A brief taste of the feast to come. All the spells are written, the layout is done, and we are just messing with some final details. Update: it is done! Get it here for free. Four samples:
By smearing the face with mud, dust, or jagged rock shards, the sorcerer’s soul fuses with a greater earth spirit, binding the emotions of the sorcerer to the movement of faults deep below. For the duration of the spell, annoyance and minor pains result in tremors while wrath and great pain yield proportional restlessness of the earth. When the spell ends, the sorcerer becomes numb to the experience of any emotional intensity until the spell can be prepared again.
[Enlarge] Engorgement
The sorcerer must prepare a dish from flesh of a four-legged animal, spiced well and thoughtfully. Upon speaking the magic words, and consuming the food, the sorcerer grows to the size of the animal consumed, persisting in that size until passing the animal’s remains. Only the sorcerer’s body changes, and upon the spell’s end there is a 1 in 6 chance of the sorcerer permanently manifesting some physical aspect of the creature, such as goat horns, horse hooves, or cat eyes. If the animal consumed was of a kind to lay eggs, the sorcerer will lay an egg within 1d6 weeks, birthing a creature of wonder or terror.
[Fear] Beacon of Terror
By prostration, tracing forbidden signs on the ground, and slapping the ground three times, the sorcerer causes an infinitely high beam of light to spring forth from the ground like a pillar rising to heaven. For any creatures of level four or less witnessing the radiant beam, taking any action other than fleeing the beam pillar requires succeeding at a saving throw. When the spell ends, the beam flickers out, but if the beam was called under open sky there is a 1 in 6 chance of attracting attention from spirits of the air, dragons in transit, or a flock of giant eagles.
[Message] Sending of Bats
During the dead of night while in a cave, earthy hollow, or dead tree, the sorcerer invokes the ancient pact of Chirops, which obligates bats to serve as envoys for the wise. In 1d6 turns, a colony of bats prostrates themselves around the sorcerer to receive a message, which the colony will then carry to a destination or recipient provided by the sorcerer, to sing the message thrice in a harmony of bat voices. There is a 1 in 6 chance the bats will be the size of condors—bat champions—only willing to serve following negotiation of terms.
Here is a JRPG rules hack. I think this one is tighter than my previous attempt, and may even be playable as is.
First chose a base chassis (B/X D&D, Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, whatever), and then apply the following rules modules.
Signature Weapons
Black Mage (personal sketch)
Every player character gets a signature weapon. Fighters get sword (because fighters are the magic sword class). For other classes, choose a non-sword signature weapon (or determine randomly): 1 axe, 2 bow, 3 crossbow, 4 dagger, 5 mace, 6 spear, or 7 war hammer. Adventurers can use weapons afforded by class or signature weapon, and attack with advantage when using a signature weapon. (This list of possible signature weapons matches possible magic weapons from the classic treasure tables; if you choose some other kind of weapon, such as revolver, you might want to modify the treasure tables accordingly.)
Homunculiths
Rather than traditional spells, adventurers draw power from magic crystals called homunculiths. Replace magic weapon plusses with homunculith sockets (so a spear +2 means a spear with two homunculith slots). Any character can use magic afforded by a slotted homunculith if the character can use the weapon and can supply the necessary magic points.
Magic-users can slot a number of homunculiths in various magical paraphernalia equal to character level. This can be hat clips, belt buckles, cane handles, whatever (describe the slots; the stone has to go somewhere, and has to be visible). Working homunculith slots into equipment requires a haven turn or downtime action for a magic-user. Only magic-users can make use of homunculiths in magical paraphernalia. Characters that would otherwise begin with spell slots start with one randomly determined homunculith.
Determine treasure using the treasure tables with some degree of strictness, but: replace magic scroll results with spell homunculiths, replace magic ring results with nexus homunculiths (used to summon daemonotheurgic entities; see below), and read arrow or bolts as bow or crossbow with homunculith slots (by bonus), respectively.
Magic Points
Since hit points come from hit dice, magic points must come from magic dice; adventurer MD by class: fighter = d4, thief = d6, magic-user = d8. (Generally, classes with high HD should have low MD and vice versa, so infer MD for other classes based on that principle.) Determine MP total similarly to HP total (so a third-level fighter gets 3d4 MP). Additionally, use the MD when determining damage from magic that calls for dice (so magic-users roll with pools of d8 and fighters roll with pools of d4). Characters recover spent MP during haven turns/downtime.
Spell Homunculiths
Choose a spell list. Determine the spell associated with each homunculith randomly. Ignore results with “summon monster” type effects (because nexus homunculiths handle summoning). You could use the traditional spells, the spells from Pits & Perils, Wonder & Wickedness, the spells I drafted as part of my previous JRPG Basic musings (black magic spells, white magic spells), some other source, or some combination. Here is the list of spell names from Pits & Perils: Bolt, Call, Calm, Cure, Fade, Fear, Find, Foil, Gaze, Glow, Heal, Hide, Know, Link, Load, Mend, Mute, Null, Pass, Rise, Ruin, Send, Stun, Ward. Determine the MP cost of each spell randomly by rolling 1d6. Once determined, the cost is set (so it is possible to discover a better homunculith with the same spell).
