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Modern DnD gameplay has changed — Transcript

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0:00Welcome back to Questing Beast. I'm Ben.
0:01Over the last several weeks, I've been
0:02collecting over 6,000 survey responses,
0:05looking at something that I think is
0:07rather underststudied in role playing
0:09games, and that is the play style. The
0:11way that people choose to play these
0:13types of games. In fact, I think this
0:15may be the most detailed and
0:16comprehensive look at this subject ever
0:19done. Today, we're going to investigate
0:21what I found, including some pretty
0:22interesting revelations about the
0:24current state of RPGs. We'll be
0:26examining how RPG play styles have
0:28shifted over the generations, how being
0:30a game master changes your perspective,
0:32and look at some tentative ways that we
0:34can group the different people who
0:36responded to this survey. This will
0:38probably be a long video because we're
0:40going to go through all of this data in
0:42detail, including looking at the
0:43ramifications of what some of those
0:45answers mean, at least in my opinion,
0:47and how some of them relate or correlate
0:50to other answers. This is the first big
0:52survey that I've attempted to do. So,
0:54there's certainly some things that I
0:55could improve about it, both in terms of
0:57how it's focused and the wording and so
0:58forth. And a big shout out to all the
1:00people who provided feedback. I'm going
1:02to take that into consideration if I do
1:03a follow-up to this in the future. But I
1:06think overall, the the sheer amount of
1:07data that has been collected here should
1:09be really interesting and really useful
1:10to anyone who finds this topic
1:12fascinating.
1:16First of all, let's take a look at who
1:18was answering this survey. This is
1:19something you always have to keep in
1:20mind. The answers that you're going to
1:22get here are going to be dependent on
1:23the people who are actually responding
1:25to it. In an ideal world, I'd find a way
1:27to survey everyone in the world who is
1:29playing role playing games and do a
1:31randomized sample of all of them. But
1:33that's impossible. There's no way for me
1:34to reach all of those people. I can only
1:36survey the people that I can contact.
1:38And that means the survey is going to be
1:39slanted by a number of different
1:41factors. First and foremost is that
1:43probably most of the respondents are
1:44people who are subscribers to my
1:46channel, which does focus on old school
1:48role playing games. Now, I'm very
1:49grateful to people like Bob Worldbuilder
1:51and Doy from Mystic Arts who helped
1:53share this survey to their audiences,
1:55but I think we have to assume as a
1:57starting point that most of the people
1:59are probably from Questing Beast. You
2:01also have to keep in mind that the
2:02people responding to this are going to
2:04be filtered by a number of other
2:05factors. Like, they're going to be much
2:06more likely to be on YouTube a lot.
2:08They're more likely to be very
2:09interested in RPG theory, and they're
2:11even more likely to be game masters. So,
2:13first of all, the people answering this
2:15survey are primarily millennials. At
2:17least that's the most common answer for
2:19when they were born. We can see that Gen
2:21X has a pretty substantial number of
2:22people here. We all know that during the
2:24satanic panic in the8s there was a big
2:26boom in Dn D and Gen Z has a pretty
2:29respectable following. Almost no one
2:30from the Silent Generation or Gen Alpha
2:33showed up, but I am sure they are
2:34coming. In terms of gender, it is
2:36overwhelmingly male. This is not too
2:38surprising to me because this reflects
2:40my channel's demographics pretty
2:42closely. And from talking to other male
2:44YouTubers, they see this a lot, too. I I
2:46think I've heard anecdotally that female
2:48YouTubers tend to have more female
2:50audiences, but it's going to be slanted
2:52male just because from what I
2:54understand, YouTube is more male than
2:56female. The political orientation of
2:58respondents was also very skewed. It was
3:00vastly more left-wing than it is
3:02right-wing. And honestly, I don't really
3:04know why. Is this a D&D thing? Is it a
3:07hobby thing? Is it just an online thing?
3:10I don't know. When it comes to where
3:12these respondents were located, vast
3:14majority of them, 53% were in the United
3:16States. And we see a pretty good showing
3:18from Canada, from Brazil, and from
3:20places like Germany and the UK. But
3:23after I saw that world map, a really
3:24interesting question occurred to me.
3:26Which countries was it more likely for a
3:28role- playinging gamer to show up if you
3:30just picked a random person? Which has
3:32the highest density of RPG players? Can
3:35you guess what it is? Now, we can see
3:36that while the United States and Canada
3:38and Australia have a very good density
3:40of RPG players, the place with the most
3:42players per capita, at least by the data
3:44that I have here, is actually Finland.
3:47Great job, Fins. In fact, the whole
3:49Scandinavia region has a very high
3:51density of players generally, which is
3:53not too surprising. They have a
3:54reputation for that, I guess. Now, if we
3:56zoom into the United States, we can see
3:57that most of the respondents were from
4:00California or from Texas or from
4:02Florida. Not too surprising. there's a
4:04lot of people living there. But again,
4:06if you want to know where the highest
4:08density of players is, where you're most
4:10likely to meet an RPG player, the answer
4:12to that is Oregon and the Pacific
4:15Northwest. And as someone who grew up in
4:17Portland, that makes a lot of sense to
4:18me. I recently went back to visit and
4:21there are a lot of RPG stores, not just
4:24game stores, but like RPG focused stores
4:26in that city. Maybe it's all the rain.
4:28People play just a lot of tabletop stuff
4:30there. But other great places to live
4:32would include uh Idaho or Utah, Kansas
4:35where I am. Again, that makes sense.
4:36Lots of game stores here, as well as
4:38Maine and Vermont and Washington DC.
