I think I'm enjoying boardgames more than RPGs these days

[TristramEvans]

For me, the difference between RPGs and other related games, no matter how similar, (be they Video, Board, or War -) is that there is always "the Wall" that I eventually encounter. That point where I want to do something, or should be able to do something, or something shouldn't happen the way it does, that destroys verisimilitude. It's inevitable. That Wall is there because of the limitations of those game forms, and it's the Archenemy of Immersion.

The only one that has the chance of one day breaking The Wall is Virtual Reality Videogames, but even then, that's lifetimes away before we have a computer that can keep up with my imagination. We're talking Holodeck +++

 

[TristramEvans]

Interesting blog post from Bankuei:

Arkham Horror vs. Call of Cthulhu

For the last year and a half or so, I’ve watched about 5 or 6 pretty heavy CoC players I know migrate from roleplaying CoC, to playing Arkham Horror. It’s been a pretty fascinating chan…

www.google.com

I just can't help but think they must have just had really boring GMs.

 

[Necrozius]

The nice thing about Arkham Horror (the older one) is that all those encounter cards would be real handy in RPGs, come to think about it. Instant random encounter generators!

 

[CRKrueger]

I just can't help but think they must have just had really boring GMs.

To be honest, I can kind of see it. Sandbox play (which is what “immersionists” usually tend toward) can be hard and demanding. Giving the PCs all the freedom they would realistically have with all the setting consequences that entails means you’re putting a lot of pressure on people to succeed. In a Lovecraftian setting, verisimilitude is a bitch.
You also are dealing with people working full-time jobs with families and asking them to gather up their creativity and problem-solving on a weeknight or weekend when all they want to do is recharge for the next week’s “work adventure” where the stakes for failure are even more real.

This gives you a state where...

• If you don’t get all that much out of the unique aspects of RPGs, RPGBoardgames get you all you need.
• If you do get everything out of the unique aspects of RPGs, RPGBoardgames get you X% there for a tenth of X% effort.

I can especially see it with people who are genre players, because, like a good narrative game, a board game‘s mechanics are laser-focused on theme or genre. You can’t hijack a kerosene truck and drive it into the haunted house or set fire to the cultist’s hideout and surround the place with tommyguns waiting for them to exit. For a lot of people, forcing them to remain Lovecraftian is a feature, not a bug.

Me, I’m like Butcher. Every minute playing those games with people I roleplay with is a minute wasted, because we could be playing RPGs. Playing it with board game people is more fun.

 

[Lessa]

I can especially see it with people who are genre players, because, like a good narrative game, a board game‘s mechanics are laser-focused on theme or genre.

Found your whole text great. And yeah, "Genre-play" seems like a great label for what my groove is. Thanks for coming up with this.

 

[Lessa]

The nice thing about Arkham Horror (the older one) is that all those encounter cards would be real handy in RPGs, come to think about it. Instant random encounter generators!

Yep, the new edition retain this feature. Each location has dozens of different encounters. It really makes the city feel alive.

 

[CRKrueger]

Found your whole text great. And yeah, "Genre-play" seems like a great label for what my groove is. Thanks for coming up with this.

That’s why I like trying to dig into these things instead of just assuming every perceived difference is just “chocolate vs. vanilla” without there being any actual differences. The best thing the Forge ever did was have as its mantra “system matters”, because while it doesn’t always, sometimes it can be everything. Toss out the jargon and semantics and try to get behind the words to see what people actually mean is the way to build understanding and consensus.

It seems like you and I mean the same thing by Roleplaying yet you trend narrative and I don’t. You can see Boardgames and cRPGs as a substitute or even better experience than RPGs, and I see them as completely different, so there’s obviously something else going on here. One big difference is Genre Play. You enjoy the focus it gives games and see it as an aid to getting the feel right. When mechanically enforced, I see it as an OOC conceit hanging over my shoulder impeding my in-character immersion.

 

[TristramEvans]

To be honest, I can kind of see it. Sandbox play (which is what “immersionists” usually tend toward) can be hard and demanding. Giving the PCs all the freedom they would realistically have with all the setting consequences that entails means you’re putting a lot of pressure on people to succeed. In a Lovecraftian setting, verisimilitude is a bitch.

i kinda agree, though I'm not sure it's 'hard and demanding". Demanding, absolutely. It demands focus, it demands "buy-in", and it demands commitment. but I 'm tentative regarding describing it as 'hard". It requires effort certainly, but I don't think that's synonymous. I would, for myself, make the analogy of drawing a very detailed illustration - it takes time, and focus, and some degree of tapping into a creative part of the brain -but the entire process is enjoyable. And I wouldn't say its hard, in the way, studying for a mid-term is hard. At least for myself, the process of planning out and running a campaign is, in most instances, what I'd rather be doing with my time over other things. It's not labour, it's play. It's not exhausting, it's intellectually stimulating.

But that's semantic nitpicking. It would be inarguable to say the effort required to running a successful horror sandbox is of a magnitude of difference from shuffling pCs through a pre-mapped dungeon, let alone simply setting up a boardgame on the kitchen table and following instructions. At least for the GM, which is partly why I say that it seems to me from the account they must have had some boring GMs.

