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Games and Gaming: Alright you popularizers ... sell HER a game.

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  1.  
    •  
      CommentAuthorKuma
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2006 edited
     # 1
    I noticed a post on RPG.net that led to this somewhat creepy AOL page.

    My challenge to the group, if you wish to accept: pitch an idea for a game that this person, who is interested in roleplay, would want to buy.

    And Code of Unaria is right out.
    •  
      CommentAuthorKuma
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2006
     # 2
    The link works now.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2006
     # 3
    No illiterates!You must be able to use English.But not the space bar between sentences.Okay?
    • CommentAuthorjoepub
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2006
     # 4
    Dude, we can't sell her a game.She's a freeformer.She totally believes herself to be above mechanics and all that stuff.You can even note that beside her lists of things she'll roleplay, she's listed the individual character's she'll play.

    She's way too h-core for "roleplaying games".Games are for illiterates, and semi-illiterates.
    •  
      CommentAuthorKuma
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2006
     # 5
    Posted By: joepubDude, we can't sell her a game.She's a freeformer.


    Slacker!
  6.  # 6
    Actually, I think this has been mentioned in another thread at some point, but...

    People who prefer this sort of roleplaying don't really need (or at least want) much in the way of mechanics. What they need/want are communication tools. The 'game' I'd be selling such a person is a community chat matching system. I'm imagining a cross between a dating service (for interest matching) and a random IM chat matching system (I'm pretty sure AIM still has a 'chat with some random person' feature).

    Thomas
    •  
      CommentAuthordroog
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2006
     # 7
    I'd rather sell her on a punch in the head.
  8.  # 8
    I don't even understand what she does. What the heck is || vs. //?
    •  
      CommentAuthorBen Lehman
    • CommentTimeSep 16th 2006
     # 9

    Andrew -- Straight (heterosexual) versus Slash (homosexual, particularly homosexual for heterosexual interest)

    Here's my sales pitch to her, for any game: "Here's a fun activity, which is in no way like your chat role-playing, let's try it out."

    yrs--
    --Ben

    • CommentAuthorIsbo
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2006
     # 10
    I think you do it by stripping out dice and starting to talk about how the mechanics help regulate the flow of the story she is telling, work towards interesting moments (let her decide what those are...), and resolve them so you can go on to more fun moments, not get bogged down. Explain flags to her, how they help her and her partner figure out what they like most in their stories. Sell her on the skills she can take back to her fun.
    • CommentAuthorWarthur
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2006
     # 11
    Okay, I've not had any direct experience with chat/PBEM-based freeform fan-fictiony roleplaying, but I think joepub hit on the largest problem: she's going to be used to games where there's little-to-no rules, beyond Play Nicely and Don't Ignore Other People's Contributions. Any game where, suddenly, you have to roll dice or consult people's stats to work out whether they succeed at something/whether their player gets to direct the narrative is going to seem restrictive to her.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAdam Dray
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 12
    Um, she's not role-playing the way we're role-playing. She's typing one-handed, if you follow...
    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 13
    Posted By: Ben Lehman

    Here's my sales pitch to her, for any game: "Here's a fun activity, which is in no way like your chat role-playing, let's try it out."

    Word. 'course, that's my sales pitch to people who already roleplay table-top, too.

  14.  # 14
    Um... yeah. Adam saw it. That site has everything to do with sex fantasy and nothing to do with the hobby of RPGs. That f/f and f/m thing? That's female/female and female/male, or if the fantasy is about straight or lesbian fantasies.

    Unless she's expressed an interest in RPGs on RPG.net or somewhere else, I'd bet that there's little chance you'll sell her any kind of mechanism at all.
    •  
      CommentAuthoreruditus
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 15
    What freightened me here is that she wants to play for DAYS!
    •  
      CommentAuthorBen Lehman
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 16

    That site has everything to do with sex fantasy and nothing to do with the hobby of RPGs.


    Uh, Eric? Why don't RPGs have to do with sex fantasy?

    yrs--
    --Ben
    •  
      CommentAuthorAdam Dray
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 17
    I think there are a lot of similarities, but the agenda is totally different. I suspect that if the game mechanics hit the right buttons for her, she might be interested.

    I read her "DAYS" as wanting ongoing role-play, not a quickie one-shot, so to speak.
  18.  # 18
    Ben asksUh, Eric? Why don't RPGs have to do with sex fantasy?


    I didn't say that RPGs have nothing to do with sex fantasy. There's plenty of overlapping there. But not in her site. In the very same way that my game design blog is all about the RPG hobby without having anything to do with sex fantasy.
    •  
      CommentAuthormisuba
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 19

    There is a huge, huge volume of people doing serious, elaborate, and high-quality online roleplay wherein the subject matter is basically sexual. Are we sure this woman is "just a one-handed typist," because she can't punctuate? Or do we just not acknowledge any roleplay in that category?

