What on earth does "video-gamey" mean?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Regarding the OP, I think this "video-gamey" feel has to do with kind of "press a button to make it happen" kind of thing, where in previous editions such things were not possible.

You mean like: "I attack". "I attack". "I full attack". "I full attack"? That kind of button pressing?

 

[AllisterH]

Next, we have the concept of character "building". This has become much more prevalent in 3E, with skills, feats, prestige classes, etc. There have been debates, both on this forum and elsewhere, about people who "powergame", versus people who play for "fun" and deliberately make sure their characters aren't the most powerful on the block. This shows that, in some players' minds, there's a tendency towards building the perfect killing machine, without regards to character development. Take three levels of this, two of that, a feat here, a magic item there...all for the perfect damage dealer.

Now, I'm not talking about those players who have a very clear idea of what they want their character to develop into from a role-playing standpoint, and tailor their choices appropriately, but rather those players who choose skills, powers and prestige classes simply to do as much damage as possible, without taking the time to necessarily explain just why, from a plot point of view, their character has developed that particular combination of abilities.

Both MMO RPGs and console RPGs have a tendency to do this, and apparently some people think it's being repeated in 3E, and now 4E. I can't speak to 4E, but with some of the threads I've seen (not all, of course!), this is fairly clear to me in 3E.

Very well explained post about what people think about videogames and 3e/4e.

I'm actually going to defend BOTH 3e and 4e from this claim.

That said, I tend to disagree on this specific point since ironically enough, I think the proponents of this claim ALSO forget that D&D was videogamey BEFORE we had videogames.

Reason why I say this is because look at Gygax old group. They were ALL spellcasters, nobody playeed the rogue and the fighter as they were the henchmen.

So what does that say about THAT group?

As well, spellcasters were the one class pre 3E that could be said to have any meaningful character choices thanks to their spells. Check out how Gygax described how new spells were added to the game. People in his old group just came up with ideas for spells and they were added.

I would charge that even pre 1E, D&D was videogamey based on the fact that people were expected to actually only play the whizbang classes.

 

[Ginnel]

Regarding the OP, I think this "video-gamey" feel has to do with kind of "press a button to make it happen" kind of thing, where in previous editions such things were not possible.

1) Fighter "marking" his foes. Its an automatic effect, no save, that incurs a penalty or draws an immediate interrupt and there's nothing the target can do to avoid or negate it.
Solution: To make it less video-gamey, keep it as a free action but make it an attack against the target's Will or something. If the attack succeeds, then the target is sufficiently occupied that the target suffers the effects of the Mark. (Apply same especially to Paladin marking which also inflicts damage).

This is kind of a "point and shoot" or "press a button" thing that definitely feels video-gamey along with things like Cleave which auto hit their target regardless of the target's AC. Just about anything that affected anything else in previous editions had to make either an attack roll or allowed a saving throw and that should be the way it is for 4e.
.

Well I'm glad fireball and a host of other spells didn't do damage regardless.
Yes marking is an immediate effect without saves it is nice flavour for the Fighter also didn't prayer automatically give -1 to attacks damage and saves of enemies in 3rd? (sorry if I'm wrong didn't use this one much)
Umm you may well be forgetting the classic old trusty magic missle as well no attack roll auto damage, but don't worry they fixed that one.

2) Any At will powers. The ultimate "video-gamey" effect. Point: Unlimited/inexhaustible resources eliminate challenges or reduce them to the point where they are not fun.
Solution: Make at wills something that characters have to earn (reach a certain level, take certain feats, etc.), not something that gets handed to them. In ALL previous incarnations of D&D, at will abilities, even sucky ones were not acquired without significant investment.
.

You still run out of Arrows and bolts The fighters at will trip was acquired with a feat, one feat to make it usable, what was not repeatable about that? trip trip trip attack attack attack. Besides whats wrong with players having interesting things to do all the time something which differentiates a fighter using a basic attack from a wizard or cleric doing a basic attack.

3) Needing friends to win. This is like X-Men, Simpsons, Gauntlet, and especially the D&D video games, where you HAD to have friends to win unless you just pumped a butt-load of quarters into it--and even then, victory wasn't guaranteed.

In any other incarnation of D&D, you always had the option of solo play. Admittedly, 3E was less solo friendly, but it could still be done and 1e and 2e solo games were very viable, adventures were even made for them. This game is designed around having to have companions. Its not that I'm itching for solo play instead of gaming with friends, but its another option that was taken away from players and DMs with this edition. You can't even play this game solo without serious tweaking.

Even in MMORPGs, you still need a group (more or less). Solo play is possible, but advancing is considerably slower and many quests, tasks are just flat impossible without a group.