But not the main reason.

But what it comes down to, certainly, is that RPG's are an active, participatory hobby. On the other side of the spectrum is entertainment like TV, which is entirelly passive. Videogames and boardgames lay somewhere in-between, some more than others.

Which kind of brings me to Arkham Horror. Arkham Horror is a very passive game, even for a board-game. It is not strategic, it it's not a game that rewards the correct decisions. It's a game where "stuff happens to you", randomly. "Winning" a game of AH is not an accomplishment on the part of the players, it's pretty much entirely entirely luck of the draw.

so when you say...

This gives you a state where...

• If you don’t get all that much out of the unique aspects of RPGs, RPGBoardgames get you all you need.
• If you do get everything out of the unique aspects of RPGs, RPGBoardgames get you X% there for a tenth of X% effort.

The X% that it gets you seems almost uncomparable to me.

For example, in Arkham Horror, players don't solve mysteries; they collect chits referred to by the game as "clues", which could for all intents and purposes, be beads or juju beans.

Is the experience of following a "detective" along through a "trail of clues" comparable to being the one solving a mystery?

I kinda think only for those who would not be doing that anyways. I think it was Emperor Norton who, a liitle while back, said that boardgames as a substitute primarily appeal to people who play RPGs like boardgames, and that, in this context, reminds me of this thread from a while back:

Deciphering Clues

That clever scholar hid the recipe to his elixir within a trio of paintings! Now all we have to do is decipher them to brew the damn thing! - so how do you realise that in game? What clues could you create and how could you seed them? Do the players just make a roll on perception (or whatever)...

www.rpgpub.com

A puzzle was put forth to the Pub, and there was a surprising (only to me, personally) advocacy to, instead of having a puzzle for the players to actually solve, instead glossing over the actual event in the game - rolling a dice or handing the players the solution.

[Obligatory Caveat - I'm not saying this is "Badwrong" - a person can play however they want to play and that's fine]

But this is a passive experience. If the players don't actually solve the puzzle, if they don't actually discover and follow clues to a conclusion, they are not experiencing that thing, it's window-dressing at best. This is what Arkham Horror is providing : a passive play experience with Mythos window-dressing. I would say it's impossible to feel fear during a game of AH, just as it's impossible for it to actually provide the experience of being an investigator in a Mythos world.

It's Lovecraft Tofu.

Which brings me back to my accusation of boring GMs. In the cited article it's claimed

"You get the whole Lovecraftian experience, every time, every game. Period."

Well, no, you don't. You get Lovecraft-flavoured icing on top of a tofu cake.

Moreover, you get exactly one flavour of Lovecraft icing. For all the expansions that Arkham has, it's still essentially the same plot over and over. And, well, it might actually be closer to say it's pseudo-Lovecraft icing, because honestly, going over all of lovecraft's stories, there's not really any that align to that situation. It's the default Call of Cthulhu game mode, but it's not particularly Lovecraftian.

A good GM has at their disposal an unending amount of horror situations, scenarios, and sub-genres to chose from. My Mythos campaign has touched on everything from locked-room mysteries, to gothic horror, to zombie apocalypses, to folk horror, to inter-dimensional adventures, and crossed paths with inspirations as wide reaching as Edgar Allen Poe to Clive Barker to Cronenburgh to William S. Burroughs. There are endless experiences to be had, and how does one compare that tiny x% to infinity?

I can especially see it with people who are genre players, because, like a good narrative game, a board game‘s mechanics are laser-focused on theme or genre. You can’t hijack a kerosene truck and drive it into the haunted house or set fire to the cultist’s hideout and surround the place with tommyguns waiting for them to exit. For a lot of people, forcing them to remain Lovecraftian is a feature, not a bug.

I can't, I don't see any relationship with those who, like myself, prefer genre games. It's like saying chess is better than Pensdragon for providing a laser-focused medieval-themed game. If I were to come up with a non- RPG game that absolutely, concretely captured the Lovecraftian experience, that would be De Profundis, which is lightyears away from Arkham Horror. I would not even call AH a "genre game". The mewchanics iitself don't enforce or create a Lovecraftian experience, it's only the incidental "dressing" on the mechanics that reference Mythos events and creatrures.

I'd also say that, in general, a good genre RPG, (of which there have been quite a few), is not one that forces players to "act out clicxhes" or "funnels them through tropes". It's one that presents a consistent world that, mechanically and aesthetically evokes and facillitates a certain genre. Pendragon doesn't force you to be a shining knight from Mallory, a larger-than-life folk hero. It provides the tools to facillitate that and it rewards it, but it isn't a railroad through one limited vision of Arthurian legends. Likewise, Marvel Superheroes doesn't prevent you from being a 90's uberdark anti-hero any more than it forces you to play a four-colour Silver Age cape. It facillitates and rewards those things, but the mechanics oare not based on imposing the literary cliches of the genre onto gameplay - it presents a world that is consistent (as possible) with the world depicted in Bronze Age Marvel comics.

Me, I’m like Butcher. Every minute playing those games with people I roleplay with is a minute wasted, because we could be playing RPGs. Playing it with board game people is more fun.

