What on earth does "video-gamey" mean?

[Doug McCrae]

I notice that every defender of the use of the term has a different definition. Often wildly different. And yet many seem to believe that the meaning is obvious. This thread alone demonstrates that it isn't.

 

[Hawken]

Re: WizarDru,

Maybe I just had more tolerant gamers or maybe they just didn't gripe as much. Definitely there were gripes though and attempts to house rule an improvement or fix a perceived problem.

But for all the arguments, debates, gripes and discussions, back then, there was no question that it was D&D we were playing. Now, it seems that folks are split down the middle as far as whether 4e is actually D&D or just a pen and paper video game that someone slapped the letters D&D on top of.

Actually, every gamer I know personally is not taking up 4e and are sticking with 3.5 for the foreseeable future. Most of them don't even consider 4e to be actual D&D. Legally, it may be. Physically, it may have the name, but to many I know, the "spirit" of the game (that intangible quality that all of us may know but none can accurately and completely describe) is absent in 4e.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I think your definition of videogames is different from mine. To me, videogames are the big stand-up quarter-hogs, while presumably to you, videogames are what you play on PS3, X-Box or whatever. (To me, those games are just "games" or "Xbox games" or "Playstation games", they're not really "videogames" to me). And in my context, I stand by my comments on the video-gamey-ness of 4e.

That definition seems a bit archaic, especially now that arcades are going extinct. I mostly see the term "videogame" apply to console games for systems like the Nintendo Wii or Playstation, "arcade game" for games you find in arcades, and "computer game" for games played on personal computers. Of course, there is a lot of overlap since games are ported between these systems all of the time, but certainly you can't say that my definition is an unreasonable one...

Not true at all. Fighting games, just to cite an example. Being able to throw a Fireball like Ken or Ryu from Street Fighter is a "special ability" that they can do at will, while something like Ryu's Super Fireball is more of an "encounter" power that they can typically do maybe one or two times in a match. Same with Scorpion's teleport or spear attack or Liu Kang's flying kick. They are at will "powers" that they get in addition to their basic attacks. Ryu doesn't run out of Dragon Punches much in the same way a 4e Fighter doesn't run out of Reaping Strikes.

I tried to cover fighting games like Street Fighter when I said mentioned that "it is not true, at least for games that can easily be compared to D&D". Fighting games can no more be easily compared mechanically to D&D than real-world combat and martial arts can. Comparing a fighting game to D&D is a lot more like comparing D&D to a Hong Kong action movie than it is comparing D&D to Final Fantasy. They are incredibly different beasts.

In games that do have any kind of close resemblance to D&D mechanically, then at-will effects are absurdly rare, or have hidden costs. You rarely get anything for free, and certainly not at first level like you do in 4E.

Actually, that isn't even true for fighting games, and that should be apparent for anyone familiar with them. Using Ryu's Hadoken has a cost, even though you can use it all day if you want. It is not inherently better than a normal jab. This cost takes the form of added broadcasting of your next attack, long lead-in animation, idle frames, and increased vulnerability to counter-attack before you return to neutral position, in addition to the difficulty of inputting the button combination itself. Another comparison is with Soul Calibur's Unblockable attacks. Every character in Soul Calibur has an attack that can completely negate the foe's defense and dish out a tremendous amount of damage, and these moves can be used whenever you input the button combination. These are "at-will" by your definition, but unlike 4E D&D "at-will" moves they are not free. If you use nothing but Unblockable attacks you will lose a match of Soul Calibur, guaranteed (actually, with one amusing example you will do so even if the enemy doesn't attack you, but that is just a tangent. I love Yoshimitsu ).

If you want, you could probably describe quick moves like jab combos and fast kicks as at-will moves in 4E terms, but slow, strong attacks and attacks that leave an opening, or attacks that require a rare situation to even work, would be per-encounter or per-day abilities. Of course, this kind of definition is only about as applicable as any comparison to real world martial arts moves, since fighting games and D&D are so different... The "take your turn for this round" abstraction makes any direct comparison pretty much impossible.

Game computations by a computer have nothing to do with how 4e is like a video game.

It is a way of analyzing it. If you want to talk about anything concrete regarding the two, it is the only way. If you take computations into account, you can directly compare equations and processes. Since D&D rules are nothing more than a collection of equations and processes with a bit of flavor sprinkled on top, it is important to make some examination within that context.

I didn't say anything about forcing a will save to activate a mark. Just like you don't force a reflex save to activate a fireball. Activate a fireball, target gets his reflex. Same with how it should be for a mark; activate your mark, make it against the target's Will save for it to affect the target.

That is what I said. Force the opponent to make a will save (attack vs. will defense now) or suffer the Marked condition. I don't see what you were trying to correct...

