Author Topic: If I am already having fun, why should I change?  (Read 24479 times)

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emissary666

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If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« on: November 17, 2008, 10:59:36 PM »
A rebuttal/question to http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2655.0 and http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1973.0

If I am having fun playing a system, regardless of the rules or what they support, why should I change to a different system?
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TheChrisWaits

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2008, 11:20:14 PM »
The original threads were actually a response to this concept.

The point there is not that you're having wrongbadfun and you need to stop. It's that there are better games out there that are actually designed to facilitate the way that you want to play.

emissary666

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2008, 11:28:28 PM »
But if I am having fun, why would I want to waste the money, time, and effort if I am already having fun?
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TheChrisWaits

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2008, 11:44:06 PM »
To have more fun.

Fun isn't the only factor. If it's not worth the money, time, and effort to have more fun, then that's your decision.

Shaun

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2008, 11:55:18 PM »
But if I am having fun, why would I want to waste the money, time, and effort if I am already having fun?
Why is it necessarily a waste? Personally, I never consider time spent learning something, even if it winds up sucking, to be a waste.

That being said, there are plenty of ways that you can try out new stuff that might appeal to you without having to pay for it. People are always running games and demos at cons - go take the time to try it if you're already at one. Alternately, you can contact a group that's already running whatever game it happens to be and ask to sit it or play a pregen or NPC so that you can check it out. You can check out AP podcasts like The Game Master Show to hear how a session runs. More than anything, ask questions of people who know the games, or better yet, that make the games. I know that quite a few designers and game devs are active in forums. Luke Crane is probably one of the best examples, but I know that the Shadowrun devs are pretty active over at Dumpshock, too, and several of White Wolf's freelancers and devs post at Shadownessence. So it's not like detailed information is out of reach. Hell, a lot of people release sample chapters or quickstart rules as free downloads, so you can look at the writing style and get a feel for how the rules are laid out.

Now, sure, you might find that you don't like a particular game after playing it or looking at it, but there is always something that can be taken from the experience, so neither the time nor effort are actually wasted.
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Zeke

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #5 on: November 18, 2008, 12:45:37 AM »
You could have MORE fun. Not wanting to have more fun is just unamerican.

veekie

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2008, 02:26:04 AM »
You could have MORE fun. Not wanting to have more fun is just unamerican.

I'd call it downright inhuman.
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Josh

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #7 on: November 18, 2008, 04:01:28 AM »
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TheChrisWaits

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2008, 04:19:45 AM »
I think it's natural for gamers to be resistant to change. We're in a hobby where a few hours of fun often requires at least that much planning, so to put more time into it is sometimes hard. And yeah, it's really an expensive hobby if you're not willing to break the law. Plus you can't just have one person make a change; they have to convince a group.

Still, if the goal is fun, it makes no sense why someone would get offended when someone else suggests ways to have more.

Orion

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #9 on: November 18, 2008, 04:49:41 AM »
Part of the problem is that "Why wouldn't you want to have 'more' fun?" is that (a) it assumes some kind of mathematical scale of "fun." More to the point, (b) questions like that, no matter how nicely they're asked, always sound like "You're stupid if you don't want to have the kind of fun I'm telling you ought to want." I'm not claiming this is the intention behind the question. Just so that's clear I'm not claiming that's the intent behind the question.

It is simply a matter of human nature, rhetoric, and our hyper-defensive culture when we hear questions like that, we take them for accusations. If you really do want to enhance people's fun, then you cannot create the appearance that you're foisting it on them. You have to simply offer what advice you have to give and then let people do as they please. There are few things on this green Earth more infuriating than someone who gives advice, even when it's offered, and then gets pissy if you decide not to take it. Put yourself in that position for a second, and you'll see that I'm right.

This whole site has the best of intentions, to spread the joy, to help each have "even more fun" at our respective games. That's awesome. That's why I stick around. But that intention can get warped into something really nasty if we don't make a concerted effort to make sure that we think about not just what we say, but what people hear, because the two are rarely the same thing.

TheChrisWaits

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #10 on: November 18, 2008, 04:55:32 AM »
(a) it assumes some kind of mathematical scale of "fun."
I disagree here. It may be different for different people, and it may not actually be quantifiable, but it's easy to compare two similar experiences and see which was more fun than the other. It's relative.

Josh

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #11 on: November 18, 2008, 05:28:46 AM »
It is simply a matter of human nature, rhetoric, and our hyper-defensive culture when we hear questions like that, we take them for accusations. If you really do want to enhance people's fun, then you cannot create the appearance that you're foisting it on them. You have to simply offer what advice you have to give and then let people do as they please. There are few things on this green Earth more infuriating than someone who gives advice, even when it's offered, and then gets pissy if you decide not to take it. Put yourself in that position for a second, and you'll see that I'm right.
Do you know the only thing more irritating?  When someone asks you for advice...no wait back up.  When someone asks you for advice on a topic you are an expert on and can deliver an extremely well thought out and reasoned response.  And they completely ignore it for nonsense reasons.  Why did they even ask if they had absolutely no intention of listening? 

Here is something quite common for advice: Should I buy champions I only have $50 to spend?  Have you played it? No.  It is a $50 book and I have it at home.  Why don't you look at mine, in fact you can borrow it for as long as you like.  So I bought champions. 