Nexus Homunculiths
Mist dragon summon from Final Fantasy 4 (SNES)
Nexus homunculiths are bound to summonable daemonotheurgic entities. Generate the entity linked to a nexus homunculith by rolling on a table of monsters, and then adding an elemental aspect: 1 fire, 2 ice, 3 lightning, 4 radiance, 5 shadow, 6 slime. For the table of summonable monsters, collect all the monsters in your rulebook of choice with HD of 6 or higher, crossing them off as adventurers discover homunculiths. Give each daemonotheurgic entity a name. Attach an action die to the daemonotheurgic entity. By default, this is d6:
Attack
Attack
Attack
Elemental
Elemental
Special (make this up when creating the entity)
Summoning an entity costs 1 MP. When summoning an entity using a nexus homunculith, determine entity HP using remaining entity HD.
Roll the entity’s action die to determine actions each round after summoning. The summoner can override the action die using a command, but this requires spending an action. Commanding the special attack will cause the entity to depart afterwards. The action die determines the monster’s action but the summoner’s player determines all other details, such as targets and so forth.
When determining summoned monster HP, roll the monster’s remaining HD and leave the dice on the table as they fall (or record the numbers per die). When the monster takes damage, the player may decide to which die the damage applies. If a die total is reduced to zero or less, remove the die and ignore any excess damage rather than process the spillover damage. Restore removed dice during downtime recovery. Healing a summoned monster allows rerolling some number of remaining HD rather than adding HP directly or restoring removed monster HD.
At the end of each combat round, spend 1 MP or the entity departs.
Does starting with D&D, compared to starting with other tabletop roleplaying games, lead to playing a wider variety of roleplaying games?
Ben and I ran a survey during the winter to explore attitudes and behaviors related to gateway RPGs (you can find the questions we asked here, along with some descriptive statistics). All of this data is correlational, so interpret any trends below keeping in mind that many unmeasured third variables could provide better explanations. Spoiler alert: after controlling for time-related variables, starting with D&D (compared to non-D&D games) is associated with playing a narrower variety of roleplaying games.
Also, note: I made a programming error in the survey which caused the play variety question to show up for only approximately half the participants. That kind of sucks, but even so the sample is still large (> 1000). The problem was that I based this survey on a previous survey as a template which had used random assignment. The good news is that the presentation seems to have been random. (In any case, you can find a link to the numeric data at the bottom of this post, if you want to perform your own analyses.)
Next, I am going to step through some analysis. The statistics are there if you want them, but I tried to write everything in English as well.
Figure 1 (click to enlarge)
First, here is a histogram showing the distribution of play variety (figure 1). Response labels were 1 = Strongly Disagree up to 7 = Strongly Agree.
Overall, participants reported having played a wide variety of tabletop RPGs (N = 1370, M = 5.41, SD = 1.64), somewhat unsurprising for players with enough engagement to talk about games online. Based on the figure above, it looks like the distribution is censored, probably due to range restriction in the measurement. That is, the question we asked probably has trouble distinguishing between people at the high end of the distribution. Additionally, there may be some self-serving bias where participants overestimate the variety of games played. Some models (such as Tobit regression) can take censored data into account.
Figure 2 (click to enlarge)
What about the focal comparison of starting with D&D compared to starting with a non-D&D game? There is a marginal statistical difference, but the effect is quite small, which is clear if you look at a visualization superimposing the two distributions (figure 2). Using a t-test, the difference between means is 5.44 for non-D&D and 5.28 for any edition of D&D (t(947.326) = 1.67, p = .095). Tobit regression provides similar results for the effect of starting with D&D (b = -.249, SE = .136, t = -1.83, p = .067, 95% CI [-.516, .018]). The following two figures use kernel density estimation, which is (to oversimplify) similar to a histogram, but smoothed. (“Non-D&D” here includes “other” results, which was n around 500. I skimmed the free text response for those participants and there are only a handful which could be considered a D&D variant.)
What if we increase the granularity, distinguishing between TSR D&D and WotC D&D?
Figure 3 (click to enlarge)
These figures (3 and 4) might make it look like there is a clear split between the influence of TSR D&D compared to WotC D&D, however keep in mind that starting edition is confounded with date entering the hobby. WotC D&D came out more recently, so players that first land on WotC D&D tend to have started more recently (mean year = 2011) compared to players that started with TSR D&D (mean year = 1997). Dramatically, players also started much younger with TSR D&D (mean age = 12.37) compared to WotC D&D (mean age = 18.29). Both of these factors would give players starting with TSR D&D more time to explore other games, on average, so we should probably add both as covariates to control for that association.
