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Masks in the Woods

Posted by Zonk on from the heavy-gaming dept.

John Tynes, a tabletop RPG developer well-known for work on products for Pagan Publishing and Wizards of the Coast, has a piece in this week's Escapist about the power of the tabletop roleplaying experience. He compares it to the experience of roleplaying in a Massive game, and finds it lacking. From the article: "There is no golden age here. There's just another group of players who tried to tell some stories and couldn't bend the tools to their will. The tools even made things harder in some cases - as in the contentious area of IC vs. OOC chat. Endsong says the guild started with local chat being in character. But more and more members switched to using voice communication via TeamSpeak. If you thought roleplaying online via text messages was a challenge, try it with a headset." Please note - this article contains some disturbing descriptions. No sarcasm, reader beware.

30 comments

  1. Sounds interesting by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've never tried anything like what is described in Once in a while a game comes along that changes everything - Eve Online the article but it sounds interesting. Does anyone else have similar experiences to share?

    --
    Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    1. Re:Sounds interesting by Control+Group · · Score: 1

      Yes, yes, very amusing.

      But really, there aren't any ads on the real article pages, just a full-page, easily skipped ad in between them. If we take as a given that there will be ads to generate revenue, this is about as inoffensive as it gets.

      And it's certainly no worse than a paper magazine, with its "continued on page 42," "continued on page 64," "continued on page 20" routine.

      --

      Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
    2. Re:Sounds interesting by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 1
      You're right. It's not really that Have yourself a kit kat. Have yourself a break. jarring to have advertisements interrupting a document you I'm loving it! are reading. I'm not sick and Just do it tired of having ads interrupt every single aspect of my life. We should just bend Got milk? over and accept it, right?

      Seriously, though, I agree it could be worse. However, I found it pretty offensive that they snuck an ad in there. Maybe I'm just too sensitive from being over-advertised to already. I'm just not going to brush it off and go with the "X is not bad because it's not as bad as Y" mentality. Sure ads generate revenue, but I'd rather not be tricked into reading them, thank you very much. I make it a point to stay away from obnoxiously ad-supported content when I can.

      --
      Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    3. Re:Sounds interesting by Diss+Champ · · Score: 1

      It was an interesting ad to land in the middle of that article, given that as MMO games go Eve leaves a whole lot more in the players hands than most. The devs seem to be taking the approach of giving the players the tools to develop their own stories out on the rim- while neglecting the "official" stuff considerably of late (my Emperor has been dead for half a year, and no updates on empire leadership since shortly after his death).

      While the text does limit things somewhat, MUDs and such have lived with text interfaces for quite a while, and some do RP quite well. I agree that Teamspeak doesn't seem a big improvement though on the RP side in any of the games I've tried.

    4. Re:Sounds interesting by Meagermanx · · Score: 1

      MUDs and online forums are the modern roleplayer's only online options.
      Because some are populated by under a dozen people at peak, MUDs are great for a small roleplaying community.

  2. In-character consistency in voice chat? by ScentCone · · Score: 3, Funny

    Certainly the number of people playing as Trolls should make for lots of completely believable communication.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  3. And they don't even mention LARPing... by GJSchaller · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I will start off by saying I'm one of those guys who actually wears a mask in the woods, and plays a game that involves mock combat / sparring using padded weapons. When I saw the title of this article, that is what I thought it was about. It's a shame that they don't even touch on it. (Disclamier - I had to skim TFA, I'm at a work computer and some of the graphics on the site are not... office friendly.)

    I do agree that Role-Playing is much easier to do at the tabletop than online, or on a PC. I've been playing Tabletop RPGs since I was 10, over 20 years ago. In the past 5 years, that has given way to Live Role-Playing Games (Also know as Live-Action RPGs, or LARPs), where there is no tabletop, but everything is acted out in real-time. Some times it's in a hotel room, some times it's in a whole hotel, and sometimes (my favorite) it's on a campgrounds, where you have a large expanse of outdoors to play in.

    Don't get me wrong, WoW is fun - but it's not RP in my mind. RP is watching your best friend (acting the part of) breaking down in tears in a dramatic scene, live - not using /cry. Good RP is actually feeling a lump in your throat as you see a zombie (actually a player in makeup) shamble towards you, knowing it won't stop just because you ran out of it's spawn range. And truly memorable is when your S.O. scares the holy crap out of you by simply smiling on a dimly lit woodland path. The fact that you didn't know she was there, she's a Dark Elf in all black, on a moonless night, and all you can see is her teeth and fangs adds to the atmosphere. (I'd like to see a Night Elf try that online.)

