What is Main Stream gaming? Another look.

[Mike Holmes]

OK, possibly. I can think of very few plays off-hand that have what would resemble real people (mostly heavily romanticized and exaggerated visions of 'real' people); but maybe some confirmation bias in there.

Well, not, not real, you're correct. But I meant not having those fantastic elements that you're saying are a requirement. In plays you tend to see salesmen, cops, teachers, yadda, yadda - people that most people can relate to without the sort of creative requirements that you're saying are neccessary to propell people into playing an RPG. That's my point.

Put another way, I completely agree that what people end up doing with these characters will not neccessarily be realistic. There will still be escapism and fantasy. It's just that, if you haven't read LOTR, or seen the movies (hard as that may be to imagine), you just may not get at all what it means to be an elf. But you probably do get what it means to be a teacher.

Keep in mind that the mainstream that we're talking about are people like one of my co-workers who had never seen any of the Star Wars movies. People who think that fantasy is somewhat infantile - the stuff you read to children. People for whom a reading of Stephen King is an "out there" experience, because they're usually found reading Fern Michaels, or Larry Bond. If they read at all. Most of them just watch CSI and Law & Order, and don't even realize that there are adults who read comic books.

Mike

[komradebob]

I would say that a mainstream ( non-rper) audience actually might consist of people with several different characteristics. Not all mainstreamers would have the same characteristics, or all of the characteristics, so there are actually several approaches that might be taken by would be designers.

1) Subject matter
This is the issue folks have mostly talked about in this thread. These are the people for whom the traditional subject matters of rpgs ( fantastical characters and settings) do not appeal. The assumption here seems to be that these people might enjoy rpgs if they were based on nonfantasy/non-sf material.

2) Mechanics
This group of people may well be interested in the subject matter of trad rpgs, but the general sort of mechanics one has seen over the years turns them off to rpgs, primarily because it falls so far outside of their experience/comfort zone. For me personally, I find this group a more interesting and viable target audience, although you might find yourself fighting an uphill battle against other existing game forms. I can think of several broad groups of gamers who play games that share some characteristics with rpgs(Table top style rpgs, specifically), that could be potentially enticed to play rpgs, should they encounter systems that act as "bridges" between the style they're familiar with and more full blown ttrpgs.

I think that last point is also important, in another fashion. RPers generally have very strong opinions on what constitutes a proper rpg vs. a game which has characteristics in common with rppgs but which isn't an rpg. I question whether that particular distinction in the minds of rpg designers doesn't also act as a barrier to the creation of these "bridging" games. It does sort of lead to the existence of "orphaned platypus" designs...

Robert