Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Do RPG players dislike depressing settings?
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4
Wounded Ronin
According to Nisarg/RPGPundit, the D&D DMG II (incidentally, dosen't the idea of a DMG II sound kind of excessive?) says that, "your players will expect to play in a world resembling the Middle Ages, but with the harsh, brutal, depressing and serious elements stripped out."

( http://www.xanga.com/RPGpundit?nextdate=5%...090&direction=n )

This kind of surprised me. I remember in D&D first edition you were technically supposed to roll every month to see if a player character came down with any number of diseases. While in a sense the diseases were kind of superfluous because of the Cure Disease spell it's a credit to 1st edition that if you didn't treat the diseases they'd actually errode your stats over time and possibly kill you just like a real disease would do. If you wanted to play a depressing "realist" medieval scenario without Cure Disease the diseases would actually be a constant threat of death hanging over the PCs heads. My point is that as of 1st edition D&D certainly wasn't about having "the harsh, brutal, depressing and serious elements stripped out."

I mean, even remember Oriental Adventures. That setting had a whole social class system you had to roll on during chargen which would influence whether or not society as a whole would look down on you forever due to your ancestry. That's so awesome it makes me want to flip out and bang a geisha who simultaneously wales on an electric guitar or maybe an electric samisen hooked up to an amplifier.

Likewise, Shadowrun is of course explicitly supposed to be a depressing stew of 1980s fears about Japan, corporations, the environment, and global economics where you're a Midwestern auto worker.

Thing is, though, I know that Wizards does their market research. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have written about how people don't want something depressing if they didn't have some kind of consumer research backing that assertion up.

What do you think? Is the fact that most people don't want t3h d3pr3ssing in their RPGs? If so, that's kind of grim news for SR.
Austere Emancipator
Of the 6 players who I've GMd for enough to have an idea of their preferences, 3 would not want to play in realistically fucked up settings. From the popularity of silly superhero RPGs, and the shift in D&D that you mentioned, I expect the majority of RPGers these days don't want to play depressing stuff.

On the other hand, D&D setting books like Midnight are still selling pretty well, right? I've never played World of Darkness games, but that stuff's (sort of) depressing too, and quite popular. Even if wanting to play in a Happy Bubble rules out a lot of potential players, that still leaves a very decent base to market the product to.
Drraagh
It's a matter of the player. Just think abotu the WoD for example. Some people play in it as a dark, depressing world (like my group when we played it), whereas others its basically little more than a superhero game. Talking of D&D, think of Ravenloft, if played properly, it's supposed to be dark, depressing, gloomy and all that as well.

Shadowrun, when I play it is full of class divides between the haves and have nots, the rich making their living on the backs of the weak and all that.

This place has some good essays about how to get the sort of cyberpunk theme from Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, Neuromancer and other good Cyberpunk books that tend to hold the whole feel of depressing and all that.
Nasrudith
I would say RPG players tend to go towards extremes. They either want a "sterilized" version of valor and glory or they want a horror setting. Shadowrun can satisify both of them with differnt style games. The level the runners start at. If they start street level, where being middle lifestyle makes you extremly rich, gritty is assured. However on the other hand if starting street samurai have betaware, mages are preinitiatied and the Johnson wants you to blow up entire corporate office buildings the game will tend towards action movie style.
hyzmarca
Lifestyle doesn't determine grit at all. You can have a rainbows-and-sunshine game where all the PCs are homeless squatters. You can have an emotionally brutal game that causes actual psycological depression in the players with a cast multi-millionare PCs.

In general, players want harsh brutal violent worlds. After all, combat-centered RPGs would be quite pointless in a peaceful world with nothing to fight. The thing is that harsh and brutal violence. What they probably don't want is random things that have nothing to do wiht the plot and which they have no control over.
Brahm
Shadowrun is a beam of sunshine up your big brown eye compared to the Warhammer FRPG. Seriously, check it out some time. Every character, at the age of 9, has their doom fortune-told (random roll for every PC). To really put players in the mood it convey's the futility by having character creation use that pinacle of player spirit breaking, random generation. The types of characters that come out of it? Medieval dumpster diver is not even close to the worst that can come out of it. :/

So your PC is then to grub in the filth till some time in the future where they might, maybe, if they don't catch the plague or get disfigured by a rabid squirrel or something, rise up to to the level where they aren't living one step behind the level of [grubby] hand to [cancore sore pocked] mouth.

