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From: Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: What difficultly level do you play one?
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2024 08:52:24 -0700
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On 7/17/2024 8:14 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> 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.

I find there's very very few DMs that actually have that flexibility either.

-- 
-Justisaur

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