Person vs. `Puter

Are Tabletop RPGs CRPGs?

  • Tabletop RPGs are CRPGs. I will elaborate in the thread.

    Votes: 7 9.1%
  • Tabletop RPGs are not CRPGs. I will explain below.

    Votes: 70 90.9%

ProfessorCirno said:
Doug, again, stop comparing the world's greatest computer to the world's worse DM.
Would only the world's worst DM prevent my PC from becoming a charcoal burner? One could argue that in fact only a bad DM would allow it. I'd say I'm comparing the whole range of DMs and ttrpgs - good, bad, indifferent - with mod-able crpgs, which aren't that rare.

Every tt game out there will put significant restrictions on a player's freedom. Many I've mentioned are inherent - the physical laws of the game world, the capabilities of the PC, the desires of the other players. None of these can be avoided no matter how good the DM is.

Look at the strong defences on ENWorld of a DM's right to restrict the books he allows in his games. Or his right to decide what system/edition he runs, what levels he's comfortable with, the difficulty of encounters, what races and classes are available, the amount of magic items and treasure to award etc. One would think that games run by ENWorlders are better than average, certainly far from the world's worst. Well such rights for the DM inevitably mean less freedom for the players.
 
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Doug McCrae said:
Would only the world's worst DM prevent my PC from becoming a charcoal burner? One could argue that in fact only a bad DM would allow it. I'd say I'm comparing the whole range of ttrpgs with modable crpgs, which aren't that rare.

Every tt game out there will put significant restrictions on a player's freedom. Many I've mentioned are inherent - the physical laws of the game world, the capabilities of the PC, the desires of the other players. None of these can be avoided no matter how good the DM is.

Look at the strong defences on ENWorld of a DM's right to restrict the books he allows in his games. Or his right to decide what system/edition he runs, what levels he's comfortable with, etc. One would think that games run by ENWorlders are better than average, certainly far from the world's worst. Well such rights for the DM inevitably mean less freedom for the players.

There's a difference between a DM not allowing you to take the Improved Sandslogger feat from the TidalflatsWrack supplement and a CRPG not allowing you to bluff your way into the Innkeeper's taproom because you want to use your portable hole to make a secret entrance into the neighboring Burgomaster's office.

The quality of a thinker is the quality of his distinctions.
 

Scribble said:
Each monster and creature has its own AI, all linked together through a world AI... Like having a million DMs.

No, that would be like having a million players, many of whom happen to be AIs, all wondering why their superhuman Fire Blaster can't escape from the hedges in Perez Park or how a gang of hobbits managed to slaughter literally dozens of cads named Grima Wormtongue in the space of a few hours.

Yes, you can force a game in a direction the GM wasn't prepared for. That is exactly what distinguishes a classic RPG from many other species of game. What is difficult in a TRPG in this case is not even a part of a CRPG, or a nontraditional game like Baron Munchausen, or a non roleplaying game like Talisman.
 

Doug McCrae said:
Would only the world's worst DM prevent my PC from becoming a charcoal burner? One could argue that in fact only a bad DM would allow it. I'd say I'm comparing the whole range of ttrpgs with modable crpgs, which aren't that rare.

Every tt game out there will put significant restrictions on a player's freedom. Many I've mentioned are inherent - the physical laws of the game world, the capabilities of the PC, the desires of the other players. None of these can be avoided no matter how good the DM is.

Look at the strong defences on ENWorld of a DM's right to restrict the books he allows in his games. Or his right to decide what system/edition he runs, what levels he's comfortable with, the difficulty of encounters, what races and classes are available, the amount of magic items and treasure to award etc. One would think that games run by ENWorlders are better than average, certainly far from the world's worst. Well such rights for the DM inevitably mean less freedom for the players.

TTrpgs are not just abouts your PC. But again the PCs in ttrpgs do not have the receiving only role of stored feedback. The GM dynamically reacts with the PCs, something impossible in software.
 

pawsplay said:
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.

This is being obtuse. An MMORPG and a Novel are organized exactly the same way in terms of continuity - spatially. MMORPGs have an additional temporal organization that actually makes them superior - when you go back to the park there will be at least a little while before the boss respawns, when you go back to the shire chapters of the novel there's no difference whatsoever.

If you are as a player are going back to the park that's no different from you as a reader going back to the beginning of the chapter.




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

You're proving my point here. The fact that you have a non-collaborative state for CRPGs indicates there must have been a collaborative state in the first place.

pawsplay said:
A human player, however, can recover from any error.

This is extraordinarily pie in the sky and simply not true. By the same token a human player in a CRPG can recover from any error by simply not repeating it. This is a common solution in both mediums.




pawsplay said:
"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.

Again, this argument is obtuse:

A.) No one is arguing they are the same or that they aren't differences in tolerance (AFAIK), but you are arguing they aren't the same genre. Making an argument that there are differences in tolerance while acknowledging that they still have similar limitations doesn't seem to help your point unless you can prove some element of content significance.

B.) There's no general resolution for this in TRPGs, either. The player either leaves the game and makes another character, which is fair and common to both genres. Or the GM or DM or Rules assigns a damage value and hopes that's enough to satisfy the player.

C.) This example generally ignores the question of how well this fits within immersion. No protagonist character in a MilSF story is going to shoot himself in the head. Given your acknowledgment that Immersion and Storytelling are key all you've proven is that TRPGs are the inferior RPG product since they are better able to tolerate horrible story tellers.

