4th ed T2K

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by puška

My point was that numerous games in recent years actively discourage it. You taught yourself because the game encouraged—if not required—you to do so. Saying that kids today have so much more offered them so its a chore to do something for themselves is a disservice to the hobby, to education, and ultimately, to those people who look to be spoon-fed rather than to learn something for themselves.

Simple does not equal bad, but neither does asking for a little investment.

I guess I haven't seen a game that's actively discouraged research and preparation. I admit that my experience is limited, though. My only practical experience with tabletop RPG's is T2K v1 & 2.2, Conan, and most iterations of D&D. The only one that fits that description from that list was D&D 4e. Of those listed- and to your point- that one was my least favorite of the bunch, by far.

I'm a high school history teacher. Education is my calling. I've been working with 13-17 year-olds for the past 20 years, so I have a pretty good read on the generations coming up. I'm just saying that it's pretty much a fool's errand to try and force someone to research and prepare. If a game requires too much of that sort of thing, it's probably not going to do well these days. I do believe that you can and should encourage it, though. That's my job.

Technically, I didn't need to do extra research to run Pirates of the Vistula. I could have run it straight from the module. But I'm curious, and I quickly learned that there were lots of cool places and encounters just waiting for someone who cared to dive in a little deeper to discover. I hope my players would agree but I think it was really worth it.

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.

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.