Computers beat up my role player

[Shadeydm]

So, would RP servers would qualify as RPG's?

I can tell you from personal exerience that at least in WoW...no.

 

[Shadeydm]

No. I mean, "remember the time we fought tooth and nail to take the castle, despite two allied guilds stabbing us in the back? Or how, after holding it for two months, and repelling multiple attacks, we were sold out by another ally for the price of a lesser castle? How we fought side by side with a rival guild to hold it, fighting against overwhelming odds as they came through the gates. Again. And again. Remember the last desperate struggle in the throne room, where one of our captain's single handedly dropped over a dozen invaders before they finally brought him down? Remember the mad rush to regroup, the desperate stab at regaining our foothold? Remember that? Remember a month later when we rallied enough support to overthrow a different castle from our enemy alliance, but a merc troop grabbed the throne? Not that THEY held it for long, as they were perpetually unable to forge lasting alliances...or how about when we bloodied ourselves tryin to take..."

I'm not talking about fights with respawning NPCs. I'm talking real players fighting other real players for valuable real estate. Winning, and losing, and forging memories of friendship, and loyalty, and betrayel. People that think MMORPGs are nothing but one more raid on Rags need to broaden their horizons, there are other worlds than these.

In any event, this thread needs a warning sign:

"Here be dinosaurs."

Yet this whole line of discussion was spawned by someone saying WoW and it's 5 million player inflate the number of people who play Role Playing Games. Just because they print the letters RPG on the side of the box doesn't mean jack. And ultimatly WoW boilsd down to killing the same stuff over and over and over for loot. The PvP boils down to taking the same castle/flag over and over and over for honor which ultimatly becomes loot.

 

[Raven Crowking]

When I think about what I enjoy about human rpgs it's not really the variety of interaction because it's pretty limited.

GM comes up with mission. We solve mission by overcoming obstacles, dealing with NPCs and defeating monsters. Obstacles are overcome by using magic or making skill checks. With NPCs we talk to them, bribe or threaten. (Over and over, threats and bribes, bribes and threats, a computer could handle it very easily.) With monsters we hide, fight or run. Mostly fight.

Sure, we have the potential to do something weird, like befriend a monster or burn down the forest. But it seldom if ever happens.

Man, I feel sorry for you, and that isn't sniping. A rpg can (and, IMHO, should) be so much more than that. What you describe is one of the main reasons that I espouse sandbox-style play with rpgs. You can, literally, do what you want to, rather than following someone else's script.

If I were you, I'd consider changing DMs.

If you want to be in games where more variety occurs in your encounters, I'd suggest running the game yourself. Set up some encounters where hide, fight, or run aren't the only options. Have monsters that talk to the PCs when they start the normal hide/run/fight routine. You know:

"Hey! Sorry now! I didn't know you could defend yourselves! It's usually just kobolds going down this corridor!"

As a result of allowing a more varied interaction with monsters, I've had PCs rescue an orc from bugbears....and then heal the orc in preference to another party member. And, BTW, this was in a 3.X version of the Keep on the Borderlands caves, which shows that if you follow the advice given in the module, you certainly have a more immersive experience than some might suggest. This kind of thing can, and does, happen....and in that particular game, all of the players were in High School (my son & friends).

 

[Raven Crowking]

But, that's a pretty vague answer. I'm roleplaying because I'm playing D&D? But, I'm not roleplaying if I play Everquest? Why?

I personally think that the guy responsible for the term already answered this question upthread extremely well.

A role-playing game, in order to qualify as a role-playing game, requires that your decisions are responded to by a human being. A DM...or human being(s) that serve the same function, in some games, even though they are also players...is required so that the environment of the game is responsive to the desires and interests of the player(s).

In D&D, if you want to talk to the stableboy, you can, because the environment is under the control of a human being. I.e., not only are you the player playing a role, but the DM is playing many roles, including the role of the world itself (weather, environment, etc.).

In Everquest, if you want to talk to the stableboy, you can if and only if programming has been done beforehand to determine that you can do so.

Role-playing games react and respond to you in real time, creating an immersive environment (whether or not you take advantage of this quality) in which anything may be attempted, and any new ruling may be devised on an "as needed" basis to move forward the action in the manner chosen by the participants, whereas you react and respond to the computer simulators of role-playing games, within the limitations of interaction designed by the programmer(s).

Both may be fun, but IMHO, this is a fundamental difference.


RC

 

[Numion]

Role-playing games react and respond to you in real time,

Um, no. D&D with 6 players + DM is far from real time

 

[Raven Crowking]

Um, no. D&D with 6 players + DM is far from real time

I don't have any tabletop games with less than six at the moment, and I have no problem with responding. Of course game time =/= real time in any event. Six-second rounds take (sometimes much) longer to play out. Months can go by in a flash.

