The Trouble With Using D&D Rules In Videogames?

An anonymous reader writes "There's a new article on kuro5hin.org about the trouble with porting pencil and paper RPG games (such as d20 3.5) to RPG video games. One such rules-snatching video game is examined, The Temple of Elemental Evil. The article is also an introduction to a new RPG Standards Compliance system that is currently under development and will be online soon, in hopes of bridging the gap between computers and those lovable PnP evenings we all enjoy."

Comments

Using long words gets me +5 Insightful

[Slashdot Hivemind]

The main problem encountered here is that a system designed primarily for abstraction, that relies on mental visualisation to compensate for the abstraction, is being ported to an environment where complexity can be handled and arbitrary visualisation is provided. Additionally, IMO hitpoints really don't work representationally after a set point.

BTW, I'd like to just point out that I haven't touched a P+P game since I was 12

The problem is

[timothv]

Problem is that D&D's number-crunching sucks and instead of focusing on giving the player a thousand numbers to concern himself with, it'd be better to make a fun game.

Re:The problem is

[Aglassis]

You said: " Problem is that D&D's number-crunching sucks and instead of focusing on giving the player a thousand numbers to concern himself with, it'd be better to make a fun game."

Thats why the White Wolf games are so lax on numbers and vague on what some attribute to your ability will do. The point of a RPG is to role play, not to kill monsters and powergame. Unfortunately, most of the public thinks the latter is what an RPG is. It is painstakingly difficult to talk about a pen and paper RPG without others thinking your are a D&D powergaming freak. Its sad really, since RPGs are a great intellectual game. Once anyone focuses more on making the RPG compliant so that the numbers balance out, they've lost the point of the game altogether.

Re:The problem is

[crashfrog]

Powergaming is roleplaying.

Not everybody wants to play the role of a whiny, neurotic, tortured Gothic denizen of the night. Some of us think vampires are about as sexy as ticks.

Some of us want to play the role of a master of fighting prowess. who puts evil abominations to the sword. Some of us are into kicking down doors and divying up the loot. Since we don't do that IRL but rather construct personas to do it in a game, it's still role-playing. Just because I'm not interested in exploring the many facets of a character that, in real life, would be in a padded room, don't pretend like your games are somehow more legitimate than mine, ok?

Powergamers are role-players. They're just playing a role that you apparently don't like. Well, stuff it. You play Vampire: The Wearing of Stupid Dog Collars and I'll stick with D20 and hopefully, we'll never be at the same gaming table, ok?

Re:The problem is

[Aglassis]

You said: "Powergamers are role-players"

This reminds me of an old problem that existed in Ultima Online. At one point the halberd was the best weapon for a fighter. Now if people were actually roleplaying they would probably pick weapons more suited to different fighting roles than the halberd which is a fairly exotic military weapon. You could probably expect some people to play knights using swords as their weapons, others as archers, etc. But did this happen? No of course not, everyone picked the halberd. Later when a game patch came out that made the kitana the most powerful weapon, did those people stay with the halberd? Nope. They jumped ship for statistical reasons.

How is this roleplaying? How is knowing that your weapon will deal 2 points more of damage a turn on average versus a competitor the deciding factor for someone who wants to play a role as a knight (as an example)?

Its powergaming, not roleplaying. Roleplaying is taking all the good and the bad of a character and making due with it. When you powergame, there is no role being explored; it more like fun with statistics.

Re:The problem is

[Aglassis]

I've said this before and I'll say it again: personal attacks do not win arguments, they are only intended to confuse the facts. Only the truth wins arguments, and it doesn't matter who says it (it could be a trashman or Niels Bohr himself who says it, it doesn't matter). Additionally, its generally not a very good idea to make generalizations or try to draw conclusions from the behavior of a person you have never met. Chances are your conclusions are off. Now to get to my point.

You said: "But it is possible to play a character motivated by a need to win battles, and for that character, optimizing combat effectiveness isn't munchkinism, it's exactly what their character would do."

And previously: "Some of us want to play the role of a master of fighting prowess. who puts evil abominations to the sword."

I think you missed my point on the halberd. Its not a general purpose fighting weapon. Its meant to be a can opener for heavy armor. How exactly is using it on the field a good idea? If you would put yourself into that role I think you would understand that in general field usage you would get killed very quickly. If you put yourself into the role of a master of fighting prowess, for example, I would expect you to more likely pick a weapon that is more general purpose.

Now let me phrase my point on the halberd: a role player is a person who picks it as a weapon because he or she intends to attack heavy armor and it is the logical weapon. A powergamer picks it because a simplistic game world gives it more points of damage while not giving the significant detraction that a person using it would have basically no defensive ability in one on one combat.

Re:The problem is

[Feanturi]

Its powergaming, not roleplaying. Roleplaying is taking all the good and the bad of a character and making due with it. When you powergame, there is no role being explored; it more like fun with statistics.

I understand what you find Roleplaying to mean, and that's cool. However, the guy saying powergaming is roleplaying is right. It's taking on a role enacting things you don't normally do. Does it lack character depth? Sure, yeah, but it's still playing a role that is not one's normal life. You're just into two different types of roleplaying.