Figure 4 (click to enlarge)
Indeed, when you control for the age/time related variables, you get an entirely different pattern (see figure 5), where starting with either generation of D&D (TSR or WotC) is associated with less variety playing other tabletop RPGs compared to starting with non-D&D games. Based on this data, I think this is the tentative conclusion. Whether that is a good or bad thing is a value judgment that I will leave to you. This could mean that people are more likely to be satisfied with D&D. It could also mean that people with more variety-seeking personalities are more likely to come across non-D&D games initially, and it is this trait, rather than initial exposure, which is responsible both for the exposure to the initial game and the decision to continue exploring other games. This result concerns individual behavior, not broader cultural influence; it is possible (and seems likely to me, though I lack supporting data) that broad brand awareness of D&D expands the overall player pool and so has a net positive effect on the absolute number of people exploring other games.
Figure 5 (click to enlarge)
The associations according to a Tobit regression including the covariates: TSR D&D (b = -.560, SE = .181, t = -3.09, p = 0.002, 95% CI [-.916, -.204]), WotC D&D (b = -.337, SE = .151, t = -2.23, p = 0.026, 95% CI [-.634, -.041]), year started playing covariate (b = -.066, SE = .008, t = -8.04, p < 0.001, 95% CI [-.082, -.050]), age started playing covariate (b = -.032, SE = .014, t = -2.37, p = 0.018, 95% CI [-.059, -.006]). (This seems to be a decent pass at an appropriate model, but notably the results are similar using standard OLS multiple regression.)
Here is the raw numeric data. Here is the Stata code I used for the analysis in this post. Please let me know if you have any questions, discover anything else, notice any errors, or have any suggestions.
A wolf tears an adventurer from horseback, leaving the adventurer at 1 HP. A mind flayer death-lord looms over an unconscious adventurer with brain drill raised high. Some decisions confront the referee. Have the next wolf attack the unhorsed? Crack open that skull?
Ruthless actions can sometimes feel like an arbitrary referee choice, even if demanded by best move game logic. Considering the integrity of the imagined world, objectives other than pure ruthlessness may make more sense. For example, in the wild predators often attempt to separate the weak from a herd, withdrawing from combat with a prize, rather than following the completion-oriented impulse of reducing all opponents to zero hit points. In the context of a game, however, avoiding scorched earth can sometimes read as a pulled punch.
Conversely, the strongest game move can sometimes feel like the referee (rather than the integrity of the game world) has personally decided to kill your character in particular, even if it really does make the most sense in the game world context, unless the referee makes decisions in the same way for all opponents. This is because, as a matter of psychology, given incomplete information people infer intent from behavior. Also suboptimal.
Ideally, there will be some ruthless opponents, some merciful opponents, some strategic opponents, and some inscrutable opponents. As a referee, it is all too easy to fall into patterns. You might find all your opponents acting like they are playing battle chess or that adventurers keep getting captured.
Below are several approaches to determine opponent ruthlessness impartially.
Generally speaking, my principle is to follow the thread of imagined necessity until some aspect becomes uncertain and then call for a roll. And that is the way I would see deploying any of these approaches, probably transparently and with the player rolling the dice.
Situation-Agnostic Behavior Table
Roll d6:
Vindictive sadistic gleeful viciousness
Continues attacking the adventurer with intent to kill
Changes target, attempts to attack a different adventurer
Attempts to capture or restrain adventurer
Maintains hostility, but switches to display of aggression/intimidation
Objective met, cautious retreat (maybe something spooked the opponent?)
Reaction Roll
Image from some Mortal Kombat game
Make a reaction roll, using whatever system your base game chassis provides. Here are the classic outcome bands from B/X (page B24):
Monster Reactions
2 Immediate Attack
3-5 Hostile, possible attack
6-8 Uncertain, monster confused
9-11 No attack, monster leaves or considers offers
12 Enthusiastic friendship
You would need to reinterpret these dispositions relative to the question of whether the opponent fights with maximum intent to kill or not, but that should be an easy exercise for the reader, and has the advantage of reusing a system.
Charisma Test
Call for the player of the threatened adventurer to make a charisma check. Failure means focused fire, attack to kill, whatever. Success within four points means continued attack but letting up or switching targets. Success by more than four points means the opponent has made a point and is looking for an out. Set the DC (if that is a thing in your ruleset) based on how mean the opponent is.
In addition to persuasiveness, charisma also represents force of personality, confidence, and so forth, attributes that may dissuade attackers both animal and intelligent. There were cougars in the hills where I grew up, and if you encountered a cougar the best approach was supposedly to stand still and make yourself as big as possible. I never had to test that, but I imagine that standing tall in the face of a wildcat would take some charisma.
