What does Videogamey mean to you?

[1Mac]

I was going to offer my own definition, but after reading this thread I see no point. This thread offers excellent evidence in favor of the argument that "videogamey" is simply an undefined pejorative against a game someone doesn't like.

Two bits of evidence stick out:

-There are many, many definitions being offered here, some of them mutually contradictory.

-Many people who are defining the term imply in their examples that "videogamey"=bad. Someone upthread used the term "the worst offender" to describe such an example, for instance. If "videogamey" just meant "like a video game" by whatever metric, there wouldn't be any value judgment attached to it without a lot of assumed baggage.

This last point need elaboration. ttRPGs and video games share a lot of DNA and so will have many elements in common. To say something in an RPG is like something in a video game is perhaps interesting, but by itself there isn't a lot of heat behind the statement. To say an RPG is "videogamey" and mean it as a criticism, the element in common has to be something that the person making the statement does not like to find in an RPG. But if the heart of your reason is that the common element is "like a video game," then it is likely a meaningless criticism, because there are other video-game-like elements in most RPGs that aren't being singled out.

It's like saying you don't like turkey because it's poultry, when you like chicken just find.

 

[Garthanos]

But isn't this more of an example of the divide between new and older fantasy fiction.

In older fiction, the protoganists pretty much never wielded magic. At best, they knew a few tricks but weren't "real" magicians.

Nowadays, fantasy fiction you are indeed more likely to find the protoganist to be a capable magician.

I dont think so but then again how recent is recent.

One of my favorite wizards in fiction was the protagonist in Ursula K LeGuins Earthsea Trilogy ... this was not recent fiction.

There where numerous characters who were protragonistic if not THE protagonist in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

The characters from the Sword of Truth Series.

 

[rkwoodard]

same as always

To me, RPG development has progressed very closely with Video Games. The 1970’s versions are very simple, not much character choice (if any with a video game) and the investment to start is minimal (a quarter vs. 10 min character generation). The 90’s see RPGs with wide sweeping campaign settings and Video Games have games like Myst.

3rd edition has the customization that a lot of the games like Everquest see.

So 4th edition has a lot of elements that one finds in the current field of Video Games? Why would you expect anything different?

RK

 

[MrMyth]

Healing Surges to me seem to say that you actually heal wounds instantly. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what it seems to be saying. I get stabbed, and rest for 5 minutes and my stab would could be completely gone. That's how I see it in Call of Duty...I get shot but survived, then a few seconds later I'm perfectly fine.

I'd say the key is to think of it as healing surges representing part of your total pool of hitpoints. You don't have access to all of them at any given time, since enough punishment over a short period will take you down. So say that Rambo has 400 hitpoints, but if he takes 100 hp in any fight, he drops. Which is the equivalent of having 100 hp and a bunch of healing surges.

Yes, at the end of the day, all of it gets restored - you are healed instantly. But... we're already treating all these injuries as not actually impairing you. Rambo got shot in the arm and leg and chest, and it doesn't actually slow him down in any way. So after he has 'healed up', he might still have those injuries all bandaged up, and is ready for more.

The thing is, if we treat every actual hit as a true injury, characters take such ridiculous amounts of damage that we've already passed the point of absurdity. Instead, the rules for hp assume that they represent not just getting hit, but getting worn down and exhausted and losing morale. And thus, healing can represent gathering your resolve and pushing onward, in addition to actual magical healing and the like. The only true injury a character ever takes is the swordblow through the chest that finishes them off.

That isn't a property of healing surges, mind you, but simply the lack of a 'critical wounds' element to D&D. Which you could add in if desired, and could do so in 4E as well - I've seen people draw up such injuries using something like the disease track. When someone gets critically hit, that is when they take a genuine injury - one that might require a significant amount of time to recover from, or genuine magical healing to cure (in the form of a ritual or so forth.)

But D&D, in the default rules, has never really had these sort of injuries as commonly built in. If you want them, you need a house rule to apply them, one way or another.

 

[Celebrim]

I was going to offer my own definition, but after reading this thread I see no point. This thread offers excellent evidence in favor of the argument that "videogamey" is simply an undefined pejorative against a game someone doesn't like.

