Computers beat up my role player

[Galieo]

I'm almost afraid to dip my toe into the water lest it get bitten off by the circling sharks.

However, I have been thinking about this poser and two thoughts occur to me:

1. Visual representation--the computer game is the complete definition of the setting, actors, etc.; while the tabletop game does not provide such a defined experience. This may explain some posters discomfort with miniatures and the like, in the sense that the visual aids "limit" their imagination.

No matter how descriptive the tabletop DM is, there will always be a gap between the verbal description and the mental image that player has. Such a gap, and the opportunity to fill it, does not occur in a computer game.

2. Justice Stewart's Casablanca Test--"I know it when I see it."

 

[Raven Crowking]

I've played probably played with more limited human DMs than some computer RPGs are nowadays. A chance to converse with monsters in a PnP RPG is pretty moot if the DM doesn't have them respond. It's the same thing as speaking to your computer screen

Agreed. Well, not so much IME, but certainly in principle. But, OTOH, isn't it possible that the advancement of CRPGs as being the same as RPGs makes people believe that the two should play the same?

I do realize that the unlimited nature of D&D is it's greatest strength. It's unfortunate that the game relies so much on miniatures now, because that's making it more granular (people standing in squares) and more limited.

Agree completely. See above comment.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, let's say we've got a party playing ODnD with a DM who is a bilingual. He is a native English speaker, but is not entirely fluent in, say, Russian.

He wants to make a judgment call to a Russian player, but has momentarily forgotten the Russian word for pirate, so he can't.

By your definition, he is not playing a role playing game.

Strawman.

The DM is not simply a processor, regardless of what some would have us believe, but is one of the players of the game.

A roleplaying game is limited only by the players of the game, and responds to their desires, actions, intentions, and imaginations. The game itself doesn't actually exist independent of these elements; the books are tools to express these elements. RPGs are open-ended, moving from players to results.

A program is limited by the expectations of the programmer prior to the start of the game. The game moves, in effect, from the programmer to the players, and the players are limited by the imagination of the programmer.

If you cracked open the RAW of any edition, and only allowed actions to be resolved by the RAW, and only allowed actions that were specifically contained in the RAW, you would have a good simulation of a computer game. You could, for example, craft any item with a gp value, but could not craft any item not on the preexisting equipment list. You could use any piece of equipment as described, but could not do anything different with it. Etc., etc.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'll admit that I'm not overly familiar with NWN either, and I have to go with what I understand to be the limitations of computer technology, both on a practical and on a theoretical level.

So, tell me, can you do all or any of the following in NWN:

Destroy a castle in such a way that it remains destroyed forever, and can have no future effect on the game? I.e., if the players in one Guild all agree to pretend it is destroyed, but it continues to influence the game because it exists, it is not destroyed.

Take an action that was unforseen by the programmers? For example, in D&D there are only so many uses for equipment listed, but I am able to invent new uses for equipment, limited only to my imagination and the nature of the equipment itself. The rules approximate a jug, for example, but do not define it, so that the DM can allow me to break the jug to use a shard to cut the ropes that bind me.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but I admit that I am somewhat ignorant of exactly how far the computer simulation engines have progressed, and am open to being convinced if there is a real argument to be made.

 

[Mallus]

No matter how descriptive the tabletop DM is, there will always be a gap between the verbal description and the mental image that player has. Such a gap, and the opportunity to fill it, does not occur in a computer game.

So do you think those images on a screen provide a more vivid depiction of an imaginary world?

I always think of my settings as made of out of words/text (seeing as they are). Therefore words are the ideal tools to bring them to life.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Right. & you absolutely cannot see the difference he's talking about?

I think it would be more accurate to say that I don't understand why the difference MATTERS, aside from pedantry, semantic debate, and a smug sense of superiority calling electronic games "not true RPG's."

Of course D&D is different than Final Fantasy. Both are called RPG's, like it or not, and both are understood to be role playing games. This thread wont' change that fact.

There's a difference, absolutely. The person doing the adjudicating in D&D is a guy at the table while you play. The person doing the adjudicating in Final Fantasy is a team of programmers in Japan, years before.

That difference doesn't really matter to anyone. They're both RPG's. They have been known as such for almost equally as long (Final Fantasy just a few years later, or Dragon Warrior even before that).

Why would you bother to try and clarify that which is not really confused?

It's like saying graphic novels aren't really comic books, or that anime isn't really cartoons.

 

[Gentlegamer]

RE: Final Fantasy (as an aside)

There are serious arguments (in video game circles discussing "game theory" as it relates to that medium) that Final Fantasy isn't even really a game.

I don't posit this as any kind of point in this discussion. It's just that as a gamer, I am fascinated by "intellectual" investigations into such things.

Carry on.

 

[Rothe]

I think it would be more accurate to say that I don't understand why the difference MATTERS, aside from pedantry, semantic debate, and a smug sense of superiority ...

Isn't that what the internet is for?

 

[Numion]

1. Visual representation--the computer game is the complete definition of the setting, actors, etc.; while the tabletop game does not provide such a defined experience. This may explain some posters discomfort with miniatures and the like, in the sense that the visual aids "limit" their imagination.

No matter how descriptive the tabletop DM is, there will always be a gap between the verbal description and the mental image that player has. Such a gap, and the opportunity to fill it, does not occur in a computer game.

Yes it does, for example in NetHack. When I played the game, it didn't feel like I was controlling the role of an 'at' sign (@), even that's what they use to mark the player character. You actually have to use imagination in that game

2. Justice Stewart's Casablanca Test--"I know it when I see it."

What makes Justice Stewart an expert on roleplaying games? How does he regocnize true RPGs?

 

[ThirdWizard]

The analogy is closer to this: the Madden NFL series of video games are called "football games," but no one considers players of those games to be actually playing football. However, within the context of video games, it is accurate to call them "football games."

But an RPG itself is just a simulation, so its different. Unless you think people playing Final Fantasy are playing a simulation of a simulation! But, no, a simulation of D&D would be playing a game where you control a player who then controls a PC. That would be a simulation of D&D. What's going on is not pretending to be pretending. In SWSE I pretend to be Roland the Jedi. In KOTOR I pretend to be Roland the Jedi. In neither case am I pretending to be playing a game in which I'm pretending to be Roland the Jedi.