Quote
This whole site has the best of intentions, to spread the joy, to help each have "even more fun" at our respective games. That's awesome. That's why I stick around. But that intention can get warped into something really nasty if we don't make a concerted effort to make sure that we think about not just what we say, but what people hear, because the two are rarely the same thing.

Actually the idea is to slowly shift people from being stodgy, bland conservatives  to open, curious seekers of fun.

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Brainpiercing

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #12 on: November 18, 2008, 05:58:00 AM »
If you want to play dungeoncrawl and you ARE playing dungeoncrawl with rules you like then you don't need to change.

If you want to play character driven story play but are playing dungeoncrawl then you should change.

I think that's the simple equation of when you should look for something new.

And then there's the other way:
If you want to play character driven story play, and you are in fact playing that, but perhaps there is a game that supports this mode of play better than what you are actually playing.

OR you can make your own rules about stuff, mix and match, or do whatever to make sure that your game supports your mode of play. I also like roleplaying in D&D, it just gets easier if you have some tangible guidelines.

emissary666

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #13 on: November 18, 2008, 09:33:04 AM »
Maybe I should change the question a bit

If I am already having fun, why should I change to a system that I have no proof is more fun?
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TheChrisWaits

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #14 on: November 18, 2008, 10:04:02 AM »
That's a much better question IMO. There should be sites out there with people you can identify with. I don't know if it's here or somewhere else, but the internet pretty much contains everything. Surely somewhere you can get the opinions of like-minded individuals.

Josh has played, or at the very least read, A FUCKING LOT of games. If he says a game is good, I trust him. I still don't personally understand what the criteria of a good game are, but I believe that they exist and that he's a good judge.

Here's the thing, though: A game being good or bad doesn't mean you will or won't have fun with it. It's like any entertainment. Most "good movies" bore the hell out of me.

The point that they're trying to make here is that if you're sticking with the game you're playing, you may be missing out on a whole new world of fun.

Brainpiercing

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #15 on: November 18, 2008, 10:46:01 AM »
Probably Josh is sponsored by the gaming mafia to make us buy more games....:)

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #16 on: November 18, 2008, 10:54:20 AM »
My answer would have to be because most people who resist changing to a new system don't want to do it because they've already spent enough to build a gold golem on a system like DnD 3.5, and they don't want to feel that their money was ill spent if they spend all their time playing a cheaper game, much like you'd feel shit if you spent more time playing SNES games that you downloaded on your Wii instead of Super Smash Bros Brawl.

I personally don't mind a system change, after all I've gone from The Returners's Final Fantasy system (Which I find was surprisingly elegant if a tad limiting), to DnD 3.5, to DnD 2.0 (still primarily clinging to 3.5), and I would be open to another system if I didn't have to buy the books for it and it didn't dominate over the system that our group has collectively spent perhaps 500 dollars or more on books, not to mention the ridiculous miniature expenditures.

And I'm extremely curious about the burning wheel system, I just don't think that there'll be support for it where I am, be it a group willing to play or enough splatbooks or whatever.

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #17 on: November 18, 2008, 11:03:59 AM »
Learning a new system takes time I'm not really willing to devote, and barring Torrent shenanigans money I am probably wasting on an inferior product in this Caveat Emptor environment. Further, any system that's not D&D has a far smaller market, which combined with the fact that those I play with have to make it through my rather stringent optimization filters* and therefore most get blocked, taking anything with a smaller audience simply serves to reduce the number of chances I can utilize my investment of time and therefore raises the chances I've wasted my time learning a system not worth playing, or that barely can be played.

* - I'm not talking about optimizing the game system. I'm talking about optimizing life. In other words, those who would be undesirable to play with get blocked by a filter so I don't have to find out the hard way with a ruined game and thus a waste of my time. Same procedures I follow for all the other aspects, though the degree of magnitude varies depending on context.
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Zeke

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #18 on: November 18, 2008, 11:26:10 AM »
I think there is something to be said for the difficulty of learning a new system. Some people enjoy learning systems, some do not. However, most of the time it is not that difficult to learn a new system enough to play it. The dissconnect is that people expect to know the new system as well as they knew the old one.

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Re: If I am already having fun, why should I change?
« Reply #19 on: November 18, 2008, 11:32:10 AM »
I think there is something to be said for the difficulty of learning a new system. Some people enjoy learning systems, some do not. However, most of the time it is not that difficult to learn a new system enough to play it. The dissconnect is that people expect to know the new system as well as they knew the old one.

The disconnect is also that for the same reason buying products sight unseen is Caveat Emptor you will likely need more books than the ones it says you need in order to do what you want to do.

Just try making a non magical character in D&D 3.5 core for example. Splatbooks are not unique to any one system. Anyone who says core is all you need is lying, or simply wrong depending on if they know what they're doing or not. More to learn, more to buy.

Note I'm still not talking about optimizing the system, just building characters with basic competence in their areas of expertise. In other words, Fighters that can Fight. And so on down the line.
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[spoiler]
Sunic may be more abrasive than sandpaper coated in chainsaws (not that its a bad thing, he really does know what he's talking about), but just posting in this thread without warning and telling him he's an asshole which, if you knew his past experiences on WotC and Paizo is flat-out uncalled for. Never mind the insults (which are clearly 4Chan-level childish). You say people like Sunic are the bane of the internet? Try looking at your own post and telling me you are better than him.

Here's a fun fact: You aren't. By a few leagues.
[/spoiler]