Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;884662Know what?  I'm going to call triple-dog bullshit times a bazillion on this.

I spent last weekend at GaryCon in a room with a dozen historical miniatures wargames going on at once, with four to twenty players.

NONE of the losers bitched.  We had kids as young as ten who lost in games and asked to play again.  My team got our asses waxed in both "Don't Give Up The Ship" and "Cavaliers and Roundheads" and we all had an absolute whee of a time.  Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

And I learned things in both battles, and will play better next time.  Just like every fucking game I've ever lost since 1971.

When an adult loses, they say "Good game" to their opponents; they don't "quit wargaming."

Read this. I guess I'm in the wrong hobby, considering the number of wargames I've lost over the decades. I guess I'm just old; I'd rather lose a great game to fun opponents that win a miserable game against...

Well, you know.

Pills. Bed. Goodnight.

Quote from: GameDaddy;884646TSR's solution was to release 2e, and rework most of the game mechanics, in one way or another. They also tried to define the one true way of playing the game, cutting off other groups and game companies from producing variants or supplemental material.

Different Worlds quit publishing D&D Articles becuase Dragon stopped publishing other RPG stuff. I stopped buying Dragon magazine after about Issue 54 or so... Somewhere around the summer of 1983, becuase I wasn;t seeing all the amazing cool different stuff, only 1e AD&D stuff.

1: um... What imaginary 2e is this you were exposed to. Aside from THACO and some other quirks, 2e is still pretty much compatible with AD&D.

2: You mean other than the articles for Top Secret, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, etc? Yes, non-TSR articles dropped off to about nil. But guess what? So did White Dwarf and others. Eventually they resumed featuring articles for other games. Usually in the ARES section. Champions and I believe Traveller. Been ages.

This whole "losing a wargame sucks" thing is kind of mind-boggling. I'd rather play well and lose against a better opponent than get a lucky win while playing poorly against anyone. Sure, there are sore losers but, in my experience being challenged, rising to the occasion and putting up a hard fight is far more important to most people than the final outcome.

And all that fails to take into account the social aspect which, depending on the situation, can be just as important or even moreso than the actual game.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;884662Know what?  I'm going to call triple-dog bullshit times a bazillion on this.

When an adult loses, they say "Good game" to their opponents; they don't "quit wargaming."

Hrrmmm? Kind of ironic isn't it. I certainly haven't quit wargaming. I don't have anyone to play face-to-face anymore though, because pretty much everyone else quit. With a few wargames I can hold my own with the best of the participants.

However before I achieved that level of play, I lost. Often. I always sought out opponents without regard to their age or experience level. Most often, in the early days, they were older, and far more experienced than me. So I lost. Right up until the time I started winning. Suddenly it seemed, everyone else started playing different games. Games like D&D, and other RPGs.

I liked D&D, for the exact reasons described earlier. It was much better balanced than wargames, It allowed the GM opportunities to teach better play without creating that sense of loss, that sitting at a table and facing an opponent in a PvP dominance confrontation does. Why play and have an automatic 50% loss rate, when you don't have to?

D&D expanded the range of victory conditions.

With D&D, the players came back, because even if they lost now and again, they were not destined to lose. With wargames, just because of the way they are played 50% of all players automatically lose.

Also, the conventions are not really good examples. They represent a gathering of the most loyal and ardent game fans, and do not in any way represent the casual gamers, the ones that adopt and share the games, the ones that allow the hobby as a whole to grow. While the hardcore gamers called for more PvP dominance confrontations. The casual gamers quietly left in droves.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;884696This whole "losing a wargame sucks" thing is kind of mind-boggling. I'd rather play well and lose against a better opponent than get a lucky win while playing poorly against anyone. Sure, there are sore losers but, in my experience being challenged, rising to the occasion and putting up a hard fight is far more important to most people than the final outcome.

And all that fails to take into account the social aspect which, depending on the situation, can be just as important or even moreso than the actual game.

Who said anything about playing poorly?  That is a whole other problem related to poor wargame design.

When I'm talking about the guys that are playing, and losing, and quitting, I'm talking about the tier of players that have dedicated serious amounts of time to learning how to play, who also spend a great deal of time playing, who just quit playing. With wargames and later with D&D, it was because of the style of games being played.

With Videogames, same deal. MMORPGs, and Wargames have been replaced by more socially oriented games like Sims, or have said features grafted in. MMORPGs that feature good art and good teamwork opportunities are the most successful. The games that focus on spectacular 1 vs. 1 PvP confrontations die, although their seems to be a resurgence with games like League of Legends and King's Road where players can achieve better results by working together as teams. So now, team vs. team PvP is more popular.