Throughout this rant I may have given the impression I dislike Arkham Horror, which is far from the truth. I think it's an incredibly fun game. I just don't see it as a viable substitute for a well-run Mythos game by a GM who knows wh\at they are doing. The experience it provides is so intrinsically different, that I cannot see the analogy at all. The cited article could have been Call of Cthulhu vs Magic: The Dorkening, and it would have made just as much sense to me.

 

[Lessa]

I just can't help but think they must have just had really boring GMs.

Notice you're corroborating my point here: only the RPG medium is inconsistent enough to let bad/boring GMs sink the experience for the group. Boardgames and videogames don't allow that. No matter how little you think would get from a board/videogame, you know when you're engaging it that it will output exactly what you're expecting. And usually for a fraction of time investment.

That's my point (and Bankuei's article), consistency.

Now, about these boardgames being more window-dressing or passive or whatnot, that's a matter of taste. For me, it's enough genre-playing to scratch my itch (and most horror RPGs I've played are also passive/follow the GMs-plot anyway, so... ). But again, it's basically taste at this point.

 

[EmperorNorton]

I mean, board games can definitely be sunk by one player. Video games as well if they are multiplayer.

(I get your point in that it is a bigger thing with RPGs, but I've definitely had really bad board game experiences because of the other people at the table).

 

[Lessa]

Good point, EmperorNorton . Indeed, it's more of a gradient thing. Human beings can sink anything it seems.

 

[Arminius]

TristramEvans I think you and CRKrueger may be using “genre game” differently.

Personally, I can’t stand Arkham Horror, at least the edition that friends would pull out in the early 90s. I agree 100% with your description of the action as being abstract bead collection with a descriptive veneer. The games I recommended earlier in this thread don’t have that property. They were designed in the wargame tradition of simulating the dynamics of a situation, not just the surface narrative.

 

[CRKrueger]

i kinda agree, though I'm not sure it's 'hard and demanding". Demanding, absolutely. It demands focus, it demands "buy-in", and it demands commitment. but I 'm tentative regarding describing it as 'hard". It requires effort certainly, but I don't think that's synonymous. I would, for myself, make the analogy of drawing a very detailed illustration - it takes time, and focus, and some degree of tapping into a creative part of the brain -but the entire process is enjoyable. And I wouldn't say its hard, in the way, studying for a mid-term is hard. At least for myself, the process of planning out and running a campaign is, in most instances, what I'd rather be doing with my time over other things. It's not labour, it's play. It's not exhausting, it's intellectually stimulating.

But that's semantic nitpicking. It would be inarguable to say the effort required to running a successful horror sandbox is of a magnitude of difference from shuffling pCs through a pre-mapped dungeon, let alone simply setting up a boardgame on the kitchen table and following instructions. At least for the GM, which is partly why I say that it seems to me from the account they must have had some boring GMs.

But not the main reason.

But what it comes down to, certainly, is that RPG's are an active, participatory hobby. On the other side of the spectrum is entertainment like TV, which is entirelly passive. Videogames and boardgames lay somewhere in-between, some more than others.

Which kind of brings me to Arkham Horror. Arkham Horror is a very passive game, even for a board-game. It is not strategic, it it's not a game that rewards the correct decisions. It's a game where "stuff happens to you", randomly. "Winning" a game of AH is not an accomplishment on the part of the players, it's pretty much entirely entirely luck of the draw.

so when you say...



The X% that it gets you seems almost uncomparable to me.

For example, in Arkham Horror, players don't solve mysteries; they collect chits referred to by the game as "clues", which could for all intents and purposes, be beads or juju beans.

Is the experience of following a "detective" along through a "trail of clues" comparable to being the one solving a mystery?

I kinda think only for those who would not be doing that anyways. I think it was Emperor Norton who, a liitle while back, said that boardgames as a substitute primarily appeal to people who play RPGs like boardgames, and that, in this context, reminds me of this thread from a while back:

Deciphering Clues

That clever scholar hid the recipe to his elixir within a trio of paintings! Now all we have to do is decipher them to brew the damn thing! - so how do you realise that in game? What clues could you create and how could you seed them? Do the players just make a roll on perception (or whatever)...

www.rpgpub.com

A puzzle was put forth to the Pub, and there was a surprising (only to me, personally) advocacy to, instead of having a puzzle for the players to actually solve, instead glossing over the actual event in the game - rolling a dice or handing the players the solution.

[Obligatory Caveat - I'm not saying this is "Badwrong" - a person can play however they want to play and that's fine]

But this is a passive experience. If the players don't actually solve the puzzle, if they don't actually discover and follow clues to a conclusion, they are not experiencing that thing, it's window-dressing at best. This is what Arkham Horror is providing : a passive play experience with Mythos window-dressing. I would say it's impossible to feel fear during a game of AH, just as it's impossible for it to actually provide the experience of being an investigator in a Mythos world.

It's Lovecraft Tofu.

Which brings me back to my accusation of boring GMs. In the cited article it's claimed

"You get the whole Lovecraftian experience, every time, every game. Period."

Well, no, you don't. You get Lovecraft-flavoured icing on top of a tofu cake.

