[puška]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I guess I haven't seen a game that's actively discouraged research and preparation.
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I'm a high school history teacher. Education is my calling.
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I hope my players would agree but I think it was really worth it.
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In that regard, the internet has been a huge boon to gaming. It would have been a lot harder to have learned so much about Poland pre-WWW.

Games that self-advertise as ready to play in a handful of minutes or literally "Can be played with no GM prep" are what I consider such. especially if you compare them with early rpg jewels like LBB Traveller or 1st-2nd ed CoC. The husband likes to tell folks with 90% sincerity and 10% sarcasm that being introduced to CoC at age 12 led to his going to university in his 30s and a PhD less than a decade later. Overshadowed by the fact the guy who introduced him to it had six PhDs and cites rpgs as what started him on his research path.

I've taught AP English and History for high school; husband used to teach at a snooty almost-Ivy university. We're both in a similar boat as you for education as a calling. We've both used rpgs and rpg-metaphors in the classroom. Like our players (and your comment), we'd like to think things like that can make the difference between just learning something to answer a test question and creating curiosity. The husband wrote on on his ¿syllabuses/syllabi? under "requirements for class" as being an active curiosity.

Which is what I wish—and my original point was—that when rpgs present themselves as being low-prep, the vast majority of evidence I've encountered is the equivalent to "mindless entertainment" movie compared to a prepped and invested game that may not be a Kubrick production, but is certainly more than an explosion laden SFX feature. Nothing worse in and of itself with mindless entertainment, but no entertainment has to be mindless, just as learning history doesn't have to be a monotonous chore of names and dates.

So I don't disagree with your point about research and prep being a good thing in gaming, but I think trying to shoehorn players and GM's into that style of play is a death sentence for anything aspiring to something greater than niche-gaming.

Doesn't have to be shoehorning. Just a game that encourages a bit of planning and checking of this and that that can lead to curiosity being piqued and everyone involved having a richer experience and maybe... just maybe, want to learn something above and beyond themselves.

And, not that I think you have, but I often say this in online forums since we aren't talking over coffee I'm debating the idea, not you personally... If I didn't think your points had validity, I'd ignore you.