For better or for worse, it is this model that has emerged as the predominant structure for today’s modern MMO, either because of the convenience of developing in terms of quest design, the popularity of a computer RPG modeled game like World of Warcraft, or because more players look to the computer roots of the MMORPG than the table top roots.
This isn't true. For one, the dungeon crawl (raid dungeon, kill the monsters, steal the treasure) a kind of hack and slash "gameplay" predates computer RPGs. Then DikuMUD entered the scene and refined it for CRPGs. Then EverQuest built on that, then World of Warcraft entered the scene etc.
Traditional pen and paper has very little to do with sandboxes (unless you use a very loose definition). In fact, many game masters wrote key points of their adventures and would make sure players pass them, sometimes having multiple at their disposal. This is not that far away from "directed content", albeit human game masters are more flexible and can introduce random encounters and re-arrange things.
Procedurally created content (as often in sandbox titles) was the basic design of Rogue (and rogue-like) RPGs, which are … dungeon crawl hack and slash.
This.
I've been playing pnp rpg for nearly 25 years now and evolved into a mainly sandboxy GM, but I'm in the minority. Beside the term is very loose: I basically build whole campaigns around the PCs but I construct an overall narrative arc as sessions go which can lead to some "forced" nodes. Of course, those "mandatory nodes" don't appear as such to the players since they feel they are consequences of their own actions (while they are half-that and half my own twisted imagination).
In fact, computer games appear more suited to handle sandbox than pnp rpgs since computers have far more raw mathematical power than a human GM and that can surely come handy to handle consequences dominoe style (it's all so easy to miss something as a GM, believe me).
Sadly (and AFAIK), no breakthrough has been made regarding procedural generation in a collaborative & open-world environment. What we get is mission auto-generation a-la CoX / CO / STO which, to be honest, has been done far better for close to 2 decades now (see SLIGE for Doom as a prime example).
I dunno, I would have expected someone to come up with an entirely dynamic world seeing as most quests are about killing X wolves but heh!
Also, on a sidenote, most pnp rpgs are free-for-all pvp. Thing is they also have perma-death. I wonder what a ffa-pvp mmorpg would feel like with such a drastic death penalty.
Yes, as a DM/GM i always left the players do mostly whatever they wanted and set some key events that would occur and let players handle them, so i was probably quite "sandboxy" as a DM/GM, i didn't like pre-written adventures (though i could include some stuff from them occasionally, like map templates or ideas for events).
I'd really like some MMORPGs (well, they'd be actually CORPGs, it's quite hard to have procedural generation in an open world) with procedural generation of content, something in the direction of Hellgate London with many more "tiles". That way you'd actually have the "unexpected" happen, and you could extend the content exponentially just by adding a few new things (because it could combine with older stuff in many ways).
That'd be amazing. Yes, it would probably be a bug fest in the beginning, but it'd be something great when sufficiently polished...
Next, there are those who believe that a video game RPG should mimic, as closely as possible, the original pen and paper RPGs from which they evolved. This tends to be the crowd that believes that the only true MMORPGs are sandbox MMORPGs where players are able to make their own fortunes and affect the world around them with their actions.
This is what a MMORPG means for me. I play Eve Online for this very reason as its the only MMO out there with this type of game play.
I've been RPing since the old DnD "blue book" basic set.... owned chainmail but didn't actualy get a chance to play it. Guess that dates me a bit. I definately fall very solidly into the 2nd category of RPG players.... on the other hand I do understand the technical challenges of simulating that experience in a large scale online game. Essentialy what I and alot of other players of my ilk do is pretty much "play our own games" within the setting of the MMORPG...... The MMORPG's actual rule-sets, quests, loot, levels, mob's etc (i.e. the things that many other gamers agonize over) ... actualy just become a kind of backdrop or "props" for our play and are pretty much "beside the point".... We just use them to help us play out our only storylines that we make up...and mostly rely on the same things we relied on in PnP games to make them work....our imagination.
What I'd honestly like to see more of is more gamesservices oolsets geared toward players making and hosting thier own content and games for small groups of other players....basicaly along the lines of NWN or TSR's failed Virtual Tabletop project.
It'd be cool to have a game try to provide the old PnP with a MMORPG...but I know that can be quite challenging. I'd be quite happy to just have a service provide a really good tool set...and maybe matching service... for would be virtual GM's to create and host thier own PnP style virtual games....and play with friends that are geographicaly disperesed.... That way my friends and I can still have a bit of that old tabletop expereince even if we're spread all over the country.
On a side-note, people shouldn't equate "sand-box" with NO content/ direction/ storylines. A good "sand-box" game should have a TON of Dev driven storylines, plots, events, etc.... and it should certainly provide plenty of direction for those that WANT IT. In my book that's the real difference between "sandbox" and "theme-park" games. Sandbox games can provide direction but they don't COERCE the player to follow that direction. They allow the player to go "off the rails" so to speak.... and they try to incorporate greater latitude and interactivity in how player driven behavior effects content and the game world.
Whereas with Theme-Park games...they REALLY try to push the player along a preset path in order to play the game...and don't allow nearly as much latitude.
Note, as a follow up to my previous post.... I think there are two main reasons why the Theme-Park style games are much more prevalent in todays market then the other types:
1) Just from a purely technical stand-point they are VASTLY easier to create and and run and insure that the end user has a somewhat quality expereince. Simply put computer applications REQUIRE that the Developer be able to predict the user behavior to a high degree in order to build in the functionalty support that behavior well and deliver a certain expected level of performance. It's VASTLY easier to develop something that works along the lines of...
Your standing in a room with 3 doors, what do you do? (INPUT):
And have the application account for a near INFINITE number of things the player could think of to do. Note it's not impossible to create an application that feels more like the latter then the former...but it requires ALOT more effort and sophistication.... and also the odds of having the application do something screwy because the Dev hasn't accounted for what might happen when a certain unanticipated combination of actions are taken by the user are vastly higher.
2) The second issue I think has to do a bit with societal change, especialy in terms of how kids experience leisure time and play. For some reason we've essentialy moved from a very unstructured environment.... to a fear of the unstructured...and a very rigidly organized environment. That's unfortunate, as I think our fears have caused us to loose something VERY important in our society.... and we are REALLY short-changing our kids...even though we think what we're doing is for thier benefit.
Basicaly, If you are of my generation.... You will remember that as a kid there was no such thing as a "Play Date". After school or on the weekends we were pretty much turned loose by our parents with minimal if any (usualy None) supervision.... and instructions that pretty much boiled down to... "Don't leave the neighborhood and be home by supper".
Then we were left to our own devices to join up with the other neighborhood kids (or not) and figure out how to entertain ourselves for the day. We had to use our imagination and ingenuity to figure out what to do with our time AND how to group up and interact with our peers.... making up our own games..... pretending sticks were rifles, etc.....and yes often getting into trouble. Although there was certainly a good amount of risk involved in this process.... there was also alot of benefits..... It taught us how to deal with social situations, how to improvise to get things done, how to use our imaginations and how to develop our own structures and solutions....and of course idependance and self-reliance...and confidence.
With todays kids you rarely see anything of the sort. Everything revolves around highly organized activites and "Play Dates". They are almost never left unsurpervized and usualy everything is organized for them...including who they will be playing with, what they will be playing and how, what rules they will follow, what tools/items they will use, how these will be provided, etc. While this certainly eliminates alot of risk....it also handicaps them in learning the skills for self-reliance and how to handle unorganized/unstructured situations and to use thier imaginations and ingenuity to solve problems on thier own. This also starts to carry through to thier adult years....and you see more and more adults having difficulty dealing with situations that are unstructured and feeling uncomfortable in those situations..... simply because they've had little exposure to such things in thier formative years.
Inevitably this will carry through to entertainment choices as well. People who never had much exposure to unstructured play/activities as children are NOT going to be very comfortable with unstructured or loosely structured entertainment venues. I think we already see that reflected in the market place. Frankly.....that (IMO) is a big factor in why Theme-Park style games ......and also solo-play are very popular as far as games right now. As they provide a highly structured framework for the player to interact with....and don't require the player to establish his own interactions/connections in order to accomplish tasks within the game.
I can't say I'm happy about the situation....but I do understand it.
I always thought RPG videogames should rather be called "choose your own adventure" videogames but you reminded me why the genre hasn't evolved a bit in the last decade: the whole world actually turned into "if you want to have a beer, go to paragraph 10, if you'd rather rent a DVD, go to paragraph 314" with a credit card as your very own character sheet and dollars as hitpoints.
