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From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: What difficultly level do you play one?
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2024 11:14:51 -0400
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On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:28:57 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

>On 15/07/2024 20:43, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> it didn't help when D&D started getting ported to computers. Because
>> early computers were GREAT with the number crunching, but were pretty
>> poor with the story and characters. Computer RPGs/still/  struggle
>> with making a game where the combat isn't the most dominant feature.
>> Our beloved 8-bits were far inferior machines; they hadn't a chance in
>> capturing what made table-top gaming such a fascinating hobby. So
>> those early RPGs - most of which were either licensed D&D games or
>> very closely based upon it- were little more than brain-dead combat
>> simulators and loot collectors. Which in turn reinforced the idea that
>> was all that D&D really was.
>
>I knew you could get it back to video games! I think you just have to 
>have different expectations of CRPG's from TT RPG's because, as you say, 
>computers just aren't very good at the bit that makes the later stand 
>out for other TT games.
>
>It's not just the overall flexibility but CRPG's aren't very good at 
>encouraging you to play in character but instead play a version of 
>yourself*. The example I normal use is the classic trope of the old 
>crying woman who has lost here husband or child. You end up doing the 
>quest not because that what's your character would do but instead 
>because you know you'll get a bauble at the end of it and you get to do 
>something. It's just horribly binary.

Yeah, CRPGs suffer a lot from people playing the meta-game; with an
overfamiliarity of the tropes and basing their actions on that rather
than playing in character. 

>
>Problem the best version I've played is Disco Elysium as it doesn't have 
>that feeling of pass = good, fail = bad (and probably a reload), instead 
>it's how the story advances. Even then you can't, as yet, get to the 
>stage where a GM invents things on the fly or thinks that's not how the 
>story is supposed to advance at all but I'll go with it. Oh you want to 
>visit a cafe and ask around for information even though the scenario 
>doesn't have one. Ok here's one and we'll have a waitress who is the 
>sister of a nurse who used to work at the sanatorium. Now you want to 
>visit her yet again, oh the cultists are monitoring your activities and 
>decide they can work the fake suicide also into her brutal murder.
>

Disco is one of the better games in that regard. Unfortunately, I
think the setting was just a bit too weird to ever allow it to have
the impact it deserves.


But for me, it's mostly the limited flexibility of CRPGs that gets me.
Your lack of options in dealing with any event is just so...
frustrating. Even the best of them rarely offer more than the usual
three (kill, sneak, talk), and even then it's always along tightly
proscribe avenues. This is understandable, given the limitations of
technology and how resource consuming it would be to create a
multitude of options., but it's why I still prefer tabletop gaming. 

In fact, I've introduced several groups of people to tabletop gaming
primarily to show them how much more intricate RPGs could be than what
they've been shown in video games. That horde of goblins? You don't
have to fight them just because they're there. Build a trap! Hire an
army to do the fighting for you! Convince the goblins to switch sides!
Poison their food supply! False-flag an attack so the blame falls on
the kobolds! Join the goblins in their attacks! Dominate them so they
become your evil army! Just walk away and let the goblins kill all
those pesky villagers. Or practically anything you can think of. 

Half the fun of tabletop RPGs is when the players come up with an idea
that the GM hasn't thought of (it's also half the aggravation of the
game too, at least if you're the DM ;-). 

And it's where CRPGs fail miserably.

But they're slowly getting better. I mean, I don't expect the computer
games will get anywhere close to the flexibility of a real GM anytime
soon, but it's SO much better than what we had in the early 80s.