Unpopular opinions go here

[Gradine]

Broke: If you play it on a computer, it's not a TTRPG.
Woke: You can engage in TTRPG play in MMORPGs.
Bespoke: You can engage in TTRPG play in Minecraft

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, I don't think anyone is sitting here saying that MMORPGs are TTRPGs, just that the act of playing a TTRPG can be done within framework of an MMORPG, and any definition of the activity of playing a TTRPG that deliberately excludes those examples isn't inclusive enough to be worthwhile.

If by that you mean your characters in the MMO can have a table and dice and then Inception their way into playing a tabletop RPG inside the game WoW, then...sure...I guess. But that seems like a pointless stake to claim. In no other sense are you playing a tabletop RPG when you play WoW. You're playing an MMORPG. Which is not, definitionally, a tabletop RPG.

Is it really any less ridiculous that torturing the definition of "film" or "book"?

Language evolves. I've yet to hear an argument at all, let alone a convincing one, that insists that Roll20 is a "Tabletop" but Neverwinter Nights isn't.

People use the word "tabletop" in this context specifically to distinguish it from other kinds of RPGs, namely computer RPG. Because when tabletop RPG players said "RPG" most everyone else assumed they meant computer RPGs...because computer RPGs are orders of magnitude more popular than tabletop RPGs.

So to say you're playing a tabletop RPG when you play WoW is to fail to understand what the word "tabletop" even means.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

If NWN is, then a VTT, and DM-less RPGs are still valid RPGs, then what separates role-playing MMORPG servers? "Worldbuilding" is not a strong enough distinction for me.

First, it's not "worldbuilding."

Second, it doesn't have to be ... for you. It you would like to propose your own definition, feel free to. I gave mine, which I borrowed a long time ago from an academic look at the subject, and which offers me greater insight- not about what is, and isn't, an RPG, but about what constitutes the interactive process that constitutes the "game" and the "roleplay."

If you want to just go, "Eh, it all works," then that's fine! But it's not exactly a definition.

 

[Reynard]

I already addressed AI, above.

As for VTTs, I think you know the answer to that if you think about it for even a second. It's not the "gotcha" that you think.

You think I am trying to "gotcha" when what I am trying to do is explore the fuzzy middle ground.

 

[Gradine]

If by that you mean your characters in the MMO can have a table and dice and then Inception their way into playing a tabletop RPG inside the game WoW, then...sure...I guess. But that seems like a pointless stake to claim. In no other sense are you playing a tabletop RPG when you play WoW. You're playing an MMORPG. Which is not, definitionally, a tabletop RPG.

So, we're saying that the only thing that can be a tabletop RPG is if it has a table a dice? No other mechanics meet the definition?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So, we're saying that the only thing that can be a tabletop RPG is if it has a table a dice? No other mechanics meet the definition?

Yes. That's exactly what people have said.

We said, "If it doesn't have a table, dice, and probably a really cool DM screen, then not only is it not an RPG, but you are wrongity wrong wrong."

You have, in fact, gotten exactly to the heart of the issue!

 

[Cadence]

Broke: If you play it on a computer, it's not a TTRPG.
Woke: You can engage in TTRPG play in MMORPGs.
Bespoke: You can engage in TTRPG play in Minecraft

It feels like a ttRPG should be easily and expansively custom mod-able (well, at least a tttRPG should), so Minecraft might work better than a lot of MMORPGs?

 

[payn]

Now that we got that all cleared up, ice cream cake > regular cake.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Now that we got that all cleared up, ice cream cake > regular cake.

Fake cake > Real cake.

 

[Gradine]

First, it's not "worldbuilding."

Second, it doesn't have to be ... for you. It you would like to propose your own definition, feel free to. I gave mine, which I borrowed a long time ago from an academic look at the subject, and which offers me greater insight- not about what is, and isn't, an RPG, but about what constitutes the interactive process that constitutes the "game" and the "roleplay."

If you want to just go, "Eh, it all works," then that's fine! But it's not exactly a definition.

You're right that it's more than "worldbuilding", and I was being unfair to that position. But I also disagree with your interpretation of the concept of a diagetic framework of a world created through interaction being absolutely essential to the creation of a TTRPG; or rather, that a TTRPG's world does not have to be entirely created through that interaction in order to qualify. As has been pointed out, you're tossing a lot of babies out with that bathwater, and leaving out a lot of middle ground that is easier to argue about that MMORPGs.

That said, participants in a role-playing server on a MMORPG are still engaging in the activity of creating parts of their world through their interaction and play. They're not creating all of it, sure, but you're also not creating the entire world of Faerun from scratch every time you start a Forgotten Realms campaign. There's a sliding scale, and anywhere you point that point is going to be arbitrary. Which, sure, is rather the point of a personal definition, but then that's a different beast from arguing another's personal definition is wrong.