Re:The problem is

[Darth]

no it isnt. it is never role playing to use knowledge outside of the realm of your character's experience to influence your character's actions.

do you think it's role playing to read the monster manual and suddenly your character knows everything about every type monster in the game?
is it role playing to read the module ahead of time and then, at the beginning of the module, kill the guy who betrays your party at the end of the module?

what role are you taking on in those cases?

Re:The problem is

[Darth]

A powergamer can still roleplay. I can look at tables to figure which spell will kill the best based on damage. That does not mean that I can not roleplay as a researcher of effecient killings by reading various texts on the effectiveness of weapons and choose accordingly.

are you spending skill points on knowledge skills to reflect all this studying your character is doing?

It would be foolish to think that anyone that thier life depends on thier equipment qould choose anything other than the best available weapon and exercise program (in any world, real or make believe).

well, that explains why there is only one kind of pistol in the world.
in reality some people like Sigs and some people like Glocks. A lot of the reasons they feel the way they do are abstract.
I'll grant you that this is a failing of the game mechanics. They should make the weapons have pros and cons that make the choice of what weapon to use be based on the situation. The problem with that is that it makes the game more complicated to add that kind of complexity, so developers dont tend to do that (for fear of alienating customers, i guess).

It's also inherent in the process of adding a mechanic that it will be possible to statistically analyze it and find key points with which to min/max a character. life isnt really codified so conveniently.

Re:The problem is

[Minna Kirai]

no it isnt. it is never role playing to use knowledge outside of the realm of your character's experience to influence your character's actions.

The example given (about UO fighters prefering first the halberd, and then the "kitana") was not about OOC (out-of-character) information.

Which weapon was strongest was known in-character. (Fighting as many random monsters as those guys do, they'd figure it out pretty quickly by experimentation) In real life, there is no "best" weapon, because different tools are preferred for different situations. But because of the simplified game rules, it was apparent in character that halberds were useful in many more situations than they really should be.

If tommorrow all shotguns magically became more accurate than M-16s, the soldiers of the world would quickly switch to the new best weapon.

The "role" these gamers are playing isn't "swordsman" or "spearman", it's "strong fighter, using the best weapon for the situation". If the game rules are so poor as to make one weapon best in every single circumstance, the fault goes to the designers, not the players.

do you think it's role playing to read the monster manual and suddenly your character knows everything about every type monster in the game?

Examples like that are not what was discussed.

Re:The problem is

[Darth]

You might care to ask the Swiss mercenaries who guard the Vatican who wield halberds to this day if the halberd was used as a "general purpose weapon."
while it's true they still carry halberds, they are for ceremony now. All members of the swiss guard are trained in firearms use. (also, they aren't mercenaries. they are a standing army)

the pole across your body is a pretty powerful defensive advantage.
i disagree. It's a terrible defense against any thrusting weapon. It's not a particularly good defense against a weapon that would snap the haft in two (like an axe, or heavy mace). It's not a good defense against a weapon with a chain, like a flail or morning star.

You know, and there's the thing about how you can kill someone before they've come within two sword-lengths. That's another pretty strong defensive strength.

Well, a sword blade is about 2.5 to 3 feet. A halberd is 7 to 9 feet. if you swung it in a way that would hit someone two sword lengths away from you, you better hope you hit them. If you miss, or they have a shield, they'll be on you before you can recover from your attack.

Halberds are not great for individual tactics. They are good for small group tactics. They are good against mounted opponents.

There's a reason renaissance nobles learned to fight with rapiers and not halberds for their personal self defense.

All of that being said, i agree that your character has to make his decisions in the context of the game world. However, i do think that those decisions should have an in game justification. it isnt role playing for your character to make decisions based on game mechanics or other player information. That information might tell you what you want to do with the character, but you still have to justify the decisions in the context of the character and his involvement in the game world (if you are going to call it role playing).

Ultimately, the core of the problem is that the mechanics of the game are not complex enough to enforce the differences between weapons that make them appropriate in some situations and not in others. Probably the only way to keep simplicity while avoiding that kind of problem is to do it the Warhammer way. Make all one handed weapons functionally equivalent and leave the choice between a sword, mace and axe a purely aesthetic one.

depends on your playing style

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're mostly into Hack & Slash, then video game D&D is workable. In fact, it's been around a long time: Rogue was released in the mid-80's wasn't it? Man, I still love that game.
But if you're mostly into grand sweeping epic storylines, or intricate political manipulative shenannigans, or just the camaraderies of hanging out at the gaming table, eating pizza & diet coke (or cheetos & Mt. Dew) and rolling dice and making bad puns or acting out like your character, then the computer version is very, very tame.
I can handle both styles fine though. THey both have merits.
BTW (off-topic) how many people still play older editions? I'm very much into old-school Basic/Expert D&D (those old boxed sets from 1981). That's what I started out with back in the day, and it's what I keep going back to for some reason. I know the new editions are technically better, but I just don't like 'em that much. *shrug*

What a crappy article.

[Scott Lockwood]

The guy has no clue about D20 on PC, as exemplified by the comments he responded to in the article. That, and he has an affinity for twenty-five cent words, when a nickle word will do.

