Coding and Roleplaying - Is There a Connection?

TossCobble asks: "With table-top roleplaying giant Wizards of the Coast (makers of Dungeons & Dragons, for those not in the know) broadcasting an open call for adventure designers and developers (including an entertaining developer test to gauge your own game-design talent and knowledge), I found myself once again considering the odd appeal of gaming for us programming types. It's interesting that something so free-form-ishly creative, socially dynamic, and utterly fantastical be fun for folks so grounded in logical programming. Of course, my theory is that gaming and programming actually have more in common than we might think. Tabletop roleplaying involves coming up with creative solutions to problems set in a clearly-defined ruleset, involve constant data-tracking and minor mathematical equations, and involve working together with small groups of people toward like-minded goals. Conversely, love of roleplaying can illustrate how important creativity is to good programming. What do you think?"

Comments

What do I think?

[nagora]

I think if Wizards of the Coast had an interesting idea they'd probably not know what to do with it, assuming that they recognised it.

TWW

Re:What do I think?

[Arandir]

AD&D is the Windows of roleplaying games, and WotC is its Microsoft. Unlike others, I'm not going to praise the halcyon days of yore when Gary Gygax ruled TSR, because that's where the problem started.

Re:What do I think?

[Arivia]

However, in comparison, D&D is willing to throw out the entirety of the code base every 10 years or so and say to developers: You're working to our new system. No legacy programming framework cruft in our new system.
(And the stuff that sticks around between editions is the stuff that *defines* D&D-without it, it would be like a GUI without the graphical part. During the really major revision that was 3e, a lot of thought went into this-for the history of all this, see the 3 years of Dragon immediately preceding 3e's release.)

Umm, poor people skills?

[fuzzy12345]

Admit it folks, building or exploring fantasy worlds has a special appeal for people who feel they're having less than average fun in the real world.

It's sad but true, and we know it.

Re:Umm, poor people skills?

[heavy snowfall]

I think it may be true to some extent, but not necessarily sad. Life is what you make of it. If you like RPGing, reading or coding, go for it. There's no Law of Joy that says you have to be a socialite to be happy.

Re:Umm, poor people skills?

[TrappedByMyself]

It's more of an attraction to certain modes of thinking and systems of reward than failing at the "real world"

You really have something there. Alot of geeks are conditioned to compare themselves to the popular crowd. They put themselves up against standards which they're not designed to meet, like an apple becoming depressed because it's not orange. They become 'losers', so they sink into this gaming world where they can win. On WoW for instance, there are so many people playing, that the field is very average. Any dedication will make you 'better' that alot of the other people you compete against. It's a huge ego boost to take out someone else in one-on-one combat. It's a well defined world, where winning is easy, much much easier than competing in the real world.
And I'm not talking about gaming for fun, it's the people who game for survival. The sad thing is that these reculsive geeks do have the tools to compete in the real world, they are just afraid to try.

//recovering gaming geek ;)

Re:Umm, poor people skills?

[pilkul]

You're making the old fallacy of making a binary division between the world of "geeks" and "normal people". I don't have much respect for shallow people who are unable to discuss abstract topics either, but you can be intellectual without having no social skills. A balanced conversation between friends is one that includes both abstract topics and personal life: if you're completely unable to discuss one or the other, you have a problem.

Re:Umm, poor people skills?

[daigu]

I don't know what kind of science fiction you read. But, I don't think most can be described as pleasant.

I also find it interesting that you leap to these conclusions. Would you say the same of people that do needle point? They should just stop deluding themselves and get more social and "adult"?

How about gardening, reading, golf, long distance running - or any other mostly solitary activity that people enjoy. What all these people need to do is just go to more parties and be more social?

Gaming is, in fact, more social than these activities, yet no calls you socially inept if you happen to be an ultra-marathon runner - even though as one you spend much more time away from people. What makes gaming such that you assume gamers are socially inept? Might it merely be a prejudice on your part? I've known people to make these comments because they don't find gaming useful - whereas running, gardening, needle point are considered useful in our society.

Further, it is okay for people not to like social situations. I've found that most people are fairly interesting alone. Turn something into a social situation where people do not know one another, and they immediately make themselve less interesting. I've wasted enough time talking about the weather with people and I'm extremely anxious that someone will take up more of my life wanting to talk about this inane topic. You know what I mean?

It's common response...

[heatdeath]

We can't interact as easily in the real world...which makes knowledge as a pursuit much more interesting to us. It also means that being able to experiment with a world that obeys laws we can understand is much more satisfying.