And don't say it takes more time. That's a load of bull! You can roll 2 d20s at the same time you can roll one of them! Designate which one is for the Mark and match that attack roll against the targets Will defense. Problem solved, time game is slowed down = 0 seconds.

I claim differently. Even one more roll doubles the amount of time requires to process the results. Humans are not computers, we require a certain amount of time to process calculate even simple comparisons (is 15 high than the AC?), and even if you roll the dice at the same time, the calculations are different and need to be done separately. For humans, there is a huge difference between needing to make a calculation and not needing to, unlike with computers.

Yet you just did. That argument is not based on that premise either. Don't put words in my mouth. Needing friends to win is one of the concepts of 4e. It is designed, and even explicitly written, that it is build around a team of 4-5 people working together. That means that the classes, races, skills, monsters, encounters, treasures, all of that, are built around having a group of 4-5 people.

Did I ever dispute that? Of course D&D require a group of friends to win. It always has, and it always will so long as it remains a tabletop RPG.

My problem was that you are citing this as 1) a change from 3E to 4E, and 2) influenced by videogames, which itself is predicated on the assumption that 3) videogames (as a medium) require friends in order to win.

Issue 1 is false, because nothing has changed in this regard from 3E to 4E. 3E assumed a default party of a Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard just as much as 4E assumes a Defender, Striker, Leader, and Controller. Encounters, treasure, CR, et cetera were all based on those assumptions in 3E, just as they are in 4E. The only difference is that 4E makes this assumption more flexible and explicit. For all purposes related to this particular discussion nothing has changed.

Much more importantly, issue 3 is false, and that is what I was trying to imply last time. The vast majority of videogames don't "require friends to win". The only games where that is even 75% true are MMORPGs, but you specifically discounted those when you clarified that you meant "arcade games" by the term "videogames". Almost every arcade game ever made, and certainly most made in recent years, are either designed to be played alone or played competitively against another player. The only exceptions I can think of are the "beat 'em up" games like Final Fight or the old TMNT arcade games, but those are designed to work just as well for a single player as a group of players, and they certainly don't involve anything resembling 4E's Roles...

If, by some chance, you were referring to needing a group of "characters", rather than group of "friends", then your argument still falters somewhat. Even in games that normally require giant teams of characters people still try to do "solo runs", and often succeed. Look these up on youtube if you are curious.

Also, we're not talking about baseball here and then switching to one man video games, that's just a red herring.

Vague use of the term "red herring" aside... I was just trying to make the point that your ideas of "needing a team of set roles to win" that you claim is a "videogamey" influence on D&D just as equally applies to being a "sport" influence on D&D. You don't go into a game of basketball without people who can shoot, people who can pass, and people who can defend. This is a much closer parallel to D&D's Roles than almost anything you will see in videogames, and is certainly closer than anything you will see in arcade games in particular. It just doesn't work well as a "videogamey" influence when there are clearer alternative sources of the supposed influence. I mean, they even explained the Leader role using the basketball point guard as an analogy on the D&D website!

As for the "switch" to single player games... You never specified "multiplayer videogame influence", and even now you use Street fighter and Mortal Kombat as examples. So long as the discussion is wide open enough to refer to a variety of games, then "switching" to talking about single player games is not hard at all. This is why the blanket term "videogamey" is so deeply flawed. It lets people squirrel around with defintions and leads to contradictory interpretations and miscommunication. If you have a particular game in mind, then name it.

No, its not simplistic, its rather profound and more importantly, accurate.

However, since you brought it up, lets use two popular fighting game icons; Scorpion and Sub Zero. Both are ninjas, both are cool. Both have an energy power (fire or ice). Both have a stunning power (harpoon to the chest/face or freezing ice blast). Both have "escapes" (teleport away from incoming attacks to Donkey Punch the enemy or create ice clone to intercept attack while flipping away). And a few other theme-related powers each. One doesn't really have an edge or a difference over the other except in how their powers are executed. You play based on whether you want to freeze someone or chuck a spear into someone's chest and drag their reeling carcass over for an uppercut from hell.

Any two characters in 4e are pretty much like that. They will both have X number of at will and encounter powers and other than that, basically the same saving throws, bab, same number of feats and same basic attacks. The only difference is in how its packaged.

You do realize that your example is a bit biased, right? You are comparing two characters who are recolors of each other. Those two were designed to be mirror images of each other, and both play pretty differently than other characters in that series.

Let me use a contradictory example, though not from Mortal Kombat since it has been a decade since I played one of those games (I am sometimes surprised it is still around, really).

