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Kiero
2007-08-21, 04:55 AM
This is a post from elsewhere (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=350298)that I thought was intriguing:


I posted this (http://www.mattcolville.com/forums/showthread.php?t=575)on my forums, which have, like, 10 users total. But they're almost all game developers of one stripe or another.

My friend John responded with "D&D should not try and be more like WoW." Here's my reply;

There are lots of ways in which D&D should be more like WoW. Though I don't think they're evident to the average player of either.

In D&D, when you make a character, even a level one character, you have a lot to learn and a lot of decisions to make. You have to buy your stats. In an official RPGA game, this means spending points on stats, and the points are not linear. a 16 STR is not 6 more expensive than a 10 INT. Then you learn that the stat doesn't do anything, it's just the input for a lookup table. Then, for some stats, the result of the lookup table is applied to a secondary stat called a Saving Throw.

You pick your race and your class. You then get to customize your class with feats, and there are dozens in the PHB alone. Thousands if you use all the official supplements. Dozens, and it's not clear which are good and which are bad. A wizard might think Cleave was cool. Because while Cleave is a feat Fighters can take with a Bonus Feat, Wizards can take it too. A first time player might think a Wizard with Cleave is a cool idea. Experienced players know this is non-viable or suboptimal, but character creation keeps that secret.

You have to learn the difference between class skills and cross class skills and then learn the difference between skill points and skill ranks and that sometimes there's not a 1:1 ratio between them. And, of course, you've never used any of these skills before. You might think Ride would be super useful, even though 90% of your skill checks will happen in dungeons.

If you're a caster, you have dozens more spells to choose from, again having never cast any before if you're a new player.

Compare this to WoW. You buy the game, install it, and make two decisions before you're in the game and playing. Class and Race and that's it. No other game-play related choices. This means you're in and playing the game in...seconds. Maybe a few minutes if you spend a while reading all the descriptions.

You can customize the **** out of your character, but you do it through play. You don't get your first talent until 10th level. By which time you've been through hundreds of battles. And it's only taken you 2-4 hours to get there.

So WoW beats D&D on three critical levels.
Character creation is vastly simpler.
With the exception of class and race; no decisions that you can only understand through many many hours of play. Video game players have long moved away from the model where making a dude takes a long time because of all the decisions you have to make. Customization and specialization come as you learn about the game and this is superior.
You get into the game faster. You're in WoW much, much, much faster than any other pen and paper RPG. In and playing. People who buy a game want to play it. They don't want to then spend 30 minutes making a dude. Remember when we made dudes for Houses of the Blooded at Strategicon? Took maybe 2 hours. An experienced player might be able to make a dude in 10 minutes. That's still 20 times longer than it takes a WoW player to make a dude.The first 30 minutes of play in WoW result in several encounters, and 3 or 4 levels. You are rewarded very quickly. It eventually levels out. It can take MANY hours to gain a level once you're 60. Much longer than in D&D. In D&D, they imagine it takes 4 sessions to level, even at first level. The "power up" mechanic is a proven winner. Players like the sense of accomplishment and having discreet levels to gauge their progress. You can argue that players need time to live with their new abilities, I won't argue that. But why give them abilities so powerful or complex it take 16 hours just to get used to them? Why not give them small increases early on, so they feel good about playing early on. Maybe not a level every 30 minutes, but at least at first level, why not one level a session?

Players like being rewarded for play. WoW and D&D both do it, but WoW does it better.

WoW has roles for characters in groups. This is something I think D&D will do better than WoW with their Defender/Leader/Attacker/Otherthing breakdown, and the ability for anyone to do any of those things.

In WoW, there are "jobs" in the party. In D&D there's only two jobs; heal and fight. Thieves can disarm traps, but that happens mostly out of combat. Rangers can track, but that happens mostly out of combat. In WoW, you need a Tank, a Healer, a DPS character, there are secondary roles; Crowd Control, Buffs, DeBuffs.

I don't think WoW does this very well, the roles aren't clearly defined, nor ever made explicit to the player. But unlike D&D, WoW does have clearly defined roles for the team. Players like feeling like they know what they're supposed to do. They like knowing what's expected of them. It takes an experienced player to understand why a Warrior in WoW doesn't do more damage than a Rogue.

D&D4, I think, will take this idea and improve on it, I think. Imagine the players making their dudes, and then choose Role Cards with special abilities printed on them. The Defender can make a bad guy concentrate on
him, keeping everyone else safe. The Leader can grant teammates bonuses and exploit weaknesses in the enemy. And anyone can do it. Maybe it can switch from session to session. Some classes will be better at it than others, but unlike WoW, anyone will be able to take on any role.

Now imagine the monsters having roles. Makes it easier to build encounters. The GM knows what roles to fill.

Because it's online, and uses technology, WoW makes it easy for friends anywhere in the world to hook up and play together. Because there's content you must have a group to do, there's a way to make new friends through playing WoW. The next patch has built-in VOIP, they're testing it on the Test Servers now. So everyone will be able to play and talk to their friends.

D&D requires you to not only know 3 other people who want to play, but have a place to get together. That's a barrier to entry. Using some simple web tools, they can remove that for anyone with a computer and the internet. Why not do it? Why not allow people to play online with anyone in the world?

In all these arenas, WoW beats D&D. But I don't see any reason D&D can't beat WoW pretty easily if they put their mind to it. And I don't see any reason these changes will make D&D less like D&D. None of these things are things I particularly associate with the D&D experience. They're all improvements. The stuff that makes D&D the best game I've ever played across any category or genre...with the possible exception of NetHack, in only improved by these changes.

Discuss.

kpenguin
2007-08-21, 05:00 AM
I disagree, but lack the articulation to properly explain why.

Matthew
2007-08-21, 05:02 AM
Yeah, I saw this Thread on EnWorld as well. Clearly, the author and I have a different idea of what makes for a good Tabletop RPG. Not to worry, though, I won't have to suffer through a WoW version of D&D any more than I will have to play the actual CRPG (though I have a copy of WoW D20 somewhere around here).

Spiryt
2007-08-21, 05:03 AM
I have almost nothing common with powergaming, and yet I like "making dude"
30 minutes. Or longer.

And besides, author of this post have mistaken MMORPG with paper RPG.

D&D is for some people who know each other. ANd WoW isn't beating D&D, D&D also isn't beating WoW. They're completely different things.

Not to mention that no Voip will allow to make good session. For gods sake, they are fortunately still plenty things that can't be done with computer. Good RPG session is one of them.

This guy is treating gamers like idiots. And keep assuming that everything in RPG is around combat and this stupid "roles" which everyone should have cleraly definied. It's dumb. For my RPG is great beacuse good DM can describe situation fantastically, so players can use their skills in way designers will never think of.
Making things that designers already defined for me was obvious disadvantage of any, even greatest computer game for me.

Kiero
2007-08-21, 05:05 AM
And besides, author of this post have mistaken MMORPG with paper RPG.

They haven't "mistaken" them at all; they're saying that there's things D&D should learn from the WoW model in terms of accessibility.

