Great game concept, but failed execution

[foksthery]

What are some games that had concepts you loved, but fell flat in execution? What went wrong?

[Jennkryst]

@foksthery Most Exalted games past like… a month.

Partly because they have usually operated at 3:1 time for, uh… reasons… and partly because it is Exalted, so everyone is teleporting across the world because they scheduled breakfast in one city and lunch some 5,000 miles away, whoopsy-daisy.

Also every one of them refuses to lean into crazy Solars and play a game set in the High First Age.

[Arkandel]

@foksthery In my opinion, most games that launch have pretty neat game concepts but poor implementation. Which is why the majority fail - for whatever definition of ‘failure’ you want to use; not getting attention by players, not seeing their settings’ intended arcs play out, etc.

I don’t know if not bringing up examples belongs in this thread. But making a game isn’t about the concept. It’s all about the execution.

To draw a parallel I’ll steal Neil Gaiman’s quote about novel writing:

Every published writer has had it - the people who come up to you and tell you that they've Got An Idea. And boy, is it a Doozy. It's such a Doozy that they want to Cut You In On It. The proposal is always the same - they'll tell you the Idea (the hard bit), you write it down and turn it into a novel (the easy bit), the two of you can split the money fifty-fifty.

Give me a well-staffed game ran set n a generic town in rural Maine with a few active Storytellers allowed to be creative, and I’ll be content.

[Pavel]

It should also be noted that just because we didn’t like the execution, that doesn’t mean it was terrible. I’ve played plenty of games that were great in theory, but in practice, they just didn’t jive with me.

[Meg]

Every single Terre d’Ange game.

[Arkandel]

@Meg I think, in relation to this thread’s topic, sometimes great concepts fail to work simply because there are assumptions made about the knowledge level or ability of their players to match the game’s settings, especially when they are based on novels.

So for something like Terre d’Ange there are some hardcore book readers who know the ins and outs very well, some folks who know the general gist but to them it’s basically L&L with more sensuality, and some folks who come over for the hawt TS.

It’s demonstratably difficult to make all of those groups of players come together even if the game-runner has an incredibly cool concept in mind, unless staff is quite good at helping them reach a compromise of some sort.

[foksthery]

@Arkandel What do you think are they major barriers between those three demographics?

[Arkandel]

@foksthery said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

@Arkandel What do you think are they major barriers between those three demographics?

Well, a main one is people’s willingness to consume multiple (often large) novels’ worth of material to play a game. So they want to give it a try, maybe their friends are playing there or they know staff is good… but damn those are 3,000 pages to go through first! And sure, wikis can summarize it but it really won’t be the same thing - especially compared to more hardcore fans’ willingness to name-drop NPCs, historical events, geography etc.

The politics-versus-sensuality thing is a well-discussed ‘issue’. Frankly I don’t know if it’s one (and this often gets derailed into sex-shaming debates which I’m uninterested in), but it can be at least a factor. You have 3 people in a room; one wants to hook up, one wants to maneuver politically, the other is just there to kill time before their favorite show starts in an hour. What is the scene going to be about? And what is staff’s role in this, as we are discussing their ‘execution’ of the setting?

But to be honest usually when I think of staff having brilliant ideas that don’t succeed, 90% of the time it’s very simple: They think of the big picture, but they don’t look after the details. Sure, there is a thriving world they’ve imagined (and to be honest to invest all this time and run a game you’re probably creative and have so many ideas it’s not even funny) but what will players do once they hit the grid?

It’s where many MU* fail to launch, in my opinion. Sure, okay, there are these huge overarching themes and they are lovely. Great! What do I do right now? I have a PC, they’re approved, yet already I’m looking at bar RP as a best case scenario? Did staff advise me into writing my background to tie into someone else’s? Is there a built-in faction dynamic I can leverage to find scenes? Was I given access to some early plot to sink my teeth in? Is there code to help facilitate meeting other PCs?

I can’t just focus all my RP on that (admittedly awesome) War Between Heaven And Hell That Happened Five Hundred Years Ago forever, can I?

[Polk]

@Arkandel My advice to people who want to start a game:

• There’s no such thing as critical mass.

• Your work isn’t over when you open. Your work STARTS when you open.

• You need to be like an entrepreneur and be there every day.

I’ve seen it so many times: Good people with good ideas who spends weeks or even months putting a game together. They work to the point of exhaustion, launch, and just wait for people to show.

The players who ARE there look to the game creator, who’s sitting there waiting for Critical Mass. The game stalls out, and it dies.

RP doesn’t just happen. Someone has to make it happen, and that someone is you, the game creator.

What you write on grid, with the players, counts 10x of what you wrote on the website before you opened.

[Pyrephox]

@Arkandel Re: “what do players do right now”, this is something I’ve been thinking about more and more. Because so much of it comes down to player energy, and how to capitalize on the moments when players (and staff!) have some.

I used to be someone who would happily sit on a grid for five/six hours and then grab anyone who showed the slightest interest in a scene, do the work to come up with a scene set, even be willing to run NPCs/actiony stuff on the fly.

But with work stress and life stress, my energy has waned. Now, it can be hard to jump into something even when other people are actively enthusiastic. If a game has SOMETHING that can be done…semi-autonomously, even if it’s just fiddling with my sheet or planning out XP, I’m more likely to log in and stay logged in, even through those low energy periods. And if I’m logged in, then I can participate if something comes up.

I’m not saying I want to move to full MUDs or anything, but I think some games would be more sustainable if they had…something…that people could do when scene activity is low, but that could spark interest in a scene down the road.

[Third Eye]

@Pyrephox said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

I used to be someone who would happily sit on a grid for five/six hours and then grab anyone who showed the slightest interest in a scene, do the work to come up with a scene set, even be willing to run NPCs/actiony stuff on the fly.

