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From the Marvel thread, at the end:

Sorry, three layers of quotes to follow:

Quote from: Bankuei

Quote

QuoteJonathan Walton wrote:
The obvious thing, it seems to me, is to have almost 1/2 of the game text (or, heck, all of it) be done in a comic book format.

Jonathan, this is a WONDERFUL idea. And I can't believe no one has done it yet. The Marvel RPG would have been perfect this way. It even uses "panels" and "pages" instead of turns and rounds.

I believe several japanese rpgs use this idea to demonstrate "how to roleplay" in their manuals, often using one set of panels to show the players in "real life" sitting around the table, talking rules and points and such, and another set to show "in the game" with the various characters.

It's a great idea that hasn't made its way to the US probably solely due to the costs of artwork.

Here's one of those from Tenra Bansho Zero:
http://www.z-builder.com/trpg/tenra/38.jpg

Thing is, there's not a huge amount of these things in Japanese games. I'd say that I know of only about 2-3 games that do this (all by the same compnay, too).

And there's not a lot of art involved: The above picture was about 3/4 of one page. There was one other page like this elsewhere in the book, but that was about it.

Which leads to an interesting question: Some games have tricky rules at times, using charts or dice in a certain way. Many of us in the New Generation (?  I'm 28) are visual learners, that is to say have no attention span. Verbal descriptions of play, or examples of how to roll dice, in screenplay or other format don't do anything more to help me visualize a rule or method than, say, the original description text.

I'd say that it might be worth it for designers to represent some rules visually. You don't have to put the entire RPG in comic form, but if there's some core rule that "takes getting used to" (like Chargen in Sorcerer (maybe a bad example, as its already pretty easy) or Running Your First Combat in TRoS, or how the Franchise die in Sorcerer works, or even how the core mechanic of Donjon works), I think it would be cool to see it demonstrated visually rather than just with a longer explanation.  For me, visual demos are far more effective.

And again, you wouldn't have to do it with the enitre game (that would be interesting, though), just the complicated bits that throw new players off the first time they try them- Y'know, the stuff that's easily conveyed in a demo game, but is hard to explain to someone not privy to a demo session.

Thoughts?


Tangent (in my own thread!)

Other weird Japanese gaming inventions:

* In Japan there are RPG "Replays", that is gaming sessions written out in screenplay format, and sold as books (and are as big as normal books). There are lots of these, especially homemade (indie) ones at indie/regular gaming and comic conventions.

I couldn't understand why so many folks liked them, and why there's barely any published adventures in Japan. My (Japanese) friend explained it as: "Who wants to read some empty adventure where it's hard to imagine what the PCs will do? We get far more ideas by looking at how other gaming groups approach specific problems, puzzles, interactions and other situations." I guess I agreed with him there, because I remember having a lot of fun reading Tynes' playtest accounts in the DG: Countdown adventure with the (spoiler free): Stuff. And Indian Youths. And the Dog Head. It was an adventure interjected in "difficult areas for the GM" with playtest accounts from Tynes.  That was what made reading that adventure really stand out in my head.

However, Replays are a little more like this:
"Harvey (as Tharoth): 'Mister, you better sell these to me cheaper or we're gonna have some real issues here...
GM (as the merchant): 'I'm sorry sir, that's as low as I can go. Anthing less and my boss wouldn't let me live.'
Jenny (as Xak): I'm going to try to find him in the crowd. (rolls)
GM: You can't see him, but you think for a brief second that you..." etc

* There's also entire manga (graphic novels) about roleplaying, but there's only a few, they're produced by RPG companies, and enjoy a VERY limited circulation: Basically they can only be found in game stores (although they can be ordered from any bookstore in the country).

-Andy, who will put the link back into his Japanese RPG page at http://www.z-builder.com/trpg once the awards are over.

Interesting idea.  I quite liked the comic explaining roleplaying in Pokethulu ( http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/downloads.htm#Pokethulhu ).  Is that what we're talking about here?

QuoteWhich leads to an interesting question: Some games have tricky rules at times, using charts or dice in a certain way. Many of us in the New Generation (? I'm 28) are visual learners, that is to say have no attention span. Verbal descriptions of play, or examples of how to roll dice, in screenplay or other format don't do anything more to help me visualize a rule or method than, say, the original description text.

