Is actual RP in MMORPGs another next impossible thing?
Patrice:
Yup!
I thought the question kind of sorted by Rafu's demonstration. The RPG isn't a SIS in itself, it is the backbone of your game table SIS, which is unique. If you don't want the Wizards of Thay to be in control of, say, Saerloon, as the published book says (just an example, the book doesn't say such a thing), they just don't in your game table campaign. I expanded that with "your P&PRPG is a SIS building kit" because most (all?) standard good old P&PRPGs I've read/played include a section named "Design your own (adventure, world, situation, etc)". MMOs don't. They don't explain you how to become a Game Designer. P&PRPG do whether you call that Story Design, Quest, The GM's corner or whatever.
Callan S.:
How does the traditional RPGs explaination of how to be a games designer relate to the allowance (the granting of the ability) to design things?
Rafu's point, I would say, doesn't acknowledge any game designer position at all - he asserts your just following the rule that it's up to the GM.
Quote
Even in a system like D&D's, with separate rules for such actions as killing monsters and "leveling up", there still is one rule covering both becoming mayor and graffiti: ask the DM.
I don't think his assertion supports or works in parralel with yours, as he doesn't use the idea that it involves being a game designer.
Patrice:
Sure Callan, I was pointing at two different things here: One is the GM, but we could maybe say the players at large, having a choice upon what released content will be used, changed or altogether discarded. Let's take it the other way round: The released content in itself doesn't generate a SIS.
I'm wondering if you're playing with words or aiming at a more serious issue with the second point when you say that P&PRPGs' explanations about designing player-generated content doesn't relate with the ability to design things. I'm getting serious here because you're adressing the whole game design issue. In most (all?) P&PRPGs, you have at least one chapter about "design your own adventure" and long paragraphs about the GM creating Situations or Settings. Do you think this chapter is useless?
I daresay this chapter is fundamental in actually playing P&PRPGs. It doesn't matter if the content you create is lame, it is still the way the GM can design new things for the players and follow whatever unexpected direction their characters are heading for. It isn't a secondary issue, it's part of the SIS building. Let's go for the mainstream example, yes, WoTC and other firms do generate a content. Still, you have over a 120 pages about how to do it yourself in D&D4. You had this in D&D3, 2 and even in the very first releases. That doesn't make you a game designer ripe with boundless creativity and system thinking, but this ability to design a content is key for the GMing.
Callan S.:
Hi Patrice,
As I understand it, your assertion was that "Design your own adventure" chapters allows you (grants you the ability) to design stuff. In the spirit of scientific investigation, I prompt you to provide the evidence for the assertion! :)
I don't currently see any link in a "Design your own adventure" chapter and the allowance/granting of the ability to design stuff. To further highlight the question, if there were a chapter that says "Hands, how to have them and have them attached to your nerves" I don't see a link between that chapter existing in the book and you having hands on the ends of your arms. Your hands were pre-existing. The same appears to go for the ability to invent and design stuff. I see the ability to invent and design as pre-existing in you and as attached to you as your hands are. I can't currently see any evidence that count toward the idea that an RPG with this chapter 'allows' you to design your own stuff and prior to that, you could not?
To tie it directly to the thread, as much as a mmorpg doesn't allow you to change things, I can't see how a "Design your own adventure" chapter in an RPG 'allows' or 'grants' the ability to design things. And to tie it indirectly, as said this is a note about an (assumed be strong) foundation the conversation is resting upon.
Patrice:
Okay okay.
I won't get into the whole underlying game design stuff, although I seriously question the idea that designing could be some kind of innate ability. It's a craft as any other, and craft might be learned and pushed further through experience, it's not a feat nor a knack imho, even though having the knack might help at some point.
What I stated was barely that a SIS doesn't adequate an external content. This is enough to put a distinction forward enabling us to jump to another step in our debate, or at least, leave space for its progression.
Our questions were:
A. The parasite-host relationship is adressed by Callan stating that this is also the case in P&PRPGs. After much thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that no, it's not the case in P&PRPGs. Why? Because a P&PRPG is designed to be allowing you to build your own SIS, you could say it's a SIS-building kit. The fact that every game table would develop its own SIS within the game is the main purpose of the game! There's no actual taking over the host here because you've never been a parasite in the first place. Will you challenge that?
So the three late posts were about A.
B. In a P&PRPG, as Rafu clarified it, the game content is yours only, it is not designed externally, though many sources, from the industry or not, could help you to design it. A P&PRPG allows you to generate limitless user-generated content. This isn't the case in MMORPGs, despite the genuine efforts of the community managers Wolfen told us about. You can't change the world, you can't change the game. OK, you could design Nerverwinter Nights 2 mods and cast them online. And soon you'll be able to design D&D4 adventures and throw them upon the D&D Insider. Is that the same thing? Let's put it another way: Does the ability/inability to generate freely user content in a game has a relation to the game genuinely being or not being a RPG (still as P&PRPGs would handle the definition)?
B has a different twist: Does the ability/inability to generate freely user content in a game has a relation to the game genuinely being or not being a RPG (still as P&PRPGs would handle the definition)?
C. What's the Creative Agenda of the parasite game in a MMORPG? Is it as I state it, a Narrativist game?
Leftover.
D. Are we not too optimistic with the whole SIS issue? Is a SIS that isn't shared by everyone still a SIS? It seems to me that we didn't really answer this. The same question goes for the Social Contract, it's an unwritten customary whatnot. Is that enough to define this game as a game?*
Leftover.
Guys, if you feel we're getting bogged down in here — And I'm afraid we could — let's try to think to a different aim at the topic. As it stands, it's maybe a bit too passional at the moment to get anywhere.
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