I'm gonna babble now about a distinction as I see it. There are no "thematic vs. adventure" games; that's bullshit, an easy out.
There are "big games", in which a group sits the hell down, each with their own approach to the game, and the GM and the book, by means of practical experience, balance this shit out, finding a middle way that everyone can get down and boogey with. These games are typified not by page count, but by flexibility; the more approaches to 'what I get out of gaming' they can easily be tweaked to serve, the 'bigger' they are on this scale. D&D is a big game.
Big games take work to run, but everyone gets to use their chosen approach. If you'd rather adjust your approach than do the work, go the other way.
And there are "niche games", in which the group sits down, is informed of the approach and the playstyle that this games serves, and get down to playing right fucking quick. Again, it's not pagecount that typifies this kind of game; it's rigidity. My Life With Master is a very Niche game.
Niche games don't take much work, but you've probably got to adjust your approach to play one. If you'd rather do more work, and get more of what you're used to getting, go the other way.
This is a spectrum; there are games in the middle.
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With me so far? Great.
The most talked-about-online niche games all serve the same niche. They often get called "Forge" or "Indie" or what-have-you. But they aren't the only ones. Amber is a niche game that serves a Very Different Niche.
Niche games, on the whole, don't sell as well as big ones. But they have a longer tail. Amber was never the #1-played-game. It's also not going to die, will not go away; it's service to a niche has given it staying power.
That's my opinion. Yours?
Quote from: Levi KornelsenThat's my opinion. Yours?
I don't think longevity is really a niche / big issue -- big games can live a long time, niche games can die (I think you're more likely to see a niche game go out of print for purely economic reasons than, say, D&D).
Successful games will tend to stay in print.
I do think there is a dimension that matters: niche games are less likely to change. I doubt there will ever be a DiTV 2.0 (meaning a major release -- minor changes to existing systems, errata, etc. would be a 1.x release the way I'm talking).
Why: because the game tries to do so little that it's unlikely to ever need a major overhaul.
I fully believe we will someday see D&D 5.0.
Why? Because the game is much broader, more complex, and has many more points of contact with actual players -- more information exchange... more need for development and change.
Cheers,
-E.
Right. Sorry. I meant "longevity without change", and should have said so.
QuoteThat's my opinion. Yours?
I don´t see any new insight added, albeit your statements do describe reality. Only two new labels.
Quote from: SettembriniI don´t see any new insight added, albeit your statements do describe reality. Only two new labels.
I'm a little suprised you don't see it. See, I think that your 'thematic vs. adventure' games line doesn't -quite- work. And I've already explained why, but let me break it down:
The big games encompass a huge quanity of stuff, of playstyles. They game from wargaming, yes, but right now they're a melting pot of every damn thing there is. And that's cool. They aren't specifically 'adventure games" - that would be a niche, and the glory of big games is that you get to tweak them.
Rune would be a niche game that fits with the appelation "adventure game". It's niche is adventure. The games that you call "thematic games" are the residents of
the most crowded niche, that's all.
...Unless you count 'how to host a murder' games as a really fucked-up niche that's pretty distant from the whole. Then they'd get the win for 'most crowded' niche.
See it?
I like "adventure" vs. "thematic" but with the caveat that I think of "adventure" as meaning either "like the seminal computer game, Adventure", or, somehow, "experiential"/"explorative".
Not to knock your niche vs. big thing, Levi.
I think that general-vs-focused games is a viable descriptor (adventure vs. thematic makes no sense to me). I think the longevity of a game comes first from utility--but secondly from a sense of identity-politics that one gets. Any game that gains this foothold will be around quite a while. It can apply to general games (D&D) or focused ones (DitV). I'm not aware of identity-politics associated with Amber (I don't personally know anyone who plays) so that could be a positive or negative data-point against my take on this.
-Marco
I dunno - Tos... that is, I mean, Forge games are really just adventures with a lite set of rules printed in the same book.
Its not a bad way of doing adventures, but you can't really use them for extended campaigns, cause you'd need another adventure.
Not a bad way of doing it really - instead of Masks of Nyarlathotep being an adventure, you could bundle in the three pages of Cthulhu rules, tweak them a bit and sell it as a core book.
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I mean, a while back I read an adventure for Mechwarrior that was about tricking your players in to running a extermination camp, ideally ending with them saying 'Ve Var Chust Follovink Ordas!'.
You could call that 'Shadows of the mind', add a page of rules and put it up for a Ronnie.
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I mean, its good because the adventures don't have to assume a standard party of adventurers, so the scenarios can be a bit more quirky, but on the other hand it makes them harder to use in your campaign without modification. And you have to keep buying rules, none of which are compatable.
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Damn - the sheer scale of the con job impresses me -
'How to sell an adventure hook for fifteen bucks'
Quote from: Marcoadventure vs. thematic makes no sense to me
Of course not, especially if you've ever read the couple hundred word (give or take) description that Settembrini gave for "adventure", which shows that:
1) he really does mean "adventure"
2) he is making up another one of his axis' that don't exist (AKA false dichotomy)
I'm not seeing the problem with adventure and thematic, that seems more fruitful to me to be honest.
I mean, is Paranoia a niche game? You play a certain kind of story with it after all.
Also, I think by this definition DnD and Tunnels and Trolls are both niche games, since both have a core play experience which you can launch right into. But any categorisation which puts Tunnels and Trolls and My Life with Master in the same category seems flawed to me.
If you feel better, Levi, call it like you just did. The fault-line we are talking about is basically the same. I´m no semantistician and really don´t care too much about it. The basic point remains the same.
