D&D 5E You can't necessarily go back

[sec_tcpaipm]

While i agree on most of your post, this is not right. There are as much freedom to build your char in WoW as the game allows. Some builds are mechanically better, and become cookie cutter, but the same goes about RPG. CharOp forums are full of cookie cutter builds, and advice about trap feats or bad spells you should avoid.

Of course you can ignore Char Op advices and mahe whatever character you want to roleplay, regardless of it's mechanical optimization. But the same is true in WoW. The cost is the same in both: being mechanically inferior to the tried true minmaxed builds

I know some groups that started treating those CharOp builds as if they were the classes.

 

[billd91]

Hell, just as another example, Paizo's Legacy of Fire Player's Guide includes a bunch of achievement feats that the designers outright state were inspired by achievements/trophies from current generation video games.

It was an interesting idea to experiment with, but not necessarily a good one. Note that they don't seem to have continued the experiment.

 

[B.T.]

Armchair game designers say that videogames have nothing to offer RPGs.

A real game designer does not allow the source to determine whether a potential innovation is good or bad.

You can make bold proclamations from your ivory tower about what a real game designer does or doesn't do, but I challenge you to find a videogame mechanic that would improve an RPG. The majority of videogame mechanics are twitch-based (doesn't work for pen-and-paper games), terrible and gamey (bad for tabletop games), or an attempt at better emulating tabletop games (inapplicable).

The only RPGs that try to emulate MMOs are spectacular failures. (The Everquest RPG is lol.) You occasionally get a decent one, like the Warcraft RPG, but that is based on the Warcraft setting, not the Warcraft videogame mechanics.

 

[Argyle King]

I think there are things tabletop games can take from electronic games and make good use of. However, as I already said, I feel there are some core reasons why I play tabletop games and things unique to the tabletop experience which should be compromised as little as possible.

 

[mudbunny]

You can make bold proclamations from your ivory tower about what a real game designer does or doesn't do, but I challenge you to find a videogame mechanic that would improve an RPG. The majority of videogame mechanics are twitch-based (doesn't work for pen-and-paper games), terrible and gamey (bad for tabletop games), or an attempt at better emulating tabletop games (inapplicable).

The only RPGs that try to emulate MMOs are spectacular failures. (The Everquest RPG is lol.) You occasionally get a decent one, like the Warcraft RPG, but that is based on the Warcraft setting, not the Warcraft videogame mechanics.

Wait. You are moving the goalposts dramatically here.

Your statement to which I responded was that "videogames have nothing to offer tapbletop RPGs." (emphasis added.) now, you have shifted that to "the majority of videogame mechanics."

Which statement would you like me to discuss, because they are both very different.

As for mechanics, I would say that marking (which is a way of bringing aggro from MMOs into the tabletop sphere) is a significant grabbing of something from the videogame sphere into tabletop RPGs.

 

[triqui]

I think this is true for more modern D&D which has a more vertical structure and some of the games in the d20 family, but not necessarily true of tabletop gaming in general. That was actually part of the point to my post; that tabletop games are starting to adopt some of those features. It's not something I feel (on a personal level) is one of the better features to borrow from video games.

While it is true that Char Op messageboards and copycat builds from internet are a post 3.X edition and beyond, I'm positive about the fact of BECMI or ADnD editions being older that internet forums development is a major contributor of this ;-)

 

[Argyle King]

While it is true that Char Op messageboards and copycat builds from internet are a post 3.X edition and beyond, I'm positive about the fact of BECMI or ADnD editions being older that internet forums development is a major contributor of this ;-)

Not all rpgs are D&D. Among those which are not, there are games which do not have levels in the same manner that D&D does -if they even have them at all. In such games, there is no concept of needing to choose certain things at certain levels because that does not apply to the game. That's not to say that 'builds' do not exist at all; most certainly, if I'm playing a fantasy warrior there are things I'm going to choose which are better suited to that task than if I were roleplaying the part of a wheelman for a group of bank robbers.

Likewise, in some of those games, options other than combat are seen as being just as viable for solving a problem as combat. I mention this because while I could take every option to make the warrior I mentioned in my previous paragraph the mightiest sword in all the land, that's not really going to count for a hill of beans when the problem at hand calls for something other than brawn. I love combat just as much as the next guy; hacking through some orcs or a dragon is cool, but in a game where that isn't always the right answer and there's a wider variety of possible ways to handle things, it's a little more difficult to come up with a CharOp build because putting all of your eggs in one basket leads to a character who is extremely narrow when it comes to the range of things they are able to do.

 

[triqui]

You can make bold proclamations from your ivory tower about what a real game designer does or doesn't do, but I challenge you to find a videogame mechanic that would improve an RPG.

I'm not sure why you think your own bold claims from your own ivory tower are any better than his, but I'd like to point a few videogame mechanics that have improved RPG. For example, the Dragon Age RPG is quite good, and D&D 3e borrowed a lot from videogames. Whirlwind feat was sued to be "videogamey" and "diablesque" back then by the ADnD grognards in the first edition war. The Talent Trees in StarWars Saga are a direct rip off from Diablo, WoW and other games Talent Trees. The already mentioned achievement feats have been explored, even if poorly executed. And so on.

 

[mudbunny]

I'm not sure why you think your own bold claims from your own ivory tower are any better than his, but I'd like to point a few videogame mechanics that have improved RPG. For example, the Dragon Age RPG is quite good, and D&D 3e borrowed a lot from videogames. Whirlwind feat was sued to be "videogamey" and "diablesque" back then by the ADnD grognards in the first edition war. The Talent Trees in StarWars Saga are a direct rip off from Diablo, WoW and other games Talent Trees. The already mentioned achievement feats have been explored, even if poorly executed. And so on.

I am not sure how me saying that "A real game designer does not allow the source to determine whether a potential innovation is good or bad" is considered a pronouncement from an ivory tower.

 

[triqui]

Likewise, in some of those games, options other than combat are seen as being just as viable for solving a problem as combat. I mention this because while I could take every option to make the warrior I mentioned in my previous paragraph the mightiest sword in all the land, that's not really going to count for a hill of beans when the problem at hand calls for something other than brawn. I love combat just as much as the next guy; hacking through some orcs or a dragon is cool, but in a game where that isn't always the right answer and there's a wider variety of possible ways to handle things, it's a little more difficult to come up with a CharOp build because putting all of your eggs in one basket leads to a character who is extremely narrow when it comes to the range of things they are able to do.

There are a lot of Char Op minmaxed builds that do not revolve around combat. Bards with +40 in diplomacy, unbeteable stealth detectors or whatever. There are minmaxed all-around builds too. Anything you try to acomplish can be done better or worse, and thus can be maximized. Sure, you dont need to follow this optimization, but you dont have to in videogames either. And it will be there for anything with high enough audience, including RPG. There ARE forums to minmax the chance to win in rock, scissors, paper game. Which you have to read if you want to have any chance in the world championship (yes, there is one), and you can safely ignore in more casual friendly games. ;-)