On my last grocery run, I listened to the first episode of Alex’s podcast Text to Table, which is a discussion of Troika with David Wilkie (Anxiety Wizard). One detail jumped out at me, which was the dynamic of play that David described in his Troika game. The focus of play seemed to be more interaction between player characters rather than exploration or problem solving.
The characters in the party included a lonesome monarch, a zoanthrope, a chaos champion, and maybe some others but those are the ones I recall. In the game the zoanthrope tried to eat the king’s crown, triggering some sort of existential crisis regarding kinghood, and then there was some interaction between the king and the chaos champion, details somewhat unimportant. What I want to highlight here is the interaction of player characters as more autonomous entities as compared to a team working together to accomplish some goal. (Please read this as descriptive rather than judgmental; the game sounded memorable and fun.)
I am always on the lookout for key play aspects that distinguish different modes and cultures of play. (For example, degree of proceduralism.) Whether players form a team working together to confront challenges (or not) seems to be another one of these key aspects of play, more interesting for the fact that it is rarely described explicitly, even in games that try to discuss things like play agendas explicitly. Looking at another game, in many ways Apocalypse World is a highly traditional design (each player controls a single character with stats, there are rules for fighting, characters improve, and so forth), but many or most of the rules (and examples in the text) seem geared toward priming confrontations between characters, resulting in a kind of soap opera dynamic. That is, much of the play seems to involve generating drama between player characters rather than navigating challenges between player characters and the fictional environment. In contrast, in TSR D&D and many OSR games, the (never? rarely?) stated assumption is that player characters form a band of picaros or commandos intent on dungeon heists. There seems to be some highly influential spectrum between autonomous interaction and team-based problem solving.
Discussing this with Eero Tuovinen, he mentioned some terminology around drama versus adventure or PvP versus PvE, which are relevant but don’t seem to quite capture the differences on this spectrum. For example, PvP seems to connote a degree of conflict that may be absent from autonomous character based games (it certainly didn’t seem like the player characters in David’s Troika game were trying to kill each other or competing directly in any way). Further, there was probably some adventure going on, so saying that the Troika game was not (categorically) an “adventure” game seems like a mistake, though maybe prioritizing drama versus prioritizing adventure gets part of the way there. This distinction does seem to underly at a deep level what it is that players are doing when they play however.
Unlike D&D, Troika ties advancement to using skills successfully rather than to a clear gameplay goal such as recovering treasure, defeating monsters, or completing event milestones, so there is some textual support underlying this mode of play, whatever your opinion on causation between text and play experience. Troika differs in many other ways from traditional play assumptions, such as the surrealist setting prompts, so there may be additional dynamics at play here, but encoded incentives seem unambiguously relevant to the question of shared goals at the least. I also think that it would be a mistake to oversimplify this to broader play culture, where “story games” are about drama based on interactions between autonomous characters and “OSR” games are about goal-oriented team play, given that the player base of Troika is probably mostly located in the OSR (or what have you) play culture.
Personally, my default mode of play tends toward team-oriented. The elements of play I enjoy most are exploration and problem solving, both when I run games and when I play games. Some media touchstones of action in these kinds of games (to reference a few TV shows) include seeing how the characters of early-seasons Lost explore the island, or how the characters in The Walking Dead manage to carve out a niche for themselves in the apocalyptic landscape. These are the team-oriented aspects of these stories. I think there are some practical advantages to team-based play in that teams support varying degrees of engagement whereas the mode of more autonomous player characters requires all players to be on point as needed, somewhat like improv, though I imagine perhaps systems could help here (providing tables of voluntary action prompts relevant to character backgrounds, for example).
I last played Final Fantasy VII when it came out originally. I liked the original, and probably count as a fan of the franchise generally, though my favorite iteration remains Final Fantasy VI, and I have slightly less experience with the modern action-leaning incarnations (X, XII, XIII, XV, and various spin-offs). Playing Final Fantasy VII Remake was probably the most sustained attention I have directed toward a video game in the past 10 years, taking about 40 hours total. While this may partly be due to the current shelter-in-place pseudo-quarantine context, it nonetheless speaks to the engaging spectacle and beauty of the reimagined Midgar. So keep that in mind as you read on. There may be spoilers throughout regarding the original FF VII storyline, as well as some spoilers near the end about the way the remake approached the material.
In the train graveyard
The original game was linear—almost all FF games are linear to some degree—and especially so during the initial Midgar sequence, which is the only material the remake covers, ending as Avalanche leaves the city. Since I started writing this review, I also played through the Midgar sequence of the original on Nintendo Switch, which took me about six hours, meaning the expansion/inflation is about sevenfold. Though lengthy for a prologue or tutorial section, the Midgar sequence works well in the original partly because the railroad feels subjectively like it opens up once the player finally reaches the overworld map and can begin to explore the mysteries of the Ancients and Sephiroth in a more self-directed manner (though this is somewhat illusory, as there are often a limited number of choices and a clear next step). In contrast, the Remake is one scene—quite literally—after another, leavened somewhat by numerous side quests (though many of the side quests are thematically weak “find lost cats” style collect tasks). The side quests seem inconsequential most of the time, and are limited to particular chapters. The strongest aspect of Remake is the visual care with which it was clearly constructed. In comparison to the original, the way the developers maintain and add detail to the original designs is impressive. Even putting aside the new plot elements—which I will discuss more near the end—the game aspect of Remake also has some shortcomings.