The most amazing thing to me is, the fact that this article posted at all over on K5. I can't believe it did, since it was on it's way down last I looked at it. Looks like K5 really has gone to pot. :-(

Mature and robust

[mao che minh]

The D&D systems/rulesets are always robust and mature, having been in the making for the better part of forty years. Furthermore, they always translate very well to any medium, be it paper and pencil or PC video game.

I would say that it is a much better idea to use the tried-and-true D&D rulesets than to create your own on the fly. Heck, for starters, it saves you a huge amount of time.

Re:Mature and robust

[mabinogi]

I agree, the author of this article seems to think that D&D rulesets were invented overnight on a whim by a bunch of people with no clue, for the sole purpose of selling rulebooks.
I'm sure selling rulebooks is an important buiness issue, but creating a solid game experience comes in to that as well, and you sell more rulebooks by steadily refining and improving the rules, than by randomly changing stuff for the sake of changing it.

Also the idea that people can handle complicated rules better than a computer seems a little bizzare too.

Re:Mature and robust

[Bagheera]

The D&D systems/rulesets are always robust and mature, having been in the making for the better part of forty years. Furthermore, they always translate very well to any medium, be it paper and pencil or PC video game.

Come again? The D&D rules have, historically, had a large following but a lousy game mechanic. They ALWAYS had a lousy game mechanic, all the way back to the original Dungeons and Dragons and the "Three book set" that came before. D&D worked as a game system more because of the extensive source material and the huge number of pre-packaged modules than because it was actually any good. D20 is a little better than old versions, but it's still a Level and Hit Point based system - at least in it's AD&D incarnation.

I would say that it is a much better idea to use the tried-and-true D&D rulesets than to create your own on the fly. Heck, for starters, it saves you a huge amount of time.

Actually, since the programmers have to implement it, there are a number of considerably better and more versatile systems that would make a good base for a CRPG.

Considering that any CRPG that's run by the machine (rather than an active GM, as you could get in, say, NwN) lacks the dynamic "Rules Bender" called the Game Master (A good GM makes the STORY run the game, not the DICE. CRPG's don't know when to fudge a roll so the hero can survive, or kill a monster, or whatever is needed to tell a good story.) they're ALL going to basically suck.

Personally, the hypothetical "best" CRPG would allow GM interaction at whatever level was required. A fast and clean implementation. And a good way to make characters ballance within the rules. Any game that tries to port the inherently unbalanced AD&D rules over is going to have holes.

That's the fact.

Re:Mature and robust

[Zalgon 26 McGee]

That's why Paranoia is the best game system - players are forbidden to know the rules, and the GM's one main rule is: Keep it lively. If a player is boring, they're dead.

Re:Mature and robust

[Creepy]

I completely disagree.

D&D may be mature, but the majority of spells and skills (er, feats) just aren't practical in a computer game. If you go and ask 10 gamers what spells or skills they chose in just about any D&D based game, they will generally go towards the hack-and-slash beneficial spells, because that's how experience is earned in these games. ToEE (Temple of Elemental Evil) really proved this to me - there are so many skills and spells, but when you cut away the useless ones, you end up with a few core spells that are practical for a computer game.

I'm not terribly familiar with the AD&D ruleset, having last played AD&D back at the beginning of 2nd edition (I have the second edition DMG and Player's handbook, everything else is first edition), so this made it extra hard to choose the best feats for my PCs in ToEE, but I soon found which ones didn't work well and restarted the game to ditch the bad ones.

There are multiple issues here, but the main one is that new PCs are overwhelmed with the options. Compare the starting options in Fallout to the starting options in ToEE. Fallout - everything is configured on a single screen. ToEE - multiple screens of configuration, many with pre-requisites from other screens. Unless you know all the requirements in advance (are intimate with the D&D ruleset), you won't have a clue what you need to do without lots of trial and error. This is too complex for a computer game that doesn't include all the help needed within itself (and even then). I could probably identify a dozen feats and probably 10x that many spells that aren't worth being in ToEE, but are there just to complete the ruleset. For instance, I would probably throw away all of the cantrips, which are useful for all of about 30 seconds in the game, if that (I think there was maybe one that I used once). In a real RPG, cantrips are useful because there may be a special case where you really need to do one point of acid damage, but in a computer game, 'cmon - just use your damn dagger, since you've got to stand next to the monster anyway and it'll probably resist the spell just as often as you can hit with your lousy dagger skill.

Re:Major Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, a lot of people played AD&D but threw away a lot of the more complicated AD&D rules such as the Weapon vs. Armor type chart, the rather complex initiative and surprise rules, the near-incomprehensible grappling rules, the spell segment casting times, etc. Spell material components were also commonly disregarded.
All in all, after throwing out most of those complex rules, you ended with something very, very similar to Basic D&D, but with class/race differentiation.
And ironically, a lot of the people who played this way held Basic D&D in disdain for being too simple. The fools. ;-)
Myself, I prefer using Basic D&D as a base and adding more rules to suit my needs. YMMV.

What about..