    At the risk of sounding like a promotion, check out http://gallery.knightrealms.com/ - Yes, I'm the webmaster, so it's my own damn fault if we get slashdotted. ;-)

    1. Re:And they don't even mention LARPing... by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      You know, wearing a mask in public is illegal in most states. (With specific exceptions for holidays where masks are usually worn)

      No exceptions for cold weather in most states though. Anyway, a rarely enforced law, generally used to hold someone suspected of burglary until they can come up with better charges.

      Still something to keep in mind, if some redneck cop wants to harass "freaks playing with fake swords" they could use it against you.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    2. Re:And they don't even mention LARPing... by Ayaress · · Score: 1

      They probably wouldn't need the mask law - fake weapons are illegal many places as well.

    3. Re:And they don't even mention LARPing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh...great.

    4. Re:And they don't even mention LARPing... by DreadSpoon · · Score: 1

      Indeed, I do LARPing as well. Our group owns a 40 acre plot of land, including buildings and trails. The role-playing experience when you are doing face-to-face character interaction is beyond ANYTHING you find in table-top or MMO scenarios.

      Granted, if you're a role-player, be careful about just running out an joining a LARP. Most are just a bunch of dorky D&D nerds who though it'd be cool to dress up and hit each other with foam weapons. Finding a *good* LARP ain't easy.

      Especially avoid NERO if you want role-playing. It's one of the largest medieval-ish LARPs around, and it almost completely lacks role-playing; people tend to sit around the campfire and talk about computer games or stuff like that. The combat at NERO is also absolutely disgustingly pathetic. The midwest has a number of good LARPs, though, and Europe has some truly massive and excellent LARPs. (One german LARP has some 5,000+ players on the field at a time.)

    5. Re:And they don't even mention LARPing... by travail_jgd · · Score: 1

      Good RP is actually feeling a lump in your throat as you see a zombie (actually a player in makeup) shamble towards you, knowing it won't stop just because you ran out of it's spawn range. And truly memorable is when your S.O. scares the holy crap out of you by simply smiling on a dimly lit woodland path.

      What does that have to do with playing a ROLE? Being scared or intimidated as a player should have nothing to do with how your character reacts.

      Maybe it's my tabletop prejudice coming out, nothing about your descriptions have anything to do with "roleplaying". I've seen players jump as a zombie howls in hunger, melt when a beloved NPC comes into the scene, and shudder when a loathesome NPC makes his return.

      All without makeup, masks, romps in the woods... or even rolling dice. That's roleplaying.

    6. Re:And they don't even mention LARPing... by GJSchaller · · Score: 1

      You are absolutley correct, what you describe is good RP. What sets a full-costume & contact game apart from a tabletop RPG is that there is less of a need to suspend one's disbelief, in order to achieve the feeling of being truly In-Game. If my buddy Fred, who has been my GM for 10 years, describes or even voice acts a scene during a tabletop game, yes, it's possible for me to imagine it,and react to it as my charcter. But in a Live situation, the layer of imagining the scene has been (partially) removed, because that much more of it has been realized for you, and you don't need to fill it in with your imaginaiton. Having your GM describe the Orcs coming down the path, then asking you to roll your Stealth skill is one thing. Actually hearing footsteps and grunts, and diving into the bushes yourself adds much more to the experience. Taking the example of being surprised at a Live game, I can get deep enough In-Character that my reflex actions are different than they would be in real life (i.e. - Shield up & swing at it, rather than jumping backwards). I have never reached that level of Role Play in a tabletop (or MMO) environment.

      One can enjoy a movie with bad special effects and acting, and a good plot. But it is more likely you will enjoy the same plot much more (and be more immersed in the movie) if the acting and effects are on a higher level. You are less distracted by the things that bring out the fact that it's not real.

    7. Re:And they don't even mention LARPing... by armb · · Score: 1

      > zombie (actually a player in makeup) shamble towards you

      I used to LaRP years ago. One of the best moments was the look on a players face as he crawled out of a tunnel to see three zombies, just before one (me) hit his candle, the only light source.
      (He didn't know we were exceptionally slow low hit zombies, and that we only animated one at a time as more players came through, so he only actually had me to fight in the dark, and he had no real problem.)

      --
      rant
  4. Apples to Cucumbers by ChozSun · · Score: 1

    Obviously, pencil-n-paper RPGs are so incredibly superior to MMORPGs, that doesn't need to be discussed. But the author should compare apples to apples (fantasy PnPRPGs to fantasy MMORPGs, etc.) and not crime/dramatic/near-goth jerkfest to MMORPGs.

