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RPGs In The 'Real World'
As more and more people realize the fun they're denying themselves by turning away from orc-bashing and dragon-baiting, mainstream businesses and media are paying more attention to RPGs. Sam the Giant writes "Barnes & Noble University is offering a free 8 hour on-line course titled 'Discover Dungeons & Dragons: Becoming a D&D Player'. The free course is described as follows: 'As a beginning player, this course will guide you in understanding how D&D works, explaining the various worlds and characters types that it is based on, creating a D&D role for yourself, and understanding how your player role interacts in the world and with other characters. You will learn the extent of your abilities and the possibilities that lie ahead for your player, including magical spells, mythic quests, and epic battles with incredible monsters.' It's free to enroll." In the same vein, NPR's great reporting turns to World of Warcraft. Dragoonmac writes "All Things Considered recently ran a feature about WoW communities, farmers, and a humorous review of real-life. A Slashdotter's must hear."
IMO, if I'm not rolling a 20-sided die, it's virtual. Actually, even if I am rolling a 20-sided die, it's virtual.
If I think "real world" in relation to an RPG, I think of physically playing the game, such as an assasination game or something like that. To me, RPGs around a table or the flickering light of a monitor are virtual. Before I ever touched a computer, D&D was a form of VR where your imagination was the interface, a module was the software, and the dungeonmaster (along with a number of dice) was the CPU.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
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The book stores are glutted with D&D books. My read is they are just trying to move 'em. At least the couple here near me seem to have this problem.
Did I miss something? When did they get their own University?
Or is this kind of like "TD Waterhouse Center" or "Verizon Stadium", where a big company sponsors something and thus gets naming rights?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
There are several reasons for this, the first being, there is no point in buying the books for the games if you have no one to play with. This is not the type of game you play by yourself, it requires a group of at least 4 people. That way, you can split the cost of the books (specifically with D&D there are 3 core books needed to play), or if you find a group already playing, most of them will already have the books, and you can borrow them until you decide whether you like it enough to own it.
Another good reason to find a group is because, while D&D is a big name, it's not the only Pen & Paper RPG out there. You may get into a group who prefers Shadowrun (a futuristic cyberpunk game), Big Eyes, Small Mouth (an anime game) or one of the branded big name games (there are Star Wars & Star Trek games, a Serenity game coming out, even Buffy and Angel games). There are a lot of choices, so finding a group of friends, and deciding what kind of setting you want, is really the first step. Once you have an idea of setting, pop by your local hobby store (in group even) and ask them what games they suggest for that particular setting. Pick up the main core books, and maybe a module to get you going if you've never RP'd before, and you should be ready to go from there.
just some guy
Can't have people making up their own worlds, it would eat into the profit margin.
With so many people turning from books to video games - particularly fantasy games based on Dnd and Tolkien, it makes perfect sense that a book store would turn to the most popular fantasy rpg as a natural market. With Dnd, you need at least 3 books to play (player's handbook, dungeon master's guide, monster manual) and once you get into those, there are about 20 other books (all costing between 20 and 40 bucks) that you can buy if you dig it. All that and you're capturing part of a market that's already into the genre and new players that are interested in investigating the roots of WoW - not to mention the poor kids and kids who're grounded from their video games.
I'd look for them to ramp this up. Heck...I'd be surprised if they didn't create gaming areas and offer some discounts to gamers who play there. How convenient would it be to duck out of the game and buy a monster manual 2 if you needed something new?
Hard core dnd players will never leave for video games (at least permanantly). All they need to do is keep some stick ups around for the gamer funk.
The article wasn't "must read". It was pretty much common sense that most folks have figured out long ago. About the only interesting thing in the whole thing was the WoW gold vs. real world price graph, and that was only cool because I won't want to waste my time doing the research necessary to create the darn thing.
If a game has an economy, folks are going to abuse it. It is almost typical nowadays to covet items in games, instead of wanting to have the satisfaction of earning it. At low levels, it can make sense to slip that new toon a little gold and let them get some better equipment. I've taken my lvl 60 rogue through Deadmines at least a dozen times, getting some nice gear for a new toon I am creating. At high levels though, just go out and earn it. It's why you play the game: to level up, see places, and get better gear.
Many games today are just awful for that. Seeing a new EQ (first version) walking around with nearly maxed out stats because someone threw 50K plat at it was just silly. And, it forces the game creators to modify how they approach the game's future development, as well as forcing them to retro-fit the older portions of the game.
Encounters have to be made harder for lower level areas, because the characters are tougher than they should be. By the time Planes of Power (PoP) came out for EQ, it was extremely difficult to be a new-to-EQ player, unless you had friends that would shower you with gifts. It was even harder than EQ was when it first came out, when a full set of Bronze armor made you feel like you were getting somewhere. Because now, that full set of Bronze wasn't good enough to keep you alive.
But many players don't care about that. We live in the era of entitlization, where folks think they deserve to be able to have a character with godly gear on it from the outset. How dare developers put level limits on gear, and restrict access to places based on levels!
I guess that's why I went back and started playing CoH/CoV again. Sure, it's often repetitive, but no economy to really abuse, so it's quieter.