Morty
2007-08-21, 05:06 AM
That's wrong on so many levels. But the tho main mistakes made by author of this post are:
1) He apparently didn't notice that WoW is MMORPG and D&D is tabletop game. Which means they're completely different.
2) Simplicity and quickness isn't the first priority for game design. Author seems to think that there should be no customization on first levels because players can screw something up, so he apparently treats new D&D players like mental retarded.
The paragraph about roles make completely no sense. Author apparently didn't notice that even in 3.x "fight" role can be performed in several ways. Not to mention forgetting that D&D isn't all about combat.
In short: maybe you've found it intriguing, I found it a proof that author of the post doesn't know what he's talking about.

Ruerl
2007-08-21, 05:16 AM
They haven't "mistaken" them at all; they're saying that there's things D&D should learn from the WoW model in terms of accessibility.

Indeed there are things to be learned, but those things are not to be learned from WOW.

WOW is designed as a MMO, D&D is a game that has evolved over many years till it has becomen this complicated set of rules that it is today, D&D has evolved with its custemors and changed them both during the years, but to claim that they should follow the examples set by WOW is ludicrious at best, if you want a valid comparison between WOW and D&D then look at the WOW PnP RPG -it exists, and yes, character generation takes a lot longer than it does in the MMO.

because of this, the above post fails utterly, it makes a comparison between an MMO and a PnP game forgetting the valid source of comparison -the WOW PnP game, because of this simple fact I claim that you are wrong in the text I quoted above, the OP have indeed mistaken the MMO and the PnP.

Regards

Lars

p.s.
What I personally believe has a point is that D&D should put more focus on RP and less on the rules, these days the rules are more important than the RP to some.

Ashtar
2007-08-21, 05:43 AM
By removing many of the choices at character creations, you help new players play; but at the same time, you remove what is so interesting for so many players... tinkering.

In my group, we have players who create characters, by the dozen, sometimes not even to play them, just to tinker, to create, to give life. The choices made at creation are the things that interest them, so if you must make it simpler give templates (i.e. "elven wizard template l1, fully equipped, feated, skilled, with spells known" isn't that the wizard starting package in the PHB ?) but allow the experienced users to be versatile.

In fact, how many times in a system do you create your first character ? Once.

How many times to you create a character in a RPG system? Hopefully more than once.

And usually, you have help to create your character, you are not alone in front of your books, so I say, give more options, not less!

Matthew
2007-08-21, 05:46 AM
D&D already does this anyway. That was the idea behind Starting Packages.

Tormsskull
2007-08-21, 06:00 AM
This doesn't suprise me in the slightest, I've felt like D&D has been moving in just this direction for some time now. I'll address a few points specifically:

Character Creation:

There are lots of ways in which D&D should be more like WoW. Though I don't think they're evident to the average player of either.

In D&D, when you make a character, even a level one character, you have a lot to learn and a lot of decisions to make. You have to buy your stats. In an official RPGA game, this means spending points on stats, and the points are not linear. a 16 STR is not 6 more expensive than a 10 INT. Then you learn that the stat doesn't do anything, it's just the input for a lookup table. Then, for some stats, the result of the lookup table is applied to a secondary stat called a Saving Throw.

You pick your race and your class. You then get to customize your class with feats, and there are dozens in the PHB alone. Thousands if you use all the official supplements. Dozens, and it's not clear which are good and which are bad. A wizard might think Cleave was cool. Because while Cleave is a feat Fighters can take with a Bonus Feat, Wizards can take it too. A first time player might think a Wizard with Cleave is a cool idea. Experienced players know this is non-viable or suboptimal, but character creation keeps that secret.

You have to learn the difference between class skills and cross class skills and then learn the difference between skill points and skill ranks and that sometimes there's not a 1:1 ratio between them. And, of course, you've never used any of these skills before. You might think Ride would be super useful, even though 90% of your skill checks will happen in dungeons.

If you're a caster, you have dozens more spells to choose from, again having never cast any before if you're a new player.

Compare this to WoW. You buy the game, install it, and make two decisions before you're in the game and playing. Class and Race and that's it. No other game-play related choices. This means you're in and playing the game in...seconds. Maybe a few minutes if you spend a while reading all the descriptions.


Yeah, D&D can be confusing for new people. But the difference between D&D and WoW is that D&D is supposed to be a roleplaying game, where the players are playing the role of a character and trying to bring that character to life.

WoW is a CRPG, where the point is killing things and taking their stuff so that your toon becomes more powerful and can kill stronger things and take their stuff.

If you play D&D like WoW, then a lot of these suggestions that the OP quoted would probably be a good thing for you.

Overall Gameplay

So WoW beats D&D on three critical levels.
Character creation is vastly simpler.
With the exception of class and race; no decisions that you can only understand through many many hours of play. Video game players have long moved away from the model where making a dude takes a long time because of all the decisions you have to make. Customization and specialization come as you learn about the game and this is superior.
You get into the game faster. You're in WoW much, much, much faster than any other pen and paper RPG. In and playing. People who buy a game want to play it. They don't want to then spend 30 minutes making a dude. Remember when we made dudes for Houses of the Blooded at Strategicon? Took maybe 2 hours. An experienced player might be able to make a dude in 10 minutes. That's still 20 times longer than it takes a WoW player to make a dude.


I'll agree with 1 & 2 (character creation is faster in WoW, and you don't have to make any important decisions early on in WoW). While I'll agree with #3 as well (you do get into WoW much faster than you'd get into a campaign), I think that is due to the fact that D&D offers more options, which I tote as a good thing.

If I roll up a Night Elf Hunter & so does a friend of mine, besides the way we look we are exactly the same. D&D allows you to customize your characters to make them more personal to you, and to make it easier to envision them.

Speed of Advancement

Players like being rewarded for play. WoW and D&D both do it, but WoW does it better.


I'd disagree, but I'm from old school D&D where leveling was very slow, and it wasn't a problem. They say that today's culture always looks for Instant Gratification, and I think that's showcased in statements like this. Rather than people (and I have to say it, mostly younger people) working for something, they expect to get it immediately or with minimal effort. I would not be surprised if that is one of the reasons that D&D 4e will move to 30 levels; provide more levels so that player can advance faster so they aren't bored.

Roles

WoW has roles for characters in groups. This is something I think D&D will do better than WoW with their Defender/Leader/Attacker/Otherthing breakdown, and the ability for anyone to do any of those things.

In WoW, there are "jobs" in the party. In D&D there's only two jobs; heal and fight. Thieves can disarm traps, but that happens mostly out of combat. Rangers can track, but that happens mostly out of combat. In WoW, you need a Tank, a Healer, a DPS character, there are secondary roles; Crowd Control, Buffs, DeBuffs.

I don't think WoW does this very well, the roles aren't clearly defined, nor ever made explicit to the player. But unlike D&D, WoW does have clearly defined roles for the team. Players like feeling like they know what they're supposed to do. They like knowing what's expected of them. It takes an experienced player to understand why a Warrior in WoW doesn't do more damage than a Rogue.

D&D4, I think, will take this idea and improve on it, I think. Imagine the players making their dudes, and then choose Role Cards with special abilities printed on them. The Defender can make a bad guy concentrate on
him, keeping everyone else safe. The Leader can grant teammates bonuses and exploit weaknesses in the enemy. And anyone can do it. Maybe it can switch from session to session. Some classes will be better at it than others, but unlike WoW, anyone will be able to take on any role.

Now imagine the monsters having roles. Makes it easier to build encounters. The GM knows what roles to fill.


