Mechanics, story lines, style, mood, anything is open. It doesn't have to be something you'd want to used exclusively just things you don't think or used enough or haven't been used at all that seem like good ideas.
Quote from: Nexus;706971Mechanics, story lines, style, mood, anything is open. It doesn't have to be something you'd want to used exclusively just things you don't think or used enough or haven't been used at all that seem like good ideas.
Drop in locations for various games.
Box sets
Better editing standards
Topless women.
Drawings, that is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it really sets the mood. You see so much of it in old art about mythology and such.
Bigger stakes in the world. Letting the players own property or a manor or a business or a stronghold, and have problems spring up from them naturally.
Things that let the GM say, when the players ask "what's the next quest???", "you tell me."
More toolkits but with enough examples that the lazy GM doesn't have to do the legwork if they don't want to.
Don't give me 8 playable races give me a toolkit for creating playable races and 8 examples.
Same with Classes.
etc
etc
More GM advice for constructing worlds, engaging players, how to run games 2 hours long or 4 hours long, 2 sessions or 40, notes about pacing, foreshadowing and player hooks, etc.
In fantasy an interesting system for magic item construction.
Game fiction
Hahahahahahahahohoheehee...no.
(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/004/8/5/At_first_I_was_like_2_by_BalanceSplashRhyme.png)
Modularity. I want the first few pages of the corebook to be the irreducible rules necessary to run the game, using the irreducible core mechanics -- the game's "lite" version. I want everything else to follow to be flagged with great honking red letters "OPTIONAL."
Intelligent players and DMs.
No really.
In the last 13 years it is like the collective IQ of the gaming community had dropped and dropped and dropped.
Quote from: Omega;707005Intelligent players and DMs.
No really.
In the last 13 years it is like the collective IQ of the gaming community had dropped and dropped and dropped.
I've gotten that impression as well. I thought mmorpgs would have "culled the herd" so to speak, but, well, mostly I blame the Internet.
Game fiction that reflects how the game is actually played.
Multiple, very short, intro adventures that introduce increasingly complicated mechanics 1 by 1.
System synopses that actually cover everything you need.
More originality and less of slapping D&D on every possible genre.
Fewer social issues getting in the way of having fun.
More accessibility to non-geeks or non-nerds. Tabletop RPGs should never be "members only" games.
Less creating of new RPGs and more open license RPGs to allow viable sytems to be expanded upon with new settings.
Less of this fucking "planned obselescence" and "splatbook treadmill" in publishing.
Quote from: therealjcm;707007Game fiction that reflects how the game is actually played.
Multiple, very short, intro adventures that introduce increasingly complicated mechanics 1 by 1.
System synopses that actually cover everything you need.
1: Been tried often. People bitch about it.
2: Some games do try that.
3: A rare few games do try that. That was actually one of the feedback requests during playtesting of one of my early books. So I added it in.
More snacks.
More excuses to roll dice.
I'm always surprised that software applications to support roleplaying games like character generators never really caught on, especially now that everything is always online.
Whether it's to created NPCs or pre-gens for a pickup game they are a real time saver. I think it's no coincidence that the two I've run the most (TSR and ICONS) both had excellent character generators applications I used again and again.
Of course D&D 3e came with a CD but it wasn't very good.
Quote from: Soylent Green;707016I'm always surprised that software applications to support roleplaying games like character generators never really caught on, especially now that everything is always online.
Whether it's to created NPCs or pre-gens for a pickup game they are a real time saver. I think it's no coincidence that the two I've run the most (TSR and ICONS) both had excellent character generators applications I used again and again.
Of course D&D 3e came with a CD but it wasn't very good.
Electronic dice came out early on and just never caught on. Too expensive and some distrusted its true randomness. Which is a suspicion oft held for any electronic randomizer.
Intigrating I-pads into board games has been tried too. So far its met with some resistance maunly as you need a costly padd first.
There is currently a designer wanting to intigrate microdot readers into a minis game. Wave the reader at the mini and get or alter its stats in play.
Charts and tables. Far easier to consult than tracking down a bunch of modifiers. d20 and Palladium, I'm looking at you two.
Random character generation, especially lifepaths.
Less concern with "game balance" and mathematical symmetries that tackle on complexity without improving the actual play experience.
