I was looking at a thread from a few months ago 'Computer RP software' http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8117

I just wanted to raise a few questions to this quote by an unknown mouse. It's not specifically aimed at him/her, its more ideas that are fairly common though.

anonymouse wrote: I'm going to question this. Your ground is very, very shaky.

There are no games that allow you to "be pretty much what you want to be." Tabletop roleplaying has this possibility, and no other games. I play and have played an excessive number of console and PC games over the years, and can think of nothing that fits that utopian ideal.

Certainly not Morrowind; or the other too-often-cited example of the Fallout games.

For the uninitiated, these are commonly billed as "non-linear roleplaying games." What this basically amounts to is a near-nonexistant plotline, with an abundance of "side quests"; that is, slayings, Fed-Ex errands, and the occasional bit of puzzle that have nothing to do with aforementioned plot. They exist to give your character experience/skills/levels/whatever, and somehow increase in power or ability. Many of these might rely on some of the more random skills you have (a Basket Weaving quest if you took points in Underwater Basket Weaving). Mostly, however, it's just killing things.

The trick is that the big boss at the end of the game must be defeated by combat. Always. Always always always. The one exception I can pull out of the air right now is Arcanum, which I know only by hearsay. Supposedly you can Diplomacy your way past him, but playing through the rest of the game as a pure talky-charismatic guy is difficult to the point of frustration.

If what you want is a combat game, excellent: these types of games have that. They usually have a few different kinds of combat, (melee, ranged, sword or polearm, magic, so on), in fact, so you can feel like your character is progressing down a unique path. It's total illusion.

Because if the programmers didn't code it in, you can't do it; and none of them have ever managed to simulate all of reality.

This is not to say that your core idea may or may not be the next great thing. I'm rather concerned about the viability, however, if something like Morrowind is your baseline for possibility.
*snip*

Noon, I'm sure this isn't what you had in mind, but the association of deal-brokering and CRPGs led me to imagine computer RPGs programmed with a separate 'rules lawyer' mode where you could try to wheedle benefits out of the computer. Certain argumentative flaws would be programmed in, and smart players could gain benefits by figuring them out and exploiting them.

The humor of this image maybe suggests that the negotiation aspect of TTRPGs isn't well-handled by computers at all, though, and that the absence of give-and-take is part of the difference. Is that something you meant to say, or no?

Noon wrote:
Okay, here. Now, is it a commonly held property in RPG's that, if you have a lot of skill in a particular area, you can use that to navigate nearly all challenges that meet you?

Noon wrote:
Well, no. But we like to say 'Well, it should be about the GM spotting what the characters good at and giving them the opportunity to shine'. But I think the basket weaving example shows the similarity between CRPG and RPG. Most GM's aren't going to work basket weaving into the solution to challenges. Their world is going to have a central focus on challenge resolution, combat for example, and the further away you are from that skill wise, the less you'll shine.

Noon wrote:
So, some questions about commonly held feelings on CRPG's. Because they might deserve questioning. :)

Way I see it, the difference between RPGs and CRPGs is the computer. The computer is a powerful tool that makes some easier and other things more difficult. This is such a profound change it effectively makes it another medium, one that requires different skills from the makers and differnet expectations from the audience.

By way of example, not analogy, I remember being told about a Simpsons spin of idea the creator Matt Greoning pitched once to Fox. It was a Krusty the Clown live action show. The plot is Krusty moves out to California to try to succeed in Hollywood. They had an idea for a running gag at the begining of the show where Krusty lives in one of those houses on stilts and at the begining of every show, a beaver would try to eat his house and he'd try to thwart the beaver.

Matt says that and the Fox execs exclaim "Do you know how much a beaver COSTS??" He said how about a trained beaver, they said no. How about a stuffed beaver, they said no. How about an animatronic beaver and they rolled their eyes at him.

The lesson learned here is how spoiled Matt Greoning has gotten doing an animated show for years. In an animated show you can have hundreds of sets from all over in a single episode. In a live action sitcom you have two sets: the house and not the house. Look at your favorite sitcom. Happy Days was mostly confined to the house and Arnold's (with occasional stops at Fonzie's apartment and the occasional anywhere set) So there's a profound difference between animation and live action.

Big duh, I know.

Likewise there's a difference between a CRPGs and a RPGs. The exact nature of the difference is beyond my scope, but I can try a little bit.

