Why is the WoW influence a bad thing?

[hong]

... MMOs don't have save points.

Too right, it's anime that has save points.

 

[Kesh]

Too right, it's anime that has save points.

But only if you collect the crystals first!

 

[hong]

But only if you collect the crystals first!

Crystals? Don't talk to me about crystals. Crystals are so munchkin.

 

[Rakin]

What I dont like (and can be compared to WOW and video game rpgs too) they are taking the imagination out of the game. It seems to me they are REALLY doing that in 4E. They are basically creating AIs for monsters, setting up pre pathed abilities for players and telling everyone how there characters fit in a party. I play D&D to flex my imagination muscles. Not collect "phat" loots or out crit someone. I play to get immersed into a world I or someone else has created in there imaginations. You just dont get that feeling ina pre generated video game. The rules should NEVER tell you how to form your imagination. They should only help you unleash it.

100% agree

Monte Cook in one of his articles said that when they were designing 3e, they were taking cues from Magic: The Gathering. That is, they designed the system so that an experienced person looked at it and understood that Some THings were Better than Others. I.e. that if you look at the Toughness feat, you know it sucks. Or that if you have had enough experience in fights, you know that Whirlwind attack isn't that great.

Blech, no wonder I don't care for 3.xe at all, good observation though.

SO good PNP games are there for players to show others how clever they are while playing, and try and think out of the box to overcome obsticles and 3&4e is about showing off how well you can memorize the rules, and more uber you can make your character and knowing what to use when.

I think thats the biggest difference to me about tabletop and MMOs is Cleverness and creativity vs memorization and the ability to analyze.

Looks to me like wotc wants to shft from cleverness to analyzation. Might as well just play wow.

 

[king_ghidorah]

What I dont like (and can be compared to WOW and video game rpgs too) they are taking the imagination out of the game. It seems to me they are REALLY doing that in 4E. They are basically creating AIs for monsters, setting up pre pathed abilities for players and telling everyone how there characters fit in a party. I play D&D to flex my imagination muscles. Not collect "phat" loots or out crit someone. I play to get immersed into a world I or someone else has created in there imaginations. You just dont get that feeling ina pre generated video game. The rules should NEVER tell you how to form your imagination. They should only help you unleash it.

Where do you see AI mechanics for monsters? Because there may be "powers" that allow leaders to affect and influence monsters? Where does that create a forced script any different than, say, the charm monster spell or fear spells?

The pathed abilities, if they use talent trees, are MORE flexible than the fixed ability paths now given to characters. Giving more flexibility is less imaginative?

And hack and slash and looting as a style of play predates video games. This has been a complaint about D&D since the advent of other options. Runequest players in the late seventies and early 80s talked about the problem to no end. Meanwhile, amping up the "video game" aspects of the game are also old, as anyone who has read Dave Hargraves' Arduin books from the early 80s will remember, with brutal crit tables, "phat" loot, and massive special powers in a setting that was over-the-top in just about every option, from power level to threat level.

 

[king_ghidorah]

Its bad because of the mentality most of the MMO people ive met have when playing a tabel top.
They want to kill, kill, kill. Nothing else! and they act like table top is a video game too, asking for save points (Im serious! its happened to me several times) and what not. I dont want MMORPG mentality at my table.

Most of my fellow gamers have played MMORPGs too. It didn't turn them into hack and slashers.

However, many young gamers I have met have been hack and slashers, with little sense of immersion or connection to the game. That lack of connectedness to the gaming world outside of their character's rise in power seems more a predictor of hack and slash mentality than playing MMORPGs.

 

[king_ghidorah]

100% agree

Blech, no wonder I don't care for 3.xe at all, good observation though.

SO good PNP games are there for players to show others how clever they are while playing, and try and think out of the box to overcome obsticles and 3&4e is about showing off how well you can memorize the rules, and more uber you can make your character and knowing what to use when.

I think thats the biggest difference to me about tabletop and MMOs is Cleverness and creativity vs memorization and the ability to analyze.

Looks to me like wotc wants to shft from cleverness to analyzation. Might as well just play wow.

3.5 edition is filled with memorization of rules and optimization. It's one of my key complaints. Class, feat, spell, and PrC combinations all allow that sort of play to thrive.

However, those sorts of combinations were a big issue in 1st edition with the groups I played with back in the day. Players would memorize rules, be able to spit out the stat block of monsters thrown at them, remember the combat tables, choose weapons and spells based on damage output, calculate placement of fireballs to use the volume of a room to singe everything but the party... that sort of mentality will be inevitable for anything but a freeform rules set, which introduces its own set of problems.

 

[Rakin]

3.5 edition is filled with memorization of rules and optimization. It's one of my key complaints. Class, feat, spell, and PrC combinations all allow that sort of play to thrive.

Agreed, I gave up on 3.5 stressed to all Hell,for the longest of time I thought I was just a horrible GM, now I realize it's not the case, just my brain was shifted so far into the left side (for all the memorization, and analyzing) that I didn't have enough right side power to do anything else, I just couldn't keep it all straight up-stairs.

However, those sorts of combinations were a big issue in 1st edition with the groups I played with back in the day. Players would memorize rules, be able to spit out the stat block of monsters thrown at them, remember the combat tables, choose weapons and spells based on damage output, calculate placement of fireballs to use the volume of a room to singe everything but the party... that sort of mentality will be inevitable for anything but a freeform rules set, which introduces its own set of problems.

I can imagine that happening to any system, called min/maxing, right? But the difference I see is that wotc DnD rule-sets seems to try and promote it even if not encourage it as opposed to something like LA (Lejendary Adventure) which, I believe works great at trying to keep most of the playing in the right side of the brain, and tries to promote creativity.

 

[hong]

Looks to me like wotc wants to shft from cleverness to analyzation. Might as well just play wow.

So, would you say that your hat of wow know no limit?

 

[irdeggman]

Most of my fellow gamers have played MMORPGs too. It didn't turn them into hack and slashers.

However, many young gamers I have met have been hack and slashers, with little sense of immersion or connection to the game. That lack of connectedness to the gaming world outside of their character's rise in power seems more a predictor of hack and slash mentality than playing MMORPGs.

True. As I see it those who have only played MMORPGs are much more likely to develop this hack and slash mentality and not even realize it.

Those who started with table top games, in general, have a broader viewpoint because of the requirement to "visualize" and not see on a screen (with a set amount of responses - that is a result of the AI itself, or hardware limitations).

I have seen with the growth in popularity of MMORPGs a corresponding tendency towards more hack and slash performance in table top gaming (both in the rules and the players - predominantly "new" players).

I see one potential contributor to this the "ease" of picking up and playing a MMORPG vice a table top game. In general it is far easier to get an internet connection than it is to find a group of 4-6 people who have the time to set at a table and game.