Ok, please prove that position.

Two bits of evidence stick out:

-There are many, many definitions being offered here, some of them mutually contradictory.

Actually, very few definitions have been offered. I count only two, which at the risk of greatly oversimplifying them, would be:

Definition #1: It doesn't mean anything. It's just a perjorative term. This is by far the most common definition that was offered (first 4 responces for example) and anyone that has offered an alternative definition has been outright insulted.
Definition #2: Player and moderator choice is heavily constrained by game design decisions which were made primarily to simplify either the design of the game or more directly to simplify how the game would play in practice. That's vastly simplified, but of the only 4 or 5 posters who've claimed its something other than a meaningless pejorative term, that's one thread (of several) that they seem to have in common.

Many people who are defining the term imply in their examples that "videogamey"=bad. Someone upthread used the term "the worst offender" to describe such an example, for instance. If "videogamey" just meant "like a video game" by whatever metric, there wouldn't be any value judgment attached to it without a lot of assumed baggage.

This however doesn't prove the claim you made. It could both be true that the term is primarily used pejoratively AND that it is well defined and understood by those that use it. It could also be the case that there would exist a group of people who appreciate the positive aspects of very 'videogamey' elements that other denegrate, but that they refrain from using the term 'videogamey' because of the heavily negative conotations that they feel that its come to have. It is pretty typical of debates that each side tries to frame the debate in its own language, choosing 'positive' sounding terms for its own position and 'negative' terms for the opposing position.

This last point need elaboration. ttRPGs and video games share a lot of DNA and so will have many elements in common.

Agreed.

To say something in an RPG is like something in a video game is perhaps interesting, but by itself there isn't a lot of heat behind the statement. To say an RPG is "videogamey" and mean it as a criticism, the element in common has to be something that the person making the statement does not like to find in an RPG. But if the heart of your reason is that the common element is "like a video game," then it is likely a meaningless criticism, because there are other video-game-like elements in most RPGs that aren't being singled out.

And again, this is a strawman that doesn't address the claim it set to to prove. You can say something and mean it as criticism without having at the heart of that reason merely that it is a common element between PnP RPG's and cRPG's. In fact, I believe I can easily pick out the source of the criticism involved in saying an RPG is [too] 'videogamey', and namely that is that it has borrowed elements from a cRPG which - while they might be perfectly fine and even desirable traits in a cRPG - serve to destroy the very elements which most distinguished a PnP RPG from a cRPG and that its those very elements which the poster enjoyed in a PnP RPG. Now, of course, if those elements were a major source of frustration to you in PnP RPGs, you'd welcome the adoption of proven design elements from cRPG's into the PnP RPG as a curative, but the fact that you'd do so does not mean that you'd necessarily adopt the language of critics in defense of those elements. Instead you'd talk about things like 'reduced preparation time', 'speed of play', 'tactical depth' or whatever you think is the upside of the changes. You might even be talking about the same changes. The fact that two sides have adopted different descriptors isn't surprising.

It's like saying you don't like turkey because it's poultry, when you like chicken just find.

No, it isn't.

 

[Oryan77]

I'd say the key is to think of it as healing surges representing part of your total pool of hitpoints. You don't have access to all of them at any given time, since enough punishment over a short period will take you down. So say that Rambo has 400 hitpoints, but if he takes 100 hp in any fight, he drops. Which is the equivalent of having 100 hp and a bunch of healing surges.

Healing Surges could be looked at in that way. But I'm not so sure that is the explanation they had in mind about the power (I wonder if there even was an explanation). If that was the case, and 4e is based on simplicity & fewer rules, then that would seem like a pretty complicated way of saying the PC has 400 hitpoints (100 HP plus a few surges). I completely understand what you mean though...throughout the day he can withstand 400 hp worth of damage, but only 100 hp in any given fight. But overall, it still just seems like an easy way of allowing a PC to gain full health for no real-life explanation simply because it is easier for a player to keep playing the game.

I'm not meaning to single out the Healing Surge power or anything. I just used it as an example to explain my definition of videogamey; rules/abilities are created without it being logical in a real (fantasy) world...that's how it works in a video game (it just happens).

