Unpopular opinions go here

[MGibster]

Was it based on The Eliminators? Im the type to roll up Fontana "the river rat" for my PC.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who saw that movie. It's nice to know others have seen it and it wasn't just a fevered dream I had.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Creatures in RQ aren't built using PC build rules. But they are expressed in the same way as PCs (% ratings for appropriate abilities, damage dice, armour ratings, etc). This is equally true for 4e D&D (cf AD&D, where monsters don't have ability scores, do have HP, etc).

I'd argue they are much closer; they might have specific abilities that a PC wouldn't normally have access to, but if they had something that looked similar to what a PC had, it'd probably be the same: scorpion-men if they were priests would work the same way a PC priest did, they wouldn't just have a one-off mechanic to represent that. Same for battle magic. Same for weapons. Heck, in the right kind of campaign, some of them might even be PCs.

If you only use "uses PC build rules" D&D 3e monsters weren't done that way, but if they did something that was supposed to be basically the same, they used the same mechanical structure. So did RQ monsters. So did Fantasy Hero monsters.

That was not true of D&D 4e monsters. Like I said, I get why; I ran D&D3e to 14th level and it was progressively more impossible to run. But it clearly was doing something different than 4e did here with opponents, and acting otherwise just comes across as disingenuous.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It feels like the tt part of ttRPG should mean something if it's going to be an even vaguely meaningful descriptor?

shrug

I think that no tabletop is required. A bunch of high school kids on a bus doing some freeform is also within the definition. So, for that matter, is LARPing.

To me, the essence of the ttRPG is not the tabletop, per se, it's the interaction between the human elements. I don't think that forecloses the use of a computer (such as a VTT, or discord, or a phone app to roll dice or hold character sheets), but it would exclude, for example, solo play or MMORPGs.

 

[Emberashh]

Tabletop has only been effective at denoting something about the game if the game revolves around the need to set up and utilize physical game pieces.

But even that has fallen by the wayside as that is all digitizable.

Tabletop nowadays mostly serves as a coding signal that denotes the dividing line between them and video games, but even that is blurry.

Personally, I believe these all just games and the distinctions in the specific medium (be it through self-contained digital game engines or through open-ended textual engines) aren't really worth getting bogged down in a debate over.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have to admit that I'm a little unclear on this concept.

While it wasn't always strictly observed, OD&D and 1e certainly provided NPCs with levels, the same as PCs. Admittedly, they didn't always include "stat blocks," they would often include stats (either notable, or all of them). See, e.g,, T1 (Village of Hommlet).

Well, there was the issue that at least early in OD&D, attributes, per se, didn't mean much. Even after Greyhawk, you had to get up a ways before it was strong. But of course OD&D era attributes weren't generally configured to represent things like giants and dragons very well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

< Looks over at the Avengers group he posts on, and agrees with most of them about just the name not being enough for some things for just about anyone... but wow are there fights about others >

I never thought what name was plastered on was relevant, but, I mean, the six attributes, classes, levels, level elevating hit points, legacy monsters galore--its an awfully big reach requiring some serious selective focus to argue 4e wasn't D&D.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That may be what it called itself, but it very quickly became obvious that it was something more and was, in fact, something completely different to anything all except a very select few (mostly in or near Minneapolis/St. Paul and Lake Geneva) had ever encountered before.

Right, which is how D&D, in spite of being credited as the first RPG, actually predates the idea of the TTRPG.

 

[overgeeked]

Right, which is how D&D, in spite of being credited as the first RPG, actually predates the idea of the TTRPG.

This is factually wrong and seems excruciatingly pedantic. Yes, the phrase "tabletop RPG" was coined after the publication of the first D&D books. But no, the concept of "tabletop RPG" came before the publication of D&D. See both Blackmoor and Braunstein.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I never thought what name was plastered on was relevant, but, I mean, the six attributes, classes, levels, level elevating hit points, legacy monsters galore--its an awfully big reach requiring some serious selective focus to argue 4e wasn't D&D.

It lacked key elements of the classic game. LFQW, the martial/caster gap, class imbalance, caster supremacy, 15mWD...

...ok, it lacked one key element...

 

[Gradine]

If GM-less RPGs are TTRPGs, and they are, then online videogames can and regularly do meet any worthwhile definition of TTRPG.