Ryan Dancey speaks - the Most Successful Year for Fantasy RPGaming ever. However...

[GRIMJIM]

I don't think we have a massive amount to worry about.
For one thing we (designers, players and GMs) have transferable skills that could be moved into the MMORPG arena to create a much better game and more immersive gameworld for everyone.

MMORPGs are, still, about 25 years behind tabletop gaming. They're unadventurous and trot out the same formula time and time again. They have problems that have already been mentioned - the peon factor, not being adaptive, everyone doing the same quests.

This is starting to shift though.

Vampire: Redemption started it IMO, that had a good GM mode but the toolset was nigh impenetrable.
NWN took that a step further, but the toolset could - again - be a lot easier to use and more versatile.

The MMORPG Saga of Ryzom will be introducing a player-edited system for creating and hosting scenarios 'off' the main MMO server.

The changes are coming and we can get into them. Honestly. MMORPGs have a lot to learn from us and, contrary to what a previous poster said, RPG designers DO know better than computer game designers what makes up these more interactive worlds and how to make a success of them.

MMORPGs have a little more in kin with large scale LARPS (with no selectivity of players) than TTRPGs but there are common elements to all of them.

I think they're going to fuse.

 

[Arnwyn]

Has anyone looked at (or even, at this point, know) the rate of churn in WoW? (The time it takes a person to buy WoW, enter it, do a lot of stuff in it, get bored, and leave). And I forget the average rate of churn for D&D. Or does that data exist?

Oh, that data exists all right - both the marketing and accounting departments at Blizzard will certainly have a handle on the churn number (any company that has some form of 'subscription' pricing will know each products' churn rate).

I highly doubt it'll be a public number for WoW, though.

 

[Odhanan]

1) More choice. What? Heresy! The thing is, though, in WoW I can go to whatever town I want, follow whatever path I want. I can do quests, I can not do quests. I can do some quests but not others... in D&D I have more options, but only when I follow the DM's basic adventure plot. That's important.

Depends on the DM. I run adventures that are fairly open, much in the manner of CRPGs actually (and started much before they were born). There's a basic place, with loads of intrigues and sub-intrigues, and the PCs care for whatever they want. The sessions go from there.

2) Being able to See your character. Yes, I know there's imagination, and that maybe your idea of an elf is different to my idea of an elf, but there is something really compelling in being able to look your character in the eye.

Yes there is. I prefer my own imagination though, as said before.

3) Pretty Worlds: Interestingly enough, I felt nostalgic for Morrowind when I was playing WoW. "That's a pretty flower," I thought, "A DM would never bother describing such a small detail as that... but in Morrowind I'd be able to pix it". It's very easy to be immersed in a world that's visual and aural.

Again, depends on the DM.

4) No Information Overload: In WoW you pretty much create your character (character creation is significantly easier, as well), get a 2 minute crash-course on your race's history, and then you start playing. In D&D there's a good 300 pages to take in (plus information on PrC and magic items if you're precocious)... and perhaps 10 of those pages have anything to do with RP. Levelling up in WoW is literally effortless.

That I agree with. There's no question that there is too much compacted information for a newbie to grasp before being at ease with the game. We've talked about that before. There needs to be a Basic Set playable on its own for more than three sessions. Something I can offer to my little cousins and nephews.

5) Instant Gratification: I levelled up more in one one hour session on WoW than any one of my characters ever has in D&D. I learnt new skills, got new items that were significantly better than my old items, and killed heaps of creatures. Combat is quick and, for the most part, easy. HP and MP (magic points) regenerate really quickly - no messing about camping and deciding who takes what watch and whether the spellcaster can split up his eight hours of rest or not.

Depends of the DM.

6) Simple Spellcasting and Complicated Fighting: Spellcasting is really simple. You just keep firing off one of about three spells (to be fair, the amount of spells you learn increases as you level). Sure, you might run out of MP eventually, but you also don't have to worry about AoOs and interrupted spells just take 50% longer to cast. Spellcasting is really pretty much worry-free. Playing a combatant, however, is a bit different. You've got special abilities you can use - not complicated attack maneuvers like trips or bull rushes, but just attacks where you kind of piroutte (Sp?) and do a bit more damage. Sure, mature role-players might have evocative combats with intricate historically accurate tactical maneuvers, but most of us just 'attack the dragon with our axe'.

Depends on the tastes of each and everyone. Depends as well on the RPG group you're playing with and how the DM manages this or that aspect of the gameplay.

