Quote from: J ArcaneAnd I'd still think you were an idiot, and probably question your confidence in your sexuality.

Whatever. I'm just old fashioned, but you just proved how thinned skinned you are. And that's bad no matter the generation.

I mean really, so what if I think you're creepy. Get a life. Even the people I'm met on MMORPGs have more sense than you just displayed.

Quote from: gleichmanWhatever. I'm just old fashioned, but you just proved how thinned skinned you are. And that's bad no matter the generation.

I mean really, so what if I think you're creepy. Get a life. Even the people I'm met on MMORPGs have more sense than you just displayed.

I call people idiots when they're being idiots.  It has nothing to do with offense, it's just a statement of fact.  

You seemed to take offense pretty readily though.  My advice is to not be an idiot.

Quote from: gleichmanThat's likely why (with some other reasons) MMORPGs are more popular than PnP rpgs- and also why they have different markets. One appeals to those good at making up their own fantasy worlds, and the other appeals to those who don't need or want that.

However I'd like to point out that even in the non-flexible model Brad used as an example- there is still flexibility beyond any MMORPG.

While I agree that tabletop RPGs are more flexible than MMORPGs at present, and considering who produces them and why that's also to be true for the near future, I contend that this flexibility isn't as much of a virtue for gamers as it seems because that flexibility is really a selling point for the subset of tabletop gamers that run the show: the GMs.  Players neither need nor (as a group) want that flexibility, and they make up the majority of the gaming community; as shown by WOTC's offering over the run of v3.0, the place where the profits and the expansion resides is with them, and I think that the price to be paid for making this shift in emphasis is to reduce that flexibility to a significant degree.  (However, I still think that it will be more than what the MMO developers will allow for now.)

QuoteConsider this article: http://movies.ign.com/articles/815/815454p1.html and imagine it applied to a G.I. Joe Online MMORPG.

Even a non-flexible GM and group has the ability to ignore switches in background like that. And this is often a major draw to PnP IME- to do the story right after the official owners created a train wreck. The Online version would be fixed by the owner to the 'new image', but a PnP version could be the cartoon from the 80s or even the serious version from the 60s.

I make huge use of this in my own rpgs. I run a re-imgained Marvel setting without all the crap that's happened in the comics. I've ran Star Trek without the politically correct coating (and tech nerfing) it got in TNG and later. I've ran my own version of Shadowrun where I gutted the background and replaced it with my own.

Online, I've played in EQ, Matrix Online, SWG, and LotRO- and done the same thing in the same places, with the same history as thousands of other players. It kills a night and it's fun. But it's no PnP RPG.

While I can easily see the appeal to that approach, I can also easily see why I would not cater to it as a tabletop RPG publisher: it's a niche within a niche, too small to be profitable if I run a company that's large enough to actually get into print reliably and not just in the PDF ghetto, and certainly so if I'm actually getting my products into the book trade.  That is, as things are now.

Over at Livejournal, James Malizekski and I have had a few exchanges about this sort of thing.  Where I think he's dead-on is that, due to the very thing mentioned above about tabletop gaming fundamentally being unappealing to a mass audience, one of the best reactions to World of Warcraft and the upcoming D&D v4.0 is to recognize this fact and completely reorganize and reorient both the business of the hobby and the culture of the hobby around being a subculture of the overall gaming hobby.  

One of the lasting strengths of the tabletop RPG hobby is that it is directly responsible for creating the PC, console and MMORPG markets that remove whatever elements that make the tabletop version so alienating to the mainstream.  People that began their careers in this niche are now big names (with sustainable incomes that can actually raise families) there, like Warren Spector.  Intellectual properties that originated here have successfully migrated there, and to one or more media of genre fiction, especially those originated with TSR or WOTC.  As a farm league, a training ground, a genesis pit, the tabletop hobby more than justifies its existence by giving newbies a place to learn and grow before heading out to bigger and better adventures elsewhere: we've got a place as the Newbie Town of the Gaming World RLRPG, and I think there is both value and longevity in embracing it.

Quote from: J ArcaneI call people idiots when they're being idiots.  It has nothing to do with offense, it's just a statement of fact.  

You seemed to take offense pretty readily though.  My advice is to not be an idiot.

You read offense in my post? You're projecting.

Try that getting a life part.

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerPlayers neither need nor (as a group) want that flexibility, and they make up the majority of the gaming community; as shown by WOTC's offering over the run of v3.0,

I have no idea where this comes from as it's completely alien to just about any D&D player I ever met.

Have you honestly never had players who set goals based upon background, and took your campaigns to areas you didn't forsee?

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerWhile I can easily see the appeal to that approach, I can also easily see why I would not cater to it as a tabletop RPG publisher

Even more confusing, nothing in my experiene or in the market place indicates that mindset.

Indeed, with the move to dropping adventure modules (which can't be had in may game lines and are the ultimate expression of GM rail-roading) and focus on core rules and splat books- the exact opposite seems to be the case to me. Increasing focus on player choice and decision as to rules, style, and place of adventure.