Other hobbies

[saintlupus]

I've noticed that cooking is also a big hobby for us computer nerd types.

Home brewing, too.

--saint

Re:Other hobbies

[conJunk]

interesting, and true... would you classify those in the same set as "rigid rule structure where creative manipulation of those rules = success" the way one could for coding or gaming?

Re:Other hobbies

[AndrewStephens]

interesting, and true... would you classify those in the same set as "rigid rule structure where creative manipulation of those rules = success" the way one could for coding or gaming?

+1 Insightful to that. Speaking as somebody who has just taken the time to whip up a batch of cheese and bacon scones, I have always thought that programming and cooking where very similar pursuits. The same goes for music and gaming - there are rules, the satisfaction comes from using the rules (and knowing when you can break them) to creative ends.
As an aside, I have always thought of coding in terms of recipes especially back in the days of C. You list all of your ingredients (variables) first and then write instuctions on how to mix them together to get the result you want.

The REAL connection:

[The Shrewd Dude]

You see, it's actually that coders have no life sitting in front of their computer screens all day, and thus they try to make up for it by roleplaying.

.
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(the sound you just heard is the myraid slashdotters modding this into oblivion)

So does working at McDonalds.

[CyricZ]

Tabletop roleplaying involves coming up with creative solutions to problems set in a clearly-defined ruleset, involve constant data-tracking and minor mathematical equations, and involve working together with small groups of people toward like-minded goals.

That applies just as much to the workers at McDonalds and to farmers as it does to basically any other job that requires an ounce of skill. Before the 1960s such tasks were often called "common capabilities". That is, they were the basic tasks that pretty much anyone and everyone was expected to be able to do. It's only now, with declining education systems in many western nations, that we consider mastery of such menial tasks to be an accomplishment.

Re:So does working at McDonalds.

[Yaztromo]

Remember that Americans (as in those born and educated in America) weren't responsible for the space feats of the 1960s. Those were the work of German engineers captured after WWII.

Wow, talk about oversimplification. Reality is significantly more complex.

German engineers played a role, but there was a whole lot more to putting man in space (and eventually on the moon) than straight rocketry, which is what most of the German engineers were specialists in. Indeed, a significant number of engineers on the Mercury, Apollo, and Shuttle programs were Canadians displaced after the collapse of the Avro Arrow program.

And let us also not forget about the contributions of another import to the US (this time from China), Tsien Hsue-shen.

All of which supports your initial statement, of course. However, attributing those feats solely to German engineers is an absurd oversimplification -- the talent that made the US's space successes possible were from a variety of countries.

Yaz.

future conditional thought processes

[G4from128k]

I think both role-playing and programming involve a "what if I do X" future-conditional thought process. Controlling a character in game or a byte-character in a program are not that different. They both require some explicit thought of future consequences of scripted actions in the context of a mechanistic system. This is especially true for DMs or scenario developers who must constantly think about how their setup will affect the player's future actions to guide those players toward some attainable game goal.

Thinking abstractly about "what-if" is key to creating code that does what you want and expect it to do. Thinking about what-if is fantasy, by definition.

It's cultural

[scenestar]

It's like asking, why do football players attend keg parties? Coding and roleplaying are part of geek culture

Building with your mind

[phamlen]

In both programming and FRPs, you can make things happen so long as you can imagine it correctly. As someone once told me, "Programming is like building with pure thought-stuff." Everything happens in an alternate realm from the physical world (the computer's memory or the group's imagination) and isn't limited by what you can do in the physical world.

I think people who are attracted by programming's allure of creating programs just by thinking are also attracted by a FRP that lets you create a world with your own imagination.

-Peter

Maybe "systems" is the common thread?

[FlyByPC]

Geeks in general, and programming geeks in particular, seem to be very much interested in systems of all sorts. Not just systems in the IT sense, but any group of objects and/or forces with interactions between the elements of the group.

The combination of various skills, languages (another reason a lot of geeks like Tolkien), lands to explore -- and above all, magic -- comprise a field day for the geek intellect.

Either that, or it's the improbably skimpy leather armor those amazons are wearing...

Is it due to enjoying intellectual challenges?

[siliconbunny]

imho, programming is a quite cerebral endeavour, and the types who are attracted to it (especially as a hobby) are also likely to be attracted to other intellectual pursuits.

