The Culture: To Reclaim What Gygax Gave You

from Imgflip Meme Generator

As I said yesterday, the biggest problem in the tabletop medium of fantastic adventure wargaming is that we've had over 40 years (since 1980) of absolute bullshit regarding what this medium is and how it works.

One of these is that it's an Ungame:

It is a game of conversation which "fosters listening skills as well as self-expression".

Just like how Questing leads, via the Cargo Cult, to Agency-killing Storygaming so does this "no wrong way to play" thought-terminating cliche:

This refers to a cliché that is a commonly used phrase, or folk wisdom, sometimes used to quell cognitive dissonance.

The dissonance at work here is the acknowledgement that a game, by definition, has winners and losers. Yet, at the same time, there is this dogmatic insistence that the tabletop hobby is one without winners or losers but instead a vehicle for Theater Kid "self-expression" nonsense (i.e. an Ungame).

If there are winners and losers, then there are objectives to be achieved and means by which to achieve them- and that inevitably results in there being a right and wrong way to play, especially if (as is the norm in games) the action is Player versus Player (i.e. competitive).

Remedial Training Required

As I said yesterday, this is a medium of agency. Yet the Cargo Cult has taught them wrong for over 40 years, and this is reinforced by videogame alternatives; they don't know any better.

You will have to retrain them, and that presumes that they want to learn.

This will compel you to be upfront, blunt, and crystal clear on what you will do and what you will expect the players to do as well as how this will be done. You will need to use a ruleset that hardcodes this into the game. (This is another reason for why the Bros love Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition and Adventurer, Conqueror, King; both products do that.)

"But I'm playing with adults."

My brother in Christ, Neckbeardia would not exist if what you implied was true.

This is the mild end of their videos.

The retraining starts with a reframing: "What do you want?"

The Referee puts them in a town that's just enough to be a place to operate from- a fortified camp. Behind them is Fucking Nothing; traditionally, this means a fortified camp on the beach or around a wreck or whatever and the rest of the map is BLANK.

Not even the Referee knows what's on the map; that's generated as players explore. This forces players to get behind the wheel and drive because there is no other option; it may start out janky, but (a) the players have no one to blame for what goes down but themselves and (b) they learn how to play the game properly or they fail good and hard until they do.

And that is what I recommend to those wanting to unlearn the fake gaming norms and retrain themselves to #winatrpgs. Blank map; AD&D1e rules, as-written, exploring (and filling in) the map as you go and just dealing with what the dice give you.

You won't be able to do this with anything Palladium, Dream Pod 9, West End, White Wolf, Steve Jackson Games, Hero Games, or any Theater Kid wankfest product. Just AD&D1e, ACKS, and a handful of others in that vein are fit for purpose; everything else can be ignored- and should until your retraining is complete.