Hook Us Fast

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

So, I bring back a load of indie rpgs from a convention, and I'd like to try a bunch with my local gaming group. This often doesn't happen, and when it does, it often peters out sadly.

After some thought, I have concluded that it is not because my local gaming group is intrinsically flawed. The people I play with have, by and large, compatible styles, and want enough of the same things. The people I play with, by and large, as the same as the people I socialize with.

I have a pretty smart bunch of friends, and they also have a fairly high tolerance for crunch, rules hacking, rules reading, and generally paying attention to the rules of a game. So, I am reasonably convinced that, if my fellow players tell me en masse that a rule is vague and fuzzy, they are not being astoundingly clueless.

We do, however, have limited free time. We also want our games to be fun for us. These two factors mean we won't leap to try every new game. Still, there are enough games with a good enough rep that enough of us are willing, nay, eager, to give them a go. We've tried My Life With Master, Primetime Adventures, and Sorcerer, as well as a bit of noodling with Dogs in the Vineyard and Capes, and a session of the alpha release of With Great Power.

The results have been, at best, mixed. Now, sometimes, it's a matter of what we want vs what the game provides. Sometimes, in our not so humble opinion, a given game isn't as good as it's cracked up to be. But, sometimes, there's a game that I think could work if we put more time into trying it. Makes sense, right? You don't get good at something overnight, do you?

But, we don't want to. Under the best of circumstances, a game is likely to get one shot. If it doesn't work out, well, life's too short, and there are games that do work for us.

Oh, I still think Primetime Adventure has potential, and I do hope agrumer gets off his duff and runs a game of Dogs in the Vineyard. We may well play The Shab al-Hiri Roach. I've run multiple sessions of a Sorcerer game, and I do hope to run Polaris. But, in general, if it doesn't work well the first time, there's not going to be a second time. It's like a book where, if the author doesn't hook me from the get go, I want to go on to the next one.

I don't want to hear that I need a new bunch of players. I don't want to hear that I'm not hip enough to get it. If the author can't communicate clearly enough that we get it the first time, that is the author's problem.

Comments

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

If the author can't communicate clearly enough that we get it the first time, this is the author's problem.

With a lot of the new crop of indie-games, it seems to me that this isn't the only potential problem. The genre-focus is set so tightly that, unless you really want to be playing twisted, ugly servants of a mad scientist, or vigilant soldiers of a proud God, etc, then the game isn't going to hook you either. This is all very well, I suppose: there's no point in making you eat apples if you don't like them.

But I think there's still something to be said for games that focus less tightly on their genre, and instead provide you with a wider and more flexible palette.

No surprise, I suppose, that most of my gaming experience has been forged by HERO. 8/

Indeed

[mneme]

The indie crowd has gone very heavily into tight-focus games (though I think you mis-characterize Dogs -- which is really all about putting the players into an unappetizing ethical structure and having them judge that society as much from the player perspective as from the character one...but that's still a pretty tight focus).

Not -all- the indie games are tight-focus -- Sorceror's "focus" is "you've all made some kind of double-edged bargain. Go." Whereas PTA's is even looser. But he Forge development structure very much tends to a "design what matters" process that goes very narrow and then focuses the design details around it, whereas most of us (the gamers, that is) don't really want to be told what matters so much as given a way to decide what we -want- to make matter in a game.

That said...Hero doesn't grab me mostly because of those 2 hour tactical combats. :)

Re: Indeed

[avram]

It’s the two-hour tactical character generation that gets me.

Re: Indeed

[(Anonymous)]

2 systems have failed my Smoke Test, aka Can Lisa Create a Character in the System? test.

The first was one of Palladium's games, I think Beyond the Supernatural. There was some stat I couldn't figure out how to generate.

The second was HeroQuest. I so, so, so wanted to love that game. I can't stay awake when I try to read it.

Again, not talking about flavor, mood, setting, or anything like that. I'm talking about comprehending the rules.

Re: Indeed

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Again, me. Sigh. Can comments be edited?

Re: Indeed

[jl8e]

You can always delete your comments and repost as yourself.

I've developed the habit of visiting my "My LJ" page first, because that forces me to log in.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

True, but a separate issue. I'm not going to play Mountain Witch if I don't want a samurai tale of angst and betrayal. No problem -- the author is quite up front about what kind of game it is.

My problem with My Life with Master isn't the limited storyline -- there's a surprising amount of flex in it, and I rather like the idea of playing a mad scientist's minion. My problem is that it feels to me too much like a board game and not enough like a roleplying game. Clearly, other people don't have this problem, and I have less of a problem with the idea of my playing it than with the idea of my gming it. I'd play it again at a convention, in theory -- in practice, there are enough other things competing with it that limited time is a factor.

Dogs in the Vineyard strikes me as extremely flexible if one is willing to go outside the genre, something the author has been very encouraging about. Jedi, samurai, Norse warriors -- a lot of that's been done. But yes, the Mormon setting has turned people off. Interestingly, ebartley, who has a much higher tolerance for crunch than I do, has a lot of trouble with the conflict resolution mechanics, whereas I find them easy to use.

Polaris is definitely limited as far as genre and story go, and very up front about that. I still really want to play it, and I still think that one could have fun twisting it into something the author doesn't intend for it to be, but that's a separate topic.

[jl8e]

I think that for both Dogs and Polaris, one could extract the resolution mechanic, and use it for a game with a completely different premise, and it will still work very well. Both seem to be well-crafted to me. (though I haven't played either yet.)

[ewilen.livejournal.com]

I agree somewhat with respect to Dogs. With Polaris, though, I don't see a way to extract the resolution mechanic from the overall premise of the tragic character arc (essentially, succumbing to the dark side).

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I gather that, in the case of Dogs, Vincent is working on something like that for horror.

For Polaris, I think you can extract the resolution mechanics. What you have are mechanics for a particular tragic arc, but, after a demo, Stephen, Rich, and I were speculating about turning it into a fall and rise arc, or more general collaborative storytelling. Ben made it quite clear that this was not what he had in mind, and I would want to play the basic game as writ before tinkering, but I think it could be done. Whether you'd want to call the end result Polaris or not is another question.

[adamdray.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I should have read further before replying above. What you said.

[adamdray.livejournal.com]

I don't want to be Defender of All That is Indie or anything, but there are a number of really good indie games that are not so specifically focused or that are super easy to tweak for a different genre.

Lots of people use Sorcerer for things other than sorcery. I've seen some cool ports of Dogs in the Vineyard to play Star Wars Jedi. Not a lot of work to do that.

The Shadow of Yesterday is basically just a generic fantasy RPG with a basic setting that you can replace with your own. FATE is a very generic game with no setting supplied and it's pretty easy to make that your own.

Certain games like My Life with Master and The Mountain Witch are definitely aiming for a specific type of play and won't easily be ported to other genres or styles. But don't totally give indie games a miss cuz there are some gems there that can be repurposed if you want.

And nothing I'm saying invalidates drcpunk's main thesis that some groups just ain't gonna like indie games. That's fine. Understood. Find games that work for you and play the hell out of them.