Almost from the beginning of RPGs nerds set out to recreate elelments of the experience via computer games. Adventure, Zork, etc. MUDS were perhaps the most promising form and I think it was Spinachat who said there's still some running out there amazingly enough.

Seems like the promise of more open and interactive PtP worlds in games like Ultima Online was abandoned for the more reliable resource management and numbercrunching of WoW. As always trolls were a major issue in realizing that kind of game too.

Considering the huge dropoff in RPGs with the introduction of CRPGs it seems that the combat and numbercrunching was the real attraction for the majority.

Quote from: Voros;985844Considering the huge dropoff in RPGs with the introduction of CRPGs it seems that the combat and numbercrunching was the real attraction for the majority.

Majority? Who knows. Is it an enjoyable part for many, a part that can be peeled off and separated from the unfettered imagination part and run in isolation (and actual isolation, as in you could play them at home alone)? Clearly.

As much as I enjoy the imaginative part of the game, I have no illusion that what we are doing is completely big ideas, grand stories, or an uninterrupted test of great skill. Yesterday I looked out the window and saw the neighbor kid bouncing a tennis ball against a brick wall, and a lot of RPGing is an equivalent to that--it's a thing to do, that you want to do, and finding deeper meaning in it is probably fruitless. If that part can be split off and packaged as a separate thing, more power to them.

What's interesting to me is how the gaming industry keeps shifting between trying to fill that need or to cede those only interested in that to the computer game industry and focus on those left.

A game done by a AAA company of Talislanta would be nice, with all that neat imagery to build an open game world, as Witcher 3 or at least the Dragon Age games.  It's really a question of table game settings pulled out to develop an electronic game.  Better for them to make up their own world that they have total control, though.  That is true for table games too.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;985902Majority? Who knows.

Seems pretty clear doesn't it? How else do you explain the massive decline in TTRPGs just as CRPGs grow by leaps and bounds?

Quote from: Voros;986101Seems pretty clear doesn't it? How else do you explain the massive decline in TTRPGs just as CRPGs grow by leaps and bounds?

Oh Voros, I know very little about you, but I'm pretty sure you know the whole correlation =/= causation thing. Much less even if we can link the decline of TTRPGs with the rise of computer gaming, we still haven't come near to proving the assertion that this shows that "the combat and number crunching was the real attraction for the majority." I don't mean to harp on this, but this is my education and my job, discerning what question we are actually asking and whether we have answered it. And what we have here is an interesting hypothesis, nothing more.

But as a simple answer (to the question, "how else do you explain..."), lots of ways, and more importantly, our lack of an other explanation does not prove a connection.

Or even simpler, if we haven't shown our work, we haven't actually answered the question (Trippy and the other educators here will be familiar with that one:D).

It seems to me that computer games overtook TTRPGs for similar reasons that theaters, radio, television, and now streaming services have supplanted each other... all while reading books for entertainment became rarer.
Not that any of those mediums provide precisely the same sort of entertainment... but people seem to favor the most immediate forms of excitement that require the least input... while TTRPGs and books are slower and require more from their audience.

There's also the social aspect, which must keep away nearly as many (more?) people as it attracts.
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Quote from: Willie the Duck;986147Oh Voros, I know very little about you, but I'm pretty sure you know the whole correlation =/= causation thing. Much less even if we can link the decline of TTRPGs with the rise of computer gaming, we still haven't come near to proving the assertion that this shows that "the combat and number crunching was the real attraction for the majority." I don't mean to harp on this, but this is my education and my job, discerning what question we are actually asking and whether we have answered it. And what we have here is an interesting hypothesis, nothing more.

But as a simple answer (to the question, "how else do you explain..."), lots of ways, and more importantly, our lack of an other explanation does not prove a connection.

Or even simpler, if we haven't shown our work, we haven't actually answered the question (Trippy and the other educators here will be familiar with that one:D).

*hugs post tightly, never lets it go*

Finally, a glimmer of hope in the stygian dark.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;986147Oh Voros, I know very little about you, but I'm pretty sure you know the whole correlation =/= causation thing. Much less even if we can link the decline of TTRPGs with the rise of computer gaming, we still haven't come near to proving the assertion that this shows that "the combat and number crunching was the real attraction for the majority." I don't mean to harp on this, but this is my education and my job, discerning what question we are actually asking and whether we have answered it. And what we have here is an interesting hypothesis, nothing more.

But as a simple answer (to the question, "how else do you explain..."), lots of ways, and more importantly, our lack of an other explanation does not prove a connection.

Or even simpler, if we haven't shown our work, we haven't actually answered the question (Trippy and the other educators here will be familiar with that one:D).

Course I know what you're saying but there does seem a reasonable causal link here. No doubt there are other factors.

For instance I notice in reading people's memories of playing D&D as kids it becomes a common trope that by the mid-80s as the fad faded many kids couldn't find others to play witth, combine that with the nerdy loner syndrome and the attraction of CRPGs becomes clear.

