Something to Actually Write About

It's been a long time since I've posted on this blog. In that time, blogs have fallen out of favor and I seriously doubt anyone will even read this. I'm doing it as a bit of capstone inspired by reading an old post of mine.

First, a bit of catchup before I talk about what inspired this post...

While I've still been playing RPGs in my own personal groups, I've had nothing to say about them publicly. The social discourse had descended to a level that I found unbearable then, and it's only worsened as time as passed. 

Beyond that issue (would could on its own had been ignored), game design had stagnated around D&D and its offshoots with things like story game designs and reworks of other systems swimming around in the shadows mostly unnoticed. There just wasn't anything of interest.

That too has gotten worse, the last time I visited the local mega hobby store I was told that basically anything not D&D wasn't selling at all although there is a collector's market of some type.

All that is in a way to be expected. I've reached that age where I'm an artifact of an effectively dead civilization. One that few even remember and certainly given their own tunnel vision, no reason to mourn. That happens to every generation. If they are lucky like the WWII generation, they may be respected for a period before they too are forgotten and/or despised.

To paraphrase Tolkien, 'Death is the gift of God to man'. I find an odd comfort and hope in that. This is not only the reality of the world, it's how it should be.

On to what inspired this post and from what I can foresee is the last thing I have to say on the subject of RPGs...

In 2009 I made this post answering set of questions about the future of gaming from RPG Blog Carnival. That article's link to those questions is now dead and the domain appears to be for sale.

Looking over my answers, I wasn't too far off base and feel I can take a victory lap given how completely wrong most such predictions are. How D&D has done over the last decade and a half I leave to others. I haven't been paying attention.

The one area I want to update is the question on how technology will become more integrated in RPGs. I was right for the "near future" given in the questions, but it is here that things have change. And it was this subject that stuck me as the right one to be the last gaming post on this blog.

In 2012, Roll20 came online. Together with first Ventrilo (2002) and then Discord (2015), this changed my gaming world. I could play with old gaming companions from my High Schools days no matter where everyone was located. While I would like in-person gaming better, that isn't as much of a option as it used to be. Plus the lack of travel time along with pre-game and post-game setup and clean-up is so nice.

But other than that, while some things were automated- the games were still the games I used to play. Tokens had replaced figures, and PNG maps had replaced sand tables. The die and some mechanics were automated to our taste- but all that was but surface changes. The real change was the lack of game food and in-person contact.

A bigger change hit a to significant degree this year with useful AI. Depending upon how this technology develops- we could see the end of GMs and Game Designers except for dinosaurs who want to do things the old way. 

It's nowhere near that now, and may in fact never get there. Every technology has limits to its development (notice how Moore's Law isn't a law anymore?) and I doubt this will be an exception. But I have no idea what that that limit will be. That's a question for others only be answered properly by the future.

In its current state, it leaves a lot to be desired. 

It's understanding of game mechanics is nearly non-existent. Ask it to generate a character, and it will break all sorts of rules giving you an illusion of a result. But a shallow and inefficient one for anyone who knows the system.

What it is capable of is adventure ideas and to a surprising extent artwork. If one is willing to spend too much time fine-tuning your questions, it can do rather well. But it's still at the level IMO of generating a concept best left to a real GM to fill out.

It's best feature to me is the ability to generate names and ideas for character backgrounds and appearance, something I've never been good at. Now in seconds I can get as big of a list of suitable names as I want to pick and select though.

For now, it's a great time saver for a GM. Doing some low level work so he's free to do more important things. My sons use it all the time, I use it for artwork, names, and little else.

The promise for the future however is immense. Maybe it can over the next decade or two completely replace the GM, providing the game system and play style to match its users. Maybe one could have it house rule or create entire systems to taste.

And to take it even further, maybe it could translate all that into our personal video game replacing the gaming table and figures with full 3D graphics with coop play on the fly. Or even VR (although that technology also leaves much to improve on).

Maybe. Might even be likely. I'm not an expert in the field.

Would that be a good thing? I'd say no, the path of game design has been to reduce players to an ever more child like being with simple systems by-passing any requirements of balance and simulation. Having a computer do everything for you will just accelerate that. People would play these games, but they wouldn't *understand* these games.

But my opinion here means nothing. That's for the current generation and perhaps the next to deal with. 

Good luck, my last piece of advice is that reality will in time overtake everything. It seems overdue.