More playtesting everything.
Quote from: Piestrio;706973Drop in locations for various games.
Quote from: jibbajibba;706998More toolkits but with enough examples that the lazy GM doesn't have to do the legwork if they don't want to.
Don't give me 8 playable races give me a toolkit for creating playable races and 8 examples.
Quote from: Ravenswing;707003Modularity.
Quote from: jeff37923;707008More accessibility to non-geeks or non-nerds. Tabletop RPGs should never be "members only" games.
Less creating of new RPGs and more open license RPGs to allow viable sytems to be expanded upon with new settings.
Less of this fucking "planned obselescence" and "splatbook treadmill" in publishing.
Quote from: Soylent Green;707016I'm always surprised that software applications to support roleplaying games like character generators never really caught on, especially now that everything is always online.
This. All of this. Especially SG's.
Character generation is often a stumbling block to the point that it dissuades me from running games I love to bits (MEGS DC Heroes, all things Palladium but especially Rifts, Eclipse Phase). For the love of God, if your character creation is more complex than Savage Worlds' (which has skills and Edges and Hindrances but each of these comes in a page-long chart complete with one-line synopses) you should have a free character generator online or available for download.
Hell, chargen software is fun, even for simple games. I could spend hours statting up PCs and NPCs with the old VtMChar freeware generator for Vampire: The Masquerade.
Digest-sized (i.e. LOTFP sized) books where you can open to any random page and look at it and it's something you can use right away in a game communicated quickly with words or pictures.
Less wank. More play.
Less thinking about fixing role playing games, gamers and/or their hobby. Less distrust and condescension.
More trust, more confidence that gamers are actually thinking human beings who know how to run their games better than the designers.
More stuff that's actually meant to be played by flesh and blood people with imaginations of their own.
Quote from: jeff37923;707008fucking "planned obselescence"
Quote from: Omega;707005the collective IQ of the gaming community had dropped and dropped and dropped.
Does anybody else see a connection?
Quote from: MatteoN;707046Does anybody else see a connection?
The splat books and expansions meet the need that used to be filled by hobby magazines - people want new rules to drop in as-is, they want ideas to use in their own campaigns. So long as splats are modular and optional they don't cause a problem.
The "dumbing down" of the hobby is simply that there are more people in it. I bet many of us started playing at an early age with people just like us, and played in college with people just like us. Now WoW and Will Wheaton and The Big Bang Theory and every other "cool geek" thing out there have brought our hobby to lots of new people, some of them great, some of them not so great.
(BTW I'm not advocating a TBP "safe space" pc hive mind, but I do think we have to be welcoming to people who aren't exactly like us if we want the hobby to grow and if we want a hand in its future)
Quote from: therealjcm;707073The "dumbing down" of the hobby is simply that there are more people in it.
Er, I have the distinct feeling the opposite is true...:(
Quote from: The Ent;707075Er, I have the distinct feeling the opposite is true...:(
I thought between D&D and Pathfinder we still have a few million people playing.
Quote from: Omega;707005Intelligent players and DMs.
No really.
In the last 13 years it is like the collective IQ of the gaming community had dropped and dropped and dropped.
Try over the last 20 years. :rotfl:
Seriously. It degraded precipitously when it started attracting the computer gamer generation. I hear adults (who have supposedly finished at least 6th grade) state that they lack the ability to perform basic arithmetic problems and thus can't play RPG's like Traveller.
But, nothing to be done about it. They spend $ and help keep RPG companies alive.
What it needs is broad marketing.
Quote from: therealjcm;707077I thought between D&D and Pathfinder we still have a few million people playing.
That's certainly what the companies want us to think, anyway.
For my part, I just don't see it. If there are a million tabletop players in the United States -- a total that'd be lowballing the estimates I've seen, then based on that demographic Massachusetts' share would be twenty thousand. (This presumes, per capita, that tabletop gaming in Massachusetts is no more popular than in, say, Montana, a presumption I doubt many people would make.) The share of the county seat in which I live, of that total, is 400 tabletop gamers, and our county would run a couple thousand.
No. There's not that many, not remotely close. If that were the case, there'd be gaming clubs at the college and the high school and the junior high. The FLGS (the only one in the county) would be roaring full of tabletop business rather than board games and Warhammer and CCGs. The online game finders would have many dozens of players within the city limits, instead of, well, me.