You perfectly deconstructed the how of the situation. As to the why, well, I guess we know greed and control when we see them (yet). But that's definitely another debate entirely, sorry for derailing the thread.
The thing that always makes me scratch my head when this subject is broached is how many people think that back in the day we were all sitting around a table "play acting" when we were playing RPG games, and that that is what is also encompassed in the term.
I mean I guess there were some people that did do that.. somewhere...but I never ran into them in all my years of playing them. We just played the game. These were new types of games where yes a game master wove a story (usually scripted anyway, but they had choices to make), but we just played along and rolled the dice. "Role playing" to us wasn't "acting a part". It was that we were filling a role within the construct of the game. We were part of a group and filled a role in that group. Be it a Barbarian, or a Cleric, or a wizard, etc etc etc. Our actions weren't determined by some story we wer acting out. They were determined by the choices offered to us by the GM and then dice rolls.
I started just before 2nd ed AD&D came out (ie. mid '80s) and although we did do our fair share of XP grinding, loot whoring and dungeon crawling, we were quick to pick on the roleplaying part once we realized that there was more to be had than just chopping our way through the next encounter. We never sat there and talked exactly like our characters like we were acting out some stage play, but we were very aware of how their personalites and backgrounds would shape their interactions and what they would realistically say or do in certain situations. This often got in the way of kicking in the dungeon door and grabbing the loot, but we ultimate found it much more rewarding since things now had more purpose other than collecting XP. In fact, we sometimes had sessions where we didn't have a single fight. Character development was not just about getting that new spell or magic item, it was also about having cool events shape the personality and life of the character.
One thing I've never encountered though, is someone thinking that playing a ROLE means playing a CLASS to fill a functional role within the party. That one still baffles me.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I started just before 2nd ed AD&D came out (ie. mid '80s) and although we did do our fair share of XP grinding, loot whoring and dungeon crawling, we were quick to pick on the roleplaying part once we realized that there was more to be had than just chopping our way through the next encounter. We never sat there and talked exactly like our characters like we were acting out some stage play, but we were very aware of how their personalites and backgrounds would shape their interactions and what they would realistically say or do in certain situations. This often got in the way of kicking in the dungeon door and grabbing the loot, but we ultimate found it much more rewarding since things now had more purpose other than collecting XP. In fact, we sometimes had sessions where we didn't have a single fight. Character development was not just about getting that new spell or magic item, it was also about having cool events shape the personality and life of the character.
One thing I've never encountered though, is someone thinking that playing a ROLE means playing a CLASS to fill a functional role within the party. That one still baffles me.
I started right around the same time you did, and although we wouldn't be speaking with incredibly awful pseudo-fantasy accents, we would have a game now and then that would involve absolutely zero combat whatsover. Many of our games progressed into some quite detailed politics, so much of the game revolved around verbal maneuvering more than anything else.
That being said, most games were still combat intensive and we would quite simply never head out of town without a scout, healer and dedicated artillery (ranged attack). Never. Quite simply, those are roles that always needed to be filled and if a PC couldn't do it, we'd hire an NPC. If you've played any DnD and ever felt the need to bring along a Cleric (or Druid in a pinch), then you have encountered the concept of functional roles in a party.
And it's hardly a new concept. Human beings have been working in functional roles since before the dawn of civilization.
In his column this week, MMORPG managing editor Jon Wood takes apart the acronym "RPG". As he states, the way one interprets the meaning of those three letters determines what is expected from an MMO-RPG. See if you agree with Jon's thoughts about what RPG means.
As someone whose job it is to follow both the development and player sides of the MMORPG industry, I get paid to think about a lot of strange things, some of which might seem irrelevant or not worth too much thought. This topic, I’ll admit, may be one of those but while (finally) playing Dragon Age: Origins, I had a thought. What you expect an MMORPG to be probably has a whole heck of a lot to do with how you interpret the last three letters of the acronym. While the fact that it stands for Role Playing Game isn’t in question, the exact meaning of that term obviously is.
First of all, as someone that started with Dungeons and Dragons (remember the boxes, where the only classes were Magic Users, Clerics, Warriors, Thieves, Dwarfs, and Elfs) then graduated to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons including one GenCon visit, "sandbox" was never a part of the formula. Actually wow and most mmos today do a pretty good job of replicating that experience. Usually you went to a tavern or some other structure in a small town after hearing or experiencing something odd in the area, and you spent a couple days going through that adventure and saving that area/town/whatever. It was very structured except in how you actually got through that adventure. Thats where the dungeon master either proved him/herself to be great or weak.
Now, to be perfectly fair here, a sandbox game was something that we would all dream about, of course. But unless it was Gary Gygax or someone that was DM (someoen that was paid to do nothing but create modules/adventures/campaigns) it was way out of the reach of most of us as we all had school lol.
Actually, as I write this and think about it I must wholly and completely disagree with your assertion that the "third category" actually exists, actually, all of your categories seem to be a sophmoric attempt at pigeon holing players of rpgs. Maybe you never played D&D or AD&D, Champions, etc? Ravenloft series, Vault of the Drow, The Dragonlance Series, Halls of High Keep, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, etc are all very "guided" adventures. These are some of the classics of D&D gaming, and VERY much resemble the RPGS of today and yesterday.
For better or worse? This is what the pen and paper RPG experience was.... maybe you never played one before? Sure the DUNGEON MASTER could create their own modules and campaigns.... I created several for my group. But the Dungeon Master today is the computer. Not the freaking players, most players are incapable of coming up with a halfway decent character name let alone create a world for people to play through. Sure there were sourcebooks for the Underdark, Greyhawke, Faerun, etc but those were tools for the dungeon master and are a far cry from a module or adventure. I think thats where you are getting confuzzled in your attempts at categorizing people. There are the DMs that all they did was play with the "sandbox" but not something that the average schlub player could do anything with.
Methinks you just needed to spit out some words to get a paycheck this month... too bad, it seems, that you either didn't think about it, haven't experienced it, or are just trying to come up with a way to rile up the community here lol.
I started just before 2nd ed AD&D came out (ie. mid '80s) and although we did do our fair share of XP grinding, loot whoring and dungeon crawling, we were quick to pick on the roleplaying part once we realized that there was more to be had than just chopping our way through the next encounter. We never sat there and talked exactly like our characters like we were acting out some stage play, but we were very aware of how their personalites and backgrounds would shape their interactions and what they would realistically say or do in certain situations. This often got in the way of kicking in the dungeon door and grabbing the loot, but we ultimate found it much more rewarding since things now had more purpose other than collecting XP. In fact, we sometimes had sessions where we didn't have a single fight. Character development was not just about getting that new spell or magic item, it was also about having cool events shape the personality and life of the character.
One thing I've never encountered though, is someone thinking that playing a ROLE means playing a CLASS to fill a functional role within the party. That one still baffles me.
I started right around the same time you did, and although we wouldn't be speaking with incredibly awful pseudo-fantasy accents, we would have a game now and then that would involve absolutely zero combat whatsover. Many of our games progressed into some quite detailed politics, so much of the game revolved around verbal maneuvering more than anything else.
That being said, most games were still combat intensive and we would quite simply never head out of town without a scout, healer and dedicated artillery (ranged attack). Never. Quite simply, those are roles that always needed to be filled and if a PC couldn't do it, we'd hire an NPC. If you've played any DnD and ever felt the need to bring along a Cleric (or Druid in a pinch), then you have encountered the concept of functional roles in a party.
And it's hardly a new concept. Human beings have been working in functional roles since before the dawn of civilization.
I get that functional concept but it DOES strike me as kind of an odd way of defining a "Role-Playing Game" as well. I mean by that definition wouldn't Baseball qualify as a Role-Playing Game as well? Since you need a Pitcher, Catcher, 1st Baseman, Shortstop, etc to play?
In his column this week, MMORPG managing editor Jon Wood takes apart the acronym "RPG". As he states, the way one interprets the meaning of those three letters determines what is expected from an MMO-RPG. See if you agree with Jon's thoughts about what RPG means.
As someone whose job it is to follow both the development and player sides of the MMORPG industry, I get paid to think about a lot of strange things, some of which might seem irrelevant or not worth too much thought. This topic, I’ll admit, may be one of those but while (finally) playing Dragon Age: Origins, I had a thought. What you expect an MMORPG to be probably has a whole heck of a lot to do with how you interpret the last three letters of the acronym. While the fact that it stands for Role Playing Game isn’t in question, the exact meaning of that term obviously is.
