Is actual RP in MMORPGs another next impossible thing?
Lance D. Allen:
Rafu has the right of it; System is more than the rules. One nitpick: System != DM Validation. It's actually group validation, though the default assumption is that if the DM says it, it's true, hence the group validates what the DM validates.
This is less true in the larger context of a roleplaying community on an MMO, or even in a message board /chat room based community. There may be stated "DM"s in such a community, but not every aspect of play will be vetted by those DMs, simply because they won't likely be present for everything.
In the case of the mayor example.. Well, it depends on which game you're talking about. Different games had different levels of mechanical interaction with the SIS that declared a person as mayor. In Star Wars Galaxies, it was mechanically enforceable.. In-game resources would give a mayor in-game powers over the city they were mayor of. In Ultima Online (pre-Trammel) mayors of player-created towns were endorsed by the players who lived there. If someone chose not to acknowledge their authority, it could be enforced with violence. Signs on houses could be created that would mark the boundaries of the Empire of Zul, hence making it visible and tangible.
I have to assume you're talking about World of Warcraft, or maybe Everquest 2. I haven't played the latter, but the former definitely holds true for your statements.
Anyhow.. I've not chimed in prior to this because I'm having difficulty determining your goal with this thread. Are you advocating a position? Are you hoping to encourage a change in the mechanical aspects of modern MMORPGs? I would very much like to understand your goals, because I have a lot of interest in this topic.
Patrice:
Well, I'd like to question the relation between P&PRPGs and MMORPGs at large but i'd like to do it from an experiential perspective, and to see the questions emerge from actual play debates instead of throwing too much theory in from the start. Starting from my own experience, I've come to question the nature of what is called "roleplaying" in a MMORPG and, discarding the label altogether when it is just stamped out of habit upon the whole game, I focused upon the so-called roleplaying servers and users.
From there, yes, I have questions. My first question is: Is actual roleplaying such as it is defined in a P&PRPG possible in a MMORPG? What defines it? What sets it apart of what we call roleplaying in P&PRPGs? What conditions might see it emerge if we find that such conditions aren't met?
I state that roleplaying gaming happening within a MMORPG is a different game using the MMO resources, but living in it as a parasite does. And I now wonder if such a game is bare zilchplay exploration or does shape the embryo of an user-generated Narrativist game of its own. That's where we are.
Of course the main underlining question is "What is the difference between MMORPGs and P&PRPGs?" but since another thread *coughs* deals with it, I couldn't post it like this. I'm just taking a different aim at it to see if it leads us somewhere.
Lance D. Allen:
Okay, this term zilchplay.. I don' think it means what you think it means.
I did a search, and this is a quote from someone who claims to have coined the term (Walt Freitag) from an earlier discussion here on the Forge*:
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Zilchplay is the absence of interesting contribution on a player's part, with "interesting" given a very specific meaning of "relevant, but not predictable." If a player's contribution is limited to choices that just about everyone would make the same way given the same situation, or to actions that are part of the player's own well-established routine, that player's play is Zilchplay.
From my (moderately copious) experience roleplaying in MMOs, this isn't even applicable. Maybe it is for you, I dunno.
Next, you say:
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Is actual roleplaying such as it is defined in a P&PRPG possible in a MMORPG? What defines it? What sets it apart of what we call roleplaying in P&PRPGs? What conditions might see it emerge if we find that such conditions aren't met?
To answer this question, I think we first need to know what you consider the definition of roleplaying from P&PRPGs... Because there isn't any single definition of roleplaying for P&PRPGs that I know of.
I'm not going to try to define it. I suggest you don't bother either, or else this discussion may devolve into nitpicking that definition. What I will do is make a statement in answer to that question, based on my understanding of what roleplaying is.
Roleplaying can and does frequently happen in any number of games without any support from the rules. You can roleplay in Monopoly. I've heard of very successful, very fun instances of such. All the rules of any game do is provide a basis of common understanding for the players to play the game. The rules are simply one contributor to system. This holds true for MMOs as well. In almost all games, to include the most bleeding edge P&PRPG, some roleplaying will happen with no support from the rules. So simply this: MMORPGs as a group are no worse than any other game at facilitating roleplaying. Some facilitate it well. Others facilitate it no more than providing a channel for communication, and getting out of the way.
