Rock, Paper, Shotgun - The DM Delusion

Silver · October 26, 2015

At Rock Paper Shotgun, Richard Cobbett explains why Dungeon Mastering can't work in rpgs.

The most dangerous ideas are the ones so compelling, nobody wants to admit they're bad. Also the atom bomb was pretty nasty, but that's a bit out of a weekly RPG column. Instead, let's pick one of the chocolate teapots that people keep mistaking for the Holy Grail - the idea that RPGs can hope to offer anything close to a classic DM experience. It's a terrible idea. It's not going to work. Stop wasting everybody's time.

[...]

Now, I'm not talking about dedicated tools like Roll20 or more specific ones like JParanoia here - tools whose job is primarily to connect people and handle the fiddly stuff like character sheets. I mean RPGs that want to offer both a game and a DM experience, which always fall far, far short of the dream or basic sell. Many have tried, including Vampire: The Masquerade: Redemption (AKA Vampire: The Masquerade: The Crap One), Neverwinter Nights, and more recently, Sword Coast Legends.

Between them, the various approaches have brought along just about every raw feature needed to pull it off, and time and again players have hit the same issues - the biggest one being perception of scope. What I mean by that is that, well, look at just about any procedurally generated game. As much as developers like to claim that their scale is some crazily large thing, like Elite Dangerous having a hundred bazillion star systems or No Man's Sky rendering twelve universes without breaking a sweat, in practice their scale is limited to the point where you as the player feel like you've seen the edges of what it can do. At that point, the magic of the thing is immediately lost and all that remains is the hope that the core gameplay loop can hold players' attention. Cracking skulls in Diablo 3 for instance. The quest for credits in Elite Dangerous.

If the DM has one job here, it's to try and disguise it with hand-crafted content and a human eye for the rules and systems. The catch is that even using something as powerful as the Neverwinter Nights editor to create a complex module full of wonder and whimsy, once the game starts that player just becomes another puppet of the game engine - albeit one with the power to see and occasionally twang everyone else's strings. They're not in charge of the rules, because that's the game logic, and even the simplest of engines makes it a pain to create content on the fly. Sure, you can make a module or a map in advance, but then you're still stuck with the problem of not being able to react with the speed of thought to game limitations and player freedom. Which as ever, will usually manifest in variously murderous killing sprees.

More information.

rjshae · October 27, 2015

I.e. there's no substitute for imagination.

DM-ing would probably work decently well with graphically-pleasing set piece battles intermixed with a more abstracted exploration, interaction and upkeep interface that used only static graphics. That would allow better pacing of the activities and control over the various RPG minutia; more like the tabletop experience.

bizorker · October 27, 2015

I recommend reading the comments section of the original source if you are interested in this topic (as I was). Lots of great counter-points and ideas. I for one hold out hope for more innovation in this area.

Humanity has risen! · October 27, 2015

Exactly why I was never interested in multiplayer Neverwinter.

ChienAboyeur · October 27, 2015

The delusion is to claim that roleplaying in computer games must emulate a certain PnP experience to be labelled as roleplaying.

Once lifted, the DM delusion no longer exists. The expectations to a computer games DM turn different from the expections to a PnP DM.

screeg · October 27, 2015

ChienAboyeur said:
Once lifted, the DM delusion no longer exists. The expectations to a computer games DM turn different from the expections to a PnP DM.

Chien! You said something I agree with!

Although I also agree with RPS that *with their current priorities* CRPGs are unlikely to replicate a DM experience. I remember back in the 90s talking to a computer science PhD about learning algorithms and the possibility of procedurally generated quests, conversations, functioning economies and societies. Then games took a 25-year (and counting) detour into fancy graphics. That's the priority today, it's where research and money goes, and as long as it does, no, we wont' have intelligent games that replicate human behavior and engage the player like a human DM would.

rjshae · October 27, 2015

That's the priority today, it's where research and money goes, and as long as it does, no, we wont' have intelligent games that replicate human behavior and engage the player like a human DM would.

Fancy graphics are easy compared to trying to emulate the vagaries and creativity of the human mind. They're effectively going after the low-hanging fruit.

crpgnut · October 27, 2015

I would categorize most DM's as the lowest hanging fruit on planet Earth. I'm not sure I've ever played a PNP campaign that was anywhere near as complex as NWN, for instance. Now if Gygax or Greenwood were your DM's, or perhaps a fantasy author like Sanderson then your mileage may vary :biggrin:

Wisdom · October 27, 2015

crpgnut said:
I would categorize most DM's as the lowest hanging fruit on planet Earth. I'm not sure I've ever played a PNP campaign that was anywhere near as complex as NWN, for instance. Now if Gygax or Greenwood were your DM's, or perhaps a fantasy author like Sanderson then your mileage may vary.

I'm sorry your friends lack creativity. NWNs "complexity" as you say is still a streamlined railroad with little variation. You have a map. You navigate the map. Your path is scripted, your conversations and replies are scripted. I enjoyed NWN but there wasnt even an illusion of character freedom.

Wisdom · October 27, 2015

PnP games are also only as good as the players creativity. If you get a group of dullards that find rope and can't think of a use for it... well game is gonna be pretty damn flat.

