Ways Tabletop RPGs can Differntiate from MMOs

[Asmor]

Everyone knows the usual grounds for what tabletop RPGs can do better than MMOs: the fact that there's a human arbiter there means you have the flexibility to do literally anything.

But it occurred to me recently that there ARE other ways tabletop RPGs can differentiate and elevate themselves from MMOs.

Last night I switched my shaman in WoW to elemental and was enjoying learning the new rotation when something hit me: WoW has a lot of strategy, but very, very little in the way of tactics. Almost all of your meaningful decisions are made long before you begin combat. In combat, you're just trying to execute your powers according to a fairly static priority list (i.e. cast the spell highest on the list for which you meet its particular prerequisites at this particular moment). WoW mixes this up a bit with different mechanics that you need to keep in mind or work around, but basically, that's the whole game.

Is this something that's necessarily the case for all MMOs? I don't know. Probably not. But WoW's the most popular, and the most popular also-rans (which may well be successful in their own right, but their still at best the Bing to WoW's Google) are basically clones of WoW. So if you find a way to beat WoW, you've de facto found a way to beat MMOs.

So there's a way for tabletop games to beat MMOs when it comes to mechanics: tactical depth and interesting decisions on the battlefield.

What other ways can tabletop gaming beat MMOs which don't rely on 'the human factor'?

 

[Frostmarrow]

The dilemma. Paint an NPC as both good and bad and then watch for hours how the committee of heroes argue back and forth whether to raid her tower or not. –Which of course they always do.

 

[amerigoV]

Here are some ways

• Watch someone's dice utterly fail them.
• Watch the DM's dice utter hate someone (or love them)
• Roleplay with some NPC called "Mr Fancypants" since they cannot pronounce their name (including the DM)
• Talk about last weeks "raid" (game) and it not be a repeat performance ("time to hit Naxx again!")
• Run a sub-optimal PC in group play and not be kicked out of the group (well, not as many times)
• You can flirt with a player of the opposite sex and actually know if they are of the opposite sex
• An most important, your character is the one changing the world, not just like the million other toons that came along

MMO's got their place, but PnP is a media as well.

 

[Janx]

role playing as in portraying a character, rather than serving a function in a team.

Adaptive quests that react to your promptness or tardiness and don't just wait forever for your PC to arrive.

realistic repopulation of dungeons, not just programmed respawns after 5 days that can be camped.

custom encounters, quests, challenges to fit the players you have, not a generic demographic of players.

 

[howandwhy99]

What other ways can tabletop gaming beat MMOs which don't rely on 'the human factor'?

Good ideas so far. The human factor is a pretty broad scope, so I'll take it as the position of a human GM.

Customization for creating a character can be bigger in table top I think. As well as customization of a figure by whatever creative means players choose to use. Performance of a character encompasses players performance more bodily than what an avatar can afford. Also setting and adventure content can be personalized to players desires more quickly and effectively than in a computer game. If we want a one room drama, the relationships can be more easily set out then going through level creation in a game. Playing near enough each other player also allows ease of communication, though text and spoken communication over IP is advancing.

 

[Gilladian]

Having situations like the following happen (all real game instances):

1) The PCs meet the baron, hate the baron, track the baron until he is in an isolated situation, murder him, make sure his body is never found, and then subtly inform his wife that her son had better not become the kind of person his father was...

2) hear the pcs groan and mutter that "if THIS house we just inherited is haunted like the last two, we're going to kill someone, and it won't be the ghost"... and make a mid-course correction to the whole adventure.

3) each PC finds a magic item that both links to the plots they've been exploring in the gameworld, and carries some elements that make it naturally appeal to them, specifically. It grows with them for the rest of the campaign.

None of these would have happened in an MMO.

 

[Stormonu]

Campaigns that change and evolve as the players and DM interact with the world.

That keep? Yeah, that's yours - you built it. Three campaigns ago when the evil Baron was threatening the town under its protection. And now, it's the new group's home base of operations and staging grounds for forays into the nearby wilderness.

And that goblin lair you guys burned to the ground? Now it's covered with farmer Brown's wheat crop because the city could expand outward.

 

[Wiseblood]

In TTRPG's you can switch sides.

 

[Stormonu]

In TTRPG's you can switch sides.

"Friendly" fire?

 

[Wiseblood]

"Friendly" fire?

We both know, there's no such thing, friend.

You are not part of the team just because of your race. You can be a bad or good and still change your ways.