Hello everyone,
excuse me for that strange sounding title - but I just wanted a full alliteration with it ! :lol:
This morning I was reading "The Kobolds handbook for plots and campaigns", which is a very good book for any one who wants to be a DM / GM / SL etc. .
While reading it, I realized what … makes my play in video games, in C-RPGs so much different from other players :
I am … basically - a pen & paper role playing game player
who is playing a C-RPG.
If you have ever played a pen & paper role play campaign, you might understand what I mean.
For every one else : It basically means that I'm focusing so much on immersion, on characters and on the story -
- simply because that's what pen & paper role-players do !
For a table pen & paper role playing group, the world and the characters - inclusive the non-player characters - is EVERYTHING !
This is hard to explain for me … It is clear, however, that the own experience is so much RADICALLY DIFFERENT from those who merely see "a few pixels".
Now, I finally am able to understand why people say on conventions : "CRPGs are no role-playing games!" ( I once actually heard that during a discussion on/in one RPC convention in Cologne, Germany. )
In the end, it finally makes it clear for me - on a deeper level of understanding - where my aversion of Action-RPGs actually comes from :
(I'm currently having a mental image of a wilderness part in Blizzards D2 in mind.)
They do not show my ANY kind of immersion.
None. Nothing. Nada. Rien.
But pixels.
For me, as a pen & paper player, to whom immersin is EVERYTHING,
Action-RPGs are the direct opposite of pen & paper play. The direct opposite.
It feels so empty.
Almost like a void.
Players who are used to play RPGs on the PC and on other platforms, but have never ever played pen & paper role-play, these players ( or, "gamers" ) are used to live in that void. It's like the deepest regions of the Sea, or like living in the vast emptiness of deserts , with almost no nutritious value, no food, nothing, only water, water, water, or sand, sand sand - and they are accustomed to that life !
Action-RPGs, for example, do not transport ANY kind of emotion.
But adrenaline. That's the only nutritious thing in the whole desert or super-deep sea.
And they are used to that. They feed on that.
Playing C-RPGs is like eating pizza : Low cost, tasts good, but doesn't have that much taste or nutritious value.
Pen & paper role play on the other hand is to me like eating in a French Restaurant. Really good tastes ! Plural form ! With LOTS of different herbs and spices ! LOTS of them !
And it doesn't go into the mouth and then into the belly, no, it goes into the nose as well !
It provokes emotions ! Like "This is hot !" "This tastes like that and that and that !" "This tastes like my grandmothers finest recipe !"
And that's why I also often react very much against "story decisions", "plot devices" etc. which i don't junderstand.
I especially do not want to be forced to see an NPC die, when I can clearly see behind the curain and realise that both NPC and the death are merely plot devices used to provoke an emotional reaction by the player ( the end of the prologue of Pillars Of Eternity I, for example, which made me nearly stop playing the whole game. Its grim "real" beginning actually made me stop playing it, because i absolutely HATE grim settings, but the designers decided to force that upon me.)
tl;dr : The way of playing C-RPGs is imho fundamentally different from playing table pen & paper role (not roll !) play.
Alrik
Edit : For reference : This is how a pen & paper role player sees the world : https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/524257-Okay-I-feel-bad-now
excuse me for that strange sounding title - but I just wanted a full alliteration with it ! :lol:
This morning I was reading "The Kobolds handbook for plots and campaigns", which is a very good book for any one who wants to be a DM / GM / SL etc. .
While reading it, I realized what … makes my play in video games, in C-RPGs so much different from other players :
I am … basically - a pen & paper role playing game player
who is playing a C-RPG.
If you have ever played a pen & paper role play campaign, you might understand what I mean.
For every one else : It basically means that I'm focusing so much on immersion, on characters and on the story -
- simply because that's what pen & paper role-players do !
For a table pen & paper role playing group, the world and the characters - inclusive the non-player characters - is EVERYTHING !
This is hard to explain for me … It is clear, however, that the own experience is so much RADICALLY DIFFERENT from those who merely see "a few pixels".
Now, I finally am able to understand why people say on conventions : "CRPGs are no role-playing games!" ( I once actually heard that during a discussion on/in one RPC convention in Cologne, Germany. )
In the end, it finally makes it clear for me - on a deeper level of understanding - where my aversion of Action-RPGs actually comes from :
(I'm currently having a mental image of a wilderness part in Blizzards D2 in mind.)
They do not show my ANY kind of immersion.
None. Nothing. Nada. Rien.
But pixels.
For me, as a pen & paper player, to whom immersin is EVERYTHING,
Action-RPGs are the direct opposite of pen & paper play. The direct opposite.
It feels so empty.
Almost like a void.
Players who are used to play RPGs on the PC and on other platforms, but have never ever played pen & paper role-play, these players ( or, "gamers" ) are used to live in that void. It's like the deepest regions of the Sea, or like living in the vast emptiness of deserts , with almost no nutritious value, no food, nothing, only water, water, water, or sand, sand sand - and they are accustomed to that life !
Action-RPGs, for example, do not transport ANY kind of emotion.
But adrenaline. That's the only nutritious thing in the whole desert or super-deep sea.
And they are used to that. They feed on that.
Playing C-RPGs is like eating pizza : Low cost, tasts good, but doesn't have that much taste or nutritious value.
Pen & paper role play on the other hand is to me like eating in a French Restaurant. Really good tastes ! Plural form ! With LOTS of different herbs and spices ! LOTS of them !
And it doesn't go into the mouth and then into the belly, no, it goes into the nose as well !
It provokes emotions ! Like "This is hot !" "This tastes like that and that and that !" "This tastes like my grandmothers finest recipe !"
And that's why I also often react very much against "story decisions", "plot devices" etc. which i don't junderstand.
I especially do not want to be forced to see an NPC die, when I can clearly see behind the curain and realise that both NPC and the death are merely plot devices used to provoke an emotional reaction by the player ( the end of the prologue of Pillars Of Eternity I, for example, which made me nearly stop playing the whole game. Its grim "real" beginning actually made me stop playing it, because i absolutely HATE grim settings, but the designers decided to force that upon me.)
tl;dr : The way of playing C-RPGs is imho fundamentally different from playing table pen & paper role (not roll !) play.
Alrik
Edit : For reference : This is how a pen & paper role player sees the world : https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/524257-Okay-I-feel-bad-now