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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6529377" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think that the premise that the player's themselves didn't want it this way is the most flawed assumption.Remember that the early RPGs were almost entirely drawn from the ranks of wargamers, who played games competitively.&nbsp; They derived the majority of their satisfaction by 'winning', and so to receive a leveled character without effort, without having faced risks and challenges would have been antithetical to their aesthetics of play.&nbsp;&nbsp; It would have been the equivalent of sitting down to play chess and then having the opponent say, &quot;I resign.&nbsp; You win.&quot;, even before the first move of the game.&nbsp; What's the fun in that?&nbsp; Over time, we've evolved some very different motivations for play and very different ways to have fun RPing.&nbsp; But there isn't anything particularly strange or bad about the older motivations.&nbsp; They are just different motivations and shape different sort of games.&nbsp; In the context of other sorts of games, there is far more satisfaction to beating Nethack 'hardcore' without cheating, than there would be if you could (or arranged to) start over at the same place any time you died.&nbsp; Yes it is frustrating at times to have to start over, especially when you die to some sort of stupid bad luck, but for many people the simple competition of play is the primary or at least a very important source of the joy of play.&nbsp; They are playing for the NOW, it's just that to maximize their present enjoyment requires at times letting go of the current progress they've made.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6529377, member: 4937"] I think that the premise that the player's themselves didn't want it this way is the most flawed assumption. Remember that the early RPGs were almost entirely drawn from the ranks of wargamers, who played games competitively. They derived the majority of their satisfaction by 'winning', and so to receive a leveled character without effort, without having faced risks and challenges would have been antithetical to their aesthetics of play. It would have been the equivalent of sitting down to play chess and then having the opponent say, "I resign. You win.", even before the first move of the game. What's the fun in that? Over time, we've evolved some very different motivations for play and very different ways to have fun RPing. But there isn't anything particularly strange or bad about the older motivations. They are just different motivations and shape different sort of games. In the context of other sorts of games, there is far more satisfaction to beating Nethack 'hardcore' without cheating, than there would be if you could (or arranged to) start over at the same place any time you died. Yes it is frustrating at times to have to start over, especially when you die to some sort of stupid bad luck, but for many people the simple competition of play is the primary or at least a very important source of the joy of play. They are playing for the NOW, it's just that to maximize their present enjoyment requires at times letting go of the current progress they've made. [/QUOTE]

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