"Grit"? Like chewing on a big handful of dirt.

And people yet buy this and play it, on purpose, by choice, more than once. So ya, tastes run on a range. Even the same person will play more than one place on the range. Me, I might even play it if I wasn't so burned out on faux medieval fantasy games. But right now I can't really give a fair answer.

Where the bulk of the market is? Well I'm guess that is what WotC is aiming at, and letting the segment of people that want that sort of filth wallowing spend 30$ on their Depression & Diphtheria source book. love.gif
eidolon
You have to remember that the WoTC model of player is "12 year old with a parent's credit card". Of course they don't want to know about or play the "depressing stuff".

OD&D was marketed at the adult wargamer population. D&D 3.5 is marketed at Squirmy McGee the kid with ADD.
Nidhogg
Stormbringer was even worse than Warhammer. While in Warhammer, you may start off being a rat catcher, it will eventualy leads to something worthwhile. Stormbringer on the other hand gives you about the same chance of being a Melnibonian warrior-mage as a retarded leper.
eidolon
Leper

wink.gif
Nidhogg
QUOTE (eidolon)
Leper

wink.gif

Oops. Sleep deprivation will do that to you. At any rate, I fixed the mistake.
mmu1
QUOTE (eidolon)
You have to remember that the WoTC model of player is "12 year old with a parent's credit card". Of course they don't want to know about or play the "depressing stuff".

OD&D was marketed at the adult wargamer population. D&D 3.5 is marketed at Squirmy McGee the kid with ADD.

BS... Just like in the video game market, the "target" audience for D&D is not kids who get their parents to buy them games, but 20-something year old guys with independent income.

Which hardly makes them immune from shelling out money for newer and better supplements, and in that way they're no different than some SR player buying a new SOTA book, or a new location book (for some place they'll neve run in) every year.

Now, if you wanted to talk about Games Workshop and Warhammer 40K, that'd be another story...
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Nidhogg)
Stormbringer was even worse than Warhammer. While in Warhammer, you may start off being a rat catcher, it will eventualy leads to something worthwhile. Stormbringer on the other hand gives you about the same chance of being a Melnibonian warrior-mage as a retarded leper.

That sounds like grounds for comedy theater, right there.

GM: The king tells you to go into yon dungeon and retrieve the Scepter of Might from the clutches of the Dark Wizard.

Player: Hmm. Since I'm a retarded leper, I make high pitched pleasure noises and run up and hug the king to show him my gratitude for his trust and esteem in this important matter. Also, the king's touch is supposed to cure disease.

GM: The king recoils in horror as your misshapen, foul-smelling form embraces him. He screams for his guards who, (rolls dice), wrestle you to the ground and begin beating you with the blunt ends of their halberds. They have expressions of disgust and terror on their faces.

Player: Hmm. My sheet says I'm a leper, so I taunt them. "Didn't hurt! Didn't hurt!"
mmu1
I think that, regardless of what kind of setting they're interested in, players want to be able to mostly deal with major issues. (whatever that means in the context of the campaign)

Even if they want to play in an ugly, dirty and uncaring world, it's usually so they can anguish IC over their soul slowly being torn to shreds - not over the fact their toilet is stopped up and their asshole landlord won't deal with it. Certain things provided interesting challenges to overcome, while others are only good for a bit of flavor, if that.
eidolon
Oh, so you mean most of them only come across as being 12 year olds with ADD?

It must be a regional thing.
Brahm
QUOTE (eidolon @ Jun 13 2006, 01:10 AM)
Oh, so you mean most of them only come across as being 12 year olds with ADD?

It must be a regional thing.

