fantasy heartbreakers: a theory

[xiombarg]

Working at rpgnews.com has gotten me thinking about Fantasy Heartbreakers again. Slap me down if this insight is trivial and/or someone already popped out with it and I missed the thread.

A big part of Heartbreakers seems to be a lack of familiarity with anything besides D&D. Yet, it seems to me a lot of gamers ARE familiar with at least a couple of games other than D&D. So why do Fantasy Heartbreakers get made?

Because the gamers with larger exposure find a game they like and go with that. That is, they find D&D unsatisfying, check out another game... and never create their own game, because what they want is out there. They play GURPS or Storyteller or Traveller or whatever. It's only those whose have never seen another game that feel the need to tinker with D&D and create their own to meet a need that already exists. It's self-selecting -- the sort of people who do their homework never make a game in the first place.

Those with the wider experience never make a Heartbreaker at all, so of course there's a bias towards those who are only familiar with D&D -- these are the people most likely not to realize what they want is already out there. Linking in with the wholekit-bashing thing from other threads, most gamers are satisfied with a particular system or two, with perhaps a few house rules, and the dis-satisfied ones are the ones who never realize that they can buy an elf miniature off the shelf, so they end up sculping one from scratch.

Those few who DO do their research, and still don't find what they like... Well, they end up here, making their own games.

Does that make sense? I think this links into Mike's Standard Rant #1 and Chris's standard rant.

[Valamir]

I agree with your principal, but, of course, your use of "only" and "never" is bit overstating the case.

[Bankuei]

Hi Loki,

As a minor point, consider some of those sacred cows or assumptions about games that I mentioned in my rant.  Even folks with quite a bit of experience with many games still are trapped in the "this is the only way a game can work" mentality.  Stuff like, "you gotta have stats, skills, kewl powers, splats, initiative, damage rules, etc".

I could probably walk up to 8 out of 10 gamers, who have played pretty much any commercial product on the shelves, and show them Inspectres and watch them trip out.  I'm sure at least 3 out of 10 will say that such a game is unplayable, not just for them, or their group, but for anybody, anywhere.  Now sure, these numbers are all speculative and whatever, but consider walking up to joe-schmoe gamer and how many of those sacred cows have never been questioned.

I'm going to venture that those assumptions are what give us Heartbreakers more than anything else.  You can shift the numbers, change the stats, add new races, kewl powers, give us 200 pages of setting, but ultiimately Creative Agenda and System weren't really examined closely in most of the Heartbreaker cases.  You still have the same "engine, same chassis" and a new body, and hoping a new paint job will make it "go faster".

Thoughts?

Chris

[xiombarg]

The thing is, considering some of the innovative nuggets Ron points out in his Heartbreakers essay, that it's not just "new paint, same chassis". I think a lot of these designers WANT a new chassis, but have no idea how to build one -- or that there's one like they want available.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I think that Heartbreaker game-writing can spring from a couple of sources.

The first is pretty much as described: the authors aren't familiar with games beyond some variant of D&D, or with very few alternatives that aren't especially alternative (e.g. Warhammer).

The second, though, concerns the emotional angle, based on some of the points in my D&D history article. It's perhaps a desire to heal D&D play in some way.

Best,
Ron

[W. Don]

I find myself relating strongly to the various reasons for fantasy hearbreakers already posted above (and likely discussed elsewhere, including in the articles). I'd probably qualify as a near perfect guinea pig for testing them out. Especially that one about lack of exposure. When you live in a place where the only RPG material on the shelves within 500 miles are D20 and White Wolf's WoD series (and maybe CoC if the stars are right), lack of exposure is a fact of life. ;-) Paypal doesn't even accept my credit card!

The inexperience leads to a lack of awareness of the many different ways roleplaying games can be made and played. This, coupled with the sincere desire to make a "kewl new thing" ends up with someone like me going off to write that uhm "great Filipino RPG" and ending up with a steampunk heartbreaker. Scary.

A desire to "heal" D&D is I think simply the momentum that gets a heartbreaker going. At it's core the heartbreaker pitfall is primarily a lack of awareness.

(After the small amount of time I've been spending here at The Forge, I can now hear my sacred cows moo in terror ;-)

[Cadriel]

The second, though, concerns the emotional angle, based on some of the points in my D&D history article. It's perhaps a desire to heal D&D play in some way.