Look at the characters Chipp Zanuff and Baiken from the Guilty Gear series (same genre as Mortal Kombat). Chipp Zanuff is a fast, weak, close-range guy who can't do a lot of damage, and specializes in using hit-and-run attacks with quick attack combos (particularly his Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Blade combos) and teleportation moves. Baiken is a slow, mid-range character who specializes in interrupting the enemy and counter-attacking. More than half of her special moves can only be executed while defending from an enemy attack, including her best Overdrive attack. They don't play anything alike, and you can be very skilled with one and completely suck at the other (I am fairly good with Chipp, but I can't even pull off Baiken's counters...). There is nothing about them that really is directly comparable, since they don't even have the same raw number of moves.

The things is, whether you realize it or not, it is true. In the context of that cartoon, if everyone had super powers (whether they came from technology, mutation or some other "gift"), who would really be "super"?

The entire point of that movie is that "being super" was about heroism and how a person lives their life with what they have been given. The villain who made that statement completely failed to be "super" even with all of his gadgets and technological powers. Rewatch the movie and wait for when the villain tries to act like a hero in front of a crowd, and watch how flawed his idea of 'super" was.

Besides, if you got Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Aristotle, Beethoven, Julius Ceasar, and a professional athlete of your choice into the same room at the same time, no one would think that being in the same room somehow would diminish their awesomeness. It would just make the gathering more awesome.

Now apply the same to 4e. If everyone gets at will and encounter powers, no one is really special anymore and now everything is a power in 4e. You can call what a wizard does a spell, but since it no longer requires "casting", meaning no chance of disruption, and there are no components involved anymore (except in rituals), then its more of a super power. Same thing with Fighters. If every Fighter can Cleave or Reaping Strike, he no more or less special than the next Fighter doing the same thing, since they'll all have about the same AC, same hp, armor and weapons. There's very little room for variation and then you've still got them effectively forced into the same role regardless of who else is in their group.

There is a lot of stuff thrown together here, too much to really pull apart easily, though I think there is a "two characters using the exact same powers will be similar!" in there...

None of this is even relevant to the "is 4E videogamey" discussion, and is instead just a complaint about the change from 3E to 4E, so I won't get into it.

I never said anything to that effect. Again, don't put words into my mouth and assume that your opinions about what I say are my own.

Earlier you said "I don't think there were really any problems until 3.0 and then 3.5 when "balance" became an issue/goal". Since you said this in the middle of a discussion about the videogame influence on D&D, my assumption that you were saying videogames were the cause of this change is perfectly reasonable.

If you don't want people to make incorrect assumptions about what you are claiming, then write more clearly and don't go wildly off-topic without explicitly saying that you are no longer talking about videogames.

And my statements either make my claim or they support/defend/explain my claims. And for every quote you can get to support your point, just as many can be found to negate it.

...

Go ahead. If you want to negate my point, then bring out one of these quotes that will do so. Until then, my point stands.

And if you don't think it has much to do with roleplaying, fine. That's your opinion. But your opinion doesn't disprove my assertions.

No, my opinions don't "disprove" your assertions, but it means you haven't "proven" them yourself. Since the basic idea of a debate is that you are trying change people's opinions, you can't just ignore opinions other than your own if you want to continue the debate.

Actually, they do. Maybe not where the player controls the number of spaces, or which spaces exactly, but the computer executing the game does.

Please point to where this mechanic exists in Final Fantasy games (or at least the first ten), or the Dragon Quest games, or any other non-tactical videogame RPG, for that matter. It doesn't.

Or, moving beyond videogame RPGs, please point to any specific mechanic in any videogame that closely resembles an Attack of Opportunity. Note that it have to more closely resemble the Attack of Opportunity mechanic than the "Attacks of Opportunity" that occur in real world combat for me to accept it as a true "videogame influence" upon D&D. So, for example, action games like Devil May Cry and fighting games like Soul Calibur don't qualify.

And the point of that statement was that when the game started becoming more tangible, less imaginative, more rules-intensive, that's when it became more video-gamey. AoOs were just the catalyst, but when you start having to worry about precisely where your character moves (unless it was something the DM absolutely needed to know for like a trap or something) and track that, then it became more like a video game.

This argument applies equally well to saying it makes D&D more like a tabletop wargame. In addition, I remind you again that a lot of videogames don't make tactical movement all that important. Even in a lot of action games, the only important factor is your rough relative position to the enemy. Ultimately, they only really care whether you are dodging and shooting back or not; they care about twitch movement rather than tactical movement. In first person shooters, for example, it is incredibly easy to lose your bearings and forget where you are standing in the room while fighting, and an FPS that punishes you for getting lost like that is one that is flawed. Stupid Metroid Prime hiding the phazon pits while you are looking up at enemies above you...

Again, you're assuming I feel that way. Don't. Everyone knows what happens when you assume....

Then would you please clarify what you really meant?

