Article: how D&D fails video games

[Painfully]

This article talks about D&D and how it fails when converted to video games. This article focuses on the Temple of Elemental Evil computer game in particular. Probably worth a read.

Found out about it on Slashdot.

 

[Ranger REG]

I wonder if the writer heard of Neverwinter Night.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Basically, this article is rant about how CRPGs still aren't able to deliver a "true roleplaying expirience", while also ranting about the bugs present in ToEE. The author of this article also refers to Wizards of the Coast as a "bastardized" version of TSR and acts as though Gary Gygax is personally responsible for every good aspect of D&D (no disrepect to Gary, of course). He complains about the fact that you can only reach level 10 in ToEE, and proposes an infinate leveling system for the game to stop players from getting bored.

All in all, I found it a fairly moronic article with an inaccurate title. It should have been titled "Why I didn't like ToEE" instead of "Where Dungeons & Dragons Fails Video Games."

 

[KenM]

No computer/ video game will ever be able to capture true table top RPG's. With a PnP gsme, you have the option to do anything. You can't program every single possiblty into a computer game.

 

[Painfully]

Well, the author is obviously looking at things from a programmer's perspective first, and a gamer's perspective second. I have no problem with that. No CRPG is going to be as fluid as a DM in the realm of storytelling or just creative improvisation, at least not for a very long time.

The article does mention NWN briefly in passing, so he certainly seems aware of it.

In many ways I agree that CRPGs are never going to give the same kind of experience as PPRPGs. If we can agree on that much, then I suppose what he's trying to get at is that CRPGs need to stop trying to immitate the PPRPG ruleset, and effectively try to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

He comes off more as kind of whining about it to me. And I suppose the kind of constant character building in Diablo II makes it a better game? While D2 is a fairly interesting game the first time around, it becomes mind-numbingly monotonous after about 15 levels. Limitless character development simply won't fix that part of CRPGs.

CRPGs are almost by necessity linear in story, but I thought Baldur's gate I & II did a really nice job of not forcing it. The very old game from Microprose called, Darklands, was one of my favorites because it also let you wander the countryside in any direction and ignore quests at your whim. So, in some respects, CRPGs are improving, or could continue to be improved, and those limitations have nothing to do with the d20 ruleset.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Ah Slashdot - the first place I always look for fair, unbiased articles... Right up there with FARK !

The Auld Grump

 

[Henry]

The Devil is definitely NOT in his details.

I heavily disagree with his evidence he uses; he points out problems with the code of the game (such as monster AI's attacking the wrong opponents) and calls that a failure of the d20 system; he goes on to say that monsters are "cookie-cutter" under d20, and this somehow causes problems. What he's instead pointing out is that previous versions handled mechanics not directly relating to combat with a minimalist approach; it's a valid way to play, but it means that earlier game designers were free to ignore or invent rules, for everything from NPC interaction to swimming, on the fly instead of having to properly code them by a standardized set of rules.

Cookie cutter monsters? The system that has Half-fiend axiomatic insectile minotaurs of Legend? That may be templated, but that's one funky-looking cookie.

In short, he's complaining that d20 rules are not good for computer games because they aren't systematic enough, but then goes on to quote examples that show that it's so systematic that it's hard to implement them?!?!

If anything, the earlier designers on games like the SSI gold box games used to frequently say back then that they wished that the AD&D rules had been MORE systematic at that time, and not as arbitrary as they used to be (the STR bonus scales, THACO, surprise, thief skills vs. other skills, etc.)

 

[Joshua Randall]

I would be more willing to take the author seriously if his use of the English language were not so egregiously bad. This is my favorite sentence: The nodes of storytelling are short; the development of the CRPG conversion slowed the game design process to the point that content is severely lacking in this system and that this system could have been designed to wear away at the character better, or create dynamic dungeons and slaying encounters that are not surface-based. Yow.