Or a "people that are actually willing to be around you" thing? smile.gif

The customers in the FLGS that I notice checking out and buying D20 stuff the times I've been in certainly looked out of high school. That goes for the customers in general, although the CCGs seem to have a slightly higher percentage of "kids" playing at the public table than the other games, with minis running a respectable second.

Of the 20-30 people in the local Living Greyhawk I knew there wasn't a single one of secondary-school age, and I can't recall any of them living with their parents. I'd estimate that maybe half of them were married. Most of them were of generally adult mentality. Lots of geekitude, but, well, welcome to adult gaming. cool.gif

Of course there are some kids that play D&D, as well as other RPG. It is indeed important to future customer base that they establish thier habit before they have access to the large amounts of disposable income. Shadowrun historically has been no different, a surprising number of people here started playing Shadowrun by the end of highschool or first year post-secondary. The poll numbers were something over 1/2 had, though I haven't found it using Search yet. frown.gif

EDIT That is in stark contrast to the Warhammer mini store in the mall on an early Saturday afternoon. I once passed by and was draw to investigate closer like a really bad accident scene you just can't turn away from. eek.gif It was packed, wall to wall to wall to door with scarcely a post-puberty soul to be seen. I never even crossed the threshold for the air itself, thick with the stench of body odor gone sour, made attempting to enter a test of steely will and intestinal fortitude I could not bring myself to pass. dead.gif Not a word of an exageration. Maybe this was some sort of a tournament that had been marketed at a local school or something, I don't know. But it was truely freaky.
eidolon
nm, not worth responding to
Nidhogg
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
QUOTE (Nidhogg @ Jun 12 2006, 09:53 PM)
Stormbringer was even worse than Warhammer. While in Warhammer, you may start off being a rat catcher, it will eventualy leads to something worthwhile. Stormbringer on the other hand gives you about the same chance of being a Melnibonian warrior-mage as a retarded leper.

That sounds like grounds for comedy theater, right there.

GM: The king tells you to go into yon dungeon and retrieve the Scepter of Might from the clutches of the Dark Wizard.

Player: Hmm. Since I'm a retarded leper, I make high pitched pleasure noises and run up and hug the king to show him my gratitude for his trust and esteem in this important matter. Also, the king's touch is supposed to cure disease.

GM: The king recoils in horror as your misshapen, foul-smelling form embraces him. He screams for his guards who, (rolls dice), wrestle you to the ground and begin beating you with the blunt ends of their halberds. They have expressions of disgust and terror on their faces.

Player: Hmm. My sheet says I'm a leper, so I taunt them. "Didn't hurt! Didn't hurt!"

Yea, that's Stormbringer in a nutshell. Except, given the nature of the game, and the fact that it takes place in the world of Moorcock's 'Elric Saga', the king is probably a PC who rolled better than the leper at chargen. Oh, and instead of sicking is guards on you, he probably uses his sorcery to call an elemental lord to kill the leper, and everyone who's ever shown him charity.
Brahm
QUOTE (eidolon)
nm, not worth responding to

Exactly! rotfl.gif
Glyph
See, the thing is, RPG players like depressing settings, in a decaying cityscape, violent distopia kind of way. But they don't want to be the smelly BTL addict, or the Desert Wars amputee beggar - they want to be the guys with cool auto-fire guns, stylish black long coats, samurai swords, oily mullets, and mirroshades, who kick butt John Woo style.

And why not? cool.gif
Crusher Bob
A better way to put it is that most people want sanitary grit. They don't mind all the homeless, but don't want to have to step over thier vomit or see them roasting a puppy in the mouth of an alley somewhere.
Witness
Well it does depend on the players, obviously, but I think you can get away with seriously depressing and shitty stuff as long as there are some rays of sunshine.
Even if it's nothing more than that gorgeous sportscar or beautiful home that they dream of owning, or that loving family that they're trying to look after. If there's hope on the horizon then wading through crap is more bearable, and anyway if there are bright lights then the shadows look darker.
Kagetenshi
For what it's worth, I've recently started a personal crusade to increase the misery index of my gameworld.