I had been playing the demo for Freedom Force a bit. The opening scene has a nice cityscape and it has a similar problem I have seen in countless computer games, there is a border to the map. Beyond this, nothing exists. Often this complaint is met with all you have to do is code more map. That's fine, but if it's never coded, it doesn't happen. Ever. And coding a computer game environment is not the same as expanding a RPG. They require different skill sets, arguably computer coding requires more specialized skills and if it's not right, it's glaringly obvious.

Consider, take your favorite CRPG, any CRPG and convert it to another genre, western romance, whatever. Now do the same with an RPG. Both require a bit of work, but one is easier for a larger number of people to attempt than the other.

Eero Tuovinen wrote:

Noon wrote:
Okay, here. Now, is it a commonly held property in RPG's that, if you have a lot of skill in a particular area, you can use that to navigate nearly all challenges that meet you?

Yeah, it's quite common, apparently more common than you think. Any other kind of play is deeply dysfunctional, most of the time. Usually the social structure goes with either a predefined world or GM deciding the challenges. In both cases players have agreed to it. In some games the process indeed goes backwards, with the players signaling with skill choise or out-and-out talking what kind of adventure they want.

If this isn't happening, you get play where the content doesn't interest the players. Dysfunctional. Only if you first negotiate a certain kind of game and then later someone takes the skill of legendary basket weaving you get the situation where basket weaving is inappropriate. But that's a bug in the player, isn't it, if he first agrees to a certain kind of game and then starts playing against it?

Well, no. But we like to say 'Well, it should be about the GM spotting what the characters good at and giving them the opportunity to shine'. But I think the basket weaving example shows the similarity between CRPG and RPG. Most GM's aren't going to work basket weaving into the solution to challenges. Their world is going to have a central focus on challenge resolution, combat for example, and the further away you are from that skill wise, the less you'll shine.

This isn't the situation in a computer game, as those mostly don't allow basket weaving nowadays (sensible, as otherwise a player could crash his own game with clearly suboptimal play). It isn't the situation in a roleplaying game either, as the game will either end with nonsatisfied players or move to the basket weaving.

As an aside, I see no problem with basket weaving as an arena of conflict. I see easily, instantly two games: one a post-tolkienist fantasy world of handywork mages, second a game of bourgeoisie home wives and their latest folly.

The question was left a little unclear, at least to me. Anonymouse focused on the limits of computer games. Quite clearly they are limited, that's basic system theory. You posit that roleplaying games are similarly limited, when it's equally clear that roleplaying games are real-time social constructs.

They include what the players want them to, the only limits being the wishes of the players, their communication and the mechanics they need to use for non-biased generation. Roleplaying games even have the most efficient heuristics available in the form of the human brain, so it's not like a preprogrammed piece could come even near in limitlessness on any significant arena.

If your point is the detail A. chose, it's not like there isn't sufficiently many of those. His point was that computer games are limited, whether the conflict resolution is multilateral or not. It's all illusionary.

Could you state your idea in a different form? The thrust was left somewhat hidden here.

Jack Spencer Jr

Player 'So we leave the mission area, what do we see'
GM, after looking at his own map, which ends here 'Uh, buildings'
The GM looks carefully. No one screams or plucks out their eyes.

Probably because 'Uh, buildings' means they all have generated their own fuzzy idea of what's around. Some might think that buildings contain stuff, so they'll ask about one's contents.

GM's tend to build things as their players ask. This is because we all agree there doesn't always have to be a nicely layed out positioning in front of us on the table, in traditional RPG's. In CRPG's it's assumed we as purchasers, wont agree to that. It's assumed we agree to see everything in fair resolution, or not at all (if you show half designed environments, it breaks the 'fair resolution' agreement were supposed to want to make). And when we buy products, we certainly are agreeing to that.

So this CRPG limmitation is more about what it is assumed people will agree to buy. An 'Ask and we'll make it up as we go' system hasn't really been tried in computers probably for two reasons A: it isn't as pretty and B: It's not impossible but it is harder to code.

So is it about what CRPG's aren't? Or is it about what people aren't agreeing to?

Somehow I don't think you quite grasped my point.

Noon wrote: .... In CRPG's .... It's assumed we agree to see everything in fair resolution, or not at all.

Because if the programmers didn't code it in, you can't do it; and none of them have ever managed to simulate all of reality.

Here. I can't see how:
GM - 'You can't do it'
Player - 'Well, most cliffs are pretty craggy, so I should be able to climb down it'
GM - 'Well, its really dangerous, the face would be breaking away most of the time. Okay, you can do it, with a big penalty.'
Is simulating reality.

