Have computer games ruined table RPGs?

[Umbran]

Am I way off base?

Sorry to say it, but in a word, yes. Or so it seems to me, anyway.

"Number-crunching, min-maximizing, strikeforce team tactics, and building new characters at higher levels" have been in gaming since the beginning, back before desktop computers existed. Remember that D&D has it's roots in wargaming, where all of that is essential to success. Those things remain an obvious playstyle choice, and there have always been gamers who choose it.

The fact that you hear about it more now doesn't mean it is more prevalent in the gaming population. It probably only means that bulletin boards like this one make it easier to communicate with more gamers. If only 10% of the gamers choose this mode, and at home you know 10 gamers, only one of them will show the behavior. But on EN World, you may see 1600 such people, and it looks like a mob compared to your previous personal experience.

Character construction may look like computer gaming modules, but that has nothing to do with actual play. In the past with D&D, there were relatively few choices to make in character construction. 3e gave us much more customizability, and did so in an organized manner. Some may use this as a tool to min-max. Others may use it as a tool to create a specific persona. The tool is a tool - it doesn't make you use it in any particular way.

 

[Spatula]

What I'm suggesting is that the human interaction has shifted toward an attitude more akin to how we approach computer games. The style of character manipulation has shifted. ... Yes, we'll still sit around the table and talk about our characters with each other, but now there are growing elements of the stuff I listed above -- number-crunching, class modulization, etc.

The number-crunching, min-maxing, etc. has been there since the beginning (well, my experience only goes back to 1980 or so, but close enough). Heck, the topic is even addressed in the 2ed PHB or DMG. Perhaps you never saw it, but in those days our view of the hobby was much more limited. Jgsugden has a very good point above about how the internet has changed tabletop RPGs much more than CRPGs have. You're seeing the number-crunchers now because the internet puts you in touch with a much larger group of players than you were exposed to in the pre-internet days. And exposure to that wider group has affected our approach to the game.

 

[jessemock]

Have computer games ruined table RPGs? I'm not talking about product vs. product, but rather the process, interaction and appreciation of people as they play the game.

...

Am I way off base?

You're not way off base, but I think that the behaviours you cite have been exacerbated (not caused) by the influence of CRPGs, insofar as tabletops have begun to emulate them, rather than, well, whatever they used to and otherwise now emulate.

 

[Henry]

What I'm suggesting is that the human interaction has shifted toward an attitude more akin to how we approach computer games. The style of character manipulation has shifted. ... Yes, we'll still sit around the table and talk about our characters with each other, but now there are growing elements of the stuff I listed above -- number-crunching, class modulization, etc.

Let me tell you a story about one of my favorite players in my college days. He was a pre-med student, but his love of numbers as that of an accountant or statistician. He used to compute average damage output of characters in the group per round. In the days before anyone had ever heard of graduated point buy, he made up matrices of ability scores, where we rolled a result on the matrix, not the ability scores themselves, to give us a set of stats that were mathematically balanced with one another. He fiddled with his own weapons specialization systems, his own house rules on character advancement - and we pretty good at it. You might see more stat-concentration now than previously, but that's not to say it was already there pretty strongly.

I don't even think that computer games are the cause - the REAL cause is Johnathan Tweet, Sean Reynolds, et. al. making the WHYs and WHEREFOREs behind the 3E rules changes so open. It got people thinking more about how important it is to successful RPG design. The very concept of D&D class modulization grew from the attempts to make multi-classing more statistically balanced between two PC's of equal level.

 

[Krafen]

Some thought that MMORPGs were the way to do this, while others want to make single player RPGs where you can truly decide what kind of character you are (Morrowind and Fabal).

What is "Fabal"? I don't recognize the name and I'm not having any luck with web searches.

 

[takyris]

Interesting. I'm in an interesting niche -- my gaming group formed from a bunch of buddies, most of them from a computer company we all used to work at. At least one of the guys had done CRPGing, but no live RPGing ever. So, in my group, I wouldn't say that it's RUINED it, but it HAS altered it.

Much less free-form, and much more interest in figuring out "How I'm supposed to solve this problem". There was some initial confusion over the fact that sometimes, as a DM, I will give the party fights that they're supposed to run away from, and reloading is not an option. I think that the group has for the most part gotten into a good balance -- we still sometimes joke about the players responding to NPCs with "Okay, I'll use Option Two: I'm solving the problem, but I want to get paid for it," but nothing much bigger than that.

I agree that 3E's open engine encourages number-crunching. I don't necessarily think that that's bad, but I've seen people come up with systems that are far too involved to be handled at an enjoyable pace by anyone who isn't using a computer. Heck, in high-level play, one of my players wrote a Squib-Tracker program that kept track of numbered and colored counters and could handle things like "Do 10d6 fire damage, Reflex Half, SR applies, to Red1 through Red10", and have the computer spit out the results -- these guys dead, these guys reduced to this many hit points, these guys took no damage because of SR. It'd be tough to run high-level games without that.

So... for my particular case, it hasn't ruined the game, but it has affected it.

 

[Driddle]

You're not way off base, but I think that the behaviours you cite have been exacerbated (not caused) by the influence of CRPGs, insofar as tabletops have begun to emulate them, rather than, well, whatever they used to and otherwise now emulate.

Exacerbate, not cause.
... Yeah. That sounds like a better choice of words.

 

[Driddle]

I don't even think that computer games are the cause - the REAL cause is Johnathan Tweet, Sean Reynolds, et. al. making the WHYs and WHEREFOREs behind the 3E rules changes so open. ...

(nod) Another good point.

 

[Cerubus Dark]

What is "Fabal"? I don't recognize the name and I'm not having any luck with web searches.

Fable Is a new RPG soon to be put out by Lionhead studios. In the game you start out as a young boy, and your actions determin if you will be a hero or tyrant.

 

[DaveMage]

No, I don't think they have ruined tabletop games.

About the only thing I've noticed is that my players ask if they can "save game" just before they go into a big battle.