What was the most revolutionary idea in tabletop roleplaying games?
>>43519413
Having fun.
-4 str
Either the preparedness skills of some newer Pelgrane Press games, or the gaming community idea of 'edge/bennies/action-fate points' any kind of 'spend'
Dice pools.
>>43519547
this tbqh bae
Games realizing you could build mechanics around genre emulation rather than 'realism' and things tend to work a lot better.
>>43519413
Having an actual discussion and even actual classes about Game Design Theory as a whole.
Before the 90s, there was no such thing as game design, because players weren't as bitchy as they are today when something "unfair" happened to them. If you ran into a puzzle or a trap that you couldn't solve, it wasn't "bullshit that the DM throws at you because he's bad and needs filler for his game!", it was just a really really hard puzzle.
There were some DMs that took it too far. After awhile though, the game was populated with those types of DMs, and players got tired of it, and that's where the bitching started.
>>43519413
narrative vs. simulation RPG's
White Wolf kinda started it...
Amber kinda helped
Legend of the Five Rings keeps going not because it has a great system, but it has an easy to mod system with a rich plethora of types of games you can run....L5R tends to play more like Japan meets Game of Thrones than samurai d20
Fudge and Indie RPG's really help this along...
The dropping price of printing books and the rise of online distribution let everyone get their ideas out.
This is one of those cases where saying "the internet" is absolutely correct.
>>43519686
Sorcerer was the first big one to do this, and the flamewars still rage on in some parts of the internet.
System mastery and ivory tower game design.
>>43519413
That is a kickass picture. I can feel the aura of magnificence radiating from it.
>>43519413
The idea of it?
I mean, it's a young hobby. It's like trying to figure out the most revolutionary application of the wheel while living 100 years after it was created.
The Threefold Model.
You don't necessarily have to agree with it (lots of people do not), but it's almost undeniable that it resulted in an explosion of new design direction and theorization of games that is only surpassed by the creation of the tabletop roleplaying game itself (I'm assuming that you are excuding "the creation of the tabletop roleplaying game" as a possible choice).
>>43519686
>narrative vs. simulation RPG's
I gotta agree with this. Some people love rules light story telling. Others want had and fast rules, and to generate a story based on realistic interactions.
That there are now more game creators aware of the spectrum, they can create games with one or the other (or a mixture of both) in mind.
>>43520560
I prefer the more recent revelation that that's a false dichotomy. Legends of the Wulin is a great example of a mechanically heavy narrativist game, with a complex and satisfying ruleset built around narrative conventions and genre simulation rather than a sense of realism or authenticity.
>>43519413
someone "radical larry" this
>>43519413
The D20
>>43519617
genre emulation came before "simulation", but well after "gamism"
>>43519413
That image is wonderful.
THAC0
>>43520665
You can have a mechanically heavy narrativist game, but that doesn't make it simulation.
That's not so say you can't have elements of both.
>>43520728
Exactly it's nothing new. Oldschool DnD borrowed extremely heavily from Conan and other sword and sorcery genre stuff, way before people wanted verisimilitude.
I'd say the proliferation of highly specialized rules-light systems, which served as a counterpoint to the tendency to jam a system into every genre possible (which far precedes 3.5).
>>43521155
I've seen allot of those "One page" rule sets. But isn't it kind of hard to do anything more then a one-shot with them?
>>43521240
I was thinking the ones that are a bit more developed, including some advancement rules and such.
>>43519413
Happy birthday to the only person ever to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields!
Also, miniatures.
>>43519413
Man, I'm printing this.
>>43521240
Depends on what you're doing.
The idea is that you are making a story, not really focusing on the system. Nobody complains that a TV series doesn't have the characters eventually become demigods of their chosen specialty, after all.
>>43520442
I'm not familiar with that.
>>43520665
But the book is shit.
>>43527720
WOW TOP ARGUMENT SENPAI! BET IT TOOK YOU ALL NIGHT TO COME UP WITH A CORKER LIKE THAT!
#rekt
#flawlessvictory
#godlikeintellect
>>43519654
>Implying game design classes are in any way useful
It's like tearing up your money, burning it to ashes, scattering it in a river, then setting that river on fire, then scattering those ashes in an ocean, then burying that ocean under a half-mile of rock and dirt
That's how much of a waste of money that is
>>43527720
>>43527760
He does kind of have a point. The LotW core book is awfully edited, which is one of the major barriers for entry for the system. If you can get past that it's amazing, but the arcane nature of understanding the book is a legit reason to not get into the game.
>>43519413
that games can be fun for more people than their designer
>>43519413
/sci/entist here, this image is wonderful.
>>43532669
at least something good came out of this shitty thread, eh?
>>43532669
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
And One Gal.
>>43519413
Peter Debye looks like Hitler in that image.
>>43519413
You could cut the sexual tension in this picture with a knife.
Micro RPGs.
It's a whole other beast than how this all started out.
>>43519413
The adoption of the PDF format.
>>43520738
lol'd
>>43520442
>Declares Model name
>Shills it
>No reference
The wiki page is half criticism about how it lacks any actual description, predictive application,or any utility
>>43527798
I'd extend this point to suggest something revolutionary.
More modern book layouts and designs. There's a load of older systems I've played that while still good, have pretty terrible book layouts, with things seemingly spread out and put together at random. Modern rulebooks don't often suffer from it in the same way older ones do.
GURPS GURPS GURPS GURPS
GURPS
>>43541227
And? I didn't say the theory was good, just that it was important in getting people to be more conscious of the ways in which people play games differently and for different reasons, and designing new types of games while being conscious of that.
