I'm not sure where this thread really belonged, so I put it here, rpgsite staff, do what you wish

So, I was thinking about how video-games deal with game-play and story and how it applies to running tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG), especially setting/scenario/campaign design.

These are all based on very successful video games. As it can be successful in a videogame, I was curious if anybody did something similar on the tabletop, and what seemed to work best for you.

The Half Life Model:

Half Life presents a series of scenarios in sequential order, logically railroading  players from situation to situation and through the plot-line. Players only in game concern is survival till the end, with the occasional puzzle.

In an TTRPG, this can also be a successful way to run a game, depending largely on the presentation of the scenarios. Players don't seem to mind a railroad as long as it's exciting or entertaining. Like a rollercoaster. It also enables you to provide more detailed environments and scenarios, if you are given enough time to prepare them, focusing on details as you don't have to worry about the players getting "off track".



The Final Fantasy Model:

In the Final Fantasy the "Game" and the "Story" are completely disconnected, however both integral to the success. Your characters' spend most of their time fighting "monsters" unconnected to the plot-line completely, the game being strategically employing your characters abilities to defeat these foes and become stronger. The Storyline happens mostly outside of the game-play, between fights. Usually the only time "Story" and "Game" intersect is for "Boss Fights".

As these games were based off of TTRPGs to begin with, it's interesting to see the further and further disconnecting of the "game" and the "story" on the electronic side, but the mechanically melding of the two on the TT side. However, it's success relies in it's versatility in sharing and appealing to players who focus on different aspects of TTRPGs.

Giving two different kinds of players absolutely what they want, at least for a time, during every game.

The Grand Theft Auto Model(aka the Sand Box Model):

In Grad Theft Auto you have a quick introduction to the characters. Everything in the world is "in play". Rather then guiding the player, it offers options for play: they can try to follow along with a story or just fuck around indefinitely, finding their own way to have fun.

In TTRPGs, this is actually a pretty lofty goal, at least when "having fun" is your primary concern. For GM's this means setting a stage and simply reacting to your players. This type of game requires certain types of players and a very competent GM to be entertaining on all sides of the table. The GM has to be very good with coming up with things on the fly, the players have to be "self-starters" and entertaining by themselves. As a lot of the GM's work is done by the players in this game, the GM can usually take a load off and enjoy the show.

If I followed any of these, it'd be the GTA one.  I say that because whilst playing Vice City the first time through, I was totally thinking, "Dude, I could structure a campaign like this."

the traveller campaign i ran in the 80s/90s was the GTA kind.  i just let the players run and would occasionally throw a plot nugget for them to enjoy or ignore.  since i felt comfortable with the system (and the Marches) it was easy.

when i ran 3.0/3.5 a couple of years ago, it was more like the half life model.  one of the players had never gamed before, and practically needed a sign saying, "PLOT THIS WAY."  i didn't mind it because i hadn't DM'ed in a long time and wasn't comfortable with that version of d&d.  

i prefer the former, by far.  i like letting the players go where they want to.  but it does take a certain kind of group to pull off.  

getting back into CoC/etc. rulesets, i'd like to get comfortable enough to run the stories i'd like in a world as loose as i did traveller.

I want to expand on your GTA description.  There are plot lines (adventures) to follow, but you're not being railroaded into them.  You can spend hours at a time playing that game with only a hint of the overall story arc.  I think this is what makes it so appealing to gamers.  

In TTRPG terms, your players are free to do what they want to within the bounds of the setting, but the GM always has a few scenarios on the backburner ready to roll for when the characters do something specific (such as going to a mall or nightclub) or when the characters aren't sure what they want to do.  This is how I usually run games, so I find GTA especially appealing.  You certainly don't feel shackled to the plot.  I only wish more videogames would take a similar approach.  How cool would a KotOR game or Call of Duty/Medal of Honor game be GTA-style?  

Pete

you're missing something very, very important about Half-Life, sometihng very few games do, that HL gets right:

HL never takes you out of the driver's seat.  

Yes the levels are pretty linear, yes the show pretty much goes on, but the game almost never takes the camera out of your perspective.  

There are no cutscenes.  Everything that happens in the game, you see through Gordon's eyes, and that goes a long way towards making a game that is, essentially, an interactive rollercoaster ride, feel an awful lot less like one.  