Hence the correlation with RPGs. My initial thought would be that that correlation (ie take someone off the street[*] who likes RPGs, and they are relatively likely to like programming) is probably stronger than say enjoyment of computer games (ie take people off the street who like playing FPS games, there would probably be a lower percentage who like to program, but still a higher percentage than, say, that of random football fans. Because RPGs usually require more abstract visualisation than FPSs)

I expect you would find a similar correlation with things such as chess and puzzles, and traditionally geekly pursuits such as astronomy, rock/stamp/dinosaur collections, etc. (ie things where the attraction tends to be cerebral rather than visceral.)

The fun thing I found when I took up fencing long ago was that there was also a strong correlation between fencers and RPGs - wannabe hack'n'slashers, I assume. :-)

The above of course is highly generalised, but it's something I had previously wondered about.

fn *: Although in my experience most RPGers spend too little time outdoors to be accosted, even for the the purposes of idle thought experiments.

Re:My opinion

[AntonDevious]

Given the make up of our current group (3 programmers, a game level designer, and an accountant (who used to work for a computer gaming company), there is most certainly a correlation. I got hooked on RPG's in College by a programmer, though the group I gamed with the most consisted of accountants, paramedics, engineers, and other non-programmer types. After college, our gaming group was highly programmer oriented or people who worked in the computer field. But given the various people I've gamed with over the past 25 years, lack of confidence in ones self seems to be the best description of the people I've gamed with. It gives the "shy nerds" a chance to be around people they are comfortable with and provides them an outlet for their natural creativity. Programmers tend to be "shy nerds" too. Since programming requires a similar mental creativity to gaming (creating intangable functionality out of nothingness), its only logical that the two should co-exist.. In other words, it takes imagination to program. Its a quality that almost every good programmer I've met has. Playing RPG's requires imagination.

socially dynamic? quite the opposite, in a way

[Fross]

the social aspects of roleplaying are far less dynamic than real social interactions, because they are so much more controlled. you understand what your fellows are driving towards, the dialogue and situations are often cliched, or at least familiar, and there is less at stake, less responsibility, socially - if you make a jackass of yourself you can just claim you're roleplaying, and you already know that the people you're playing with are of a like mind to yourself, especially given the intelligent nature of a "game" such as RP.

there are less unknowns, less uncertainties - and this is what is usually a problem for the socially inept - lack of confidence because of lack of certainty, which is what comes across as nerdishness.

add into this the familiarity with the subject matter through books, films, and more recently computer RPG games, and the (to the mainstream) hurdle of a fantasy world is a non-event. the other aspect, which certainly will appeal to the mathematically design minded (not to mention the neurotic obsessive-compulsive detail freaks) is the range of stats, rules - *formal* descriptors of how the world interacts. if someone chucks a baseball at you, it's not down to something an unsporty nerd has little practice/familiarity with (ie catching it with his hands), but rather something quantifiable and determinate, stats, modifiers and a dice roll.

this may sound harsh, particularly as i'm a programmer and have been a roleplayer quite extensively myself, but in our heads we're all great actors, witty people, conversationalists, sometimes we just need to find the right outlet for it to come out in.

Mmmm, no

[Reality Master 201]

Being a successful programmer involves more than just applying abstract rules. In fact, the most significant factor in one's success in real world programming is not ability in solving problems (creatively or not).

A succesful programmer is one that can sucessfully characterize and identify a problem. Far too often, I've seen people jump right into solving what they think the problem is (often during a meeting with a client), without first doing the (admittedly boring) legwork of ensuring that you understand the domain of the problem and the specific things that require solutions.

Unless, of course, you're talking in the realm of 133t h4x0r programmers. But there, the concern is being the hot coding stud, not in delivering a workable, maintainable, stable software product.

The culture of geeks...

[icefaerie]

I don't know that there's necessarily a correlation. I enjoy programming, and I also enjoy role-playing, but without the influence of my friends, I never would have started RPing. These friends have pretty much zero interest in programming. In fact, one of the best roleplayers I know is definitely not the logical, problem-solving oriented type, at least in a programming/engineering manner. I think it's more of the whole geek/nerd culture thing going on...my friends come from a video-game playing background, but I do not but am a geek in a variety of other ways.

Re:roleplaying?

[captaincucumber]

I have a question. Why are Ask Slashdot questions always so stupid? They are more interesting for their amusement factor than for their content. I especially enjoy the self-serving questions like the high school kid who is so much smarter than his peers and asks slashdot "do other people have this problem? How do you cope?" or the unemployed engineer who says "I'm so smart and qualified but I can't find a job. Anyone else having this problem?" I have a question that I've been meaning to submit, but haven't gotten around to it yet:

"Why do I have such a big penis? Does everyone else have a big penis or am I alone in having such a great big penis?"

Re:mod parent up...