First of all, as someone that started with Dungeons and Dragons (remember the boxes, where the only classes were Magic Users, Clerics, Warriors, Thieves, Dwarfs, and Elfs) then graduated to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons including one GenCon visit, "sandbox" was never a part of the formula. Actually wow and most mmos today do a pretty good job of replicating that experience. Usually you went to a tavern or some other structure in a small town after hearing or experiencing something odd in the area, and you spent a couple days going through that adventure and saving that area/town/whatever. It was very structured except in how you actually got through that adventure. Thats where the dungeon master either proved him/herself to be great or weak.
Now, to be perfectly fair here, a sandbox game was something that we would all dream about, of course. But unless it was Gary Gygax or someone that was DM (someoen that was paid to do nothing but create modules/adventures/campaigns) it was way out of the reach of most of us as we all had school lol.
Actually, as I write this and think about it I must wholly and completely disagree with your assertion that the "third category" actually exists, actually, all of your categories seem to be a sophmoric attempt at pigeon holing players of rpgs. Maybe you never played D&D or AD&D, Champions, etc? Ravenloft series, Vault of the Drow, The Dragonlance Series, Halls of High Keep, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, etc are all very "guided" adventures. These are some of the classics of D&D gaming, and VERY much resemble the RPGS of today and yesterday.
For better or worse? This is what the pen and paper RPG experience was.... maybe you never played one before? Sure the DUNGEON MASTER could create their own modules and campaigns.... I created several for my group. But the Dungeon Master today is the computer. Not the freaking players, most players are incapable of coming up with a halfway decent character name let alone create a world for people to play through. Sure there were sourcebooks for the Underdark, Greyhawke, Faerun, etc but those were tools for the dungeon master and are a far cry from a module or adventure. I think thats where you are getting confuzzled in your attempts at categorizing people. There are the DMs that all they did was play with the "sandbox" but not something that the average schlub player could do anything with.
Methinks you just needed to spit out some words to get a paycheck this month... too bad, it seems, that you either didn't think about it, haven't experienced it, or are just trying to come up with a way to rile up the community here lol.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Generaly a good GM largely let the players do anything that was LOGICALY possible within the context of the game world and shifted the seeting to work around and react to what the players were doing. The published modules were good for doing "One Offs", especialy if you didn't want to invest much effort into prep, or you could write your own. Not so much for running a Campaign.
Trying to recreate your own "B2 Keep on the Borderlands" style modules was really pretty much a wasted effort unless you REALLY knew the players path would take them through it (like say at the very start of a campaign)....and even then I've seen guys type up reams of paper only to toss it out in the first 5 minutes of play.
Most GM's that I played with (and I did things this way too).... didn't have set modules written up... what they did was have notes (sometimes very extensive and detailed) about the major things that were going on in the Campaign Setting and Who the major powers/players were..... and then you pretty much ran things "off the cuff", using your imagination and knowledge of the Campaign setting... and reacting to what the players decided to do....and figuring how that would effect what was going on in the Campaign Setting.....and basicaly making it up as you went. You'd take notes of how the characters actions effected things..... and often times you could get a pretty decent feel for where the next play session(s) would take you. This DID require a pretty good imagination from the GM and also a very good understanding of how the Dynamics of your campaign world worked..... but if you had those "winnging it" usualy worked remarkably well. Note that you certain COULD and people DID create certain situations that the Players would expereince NO MATTER WHAT....and use some Deus Ex Machina to make it happen. That's perfectly fine.... IF YOU USE IT VERY SPARINGLY..... guys that used that too much quickly had thier players loose all interest in playing.
That being said, most games were still combat intensive and we would quite simply never head out of town without a scout, healer and dedicated artillery (ranged attack). Never. Quite simply, those are roles that always needed to be filled and if a PC couldn't do it, we'd hire an NPC. If you've played any DnD and ever felt the need to bring along a Cleric (or Druid in a pinch), then you have encountered the concept of functional roles in a party.
And it's hardly a new concept. Human beings have been working in functional roles since before the dawn of civilization.
It's funny that so many people absolutely insist on having to fill out certain roles before something can even be done. I don't remember Gandalf saying that going to Mordor without a cleric would be sheer folly and that they would have to wait for one (of course, Boromir might disagree I suppose).
Why is it that playing suddenly becomes impossible without a healer or a scout even artillery? We honestly never gave it that much consideration to it back then. If someone wanted to play a healer, great. If not, oh well... let's play and figure out a solution somehow down the road instead of forcing someone to play a healer against his will. That should not have been possible from what you (and many others - not trying to single you out here) claim. Yet we did it and we had fun doing so (and we also had parties without fighters or thieves or wizards). Maybe we were just lucky... or good... or simply not bothered by the problems that this style of play can result in.
Sure, not having a healer puts a limit to how many combats you can go through after one another without a break and thus how much XP or loot you can gather in one go. But we weren't playing for optimal leveling or constant killing mayhem. We were playing to have fun and having someone mortally wounded deep in a dungeon without a healer at hand puts a whole new spin on things. This lack of role specialization was even more feasible in point based classless systems like Hero System or GURPS where it was easy to create characters who could dabble in many fields.
You're right though, functional roles and specialization is a concept as old as humanity itself. I certainly can't argue against that one (not that I want to, hehe).
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Generaly a good GM largely let the players do anything that was LOGICALY possible within the context of the game world and shifted the seeting to work around and react to what the players were doing. The published modules were good for doing "One Offs", especialy if you didn't want to invest much effort into prep, or you could write your own. Not so much for running a Campaign.
Trying to recreate your own "B2 Keep on the Borderlands" style modules was really pretty much a wasted effort unless you REALLY knew the players path would take them through it (like say at the very start of a campaign)....and even then I've seen guys type up reams of paper only to toss it out in the first 5 minutes of play.
Most GM's that I played with (and I did things this way too).... didn't have set modules written up... what they did was have notes (sometimes very extensive and detailed) about the major things that were going on in the Campaign Setting and Who the major powers/players were..... and then you pretty much ran things "off the cuff", using your imagination and knowledge of the Campaign setting... and reacting to what the players decided to do....and figuring how that would effect what was going on in the Campaign Setting.....and basicaly making it up as you went. You'd take notes of how the characters actions effected things..... and often times you could get a pretty decent feel for where the next play session(s) would take you. This DID require a pretty good imagination from the GM and also a very good understanding of how the Dynamics of your campaign world worked..... but if you had those "winnging it" usualy worked remarkably well. Note that you certain COULD and people DID create certain situations that the Players would expereince NO MATTER WHAT....and use some Deus Ex Machina to make it happen. That's perfectly fine.... IF YOU USE IT VERY SPARINGLY..... guys that used that too much quickly had thier players loose all interest in playing.
Sure you could wing it but those were quite haphazard affairs. But, again, its the Dungeon Master that did the winging. Sure there was the "world" which was usually about half the size of a WOW zone filled with small dungeons and lairs, some towns and the like but there was always a purpose, a guiding hand. Coming across a dead messenger, a burned out farm, rumors of wars, etc and of course the players could choose whether or not to follow one of those things but there were restrictions. In AD&D if you had a player playing a paladin or crusader it was always easy to lead people because if there is evil about and the paladin ignores it, bye bye special abilities and the like. Then the DM could pull out a module created for hte paladins' path back, or they became a fallen paladin. Same with clerical types depending on the deity that they followed.
The only DMs that winged it in my experience were those that were rather new to it or too lazy to develop full on adventures. I mean how in the hell are people going to jump into a dungeon without the dm having a map? Preparation was always key to a well run adventure, campaigns included. Spending months working on the thing always meant for a far more engaging experience for the players I played with rather than sitting there and going "ok ummmmmm you see, pause to get the monster manual out and roll the dice a few times, 2 kobold guards." The DMs I played with, and the kind of DM I was had full random encounter tables already worked out for the specific areas, had every town mapped and every npc already generated, had every event in the game world pre-thought out. Not with the outcomes mind you, but the start of events and branches from that event. If you knew your players, knew their classes you could tailor make everything for them which is what made the pen and paper experience more engaging than the mmos we play.
With what you have said, well World of Warcraft is a sandbox experience. There is nothing in the game that demands you do this quest or go to this area, players have every choice available to them except about whether to try and talk a boss mob down or to kill him in a less orthodox and more graceful way than just zerg rush. Which is more a limitation of programming and technology.
