A bit tired of people knocking videogames...

[KahnyaGnorc]

I don't see D&D as a game. I see it as a toolbox from which a DM crafts a game. In the video game analogy, D&D is a game engine.

The biggest difference between video games and table-top is improvisation. In a table-top, a player can try to do something outrageous and unexpected, with the DM improving the world's response. All options that a player in a video game has must be preconceived by the designer and granted to the player.

 

[Dannager]

Except for one thing. In a real world any door can be opened with the right equipment, or explosives.

Right, which is why it's an illusion. It is not a perfect simulation of a real world. Rather, it is designed to be superficially similar enough that a moderate level of suspension of disbelief allows you to enjoy it.

As long as you accept that it's impossible to have something meaningful behind every door in every town, you'll be fine.

Similarly, you do not have the same expectation of tabletop RPGs (or, you shouldn't). If you go up to a random door in a random town and tell the DM, "I open the door," you can't reasonably expect something meaningful to be behind it because the DM probably hasn't prepared anything for the interior of that house/store/building. The DM will be forced to make up something on the fly, and only a very small number of DMs will be able to do so with a level of quality indistinguishable from the material that they have prepared, which is its own challenge to suspension of disbelief.

So yes, video games don't fill in the buildings behind every door. But neither do DMs, for the same reason: it's more work than it's worth. If you challenge this basic assumption, you're going to have your suspension of disbelief challenged in both video games and tabletop games: in the video game, the door won't open; in the tabletop game, the door might open, but the level of meaningful content behind it will very likely be poor compared to prepared areas.

Both will feel artificial and contrived.

This isn't a function of video games vs. tabletop games. This is a function of the fact that we only have so many resources to dedicate to fleshing out a fake world, and neither the average human mind nor current video game programming can produce content on the fly of quality on par with that which can be had by sticking to the intended, "prepared" areas of the game world.

 

[Glade Riven]

Well, I'm still a little confused.

Most of the focus has been on the limitations of videogames and having them show up in a pencil & paper RPGs. But as I understand it, these limitations are not inherit to the newer RPGs. Good Roleplaying and good DMing fix these problems.

In the games I DM (no matter what the system), you have freedom of choice. But not freedom of consiquence. To use an example earlier in the thread, you want to go conquer a dutchy instead of enslave orcs at level 2, fine. But that doesn't mean that the dutchy doesn't have better soldiers than you and the party. And when I use the +5 rusty spiked cluebat to let you know it's a bad plan, it's your own fault for getting yourself killed.

I usually don't have it that cut-and-dry, but if you're suppose to be heroes doing heroic things and you insist on causing problems for the town watch in a town of decent people, you'll create problems for yourself. And I won't stop you from digging the hole deeper.

Want to throw sand in someone's face, roll an attack or CMB. Maybe a straight 20, no modifiers, with a dice check set at 10. Why do I need to have a rule set or a feat for such things? I don't remember any specific rule in 3.5 or 4e dealing with such, although I'll admit that I don't have every fiddly rule memorised.

So characters have a role. That you are playing. Wait, isn't that the point? You play a fighter because you want to smash things with a weapon. You play a wizard because you want to cast spells. Party dynamics are at the core of any D&D system, if not every system.

I do see the point about aggro and encounter powers vaguely resembling mimorpigan mechanics. Not sure why it's a problem, though.

You just don't like it? That's fine. Each is entitled to their own opinions. But to use videogames as a generic slur against something is inaccurate and makes for a poor argument, especially with the wide array of games within the medium. Especially when someone is unfamiliar with the vast array of games in a particular medium. Using that slur with poor backing causes me to dismiss the validity of your argument.

 

[Mark CMG]

So characters have a role. That you are playing. Wait, isn't that the point? You play a fighter because you want to smash things with a weapon. You play a wizard because you want to cast spells. Party dynamics are at the core of any D&D system, if not every system.

This is one of those odd assumptions that has lead to bad design decisions, IMO, where the "role" in roleplaying is being reduced to the "role" in combat. While this is how it has to work in CRPGs (videogames), generally speaking, it is not how it is limited to manifesting in tabletop RPGs except through limitations in the rules or the people at the table. The rules for tabletop RPGs should not only facilitate but also encourage roleplaying beyond combat situations and without the formulaic use of dice to resolve every situation (streamlining) in an effort to get back to the next combat situation. Roleplaying is not limited to the white zone only. If someone has to roeplay, they should not be designated to only using the white zone.[/Zappa]

 

[The Shaman]

Games like the Neverwinter Nights series and the Left 4 Dead series allow you to play the part of the director/narrator/DM in a video game environment - controlling NPCs, making plot-related decisions out of sight of the PCs, adding elements to the game world, etc.

In which case this is not an AI, is it? It's a human referee using the tools provided by the game to script an adventure. The flexibility comes from a human being, not the computer, and the dude scripting for NWN is still limited by what the programmers included in the available options, unlike a tabletop referee who can change the rules to do whatever he needs them to do, or the players who can come up with stuff the referee never considered but needs to adjudicate on the fly.

CRPG AI =/= human referee. Really!

Actually, the first two definitions of "tolerate", according to the American Heritage English Dictionary . . .

. . . do not include the words 'enjoy' or 'encourage.'

The closest you get with your dictionary definition is "respect," but that still doesn't get you to enjoy or encourage.

I respect the heck out of Barastrondo and pemerton - I've no doubt in my mind that they are excellent gamemasters, that their players have a wonderful time in their games, and that the advice they give to others is often quite good.

That said, I have no desire to play in their games, nor they, I believe, in mine. While we have a number of points of overlap in our approaches to running a roleplaying game, there are also some essential, fundamental differences regarding expectations and experiences, so while I respect them and their skills tremendously, I would not enjoy the games they run.