[slavemowgli]

Actually... to be honest, TSR wasn't *that* much better in the old (pre-WOTC) days, either.

It's all about abstraction and fantasy

[Crouty]

You need abstraction and fantasy do model a real-life problem in a computer language. And you must not be within the problem but outside looking onto it. Same applies to social roles. First step is to be able to take a look from the outside on your role (abstraction), second is to image how it would be to play a different role (fantasy). I find the correlation pretty darn obvious.

Stop the value judgements /.ers.

[whogben]

You can say that it's because coders have no lives, and need imaginary ones to feel good about themselves - might be true for some. You can say we game because we are inherently more creative than the general population - also might be true for some. I think the coding - gaming connection comes from imagination. Not to say that we have better imaginations than other people, but to say that gaming requires maintaining another world in your head, and coding requires maintaining another world in your head - in this case one made of variables and interwoven systems. Variables and interwoven systems - could be characters and political alignments, etc. I think the act of coding because it relies so much on keeping track of an invented, possibly not implemented yet system in your head, is rather like DMing an RPG, keeping track of a system, implementing it part by part (telling the players) adapting it to bugs (player behavior) and simulating and estimating what it will do (response to player behavior.)

Re:A connection? Yes...

[SeventyBang]

I'm glad someone does.

I must not have a DnD gene. I had clients by the time I graduated from high school twenty-five years ago, earned a paycheck in nearly two dozen languages, worked on any number of platforms & OSes, and DnD holds absolutely no interest. I used to watch friends waste countless hours with pencil & graph paper. I'd almost rather spend the time pulling out my own short & curlies, one by one, with a pair of tweezers.

I've suggested to the PC-specific game magazines (PC Gamer, Computing Games, Computing Game World) they should write a decent article about how to transition from the "standard" games (e.g. FPS) to RPGs, or if nothing else, how to understand them enough to try to have some type of fun.

Umm, no?

[Psychochild]

How did this garbage get modded "Insightful"? Wow.

First of all, creating a fantasy world in a computer game is an incredibly collaborative effort these days. The days of some lone geek sitting in his garage making a game is long over. Even small casual games have teams of at least 3 people. You need a minimum amount of people skills if you're going to create a fantasy world in the medium I'm most familiar with.

Now, let me give you some real insight: a book doesn't have to be set in a "magical fairy realm" or "deep space" or "an alien planet" to be escapist. Hell, most "mainstream literature" is escapist; why do you think people read books like The Hunt for Red October or Patriot Games? Because they're fascinated by Russian sub or missile technology? No, because they want some adventure and excitement in their lives. They live vicariously through the spies, CIA operatives, and other characters as much as the person reading A Game of Thrones lives through the knights, schemers, nobles, and other characters in that book. Of course, that book isn't all "pleasant", and hopefully you didn't identify too closely with the character that gets beheaded or died of a seemingly minor wound....

So, stop with the tired "lolz @ teh dorks!" attitude already. Everyone engages in a bit of escapism once in a while. And sometimes people read a book because it's genuinely a good story, whether it's fantasy, science fiction, or "mainstream".

Re: Left Wing Education == Declining Education

[linguae]

Let me reiterate something that I said in another post earlier today. Left-right is an economic scale that ranges from communism/socialism (far left) to pure laissez-faire capitalism (far right). Right wing has nothing to do with "intelligent design," knowing factiods of every war, and other similar issues.

Political correctness and the push for "intelligent design" in schools and knowledge of every little factoid of war history (slanted, of course) is a symptom of authoritarianism (even though the left authoritarians and right authoritarians exhibit it in different ways, as the grandparent and parent posters showed). Authoritarianism cannot be measured on the left-right scale; rather, you'll need to create a new scale. There is another scale ranging from authoritarian (where authority/tradition/society > individual freedoms) vs. libertarian (where individual freedoms > authority/tradition/society).

You might want to check this out.

Re:mod parent up...

[Golias]

I think all the threads going on about how great (or sucky) TSR is (or was), and all the threads about gamer personalities, and all the threads about various campaign worlds are overlooking something very, very important.

Pencil-and-paper RPG's are (and always have been) nothing more than a vehicle for nerds to gather with nerd friends to eat dorito chips and pizza while chatting about Joss Whedon shows & anime, and repeating old Monty Python jokes they've all heard a million times.

And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Ni.

You don't understand

[fireboy1919]

All of the things you mention are part of creating a character.

If you think that making notes on a sheet is creating a character, then you're probably not a very good RPGer. Doing something and creating are one thing, just as writing a program and writing a program that does something are one.