My Life As A Gamer: Braunstein Fills All The Niches

Alexander Macris continued his writing on niche protection in tabletop RPGs the other day, which you can read here.

To summarize, Macris identified three means for establishing and defining niches: quantitative, qualitative, operational, and teleogical. Respectively, Macriss defines each as:

Virtually all TTRPGs assigns characters a number or mathematical rating that determines how good they are at succeeding in various tasks. The specifics of this can vary; some will use a combination of attribute and skill, some will use attribute, class, and level, some take into account differences in equipment, magic, etc.

And virtually all TTRPGs structure their character creation so that no character can be good at everything. Characters might be limited by a choice of race, class, template, and/or clan, by chance, by career, or simply by limited characters points. These are quantitative differences.

(...)

In TTRPG terms, a qualitative difference occurs when one character can do something that another character cannot. In some games, a qualitative difference occurs from an exceptions-based mechanic, such as a feat. In others, it’s built into classes or levels. In either case, the effect is similar. E.g. if Athelstan can wear heavy armor while Rinaldo can only wear light armor, then that’s a qualitative difference. Qualitative differences are very effective at creating niches.

(...)

An operational difference occurs when one character operates on a shorter- or longer- time horizon than another character. Operational differences can create niches when gameplay is distributed across the time horizon it covers.

(...)

Some TTRPGs are designed so that each character is rewarded in a different way for accomplishing different goals. These games create teleological differences between characters. In D&D 2E, for instance, fighters got more XP for defeating monsters, thieves got XP for garnering treasure, and spellcasters got XP for casting spells. In the starter scenario for the recent Aliens RPG, each individual character has a separate story goal. Such games can create gameplay niches through this teleological difference.

While much of the article, as with the previous, runs on the standard bad assumptions of tabletop RPG play one of the remedies mentioned herein is to shift away from them to varying degrees. His cited Mekton Zeta-powered Robotech campaign explicitly mentioned what the #BROSR calls "Patron" and "Domain" play by having the players be directly responsible for both the warship their PCs operate from as well as their individual characters.

In short, I repeat what I said before: Braunstein fixes all of this.

Not having one fixed group solves quantitative and qualitative problems by constantly shaking things up, sometimes having only one player playing at the table (so it's him and his retinue of NPCs).

Strict resource tracking--including timekeeping--solves operational problems; the Magic-User can't Fly and Knock all the time and thus negate the Thief because (a) the MU isn't available all the time and (b) recoving spells once cast takes far more time in AD&D1e than in later editions so you're better off letting the Thief handle it.

Players able to play more than one character at a time means they are not shut out when a character can't do anything for one reason or another, solving all four issues.

Players playing Patrons solves the content generation problem; a Macross campaign run as a Braunstein never asks "What does Minmei do?" because she's on the Patron level most of the time where what she does is relevant- and no, her successors have not changed this at all.

Players playing at cross-purposes, on either the tactical (table) or strategic (Patron/Domain) level, makes teleological differences irrelevant.

Braunstein games accomodate more players, are more convenient to run, quickly accumulate their own momentum (perpetual content generation machines), are not slaved to real-life schedules (because play goes on continuously at all times), and the Referee is needed only to adjudicate and announce results of actions taken at either scale of operation. If I were ever to run some of my old favorites again, like Exalted, this is how it needs to be done- especially for busy adults with careers, spouses, (grand)children, and real-life cultural and political concerns that demand their attention.

I could go on, but by now I've made the point as clear as a cloudless sky at midday. The problems that remain are errors of design, errors of technical writing, or both and not errors of play--Interlock (Mekton Zeta's engine) being called out in Macris' article showing a notorious one--and thus not an end-user problem.

We learned to play RPGs wrong. We're unlearning that now. Regress Harder, learn to #winatRPGs, and become #EliteLevel gamers with habits that translate to real life success.