I don't consider myself to have an attention span deficiency, but I certainly am a visual learner. Whenever possibly, I convert the original text to a mental picture. For me, it makes understanding much easier.

One thing I have considered doing is having character creation layed out in a more graphical way. Something similar to software manuals where you see menus or parts of the on-screen software shown in the book, to get a clear idea of what the text is refering to. Take portion of the character sheet and use a diagram method to explain the parts, how they are are determined, and what they mean during gameplay, etc. For electronically distributed games, this could even be done in an interactive manner.

Likewise for rules, a flow chart can be much more useful if in one glance you can see everthing that a dice roll affects, or what modifiers need to be considered. And this doesn't really require any extra artwork.

2nd Edition Changeling had a few spots where they did the Comic Book thing.  A comic book page had a few panels of action on the entire page.  Then it was reprinted with the comic panel much lighter with test overlayed.  The text them sort of described the various players in that game and how what they rolled converted into the action in the comic.  So there are limited examples in even the mainstream/non-indie world of RPGs.  I actually really liked that, and kinda wish they would do more of that style.

FASA's Masters of the Universe RPG had all of the game text provided in comic book form. It suffered IMO. It made it nearly impossible to look up this-or-that rule with it presented in this manner. True, they did have a rules summary, but not every rule was accounted for.

I guess the main thing here is if you're going to go that way, do it well. The art in said comic was fairly cheesy and the game had the feel of badly cobbled house rules cooked up over a weekend of many beers. Done right, it should work well, I guess. Like anything else.

Gah. I missed this thread. I do know that I was planning for the last month to have an illustration from Hearts and Souls intro, and then in sidebar break down that art as game "term" and pacing.

However its expensive, so, that may be the only peice I get done that way.

Quote from: ks13For electronically distributed games, this could even be done in an interactive manner.

Again, something to think about.  There was a while where I seriously considered distributing a game as a swf (Flash) file.  The possibility of having little movies and interactive parts that showed you how to do this and that seemed really cool.  Imagine the Color (in the GNS sense) that you could show with animated graphics explaining your game.  In fact, doing semi-animated comics in Flash would be really cool too.  And swf files are much smaller than people think; you can pack a ton of stuff into a fairly small file, because it's all vectors.

However, the issue there would be printability.  If you were designing a game (like I eventually hope to do) to be played solely electronically (PBeM or Chat), it's not really an issue, but if it's meant to be LARPed or played as tabletop, people are going to want to print it out.

But this may be moving more into the area of Publishing...

Later.
Jonathan

Hi Andy,

Can't remember where, but I do recall seeing some examples(maybe in a anime/manga magazine) where they showed something like 10 or 12 pages of the stuff, and it looked like a neat way or at least interesting way to explain roleplaying to folks who never heard of it.

As far as visual representations, the most recent "Oooh" that I was pleased by was the (only) simple chart in Runequest Slayers, which showed a die with a Six on it for a hit, two dice with 6's for a Vital hit, and 3 dice with 6's for a Critical.  Yeah, it's simple, but it really worked for communicating the idea quickly and well.  I don't know, but some visual stuff just works.

Chris

White Wolf does (or did) this all the time. Reference Mage, Wraith, Changeling, and Werewolf. While I find the concept interesting, it doesn't particularly do anything for me by way of explaining the rules -- just seems like a nice twist on the standard "sample RPG session" you find in almost any sourcebook.

Then again, I was already quite familiar with the WW rules via Vampire by the time I saw those books, so I can't speak for their usefulness to novices of a system.

I don't recall White Wolf actually having a graphic representation of how the game works in any book. Can you perhaps point one out? Specifically? (I don't have anything but Aberrant, Adventure! and Mage and they aren't in there that I see) I've owned other ones as well, and don't recall offhand seeing it in any first or Second Editions of their works (Mage, Changeling or Werewolf)--but mayhaps it's what your calling "Graphic"?


So describe what they show and how they show it?

Quote from: SidhainI don't recall White Wolf actually having a graphic representation of how the game works in any book. Can you perhaps point one out? Specifically? (I don't have anything but Aberrant, Adventure! and Mage and they aren't in there that I see) I've owned other ones as well, and don't recall offhand seeing it in any first or Second Editions of their works (Mage, Changeling or Werewolf)--but mayhaps it's what your calling "Graphic"?


So describe what they show and how they show it?