4:40When it comes to ethnic or cultural
4:42background, we have almost 90% European
4:45descent, followed by Latin American and
4:47then multi-racial and then Native
4:49American, which I did not expect at all.
4:51Now, the period when you first started
4:52playing an RPG is very cool to look at.
4:55We can see there's this big bump here in
4:571980 through 84 and then this other huge
5:00bump starting in around 2010 and then
5:03right through 2019 this massive increase
5:06and then it goes down a bit after that.
5:08Looking at GMs versus non-GMs,
5:10respondents are pretty overwhelmingly
5:12game masters. If you combine the very
5:14likely and always being a game master
5:17categories, it's over 50%. And the fact
5:19that so many of them are game masters
5:21probably has bearing on this question
5:22too, which is the frequency of actually
5:24playing RPGs. You can see the vast
5:26majority of people play either multiple
5:27times a month, once per week, or even
5:30multiple times per week. These are
5:31people with a lot of experience in role
5:33playing games. All right, next up, let's
5:35look at one of the most interesting
5:36questions that I found in this survey,
5:38which is, does the year that you started
5:40playing role playing games affect the
5:42style of play that you most enjoy now?
5:45Is there really a kind of cultural
5:47divide between the old Grognards and the
5:49newer players of the game? We're going
5:51to find out right after a quick shout
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6:28description below. Okay, how does
6:31starting year relate to your RPG play
6:33style? So, we have four different graphs
6:35here. These are the four questions that
6:37we'll look at later on that were most
6:39affected by the year that someone
6:41started playing RPGs. And some of these
6:44were pretty unexpected to me. For
6:45example, this one, how do you feel about
6:47conflict between PCs in the same party?
6:50We can see that people who started much
6:52further back had a much lower opinion of
6:55interparty conflict than people playing
6:58today or who just started playing today.
7:00The expectation I had was that people in
7:02the past would be more comfortable with
7:03this and less comfortable now. But the
7:05reverse seems to be true. From this
7:08data, it appears that people playing in
7:10early Dn D had a much stronger focus on
7:12party cohesion and cooperation. Whereas,
7:15I would guess what's going on in more
7:17modern games that people are much more
7:18comfortable with conflict in a dramatic
7:21sense between the players. My impression
7:23is that modern games have more of a
7:25focus on storytelling and character
7:27development, and that's going to involve
7:29characters getting into conflict. Some
7:31of the other big changes over the years
7:32is also how do you feel about campaigns
7:34that explore thematic questions? Less
7:37popular in the past, more popular now. A
7:39thematic question would be something
7:40like how far would you go for revenge
7:43and things like that, the kinds of
7:44themes you would see in a novel or a
7:45movie. Having formal procedures for
7:47deciding content and behavior boundaries
7:49at the start of a campaign, like safety
7:51tools like lines and veils, much more
7:53popular today than in the past. Not too
7:55surprising. It was invented more
7:56recently. And how do you feel about PCs
7:58with more fleshed out personalities,
8:00beliefs, and motivations? That has also
8:02gone up over time, although not super
8:04strongly. However, it also turns out
8:06that your play style could be affected
8:07by your likelihood of being a GM. For
8:10example, in this one right here, we can
8:11see that people who are never GMs, so
8:13always players, are going to like a lot
8:15more the idea of balanced encounters.
8:18And as you become a GM, you become less
8:20and less a fan of that. Players also
8:22like much more detailed backstories than
8:24game masters do. Players are more likely
8:26to prefer a campaign with a
8:28intentionally created story than one
8:31that is emerging naturally from
8:33gameplay. But this fourth one was most
8:35surprising to me. Players are less
8:37enthusiastic about GMs being super
8:40generous with information. I would have
8:42thought this would be the opposite. As a
8:43player, I get really frustrated when the
8:45game master is holding back information,
8:48especially stuff that I feel like I
8:49would probably know or I could discover
8:51very easily. But it could be that
8:52there's just more players than I
8:54expected out there who like struggling
8:56to get that information.
9:00All right, next we're going to look at
9:01the results for all of the different
9:02play style questions that I asked along
9:04with interesting correlations to those
9:07questions. In other words, which play
9:09style questions tend to group together
9:11and which tend to separate strongly.
9:13Now, there's a lot of data here, but
9:15hopefully you'll stick with it because
9:16it is very interesting. And by the time
9:18we get to the end, I'll look at ways
9:19that we can tenatively group different
9:22groups of respondents into separate
9:24categories. All right, who should get to
9:26decide what the party's overall goals
9:27are in a given session? The players or
9:29the game master? We can see that it is
9:31much more popular for players to be in
9:33charge of a session than just letting
9:35the GM take care of it. In other words,
9:36a GM just telling you what you're doing
9:38every session is extremely unpopular.
9:41And people who want the players to be in
9:42charge are much more likely to want the
9:44story to emerge naturally from gameplay.
9:46They're much more likely to want an open
9:48campaign world. They want locations to
9:51be nonlinear, and they're much more
9:52likely to disapprove of having strict uh
9:55balance in all of the challenges that
9:57you undergo. The next question is,
9:58should the features of the game world be
10:00determined by the game master in the
10:01moment or determined ahead of time?
10:03Basically, to what extent is the GM just
10:06improving the whole campaign setting?
