The Gaming Den

so I just realized they won't let a non-subscriber comment on these articles. I was going to post complaining about the huge amount of noncontent they've been putting out for months, but it won't let me without signing up for a DDI sub.

hogarth wrote: The sentence that I'm skeptical about is this: "The game is filled with things that the DM can do better than the rules, and the rules can do better than the DM."

While it's true, it's also clear to me that Monte overestimates the amount of good rulings that the average DM can make up on the fly.

I actually don't think it's a bad idea to get the DM adjudicating more, because the more practice you get, the better your rulings become.

Still, Monte is a horrible designer and is only going to end up fucking this up.

Swordslinger wrote:I actually don't think it's a bad idea to get the DM adjudicating more, because the more practice you get, the better your rulings become.

You sound like an optimist.

In my case, I don't generally play with the same GM for a long period of time (with some exceptions) and I like to have a sense of similarity between one game and the next. I mean, isn't that basically the #1 reason people play D&D in the first place? Because of familiarity with the rules?

Swordslinger wrote:

hogarth wrote: The sentence that I'm skeptical about is this: "The game is filled with things that the DM can do better than the rules, and the rules can do better than the DM."

While it's true, it's also clear to me that Monte overestimates the amount of good rulings that the average DM can make up on the fly.

I actually don't think it's a bad idea to get the DM adjudicating more, because the more practice you get, the better your rulings become.

Still, Monte is a horrible designer and is only going to end up fucking this up.

He's not the worst guy out there, I think he just needs a team of people to rein him in because he tends to take an off the wall idea and run with it until shit gets fucked up.

He needs....I think the preschool teachers call it "redirection" from time to time.

Finkin wrote:He's not the worst guy out there, I think he just needs a team of people to rein him in because he tends to take an off the wall idea and run with it until shit gets fucked up.

He's like any other game designer, really -- a few really good ideas, a few terrible ideas, and a whole lot of mediocre ideas and "deepisms".

So, um, lemme know when the guy writes any rules. Because if I were an executive paying for this shit, I would be very, very pissed.

I think this is still in the Community Outreach phase. He's doing a lot of polling and data collection, poorly-worded as it may be. I don't think it'll change any of his ideas for what to put in the game, but it is telling him what buzzwords to market and which to not.

hogarth wrote: In my case, I don't generally play with the same GM for a long period of time (with some exceptions) and I like to have a sense of similarity between one game and the next. I mean, isn't that basically the #1 reason people play D&D in the first place? Because of familiarity with the rules?

Well not really. I came from the AD&D days where everyone had their own set of houserules, and it really wasn't a big deal.

DMing has always been less a science and more of an artform. Every DM is going to have his own style, and the only way you can prevent that from impacting the game is if you go to a straight linear board game style that plays like an introductory module.

Mainly you write rules for combat, and that's pretty much it.

Stubbazubba wrote:I think this is still in the Community Outreach phase. He's doing a lot of polling and data collection, poorly-worded as it may be. I don't think it'll change any of his ideas for what to put in the game, but it is telling him what buzzwords to market and which to not.

And even if they were writing new rules, they wouldn't tell you. They'll release 5E when they're finished, and not before.

Swordslinger wrote:Well not really. I came from the AD&D days where everyone had their own set of houserules, and it really wasn't a big deal.

Me too, but at no time did I think that was an advantage rather than a disadvantage (especially if the house rules were significantly different, not just popular variants like "let's ignore the weapon vs. armor table" or "let's not use psionics").

Swordslinger wrote:Well not really. I came from the AD&D days where everyone had their own set of houserules, and it really wasn't a big deal.

People also didn't have the internet back then, and TTRPGs weren't competing with MMORPGs. Having a comprehensive ruleset is more important today since you're going to have everyone discussing it online and holes, missing rules, or rules conflicts are going to talked about.

They also they need to spend less time preping or looking up rules than actually playing because otherwise you'll lose players to games where they don't have to do that, like TTRPG that are better than yours or MMOs.

AD&D was pretty much the only big game in town back then, and while it's still a, if not the big game, I can go online and find 20-30 other TT games easily that I could play.

Previn wrote: People also didn't have the internet back then, and TTRPGs weren't competing with MMORPGs.

Well first, TTRPGs aren't competing with MMORPGs. They're just different genres. I realize they both have RPG in the name, but we're talking about real-time versus turn-based and one game having meaningful character interaction and a changing world and the other one following scripted quests in a world that is immutable.

Having a comprehensive ruleset is more important today since you're going to have everyone discussing it online and holes, missing rules, or rules conflicts are going to talked about.

I'm not really convinced of that. Fun still inevitably comes first, and having rules that are too big for their own good aren't fun. There's a benefit to having good rules, but there's also a point where the system gets clunky. The bigger the rules set, the more time you're going to have to spend looking up rules.

Swordslinger wrote:

Previn wrote: People also didn't have the internet back then, and TTRPGs weren't competing with MMORPGs.

Well first, TTRPGs aren't competing with MMORPGs.

That's true. Not only do people have an infinite amount of leisure time, but no person who has ever played a TTRPG has ever played an MMORPG.