I think the reference is being made to the examples of play bits which are near the ends of the books.

I don't think it is in anything but their WoD books, but I don't know.

Stuart

In Wraith: The Oblivion 2nd Edition, this format is used from pages 264 - 269. The lefthand page has a comic book-style layout, and the righthand page has a detailed description of what is happening OOC over each panel. This describes both a "typical RPG session" and gives insight into how particular skills, traits, and Arcanoi are used.

Werewolf: The Wild West has the exact same layout from pages 262 - 267.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse 2nd Edition has the same layout from pages 240 - 245. (This is right after the nifty page-by-page of two werewolves duking it out).

In Changeling, the same layout occurs from pages 252 - 257.

In Mage 2nd, it's from 266 - 271.

In Mage: Sorcerer's Crusade, it's from 216 - 221.

The layout in all of these books is precisely the same: lefthand page a comic book of action, righthand page an explanation of what is happening in game terms, and what's going on with the hypothetical gaming group.

From what I can tell, the practice was entirely abandoned in 3rd Edition runs.

Appearently it is only in the WOD books (I went and looked and saw one example in one of the older editions, its also in my copy of Mage--2E--frankly I'd never even noticed they had game terms in there (Black writing on a black and grey background..).

Its not a bad idea, just make sure it is /obvious/.

Hello,

Unless I'm mistaken, the technique that White Wolf uses is not at all what's being discussed on this thread.

The technique is merely delivering the "what happens in play" example as a comic. Again, if I'm not mistaken, what's being asked about is more directed toward using the mechanics and numbers and play-objects (dice, etc) as a procedure, and whether diagrams or flow-charts can be utilized better to explain them.

Andy, is this correct? Can you provide some clear examples of exactly what you mean? And could you please be more specific in general when posting a new topic?

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron Edwards
Unless I'm mistaken, the technique that White Wolf uses is not at all what's being discussed on this thread.

Unfortunately, I don't own any of the above titles (and all my old core WW books were 1st editions, not second). Could someone scan one of those pages (email it to me or something) so I can tell what's being discussed?

QuoteAgain, if I'm not mistaken, what's being asked about is more directed toward using the mechanics and numbers and play-objects (dice, etc) as a procedure, and whether diagrams or flow-charts can be utilized better to explain them.

Exactly. Here's what I was talking about- Scanned more examples:

http://www.z-builder.com/rpg/forge/1.jpg">

In this pic, which takes up a little less than half the page it was displayed on, we see the "optimal" layout of play materials in front of the characters.  This fantasy RPG uses a special tarot as well as dice, and this diagram shows how to arrange them in front of the players around the table, as it's kind of a confusing mechanic to newbies.  I thought that something like this would be great for, say, Universalis or other game that uses something more than just one sec of dice for playing (like InSpectres).

http://www.z-builder.com/rpg/forge/2.jpg">

Here, I scanned an entire page to show how the picture is arranged with the gaming text. This picture demonstrates how to shuffle the tarot deck (without damaging them), and how to read the cards- you bascially share them with the GM, one side facing the player and the reverse facing the GM.  Not a lot of folks know that much about Tarot, so this makes the game virtually idiot-proof. The grey lump in the bottom of the illo is the GM.

http://www.z-builder.com/rpg/forge/3.jpg">

This is one of 4 or so full-page manga illustrations (these full pages aren't continuous- each one references a specific set of rules, which are explained in grainy detail on the facing page (not shown).

This is showing the very basics of the game- Ideas of difficulty numbers, where to look on your character sheet to see what to roll, and how to determine what to roll for which situation. Finally, it shows how to roll and read the dice (the middle section).

This game is from the second edition ("Zero" edition) of Tenra Bansho. It's a game that was marketed, then remarketed, for RPG newbies. I think this is why there's so many of these kinds of illustrations.

http://www.z-builder.com/trpg/tenra/38.jpg">

Here's another similar example.  This manga's focus is on the down-time in between important scenes (so that the game doesn't get bogged down in useless details, like interacting with EVERY merchant, etc). It also shows how you can use special chits in this game to influence the fate of other NPCs during those down-time parts.

I was talking about this kind of thing.

Sorry about bringing other things into the picture (Replays, etc), as they might have confused things. I was clipping this post from the end of the Marvel thread after it was closed and left that part as is. Oops.

-Andy