~J
nezumi
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
For what it's worth, I've recently started a personal crusade to increase the misery index of my gameworld.

~J

As have I, although that's not saying much. I've decided however to avoid letting the PC of my pregnant player from actually getting pregnant, because the resulting horror I'd be obliged to inflict on the child would probably cause said pregnant player to be at least mildly discomforted by the story.
mmu1
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
For what it's worth, I've recently started a personal crusade to increase the misery index of my gameworld.

~J

Hmm. Now, why does this not fill me with confidence?
Lindt
DMG 2? Humf... WotC is grubbing for money again?

Anywho, as someone who cut his teeth on D&D, well actually it was Planescape, so its 'almost' D&D, its normal to be fullyaware that any mistake I make can have consequenses worse then death.

As someone whos now running a game for a younger (post HS -pre college) crowd, who also learned from D&D, its SO hard to get them to relize that SR just isnt a happy setting. I had one of them go and pick up a joygirl, cheep. And he wondered why I told him he got the clap, and crabs. While I dont have puppies roasting in allyways, I tend to explaine that life is cheep.

Guess its about time for their johnson to screw them eh?

K, I really need to get out there, I miss true grit.
Crusher Bob
Soul crushing grit is not having the Johnson stab you in the back so that you can get another bullet time gunfight where your ytrench coat flaps in the wind and every gleam on your mirrorshades is perfectly caught by the camera. It's getting by your Johnson, not getting paid, and having to eat dog food for three weeks until the next job comes along. Grit is having to spend some time hiding out in the barrens and hacing the GM describe the sanitary arrangements (I hope you had your own supply of toilet paper, and your shoes are pretty... icky now.) Grit is some small, petty, horrible detail of how the world works that you really wish you didn't know.



Witness
QUOTE (Lindt)
life is cheep.

Nah, that kind of thinking is for the birds. wink.gif
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Crusher Bob)
Soul crushing grit is not having the Johnson stab you in the back so that you can get another bullet time gunfight where your ytrench coat flaps in the wind and every gleam on your mirrorshades is perfectly caught by the camera.  It's getting by your Johnson, not getting paid, and having to eat dog food for three weeks until the next job comes along.  Grit is having to spend some time hiding out in the barrens and hacing the GM describe the sanitary arrangements (I hope you had your own supply of toilet paper, and your shoes are pretty... icky now.)  Grit is some small, petty, horrible detail of how the world works that you really wish you didn't know.

...kind of like a Frank Miller work.
hyzmarca
There's grit and then there's absurdity. The line between the two is far thinner than most would believe. Take, for example, Cowboy Bebop. The bounty hunters are in an almost constant state of starvation with nothing to eat but peppers and occasionally mushrooms. Yet it is funny. Consider the ED-209 demonstration scene from Robocop. A man is brutally killed in a horrific acident. Yet it is funny.

Grit can't be extreme because extreme grit is actually absurdist dark humor in disguise.

Brahm
You mean like Tom Wait's Frank's Wild Years? cool.gif


Never could stand that dog.
Whizbang
I know a number of people who like Ravenloft....sheesh...it doesn't get any more depressing than that.
hobgoblin
the theme one should aim for is the old film noir movies. the lonely person thats over his head, knows he cant fight his way out of the problems, and keeps being draged in the moment he things he have gotten out. only that rpgs are about groups so...
eidolon
I actually just bought Van Richten's Guide to Were(whatevers..beasts? it's in the other room and I'm lazy). It's the first Ravenloft book I've ever read (outside one of the adventures back in the late 90's), and I'm actually kind of liking it.