I'm willing to believe a fifth of that, maybe.
Quote from: therealjcm;707077I thought between D&D and Pathfinder we still have a few million people playing.
Oh there's a bunch of folks playing D&D and Pathfinder, no question, but compared to the 80s, or the 90s for that matter? Very few. :(
Role playing.
I'd like to see more modern games with a complexity between Spycraft 2e (overkill) and Mini Six (not quite there).
Tits.
Quote from: Old Geezer;707353Tits.
Been done.
Quote from: Ravenswing;707303That's certainly what the companies want us to think, anyway.
For my part, I just don't see it. If there are a million tabletop players in the United States -- a total that'd be lowballing the estimates I've seen, then based on that demographic Massachusetts' share would be twenty thousand. (This presumes, per capita, that tabletop gaming in Massachusetts is no more popular than in, say, Montana, a presumption I doubt many people would make.) The share of the county seat in which I live, of that total, is 400 tabletop gamers, and our county would run a couple thousand.
No. There's not that many, not remotely close. If that were the case, there'd be gaming clubs at the college and the high school and the junior high. The FLGS (the only one in the county) would be roaring full of tabletop business rather than board games and Warhammer and CCGs. The online game finders would have many dozens of players within the city limits, instead of, well, me.
I'm willing to believe a fifth of that, maybe.
Well it's hard to gauge the number of people who only play with their friends or an old established group and never get involved in RPGing with strangers. And then do we count people who read RPG books and post endlessly on certain forums but who don't actually play ;)
Quote from: Endless Flight;707344I'd like to see more modern games with a complexity between Spycraft 2e (overkill) and Mini Six (not quite there).
Off topic, but, demon dogs, that is the coolest avatar ever! Where did you find it?
I would like to see more interest in roleplay and less interest in crunchy mechanics and meta mechanics.
Quote from: Bill;707589I would like to see more interest in roleplay and less interest in crunchy mechanics and meta mechanics.
Yes, players that want to RP PC's and not "run builds".
Quote from: Soylent Green;707373Off topic, but, demon dogs, that is the coolest avatar ever! Where did you find it?
Something brought my attention to Thundarr and I went and googled images to see if there was any cool artwork out there on the interwebs. There is!
1. Rules optimized for better online play.
2. More casual player oriented.
3. Higher quality more of the same.
Less cisgendered characters in official adventures is the only correct answers, you bigots.
However, outside of the glue - inducted dark visions of future - players. That's one thing I want to see, just more people who play. Fortunately, the whole hobby has been becoming bigger at a slow but steady pace, so my wish is like that egg from three wounded soldier's joke.
Quote from: Rincewind1;707714Less cisgendered characters in official adventures is the only correct answers, you bigots.
Hey, hey! I'm transgendered. I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body. You have NO idea what I have to go through.
Quote from: Rincewind1;707714Less cisgendered characters in official adventures is the only correct answers, you bigots.
You've seen the other thread then?
Quote from: Benoist;707042Less wank. More play.
Less thinking about fixing role playing games, gamers and/or their hobby. Less distrust and condescension.
More trust, more confidence that gamers are actually thinking human beings who know how to run their games better than the designers.
More stuff that's actually meant to be played by flesh and blood people with imaginations of their own.
Sounds like you spend too much time on the internet.
Quote from: Daztur;707364Well it's hard to gauge the number of people who only play with their friends or an old established group and never get involved in RPGing with strangers. And then do we count people who read RPG books and post endlessly on certain forums but who don't actually play ;)
Indeed, I imagine it's hard to gauge the number of people who do that. So why is it that the companies claim to be able to do so?
Do we count people who own the books and post on forums but don't actually play? I sure don't. In order to be a player of tabletop games, one needs to play tabletop games.
More interesting, new and original non-clone OSR games!
Quote from: Ronin;707755Sounds like you spend too much time on the internet.
I do. ;)
Quote from: RPGPundit;708920More interesting, new and original non-clone OSR games!
I can agree with this.
I'd like to see the OSR switch from a focus on redoing the rules system to producing old school adventures. By which I mean location-based mini-sandboxes.
Less mechanics, more inspiring settings!