Tolerate =/= enjoy and encourage.

Really?

Really?

Really!

A =/= B, and fish =/= bicycle.

Well, you could sum up what the turnip farmer is doing in a few minutes of roleplaying. Of course, you could also intricately simulate the turnip farmer/vegetable stand owner/street walker/bar performer/rat catcher's activities using a set of rules developed on the fly, while relegating the other adventurers' activity (storming the castle) to a few minutes of roleplaying.

Your dogged persistence in trying to prove that an adventurer raising a humanoid army and sacking a duchy and a "retired" non-adventurer growing tubers are the same thing was fun for awhile, but now it's just getting repetitive and increasingly silly.

See, that's intended as sarcasm, but from where I stand it has merit delivered seriously.

I'm done. The last word is yours to take if you want it.

 

[The Shaman]

This is one of those odd assumptions that has lead to bad design decisions, IMO, where the "role" in roleplaying is being reduced to the "role" in combat. While this is how it has to work in CRPGs (videogames), generally speaking, it is not how it is limited to manifesting in tabletop RPGs except through limitations in the rules or the people at the table. The rules for tabletop RPGs should not only facilitate but also encourage roleplaying beyond combat situations and without the formulaic use of dice to resolve every situation (streamlining) in an effort to get back to the next combat situation. Roleplaying is not limited to the white zone only. If someone has to roeplay, they should not be designated to only using the white zone.[/Zappa]

Worth repeating.

And would someone please be so kind as to drop an XP on Mark CMG for me?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

But to use videogames as a generic slur against something is inaccurate and makes for a poor argument

Well, as someone who has specific gripes and knows others who are likewise specific, I agree that as a generic complaint, it may be frustrating...but remind you that not everyone who says that word is being unspecific.

 

[Glade Riven]

This is one of those odd assumptions that has lead to bad design decisions, IMO, where the "role" in roleplaying is being reduced to the "role" in combat. While this is how it has to work in CRPGs (videogames), generally speaking, it is not how it is limited to manifesting in tabletop RPGs except through limitations in the rules or the people at the table. The rules for tabletop RPGs should not only facilitate but also encourage roleplaying beyond combat situations and without the formulaic use of dice to resolve every situation (streamlining) in an effort to get back to the next combat situation. Roleplaying is not limited to the white zone only. If someone has to roeplay, they should not be designated to only using the white zone.[/Zappa]

So if you want to be casting spells in combat, why are you playing a fighter?


Never said it was the only aspect; the point is to play a role, both inside and outside of combat. If you choose to play a fighter, you are limited to what you can do in combat. If you choose to play a wizard, you are limited to what you can do in combat. Likewise outside of combat. The fighter is unlikely to get into a metaphysical argument with a group of wizards over the nature of a particular spell. The wizard is unlikely to train peasantry how to defend themselves against the coming hoard through the use of martial weapons.

Part of party dynamics is what role a character plays not only outside of combat, but inside of combat. As I understand it, this has been that way since RPGs were invented.

 

[Mercurius]

I find no lack of imagination and there are lots of impressive visuals in a game to see. I really don't see how this lacks imagination.

Example:

Cool picture. But when you are looking at it you aren't imagining it - you are perceiving it. "Imagining" is creating images within. Now this doesn't mean that an image like that can't inspire you to create your own images, craft your own worlds, etc, but as long as you are within the simulated experience you are not imagining, you are perceiving. One is internal and self-generative, the other is external and coming from something outside of oneself.

That is a rest an resurrection shrine in DDO. The rest shrine heals you and restores your mana and some of them can be used multiple times in a dungeon.

The resurrection shrines simply resurrects you if you die in a dungeon. Provided a friend or hireling can pick up your soul stone and take you there.

How is that not imagination in use? AND where can you find something like this in a Pen & Paper rpg? Many RPGs do not allow for resurrection at all. D&D does, but it's a pretty powerful ability and not available to lower level characters.

It is not a bad idea, but the player of the game requires little to no imagination to play it. You could even argue that some of the best designers and creatives are in the video game industry - that is where the money is, after all - so some of the ideas of video games are more richly imaginative than RPGs, but I am talking about the experience.

It's just a different form of imagination, and sometimes even seeing things like this can inspire other people to have their own thing in a RPG.

I can buy that, although I would say that it is a lesser form of imagination, in a similar way that porn is lesser than real sex. Actually, in some ways video games are like porn and RPGs like the real thing. Nothing wrong with porn but it isn't "real" - you're simulating an experience, you aren't actually having sex. Now you could argue that all forms of gaming are pornographic in that they are all playing make believe, but the thing I'm getting at is that in the pornographic experience you can only access what is out there, what is given to you by your senses. In a sexual encounter (a good one, at least!) anything can happen, each moment will be different from the one before - one is alive and spontaneous.

Perhaps the main reason I don't like video games is because there is a feeling of limitation for me, like playing in a garden that has a wall. Cool, that's fine - but I want to explore the wilderness where anything can happen, where there aren't a finite number of pre-programmed options. Actually, as cool as that image you posted is, it somewhat exemplifies this. It has a quality of teasing - you want more, you want to go deeper into the experience, but all you get is more external images, perceptions, no internal experience, no Mystery.

In the same sense that with porn you don't experience true intimacy. There are other aspects of sexuality that are vital and wonderful, but when it comes down to it, the deep intimacy, the love, is the real jewel. Everything else, no matter how wonderful, plays a second fiddle.

IMHO, of course

 

[Dannager]

I'm done. The last word is yours to take if you want it.

Sweet!