Quote from: Dumarest;959444I forgot, why do we care again what they do with video games? I mean, this forum is about RPGs of the original type. This is kind of like someone watching ESPN and complaining there aren't enough soap operas.

This is where you're wrong.  For example, one thing one could learn about video games is how to make big monster fights interesting.  For example, let's pick on everyone's favourite game to hate:  World of Warcraft. We could take some of their boss mechanics and apply certain parts of it.

One of the Dragon Bosses (Onyxia for those in the know) typically has three phases.  Each triggers at a specific point in the fight, typically every third of damage.  Now, without going into the mechanics of that fight, we could take elements of that and apply it to RPGs, have a 'trigger' that has the Boss switch tactics, maybe get to try something different in the fight.  Because in some games, those massive numbers can get to be a slog to go through.

What can video games gain from table top?  How to mask the illusion of choice.  How to make a linear progression interesting, how to keep one's attention on the task at hand.  Level (assuming the game has it) progression.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;959464This is where you're wrong.  For example, one thing one could learn about video games is how to make big monster fights interesting.  For example, let's pick on everyone's favourite game to hate:  World of Warcraft. We could take some of their boss mechanics and apply certain parts of it.

One of the Dragon Bosses (Onyxia for those in the know) typically has three phases.  Each triggers at a specific point in the fight, typically every third of damage.  Now, without going into the mechanics of that fight, we could take elements of that and apply it to RPGs, have a 'trigger' that has the Boss switch tactics, maybe get to try something different in the fight.  Because in some games, those massive numbers can get to be a slog to go through.

What can video games gain from table top?  How to mask the illusion of choice.  How to make a linear progression interesting, how to keep one's attention on the task at hand.  Level (assuming the game has it) progression.

That kind of HP remaining activated abilities does appear in some tabletop games, particualrly when bloodied/staggered for example in 13th Age and others. I am a fan of such triggers. Often makes a fight more interesting/dangerous.

Mhmm even more interesting than Space Invaders, where the aliens move faster the fewer there are.

(Or you could just have a game system where combat situations are interesting.)

Quote from: Psikerlord;959489That kind of HP remaining activated abilities does appear in some tabletop games, particualrly when bloodied/staggered for example in 13th Age and others.

Or a referee who is not too stupid to shit unassisted, and actually thinks about optimal tactics depending on the situation.

Quote from: Skarg;959491Mhmm even more interesting than Space Invaders, where the aliens move faster the fewer there are.

(Or you could just have a game system where combat situations are interesting.)

How do triggered abilities make the game less interesting? They add to it, not detract.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959492Or a referee who is not too stupid to shit unassisted, and actually thinks about optimal tactics depending on the situation.

Triggered abilities are not inconsistent with a tactical game.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959492Or a referee who is not too stupid to shit unassisted, and actually thinks about optimal tactics depending on the situation.

"BROAR!  Lookit me!  I'm swingin' mah e-peen around!  I'm so outta touch with current gamer culture I have to slag off everyone who doesn't play like me, by veiling my accusations of doing it wrong as so-called 'wisdom'!  BROAR!"  That's all I'm hearing now, whenever you open your mouth, Gronan.

Quote from: Psikerlord;959496Triggered abilities are not inconsistent with a tactical game.

Convenient that he forgets that sort of stuff, despite D&D working out of a wargame, where triggered actions occur.  Like say, free attacks when enemies try to escape the mini's sphere of influence.  Ormaybe if the enemy minis are too far away, the dragon mini will do a ranged attack, but if they're too close it makes a melee strike.

Triggers are everywhere in wargames, and D&D's roots are in Wargames.  But let's gloss over that, right Gronan?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;959503"BROAR!  Lookit me!  I'm swingin' mah e-peen around!  I'm so outta touch with current gamer culture I have to slag off everyone who doesn't play like me, by veiling my accusations of doing it wrong as so-called 'wisdom'!  BROAR!"  That's all I'm hearing now, whenever you open your mouth, Gronan.



Convenient that he forgets that sort of stuff, despite D&D working out of a wargame, where triggered actions occur.  Like say, free attacks when enemies try to escape the mini's sphere of influence.  Ormaybe if the enemy minis are too far away, the dragon mini will do a ranged attack, but if they're too close it makes a melee strike.

Triggers are everywhere in wargames, and D&D's roots are in Wargames.  But let's gloss over that, right Gronan?

1) I am not sure you truly know your wargames or mean the same thing as I when you say it. Wargames are basically never single-figure affairs. That my friend, was the birth of the rpg hobby, when individual figures got their own stats and special moves.

2) I do mirror Gronan's basic sentiment: "Don't need to make 'thing' out of "triggered actions", when the infinity of tactics is already available".