Wow.  That kinda blindsided me, and made me realize:  when the AD&D community and the Internet really hit it off in the mid-'90s (I refer specifically to the old AOL TSR Online, which I loved dearly), this sentiment was absolutely endemic in the fanbase.  Everybody knew implicitly that AD&D was broken badly, and didn't satisfy the devoted players, but for the most part we were loyal to it.  There were reams of material devoted to reworking the rules in a different direction.  Discussions on how you were altering the game were constant.  But...the fixes were never really coherent, and there was no objective standard for most to strive toward.  I think, given an opportunity, a lot of us would have made Fantasy Heartbreakers of our own.

I think D&D3e, which doesn't give fans nearly the same reaction (i.e., you don't assume that the average DM will be making massive rules adjustments), will more or less stem the tide of Fantasy Heartbreakers, at least for the time being.

But there's another culprit that I think bears mentioning here:  the overall decline of fantasy literature since the 1970s introduced us to doorstop novels written by the dozen.  The Heartbreakers seem to show (some) signs of being a part of the current mainstream of fantasy, a mishmash of assumptions piled atop of assumptions.  Gaming is part of the stream now, and it all feeds back into itself.

-Wayne

[xiombarg]

I think D&D3e, which doesn't give fans nearly the same reaction (i.e., you don't assume that the average DM will be making massive rules adjustments), will more or less stem the tide of Fantasy Heartbreakers, at least for the time being.

Or refocus them. Look at all the mediocre d20 worlds out there. It seems that most people just wanted a semi-decent ruleset to publish a custom D&D world with -- and it's easy to grandfather in stuff specific to your world with Feats and Prestige Classes, without re-writing all the rules.

But there's another culprit that I think bears mentioning here:  the overall decline of fantasy literature since the 1970s introduced us to doorstop novels written by the dozen.  The Heartbreakers seem to show (some) signs of being a part of the current mainstream of fantasy, a mishmash of assumptions piled atop of assumptions.  Gaming is part of the stream now, and it all feeds back into itself.

Shhhh! Don't get Ron started on the difference between D&D fantasy and "real" fantasy! ;-D

[Bankuei]

Hi Ron,

The second, though, concerns the emotional angle, based on some of the points in my D&D history article. It's perhaps a desire to heal D&D play in some way.

Emotionalism tends to play heavily in gamers, ranging from the usual fanatic love/hate of System X to a lot of other cherished ideas(Impossible thing, anyone?).  How much of this do you think ties into folks looking for a "perfect" ruleset to fix their social contract issues?  

Chris

[Marco]

I always assumed it was an attempt to improve on something the general experience of which they already liked. And yes, I'd noted that these guys weren't as in the dark as one might assume (they may not know online or niche-market games--but I bet most of them know Gama World and White Wolf and Hackmaster and Call of Cthulhu).

Judging from what I've seen here: every game created by someone with a history of bad experience could be an attempt to "heal D&D" (or whatever they started with).

-Marco

[Cadriel]

I always assumed it was an attempt to improve on something the general experience of which they already liked. And yes, I'd noted that these guys weren't as in the dark as one might assume (they may not know online or niche-market games--but I bet most of them know Gama World and White Wolf and Hackmaster and Call of Cthulhu).

Well, you must remember that one of the big criteria for something actually being a Fantasy Heartbreaker is that it's mostly conversant with roleplaying games through the filter of (A)D&D's basic assumptions, such as classes and levels, and the real shame is that they have so much passion and love invested in what is basically a retread of things that have been around for a long time.

Judging from what I've seen here: every game created by someone with a history of bad experience could be an attempt to "heal D&D" (or whatever they started with).

Not really.  When Ron said "heal D&D," it struck an immediate response with me because I've been there.  You have no idea of the dimension of the love/hate relationship so many people have gone through with Dungeons & Dragons as a system.  A lot of players very dearly love D&D, but at the same time it doesn't work for what they want in their game and they get frustrated with it.  For so many people, that involved a billion and one different adjustments to the system (I remember drawing up a document of what modifications I was using at one point!) to try to get it in working order.  Some people develop new systems to incorporate these modifications, lovingly re-creating many of the assumptions of D&D as they do, and voila! - a heartbreaker is born.

Good game design is never "healing D&D."  It's always sitting back, asking "What do I want to achieve with this game?" and going about designing a system that, quite frankly, achieves it.  It has nothing to do with the very confused emotional reaction that leads in to the Fantasy Heartbreakers.

-Wayne

[Cadriel]

I think D&D3e, which doesn't give fans nearly the same reaction (i.e., you don't assume that the average DM will be making massive rules adjustments), will more or less stem the tide of Fantasy Heartbreakers, at least for the time being.