Memorialization
These gameplay shortcomings include some strange difficulty/balance issues, intrusive minigames, and confusingly modeful play. As a brief aside, Remake offers three difficulty modes: classic, easy, and normal. Hard mode becomes available after you beat the game. “Classic” is a nod to players desiring something closer to the original combat system. This is realized by replacing player controls with AI for basic attacks, dodging, and blocking, leaving the player to only select special moves and spells when the stamina bar (or whatever it is called) fills. Hard (which I have yet to try) only becomes available after beating the game; hard mode prevents the player from using items and makes rest areas only restore HP (no MP replenishment). Classic mode makes the combat much easier, rather than just changing the style, to the degree that it almost feels like cheating. I would say that the combat difficulty is moderate near the beginning of the game (probably easy for anyone even slightly better than me at action RPGs) and gets steadily easier. I defeated every boss on the first try except the Airbuster robot and the motorcycle sequence monster truck thing (which uses a different combat mode). So, the game has to be pretty easy, even on the highest difficulty mode available initially. I deferred to Classic mode twice early on, once with the rabid dog quest and once with the first Reno encounter (because he is twitchy AF). This is a long way around to say that the goal of FF7 Remake seems to be more sumptuous visual novel than gaming experience.
Picking flowers
The minigames are either forgettable or mildly frustrating. Further, they tend to be separate from other gameplay skills and unique to the particular minigame, rather than building on previously developed skills. In the Remake’s defense, the minigames in the original are just as distracting (and far more prevalent than I remembered, even just limited to the small portion I replayed). However, the original generally has clearer breaks between game modes, allowing the player to easily predict how the game will behave, whereas in the remake gameplay, cut scene, minigame, and in-between modes blend together and functionality sometimes disappears or shifts confusingly. The Remake also has issues with communicating contingency to the player, by which I mean connection between what the player does and what happens in the game world. Sometimes it is unclear whether you are just pressing a button to advance or performing some skilled action. For example, I still have no idea whether Tifa’s progress in jumping chandeliers in the Shinra building had any connection to what I did with the controller, but I ended up with a keycard in the end so whatever. I suspect the Remake would be improved without most of the minigames. (It seems like the developers recognize this at some level, because one of the perks unlocked by beating the game is the ability to skip the motorcycle sequences when replaying chapters.)
This calls for a song
The combat is satisfying, and fits the FF VII style, especially once you get the hang of some basic tactics. There is a slow motion, bullet time effect that occurs when you pause the action to issue commands, which is realized beautifully. Most of the strategic decisions involve distributing materia—the items that enable casting spells or using other abilities such as summoning—between characters. There is a subsystem with a separate experience point economy for upgrading weapons, but the choices seem hard to get wrong so the whole subsystem could probably have been automated and hidden from the player without loss.
No promises
Now I am going to discuss the Remake-specific aspects of the story. The game has a lot of potentially meta content, as in communication from developer to player directly rather than through storytelling, so much that it has to be intentional. Throughout the Remake, mysterious ghost things (“whispers”) intercede to shape the narrative, and while a final interpretation will need to wait on the next installment, it seems like the whispers will be an excuse to write a new plot going forward, especially given the final premature encounter with Sephiroth which, no matter the direction future games take, short-circuits some of the slow burn of discovering the nature and power of Sephiroth in the original game. The strange title and marketing also makes more sense in the context of future divergence; it is not Remake part 1 because part 2 will be a different story. I suspect the subtitles of future games will make this clear; perhaps the next installment will be called something like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. The closest analogue to what I think the developers intend is the rebuild of Evangelion, the first installment of which roughly kept to the original anime. However, the second and third Evangelion Rebuild movies became steadily more baroque additions with new plots and characters.
Cloud chilling
The neo VII project more broadly—perhaps a series, perhaps a nascent “cinematic universe”—is ambitious and as yet unclear, though it seems from the signs in Remake that the creators are comfortable taking a demolitions approach to nostalgic fandom. While I have no trouble maintaining distance between the new and the old—after all, the previous game remains unchanged and cheaply available on many platforms—I suspect that many other fans feel differently, so this seems like a strange stance to take on the part of the developers. In total, the game was enjoyable and visually striking enough that I can see myself playing it again at some point, but as such a small portion of the original plot and with cumbersome retcon groundwork, Remake also feels like a opportunity missed.
(All images are screenshots I took during my play-through.)