BUT

3) If some 13 year old would sit down and think "And then, when the players think Ganon is dead, he EXPLODES and TRANSFORMS into SHADOWBITER GANON!!", I am all for it! RPGs are a means to express yourselves.

4) But if some 30something thinks hard about how he can make RPGs more de jour and looks into "what the kids play" and appropriates some of that...I think that is utterly apprehensible. And bollocks, too.

So, I ask you: Instead of re-thinking what Mike Mearls thought when making 4e (snap!)... please write up a monster that does what you personally think is awesome in this one WoW-battle you are talking about. Put it here, and I'll see it is printed in our Fanzine. More power to you, if you express yourselves.

I dunno man.  There are some video games whose stories (Regardless of how paper thin they are) are pretty much the framework for a given game's fun.  Half Life is basically a re-working of DOOM right down to a lower-tier-enemy spawning bad guy, in a big room, who you have to shoot in his exposed brain to win.  But dammit it's one of my favorite games, period, fullstop.  I play Half Life start to finish, every now and again (along with Decay, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Day One, HL2, E1, E2...) because of the story.  Sure, put me on rails, drag me down a corridor, that's what I'm there for: experiencing the Gordon Freeman story.

It just depends on the game, I guess.

You have different mediums and interaction models. Humans like narratives. A movie isn't the same thing as a game, even if they both have some common elements. Saying that watching a movie is a better movie experience than playing a game doesn't mean a game is less of a game.

Bogost is a good writer when he doesn't get too dense with postmodern jargon but his interest is almost completely regarding video games, rpgs seem to have never attracted his attention. He's so interested in systems and forms it is no surprise he has little interest in narrative.

I'm not sure about the games/narrative split being as unbridgeable as so many claim, very early on in computer games we had Infocom whose games I still find enjoyable. People always dismiss these games as CYOA but what is so wrong with CYOA? Kim Newman even tried to write a literary CYOA with Life's Lottery.

I made it halfway through the article before the SJW buzzword bingo triggered my gag reflex.

Whatever. There is plenty of room in the marketplace for both Candy Crush and Story Exploration games.

Where is the OSR shoutout? What does the pretentious wanker have to say?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959428The player of a computer RPG is already a passive audience to some degree simply because they can't do anything that the programmers hadn't planned on in advance, whereas the true strength of TTRPG is that the players CAN.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;959434Eh, no doubt prose have distinct advantages in the pursuit of storytelling, but my wife is a gamer because of Dragon Age -- specifically because of the story aspect of the game she loves so much. Being able to make choices within a virtual story -- even chosen from sets of limited predefined options which cannot fundamentally change the overall story trajectory -- is tremendously engaging for some people.

So different strokes, and all that.

Quote from: CRKrueger;959441Computer games not being good vehicles for interactive storytelling is hardly a new idea.  The reaction against narrative in video games has been argued in game design circles for years.  Yet, money doesn't lie, even if it doesn't always tell the whole truth. People didn't make Bioware a household name because they don't like narratives in video games, even if they are basically a more complicated Choose Your Own Adventure instead of actual storytelling.  But, they must fire the imagination in some way, they certainly have a large enough audience.

Amusingly, all three of you have it right:).

Quote from: Psikerlord;959461I looooved the original Dragon Age, one of my favourite games of all time. Also Wasteland original. Deus Ex 2 (I never got to play 1, but that was very open from what I've read). And so on. Of course computer games arent as open as a tabletop sandbox, but they have other advantages: graphics, sound, you can play by yourself, at any time, etc.

I personally think tabletop has only two advantages vs computer games (i) you play with real friends beside you/social interaction and (ii) you can try anything with a sufficiently flexible/prepared GM. This is also why I think GM material should focus on tools to adapt to player choices/sandbox aids, as opposed to Adventure Paths, which imo computer games are better at (and will only get increasingly better at over time).

There's also a third - if the players do visualize what is happening,no computer game has my budget on special effects:D!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;959492Or a referee who is not too stupid to shit unassisted, and actually thinks about optimal tactics depending on the situation.

But I see nothing wrong with reminding all Referees to adapt their tactics;).

I saw no reference to OSR or tabletop RPGs anywhere. And there's nothing new here that Bogost hasn't been saying about video games for years, he hardly 'discovered' this idea from the OSR. Must be a leap of logic by the OP.

I'm not convinced the difficulties of storytelling in video games applies in any clear way to tabletop rpgs either. Tabletop RPGs are a much more 'mixed' or 'impure' medium, if they even are a medium per se, compared to other tabletop and video games.

Quote from: AsenRG;959520There's also a third - if the players do visualize what is happening,no computer game has my budget on special effects:D!

You're absolutely right!