RPG's and the essence of tabletop roleplaying

[Parsifarka]

CRPGs are a prism of the modern experience of freedom - the ability to make choices is masqueraded as freedom, as if choosing an option that was created for you has anything to do with freedom. True freedom would imply some sort action that transcends the limits that are imposed to you. As the limitation of the medium come close with the limits of this false idea of freedom, CRPGs reveal themselves to be ideology. Thus, yeah, they are shit

A toast from the Grand Hotel Abyss

 

[Neanderthal]

I think the best thing a CRPG can do to emulate PnP is to give you goals, give you a range of tools to meet them goals, and make them all viable if you are skilled enough or use them well. See Arcanum, Fallout, Planescape, Ultimas. I think the worst they can do is create one path that you have to follow, but litter it will false choices that all lead to that path, easily spotted and makes me feel like i'm on a fucking train ride rather than interacting with the game.

The first approach you can also expand with perks and such shit, recognising what you've done or the approach you chose.

 

[Roid King]

I don't play PnP, so I don't know how they compare, but my answer to the OP is no - they aren't. As a genre I think the overall quality is pretty low, and even the best of the genre is heavily flawed. Pound for pound I think many other genres offer more quality options. That being said, cRPGs do things that many other genres don't or can't and thus offer some pretty unique experiences... and cRPGs are often far more ambitious, which counts for a lot even if the resulting quality level is lower than it should be.

True. I like the concept of RPGs more than actual RPGs. Same with horror. I'm searching high and low for good horror that actually scares me. I've never found a single work of literature that works, maybe a dozen or so movies, and something similar with games.

 

[Shaewaroz]

To me tabletop RPGs are the purest form of collective storytelling. Singleplayer RPGs will never be communal by nature, so they will always lack this important element. Maybe some day MMORPGs could reach something similar to a tabletop experience, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

[Grauken]

That's why I love CRPGs but never any of the P&P sessions I joined. I just don't care about collective storytelling

 

[Perkel]

To me tabletop RPGs are the purest form of collective storytelling. Singleplayer RPGs will never be communal by nature, so they will always lack this important element. Maybe some day MMORPGs could reach something similar to a tabletop experience, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

MMORGS are even worse in that aspect.

In PnP you had gamemaster who could spike things up
In SP cRPG you have developers creating what could gamemaster do. Like you want to break into house and you can use your charms to get into it while other option would be just straight up pick lock door at night.
In MMORPG you kill 10 wolves.

MMORPGs social aspect has 0 to do with game and can be replicated just by playing any other game like fucking pacman with 2 players.

 

[Shaewaroz]

To me tabletop RPGs are the purest form of collective storytelling. Singleplayer RPGs will never be communal by nature, so they will always lack this important element. Maybe some day MMORPGs could reach something similar to a tabletop experience, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

MMORGS are even worse in that aspect.

In PnP you had gamemaster who could spike things up
In SP cRPG you have developers creating what could gamemaster do. Like you want to break into house and you can use your charms to get into it while other option would be just straight up pick lock door at night.
In MMORPG you kill 10 wolves.

MMORPGs social aspect has 0 to do with game and can be replicated just by playing any other game like fucking pacman with 2 players.

Online games still have the potential to become something much more than what they're today. However trying to innovate on that front doesn't make sense from economic point of view. Skinner boxes make the most money, so why try to make them into something more engaging?

However it could be possible to create an online RPG that would be something more similar to the tabletop RPG online programs like Roll20 that exist today, with different roles for DMs and players.

 

[Silva]

Book RPGs

-Expectation: infinite freedom! Reactivity! Openness!
-Reality: frustrated wanabee writer GM railroads players start to finish through pet-story.

CRPGS

- Expectation: C&C! Open-worlds! Decisive combats!
- Reality: teen romances, boring combats and save-scumming.

Nah, RPGs suck regardless the form.

