That’s a recurring theme in the gaming industry, I don’t understand why buyers accept it (my guess : they don’t know about it). If you read the End User Agreement of the games you buy, almost all of them (all of them?) tell you that you don’t own your copy of the game, it’s the property of the publisher, and they only sell to you the right to execute the software on your computer. As it’s been successful at locking in users, hardware manufacturers try to do the same thing, usually by mixing in online software to make sure they can take your hardware down (and it’s not just in gaming industry, see printers and tractors). The ultimate incarnation of this attack on property are the game streaming platforms. There, everything is a rental, now, good cash flow!
The usual answer about such abuses from software producers would be to go FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), but it doesn’t really work with games : while there are some great FOSS games, the amount can’t compete with the proprietary industry. My personal solution has been to replace consumerism with creativity. Every night, instead of playing videogames, I write. I use tabletop RPG rulesets to spice up my writing, so that I don’t know what happens next and I’m surprised myself by where the dice rolls make the story go (instead of deciding of everything). I also don’t write to be read, nobody will ever read what I write, so I feel no pressure. It was hard at first (I guess my imagination was atrophied by too much consumption), but after a few years going on, it’s insane everything that happens in my games, videogames feel lame, comparatively. I call that “exploring my imagination”. I can do anything, and this time it’s not an hyperbole, like it’s the case in those videogames where they tell you “you can be anything” (no you can’t). And it’s free, and nobody can take it from me. I highly recommend.
Sure. I don’t know how familiar you are with TTRPGs, so I’ll be exhaustive. While rules for TTRPGs can be greatly different when it comes to combat (if they have combat at all), they all implement some sort of skill checks for outside combat. Your character is good at some skills and bad at some others, which usually translates to having a modifier on the result of your dice, or rolling more or less dice, etc. In the normal flow of the game, the gamemaster describes a situation, the players tell what they want to do about it, and if what they ask to do is non trivial, the gamemaster asks them to roll for a skill check. If a player said they want to jump across a pit, the gamemaster may ask for an Acrobatics check, for example. The player rolls their dice, they succeed or fail based on the difficulty level the gamemaster decided, and the gamemaster describes the result.
When writing, I do basically the same thing. For each action my characters want to attempt (the key being to give them a deep personality through an elaborated backstory, so it is obvious what their personal reaction to an event will be and what decision they will make), I decide if it’s non-trivial, assign a difficulty target, and roll to see if they manage to do it. Then I have my result, and I have to decide what happens. Did they succeed by much or barely? This immediately triggers the imagination about what may have gone so well or so bad. And this creates turns of events you wouldn’t have thought about : if that character barely succeed jumping across that pit, it may anger that other character who is in love with them and terribly anxious. Which in turn may impact their next perception roll, as they are arguing while a lurking predator is getting closer. Depending on the theme, different skill lists and rulesets work best. I have three stories going on : high fantasy theme with Dungeons & Dragons, cyberpunk theme with Shadowrun, and Space Sci-Fi with Traveller. On top of the rules, they also provide tons of content to play with, like worlds to visit or equipment to try. That being said, I use them because I already have them, but any free ruleset found on the web would do, it doesn’t matter that much, in the end (be it for writing or playing with friends, btw).
Since last year, I also discovered Mythic (the 2nd edition has been released sooner this year), which also helps randomizing the overarching story. I still prefer to decide on the main events, but it’s great to add trivial details and side plots. It has a quite deep set of rules by itself, but the basic idea is to use an “oracle”, which means asking a question, and roll dice to see if the answer to that question is “yes” or “no”, with a modifier depending of how probable you think it is to get a “yes”. Are there guards watching the side of the castle we’re assaulting? Is the marchand trying to scam the characters? Does the king have a sense of humor? Those dice rolls can have quite an impact on the events. :) And when you don’t know what to do next, Mythic offers keywords tables you can roll on to trigger your imagination. For example, let say we’re in an antichamber, waiting for an audience with a queen. I roll dice twice on an event table, I get the keywords “support” and “distrust” (I’ve just rolled that). From that, I may decide an advisor of the queen is coming to see us and give us a hard time. Or, on the contrary, someone knows we’re going to have an audience and ask us to have a word with the queen to advise her to be more cautious toward a third party. What is this third party? Let’s roll again! “Excitedly” and “peaceful”. Ok, that may be a neighbor country which has been very friendly, but people find they are meddling a bit too intensely in the affairs of the kingdom. And imagination build a world from there. :)
I’ve already heard mention of Thousand Year Old Vampire, never played it, though. There are a lot of things happening in the space of solo roleplaying which are boons for writing, but you will need several lifetimes to try them all. :) I stick to the three ones I use and already know well from tabletop gaming (dnd, shadowrun and traveller), and I don’t want to start system hopping, because for me the focus is the story, not the rulesets, and it would get in the way. The only exception I made to that was to start using some parts of Mythic GM Emulator, because it can be used on top of the rulesets I use and it did indeed made my story way more interesting, especially when the pace is cooling down and you’re not sure what to do next.
