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Things that don't translate to the table top
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6551782" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Hmmm.</p><p></p><p>Alternate paths don't translate well from video games because they aren't needed per se because unlike a computer a person can improvise, though I have at times brain stormed them and written them down in an effort to try to stay ahead of the player's. For example, for the opening session of the current campaign, I was pretty sure what player's might do but nonetheless wrote up resolution paths for 6 additional possible ways of responding to the problem. And at times, published modules have a severe flaw in that alternate paths are not considered in the write up. So, so far as it goes, I would say that 'alternate paths' translate very well, and should be considered in published modules but I'd be surprised to see a lot of attention paid to them in a write up for personal use.</p><p></p><p>Visuals: Visuals in fact translate very well to a PnP. The iconic example would be the booklet of images that came with S1 'Tomb of Horrors' that supplemented the encounter text. The big problem is that they are expensive to produce, particularly in terms of preparation time for a homebrew campaign. But I would love to have every session have 10-20 images. It would be awesome. But it would also mean like spending thousands of dollars a session paying artists to prep images.</p><p></p><p>Exploring and Finding: This translates well to pen and paper, and in my opinion you've got it backwards. The sort of thing you see in a game like Fallout 3 where you've got secret loot hidden away in various places is actually direct heir of Gygaxian style dungeon crawling, where almost every room had some hidden feature containing loot that a party could find by interacting with the room.</p><p></p><p>Stealth: Stealth can be done just fine in an PnP. The big problem with translating stealth based play to a PnP game is that stealth based play is poorly suited to cooperative play and tends to work better as solo play. Even in cases where the whole group chooses to play stealthy characters, often its simply more stealthy to work alone.</p><p></p><p>The big things that are difficult to translate from video games to PnP games is motion and book keeping. </p><p></p><p>There are a lot of mechanics - some of them even directly inspired by PnP games - that you can put into a video game that you can't really put into a PnP game or at least, can't spotlight as thoroughly as you could in a video game, because they simply become too tedious in play because of bookkeeping. Having a computer track everything for you tends to smooth gameplay a lot, and is the reason that the computer has more or less killed traditional PnP wargaming all on its own.</p><p></p><p>The other thing that is hard to translate into a PnP game is continuous motion, again, partly because of book keeping reasons and partly because of the visceral experience of real motion is impossible to capture through simulation. Simulating motion involves breaking the turn into such small increments that it slows down play to a crawl, and the experience of playing slow is the opposite of the experience of being in motion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6551782, member: 4937"] Hmmm. Alternate paths don't translate well from video games because they aren't needed per se because unlike a computer a person can improvise, though I have at times brain stormed them and written them down in an effort to try to stay ahead of the player's. For example, for the opening session of the current campaign, I was pretty sure what player's might do but nonetheless wrote up resolution paths for 6 additional possible ways of responding to the problem. And at times, published modules have a severe flaw in that alternate paths are not considered in the write up. So, so far as it goes, I would say that 'alternate paths' translate very well, and should be considered in published modules but I'd be surprised to see a lot of attention paid to them in a write up for personal use. Visuals: Visuals in fact translate very well to a PnP. The iconic example would be the booklet of images that came with S1 'Tomb of Horrors' that supplemented the encounter text. The big problem is that they are expensive to produce, particularly in terms of preparation time for a homebrew campaign. But I would love to have every session have 10-20 images. It would be awesome. But it would also mean like spending thousands of dollars a session paying artists to prep images. Exploring and Finding: This translates well to pen and paper, and in my opinion you've got it backwards. The sort of thing you see in a game like Fallout 3 where you've got secret loot hidden away in various places is actually direct heir of Gygaxian style dungeon crawling, where almost every room had some hidden feature containing loot that a party could find by interacting with the room. Stealth: Stealth can be done just fine in an PnP. The big problem with translating stealth based play to a PnP game is that stealth based play is poorly suited to cooperative play and tends to work better as solo play. Even in cases where the whole group chooses to play stealthy characters, often its simply more stealthy to work alone. The big things that are difficult to translate from video games to PnP games is motion and book keeping. There are a lot of mechanics - some of them even directly inspired by PnP games - that you can put into a video game that you can't really put into a PnP game or at least, can't spotlight as thoroughly as you could in a video game, because they simply become too tedious in play because of bookkeeping. Having a computer track everything for you tends to smooth gameplay a lot, and is the reason that the computer has more or less killed traditional PnP wargaming all on its own. The other thing that is hard to translate into a PnP game is continuous motion, again, partly because of book keeping reasons and partly because of the visceral experience of real motion is impossible to capture through simulation. Simulating motion involves breaking the turn into such small increments that it slows down play to a crawl, and the experience of playing slow is the opposite of the experience of being in motion. [/QUOTE]
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