The idea of roles is very contrasting with the purpose of a PnP RPG. They make sense for WoW because the game is very limited in scope. All classes/roles have to have nearly balanced viability in combat because that's the entire point of the game. In D&D, the whole game is not supposed to revolve around combat, and as such, different classes can focus on different things.

"WoW beats D&D"

In all these arenas, WoW beats D&D. But I don't see any reason D&D can't beat WoW pretty easily if they put their mind to it. And I don't see any reason these changes will make D&D less like D&D. None of these things are things I particularly associate with the D&D experience. They're all improvements. The stuff that makes D&D the best game I've ever played across any category or genre...with the possible exception of NetHack, in only improved by these changes.

emphasis mine

I'd guess that whoever wrote this article has only been playing D&D since the 3rd edition, and probably only with DMs who have gamed 3rd edition.

I would heavily associate roleplaying with D&D, and as such anything that detracts from roleplaying would be tearing apart the D&D experience.


Just for the record, I play both D&D and WoW, and both are fun. But I don't confuse the two at all. D&D I play to sit around with a bunch of friends and tell an amazing story of heroes, villians, magic, etc. WoW I play to explore pretty new areas, kill cool-looking monsters, get shiny new equipment, and try to be really good at PVP. If I tried to play D&D like WoW, or WoW like D&D, I'd be really disappointed.

warmachine
2007-08-21, 06:05 AM
I always create my characters with some basic values and beliefs, defining his motivation to be an adventurer, and his strengths and weaknesses. Even teenagers have their defining skills and abilities, let alone trained, young adults. Only being able to pick race and class would... drive... me... absolutely... fricking... nuts. AD&D is a roleplaying game, not a computer-based battle simulator.

If a player cannot see that Cleave is not applicable for Wizards, then he has no tactical or mathematical sense and should not play AD&D, let alone WoW. For less clear cut cases, an experienced DM or player will give guidance. I fail to see the problem. The PHB feat list, for example, only covers 2 pages. Enough for beginners. Then they can learn the 1st level spells and the higher level spells later on. It is GURPS that has the overwhelming character creation options, not AD&D. I'd recommend AD&D to beginners, until they're ready for other settings and styles.

dr.cello
2007-08-21, 06:18 AM
When I say "you" I am probably talking rhetorically, as the OP did not write the article.


I posted this on my forums, which have, like, 10 users total. But they're almost all game developers of one stripe or another.

Hey, I think you dropped something. Oh look, it's a name.


You have to buy your stats. In an official RPGA game, this means spending points on stats, and the points are not linear. a 16 STR is not 6 more expensive than a 10 INT. Then you learn that the stat doesn't do anything, it's just the input for a lookup table. Then, for some stats, the result of the lookup table is applied to a secondary stat called a Saving Throw.

I've never played a game in RL with point buy. And I'm not exactly sure how a stat is supposed to "do something." Doesn't strength affect how much damage you do and how much you can carry? Shouldn't dexterity affect your manual skills and accuracy? Since when do stats "do something?"


A wizard might think Cleave was cool. Because while Cleave is a feat Fighters can take with a Bonus Feat, Wizards can take it too.

That DM must be really, really terrible. If I'm DMing (or even playing) with some new players, I help them out. I suggest skills, suggest where to allocate stats, suggest feats. I definitely discourage them from taking completely useless feats.


And, of course, you've never used any of these skills before. You might think Ride would be super useful, even though 90% of your skill checks will happen in dungeons.

More DM problems, and I really think this guy must be playing with the worst DM ever. If my campaign does not feature a lot of places for people with horses, I will let them know when they choose Ride as a skill. Or, even better, when one of my characters is clearly designed as a horseman, I will give him the chance to use those skills.


If you're a caster, you have dozens more spells to choose from, again having never cast any before if you're a new player.

If you're starting at level 1 or 2 (which, if you're a new player, your DM should be doing for you) that list is pretty small, actually. And despite all the millions of spells in various splatbooks, I seldom choose spells outside of core--especially at level 0 and level 1. By the time you've leveled up, you've hopefully had time to look through some new spells and pick them out.


Compare this to WoW. You buy the game, install it, and make two decisions before you're in the game and playing. Class and Race and that's it. No other game-play related choices. This means you're in and playing the game in...seconds. Maybe a few minutes if you spend a while reading all the descriptions.

I think our friend here has missed the point. People like developing characters in D&D. That's sort of the point. There are books upon books out there for letting you develop your character. There's countless base classes, innumerable races, hundreds of feats, variant uses for skills, new spells--guess what? D&D players like character design. I like to sit down from the process of "I think I want to make a rogue" and then sit down and decide what feats I want to take, decide what skills I want--should I be sneaky? A trapfinding rogue? Bluff? Combat mobility? Do I want to multiclass later? This is fun.


In WoW, there are "jobs" in the party. In D&D there's only two jobs; heal and fight. Thieves can disarm traps, but that happens mostly out of combat. Rangers can track, but that happens mostly out of combat. In WoW, you need a Tank, a Healer, a DPS character, there are secondary roles; Crowd Control, Buffs, DeBuffs.

Has he ever played D&D? Has he ever looked at the spell lists? What about illusions? Buff spells? Debuff spells? I take it he's never seen a caster used as anything besides a blaster. What about the scout? It's always nice to have someone who can spot trouble ahead of time. There's no Clean-Cut defined roles, but that means you aren't playing the exact same character as everyone else.


The first 30 minutes of play in WoW result in several encounters, and 3 or 4 levels. You are rewarded very quickly. It eventually levels out. It can take MANY hours to gain a level once you're 60.

D&D is primarily a social thing. You hang out with a group of friends and play a game. It's designed to take a while. Campaigns are designed to last weeks and months. And in my experience, the long time spent doing character development makes those characters even more fun. My favorite character ever was level 7; the reason she was my favorite is because we spent those weeks and months gaming.



D&D requires you to not only know 3 other people who want to play, but have a place to get together. That's a barrier to entry. Using some simple web tools, they can remove that for anyone with a computer and the internet. Why not do it? Why not allow people to play online with anyone in the world?

In other words: "D&D means you have to have friends, and I don't have any." Please.


The Defender can make a bad guy concentrate on him, keeping everyone else safe. The Leader can grant teammates bonuses and exploit weaknesses in the enemy.

So fighters and wizards and bards aren't currently doing that? Really?


with the possible exception of NetHack,

Nethack is without a doubt the greatest game ever made, ever. It's not a possible exception.

Kiero
2007-08-21, 06:21 AM
In my group, we have players who create characters, by the dozen, sometimes not even to play them, just to tinker, to create, to give life. The choices made at creation are the things that interest them, so if you must make it simpler give templates (i.e. "elven wizard template l1, fully equipped, feated, skilled, with spells known" isn't that the wizard starting package in the PHB ?) but allow the experienced users to be versatile.

Complete opposite to me. I find chargen to be a necessary chore that I will only do if there's a real game to be played with that character.

Krursk
2007-08-21, 06:25 AM
I have a simple explanation as to why I play D&D instead of WoW. I have crap all internet download credit. It seems useless. Sure, I can play Battlefield 2142 once in a while, but not too much. In short, you can run out of internet download credit, disabling your WoW playing. The only thing I can think of that disables D&Ding is running out of existance, which will hinder you in most situations.

Oh, and who says Cleave isn't useful for wizards? It's been done (mostly for the hell of it) in a D&D session we play with Kieran, who can fight worth a damn when he runs out of spells

dr.cello
2007-08-21, 06:34 AM
Complete opposite to me. I find chargen to be a necessary chore that I will only do if there's a real game to be played with that character.

