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Post by robertsconley on May 27, 2022 9:18:39 GMT -6
I'm actually quite fond of Bartle, partly because it's one of the early classification What classification systems do is very roughly fill in the gaps before you've had a chance to get to know people. Yeah, with players I've known for years I don't need them as I could write a thesis on how they play games. It's about newbies and other unknown factors. Good point and in hindsight a major part of why my NERO chapter talked about it a lot after we learned about it. However here is the riddle, how you do know which category the newbies fall into unless you get to know them. It is a chicken and egg problem. You can't describe a player unless you know something about them. But you still need to have something planned (for a LARP at least) knowing that you will have participants that you have never met. My solution is to learn about team-building techniques for the out-of-game stuff and to focus on creating interesting settings and situations in-game that are likely to have inherent appeal. While this betrays my bias about sandbox campaigns and techniques. What unfolds from that start is up to the players. If the campaign turns to be about the drama that surrounds basket-weaving then so be it. I will endeavor to bring that aspect of my setting to life in a way as adventurous, fun, and interesting as I can. As I would if the group decides to make it their focus to explore the elven ruins that dot the orc inhabited Dearthwood. But I have to bet on a random player or group, I would place my money on exploring the elven ruins. Where the approach pays off is for the times when the campaign is mostly but not always about exploring ruins/etc. With this players never feel they have to explore ruins otherwise, they would "waste" my prep. Instead, they can go off on some tangent. Most will return to it later but sometime the tangent becomes the new focus. Whereas you see the lack of nuance as a bug, I argue it's a feature. (If you start trying to work with classifications as anything other than broad generalisations that's when you get into the rigid "players always act in one way" issue that is the flaw with some other classification systems. I'm not saying that they're necessary at all or that they do anything but paint with an overly broad brush. Merely that shortcuts can sometimes be a useful tool. Like I said you have to learn enough in the first place to put the players into a category why not focus on taking that a step further and learn the nuances of that individual? Because this is in the context of a leisure activity focused on a specific genre or setting. Fantasy in our case due to us focusing on D&D here. I argue the extra time to do this is minimal. And I think your example of casual players is a really important one. But what you've done there is pinpointed another broad group of players that needs taking into account. "Casual players" is as much a classification as "actors" or "diamonds". If anything I think it shows the inevitability of dividing players in this way. Much as it would be lovely to study each one as their own special case, that's not always feasible. For me what I label causal is quickly determined by just talking to the players to gauge their interest. The two of tells are "lack of interest" or "lack of knowledge". That tells me among other things go easy on certain elements of my campaign. A recent example of all of the above is that I am preparing to run a campaign in the City State of the Invincible Overlord (my Majestic Wilderlands version). I have one player who likes all the lore and odd little corners of my setting. He and I talked quite a bit about his character which is going to be an assassin masquerading as a guy who gathers herbs and makes elixirs (non magical potions). He going to have some knowledge of the community of magic user to start off with. His goal for his character is to find and eliminate any magic-user dealing with demons. I have another player whose character is basically a thug hanging out at taverns doing anything for money. And that is pretty much it and he declined to go into any more details. Which is fine. All of this was developed through talking with them after a session for a campaign that I play with them. |
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Post by robertsconley on May 27, 2022 12:49:04 GMT -6
Isn't LARPing in and of itself a classification or style? My view LARPS is a type of roleplaying game. As different and alike from tabletop roleplaying games as CRPGS and MMORPGs are. They all share a common focus on playing a character within a setting but handle the logistics very differently. And like tabletop roleplaying there is no one way to play a LARP like there is no one way of playing a CRPG or MMORPG. Whereas tabletop roleplaying is where players interact with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by a human referee. A CRPG/MMORPG is where players interact with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by a software algorithm. A LARP is where players interact with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by the rules of a sport. Note it doesn't have to be boffer weapons. It could be like White Wolf's use of rock paper scissors. Whatever it is generally involves something doing something physical on the spot rather than rolling dice. Often it is minimal in terms of complexity to allow dozens of participants to use the mechanics without intervention from the event staff. |
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Post by Flintlock on May 28, 2022 2:39:51 GMT -6
Isn't LARPing in and of itself a classification or style? My view LARPS is a type of roleplaying game. As different and alike from tabletop roleplaying games as CRPGS and MMORPGs are. They all share a common focus on playing a character within a setting but handle the logistics very differently. And like tabletop roleplaying there is no one way to play a LARP like there is no one way of playing a CRPG or MMORPG. Whereas tabletop roleplaying is where players interact with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by a human referee. A CRPG/MMORPG is where players interact with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by a software algorithm. A LARP is where players interact with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by the rules of a sport. Note it doesn't have to be boffer weapons. It could be like White Wolf's use of rock paper scissors. Whatever it is generally involves something doing something physical on the spot rather than rolling dice. Often it is minimal in terms of complexity to allow dozens of participants to use the mechanics without intervention from the event staff.I'd agree to an extent, but I think LARP and tabletop are pretty close relations (to the extent that a lot of the discussions are transferable). I'd see them as part of a family of game types that have far more similarities than differences. (I'd also include Braunsteins and some other refereed 1:1 wargames in that). CRPGs or MMORPGs are a much more distant relation. In particular, the former doesn't really involve roleplaying in the way we normally use it. Much as I love something like Fallout 1, trying to make decisions IC is very restricted. I'd see those as closer to gamebooks. Fun in their own right, but not a type of roleplaying game in the way LARPs and tabletop games are. |
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