And you are not alone. One of the hardest things I found about being a lover of TTRPG’s was that introducing new players required a substantial investment of time on their part. Not only did they need to read X amount of pages, but they would likely struggle to comprehend what it all meant until they gained context for all they had read during a live game. This buy in , was simply too high for the vast majority of people I approached. It was a hugely limiting factor for me.
I discovered my first TTRPG back in 2007. It wouldn’t be until 2014 that I would finally figure out that playing online was a viable option. Though it wouldn’t have mattered much as I really wanted to have real life face-to-face experiences. To this day I’ve never played a long running campaign, only adventures that span 4 to 6 sessions. On the other hand I’ve DM’ed around 50 one-shot sessions and have been wildly successful.
But this drives me nuts because I yearn to be able to have a setting, story, characters, and environment that persists beyond a single session. With so much technology and other entertainment options in the world today, getting people to give pen and paper a shot feels increasingly difficult. This aspect of my favorite pass time drives me nuts.
This has been a huge motivator in my designing of the TTRPG methodology I employ nowadays. Players don’t have to learn anything. There are generally not limits on what they can do. I usually play using only Theater Of The Mind and select props for randomization. Occasionally I will use a dry erase board and marker for mapping when positioning in a scene is important, yet narratively complex enough that players may not all be on the same mental page, pertaining to positioning of different elements in a scene.
I have worked very hard to try and understand what draws people into a collaborative experience and what doesn’t. In any given story the greatest element that will increase player investment is to help them shape the world around them. When elements of the story or game world are (metaphorically) signed with a players imagination, the player will feel a greater sense of ownership. The greater their input, the deeper their sense of belonging and personal engagement.
I set out to invent basic mechanics that allow people to share collaboration of the story, without actually feeling like GM’s. They don’t have any responsibility that they don’t want, yet their input in the game is everywhere they look. This is one example of a way you can draw a player in. My “mechanics” all exist to draw players into the experience in different ways. I continue to dream them up and test them out.
I have a lot of strong opinions on what makes a story “great” and how to properly treat and interact with players during a collaborate story. I used to draw almost all of my theory from TTRPGs, but these days they make up very little of the DNA of what I do. I’ve played with people who have regularly played D&D and Pathfinder, as well as others who are story junkies in written or digital RPG form. I regularly hear that the stories I tell are some of the most memorable they’ve ever experienced.
Going into an adventure, I have zero plans. No idea of where to start or what kind of story we will tell. That is to be decided on the spot, by group consensus, and the story is generated as we go along; each person contributing their own ideas and fictional input along the way. I feel like I have a formula that works for any person, of any age, any background, and for any personality. I’ve played with so many different kinds of people and I’ve played in weird places (often “on the go”, like in a car or grocery store as we shopped).
And I think that anybody can do it, because it is so silly simple. At least it is for me. I’ve been trying to train my kids to GM and it has been hit and miss. At the end of the day I could probably be a professional writer, improv comedian, inventor, artist, musician, or several other types of creative based professionals. I do spent a lot of time schooling children, reading, researching, and exercising my mind. Given that level of creativity, the secret sauce of my method may be that I simply found something that works for me. But I’ve yet to try teaching an adult. One day I’ll give that a shot. I want to believe that what I know could be distilled into a formula that anybody could learn to recreate for themselves.
I could go on and on about how I think Collaborative Storytelling can help us learn more about ourselves, develop skills, and evolve as an individual. Since nobody is likely to want to read a dissertation on the topic, I will instead point to this video which sums up Tabletop RPG’ing and how playing almost certainly helps you become more successful in life. Note that @ 6:13 minutes the video changes topics entirely, so there is no need to watch the rest.
Aren’t D20 and 5th Edition two rather different systems? How is 5th edition helpful to your project? Are you trying to re-skin/re-theme 5th edition as Star Trek or? I’m curious to hear more.
The only thing that held me back was the money was simply not reliable enough. For every success story of an independent creator who’s Kickstarter project made tons of cash, there are dozens who invested the same time and money into their project, but never found an audience that embraced their work. I’m positive that I could make it, but I am not sure how long that would take.
I’m also fairly certain that income would be like a rollercoaster, with good times and bad times. As a single income household, I couldn’t take that risk. My wife ended up going to work instead, while I played parent, teacher, homemaker, and housewife (I use the term endearingly, as I am male). I have several children of various ages, and I was the better fit for succeeding at the sanity rolls raising a brood of kids regularly requires.
I made that decision five years ago. To this day I still fantasize about what I might have accomplished. It bothers me a great deal sometimes, as there is a special place in my heart for this type of work. If money weren’t a concern, without a shadow of a doubt, this is what I would be doing as my career. But some things are simply not meant to be… Or rather, I was faced with a difficult decision, and I chose the path I felt was best for my family and our combined future.
I found it very curious how much we seemed to think alike. We were riffing off of each other yesterday and it was awesome. This conversation has been very interesting and I admit that I checked the forum multiple times between your responses to see if you had replied. I really have enjoyed myself. I met a friend on here at the end of 2018, giving some tips during a live match. That turned into a bonafide friendship that continues to endure. I now consider him my closest friend, besides my spouse.
He lives in Bangladesh, speaks questionable English, and has a view of the world that is radically different than my own. But we share a mutual respect like no other friendship I have ever had. We find one another interesting and we try to keep in contact, even if a month goes by sometimes without a response (we are both very busy people). Talking with him and seeing the world through his eyes is one of the great joys of my life.
Yesterday I pondered whether or not I should message you privately and ask you if you wanted to try corresponding via email. I worried you might find it weird and so I haven’t reached out. But yesterday, the feeling I had when we were sharing our thoughts, reminded me of my dear friend and how conversing with him often feels. I think it is really cool you felt similarly to the way that I did 
.