Gordon himself isn't even a character, not really.  He has a name, and there's a picture of him on the box, but that's it, for the most part he's just an extension of the player.  He doesn't even speak, he does nothing to assert himself independently of what you do.

This is what even a supposedly "open" game like GTA still doesn't understand.  In fact they've gotten progressively worse with the wannabe film director nonsense with every entry.  Even in San Andreas, despite the attempts to inject some personalization into the game, C.J. isn't me, he's some other guy.  He's not my character, he's the writer's.  I'm just an audience, except I'm also being made to do half the work for the author by playing out some of the action myself.

GTA does however make up for it somewhat by making the order you take the games content in a bit more flexible, but in the end, you still have to do them all if you want to get to the next island.

Final Fantasy is a worse culprit of course.  With each progressive game in the series, they became more and more nothing but a marginally interactive visual novel, without even the faintest illusion of player effect or control over the course of the game.  Combat even is nothing more than an exercise in watching the creators show off how cool their NPCs are.  Your only control over the fights is mashing the same menu entry over and over again.  I continue to question whether they should even be considered "games".

Personally, when I come down to what I think captures the TRPG experience digitally the best is still Fallout 2.  It's open, but not without a guiding hand, not without some sense of goals.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!If I followed any of these, it'd be the GTA one.  I say that because whilst playing Vice City the first time through, I was totally thinking, "Dude, I could structure a campaign like this."

A campaign would be easy enough; VC is just a pretty simple gangland storyline set in our world (for all intents and purposes).

Basing a game around the sandbox model is taking the 'we destry The Computer and blow up Alpha Complex' approach. This would destroy the sanity of any GM I fear.

Quote from: beeberthe traveller campaign i ran in the 80s/90s was the GTA kind.  i just let the players run and would occasionally throw a plot nugget for them to enjoy or ignore.  since i felt comfortable with the system (and the Marches) it was easy.

when i ran 3.0/3.5 a couple of years ago, it was more like the half life model.  one of the players had never gamed before, and practically needed a sign saying, "PLOT THIS WAY."  i didn't mind it because i hadn't DM'ed in a long time and wasn't comfortable with that version of d&d.  

i prefer the former, by far.  i like letting the players go where they want to.  but it does take a certain kind of group to pull off.  

getting back into CoC/etc. rulesets, i'd like to get comfortable enough to run the stories i'd like in a world as loose as i did traveller.

I'd be interested in pursuing discussion of how to design a 'sandbox video game' TTRPG model even though that's kinda what TTRPG's were meant to be - wasn't it?

After all sandbox games cover everything from supers (crackdown, hulk, usm) to fantasy (oblivion) and of course GTA.

i guess the "sandbox" model comes down to three elements:

1.  system.  it has to be one the referee is almost intimately familiar with.  you have to be comfortable enough with the mechanics of a game to be able to come up with stats as needed, on the fly.  

2.  setting.  the place needs to be conducive to aimless wandering, if that's what the group decides to do.  traveller's imperium is good, better if the pc's have a ship.  paranoia, on the other hand, is a tad too restrictive for such an exercise.  GTA, in a gaming exercise, would have to have all the islands ready at the start.  you couldn't set one aside "until the bridge is ready" fr'ex.

3.  group.  the players have to be willing to wander around, explore, be independent, and generally able to "make their own fun."  not all groups can do this.  

without all three, the model won't work.

I like those types of games that allow the PCs (be it in video games or TT rpg) to wander around.

That said, there is one thing I haven't seen yet and I'd like very much. It would be something like a moving setting. Let's take for example videos games (like Baldur's gates or GTA). You travel around, much freely, do a couple things, not necesseraly in a given order. But even with that, you have two restrictions :
- You still need to do a certain amount of things before going into the next chapter
- When you come into a "plot part", there are things that are "triggered" by your presence.

I hate those two. I'd like to see a world in which I can evolve, but a world that would "move" (ie things happen) beside my actions. You start the game by going to location A. Things happen there. You are free or not to take part in them ; there is no trigger. You spend some times there, the plot advances. Later on, you travel to location B. There, a plot is already in progress, that had already started while you were in location A. So, the way you come to travel thru time (time can be chapters) and space will define the way you experience the game.

I believe there would also be a great replay value to this. You could play again, not only using a different kind of character, but also by travelling space and time in a different way (for example, starting in location B, then traveling to A).

I guess I'm still waiting ...