10:08and improving the whole campaign setting
10:09is really just not popular. People want
10:11at least the bare bones of stuff
10:13sketched out before you start a
10:15campaign. Now, should the events that
10:16happen in the game world, as opposed to
10:18just the actual physical features,
10:19should those be determined in the moment
10:21or ahead of time? Now, as far as the
10:23events in a game go, players tend to
10:25want things to be determined in the
10:27moment more than they want it to be
10:29planned ahead of time. I think just
10:30because planning ahead of time what's
10:32going to happen feels a lot more like
10:33railroading. And we can see over here
10:35that people who really want things to
10:36happen in the moment are much more
10:38likely to say that they want the story
10:39to emerge naturally from gameplay. Now,
10:41this question is, how important is it to
10:43you to experience a satisfying story
10:45during a campaign? And I expected this
10:46to be much more evenly spread out. So,
10:49it's interesting to me to see that
10:50people really do want a story during a
10:52campaign. The question, of course, is
10:54how is that story going to be created?
10:56But check out some of these correlations
10:58with people who really like a satisfying
11:00story during gameplay. They're tend to
11:03really enjoy having PCs with detailed
11:05backstories. They're going to like drama
11:07more than realism a lot. I guess that's
11:09to be expected. They're going to want
11:10their PCs to be much more fleshed out
11:12with lots of personalities, beliefs, and
11:13motivations. But this one down in the
11:15corner is maybe the most interesting. It
11:16shows that people who really like story
11:18in their campaign are much more likely
11:20to want it to be intentionally created
11:23rather than to emerge naturally. Now,
11:25the majority of people still do want it
11:27to emerge naturally. We can see over
11:28here. It's just that as story becomes
11:31more important, the number of people who
11:33want it to be intentionally created goes
11:35up and up. And in the next question, we
11:37can see that overall people do lean
11:39towards wanting stories to emerge
11:41naturally. But there's a significant
11:42contingent of people who want a lot more
11:45kind of pre-esigned structure there. And
11:47once again, we can see some of the
11:48correlations that we've noticed before
11:49where the more you want a story to
11:51emerge naturally, the more you're going
11:53to disapprove of strict encounter
11:56balance. You're also going to like
11:57random generation more. You're going to
11:58enjoy nonlinear locations more and
12:01you're going to be less excited about
12:03the idea of detailed backstories. All
12:05these things seem to cluster in what you
12:07might call the OSR play style. At least
12:09that's how I would think about it. Ooh,
12:11this one's interesting. How important do
12:13you think a player's acting skills are
12:15when roleplaying a character? We've seen
12:17today a lot of people talking about how,
12:18you know, these days everyone just wants
12:20to be an actor, just like live
12:22role-playing instead of playing the
12:24game. And from the data that we're
12:26seeing here, doesn't look like that's
12:27really the case. The majority of people
12:29think that it is very unimportant or
12:31unimportant to have that be really
12:33focused on. In other words, role
12:35playinging can be done without acting
12:37skills. But the people that really do
12:39like acting and think that is essential
12:41to role playing a character are going to
12:43tend to like satisfying stories and
12:45detailed backgrounds, personalities,
12:47beliefs, motivations, and all that
12:49stuff. All these things do seem to
12:51cluster together towards a different
12:53style of play. When it comes to linear
12:55or nonlinear locations, almost everyone
12:57likes nonlinear stuff. Just having a
12:59straight path that you have to go down
13:01is not a lot of fun when you're in any
13:03kind of adventure location. The people
13:05who like linearity tend to want more
13:08restricted campaign worlds that aren't
13:09quite as open. They tend to want stories
13:11that are more intentionally structured.
13:13They tend to approve more of having
13:15campaign balance, or rather encounter
13:17balance when you're fighting things. And
13:18they're more likely to say that the GM
13:20should be in charge of the party's
13:21goals. Although even there, the vast
13:23majority of them still want the players
13:25to broadly be in charge. Pretty similar
13:27question for this one. How restricted or
13:28open should a campaign's world be? And
13:30we can see that people really like open
13:32worlds. The thing is that in role
13:34playing games, the freedom to do things,
13:36to choose your own adventure, so to
13:37speak, is one of the main features of
13:39what makes role playing games role
13:41playing games. It's what sets them apart
13:42from basically every other form of
13:44entertainment. Now, creating an open
13:46world can be very intimidating for a lot
13:47of game masters and even for adventure
13:49writers, but we can see that it is what
13:51most people want. It's what they expect
13:53when they're get to embody a character
13:55and just embark on this adventure in a
13:57fantasy world. They expect to be able to
13:59go left or go right, not have their
14:01choices restricted. Oh, you can only go
14:03to the king's castle. You can't go to
14:05that cave. Now, when it comes to
14:06campaigns that explore thematic
14:08questions, this was a lot more popular
14:09than I expected. It's not something that
14:11I really object to when I'm playing an
14:13RPG, but it's not something I really
14:15think about either. And the biggest
14:17correlations here are to things like
14:18safety tools, which I guess makes sense,
14:20especially if you're exploring more uh
14:22darker themes that could make people
14:24really uncomfortable, something you want
14:26to talk about ahead of time. And it
14:27matches with people who really like
14:29fleshed out PCs and they want a
14:31satisfying story. This question asks,
14:33should a PC's power mostly come from in
14:35world features like equipment, allies,
14:36reputation, or from system features like
14:39stats, hit points, feats, and so forth?
14:41And people are here definitely leaning
14:43towards in-world stuff rather than just
14:45making your numbers go up. This feels
14:47like a very OSRish question because you
14:49can see it's closely tied to wanting to
14:51solve problems uh with infiction problem
14:54solving uh with wanting uh encounters to
14:57not be balanced and dislike for
14:59optimization. Okay. How important is it
15:01to you for the PCs to become more
15:03powerful over the course of a campaign?
15:05And you know, everyone likes that.