[simrook]

Baldur's Gate? This article confuses me on several levels.. First, it's operating within a microcosm of video games that are based off of AD&D - in particular just one. This isn't really that great of a study if it's just using one source. I'm taking an introductory statistic's course right now at my college, and my professor would fail me if I used only one souce. (He also mentions something called d20 in passing a few times but makes no arguments over it.) Second, what about Baldur's Gate? There are very few more successful game series then the Baldur's Gate line. The game is able to be played as a traditional RPG with pause's after each move, the storyline is diverse, and with BG2 onward you have different plots devlop based on your char's alignment, class, race, etc.. it's quite a wonderful and diverse game. Neverwinter Nights continues to expand it allowing user/gameplayer customization of the settings and rules. This customization of the rules of the game is also my third point with what's wrong with this "article". The author says that Pen and Paper games are much more flexiable and adaptable based on their player's needs.. well, if I am playing a game of NWN or BG or Ice Wind Dale, all I have to do is change the settings in my preference box to change the level of hardness of the monsters or the speed of the game, etc. It's not difficult, and just requires a few clicks of a button. So in conclusion, what happened to the Baldur's Gate line of games? I mean, come one... the games span three platforms, are wellknown amongst gamers, and have won more awards then I can count. Why didn't the author include BG and Black Isle analysis in his article? All this means is that this article is a bit of FOO and should be sent to /dev/null, or rather /dev/menzoberranzan. - Simrook.

Knights of the Old Republic

[tm2b]

Knights of the Old Republic used essentially the same rules as D&D, the d20 game, Star Wars Roleplaying Game. I've played the RPG, it works well as a table top game.

I think that KotOR makes it pretty obvious that a great game *can* be based directly on a table-top RPG. But a crappy game is a crappy game, no matter what property they license to go under it.

Re:Temple of Elemental Evil is SO BAD

[Babbster]

I haven't played the game, but the bug point seems to be key to the "op-ed" piece linked to in this story, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the D&D system and it somehow "failing" computer RPGs.

Just because someone does a shitty game based on D&D doesn't make it a failure of D&D. It's a failure of the developer. D&D rules have served quite well in many computer RPGs over the years (my first true D&D CRPG was "Eye of the Beholder," which was a blast).

Of course, this is a failure of videogame reviews in general. If a game element is poorly implemented, that means to some reviewers that the game element itself is flawed as opposed to the way it was integrated into the game.

Re:Gygax?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which roleplaying games existed before 1974? AFAIK, the only rules you could find before that were for miniature wargamming, which is what D&D evolved out of. In fact, the very first edition (not AD&D, but rather the old 1974 booklets) had two distinct combat rules. You could use the old Chainmail rules, or the new D&D rules to run combats.

BTW, Dave Arneson is presumably responsible for the whole hit tables and negative armor class thing. He supposedly got that from an old naval wargame. He and Gary Gygax were buddies back then.

If you're genuinely curious about the whole story behind D&D (including the ugly, dirty side dealing with money and publishers), check out the Gary Gygax interview in the last couple issues of the OD&DITIES fanzine

d20? Sucks at 3.5 or any other revision.

[Cheetahfeathers]

d20's a pretty sucky system, rules wise. Shadowrun and Whitewolf games have a nicer system, overall (though I don't like either game genre, personally). The various games jumping on the d20 bandwagon are just making their games sucky. Sucky but sellable.

Give me a nice smooth, fast system that's as open ended in character design as Shadowrun any day over any d20 crap.

I'm told 3.5 is a massive improvement over v3.0, but it's still not for me.

As for RPGs in computer games, I've yet to see one. Arcanum was the closest to one I've seen. It was fun. It was also lightyears from being an RPG. We'll need truely imaginative AIs before we have that.

I have to say

[Aexia]

The article pretty much seems to ignore its premise.

The fact that TOEE is bug-ridden doesn't say *anything* about the suitability of adapting Pen N Paper RPGs to the computer. It just means there were sloppy programmers.

God, are we ever nerds...

[softspokenrevolution]

All I got from this article was that the guy wasn't happy about the d20 system, he really didn't seem to be all that coherent, which he warns us of this ("this is no review of TOEE, although it could be"), it apparently could also be a rambling condemnation of WotC, or a big circle jerk about how great J.R.R. Tolkien was.

As people pointed out in the thread below, a computer is more than capable of performing the functions that the d20 system has laid out. I for one have never found it difficult to comprehend, as everything is simply a plus or minus on a random interger 1-20. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it really isn't that tough (compared to say, creating some good content) to establish these scripts and commands?

I mean really, for now all we're going to get is a fairly modular design, but the rules are not the problem, shit games with tons of bugs are the problem. Who wrote this article, why are they qualified to make these statements, why is it on /. aside from the usual comments about the editors?

Well you need this for computer games

[Sycraft-fu]

I mean ya, a pen and paper game can actually be played without the pen or paper if you want. My friends and I did, for the most part. All we used was charater sheets. This was mainly a process for organizing your thoughts. The player had to put thought into what kind of character they wished to play, and the GM (we weren't playing D&D) got an idea of what that character was and could formulate a story around them. Then we basically told an interactive story. The sheets were also useful if you wanted to pick up later (it's hard to remember what the fuck you were doing a month ago).