>>43541805
What in God's holy name are you blathering about?
>>43541805
>but it's almost undeniable that it resulted in an explosion of new design direction and theorization of games
forgive me for thinking you where promoting it
and it didn't make anyone aware
the only thing that keeps people from knowing, without prompt, that "people play for different reasons", is that people are short sighted and limited and hardly people
>>43541849
He got flabbergasted that his post was critically read
>>43519413
The X-card.
>>43519413
To sell it
>>43542447
Eurgh, no. Outside of limited use in convention games, fuck that garbage.
>>43542447
That's the thing you hold up when you want to quit the game and have your character promptly killed off, right?
>>43519413
People realizing there was more than D&D.
>>43519413
>Pauli and Schrodinger looking at each other across Verschaffelt
Get a room, you guys.
>>43519413
I feel like I should know more of these people. I only recognised 4 of them.
>>43542447
>>43542529
>>43542686
The what?
>>43546492
It's a [triggered] card you can play for women and wimps.
>>43546492
It's a card placed on the table with an X on it. If at any time a player is uncomfortable, they can tap on the X and the game moves on rather than lingering on a topic which distresses them.
I don't think it's entirely worthless, in convention games where you're playing with people you don't know for a short period of time, I can understand the appeal, but in regular gaming groups it always seemed like a really weak alternative to actually talking to other human beings and learning to convey your discomfort and help people understand so you can more effectively avoid it in future. I wouldn't play with anyone who insisted on one being used.
>>43546640
But why join "The Adventures of Dick Mahoney and the Rape Gangs of Mars" if you're triggered by violence, rape, dicks or mars in the first place?
>>43546701
>tfw triggered by Mars
>>43546996
I admit, I liked both The Martian and John Carter.
Everyone talking about narrative vs simulation RPGs need a fucking lesson in RPG history.
The first iterations of D&D were very much "gamist" as were most of its predecessors. The "simulation" boom was more of an 80s thing and didn't get rolling until the industry really started to take off, there being a large number of "simulationist" games is only really a coincidence as that was the popular thing at the time when the first small publisher boom happened.
GMless games.
Encouraging people to share traditionally GM-only tasks like worldbuilding and scene framing while still concentrating most of their RP efforts on one character gives rise to some really cool confluence of imagination.
GMs getting inside the heads of their players and vice versa, generally improving communication of what players want to see in a game, makes RPGs strictly more fun. Less time mucking about with trying to find a rhythm or style of play everyone enjoys.
>>43547811
>predecessors
Fuck.
Successors. Successors, I mean.
>>43519413
Narrative games that let the players join in creating the story on the meta level as well as through character action.
Tabletop rpgs that are just about combat and skill mechanics are essentially just videogames without graphics. The strength of the genre was always the stories and experiences you had, so the games that focus more directly on them are in my opinion the most revolutionary.
At the end of the day what very specific way you chose to make people roll dice to hit things is not particularly interesting or noteworthy.
>>43546640
Honestly, the person who came up with it was probably doing so with the best of intentions (or maybe not, fuck if I know) but in practice it is literally always shit.
If you can't handle a certain topic to the point where you need to MAKE everyone around you shut up about it, you're not fit to join in a public game or discussion to begin with. It's only ever used by people who enjoy getting attention at the cost of others without having to justify themselves.
The only people I've ever seen getting excited over the X card concept were just stoked at the thought of forcing people to adjust to them, not really people who were traumatized or uncomfy with certain concepts.
>>43519413
The idea that you could play a war game with a single character instead of an army, allowing for a number of players to participate and control individuals of a band. And that games could be based around the life and experiences of those characters instead of simply having a battle and being done with it, telling a collaborative fantasy tale in the same vein of Lord of the Rings or Conan.
>>43548043
The guy who made it was just looking for tumblr fame.
Before he took his "about me" section out of the doc he was pretty clearly a fucking egomaniac.
>>43547933
The reason why a lot of older RPGs didn't have a ton non-combat rules is because back then people felt combat was the only part of the game that needed them.
>>43546996
MAAAAAAARRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!
https://youtu.be/91ES_zPRyhg?t=1m49s
>>43548174
>The reason why a lot of older RPGs didn't have a ton non-combat rules is because back then people felt combat was the only part of the game that needed them.
No, mostly it's because the old rpgs were the offspring of miniature wargaming and measured character progression in monsters killed.
The combat was the only thing people felt needed rules because it was more or less the only thing in the game anyway.
>>43548319
Total and complete bullshit.
>>43548419
Well with an eloquent argument like that, backed up by unquestionable facts, you've definitely convinced me.
On a more serious note though, it's pretty common knowledge that the first commercially available role-playing game was inspired by miniature wargaming and fantasy literature, it just changed the scope of the wargaming from fighting large battles to focus on a small group of heroes.
>>43548419
Eat a bag of dicks, first edition of D&D needed the players to have the rules for the Chainmail miniatur wargame by gygax, it was wargamey as fuck.
>>43519413
has anyone in this thread commented about hitler just standing off on the very far left of that picture
i'm laughing
P. Debye you are fooling no one
>>43548678
>> report 3 million 2 thousand 3 hundred and eighty three, year 88 of my deep cover mission, the community at large is starting to suspect that I am no jew scientist wizard, but in fact am Hitler, send immediate extraction.
>>43548834
>> 88 years
the picture was taken in 1927
bravo hitler
>>43519438
Shit, I don't see this thread for days and someone stole my post.
