I admit it...

[Psion]

FF VI, FF VII, and Ultima III-V are some of my favorite CRPGs of all time, and it is not a shame at all to admit that they have influenced my game.

 

[Allanon]

A good computer RPG is does have mayor advantages over pen-and-paper roleplaying...
Characters always stay in there role,
Nobody ever needs to go to the bathroom just as you're about to reveal a mayor plottwist,
Nobody ever whines MUNCHKIN, or RULESLAWYER in a CRPG,
Railroading is not a problem, I for one love the movie interludes of FF and other CRPG's,
The ambient music is always the same flavor, so no sudden appearance of ERA just as you're about to slay the BBEG.

Just some minor points in favor of CRPG's.
I for one will just enjoy the best of both world. D&D'ing with my friends and playing CRPG on my own on a rainy night.

 

[Allanon]

...Maybe I'm too big a fan of free-will and the ability to think outside the box.

I noticed that you mention in your first post that the plots can be as good... I have to disagree. Your decisions, as a player, are more or less discarded and you're left only with the decisions the game-makers wanted you to make. Those are the kinds of chains I'd rather not take on myself and I think, by definition, would lead to something that is inferior in experience.

Ever played Planescape: Torment?
NO!?... what a surprise...

 

[Henry]

People who down others who got into RPG's via video games are missing a very big point: RPG's began as an extension to a glorified board game - wargames share all the hallmarks of video games, including set victory conditions, limits to the actions taken, and predetermined maximum values for peices. IMHO, Board Games, War games, and Video games all have the same elements in common, but express themselves through different mediums.

I never played the old classics - Zork, Adventure, Wizardry I, etc. - But I played more than my share of Ultima 3 and 4, a bunch of text-based games, Wizard's Crown, etc. (Ultima 4 was in my opinion the best Computer RPG of all time, and was the only D&D-like computer game a friend of mine was allowed to play in his youth, but I digress)

There's nothing wrong with having a different cultural inheritance than other people - the people who spout "those damned diablo-players" and "the diablo-fication of D&D" and similar epithets are living through their version of "Bah! Kids these days! In my day we liked ____ and _____, not this crap they do today!" -- most don't realize it.

"In my day, Star Wars was more fun, D&D was about Roleplaying, not video-gaming, and game companies cared about their customers. This crap they're feeding us now sucks, and they've taken all the fun out."

All I'm leaving out is the part about walking 10 miles uphill in the snow to get to school, and liking it. The fun's not gone, it's just not their kind of fun any more - it belongs to another generation, and some people get upset about it. So what do I do?

I just go back, watch "I love the 80's reruns" and live and let live.

 

[Henry]

...Maybe I'm too big a fan of free-will and the ability to think outside the box.

I noticed that you mention in your first post that the plots can be as good... I have to disagree. Your decisions, as a player, are more or less discarded and you're left only with the decisions the game-makers wanted you to make. Those are the kinds of chains I'd rather not take on myself and I think, by definition, would lead to something that is inferior in experience.

Ever played Planescape: Torment?
NO!?... what a surprise...

Ever tried to leave Sigil in PS: Torment, go to Faerun, and take up a career as a wandering adventurer who can't die?

Ever tried to hold a conversation with Morte about existential Arcana in the game?

Ever tried to get it on with the Chaotic Good Succubus who prefers scintillating conversation, or sell the Flaming Fire Mage as a steam generator to get rich, or Learn Monkish Arts from a Githzerai?

There are some things Computer Games can't buy. For everything else, there's RPGCard. Look for the silhouette of the Open Book and the Frustrated DM.



--------

Seriously, there's free and open, and there's Free and Open. Computer games can never anticipate the absolutely Zany Crap that players can and will do, and it's the mark of a good DM to either accomodate them, or creatively steer them back in the right direction, while still giving them majority free will.

 

[Piratecat]

The other day I told my players that if their characters tried to move around in the dark, they might get eaten by a grue. Most of them gave me blank looks.