Note: I can't speak to 4.x as frankly I couldn't care less and haven't been following the rumors.

I'm sensing a Ron Edwards "but all the games I've been in sucks" vibe here...

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerWhile I agree that tabletop RPGs are more flexible than MMORPGs at present, and considering who produces them and why that's also to be true for the near future, I contend that this flexibility isn't as much of a virtue for gamers as it seems because that flexibility is really a selling point for the subset of tabletop gamers that run the show: the GMs.  Players neither need nor (as a group) want that flexibility, and they make up the majority of the gaming community;...

Totally do not understand how you can draw that conclusion from all that has been said so far.  Players are THE ONEs who benefit by flexability, not the GM.  For the GM in fact it is a big pain in the ass.  Its the Players who demand and WANT flexibility.   So ... please explain.   I don't get it.

Quote from: gleichmanYou read offense in my post? You're projecting.

Try that getting a life part.

Says the guy who swore he was leaving forever how many times again?

Quote from: gleichmanI mean really, so what if I think you're creepy. Get a life. Even the people I'm met on MMORPGs have more sense than you just displayed.

Gleichman - find a new fucking phrase. That one is stuck in the '80s. (maybe early 90s)


 Hell, Shatner himself has backpedaled on that one.

 The so-called Geeks or Nerds have taken over the world....and many of them have lives...and wives and even kids and decent jobs.

- Ed C.

All right children, let this old fart fill you in on a deep dark secret, "rain on my parade" comes from the Broadway musical, Funny Girl. It was also produced as a movie musical, one of the last of the really good ones. Don't Rain on My Parade is the signature song of Fanny Brice, played by Barbara Striesand in the movie. Fanny being a famous comedy star of the early 20th century. To rain on one's parade simple means to dump on one's happy times, one's celebration. Here are the lyrics to...

Don't Rain on My Parade

Don't tell me not to live,
Just sit and putter,
Life's candy and the sun's
A ball of butter.
Don't bring around a cloud
To rain on my parade.
Don't tell me not to fly--
I've simply got to.
If someone takes a spill,
It's me and not you.
Who told you you're allowed
To rain on my parade!
I'll march my band out,
I'll beat my drum,
And if I'm fanned out,
Your turn at bat, sir.
At least I didn't fake it.
Hat, sir, I guess I didn't make it!
But whether I'm the rose
Of sheer perfection,
Or freckle on the nose
Of life's complexion,
The cinder or the shiny apple of its eye,
I gotta fly once,
I gotta try once,
Only can die once, right, sir?
Ooh, life is juicy,
Juicy, and you'll see
I'm gonna have my bite, sir!
Get ready for me, love,
'Cause I'm a "comer,"
I simply gotta march,
My heart's a drummer.
Don't bring around a cloud
To rain on my parade!
I'm gonna live and live now,
Get what I want--I know how,
One roll for the whole shebang,
One throw, that bell will go clang,
Eye on the target--and wham--
One shot, one gun shot, and bam--
Hey, Mister Arnstein, here I am!

I'll march my band out,
I will beat my drum,
And if I'm fanned out,
Your turn at bat, sir,
At least I didn't fake it.
Hat, sir, I guess I didn't make it.
Get ready for me, love,
'Cause I'm a "comer,"
I simply gotta march,
My heart's a drummer.
Nobody, no, nobody
Is gonna rain on my parade!

Where I found the lyrcis.

Quote from: J ArcaneSays the guy who swore he was leaving forever how many times again?

Once actually. And yeah, I changed my mind. Like that's a crime and doesn't happen (although other parts of that, like posting at RPGnet, or putting AoH back on the net has not and will never happen).


Here I only said I don't enjoy posting at therpgsite because of Pundit, who's an ass that gets off on his success at being an ass, by which he measures people posting here.

But as I said on my entry, Dancy's blog was too good to pass on- and I'm limiting my posting to this one thread. After this one dies, I'm gone again.

Quote from: KoltarGleichman - find a new fucking phrase. That one is stuck in the '80s. (maybe early 90s)

I'm old and sit in my ways. And as you know exactly what I mean by the phrase, I'll leave it to the young and foolish to chase new and in the end pointless fads.

Quote from: gleichmanAfter this one dies, I'm gone again.

Aw, that's a shame.  It's always great to have you around.

Quote from: jrientsAw, that's a shame.  It's always great to have you around.

QFT

Quote from: gleichmanAfter this one dies, I'm gone again.

First grubman.  Then gleichman.  What is it with people named g____man doing the forum yo-yo?

Came across this article (yes, I play EVE online).

It offers some more light on one of the differences between MMORPGs and PnP rpgs, in answer to Brad, R.D. or any others who seems to think it all flows good on the MMORPG world and that they are a replacement for rpgs (for Dancey's Power-Gamers or anyone else who like rpgs).

http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=2_35&page=7

There are gaming groups who put up with stuff like that, but none I've every been in.