Tied in with HAVING to have companions, 4e forces you into a "role" based on your class much like MMORPGs do. Technically, you're not "forced" to, but if you don't play your role, you're booted from the group or end up messing up the game for others.
.

D&D games have and always will be as viable as the DM who is creating them, this goes for solo as well as anything else.
[sblock=More Hawken comments]

4) Everyone is equal. This hits on that line from Incredibles--If everyone is special, no one is. Everyone gets to do basically the same stuff (X number of at will, encounter, daily powers), just slightly different mechanics and different fluff. How is this like video games? Its like that 4 player X-Men (or really any other) game; yeah, you could play Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine or Nightcrawler, but you had X number of moves and a special you could do every so often--they looked different, but they had basically the same effect.

In all previous editions, classes and races were different. I don't think there were really any problems until 3.0 and then 3.5 when "balance" became an issue/goal. Yeah, humans sucked when it came to racial abilities, but their benefit was that they didn't have any drawbacks. And when it came to classes, yeah, wizards were uber powerful at higher levels, but it was surviving those critical low levels that "balanced" it out. Each class and race had its high points and low and "balance" was never an issue in 1e or 2e because the emphasis was on roleplaying. Players could play solo or in a group. There were no assigned roles. Anyone could do whatever they wanted (that their characters could do) in a given fight. Sometimes the ranger and wizard would hang back and rain death on enemies, at other times they'd be right there with the fighter. Yeah, the cleric was responsible for healing, but they were right there hanging with the fighter or the wizard doing what needed to be done. In our games, no one ever really ran out of things to do to the point where they needed an at will ability and no one needed a role to fill to tell them what they should be doing during a fight.

It was a roleplaying game.

It wasn't until Attacks of Opportunity reared its ugly head as an "optional" rule in 2e--and later became an official rule in 3e that D&D started becoming video-gamey. When you "had" to have a grid map with miniatures, when you "had" to keep track of where you moved and whether you could move a certain way or what would happen if you tried, that's when it became video-gamey. Was it fun? Sure, in a way, not so much because of the game itself but for the time I was spending with friends. But the game had definitely changed at that point. No longer was it in my mind's eye how combat was unfolding. Now it was right there on the table! Now I had to count out exact 5' squares and now I couldn't move diagonally without it "costing" more. Now, I had to learn more rules (and my players or DM did too) and that made it less of a game and yet more of a game.

[/sblock]
Think of battle grids and minis as an interpretation of the rules to simulate whats going on in your story, just because your fighter had to role a dice to hit with his sword that didn't take out the imagination did it?

and on the terms of "balance" what do you mean by that? if you think all characters are equal in 4th they aren't they can all do different stuff but contribute just as much as each other.

Ok I'm no sure how you view balance but lets put it like this (this may not be a good arguement I just like the analogy )

A Seesaw being played with by fighter and wizard

Fighter bottom weighing it down with his awesome W at top a lightweight see saw not working just the fighter jumping up and down a bit making things happen with the wizzie just flailing his legs
.....W/
..... /
....o
.../
F/

F...........W
-----o----- Mid level hurrah everything is relatively equal and balanced and the fighter and wizard get to play on the seesaw this is how it should work

\F
..\
....o
......\
........\W High level Uhoh the Wizards grown fat the seesaw doesn't work no more he can jump up and down moving it a bit but the fighter can only flail about a bit.

Of course you could counter this arguement by saying the up and down motion represents a whole campaign, but why would I want that seesaw movement to only work once over the whole campaign when I could get the middle bit both people contributing relatively equally to having a good time throughout.

 

[JesterPoet]

I really hope this thread is still around when 5e comes out.

 

[Hawken]

You mean like: "I attack". "I attack". "I full attack". "I full attack"? That kind of button pressing?

If you read the rest of my post you wouldn't even have written that.

Well I'm glad fireball and a host of other spells didn't do damage regardless.

I never said they did. In previous editions, there was 99% of the time an attack roll required or a saving throw that was allowed.

Some spells like Prayer and Magic Missile didn't have saves, but the easiest (and cheapest) defense against magic missile has always been a brooch of shielding where it protected you automatically against MM damage (in 1e/2e, it protected you against X number of missiles, not X amount of damage from the missiles). And, in most games I played in, Prayer was often countered by a Prayer from the opposing team. And many groups spread out quickly at the beginning of combat so incoming Prayers (and Fireballs, Ice Storms, etc.) were limited to hitting roughly half the group or less.