Moreover, you get exactly one flavour of Lovecraft icing. For all the expansions that Arkham has, it's still essentially the same plot over and over. And, well, it might actually be closer to say it's pseudo-Lovecraft icing, because honestly, going over all of lovecraft's stories, there's not really any that align to that situation. It's the default Call of Cthulhu game mode, but it's not particularly Lovecraftian.

A good GM has at their disposal an unending amount of horror situations, scenarios, and sub-genres to chose from. My Mythos campaign has touched on everything from locked-room mysteries, to gothic horror, to zombie apocalypses, to folk horror, to inter-dimensional adventures, and crossed paths with inspirations as wide reaching as Edgar Allen Poe to Clive Barker to Cronenburgh to William S. Burroughs. There are endless experiences to be had, and how does one compare that tiny x% to infinity?




I can't, I don't see any relationship with those who, like myself, prefer genre games. It's like saying chess is better than Pensdragon for providing a laser-focused medieval-themed game. If I were to come up with a non- RPG game that absolutely, concretely captured the Lovecraftian experience, that would be De Profundis, which is lightyears away from Arkham Horror. I would not even call AH a "genre game". The mewchanics iitself don't enforce or create a Lovecraftian experience, it's only the incidental "dressing" on the mechanics that reference Mythos events and creatrures.

I'd also say that, in general, a good genre RPG, (of which there have been quite a few), is not one that forces players to "act out clicxhes" or "funnels them through tropes". It's one that presents a consistent world that, mechanically and aesthetically evokes and facillitates a certain genre. Pendragon doesn't force you to be a shining knight from Mallory, a larger-than-life folk hero. It provides the tools to facillitate that and it rewards it, but it isn't a railroad through one limited vision of Arthurian legends. Likewise, Marvel Superheroes doesn't prevent you from being a 90's uberdark anti-hero any more than it forces you to play a four-colour Silver Age cape. It facillitates and rewards those things, but the mechanics oare not based on imposing the literary cliches of the genre onto gameplay - it presents a world that is consistent (as possible) with the world depicted in Bronze Age Marvel comics.



Throughout this rant I may have given the impression I dislike Arkham Horror, which is far from the truth. I think it's an incredibly fun game. I just don't see it as a viable substitute for a well-run Mythos game by a GM who knows wh\at they are doing. The experience it provides is so intrinsically different, that I cannot see the analogy at all. The cited article could have been Call of Cthulhu vs Magic: The Dorkening, and it would have made just as much sense to me.

Well, I was taking what the article and Silva were saying about Arkham Horror and applying it to Boardgames and video games in general. You’re totally right about Active vs. Passive Roleplaying and entertainment, I mentioned that earlier in the thread.

To boil everything down, In general, RPG Boardgames and Video Games

• Take less commitment and are less demanding than sandbox RPGing.
• Give a more passive entertainment experience.
• Get you X% of the RPG experience for less than X% of the time and commitment. (X% obviously will vary greatly from game to game and person to person.)

As far as genre-play goes, well, it occurs across all types of games. RPGs, Narrative RPGs, Boardgames, Computer Games, etc will all have their own way of dealing with genre. Obviously to an immersive Roleplayer, a Eurotrash style game with a thin painting of genre over tokens, meeples or whatever isn’t going to cut it as far as “Lovecraft Play” goes. For others, it might hit that mark

 

[Lessa]

boil everything down, In general, RPG Boardgames and Video Games

• Take less commitment and are less demanding than sandbox RPGing.

Not only to sandbox RPGing, but linear/plot-driven RPGing too IMO. I even find prepping/running linear adventures harder than sandboxes.

 

[Voros]

i kinda agree, though I'm not sure it's 'hard and demanding". Demanding, absolutely. It demands focus, it demands "buy-in", and it demands commitment. but I 'm tentative regarding describing it as 'hard". It requires effort certainly, but I don't think that's synonymous. I would, for myself, make the analogy of drawing a very detailed illustration - it takes time, and focus, and some degree of tapping into a creative part of the brain -but the entire process is enjoyable. And I wouldn't say its hard, in the way, studying for a mid-term is hard. At least for myself, the process of planning out and running a campaign is, in most instances, what I'd rather be doing with my time over other things. It's not labour, it's play. It's not exhausting, it's intellectually stimulating.

But that's semantic nitpicking. It would be inarguable to say the effort required to running a successful horror sandbox is of a magnitude of difference from shuffling pCs through a pre-mapped dungeon, let alone simply setting up a boardgame on the kitchen table and following instructions. At least for the GM, which is partly why I say that it seems to me from the account they must have had some boring GMs.

But not the main reason.

But what it comes down to, certainly, is that RPG's are an active, participatory hobby. On the other side of the spectrum is entertainment like TV, which is entirelly passive. Videogames and boardgames lay somewhere in-between, some more than others.

Which kind of brings me to Arkham Horror. Arkham Horror is a very passive game, even for a board-game. It is not strategic, it it's not a game that rewards the correct decisions. It's a game where "stuff happens to you", randomly. "Winning" a game of AH is not an accomplishment on the part of the players, it's pretty much entirely entirely luck of the draw.

so when you say...