I love rolling up characters. Sometimes I do it just to play with a new rule, sometimes because I have a character in a story I want to roll up, sometimes because I just have this cool character idea. While the ones I roll up on my own tend to be levels 4-6, I enjoy first level characters, as well. Indeed, the reason I tend to do later levels is because first level characters are over too quickly.

Kiero
2007-08-21, 06:39 AM
That DM must be really, really terrible. If I'm DMing (or even playing) with some new players, I help them out. I suggest skills, suggest where to allocate stats, suggest feats. I definitely discourage them from taking completely useless feats.

More DM problems, and I really think this guy must be playing with the worst DM ever. If my campaign does not feature a lot of places for people with horses, I will let them know when they choose Ride as a skill. Or, even better, when one of my characters is clearly designed as a horseman, I will give him the chance to use those skills.

I just want to take these points, because there's a nested assumption in there I think is misplaced. Namely that you're expecting the GM to be experienced enough to know these things.

What if the GM (and indeed the whole group) are new to roleplaying, having just picked up a book and formed a group? That's exactly how I started playing, people tend to assume that everyone starts out by finding an existing group and joining it.

Something else that is relevant: most people playing RPGs aren't on the internet talking about them. Which means you don't have any means of learning (except by trial and error) what works and what doesn't.

Quirinus_Obsidian
2007-08-21, 06:42 AM
Yah, but, with 4th edition, DnD is becoming more like WoW. both of my groups are calling it 'DnD for WoWers'

Ashtar
2007-08-21, 06:53 AM
What if the GM (and indeed the whole group) are new to roleplaying, having just picked up a book and formed a group? That's exactly how I started playing, people tend to assume that everyone starts out by finding an existing group and joining it.


When I started at 10 years old, I had my D&D books, in english, in a french speaking country and still managed to get a group of players (one of them with whom I am still playing 17+ years later). When we did something wrong, made a mistake in the rules or something, we just kept on playing and corrected it for the next campaign. Making mistakes was part of the fun!

Even if you choose Cleave as your first feat for your wizard, and after two battles realise that it doesn't allow you to cast a second magic missile if you kill the monster with the first, you change feat. Simple as that (or you bribe the DM into allowing your "cleaving magic" feat!).

Hannes
2007-08-21, 06:56 AM
You know... D&D is designed for people with intelligence. If you take a look at the wizard... And take a look at cleave... And take a look at the wizard's BAB and HD, you can DEDUCT that it will totally fail working. So you take another feat! Really, people seem to get dumber =/
EDIT: Also, yes, the possibility of correction at any time... In WoW, do you get to decide on taking a different talent after clicking on it right away?

Tengu
2007-08-21, 07:08 AM
I like WoW a lot but what works for a MMO just won't work for a pencil and paper RPG.

Plus, making characters is indeed fun.

Hannes - yes, you can unlearn all talents and assign the points to different ones, but it costs.

Solo
2007-08-21, 07:27 AM
Yah, but, with 4th edition, DnD is becoming more like WoW. both of my groups are calling it 'DnD for WoWers'

Did you get a peek at DnD 4.0 before the rest of us or something?

Dausuul
2007-08-21, 07:57 AM
Did you get a peek at DnD 4.0 before the rest of us or something?

Nah, he doesn't need to. Every new D&D edition, and every major D&D sourcebook, turns D&D into a video game and ruins it. Weren't you there when 3E came out and suddenly our realistic, three-dimensional characters turned into little sprites with badly translated dialogue? My party went in to fight the BBEG, and instead of a traditional evil overlord monologue, he just said, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US."

dr.cello
2007-08-21, 08:07 AM
I just want to take these points, because there's a nested assumption in there I think is misplaced. Namely that you're expecting the GM to be experienced enough to know these things.

What if the GM (and indeed the whole group) are new to roleplaying, having just picked up a book and formed a group? That's exactly how I started playing, people tend to assume that everyone starts out by finding an existing group and joining it.

Something else that is relevant: most people playing RPGs aren't on the internet talking about them. Which means you don't have any means of learning (except by trial and error) what works and what doesn't.

I'm expecting the GM to have a modicum of competence. They don't need to know all the rules, but a GM should spend a little time reading through the rules and have a vague idea how things work. A wizard with Cleave? If your DM has been doing his homework, he should probably get the nagging suspicion that the wizard will never actually use this feat. ("Hmm. You have d4 hit dice and your base attack bonus is negligible. You aren't proficient with many weapons, and with none that do lots of damage. Might I suggest something else?") Okay, maybe the GM will miss that. But it doesn't take a genius to notice when something is horribly out of place.

The worst that is realistically likely to happen is some misplaced skill points, and maybe someone will take a feat that sounds cooler than it is. Learning the system can be fun.

I learned most of my basics without the internet. Indeed, most of my knowledge of Star Wars d20 comes from playing it and reading through books. Admittedly, the internet has greatly broadened my horizons, but it didn't take me long before I was reasonably competent. Oh, and I believe I only ever got one piece of feat-related advice: don't take both Stealthy and Deceptive at first level.

Citizen Joe
2007-08-21, 08:28 AM
Power Attack and STR 13 are prerequisites for cleave. That should be enough to stop a foolish wizard from taking it off the start.

Actually, spellcasting is kind of complicated and very limiting at first level. So I wouldn't recommend a spellcaster to first time player.

Solo
2007-08-21, 08:39 AM
Nah, he doesn't need to. Every new D&D edition, and every major D&D sourcebook, turns D&D into a video game and ruins it. Weren't you there when 3E came out and suddenly our realistic, three-dimensional characters turned into little sprites with badly translated dialogue? My party went in to fight the BBEG, and instead of a traditional evil overlord monologue, he just said, "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US."

Egads! He wasn't even polite to greet the party with a "HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN?"

NullAshton
2007-08-21, 08:47 AM
One way I thought of making character creation easier is to only decide on, basically, your class race and attributes.

After you do so, then you play through a short balanced adventure. During that time, you can use any feats/spells/skills that you can get with your remaining empty feats/spell slots/skill points. Eventually, by the end of the adventure, you'll have your entire character sheet filled in, with stuff that you KNOW that you will use, a character perfectly suited for your playstyle.

Indon
2007-08-21, 08:49 AM
-I take issue with the assumption that faster is better for character creation. Many people, including myself (and much of my gaming group) enjoys character creation.

-WoW is _not_ a tabletop RPG. You never, never complete an encounter in WoW. You kill mobiles and finish quests. There are no encounters in Warcraft.

-Because WoW 'rewards characters for play', it discourages party designs other than the single, most efficient template. Namely, Tank/Healer/DPS/etc. D&D, however, because it isn't about killing the monster neccessarily, can reward innovative approaches to problems, and non-'Cookie-Cutter' specialization.

-Furthermore, because of the fact that D&D does not have static objectives, no roles are required. Need to get through the goblin cave to save someone with your low-level Fighter/Rogue/Bard/Wizard party? Wizard casts invisibility on the Fighter, the Fighter and the Rogue sneak around to find goblins, who get surprised and Sleeped by the Wizard or Fascinated by the Bard. The Fighter and the Rogue continue on to the prisoner and bring them back through the entranced or sleeping enemies.