 

[TwinBahamut]

This is probably just re-iterating what has been said already in this thread, but I think my debate with Hawken just re-iterates the point that it helps to be specific when you talk about D&D being "videogamey".

If you have a specific game in mind when you claim D&D is videogamey, then name the game, or at least the genre. It helps a lot. Specific examples help even more.

My debate with Hawken has been a bit more interesting and useful once I realized he was referring to games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat rather than console RPGs or MMORPGs.

 

[Hawken]

Oh my frickin god!

I thought my posts were long and excessive, but yours are too long for me to even get into. I am not touching that...not that I can't or couldn't argue but just because I seriously don't want to bother with it. I got suckered into arguing with you (though my own choice, not saying you did it, Twin) and I just don't need to. Not what this post is about anyway.

I got seriously off-topic.

I don't even need to defend my points. The OP asked people what "video-gamey" means, and all of us have offered examples of what we mean when we use the term (presumably in reference to 4e). Whether you disagree with my points or not. I've explained my ideas of video-gamey to the OP and going any further by clarifying my clarifications is pointless. I've made my point. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant, but it was expressed clearly enough to be understood.

 

[Hussar]

Oh my frickin god!

I thought my posts were long and excessive, but yours are too long for me to even get into. I am not touching that...not that I can't or couldn't argue but just because I seriously don't want to bother with it. I got suckered into arguing with you (though my own choice, not saying you did it, Twin) and I just don't need to. Not what this post is about anyway.

I got seriously off-topic.

I don't even need to defend my points. The OP asked people what "video-gamey" means, and all of us have offered examples of what we mean when we use the term (presumably in reference to 4e). Whether you disagree with my points or not. I've explained my ideas of video-gamey to the OP and going any further by clarifying my clarifications is pointless. I've made my point. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant, but it was expressed clearly enough to be understood.

Actually, not quite]

General - What on earth does "video-gamey" mean?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Seriously - video games are a HUGE and diverse collection. How is calling something "video-gamey" supposed to mean anything? You might as well just be calling it "thingy" for all the specificity it entails.
-blarg

He was asking for a definition of Video-gamey. Not "What does this mean to you"? Because, in the end, subjective definitions are pointless.

Sure, to you video-gamey refers to arcade style games. However, as has been shown in this thread, people disagree with you. So, which definition should we reply to?

In other words, if you have the choice between using vague, obscuratory, provocative language, or clear, unambiguous language, ALWAYS choose the latter.

 

[Hawken]

Actually, not quite]

No, actually, quite!

In your quote those are all decisions I made. Who the heck are you to tell me my own decisions and whether I need to defend or respond?

He was asking for a definition of Video-gamey. Not "What does this mean to you"? Because, in the end, subjective definitions are pointless.

First you presume to tell me what I decide, now you presume to speak for the OP? You're pretty full of yourself, fella!

Since video-gamey isn't in a dictionary, its reasonable to believe he was asking what people thought video-gamey means to them. And if you really believed subjective definitions were pointless you wouldn't be posting in a forum on discussion.

In other words, if you have the choice between using vague, obscuratory, provocative language, or clear, unambiguous language, ALWAYS choose the latter.

If you had followed that advice, you wouldn't have written that post.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Actually, every gamer I know personally is not taking up 4e and are sticking with 3.5 for the foreseeable future. Most of them don't even consider 4e to be actual D&D. Legally, it may be. Physically, it may have the name, but to many I know, the "spirit" of the game (that intangible quality that all of us may know but none can accurately and completely describe) is absent in 4e.

Nobody among my friends from my university times smoke. 2 of them also never drink alcohol.
Does this mean that few people (or at least few students) drink or smoke?
Or is this just an example of self-selecting sampling?

(I am deliberately not using the example of all my role-playing friends that have picked up the 4E core rulebooks. Because I am talking about the self-selecting samples...)

 

[blargney the second]

I think Hussar's got the right of it. If this thread's proved anything, it's that "video-gamey" means many different things to many different people. It's so lacking in any objective definition with respect to its application to RPGs that for practical purposes it's phatic communication.

"Hey, how are you doing?"
"I'm feeling kind of video-gamey."
-blarg

 

[Hawken]

Or is this just an example of self-selecting sampling?

All its an example of is me making a statement that none of my friends that play D&D are switching over to 4e. Nothing more, nothing less. Some people in some online games I play in are curious about it, but no one I know of is hopping on that bandwagon.

The chief complaint is among my friends is that it is video-gamey and not really D&D anymore to them. Too much like WoW. I had heard that before and always thought it odd to always be compared to WoW. Why not compare it to EQ (I or II) or one of the others? I wondered until one of my friends explained that EQ really is sucking now, and after Sony screwed up EQII and lost a bunch of their customers that WoW is THE game now.