The X% that it gets you seems almost uncomparable to me.

For example, in Arkham Horror, players don't solve mysteries; they collect chits referred to by the game as "clues", which could for all intents and purposes, be beads or juju beans.

Is the experience of following a "detective" along through a "trail of clues" comparable to being the one solving a mystery?

I kinda think only for those who would not be doing that anyways. I think it was Emperor Norton who, a liitle while back, said that boardgames as a substitute primarily appeal to people who play RPGs like boardgames, and that, in this context, reminds me of this thread from a while back:

Deciphering Clues

That clever scholar hid the recipe to his elixir within a trio of paintings! Now all we have to do is decipher them to brew the damn thing! - so how do you realise that in game? What clues could you create and how could you seed them? Do the players just make a roll on perception (or whatever)...

www.rpgpub.com

A puzzle was put forth to the Pub, and there was a surprising (only to me, personally) advocacy to, instead of having a puzzle for the players to actually solve, instead glossing over the actual event in the game - rolling a dice or handing the players the solution.

[Obligatory Caveat - I'm not saying this is "Badwrong" - a person can play however they want to play and that's fine]

But this is a passive experience. If the players don't actually solve the puzzle, if they don't actually discover and follow clues to a conclusion, they are not experiencing that thing, it's window-dressing at best. This is what Arkham Horror is providing : a passive play experience with Mythos window-dressing. I would say it's impossible to feel fear during a game of AH, just as it's impossible for it to actually provide the experience of being an investigator in a Mythos world.

It's Lovecraft Tofu.

Which brings me back to my accusation of boring GMs. In the cited article it's claimed

"You get the whole Lovecraftian experience, every time, every game. Period."

Well, no, you don't. You get Lovecraft-flavoured icing on top of a tofu cake.

Moreover, you get exactly one flavour of Lovecraft icing. For all the expansions that Arkham has, it's still essentially the same plot over and over. And, well, it might actually be closer to say it's pseudo-Lovecraft icing, because honestly, going over all of lovecraft's stories, there's not really any that align to that situation. It's the default Call of Cthulhu game mode, but it's not particularly Lovecraftian.

A good GM has at their disposal an unending amount of horror situations, scenarios, and sub-genres to chose from. My Mythos campaign has touched on everything from locked-room mysteries, to gothic horror, to zombie apocalypses, to folk horror, to inter-dimensional adventures, and crossed paths with inspirations as wide reaching as Edgar Allen Poe to Clive Barker to Cronenburgh to William S. Burroughs. There are endless experiences to be had, and how does one compare that tiny x% to infinity?




I can't, I don't see any relationship with those who, like myself, prefer genre games. It's like saying chess is better than Pensdragon for providing a laser-focused medieval-themed game. If I were to come up with a non- RPG game that absolutely, concretely captured the Lovecraftian experience, that would be De Profundis, which is lightyears away from Arkham Horror. I would not even call AH a "genre game". The mewchanics iitself don't enforce or create a Lovecraftian experience, it's only the incidental "dressing" on the mechanics that reference Mythos events and creatrures.

I'd also say that, in general, a good genre RPG, (of which there have been quite a few), is not one that forces players to "act out clicxhes" or "funnels them through tropes". It's one that presents a consistent world that, mechanically and aesthetically evokes and facillitates a certain genre. Pendragon doesn't force you to be a shining knight from Mallory, a larger-than-life folk hero. It provides the tools to facillitate that and it rewards it, but it isn't a railroad through one limited vision of Arthurian legends. Likewise, Marvel Superheroes doesn't prevent you from being a 90's uberdark anti-hero any more than it forces you to play a four-colour Silver Age cape. It facillitates and rewards those things, but the mechanics oare not based on imposing the literary cliches of the genre onto gameplay - it presents a world that is consistent (as possible) with the world depicted in Bronze Age Marvel comics.



Throughout this rant I may have given the impression I dislike Arkham Horror, which is far from the truth. I think it's an incredibly fun game. I just don't see it as a viable substitute for a well-run Mythos game by a GM who knows wh\at they are doing. The experience it provides is so intrinsically different, that I cannot see the analogy at all. The cited article could have been Call of Cthulhu vs Magic: The Dorkening, and it would have made just as much sense to me.

I also never felt sandbox play (which we never called it at that time), which I stumbled into as a young GM with my group of friends, was ‘hard and demanding.’ It grew naturally out of our play and I found it stimulating and as you say a real spark to my imagination as a GM. If anything the lack of prep required was one of the things that I appreciated most about it as a GM.

 

[Skywalker]

Notice you're corroborating my point here: only the RPG medium is inconsistent enough to let bad/boring GMs sink the experience for the group. Boardgames and videogames don't allow that.

On the flipside, a GM can also raise an experience for the group, something I have often wished for when playing a computer games that had got dull or a board game where I found myself being stuck in a losing position early.

People can have a powerful impact on any gaming experience. RPGs feel this more as they need input from its participants to function as discussed above. As such it’s even more important in selecting and nurturing your RPG group than a board game group. The latter is also easier as you can alleviate some of this burden by selecting and buying the right games.