That s why I mentioned The Story Engine. It’s not an RPG. It’s purely a … storytelling device?
It’s a bunch of cards and you pick a few (there are various algorithms to create different things) and then you just go wild with what you got.
Here, I just picked four cards and I got : Assassin - Wants to unravel the mystery of - Archive - But it will mean risking the thing most precious to them.
From there you can dig further, have another agent (like the Assassin here) with a conflicting agenda. You could generate what that precious thing / maybe person is. Etc.
You could check out the quickstart (what I just used) and see how it feels.
Sadly, with these locked down hardware platforms like Xbox, PS, Switch, or even something like an iPhone, the buyer doesn’t own the hardware. You’re at the whims of the platform holder and what they decide: case in point this story. These platforms, which have grown evermore popular because of their ease of use, are gilded cages. You just noticed the bars.
If they don’t give you access to the bootloader and an option to install whatever OS you like, you’re beholden to the company.
It’s not about why. It’s about you paid for the damn console. You own it and should be able to do whatever you damn well please with it
That’s a recurring theme in the gaming industry, I don’t understand why buyers accept it (my guess : they don’t know about it). If you read the End User Agreement of the games you buy, almost all of them (all of them?) tell you that you don’t own your copy of the game, it’s the property of the publisher, and they only sell to you the right to execute the software on your computer. As it’s been successful at locking in users, hardware manufacturers try to do the same thing, usually by mixing in online software to make sure they can take your hardware down (and it’s not just in gaming industry, see printers and tractors). The ultimate incarnation of this attack on property are the game streaming platforms. There, everything is a rental, now, good cash flow!
The usual answer about such abuses from software producers would be to go FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), but it doesn’t really work with games : while there are some great FOSS games, the amount can’t compete with the proprietary industry. My personal solution has been to replace consumerism with creativity. Every night, instead of playing videogames, I write. I use tabletop RPG rulesets to spice up my writing, so that I don’t know what happens next and I’m surprised myself by where the dice rolls make the story go (instead of deciding of everything). I also don’t write to be read, nobody will ever read what I write, so I feel no pressure. It was hard at first (I guess my imagination was atrophied by too much consumption), but after a few years going on, it’s insane everything that happens in my games, videogames feel lame, comparatively. I call that “exploring my imagination”. I can do anything, and this time it’s not an hyperbole, like it’s the case in those videogames where they tell you “you can be anything” (no you can’t). And it’s free, and nobody can take it from me. I highly recommend.
I’m curious about how you use tabletop rpg rules to help you with your writing. Would you mind providing an example?
Sure. I don’t know how familiar you are with TTRPGs, so I’ll be exhaustive. While rules for TTRPGs can be greatly different when it comes to combat (if they have combat at all), they all implement some sort of skill checks for outside combat. Your character is good at some skills and bad at some others, which usually translates to having a modifier on the result of your dice, or rolling more or less dice, etc. In the normal flow of the game, the gamemaster describes a situation, the players tell what they want to do about it, and if what they ask to do is non trivial, the gamemaster asks them to roll for a skill check. If a player said they want to jump across a pit, the gamemaster may ask for an Acrobatics check, for example. The player rolls their dice, they succeed or fail based on the difficulty level the gamemaster decided, and the gamemaster describes the result.
