Is actual RP in MMORPGs another next impossible thing?
Daniel B:
I've been silent but watching this thread, because I never felt I could add something not already added ... but,
Patrice and Caldis, even if you're playing an MMORPG and on your own, is it not still "sharing"? If I build my own computer game and explore it myself, I would agree, but the land of Azeroth from WoW, Urza from MTG, or Narnia from .. well you know .. they're all fictional places that are being shared with me by someone else. If I show you a picture of a fantastical event, play a song or recite a poem I wrote, I'm sharing what's in my imagination with you. With online games, the idea of "exploration" is even there too, because I'm not presented with the whole concept linearly, I can instead wander through it at my leisure.
Granted, this may ALL be a huge aside because even though it's all technically "sharing" and "exploration", it doesn't really help us as designers of TT RPGs, but I think it's a valid point to make.
Caldis:
There is some validity to your point however the sharing is all happening in only one direction. The actions of the player have no impact on the designer. So play in an MMO that only deals with what has been programmed into the game is like a table top player only playing with the rulebooks of a system and no other players.
Can we discuss this aspect of play? Sure, but it is entirely different than what the theory looks at and so using the terms (like exploration) may not be all that useful.
Callan S.:
In table top games you don't have an impact on the designer/the actual author of the game, either.
Patrice: The word 'Exploration' doesn't really mean anything to me at a personal level. It's a word that acts as shorthand for a longer description someone made up.
If I looked hard enough into what it meant to me personally, I would start inventing my own version of what it refers to, rather than trying to understand what the author personally meant. Which is a kind of creative denial.
John Adams:
I think there is more agreement here than not, the disagreement seems to be mostly wrestling with abstracts and jargon. So I'm probably saying the same things you all have, just in my own way. Maybe a slightly different angle on the issue will help.
Point: You can play TTRPGs via chat client. ***
Point: Every MMO I have played includes a chat client.
Therefore, you can run a tabletop-style RPG in an MMO. Not kinda-sorta, no question of "is there an SIS", but a complete, no-holds-barred-break-out-the-Big-Model RPG. Use any System you like. There is absolutely no reason why you couldn't run a 2-year Traveler campaign using World of Warcraft as your communication platform. In fact, the 3D emotes and avatars should really contribute a feeling of "being together" you wouldn't get from just a chat client. Add in a voice server and all you're missing is the argument over where to buy pizza.
Now, the real question y'all are asking is, at a very high level, "how do certain kinds of technology facilitate or fail to facilitate TTRPGs?" More specifically, given a specific feature set such as today's World of Warcraft, which tools/features should we incorporate into our System and how should we go about doing it? Then there's the flip side of that coin: given our desire to play TTRPGs online, what kind of tools and features do we want that don't exist yet?
This is the essence of your "parasite" discussion. Yes, you really are playing some kind of free-form TTRPG using mainly the chat client and 3D emotes of your avatars. Your frustration arises from having (and paying for!) all this other stuff around you which looks great but is essentially useless for your purposes.
I think the root of this problem goes waaaaaay back to the dawn of single player "RPGs" and especially MUDs. Programmers made a fatal mistake: they proceeded under the assumption that the Developer's role was to be the GM rather than the Game Designer. This is doomed to fail because the GM is a full participant in play and must have 2-way, real-time interaction with the players. Enter Neverwinter Nights which had the right idea but couldn't deliver (IMHO) regarding the real-time demands on the GM. (Also consider the possibility that having a GM may not be desirable in this medium.)
So you have two branches to this topic:
1) What can Developers/Designers/Publishers do to help future games support our online TTRPG experience?
2) How do we design a good and proper System which is well suited to the medium of today's MMOs? What works and what doesn't?
The first branch is Game Design in the sense used by software engineers and publishers, but the second is absolutely Forge Big Model Theory and its application.
DISCLAIMER:
*** I'm a long-time avid TTRPG fan. I've logged a couple thousand hours in MMOs but have never in fact played a TTRPG via chat.
** I must admit I skimmed through some of this thread. If I'm way off topic, please pardon the interruption by a Johnny-come-lately.
Patrice:
I thank you four very much for contributing to keep the topic forward, trying to solve the issues it has raised lately. I want to try to take your all points in and give it a different aim, fed by what you brought in these. Despite my initial claim, we've been way too far, or so it seems, into sterile theory. I wasn't least to play this game of words and I gladly accept your idea to shake it off and to move on because that would lead us nowhere, except maybe questioning our understanding of the Big Model notions, which is not the matter of this thread. That wouldn't be a creative denial to question our understanding, Callan, but that would lead us deeper astray instead of solving anything. In short, you're right, let's move on.
I love the branches John Adams has set, they are very practical issues and would relate to actual play experience. They capture the purpose of our debate since our questioning has to lead somewhere.
I first want to answer Dan and Callan about Caldis' statement:
Quote
There is some validity to your point however the sharing is all happening in only one direction. The actions of the player have no impact on the designer. So play in an MMO that only deals with what has been programmed into the game is like a table top player only playing with the rulebooks of a system and no other players.
Can we discuss this aspect of play? Sure, but it is entirely different than what the theory looks at and so using the terms (like exploration) may not be all that useful.
John says pretty much the same when he goes like this:
Quote
Programmers made a fatal mistake: they proceeded under the assumption that the Developer's role was to be the GM rather than the Game Designer. This is doomed to fail because the GM is a full participant in play and must have 2-way, real-time interaction with the players.
This leads us to understand the sharing thing. The players of a TTRPG share with their GM, not the players of a MMO because they have none. They haven't dropped the GM like a few TTRPGs in which the players all tell, share, about what is the environment becoming, their environment doesn't change. It's a very different thing, Callan. Of course you mostly never have an impact upon a TTRPG's author, nor do you upon a MMO designer but in a TTRPG you share with the environment through your GM. In a MMO you don't. Hence John's remark that :
Quote
This is the essence of your "parasite" discussion. Yes, you really are playing some kind of free-form TTRPG using mainly the chat client and 3D emotes of your avatars. Your frustration arises from having (and paying for!) all this other stuff around you which looks great but is essentially useless for your purposes.
Now, I'll gleefully take into account whatever assumptions saying that the soft is behaving like a GM, but that wouldn't content me without a few suggestions about how to make it happen for good, because this isn't the case in the MMOs I've played.
I'll be back and sound in a few days, guys, I have a lot of work to do at the moment with pretty much tight deadlines and can't give the thread the attention I would, but surely we can carry on upon this different basis and try to answer John's questions?
Thanks again for the forget-the-theory part.
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