As to the using of the pre-built campaigns and modules, they were, like the rulebooks, starting points. Hell my copy of the Queen of the Demonweb pits does not lead the DM by the hand in a way to lead the players by the hand, but had 3/4ths or so of the work done for you: random ecounter and loot tables, key area maps and the like. They were not in any way a choose your own adventure book but, provided the dm with background on the area, and suggestions to provide the players with motivation. Everything else was up to the DM, the players, and the roll of the dice. This is the way every competent DM I have ever played with and the way I ran my campaigns.
Here is a quote from my original copy of Ravenloft: House on Gryphon Hill:
"DM Preparation: This game requires some preparation before you can play it. First, you should read and become as familiar as possible with not only the rules of this adventure but its feeling and texture as well. Skim through the adventure once to gain a sense of its pace and structure, then read through it thoroughly, paying special attention to the boxed descriptions. This should not only give you an understanding for how the adventure is to be run in detail, but also some sense of how to create Gothic horror descriptions."1
Maybe the modules have changed.... I am nearly 40 years old and this module is from 1986 but it is or was, as with every module I ever used or merged into one of my own campaigns, the way everything worked.
My point is that there are adventure gamers and rpg'ers. Dragon Age origins is standard fair rpg game, but Dragon Age 2 is sounding far more like an adventure game. The original article does not seem to really grasp the essence of what was pen and paper rpgs, the only part of the article that holds any merit, imo, is this: "Unfortunately, while the pen and paper system works very well for small groups of players, the whole thing begins to fall apart when you start to bring the numbers up into the thousands or tens of thousands. That’s where it becomes a) difficult to create enough content within the world to satisfy that many people on an individual or small group level and b) even more difficult to allow each quest completed or action taken affect the game world as a whole."2
The only DMs that winged it in my experience were those that were rather new to it or too lazy to develop full on adventures. I mean how in the hell are people going to jump into a dungeon without the dm having a map? Preparation was always key to a well run adventure, campaigns included. Spending months working on the thing always meant for a far more engaging experience for the players I played with rather than sitting there and going "ok ummmmmm you see, pause to get the monster manual out and roll the dice a few times, 2 kobold guards." The DMs I played with, and the kind of DM I was had full random encounter tables already worked out for the specific areas, had every town mapped and every npc already generated, had every event in the game world pre-thought out. Not with the outcomes mind you, but the start of events and branches from that event. If you knew your players, knew their classes you could tailor make everything for them which is what made the pen and paper experience more engaging than the mmos we play.
I tried the approach of hard labor and preparation. It made for some very mediocre sessions where the players would typically do something I hadn't foreseen and suddenly I found myself scrambling for a way to railroad the players back on track. I'm sure it works for some, but it didn't work all that well for me.
I discovered that my talent was on-the-spot imagination and the ability to memorize obscure things, juggle numbers and work with the rules in all sorts of ways, whereas my ability to organize and predict sorta sucked because I would tend to focus on the wrong stuff that would never come up in actual play.
When running it the lazy way as you call it, I didn't roll encounters all the time. I didn't look up monsters all the time. I'd just say to myself "okay, 2 kobold guards here makes sense and can pose a challenge to a 1st lvl party of 3. 4 HP each. AC 7. 1d6 damage. THAC0 20". Since I kept all the rolls and numbers to myself, they never really realized if I had made a mistake and used a wrong number as long as it was fairly close to the actual number. It was an intuitive knowledge I developed over time. I also found that having a dungeon map ready was not a must. The players would usually discuss things and what not, during which I could just draw out some more rooms behind the screen. The advantage to this was that the dungeon could be as large or small as needed. If time or desire to play was running out, I could just draw in the final room with the big bad guy guarding whatever treasure or quest objective they were looking for. It worked for me and my group, but I can certainly understand why it wouldn't work for everybody.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The only DMs that winged it in my experience were those that were rather new to it or too lazy to develop full on adventures. I mean how in the hell are people going to jump into a dungeon without the dm having a map? Preparation was always key to a well run adventure, campaigns included. Spending months working on the thing always meant for a far more engaging experience for the players I played with rather than sitting there and going "ok ummmmmm you see, pause to get the monster manual out and roll the dice a few times, 2 kobold guards." The DMs I played with, and the kind of DM I was had full random encounter tables already worked out for the specific areas, had every town mapped and every npc already generated, had every event in the game world pre-thought out. Not with the outcomes mind you, but the start of events and branches from that event. If you knew your players, knew their classes you could tailor make everything for them which is what made the pen and paper experience more engaging than the mmos we play.
I tried the approach of hard labor and preparation. It made for some very mediocre sessions where the players would typically do something I hadn't foreseen and suddenly I found myself scrambling for a way to railroad the players back on track. I'm sure it works for some, but it didn't work all that well for me.
I discovered that my talent was on-the-spot imagination and the ability to memorize obscure things, juggle numbers and work with the rules in all sorts of ways, whereas my ability to organize and predict sorta sucked because I would tend to focus on the wrong stuff that would never come up in actual play.
When running it the lazy way as you call it, I didn't roll encounters all the time. I didn't look up monsters all the time. I'd just say to myself "okay, 2 kobold guards here makes sense and can pose a challenge to a 1st lvl party of 3. 4 HP each. AC 7. 1d6 damage. THAC0 20". Since I kept all the rolls and numbers to myself, they never really realized if I had made a mistake and used a wrong number as long as it was fairly close to the actual number. It was an intuitive knowledge I developed over time. I also found that having a dungeon map ready was not a must. The players would usually discuss things and what not, during which I could just draw out some more rooms behind the screen. The advantage to this was that the dungeon could be as large or small as needed. If time or desire to play was running out, I could just draw in the final room with the big bad guy guarding whatever treasure or quest objective they were looking for. It worked for me and my group, but I can certainly understand why it wouldn't work for everybody.
Same here and I'd be so bold as to say this is the way to go.
Never was much into AD&D. I went right away for pulp/silly stuff like James Bond (remember this one?). Then I jumped into Shadowrun, Deadlands, a little bit of White Wolf (it was clearly impossible to skip a White Wolf game back in the days). Thing is, I always had a pulp & "descriptive" approach where the room was filled half by me and half by the players saying "but there must be a chair somewhere I can throw at the villain" if you get the idea. To me, rules were always as good as they allowed me to entertain the party, if they became an hinderance, then I'd promptly forget about them.
That being said, most games were still combat intensive and we would quite simply never head out of town without a scout, healer and dedicated artillery (ranged attack). Never. Quite simply, those are roles that always needed to be filled and if a PC couldn't do it, we'd hire an NPC. If you've played any DnD and ever felt the need to bring along a Cleric (or Druid in a pinch), then you have encountered the concept of functional roles in a party.
And it's hardly a new concept. Human beings have been working in functional roles since before the dawn of civilization.
It's funny that so many people absolutely insist on having to fill out certain roles before something can even be done. I don't remember Gandalf saying that going to Mordor without a cleric would be sheer folly and that they would have to wait for one (of course, Boromir might disagree I suppose).
Why is it that playing suddenly becomes impossible without a healer or a scout even artillery? We honestly never gave it that much consideration to it back then. If someone wanted to play a healer, great. If not, oh well... let's play and figure out a solution somehow down the road instead of forcing someone to play a healer against his will. That should not have been possible from what you (and many others - not trying to single you out here) claim. Yet we did it and we had fun doing so (and we also had parties without fighters or thieves or wizards). Maybe we were just lucky... or good... or simply not bothered by the problems that this style of play can result in.
Sure, not having a healer puts a limit to how many combats you can go through after one another without a break and thus how much XP or loot you can gather in one go. But we weren't playing for optimal leveling or constant killing mayhem. We were playing to have fun and having someone mortally wounded deep in a dungeon without a healer at hand puts a whole new spin on things. This lack of role specialization was even more feasible in point based classless systems like Hero System or GURPS where it was easy to create characters who could dabble in many fields.
You're right though, functional roles and specialization is a concept as old as humanity itself. I certainly can't argue against that one (not that I want to, hehe).
Gandalf didn't say that, but I think I recall a demand from the hobbits for a flight path to Mordor.
To me, a Role Playing Game is, in essence, a strategy game. The role is your character and his defined attributes. His or her ability is defined by them. The player's role (no pun intended) is to decide the best course of action in any given scenerio based on the character's ability. It's not about how well a player can circle strafe or set up macros. Those "skills" are irrelevant. True player skill in a RPG is how strategically he can use the character's strengths while mitigating the weaknesses to achieve a goal. This is how it was in the PnP days, and this is how CRPGs could be.