Yes marking is an immediate effect without saves it is nice flavour for the Fighter

Nice flavor maybe, but when it comes to the crunch of it, its as messed up as anything else wrong with 4e. There is no reason for not having an "escape" from that power especially when it is such a cheesy one to begin with. There should be a Will save for it, or an escape clause of some sort. An enemy Fighter would have the same skill as the PC and thus wouldn't be distracted or restricted by the PC's mark, especially if he was a better fighter (higher level).

This was a perfect example of video-gamey-ness. Whether you agree or not doesn't matter. Press a button, it happens, nothing the enemy can do about it, that's pretty video-gamey.

but don't worry they fixed that one.

I've read the books, I know that. I wouldn't be here just wasting keystrokes if I didn't know what I was writing about. However, I'll disagree with you quite strongly that the 4e Magic Missile is a "fix".

The fighters at will trip was acquired with a feat, one feat to make it usable, what was not repeatable about that? trip trip trip attack attack attack.

In 3e, there is no "at will" tripping feat. Oh, you mean, the Improved Trip feat? Well, that's not an at will power, its a feat. If a 3e fighter chooses to use it every chance he gets, that's just poor tactics on his part as even a novice DM will get tired of that and adjust enemy tactics--and even that fighter's friends will get tired of it too and probably ridicule him to the point of doing it far less often.

Feats are different from powers. Not in 4e you may argue? Well, yes. Power Attack and Cleave may have become powers, but they are still basically feats that are just called powers because the designers ran out of "powers" to give the fighter and decided to change a couple of feats into powers to cover that up.

Besides whats wrong with players having interesting things to do all the time something which differentiates a fighter using a basic attack from a wizard or cleric doing a basic attack.

I've never had my players have a shortage of interesting things to do. However, handing them "press button" powers is not the solution. That is more of a creativity killer than the fighter you cite that uses Improved Trip ad nauseum.

"Here, you can have this neat at will power that you can use as often as you want so you don't have to use a basic attack as often as you want". --Yeah, good idea there! That really solves the problem!

As a DM, I've never had a player tell me, "You know, I'm getting tired of just swinging my weapon and killing stuff. Could you give me something more interesting to do in battle?"

D&D games have and always will be as viable as the DM who is creating them, this goes for solo as well as anything else.

Maybe. But what the heck does that statement have to do with the quote of mine you followed it up with? That's as vague a response as me saying 4e is a great game and you replying, "well, the sun is yellow".

Think of battle grids and minis as an interpretation of the rules to simulate whats going on in your story, just because your fighter had to role a dice to hit with his sword that didn't take out the imagination did it?

Battlegrids and minis were never required until 3e when the rules came out that relied upon them. Sure, you could ignore AoOs and such, but with so many rules relying upon them, it required even more house ruling to fix the feats and such.

Rolling dice to see if your attack connects was always a baseline game mechanic, so no, that never suspended imagination. And they (battlegrids and minis) don't simulate what's going on in the game as much as they are a visualization of extra (unnecessary, IMO) rules that has made D&D less D&D and more Warhammer. If I need to "see" exactly where my character is in relation to someone else and my DM can't describe it to me accurately enough, I'll play Warhammer or spend my time on WoW (I'm really more of an EQ person when it comes to those games).

and on the terms of "balance" what do you mean by that? if you think all characters are equal in 4th they aren't they can all do different stuff but contribute just as much as each other.

I don't have to explain "balance" to you or anyone else here. That term has been thrown around these forums enough for everyone to know what I'm referring to. Don't try to sideline my explanation of the topic by asking for an explanation to what is essentially common knowledge around here.

All characters in 4e ARE basically equal. Yes, they can do different things, but they all get X number of powers and X number of feats, X BAB, X saving throws. The differences beyond that are all a matter of flavor--do you want to fight up front in the guy's face, at a distance, behind his back? Do you want to have your power in the form of a spell or an attack with a weapon? Do you want a good Fort or would you rather have a better Reflex or Will? Do you want to be better at fighting with weapons or would you rather have access to rituals? The format, basically, now is the same for everyone its just a matter of how the player wants to dress it up.

The execution of the powers is different, but the relative power level is the same. And it is in the execution of those powers that my points are supported as the powers are designed to work with other powers, not on their own--which practically forces players to work in a group and follow certain roles.

Ok I'm no sure how you view balance but lets put it like this (this may not be a good arguement I just like the analogy

Actually, lets not. That's not a good argument and its definitely not a good analogy. That's a far too simple over-generalization that neither supports your point nor weakens mine.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

All characters in 4e ARE basically equal. Yes, they can do different things, but they all get X number of powers and X number of feats, X BAB, X saving throws. The differences beyond that are all a matter of flavor--do you want to fight up front in the guy's face, at a distance, behind his back? Do you want to have your power in the form of a spell or an attack with a weapon? Do you want a good Fort or would you rather have a better Reflex or Will? Do you want to be better at fighting with weapons or would you rather have access to rituals? The format, basically, now is the same for everyone its just a matter of how the player wants to dress it up.