What are the most influential works of adventure fantasy? If you consider, somewhat arbitrarily, the last 10 years, I suspect the list would be something like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones—all due to Hollywood and television. Recently, I was thinking about Game of Thrones, and how it seems in many ways to lie apart from other influential works of fantasy, despite sharing tropes both in terms of content—dragons, sorcery, undead—and narrative—sword fights, heroism, prophecy. So what distinguishes Game of Thrones? The Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy, but also updates the medieval form of tapestry romance1. The Harry Potter stories have many epic fantasy elements, drawing as well from coming-of-age Bildungsroman and mystery traditions. Acknowledging the futility of thinking about genre in terms of essences, Game of Thrones still seems to wander alone; I think this is because it draws more from a different major narrative tradition.
Game of Thrones is cynical regarding human nature, grim in aspect, and employs a soap opera chronicle, but none of these elements seem to account for the difference in feeling. Most works of fantasy live primarily within the narrative traditions of epic and romance. Game of Thrones, however, works more like a tragedy; the fantastic elements occasionally take center stage, such as with the dragons or the fight against the Night King, but then fade, with less influence on the broader story. Examining the patterns, the core conflict in the story is basically Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses cycle (the eight play sequence of Richard II through Richard III), with the ending and ultimate theme of Julius Caesar—sic semper tyrannis. If the ending is unsatisfying, I think that is due to the joining of these disparate elements. People expecting the satisfying reveals and perpetual curiosity of a well-crafted soap opera were betrayed by the political moralism of the Caesar ending; adventure and heroism are taken up and discarded with little sense of cosmic resolution or advancement.
The epic tradition generally celebrates the deeds of a hero, possibly as prototype for a nation, such as the Aeneid (for classical Rome) and the Kalevala (for Finland), or a culture, such as, arguably, The Lord of the Rings (the Shire as preindustrial England). The traditions of epic, romance, and myth fit together more comfortably, compared to soap opera and tragedy. In terms of popular culture, Game of Thrones was one of the biggest shows in the US of 2018, number three after Big Bang Theory and Roseanne2. The rest of the top 10 are all sit coms, procedural dramas, and talent shows. This ranking is America-specific, but the popularity looks similar cross-culturally. For example, Game of Thrones is popular in China3, South America, and Europe4. Game of Thrones will probably shape for a long time how people everywhere think about fantasy.
I used to enjoy The Wheel of Time, another extended fantasy epic, though I never got past book seven, as at some point I made a personal rule to avoid unfinished multi-volume works of fantasy. After thinking about this, I was curious what my reaction now would be to Jordan, so I read the first part of The Eye of the World, book one in The Wheel of Time. One thing that strikes me now is the generic feeling of many aspects of the setting, common fantasy tropes through a lens of Americanisms, though presented with consistency using invented vernacular and mythic resonance, mostly with Christian apocalyptic eschatology. I also wonder how I could have seen Jordan’s story as so distinct. The first third of The Eye of the World shows a sorceress who comes to protect a farm boy of cosmic significance, pursued by riders in black sent by the Dark One. Apart from some minor variations, this basically recapitulates the first part of The Fellowship of the Ring, and even back then I had already read The Lord of the Rings. I mean this more as description than negative evaluation—there are many worse things than echoing an effective narrative structure.
Part of Tolkien’s triumph was to make as few concessions to the modern taste for realism in narrative as was necessary to entice contemporary readers. Game of Thrones goes exactly the opposite direction; the aspects that hang together best make up the chronicle of who sleeps together and who gets betrayed or defeated. Sex and gangsters. So the realist mode of political struggle replaces the mythic cycle. Martin manages to avoid the bore of speculative fiction using magic as technology substitute; the magic and mythic backdrop of his setting is wondrous and compelling—winter is coming, the queen of dragons, and so forth. But none of that really seems to matter much in the end, which is more concerned with the Machiavellian heart of darkness. Realpolitik maneuverings could provide the basis for a game, but it seems like such a game would be far from the picaresque pleasures of discovering Vance’s Dying Earth or delving into Moria on the way to fulfill a mythic quest.
1. Thomson, G. (1967). “The Lord of the Rings”: The Novel as Traditional Romance. Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 8(1), 43-59. ↩
We closed the gateway RPG survey today. Below is a brief description of the survey items, number of responses, and some questions we can ask based on the data. If you think of other questions that you are curious about, leave a comment below. I have yet to look at the data for the final set of responses beyond some descriptives.
Following are the items in presentation order. The bold text represents the concept, behavior, or whatever, that we were trying to measure. Italic text represents the exact item text participants saw. Parenthesized text describes the variable type (numerical scale with label, free-response text, and so forth).
I have also included descriptive stats for some of the items (N = number of responses for the particular item, M = mean value, SD = standard deviation). Keep in mind that for the seven point scales, 4 = Neutral, 5 = Somewhat Like/Agree, 6 = Like/Agree, and so forth. 2764 responses provided the correct answer to an attention check item near the end; the stats below only include responses that answered the attention check correctly.
