Friday, June 11, 2010

Some Observations

I have been working on a new game, something influenced by a different animal than the standard retro-clone.  While I've played and DMed in all of the modern iterations of D&D, I felt that 3.0 was a mess, 3.5 was wargame-crazed, and that D&D 4.0 was not D&D.  YMMV, just my thoughts on the subject.  I decided to drop all that for more rules-lite games. 

The problem here is that most groups aren't all that hot to try a new game.  They think that they have to know all the rules and that "it's not D&D."  It seems some even have that aversion to D&D-compatible stuff like the Sword & Sorcery line from White Wolf or the "Dungeon Crawl Classics."  So, things like Risus or PDQ or Wushu get the boot because of some xenophobic reaction that seems ingrained in many people engaged in our hobby.

I always was (and still am) confused by this.  When I unwrapped Torg, Chivalry & Sorcery, or Villain & Vigilantes, I didn't turn up my nose at these.  On the contrary, I said "that's interesting, how does it work?"  It turns out C&S was a bit hard to suss out, but it seemed like tons of fun.  

Why, as a group, are gamers so insular?  You'd think creative types would be chomping at the bit for something new.  A change, a solution to problems like the grappling rules in 3.0?  Why not drop the familiar for awhile to try something new?  I wonder if there's a link there to T.V., too?  Most new, original, fresh shows I watch are doomed to fail: Jericho, Birds of Prey, Life, Daybreak, Flash Forward, etc.

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