But isn't this what role-playing is all about? The "flavor"? Isn't that what distinguishes it from a mere card or board game that offers us no flavor for what we do?

Flavor can be achieved in different ways - you can create entirely different subsystem to enforce the flavor. But balancing different subsystem that still need to interact with each other is hard. And maybe not even possible. They also add a strong learning curve. (Ever played Shadowrun, particularly 3E or previous editions, and tried to run a Decker through the Matrix?)

There lies a great elegance in using the same, consistent system, but adding the flavor through the specifics of using the system. It avoids a lot of pitfalls that can hurt playability or game balance.

 

[JesterPoet]

As long as there's still room for an updated Book of Erotic fantasy, I don't see what everyone's complaining about.

Second wind indeed....

 

[Umbran]

It's no use talking to TwinBahamut.

Zogmo, don't post in this thread again.

Folks, let me make something clear - the essence of remaining civil is to not make things personal. You can address the points a person makes, inspect the logic and factual content, without extending that to making statements about the person of the author.

If you don't like what someone writes, you can ignore them. Disparage them personally, though, and you'll earn yourself a vacation.

 

[Goblyn]

I just wanted everyone to know that I succeeded in making it all the way through this thread.

Whew.

Anyway, as my 2 cents: as far as combat goes, isn't playing like a video game a GOOD thing? Combat in video games is often fast and fun ... the same goal stated in both 3e and 4e books as well as posts made by the creators for said games, and a laudable one at that. Out of combat, well, there's not a lot of rules for that(and there shouldn't be), so if that plays like a video game it can hardly be the fault of the mechanics.

As far as non-combat mechanics go, how many video games have skill checks, not mention Aid another(prolly my favorite maneuver in da whole wide world), and now skill challenges?

Anyway, my advice for anyone who dislikes the 'videogamey-ness' but want to like 4e/are willing to give it a shot/just don't want DnD to not be DnD any more is to try it out with one or two other groups and see if that thing you don't like about it is a symptom of the group you were playing with, or even maybe pinpoint what it is you don't like.

And then come on here, avoid vague terms, and make a nice, solid point.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Regarding the OP, I think this "video-gamey" feel has to do with kind of "press a button to make it happen" kind of thing, where in previous editions such things were not possible.

1) Fighter "marking" his foes. Its an automatic effect, no save, that incurs a penalty or draws an immediate interrupt and there's nothing the target can do to avoid or negate it.
Solution: To make it less video-gamey, keep it as a free action but make it an attack against the target's Will or something. If the attack succeeds, then the target is sufficiently occupied that the target suffers the effects of the Mark. (Apply same especially to Paladin marking which also inflicts damage).

This is kind of a "point and shoot" or "press a button" thing that definitely feels video-gamey along with things like Cleave which auto hit their target regardless of the target's AC. Just about anything that affected anything else in previous editions had to make either an attack roll or allowed a saving throw and that should be the way it is for 4e.

There are very few things in videogames that activate an automatic effect with no chance of failure. In many respects I would consider this to be a serious departure from videogames, rather than a movement towards them.

There is a reason that there is a general rule when playing videogame RPGs that it is much better to focus on boosting allies rather than weakening enemies. For the most part, the latter is too unreliable to count on, and more often than not is nearly impossible.

I think this harkens back to my point about hiding complexity in videogames. Forcing a Will Save to activate a Mark is something that slows down a tabletop game with more rolling and confirmation, but making that kind of check takes the computer less than a nanosecond.

2) Any At will powers. The ultimate "video-gamey" effect. Point: Unlimited/inexhaustible resources eliminate challenges or reduce them to the point where they are not fun.
Solution: Make at wills something that characters have to earn (reach a certain level, take certain feats, etc.), not something that gets handed to them. In ALL previous incarnations of D&D, at will abilities, even sucky ones were not acquired without significant investment.

Oddly enough, the idea of each character having a large number of "at-will" powers is an incredibly rare idea in videogames, or at least any videogame that can easily be compared to D&D. If such an ability exists in a particular game, it tends to be the exception, rather than the rule. In fact, most videogames tend to under-utilize such ideas, and ever since I got that information about 4E I have been hoping that 4E will influence more game-designers to use that concept.