    It still is a shocker to me that there are tons of people who are currently playing MMORPGs who have never played PnPRPG. That is not so much an issue with games like WoW or EQ2 but it is a huge problem with games like NWN. The number one is PnPer knows why certain things work in a certain way and when those items are put into a video game broken, a PnPer will work to correct those issues (e.g. True Sight broke as hell in NWN).

    Future MMOs like DDO nor Vanguard do not bridge the gap between MMOs and PnP. They just rehash what has gone in the past with a sprinkle of something different. After I read Vanguard's FAQ, I am not sure if MMORPGs want to get closer to the pinnacle of RPG that is PnP. Somehow, they have created their own genre where the expectations are set lower and the delivery is set right above that line.

    I do hate to use fantasy as a generic subgenre of RPGs. You give me SWG and I give you Star Wars d6 system. You give me (insert non-existent Pirates/Explorer/Swashbuckling adventures) and I give you AEG's non-D20 7th Sea. You give me (insert any lame space opera) and I give you Fading Suns. Heck, MMORPGs do not even have an answer for PnPRPG's A Game of Thrones as far as death being a very real thing.

    --
    ChozSun
    ChozSun.com
    1. Re:Apples to Cucumbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obviously, pencil-n-paper RPGs are so incredibly superior to MMORPGs, that doesn't need to be discussed.

      I can see you took a debate class in high school.

    2. Re:Apples to Cucumbers by Sage+Gaspar · · Score: 1

      "Obviously, pencil-n-paper RPGs are so incredibly superior to MMORPGs, that doesn't need to be discussed. But the author should compare apples to apples (fantasy PnPRPGs to fantasy MMORPGs, etc.) and not crime/dramatic/near-goth jerkfest to MMORPGs."

      That's... not true. MMOs are different, with different advantages. You have a computer taking care of the grunt book keeping work, conjuring up fantastic visuals instead of a couple lines of text. The downside, of course, being that you're limited to what the developers can make. Another upside is that there are tons of players around, and you can turn out a bunch of characters to play when you're in a certain mood. I can flip from one RP scenario into another with a different character and an entirely new group of players within fifteen minutes if my old group is finished. The downside being that these characters have less commitment behind them, and tend to be more expendable. A final upside is that it's easier to gather a large number of people together. There aren't many PnP groups that can get twenty or thirty people together in a tavern every night to sit around and shoot the shit.

      "It still is a shocker to me that there are tons of people who are currently playing MMORPGs who have never played PnPRPG. That is not so much an issue with games like WoW or EQ2 but it is a huge problem with games like NWN. The number one is PnPer knows why certain things work in a certain way and when those items are put into a video game broken, a PnPer will work to correct those issues (e.g. True Sight broke as hell in NWN)."

      Why are they "right" in PnP and "wrong" in NWN (which is not an MMO -- the PWs I've seen max out around a couple hundred and usually have far less than that)? Why can't they be different, for the different media? Just because something is changed from your uber oldsk00l experience doesn't make it wrong.

    3. Re:Apples to Cucumbers by ChozSun · · Score: 1

      I almost accept the fact that they are horses of two different colours (PnPs and MMO). It kills me that MMOs still attached RPG to their genre and in doing that, makes their genre a RPG.

      We could argue round and round on what makes a true RPG. But I think it is what we expect out of an RPG is what defines the term "Roleplaying Game"

      For some, like myself, want movement of story, development of plot and the ability to create incredible character development while not depending on magic, items or gods to do it. Some want more drama while others want hack-n-slash.

      I obviously put more weight in the term RP then most people and I accept that. But to counter your point about 20 to 30 people all together, PnP cannot function with that many people (8 at most with an assistant GM at best). I prefer 3 to 6 players in a group that are in front of each other (face-to-face), who are accountable to each other (see John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory) and where their actions may result in dire consequences. In MMORPGs, you have none of that. You don't have the closeness of personal interaction, the ability to act like an asshat (see John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory) and where our actions don't amount to shit.

      Take for instance, World of Warcraft. As a Dwarf, I should be able to denounce my loyalities to the Alliance, trek all the way to Orgrimmar and announce my full allegiance to the Horde and to Thrall, the Warlord of the Orcs. If they do not accept me, they should be able to kill me on the spot and I should perish. Perhaps, my story would make it back to Stormwind and Ironforge. Perhaps not. But because the story is static in WoW, there is no way I can accomplish this. I cannot play an Alliance who through the asshatness of Alliance characters, decides that my character would rather die than to serve the Alliance. If I create a Dwarf, Human, Night Elf or Gnome, I have no choice but to serve the Alliance.