However, I would say that though the latter is easier, it is less rewarding. It is also more reliable only if you are the one purchasing games and aren’t willing to compromise. I have had bad experiences with board game groups where the game preference drifted from what I enjoyed, yet I was powerless to do much about it. I didn’t even have the ability to moderate my game experience in the way a player in an RPG game can through their PC.

 

[Skywalker]

I also never felt sandbox play (which we never called it at that time), which I stumbled into as a young GM with my group of friends, was ‘hard and demanding.’ It grew naturally out of our play and I found it stimulating and as you say a real spark to my imagination as a GM. If anything the lack of prep required was one of the things that I appreciated most about it as a GM.

There’s a generational thing here as well. RPGs of the 70s and 80s work well with a sandbox as they are lighter and easier to modify. In the 90s and 00s, games become heavier and needed more prep or prewritten adventures more. There is a greater range today with a little of both. I really enjoy RPGs from Sine Nomine and Free League, as well as PbtA RPGs, as they explicitly support that lower prep style that I used to have early on in my RPGing hobby.

However, if you grew up in the 90s and 00s, they present a different enough style that it can seem quite demanding.

 

[Lessa]

Another interesting venue of some boardgames is playing solo. All the Arkham games I've seen support it to different degrees (some scale well, others not so much), and some seem super fun this way (the LCG, for eg, with it's focus on narrative).

 

[Skywalker]

Solo gaming can be fun but it’s always a secondary choice to gaming with a group for me. I would generally choose a choose your own adventure gamebook over a solo board game though as the format seems to be more aligned with a solo experience.

My love of such books is probably why I love the board game TIME Stories so much. It’s basically a group based choose your own adventure, and a fabulous RPG like board game experience.

 

[Lessa]

My love of such books is probably why I love the board game TIME Stories so much. It’s basically a group based choose your own adventure, and a fabulous RPG like board game experience.

Yeah, I have it in my queue because of your recommendation the other day. I've read about it and seems really good.

In a similar vein, I've also seen recommendations for a "Dragonsomething" a CYOA game by that Nikki Valens author of Eldritch/Mansions/AH3. Know that one?

 

[EmperorNorton]

TIME Stories is basically a analog Point and Click Adventure game tbh.

Honestly, solo, I'd rather play video games over any other type of game. I have a couple of solo board games that are good (coffee roaster for instance), but I find I rarely pull them out.

 

[TristramEvans]

Notice you're corroborating my point here: only the RPG medium is inconsistent enough to let bad/boring GMs sink the experience for the group. Boardgames and videogames don't allow that. No matter how little you think would get from a board/videogame, you know when you're engaging it that it will output exactly what you're expecting. And usually for a fraction of time investment.

That wasn't my point though. Or the point I was responding to.

Now, about these boardgames being more window-dressing or passive or whatnot, that's a matter of taste. For me, it's enough genre-playing to scratch my itch (and most horror RPGs I've played are also passive/follow the GMs-plot anyway, so... ). But again, it's basically taste at this point.

Well it's preference in that, if that's all one wants from a gaming experience it doesn't mattewr if it's an RPG or a boardgame.. Again, though,, that wasn't my point.

 

[TristramEvans]

Another interesting venue of some boardgames is playing solo. All the Arkham games I've seen support it to different degrees (some scale well, others not so much), and some seem super fun this way (the LCG, for eg, with it's focus on narrative).

well I'd definitely play a boardgame solo (have done quite recently), but not an RPG, as for me that's as much about hanging out with friends as a social activity as anything. I like bouncing my imagination off of others, if I'm just going to play with my own imagination, I'd rather be writing or drawing.

 

[TristramEvans]

Honestly, solo, I'd rather play video games over any other type of game.

I'd ike to play more videogames, but never seem to have the time - or rather, I always feel like when I'm playing them I should be doing something else.

 

[TristramEvans]

Well, I was taking what the article and Silva were saying about Arkham Horror and applying it to Boardgames and video games in general. You’re totally right about Active vs. Passive Roleplaying and entertainment, I mentioned that earlier in the thread.

To boil everything down, In general, RPG Boardgames and Video Games

• Take less commitment and are less demanding than sandbox RPGing.
• Give a more passive entertainment experience.
• Get you X% of the RPG experience for less than X% of the time and commitment. (X% obviously will vary greatly from game to game and person to person.)

As far as genre-play goes, well, it occurs across all types of games. RPGs, Narrative RPGs, Boardgames, Computer Games, etc will all have their own way of dealing with genre. Obviously to an immersive Roleplayer, a Eurotrash style game with a thin painting of genre over tokens, meeples or whatever isn’t going to cut it as far as “Lovecraft Play” goes. For others, it might hit that mark

Yeah, I agree totally. I suspected we did agree actually, I just used your post as a springboardto lay out my thoughts on the subject.

 

[TristramEvans]

There’s a generational thing here as well. RPGs of the 70s and 80s work well with a sandbox as they are lighter and easier to modify. In the 90s and 00s, games become heavier and needed more prep or prewritten adventures more. There is a greater range today with a little of both. I really enjoy RPGs from Sine Nomine and Free League, as well as PbtA RPGs, as they explicitly support that lower prep style that I used to have early on in my RPGing hobby.