D.) This argument also ignores the general question of scope within the genre. If you are playing a TRPG where the rules/GM make no allowances for shooting yourself in the head, put the character on rails, or limit the character to actions that that the immersive context describe as significant - all of which are things we all acknowledge CRPGs do but you claim are evidence that they are not RPGs - are you then somehow not playing in an RPG by virtue of the fact that you and your group are not playing an RPG according to the scope of the freedom principle allowed by Pawsplay's Iron Law of PRGs?
 

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
This is being obtuse.

Sticks and stones, Dr.

If you are as a player are going back to the park that's no different from you as a reader going back to the beginning of the chapter.

Not true. Chapter Three of a book always has the same outcome, no matter how many times I visit Chapter Two. The media are completely different in regards totheir continuity. An ongoing RPG is, by its nature, unfinished, whereas a novel is, by its nature, complete.

You're proving my point here. The fact that you have a non-collaborative state for CRPGs indicates there must have been a collaborative state in the first place.

Why? The fact that tomatoes have no wings and cannot fly does not mean they had a flying state in the first place.

This is extraordinarily pie in the sky and simply not true. By the same token a human player in a CRPG can recover from any error by simply not repeating it. This is a common solution in both mediums.

No, it's not the same. In a TRPG, you keep playing. Some ruling is made and the story continues. In a CRPG, the game crashes, end of the road.

Again, this argument is obtuse:

A.) No one is arguing they are the same or that they aren't differences in tolerance (AFAIK), but you are arguing they aren't the same genre. Making an argument that there are differences in tolerance while acknowledging that they still have similar limitations doesn't seem to help your point unless you can prove some element of content significance.

We could go on all day about limitations they have in common, but that's not the point. We want to discuss differences. There are some limitations CRPGs have that TRPGs simply don't.

B.) There's no general resolution for this in TRPGs, either. The player either leaves the game and makes another character, which is fair and common to both genres. Or the GM or DM or Rules assigns a damage value and hopes that's enough to satisfy the player.

That sounds like a resolution to me. Perhaps you can explain yourself again, since I have no idea what you are talking about. I see the words, but I do not see in them an argument against anything I am saying. I agree that the player can make a new character or the GM assigns some kind of damage. How does this contradict what I said?

C.) This example generally ignores the question of how well this fits within immersion. No protagonist character in a MilSF story is going to shoot himself in the head. Given your acknowledgment that Immersion and Storytelling are key all you've proven is that TRPGs are the inferior RPG product since they are better able to tolerate horrible story tellers.

I never said anything about genre. Genre is the kitchen maid in RPGs. Immersion is the queen. Genre concerns the game designer, and concerns an immersive roleplayer to the extent they view their character as belonging in genre, but it does not restrict the possible range of actions. How a game system reacts to out-of-genre decisions tells you a lot about its design.

D.) This argument also ignores the general question of scope within the genre. If you are playing a TRPG where the rules/GM make no allowances for shooting yourself in the head, put the character on rails, or limit the character to actions that that the immersive context describe as significant - all of which are things we all acknowledge CRPGs do but you claim are evidence that they are not RPGs - are you then somehow not playing in an RPG by virtue of the fact that you and your group are not playing an RPG according to the scope of the freedom principle allowed by Pawsplay's Iron Law of PRGs?

Your sentence reads "If you are playing a TRPG.... are you ... not playing in an RPG?" I am forced to conclude the answer is "no" or "This question has no logical answer." It seems to me you have phrased the question strangely.

If the game makes no allowances for the action... you are still playing a RPG, if the action is nonetheless still permissible. This is not a legal move in Monopoly, but is in an RPG.

If you limit the character to certain actions... who is limiting the character? If the game forbids it, then the action is resolved (it doesn't work) and the principle still holds. Though the GM can forbid an action, he cannot prevent a player from choosing the forbidden action, so unless the rules change, they are still playing an RPG. They may reach an impasse, but that's a social metagame problem, not a failure of the game to provide a resolution.

If the GM has the right to narrate the action, within the rules, and in fact, no player can dictate the actions of any character within the choices provided by the rules, then it is in fact not a role-playing game, by my definition. I call that kind of game a storytelling game or interactive fiction game. RPGs don't allow this kind of action, but then, neither do CRPGs; the computer can't make you press any particular macro key or whatever.

"Putting someone on rails" is too nebulous a concept to argue for or against.

Short answer: my definition covers all these situations and more without strain.
 


I voted "not," because I reject the idea that my brain is a computer. (If that were true, my differential equations homework would have been a LOT easier.)
 

Re: Hong's comment. This is so easy to refute it is almost not worth bothering.

computers = finite/formulaic
human imagination = infinite/dynamic

Which is why I don't enjoy CRPGs. They are...limited and there is little to no imagination involved.

EDIT: Or another way to put it is that:

TTRPGs are imaginative,
CRPGs are simulative.

Imagination is infinite; simulation is finite.
 

CleverNickName said:
I voted "not," because I reject the idea that my brain is a computer. (If that were true, my differential equations homework would have been a LOT easier.)

You've got it backwards.

Your brain is a computer. That's the original meaning of the word. Computers are people.

The box you program code into is just a simulation of a computer. One whose silican 'brain' has different limitations than your meat brain.

And even that is inaccurate. What you actually play with is a text written by an actual Computer, or rather a team of them, who is using the 'stage' provided by the hardware to give you a more active reading experience than you'd otherwise enjoy.
 

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