Therumancer said:
I'm not much of a writer anymore, because my mind tends to wander too much, so hope you'll get something from the following. I'm much better discussing things aloud, preferably in a nice bar.
Nice writeup about history of rpgs. Altho the bias shows thru, It is rather educational to people who weren't playing first edition DnD (the boxes) in their childhood. Storytelling games were developed to give players more freedoms, not less. And most classic DnD and ADnD modules were rather constricting and railroading players, even if there was some nonlinearity.
It'd be interesting to see you expand your history section to include other rulesets and why they existed. Extremely detailed rulessets like HarnMaster and Phoenix Command, even Rolemaster; diceless rules like Amber, etc. Delve deeper into why Storytelling systems gradually (Rein(dot)Hagen didn't just conjure them up from nothing) came to be, and how TSR inability to react to it eventually made them bankrupt. Or how about commentary on modern rpgs, which can abandon rules altogether (or minimize them), and where the DM/GM is no longer a dictator. (ForgeLike)
If like me, you grew up with rpgs (as opposed to crpgs), you are well aware that the more "advanced" (as opposed to casual) players and GMs thought DnD and ADnD1&2 were mainstream shite dumbed down for the masses.
WHy is average mean randomness better than linear d20, etc. etc. etc. Sure you could have meaningful and high quality campaigns with DnD (after all, the quality of the DM/GM and players are what mattered most), but why not use a better system that inherently directs people towards creativity instead of "you enter a 10' by 10' room, an orc is guarding a chest"? Your tale about the lever must have come from a campaign with a very very very bad GM.
Ofcource it can be shown abstractly: rpG->rPG->RPG->RPg->Rp. Or in other words, when you call a dungeonhack a roleplaying game, it will evolve towards the weight of the name. (we are all conditioned to think in certain ways by our language)
To me it seems you indeed would be much happier with tactical games than modern roleplaying games. There are also terrific indie crpgs made for old school crpg fans. Sure they don't have the eyecandy, but you can't get all the best of what your vision is, unless you happen to be a billionaire, in which case throw money at a company. I don't see why not, creating a "perfect game" would be as much fun as buying Chelsea.
Well, I think thats enough of my stream. I appreciate your writeups as its nice to read. But I disagree with you heavily on when rpgs really became rpgs; however, I hardly think that is a problem. (mechanistic vs. humanist view and bla bla bla...)
ps. I absolutely love the dialogwheel. For me discovering what my character actually says, and how she reacts, is probably as fulfilling as rolling a natural 20 is to some others. That's one example of preference, and what I view as "real" roleplaying. It's pretty much like the thrills I got from how players reacted to my machinations when I was a GM.
pps. Another thing to perhaps shed light to my mind: I consider Chainmail to be rpg 0.1, DnD+ADnD1&2 going up to perhaps 0.5, and so on.