-D&D, being a text-based game, can be played with a simple instant-messaging program. Generally, though, IRC chat or similar with a built-in dice roller is preferred.

Really, WoW isn't an RPG. Not in the way D&D is. WoW is a computer game, like Civilization or Halo, and it bears more in common with those games than it does with D&D.

Now, the WoW D20 is pretty sweet, if you ask me.

Arlanthe
2007-08-21, 08:53 AM
That OP has to be a joke.

Telonius
2007-08-21, 08:58 AM
I was going to tear into this one, but it looks like Dr. Cello already did it for me, using approximately the same words I would have.:smallbiggrin:

TheLogman
2007-08-21, 09:25 AM
You see, the thing is, there is a difference between Dungeons and Dragons, and World of Warcraft. In World of Warcraft, you slog around in a boring fashion until you can enjoy fun stuff at higher levels, that's why those first levels are so easy, because they are boring.

As for D&D, it is supposed to be fun no matter what, at all times, accumulating numbers shouldn't be your main concern, your main concern should be having fun.

Wolf_Shade
2007-08-21, 09:33 AM
I play WoW. I like WoW. I don't want D&D to be WoW.

What the author listed as issues with D&D (lots of feats, long chargen etc.) are strengths in my opinion. Wow is limited, it's lite, it doesn't give you the options you might want. It's overly simplistic. It doesn't provide the options for details and customization that D&D does. That's part of WoW's fun, it's pick up and play.
D&D on the other hand is more intensive, it requires you think about your character and actually design it. It allows you to build not just a set of statistics, but an actual character with personality quirks. Sure you can say a WoW character has personality quirks (which I have) but it means nothing to the game. In WoW when you see a group of Orcs in the distance you can either ignore them or kill them. In D&D you can walk up to them and attempt to reason with them, or bribe them, or teleport them to another plane, or use non-lethal damage and arrest them all, or put them all to sleep.
D&D should not learn from WoW, and WoW should not learn from D&D, not because one is an MMORPG and one is a PnPRPG, but because they fill different niches. D&D is for the creative, open minded, find the alternate route individual who likes overthinking everything, including Chargen. WoW is about killing stuff and advancement.
Quick, battle driven, rules lite PnPRPGs exist. Don't try and make D&D one of those, play one of those instead.

(This is of course nullified somewhat by the fact that if they make D&D like WoW this does not suddenly delete the 2E, 3E, or 3.5 books people own.)

bugsysservant
2007-08-21, 09:47 AM
I, for one, totally agree with this guy. He makes numerous valid points about how D&D can be improved, but he fails to carry it to its logical extension on a couple of points. So, in the interest of a better game, I feel it is my duty to carry on the list.
1. NPCs. WoW does this right. In D&D NPCs can exist as normal people completely unrelated to the players. THIS IS BORING!!!1! All characters should either give quests, sell things, or be enemies. Period.
2. I think we can all agree that nothing ruins a good game session like running out of targets. This is another area where WoW should be emulated. They created a system where enemies respawn. D&D should be like this. Because the only way fighting your way through a cavern full of orcs to get to the BBEG could be improved is if we got to fight through the exact same cavern of orcs on the way out too! We could hack 'n' slash all night! [/sarcasm]

Seriously, I think a game like WoW would be great, but we already have one of those. Its called WoW. While the author makes a few points, such as Nethack being great, overall he utterly fails to understand the core of D&D. But thats already been summarized, so I'm not going to rehash those arguments.

Machete
2007-08-21, 09:52 AM
Or better yet, lets turn DnD into Runescape.

How do I mine for fish?


Dungeons and Dragons is a role playing experience. That is where 90% of the fun comes from for me, from playing a character with history, depth, feelings, imperfections, and desires. Not from killing 1,000,000 rats to level up or playing a one note stereotype(or not role-playing at all). WoW isn't a roleplaying experience, usually. Its just a level slog and an efficiency competition.

As for making character creation easy and quick. Why? Who wants to play Redgar or Mailee as a premade level 1 cookie cutter character? If you do, go ahead, I'm sure you can find pre-made builds out there somewhere to follow and stick a "my character's village was burned and they now know no one and seek battle for EXP.. err I means for to gain skill to take revenge on teh stereotypical barbarian hoardes that can't be found and are led by a necrmancer who did it." background onto it. Dumpstat CHA and you are set.

Pokemaster
2007-08-21, 10:15 AM
Here's the problem with WoW: It has no substance.

You get a list of instances and the items they drop. You run the instances until you get the items you want. Because these items usually have a very, very low chance to drop, you might need to run these instances a hundred times to get it. You're not playing to advance your character. You're not playing for fun. You're playing so you can get whatever item you need, because WoW was designed so that level, skills and talents should be (for the most part) neligible compared to equipment. And once you have all your equipment, you get to fight Kael'Thas and some other badass villains, but because they still need to be around for the next group, they don't really die, so there's no real sense of closure.

In one of my D&D sessions, my rogue needed a bow because his hand crossbow wasn't cutting it damage-wise. We were in a battlefield, so I ran a search check and got a decent magical bow. We then went off to finish the mission and because the three boss-style fights we had on the way there didn't need to respawn, it actually felt like we accomplished something. It probably took us somewhere around 12 hours to finish that mission, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot less time than most people spend on WoW grinding.

Krellen
2007-08-21, 10:48 AM
1. NPCs. WoW does this right. In D&D NPCs can exist as normal people completely unrelated to the players. THIS IS BORING!!!1! All characters should either give quests, sell things, or be enemies. Period.
Name any settlement in WoW. I'll point out at least six NPCs that do not give quests, sell things, or are enemies. WoW doesn't do that, and no RPG should.

Belteshazzar
2007-08-21, 10:51 AM
I also disagree with the quick leveling idea. I like some time to develop my character. I do agree that most heros should be some step above the norm (I start campaigns between 3rd and 5th level) but while advancement should worthwhile it should also become much more difficult. I personally relish the challenge old school games had in leveling and hence I don't use experience tables.

Matthew
2007-08-21, 10:51 AM
Name any settlement in WoW. I'll point out at least six NPCs that do not give quests, sell things, or are enemies. WoW doesn't do that, and no RPG should.

Satire doesn't have to be 100% accurate. Exaggeration is part of what makes it funny.

Grey Paladin
2007-08-21, 10:52 AM
All the points that he marked as positive are the exact opposite of what I like in my RPGs . . .

Matthew
2007-08-21, 10:56 AM
All the points that he marked as positive are the exact opposite of what I like in my RPGs . . .

If you mean the original proposition, I agree. I think it's fairly likely this guy lives under a bridge and threatens Billy Goats when not on the Internet playing WoW.
I was amused to see someone say they play D&D because WoW is too expensive. I think that just about sums up why the two are becoming closer approximations of one another.

Xuincherguixe
2007-08-21, 10:58 AM
I don't know, both seem to revolve around the concepts of grinding dungeons to get better stats for some obscure reason.

As I see it, the main advantage PnP has over video games is that your characters have an influence on the story, and that if you get an interesting idea how to do something that hasn't been programmed, you can do it ("The room in front of you is full of traps, it will take all your skill to avoid..." "I use rock to mud to carve out a new path that isn't filled with certain death.")

Linear Plots and Railroading as I see it turns it into a video game without the pictures.


