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Old 02-14-2015, 12:07 AM   #31
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Don't psychologists often develop these kinds of tests backwards? That is, rather than construct questions according to some theory, they give a bunch of sample questions to various people whose personalities they determine by other means (interviews, etc), and then look for correlations in the question set.
Yes. But I very much doubt SJ Games and Laws had the budget available to do that kind of systmatic research. Most likely Laws based his writings on his own observations, over a decade or more of GMing and of being a player in campaigns run by other GMs.

That said, the questions definitely need to be very carefully phrased, so as to avoid the quiz taker being swayed towards giving answers that do not truly reveal his preferences. And that's me talking general principles. I haven't taken the quiz yet.

Also, doing a sample questions survey on any given forum, including this one, basically cannot avoid selection bias, as each RPG forum attracts certain kinds of people and repels other kinds of people. I mean, imagine such a sample quesions survey, that you run first on the population of this forum, and then on the population of the FUDGE mailing list, then on the population of the Hero System forums.

About the only survey done that may have avoided selection bias was the huge one run by Wizards of the Coast very long ago, and its results are so crazily neat that I can't avoid suspicion that they were doctered heavily, either by cheating after the fact, or else by carefully phrasing the questions in order to get a super-neat result (which I can't see a way of doing other than first running a small survey, then re-phrasing to get prettier results in a larger survey, and then as the third iteration - at least - run the full-scale survey with your by-now carefully tailored questions). Nobody else has the budgetary resources for that kind of thing, I think. Even Storyteller was a niche, although a large one, when it was big.
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Old 02-14-2015, 12:11 AM   #32
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

I've looked at a few of the early questions, and they keep talking about concepts that don't occur in the campaigns I've GM'ed, or the campaigns I've played in. The conclusion is that I'm very far outside the target audience for this quiz,
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Old 02-14-2015, 12:53 AM   #33
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

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Originally Posted by Captain Joy View Post
It is not pretty, but it works on my computer: Mac OS 10.10.2 running Safari 8.0.3.

Online questionnaire to see what kind of Robin D. Laws player type you are.
Power Gamer: 63%
Butt-Kicker: 21%
Tactician: 75%
Specialist: 25%
Method Actor: 63%
Storyteller: 67%
Casual Gamer: 38%

I suppose that fits. I'm surprised that Casual Gamer scored so high, I was expecting it to be below 25%.
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Old 02-14-2015, 05:47 AM   #34
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
I've looked at a few of the early questions, and they keep talking about concepts that don't occur in the campaigns I've GM'ed, or the campaigns I've played in. The conclusion is that I'm very far outside the target audience for this quiz,
No, the correct conclusion is that you have an aversion to clicking "Never" buttons. :)

Seriously though, I tried to make the questions as generic and applicable to all RPGers as possible. To keep the questions short, I did lean on ubiquitous D&Desque terminology as opposed to lengthier expository. E.g. I figure even if a role-player has never "leveled up", they know what that means and will still be able to answer the questions accordingly.

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Old 02-14-2015, 05:56 AM   #35
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Power Gamer: 63%
Butt-Kicker: 21%
Tactician: 75%
Specialist: 25%
Method Actor: 63%
Storyteller: 67%
Casual Gamer: 38%

I suppose that fits. I'm surprised that Casual Gamer scored so high, I was expecting it to be below 25%.
I think there is healthy dose of Social Gamer in the Casual Gamer questions. That might be my personal bias seeping in? I didn't think Casual Gamer should mean Novice Gamer or Clueless Gamer. Maybe that was a mistake? I.e. A high score in Novice Gamer says more about why you role play, not so much about how knowledgable you are about the hobby.
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Old 02-14-2015, 06:31 AM   #36
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

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I think there is healthy dose of Social Gamer in the Casual Gamer questions. That might be my personal bias seeping in? I didn't think Casual Gamer should mean Novice Gamer or Clueless Gamer. Maybe that was a mistake? I.e. A high score in Novice Gamer says more about why you role play, not so much about how knowledgable you are about the hobby.
Actually I thought Casual is more Kromm-like.
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Old 02-14-2015, 07:04 AM   #37
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

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I didn't think Casual Gamer should mean Novice Gamer or Clueless Gamer. Maybe that was a mistake?
I think you're right here. A key sentence from Laws' definition: "Often, they’re present to hang out with the group, and game just because it happens to be the activity everyone else has chosen." They're not interested in the rules for their own sake, so the Tacticians and Power Gamers might see that as being a novice (or clueless). "Social Gamer" is probably at least as good of a term as "Casual" to describe this type.

(Or at least by my sense of the words. In World of Warcraft jargon, "casual" -- also a noun -- is considerably more insulting, and does imply lack of ability or cluelessness, e.g. "Blizzard had to dumb the fight down for the casuals" or "they're just a casual raiding guild". So "Social" might be even better, to avoid that sense of "casual".)
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Old 02-14-2015, 07:21 AM   #38
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
I very much doubt SJ Games and Laws had the budget available to do that kind of systmatic research.
Oh, certainly. I was thinking, though, that it might be interesting for such a quiz page to also present a set of sliders so that visitors could rate themselves, and then take the quiz. You'd then collect a database that might inform changes or the rule weights (if you assume the self-ratings are accurate) or perhaps reveal something about how people see themselves (if you assume the quiz is accurate).

I'm also tempted to ask members of my group to fill out the quiz, but for some particular other player, to create a vector based on someone else's perception of what they enjoy.
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Old 02-14-2015, 07:27 AM   #39
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

Huh.

Power Gamer: 38%
Butt-Kicker: 46%
Tactician: 71%
Specialist: 38%
Method Actor: 83%
Storyteller: 88%
Casual Gamer: 50%

I didn't think I was that big a Tactician; I think the Butt-Kicker and Tactician ones might be swapped around.

I love my characters and world-building, but sometimes I just want to pound my opponents into hamburger. I'm not really picky on optimizing or tactical options, though, as I like to have my fighty chars do stuff with style rather than tactics (such as charging the entire host of the Einherjar on the back of a summoned hippogriff while shouting "FOR VOLSTAGG!").
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Old 02-14-2015, 08:41 AM   #40
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Robin D. Laws Player Types Quiz

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Oh, certainly. I was thinking, though, that it might be interesting for such a quiz page to also present a set of sliders so that visitors could rate themselves, and then take the quiz. You'd then collect a database that might inform changes or the rule weights (if you assume the self-ratings are accurate) or perhaps reveal something about how people see themselves (if you assume the quiz is accurate).
That could be a very good idea.

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
I'm also tempted to ask members of my group to fill out the quiz, but for some particular other player, to create a vector based on someone else's perception of what they enjoy.
Am I the only one concerned about the phrasings of the questions?
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