  20.  # 20
    Posted By: misuba

    There is a huge, huge volume of people doing serious, elaborate, and high-quality online roleplay wherein the subject matter is basically sexual. Are we sure this woman is "just a one-handed typist," because she can't punctuate? Or do we just not acknowledge any roleplay in that category?



    well, she does say: "I am assuming you are interested in a oneXone."
    •  
      CommentAuthorKuma
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006 edited
     # 21
    Posted By: Eric ProvostUnless she's expressed an interest in RPGs on RPG.net or somewhere else, I'd bet that there's little chance you'll sell her any kind of mechanism at all.


    I got the link off of RPG.net. :)

    I think my point is that, yes, she's basically into extended one-on-one melodrama punctuated with cyber. But that doesn't mean that some sort of story-engine structure wouldn't (or couldn't) fit her needs and help her improve her play.

    Play is play - sexually driven or not, and there are a lot of folks who are in similar veins as her, only playing with non-sexual goals.

    She's a fringe case, yes. But selling to the fringe cases (well, maybe a little less fringe) is called 'expanding the market'. Sell her something that helps her out, and maybe down the line she finds Breaking the Ice.

    Gateway, people, gateway!
    •  
      CommentAuthormisuba
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 22

    Two-person games do happen. That said, I don't know the lingo well enough to be certain that this particular woman is looking for something other than a cybersex partner, and that was the first reaction of the online RPers to whom I've shown that page. I just want to be sure we don't muddy the waters between that and serious roleplay, merely due to slashy or otherwise sexual content.

    •  
      CommentAuthorEric Provost
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006 edited
     # 23
    Kuma sez:I got the link off of RPG.net. :)


    I saw that. But I wasn't sure if she was the one posting or there was just someone else pointing at her site.

    So, you're saying that she is a gamer? Cool. Maybe we could design her a game. But I'll eat my favourite shoe with steaksauce if you do it based off of that site. And she digs it. And she plays it.

    edit PS - I would really like to see someone attempt this. I'm willing to eat that shoe if someone proves me wrong.
    •  
      CommentAuthormisuba
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 24

    I would be inclined to doubt that she saw "RPG" in the name RPGnet and thought the same things we do when we see it.

    •  
      CommentAuthorKuma
    • CommentTimeSep 18th 2006
     # 25
    Posted By: misuba

    I would be inclined to doubt that she saw "RPG" in the name RPGnet and thought the same things we do when we see it.



    True enough - but I'm not willing to concede that the two activities are so far apart as to be incompatible.

    Maybe I should e-mail her for some 'actual play'. To work from. :^)
  26.  # 26
    After some thought, I realized that Jonathan Walton's KKKKK could probably do this sort of thing pretty dang well.

    Thomas
    • CommentAuthorIsbo
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006
     # 27
    Two words for Thomas: Key chains. Come on, couldn't you see them being exactly the sort of guideposts a person involved in this sort of play could enjoy?
    • CommentAuthorwyrmwood
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006
     # 28
    Diceless Pure Shoujo could work quite well for this. I might keep the the location roll, and possibly add a kicker roll as well. Replacing numeric stats with a short phrase, should work fine, and oddly enough doesn't do much to alter the system (lumpley-wise), which really centers on the cards.

    I suspect the card mechanic is best described as key chains, except with parallelism. I'll have to take a closer look at key chains. In the very least when I used that card mechanic in my Aberrant game it produced patterns of play quite similar to what I saw in my foray into online RP.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDevP
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006 edited
     # 29

    I think my point is that, yes, she's basically into extended one-on-one melodrama punctuated with cyber."

    Replace "cyber" with "IC makeouts" and you have perhaps 50% of your college-town LARP scene.

    I'd recommend against mocking her style. I mean, we play games which have stats for loathing. Come on now.

    • CommentAuthorTonyLB
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006
     # 30
    Yeah, but we mock ourselves too. Doesn't that make us ... y'know ... equal opportunity mockers?
    •  
      CommentAuthorAdam Dray
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006
     # 31
    I am reminded of this from bash.org.
  32.  # 32
    This conversation raises my hackles, but I'll just say this:

    Spooky Beans.
    • CommentAuthorDoug Ruff
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006
     # 33
    OK, I'm going straight to hell for this:

    Onexone – the online roleplaying game

    What's this game about?

    First up, a warning – this is not a “Dungeons and Dragons” type of roleplaying. onexone is a simple set of rules for facilitating intimate communication between two people over the internet. This can be anything from shared erotic story-telling to out-and-out “cybering”

    Why have rules at all?

    Because there's a lot of people out there on the internet, and not all of them like to play the same way. onexone helps you to identify early whether the person you are chatting to is going to be into the same stuff as you, and also helps you to build intimacy as slowly (or quickly!) as you are both comfortable with.



    So, how's my pitch?
    •  
      CommentAuthorVaxalon
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006
     # 34
    That's actually a real good pitch.
    •  
      CommentAuthormisuba
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006
     # 35

    Hells yes!

    • CommentAuthorDoug Ruff
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006 edited
     # 36
    OK, I think it's time for a new thread!

    EDIT: it's here. Let battle commence!
    • CommentAuthorDoug Ruff
    • CommentTimeSep 19th 2006
     # 37
    Hey, can anyone give me a heads-up on the original RPG.net post that started all of this?

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