More Details About RPGSports Emerge

I had a short chat with Will Jones about RPGSports, the online competitive D&D event which was announced recently, and he was kind enough to answer a few questions about how the contest, which starts on November 10th, works.

Is RPGSports a team event, or is it geared at individuals?

It’s a team event! There are 16 players total with 4 on each team. A lot of these folks are from competitive eSports backgrounds and are newer to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, but boy have they been reading up! It’s been great to see the teams come together and support one another. Experienced players have been taking the time to sit down with the newer ones and give them advice. They’ve been getting together for practice games and honing the craft. The format may be competitive, but the team work we’ve seen before the game has even begun has made me incredibly proud to see.

What's the basic format of RPGSports? Do characters fight each other, or do groups compete against each other to achieve some sort of goal?

In this first tournament teams compete against one another in a Team Deathmatch style game of 4v4. We’ve heard a lot of requests to run “Dungeon runs” - eg. racing through the Tomb of Horrors to see which team can get through fastest. Different formats are absolutely on our radar for 2019.

What sort of challenges might participants be expected to face? What would the victory conditions look like?

Aside from facing off against the other team, you can expect to see deadly traps, environmental hazards and more. There’s an element of strategy in looking for & disabling traps, while evading the environmental hazards that enter the game as time passes by. The primary win condition is to eliminate all 4 enemy PCs at the same time. If there’s no winner at the end of the match time, we look to other statistics that our analysts are tracking to decide the winner, or can even go into overtime.

You mention a $5,000 prize. Is that the only prize, or are there smaller prizes also?

It’s winner takes all, I’m afraid! Oh, and the winning team gets a big gaudy trophy too. We had to have a trophy. Aside from that though we are sending all of the players dice, shirts and other swag just for taking part.

You changed name from DnDSports to RPGSports recently. What other RPGs do you plan to include?

The table is very open for other TTRPGs to be added to our roster. If anything, it’s a matter of narrowing down some of the games which would work best for RPGSports, rather than having to choose from a small selection. The audience have already suggested dozens of RPGs, but right now we’re focused on getting this first event right before planning too far in advance.

Is RPGSports a one-off event, or an ongoing thing?

We plan for this be an ongoing tournament format in 2019. We’ve been overwhelmed with requests to play and get involved, it’s been incredible. There are even gaming stores interested in taking part in some kind of larger league. All of this is obviously very exciting, but it’s not something we want to dive into without proper structure. You can expect to hear more details from us in the coming year!

When using 5E D&D, do you have a list of pregenerated characters? How many, and what classes and races are covered?

There are 15 Pregenerated characters which have been limited to PHB content for this first tournament. One of the reasons for this is to not overwhelm some newer gamers, while the other is for balance. Giving our team control of the pregens has allowed us to make sure there’s no super overpowered meta build!

The format also features a pick/ban phase which allows teams to ban out a potentially powerful class.

We’ve got a good range of the races & classes in there, and it’s up to the teams to assess which Pregens are the best and how to best utilise their toolset.

Do you already have participants? How would a potential competitor enter?

For this first tournament the participants are already selected for the event, but in the future we definitely see an application process being put in place. Again, that’s in our 2019 plans but we definitely want to make this accessible to the general public.

 

[D1Tremere]

There can be, almost by definition, no such thing as RPGSports. If everyone was actually roll playing a character involved in a fictional sport, sure. But we are talking about real competitive players using an RPGs rules system to run through the mechanics of a competitive scenario. Who has time for character development when you are payed to pwn noobz and make inappropriate social media posts?
The fear I have is that we will see the same thing happen to Wizards that is happening/has happened to Blizzard, with a push to monetize player engagement that reduces depth of story, role plying, and personal connection.
I wouldn't care if they made a tabletop version of League of Legends or Heroes of the Storm, but I don't want D&D being transformed into that.

 

[D1Tremere]

They're not just "some exceptions" to be casually dismissed. D&D has had a rich history of competitive and tournament play for 40 years. I've never engaged with it, but I've been aware of it.

They have always been a side element, played with the understanding that the rules are not balanced around competitive play. Much like speed runs of classic video games show what can be done with practice to break and exploit the system, but that is not how most people enjoy engaging with Mario, Etc.

 

[Henry]

There can be, almost by definition, no such thing as RPGSports. If everyone was actually roll playing a character involved in a fictional sport, sure. But we are talking about real competitive players using an RPGs rules system to run through the mechanics of a competitive scenario. Who has time for character development when you are payed to pwn noobz and make inappropriate social media posts?

