Quote from: SettembriniThis needs a certain degre of reflection upon the medium television, and a certain amount of critical distance, too.
Not what I would call mainstream.

Well, I dunno.  People do tend to talk about their television.  Ya got your whole forum-community of Lost devotees, and all that, and Television Without Pity, and the constant water-cooler chatter about the latest developments in everyone's favorite reality-TV shows.  I think that thinking about television may be more common than you imagine.

I can say, from my own experience, that I have said "This is Primetime Adventures ... it helps you imagine your own television show ... what kind of TV show would you make?" to many people (probably well over a hundred now) and there has never been a single one who has not had an immediate answer ready.  Most people, in fact, have immensely intriguing answers right to hand, like they've already thought the matter over.

Quoteand the constant water-cooler chatter about the latest developments in everyone's favorite reality-TV shows. I think that thinking about television may be more common than you imagine.

For real?
People at work discussing TV shows?

I´m amazed.

I can attest to that--I remember some of my coworkers used to get pretty deep into it over NYPD Blue.

And (not work-related, but it does show similar interest) there are TV-related Usenet newsgroups devoted to single TV shows, as well as forums (like the TVWP forums) where people gossip over the characters, speculate on what will happen next, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watercooler_show

also see watercooler

I think, this is a north american phenomenon. Can´t imagine it happening here, except maybe for sports events.

Seinfeld was a big flop here, BTW.

Quote from: SettembriniI think, this is a north american phenomenon.

No, I think you were right the first time and it's an Anglo thing. It certainly happens here.

Quote from: droogNo, I think you were right the first time and it's an Anglo thing. It certainly happens here.

And in Britain, though to a lesser extent.

Quote from: BalbinusAnd in Britain, though to a lesser extent.

Very much the same here in Malaysia. This has nothing to do with the conversation at hand, but I'm glad that these TV conversations take place. One could make the argument that most of these shows are crap, but as a tool for bringing a whole lot of different ethnic types together (I'm talking about my country) it's invaluable. How constructive these conversations are remians to be seen, but I'm straying so far off topic, it ain't funny

Regards,
David R

I´ll believe all of you, but sat least here, reality is different.

I'm actually quite intrigued. A genuine cultural divide!

I definitely think so.

Maybe it´s a generation thing, TV has not been in every German home before the 70ies. Many people grew up without TV, and have different viewing habits.

Note to Matt Wilson: cancel German translation of PtA.

So what do Germans talk about at work? If you say politics and philosophy I'm going to cry.

QuoteNote to Matt Wilson: cancel German translation of PtA.

So what do Germans talk about at work? If you say politics and philosophy I'm going to cry.

I don´t know. PtA is really popular in the Thematic audience. As was InSpectres. The german market is starving for this stuff, I´m sure he can sell one or two thousand copies.
But he will not sell millions of copies to non gamers.

What do germans talk about at work?
Depends.
Mostly about work. A bit about private life, but that obviously depends. Sports. But most talk is about work and corporate decisions or politics. But actually, there is not much talking going on.

Quote from: BalbinusSo, rpgs about having adventures may be widely played, rpgs which are not about having adventures will at best have limited play.  If you design an rpg which is not about having adventures, you'd better have one of those alternative definitions of success in mind if you don't want to be disappointed.

Interesting hypothesis.

I basically agree -- but I see it as a percentage thing rather than an absolute: if your game's *not* about having adventures, take a -10 to your success roll. You might still get lucky, but odds are way against it.

A note about "success" -- I think there's probably a tier of commercial success below your initial criteria (thousands of groups regularly playing) but above the criteria you put forth later in the thread (a handful of groups beyond the author's).

While D&D and White Wolf are clearly the overwhelming winners in the RPG world, there are a second tier of success stories that are still *way* above most games that get considered "indie":

I'm thinking of Champions, GURPS (in its various mostly-adventure incarnations) and outliers that have already been mentioned like Call of Cthulhu.

In fact, I'd say Call of Cthulhu presents what I see as the most-interesting challenge to your hypothesis: unlike Vampire, which I think tended to get played as an adventure game, I'm familiar with a number of CoC games that ran "more like" horror stories than adventure stories.

I'm not claiming that the RPG-cliche of games always ending over-the-top violence isn't true (lots of Lovecraft stories end that way, or have elements of PC-like violence in them), but my experience and perception is that CoC offered a truly different model:

PC-as-investigator rather than PC-as-adventurer.

I think PC-as-agent has some legs too:

James Bond, various Cyberpunk games, and (honestly) a lot of D&D is more about carrying out a secret-agent-style infiltration mission or something like a hiest movie (usually with the witty, sophisticated plots you get in Ocean's X style movies, but still).

My take on *why* these kinds of stories work:

1) Everyone's on the same page: we're all "X", we're all a team, and we know what we're trying to accomplish

2) Conflict is built into the scenario but there's a huge amount of variety (I admit, however, that I get tired of raiding installations in agent-type games). This works for the serial-fiction nature of games, where you can play for a long time without the basic premise getting old

3) Within the basic structure (Adventurers / Investigators / Agents) there's a lot of flexibility to be different kinds of characters and ensemble fiction works pretty well

Looking back at this list, I can think of exceptions to these principles, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on *why* the adventure games framework resonnates so well with roleplayers.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.Looking back at this list, I can think of exceptions to these principles, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on *why* the adventure games framework resonnates so well with roleplayers.

Cheers,
-E.

Escapism and power fantasy in part, that and it's accessible stuff.  The thrill of adventure, the rush of just succeeding, everyone can relate to that and after a shitty day at work that can be very cathartic.

Agent to me is not so different to adventurer, a subset IMO, investigator I'll come back to.

Your list is a good one, rpgs are a team sport, adventures tend to work well with teams whereas more intellectual stories work less well with six protagonists.  In an adventure, everyone can do something, everyone can contribute, there is conflict which creates instant drama and the conflict is likely to be something fun rather than say intramarital conflict which could just leave everyone depressed.

Fighting the good fight, defeating the bad guy, working with your team to get the treasure, these are relaxing things and they have the beauty of simplicity.  The real world is complex and muddy, it is little surprise the more successful games tend not to be.

Investigation, CoC is a good challenge, I think it is a bit different and I think you have a point.  I'll need to give that further thought, though I think CoC is probably the only really successful horror rpg which isn't basically an adventure game with fangs or claws.