Also, your claim that unlimited resources eliminate challenge or reduce them to the point where they are not fun seems like an odd jab to make... Let me use a videogame example. Look at the videogame Metal Gear Solid 3. After you beat the game once, you unlock a special weapon called the Patriot that, unlike every other weapon, has unlimited ammo and never needs to even reload, which obviously makes combat a bit easier. However, because the Patriot doesn't do anything to improve your defenses, and there a very large number of ways a battle can go bad in that game, just having the Patriot is no guarantee that you will win every fight. More often than not, you will still get killed if you make a mistake and get ambushed by enemies.

3) Needing friends to win.

This argument is based on two things: that "needing friends to win" is a videogame concept, and that 4E D&D makes solo play impossible. I find both claims rather sketchy (you need friends to win a game of baseball, and most videogames are single-player...), but since I haven't had the chance to run a solo game of D&D myself (I intend to, though), I can't really comment.

4) Everyone is equal. This hits on that line from Incredibles--If everyone is special, no one is. Everyone gets to do basically the same stuff (X number of at will, encounter, daily powers), just slightly different mechanics and different fluff. How is this like video games? Its like that 4 player X-Men (or really any other) game; yeah, you could play Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine or Nightcrawler, but you had X number of moves and a special you could do every so often--they looked different, but they had basically the same effect.

That is a terrible simplistic way to look at it... I mean, aside from the implication that every character in a fighting game is just a different look on the exact same set of abilities (an implication that many fans of that genre would get really angry about), your implication is based on the idea that all videogames enforce this kind of symmetry, just like 4E does. Some do, sure, but not most of them.

Look at the game I used in my big example, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn. Sure, it treats magic and weapon as exactly the same thing, so it seems a bit like 4E in that regard, but at the same time it two very different races, the Beorc and the Laguz, who use completely different subsystems and don't even use the exact same experience growth systems (Beorc have 60 levels split into three tiers of 20 level classes, while Laguz have just 40 levels of a single class).

Also, am I the only one who is bothered whenever anyone brings up the "if everyone is special, then no one is" quote? It is a quote from a deranged villain character that is meant to be an insight into how his envy and hatred for "supers" has lead to his desire to remove them from existence. I don't think it even supposed to work as a greater statement of truth, and it has never rung true for me.

In all previous editions, classes and races were different. I don't think there were really any problems until 3.0 and then 3.5 when "balance" became an issue/goal. Yeah, humans sucked when it came to racial abilities, but their benefit was that they didn't have any drawbacks. And when it came to classes, yeah, wizards were uber powerful at higher levels, but it was surviving those critical low levels that "balanced" it out. Each class and race had its high points and low and "balance" was never an issue in 1e or 2e because the emphasis was on roleplaying. Players could play solo or in a group. There were no assigned roles. Anyone could do whatever they wanted (that their characters could do) in a given fight. Sometimes the ranger and wizard would hang back and rain death on enemies, at other times they'd be right there with the fighter. Yeah, the cleric was responsible for healing, but they were right there hanging with the fighter or the wizard doing what needed to be done. In our games, no one ever really ran out of things to do to the point where they needed an at will ability and no one needed a role to fill to tell them what they should be doing during a fight.

It was a roleplaying game.

I can understand that you don't like the fact that the game has change drastically over the years, but nothing you mentioned here has any necessary connection to videogames. "Balance" has nothing to do with videogames (and I can quote the videogame developers who lament the way fans demand everything be balanced), and I don't think it has much to do with roleplaying either.

It wasn't until Attacks of Opportunity reared its ugly head as an "optional" rule in 2e--and later became an official rule in 3e that D&D started becoming video-gamey. When you "had" to have a grid map with miniatures, when you "had" to keep track of where you moved and whether you could move a certain way or what would happen if you tried, that's when it became video-gamey.

Well, a great many videogame RPGs don't even keep track of grid movement, so that doesn't work well as an argument. Even more importantly, the idea of an "attack of opportunity" is completely foreign to videogame RPGs. There are certainly games where you take a risk of being hit by a counter-attack whenever you attack an enemy (the one condition where D&D doesn't trigger OAs), but I have never seen a game where you can be attacked just for trying to move around or drinking a potion. Opportunity Attacks differentiate D&D from videogames, not make them more like videogames.

Was it fun? Sure, in a way, not so much because of the game itself but for the time I was spending with friends. But the game had definitely changed at that point. No longer was it in my mind's eye how combat was unfolding. Now it was right there on the table! Now I had to count out exact 5' squares and now I couldn't move diagonally without it "costing" more. Now, I had to learn more rules (and my players or DM did too) and that made it less of a game and yet more of a game.

I am sorry that you don't like recent trends in D&D. However, just not liking the change is hardly proof that it is a "videogamey" change.