Or refocus them. Look at all the mediocre d20 worlds out there. It seems that most people just wanted a semi-decent ruleset to publish a custom D&D world with -- and it's easy to grandfather in stuff specific to your world with Feats and Prestige Classes, without re-writing all the rules.

True enough - I was thinking more in terms of system, which seemed to me to be a big part of Fantasy Heartbreakers (especially the attempts to "fix" perceived errors in the D&D rules, oftentimes by creating more complex alternatives).  Settings will be mediocre; I've never found that they really improve gaming all that much beyond atmosphere (Dark Sun had that by the buckets, for instance, but it got worse instead of better with every supplement that was released).

But there's another culprit that I think bears mentioning here:  the overall decline of fantasy literature since the 1970s introduced us to doorstop novels written by the dozen.  The Heartbreakers seem to show (some) signs of being a part of the current mainstream of fantasy, a mishmash of assumptions piled atop of assumptions.  Gaming is part of the stream now, and it all feeds back into itself.

Shhhh! Don't get Ron started on the difference between D&D fantasy and "real" fantasy! ;-D

Hey, I agree with the entire Literature chapter of Sorcerer & Sword - I think I've read a solid third of the material listed.  :-)

-Wayne

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Chris wrote,

Emotionalism tends to play heavily in gamers, ranging from the usual fanatic love/hate of System X to a lot of other cherished ideas(Impossible thing, anyone?). How much of this do you think ties into folks looking for a "perfect" ruleset to fix their social contract issues?

I think that's the central point. We're seeing a big conceptual confusion regarding what "rules" are supposed to be able to do. When a person thinks that a subcultural set of strictures will themselves account for and replace actual social contract - for any imaginable activity - that person is socially dysfunctional, not only in the eyes of people who like that activity, but in the eyes of anyone outside the activity. Such individuals cluster together out of default.

Sports, sexual orientation, nationalist or political groups, you name it. Same phenomenon in all of them.

All of the Infamous Five threads Social Context and Pervy vs. Vanilla are aimed at this issue.
Mainstream: a revision
Actual play in the stores
Social Context
Vanilla and Pervy
The Forge as a community

All of them spawned numerous daughter threads as well, most of which are referenced in the fifth one above.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Well, you must remember that one of the big criteria for something actually being a Fantasy Heartbreaker is that it's mostly conversant with roleplaying games through the filter of (A)D&D's basic assumptions, such as classes and levels, and the real shame is that they have so much passion and love invested in what is basically a retread of things that have been around for a long time.

I think the big criteria for a game being a Heartbreaker is giving it a good pat on the head.

Judging from what I've seen here: every game created by someone with a history of bad experience could be an attempt to "heal D&D" (or whatever they started with).

Not really.  When Ron said "heal D&D," it struck an immediate response with me because I've been there.  You have no idea of the dimension of the love/hate relationship so many people have gone through with Dungeons & Dragons as a system.  A lot of players very dearly love D&D, but at the same time it doesn't work for what they want in their game and they get frustrated with it.  For so many people, that involved a billion and one different adjustments to the system (I remember drawing up a document of what modifications I was using at one point!) to try to get it in working order.  Some people develop new systems to incorporate these modifications, lovingly re-creating many of the assumptions of D&D as they do, and voila! - a heartbreaker is born.

Good game design is never "healing D&D."  It's always sitting back, asking "What do I want to achieve with this game?" and going about designing a system that, quite frankly, achieves it.  It has nothing to do with the very confused emotional reaction that leads in to the Fantasy Heartbreakers.

-Wayne

I think it's both more logical and less pretentious* to assume that they liked the assumptions in D&D but not necessiarly their mechanical expression. Remeber: it isn't the designers getting their hearts broken. And it isn't me either.

* I  am not saying this to offend you: I'm refering to a number of things (many of them not in your post) but the idea you can state baldly that it's a "very confused emotional reaction" that leads to game design is exemplary. No matter what I thought of a game you designed I would never attribute your effort to a confused emotional reaction.  When you do this you are moving from speaking for yourself (if you'd written a heartbreaker and were expounding on why you did it I'd have no argument) to speaking for other people--in a way I'd imagine the vast majority of them would find both incorrect and insulting.

-Marco

[Cadriel]

Marco:

What I mean by the confused reaction to D&D is the love/hate relationship for the game.  My main point was actually trying to compare how my own reaction and the reaction to many I knew at the time to AD&D to what happens with the creators of Heartbreakers.  I was offering my own reaction as part of an attempt to understand what was going on in creating these games; this is, after all, the topic of the thread.

-Wayne