Tabletop games are being dumbed down

...

What is the modern equivalent of hacking limbs down?

I really hate retards like this.

>le we're being dumbed down, everybody is more stupid than ever before!

If you actually bother to educate yourself at all, people have ALWAYS been fucking idiots. The difference is that greater communication with the internet allows you to be aware of EVERY single retard on the planet, and every retarded thing that moron does. So the world seems dumber. But if you had near-instant communication back in 800AD or 1300AD, people would be just as fucking stupid. Or to put it into RPG terms- intelligence increases with each generation as each generation builds upon the last. Wisdom is inherent to the species however and never changes. We're the same bunch of rock bashing hominids from tens of thousands of years ago, only now we have built up a collective database of knowledge through word of mouth, clay tablets, books, and now the internet that allows us to be something more than rock-bashing drooling morons.

>people that like things I don't like are uneducated sub-humans

Varg in a nutshell about this subject in general.

He should stick to posting video's about survival tecniques. those are actually fun to watch and I learned a thing or 2 from it.

"How to defend yourself with a ceramic lamp in 33 easy steps."
1: Smash lamp
2-33: Stab

Hes the man.

Actually sat down and played MYFAROG with my friends a couple weeks ago.

All we did in game was sit around in a bar, get drunk and dick around. Which is all we do in real life too.

He is so dreamy.

No,
There is no dumbing down.
Its just quicker games with less looking up charts or special rules.
I think its because of computer rpgs were the machine calculate it behind the action. They feel quicker, more attractive so tabletop has to compete.

>Diplom-is

Of course he's right. There's been an influx of games within the last decade which use simplicity as a selling point. It's inarguable.

You can't wean generations of drooling simps off of the ease of technological calculation. Mental math is dead, and so are RPGs.

This is correct.

youtu.be/8N4EuDEzQQo

Holy fuck this dude makes /pol/ look sane and reasonable.

Counter argument from a guy who doesn't like old D&D and OSRs:
youtube.com/watch?v=fvyrEhAMUPo

He pretty much says that the only reason he made the game the way he did was to appeal to people like Varg

look at deendee 5e and tell me he is wrong

if yes, i am up for it.

yeah, this.

the other thing to consider is that there is a growing pseudo-mainstream component of nerd culture, which means larger commercial interests, so some of the traditional brands are releasing more streamlined (dumbed-down) products, BUT, there are more games being made than ever right now and many of them are more complex and deep than games of the past. so it's a best of times, worst of times situation in that regard. there are more dumbed down games than ever, but also more complex and intelligent games than ever.

Old school games were often so broken that many classes offered were nothing but impediments for the party or a temporary target. Making a complex game is fine but don't lie and say you based that game on muddled trash just to appeal to grognards.

>Because it's definitely not in the middle of combat encounters.
>definitely

speak for yourself

>Idk, he sounds like an elitist douche.
you make it sound looking down on plebs is a bad thing.

yep, we are sharing our hobby with an icnreasing number of retards now. dude in the video spouts some nonsense but he's right about commitment and dedication. and i doubt any gamer's commitment and dedication if they come to the table with an attitude like yours.
out into the trash he goes.

it's not complexity for complexity's sake. it's complexity for the sake of accuracy.

that does not explain d&D 5e, trail of cthulhu or fiasco. all of which can be enjoyed but introduce more faggots like into the hobby. we don't need more people with that attitude. and, yes, i am being judgemental and elitist.

Posting in a "WAH noone will play 3.splashbook with me anymore" thread.

Fuck off, virt.

It's a well known fact that people who endlessly bitch about 5e are Tha/tg/uys who have trouble finding/keeping a game where they can play Rube-goldberg Gish edgelord.

kekekeke.
>man, y... you did a convincing performance guys *hicks* you can all level up twice. ah, thrice! *thump*

yes, there is dumbing down. deendee 5e's advantage/disadvantage mechanics loses accuracy for the sake of speed. go back to game design 101, you retard.

stop pretending your someone else, virt. fuck off.

this is nice, let's make a game out of inventing facts.

Not really. The blight upon the hobby is autists like Varg who think they're hot shit when they obsess over the stats of RPG's and completely fucking miss the point. ROLEplaying Games are not about the statistics, if you want crunch then you should just go off to play an actual true GAME with no roleplaying tacked on, tabletop wargames or just an RPG videogame which is a lot more about the combat with very little roleplaying to it. A roleplay is supposed to be a community driven story that evolves randomly, with stats and dice serving as a method to inject danger and thus tenstion- you don't know if everybody is going to live, or if anybody will. But this doesn't mean you should molest stats like a min-maxer or even really give that much of a shit about stat-related stuff beyond the absolute necessity. The thing you should always focus on, and do in an RPG, is be a god damned roleplayer. A good roleplayer is primarily a writer and actor/performer, with all things related to stats being an afterthought.

tl;dr, rollplaying bad, roleplaying gud.