So: Concept—Item text (description of variable type); maybe some descriptive stats.
First RPG—What was the first tabletop roleplaying game you played? (Selective list of options that we brainstormed, along with an “other” option permitting free-response text for anything we missed); N = 2549, top three: Dungeons & Dragons, any edition (n = 1658), Other (n = 508), Pathfinder (n = 120). 65.05% of respondents that answered this item started with an edition of D&D.
Attitude toward first RPG—Think back to the first tabletop RPG you played. How much do you like that game now? (1 = Strongly Dislike, 7 = Strongly Like)
If first RPG was D&D: First D&D Edition—Which edition of D&D did you begin with?N = 1827, top three: 3/3.5E (n = 487), 5E (n = 382), B/X (n = 318).
Ownership—Do you own any tabletop RPG materials? (Books, box sets, and so forth.) (Yes, No); N = 2764, Yes = 2688, No = 76 (97.25% Yes)
Still play first RPG—Do you still play the first RPG that you started with? (Yes, No); N = 2764, Yes = 1049, No = 1715 (37.95% Yes)
Delay trying another RPG—How long (in years) after playing your first RPG did you try another RPG? (non-negative integer free-response)
Attitude toward D&D—How much do you like Dungeons & Dragons? (For your favorite edition of D&D.) (1 = Strongly Dislike, 7 = Strongly Like); N = 2028, M = 5.27, SD = 1.63
Belief about effect of D&D on the hobby as a whole (item 1)—The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons attracts new tabletop RPG players. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); N = 2618, M = 6.25, SD = .94
Belief about whether D&D crowds out other RPGs—The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons makes discovering other (non-D&D) tabletop RPGs HARDER. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); N = 1613, M = 4.16, SD = 1.88
Belief about the effect of D&D on the hobby as a whole (item 2)—The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons is good for the tabletop RPG hobby. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); N = 2676, M = 5.64, SD = 1.34
Favorite edition of D&D—If you have played D&D, which edition is your favorite?N = 2348, top three: 5E (n = 1121), B/X (n = 440), 3/3.5E (n = 270). 47.74% of respondents that answered this item said that 5E was their favorite edition of D&D.
Preference for designer authority (item 1)—There are a lot of house rules (customization) in RPGs games that I run or play in. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree)
Belief regarding whether system matters—When it comes to tabletop RPGs, a well-designed rules system is an important factor in enjoyable play. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); N = 2217, M = 5.86, SD = 1.13
Preference for designer authority (item 2)—I prefer to play RPGs “as written” rather than adjusting, customizing, or hacking the rules. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree)
Preferences in play style—For satisfying play, how important are the following aspects to you? (Aspects included: In-game shenanigans, Generating a satisfying story, Acting in character, Hanging out with friends, Challenge Exploration and discovery, Creative problem solving, Character optimization, Improving my character, Meticulous plotting; 1 = Very Unimportant, 7 = Very Important)
Preferences in game materials—How important are the following elements to you in tabletop RPGs? (Elements included: Fictional setting, Hackability, Mechanical innovation, Ease of use, Art, Genre emulation; 1 = Very Unimportant, 7 = Very Important)
Pleasure reading—I read tabletop RPG materials for pleasure, apart from intention for direct use in play. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); N = 1300, M = 5.81, SD = 1.37
Play usage—I have played most of the tabletop RPGs (systems, modules, adventures, etc.) that I own. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); N = 1327, N = 4.16, SD = 2.08
RPG play literacy/promiscuity—I have played a wide variety of tabletop RPGs. (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree); N = 1370, M = 5.41, SD = 1.64
Attention check
Age started—At what age, approximately, did you start to play tabletop RPGs? (integer from the set [1, 200]; due to a typo, some respondents were only able to enter starting ages from the set [10, 200]); N = 2754, M = 15.93, SD = 6.79
Year started—In approximately which year did you start playing tabletop RPGs? (Drop-down menu with year options); N = 2721, M = 2002.04, SD = 12.25, min = 1971, max = 2019
Other feedback—Optional: Is there anything else you would like to share with us? (free response text)
You may notice that we measure several concepts using more than one item. For example, presumably playing with lots of house rules and preference for playing rules as written should both tap into a preference for designer authority (and they correlate, as expected, at r(2437) = −.62, p < .001). Another: “D&D attracts new players” and “popularity of D&D is good for the hobby” (r(2550) = .46, p < .001).
(The number of observations for pleasure reading, play usage, and literacy/promiscuity seem systematically somewhat low: ~1300 compared to ~2700 for most items; I need to look into that.)
One (somewhat) surprising point that jumped out at me from the descriptives is that for people that started with an edition of D&D, 3E was the most common.