Growing the Hobby?

One of the blogs I follow is hosting the RPG Blog Carnival, with the subject of 'Growing the Hobby'. A timely subject when one hears of falling sales and hard times. People have been predicting doom for a while now, with even the former head of D&D claiming that the end of PnP RPG era is approaching.

Maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. Time will tell. I know I'll be playing them for a good while longer because nothing else does what they do for me.

Back to original question. Reduced to its basics, 'Growing the Hobby' means gaining new RPG players. While regaining older lapsed players add numbers to the current pool, its not new ground and does little for the long term. So, yes new players...

Not really a subject I care about much. Not when phrased that way.

Now I have introduced many new players to the hobby, but never considered it as anything beyond growing my own group. In fact, I'm rather certain it didn't grow the 'hobby' because I doubt they'll ever play in a campaign outside the ones we do ourselves.

Yes, we're that good. And yes, the play style we have is going out of fashion when viewed with respect to the hobby as a whole (if the current games being produced actually reflect that hobby). So much so on that last point that I really don't care of the 'hobby' dies, because it hasn't been supporting me for a while now anyway.

If I had a larger ego, I'd claim at this point that if the industry made games I'd like to use, the hobby would grow on its own. Beh, maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn't. I couldn't say either way.

I can say that all anyone who isn't one of the big gaming companies (and maybe that's only WotC, and maybe this is beyond even them) can do is grow one's own group. Anything more is wishful thinking. And the hobby's wishful thinking has brought us to where we currently are...

...given that track record, it may be best to work on those things we actually have our hands on.

RPG Blog Carnival: Thoughts on Steampunk

Seems Mad Brew Labs is hosting this month's RPG Blog Carnival. I must say these are fun in their own way, and its highly interesting to see all the various takes on a subject.

I've never been all that interested in Steampunk myself, this despite some great fondness for works like Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I know some may not view that a steampunk, but come on- it's a freakn' nuke sub 80 years before the first one was made. In the same way his lesser know work Master of the World counts in my mind as does some other classics of early sci-fi.

But I suppose that steampunk proper is more focused on the 'punk' than the era of steam. So it's something different after all. And this is something of a pity I think, as it wrecks the charm of the era and makes something strange and new like the Nautilus common and somewhat unremarkable.

Steampunk is also often ugly, which strikes me as very odd- for crafters of the classic steam era still often considered their work to be as much art as function.

All in all, these are likely the reasons I've never been drawn to steampunk as a rpg genre. The closest I've come is our Deadlands games where the Mad Scientist owns this style. It wasn't a natural fit for me however, and I found myself wishing it was less in your fact steam powered power fists and more Wild Wild West.

So I suppose in the end my view is that steampunk is overdone, overloud, and way too in your face for me, or perhaps it's just the joy I found in the classics that turn me away. A case of Verne and not Hensley.

I'm hoping to see some recommendation of what people consider the finest fiction that is steampunk. Maybe something will change my mind.

The Future of Roleplaying

I'll toss my two cents into this month's RPG Blog Carnival, a cute little thing where one answers a list of questions. Basically just hot air as we're not the movers and shakers, but here we go for what it's worth:

What games do you see emerging as the big players in the near future?

Same ones that have been the big players for the last 30 years. D&D, and some mix of those companies that have lived in its shadow for decades.

Oh there might be something new that comes along. But I wouldn't bet money on it- or I'd be publishing my own game line.


What companies should we be watching out for to release the next big product?

Next one for me will be HERO 6th edition, however 'big' here isn't good. I expect it to break the system and result in the downfall of that company. I hope someone good buys what's left.


How will technology become more integrated into roleplaying games?

I don't see anything significant on this front, i.e. nothing more than some growth of what we already have.

I don't play these games for their technology, and until technology can adapt as a fast as I can- it just can't keep up with me.


What industry writer do we need to be on the look out for?

Steve Long, for the evil to a classic system he's about to do.


What blogs do you see exploding into becoming the next big thing?

No idea really. Whatever one it is, it will likely be D&D focused for that's where the readers are. Imagine the Old School blogs will still do well- because they're still D&D focused.

This one will be barely noticed if noticed at all, just like it is now.


What do you see for the future of the industry?

Slow decline in sales and in number of players as game designers continue to lose touch with what people want in gaming.

My own games will continue on as they have.