Not the case with computers. They are as of yet not nearly advanced enough to engage in that sort of thing. So you need a set of rules for them to adhere to. For combat they can't deal with telling a story about it, they need to crunch numbers to determine a winner.

D&D is good for that. It provides a robust, and very tested system. It's not the easiest thing in the world to come up with a good system for a game. This provides a ready made (and good) one to use. Now some games expose perhaps too much of it to the gamers, but some of us find that fun. I really like BG2, despite it being really complecated.

D&D also has a very large and developed universe to draw on. Again, good stories aren't the easiest thing to come up with, espically from scratch. The D&D universe gives you a rich background with many story frameworks from which to start, and write your specific adventure.

Not saying that all games should be D&D or even D20, but I don't think it's bad that many are. I mean BG2 stands as my all time favourite computer role playing game. I'm not sure it would have been as good had they not used a rich preexisting universe like D&D.

Re:Will getting closer make games more fun?

[sugar and acid]

A computer game can never account for a truly open game play of a human. The freedom to do anything, bith but dumb and stupid, but more importantly ingenious without running along the usual rails of a computer game set out by the game developer a year ago is the compeling aspect of game play for a human DM.

melee

[Anonymous Coward]

Advanced D&D added melee rounds and even segments. None of this was in D&D. That and all the goofy multi-class characters were the big differences I could see.

Earlier D&D used the distance-weapon type rules for melee, which I guess didn't work as well.

I'd disagree

[rsilvergun]

The problem with D&D rules is they're set up for long term (years and years) campaigns, not 30-40 hr games. So you're characters get just a few skill points and new abilities per level; so few in fact that it's a waste to spend them on anything other than what the game intended for that character. This makes leveling up a linear and dull event, better handled by just clicking 'automatic level up'.

Re:I'd disagree

[geekoid]

not true anymore.

They designed the system so that you quickly get to about 8th level, and in 40 hours, you could get to 20th, reasonably.
However, level pails compared to a good, challenging, and exciting adventure.

Hell, if you played for 40 hour, only gained 3 levels, but had a kickass time playing, wouldn't that be alright?
The goal of the game should nopt be to make the character as high level as possible.

Re:I'd disagree

[rsilvergun]

Yeah, but if all I wanted was adventure, I'd play the old Sierra Quest games. I'd like some gameplay with my adveture, perferably of the min/max kind. I like fiddling with stats and trying out new spells and abilities. If I'm role playing a character, I want to feel like my decisions matter, or at least like I have decisions.

What follows is my Kotor rant:

Kotor's problem is it's so damn linear. Yeah, I can be dark side/light side, but when the choices boil down to stuff like, "kill this innocent person in cold blood, or don't", that's hardly a choice. You know exactly which path you're taking. I was hoping for better writing from Bioware. I know they're capable of it (see Baldur's Gate). Come on, why don't my light side companions abandon me when I do evil? Why don't I pick up dark side companions? Why aren't my light side/dark side choices (at least the inital ones) more grey area? Well, the answer's probably that Bioware needed to get the game out the door, and didn't have time for all of that. Either that, or they wanted to dumb things down to improve the game's mass appeal. What would have been cool is a slow, steady decent into darkness that's genuinely hard to avoid and that traps you once you're in.

Re:I'd disagree

[abandonment]

i agree completely. deus ex 2 is very similar. the choices are hardly choices...they are so blatant that it's somewhat annoying.

we're trying to portray a similar 'light/dark' portrayal in our project, it's very complicated to get much beyond the cursory decisions thought. takes a very conscious effort in the script writing...

story-based games take incredible amounts of content to create as it is, let alone with potentially thousands of 'grey' choices, all of which must be scripted, animated, have voice-overs recorded for, and integrated into the game (via scripting or however)...

the sheer amount of work involved is daunting with ANY budget ;}

Re:I'd disagree

[Syberghost]

If I'm role playing a character, I want to feel like my decisions matter, or at least like I have decisions.

But you're not role-playing a character. You're playing a video game.

If you want the pen-and-paper role-playing experience, you have two options:

1) Wait until artificial intelligence has advanced to the point that a home PC or console game can be as smart as a human GM.

2) Put down the controller, turn off the Orbital Mind Control receiver, pick up an actual pen and paper, get out of the house and GO PLAY GAMES WITH ACTUAL PEOPLE. Social interaction will be a side benefit that will help you in your future dealings with other human beings at work.

Re:I'd disagree

[Bendebecker]

Still, in games like Baldur's Gate where it takes 8-10 hours of playing to level up just once it gets kind of boring (theough lack of new equipment figures in). You need variety in a game and leveling up provides that by providing new and more powerful spells/abilities and gives you access to new armor/weapons. If you had to play through an entire act in Diablo 2 with only one level up, would you have a kickass time? Can you imagine any game that would allow you too? (Well, Deus Ex but that's due to new weapons...) Even the most exciting rpg story gets boring if everytime you have to fight its exactly the same cause you have the exact same character. In addition, you have to look at replay value. Once you get through the story once, why would you want to replay it if you can only barely change your character. Being able to change the character lot allows a lot more replay. Only 8 levels in 40 hours means you probably won't still be playing that game for another 40.