7) The Monsters look Cool: Admittedly, D&D has lots of cool monsters, but WoW has interesting animals. Thistle boars, crag boars and that-other-type-of-boar-I-can't-remember-the-name-of all look different. That might seem superficial, but it goes a long way towards making each region of the world seem interesting and unique.

Well, there are so many monster books out there the choice is overwhelmingly in favor of D&D/d20, to be frank. It's rather passive (much like the character's appearance) to let the game (whether computer or tabletop) dictate what a creature looks like in your mind's eye.

8) WoW Gets You Hooked: You can pay $2 to pay WoW as a sample for 2 weeks. By that time, Blizzard counts on people being suitably hooked. I suppose D&D's equivalent is playing with a friend who teaches you D&D without having to go out and buy the books yourself.

Which kicks the ball in the gamer's park. Conclusion: bring people to the game instead of playing with veterans all the time.

Look, there's a reason I've spent thousands on D&D and $2 on WoW. There's a reason why hundreds of thousands of people have spent hundreds on WoW and nothing on D&D. D&D will always be a niche product, but maybe that niche can grow. Maybe it can't.

Instant gratification and passivity/laziness. Much like watching TV instead of reading a book. Look: at some point, we've got to decide if we want to change TRPGs to be main stream or keep some of their core concepts as they are because we like it that way. Whether we want cheap, instantly gratifying entertainment or a hobby that appeals to few but more imaginative people. I am definitely for the later, but we can indeed work on making TRPGs more accessible to this outside world living for fast rewards.

 

[rounser]

Depends on the DM.

No, no, no...let's be realistic here.

I've run into no P&P DM who offers as much choice as even something relatively small like Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn without improvising, and most extended improvising is either wacky or very bland. DMs who are good enough at extended improvising to entertain as well as that are so rare as to be negligible.

This is an extension of WOTC's discovery that most DMs think they're good designers, storytellers and writers, but aren't. In theory they could compete, in reality the vast majority can't. I suspect they get even worse at it if they try to do it in realtime (improvise) - this is why a good amount of P&P gaming can be as boring as Everquest, if it weren't for the social factor.

 

[Odhanan]

No, no, no...let's be realistic here.

What you're saying isn't any more "realistic" than what I'm saying. We just have a different outlook on the topic given our different experiences. That's it.

I've run into no P&P DM who offers as much choice as even something relatively small like Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn without improvising, and most extended improvising is either wacky or very bland. DMs who are good enough at extended improvising to entertain as well as that are so rare as to be negligible.

Which is another way to confirm my point: it indeed depends on the DM. Furthermore, from my own experience, these DMs do not represent a negligible number. I guess our experiences are just different.

This is an extension of WOTC's discovery that most DMs think they're good designers, storytellers and writers, but aren't.

How do you draw this conclusion from WotC's market research (assuming that's what you're talking about here)? I just don't see how you get there.

 

[rounser]

How do you draw this conclusion from WotC's market research (assuming that's what you're talking about here)? I just don't see how you get there.

There was some old stuff that Ryan Dancey quoted to that effect. DMs routinely overrate their ability - most aren't any good at making rules, and I think that can be extended to stories too. Your average DM would get rejected by Dungeon magazine, and only gets worse if he's pushed to create on the spot.

We just have a different outlook on the topic given our different experiences. That's it.

$480,000,000 says I'm right and you're wrong, though.

Can you give an example of typical DM improvisation? Lay down your cards, show me your experience. Here's an example of bland:
"You run across, um...a goblin village. There's, um...4 huts, and a fire that they seem to be cooking something on."
"Okay, you slew the 24 goblins in the village. They have...um....432 silver pieces and a dagger +1."

The alternative is wacky, which can be great fun, but not consistently so. I prefer wacky to bland, but most DMs take their campaigns too seriously to attempt it. 3E also makes wacky more difficult to do, because everything's so codified that there are barriers to inventing stuff on the spot.

There's a reason why most campaigns are railroads from one adventure to the next, and this is probably one of the main reasons. Computer games have professional designers devoting hundreds or thousands of man hours to stories alone - to suggest a typical DM can compete with that isn't realistic. Exceptional DMs, maybe, but they're rare.

 

[Odhanan]

There was some old stuff that Ryan Dancey quoted to that effect. DMs routinely overrate their ability - most aren't any good at making rules, and I think that can be extended to stories too. Your average DM would get rejected by Dungeon magazine.

You are driving off the subject here. We are speaking of DMs whose campaigns offer more choices and possibilities to players than the average CRPG. You are now talking about DMs not being good designers. This is not the same thing at all.