15:06Everyone likes your character to become
15:08more powerful, even if that could be
15:09described in different ways, not
15:10necessarily stats, but just having more
15:12influence over the world. But the more
15:14you like your character to become more
15:15powerful, the more you're likely to want
15:17to optimize your character, to have
15:19balanced encounters, and to have a lot
15:21more control over character creation.
15:23This feels to me like another game
15:25design cluster where you have a lot of
15:28control over who you are, how you act,
15:30and you want to synergize the game
15:32mechanics to become more effective. How
15:34static or reactive should the game world
15:36be? People like a reactive game world.
15:38They want to be able to change stuff and
15:39then see the repercussions of those
15:41actions. They want to see the ripple
15:43effects of things spreading out. And
15:44people who like very reactive worlds
15:46tend to also want to be able to get
15:47their hands into it. They want to be
15:49able to create factions, institutions,
15:51and businesses. They want to be able to
15:53lead armies and have these big impacts
15:55on the setting. Now, this one surprised
15:57me a lot. Should the PCs mainly overcome
15:59challenges through mastery and skillful
16:00use of the rules or through lateral
16:02thinking and infiction problem solving?
16:04And in infiction problem solving was way
16:06more popular than I expected it to be.
16:08Is this an indication that RPGs are just
16:11becoming more OSR influenced over time?
16:13I mean, maybe we can see this connection
16:15to other OSR principles, like if you
16:17want more infiction solutions, then
16:19you're more likely to have the game
16:20master as the first person that you look
16:23to when there is a rule dispute. How
16:25important is it to for your players to
16:27be familiar with the settings, lore, and
16:28background? This one's pretty even.
16:30There's a little bit of a lean towards
16:31it being more important, but not very
16:33strongly. I would characterize this
16:35question as being part of kind of an
16:37immersive play style where you're really
16:39embodying the character and you're
16:40putting yourself into the world. We can
16:42see that it's associated with wanting
16:43detailed backstories, with wanting a
16:45satisfying story, with really immersing
16:47yourself and putting the PC's beliefs
16:50ahead of your beliefs or their PC's
16:53motivations ahead of the players
16:54motivations. And this one's especially
16:56interesting if you really think that the
16:57lore and background are important. Then
16:59you want all of the players to be
17:00present at every game session. None of
17:03this rotating in and out, switching
17:05characters or anything like that. If
17:06you're in the party, you're in the party
17:08and you'd better be there cuz we're all
17:09in this world together. Now, should the
17:11campaign focus more on the PCs as
17:13characters or on the world outside of
17:15the PCs? Pretty even distribution here.
17:17From the correlations here, we can see
17:19that this is really kind of a dividing
17:20line between how much you want to focus
17:22on immersing yourself in this character
17:23and telling their story, and how much
17:25you want to zoom out, how much you want
17:27to tell the story of the world and of
17:30the party. So, there's kind of this zoom
17:32level. That's the way that I think about
17:33it when it comes to this question. For
17:35example, if you want the game to really
17:36focus on the PCs as characters, then you
17:38don't want it to focus on equipment and
17:41encumbrance. That's really interesting.
17:43You would think that if it really
17:44focused on them as characters, then all
17:46these details about them, right? What
17:48they have in their pockets, you know,
17:50how much gold they have, their specific
17:52equipment would be really important to
17:53you, but I think they feel like it gets
17:55in the way of telling that character
17:57story, of immersing yourself in who they
17:59are. How much authority should players
18:01have over the game world beyond what
18:03their PCs can do? Very surprising
18:05answers here. I expected this to be very
18:07far to the left here with no authority,
18:10but there's a substantial number of
18:11people who think that players should
18:13have a good amount of authority over the
18:15game world. They should be kind of
18:17co-dms to a certain degree. This matches
18:20very well with other kind of
18:21storytelling focused play style
18:23questions where, for example, drama is
18:25highly prioritized right down here. Um
18:28things like the uh X card lines and
18:30veils are prioritized and we have things
18:32like requiring the player's consent
18:34before their PC can die. You're much
18:37more likely to approve of that idea the
18:39more authority that you want to have
18:41over the world. Should a PC's actions be
18:44driven more by the PC's beliefs and
18:45desires or by what the player wants to
18:47do. We can see here that we're
18:48definitely leaning towards the PC's
18:50beliefs and desires, but there's a
18:51substantial faction of people who think
18:53it's really more about the player making
18:55choices. Speaking for myself, I
18:57definitely lean more towards the player
18:58side. I tend to have more fun when I get
19:01to use my PC more like a pawn and it's
19:04more like an instrument of my will to do
19:06things that I think are fun. It's not
19:08like I don't try to inhabit my
19:09character. It's not like I don't think
19:10about their personality. It's just a
19:12lower priority. And I guess
19:14unsurprisingly, if you really want to
19:15prioritize your PC's beliefs and
19:17desires, you're much more likely to want
19:19to avoid metagaming and only use
19:21knowledge that the PC would have. Now,
19:23if we look at this metagaming question
19:24by itself, we can see that people
19:26generally want to avoid metagaming. It's
19:29actually pretty important to a lot of
19:30people. Now, I understand the motivation
19:32for this. It's just something that as a
19:33player I find kind of frustrating,
19:35mostly because I like to use my PC a
19:38little bit more like a pawn than is
19:40something that I'm inhabiting. If for
19:41whatever reason I know how dangerous
19:43this monster is, but maybe my PC
19:44doesn't, it doesn't feel good that I
19:46would walk up and attack it anyway, and
19:48then my character just dies. When I'm
19:50playing RPGs, I like to feel like I'm
19:52clever, which means using my wits more
19:54than the characters. This correlation
19:56stood out to me where if you are someone
19:58who does not think that metagaming is a
20:00big deal, like me, then you're much more
20:02likely to say that the game master
20:04should be very generous with their
20:05information. Whereas that view becomes
20:07less popular the more that you think
20:08that you should avoid metagaming. Now,
20:10how do you feel about PCs with detailed
20:12backstories? Pretty even spread right
20:14here. Some people like it, some people
20:15don't like it, but no big consensus on
20:17it. And we can see that the more that
20:19you like it, the more it's going to
20:20align with the more storydriven
20:23character immersion side of the hobby.