 

[Falksi]

I think it's a fucking miracle that PnP RPGs even get past the initial stages tbh. When I tried them as a youngster, after an hour or so it'd decend into tomfoolery, with the focus shifting from the questing to potions that make you bum goblins & spells which let you see NPC's tits etc.

I like to socilize for a laugh & good times with mates, and keep it grounded in reality, when I do. RPGs serve me for detatching myself from reality, getting some peace & quiet, & unwinding away from said social noise.

For those purposes CRPGS>PnP RPGs every single time.

 

[Jacob]

Every attempts at trying to get my friends into P&P has resulted in us playing poker instead.

 

[Cael]

I think it's a fucking miracle that PnP RPGs even get past the initial stages tbh. When I tried them as a youngster, after an hour or so it'd decend into tomfoolery, with the focus shifting from the questing to potions that make you bum goblins & spells which let you see NPC's tits etc.

That would be more because of the immaturity of the players than the game itself.

The good thing about PnP RPG is that it can cater for any kind of game, be it tomfoolery or serious Oscar winning performances (not that winning an Oscar is saying much, mind you; you just need to know who to bribe with booty).

 

[Perkel]

Online games still have the potential to become something much more than what they're today. However trying to innovate on that front doesn't make sense from economic point of view. Skinner boxes make the most money, so why try to make them into something more engaging?

I think it is the same issue as communism.
In theory it looks like great idea but reality doesn't work that way.

And it is even worse than just lack of innovation. Nature has fundamental problem. Speed of light.
MMORPGs and online games in general are limited literally by physics.

The more advanced and complicated (in therms of systems involved) the more "talking" is needed betweeen servers and clients which means that soon you hit limit of how much time message can travel and be outdated which means that you can't create complex online games at huge scale.

Generally speaking the bigger the amount of people at once and more complex game the less and less possibility for creation of it (and not in economical sense but purely physical)

This is why we don't see MMO action games that host thousands of people on screen but only a couple of 100 at max.
So MMO creators started to use tricks. Instead of calculating damage per frame or something etc. they calculate once every while and average it out, this is why lockstep mode is very hard thing to achieve when you run games with more people that couple.

The more people involved the more faking needs to be done in order to make game playable and at some point game is so faked that it brakes illusion of playing it in real time and game becomes unplayable.

Skinner boxes are simply practical and easy to make while alternative is harder to make according to size of population playing at the same time in same instance.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I think it's a fucking miracle that PnP RPGs even get past the initial stages tbh. When I tried them as a youngster, after an hour or so it'd decend into tomfoolery, with the focus shifting from the questing to potions that make you bum goblins & spells which let you see NPC's tits etc.

I like to socilize for a laugh & good times with mates, and keep it grounded in reality, when I do. RPGs serve me for detatching myself from reality, getting some peace & quiet, & unwinding away from said social noise.

For those purposes CRPGS>PnP RPGs every single time.

Need a good DM. I've encountered a few players like you who were amazed once they joined one of my games, seeing how "Real" tabletop D&D was supposed to be played.

Still, I wonder how many tabletop PnP sales are from people who think the books look interesting but never manage to get a game together.

 

[DraQ]

MMORGS are even worse in that aspect.

In PnP you had gamemaster who could spike things up
In SP cRPG you have developers creating what could gamemaster do. Like you want to break into house and you can use your charms to get into it while other option would be just straight up pick lock door at night.
In MMORPG you kill 10 wolves.

MMORPGs social aspect has 0 to do with game and can be replicated just by playing any other game like fucking pacman with 2 players.

The main advantage of GM is that when mechanics does something retarded or you do something unexpected, the dev or modder won't come to patch your game on the fly.

The only somewhat viable option for a cRPG is to have as much of broad, robust and cohesive mechanics to handle player's and RNG's shenanigans and as little assumptions as possible in regards to what happens, when and how.

As for MMOs, the theme park style ones are just hopeless, Eve style could potentially be promising but the weakest link is and will remain the players.