Based on this, I don't see very many MMORPGs that could really fit the description as purely as I like. I consider the vast majority action adventure games with RPG elements.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
You know what? There are countless people around who don't know or don't show that they understand what RPG really stands for. In my day, an RPG was an evil, if it had the words Dungeon and Dragon attached to it. Games like Monopoly were more acceptable. Yes, I consider those role playing games... I'm acting the part of a rag to riches story in real time. It's very similar to playing Dingeons (Jail) and Dragons (other players) without a DungeonMaster (Community Chest & Chance Cards). Ohhh lets prestend though that we are talking about pure D&D RPG...
D&D RPG is sweet. There are many MMORPGs that capture the same elements as the PnP variety of D&D, such as WoW. Instead of your weekly group of five, computer RPG can host 5 to 50 and more. The computer game materializes those pictures we used to draw in our minds. Instead of dreaming of an undergound passage with kobolds, games like DDO bring it to life with ease.
I admit, the computer gaming industry has gone far and beyond the original intent of true RPG. Players no longer have a reason to play chaotic characters, some don't even know or care that they are. PvP wasn't an original intent of D&D RPG. It is the bastard-child of FPS, massaged into a D&D setting.
D&D isn't the mother of all RPG. Perhaps hopscotch or go fish lead the way. Children are more inclined to believe in magic than adults. But, adults want to be surprised too...so, instead of getting smarter, we get dumber in waiting for some computer game to fill in the gaps that we once mastered. I am one of millions of people who keep searching for an RPG that I can visit in my spare time where others like myself can sit in a tavern, unwind from the real world, and perhaps after a very drinks, head out and slay a few dragons.
This acronym has been dissected so much over the years that I'm starting to wonder who the shmuck keeps shrewing it back together...
Honestly, it's been used so much that the time to accept it's multiple meanings is long overdue.
Face it people, when someone uses the term "role playing game" he can mean just about every interpretation of it you ever heard and then some you haven't. If you want to understand that someone, you just have to know his definition.
However, if understanding people you are conversing with isn't high on your priority list, then I beg my pardon - feel free to get back to whatever you were doing...
Players no longer have a reason to play chaotic characters, some don't even know or care that they are.
RPG is still RPG, it's us who has changed.
Hehe, when was there ever a reason to play a chaotic character other than for the "I want to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it"?
Every time someone handed over a character sheet to me that said "Chaotic Neutral" I cringed, because I knew that 9 out of 10 times, it meant that the player was just looking for an excuse to not be limited by roleplaying the beliefs and personality of his character. Turning over the sheet to reveal the character background and personality usually resulted in a bunch of blank lines or something equally pointless like "Parents dead. Likes to kill when there's something in it for him. Wears black. Wants to become rich, famous and powerful".
For some strange reason, such characters had a high mortality rate in my games *cough* *grin*. Not that I killed them on purpose. I just didn't fudge the dice in their favor when a monster or trap got lucky and rolled really really well. I guess there's such a thing a natural selection in RPGs as well
Much respect to those who did manage to play CN or even CE characters in a convincing and entertaining way without ruining the fun for everybody else or killing the plot in the process. CG never posed much of a problem in my games on the other hand.
As for your statement about us having changed. Hmm... good point... there's some food for thought there, at least for me.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
RPG, to me is "what if I (either as myself, or as a completely other person, depending on my mood during the play session ^^) was living in the proposed universe"
I'd like more open, more lifeful (not sure that is english, hehe) and less predictable stories/missions, just like IRL. I'm just tired of going to the dungeon, killing everything, save the princess (who has the +56 vorpal sword, wth is a princess doing with such a weapon ?)
What about, in that same mission, having different ends ?
- one day, the boss (supposed to be smarter than minions) escapes with the princess n I got to track them through the forest (suddenly, the tracking skill becomes more useful and the combat becomes a tiny bit less the focus ^_^)
- the other time I get there, I get ambushed and prisonner if I get "killed"
possibilities get endless and the game becomes re-playable and more exciting bcs I'm never sure of what will happen
Bring life to the game :
- u will rarely encounter sentient being or animal fighting to death. Death, in my opinion, should occur in very rare occasions, maybe because of crits ? By the way, NPCs should either flee and/or call for reinforcement when they get a certain % of their total HP.
- the princess I talked of previously should jump on my neck bcs I just saved her from a certain death. Why didn't the village celebrate her return ? The celebration could be source of more adventures. Why don't the baddies come back for revenge ? We call simple missions "quests", but let me remind you that a quest is supposed to be a main adventure. Gathering 10 black bear pelts doesn't feel like a quest, well not the way they are directed in today mmos
- have missions happen when I don't seek them.
In conclusion, a rpg is, to me, life, a random factor and [more] choices [than now].
I beleive that MMORPGS for me is about many things. Creating your persona, your backstory to your character, giving yourself a reputation, conversing with strangers and random invdividuals within the gaming environment to build friends and allies and also a community.
You combine all of that with the gameplay and the combat within a game and you have a foundation for an MMORPG to emmerse yourself in. Not just to play because it passes the time. But something that means more. Something that sucks you into the world, something that makes you wonder where the time went after thinking you only been on 30mins and you have actually be sitting there 4-5 hours...
Only 2 games in my life have really done that. EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot.
EverQuest was my first ever MMORPG and i loved the fact that the world was massive and there were so many people. But in all that, if you wanted to level up and gain experience you had to spend time with these strangers, make friends, allies as you would be leveling with groups for hours and hours at a time. Not a 20min instance run and then leave. It took time, patience and in the end, you made friends, allies, communities and overall you interacted personnally with other gamers.
Again with Dark Age of Camelot. You needed to group up in the old days to achieve levels and experience. So the same bonding of friends and allies happened overtime again. However, because the game had thee best fantasy PvP system ever created ( In my opinion ) for its time and even to this day ( well expansions ruined it, but you know what i mean )
When you acheived max level and eventually got out into the real world of Dark Age of Camelot, you started to learn more and more about enemies and individuals on the opposing realms. Who was good and who was bad at kiling your realm m8's. After a while there is a sense of reputation, infamy and even at time a small amount of fear when a certain guild or group of allies were out on the battlefield taking keeps and relics.
This did end up being very elitist game. However the feeling of knowing a tough enemy is out there on battlefield made you think twice about where you went and who you went with on the battlefield because of their reputation they had created for themselves by just playing the game the way it was supposed to be played.
Me and my brothers and friends that played Everquest and DAoC talk of stories of RvR or Battles or just funny things that occured. Having good memories to look back on from a good MMORPG in its day is what makes an MMORPG for me.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Comments
This.
I've been playing pnp rpg for nearly 25 years now and evolved into a mainly sandboxy GM, but I'm in the minority. Beside the term is very loose: I basically build whole campaigns around the PCs but I construct an overall narrative arc as sessions go which can lead to some "forced" nodes. Of course, those "mandatory nodes" don't appear as such to the players since they feel they are consequences of their own actions (while they are half-that and half my own twisted imagination).
In fact, computer games appear more suited to handle sandbox than pnp rpgs since computers have far more raw mathematical power than a human GM and that can surely come handy to handle consequences dominoe style (it's all so easy to miss something as a GM, believe me).
Sadly (and AFAIK), no breakthrough has been made regarding procedural generation in a collaborative & open-world environment. What we get is mission auto-generation a-la CoX / CO / STO which, to be honest, has been done far better for close to 2 decades now (see SLIGE for Doom as a prime example).
I dunno, I would have expected someone to come up with an entirely dynamic world seeing as most quests are about killing X wolves but heh!
Also, on a sidenote, most pnp rpgs are free-for-all pvp. Thing is they also have perma-death. I wonder what a ffa-pvp mmorpg would feel like with such a drastic death penalty.
I'd really like some MMORPGs (well, they'd be actually CORPGs, it's quite hard to have procedural generation in an open world) with procedural generation of content, something in the direction of Hellgate London with many more "tiles". That way you'd actually have the "unexpected" happen, and you could extend the content exponentially just by adding a few new things (because it could combine with older stuff in many ways).
That'd be amazing. Yes, it would probably be a bug fest in the beginning, but it'd be something great when sufficiently polished...
Next, there are those who believe that a video game RPG should mimic, as closely as possible, the original pen and paper RPGs from which they evolved. This tends to be the crowd that believes that the only true MMORPGs are sandbox MMORPGs where players are able to make their own fortunes and affect the world around them with their actions.