20:25However, when it comes to a PC's fleshed
20:27out personalities, beliefs, and
20:28motivations, we can see that basically
20:30everyone likes it. And I think the
20:32reason for that is that there's really
20:33no downside to it. Whether you're
20:35playing a more OSRish or more character
20:38immersion or even a more uh kind of
20:40mechanics focused batty type of game,
20:43then having a detailed character
20:45motivations, it can only help, right?
20:47It's never going to really hurt you.
20:49What should be prioritized more in a
20:50campaign? Realism or drama. We're
20:52definitely leaning towards drama right
20:54here, but with a substantial contingent
20:56that likes realism. And we can see that
20:58that realism faction is really kind of
21:00all about simulation. at least it's
21:03closely tied to those questions. You're
21:05going to like uh equipment and
21:06encumbrance tracking a lot more. You're
21:08going to want to focus more on the world
21:10than on the characters. It's going to be
21:11less important to have a very satisfying
21:14story. And tracking time is also going
21:16to be a big deal. How do you feel about
21:18the use of random or procedural
21:19generation to determine what happens in
21:21the game world? Most people like this.
21:24That's a little unexpected to me. We see
21:25that random generation is really mostly
21:29a D&D thing. is not found all that much
21:32in other RPGs, but it seems to be just a
21:34very popular system that maybe more GMs
21:36should use. And this ties in with the
21:38other questions that are more about
21:40simulating a world. Like, you're going
21:42to want to track encumbrance and
21:43equipment more often. And you're going
21:44to be more okay with players playing
21:46different PCs from session to session.
21:49It's really more about seeing what the
21:51world does and how the players influence
21:53it rather than kind of focusing on the
21:54party's story. Very similar question
21:56here. How do you feel about random
21:57generation to create concrete features
22:00of the game world? So rather than events
22:02and things that happen, how do you feel
22:03about like, you know, generating
22:05dungeons, generating cities, generating
22:07factions or even PCs? And people seem to
22:10like that a lot as well. When it comes
22:11to character creation, people definitely
22:13like to have substantial control over
22:15who their character is as opposed to
22:17what you might see in the OSR where you
22:19have just randomly generated characters.
22:20That seems to be actually quite
22:22unpopular. for optimizing your PC. We
22:24can see that there's a pretty even
22:25distribution right here. Some people
22:27really like it, some people really hated
22:28it. But this question was slanted much
22:30more towards approval, which is how do
22:32you feel about time passing and the
22:33world changing in between sessions? This
22:36is very intriguing to me because for me,
22:37the vast majority of RPGs that I played
22:39in, when you start your next session,
22:41they almost always start right after the
22:44last one left off, like seconds later,
22:46if you can help it. Having time
22:47regularly skipping between sessions so
22:49that you can show how the world is
22:51evolving is really cool. I think people
22:52really like it. not sure how popular it
22:54is in terms of uh actually showing up in
22:56play. But there's a very interesting
22:58cluster here where the more that you
23:00want time to pass in between sessions,
23:02the more you're going to approve of time
23:04passing at realtime speeds in between
23:07sessions, something that was a rule in
23:08early D&D. The more you're going to
23:10approve of players playing different PCs
23:13in between sessions, the more you're
23:15going to like the game world having
23:16multiple parties running around and even
23:19the uh players in the party interacting
23:21with the GM in between sessions telling
23:23them things that they're doing. Speaking
23:25of which, the popularity of doing things
23:27with the GM in between sessions is
23:29actually a lot higher than I thought it
23:31would be. Although, of course, it
23:33depends on what exactly you mean by
23:34that. Are you doing like a playby post
23:36where you're continuing to actually play
23:37the game or you're telling the DM what
23:40your downtime activities are? I suspect
23:42it's mostly downtime stuff because we
23:44can see here that the more that you want
23:46to be able to communicate with the GM
23:48between sessions, then the more you're
23:49going to want to create and manage
23:51factions, institutions, and businesses.
23:53and that's generally more of a downtime
23:55activity. How do you feel about the game
23:56world having more than one group of
23:58players in it at the same time? People
24:00love the idea. Strongly approve. As with
24:03the time passing between sessions thing,
24:05I suspect this is more of a dream that a
24:07lot of people have. People love the idea
24:09of these living worlds where you have
24:11lots of parties doing different stuff
24:12and you can see the uh ramifications of
24:15their actions and you can kind of
24:16interact with them maybe indirectly and
24:18stuff like that. But my experience is
24:20that it's pretty unusual to see that
24:22happen. I'm pretty lucky to be in one
24:23like that right now, but I feel like
24:25most people aren't. And people who
24:27really like this idea also like the idea
24:29of their PCs retiring to become
24:31influential NPCs. They like the idea of
24:33playing different PCs between sessions
24:35and of course managing factions,
24:37institutions, and businesses. But what
24:39about controlling multiple characters at
24:41the same time? Most people are not super
24:44thrilled about that. Although there's a
24:45a good number of people that think that
24:47would be fun. And if you like this idea,
24:49it's going to align with other questions
24:50about living in this breathing, active
24:53world. How do you feel about players
24:55playing different PCs from session to
24:56session? Pretty even distribution right
24:59here. No strong leaning one way or
25:01another. But once again, doesn't seem
25:02like something that happens a whole lot
25:04in practice. And once again, this aligns
25:06with that very early D&D play style
25:09where playing different characters from
25:10session to session was pretty normal.