We just never did Ravenloft, so I never really developed a taste for it. So far, just from the style of writing, it makes me think of V:tM mixed with Call of Cthulu mashed into D&D with a big hammer. At any rate, it's enough to make me want to read the main Ravenloft book(s).
mfb
QUOTE (Crusher Bob)
Soul crushing grit is not having the Johnson stab you in the back so that you can get another bullet time gunfight where your ytrench coat flaps in the wind and every gleam on your mirrorshades is perfectly caught by the camera.

i understand what you're saying, but i think that bullet-time gunfights (with or without trenchcoats) can have their place in a gritty game. it's all about what happens after the gunfight, y'know? if you go from the gunfight to your ritzy safehouse to screw the hot chick you just saved, no--not gritty. but if you, say, go from the gunfight to your crappy safehouse, where you eat dogfood for the next three weeks...

the dichotomy of an incredibly skilled professional who lives in the slums and eats dogfood is, to me, pretty gritty. it means that no matter what, no matter how good you are, you'll never escape the street.
SL James
QUOTE (mfb)
QUOTE (Crusher Bob)
Soul crushing grit is not having the Johnson stab you in the back so that you can get another bullet time gunfight where your ytrench coat flaps in the wind and every gleam on your mirrorshades is perfectly caught by the camera.

i understand what you're saying, but i think that bullet-time gunfights (with or without trenchcoats) can have their place in a gritty game. it's all about what happens after the gunfight, y'know? if you go from the gunfight to your ritzy safehouse to screw the hot chick you just saved, no--not gritty. but if you, say, go from the gunfight to your crappy safehouse, where you eat dogfood for the next three weeks...

the dichotomy of an incredibly skilled professional who lives in the slums and eats dogfood is, to me, pretty gritty. it means that no matter what, no matter how good you are, you'll never escape the street.

*ahem*

Eating dogfood while nursing horrible gunshot wounds in a leaky, roach-infested apartment with the sounds of ... Well, you get the idea.
Eugene
I agree with an above poster who said that most people don't mind "depressing" as long as it doesn't happen to their character. A terrible dystopian future where everything sucks? Sure, as long as I have lots of cyberware and the biggest gun on the block!

I don't think you'll find a whole lot of players who want the depressing stuff to happen to them - drug addiction, poverty, abusive families, a hopeless job, etc. Now a -GM- might occasionally want that, but not many -players-.

Even SR has that "you're a -hero-" vibe to it, at least in 3rd edition (it's too early to tell for 4th, but I'm betting on the same trend). The whole bit about "Karma" and taking jobs that will help other people, etc. Even the wetwork assignments aren't amoral (who has ever had a mission that goes "here's 100K, go kill the baby in my apartment complex because it won't shut up!"?) - they're against targets who generally "deserve" it.
hobgoblin
criminals with a honor code...
mfb
yeah. i remember being vaguely confused by the "karma and the amoral campaign" section in SRComp. like, "waitaminute--you only get karma if you're a good guy!?"
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (mfb)
yeah. i remember being vaguely confused by the "karma and the amoral campaign" section in SRComp. like, "waitaminute--you only get karma if you're a good guy!?"

That confused me as well. I had no idea you were supposed to play the good guy until I read that.

I suppose that burning cash for karma makes more sense, anyway. It would represent practice time rented on the range, gym memberships, healthy diet to raise physical attributes, medical checkups, and so on.
mfb
i treat it as an option. you can earn karma the normal way, and if you want, you can buy it (with GM approval, for specific purposes delineated upon proposal, in limited quantities).

of course, different writers at different times have had some pretty fucked up ideas about in-game morality. like that one scene in Sprawl Sites, where the only way you could earn any karma for the encounter is to shave an NPC's hair off. actually killing anyone would net the characters 0 karma.
SL James
Using anything from SR1 as a benchmark for handing out karma is probably ill-advised.
Brahm
Grit is one of those words. Right up there with street. There is another idea of grit, and that is lower powerscale of what the character. They can still be in a relatively nice place but no they don't bullet time around. They are just able to shoot, and they don't pull off amazing feats of driving, or safely backflips off a 3 story building, or catch knives in their teeth.

