Person vs. `Puter

[pawsplay]

Players outnumber DMs by a significant margin. I'm talking about the experience of the majority.

What about it? "The majority" can't mod WoW to be anything they want. Your analogy just does not work. You compare game design to game design, play to play, gamemastering to gamemastering.

The form of your argument could be used to say Candyland allows more options than Advanced Squard leader. "I can adjust the difficulty of Candyland or make up any new rules I want, but with Squad Leader, I'm stuck with the massive, robust rules set included in the box."

 

[pawsplay]

Computers weren't accountants, but otherwise you're on the right track, just give it time.

I'm done. If you don't feel like explaining yourself, I certainly won't harass you by pushing the issue.

 

[pawsplay]

I really disagree with your analysis here:

1.) If this is a functional value for narrative then printed books also fail at conveying narrative. Alice is always falling down the rabitt hole, Jack is always chopping the bean stalk, and Frodo is always fat and slightly bored in the shire.

We're talking about a narrative, not the state of things at any point of the narrative. Let me clarify.

Frodo gets the ring. Frodo leaves the shire. Frodo goes to Gondor. Etc. Whereas in an MMO it might be more like, Frodo leaves the shire. Frodo leaves the shire. Frodo and Frodo got to Gondor and run a mission. The XP is good, so they run it again. Later, they meet Frodo, who has just left the Shire with the ring. That's not narrative.

Narration is a series of logically connected events. MMOs typically lack continuity.

2.) There are differences in tolerance, but the function is still the same. Further some of your claims here don't work on face value. Of course there's collaboration and feedback. A computer game will stop working if you stop feeding it data and interacting with it. RPGs more so than others.

"I stop working" is not collaboration. Ask any corporate mediator or industrial psychologist. A CRPG's only response to error is to give up.

A human player, however, can recover from any error.

4.) By the definition you give there is no sensible way to interpret CRPGs as failing. The immersive framework functions as the limitation of possible actions in both mediums. The tolerances are different in both scope and value, but in neither my MilSF CRPG nor my MilSF TRPG can your character move the adventure forward by suddenly deciding to turn into a dragon and burninate the city.

"Within the immersive framework." Rule one precludes characters from turning into dragons unless that is part of the story. Here's an example that illustrates what I mean.

"I turn my pistol on my head and pull the trigger."

Easily resolved in a TRPG, although there may not be specific provisions for this action. Generally impossible in a MMO, shooter, console game, or CRPG.

 

[hong]

Social constraints take the place of silicon constraints. A player who insists on self-destructive behaviour for his PC is likely to piss off the other players, and get booted (assuming the group doesn't suffer from the geek social fallacies). That's your "I stop working".

 

[Scribble]

At that point, they won't be in the same genre. You can teach an AI to run a traditional RPG, but putting an AI in charge of a MMO gets you... nothing. If you posit a CRPG full of intelligent objects, that's a whole different game.

I'm not quite sure what this means? What do you mean it gets you nothing?

I'm saying that you'd have an AI Dm, that could run scenarios like a Human DM, but since it's got virtually instant access to the rules, and can make pretty much instantaneous descicions, it can handle off the beaten path just as quickly as on the beaten path.

Computers can't do this as well yet, as we don't have true AI yet.

I believe otherwise. I used to study computer science, and I'm currently in mental health. If I had to predict something, it would be that by the time an AI could beat a modern human brain at this task, our brains will be that much better.

Hrmm I disagree completely. We're already at the point where without tech, we'd be just about completely useless/unable to function.

I don't see the human brain advancing in the same way. I see us just relying more and more on tech to do things for us.

 

[Cadfan]

Defining RPGs as requiring "collaborative" decision making is silly. All that does is automatically rule out one person RPGs. Sure, that accomplishes your goal of declaring computer RPGs to not be "real" RPGs, but there's no rational reason why a one person RPG shouldn't be possible.

As for the rest of it, sure, if you define social constraints and constraints of DM preparation to not count, then tabletop RPGs haven't got constraints. I, too, can win arguments if I stipulate that all the arguments against my position don't count.

 

[Doug McCrae]

"The majority" can't mod WoW to be anything they want.

I said players of single player sandbox-style crpgs have more freedom, not unlimited freedom. And DMs of ttrpgs don't have unlimited freedom anyway, there are social constraints and constraints of past decisions.

You compare game design to game design, play to play, gamemastering to gamemastering.

You yourself said that a player of a crpg is his own DM. Ofc there is no position with the name 'gamemaster' in a crpg, but the tasks done by a tt GM are split up between players and game designers in a crpg.

 

[Doug McCrae]

There are two ways in which crpgs offer more freedom than ttrpgs.

1) More content = more freedom. A single part-time GM can never match the content of many full-time game designers.

2) The presence of other people will always act as a constraint on my freedom. Their needs and desires will often conflict with mine. This can only be resolved by compromise. Or murder. I assume we're going with compromise. This also means that mmos allow significantly less freedom than single player crpgs due to the presence of other people.

 

[xechnao]

There are two ways in which crpgs offer more freedom than ttrpgs.

1) More content = more freedom. A single part-time GM can never match the content of many full-time game designers.

2) The presence of other people will always act as a constraint on my freedom. Their needs and desires will often conflict with mine. This can only be resolved by compromise. Or murder. I assume we're going with compromise. This also means that mmos allow significantly less freedom than single player crpgs due to the presence of other people.

If you are a human, and I bet you are, you are wrong. Less constraints does not mean more freedom for humans. Because human beings have needs too. When you think about humans better talk about comfort. The presence of and interaction with other people in the long run make you more comfortable than a one-time humanly programmed machine that will make you get bored.

That means that humans better react and satisfy your needs than software.

 

[jdrakeh]

Less constraints does not mean more freedom for humans.

Less constraint always means more freedom, by definition of both words. Unless, of course, we aren't using the accepted definitions of either.