      What is crazy is that the Humans and Orcs helped each other (Warcraft III) so I fully expected this to be possible in WoW. Not so much.

      But in WoW PnPRPG (yes it is d20 but what can you do), I can do this very easily because it promotes good storytelling and advance plot development. In the current WoW PnP session that I am in, I play a Gnome Rogue who hangs out with a Orc warrior who goes out and tries to earn a living (not an honest living but an living nonetheless).

      It doesn't make sense for Roleplaying to be handicapped by developers.

      --
      ChozSun
      ChozSun.com
    4. Re:Apples to Cucumbers by Evangelion · · Score: 1

      It still is a shocker to me that there are tons of people who are currently playing MMORPGs who have never played PnPRPG. That is not so much an issue with games like WoW or EQ2 but it is a huge problem with games like NWN.

      NWN is not an MMORPG.

      It might be more useful to think of MMORPGs in terms of what they actually are -- team sports.

      You have 40 people trying to accomplish a single goal, and each person has a position (MT, MH, OT, DPS, Cleansebot), and you work together to accomplish something. The point is to complete a task working together, not to role play.

      So saying "It's surprising that people are playing this team sport without having played a PnPRPG is surprising..." well, no it's not. The skill sets don't overlap in the slightest.

    5. Re:Apples to Cucumbers by ChozSun · · Score: 1

      Obviously. Nice login.

      --
      ChozSun
      ChozSun.com
    6. Re:Apples to Cucumbers by ChozSun · · Score: 1

      As MMORPGs is to PnPRPGs, so is football is to hockey.

      It all makes sense now.

      --
      ChozSun
      ChozSun.com
    7. Re:Apples to Cucumbers by Evangelion · · Score: 1


      No, that's not really what I was saying. But it's clear that you're not really interested in understanding why MMORPGs are what they are, and you're just out to act superior to MMORPG players.

      Hint: They're only called RPGs because they use combat resolution mechanics that originated in RPGs. That's it.

  5. Question about TFA... by Lendrick · · Score: 1

    The article at several points mentions the "tools" that people need in order to roleplay in MMORPGs, yet never actually says what those tools are. So what are these tools, exactly? What features to hard-core RPers dream of having in MMORPGs?

    1. Re:Question about TFA... by pregister · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not a hard-core roleplayer, but I did spend a whole lot of time when I was younger playing pen-and-paper rpgs. The obvious advantage table-top rpgs or LARP has is direct interaction with other players. Things can happen as quickly as the players can talk, you aren't limited by the horrid spelling of your companions, you don't have to wait for people to peck at the keyboard, you aren't left waiting for a response because someone ran off to throw some laundry in the dryer without letting the others know...

      As much as I like a lot of the emotes in WoW, they get boring...you can't make your character sound or look like you want them to.

      I don't know what game companies can do to address this...probably not much.

      One thing they _can_ do is to allow players to have meaningful impact on the world. Personally, the peak of roleplaying in a MMORPG, for me, was Shadowbane. There, players could form guilds/clans and actually build cities. You would stake out a plot of land, build on it, have to maintain it...and when the enemies came a callin', defend it or lose everything. You had a stake in the world. You could form alliances with other guilds and form nations and war with other nations. It was a lot of fun.

      It wasn't perfect, though. While all of the above could help a player who cared about roleplaying feel invested in the world and the guild, someone who wasn't interested could simply ignore it. With a large segment of a server population not roleplaying, the roleplaying experience is lessened for those who want to roleplay. There is no solution for this. You can't enforce roleplaying. People have different definitions of what roleplaying is, when its ok to ignore roleplaying, etc. I'm sure most people have encounted someone of the mindset "No, i'm not just a rabid playerkiller. I'm actually roleplaying a psychotic assassin who thinks everyone else is trying to kill him." Bah and feh.

      The other problem with MMORPGs is the grinding. I just reached lvl 40 with my first WoW character. The first 20 levels or so I was just exploring and questing...really having a ball. Eventually started reading character build guides, using the talent calculators to figure out how I was going to develop, looking into the best equipment for my character, etc...essentially, I started grinding more than playing. Lvls 35-40 were nothing but grinding...I wanted my mount. Got the mount, rode around everywhere for a few hours...and then felt completely let down. Whats left before me? Grinding to 60, deciding if my current guild is up to the end-game instances, perfecting my build, tracking down the epic equipment, etc. Nothing but grinding. Lost is the exploration and any sense of novelty. Its down to math, now.