3.pleasebuythesplashbooks is sophisticated, detailed and in the end just as silly and unrealistic as 5e.

You have an option to not use the detailed parts of 3.5.

In 5e you're stuck with FATE-tier garbage.

DnD5e is fucking complex compared to most games I enjoy.
Probably more complex than DnD4e, since you have to parse out the effects of every ability rather than have it cleanly laid out for you.

Meanwhile I see retards get puzzled by the simplest scenarios in Fate Core, which falls neatly into 'rules medium'.

What we CAN say is that rules are no longer an endless list of skills and physics simulations, and that's a good thing.

The rules are there to do two things:
1. Make the game fun/entertaining (balance is an important component of this - if one choice is obviously superior to another choice, it's not entertaining)
2. Reinforce the desired genre/mood (e.g. Hit points/plot armor in heroic fantasy, wound locations in grittier combat, etc.) .

>bonded accuracy shitpost
Yeah God forbid the DM can quickly design a situational encounter instead of raging about derails fucking his whole campaign. Remember those days? So fun.

>this is nice, let's make a game out of inventing facts.
Ok, humor me, why do you bitch about 5e?
Are they forcing you to play it?
Surely the people drawn to it aren't the sort of "casual" you want to be surrounded with...
And I certainly don't see support for 3.whatever dipping, you'll always have your monthly splash.
So?

Hey newfag, I'm glad you found your way here from RPGNet. Some friendly history:

RPGs were founded on combat mechanics. Roleplaying was an unintended side-effect. Every single RPG on the market is a combat simulator, with one or two awful exceptions.

If you want to roleplay, find some friends. Don't play an RPG.

>Yeah God forbid the DM can quickly design the exact same encounter over and over again regardless of whatever situation the players find themselves in.

Fixed that for you. Fewer options = bad.

>RPGs were founded on combat mechanics. Roleplaying was an unintended side-effect.

Yeah, Gary G's intention was to create an accurate orc-killing simulation using polyhedral-damage weapons.

...yes. That is objectively true.

You really have no idea what you're talking about, huh?

>24 posters for three posts
Samefagging already.

I don't understand why people think the two are orthogonal.

I expect a good RPG to be a well-designed game with a strong, well-thought out, well-playtested ruleset.
And I also expect a good RPG to give me a storng basis to create a character, and act them out, and give me support in doing so.

Any game that doesn't give me both is a bad RPG.

And any player who doesn't do both - play their best, and act their best - is a bad player.

>everything is a reroll instead of an individual modifier
>not dumbing down
okay

Also the same guy as the three here

RPGs were founded on the premise of injecting a character into the swashbuckling fantasy adventures from popular novels written in the 1930's-60's. It was intended to let nerd save princesses, win fantastic treasures, and defeat horrible evil.
It was never, ever, ever intended to be a medieval mechanical melee simulator.

>Samefagging.
>Replying to different people.

Good god. This is a newfag thread. There's no other explanation.

You're all fucking morons.

>It was never, ever, ever intended to be a medieval mechanical melee simulator.

They were created to be exactly that.

>manwithheadache.jpg
I am talking about the accuracy in modeling fictious combat situations. Other games have different modifiers for various situations like fighting prone, fighting with the off-hand, being flanked, being wounded, etc.

Rolling everything into rerolls (ad/disad) is dumbing down for the sake of accuracy because every circumstantial modifier is the same now.

user you don't understand.
You're supposed to only post once in a single thread.
Discussion is banned in Veeky Forums you're just supposed to scream your opinion into the void and leave the thread.

Chainmail is not a TTRPG.
Next you are going to tell me this is a TTRPG.

Conflict is an important part of the experience. It shouldn't be the worst unless it's a Cthulhu game or a GUMSHOE game and that's part of the point to avoid it. If combat was the only important part then why the fuck were social skills and sneaking skills introduced so quickly you fucking retard

If the DM can't mix up a combat with BA then he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Relying on accidental scaling is fucking ridiculous. Just play a video game.