Break away from D&D?

[MachDelta]

Mod me troll for saying this... but i'd actually like to see game designers move AWAY from D&D or other paper based rulesets. Don't get me wrong, P+P can be great fun... but when's someone going to make a ruleset that takes advantage of a computer? I've always felt that paper systems were simplified because rolling 20 dice just to see if your right-handed 32 degree slash hit, wasn't deflected, broke a link in their chainmail, and caused a wound... well its just not fun. So in paper, thats all done in what... 2 rolls? But hell, with a computer you could make 20 dice rolls in an instant and the user would never know the difference. Basically I just think the rules for computers need to be streamlined for FUN, not some non-existant physical limitations. And by the same token, much of the power and flexibility in having a real DM is lost with a computer... so compensation in that area is definitly needed. Its all about limitations and tradeoffs IMO, and paper's are definitly NOT the same as a computers.

The other thing is, and do excuse the tangent, i've always HATED D&Ds magic and ability system. Maybe i'm just a Diablo-noobie, but if I can do some kick ass backflip-powerstrike, or ultimate-spell-of-destruction... why the fuck can I only do it twice a day?! What, is there some internal clock on my character? Does he go "DING!" when 24 hours pass? Thats stupid. I've always preferred the mana/stamina "pool" method because its so much more flexible. Mana is raw ability... do anything with it, but your supply is limited. D&D you've got all that memorization and per/day limit stuff... its just stupid. Say your mage character unleashs some raging inferno and completely annihilates a whole clan of orcs in an instant. Once. Now imagine the conversation:
"That was badass! Do it again!"
"Sorry man, I can't".
"Why not?"
"Oh because I have to wait 19 hours to do that again."
"Oh, so like you're tired?"
"No, not tired... I just can't do that again."
"So you could cast another spell?"
"Yeah sure."
"So cast that spell again!"
"Can't dude, like I said. All i've got left is... light. Want me to make the room glow? Its really cool, watch!"
*Grumbles* "Stupid wizard."
And yeah, I know there are some ways to fudge that stuff... but the flexibility just isn't built into the game, and thats what I hate about it. Don't get me wrong, the D&D universe is a blast... I just wish there was some plausible explanation why, in NWN, my badass, "more pissy than a castrated dragon", lvl 22 human female Fighter/Thief/Weapon Master with dual flaming longswords can only perform 6 "Ki Powerstrikes" a day. Bah.

Re:Break away from D&D?

[mark-t]

I've got two words for you that, I believe, explain much better than any other reason why the rules are the way are: Game Balance.

A lot of people don't like this reason because it offers no explaantion that makes sense _within_ the framework of the world.

For an in-game explanation, one of the best explanations is that the gods simply made it so, perhaps for easons beyond the character's ability to comprehend.

Sounds too contrived? Perhaps it is... but the characters within the game world wouldn't know that, and the only reason you actually know it is contrived is because you exist outside that domain in the first place, and have another perception of reality to compare it to. Characters within the fantasy realm wouldn't have that luxury, so it would appear completely natural to the average (or even well above average) character.

The exceptionally intelligent character may have a rational basis for questioning the arbitrariness of that sort of law in the world, but there would be nothing he or she could do about it, much as cutting edge physicists today raise theories about the nature of the universe which illustrate how some phenomena that most people take for granted can be seen as slightly... well... arbitrary. Most people can't be bothered to think on this level though... and even those that do are powerless to do anything about it. Further, this level of thinking is exceptionally modern anyways... and in a D&D setting, you're involved in a middle-ages type environment where advanced scientific questioning isn't exactly commonplace anyways.

Why D&D rules suck for video games

[vaccum pony]

The problems with using D&D rules in video games are as follows: 1 - the D20 system sucks. 2 - One person sitting at their computer playing a game is NOT role-playing. MMORPGs come closer than what the video game industry thinks of as RPGs, but it's still a far cry from the kind of experience I think of when I think of role-playing games.

More standardized?

[nnnneedles]

Video game RPGs need to be *less* standardized if you ask me.

The rules aren't really that important in a video game, as opposed to a pen and paper RPG. It's mostly done behind the scenes.

What we need is games with more imagination than "kill rat 500 times, then kill spider 1000 times".

Because you know these rpg developers are too focused on "standards". How about a mafia rpg where you start with collecting money for loan sharks, then move up the ladder? Yeah, you never thought about that, assholes. Thanks for all the spiders and small poisoned rats. I want to kill you by drilling a hole in your eye.

Please. Change.

Re:Will getting closer make games more fun?

[shut_up_man]

Absolutely. What ends up happening in a pen and paper game is never quite what the GM plans, or what the players want. Plus, there's always that one critical fumble out there that will totally mess up the storyline, leaving the GM in stitches and the main hero in pieces...

Re:Battletech and paper vs. computer

[skermit]

What kind of retarded street justice is that? Do you see every CS player ganging up on the guy who shoots for the head? This is just plain dumb.