GM's don't simulate reality either. They negotiate, they broker a deal on what happens.<snip>

So, some questions about commonly held feelings on CRPG's. Because they might deserve questioning. :)

A few of us had talked about this a little several months back, in a brief discussion of Neverwinter Nights. NWN allows people to host games online and for some portion of the playing group to log in as a GM, essentially with 'superuser' status. It seems germane here because while in some ways it's more like IRC play than it is single player CRPG play, it does run into 'the map ends here' syndrome. Possibly for that reason, there's a strong tendency to Simulationism among GMs of the game (so much that most build their own scenarios using a CAD-type toolset.)

There are options to avoid this; for instance, a combination of third-party addons and scripts allow for 'soundstage' areas that can be modified on the fly to look like any number of settings. You still get the sense here of "uh... buildings" (a blank area populated on the fly isn't ugly, but it's much sparser than a prebuilt dedicated area), and yet most players don't have a strong disconnect when moving to this type of locale.

Noon wrote:
The latter halfs point was: Computers might not simulate reality, but neither do people in TRPG's.

I wonder what the threshold level is, so as to say one thing is totally illusionary and the other is the real deal. Sounds more like they're both totally illusiory and its a matter of personal taste on where that threshold lies. Which makes it less about the medium (CRPG/TRPG) and more about the man.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Somehow I don't think you quite grasped my point.

Noon wrote: .... In CRPG's .... It's assumed we agree to see everything in fair resolution, or not at all.

I am stumbling over the phrasing "we agree" in your response. We do not agree to see thing in fair resolution in a CRPG, "fair" being a slippery term here, anymore than we agree to listen to a music cd. It's part of the medium.

My point is that CRPGs are different because of the involvement of the computer. I could say things like a CRPG has the shared imagined space on the screen while a RPG has this space in the players heads.

What about in the future when we'll be able to "jack in" to the computer and, thus the space will be inside the heads. Will CRPGs be the same as RPGs? Heck no, because by jacking into the computer, it is putting the image and sensations of the shared space directly into the player's brains. Thus, it is not the same because of the involvement of the computer.

It is not about the strengths or limitations of CRPGs or RPGs in comparason to one another. It the involvement of the machine, and what it can do, that makes it a whole different ball game.

Using the futuristic computer above, it may be possible to make a CRPG that would give the exact same experience as a RPG...just to prove me wrong. But it doesn't prove me wrong any more than an avante-garde musician releasing an album of 120 minutes of complete silence prove that music is not always heard with the ears.

The computer is a pandora's box that changes the possibilities, and the actualities of play so much I consider it a separate animal.

anonymouse wrote: *snip*

Sure, I can dig that. Except.. what does it have to do with my point? The post I was responding to was asserting that a game like Morrowind somehow allowed you to do whatever you wanted in that setting; this is patently false. You can only do what's been programmed in. Nor was I ever offering any comparisons between GMs and game developers or programmers (pretty sure, anyway..). So.. wha?

So, some questions about commonly held feelings on CRPG's. Because they might deserve questioning. :)

Er? Which questions? Gimmie some bulletpoints and I'd be happy to discuss this further.

Eero Tuovinen wrote:
*snip*

Ah, I get it. But it's still a little unclear why you deem realism such a central issue. Has somebody lately argued that's what makes tabletop games better?

Anyway, I agree in that you can indeed see a computer program as a sort of a crippled GM. As I understand it, many people do play D&D in the States in a way more akin to a board- or computer game. Remove all initiative and you effectively get a bad computer game (bad because of handling time issues and such; a computer does those things much better).

Both computer and tabletop games indeed build imaginary constructs in the mind of the player. That's a given, at least in my analysis. There is no more real or less real, there's just more suitable and less suitable. For purposes of immersionism, for example, tabletop is better. Freedom to negotiate your vision of the gameworld wins easily over the graphical edge computer game has. Also the things I'm most interested in, like narrativistic dialogue with other people of my caliber are better dealt with with a tabletop game than any computer program.

Aha. I don't think your theory - that the main difference between tabletop and CRPGs is perceived as lack of realism - is right. It's a part, to be sure.

But as other posters have stated in this thread, it's really more about flexibility. With your rock wall analogy.. the issue is whether or not I can climb the wall at -all-, not whether or not it makes me physically sweat and scrape my hands.

