Videogame Influences!

[Mallus]

There's been a lot of design discussion about skill challenges lately.

So far my 4e group has done two of them: the "Fun with False Accusations of Pederasty" Challenge, and the "Pig Parade" Challenge (which included a "passion play" enacted with improvised puppets --we used party members with ropes attached-- revolving around a possible holy giant feral pig).

Needless to say, neither of these Skill Challenges resembled a video game.

 

[Scribble]

When we are talking about changes in the rules between editions, I think it is fair to say that they aren't altering the element to fit the new medium, so much as altering the new medium to fit the element.

Again I'd say it's both.

You're creating a new edition sure, and using ideas you've learned from another medium sure, but you're looking at those new ideas through the lense of the old medium.

Really the edition shouldn't matter because the two mediums we're talking about are tabletop game and video game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't think that "ideas for games" is the issue. One can steal good ideas for encounters or game activities from anywhere.

The usual complaint is instead about the overall gameplay feel or rules structure. Basically, the argument goes that if folks wanted to play something that felt like a viedogame, they'd play a videogame.

QFT.

They said the same thing about wii tennis, maybe even pong. Doesn't mean wii tennis and pong aren't appealing.

True, but if someone says to me, "lets play some tennis," my first expectation would be for a day of exercise under the sun, and I might feel disappointed swinging around a Wii-mote. (FWIW, I own a Wii.)

 

[El Mahdi]

So far my 4e group has done two of them: the "Fun with False Accusations of Pederasty" Challenge, and the "Pig Parade" Challenge (which included a "passion play" enacted with improvised puppets --we used party members with ropes attached-- revolving around a possible holy giant feral pig).

Needless to say, neither of these Skill Challenges resembled a video game.

Wow! Now that's expanding the envelope on the system and subject matter. Do your games carry a "Mature" rating? Sounds a bit like a cross between Law and Order and Lord of the Flies.

 

[frankthedm]

Bad videogame-ness:

Useless Useful Spell
A staple of RPGs, your characters can learn attacks or skills such as Instant Death, Poison, Confusion, Paralyze, Silence, and Petrify that at first glance seem incredibly useful. However, in reality these spells are usually anything but useful, for any of the following reasons:

Bosses, sub-bosses, and other types of enemies that actually pose a threat to the player are always extremely resistant or immune to such attacks.

Solos Save bonus.

Numerous 'Upgraded' Monsters with little descriptive difference beyond a palate swap and an energy type.

 

[Mallus]

Do your games carry a "Mature" rating?

They should come with a Surgeon General's Mental Health warning.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I don't think that "ideas for games" is the issue. One can steal good ideas for encounters or game activities from anywhere.

The usual complaint is instead about the overall gameplay feel or rules structure. Basically, the argument goes that if folks wanted to play something that felt like a viedogame, they'd play a videogame.

Honestly, I don't even get that "feel" argument.

In order for something to feel like a videogame, it must involve sitting down in front of a TV and playing a videogame. Other than that, there is no such thing as a "videogame feel". The medium is far too broad for easy generalization of a "videogame feel", and the qualitative difference between the mediums is simply too great to make them easily comparable at all. If nothing else, the expected relationship between the player and the game is so thoroughly different between tabletop RPGs and 99% of videogames that there is no real room for such casual comparison.

The Rules Structure argument is even weaker, since 4E severely diverges from the kind of rules structures that are common in videogames (I still have my last prove saved on my hard drive, and I can easily come up with better). The fact that there is no unified and defined "videogame rules structure" makes the comparison even weaker.

Both arguments suffer horribly from being extremely vaguely phrased, as well. As I mentioned, the videogame medium is vastly larger and more diverse than the tabletop RPG market, and trying to make the claim that games like Pac-Man, Wii Sports, Final Fantasy, Halo, Tetris, Starcraft, Guilty Gear, and Everquest are even similar to each other, let alone share some kind of "feel" and "rules structure", is extremely difficult to do. This is why the terms "videogamey" and "like a videogame" should be avoided completely. No one will understand what you mean if you use them.

Just about the only thing you can directly compare between videogames and tabletop RPGs are specifics that can be separated from the medium and the rules, like setting design, class archetypes, individual monsters, and such. In this case, we are only really talking about specific videogames, rather than a vague a meaningless "videogames as a whole", and these things are entirely a matter of individual taste. At this level, though, I think videogames can only be a positive influence, since they bring new ideas and inspirations, and that is always good.

For myself, I have shamelessly ripped off videogame plots, settings, and characters since I first got into D&D. I got into D&D because of my love for the fantasy genre I was introduced to through videogames, and even now I consider D&D to be a secondary hobby compared to playing videogames. My username is not a D&D reference.

 

[resistor]

In order for something to feel like a videogame, it must involve sitting down in front of a TV and playing a videogame. Other than that, there is no such thing as a "videogame feel". The medium is far too broad for easy generalization of a "videogame feel", and the qualitative difference between the mediums is simply too great to make them easily comparable at all. If nothing else, the expected relationship between the player and the game is so thoroughly different between tabletop RPGs and 99% of videogames that there is no real room for such casual comparison.

I'll give you a concrete example: roles are almost an exact ripoff of MMO terminology. If you've ever played WoW or Guild Wars with anyone even vaguely serious about it, they do discuss it in terms of DPS (strikers), tanks (defenders), healers (leaders), nukers, etc. While the general concepts may have existed in some nebulous form in prior editions, the concept of formalizing them and designing to them is something directly imported from video games. (FWIW, I don't personally mind them, but they do have a videogame vibe.)