D&D rules: glaring holes

[steveha]

There are a few howlers in the D&D game mechanics. Note: I haven't seen Third Edition yet.

0) You are a 12th level Fighter being marched down a corridor, no armor, your arms bound behind your back, and four men with crossbows are guarding you. So you run for it. Why not? After all, you have almost 100 hit points, and a crossbow does something like 1d6+1 and is slow to reload besides. Sure, we don't want our game to be like the real world, but should there be no chance that they can kill you?

D&D should have critical hits, or "impale" rules like Runequest, or something.

1) A typical town person has 1 hit point. 1 hit point is the smallest amount of damage you can do. Any blow with a sword will kill a town person. Okay. But also, say, a house cat: three attacks, claw/claw/bite, any one can kill a town person.

2) A 1st level mage is incredibly easy to kill, and only has one spell per day, and that one spell might even be something lame like Burning Hands. A 20th level mage, on the other hand, has so much firepower as to render the rest of the party irrelevant. This is overall considered to be balanced?

It would be better if 1st level mage characters were a bit stronger, and 20th level mage characters were a lot weaker.

I could name other things, but that's plenty.

steveha

Re:Gygax?

[Anonymous Coward]

An RPG in which the heroes are people like Jane Eyre?

Naw, that's just way too freaky...

But I have indeed read that the Brontes would sit or stand at a table and sort of talk out various stories and scenarios. This was from an introductory essay in a copy of Jane Eyre that I was borrowing from a friend. I'm skeptical about the claim of their use of dice. It sounds like one of those things that would be neat if it were true, but isn't.

Re:Temple of Elemental Evil is SO BAD

[0123456]

"Levels? Experience gained through psychotic, unprecedented levels of slaughter that only the likes of Hitler and Stalin could ever hope to match?"

I never played D&D for XP or levels: we had a good GM and the game was just as much fun at level 1 as at level fifteen bazillion: often more so, since the risks were more real (fighting ordinary creatures, not dragons and gods).

One problem with many PC games is that levelling through XP grinding has taken precedence over story, because you need the levels in order to finish the game: it would be better if the game adapted to character levels, like a pencil and paper GM.

"Inane restrictions that make absolutely no sense (e.g., mages can't wear armor, priests can't use swords)?"

Dunno about the former (other than that a mage in plate mail is hugely overpowered without some serious disadvantages, and would rapidly become the class of choice for powergamers), but the latter at least has a basis in historical reality: at various times in the past, priests were not allowed to spill blood with a sword, but beating the heck out of people with a big club was perfectly acceptable behaviour.

The rant should have been about GMless CRPGs

[dave1791]

Most of the author's gripes were about storyline or AI. He was griping about PnP games on the computer when his points were really about a specific implementation.

I will retort by bringing up NWN. I DM a weekly group and many of these same people I have played PnP with over the decades.

AI- AI is a general computer game problem. What does the ogre do when you cast a certain spell? Generally this is always scripted and the AI is only as good as its code. The Meld into Stone exploit mentioned by the author is an AI exploit. An AI exploit is an AI exploit; it does not matter if it is on CivIII, a FPS or CRPG. The standard AI in nwn is not the smartest, but it IS replaceable. The individual scripts that fire on various events (when a NPC perceives another creature, when attacked, etc) can be tweaked or replaced. There are several user created AI systems available and some are quite good. If it bothers you that the ogre is still focused on the cleric, check at the end of a combat round to see if he is under the effect of Meld into Stone. If so, go after the fireballing mage instead. Oh and if a DM is possessing the ogre, he will probably flatten the mage first in any case.

Stroyline? Come on! Creating a quest is like writing dialog for a play, except that the story can branch because of whatever. If the creators of TOEE did not do this well, it is because they did not do this well. The BG series did this well. NWN's expansions did this well. There are numerous modules available for NWN that do this well. Then again, in any story without a GM, it is impossible to vary from the story in any meaningful way. I recall playing a neutral good ranger in BG2. On returning from the underdark with the Githyanki sword in my possession, I was confronted by the Githyanki seeking its return. The verbal exchange turned into a fight and fretty soon the area-of-effect spells were flying. Mind you this happened in the promenade district and several bystanders were killed by Githyanki AOE spells. This bothered my because my "good" character had chosen to fight to keep the nice sword despite the fact that innocents would die in the process. I was not penalized as the designers did not think of this situation beforehand. A good GM would have shifted me toward evil for putting personal gain before the lives of innocents. Any non-linear story will have such bugs because the designers will not be able to think of and script for every possible situation.

That is what a good GM is for.

Really Bashing TOEE

[panda]

The article is really just bashing the implementation of the D20 3.5 SRD in TOEE. It then tries to generalize to all CRPGs based on a review of one game. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it with me.

I really think that the best implementation of D20 on a computer is Bioware's Neverwinter Nights. It does a good enough job of implementing the rules and is still playable.

What makes NWN so great is the toolset that allows you to create your modules, set up servers, and play with other people. The also have a DM client that allows you to play online with a human DM. This is the closest you are going to get right now to a tabletop RPG on a computer.