Which can tie in with your "bargainer" bit above, about wheeling and dealing with the GM to spin a situation a certain way.

Suspension of disbelief is easy with C(omputer/console) gamers. Whether you get to weave the basket with an arcade sequence or a ten-hour process of harvesting reeds, bending, and a puzzle sequence, the important factor is whether or not the game can physically allow you to weave that basket at all.

anonymouse wrote: Aha. I don't think your theory - that the main difference between tabletop and CRPGs is perceived as lack of realism - is right. It's a part, to be sure.

But as other posters have stated in this thread, it's really more about flexibility. With your rock wall analogy.. the issue is whether or not I can climb the wall at -all-, not whether or not it makes me physically sweat and scrape my hands.

Which can tie in with your "bargainer" bit above, about wheeling and dealing with the GM to spin a situation a certain way.

Suspension of disbelief is easy with C(omputer/console) gamers. Whether you get to weave the basket with an arcade sequence or a ten-hour process of harvesting reeds, bending, and a puzzle sequence, the important factor is whether or not the game can physically allow you to weave that basket at all.

O.K., I've been staying out of this because I don't play CRPGs, at all. Haven't done so since my Commodore 64 stopped working.

But I'm getting into it now because I don't play them precisely for the kind of reason which is asserted against them.

The way I would put it is more like this: In a CRPG, I am often stymied by the fact that I can conceive of the character doing something which seems to be completely within the ordinary abilities of that (or perhaps even any) character which should impact the situation, and I am unable to do that because the programmer failed to recognize this as a possibility.

Now, with some games, that's a given--games like DiscWorld and Hitchhiker's Guide weren't really RPGs, but elaborate puzzles in which players had to work out the solutions each step of the way to move to the next step. In those cases, what's annoying is that they have the label "CRPG" when they're really puzzles. Some people like such puzzles; some do not. I don't care for them because I'm not interested in trying to figure out how the programmer thought it should be solved. I'm interested in finding original ways of solving the problems and puzzles with which the game confronts the player--and CRPGs cannot evaluate the probability of success of an original solution which has not been previously recognized by the programmer. Thus a plot that I think would work well as an RPG doesn't work well as a CRPG, because the referee in the RPG has the ability to analyze whether my idea has a chance of success.

In other games, system limitations usually minimize the degree to which a player is able to play the character. That's the problem. It isn't that there are things I can't do--that's part of every game, and is called the rules. It's that there are things that I should be able to do but which the system won't allow. It will let me pick up the jar and examine it; it will let me hit the enemy with my sword. Why will it not let me hit the enemy with the jar? It will let me fill the lamp with oil and light it; why can't I throw it to set fire to a room?

The problem thus is that there are things I can conceive of the character doing, for which he seems to have every necessary skill, which he cannot do or which don't have the obvious logical effects they should, because the coder didn't foresee them.

Most of the rest of the stuff isn't a problem for me.

--M. J. Young

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: It the involvement of the machine, and what it can do, that makes it a whole different ball game.

M. J. Young wrote: O.K., I've been staying out of this because I don't play CRPGs, at all. Haven't done so since my Commodore 64 stopped working.

But I'm getting into it now because I don't play them precisely for the kind of reason which is asserted against them.

The way I would put it is more like this: In a CRPG, I am often stymied by the fact that I can conceive of the character doing something which seems to be completely within the ordinary abilities of that (or perhaps even any) character which should impact the situation, and I am unable to do that because the programmer failed to recognize this as a possibility.

Now, with some games, that's a given--games like DiscWorld and Hitchhiker's Guide weren't really RPGs, but elaborate puzzles in which players had to work out the solutions each step of the way to move to the next step. In those cases, what's annoying is that they have the label "CRPG" when they're really puzzles.

Some people like such puzzles; some do not. I don't care for them because I'm not interested in trying to figure out how the programmer thought it should be solved. I'm interested in finding original ways of solving the problems and puzzles with which the game confronts the player--and CRPGs cannot evaluate the probability of success of an original solution which has not been previously recognized by the programmer. Thus a plot that I think would work well as an RPG doesn't work well as a CRPG, because the referee in the RPG has the ability to analyze whether my idea has a chance of success.