However, if you grew up in the 90s and 00s, they present a different enough style that it can seem quite demanding.

Yeah - I think the crunchiest game that I'd be willing to sandbox is Mythras - generally I prefer very light "framework" systems that fade into the background. Which is why my Mythos sandbox games use Phaserip rather than the Call of Cthulhu system.

 

[TristramEvans]

I also never felt sandbox play (which we never called it at that time), which I stumbled into as a young GM with my group of friends, was ‘hard and demanding.’ It grew naturally out of our play and I found it stimulating and as you say a real spark to my imagination as a GM. If anything the lack of prep required was one of the things that I appreciated most about it as a GM.

I can appreciate why a game set in "the real world" , modern or historical, would be more intimidating as a sandbox though, because with a fantasy game you can make up every detail on the fly, but you kind of have to know something about the places characters go in the real world (at least as much or more than the players) to not break immersion. Not alot mind you, I've gotten pretty far with just a travel guide book and google maps, and my preference for Mythos games is to set them in small towns and villages or other such "closed locations"

 

[EmperorNorton]

Also, I think quite a few people, based on what they are saying in this thread, would probably like Legacy Of Dragonholt. It's basically a souped up gamebook.

 

[Lessa]

Also, I think quite a few people, based on what they are saying in this thread, would probably like Legacy Of Dragonholt. It's basically a souped up gamebook.

This! Yeah, Skywalker this is the one I was talking about, by the same author of the Arkham ones. Hears great thingd about it.

Have you played it, Emperor?

 

[AsenRG]

Not only to sandbox RPGing, but linear/plot-driven RPGing too IMO. I even find prepping/running linear adventures harder than sandboxes.

They are harder. That's why I called sandbox Refereeing "Lazy GMing" all those years ago (when I had to explain to people that new way I'm using to save on time when preparing my sessions - a way I believed I have newly discovered)!

 

[Skywalker]

This! Yeah, Skywalker this is the one I was talking about, by the same author of the Arkham ones. Hears great thingd about it.

It’s a good multiplayer gamebook. I preferred Time Stories as it took advantage of the board game format (less reading of text and more roleplaying, visual information etc) to create what I thought was a better multiplayer experience.

 

[Skywalker]

TIME Stories is basically a analog Point and Click Adventure game tbh.

That’s right. The multiplayer aspect elevates the experience IMO. I love how you have to describe what you see to the other players in your own words. Along with the receptacles, it really adds an RP element that is very cool.

 

[Lessa]

Just noticed these..

For example, in Arkham Horror, players don't solve mysteries [...] For all the expansions that Arkham has, it's still essentially the same plot over and over.

This is wrong. In Arkham Horror each scenario is a mystery, in the form of a branching narrative, with a beginning and an end (or multiple endings). Well, at least in the newest edition, which is the one I got.

they collect chits referred to by the game as "clues", which could for all intents and purposes, be beads or juju beans.

Again, nope. Or at least not always. Some clues are abstracted like you say ("the barman hands you a piece of paper with something written on it. You gain a clue").

While other clues are described in a way that's cohesive to the scenario. In the Azathoth scenario, for e.g., you start by investigating the city after rumors of temporal anomalies, and the clues are all coherent to that ("while strolling by Independence Square, you notice there's a new monument you haven't seen before. There's a inscription at it's base saying "1948. In homage to our brave soldiers who died at World War 2". Strange huh? Gain a clue.") [the game is set in the year 1926, so that's clearly a temporal anomaly].

But this is a passive experience. If the players don't actually solve the puzzle, if they don't actually discover and follow clues to a conclusion, they are not experiencing that thing, it's window-dressing at best

As I said above, most clues do follow logically from the narrative, with varying degrees of detail and quality (I've found the Azathoth narrative very good, but the Umurdhoth one kinda weak). About puzzles though, you really don't solve them directly, only through skill rolls (like Lore or Observation). I find this fits the more zoomed-out scale of the game better.

That said, if you want to solve puzzles, Mansions of Madness 2e has that. The scale is much more intimate, the scenarios limited to old residences and closed spaces where players move miniatures around. In this, the puzzles are actual puzzles you must solve in the tablet screen. And I felt genuine apprehension (not fear, aprehension) before opening a door or a closet, for example (there's even an eerie soundtrack and narrator in the app, that you can play in a bluetooth player in the room to enhance the atmosphere).

I'm not saying the experience is as immersive as a full-blown rpg, but things are not so detached as you make it to be in your post. IMO of course.

 

[TristramEvans]

This is wrong. In Arkham Horror each scenario is a mystery, in the form of a branching narrative, with a beginning and an end (or multiple endings). Well, at least in the newest edition, which is the one I got.

Again, nope. Or at least not always. Some clues are abstracted like you say ("the barman hands you a piece of paper with some scratches in it. You gain a clue").