Previn wrote:People also didn't have the internet back then...

Actually, back in the 70's, we were playing Warlock, a version of D&D jointly developed by CalTech and MIT, and distributed on the ArpaNet. Further, the original Warlock players maintained a shared campaign world via the ArpaNet.

Smeelbo

hogarth wrote: That's true. Not only do people have an infinite amount of leisure time, but no person who has ever played a TTRPG has ever played an MMORPG.

Then TTRPGs are also competing with watching movies, Mortal Kombat, playing sports and sleeping. And making that statement is fucking pointless.

MMORPGs don't hold any special place in the competition, they're very different from TTRPGS, that I hate when people try to lump them together. D&D and WoW are very dissimilar and trying to target TTRPGs specifically to try to beat out MMOs is a bad idea.

Swordslinger wrote:Then TTRPGs are also competing with watching movies, Mortal Kombat, playing sports and sleeping.

They are.

What the designers need to make sure is that the specific appeal unique to TTRPGs is more appealing to players than what WoW and other games offer them.

Smeelbo wrote:

Previn wrote:People also didn't have the internet back then...

Actually, back in the 70's, we were playing Warlock, a version of D&D jointly developed by CalTech and MIT, and distributed on the ArpaNet. Further, the original Warlock players maintained a shared campaign world via the ArpaNet.

Smeelbo

Grats, you had an arpanet account. I should probably amend my statement to 99.9999999% of people didn't have the internet, and no one had the internet as it exists today as a global pervasive thing to share insights and problems of D&D on.

Swordslinger wrote:MMORPGs don't hold any special place in the competition, they're very different from TTRPGS, that I hate when people try to lump them together. D&D and WoW are very dissimilar and trying to target TTRPGs specifically to try to beat out MMOs is a bad idea.

You may not like it, but MMOs generally fill the same nitch of a fantasy game and world for players to interact with. If you're looking for a TTRPG type experience, you don't go play sports, or sleep, you might watch a movie, but probably not. What you do do is go play an MMO.

So yes, MMOs do in fact hold a special place in the conversation. I have yet to even hear of anyone comparing WoW to say Soccer or Mortal Combat, but the comparison to D&D happens so many times a day I can't even count it.

Swordslinger wrote:

hogarth wrote: That's true. Not only do people have an infinite amount of leisure time, but no person who has ever played a TTRPG has ever played an MMORPG.

Then TTRPGs are also competing with watching movies, Mortal Kombat, playing sports and sleeping. And making that statement is fucking pointless.

If you're claiming that if you went back in time and gave a D&D-loving kid (like me) a working copy of World of Warcraft circa 1984, that I wouldn't have thought it was any more interesting than a nap or a game of catch, you're out of your fucking mind.

Computer games have evolved a lot since the 80s and tabletop RPGs much less so. It's not surprising that they're a stronger competitor for a kid's time nowadays.

Previn wrote: You may not like it, but MMOs generally fill the same nitch of a fantasy game and world for players to interact with. If you're looking for a TTRPG type experience, you don't go play sports, or sleep, you might watch a movie, but probably not. What you do do is go play an MMO.

If you go out specifically looking for a TTRPG game experience, then you've already decided that you'd rather play a TTRPG anyway. Obviously you might play something you deem similar if your friends aren't available to play.

If you've decided that you want a MMORPG experience, then no amount of trying to make D&D into an MMO is going to get you to play D&D over WoW.

So yes, MMOs do in fact hold a special place in the conversation. I have yet to even hear of anyone comparing WoW to say Soccer or Mortal Combat, but the comparison to D&D happens so many times a day I can't even count it.

The games seriously are not very similar at all. MMOs are games of mindless grinding and time killing. You can't affect the world, you don't roleplay, you are a playing piece that runs around killing stuff. Yeah it's fantasy themed, but whatever. As far as I'm concerned it's got as much roleplaying as playing Super Ghouls'n'Ghosts.

The experience is seriously nothing like a TTRPG. Baldur's Gate 2 probably gives the best approximation of playing a TTRPG, and that lacks the personal interaction with real people. But at the very least you get to make character choices and affect the story instead of playing a scripted adventure.

Swordslinger wrote:The games seriously are not very similar at all. MMOs are games of mindless grinding and time killing. You can't affect the world, you don't roleplay, you are a playing piece that runs around killing stuff. Yeah it's fantasy themed, but whatever. As far as I'm concerned it's got as much roleplaying as playing Super Ghouls'n'Ghosts.

That is being a little unfair. MMOs can be tactically engaging and are getting better in not being full of mindless grinding all the time. You are correct in them not being RPGs though. They are chatrooms. If you can't go online and instantly speak to dozens of people it's not an MMO. Anything you actually do in the game, as neat as it may be, is secondary to the social experience. RPGs are all about choices and affecting the story or world and MMOs typically have very little of that.

We seem to be getting closer to the point of combining the two, of dynamically generating story and world and having both be affected by everyone playing the game. If and when that happens it will be a gamechanger. But until then MMOs will have no real decisions and RPGs will no human interaction and both will be played for completely different reasons.