In other games, system limitations usually minimize the degree to which a player is able to play the character. That's the problem. It isn't that there are things I can't do--that's part of every game, and is called the rules. It's that there are things that I should be able to do but which the system won't allow. It will let me pick up the jar and examine it; it will let me hit the enemy with my sword. Why will it not let me hit the enemy with the jar? It will let me fill the lamp with oil and light it; why can't I throw it to set fire to a room?

The problem thus is that there are things I can conceive of the character doing, for which he seems to have every necessary skill, which he cannot do or which don't have the obvious logical effects they should, because the coder didn't foresee them.

Most of the rest of the stuff isn't a problem for me.

--M. J. Young

Marhault wrote: The weaknesses of the format all stem from the same problem. If it wasn't there when the game shipped, it won't be there when the game is played. This gives rise to both the end-of-map phenomenon, and the unreasonable restrictions to character actions that M. J. Young describes. These things are restricted both by planning (the Game Designer never thought of that particular solution) and hardware restrictions. The computer cannot improvise a situation it has not been programmed for, therefore, it is incapable of providing a gameplay environment as versatile as one that is run by a human with the capability to invent plausible answers to nearly any question.
*snip*

Marhault wrote: The weaknesses of the format all stem from the same problem. If it wasn't there when the game shipped, it won't be there when the game is played. This gives rise to both the end-of-map phenomenon, and the unreasonable restrictions to character actions that M. J. Young describes. These things are restricted both by planning (the Game Designer never thought of that particular solution) and hardware restrictions. The computer cannot improvise a situation it has not been programmed for, therefore, it is incapable of providing a gameplay environment as versatile as one that is run by a human with the capability to invent plausible answers to nearly any question.

John Kim wrote: Object-oriented MUDs in particular are designed to be easily extensible: players can create new objects, areas, and so forth. The same is seen in a few graphical online CRPGs, such as There -- where players can design new stuff to go into the game. However, since the player has to provide the graphics it is a lot harder than just providing text. Still, it is similar in principle. This is the equivalent of narrative power in a tabletop RPG.

I was under the assumption that this refered to computer moderated games, and not ones that were simply played in an electronic medium. These are distinctly different things.

There was a thread not too far back in which we discussed exactly the diviing lines, of these things and it was my contention that what made CRPGs more "wargamey" than "RPG" is exactly what was said above - the notion that my character (or any in-game element) can do anything that's plausible for it to do. That, as soon as you limit the options to some finite set, that it becomes less of a RPG.

That said, there is the question of the "tabletop" ruleset as part of the medium. That is, in a "freeform" game in which there are no algorithmic rules, has no limits outside of Imagination - this we'll call ultimate freedom. Tabletop games do require you to follow algothithms at times to determine outcomes, and to the extent that the input options may limit action they tend to be more "wargamey", IMO.

I'm not drawing a line, now, but trying to define a quality of a spectrum.

Some tabletop games do seem to allow near infinite inputs to resolution, and near infinite outputs. Hero Quest is one example. You're only limited in what Ability you decide to use at the time, which are arbitrary in the first place. So that seems to be about as close to freeform on this spectum as you can get, and still have algorithms (there may be even better system examples). On the other end of the spectrum are CRPGs where your inputs for resolution are very limited in relative terms. Even in GURPS or such mechanistic games, the system can be stretched to cover a really wide variety of inputs.

So, that's the real difference to me. As technology on AI improves, I'm sure we'll see games that are less and less limiting. But for the moment the difference is pronounced enough to be the most important factor, IMO, in player choice of venue.

Mike

Well, to steer back to where I began with this post, it is supposed to be about computer moderated games.

Mike Holmes: I agree with that spectrum. Also you might notice that as you get more wargamey, you get a stronger sense of there being a defined 'win' state. Just saying that as an interesting side note.

Okay, now, I'm going to do somthing horrible and make a tenuous link to the 'what is realism?' thread ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8933 ). Horrible because that thread isn't really answered but I'm making up an answer from it...yup, tenuous.

Now, from what I understand it, the basic answer is this (and if it isn't, this post crashes and burns now, pity me!)

1. All games have to have abstraction.
2. Everyone doesn't share the same view on what elements of reality should suffer the most or least abstraction.
3. Therefore, one can not responsibly say 'Aww, that game isn't realistic!'. One can only say 'Aww, that game abstracted reality in a way that doesn't fit my tastes on what should be abstracted!'