Like I suspect you do, I feel that MMORPG and CRPG are by and large misnomers. These names suggest that the game is about roleplaying, which they are not as we understand the term. Unfortunately, we're just going to have to accept that this term is used. The nature of the games DO allow roleplaying, and some very satisfying roleplaying has come from these games. I had a deep, in character discussion about the nature of virtue in UO. I've felt the anguish of failure to save a friend who needed me. I've given trust, and had it returned when I stepped outside of the guard zones to hunt with a relative stranger, and I've risked death and loss by safeguarding their items by committing a technical crime when they fell in battle. In City of Heroes, we explored the concepts of romance between those who work together, and saw the results of what happen when jealousy rears it's head in a team. We talked about the price of duty. I personally, with one character, explored my own insecurity and bitterness about friends who've left me behind, but still yearning to extend that trust again.
Gah. My tendency to ramble has reared its head once more. I think I may have made my point already.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Patrice on January 04, 2009, 04:59:36 PM
I state that roleplaying gaming happening within a MMORPG is a different game using the MMO resources, but living in it as a parasite does.
That's an interesting observation - a parasite relationship? Kind of fits, it feels like. Again I'd say that happens in table top roleplay as well"Oh, we just follow the rules that are the most fun/we let the host organisms rules whither and die, for our benefit alone". However, rather than just a parasite, I'd say many table top groups exult in taking over the host entirely. Perhaps that's what your finding is missing in mmorpgs - the inability to start controlling the mmorpgs imaginative space, so the players never get out of a parasitic stage and into a host controlling stage (where they not only act like they are the mayor, but the damn programmers had better start making NPC's that respond that way, as a quick example)?
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And I now wonder if such a game is bare zilchplay exploration or does shape the embryo of an user-generated Narrativist game of its own. That's where we are.
There's an unfortunately similarity between narration and narratavism that some people think describing game events/narrating is narratavism, as the forge defines it. I'm just checking, do you just have narration in mind, when you talk about narratavism?
Lance D. Allen:
I think Callan is right; there seems to be some conflation of narrative, that is, telling a story, and narrativism which is defined as somehow answering a question about human interactions, values, beliefs and mores. Narrativist play is possible in any roleplaying; I think my examples earlier where I mentioned roleplay centering around love, duty, virtue, trust, sacrifice and loyalty. But that isn't necessarily what roleplay in MMORPGs has to be about. I think the majority of roleplay would fall under the category of Right to Dream, which is defined as a commitment to the imagined events of play, by way of in-game causes and thematic elements.
From my experience, most of our MMO roleplay was this way, focused on being in-character, playing the character consistently, and incorporation of each other's contributions into the ongoing narrative. Occasionally, quite by accident, we would stray into the big human questions and answer them through our play, but by and large, it was about living this other life for a time.
The parasite observation is interesting. The general definition of parasitism involves a relationship where only one party benefits. Before unpacking this concept, I would have thought that such games as D&D would be identical for the purposes of this analog, but that's not really true.
In D&D, it's more of a symbiotic relationship between strict rules interactions and roleplay. You could play what amounts to a miniatures wargame with none of what we call roleplaying by using the rules by themselves. You can also roleplay without ever dipping into the mechanics of the game. But both contribute to the other, each making the other a little bit more fun. The mechanics offer justification for roleplayed narrations (I pick the lock because the rules say I do) and the chance of failure, hence tension. The roleplay offers color, flavor and personality to the pure mechanics of the game.
In most modern MMORPGs, that's not true. Roleplay may benefit from the mechanical contributions of the game (the appearance of avatars, relative positioning, emotes, surroundings and settings) but the roleplayed interactions don't have any effect on the mechanical aspects at all. The only place this could be true is in the games' social interaction systems, specifically guilds, though roleplaying may be replaced with real-world social interactions. Roleplaying could place someone in a guild officer position, giving that person certain powers over their guildmates, or it could take them out of that position. Roleplaying could also (in some games) garner wealth for some characters, if for instance one character is the "mayor" and demands taxes from the other players who share that SIS. But by and large, this does nothing to the mechanical aspects of the game.
Now, of course this is simply the way it is, not the way it has to be. As with many of the newer games, roleplayed actions can have a greater effect on the mechanical portion of the game if the designers wish them to, and design the game so that they can. Star Wars Galaxies allowing players to form cities and elect mayors is one such step. The mayor may then collect taxes, determine zoning for his city, supply services to his citizens, denote security personnel who can enforce the laws determined through roleplay, and a few other details. Again, because this is a mechanical system, it doesn't require roleplaying, but it does require some things that may resemble roleplaying. A roleplayer and a non-roleplayer can claim to be the mayors of their respective cities, and the game will back up their right to do so.
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