There's a reason I keep returning to the 2e D&D wellspring. Cool worlds I want to play in, and plenty of expanded support.
Oh, and more/better/diverse art.
64 page rulebooks that cover what I need to play. Very tired of being expected to learn new 300+ page tomes.
Quote from: TristramEvans;708986I'd like to see the OSR switch from a focus on redoing the rules system to producing old school adventures. By which I mean location-based mini-sandboxes.
The tendency even on Dragonsfoot is to treat the TSR tournament modules as the model.I agree, I'd like to see more sandboxy location modules, especially short ones. I've got a lot of use from the One Page Dungeon contest entries.
We don't need more rules. Give me adventures or settings and even better give me the stats for OSR, AD&D, D&D Next and even RuneQuest and let me decide how I play...
More historical games that don't contain supernatural elements/magic/etc. And I will second Pundit on more OSR games that are not just clones.
Quote from: Rezendevous;709034More historical games that don't contain supernatural elements/magic/etc. And I will second Pundit on more OSR games that are not just clones.
Strip out the optional magic and supernatural system from Furry Outlaws (Robin Hood) and Furry Pirates (High Seas) and swap in humans and you have two rather nice historical themed RPGs.
Didnt TSR do a roman themed D&D setting?
More ideas stolen from Final Fantasy...
... what?
Quote from: Ravenswing;707303No. There's not that many, not remotely close. If that were the case, there'd be gaming clubs at the college and the high school and the junior high. The FLGS (the only one in the county) would be roaring full of tabletop business rather than board games and Warhammer and CCGs. The online game finders would have many dozens of players within the city limits, instead of, well, me.
My personal network of RPG players (people who I have played with personally in the last two years and who I reach out to when I'm running an open table or recruiting for a one shot) has 40 players in it. Of those players:
- 4 of them have participated in a gaming club (and that was 10+ years ago)
- Roughly half of them have never purchased an RPG product; less then 10 of them have anything remotely resembling a regular purchasing habit
- Most don't go to the local game shop (and those who do are often buying non-RPG products when they go)
- 0 of them have ever used an online game finder
- Less than 5 of them participate in online RPG forums of any kind
I, personally, have purchased only one RPG rulebook at a local store in the last half decade. I've never belonged to a gaming club. I've never used an online game finder. Using your metrics, I would literally not exist as a gamer. The reality, OTOH, is that I've got five RPG sessions scheduled in the next week where I'll be playing with 17 different people (all of whom would
also currently be invisible according to your metrics, with the exception of two guys who were part of a gaming club a decade ago).
More settings that are just settings and not platforms to launch some kind of political lecture or promote "social justice" by neutering anything that might actually have visceral emotional impact, by something that people that actually go outside once in awhile and have normal social interaction could relate too or, god forbid, "trigger" someone, somewhere at some point or even cause the slightest possible offense.
IOW: Tits.
Less settings/adventures, and more fun-to-use tool kits like Vornheim, Sine Nomine's Red Tide, The X Alphabet-style books, and AEG's Toolbox/Ultimate Toolbox.
OSR: Good scenarios and campaign resources. I'm not saying they're terribly rare, just that more are always welcome! It's groovy that people actually use this or that particular new rules book. However, a lot more people can get use out of a scenario published in the Common Tongue.
A No School Renaissance: Good scenarios and campaign resources, pretty much rules set agnostic. Even lots of people who bitch about Palladium game systems would probably dig a lot of the really imaginative material. I'm just using that as an example, trying to suggest that maybe it's worth sharing more stuff in terms of essential game elements. There might not be much value for many people using rules sets that call for elaborate "stat blocks," but you can cater to them in one version and strip out that stuff from another.
All around, I'd like to more stuff from actual gamers and actual games, as opposed to just written to order in a "product" factory.
More well written modules.
Please share products that you think are the current gold standard of what you speak.
Cheers
Quote from: Teazia;709689Please share products that you think are the current gold standard of what you speak.
Cheers
About anything before the 90s? After that it became really hit or miss and progressivly more miss than hit. There is a serious drop in overall quality with the occasional gems standing out amidst those.
YMMV of course.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;709323More ideas stolen from Final Fantasy...
... what?
Plenty of good ideas in the old FF games actually :)