Rampant Games - Emulating the Table

Rampant Coyote writes about the ever growing divide between pen-and-paper gaming and modern cRPGs:

And the computer games! Computer games have leapfrogged their tabletop cousins in potential for living out fantasy. I mean, with a Wii controller you can literally swing an air-sword in the air to slay stunningly rendered 3D monsters now... who needs to be rolling dice? There's no need to call out, "I waste him with my crossbow!" and then determine what happened - you just aim and pull the trigger - or press the button. And your average gamer has quite possibly never rolled a twenty-sided die in an honest-to-goodness table-top game of D&D in their life.

So is it finally time for computer RPGs to bid their ancestral home goodbye, to quit trying to be a copy-of-a-poor-copy, let the niche hobby tabletop RPGs do what they do best, and evolve into something greater and different and more *cough*mainstream*cough*? A lot of noted game designers believe so. I probably shouldn't blame them if they do.

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More information.

This is my comment I posted there...
I disagree. Stats and numbers weren't there for nothing. They were there to try to create the character you envisioned. If you envision a strong but dumb character, then have him with high strength/constitution, low intelligence. If that character tried to cast a spell, he couldn't even hope to understand.
Lately, computer RPGs have moved more into 'story and decisions' and everybody does everything. Can the character swing a sword? sure! can he cast a spell? sure! can he pick a lock? sure! This is the part of roleplaying that's dying, it's like we're playing little supermans that can do everything.
And don't even get me started with action RPGs (which are swallowing the whole genre too). So you say I could swing a sword with the Wii controller?... but I am not the swordsman! my character is. It's like if, everytime I cast a spell, I had to solve a complex mathematical equation to 'simulate' the casting process. I don't like so called RPGs that have me carefully time shield blocks or combo attacks, I'm not the expert, my character is!

wolfing said:

This is my comment I posted there…
I disagree. Stats and numbers weren't there for nothing. They were there to try to create the character you envisioned. If you envision a strong but dumb character, then have him with high strength/constitution, low intelligence. If that character tried to cast a spell, he couldn't even hope to understand.
Lately, computer RPGs have moved more into 'story and decisions' and everybody does everything. Can the character swing a sword? sure! can he cast a spell? sure! can he pick a lock? sure! This is the part of roleplaying that's dying, it's like we're playing little supermans that can do everything.
And don't even get me started with action RPGs (which are swallowing the whole genre too). So you say I could swing a sword with the Wii controller?… but I am not the swordsman! my character is. It's like if, everytime I cast a spell, I had to solve a complex mathematical equation to 'simulate' the casting process. I don't like so called RPGs that have me carefully time shield blocks or combo attacks, I'm not the expert, my character is!

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Uh, so in one word, you agree? That seems to be the ultimate point he made judging from the last sentence.

Yup, I'm 100% in the "CRPGs still have a hell of a lot to learn from tabletop dice-and-paper gaming" camp.

Though, as the paragraphs cited above indicate, I am not unsympathetic to the poor deluded project managers and so forth who just don't get it. And I don't dislike action-RPGs, casual RPGs, or any of the other variants & hybrids out there. I just feel its my moral duty to explain why their games may be awesome and sell a million copies, they are NOT the be-all, end-all. Not even close.

Frayed Knights is pretty heavily inspired by old-school tabletop gaming.

GhanBuriGhan said:

Uh, so in one word, you agree? That seems to be the ultimate point he made judging from the last sentence.

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Doh, stupid last line I didn't see, guess I do agree then

In my opinion it just depends o the undelying system developed to reflect stats.

For example, to visulize the actual strength of a hero, you have two methods (there might be more, but only these come to my mind right now) :

- numeric values
- visual display (thicker arms, legs, stronger shoulders etc.)

You could combine both, ad you can use either of them, not connected to one another.

The visual display of a hero's strength isn't something table top can do. Except you manage to solder extra metal on the tin figures.

This just as an example.

In my opinion, table tops also just cannot reflect socil interactions good enough. This s - often overlooked - a rather downplayed heritage from the original war games.

Which is interesting, by the way: Most pro wargames and pro table top players emphasize on the positive points of the war games heritage, but they usually don't mention the negative aspects which remain in this heritage.

And please don't tell me that role-playing games are about nothing but combat without social interaction needed. Those who know me know my opinion on that.