Is World of Warcraft creating a desire for more role-playing in D&D?

[Mallus]

I haven't seen Warcraft lead to an increased desire to play D&D. The gamer friends of mine with the time and inclination to play tabletop RPG's do so, others that don't play WoW or City of Heroes/Villains --that is, until they burn out-- and a few do both.

It's my been my experience that online games are attractive because they're so convenient to play. Regular D&D games can be tough to coordinate and block out time for when you're dealing with busy adults. No amount of dissatisfaction with the online game experience can change that.

 

[Clavis]

How does simpler equate with more role play focused? Checkers is simple. Not a whole lot of role play. Vampire is a lot of things, but, simple isn't one of them. Yet, it's constantly toted as the "Role players" game of choice. Heck, GURPS is one of the most complex games out there, yet, I never hear people talking about how it's all about the hack and no role play. Quite the opposite in fact.

However, that aside, why do you think that 4e is going to be more complex than 3e when one of the stated goals is to make it less complex?

Simpler does not equal more role-play focused, of course. More complex, however, can definitely take away from role-playing.

I haven't played Vampire since the 90s, so I can't address how the game system is now. I remember the game sessions being about 80-90% live action. The combat system was a little wacky, but since the characters spent more time in-character than fighting, nobody really cared. Vampire enjoyed the fact that its subject matter was inherently sexy and interesting, and it attracted (in my experience) a largely female audience who wanted to chance to dress up and pretend to be vampires. The rulebooks explicitly encouraged that sort of thing, and promoted thinking about a Vampire session as a party-like event.

I have never played GURPS, so I don't know what a typical game runs like.

4th edition does not need to be more complex than 3.x edition to still be too complex to attract a larger player base. Of course, we have the words of Chris Thomasson to consider:

In the meantime, I can say this: In 4th Edition, creating a character involves nearly all the things that you're used to picking in 3rd Edition. You pick a race, a class, equipment, skills, and so on. The methods used are slightly different, and you actually have a few more decisions to make.

While "more decisions" may seem like an encouragement to role-playing for people who have been gaming for years, new players will see these "more decisions" as the reason they have to do an hour and a half of math before they can play the game.

 

[Doug McCrae]

More complex, however, can definitely take away from role-playing.

Because fights take longer? Couldn't that be solved very simply by having fewer fights per session.

 

[LostSoul]

I love social encounters. However, I like to have the mechanical 'back-up' of a system for them. If we can just negotiate things out, fine. But if there's real conflict between characters, I like to have a way of resolving it other than by fiat.

Yeah.

IMO, the ultimate RPG experience would run like a season of Battlestar Galactica, where the drama is poignant and character-based, the story is suspenseful and action-oriented, and the entire thing has a definite story arc, divided up amongst several "adventures."

Have a look over here.

 

[T. Foster]

Also, I'm wondering the extent to which D&D is a formal game, and the extent to which "playing D&D" is a name given to a certain kind of social gathering. In my experience, for example, female players (some of whom also play WoW) are particularly prone to regard "playing D&D" as a chance to get together with friends, snack, and have fun pretending to be an elf, and barely seem to care about the mechanical capabilities of their characters at all. Does the future of D&D lie in promoting that aspect of the hobby?

Absolutely 100% Yes, and I hope WotC-2007 realizes this (because I don't think WotC-2000 or WotC-2003 really did...).

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

So, what do you think? Is World of Warcraft actually good for roleplaying in D&D? Are the 4th edition designers making a HUGE mistake in not making D&D simpler and more role-playing focused, rather than trying to compete with WoW at the things WoW does better? I know Ryan Dancy has already written at length about how "role-playing games" need to become "storytelling games". Has anybody else had the experience of World of Warcraft players being more interested in role-playing while they're playing D&D?

This is an interesting idea.

What I expect is that some people who play WoW will feel the lack of roleplaying opportunities in the game and as a result might want to play D&D or other games where they can indulge in as aspect that a computer game struggles with.

Other people might play D&D and feel the lack of ease, adrenaline and instant gratification that a game like WoW can provide.

So, in this case, I think WotC could be right on in trying to change D&D to move some of the combat aspects a little closer to WoW in order to satisfy the people who want that experience in their tabletop game. At the same time, I doubt the rules will present a major barrier to roleplaying for those who desire that.

The social encounter system might lead to some of the same arguments we have now about Diplomacy and Bluff and how they should be used, but for those really interested in roleplaying, it is a lot easier to de-emphasize or ignore those rules than it is to create a houserule system for groups looking for a more mechanical means to handling social encounters.

 

[Counterspin]

Pretty much everyone in my playing circle does or did play WoW/EVE some sort of MMORPG, and it had zero impact on their playing habits. People who enjoyed the roleplaying side of things are still roleplayers, and the tactical folk are still primarily tactical. Their WOW experience was shaped by the interests, not the other way around, with the roleplayers RPing in WOW, and the tactical folk getting into the numbers and the theory behind maximizing their classes potential.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

IMO, the ultimate RPG experience would run like a season of Battlestar Galactica, where the drama is poignant and character-based, the story is suspenseful and action-oriented, and the entire thing has a definite story arc, divided up amongst several "adventures."

Buffy the RPG has DM advice on how specifically structure "seasons" and "episodes," and it's highly regarded, and sometimes called some of the best DM advice ever. The books are out of print but still available, for the moment, as PDFs.

 

[Lord Fyre]

Pretty much everyone in my playing circle does or did play WoW/EVE some sort of MMORPG, and it had zero impact on their playing habits. People who enjoyed the roleplaying side of things are still roleplayers, and the tactical folk are still primarily tactical. Their WOW experience was shaped by the interests, not the other way around, with the roleplayers RPing in WOW, and the tactical folk getting into the numbers and the theory behind maximizing their classes potential.

At the same time, I do hope that Pen & Paper game developers move towards a more storytelling design. Because, as far as I can tell, there is little future in trying to "be" like a computer game.

Rather, I would like to see table-top games stress the elements that a computer game does not do so well: character interaction and storytelling.

 

[Counterspin]

Lord Fyre - But I don't think that's where D&D should go. I stick to D&D because I like it's computer game like elements, i.e. the tactical side of things. The depth of the tactics is pretty much the only reason I play D&D. D&D doesn't have to compete with computer games directly, because it has the added strength of being a form of face to face socialization, something that will be impossible to mimic in video games for quite some time.