      Table-top RPGs, in my experience, have none of this. I had as much fun as a low level character as I did as a high level character. The game was about the process, not about the endgame...cause there was no endgame. The focus was the story the gamemaster had created from his own demented imaginings. Unless we were using a commercial scenario (which was very rare) it was "our" story, our games, our ideas. Each "adventure" was important...it was part of your character's life.

      I suppose the the Holy Grail would be for a MMORPG with the scope of WoW or Everquest or combined with customizable instances or dungeons (like the Neverwinter Nights build tools with GameMaster led adventures). Guilds or players could build instances for their members or friends. Hell, good designers could build exceptional instances and charge a fee to run a group through their creation...but I don't see that happening any time soon.

      -p

    2. Re:Question about TFA... by RyatNrrd · · Score: 1

      Faces.

      Meaningful gestures.

      Time to wait a heartbeat of two before responding to someone - without being interrupted by some pwner and their exclamation marks.

      Shared expectations for the RP experience.

      I played a couple of MMORPGs, and found each time that there were crowds of people wanting to level-up, other people talking about where they lived and what job they did (real life, of course), people asking for weapons. It's a really crowded, noisy environment. Like trying to LARP in a shopping mall: sure you can run around in a costume shouting at each other about whatever, but unless you're doing it specifically to entertain the locals it's going to be self-conscious and utterly unconvincing.

  6. This can't come as any surprise by fair_n_hite_451 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Face-to-face roleplaying brings body language, facial expressions, voice pitch and human interaction to the table (pun intended).

    Not sure how on-line roleplaying ... until we reach the nirvana of immersive 3D, holodeck-like technology ... will ever compete with that.

    His whole article can be summed up like this:
    "I went to a marionette show, and you know what, movies look more realistic."

    --
    Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
    "I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
  7. IC vs OOC is an issue in tabletop, too by Ayaress · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This issue has come up with me several times. Some people are able to shift gears back and forth fairly quickly, and saying "Pass the chips" between rolls isn't a big deal. Some people seem to treat IC like some sort of holy meditation and get annoyed when you break it.

  8. Skipping by Gorkamecha · · Score: 1

    There is a good deal more to online play then just the WoW's of the world....IRC used to be a haven for RP, but has since moved on to MUSHs and MUDS. These mediums are at the same time more successful and less successful then then WoWs of the world. They tend to be more in the spirit of TT games, but have horrific player turn overs. I also remember when Never winter nights appeared on the gaming scene...There was a hope among MUD/MUSHers that that was going to be the "next" level of gaming. Unfortunately the tool were just too clunky to use.

    1. Re:Skipping by chris411 · · Score: 1
      I can't imagine doing any effective roleplaying across a MMORPG, certainly not to the level of MU*s. I've tried out Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot, and I felt they were about as much about roleplaying as, say, Half-Life.

      On a MU*, you can actually have your own plotline, events affect you in very definite ways, you can tell the DM or plotmaster or whatnot "I want to do this" and it becomes reality (whether your actions are successful or not). You can't get any of that on a MMORPG.

  9. MMORPG RP can be fun by Robotech_Master · · Score: 1

    I'm a member of a MMORPG RP/writing collective, the RP Congress on the Pinnacle City of Heroes server. It's pretty fun, and I don't have all that hard of a time with it. The other people in the group are great RPers and writers; we even manage to write stories and chat together out-of-game by using MoonEdit.

    The thing about in-game RP is that you're limited by and large to text chat only. There are a few emotes--special animations that your character can go through, like waving, dancing, or gesturing imperiously, but they're so generic that they by and large do not enhance the experience. You can use Ventrilo and Teamspeak and Skype and the like for voice communication RPing (and there's one person in our play group who does a hilarious voice for his character) but that only goes so far--especially if you have a habit of playing alternate-gender characters.

    One of the things the article didn't really go into is that story-writing can patch over some of the holes, things you can't do on-line, like having two characters played by the same person meet, converse, and adventure together. That's one of the biggest reasons for doing it, in fact.

    Of course, even before this I was no stranger to text-based RP. A group of friends and I have been RP'ing via a chatserver--which had no pictures or images at all. Compared to that, text-based RP with images and actions is a walk in the park. :)

    --
    Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org