Quote from: Omega;8846901: um... What imaginary 2e is this you were exposed to. Aside from THACO and some other quirks, 2e is still pretty much compatible with AD&D.

  And it is arguably the least "One True Way" the game has been since AD&D, with the plethora of options and the emphasis in the marketing, by the mid-90s, on "pick and choose the rules to build your own game."

Quote2: You mean other than the articles for Top Secret, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, etc? Yes, non-TSR articles dropped off to about nil. But guess what? So did White Dwarf and others. Eventually they resumed featuring articles for other games. Usually in the ARES section. Champions and I believe Traveller. Been ages.

  Call of Cthulhu articles would show up nearly every Halloween from the last 80s until the big reconsolidation to "TSR products only" just before the collapse, and in 1993-1995, they ran a series of articles called "The Dragon Project" featuring dragons or dragon-like entities for non-TSR games in a deliberate effort to widen exposure.

   But just as there's a tendency to lump all WotC D&D editions together, I think GameDaddy is lumping everything that happened after he 'dropped out' together. He's going back to 1983, for example, but 2nd Edition was a 1989 release, and the examples I gave above come from that timeframe or later.

Quote from: GameDaddy;884706With D&D, the players came back, because even if they lost now and again, they were not destined to lose. With wargames, just because of the way they are played 50% of all players automatically lose.

So your whole point is that D&D is more tolerant of casual players than wargames?

No shit, Sherlock.

That does not make role playing games "better balanced" than wargames.  It makes them "different."

Most people are casual WHATEVER.  Woodcarving, oil painting, knitting, model building, RC car racing, playing poker, chess, backgammon, parcheesi, golf, bowling...  WHATEVER the activity, most people are "casual players."  And some activities accommodate the casual participants more smoothly than others.

Neither is "better" than the other.  They are merely "different."

This thread has given me a brilliant idea I can't reveal yet.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;883558Tsk, tsk... Subconsciousness and unconsciousness aren't one and the same.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, I sometimes use these interchangeably on the internet myself, but I'm completely unaware of when I do so.

Quote from: Spike;884089I think you missed my point.  Players aren't going to care about a single incident of etiquette out of a fairly large book. They aren't going to care about a single use of that single point of etiquette that demonstrates the rule in its violation.

What they are going to care about is the repeated stress that violating etiquette gets them killed.  Over and over and over and over.

And in my personal experience, as noted under several GMs, many quite well known as good, decent GMs, the first few sessions of L5R invariably turn into pixel-bitch suicide fests over failures to obey one or another minor points of etiquette (of which the gift giving etiquette is but a single example), until either the group disintegrated or the GM gave up on trying to force players to understand this 'not-japan' with its 'not-japan-rules', and just assumed we did thing more or less properly most of the time.

Quote from: CRKrueger;884103So, you're saying Spike, that Wick's takeaway from the "Year of Isolation" was to create a game with an entire Tomb of Horrors culture he could use to kill PCs, but kept the chortling to himself so he didn't get hit again?

My point is that Wick did not design L5R to be a 'Tomb of Etiquette', but since your premise is far more entertaining than any reality, I will accept it as such.

Quote from: Rincewind1;884133If that is true, what does it say about a man who created the deadliest dungeon ever just so that he could kill off the high - level characters he couldn't invent adventures for in his own system? Sadism or terminal lack of imagination?

Efficiency!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;884148It says that the internet is full of amateur psychologists.

I've known at least 50 psychologists, and they're all amateurs.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;884489Did you ever wonder how it is possible for a relatively small group of executioners to organize a long line of prisoners, then select a guy, who approaches each and every victim one by one and puts a bullet in his/her head, while the rest, certain of their fate still stand or kneel. And yet, there has been almost no cases of those awaiting their turn to simply go full berserk mode, try to strangle his soon to be executioner, or at least bite his throat, claw his eyeballs out & such. There's no way out, and yet people agree to their fate which is neither their choice nor a picture of justice.

...I have.

More relevantly, I've considered how these core behaviors affect game design.

Quote from: Opaopajr;884506All of them. He has an aristocratic playboy style to maintain... and besides, like lovers, clothes, and scenery they all must match his differing moods. To leave any alone is a crime against beauty and feeling. Ciao, bella.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;884511My God...

The concept is too awesome to waste it.
My next adventure: there WILL be Italian Batman.

Finally, a Batman worthy of me.

Quote from: Necrozius;884518This was made very clear to me on another forum (3 guesses which*)

OOH! Was it...

