Dungeon Craft (on YouTube Algorithms and other topics)

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Endless Flight said:


Professor DM said something in this video that I agree with but some consider blasphemy (I’m thinking of one friendly sitcom star in particular). He said and I quote:
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That's certainly an interesting opinion, but why have those people decided to do a live autopsy while talking about RPGs? I mean I haven't seen the video, but I am guessing that's what's going on just based on their facial expressions.
 
Endless Flight said:
Professor DM said something in this video that I agree with but some consider blasphemy (I’m thinking of one friendly sitcom star in particular). He said and I quote:
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Whether or not he agrees with that sentiment, I think he's full of shit if he claims he doesn't understand it.
There are plenty of folks online expressing their reasons for likiing/not liking things, even if they don't think they're objectively 'good'/'bad'.
 
Mangoplum said:
Whether or not he agrees with that sentiment, I think he's full of shit if he claims he doesn't understand it.
There are plenty of folks online expressing their reasons for likiing/not liking things, even if they don't think they're objectively 'good'/'bad'.
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Yes, I get really tired of the people who get outraged over story games, but I understand why some people don't like them.
 
Mangoplum said:
Whether or not he agrees with that sentiment, I think he's full of shit if he claims he doesn't understand it.
There are plenty of folks online expressing their reasons for likiing/not liking things, even if they don't think they're objectively 'good'/'bad'.
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I think he knows what he’s saying and we’ve had the debate here. It’s people who think you create a story as you roleplay vs people who think the story can only be told after the game is complete.
 
goats said:
They aren't bad, but they are definitely different from traditional rpgs.
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I know what you mean, but the reality is that there is a continuum so IMO it's not really useful to draw strict lines. This is increasingly true as we get more and more trad games with narrative flourishes like Alien, 5e (a bit) or even the Pub's favorite 2D20.
Of course everyone has their own internal lines of "I like this, I don't like that" but I think it is very hard to generalise.
 
robb said:
I know what you mean, but the reality is that there is a continuum so IMO it's not really useful to draw strict lines. This is increasingly true as we get more and more trad games with narrative flourishes like Alien, 5e (a bit) or even the Pub's favorite 2D20.
Of course everyone has their own internal lines of "I like this, I don't like that" but I think it is very hard to generalise.
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Oh yeah, I'm definitely not suggesting that it's either / or.

RPGs being played purely as a "game" probably ended when Dragonlance was released.
 
goats said:
RPGs being played purely as a "game" probably ended when Dragonlance was released.
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I thought 4e and Lancer and PF were all played like that? (And they are only modern systems, lots of people obviously continued to play that way and there is a part of the OSR that likes it).
 
robb said:
I thought 4e and Lancer and PF were all played like that? (And they are only modern systems, lots of people obviously continued to play that way and there is a part of the OSR that likes it).
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I know the osr promotes emergent play, in theory. But I'm skeptical that everyone in the osr follows this style without exception. I could be wrong.

Like you said, it's now a continuum.
 
Urdlen's best boy said:
Sure, but I'm assuming "I've never understood the hatred towards storygames" refers to the inordinate amount of butthurt about them, not the part of the discourse which is about pros and cons and gustibus.
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He's a grown man with plenty of life experience to inform him that people get bent out of shape about all sorts of big and little things without a lot of reasoning or thought.
 
Simlasa said:
He's a grown man with plenty of life experience to inform him that people get bent out of shape about all sorts of big and little things without a lot of reasoning or thought.
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There are people who believe introducing variable weapon damage, or the thief class (in OD&D) was a mistake...:thumbsup:


I rest my case:gooseshades:.
 
He was describing high-level characters as boring because the threat to them is low, although I would just say that the scenarios he must be running may be far too under-level for them.

Ironicially he was not advocating for characters to live on for the sake of the story, but to die dramatically if the session feels way cooler for it.
 
Mankcam said:
He was describing high-level characters as boring because the threat to them is low, although I would just say that the scenarios he must be running may be far too under-level for them.

Ironicially he was not advocating for characters to live on for the sake of the story, but to die dramatically if the session feels way cooler for it.
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I did that once. I had a character in a Conan game sacrifice himself for the rest of the party because I thought it would be a hell of a way to go out. The rest of the group did say it was one of the best moments of the game.
 