Beside this off-topic argument, the point that matters here is your opinion that DMs overrate their ability to run campaigns. What allows you to make that assumption?

Then, after you answered this, there still remains the fact that overrating yourself doesn't mean you automatically suck at running games, nor does it mean that your campaign actually doesn't allow more choices than the average CRPG. That's falling from one extreme to another.

$480,000,000 says I'm right and you're wrong, though.

Not at all. These dollars are paid by people who enjoy WoW. We do not know what proportion of these people actually know tabletop RPGs. How many on this proportion of players of WoW knowing TRPGs chose to play WoW instead of TRPGs because of the choices and paths for their virtual selves are better than those they'd know from the TRPG campaigns they have played. How many actually consider these are two completely different activities that cannot be compared to each other. How many play both CRPGs and TRPGs.

Without this kind of data, your argument that $480,000,000 backs you up is just plain rhetoric.

 

[Odhanan]

Computer games have professional designers devoting hundreds or thousands of man hours to stories alone - to suggest a typical DM can compete with that isn't realistic.

LOL. We really do not agree on that one, I can tell you. I've played campaigns with many good GMs, for games ranging from D&D to Vampire the Masquerade through a great number of others such as Stormbringer, In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas, MERP, Cyberpunk, Call of Cthulhu and dozens, dozens of others.

Honestly, I've seen some GREAT sessions and GREAT campaigns through my years of gaming (I've seen some lame sessions for varied reasons, too). And not from one or two GMs. From actually dozens of them. I've seen chronicles of Vampire run exactly from the point of view I just described: no railroad, a basic city/situation with NPCs currently doing or thinking of doing this or that, and the PCs that arrive in town and stir the fire, so to speak. I ran my own chronicle/campaign eight years like this, and I was far from the only one doing this*.

And Vampire wasn't the only game really. I do that now with D&D. I know many DMs doing this with D&D. I've seen it with INS/MV. I've seen it with Cthulhu.

Call me fortunate (and yes, my experience like yours is my own and doesn't represent a rule or accurate statistic by any means), but your theory just seems to me like its just an opinion based on your own experience and nothing else. I have my own, and it pushes me to not agree. There's nothing wrong with that.

* edit - just to be more precise - my Paris by Night included more that 120 NPC vampires with stats and backgrounds. Around 50 Mages or so. Several dozens of other denizens of the old WOD. We're speaking of dozens and dozens of possibles adventures the PCs would trigger - that's not even counting the most important: their own background and their own activities within the city (could be anything from starting to hunt vampires in the city to opening a Casino for vampires within the walls of Paris to locate the remnants of scrolls of Alexandria etc etc). And again, let me precise: I wasn't the only GM doing this. Many GMs in my surroundings did similar things on their own.

Any team of GM+players who love what they're doing, learn from their mistakes and care for their campaign can flat-out beat any team of "professionals" working on a computer game on the pure gameplay experience, in my mind.

 

[rounser]

You are driving off the subject here. We are speaking of DMs who's campaigns offer more choices and possibilities to players than the average CRPG. You are now talking about DMs not being good designers. This is not the same thing at all.

It does show that DMs overrate their abilities though; is your view of the typical DM as talented as a potential author, screenwriter or playwright? Yes? I call bollocks.

Even if you argue that you don't have to have that quality of storytelling ability to run a D&D game, that's what these DMs are now competing with - story design on a grand scale, with quality control. It's simply not realistic to pretend this doesn't matter.

Just because infinite possibilities are possible in theory, doesn't mean your average D&D game even begins to represent them.

The point that matters here is your opinion that DMs overrate their ability to run campaigns. What allows you to make that assumption?

It's an extrapolation; if WOTC's research suggests that DMs suck at game design but think they're good at it, I'm extending that to their ability to create stories as well. You're allowed to disagree with that extrapolation, as admittedly it is conjecture. Anecdotal evidence of mine seems to support it - obviously not of yours.

Then, after you answered this, there still remains the fact that overrating yourself doesn't mean you automatically suck at running games. That's falling from one extreme to another.

For time invested, I'll go out on a limb and suggest that WoW is more entertaining than your average P&P D&D campaign, except (and this is the critical part) for the social element. That social element goes a long way if you like your mates, and an excuse to muck around with them.

 

[rounser]

LOL.

Your response amounts to "but I've played some really good games!" Yes, so have I!

But here's the clincher: are they outnumbered by the boring ones and the poor ones? If you can honestly say they are, I accuse you of being easily amused - and those hundreds or thousands of hours of design are what our average DM is competing with, after having got home from work, looked after the partner or done homework etc.