>RPGs were founded on combat mechanics. Roleplaying was an unintended side-effect.
So? Nintendo was founded to make playing cards. Apple was founded to make personal computers. Veeky Forums was founded to discuss anime. Things change.

There is no substantive difference between any modifier in 5e. Your options are hamstrung from the get-go.
>Moving the goalposts.
Just admit you don't know anything about the hobby or its history and go make a post about how the newest art in 5e is problematic.

>Rolling everything into rerolls (ad/disad) is dumbing down for the sake of accuracy because every circumstantial modifier is the same now.
Yes, most of us miss the romantic clash of your Sword +2 striking with it's 5 different circumstantial modifiers with successively lower modifiers per attack against the gallant defense of the enemy knight who's defenses have been carefully scaled to pose roughly the same odds against you that you had 10 levels ago.

Gud times, if you are autistic enough. And I sense that you are.

>he thinks i am playing Plebeons&Plebons

>I literally cannot add.

>Moving the goalposts
Chainmail was invented to be a fun time with miniatures, and was the kernel basis for a RPG.
Just like there's a RPG that evolved from 40k.

Chainmail has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation going on in this thread.

>Everyone wants a rousing night of math and manuevering miniatures around a grid to get better math.

Clearly not, as the 5e numbers show.
Sucks that no one wants to sit around you and appreciate your new Munchkin build, and here you just got them fresh splats.

This is the same guy that believes he's a neanderthal

No they weren't you idiot. RPG's were created as fantasy adventures with mechanics tacked on because if you just let people make shit up, it's suddenly a Greek Myth where everybody is a Heracles-tier demigod that can't die. There needs to be structure. Likewise people who obsess too much over structure are dysfunctional and miss the fucking point. Anybody who gets caught up with "optimal" builds is a shitty roleplayer and should be immediately kicked out of your group because they aren't there to create a story- they're there to 'win'. It's this autistic desire to 'win' and RPG that has destroyed multiple groups I've been in, with one or more fuckwits always trying to do the most broken shit possible because they couldn't accept the fact that their characters are mortal.

A good roleplayer should never 'min max', making 'optimal' character builds. What's optimal for an RPG is good roleplaying, good acting and socialization. Your PC should only be built to play an interesting character, not a crunched god of death.

nope.
>evilhat.com/home/designers-dragons/
buy it. stop being a pleb.

Don't forget the conspiracy theory stuff -- "THEY" want you to be helpless and dependent on The System, which apparently involves using rules-light games.

I guess there is an elitism inherent in conspiracy thought; "everyone else is sheeple drinking Kool-Aid except for me, the enlightened and insightful drinker of colloidal silver".

After watching the video, I would probably say that is symptomatic of changing times that we are making things more accessible, but I think it is more about a change in the culture of gaming than in some attempt to dumb down culture.

RPGs have moved quite alot away from the old-school realism simulators towards more style that is much more cinematic and stylistic, especially with the introduction of more niche cultures into mainstream media (think about it films used to be all dramas and bible stories, but now they have made films of the Lord of the Rings series and Game of Thrones is a hit tv series).

RPG's used to be alot about getting satisfaction from beating the game from within, using your brains and the rules to beat the system, but now it's about working with it allowing it to enable you to tell interesting stories and to effectively allow you to have power fantasies about being the kind of character that you see in films in a more visceral and interactive way.

And the thing is, this is not necessarily a recent thing; I know a lot of 'old school' GMs who have GM'ed for years (some for more years than I've been alive) and they say to me that even when they had the old style systems, they didn't use all the rules and just tailored them to the bits that they recognised were good and what they wanted, cutting out the extraneous bits that were clunky or took up too much time at the table. Because frankly, people have limited game time and neither want to see someone spend ten minutes figuring out how one bullet hurts them precisely using complicated tables nor be forced into playing just one type of game because it takes so long to entirely learn one system.

Right, which was the original point. RPGs are being dumbed down. Thanks for proving everything we've been saying.

Yes it does. You claim RPGs have nothing to do with combat simulation. They were about combat simulation from the very beginning and still largely are.

>Roleplaying
>Acting
>Socialization

Every single person I've ever played with that tried to "act" at the table has been an autistic fuckwit. Sounds like you fit the bill. Enjoy banging on the table in a public square pretending to sing a goblin song, ignoring the game at hand.

I've been playing TTRPGs since the mid 80's I don't need some neckbeard shilling a book explaining what my hobby is "really about".
I'm sorry that you do, newbie.