25:12You would have like a stable of PCs and
25:14one character could be off doing
25:16research or downtime stuff and then you
25:17would just pick up another character and
25:19go with them. How important is it to you
25:20for all of the players to be present at
25:22every game session? Most people say it's
25:24pretty important for me. I found that
25:25it's just way easier to schedule D&D
25:28sessions if you aren't super stringent
25:31about this. If you just have, you know,
25:33like 60 70% of the players show up,
25:37that's good enough. You have a quorum
25:38you can just play. Scheduling is such a
25:40pain in role playing games if you want
25:42to have every single person present for
25:44every session. My issue is that
25:46oftentimes you just don't get to play at
25:47all. People seem to really enjoy
25:49creating and managing factions,
25:50institutions, and businesses. And the
25:52more they like that, the more they want
25:53this kind of zoomed out thing where they
25:55are having big effects on the setting
25:57like leading armies and the world
25:59containing more than one party. In a
26:01similar way, people really like the idea
26:02of big armies and having large scale
26:04effects on the setting. Maybe more games
26:06should introduce something like that.
26:07Conflict between PCs is generally
26:09frowned upon. Although, like I said, the
26:12more recently you've started D&D, the
26:14more in favor of that you're going to
26:16be, although it's never been super
26:17popular. But it is very interesting the
26:19way that this groups with other
26:20questions. For example, we can see that
26:22conflict can be interpreted in more than
26:24one way. Like, if you uh really like the
26:27idea of conflict inside your party,
26:29you're also more likely to want to
26:31explore thematic questions. This would
26:33be the kind of like high drama more
26:35acting style of RPGs, but you're also
26:38more likely to want to have armies or
26:39other large scale effects on the
26:41setting. So, this could really be more
26:43of a wargaming interpretation as well
26:45where you're raising forces and you're
26:47battling over the world. PCs retiring to
26:49become influential NPCs is a popular
26:51idea, although how many PCs actually get
26:54to that level? Hard to say. Tracking
26:57equipment and encumbrance is really a
26:58mixed bag. People seem to lean a little
27:00bit towards approval, but there's no
27:02real strong consensus on that one. But
27:04what is interesting is that the more you
27:05want to attract equipment and
27:07encumbrance, the more focused you are on
27:08the logistical aspect of role playing
27:11games. For example, tracking time
27:13becomes much more important the more you
27:15like encumbrance. You're also more
27:17likely to approve of realism and not
27:20asking for a player's consent before the
27:22PC dies. In terms of tracking short game
27:24time periods like seconds, rounds, and
27:26minutes, pretty even distribution. But
27:28when it comes to tracking long in-game
27:30time periods like days, weeks, and
27:31months, people tend to think that's a
27:33lot more important to do. Although
27:34again, in my experience, most RPG
27:37sessions tend to take place over
27:39compressed time periods where things are
27:41always happening one after another where
27:43each session starts right after the
27:44previous one. So often times by the time
27:46you get to the end of a campaign, not a
27:48whole lot of time has really passed.
27:50When we look at preference between a
27:52more zoomed out strategic gameplay,
27:53maybe you could call it like logistical
27:55gameplay or zoomed-in tactical gameplay,
27:58we definitely see a tendency towards the
28:00more the tactical side. And that matches
28:02what I've seen in most games that I've
28:05played in. A big part of that is that
28:06doing the more zoomed out logistical
28:08side of it tends to require more work
28:10and it tends to require more subsystems,
28:13more things, more rules in place that
28:15you can run, you know, hex crawls and
28:17tracking time periods and all of that
28:19stuff. What has more authority, GM
28:20rulings or game rules? Most people agree
28:23the GM is the final authority. And
28:26similarly, if something is unclear
28:27during gameplay, most people say you
28:29should go to the GM for a ruling rather
28:31than having to just look up the rule.
28:33Maybe you have to go back and look it up
28:34later, but most people would say the
28:36most important thing is just to make a
28:38ruling and move on in the moment. And
28:40the correlations with this question,
28:41similar to the previous one, are mostly
28:43grouped around OSR questions. If you
28:45agree with most OSR stuff, you'll
28:47probably agree with this. Should the GM
28:49intentionally tilt the game towards the
28:51PC success or towards the PC's failure?
28:54Almost no one says that the GM should
28:56make things harder on the players. Uh,
28:58most people say you're either impartial
29:00or you're leaning towards the player
29:02succeeding. I think this correlation
29:03here was really funny. The very small
29:05number of people who thought that you
29:06should tilt it strongly towards PC
29:08failure also think that that PC death
29:10should be very frequent in a campaign. I
29:12thought that was really funny. Although
29:14the sample size is tiny, most people
29:16think that the GM should be very
29:17generous when giving information to the
29:19players, and I completely agree. Uh,
29:21RPGs are games about making decisions,
29:23and you can't make decisions unless you
29:25know what's going on. So, being very
29:27stingy with information means that the
29:28players are just choosing things
29:30randomly, which is never great. Now, in
29:32the past, I've seen a lot of advice
29:34about how you're the game master and if
29:36you roll the dice and you don't like
29:37what it says, well, then you can just
29:39change the results. Um, at least I've
29:41seen a lot of advice like that. Maybe
29:42that's changing because we can see here
29:44that respondents disapprove of that idea
29:46quite a bit. And the more that they
29:48disapprove of it, the more that they
29:49want the story to emerge naturally out
29:52of gameplay. I think this goes back to
29:53the idea of the oracular power of dice
29:56where the dice are kind of a participant
29:58at the table. You're relying on the dice
30:00to inject interesting things and
30:02interesting problems, twists into
30:04gameplay that you as the game master and
30:07the players didn't plan. I think part of
30:09the joy of RPGs is seeing these twists
30:11emerge and figuring out how to deal with
30:13them, treating the dice like a respected
30:15player. If you're tweaking the dice
30:17rolls whenever you don't like them, then
30:18you're kind of removing that aspect from
30:20play. And I think that's oftenimes a
30:22mistake. How frequent should PC death be
30:25in a campaign? This was a topic that
30:26came up quite recently on my channel.
