Computers beat up my role player

[Doug McCrae]

You're continuing to use "roleplaying" and "play-acting" or "role assumption" as synonyms. That is not what "roleplaying" means in this context. Without giving a huge thesis, the entire activity of playing D&D (or GURPS, White Wolf, etc.) is role-playing. Role assumption and play-acting are just two aspects, out of many, of the game-play activities that constitutes role-playing.

Down my way, roleplaying means acting, so we can for example play rpgs without necessarily doing much roleplaying. I'm pretty sure that's what Brazeku meant by the term too, otherwise his point would just have been a tautology.

He'd have been saying something like "a roleplaying game is any game in which playing a roleplaying game plays an integral part".

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

That's sort of sad, actually.

Why? What sort of meaningful conversation are you going to have with a black pudding, or a chimaera, or a gibbering mouther? When the fanatical lizardmen followers of Set charge the swampside settlement, willingly ebmracing death so long as they spill human blood, are they going to have any particular bits of wisdom to impart?

When the Hidden High Priests of the Dark God are in the final stages of their final ritual to summon the End-of-All, do you really think you're going to convert any of them by pointing out the danger in what they're doing?

There are times, and depending on your campaign style potentially a lot of them, when there's just no good reason to chat with your foes.

And if I'm having fun, and my players are having fun, who the hell are you to sit in judgement of me and mine?

IOW, there are times that the game operates as a role-playing game

So, now, there's a distinction between "operating as a role-playing game" and actually being a role-playing game?

That's an interesting distinction to draw, given your particular point of view:

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 would certainly be willing to say that, if the human element refuses to allow you to make choices, and refuses to respond to the choices that you make, the game for all intents and purposes ceases to have that human element, and thus ceases to be a role-playing game.

Doesn't that just say that, really, D&D is a "better-than-average RPG simulator" and not an actual role-playing game? After all, sometimes D&D lacks the "human element" required of RPGs - and sometimes MMORPGs include the "human element" required of RPGs.

Or is it a matter of degree? If my NWN server is 100% DM-and-party, is it a roleplaying game? What if it's 95%? What if that 5% is "back in town down-time," which would be handwaved in a "real" RPG anyway?

Is that a meaningful difference?

BTW, while I am glad that using bold in "MMORPGs" convinces you, I have to admit that it doesn't convince me.

It's not to convince you - just more to keep in plain view.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Without giving a huge thesis, the entire activity of playing D&D (or GURPS, White Wolf, etc.) is role-playing.

... So, playing a role-playing game is role-playing?

That's a tremendously useful definition. [/sarcasm]

 

[Umbran]

Ad hominem attacks?

Yes. Dromdol will not be rejoining this conversation.

Anyone else choosing to be uncivil shall also be given an involuntary vacation from EN World

 

[Numion]

I don't think it's important to define RPGs what's behind the screen (DMs or computers) or degrees of limitedness.

I mean, 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

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.

 

[Gentlegamer]

... So, playing a role-playing game is role-playing?

The numerous activities involved in playing D&D are each aspects role-playing and taken together, is role-playing (in this context). There is an overarching manner and extent that the participants are interacting with each other that creates an umbrella under which all of their activities in the game is role-playing.

Play-acting, role assumption, role immersion, are each aspects of this role-playing activity (but not the whole of it or synonyms for it).

Exploration of imagined environments overseen by a game master that can respond to extemporaneous actions by participants is an other aspect of this role-playing activity.

Socially interacting with non-player sentient beings being controlled by a game master that can act and react in non-scripted ways, in either first or third person narrative manner, is an aspect of the role-playing activity.

This is not exhaustive of the aspects that make up role-playing activity but I think you can see what is meant.

I think perhaps the best way to conceptualize this is to consider what Gary has said on several occasions (paraphrase): "the secret of role-playing games is that rules are not necessary."

As long as there is a game master present that can arbitrate actions impartially and interact with the players in extemporaneous, non-scripted ways, that is a role-playing game (this ranges from "play acting" the NPCs, to altering the imagined physical environment of the game world in response to player action). The rules of role-playing games are merely guidelines and tools to assist in arbitrating this game, but is not the game itself.

In my opinion, that is why many believe that a role-playing game is played best "when the rules fade into the background." They are experiencing and expressing the basic minimalism that is sufficient for a role-playing game to take place.

 

[Minicol]

Actually, I've seen just that happen. And the player get away with it. (No, it wasn't me.)

Well, back when i ran the original ToEE when I killed something like 20 + PCs... one my players wanted to reroll and I did not allow him. So he made such a fool of himself, that he managed to get killed by the ranger henchman of the party.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The problem with this definition, GG, ...

Play-acting, role assumption, role immersion, are each aspects of this role-playing activity (but not the whole of it or synonyms for it).

Exploration of imagined environments overseen by a game master that can respond to extemporaneous actions by participants is an other aspect of this role-playing activity.

Socially interacting with non-player sentient beings being controlled by a game master that can act and react in non-scripted ways, in either first or third person narrative manner, is an aspect of the role-playing activity.

... is that I can do all of this, quite handily, in NWN right now.

NWN's greatest weakness is that it's hard to change the map mid-flight (as in, it's hard to remove a building, or add a new one; newer GM / scripting tools make this easier).

However, I don't see this as particularly different from a tabletop game in which I've only got a single building which doesn't have a "destroyed form," and we all choose to remember that it's currently burning to the ground.

Note that the original goal of NWN was exactly to facilitate the DM-and-party structure (there's a reason an NWN level is called a module!), and that NWN-based MMORPGs are a side-effect.

So why isn't NWN an RPG? What's missing?

 

[Morden78]

Yes. Dromdol will not be rejoining this conversation.

Anyone else choosing to be uncivil shall also be given an involuntary vacation from EN World

Getting banned for making a factual observation... What will they think of next?

 

[Gentlegamer]

Getting banned for making a factual observation... What will they think of next?

How about getting banned for creating duplicate accounts?