Now, as far as applying WoW Elements to D&D. The classes themselves are fairly well balanced (people argue about it a lot, but the balance has been pretty good). Other than that I don't think there's that much D&D should be trying to do. Well, maybe take things away from the binary good/evil thing (Alliance vs Horde wasn't about Good vs Evil), and better stories, but those are things the DM can come up with.

Matthew
2007-08-21, 10:59 AM
If D&D is ever a 'grind' you're playing it wrong.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-08-21, 11:05 AM
Why should D&D be more like WoW? WoW ought to be more like D&D.

Things WoW could learn from D&D:
1.) Level grinding is boring. Levels ought to be the product of adventuring around and becoming embroiled in interesting plots, not killing five thousand bears over three months.
2.) Quests ought to have a plethora of options as to how you go about them and how you end them. What if, instead of collecting 15 wolf pelts, I just gut the guy for asking me something so retarded? What if I try tricking the man with 15 rabbit pelts through deception? Because sometimes, I just don't want to go hunt 15 goddamn wolves.
3.) A more dynamic world where the players' (rather limited) choices in quests actually effect them more then "Okay, you get [Frilly Shirt] instead of [Wide-brimmed Hat]".

I did enjoy WoW when I played it, but D&D is a completely different experience. There are innumerable limitations for a computer game of any kind, while D&D is as big as you want it to be.

...Eh?
2007-08-21, 11:18 AM
The only thing I could thing of while I read the opening post was, "Cucumbers should be more like oranges. Both are plants, but oranges are easier to prepare and there are less ways you can eat them, and simple is better."

ImperiousLeader
2007-08-21, 11:38 AM
On some levels, I agree.

Character creation should be easier, if not the two choices and done of WoW. Having just spent over an hour working with a player on his first DnD character, having sat through several first sessions waiting as people finalize their character sheets, plus having spent a lot of time working on the NPCs for the game I'm DMing, I'm all in favour of being able to do those things in less time.

And, one way to make character creation easier is to have a defined mechanical combat role.


In other words: "D&D means you have to have friends, and I don't have any." Please.

:smallfurious: Or, perhaps, one's friends live in different cities and one has had to reschedule games several times trying to meet up to play DnD? If D&D Insider works well, I will switch to 4e and subscribe to it. I'm not a fan of MMORPGs, Diablo II bores me, and Neverwinter Nights did not deliver what it promised, so the chance to play real DnD online is compelling.

Morty
2007-08-21, 11:42 AM
On some levels, I agree.

Character creation should be easier, if not the two choices and done of WoW. Having just spent over an hour working with a player on his first DnD character, having sat through several first sessions waiting as people finalize their character sheets, plus having spent a lot of time working on the NPCs for the game I'm DMing, I'm all in favour of being able to do those things in less time.

What about creating characters before game, possibly individually? This way you can have your character done right up on session and you have character that's somewhat unique.

Flawless
2007-08-21, 11:45 AM
To me this article seems like saying pre-painted miniatures are better than un-painted ones because the latter take you hours to paint while the former are usable from the moment you bought them.
Now, if you don't want to paint them this may be true but if painting your minis is part of the hobby for you it simply isn't.
So it depends on personal preferences. If you want to keep your PnP RPGs as simple as possible you might want D&D to be more like WoW. But if you see D&D as a complex hobby which takes a lot of time to really get into and which offers a lot of choices that you might not necessarily need but that make some part the fun of D&D for you then making it more like WoW doesn't seem like a good idea.

Chris_Chandler
2007-08-21, 12:01 PM
I have some players in my weekly game that play WoW like madmen when they get the chance. They talk about their exploits (usually involving grinding some instance for piece of loot), levelling, and the consequences of those levels. When we game, it's about character (read, not numerical, statistical) growth, interaction, and dealing with the story within the game. We go a number of sessions before any XP is earned, and that isn't the goal, either. They love WoW because they can fight and grind and get loot. They love the Friday game because of completely different reasons. I guarantee that they would not like to see WoW become the Friday game.

D&D, specifically, would be very poorly served by taking pages out the WoW playbook. The model in which WoW is based, combat-based advancement, with seeker-style quests and secondary skills designed to really only compliment advancement, falls flat. Sure, you can create a character quickly and jump into the action almost immediately. What, exactly, is the benefit there? I plan on playing a given character for years. I want to take the time to create an interesting character concept, look at the options available, then use the mechanics to best represent that character. I don't want to just jump in. A fast pace isn't my goal.

I can't agree more with Matthew. D&D grinding? Respawns? I cannot even accept that would ever be addressed, much less implemented. Admittedly, I work for verisimilitude in my game, for an engaging, immersive game where player and character choice actually matter. I'll admit that I lean more toward RP than combat encounters. RP, specifically, is something that becomes a contrived shoehorn in an MMO. They don't mesh well, because there is no collaborative engagement outside of the commando-run nature of "teamwork" within the construct of WoW. A game of D&D can see character growth, even levels being gained, without ever entering into combat.

You'll note that the "best" regarded CRPGs (for comparison to medium, if not exact genre) are those that foster a good RP environment (Fallout series, Planescape:Torment, etc.). You can finish the Fallout games, which can be absolute bloodbaths, with a peaceful "face" character. You can't tell me that RP is something that can't be reached in a game, but it has to be specifically fostered. There's a reason D&D is called a Role-Playing game, and not a Tactical Scenario game.

Ceres
2007-08-21, 12:04 PM
I have an urge to say "The OP really needs to experience a good RPG-session" in the same way one might say "This guy really needs to get laid" :smalltongue: In my book, playing an RPG with a good story and players staying in character is a much deeper and more rewarding experience than any computer game will ever be.

PnP RPGs and MMORPGs are different in so many ways. That D&D is one of the RPGs that lies closer to computer games (with it's focus on balance, levels, loot etc.) makes these sorts of arguments inevitable, but I pray to whatever is out there that D&D will move away from WoW-style gameplay rather than become more similar.

averagejoe
2007-08-21, 12:12 PM
See, a lot of the listed above were reasons I stopped playing WoW. Character creation got boring. There was only a few possible choices, and no really fun ones. One of the things I've loved about 3.x over 2.x is the relative ease with which you can uniquely customise nearly everything; you can be a straight, simple human batman wizard, or something as wacky as a multiclass gnome monk/druid/sorcerer. You don't level up that often, but whenever you do it's a very rewarding experience, and you feel as if you've accomplished something. Every level up presents new choices and possibilities for your character; you might have it all planned out, you might be doing just whatever feels right as it comes, or you might be doing a little of both, and all are perfectly valid ways to do so. When you level up in WoW all that happens are, "some numbers go up."

Sure, I still remember being a new player, back when none of us understood the rules. I played a half orc barbarian, because it was a rather obviously good basher option. He used an orc double axe, because I thought it was cool. I made some right and wrong decisions, and so did the DM, but in the end it was fun being "the hit point guy" in our party. I liked, in the dungeon crawls, evocatively describing the way my guy shrugged off damage. The main thing I didn't like about the game was that we didn't play, or roll new characters, often enough for me to try out all the character ideas I had. It sparked my imagination more than WoW ever has. We stumbled over the rules, but ultimately it didn't matter too much, because we learned them eventually, and it was fun in the meanwhile.

