chiralman
Jun 25th, '04, 06:44 AM
Recently I have been re-igniting my interest in RPGing and so I seem to have a different outlook about things that I would like to post here to see how my peers respond.
1) I think that RPGing should be considered an art. It is literature with a novel approach... interaction. I think that there is room to explore it in high school classes that teach literary style and expressions. It's a unique art form, and its fun.
2) I think, in all seriuousness, that RPGs can be addictive. Now that I sit back and think about it, RPGing encompassed my youth in the early 80's. Second place was video games. Time, money, and thought went into both, but video games are acted on and completed, RPGs have the potential to go on as long as desired and the social element of it can be extremely valuable no matter who says what about us gamers being basement-dwelling geeks. Even PBeMs can get you into peer groups and from that kind of interaction friends can be born. The addictive aspect is kind of scary, though. I can remember actually stealing a copy of game resource material once when I was young enough not to have a job. I just had to have it. That was wrong, and it had more to do with obsession than with gaming. I can remember choosing gaming over 'outside' activities where physical exercise suffered. I can remember neglecting friends and family in order to play some more. I can remember getting into fights about 'my hobby' taking so much of my time. Every one of my associates (friends, girlfriends, neighbors) had to sit through at least one of my evangelistic outreaches preaching about how fun RPGing is, and asking them if they'd like to try it sometime. I'm glad I'm no longer like that, but I think that the matter should be addressed publicly for younger audiences... maybe not as strict as a warning like on cigarrettes, but certainly as a warning for consumers and their parents to know what their kids may be getting involved in. I would have spit in my own face as a youth if I read what I'm writing right now, but as a parent with young children, I can see the value in it.
3) My monster-gamer perspective as brand new eyes. I was always for building balanced characters and balanced campaigns, but now I can see how much of an impact one tribe of orcs, or one dragon(!) would have on our real world I can see that a world packed with monsters and life-threatening dangers would be almost unlivable. Whatever happened to the story where the goal was to find first and then purge the land of the relatively smaller-scale threat? One dragon could disrupt a whole nation! Nonetheless, we like to see throngs of demons escaping the portal to hell... God forbid if we were to step into that particular scenario. Thrills can be addicting, and addictions are never satisfied without more more MORE! So this time around I'm going to keep things relatively mild and really hype up what may be seen as mundane as far as RPGing goes. I think that Tolkien had the right perspective, Bilbo longed for adventure, but once he understood what 'adventure' entailed, he didn't want it anymore... same with Frodo and Sam.
4) Regarding 'power', another insatiable hunger can arise that isn't really respectful of reality. Could you imagine what would happen if we got to spend just 10 points of power on ourselves... or how about 3 points? Would you be satisfied with 'only' infrared vision or to be able to leap twice as far as you do now? Wow. And to see that the H5E condones 350 pt superhero characters as the norm where I was used to 250 pt supers as a good (humble?) starting point for supers. Superman was phenomenal enough with his 'faster than a speeding bullet' and 'able to leap tall buildings in a single bound', but apparently now he has to have the ability to overcome world governments single handedly in order to be able to play with the big boys. IMHO more is less in this regard. Again, I will strive for a more simple appreciation of 'power' than what seems to be the concensus.
OK, I'm done for now. Can you get a feel for what I'm trying to say here?
1) I think that RPGing should be considered an art. It is literature with a novel approach... interaction. I think that there is room to explore it in high school classes that teach literary style and expressions. It's a unique art form, and its fun.
2) I think, in all seriuousness, that RPGs can be addictive. Now that I sit back and think about it, RPGing encompassed my youth in the early 80's. Second place was video games. Time, money, and thought went into both, but video games are acted on and completed, RPGs have the potential to go on as long as desired and the social element of it can be extremely valuable no matter who says what about us gamers being basement-dwelling geeks. Even PBeMs can get you into peer groups and from that kind of interaction friends can be born. The addictive aspect is kind of scary, though. I can remember actually stealing a copy of game resource material once when I was young enough not to have a job. I just had to have it. That was wrong, and it had more to do with obsession than with gaming. I can remember choosing gaming over 'outside' activities where physical exercise suffered. I can remember neglecting friends and family in order to play some more. I can remember getting into fights about 'my hobby' taking so much of my time. Every one of my associates (friends, girlfriends, neighbors) had to sit through at least one of my evangelistic outreaches preaching about how fun RPGing is, and asking them if they'd like to try it sometime. I'm glad I'm no longer like that, but I think that the matter should be addressed publicly for younger audiences... maybe not as strict as a warning like on cigarrettes, but certainly as a warning for consumers and their parents to know what their kids may be getting involved in. I would have spit in my own face as a youth if I read what I'm writing right now, but as a parent with young children, I can see the value in it.
3) My monster-gamer perspective as brand new eyes. I was always for building balanced characters and balanced campaigns, but now I can see how much of an impact one tribe of orcs, or one dragon(!) would have on our real world I can see that a world packed with monsters and life-threatening dangers would be almost unlivable. Whatever happened to the story where the goal was to find first and then purge the land of the relatively smaller-scale threat? One dragon could disrupt a whole nation! Nonetheless, we like to see throngs of demons escaping the portal to hell... God forbid if we were to step into that particular scenario. Thrills can be addicting, and addictions are never satisfied without more more MORE! So this time around I'm going to keep things relatively mild and really hype up what may be seen as mundane as far as RPGing goes. I think that Tolkien had the right perspective, Bilbo longed for adventure, but once he understood what 'adventure' entailed, he didn't want it anymore... same with Frodo and Sam.
4) Regarding 'power', another insatiable hunger can arise that isn't really respectful of reality. Could you imagine what would happen if we got to spend just 10 points of power on ourselves... or how about 3 points? Would you be satisfied with 'only' infrared vision or to be able to leap twice as far as you do now? Wow. And to see that the H5E condones 350 pt superhero characters as the norm where I was used to 250 pt supers as a good (humble?) starting point for supers. Superman was phenomenal enough with his 'faster than a speeding bullet' and 'able to leap tall buildings in a single bound', but apparently now he has to have the ability to overcome world governments single handedly in order to be able to play with the big boys. IMHO more is less in this regard. Again, I will strive for a more simple appreciation of 'power' than what seems to be the concensus.
OK, I'm done for now. Can you get a feel for what I'm trying to say here?