Ironically that is why many parents these days like their kids to be into D&D, it is a social instead of isolating past-time (in the main) plus encourages reading and math skills.

Quote from: Voros;986264Course I know what you're saying but there does seem a reasonable causal link here. No doubt there are other factors.

There seems to be a potential causal link there. It is, indeed, reasonable. I am wholly behind it as a very possible explanation. Again, I'm just saying that it is a hypothesis, not something that we've actually established in any significant way. We have done literally nothing as movement towards the state of "does seem a reasonable causal link here." Nothing, as in we haven't even started the trip yet, let's not say that we've arrived, because that just makes us look silly.

QuoteFor instance I notice in reading people's memories of playing D&D as kids it becomes a common trope that by the mid-80s as the fad faded many kids couldn't find others to play witth, combine that with the nerdy loner syndrome and the attraction of CRPGs becomes clear.

This is evidence that the D&D fad faded concurrently with the rise of video games. This does not provide a causal link. Further, even if it did, that would just show a link between video games as replacing TTRPGs, not show evidence toward the assertion that, "[with] the introduction of CRPGs it seems that the combat and numbercrunching was the real attraction for the majority", which is the assertion I believe we're actually discussing.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985690If you see the most important parts of playing a roleplaying game as charop and arena fights, then yes, computers can help you get your freak on, because crunching numbers is what they are fucking built for from the motherlovin' giddyup.

But a computer will not allow you to go off-script. Ever. Because it can't. A computer game is a script, perhaps massively complex and layered, but a script nevertheless.

I run into this problem way too often over on BGG/RPGG and some PC gaming fora.
"Its an RPG because the units have... STATS!"
"Its an RPG because theres experience and levelling!"
"Its an RPG because its got a... DUNGEON!"
"Moving wooden cubes on a board is Role playing!"
"Its an RPG because Im playing a role!"

end rant.

The closest I've seen so far are a vanishingly rare few MUDs where the builders were trying to capture exactly that ideal of being able to interact with the environ. Still limited. But at least the effort and thought was there.

QuoteThat's why, despite enjoying various video games, I always find myself, at some point, straining against limits that are not present in TTRPGs.
World of Warcraft looked great, had nice music, lots of fun lore to get into... but yeah, that guy in the inn has all of 5 things he might ever say to me. Once I'd done the quests in an area that's it... move on. Made me want to play a TTRPG version of the game (and there was one).
Still, the video game was pretty good at SOME things that TTRPGs can't/don't do so well.

Right now all a PC game can do is automate the rolling and move it "behind the screen" as it were. Its still rolling dice or moving the minis around like a GM would (Though sometimes not as intelligently). The old SSI D&D games are a good example of that.

Quote from: Voros;986264Course I know what you're saying but there does seem a reasonable causal link here. No doubt there are other factors.

For instance I notice in reading people's memories of playing D&D as kids it becomes a common trope that by the mid-80s as the fad faded many kids couldn't find others to play witth, combine that with the nerdy loner syndrome and the attraction of CRPGs becomes clear.

Ironically that is why many parents these days like their kids to be into D&D, it is a social instead of isolating past-time (in the main) plus encourages reading and math skills.

The TTRPGs never declined. PC games though attract players who lack viable gaming groups. We've known that for a long time now.

What we do though now have are players who think that PC games are RPGs or that this is how actual RPGs play. Ive lost track of the number of players who were amazed and pleased to find a TTRPG and the freedom of it.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985371Why the fuck would I want to diminish the unfettered imagination of the tabletop roleplaying experience by reducing it to software-delimited boundaries?

Beaten to the punch.

Edit: but I also don't  play video games and find it odd when grown men are into that. But whatever floats your boat.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;986566There seems to be a potential causal link there. It is, indeed, reasonable. I am wholly behind it as a very possible explanation. Again, I'm just saying that it is a hypothesis, not something that we've actually established in any significant way. We have done literally nothing as movement towards the state of "does seem a reasonable causal link here." Nothing, as in we haven't even started the trip yet, let's not say that we've arrived, because that just makes us look silly.



This is evidence that the D&D fad faded concurrently with the rise of video games. This does not provide a causal link. Further, even if it did, that would just show a link between video games as replacing TTRPGs, not show evidence toward the assertion that, "[with] the introduction of CRPGs it seems that the combat and numbercrunching was the real attraction for the majority", which is the assertion I believe we're actually discussing.

I did say 'it seems combat...' so not so much an assertion as a theory.

Quote from: Dumarest;986689Beaten to the punch.

Edit: but I also don't  play video games and find it odd when grown men are into that. But whatever floats your boat.

But its ok to play RPGs...

One moment while I open the tanker of sarcasm...

Quote from: Omega;987026But its ok to play RPGs...

One moment while I open the tanker of sarcasm...

Is one tanker going to be enough? What if miniature games get involved? Might as well just tap the oceans themselves...