This is what a MMORPG means for me. I play Eve Online for this very reason as its the only MMO out there with this type of game play.
I've been RPing since the old DnD "blue book" basic set.... owned chainmail but didn't actualy get a chance to play it. Guess that dates me a bit. I definately fall very solidly into the 2nd category of RPG players.... on the other hand I do understand the technical challenges of simulating that experience in a large scale online game. Essentialy what I and alot of other players of my ilk do is pretty much "play our own games" within the setting of the MMORPG...... The MMORPG's actual rule-sets, quests, loot, levels, mob's etc (i.e. the things that many other gamers agonize over) ... actualy just become a kind of backdrop or "props" for our play and are pretty much "beside the point".... We just use them to help us play out our only storylines that we make up...and mostly rely on the same things we relied on in PnP games to make them work....our imagination.
What I'd honestly like to see more of is more gamesservices oolsets geared toward players making and hosting thier own content and games for small groups of other players....basicaly along the lines of NWN or TSR's failed Virtual Tabletop project.
It'd be cool to have a game try to provide the old PnP with a MMORPG...but I know that can be quite challenging. I'd be quite happy to just have a service provide a really good tool set...and maybe matching service... for would be virtual GM's to create and host thier own PnP style virtual games....and play with friends that are geographicaly disperesed.... That way my friends and I can still have a bit of that old tabletop expereince even if we're spread all over the country.
On a side-note, people shouldn't equate "sand-box" with NO content/ direction/ storylines. A good "sand-box" game should have a TON of Dev driven storylines, plots, events, etc.... and it should certainly provide plenty of direction for those that WANT IT. In my book that's the real difference between "sandbox" and "theme-park" games. Sandbox games can provide direction but they don't COERCE the player to follow that direction. They allow the player to go "off the rails" so to speak.... and they try to incorporate greater latitude and interactivity in how player driven behavior effects content and the game world.
Whereas with Theme-Park games...they REALLY try to push the player along a preset path in order to play the game...and don't allow nearly as much latitude.
Note, as a follow up to my previous post.... I think there are two main reasons why the Theme-Park style games are much more prevalent in todays market then the other types:
1) Just from a purely technical stand-point they are VASTLY easier to create and and run and insure that the end user has a somewhat quality expereince. Simply put computer applications REQUIRE that the Developer be able to predict the user behavior to a high degree in order to build in the functionalty support that behavior well and deliver a certain expected level of performance. It's VASTLY easier to develop something that works along the lines of...
Choose which door to open (CASE):
Door #1 - Goto Orc Raiding Party Encounter
Door#2 - Goto Treasure Room Encounter
Door#3 - Goto Pit Trap Encounter
Then it is to write something like....
Your standing in a room with 3 doors, what do you do? (INPUT):
And have the application account for a near INFINITE number of things the player could think of to do. Note it's not impossible to create an application that feels more like the latter then the former...but it requires ALOT more effort and sophistication.... and also the odds of having the application do something screwy because the Dev hasn't accounted for what might happen when a certain unanticipated combination of actions are taken by the user are vastly higher.
2) The second issue I think has to do a bit with societal change, especialy in terms of how kids experience leisure time and play. For some reason we've essentialy moved from a very unstructured environment.... to a fear of the unstructured...and a very rigidly organized environment. That's unfortunate, as I think our fears have caused us to loose something VERY important in our society.... and we are REALLY short-changing our kids...even though we think what we're doing is for thier benefit.
Basicaly, If you are of my generation.... You will remember that as a kid there was no such thing as a "Play Date". After school or on the weekends we were pretty much turned loose by our parents with minimal if any (usualy None) supervision.... and instructions that pretty much boiled down to... "Don't leave the neighborhood and be home by supper".
Then we were left to our own devices to join up with the other neighborhood kids (or not) and figure out how to entertain ourselves for the day. We had to use our imagination and ingenuity to figure out what to do with our time AND how to group up and interact with our peers.... making up our own games..... pretending sticks were rifles, etc.....and yes often getting into trouble. Although there was certainly a good amount of risk involved in this process.... there was also alot of benefits..... It taught us how to deal with social situations, how to improvise to get things done, how to use our imaginations and how to develop our own structures and solutions....and of course idependance and self-reliance...and confidence.
With todays kids you rarely see anything of the sort. Everything revolves around highly organized activites and "Play Dates". They are almost never left unsurpervized and usualy everything is organized for them...including who they will be playing with, what they will be playing and how, what rules they will follow, what tools/items they will use, how these will be provided, etc. While this certainly eliminates alot of risk....it also handicaps them in learning the skills for self-reliance and how to handle unorganized/unstructured situations and to use thier imaginations and ingenuity to solve problems on thier own. This also starts to carry through to thier adult years....and you see more and more adults having difficulty dealing with situations that are unstructured and feeling uncomfortable in those situations..... simply because they've had little exposure to such things in thier formative years.
Inevitably this will carry through to entertainment choices as well. People who never had much exposure to unstructured play/activities as children are NOT going to be very comfortable with unstructured or loosely structured entertainment venues. I think we already see that reflected in the market place. Frankly.....that (IMO) is a big factor in why Theme-Park style games ......and also solo-play are very popular as far as games right now. As they provide a highly structured framework for the player to interact with....and don't require the player to establish his own interactions/connections in order to accomplish tasks within the game.
I can't say I'm happy about the situation....but I do understand it.
Echo this. But I'd also add that an RPG must involve an evolution of both the character and environment.
RPG isn't an acronym Jon.
GrumpyMel2:
Just
your last post.
I always thought RPG videogames should rather be called "choose your own adventure" videogames but you reminded me why the genre hasn't evolved a bit in the last decade: the whole world actually turned into "if you want to have a beer, go to paragraph 10, if you'd rather rent a DVD, go to paragraph 314" with a credit card as your very own character sheet and dollars as hitpoints.
You perfectly deconstructed the how of the situation. As to the why, well, I guess we know greed and control when we see them (yet). But that's definitely another debate entirely, sorry for derailing the thread.
I started just before 2nd ed AD&D came out (ie. mid '80s) and although we did do our fair share of XP grinding, loot whoring and dungeon crawling, we were quick to pick on the roleplaying part once we realized that there was more to be had than just chopping our way through the next encounter. We never sat there and talked exactly like our characters like we were acting out some stage play, but we were very aware of how their personalites and backgrounds would shape their interactions and what they would realistically say or do in certain situations. This often got in the way of kicking in the dungeon door and grabbing the loot, but we ultimate found it much more rewarding since things now had more purpose other than collecting XP. In fact, we sometimes had sessions where we didn't have a single fight. Character development was not just about getting that new spell or magic item, it was also about having cool events shape the personality and life of the character.
One thing I've never encountered though, is someone thinking that playing a ROLE means playing a CLASS to fill a functional role within the party. That one still baffles me.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I started right around the same time you did, and although we wouldn't be speaking with incredibly awful pseudo-fantasy accents, we would have a game now and then that would involve absolutely zero combat whatsover. Many of our games progressed into some quite detailed politics, so much of the game revolved around verbal maneuvering more than anything else.
That being said, most games were still combat intensive and we would quite simply never head out of town without a scout, healer and dedicated artillery (ranged attack). Never. Quite simply, those are roles that always needed to be filled and if a PC couldn't do it, we'd hire an NPC. If you've played any DnD and ever felt the need to bring along a Cleric (or Druid in a pinch), then you have encountered the concept of functional roles in a party.
And it's hardly a new concept. Human beings have been working in functional roles since before the dawn of civilization.
First of all, as someone that started with Dungeons and Dragons (remember the boxes, where the only classes were Magic Users, Clerics, Warriors, Thieves, Dwarfs, and Elfs) then graduated to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons including one GenCon visit, "sandbox" was never a part of the formula. Actually wow and most mmos today do a pretty good job of replicating that experience. Usually you went to a tavern or some other structure in a small town after hearing or experiencing something odd in the area, and you spent a couple days going through that adventure and saving that area/town/whatever. It was very structured except in how you actually got through that adventure. Thats where the dungeon master either proved him/herself to be great or weak.
Now, to be perfectly fair here, a sandbox game was something that we would all dream about, of course. But unless it was Gary Gygax or someone that was DM (someoen that was paid to do nothing but create modules/adventures/campaigns) it was way out of the reach of most of us as we all had school lol.