However, the DM can make a decision here and now based upon your actions. The DM doesn't have to reprogram and come out with a Beta version six to fourteen months later.

YMMV.

RC

 

[Halivar]

Question: Are MUD's proper RPG's?

 

[Hussar]

I personally think that the guy responsible for the term already answered this question upthread extremely well.

A role-playing game, in order to qualify as a role-playing game, requires that your decisions are responded to by a human being. A DM...or human being(s) that serve the same function, in some games, even though they are also players...is required so that the environment of the game is responsive to the desires and interests of the player(s).

In D&D, if you want to talk to the stableboy, you can, because the environment is under the control of a human being. I.e., not only are you the player playing a role, but the DM is playing many roles, including the role of the world itself (weather, environment, etc.).

In Everquest, if you want to talk to the stableboy, you can if and only if programming has been done beforehand to determine that you can do so.

Role-playing games react and respond to you in real time, creating an immersive environment (whether or not you take advantage of this quality) in which anything may be attempted, and any new ruling may be devised on an "as needed" basis to move forward the action in the manner chosen by the participants, whereas you react and respond to the computer simulators of role-playing games, within the limitations of interaction designed by the programmer(s).

Both may be fun, but IMHO, this is a fundamental difference.


RC

So what about something like NWN? Where you DO have a live person guiding the game.

Conversely, what about a bad DM where you are railroaded? Is a rail roaded game no longer role playing? Since your choices are limited artificially by someone else, it's pretty close to a CRPG.

I admit, I want to agree with you, but, I've yet to see a really convincing arguement. "You must have a live DM to have an RPG" is not terribly compelling IMO. There are games without GM's that are most certainly RPG's for one. And there are CRPG's with GM's for another.

 

[Doug McCrae]

As a result of allowing a more varied interaction with monsters, I've had PCs rescue an orc from bugbears....and then heal the orc in preference to another party member.

In Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil PC game, it's possible to rescue two orc prisoners from one of the upper levels. Their captors are a human jailer and a bugbear. They can then join the party and potentially receive healing (though I usually just leave em where they are).

 

[RFisher]

I don't know, but I tend to think that there was a degree of role-playing in wargames & other games that lacked referees long before D&D came along. Multiplayer computer games definately have the potential for some amount of role-playing.

But, perhaps I misunderstand the term.

Does there have to be a human GM adjudicating every action in order for it to be a rpg and, if so, why?

When I use the term "role-playing game" I am talking about a game that is only limited by the imagination of the participants. It is a game of improvisation & imagination. It is "Let's pretend" with rules or conventions to resolve disagreements between the participants. Typically this is a referee or GM, but there are games I would call RPGs that lack a GM in the conventional sense.

You know, some of the "social" MUDs I used to participate in came pretty close to that. That was maybe something of a middle ground between computers as a medium for RPG play & actual CRPGs.

Indeed, this is one of the areas in which 3e tends to lose my interest: It's attempt to take the DM out of the equation. When played that way, it becomes--to me--a computer game without the benefit of the computer. & yes, I've experienced older editions played that way, & that's even worse as they weren't designed to be played that way at all.

& yeah, I'm limiting "role-playing game" beyond the sum of its parts. There's nothing unusual about that. ("America" is technically a more generic term than "USA", but they are widely used as synonyms. An "airship" could be anything that flies, but it is generally used only for dirigibles. Even "dirigible" itself means only "steerable", with the "balloon" part elided. Like "auto" often means "automobile" although technically it only means "self-".) When I'm worried that my use of it may be ambiguous, I tend to try to qualify it.

Heck, I'm not even sure that RPGs qualify as "games".

Anyway, I think most of us can agree that TRPGs & CRPGs are quite different & that we enjoy them for different reasons.

In some ways, a human GM can make a game a lot more limited.

There is a certain amount of truth to this.

On the other hand, this is the limitation that I want from the game. Being surprised by other people's imagination & working out a shared imagining... That's where the fun is.

The limitations imposed on me by a computer game, however, are more often the kinds of limitations I don't want.

Sure, we have the potential to do something weird, like befriend a monster or burn down the forest. But it seldom if ever happens.

It may seldom happen in your games, but it is quite common in others.

I do run games in which I have nigh nothing prepared. I simply ask, "What do you do?" & we make it up as we go along. But that's a carrying it to an extreme example.

It's being able to negotiate the GMs prepared adventure in ways the GM didn't have to imagine during preparation. I often create obstacles without a way around them. I want to see how the players will surprise me, should they choose to attempt passing it.

Yeah, on rare occasions you find a solution in a computer game that the creators didn't intend, but this is fairly common at my group's table.

& when we play Toon...nobody knows what is going to happen before it happens.