22 mai 2015
What’s the hardest part of running an RPG?
What’s the hardest part of running an RPG? It has to be the preparation. Unlike a board game, you can't just spontaneously decide to play—because someone has to have spent hours preparing an adventure first. Wanna run a game right now? If you haven't prepped, you're out of luck. Third time I get this in my mailbox. Sent by people who should know better (about RPG, not about my mailbox). Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk…(/me fighting the urge to rant)
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Please, do rant ;)
RépondreSupprimerYes, yes! Please. ;)
RépondreSupprimerIt does burn a little when you see a post about role-playing games and one sentence into it you realise they're actually saying D&D, duh! What do you mean, 'other rpgs'?
RépondreSupprimerOr they just suuuuuck at D&D
RépondreSupprimerGive me friends, beers, I'm pretty sure I can be playing with them Dungeon World within an hour (add another half an hour if they don't know the system, another half if they know nothing about RPGs).
RépondreSupprimerAnd I wouldn't be preparing anything during this time - they would prepare their characters. Somehow, we would be playing.
Within an hour ? 10 minutes from newbie to basic D&D. Tops. 15 if they fret over equipment.
RépondreSupprimerWho sends you emails from 1995 and what sort of technology do they use?
RépondreSupprimerWhat ails me the most is that this isn't ignorance. This is marketing. Through denying the existence of quite a number of excellent RPG.
RépondreSupprimerPierre M Bastien Wauthoz don't you think I've done enough ranting yesterday? (Still have the urge. Using one ranting urge to fight the other: what should I be ranting about.)
Eric Nieudan Monte Cook Games
RépondreSupprimerZak Smith
RépondreSupprimer1 hour to drink beer, choose playbooks, drink beer, create characters, drink beer, create Hx, drink beer and asking them "You're in a cave, there's a very loud noise behind you, 2 doors in front of you, and as the noise is getting closer, you believe it might be upon you in 10 minutes, what do you do?" while drinking a beer.
Pierre M you forgot restroom breaks.
RépondreSupprimerGherhartd Sildoenfein
RépondreSupprimerIndeed, that's why I really needed an hour!
Gherhartd Sildoenfein So they're claiming that their newish/generic system is the solution to a problem that never existed?
RépondreSupprimerMore precisely they claim that they've a "new" way to present adventures so that you can use them almost right away. Nice. But they try to slip past us the faulty premise that we need adventures and that nobody else worked on that before.
RépondreSupprimerEric Nieudan
RépondreSupprimerIf I may, this problem exists. Not for every one, not, obviously, for every game but it does. Apocalypse World, for instance, give the MC some homework to prepare fronts between session.
Pierre M Of course the problem exists for some people (and of course you may :)
RépondreSupprimerStill, they're not offering anything that couldn't be solved with a couple of random tables in 1981. And AW offers lots of tools that make prepping a 10-minute affair once you've mastered them.
Gherhartd Sildoenfein I'd be curious to look at their adventures though. Are they referring to one product in particular?
Cheers, I'll check it out.
RépondreSupprimerI'm reading the free preview and it's amazing!
RépondreSupprimerPierre M I agree, fronts can take a little time - but they are indeed the best answer to the "problem". Much better than "instant adventures", at least as far as I'm concerned.
RépondreSupprimerI'd rather spend 30 minutes creating characters and fronts than move pregenerated characters on a pregenerated map. Getting rid of the "impossible thing before breakfast" is worth the half hour. If most RPGs cannot be played right out of the "box", maybe that's because they are not meant to be. I don't think it's worth lamenting about, at least, especially not in the era of the "short and fun" character/world creation. (That said, I have nothing against table-based old school dungeon crawls, they can be fun too)
Old school dungeon crawls are a tried and true way to play with little to no prep. It's something that Monte seems to know, since that's basically what his 'new adventure format' is about.
RépondreSupprimerEric Nieudan Of course! I'd rather his adventure pack's blurb didn't pretend other RPGs force someone "to spend hours preparing an adventure", though ;) as you said, random tables from 1981 can generate cool adventures within minutes, without pregenerated characters or maps. But I'm sure it's a quality product, and to each his own!
RépondreSupprimerYou can decide by yourself with the preview PDF. It works as advertised, but there's nothing revolutionary in it. I'm sure it'll be of great use to novice GMs though.
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