Actually, as I write this and think about it I must wholly and completely disagree with your assertion that the "third category" actually exists, actually, all of your categories seem to be a sophmoric attempt at pigeon holing players of rpgs. Maybe you never played D&D or AD&D, Champions, etc? Ravenloft series, Vault of the Drow, The Dragonlance Series, Halls of High Keep, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, etc are all very "guided" adventures. These are some of the classics of D&D gaming, and VERY much resemble the RPGS of today and yesterday.
For better or worse? This is what the pen and paper RPG experience was.... maybe you never played one before? Sure the DUNGEON MASTER could create their own modules and campaigns.... I created several for my group. But the Dungeon Master today is the computer. Not the freaking players, most players are incapable of coming up with a halfway decent character name let alone create a world for people to play through. Sure there were sourcebooks for the Underdark, Greyhawke, Faerun, etc but those were tools for the dungeon master and are a far cry from a module or adventure. I think thats where you are getting confuzzled in your attempts at categorizing people. There are the DMs that all they did was play with the "sandbox" but not something that the average schlub player could do anything with.
Methinks you just needed to spit out some words to get a paycheck this month... too bad, it seems, that you either didn't think about it, haven't experienced it, or are just trying to come up with a way to rile up the community here lol.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
I get that functional concept but it DOES strike me as kind of an odd way of defining a "Role-Playing Game" as well. I mean by that definition wouldn't Baseball qualify as a Role-Playing Game as well? Since you need a Pitcher, Catcher, 1st Baseman, Shortstop, etc to play?
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Generaly a good GM largely let the players do anything that was LOGICALY possible within the context of the game world and shifted the seeting to work around and react to what the players were doing. The published modules were good for doing "One Offs", especialy if you didn't want to invest much effort into prep, or you could write your own. Not so much for running a Campaign.
Trying to recreate your own "B2 Keep on the Borderlands" style modules was really pretty much a wasted effort unless you REALLY knew the players path would take them through it (like say at the very start of a campaign)....and even then I've seen guys type up reams of paper only to toss it out in the first 5 minutes of play.
Most GM's that I played with (and I did things this way too).... didn't have set modules written up... what they did was have notes (sometimes very extensive and detailed) about the major things that were going on in the Campaign Setting and Who the major powers/players were..... and then you pretty much ran things "off the cuff", using your imagination and knowledge of the Campaign setting... and reacting to what the players decided to do....and figuring how that would effect what was going on in the Campaign Setting.....and basicaly making it up as you went. You'd take notes of how the characters actions effected things..... and often times you could get a pretty decent feel for where the next play session(s) would take you. This DID require a pretty good imagination from the GM and also a very good understanding of how the Dynamics of your campaign world worked..... but if you had those "winnging it" usualy worked remarkably well. Note that you certain COULD and people DID create certain situations that the Players would expereince NO MATTER WHAT....and use some Deus Ex Machina to make it happen. That's perfectly fine.... IF YOU USE IT VERY SPARINGLY..... guys that used that too much quickly had thier players loose all interest in playing.
It's funny that so many people absolutely insist on having to fill out certain roles before something can even be done. I don't remember Gandalf saying that going to Mordor without a cleric would be sheer folly and that they would have to wait for one (of course, Boromir might disagree I suppose).
Why is it that playing suddenly becomes impossible without a healer or a scout even artillery? We honestly never gave it that much consideration to it back then. If someone wanted to play a healer, great. If not, oh well... let's play and figure out a solution somehow down the road instead of forcing someone to play a healer against his will. That should not have been possible from what you (and many others - not trying to single you out here) claim. Yet we did it and we had fun doing so (and we also had parties without fighters or thieves or wizards). Maybe we were just lucky... or good... or simply not bothered by the problems that this style of play can result in.
Sure, not having a healer puts a limit to how many combats you can go through after one another without a break and thus how much XP or loot you can gather in one go. But we weren't playing for optimal leveling or constant killing mayhem. We were playing to have fun and having someone mortally wounded deep in a dungeon without a healer at hand puts a whole new spin on things. This lack of role specialization was even more feasible in point based classless systems like Hero System or GURPS where it was easy to create characters who could dabble in many fields.
You're right though, functional roles and specialization is a concept as old as humanity itself. I certainly can't argue against that one (not that I want to, hehe).
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Sure you could wing it but those were quite haphazard affairs. But, again, its the Dungeon Master that did the winging. Sure there was the "world" which was usually about half the size of a WOW zone filled with small dungeons and lairs, some towns and the like but there was always a purpose, a guiding hand. Coming across a dead messenger, a burned out farm, rumors of wars, etc and of course the players could choose whether or not to follow one of those things but there were restrictions. In AD&D if you had a player playing a paladin or crusader it was always easy to lead people because if there is evil about and the paladin ignores it, bye bye special abilities and the like. Then the DM could pull out a module created for hte paladins' path back, or they became a fallen paladin. Same with clerical types depending on the deity that they followed.
The only DMs that winged it in my experience were those that were rather new to it or too lazy to develop full on adventures. I mean how in the hell are people going to jump into a dungeon without the dm having a map? Preparation was always key to a well run adventure, campaigns included. Spending months working on the thing always meant for a far more engaging experience for the players I played with rather than sitting there and going "ok ummmmmm you see, pause to get the monster manual out and roll the dice a few times, 2 kobold guards." The DMs I played with, and the kind of DM I was had full random encounter tables already worked out for the specific areas, had every town mapped and every npc already generated, had every event in the game world pre-thought out. Not with the outcomes mind you, but the start of events and branches from that event. If you knew your players, knew their classes you could tailor make everything for them which is what made the pen and paper experience more engaging than the mmos we play.
With what you have said, well World of Warcraft is a sandbox experience. There is nothing in the game that demands you do this quest or go to this area, players have every choice available to them except about whether to try and talk a boss mob down or to kill him in a less orthodox and more graceful way than just zerg rush. Which is more a limitation of programming and technology.
As to the using of the pre-built campaigns and modules, they were, like the rulebooks, starting points. Hell my copy of the Queen of the Demonweb pits does not lead the DM by the hand in a way to lead the players by the hand, but had 3/4ths or so of the work done for you: random ecounter and loot tables, key area maps and the like. They were not in any way a choose your own adventure book but, provided the dm with background on the area, and suggestions to provide the players with motivation. Everything else was up to the DM, the players, and the roll of the dice. This is the way every competent DM I have ever played with and the way I ran my campaigns.
Here is a quote from my original copy of Ravenloft: House on Gryphon Hill:
"DM Preparation: This game requires some preparation before you can play it. First, you should read and become as familiar as possible with not only the rules of this adventure but its feeling and texture as well. Skim through the adventure once to gain a sense of its pace and structure, then read through it thoroughly, paying special attention to the boxed descriptions. This should not only give you an understanding for how the adventure is to be run in detail, but also some sense of how to create Gothic horror descriptions."1
Maybe the modules have changed.... I am nearly 40 years old and this module is from 1986 but it is or was, as with every module I ever used or merged into one of my own campaigns, the way everything worked.
My point is that there are adventure gamers and rpg'ers. Dragon Age origins is standard fair rpg game, but Dragon Age 2 is sounding far more like an adventure game. The original article does not seem to really grasp the essence of what was pen and paper rpgs, the only part of the article that holds any merit, imo, is this: "Unfortunately, while the pen and paper system works very well for small groups of players, the whole thing begins to fall apart when you start to bring the numbers up into the thousands or tens of thousands. That’s where it becomes a) difficult to create enough content within the world to satisfy that many people on an individual or small group level and b) even more difficult to allow each quest completed or action taken affect the game world as a whole."2
1Ravenloft II: House on Gryphon Hill. Laura and Tracy Hickman. © 1986 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. pg 2
2 Dissecting the Acronym: RPG. Jon Woods. 2010 mmorpg.com
-edited to properly cite the sources
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
I tried the approach of hard labor and preparation. It made for some very mediocre sessions where the players would typically do something I hadn't foreseen and suddenly I found myself scrambling for a way to railroad the players back on track. I'm sure it works for some, but it didn't work all that well for me.
I discovered that my talent was on-the-spot imagination and the ability to memorize obscure things, juggle numbers and work with the rules in all sorts of ways, whereas my ability to organize and predict sorta sucked because I would tend to focus on the wrong stuff that would never come up in actual play.