Some possible questions:
Do player preferences for game aspects cohere into conventional clusters? Are those preferences consistent with what you might expect? (For example, are people starting with 3E more likely to have a preference for character optimization?)
Is starting with an edition of D&D (compared to other RPGs), controlling for years played, associated with greater or lesser RPG play literacy overall?
Is starting with an edition of D&D (compared to other RPGs) associated with any of the preferences for aspects of play style or elements of game materials?
According to consensual belief, does system matter? (At least based on the mean, the answer here is yes: M = 5.86, roughly = Agree).
Is starting with an edition of D&D associated with preference for designer authority in rules?
What else would you like to know based on this survey?
Addendum: I just did a tally of referrer URL to see where respondents saw a link to the survey. To roughly summarize, about 30% came from Reddit, 30% came from Twitter, and 30% came from YouTube, with the remaining referrer URLs a smattering of other sites. In detail, N = 1167; the top five: YouTube (n = 363), Reddit (n = 358), Twitter (n = 311), survey.ascolais.com (n = 59), Facebook (n = 50). Referrer URL data only exists for some responses (1167 out of 2764), but preliminary checks indicate that referrer URL is missing at random (meaning it is probably reasonable to think of it as a random sample and representative of the respondent population at large).
Ben (of Questing Beast) and I have put together another survey to explore how people get into tabletop role-playing games, the role of D&D’s popularity, and how people use game materials.
We want to get data from across the RPG landscape, not just the OSR (or what have you), so feel free to share with anyone you think may be interested.
The great war, the hungry hordes of the Dark Lords—a nightmare that lasted for two decades … Twenty-one years have passed since the Dark Lords were vanquished and the Queen realized that her realm was dying. She was forced to lead her people to safer grounds … [venturing north of the old world, over the mountains known as The Titans] … they encountered a small barbarian settlement …
(Symbaroum Core Rulebook, p. 16)
In my take on Symbaroum, the scene opens earlier than as presented in the text. Yndaros, the name of the new capital settlement, is little more than an armed camp, crouched in the shell of a looted barbarian valley fortress. The Queen struggles to maintain cohesion among her people following a near death march exile, adrift in an alien land, threatened by barbarian tribes, hostile elements, and the lingering corruption that was the doom of the previous grand empire Symbar, the ruins of which remain blanketed by the seemingly endless forests of Davokar. This is Ambria by way of Roanoke; the winters long and mist-shrouded horizons mysterious.
In lost Alberetor to the south, the old, ruined homeland, dark magic, incautious industry, and terrible engines of war blighted the land. Were the “Dark Lords” true paragons of evil, crept up from the abyss to feast on the corrupt souls of men, or convenient wartime propaganda to justify the horrors of war and a conclusion that ultimately stranded the victorious Queen and her exiled people in a verdant but perilous new land? The Ambrians are simultaneously explorers, colonists, conquerors, and refugees, hardened and made ruthless by war, Queen Korinthia an unburnt, masked Joan of Arc.
The uncrowned king of Ambria’s treasure-hunters, Lasifor Nightpitch, established the town of Thistle Hold … a safe haven for Ambrians exploring Davokar [the great, haunted forest] … full of natural resources and rich remnants of long lost civilizations … and … rampant abominations …
Here, Thistle Hold is a frontier boom town, a fantasy Deadwood with only a handful of muddy streets clustered around a beacon tower, the one building of any permanent aspect, all surrounded by wooden palisades and chevaux de frise, huge wooden and rusty iron stakes driven into the mud, angled outward against cavalry charges. Thistle Hold is as much barbarian trading post as colonial outpost and settlers have a deep ambivalence, torn between the untramelled freedom of the frontier, but also yearning and planning for the protection, certainty, and industry that would come from annexation by Yndaros and joining the young realm of Ambria.
When the Ambrians arrived in the region south of Davokar, thirteen barbarian clans were living in the area. … The barbarian High Chieftain, seated on Karvosti, is elected for life during a gathering at the Thingstead … not elected to rule. Instead the role of the High Chieftain is to arbitrate or, when necessary, act as a judge in conflicts within and between the clans, and only if requested to do so by the clan chieftains. …
(Symbaroum Core Rulebook, p. 27)
Image source from one of the Symbaroum books
The barbarian clans believe themselves descendants of the lost empire Symbar. Though the Ambrians’ weapons and organized ways of war generally defeat clan warriors in direct conflict on the battlefield, the barbarians see the interlopers as opportunities just as much as a threats. One clan already, through alliance with the Queen’s soldiers, annihilated their blood rivals clan Jezora, driving the few remaining survivors into the uncharted taboo depths of Davokar. When the curtain rises on the campaign, there has been no High Chieftain for generations. Many barbarians see the newly arrived people from the south as a means to solidify or advance their position, toward the ambition of claiming the High Chieftainship, perhaps even founding a regime of New Symbar.