Sacred_Path · October 27, 2015

I enjoy things for what they are. And in the end I prefer a corset of scripting over a DM's arbitrariness. Seriously, why do people ever feel succesful after beating a PnP encounter?

Wisdom · October 27, 2015

Sacred_Path said:
I enjoy things for what they are. And in the end I prefer a corset of scripting over a DM's arbitrariness. Seriously, why do people ever feel succesful after beating a PnP encounter?

Probably why people play multiplayer respawn games like COD? They feel like they are competing with the human race and not AI?

Sacred_Path · October 27, 2015

Wisdom said:
Probably why people play multiplayer respawn games like COD? They feel like they are competing with the human race and not AI?

Personally I just don't find it satisfactory to compete with random numbers someone pulled out of a hat. Of course you can criticize CRPG's for numbers that seem way off as well and call it a balance issue - but then those will tend to be rarer with a game that has been tested.

screeg · October 27, 2015

rjshae said:
Fancy graphics are easy compared to trying to emulate the vagaries and creativity of the human mind. They're effectively going after the low-hanging fruit.

The reason graphics are "easy" is because it's where billions of dollars in research, testing and implementation have gone for a generation and a half. If 10% of that money had been dedicated to AI (for want of an accurate term), who knows what we'd be playing by now.

Archangel · October 27, 2015

ChienAboyeur said:
The delusion is to claim that roleplaying in computer games must emulate a certain PnP experience to be labelled as roleplaying.

Once lifted, the DM delusion no longer exists. The expectations to a computer games DM turn different from the expections to a PnP DM.

Well the article is comparing what games offer to what the best version of being DM offers.
If you ignore that point, you are not longer talking about this article.

Zephyr · October 27, 2015

I'm a 67-year-old grampa and worked with and on computers since late 1979. I've played many CRPGs during that time, but never once a table-top, PnP RPG with others. Never saw the attraction, but CRPGs hooked me early. The single player, solitary adventurer game is what always rang my bell. If I wanted a social experience with friends, I'd invite them over for cards or to watch a football game.

Gaming, for me, was and always will be a solitary, personal experience. When I play a CRPG, my imagination fills in the blanks and papers over its shortcomings. I accept each CRPG on its own terms and play within its limitations and/or context. If it appeals to me with story, character, and mechanics, then I'm in with both feet. FO 1 & 2 didn't do much for me, but FO 3 hit my sweet-spot. FO:NV was okay. Gothic 1 & 2 blew me away. Love them. G 3 was good with the right tweaks and patches. Morrowind was a wonder and Skyrim was a romp and a blast.

I guess I feel if a social gathering with game-play adventure is what you're after, stick with PnP games. I just don't see how that experience will ever be replicated with or in a CRPG. AI will have to make spectacular strides to duplicate it and I don't see that in my or my children's lifetime.

Gnome Chompsky · October 27, 2015

My two cents: Mapmaking and mods will become increasingly viable solutions in order to extend the value of an RPG base system. By extending the value, I mean allow for more people to participate in for a longer time period. By increasing the size and duration of this gamer pool, the greater the chance that "dungeonmastering" solutions will emerge. Solutions to the problem of DM-ing (i.e. "on the fly" events, npc reactions, story modulations, etc..) CAN be found. But it will take a trial-and-error back-and-forth between players and designers. I think it's a matter of when as opposed to if. Honestly, though, to tell people to not even try to do that is just...vain and dense.

rjshae · October 27, 2015

screeg said:
The reason graphics are "easy" is because it's where billions of dollars in research, testing and implementation have gone for a generation and a half. If 10% of that money had been dedicated to AI (for want of an accurate term), who knows what we'd be playing by now.

Err... big money is being spent on AI. Not necessarily gaming AI, mind you.

ChienAboyeur · October 28, 2015

Archangel said:
Well the article is comparing what games offer to what the best version of being DM offers.
If you ignore that point, you are not longer talking about this article.

Assessing the foundation of the comparison is discussing the article.

The article states that importing the pnp dm version to computer games is a bad idea when actually, that importing a certain whole PnP practice that is a bad idea.

Computer gaming and more generally board gaming (that includes PnP) are fundamentally different in practice.

In computer gaming, nobody is expected to know the rules to play as the resolution is hard coded.

In board gaming, the manipulation of the rules is an essential feature: knowing, applying properly, timely the rules is fully part of the experience.

In PnP, players want to play a nth edition faithfully must know and apply the rules accordingly.

In CG, any player plays the nth edition as long as the rules are faithfully implemented.

The article focuses on a minor side of the manipulation of the rules (bending rules, expanding rules) to make the claim whereas omitting to mention that players do not spend most of their time designing new rules, they spend most of their time knowing and applying the rules, parts that are removed in cg and that no one expects to be when practising cg.

Importing a certain PnP practice is a delusion.
It does not mean that RPGs on computer cant support a DM.

It is well known though that for so called RPGers, the form prevail. They do not care about roleplaying. What they want is a form.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun - The DM Delusion

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rjshae

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bizorker

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screeg

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rjshae

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crpgnut

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Wisdom

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screeg

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