How D&D Shaped the Modern Videogame

PC Gamer UK, via the CVG site, has a feature up on the influence Dungeons and Dragons had on the development of videogaming. The role D&D has had in inspiring gamers is fairly well known; Masters of Doom chronicles the inspiration the Johns' campaign had on the creation of Doom and Quake. The article discusses more recent confluences of the tabletop game and videogame development, such as Obsidian's use of pen-and-paper to develop the early areas of Neverwinter Nights 2. Ideas for the late, lamented, Fallout 3 were sparked by a number of tabletop roleplaying moments from developer campaigns.

Comments

HP

[Spazmania]

Two words: Hit Points. Every game has them and as kids we learned the concept from D&D.

Re:HP

[lymond01]

And now that we have computers that can easily represent and display physical damage in terms of gameplay and character efficiency...we still use hit points.

At times I wish game designers would FORGET about hit points.

Re:HP

[p0tat03]

We have forgotten about hit points. Play games like Gears of War or Call of Duty, where death is based on the rate at which you're taking damage, as opposed to depleting an existing HP supply.

Call of Duty: Get shot, it's ok. Get shot too much in too little time, your screen starts turning red. Keep getting shot, die.

Re:HP

[Nasarius]

Well, it's an abstraction. I've talked to someone who has extensive real-world experience with sword/knife combat and the injuries that result, and he sketched out a system (in the context of a true medieval RPG) where each limb would have its own status: broken, different levels of bleeding, etc. All of which would have an effect on gameplay; for example, if your arm was damaged, you couldn't fight as well. Like MechWarrior 2, but for people.

It's an interesting idea, and likely something I will be implementing for various reasons, but does it really add enjoyment for the player? Probably not. Just get rid of the absurd situation where a character is nearly dead and can still fight at full capacity, and the traditional global HP isn't a bad abstraction.

Re:HP

[Sigma 7]

I remember trying to convince my friends of the complete lack of need for using stats in a game, and how it would be better if they were a lot more obscure. But people just didn't seem to understand.

Most people familiar with Table-top RPGs consider a lack of numbers to be equivalant to arbitrary - in the same way that some consequences of a Choose-your-own-adventure book are just as arbitrary.

People are comfortable with numbers because it gives them a comfort that their Infinitly-powerful character won't be one-hit-perma-killed by a lowly kobold.

For some reason, I couldn't get across to them that just because something is represented numerically internally, it doesn't have to be explicitely known.

Try an example, such as explaining it's just like playing Tie Fighter when you receive a critical hit that takes out the screen that shows your craft's hull and shield strength. You know that your craft is severly damaged, but not by how much (unless you've been counting hull hits.)

Re:HP

[dyslexicbunny]

Call of Duty: Get shot, it's ok. Get shot too much in too little time, your screen starts turning red. Keep getting shot, die. I agree completely. I run in blindly and kill as many people as possible and when I go red, I hide until I "heal." This makes the game way too easy when combined with the number of checkpoints in every level. Why both playing seriously? Honestly, I wished for something more after beating the game.

It feels like the game is more suited for a casual gamer than serious players that want more realism. I forsee this trend to continue since although design for both is not impossible, adding features and programming additional characteristics to be more than publishers would like to do. I would almost be willing to believe completely that the serious player desiring realism is going to be ignored more and more in many major games.

Re:HP

[insignificant_wrangl]

Some games in the Resident Evil series had the "get-hurt-and-watch-your-leg-drag-behind-you." Though it is still a HP based game, it was neat to have a game directly affect gameplay based on damage.

Seems rather obvious...

[bigstrat2003]

"Obsidian's use of pen-and-paper to develop the early areas of Neverwinter Nights 2." Wouldn't that be considered an amazingly obvious first step, seeing how the game is based in D&D?

Why do we still use classes?

[ductonius]

Like others in this thread I wish video games would forget about D&D for a while. Just a little bit. Not permanently, just enough to let other ideas have their time in the light.

There's a reason why I'm hesitant to buy any medieval-looking RPG nowadays. It's because I know, absolutely know that when I start up the game the first thing I'm going to have to do is choose to play a fighter guy, a magic guy, a stealth guy and or a ranged attack guy. Why in God's name, during the age of computers, do we still have to pick classes?. There is no need for this abstraction. Anything you can do with classes you can do with simple attributes or skills. Furthermore, many things that are done with classes make no sense ("I'm sorry, you can't wear that shirt, you're a mage, mages only wear the purest right-spun Italian cotton"). Role playing games work well with out them. Fallout1/2 and Deus Ex. Both great RPGs. A huge variety in play, enabled by simple attributes and skills. No fucking classes. Game designers: Please stop using classes, at least for a bit.

Also, why do most games have ludicrously low numbers of hit points? Most games out there (including Fallout and Deus Ex, I might add) I only allow the player one, maybe two hundred hit points. There is an almost infinite difference between a bullet to the brain and pricking your finger. Again, with computers a character could have 100,000 hit points instead of 100 and it wouldn't cause any disruption in game play. All it would do is allow the game to represent a greater variety in levels of damage. The same attack by an enemy could do a wide variety of damage depending on where it hit. Eg. arrow to the cranium vs. arrow stopped by chain mail (yes, that would hurt). Low hit points work well when they need to be tracked by hand and the calculations that go into them are fairly simple, but when a computer can do them automatically faster than you can blink, low hit points do not make sense.

D&D is fun. That's why it's popular, it's just also possible for things other than D&D to be fun too, and I'd like to see more of that.

What about a more fundamental influence?

[ghastlygray]

It's striking to me that the discussion so far (correct me if I missed something) ignores what I thought was the more important bit of the article. I quote (emphasis mine):

The central idea remains constant: videogames began with two-player games, experienced through the proxy of a machine. Two or more humans matching their abilities, with victory and failure adjudicated by hard rules, has remained true, from chess to Pong to Battlefield.

There's another way of looking at videogames: how the vast majority are able to entertain when there's no other human being there at all, just you and a machine. The machine just exists to interpret your actions and turn them into a world for you to experience. It exists to entertain you, to take you somewhere else, to give you a place to explore. It is a storyteller. This is a different approach to the idea of 'game', and - interestingly - its core emerged at a similar time to MIT's Space War, as if culture was suddenly ready to reconsider what a 'game' could be.

They claim, in essence, (if I understand correctly) that DnD helped change our very concept of the computer game; of how the computer can be utilized for entertainment. It's not about hitpoints (pong could have hitpoints). It's about the concept of the computer "as storyteller" -- a concept which underlies a vast array of genres in gaming. Now, this is a significant historical assertion. Is it indeed true?

Re:D&D Was great back in the day...not so much

[Macgrrl]

I've been playing (A)D&D for 20 years or so, and we only use 3 books, PHB, DMG, MM. I use the MM more than anyone other than the GM because I play a druid. The DMG is used to calculate the value of wonderous items when dividing up the loot. Everything else comes from the PHB and our imagination.