While other clues are described in a way that's cohesive to the scenario. In the Azathoth scenario, for e.g., you start by investigating the city for rumors of space-time anomalies, and the clues are all coherent to that ("while strolling by Independence Square, you notice there's a new monument you haven't seen before. There's a inscription at it's base saying "In homage to our brave soldiers who died at World War 2". Strange huh? Gain a clue.") [the game is set in the year 1926, so that's clearly an a temporal anomaly].


As I said above, most clues do follow logically from the narrative, with varying degrees of detail and quality (I've found the Azathoth narrative very good, but the Umurdhoth one kinda weak). About thenouzzles though, you really don't solve them directly, only through skill rolls (like Lore or Observation). I find it fits the more zoomed-out scale of the game.

I don't think you quite caught my meaning - you, personally, as the player, as not discovering clues, interpreting them, and solving a mystery. This sequence of events is being revealed to you through gameplay with no intellectual effort on your part - your role, as the player, does not extend beyond collecting the tokens and reading the fluff.

That said, if you want to solve puzzles, Mansions of Madness 2e has that.

There's lots of games that involve the player actually solving mysteries - Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is one of my favourites.

Call of Cthulhu with a good GM is another one.

I'm not saying the experience is as immersive as a full-blown rpg, but things are not so detached as you make it to be in your post. IMO of course.

It's a passive experience, there's no two ways about it. It's "not as immersive as a full-blown RPG" in the way that a damp tablecloth isn't as wet as the ocean.

 

[Lessa]

It's a passive experience

You keep repeating this but I don't get it. What exactly is "active" in the act of pixel hunting for the GM pre-canned plot?

I would understand your point if you were arguing for a sandbox game. But most horror RPGs and modules are passive by nature, with players searching for pre-defined clues in pre-defined spots to advance in pre-defined A to B to C plots. This is the definition of a passive experience to me.

 

[TristramEvans]

You keep repeating this but I don't get it. What exactly is "active" in the act of pixel hunting for the GM pre-canned plot?

Are you familiar with the concept of a strawman fallacy?

 

[Lessa]

Nope, sorry. Heard about it but can't remember. What is it and how it relates to our discussion? Thanks in advance.

 

[TristramEvans]

Nope, sorry. Heard about it but can't remember. How does it work and how it's related to our discussion? Thanks in advance.

It's involves presenting an argument that wasn't made and arguing against that instead of the arguments made by the person you are responding to.

In this case " What is "active" exactly in pixel hunting for the GM pre-canned plot?"

 

[Lessa]

TristramEvans , I understand that, thanks, but I still can't see how it's related to my argument?

Here, lemme try explain my reasoning:

- "Active" experience in games: player-driven; players take the reins of the experience; players drive/make the plot; E.g: sandbox gaming, OD&D, PbtA, Traveller, etc.

- "Passive" experience in games: plot/GM-driven; players must react to prompts from the story/GM, plot dictates where players must go, or what they must do, to advance it. E.g: most Horror games and modules, CoC, Kult, etc. Also, most pre-made adventures from the 90's and 00s.

Makes sense to you? Assuming it does, going back to the matter: it does not make sense (in my head) that someone criticizes a boardgame for being passive, while praising RPGs that also offer passive experiences (see definition above). You say that in Arkham, clues are given to you without intellectual effort from your part, ok, but how about CoC ? What intellectual effort do you do? Poking everything in sight on a crime scene until you hit where the GM wanted you to hit (and if you miss it the GM will give the clue anyway otherwise there's no game)? Is that an "active" gaming experience for you?

 

[TristramEvans]

TristramEvans , I understand that, thanks, but I still can't see how it's related to my argument?

Here, lemme try explain my reasoning:

- "Active" experience in games: player-driven; players take the reins of the experience; players drive/make the plot; E.g: sandbox gaming, OD&D, PbtA, Traveller, etc.

- "Passive" experience in games: plot/GM-driven; players must react to prompts from the story/GM, plot dictates where players must go, or what they must do, to advance it. E.g: most Horror games and modules, CoC, Kult, etc. Also, most pre-made adventures from the 90's and 00s.

Makes sense to you? Assuming it does, going back to the matter: it does not make sense (in my head) that someone criticizes a boardgame for being passive, while praising RPGs that also offer passive experiences (see definition above). You say that in Arkham, clues are given to you without intellectual effort from your part, ok, but how about CoC ? What intellectual effort do you do? Poking everything in sight on a crime scene until you hit where the GM wanted you to hit (and if you miss it the GM will give the clue anyway otherwise there's no game)? Is that an "active" gaming experience for you?

All I'd say is that we've gone all the way back to my initial comment:

"Sounds like they had a boring GM"

Everything "passive" that you're describing is ENTIRELY on the head of GMing, NOT ascribed to the RPGs in your examples.

Traveller and OD&D can be railroads just as easily as Kult and Call of Cthulhu can be sandboxes. Whatever arbitrary distinction you're making to divide the RPGs along those lines are not inherent attributes of those RPGs.

So yeah, I'd understand one would rather play a boardgame than play an RPG with a GM who isn't any good. Just as I can understand why someone would rather eat a sandwich, ride a bike, or siit and watch TV than play an RPG with a bad GM.

That doesn't elevate the activity of playing a boardgame to something it's not though, it simply diminishes the experience of playing an RPG from what it could be.