.

In the meantime this means  I don't have to ditch the Pisces dust collector I have on my book shelf (the wife and I got a matched set of birth sign… statues I guess you could call them… back in the day. Sort like birthstones. Yes, it was a new couple thing). However it is now clear why hers was shortly destroyed by an act of the cosmos (i.e. knocked off the shelf by a cat, broke into a million pieces) while my remains intact to this day. She's now a Virgo and not a Libra and the error was being corrected before it could gather decades of dust and unbalance the world.

How does any of this relate to RPGs? Well, given that  Astrology is bunk- it doesn't. But it does parallel it in a way. For believers it's a world shift every bit as important as say the arrival of D&D 4th edition. I leave the proof to others, but I can't help but think the Astrology blogs and boards must look a lot like the RPGs one not that long ago with huge flame wars over the change and large groups of people holding fast to the old versions. I wonder what their OSR movement would look like...

Heck, I had the same issues when 6th Edition of HERO System comes out. Those with home grown systems experience the same thing when they make updates to the rules.

It seems fantasy systems, no matter their source and purpose are all similar in a way. Subject to being undone by the mere passage of time.

How the mighty have fallen- R. Dancey

The old saying about a broken clock being right twice a day finally worked for therpgsite, a forum that normally has very little of interest. But this week produced something of a gem, if by gem one is interested in how someone who once ran the hobby's flagship could go so wrong.

In this thread, Dancey repeats a contention he made some time back after leaving WotC. That RPGs as we know them are dead. MMORPGs are taking over, they have vast growth and are improving constantly. In contrast RPGs are a shrinking market.

At its core, there's nothing new here. Dancey see's sales figures and new technology and much like many before him thinks that grants him insights that never occurred to others. Like those who said TV would replace books... oh wait, books are still around and sell well enough to have made Amazon into a Internet power house. Well, maybe its cars and horses. That one did take a common item and reduce it to a niche (if a niche that people still spend a good amount of money on). But this isn't really the point I want to make.

The point is the rather strange justification he gives for believing this. He takes the WotC study on Gamer Segmentation and tries to mold it into matching his opinion. You see he thinks that two of the five player types are the ones leaving RPGs for MMORPGs because in his mind, it makes sense. He feels the goals of those two groups (Power Gamers and Character Actors) are better met by MMORPGs, and thus this is the major drive for the drop in the RPG market.

He's said this same thing before, but what makes this thread more interesting than before is a slip he makes on post #49.

The MMO was too embryonic for us to study it in 1999. I wish I had the money to repeat the survey today though...

In this one throw away comment Dancey admits something critical. He has no data that actually indicates this true. He's just making it up, much like anyone else online who is gazing into their crystal ball and telling us the future of the hobby.

Except that in so doing, he's asking us to change that hobby into something completely different. One that is based upon GNS and Story-Gaming offerings that don't support the missing player types at all.

In doing this, he runs counter to two very important findings from in the original study. From the link speaking of the Study:

In other words, even the players who enjoy a "Tactical Focus" still want to be challenged to use Strategic Thinking; likewise, even the Combat Focus player wants a Strong Character and Exciting Story.

And

We also found no additional segmentation based on what games people identified as their "favorite"; in other words, there are just as many Power Gamers as there are Storytellers who like Vampire, and just as many Thinkers as Character Acters who like D&D.

Both of these indicate that not only is Dancey acting without data, he's acting against what data he originally collected. Bad business, and worst science.

Why is he doing this? Beats me, I'm not a mind reader. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's more ego driven than anything. D&D is shrinking, MMORPGs are growing- and it would be cool to be the man who explains why and offers a vision for the future. If he's right, he's golden. If he fails, well he's no more forgotten than he is now is he?


But if he's making wild unfounded guesses, I can play the game too. I'd put money that a repeat of the study done today would produce the same results (if fewer gamers).