30:28And we can see here that most people
30:30don't like it to be too frequent. And I
30:32would agree with that. Even as someone
30:33who is a, you know, OSR player, being in
30:35a murder funnel like Dungeon Crawl
30:37Classics, where you have a bunch of
30:38characters and they're all going to die,
30:40that can be kind of fun for a oneshot,
30:41but it's really not that fun for a
30:43long-term campaign. Even in games where
30:46characters are much weaker and they have
30:47lower hit points, most players just
30:50start playing more carefully and they
30:51protect their characters more and so the
30:53death rate then balances itself out
30:55again. But we can see here that the more
30:57you want PC death to be infrequent, the
30:59less death you want in a campaign, the
31:01more likely you're going to disapprove
31:02of equipment and encumbrance. And the
31:04more important it is for you to
31:06experience a satisfying story. So this
31:08might be part of a style where your
31:10characters are just expected to live
31:11through the whole campaign and tell a
31:13complete narrative. And that's going to
31:14be hard to happen if they just die in
31:16the middle of it. Ooh, this one is
31:18interesting. How do you feel about the
31:19GM requiring a player's consent before
31:21their PC can die? We can see that most
31:23people disapprove, even strongly
31:25disapprove of that idea, but it's not
31:27universal. There is a real group of
31:28people who think that that should be
31:30done at least to a certain degree. And
31:32the people who are more likely to
31:33approve of getting uh player consent
31:35before their PC dies are much more
31:37likely to want to have authority over
31:39the game world as players. In other
31:41words, this is much more of a
31:42collaborative storytelling style of
31:44play. And we've seen before that it's
31:46connected with wanting more thematic
31:48play as well. How important is it for a
31:49PC's death to be the fault of the player
31:51rather than just like a random
31:53occurrence that comes out of nowhere?
31:54Uh, most people think that it's
31:55important. I agree. How do you feel
31:57about challenges being balanced against
31:59the PC's stats? Pretty mixed bag here.
32:02But the more that you like the idea of
32:03encounter balance, the more likely you
32:05are to approve of the idea of the story
32:08being intentionally created, the more
32:10that you're going to want character
32:11death to be very infrequent, and the
32:14more that you're going to want character
32:15power to come from system features like
32:18feats and hit points and stats. I would
32:21characterize this as being very much
32:22part of the uh D&D combat as sport
32:25aspect of role playing games where it's
32:27all about creating this fair or at least
32:29highly structured series of challenges
32:32which aren't exactly fair because you're
32:34really supposed to win them but you're
32:35supposed to be challenged while doing so
32:37and that comes from manipulating the
32:39system. Now, for campaigns that are
32:40intended to run indefinitely, we have a
32:42pretty even distribution right here. And
32:44this is definitely tied to the play
32:46style where people want to have this
32:48living open world, which makes sense
32:49because if you have this living world
32:51that you get to live in, you want to do
32:53that for as long as possible. So, you
32:54want this world to just continue on into
32:56the future. Now, for formal procedures
32:58for managing player comfort during the
33:00game, tools like the X card, we can see
33:02that people lean towards approval for
33:04it. But if we look at the question about
33:06procedures for deciding content and
33:07behaviors at the start of a campaign,
33:09then we see that there's actually
33:10slightly more approval for that. In
33:12other words, people seem to be slightly
33:14more comfortable with the idea of just
33:16setting good ground rules at the
33:17beginning so everyone knows what's
33:19expected than making rules or procedures
33:21that they feel might interrupt play.
33:23In-game time passing at realworld speeds
33:26is generally disapproved of. I think a
33:28lot of people are just confused by that
33:30idea, even though it is the default in
33:32like original Dn D.
33:36So, those are all the questions that I
33:38asked, but is there a way to take all of
33:40the respondents and find general groups
33:44that they fit into? Now, there's no way
33:46to do this perfectly cleanly. Of course,
33:48there it would be very weird if there's
33:49groups of people that all answered
33:50exactly the same. There's a lot of
33:52crossover between any amount of groups
33:54that you're going to put together. But,
33:56you certainly can run programs that will
33:58look at all of this data on the
33:59spreadsheet and try and find patterns.
