That was an oddly spiteful article. I'm not even sure who the author is spiting, only that I could feel a great big chip wobbling on their shoulder.

Okay, my two cents? No, video game stories are usually not as good, from a pure storytelling perspective, as novels or movies. And they don't have to be. The experience of walking around in a story, of actively exploring it, of making choices within it even if they are only minor ones - that's something that's valuable but that you usually have to sacrifice some quality for. You get a worse story, more vividly experienced.

So no, video games aren't ZOMG THE STORYTELLING TOOL OF THE FUTURE!!!!eleventy!!! Nor are roleplaying games, for that matter. Overheated enthusiasts who say otherwise need to sit down down and take a few deep breaths and admit to themselves that just because something excites them it doesn't mean it's going to sweep the world and change everything. In that, I suppose I agree with the author of the article.

On the other hand, that is also absolutely no reason to not appreciate stories in games for what they are. I really can't understand this constant wailing about how "the evil cultural elite is trying to make games into something they were never meant to be!" Feh. Games are meant to be whatever anyone feels like making them. Things that work to some extent gets built on, things that don't gets abandoned. Trying to turn games into High Literature? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's never going to work. But having games have actual plots and characterisation and themes? Final Fantasy has fifteen-odd sequels by now. It's working just fine. You really can make games where there's more going on than shooting at stuff. The only question is how much more.

Same with roleplaying games. Yes, you know what, I agree that store-bought storypaths are stupid. They're stupid because they can't take into account what sort of players you have, what sort of characters those players feel like playing at the moment, or what sort of interests and talents you have as a GM. But a GM crafting his own story, starting with a rough outline and then adjusting it on the fly to what the players seem to be making of it? That, also, works just fine. I've been doing that for going on two decades now, and I come highly recommended. :cool:

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).

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!

Agreed!

I'm currently making my way thru DA Origins, and while I find a couple aspects of the game mechanics less than intuitive, the story aspect and the options presented are pretty damn engaging. Picking options from dialogue and exploration trees doesn't feel much like roleplaying, but I have yet to think "Wait, why isn't obvious question/response/action X an option?" After the first few hours of play, the game becomes very non-linear, and different choices in travel, dialogue and actions do affect the details of how the story plays out, if not the overall plot. I can absolutely see why Bioware has such a dedicated fandom.

Not being a video-game guy, I can't really give any kind of answer from personal experience as to whether video games are better or worse with huge sections of passive story-telling.

But being a bigly RPG guy, I can certainly say that RPGs that do that are utter shit.

Video games can't ever replicate the spontaneous, human. social quality of tabletop games for the same reason movies can't replicate the ability of a book to tell you what a character is feeling and thinking. The medium matters.

In my previous 4e campaign, the players discovered some magic rings to deactivate a stasis field, and the staff used to create it. They were meant to be a one-time throwaway object.

You know why they existed at all? They were in a 5000-year-old temple from the age of Demons, and someone pointed out the zombies would have rotted away long before then. So on the spot, I decided that in the next room, the zombies would be in a stasis field that disabled as soon as they crossed the threshold.

I added stasis clouds to the dungeon to be swept away by magic rings, and an NPC from the Age of Demons who was trapped in stasis.  The staff was a prop, as were the rings. But they liked them and ran with them...so I ended up reshaping the campaign to have these mysterious artifacts at the center of the story. The original story about tracking down the Lords of Dust to stop Bel Shalor got completely thrown out, and they ended up on a campaign to stop the Order of the Emerald Claw from building an undead army in a forgotten fortress in Karrnath and restarting the Great War.  I didn't even conceive of that at the beginning.

This sort of radical revision  is pretty common for D&D campaigns. You can't do that in a video game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;960291Not being a video-game guy, I can't really give any kind of answer from personal experience as to whether video games are better or worse with huge sections of passive story-telling.

But being a bigly RPG guy, I can certainly say that RPGs that do that are utter shit.

Yeah, um, you think magic is real.  
So.. there's that...

Quote from: Sommerjon;960356Yeah, um, you think magic is real.  
So.. there's that...

Which is completely fucking irrelevant to anything to do with this thread. Stop derailing threads with your personal issues.

Quote from: RPGPundit;960778Which is completely fucking irrelevant to anything to do with this thread. Stop derailing threads with your personal issues.

But then he'd never post again!



....damn, you're GOOD!

Quote from: RPGPundit;960778Which is completely fucking irrelevant to anything to do with this thread. Stop derailing threads with your personal issues.

Of course it is 100% relevant to this thread.
Whenever you think your opinion matters.  All anyone needs to know is... Yeah, um, you think magic is real.  then we smirkily headshake and ignore you.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;960779But then he'd never post again!



....damn, you're GOOD!

He likes you OGgy you don't need to keep sucking his dick.  Just a little ball cupping will do.

Quote from: Sommerjon;960806Of course it is 100% relevant to this thread.
Whenever you think your opinion matters.  All anyone needs to know is... Yeah, um, you think magic is real.  then we smirkily headshake and ignore you.

Don't post in this thread again. Don't derail any further threads along these lines. This is your final warning.