Why then the drop in the RPG market and the growth in MMORPGs? Here's my wild guess

1. The OGL weakened the primary RPG brand making it one of many.
2. The OGL to a significant extent prevented the original owner from driving new versions or its future (as old versions remain supported)
3. The 4th edition of D&D was poor design
4. Most RPGs are poor design
5. MMORPGs are quick and easy, and quick and easy wins out over a hobby hit by the above four factors
6. There would be a natural migration to MMORPGs from those who previously played RPGs due to common factors. These include the fact that RPG gamers have always consider the overhead high, many have lost their groups, etc. Switching to a MMORPG is just easier than dealing with those issues.
7. Just like more kids watch TV and movies than read books, more kids will be playing MMORPGs than RPGs. This should be expected.

None of this means RPGs will disappear completely, although it's possible that they may reach wargame levels of 'almost disappeared'. Or they may not. We still have books after all.

IMO, it will continue as a smaller hobby even unto the days of holodecks. Sort of like books (even if they're all on a Kindle).



 
So who's right? Me or Dancey?

The only way to tell is for the hobby to go whole hog for Dancey's suggestions. If it dies, then we know he was wrong.

Oh wait, Dancey's accounted for even this. He suggests that by 2020 (only ten years) MMORPGs will reach the point where they able to meet all RPG goals. So in the time it would take for his theory to kill gaming, it will have died anyway. So he can't be proven wrong if his idea is accepted.

In the end he's not offering a new vision or path- just something that can make him a few bucks before the whole things dies. And if it doesn't die, well he'll still make a few bucks on the side if enough people buy into his predictions.

How cute.

An outcome in the Swine Wars?

Zach has a post up about the Forge of all things, something that hasn't really been on the radar for a while. It seems that the site is revamping maybe shutting down. It's rather hard to tell as plain English was never in wide use by Edwards and it certainly isn't making an appearance now.

About all I could tell from Zach's link was that Edwards claims victory in his battle (whatever that was) and... ...some forum reorg ....plus an implied statement that it's not going to be around much longer. But those type of claims should always be taken with a grain of salt and believed only when the site actually disappears or stops updating.

There's been some blogging wasted on this non-event (including this post of course). For example this one, that says RPGPundit immediately claimed victory for himself. I swear, one of those two just has to be a sock puppet for the other or maybe they're twins split at birth.

But it does raise a briefly interesting question- who did win in Pundit's "Swine Wars"? In a small completely unimportant way, that can be answered no matter if the Forge is shutting down or not.

RPGPundit was the self-declared defender of traditional gaming, which for most of his rant time online meant D20, Ryan Dancey, and WotC. For him to win, those elements would have to be standing tall and Forge ideas must remain unnoticed. Let's see how that went shall we:

• WotC replaced D20 with 4th Edition D&D
• WotC replaced Dancey
• 4th Edition D&D was penned by Mearls
• Mearls openly stated that he agreed with at least some of the GNS Model
• 4th Edition D&D seems to show that GNS influenced design
• Dancey publically declared traditional gaming dead, and called GNS influenced 'story-gaming' the future of rpgs.

It doesn't look like RPGPundit's side did all that well did it? His game of choice corrupted, his industry hero flipping to the other side. Indeed, that Pundit's side looks more like Vichy France in 1942 than the US in 1945 to me.

If this be victory, defeat must be a real bitch.

Edward's crowing is a little better founded- but far from roses. Sure he can point to the above points, but he gets no real credit for it. Mearls isn't exactly singing his praises and didn't use anything like the full model. Meanwhile Dancey is no longer even a player in the table-top rpg world. Various people took parts of his ideas and ran with them- but the parts they took were only those he stole from rec.game.frp.advocacy in the first place. Now even most of those who praise parts (and only parts) of GNS, mock the man who wanted to own RPG Theory.

Finally burning out (which is everyone's right, indeed- everyone's future) , and basicially forgotten- Edwards is ready to slowly phase out his last connection to the rpg world. Like the UK after WWII, his empire is gone and his time as a overshadowing presence even on his own board a thing of the past.

If this be victory, defeat must be a real bitch.



It's almost difficult for me to decide which of the two which I pity more. Almost difficult because I'm not going to waste the effort- neither is worth the time. They are what they made themselves to be, which is smaller than they could have been.

In the end, they are nothing more than something to waste a blog entry on. For God only knows, it's difficult some days to come up with a subject.