>Every single person I've ever played with that tried to "act" at the table has been an autistic fuckwit. Sounds like you fit the bill. Enjoy banging on the table in a public square pretending to sing a goblin song, ignoring the game at hand.
So you play with autistic number crunchers who live in their mother's basements that can't act normally in a social setting?

Roleplaying without acting isn't roleplaying, it's autistic rollplaying that has literally nothing to do with roleplaying. If you don't get into character at all and rather deliver your lines in a monotone voice with zero emotion, you should find another fucking hobby.

Honestly user you just come off as a sad lonely person with a shitty group. And our goblin songs rock, you just need to liquor up for it to be authentic.

i can tell that you have never played any rpg that hasnt been a direct deendee derivative.

>If you don't talk in horrible accents and act like a drunk ape at the table, you aren't really having fun.
You know you're only proving Varg's point, right? That people like you are cancer? That you're largely uninterested in gaming and more interested in acting like idiots in a public area?

>They were about combat simulation from the very beginning and still largely are.

The first two editions of Dungeons and Dragons had laughably simple and unrealistic combat rules.
Are you implying that TTRPG's were invented 15 years ago or something?
Because you seem dumb.

TTRPG's simulate combat like schoolchildren with nerf guns simulate the Normandy Beach landings.

>Right, which was the original point. RPGs are being dumbed down. Thanks for proving everything we've been saying.
An intelligent person will streamline his options. in bloat games, that means preparing cheat sheets. If you're actually designing a game, that means reducing the bloat. The problem grogs like you are having is that the people designing these games are clearly smarter than you and recognize redundancies.

Remember Gamma World? That game was tight. The mechanics weren't. 1978.

>engages in a nerd hobby
>complains about BASIC math

The problem user is that Varg is a delusional autistic nutjob. Obsessing over the game aspect in a roleplay is the chief problem with the modern scene and why we have bullshit like munchkins. Mechanics exist to facilitate story telling, story telling does not exist to facilitate mechanics. It's why DM's have always been ignoring or making rules up as they need based on the failings of the system they use.

And if you aren't acting like idiots in a public area, then aren't having a good time. Really user, you -are- autistic and there's no denying it.

>TTRPG's simulate combat like schoolchildren with nerf guns simulate the Normandy Beach landings.
I don't know, pal. That sounds pretty rad and I'm a grown ass man.

>being around the 80s
>still not understanding the roots of the hobby

Why would I want combat rules to be realistic?

I wanna be a fantasy hero or space hero or vampire wizard or fucking whatever, not joe mcpeasant about to get gutted. I wanna be chopping dudes down by the minute, not rolling for shellshock.

>The first two editions of Dungeons and Dragons had laughably simple and unrealistic combat rules.
by later standards. your point is invalid.

>munchkins are modern game phenomenon
you might want to think this over
>roleplaying is storytelling
no, it's not retard. it's one component and not necessarily even the most important one.

also:
>It's why DM's have always
>DM
that's how we know you are a pleb-tier gamer, literally.

Munchkins are not a recent phenomenon, you great fucking idiot. And you still have munchkins in so-called "lite" games; people like yourself that reward retards for screaming the best at the table.

And when you say acting autistic isn't autistic, guess what? You've officially worn out that meme.

game mechanics impose constraints on GMs and players to keep the game from devolving into calvinball. the amount of required realism is debatable and in any case
>DOTS
applies.

>Tabletop games are being dumbed down

Candyland, Life, Chutes and Ladders, etc.

There has always been a casual side to tabletop games, a more in-depth game (backgammon, stratego, etc), and a super complex game (Chess, Go, etc) component.

>The world is being dumbed down

The world was never smart.

>You had to be smart to play role-playing games

Not really. They weren't that fucking hard to figure out.

Nostalgia goggles are going out pretty hard here

>Myfargo

Never heard of it, I will look into it.

That's the thing, RPGs have expanded to accommodate different styles of play. In Cthulhu games you do roll for shellshock. There are other games that try to make shit more real, like GURPS or "OSR" games that try to rewrite old mechanics to make more sense. I say both are fine but there's always some faggot saying otherwise and they're typically from the Varg camp, which is why they have their own terms of munchkin, grognard, and rollplayer.

>game mechanics impose constraints on GMs and players to keep the game from devolving into calvinball

No no, you misunderstand me. I believe every RPG should have strong, unambiguous rules.

I just see no reason those rules should have anything to do with realism.

>I just see no reason those rules should have anything to do with realism.
put on your thinking cap some more.

>Myfarog

Oh, apparently that is HIS RPG that HE made and this video was him trolling people into buying his book.