 

[hong]

I never played the old classics - Zork, Adventure, Wizardry I, etc. - But I played more than my share of Ultima 3 and 4, a bunch of text-based games, Wizard's Crown, etc. (Ultima 4 was in my opinion the best Computer RPG of all time, and was the only D&D-like computer game a friend of mine was allowed to play in his youth, but I digress)

U4, U5, Baldur's Gate, BG2: Throne of Bhaal and PST are the definite high points of my CRPG experiences. Fallout would be there too, but I played it a few years too late and the graphics were by that time too outdated to really make an impact. I never managed to get very far in FO2.

I also never managed to get very far in either Diablo or Diablo 2. This is actually very ironic, since they should be right up my alley: a straightforward dungeon bash in 32-bit colour, with no extraneous chit-chat or complicated plots to muddle the way.

There's nothing wrong with having a different cultural inheritance than other people - the people who spout "those damned diablo-players" and "the diablo-fication of D&D" and similar epithets are living through their version of "Bah! Kids these days! In my day we liked ____ and _____, not this crap they do today!" -- most don't realize it.

What cracks me up is that Thoughtbubble gives no sign of even being aware of Diablo's existence, which is the usual target for this sort of silly stereotyping. He's talking about Final Fantasy as characterising CRPGs in general, even though it's completely different in style to Diablo -- and most PC CRPGs in fact.

 

[Henry]

The other day I told my players that if their characters tried to move around in the dark, they might get eaten by a grue. Most of them gave me blank looks.

Y'know, ironically, I was just thinking of your story of the Great Modron March in the above discussion about how Players can do totally unpredictable things.

 

[Arravis]

Hong:
What CRPG's have I played... here's what I can remember offhand:
Zork and all the other Zork games, Trinity (obscure but awesome text-based game), HGttG, all of the old SSI gold box games (Pool of Radiance, etc), Wasteland, Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, Mars Saga (it was also known as Mines of Titan, if anyone remembers this... speak up ), Might and Magic I-V, Wizardry III-V, Ultima III-IV, Ultima Underworld, Daggerfall, Morrowind, the Baldur's Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape Torment, Realmz (awesome rpg for the Mac) and all the modules for it, Bard's Tale I-III, Everquest (where I met my fiancee, I'm a bit of a goob, I know), Arcanum, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Champions of Krynn & Death Knights of Krynn, the Eye of the Beholder series, Dungeon Master I & II, Battle Tech: Crescent Hawks, Outland, Fairy Tale, Lands of Lore and others I'm sure I can't remember.

What I'm not counting but might be considered RPGs, that I've played:
Diablo I & II, Prince of Persia, King's Quest series, and Deus Ex


Allanon:
Yep, I played Torment, great game. Still doesn't compare at all to PnP RPG's.

 

[hong]

Ever tried to leave Sigil in PS: Torment, go to Faerun, and take up a career as a wandering adventurer who can't die?

Ever tried to hold a conversation with Morte about existential Arcana in the game?

Ever tried to get it on with the Chaotic Good Succubus who prefers scintillating conversation, or sell the Flaming Fire Mage as a steam generator to get rich, or Learn Monkish Arts from a Githzerai?

No.

Why? Because the plot and writing in PST is THAT DAMN GOOD, that it sucks you in and compels you utterly to follow the little food pellets laid down in front of you, until you reach the lever. Then you can pull either the blue lever or the red lever, to get more food pellets. Repeat until you get to the end, where the ultimate consequences of which levers you chose are made clear.

Of course, some people don't care for either the blue _or_ the red lever, because they believe that they can tell a better story than what's in the game. This is not particularly surprising. The web is full of unread blogs and crap fanfics, after all.

And in the end, free will is never absolute, even in a PnP game. Limitations exist in the form of genre conventions and expectations, the implied world of the ruleset you use, and the demands of the gaming group. You won't find many people wanting to play a space marine in a D&D game, for example (at least I don't think so). Even if you did, you probably wouldn't let them, unless there was some exceptional circumstance going on. You're also not likely to get very far trying to play a Traveller-type merchant in a game like D&D that emphasises dungeoneering, before bumping up hard against shortcomings in the ruleset.

Similarly, a group with wildly diverse characters is probably going to spend more time arguing with each other than actually getting anything done. There are some people who consider arguing to be the sine qua non of roleplaying. There are websites that cater for people like these, and some of them don't even charge money for all the pretty pictures.