Quote from: Necrozius;884518in a thread called "What is your WORST rpg?".

...well shit, now I can just Google it.

Quote from: Necrozius;884518So yeah, some people like to let the dice decide the consequences, but it gets worse when they want to be able to dictate the outcomes, even of failure.

Not getting to dictate the outcome is the only definition of 'failure' that makes any sense in RPGs.

Quote from: Lunamancer;884571Cover says it's designed for levels 10-14, but pregens range from 6-14

...oh wow, I thought it said ages 10-14. That's awkward.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;884639There was ENORMOUS demand for D&D tournaments.  At Origins 1976 the D&D Tournament contained about 25% of registrants.  D&D players SCREAMED for tournaments.

So D&D use to be a blood sport.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;884640Because wargame tournaments had prizes and D&D players wanted prizes too, that's why.

Win games and take their stuff.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;884653Also, I have to call bullshit on "people who lose quit wargames."

I concur. After all it's rather hard to walk away after spending thousands of dollars on miniatures

Quote from: GameDaddy;884706With D&D, the players came back, because even if they lost now and again, they were not destined to lose.

Not getting to play again is the only definition of 'lose' that makes any sense in RPGs.

Quote from: GameDaddy;884708MMORPGs, and Wargames have been replaced by more socially oriented games like Sims,

The Sims is easily the most antisocial game ever created. It replaces social elements with toons you have full (enough) control over, and most setups I've seen feature caricatures of people the players know, often their family. It's creepy on a level I typically don't find creepy, but whatever helps you get through the day.

Quote from: CRKrueger;884561You know the mini isn't actually the player, right?

"Short people got no reason ..."

Quote from: GameDaddy;884706I don't have anyone to play face-to-face anymore though, because pretty much everyone else quit.

Wargaming is still popular at game stores and conventions, even historical games have regular audiences. But are you talking about certain wargames from the past that aren't as popular now?

Quote from: GameDaddy;884706Also, the conventions are not really good examples. They represent a gathering of the most loyal and ardent game fans, and do not in any way represent the casual gamers, the ones that adopt and share the games, the ones that allow the hobby as a whole to grow.

There are plenty of casual gamers at conventions. In fact, a common convention goer is the gamer who only games at the cons and has a "regular life" the rest of the year.

It is incredibly common at conventions for people to show up at tables with no knowledge of the game whatsoever, no dice, no books, no nothing, except an interest in playing for the next 4 hours.

The big problem for RPGs is that too few RPGs allow for such players to just sit down and play as easily as you can with most boardgames.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;884863This thread has given me a brilliant idea I can't reveal yet.

...and that's how "Shrink: the Angst" was born.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;884662Know what?  I'm going to call triple-dog bullshit times a bazillion on this.

I spent last weekend at GaryCon in a room with a dozen historical miniatures wargames going on at once, with four to twenty players.

NONE of the losers bitched.  We had kids as young as ten who lost in games and asked to play again.  My team got our asses waxed in both "Don't Give Up The Ship" and "Cavaliers and Roundheads" and we all had an absolute whee of a time.  Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

And I learned things in both battles, and will play better next time.  Just like every fucking game I've ever lost since 1971.

When an adult loses, they say "Good game" to their opponents; they don't "quit wargaming."

When I played team sports from little league to high school we were taught to handle defeat with dignity. Being a blubbering vagina when you lost was not an option.

Quote from: Elfdart;884983When I played team sports from little league to high school we were taught to handle defeat with dignity. Being a blubbering vagina when you lost was not an option.

We once had a sports event in high school where we lost all the games on purpose, turning the opponents into blubbering vaginas even though they won. Good times.

Quote from: Elfdart;884983When I played team sports from little league to high school we were taught to handle defeat with dignity. Being a blubbering vagina when you lost was not an option.

Sometimes though losing can be so very annoying, particularly when it's not your fault.

20 years ago I was at a convention and played a miniatures game, crusaders vs. Muslims in the Mideast. The battle lines clashed, it was give-and-take but my side was ahead. Suddenly, the GM called for morale checks. In one turn due to a domino effect a series of bad dice rolls caused my line to crumble and we lost. It was a fast game so we played a second round. My side was decisively ahead, we had the enemy's flank surrounded. Once again came morale checks. Once again bad dice rolls caused a domino effect and we lost. Most of the game was alright. But even the GM admitted there was something wrong with the morale rules. We should not have lost twice like that.

Friggin' annoying.

Quote from: Doughdee222;884992We should not have lost twice like that.

Said every losing general, ever.