I still remember why Bauldur's Gate was such a great game for me. It was my first introduction to DnD, and eventually what got me into the pen and paper game, and the first time I had ever been introduced to that level of customizability in video games. Sure, it was a little wierd that it took so long to level up, and that armor didn't reduce damage, but I was offered actual choices beyond just cosmetic ones. There was a certain magic in being able to create a guy who was so clearly mine. What I found with WoW was that it had instantaneous rewards, but little in terms of long term rewards. There's nothing to make your character unique, and thus make it truly yours, and something to care about. As Roy once said, "Being with you makes me feel like more than just a race/class combination." That's pretty much what your character in WoW is, just a race/class combination. I played Bauldur's Gate, one and two, for hours upon hours, over the course of years. I played WoW for about a month, and that was intermittant. There was no motivation for me to go on in WoW, because there was nothing to make me care about my character. I didn't spend laborious hours making him just right, because there aren't that many options.

Improvements can be made to DnD, but taking a page from the book of MMORPG's is a mistake.

Murongo
2007-08-21, 12:22 PM
So instead of highly customizable heroes with versatile roles and unique personalities who go around adventuring the OP would rather have... one-trick-pony, non-customizable generic heroes who can grind through enemies faster but have no unique traits themselves?

Would they, in this WoW-esque DnD also wear obnoxious lime green and bright purple and look like cartoons and run around being nice to everyone, as in WoW the only thing you can be is a run-of-the-mill protagonist?

No thanks. WoW is for carebears, D&D is for smart people. Just because the two coincide often doesn't mean games should be tailored for both at once.

Jothki
2007-08-21, 12:34 PM
There are probably people still out there who advocate the First Edition classes as being superior to anything afterwards because they force you to roleplay your character fully instead of only caring about statistics. As far as I'm aware, customizability for those was worse than anything in WoW.

Almost everything in the OP was pure mechanics changes, and wouldn't necessarily have any impact on the things that people actually play tabletop games for. Sure, D&D does have advantages over WoW from some perspectives, but that doesn't mean that the better parts should be thrown out as well.

zombie
2007-08-21, 12:40 PM
is this some kind of joke? wow 'mechanics' are too simple to convert them to real rpg. there are some lite systems for beginners, with little mechanics, if thats what yoy're looking for - check them out. but changing d&d to a primitive system with virtually no customisation? what for? not that i'm big d&d fan, i am not, but d&d is something more than just a trademark, its system with its own evolving logic, ripping 95% of it wouldnt deserve name 'd&d'

besides, wow offers almost no customistaion. few races, few classes, few builds - usually difference between one paladin and another is visual. is is a fun game, for a while at least, but it also is very, very simple - too simple to convert it to paper and pencil.

Galathir
2007-08-21, 12:43 PM
While I have never played WoW, I must disagree with the author. If you want quick character creation and fast leveling, play WoW. If you are like me and enjoy spending an entire day creating a character (stats, crunchy stuff, background, etc.) then play D&D or a similar game system.

Tabletop RPGs are distinctly different from MMORGP and I don't see that changing anywhere in the near future. It's like trying to compare apples and oranges.

Deepblue706
2007-08-21, 12:44 PM
Honestly, I think WoW is a horrible game - just about all MMORPGs, actually. I would never want D&D to be more like WoW.

There is too much based on your gear. I want my character to be a bad ass, not have a bad ass sword. The entire atmosphere of WoW is "Get Better Stuff!", not on roleplaying. I would never want to play D&D with a group who more enjoy picking up a magical suit of armor because it's really good rather than picking up a magical suit of armor because it has a long and rich history in the game I'm running.

There's only 20 levels in 3.x, and it'd be a bit silly if you gain 3 or 4 levels within an hour-long session. There are large gaps between the power of each level - which I am sure is why 4ed is adding another 10 (so the levels are less clunky). Even with that, levels will and should be gained slowly, because unlike WoW, D&D is meant to be fun whenever you play it, however you play it, and what level you play it at. You don't have to go "farming" for an hour so you get the right gear so you can finally go on that quest to get other gear which is slightly better but absolutely necessary to go on that other quest. The DM is instead granted the chance to say "Hey, what you're doing is important, and here's why" right from the start.

I don't mind spending time on my character sheets. That's how I know my character is unique. I also love GURPS, and Hackmaster. Sure, the "WoW approach" might help beginners get into the whole mess a little easier, but a more experienced person such as myself likes customization, and a bit of depth. As Matthew said, Starting Packages give newbies an option. There's also a "starter set" for D&D that brings players RIGHT INTO the game, and tells the players to worry about the complicated stuff later. Again, another option. Neither options should become the default.

Matthew
2007-08-21, 12:44 PM
There are probably people still out there who advocate the First Edition classes as being superior to anything afterwards because they force you to roleplay your character fully instead of only caring about statistics. As far as I'm aware, customizability for those was worse than anything in WoW.

Maybe, but that would rarely be the reason.


Almost everything in the OP was pure mechanics changes, and wouldn't necessarily have any impact on the things that people actually play tabletop games for. Sure, D&D does have advantages over WoW from some perspectives, but that doesn't mean that the better parts should be thrown out as well.

If that were true we all would still be playing 1e.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-21, 12:55 PM
Another Mechanic Change: All RPing would have to be:
"Howw u mine 4 fish?"
"Hey, your a girl wanna cyber"
"Dude --- you --- elves suck ---- undead rogues are better ---- you ---- noob"

Chris_Chandler
2007-08-21, 01:05 PM
If that were true we all would still be playing 1e.

QFT.

Please remember, that, by and large, if we just wanted to RP, "make-believe" is free. The mechanics allow character choices to not be arbitrary, "because I said so" decisions. D&D 1e was largely driven by DM fiat, which was great, in it's own way. 3.5 is largely driven by player choice, which is also great, in it's own way. As a DM, I personally prefer the latter, because I want my players to be involved in building the world in which they play. I found that it was difficult to foster that environment under 1e. 2e and 3.5 give alot of tools that make it a much more collaborative experience.

Now then, imagine, if you will trying to "build the world" in WoW. You can't even climb a wall - how are you supposed to manipulate climate, define the nature of how magic actually "works" or build an economy? The mechanical constraints are so great that it is impossible. Sure, you can jump into play in under a minute. If that is your goal, then so be it. Don't assume that quick and painless = better, because in my experience, it simply is not.

Indon
2007-08-21, 01:22 PM
There is too much based on your gear. I want my character to be a bad ass, not have a bad ass sword. The entire atmosphere of WoW is "Get Better Stuff!", not on roleplaying. I would never want to play D&D with a group who more enjoy picking up a magical suit of armor because it's really good rather than picking up a magical suit of armor because it has a long and rich history in the game I'm running.


You know, 3'rd edition D&D is pretty loot-heavy.

Funny story: there's a 3'rd edition Diablo 2 game. I have the book for it that contains an in-depth loot table with all the nifty quirks that you found in Diablo loot.

One of the nifty things about D&D is that it's just that dynamic. You want to play a grindfest? Okay, I have a module right here with 6 classes, 1 race, and a dungeon crawl with random loot tables. You want a story? Well, I got one of those, too.

Xuincherguixe
2007-08-21, 01:31 PM
Would they, in this WoW-esque DnD also wear obnoxious lime green and bright purple and look like cartoons and run around being nice to everyone, as in WoW the only thing you can be is a run-of-the-mill protagonist?