>Don't be a dumb idiot like the rest of society.
>Don't be a sheeple doing what The Man tells you
>Now buy my book and prove it.

>dumbed down
What does it matter?
How the game proceeds is still at the mercy of the GM.
Does it really matter if you have an Ivory Tower of choices when all the GM has to do is adjust a couple of numbers, and you are at the same place where you started?
What does it matter if for every +1 to attack roll you get, the GM adjusts enemies' AC to be 1 higher?
What does it matter that if you look up a thousand tables for your modifiers, trying to stack them, or just roll a single reroll using a luck point, when the GM can simply say "You fail"?
RPGs aren't crunch first - the selling point of an RPG is that it tries to balance both crunch and fluff. The games where crunch comes first are called wargames.
>b-buh you are assuming the GM will be shit!
He will.
If anything, the best rules for the games are made when the creator of the game assumes that everyone involved in the game is an idiot.
Take, for example, chess, or go, or poker or literally any other popular game.
The rules themselves aren't complex and literally anyone can play chess - "easy to learn" - but the game has a lot of depth and there's plenty of room to improve yourself - "hard to master".
The rules are impossible to misinterpret, which makes it accessible to anyone.
That's what makes those good games - literal impossibility of misinterpreting the rules and covering every possible situation that could arise in game, while the rules themselves remain simple.
A good game doesn't require an arbiter. It requires only players.

>A good game doesn't require an arbiter. It requires only players.

This is actually the reason I like Apocalypse World and derivatives (except Dungeon World) so much.
Both the player rules and the GM rules are extremely strict. If the GM has done their job right and the players are on board with the game concept, the GM barely needs to do anything. They just follow the correct procedure and good play is the result.

That's the ideal state of RPGs (naturally, there are other ways to do it other than how ApocWorld does it - see also DnD4e's post MM3 encounter building). If everyone follows the correct procedure, the game should automatically work.

yeah, the shilling was bad and his philosophy a bit cringy at times. still rpgs are being dumbed down, no doubt.

He shills his game shamelessly in his videos.

He has videos demonstrating real life research of weapons and armour to work out realistic combat mechanics.

One notable feature is he has 'politically incorrect' rules, women are not as strong as men, Europeans are more intelligent but Africans are faster runners etc etc.

To be fair it's probably not a shitty OSR game. I mean the big complaints I've heard is "it's clunky" and "it's racist" which is to be expected from Varg, and it's not the only racist game out there. Shadowrun basically assumes orcs are niggers.

>A good game doesn't require an arbiter. It requires only players.
That's an amusing conceit. You clearly haven't played with anyone ever.

>A good game doesn't require an arbiter. It requires only players.

Sure, that's why there are never judges present at MTG tournaments.

No, fuck this guy. All you need to do is look at his chart for swimming checks.

When you make swimming checks different for a light breeze, a slight breeze, and gentle breeze, you are starting to reach into puppy stomping levels of insanity.

I think an issue here is that some see gaming as "I am playing an RPG with my friends" and some see it, possibly through no fault of their own, as "the activity I do with some spergs and ThatGuys down at the FLGS".

If you only play games with people you already know, many issues suddenly disappear.

That just says about the quality of MtG.
A good game doesn't have unclear rulings.

MtG has been a shit game for a long time.

Plenty of other games do the whole battling mages mechanic better.

Plenty of card games have deeper deckbuilding mechanics.

It is an old and very dated game by most modern gaming standards that has always suffered major balance issues because Wizards literally doesn't give a shit about balance and just wants that dosh.

>That's what makes those good games - literal impossibility of misinterpreting the rules and covering every possible situation that could arise in game, while the rules themselves remain simple.

That's a commendable design paradigm if you're trying to create a game like chess. Chess is not a roleplaying game and doesn't even vaguely resemble one. Roleplaying games are not bound on a simplistic 8-by-8 black and white world where only six types of agent exist, and if you attempt to make "an RPG like chess", that's what you'll end up with - a world devoid of any reasons to explore it.

Let's also remember that while chess is a "good" game, it's not a very FUN game. Most people get deathly bored of it after their first match, because all that happens in it is moving a small number of stupid pieces around in a small number of predetermined ways.

Real talk time. If you don't trust your GM to be good at his job, why the fuck are you playing with him? And why the fuck is he playing with you? You're not supposed to play RPGs with strangers.

And if you can't trust ANYONE, then you're basically a bad person and shouldn't play games to begin with.