When running it the lazy way as you call it, I didn't roll encounters all the time. I didn't look up monsters all the time. I'd just say to myself "okay, 2 kobold guards here makes sense and can pose a challenge to a 1st lvl party of 3. 4 HP each. AC 7. 1d6 damage. THAC0 20". Since I kept all the rolls and numbers to myself, they never really realized if I had made a mistake and used a wrong number as long as it was fairly close to the actual number. It was an intuitive knowledge I developed over time. I also found that having a dungeon map ready was not a must. The players would usually discuss things and what not, during which I could just draw out some more rooms behind the screen. The advantage to this was that the dungeon could be as large or small as needed. If time or desire to play was running out, I could just draw in the final room with the big bad guy guarding whatever treasure or quest objective they were looking for. It worked for me and my group, but I can certainly understand why it wouldn't work for everybody.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Same here and I'd be so bold as to say this is the way to go.
Never was much into AD&D. I went right away for pulp/silly stuff like James Bond (remember this one?). Then I jumped into Shadowrun, Deadlands, a little bit of White Wolf (it was clearly impossible to skip a White Wolf game back in the days). Thing is, I always had a pulp & "descriptive" approach where the room was filled half by me and half by the players saying "but there must be a chair somewhere I can throw at the villain" if you get the idea. To me, rules were always as good as they allowed me to entertain the party, if they became an hinderance, then I'd promptly forget about them.
Now try & program something like that ;P
Gandalf didn't say that, but I think I recall a demand from the hobbits for a flight path to Mordor.
To me, a Role Playing Game is, in essence, a strategy game. The role is your character and his defined attributes. His or her ability is defined by them. The player's role (no pun intended) is to decide the best course of action in any given scenerio based on the character's ability. It's not about how well a player can circle strafe or set up macros. Those "skills" are irrelevant. True player skill in a RPG is how strategically he can use the character's strengths while mitigating the weaknesses to achieve a goal. This is how it was in the PnP days, and this is how CRPGs could be.
Based on this, I don't see very many MMORPGs that could really fit the description as purely as I like. I consider the vast majority action adventure games with RPG elements.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
You know what? There are countless people around who don't know or don't show that they understand what RPG really stands for. In my day, an RPG was an evil, if it had the words Dungeon and Dragon attached to it. Games like Monopoly were more acceptable. Yes, I consider those role playing games... I'm acting the part of a rag to riches story in real time. It's very similar to playing Dingeons (Jail) and Dragons (other players) without a DungeonMaster (Community Chest & Chance Cards). Ohhh lets prestend though that we are talking about pure D&D RPG...
D&D RPG is sweet. There are many MMORPGs that capture the same elements as the PnP variety of D&D, such as WoW. Instead of your weekly group of five, computer RPG can host 5 to 50 and more. The computer game materializes those pictures we used to draw in our minds. Instead of dreaming of an undergound passage with kobolds, games like DDO bring it to life with ease.
I admit, the computer gaming industry has gone far and beyond the original intent of true RPG. Players no longer have a reason to play chaotic characters, some don't even know or care that they are. PvP wasn't an original intent of D&D RPG. It is the bastard-child of FPS, massaged into a D&D setting.
D&D isn't the mother of all RPG. Perhaps hopscotch or go fish lead the way. Children are more inclined to believe in magic than adults. But, adults want to be surprised too...so, instead of getting smarter, we get dumber in waiting for some computer game to fill in the gaps that we once mastered. I am one of millions of people who keep searching for an RPG that I can visit in my spare time where others like myself can sit in a tavern, unwind from the real world, and perhaps after a very drinks, head out and slay a few dragons.
RPG is still RPG, it's us who has changed.
This acronym has been dissected so much over the years that I'm starting to wonder who the shmuck keeps shrewing it back together...
Honestly, it's been used so much that the time to accept it's multiple meanings is long overdue.
Face it people, when someone uses the term "role playing game" he can mean just about every interpretation of it you ever heard and then some you haven't. If you want to understand that someone, you just have to know his definition.
However, if understanding people you are conversing with isn't high on your priority list, then I beg my pardon - feel free to get back to whatever you were doing...
Hehe, when was there ever a reason to play a chaotic character other than for the "I want to do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it"?
Every time someone handed over a character sheet to me that said "Chaotic Neutral" I cringed, because I knew that 9 out of 10 times, it meant that the player was just looking for an excuse to not be limited by roleplaying the beliefs and personality of his character. Turning over the sheet to reveal the character background and personality usually resulted in a bunch of blank lines or something equally pointless like "Parents dead. Likes to kill when there's something in it for him. Wears black. Wants to become rich, famous and powerful".
For some strange reason, such characters had a high mortality rate in my games *cough* *grin*. Not that I killed them on purpose. I just didn't fudge the dice in their favor when a monster or trap got lucky and rolled really really well. I guess there's such a thing a natural selection in RPGs as well
Much respect to those who did manage to play CN or even CE characters in a convincing and entertaining way without ruining the fun for everybody else or killing the plot in the process. CG never posed much of a problem in my games on the other hand.
As for your statement about us having changed. Hmm... good point... there's some food for thought there, at least for me.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
RPG, to me is "what if I (either as myself, or as a completely other person, depending on my mood during the play session ^^) was living in the proposed universe"
I'd like more open, more lifeful (not sure that is english, hehe) and less predictable stories/missions, just like IRL. I'm just tired of going to the dungeon, killing everything, save the princess (who has the +56 vorpal sword, wth is a princess doing with such a weapon ?)
What about, in that same mission, having different ends ?
- one day, the boss (supposed to be smarter than minions) escapes with the princess n I got to track them through the forest (suddenly, the tracking skill becomes more useful and the combat becomes a tiny bit less the focus ^_^)
- the other time I get there, I get ambushed and prisonner if I get "killed"
possibilities get endless and the game becomes re-playable and more exciting bcs I'm never sure of what will happen
Bring life to the game :
- u will rarely encounter sentient being or animal fighting to death. Death, in my opinion, should occur in very rare occasions, maybe because of crits ? By the way, NPCs should either flee and/or call for reinforcement when they get a certain % of their total HP.
- the princess I talked of previously should jump on my neck bcs I just saved her from a certain death. Why didn't the village celebrate her return ? The celebration could be source of more adventures. Why don't the baddies come back for revenge ? We call simple missions "quests", but let me remind you that a quest is supposed to be a main adventure. Gathering 10 black bear pelts doesn't feel like a quest, well not the way they are directed in today mmos
- have missions happen when I don't seek them.
In conclusion, a rpg is, to me, life, a random factor and [more] choices [than now].
Haven't (yet) bothered to read any posts of this thread but one thing I want to say right away:
For me quests have nothing to do with RPGs, but are the evil spawn of MMORPGs. I'd rather have adventures than quests.
I beleive that MMORPGS for me is about many things. Creating your persona, your backstory to your character, giving yourself a reputation, conversing with strangers and random invdividuals within the gaming environment to build friends and allies and also a community.
You combine all of that with the gameplay and the combat within a game and you have a foundation for an MMORPG to emmerse yourself in. Not just to play because it passes the time. But something that means more. Something that sucks you into the world, something that makes you wonder where the time went after thinking you only been on 30mins and you have actually be sitting there 4-5 hours...
Only 2 games in my life have really done that. EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot.
EverQuest was my first ever MMORPG and i loved the fact that the world was massive and there were so many people. But in all that, if you wanted to level up and gain experience you had to spend time with these strangers, make friends, allies as you would be leveling with groups for hours and hours at a time. Not a 20min instance run and then leave. It took time, patience and in the end, you made friends, allies, communities and overall you interacted personnally with other gamers.
Again with Dark Age of Camelot. You needed to group up in the old days to achieve levels and experience. So the same bonding of friends and allies happened overtime again. However, because the game had thee best fantasy PvP system ever created ( In my opinion ) for its time and even to this day ( well expansions ruined it, but you know what i mean )
When you acheived max level and eventually got out into the real world of Dark Age of Camelot, you started to learn more and more about enemies and individuals on the opposing realms. Who was good and who was bad at kiling your realm m8's. After a while there is a sense of reputation, infamy and even at time a small amount of fear when a certain guild or group of allies were out on the battlefield taking keeps and relics.
This did end up being very elitist game. However the feeling of knowing a tough enemy is out there on battlefield made you think twice about where you went and who you went with on the battlefield because of their reputation they had created for themselves by just playing the game the way it was supposed to be played.
Me and my brothers and friends that played Everquest and DAoC talk of stories of RvR or Battles or just funny things that occured. Having good memories to look back on from a good MMORPG in its day is what makes an MMORPG for me.
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