NWN has become my RPG fix. Since I moved to MA from KY in 2002, I've not found anyone in my area that plays RPGs, so I started playing NWN online with other people. It's great fun.

I do think that for a single player computer gaming experience, the D20 SRD is a bad choice. Bioware's implementation is as good as it gets, but single player is just so boring. I much prefer playing with others online.

Never the Same adventure twice!

[BobRooney]

The difference between a true PnP game of AD&D and the computerized experience of a D&D themed game can be slight or immense depending on the skill of you RL GM compared to the auto-scripted content of a computerized world.

A bad/unimaginative GM is little better, or possibly WORSE than online or computerized gaming environments. In contrast a talented GM will bend the adventure to fit the individual characters involved.

A good GM is many things, including an Actor, Story teller, statistician, and above all else a quick-thinker. Players like to try and out-smart the GM and a good one will do their best to limit how successful their players will be, preferably in humorous ways.

The real trick is the Story-telling apect. A good DM makes you believe you're actually in another world. That suspension of disbelief is only maintainable if the number crunching is done quickly and with as little distraction to the players as possible.

Computational talk should be limited to "Roll for Perception", or "Roll to hit" and even then it helps to not get too into the numbers. A good GM hears your roll and paints a picture of the action it caused.

Re:Major Problem

[bjdevil66]

I realized that the 1st Edition AD&D rules were getting out of hand when I saw the "Wilderness Survival Guide". It had dice throwing rules for EVERYTHING - whether the weather would get cold that night, a fire would go out, the wind would pick up (that could affect some spell casting I guess), etc...

There's NO way that a book like that should've ever been created. That book would sap the fun right out of RPGs...

Free Will vs. Determinism in RPGs

[goodviking]

One of the major issues that I have with CRPGs is that ultimately, regardless of how good the AI in a game is, you are still fundamentally limited in the possibilities for game play. It's like a big "Choose Your Own Adventure Book". Maybe every so often you flip a coin to choose the next page, or maybe there are so many paths that you can't enumerate them all before you just get bored, but your still limited.

I contrast this to pen and paper games like D&D or Palladium (my fav fantasy). You are limited by the creativity of the GM, and the limits of your belief in human free will (and how long the pizza lasts). It's always been the unexpected turns of other players that makes these games fun to play.

Re:Notes from an old school D&D-er

[Azghoul]

Players like levels because they're addicted to the idea of video game-style RPGs. Players who love levels are not the sort who play for the sake of creating a story... which is sad.

Go ahead and kill the d20 player base if you ask me: there are far better systems out there if you want to tell stories, and if you like levels that much, just go play Diablo!

That's too broad

[lazyl]

It's taking on a role enacting things you don't normally do

That definition applies to, like, 90% of all games. It would apply to all FP games (from DOOM, to Halo, to Spliter Cell); it would apply to all sports games (if you don't play those games in RL); basically it applies to pretty much everything, except puzzle games and such. And, yes, technically all these games (e.g. Halo, etc..) are "role-playing", but they aren't RPGs. And the parent poster's defition: 'Roleplaying is taking all the good and the bad of a character and making due with it' is extremely narrow. That's a part of role-playing, but it's not the defintion.

A distinction needs to be made between 'role-playing' and the RPG genre. People can have differing opinions about what constitutes 'role'playing', but the defintion of the RPG genre is a lot more well established. In the RPG genre there are two extremes. On one side are the adventure games (e.g. Sierra King's Quest), and on the other side are the hack-and-slash games (e.g. Diablo). What do these games have in common? Uh.. nothing. Currently the RPG label is applied to everything that falls somewhere between those two. Personally, I think there should be three separate genres here, one for each of the extremes and one for the middle (when a game contains both elements). Those divisions sortof exist today ('Adventure RPG', 'Hack-and-Slash RPG), but everybody always uses the term RPG to refer to one or all of them.

People shouldn't get all riled up if a game labeled an 'RPG' doesn't have enough role-playing elements for thier taste. The RPG genre and the defintion of 'role-playing' diverged a long time ago.

Some supporting examples

[Anonymous Coward]

Both parent and grandparent posters are dead-on that the article is nonsense, something that's sadly clear from the very first paragraph:

> "rules publisher Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a bastardized version of what TSR used to be"

Translation: "I frothingly hate WotC, and will take it as given that anything they have created is tainted and evil. I will proceed to rant now as if my OPINION were somehow fact."

> "The Father of RPG, Gary Gygax, first created Dungeons & Dragons" ...with other people, most notably Dave Arneson.

> "the rules of all future video games were spawned"

Like BFGs, Sonic's prediliction for picking up shiny rings, and Mario's mushroom habit?

> "Hit points, stats, skills and all were first developed by Gary" ...by reading what wargamers had been doing for decades...

> "using Tolkien's work as a solid base" ...for making everything as close to Jack Vance's books as possible.

FIVE major flaws in the article, and that's just the _first paragraph_! The original article is nothing more than an opinionated, unresearched diatribe. If there's anything of substance in there, it's pretty well hidden by the layers of ignorance, error, unreasoning hostility, and naked opinion.

Who thought this was worth anyone's time again?