Kind of an aside but even if one has energy, is it really a reasonable ask if the same person is doing this stuff all the time? Maybe it’s OK this is no longer considered reasonable.

[Pyrephox]

@Third-Eye Eh. It wasn’t something anyone asked or expected of me. I’m usually a person who has ideas and energy; perpetual GM-type and I’d rather get something going than miss out on a chance to have fun.

I just lost the energy.

[SpaceKhomeini]

@Arkandel said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

@foksthery said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

@Arkandel What do you think are they major barriers between those three demographics?

Well, a main one is people’s willingness to consume multiple (often large) novels’ worth of material to play a game. So they want to give it a try, maybe their friends are playing there or they know staff is good… but damn those are 3,000 pages to go through first! And sure, wikis can summarize it but it really won’t be the same thing - especially compared to more hardcore fans’ willingness to name-drop NPCs, historical events, geography etc.

I usually do a fair amount of reading on theme as I can just because I enjoy playing characters who at least fit into a game’s setting.

That being said, this reminded me of a tangential fact:

If I see any place with 3000 pages of crunchy theme procedure (let alone anything that looks like a fucking technical manual) my immediate response is “log off and never come back.”

Another related fact, and this is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way: If you’re staffing a game and you see a player show up to write 3000 pages of crunchy theme out of the “goodness of their heart” ban the fuck out of them.

If it looks like they wrote a technical manual, ban them twice just to be sure.

[Livia]

@Pyrephox said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

@Third-Eye Eh. It wasn’t something anyone asked or expected of me. I’m usually a person who has ideas and energy; perpetual GM-type and I’d rather get something going than miss out on a chance to have fun.

I just lost the energy.

I remember those old days of just sitting in a public grid space and waiting for people to show up or not. It’s a tradition that’s really gone – back in the day I’d put 2 or 3 alts out, and if one got tagged I’d probably log off the others and get to it.

I too lost a lot of energy

[foksthery]

@SpaceKhomeini said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

@Arkandel said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

@foksthery said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

@Arkandel What do you think are they major barriers between those three demographics?

Well, a main one is people’s willingness to consume multiple (often large) novels’ worth of material to play a game. So they want to give it a try, maybe their friends are playing there or they know staff is good… but damn those are 3,000 pages to go through first! And sure, wikis can summarize it but it really won’t be the same thing - especially compared to more hardcore fans’ willingness to name-drop NPCs, historical events, geography etc.

I usually do a fair amount of reading on theme as I can just because I enjoy playing characters who at least fit into a game’s setting.

That being said, this reminded me of a tangential fact:

If I see any place with 3000 pages of crunchy theme procedure (let alone anything that looks like a fucking technical manual) my immediate response is “log off and never come back.”

Another related fact, and this is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way: If you’re staffing a game and you see a player show up to write 3000 pages of crunchy theme out of the “goodness of their heart” ban the fuck out of them.

If it looks like they wrote a technical manual, ban them twice just to be sure.

Dropkick them, even?

[Arkandel]

@SpaceKhomeini said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

If I see any place with 3000 pages of crunchy theme procedure (let alone anything that looks like a fucking technical manual) my immediate response is “log off and never come back.”

See I’m with you there but from the opposite perspective.

Let’s take Lord of the Rings. I’m not uh, a casual fan. I adore the setting and I consider myself pretty well-read in it. I’d do well in a trivia contest.

I MU*'ed for decades and never once felt the slightest inclination to joining a Middle Earth game. Not for any other reason but - I don’t trust other players to not fuck it up, and thus, my own perception of it. I don’t want to meet flirty, horny Elves or homicidal min-maxing Dwarves looking to kick ass in Khazad-dûm.

Furthermore, being a self-aware enough snob about this I’m acutely aware I’d be no fun for others to play with in that setting, either.

[junipersky]

I was HEAD OVER HEELS for this game and still totally wish I could have played it out.

Note, I might not be 100% on the facts but this is how I ~remember~ it. So I might have filled in some of my holes with what I HOPED happened.

Fractured Project
This was a private-ish game from someone on Ansible. They were tinkering with ideas for a book set in the world and wanted people to play in their world so they could see how things would go.

Basically: Characters were all passengers on a large space ship. Somehow in space the ship gets hijacked. Everyone ‘wakes up’ one at a time in an empty room. There is a single door.

For the first few people that is it, wake up room, then room outside the door. Slowly the grid expanded to include new rooms. A garden, showers, etc.

The main antagonistics show up. Aliens who are “caring” for the waking up humans. Clearly they are learning because eventually the place is a paradise - almost. Except no one can leave.

Eventually there’s an instigating incident (a riot I think?) and the doors open up. It is a one way door though. Stay in, the character will continue to be cared for. Leave, and they won’t know what will come.

If the character leaves they end up in a massive maze (think Maze Runner-esque). Got to get your own food now, and not get killed in the maze.

~~~
That is where the game fizzled. I would 10/10 go back and play again if it restarted, even if it was from the top.

I don’t think it ever had more than 10 characters (… three of them were mine) online at once? I only can recall 7 distinct players, with one being the master GM, and another someone helping with all the code.

It failed from a combo of factors:

Head GM ended up IRLed, which left the game stalled. (I was the next closest thing to an admin, but didn’t have storytelling privileges for the main story.)

The players IRLed, we all started college or careers around the time the game began to fizz.

No new players, so when the active core left, no one replaced us.

[Jennkryst]

@Arkandel said in Great game concept, but failed execution:

I don’t want to meet flirty, horny Elves

Why not? You’ll miss the great college humor tie-in!

[Arkandel]

@Jennkryst Still a better story than Twilight!