Now lets port this over to CRPG's (God, I'm making up answers then porting them over to answer somthing else...I'm going to hell! >:) )

1. All gaming sessions have limits (even if suspension of disbelief tells us were in 'another world', rather than the more limited 'brokering imagined space deals').
2. Everyone doesn't share the same view on what elements of roleplaying should suffer the most or least limitations.
3. Therefore, one can not responsibly say 'That's not a roleplay game'. One can only say 'That game is limited in ways that doen't fit my tastes on what should be limited. Furthermore I can not commit to portraying a role in that environment because of this.'

There. I wonder if thats any good? Anyway, one good thing about this is it goes from 'yes, it is a RPG/no it isn't' to a spectrum instead, based on user desires. RPG is in the eye of the beholder? :)

Side note: Probably if enough of a percent of people say 'That game is limited in ways that doen't fit my tastes on what should be limited. Furthermore I can not commit to portraying a role in that environment because of this.' about a game, then at least in practical terms you could treat it as not being an RPG. 'Practical terms' being a little more robust than wondering what somthing truely is.

Marhault wrote:

John Kim wrote: Object-oriented MUDs in particular are designed to be easily extensible: players can create new objects, areas, and so forth. ... This is the equivalent of narrative power in a tabletop RPG.

Interesting. My CRPG experience doesn't include any MUD (or MMORPG) time at all. It always seemed to me that this sort of game was very limited in terms of story and such, so I never got into them. How do these sort of games handle the end of map problem?

I registered to this forum almost soley to reply in this thread (found it on a google search for rpg +pc.

To be honest I dont totaly get the gist of the main post, but I do get that the topic in general is about the difference between crpg's and pnp rpg's. I really think a uniform set of terms needs to be established in order to discuss the topic most clearly and effectively. The first post (no offense intended) left me with the impression that there really is no uniform terminology or it would have been used in siting some sort of standard by which to answer the main question: The perceived differences between crpgs and rpgs.

In my mind what seperates an RPG from other types of games is Story. Not just plot and not just character development or roleplaying, but developing a character through roleplaying and advancing the plot in the process.

There is alot more to it than that, for example, what makes good fiction is very close and in many cases the same, as what makes a good role playing game; ie. Creating a condition where it is easy for the player to suspend his or her disbeleif, avoiding cliches as much as possible, "showing" rather than "telling" etc.

These standards should apply as much to CRPG's as they do pnp RPGs.

Unlike fiction however, an RPG relies almost as much on the player creating the story as it does the designer or GameMaster- the same rules of "good fiction" apply to players as well. The ratio of author/designer/dm
story creation output to player story creation output is probably something like 60% author/gm and 40% player.

Depending on the degree of PC freedom of action, the ratio is somewhat altered in a CRPG. The more freedom the player has, the more his percentage climbs, the less freedom, the lower.

One of the primary differences between written fiction and an RPG is the medium of the Game Master. The GameMaster is the players interface to the fictional world and everything in it. CRPGs that have very little GameMaster involvement lower the players input on the game while more GameMaster involvement heightens it.

So, my conclusion (which I think has already been reached in part here) is that as computer technology advances, there will be more and more GameMaster involvement and also more and more freedom of action for PC's. But we aren't THAT far away from this point now.

Take NeverWinterNights as an example. In reality, NWN is an action game with just enough roleplaying elements to make it an action-based rpg. The main element that makes NWN an rpg is certainly not freedom of player action but rather the heavy involvement of DM's (and DM/fan designers).

With a DM you never need to run out of map. You WILL hit an area at the edge of the map that transfers you to another map. It is not a big deal for a DM (in nwn) to have premade generic maps for just such a situation. The player runs to the edge of the map where the main plot elements (in a given scenario) are and you simply transport his character to one of the generic maps you have already made. To me, the device is not so much for the sake of plot as it is for ease of suspension of disbeleif.

NWN is hardly perfect, but the technology exists now to make a similar game with heavy GameMaster involvement that includes a rather large degree of character freedom- every object that in normal life could be handled, would be something the character could interface with.

Oh well...in the end, and IMO, the distinction between an rpg and a simple work of fiction is the function of GameMaster as an interface between the player and the game. Without the GameMaster/DM/Referee, no matter how good it is, its just passive interaction- like reading a story or watching a movie.

Kat, Welcome to the Forge,

Actually, we have a lot of terminology around here, and that jargon may, in fact be some of what's confusing you. That is, some of what may appear to you to be undefined terms may in fact be well defined. In terms of CRPGs, probably not. But things like "exploration" at this site have specific meanings that may not match the use that you're used to.

Just a heads up.