Swordslinger wrote:The games seriously are not very similar at all. MMOs are games of mindless grinding and time killing.

So is 4e, so your point is what? Heck I could say the same thing about every TTRPG because that it's about is based on the DM. I'm in a game right now where all we do is go out on military mission to kill things. We are literally shunted from one combat mission to another.

The vast majority of your character's stats in a TTRPG is about their combat abilities. 4e is basically only about combat and mindless grinding and killing.

You can't affect the world, you don't roleplay, you are a playing piece that runs around killing stuff.

You can effect the world, you just do it on the dev's time table rather than the DMs or your own. You can roleplay and a lot of players do (and I'm talking about more than Goldshire), and in WoW at least you never actually have to kill anything yourself. It's actually possible to hit max level just gathering materials.

So what's left? You can't do whatever you want in an MMO?

Previn wrote: You can effect the world, you just do it on the dev's time table rather than the DMs or your own. You can roleplay and a lot of players do (and I'm talking about more than Goldshire), and in WoW at least you never actually have to kill anything yourself. It's actually possible to hit max level just gathering materials.

So what's left? You can't do whatever you want in an MMO?

No you can't. Because no change you make to the world ever sticks. You never actually clear an area of monsters, they always respawn. You can't go into town and kill a shopkeeper and have him stay dead to where his shop closes, or even to the point that another shopkeeper takes over.

The world is static and your actions are meaningless. The only notable change to anything you do is that your character personally becomes more powerful, but the world of WoW does not give a shit.

@Swordslinger

To be fair, the world of EVE Online does give a shit (up to a degree). And I don't have to elaborate on that.

Also, surprinsingly, people do manage to roleplay in WoW and other MMOs. Instead of roleplaying the big damn heroes, they roleplay what said characters are doing when they aren't saving the world. Is weird, but there you go.

It is not hard to roleplay the exact same characters in WoW as you would in a TTRPG that had WoW's same setting and plot. You do have to suspend your disbelief as regards to a few things, like the fact that yes, you can in fact go and kill every single raid boss as many times as you want.

The experience of slaying a dragon in a TTRPG and slaying a dragon in an MMO are, in fact, very similar, particularly if you're playing the MMO with a roleplay group.

Swordslinger wrote:
The games seriously are not very similar at all. MMOs are games of mindless grinding and time killing. You can't affect the world, you don't roleplay, you are a playing piece that runs around killing stuff. Yeah it's fantasy themed, but whatever. As far as I'm concerned it's got as much roleplaying as playing Super Ghouls'n'Ghosts.

The experience is seriously nothing like a TTRPG. Baldur's Gate 2 probably gives the best approximation of playing a TTRPG, and that lacks the personal interaction with real people. But at the very least you get to make character choices and affect the story instead of playing a scripted adventure.

Spoken as a person who has never played an MMO, like, ever.

Classic EQ and upper-echelon WoW players are almost for the most part roleplayers working their nearest IRC/3D game client, WoW in this case.

If you want to see the cream of the crop, you go to an RP, or RP-PvP server. You will probably never find a more role-play focused group of people at any of your gaming tables.

They scowl, yell, sign, and write long epic stanzas about their own mythological history of their much less mythic character, a level 8 D&D character looks at the level 80-85 WoW character and has to cover their mouth as they giggle at the puffed up Ysgardian-bubbled adventurers of 'Azeroth'.

You're also sounding like a person who's never played Ghouls and Ghosts.

Pro-tip, G&G =/= like any rpg you've ever played. When the orc hits your nearest adventurer, they doesn't take "no damage", and then proceeds to have their armour shed like a torn suit.

Finally, Baldur's Gate.... and it's ilk are.... poorly run railroads.

I can't convert my evil brother to join me; I have to either be killed by, or kill them. Which is stupid. Sounds like a writer who didn't get along with their brother, or was an only child, wrote that sort of shitty plot.

I'd put the Wasteland and Fallout 1 & 2 series up for "close to a table top experience" sort of computer gaming. The game writers didn't particularly care if you were a cold-hearted slayer of humanity; or a champion of freedom. You could walk either path, and the game was relatively ambivalent, only getting problems when you had actually garnered notoriety by those who were opposed to you, and more importantly knew who you were.

The Fallout 3 method of "luls, thise dudes know you're a goodie, ad 're gun keel yew" was deeply dissatisfying.

There never was an explanation for why these dudes kept showing up; going to their base didn't allow for negotiations; and wiping out their headquarters and entire command structure resulted in... "stupid newbie members of their team" following me and my crew, and feeding us nice expensive laser pistols to repair my own weapon, and ammo cells.


In Fallout 2, wiping out the slaver dens in the different towns resulted in 1) less slavers overall, and 2) the few slavers that you did meet were a) didn't know you and tried to enslave you b) knew who you were, and decided to book it or c) realized who you were and wanted to end you.

For me, I believe that players want to influence the world, and more importantly have the world influence them back. If you save the orphanage, you expect to hear when they're having a talent show, or you're invited to a celebratory party in your honour.