> However, I can share a different experience. About a year ago my wife
> and I went with a friend to try a new game--Deadlands, as it happened to
> be. We spent half the night rolling up characters, and the other half
> of the night going through two one-round encounters... and in which, we
> were unable to do anything because, over the course of three hours, we
> were unable to learn the totality of the rules.
Far be it for me to judge, but isn't this the point of reading the book
ahead of time? I've never just sat down at the gaming table with a new
book, cracked it, and expected the rules to just leap out and grab me by the
throat. Hell, it took me a month to get the grasp of D&D (I was 10 at the
time, but still). I still haven't mastered a game like Rise and Fall of the
Third Reich, which has cut-n-dry rules for EVERYTHING, and I've been playing
that via mail with my father for years.
It's been my impression that you need ONE person, namely the GM, to
understand the totality of the rules - the players then learn via the
character creation process and through play, with rules coming of age when
you need them.
> If Deadlands had been d20, or WEG's d6, or anything else, we could have
> just thrown characters together, been told *just what was different*,
> and gotten playing. It doesn't matter if Deadlands is "superior" or
> not; it was a totally different game, which meant that we had to learn a
> totally different system.
To which I would have to say: exactly how stellar would your game have been?
Throwing characters together is one thing - but will the flavor of the game
be captured? Would it have been a good game? If the d20 movement is all
about insta-gaming taking over investing time and patience into the process
of gaming, then count me out.
> Now, I'm sure Deadlands is a great game--but because of the barrier to
> entry, I don't play it. (I'll probably pick up d20 Deadlands when it
> finally comes out, and I'll probably enjoy it.)
If quality time is becoming a barrier to playing games, then I think that
the whole hobby is in for some problems.
Kuma
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