But they can still go home at night, which that are able to regularly make the rent on, and eat something other than past-due-date dog food washed down with Lysol spiked puddle water.
SL James
Grit is what makes my privates chafe when I go to the beach and roll in the sand.
shadowfire
i personaly wish to see the grittiness of life in the game more often. that doesn't mean the character(s) start to lose family members and friends left and right from this and that. i mean more along the lines of the stuff that you would see happen in a guardians of the flame book.
like when most groups play no one ever wonders how the people who offered to put you up for the night get water-ei going to the well something like 3x's a day. and no one takes into effect that fact that for the most part people didn't take baths everyday, if everyweek. they worn a lot a perfume to cover this fact up too...
hyzmarca
QUOTE (mfb @ Jun 13 2006, 06:22 PM)
i treat it as an option. you can earn karma the normal way, and if you want, you can buy it (with GM approval, for specific purposes delineated upon proposal, in limited quantities).

of course, different writers at different times have had some pretty fucked up ideas about in-game morality. like that one scene in Sprawl Sites, where the only way you could earn any karma for the encounter is to shave an NPC's hair off. actually killing anyone would net the characters 0 karma.

Please tell me that this was for a barber campaign in which the PCs are all trained professional barbers.

And Thou, son of man, take thee a barber's razor and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thine beard.
FanGirl
QUOTE (Eugene)
I don't think you'll find a whole lot of players who want the depressing stuff to happen to them - drug addiction, poverty, abusive families, a hopeless job, etc.

To me, bad stuff happening to oneself is what makes the game interesting. In fact, I'm considering making my next character a formerly promising and uber-l33t mage who fell and fell hard when she lost her meat arm in an accident and got it replaced with a cyber-arm. Naturally, she got really upset about being "crippled for life," developed a drinking problem, lost her lucrative job as a corporate wage-mage, and ended up living on the streets. She'll be fun to play with! ^_^
SL James
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jun 13 2006, 06:43 PM)
QUOTE (mfb @ Jun 13 2006, 06:22 PM)
i treat it as an option. you can earn karma the normal way, and if you want, you can buy it (with GM approval, for specific purposes delineated upon proposal, in limited quantities).

of course, different writers at different times have had some pretty fucked up ideas about in-game morality. like that one scene in Sprawl Sites, where the only way you could earn any karma for the encounter is to shave an NPC's hair off. actually killing anyone would net the characters 0 karma.

Please tell me that this was for a barber campaign in which the PCs are all trained professional barbers.

'Fraid not. It's a gang encounter (p.55).
Witness
QUOTE (FanGirl @ Jun 14 2006, 01:42 AM)
To me, bad stuff happening to oneself is what makes the game interesting.  In fact, I'm considering making my next character a formerly promising and uber-l33t mage who fell and fell hard when she lost her meat arm in an accident and got it replaced with a cyber-arm.  Naturally, she got really upset about being "crippled for life," developed a drinking problem, lost her lucrative job as a corporate wage-mage, and ended up living on the streets.  She'll be fun to play with! ^_^

Yeah I've thought it might be fun to play a seriously burned out mage sometime, but it'd probably only be fun for a short campaign, and/or if the rest of the group was as messed up...
An absurdly SURGEd street sam, a laughably bad elf-poser face with a BTL addiction, a mechanic with gremlins, that sort of thing.
I think we need a thread for messed-up character ideas. I think I shall start one.
nezumi
That is sort of the problem. Unless your gritty issues are in a particular area or only skin-deep, you'll likely be the only leper beggar in a group of uber-l33t runners, which means the game will suck for you.
2bit
Pay attention, because I'm about to reveal the key to a brilliant Shadowrun campaign.

Cyberpunk is about losing your soul to get ahead. The Shadowrun setting is full of examples of this, from cyberware and its essence cost, to the world of megacorps. Likewise, anything your players consider a gain needs to come at a price. If they cheat this rule, karma comes to kick them in the ass later.

Early in your campaign, let each character visibly see their definition of success. Then, over the course of the campaign, make each one compromise everything to get it. That should leave everyone with a nice hollow feeling at the end.

That kind of suffering is what people crave in a cyberpunk setting.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012