Adventure Games aka Big Games use and assume a historically grown plethora of play techniques, modes of presentation and publication, as well as group setup.
Thematic games aka Niche Games don´t, for many reasons.
To try to talk about both, to try to judge both by the same standard is pointless. That´s really all I´m trying to say, and your new words don´t add to that.
Which is not a bad thing!
QuoteBut any categorisation which puts Tunnels and Trolls and My Life with Master in the same category seems flawed to me.
They're both games. ;)
I think it has less to do with being big, small, popular, niche, adventure, horror, etc. and more to do with what you actually DO in the game, what the players get out of it, and how much appeal that has to various groups of people.
Quote from: BalbinusBut any categorisation which puts Tunnels and Trolls and My Life with Master in the same category seems flawed to me.
Our local library has
My Life with Master,
Dust Devils,
The Shadow of Yesterday and
The Mountain Witch cheerfully on the same shelf with
Call of Cthulhu,
Millennium's Edge and
Pendragon. I don't think anyone has ever complained about the arrangement.
Quote from: GrimGentOur local library has My Life with Master, Dust Devils, The Shadow of Yesterday and The Mountain Witch cheerfully on the same shelf with Call of Cthulhu, Millennium's Edge and Pendragon. I don't think anyone has ever complained about the arrangement.
You have a really awesome library. :)
Quote from: Levi KornelsenThe most talked-about-online niche games all serve the same niche. They often get called "Forge" or "Indie" or what-have-you. But they aren't the only ones. Amber is a niche game that serves a Very Different Niche.
Niche games, on the whole, don't sell as well as big ones. But they have a longer tail. Amber was never the #1-played-game. It's also not going to die, will not go away; it's service to a niche has given it staying power.
I think the big versus niche distinction is totally different from thematic vs adventure. As others have mentioned, there are many niche games over the history of RPGs like Tunnels & Trolls, Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, James Bond 007, or Feng Shui. D&D is much more of a niche game than something like GURPS, Hero, or the Pool.
On the other hand, I wouldn't put Amber as a niche game, or at least no more of one than another genre-specific game like Star Wars, D&D, or Vampire. Amber doesn't have a narrow formula for adventure -- and Amber games in play diverge radically. From my experiences at AmberCon NorthWest in particular, you get everything from Toon-like silliness, to Machiavellian competition, to involved melodrama.
QuoteD&D is much more of a niche game than something like GURPS, Hero, or the Pool.
:confused:
Sir, you are not talking about what Levi is talking about.
Quote from: jhkimI think the big versus niche distinction is totally different from thematic vs adventure. As others have mentioned, there are many niche games over the history of RPGs like Tunnels & Trolls, Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, James Bond 007, or Feng Shui. D&D is much more of a niche game than something like GURPS, Hero, or the Pool.
On the other hand, I wouldn't put Amber as a niche game, or at least no more of one than another genre-specific game like Star Wars, D&D, or Vampire. Amber doesn't have a narrow formula for adventure -- and Amber games in play diverge radically. From my experiences at AmberCon NorthWest in particular, you get everything from Toon-like silliness, to Machiavellian competition, to involved melodrama.
I think you're stretching here.
D&D as "niche" might apply if you mean "played as written in the core books, and ONLY those" - which is, uh, common, but not supremely so.
But Amber as "not niche" can only apply if you mean "played as people actually play it".
...Which way would you like it?
Quote from: Levi KornelsenI think you're stretching here.
D&D as "niche" might apply if you mean "played as written in the core books, and ONLY those" - which is, uh, common, but not supremely so.
But Amber as "not niche" can only apply if you mean "played as people actually play it".
...Which way would you like it?
Fair enough. I was stretching in different directions, but I wasn't trying to establish a consistent meaning. I was criticizing trying to use "niche" as an alternative for "thematic", by showing that the term "niche" can be validly used to apply to the opposite way you suggest (albeit with some stretching).
However, to back up my points...
If I go into a convention or simply a local game, say, and a game is described as "D&D3.5" with no mention of variants, alternate settings, or expansions used -- then I have a set of expectations about what will appear in it and how play will proceed. This is not just what the setting is, but what the adventure will involve, how play will proceed, and so forth.
(Conversely, a indie Forge-associated game can be highly diverged if you use someone's expansion or variant of it -- so I don't think that is a reasonable judge of the focus of a game.)
By comparison, Amber DRPG by the book is not narrowly a throne war game. It includes some competitive throne war advice, but there is a lot of other possibilities for adventure described in the book.
The point is, Amber and D&D are successful NOT because they are niche, but because they are GOOD.
Other games do not stand up to the test of time, not because they are "niche" but because they are not good.
Hell, look at Sorcerer. Its already gone utterly out of style. It doesn't help that Forge games are impulsed a lot by a kind of trend-setting/spotting of what's "hot" at the moment (as decided by a certain clique of Forge "experts"), but basically that game has been relegated to the dustbin of history already.
I mean, maybe there's someone somewhere who still runs it, but you could probably also say that about Synnabar or Cyborg Commando. At some point the "far end" of the bell curve stretches out to a miniscule infinity approaching zero, and you can effectively call a game "dead", regardless of whether or not you know a guy in Milwaukee who still plays it.
On the other hand, look at Amber. How many other games designed in 1986 were there that are just relics today, unplayed for the most part, abandoned? How many have come and gone since then?
You can't say that Amber's 20-year history of consistent success is caused simply by niche-filling. If it was that, some other game would have long since come along and tried to fill that niche. Hell, some of them did (nobilis, for example), and failed, and are already being forgotten.
So while being able to satisfy a niche effectively is certainly something that will help a game, its not the key to its longevity. Good design is the only key for that.
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