That said, everybody, consider that Kat here doesn't know the language yet before trying to set him straight on anything. Please don't anyone go near "story". ;-)

You make some good points I think, Kat, and I for one look forward to you getting aquainted with our strange ways here.

Mike

Thanks Mike! Yes, I definitely don't know the terminology here and am not sure how much there is or isn't for crpgs. I also wasn't trying to say whats what or that I'm right so "I'm gonna tell you". Its just that you can only write "in my opinion" etc so many times.

I look forward to browsing through more topics/forums here and learning more about what you guys do on a regular basis- making rpgs.

Okay, this thread has drifted a little. In my first post, the basic points were:

1. In traditional RPG's, just because you've made a fast talker, does that mean you should be able to fast talk your way out of everything? Yes, in a better RL game it should (in that the GM and player collaborate on what they want to happen). But there are a hell of a lot of roleplaying going on at tables out there that don't have this 'better' component. So why should CRPG's be considered different when they don't have this component either.

2. You can't do everything you want at a traditional table top game. I'm sorry, but your GM is working in leaps of abstraction, just like the computer game is. You can't do everything, you can only do an approximation. But yes, in traditional table top you might be able to hit your foe with a bottle, while the game doesn't let you, for example. However, there are GM's out there that can be just as limmiting, while programming could be far more flexible than said GM's. But players continue to encourage those inflexible GM's by playing with them and consumers continue to encourage programmers to be lazy by buying far too limmited code. This is less about the capabilities of computers and more about what people are accepting as somthing like a social contract condition of how flexible things are. What do they say in the matrix movies? The problem is choice? ;)

As I've said previously, the difference is that, even if the GM is limited, there's this feeling that he isn't. That is, if we play freeform, the only limitations on what we can explore is our collective imaginations. In a CRPG, you come to soon understand the limits of the exploration. In a CRPG if you want to go off the map and can't you feel that it's a limitation of the system. In an RPG if you want to go off the map you feel that it's just the GM being lazy, and he could do it if he wanted to do it.

So, while the difference might only be one of degree in some technical sense, the perception of difference is there. They feel different (to many, I assume, and to me at the very least).

Mike

I was going to address that 'feeling' mentioned about the GM being more flexible, but I wasn't sure if you percieved it as something really there or more a matter of faith.

Heh heh, this reminds me of stuff like women who stay with asshole men. 'Oh, he wont screw around on me again, I know it, I know he's good inside!'. Well, he aint, sweetie! And it parralels with the GM who wont extend the map or flex a module (RPGnet had a good story on one of those recently).

But I will agree. One can't put faith into a computer game, while one can put faith in a human being. Then again, the computer game, for this reason, wont end up betraying what faith you put into it (none/near zero, really).

Perhaps that's the main difference felt in general. But at a practical level, is it different?

Computers can have a better, more realistic, system as it 'throws the dice' much faster, and counts the sum or whatever also much faster. But the computer can not produce a random result, only one of the predeterminated ones. And graphics are the part I least like in crpgs. A good description is much better than a good picture, and it is easier to do good enough description than good enough picture of a monster.
Both crpgs and pnp rpgs have their cons and pros. But if I had to choose I would play with a human. I have played rpgs with computers only (I would have wanted to play myself, but knew no GM), and although some came close, none have been better than a good book. But some of the stories I have read about roleplaying could have made a good book, and I can only imagine what it must have been when you played those...

- Endoperez -

In almost every CRPGs you play alone, whether you control one character or several (NWN with a DM is the exception), so expectations are naturally different. I have no experience with MMORPG, but I bet they feel different from both PnP and traditional CRPGs.

I don't think total freedom of action is crucial for roleplay, and I don't think either that the edge of the world effect is important for the quality of a game.

I might continue that and suggest its a matter of wiggle room, in terms of a sliding scale. Some people might say 'well, I can't roleplay there, it's too limited', but that's just that person. It doesn't set up a benchmark. Basically as things get more sophisticated, eg as the GM has better GM'ing skills or as the program has better coding, there is ever increasing room for more roleplay potential.

And in the end, although some people might not play CRPG's because that RP wiggle room is too limited (for them) they might also avoid that limited human GM for exactly the same reasons. Its less about difference and more about preference.

In fact some people probably turn to a good CRPG if they've recently had a bad experience with a poorly skilled GM. Actually, probably most jump into a first person shooter or vice city, that's what I do after a cruddy session!