At least with resting, it can make some kind of sense; you heal a little, but you're still going to need some magical help to heal up fully, or you'll need to rest for a long period of time to naturally heal.

 

[Budalic]

Healing Surges could be looked at in that way. But I'm not so sure that is the explanation they had in mind about the power (I wonder if there even was an explanation). If that was the case, and 4e is based on simplicity & fewer rules, then that would seem like a pretty complicated way of saying the PC has 400 hitpoints (100 HP plus a few surges). I completely understand what you mean though...throughout the day he can withstand 400 hp worth of damage, but only 100 hp in any given fight. But overall, it still just seems like an easy way of allowing a PC to gain full health for no real-life explanation simply because it is easier for a player to keep playing the game.

I think actual intention was to place responsibility of healing tracking on player of the character healed, rather than cleric. So the healing power is restricted by a characters number of healing surges per day, and not a number of spell slots cleric dedicated to healing (or number of charges in wand).

 

[Celebrim]

I personally think the 'Healing Surge' side argument is something of a distraction. We are actually arguing two different things in this thread and the fact that we aren't drawing a division between the two arguments is making it look like there is less agreement than there is.

On one hand we are arguing whether or not a definition for 'videogamey' exists.

On the other hand we are arguing over whether 'Healing Surges' is an appropriate example of something that is 'videogamey'.

What I find particularly bothersome about the 'Healing Surge' debate is that it is edition specific. In other words, it focuses the discussion on the question "Is 4e D&D [too] videogamey?" or even, "Are healing surges [too] videogamey?" Neither question directly answers the original posters question, and drags us down the path that eventually leads to a full blown edition war.

So, if we could put aside the question of 'Is Healing Surges an appropriate example' for a second, I think it would save all the participants trouble in the long run. If you could first clarify exactly what you mean by 'videogamey' without recourse to edition specific examples, it would make providing examples and why they fit the definition a whole lot easier.

 

[Celebrim]

I think actual intention was to place responsibility of healing tracking on player of the character healed, rather than cleric.

May I suggest that Budalic has hit upon the real core of the issue here and I'd like to return to this point in the future, but just at the moment I'm rather irritated by all the claims that I'm using a meaningless word and the reason I'm doing so is that I'm mentally defective, and until those charges are addressed the interesting question of why a healing surge might seem 'video gamey' to someone is one I'd like to put off for the time being.

 

[Garthanos]

Repeat after me "Hit point loss != Wounds" then blame it on Gygax.

I can understand why people prefer having Healing Surge rules, but those rules are something I would definitely call videogamey because it just is (to me). It's not meant to be an insult to any edition, it's an observation.

You might use the term gamist instead.(it fits your definitions better)
You are mucking up the definition it isnt like vgs.

Healing surges actually have some real world correspondence ala -> adrenaline and the real world second wind (ever felt it ? its awesome and quite sudden, and arguments against it makes me think we have few athletes rolling dice).

A real world second wind involves the body actually gearing up and clearing out fatigue generated poisons from the tissues of muscles and does include elements of healing... not just pain suppression.

Very little of what is described in hit points make any sense to take as long to recover as say the natural recovery rules had them do in AD&D unless the character is chronically depressed victim of mononucleosis with crappy stamina in the first place(1 minute of running and dodging and fencing is pretty close to recovered after resting for 5... unless you ran out of luck completely and got a real wound and that only should happen at zero hit points ... and how fast should the heros luck take to come back after its depleted (insert arbitrary time span here).

There are heroic myths all wrapped into one here
1) Tough guy hero (this guy is the most likely to get wounds all minor that thigh wound missed all the arteries and would heal on its own ... he is indeed usually lucky and pissed off at himself that he got hit - see morale lost ... but when he gets his spirit renewed he will turn this against the bad guys and be functionally just like new).
2) Lucky hero (this guys luck can be freakish almost magical - insert hobbits getting hit on the only spot on there body they have armor a day after they get the armor)
3) Skilled hero (this guy doesnt get "hit" not really he is fatigued by most all attacks)
4) Magic hero... well more of the above with different style.

D&D has never done real "wounds"...