When writing, I do basically the same thing. For each action my characters want to attempt (the key being to give them a deep personality through an elaborated backstory, so it is obvious what their personal reaction to an event will be and what decision they will make), I decide if it’s non-trivial, assign a difficulty target, and roll to see if they manage to do it. Then I have my result, and I have to decide what happens. Did they succeed by much or barely? This immediately triggers the imagination about what may have gone so well or so bad. And this creates turns of events you wouldn’t have thought about : if that character barely succeed jumping across that pit, it may anger that other character who is in love with them and terribly anxious. Which in turn may impact their next perception roll, as they are arguing while a lurking predator is getting closer. Depending on the theme, different skill lists and rulesets work best. I have three stories going on : high fantasy theme with Dungeons & Dragons, cyberpunk theme with Shadowrun, and Space Sci-Fi with Traveller. On top of the rules, they also provide tons of content to play with, like worlds to visit or equipment to try. That being said, I use them because I already have them, but any free ruleset found on the web would do, it doesn’t matter that much, in the end (be it for writing or playing with friends, btw).
Since last year, I also discovered Mythic (the 2nd edition has been released sooner this year), which also helps randomizing the overarching story. I still prefer to decide on the main events, but it’s great to add trivial details and side plots. It has a quite deep set of rules by itself, but the basic idea is to use an “oracle”, which means asking a question, and roll dice to see if the answer to that question is “yes” or “no”, with a modifier depending of how probable you think it is to get a “yes”. Are there guards watching the side of the castle we’re assaulting? Is the marchand trying to scam the characters? Does the king have a sense of humor? Those dice rolls can have quite an impact on the events. :) And when you don’t know what to do next, Mythic offers keywords tables you can roll on to trigger your imagination. For example, let say we’re in an antichamber, waiting for an audience with a queen. I roll dice twice on an event table, I get the keywords “support” and “distrust” (I’ve just rolled that). From that, I may decide an advisor of the queen is coming to see us and give us a hard time. Or, on the contrary, someone knows we’re going to have an audience and ask us to have a word with the queen to advise her to be more cautious toward a third party. What is this third party? Let’s roll again! “Excitedly” and “peaceful”. Ok, that may be a neighbor country which has been very friendly, but people find they are meddling a bit too intensely in the affairs of the kingdom. And imagination build a world from there. :)
There are many single-player RPGs focused on writing and imagining. Often they’re called “journaling RPGs”.
Here are some examples! https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/roleplaying-game/how-to/how-to-play-tabletop-rpgs-by-yourself
Very interesting, thank you. I’ve never heard of anything like this before.
You’re welcome.
I’m guessing you know about Thousand Year Old Vampire then? And The Story Engine?
I’ve already heard mention of Thousand Year Old Vampire, never played it, though. There are a lot of things happening in the space of solo roleplaying which are boons for writing, but you will need several lifetimes to try them all. :) I stick to the three ones I use and already know well from tabletop gaming (dnd, shadowrun and traveller), and I don’t want to start system hopping, because for me the focus is the story, not the rulesets, and it would get in the way. The only exception I made to that was to start using some parts of Mythic GM Emulator, because it can be used on top of the rulesets I use and it did indeed made my story way more interesting, especially when the pace is cooling down and you’re not sure what to do next.
That s why I mentioned The Story Engine. It’s not an RPG. It’s purely a … storytelling device? It’s a bunch of cards and you pick a few (there are various algorithms to create different things) and then you just go wild with what you got. Here, I just picked four cards and I got : Assassin - Wants to unravel the mystery of - Archive - But it will mean risking the thing most precious to them. From there you can dig further, have another agent (like the Assassin here) with a conflicting agenda. You could generate what that precious thing / maybe person is. Etc. You could check out the quickstart (what I just used) and see how it feels.
Oh I see. That sounds cool, thanks for mentioning it. 👍️
Sadly, with these locked down hardware platforms like Xbox, PS, Switch, or even something like an iPhone, the buyer doesn’t own the hardware. You’re at the whims of the platform holder and what they decide: case in point this story. These platforms, which have grown evermore popular because of their ease of use, are gilded cages. You just noticed the bars.
If they don’t give you access to the bootloader and an option to install whatever OS you like, you’re beholden to the company.