As another example, the entire idea of aggro (the defender's schtick of forcing monsters to attack him) comes directly from MMOs, where it was initially an artifact of how the game AIs were programmed. Game AIs are generally not really that sophisticated, and had some relatively simple heuristic to decide who to attack next. Serious players figured out how to game that heuristic, and designers picked up on the fact that they could desire powers/spells/whatever around it. And then 4e imports it in pen and paper play, where the original problem that caused it (simplistic nature of most game AIs) isn't even present.

Both of those are game design elements that were developed in the MMO genre, and are strongly associated with it. Importing them in D&D (without making a judgment on whether it's a good thing or not) makes people familiar with their MMO heritage feel like it's trying to emulate WoW and others like it.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I'll give you a concrete example: roles are almost an exact ripoff of MMO terminology. If you've ever played WoW or Guild Wars with anyone even vaguely serious about it, they do discuss it in terms of DPS (strikers), tanks (defenders), healers (leaders), nukers, etc. While the general concepts may have existed in some nebulous form in prior editions, the concept of formalizing them and designing to them is something directly imported from video games. (FWIW, I don't personally mind them, but they do have a videogame vibe.)

I am familiar with the growth of those terms. I did play Everquest, after all, though I appreciate not being reminded of the fact...

The problem with that analogy is that, to a certain extent, those roles are naturally inherent to class-based systems built around team play. The designers of Everquest did not intend for "roles" to exist, they were created by the players trying to build strategies that worked out of the limited options they had available. It is something similar to how the "tank-mage" is an inherent problem to any point-buy system, regardless of that system being for a videogame or an RPG. The MMORPG community may have given popular names to the ideas, but it is little more than a natural evolution of something inherent to D&D from the start. Roles may very well have existed in 4E even if there wasn't an MMORPG to inspire them, since they are a solution to one of 3E's biggest problems and are rooted in some of the basic class archetypes that have existed since OD&D.

Put in other words, roles exist because people gave healing to the priest classes, debuffing and raw attack power to the mage classes, sneak attack/backstab damage to thief classes, and made fighter classes indestructible. All that MMORPGs did was emulate these class concepts, and the role system naturally emerged thanks to player categorization. It probably started among D&D players long before MMORPGs (and based on the 3E advice that the Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard team is the "default", it was in place at the start of 3E).

As another example, the entire idea of aggro (the defender's schtick of forcing monsters to attack him) comes directly from MMOs, where it was initially an artifact of how the game AIs were programmed. Game AIs are generally not really that sophisticated, and had some relatively simple heuristic to decide who to attack next. Serious players figured out how to game that heuristic, and designers picked up on the fact that they could desire powers/spells/whatever around it. And then 4e imports it in pen and paper play, where the original problem that caused it (simplistic nature of most game AIs) isn't even present.

4E doesn't use aggro. I am glad it doesn't. I hate aggro. The concept of aggro specifically refers to AI routines choosing targets based on numerical values attached to player actions, the "taunt" mechanic (which is very different from Marking), and the general principle that it is inherently bad for wizards or healers to exceed a certain rate of drawing aggro (i.e., it specifically punishes reckless use of magic). 4E D&D shares none of these qualities.

The basic problem of "defending the squishies" is another thing that is inherent to class-based character design. So long as there are both classes that can take a lot of damage and classes that can't take a lot of damage fighting alongside each other, the question of "how do we get the enemies to attack the guys that are tougher, rather than the fragile guys" will come up. Aggro is one solution to that. Many other videogames use "team formation" systems (the "front row" and "back row" idea) or active defense in which characters move to take hits for their allies. Other games use complex system that let you slow down enemy turn order and cancel their attacks with skilled timing. Others simply try to minimize squishiness and keep healing widely available. Yet more simply give squishy character much greater range than others, so they never enter the danger zone, and emphasize pure tactical positioning. The Marking mechanic is a revolutionary solution to this problem that is both unique to 4E and completely new to gaming.

Both of those are game design elements that were developed in the MMO genre, and are strongly associated with it. Importing them in D&D (without making a judgment on whether it's a good thing or not) makes people familiar with their MMO heritage feel like it's trying to emulate WoW and others like it.

Just to emphasize an earlier point of mine, I would like to point out that you are specifically trying to say that 4E has a "MMORPG/World of Warcraft" vibe, not a "videogame vibe". Not everyone thinks about MMORPGs when they think about videogames. Particularly since the things you argue about (roles and aggro) are completely alien to countless videogames that I can name. Almost every console RPG, for example. This is particularly problematic since about half of the time, someone complaining about the "videogame feel" is actually complaining about a perceived resemblance to console RPGs, which don't share the aggro or role concepts.

 

[resistor]

TwinBahamut,

I was going to respond inline, but this was easier.

I disagree with both your claims. While certainly roles were not "designed-in" in early MMOs like Everquest, they became part of the design of later ones. WoW designers, for instance, discuss them pretty openly when talking about the design of the game.

A similar point applies to aggro. In EQ it may have just been an AI limitation, but later games (including both WoW and Guild Wars) have added mechanics very similar to marking that explicitly interact with the aggro system. Taunt-type mechanics have been popular for a while.

I think you miss the important point that, while both concepts flow from somewhat naturally from what came before, it was in the context of MMOs that they were a) popularized and b) became intentional game design elements. Thus, even if they're not strictly completely new in some sense, they (or at least their use as intentional design elements) are associated with MMOs in people's minds. And that's what matters.

You are, of course, correct that I'm only discussing MMOs. But then, 99% of the "4e is videogame-y!!" threads I've seen boil down to comparing it to MMOs. I don't think I've ever seen an (explained) comparison of it to console RPGs, or even single player computer RPGs.