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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 4307757" data-attributes="member: 6533">A good point, in TRPGs we can blame the DM rather than the game.  We don't seem to be able to do that with CRPGs, we can't just blame the writer or the code and not the game.As a side note, however, I think one important function of both CRPGs Code and TRPG DMs is to crash the game when people make decisions that are horrible for the game.Once in my career I made a decision to indulge a player who was deciding to take an action that broke the rules, the spirit of the game, and the social dynamic of the table.I did it because I was a human DM and I had a lot of improvisational power.It was the worst mistake I'd made as a DM since junior high.  Everyone would have been better off if I'd made like a CRPG, crashed the game, and booted the offending player.All too often personal freedom is just code for new tyranny.  CRPGs can be very effective at preventing that.Case in point:And if I were as a good DM as the Mass Effect game designers I simply wouldn't allow you to do it.  Or rather, like Mass Effect, I'd refuse to interact with you until you chose another action.It's possible that there's a good game in going after the council and crashing on earth, but it wouldn't be a good game in terms of the narrative value of Mass Effect.  And in a TRPG it would also probably be a jerk move with regard to the DM and the other players.On the other hand, it's perfectly possible for Mass Effect's designers to game that story and decision tree, it's just not the one they chose to spend their incredible immersive resources on.  You as the player could still make that decision, work it out in your mind in terms of what you know of the Mass Effect universe, and then write it out as frankly pretty awesome fan fiction, but you'd be missing the Mass Effect version of the DM by doing so and all the sensual bells and whistles that go with it.If at a TRPG I have more freedom then the Mass Effect designers its because I'm sacrificing a huge amount of immersion from other sources.Again, I'm not arguing that there aren't differences.  Just arguing that the RPG hobby covers both TRPGs and CRPGs.</blockquote>

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