thread: 2005-07-05 : Setting and Source Material
On 2005-07-05, Matthijs Holter wrote:
I just read through "Dawning Star: Operation Quick Launch". It's full of good detail. All the while, I thought: This is okay, but it'd have been much better if I made it with my group. I don't see the point of trying to re-create somebody else's world; I want to create my own when I play.However, lots of people don't actually want to be creative in that way. I mean, they don't want to make up their own stuff; they just want to play around with what other people have made up for them.
(Anyone who's tried building cool stuff with Lego while other kids were using their ready-made Playmobil toys will know what I mean. It doesn't matter if what you make doesn't look as cool to others as the pre-fab stuff. To me, if I didn't participate in making something, it usually can't be as cool).
Vincent, you say: "What do we roleplayers need? We need the starting point of the creative process instead. Because what we're doing? It's creative."
I think you're wrong in saying "we roleplayers". It seems to say that everyone wants to be creative. The evidence so far (in publications and sales) indicates a lot of people don't, and that those who do are actually a minority.
It's easy to claim (and I'm not saying you claim this) that gamers that don't want to create setting elements etc are just afraid, or brainwashed by traditional games, or plain suck at it. I'm not so sure. I think, for some people, it's just not what they want from role-playing.