34:02patterns that are at least somewhat
34:03consistent. And there is a number of
34:06different ways that these things can be
34:07categorized. I discovered that if you
34:09have just two categories, then you have
34:11the most clean distinctions. It's most
34:14justifiable to create two general
34:16categories. And if you do three
34:18categories, it's a little bit less
34:20justifiable because there's more
34:22crossover between them. But I think it's
34:23still okay. By the time you get to four
34:25or five categories, it just becomes a
34:28lot harder to make clear distinctions
34:30between these groups. There's just more
34:31and more crossover. But let's look at
34:33all the different ways that this could
34:34be broken down. And keep in mind, these
34:36are not definitive by any stretch of the
34:38imagination. How you break the groups
34:40down is going to depend a lot on, you
34:42know, what categories you pick. It's
34:44going to depend a lot on the criteria
34:45that you use. There's more than one way
34:47to break down this data. All right. So,
34:50if you wanted to break it down into just
34:51two broad categories, those would be
34:54character and story emphasis versus
34:56emergent worlds and logistics. with
34:59emergent worlds being about 40% of the
35:02people. And if we look at the bright red
35:03and bright blue things, we can see the
35:05things that are most distinctive about
35:07these two categories. People in the
35:09first category are much more likely to
35:10want satisfying stories, but want them
35:12to be not as emergent and want them to
35:14be more planned. They want to focus on
35:16the PCs more than the world. They love
35:18detailed backstories. Uh they hate
35:21random events. They don't like changing
35:23your PCs around. They're really against
35:25equipment and encumbrance. and they want
35:28balanced challenges whereas the emergent
35:30world side tends to want the opposite of
35:32all those things. I think breaking it
35:34into three categories though is better
35:35because we can see more of the
35:37distinctions between these groups. We
35:39still have emergent worlds and logistics
35:40but the first category is now broken
35:42into character focused fixed party play
35:45versus thematic participatory play. And
35:48we can see some distinctions here where
35:50the first category is much more down on
35:53emergent story whereas the thematic play
35:55is fine with emergent story. Thematic
35:58play is of course much bigger on
35:59thematic questions. And this is a big
36:01one. They have a much bigger emphasis on
36:03player world authority. So I would think
36:05of this style as being much more
36:07collaborative in terms of the
36:08storytelling. Whereas this first
36:10category, the character focused fixed
36:12party play is much bigger on balanced
36:14challenges and on actually competing and
36:17going through a story that is more
36:18planned out. In other words, this first
36:20category, you have your party, you're
36:22all showing up to every session. The
36:24story is mostly planned out for you.
36:26You're going through the story. You are
36:27participating in the challenges. You're
36:29overcoming them and you're sticking to
36:31that adventure that's kind of been
36:33created for you and you're immersing
36:34yourself in that. Whereas the second
36:36category is more about creating a story
36:38together, often with sharing authority
36:41between the GM and the players. It deals
36:43with more intense themes and therefore
36:45is also more likely to have these kinds
36:47of mechanics like the X card or lines
36:48and veils. Meanwhile, Emergent Worlds
36:50and Logistics is all about there's a
36:52world, it's here, you just got to deal
36:55with it. Is there a story? Well, maybe
36:56the story will be created by what we do,
36:59but that's not what we're focusing on
37:00doing. We're here to see what happens in
37:02this world. We're not too concerned with
37:05detailed backstories for your character.
37:07Playing the game is what creates the
37:09backstory for your character, if any. We
37:11like randomly generating a world and
37:13simulating a world with mechanics. We
37:15are like uh equipment and incumbrance.
37:17We like the logistical aspect where we
37:19have to think about how we're moving
37:20through the world. Tracking time both
37:22short-term and long-term is really
37:23important. And we do not really care
37:26about balanced challenges. The
37:28challenges should be more realistic or
37:30procedurally generated. And then it's up
37:32to the players to figure out how they
37:34want to deal with that. Now, if you want
37:35to break it down into four categories,
37:37you could possibly add this one, which
37:39is just reservation towards campaign
37:41extensions. These are just a category
37:43that doesn't like adding a bunch of new
37:46stuff to D&D or to role playing games.
37:48So, it doesn't like thematic questions.
37:50It doesn't like managing factions or
37:52having armies or large scale events. It
37:54feels a lot less like a coherent play
37:56style because it's really about just not
37:58liking certain things being added. And
38:00if you wanted to create five categories,
38:02you might add character immersion and
38:03world involvement, where this is just
38:05about immersing yourself in your
38:07character and being in the world. The
38:09biggest deal for this category would
38:11just be avoiding metagaming, having a
38:13detailed, rich backstory, having a
38:15fleshed out personality. You want to
38:17manage factions, you want to lead
38:18armies. That's totally cool. It's all
38:20about just being in character. We can
38:22see from this breakdown here that it is
38:24most justifiable I would say to have the
38:26two profiles because you can separate
38:28them the most cleanly and then three and
38:30then four and five are the least clean.
38:33The separation between groups is just
38:35stronger when you have two profiles than
38:37when you have three or more. However, if
38:39you want to analyze the data and try and
38:40find play styles in there yourself, you
38:42are welcome to do that. I'm going to put
38:44all of the data in a spreadsheet, at
38:46least as regards all of the uh play
38:48style questions, and that's going to be
38:49over on my blog or I'll put a link to it
38:51down below where you can download it and
38:53look at it yourself. If you've stuck
38:55with me all the way to the end, thank
38:56you very much. Hopefully, you found this
38:58interesting and informative. I love
39:00studying just play styles. I love
39:02studying the way that people play role
39:04playing games, and it's a lot more
39:06diverse than I expected. No matter how
39:08you want to group people, you're going
39:09to find a lot of blurring and crossover
39:12between those groups. But having at
39:14least maybe a rough model of how
39:16different play styles break down, I
39:17think is really helpful in terms of just
39:19contextualizing and understanding the
39:21way that this hobby looks. So often you
39:24talk to people online and when you
39:25discuss role playing games, it's like
39:27they're talking a totally different
39:28language cuz their assumptions about
39:30what the game is for and even what fun
39:32is can be radically different. Let me
39:34know in the comments below if there was
39:35something in the data that really stood
39:37out to you or surprised you. And thanks
39:39for watching. I'll see you guys next
39:40time.

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