And yet, here we are, "No True Scotsman"-ing our way through this very circumstance, people playing an RPG in a way different from what others think it SHOULD be played, because "it can't be done and still be called that thing." People used to play the old RPGA for points, and still roleplayed just fine through it, and people still currently play in organized play like Pathfinder Society. Although there are plenty of people in the "Stop talking to my experience points" crowd (as the Happy Jack's podcasters call them), there are plenty who aren't, as well.

Rather than saying it's impossible to do so, I'm more interested in seeing what can be done with the medium. As I said before, eleven years ago people said that the concept of RPG Actual Play streams or recordings were pointless or would never garner any interest - and there's a burgeoning movement of that very concept today, brought by the innovations of streaming services and nerd culture, the former being unfeasible fifteen years ago, and the latter being inconceivable thirty years ago. If it fails, it fails -- but "no such thing as RPGSports" is trying to denigrate it before one even sees how it might play out in reality.

 

[D1Tremere]

And yet, here we are, "No True Scotsman"-ing our way through this very circumstance, people playing an RPG in a way different from what others think it SHOULD be played, because "it can't be done and still be called that thing." People used to play the old RPGA for points, and still roleplayed just fine through it, and people still currently play in organized play like Pathfinder Society. Although there are plenty of people in the "Stop talking to my experience points" crowd (as the Happy Jack's podcasters call them), there are plenty who aren't, as well.

Rather than saying it's impossible to do so, I'm more interested in seeing what can be done with the medium. As I said before, eleven years ago people said that the concept of RPG Actual Play streams or recordings were pointless or would never garner any interest - and there's a burgeoning movement of that very concept today, brought by the innovations of streaming services and nerd culture, the former being unfeasible fifteen years ago, and the latter being inconceivable thirty years ago. If it fails, it fails -- but "no such thing as RPGSports" is trying to denigrate it before one even sees how it might play out in reality.

I'm not saying an RPG has to be played in a certain way. I am saying, by definition, it isn't a role playing game if there is no role playing. If you look at the e-sports titles already being used by competitive players, many of them have modified or stripped out any RPG elements while using the backdrop. LoL and DotA, along with Heroes of the Storm all stem off of RPG like settings with the Role Playing elements stripped out for pure competitive play. I would say this is a good indication of how it will play out with D&D as well. None of the current role playing leagues pay people to participate, let alone to be the highest scoring players. That kind of thing may dissuade potential "pro" players from wasting time on activities not specifically incentivized, such as role playing. As we have seen from LoL, etc., when you remove the role playing, it is just a strat game.

 

[Henry]

That kind of thing may dissuade potential "pro" players from wasting time on activities not specifically incentivized, such as role playing. As we have seen from LoL, etc., when you remove the role playing, it is just a strat game.

What makes you think that role-playing won't be incentivized? Sports fans do it now (see the WWE, or the antics of some public sports figures putting on for fans) and should there be a strong enough desire from the customer base, I imagine you'll see it there too. In any event, if it is successful, it'll take on a form I imagine we won't necessarily predict, same way as with the current crop of 'performance' gaming.

 

[Prakriti]

I'm not saying an RPG has to be played in a certain way. I am saying, by definition, it isn't a role playing game if there is no role playing.

The "RPG" classification has taken on its own life and includes a lot more than just traditional tabletop gaming. Final Fantasy, Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, and Neverwinter Nights are all considered RPGs, for example, but they involve nothing more than staring at a screen and pressing buttons. There's no "role playing" involved (at least in the traditional sense). You might bemoan this use of the phrase, but it doesn't change the fact that it has been in use for well over twenty years.

 

[D1Tremere]

The "RPG" classification has taken on its own life and includes a lot more than just traditional tabletop gaming. Final Fantasy, Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, and Neverwinter Nights are all considered RPGs, for example, but they involve nothing more than staring at a screen and pressing buttons. There's no "role playing" involved (at least in the traditional sense). You might bemoan this use of the phrase, but it doesn't change the fact that it has been in use for well over twenty years.

But there is role playing involved in those games. You take on the role of a character who interacts with a story and the world in a certain way. You make dialogue choices and other critical decisions that influence the outcome of the story. You are incentivized to see the wold from different character perspectives, and experiment with different approaches.
Current e-sports only incentivize score performance. Unless they were to create a system of scoring that takes into account role playing, which they have shown no indication of, we will likely see the same in "RPG" e-sports.

I suppose you could argue that creating a real life persona is a type of role playing, as Henry said, but that would still be meta role playing. They are creating a show at that point for the real world, not one encompassing the game world.

It would be like someone showing up to a D&D game, killing everything and counting xp as a score without paying attention to the story, talking trash to the other players as their "character", and then telling other players they "won" D&D at the end of the session because of their score. You can make it team on team, and add objectives like be the first to ----, but then it is no different then capture the flag or other such modes in a FPS. The game then just becomes a skin for the same e-sports we see in every other fashion.