Endless Flight said:


Professor DM said something in this video that I agree with but some consider blasphemy (I’m thinking of one friendly sitcom star in particular). He said and I quote:
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I have no problem with storygames (however you choose to define them) and hating story games is certainly dumb and pointless, but saying "all these games are stories" is disingenuous.

Surely the Professor is well aware that many people don't consider their games to be an exercise in creating stories.

Yes, we have emergent story, but that's because everything creates emergent story, unless you are actively crafting the story. A game of hockey creates a story, but that doesn't mean hockey is a storygame. My day at work creates a story, but I am not writing novels or screenplays, I'm managing freight.

My understand is that, in a story game, the participates are all intentionally working to craft a story, as opposed to exploring a world to see what happens, or engaging in a series of exciting tactical grid-based fights, or trying to put themselves in the headspace of some other, or any of a number of possible alternative reasons for playing.
 
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Regarding the OP that the clickbait titles and goofy faces are needed due to YT's algorithm, I believe someone said this was true if you hadn't already built up a big following in the early days of YT correct?

I ask because none of the channels I follow do this. Just as an example, Outside Xbox, which is a successful and fun video game channel that doesn't go in for the usual ragefarming of so many other YT channels, doesn't do any of those things and has a 1M+ subscriber base. Is this because they've been around so long they don't need to do it? Or are just committed to not doing it?
 
I do think YouTube is insanely tuned to rage and clickbait. I can’t tell you how many anti-Disney videos popped up in my feed daily that I never clicked. “Kathleen Kennedy about to be fired!”, “George Lucas buying back Star Wars!”, and “The Sequel Trilogy will be removed from cannon (sic)!”. Unlike Professor DMs videos, which have value, these videos were all pushing lies and distortions.
 
Voros said:
Regarding the OP that the clickbait titles and goofy faces are needed due to YT's algorithm, I believe someone said this was true if you hadn't already built up a big following in the early days of YT correct?

I ask because none of the channels I follow do this. Just as an example, Outside Xbox, which is a successful and fun video game channel that doesn't go in for the usual ragefarming of so many other YT channels, doesn't do any of those things and has a 1M+ subscriber base. Is this because they've been around so long they don't need to do it? Or are just committed to not doing it?
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That's probably true. You may not need tricks so much to get seen by subscribers (though if someone has >100 subscriptions, youtube would have to use an algorithm to decide which ones to show first). Tricks are probably helpful to get seen and clicked on by non-subscribers. I've noticed some channels with 1-2 videos that have 10-20 times their subscriber base where they've had a viral hit so there must be quite a few people who look beyond their subscriptions.
 
Sable Wyvern said:
I have no problem with storygames (however you choose to define them) and hating story games is certainly dumb and pointless, but saying "all these games are stories" is disingenuous.
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Man who complains about people playing the game wrong complains about other people complaining about games.

Anyway, for me the difference between traditional RPGs and storygame/narrative games is this: in a traditional game you get to decide your character's actions but not the *results* of their actions.

Granted even in mostly traditional games your GM may ask "how do you want to do this" and allow players to describe crits or spell "dressing", or even spend a Bennie to invent a contact, but by and large that's the distinction to me.

And to me that makes a big difference to the verisimilitude of a game - in real life we too get to decide our actions, but we don't really have a say on the results of our actions.
 
Voros said:
Regarding the OP that the clickbait titles and goofy faces are needed due to YT's algorithm, I believe someone said this was true if you hadn't already built up a big following in the early days of YT correct?

I ask because none of the channels I follow do this. Just as an example, Outside Xbox, which is a successful and fun video game channel that doesn't go in for the usual ragefarming of so many other YT channels, doesn't do any of those things and has a 1M+ subscriber base. Is this because they've been around so long they don't need to do it? Or are just committed to not doing it?
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There's a lot of cargo cult going on with youtube creators, it's not required or necessarily even efficient. It can help go viral but going viral once =/= having a semi-stable occupation.

On the number side :
-the only thing it's good for is getting people (esp kids) to click on it
but
-having lots of subscriber that don't watch anymore because they tire of the trick is poison
-having a high rate of people clicking on your stuff then clicking away is also poison
-hurts your reputation with adult viewers

So what happens is minmaxing for clicks can get you on the screens, but then after a while everyone knows you exist, and you didn't convince them to keep watching, so eventually the algo stops recommending. That's why you see a lot of mid to big channels that do that start whining about declining viewership after some time, not understanding why because "people still click on it when it's recomended".
 
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