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Well, Matt Colville did run the most successful D&D Kickstarter campaign ever, Strongholds & Streaming (US$2.1 million). And he's been a professional RPG designer since at least the original Dune RPG from Wizards of the Coast. So, yeah.Until today, I had never heard of Matt Colville. Now, i see him on several RPG Forums. Even Wikipedia hasn't heard of him, but Google has. Apparently, he is a legendary D&D Designer.
Not really. He's slowly but surely built up a subscriber base on Youtube with videos like this one and made history with his supplement for bringing the D&D domain endgame back to 5e hitting 2 million on Kickstarter. Other than that, he's been around doing RPGs and cRPGs for a while, but not a "named designer" until the KS.Until today, I had never heard of Matt Colville. Now, i see him on several RPG Forums. Even Wikipedia hasn't heard of him, but Google has.
Apparently, he is a legendary D&D Designer.
I think he's a fiction writer for a company that does D&D-style CRPGs?Apparently, he is a legendary D&D Designer.
Are you sure that's not Zach Galifianakis playing an elaborate prank?
First time I heard of Colville was when the Reddit crowd started pimping his Strongholds and Followers supplement for 5e. I was disappointed but should have probably dug deeper before I supported; I thought it would bring OSR style domain play to 5e but turned out to be a list of class-themed money sinks that grant additional abilities in the manner of a video game.
Thanks listened to the whole thing on the first go so I'm good.I like his thoughts on how you get useful definitions (and why definitions are useful).
I see why he's included persistent character improvement in his definition: He's trying to include video games in his definition, and if you don't include persistent character improvement in your definition a huge array of non-CRPG games would classify as roleplaying. But I think it probably results in him wiping out a number of tabletop RPGs that don't deserve to be wiped out.
Those who are not familiar with Colville's other work may not recognize that this is, in fact, a major synthesis piece for him: He's pulling together stuff he's obliquely referred to any number of times in the past into a single, coherent, and, importantly, encyclopedic presentation. I do similar stuff on the Alexandrian; for example, The Railroading Manifesto. When you're a serial essayist, you do this because you're tired of having to explain the same basic stuff every time you bring up a topic, so you do it once in the most authoritative way possible so that you can simply refer back to it in the future. I'm guessing that's what Colville is doing here, too, and it's why the video is 45 minutes long. It's deliberately exhaustive because its general function is to be the thing on the other end of the "if you want more information on this, click here" link.
But it is an excellent example of why I prefer to read essays rather than watch essay videos.
EDIT: If you checked out early, worth jumping to around 33 or 34 minutes and listen to his thoughts on how actual play videos value things that are entertaining rather than things that are fun, and how those things can be in conflict with each other (and what the consequences of that conflict can be).
Essay writing is fine as is having a common lexicon for discussions on metagaming. It is just that the subject matter is ANCIENT, I can remember reading about this stuff In Shadis and discussing it with my group in the 90's.
He said video games as a whole (which most Video Gamers for are also Tabletop Gamers try not to do when talking about both) which made me question what his video gaming background is.
You remember reading about the effects video actual plays on the internet were having on people's perceptions of roleplaying in Shadis in the '90s?
Everybody says this but I actually really like his voice.He comes across as every roleplayer cliche. He might be a talented guy, but his voice s really irritating.
You know Sandy Petersen is best known for:[ . . . ]
2) Thank you for telling me what his backround in video games was that was helpful. I was refering to what video games he played but the fact he was actually involved in two videogame franchises does give some needed context. I would point out that both franchises are from the action shooter genres not really anything that comes near any of the RPG genres in videogames. Yeah you can argue that having a sandbox (in one of them) does allow for roleplaying in a a game not greatly known for it roleplaying (hence the whole Games with RPG Elements label) but the term, sandbox gets thrown around a LOT these days by studios and I'd also point out sandbox places the burden of storytelling on the user not the game maker. But now having context (thank you again) I can now say that yes, action shooter games in general are not known for there deep subtext and strong character development as compared to say, RPG video games.
Discuss.
I'll chime in a little later, I want people to comment on his ideas, not start off by responding to mine.
You know Sandy Petersen is best known for:
Doom was never really anything but an action shooter but SP wrote one of the most iconic RPG titles ever. He's done plenty of other stuff since then as well.
- Doom
- Call of Cthulhu
I've listened to some of his videos...to be fair - they're a lot better than the usual youtube fare. It's not just some guy rambling along tediously because he's too lazy to actually write his thoughts down on paper in a structured way (99% of youtube) - he is obviously well prepared and knows what he intends to say and covers topics at a decent pace.I can't imagine spending 46 minutes listening to some guy talking about how DM's are supposed to present NPCs.
Pretty much how I feel about the guy. No doubt he's helping people to run better games and giving good advice but I'm not his target audience. Even though I've been gaming a long time, I try to stay teachable and keep an open mind but what I've seen of his work isn't for me.But I don't think I'm really his audience. As others have said - the audience is new people who've come into gaming with the 5e boom and want to learn how to gm.
His voice, his mannerisms, his look, even the kind if things he talks about. They all scream cliche to me. He's like the template that TV directors might use for a role player.Hm, what role player cliches are those? I didn't really get a neck beard vibe from him - seemed like someone who had their shit together.
No comment on his voice, there are many youtubers whose voices I find far more irritating
If we allow criticism of people wanting to include politics in their games, it's only fair that we let people respond by defending using politics in their games. Next thing you know, we've got a full-fledged political argument going on. How about we just drop this whole tangent?That's not the video, though I don't recall the name of the one I saw. All I remember was that he said GMs have a "responsibility" to address the culture and politics of their players, and to make the world "culturally and racially aware" as well.