Sounds like someone wasn't playing Horde :P

Deepblue706
2007-08-21, 01:33 PM
You know, 3'rd edition D&D is pretty loot-heavy.


Yeah, it can be. But you don't HAVE to get just more and more weapons and armor anytime you get money. Sure, as you get higher level, and fight bigger things, new gear will be necessary. But, what makes your character is his/her own abilities, not just what they carry (or at least, that's how it should be).

Indon
2007-08-21, 01:35 PM
Sounds like someone wasn't playing Horde :P

You do _just_ as many evil things as the Alliance as you do as the Horde. It's just a matter of who you're doing quests for.

Horde, good quest: "We need furs to survive the winter. Kill some tigers and skin them."
Horde, bad quest: "Kill the Quillboars so we can get their land."
Alliance, good quest: "Bandits are attacking the field to the north. Go kill some to drive them off."
Alliance, bad quest: "I need candle wax. Go exterminate the nearby Kobolds for it, would you?"

Morty
2007-08-21, 01:35 PM
Yeah, it can be. But you don't HAVE to get just more and more weapons and armor anytime you get money. Sure, as you get higher level, and fight bigger things, new gear will be necessary. But, what makes your character is his/her own abilities, not just what they carry (or at least, that's how it should be).

Yet on high levels, your character is hung with magical toys and without them, his/her usefullness becomes vastly lower.
Fortunaetly, in 4ed it looks like they're going to get rid of this.

Indon
2007-08-21, 01:36 PM
Yet on high levels, your character is hung with magical toys and without them, his/her usefullness becomes vastly lower.
Fortunaetly, in 4ed it looks like they're going to get rid of this.

They won't actually weaken magical items, but instead Vow of Poverty will grant 1 Divine Rank/level. :smallwink:

Morty
2007-08-21, 01:37 PM
They won't actually weaken magical items, but instead Vow of Poverty will grant 1 Divine Rank/level. :smallwink:

Please don't destroy my hopes.:smalltongue:

Kel_Arath
2007-08-21, 01:58 PM
Since all the other points are already covered, I'll just post what I think is the most important/obvious good thing about D&D over any computer game. In D&D, you can do ANYTHING. Simple as that.
There are so many strategies and fun little things you can do in D&D that you can't do in other games (specifically WoW). In D&D you can think of very abstract ideas, and if they make sense, use them. In WoW, you can... uh... right click on something and use your special abilites when their cooldown is finished. Yeah, thats "exciting". Also in WoW almost every combat is the same. Sit there and pess the buttons when the little icon flashes, with very little varience. In D&D each encounter (or set of encounters if going through alot of a specific thing) is unique. The battle field is different (where in WoW it doesn't really matter), you can use different strategies, set traps, use the terrain, pull out fun items, etc etc.

Anthony
2007-08-21, 02:37 PM
I was on ...another forum, where the exact same original post was made. I was HORRIFIED to see how many people agreed enthusiastically. Seeing the response to it here is a tremendous relief. I'm glad to find people who understand options are good things, and making a character is a lot more than just choosing race and class. Thanks.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-08-21, 03:13 PM
PHB II actually made a bit of a MMORPG jump with the Knight class. I remember reading it, and all I could think was: "Holy crap, they created a class designed to..... hold aggro!?!"

Jothki
2007-08-21, 03:23 PM
I was on ...another forum, where the exact same original post was made. I was HORRIFIED to see how many people agreed enthusiastically. Seeing the response to it here is a tremendous relief. I'm glad to find people who understand options are good things, and making a character is a lot more than just choosing race and class. Thanks.

Really? Most of what I see here is people completely ignoring any discussion of game mechanics and instead ranting about roleplaying. There are arguments to be made for current D&D mechanics, there are arguments to be made for current MMO mechanics, and arguments to be made that there are concepts that the two should be borrowing from each other. I see very few of any of those arguments being made, for any side.

To bring up actual discussion, it seems like D&D and WoW are actually both fairly poor models for character advancement. In either game, say you spend a whole bunch of timing shooting arrows at things, enough so that you gain enough experience just through those kills. In WoW, you will gain a level in whatever class you already have. In D&D, you will gain a level in whatever class you want, even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with archery. Very few DMs (if any at all) will force you to take a class or feat that represents all that practice shooting arrows.

Having some sort of learn-through-doing system in a tabletop RPG like D&D seems like it would be difficult to bookkeep, but if there was a simple system to handle it, would that kind of thing make sense?

RAGE KING!
2007-08-21, 03:42 PM
1. Character creation is vastly simpler.

But nowhere near as fun. (i.e. lame as s**t)

2. With the exception of class and race; no decisions that you can only understand through many many hours of play. Video game players have long moved away from the model where making a dude takes a long time because of all the decisions you have to make. Customization and specialization come as you learn about the game and this is superior.

No its not. DnD takes like an hour to learn, and then its just fun extra crap in your spare time. Theres a reason making a level one character is still worth it, its 'cuz there are plenty of options. So its not like "i made a blood elf mage and a tauren priest. Yawn". Its more like. hmm ill go for shadowdancer later so i guess ill put some ranks in dance. Or maybe ill go for assassin instead, Hey tom, what do you think, assassin? K ill do that. etc.

"Video game players have long moved away from the model where making a dude takes a long time because of all the decisions you have to make."

Thats why DnD is better than video games.

3. You get into the game faster. You're in WoW much, much, much faster than any other pen and paper RPG. In and playing. People who buy a game want to play it. They don't want to then spend 30 minutes making a dude. Remember when we made dudes for Houses of the Blooded at Strategicon? Took maybe 2 hours. An experienced player might be able to make a dude in 10 minutes. That's still 20 times longer than it takes a WoW player to make a dude.

...Yah, but making the players is fun.




Also, if you like WoW play it. Don't make DnD players angry by saying WoWs better. they'll disagree.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-08-21, 04:25 PM
This thread fills me with rage.

/Mortal Strike

MadMadMad
2007-08-21, 04:36 PM
WoW is great, but I also like key lime pie. Sure there isn't as much interaction with people I may or may not know, but it's a helluva lot creamier.

Also, you can often get key lime pie at restaurants where WoW is much more difficult to order... at least on the East Coast.

In closing, I think both WoW and key lime pie are great in their own particular ways, in different settings, and for different purposes.

Just like D&D.:smallsigh:

Winterwind
2007-08-21, 05:20 PM
Having some sort of learn-through-doing system in a tabletop RPG like D&D seems like it would be difficult to bookkeep, but if there was a simple system to handle it, would that kind of thing make sense?Actually, there are many RPGs which do exactly that.
Call of Cthulhu (the d100 version), for example, uses a system where, whenever you use a skill (and the GM thinks this was enough to improve in the skill) you make a check in a box next to this skill on your character sheet, and after the session you go over your entire skill list and roll dice to see which of the skills where you made such a "skill check" you may improve (by a value of 1d10).
Or, another RPG I play uses a system where experience points don't go into one experience pool, but are distributed amongst five pools, each connected with one of the attributes, according to how much the attributes or skills related with them were used. All skills are associated with one attribute as well, and you may use the experience from an experience pool only to improve in the associated attribute and the skills linked with that.

Generally, I find more options much better for RPGs. They give more ways to flesh out the character and make the mechanics represent exactly who one is playing. Also, I disagree with the part about "roles" in a group - roleplaying is not about roles, it's about personalities. And what the author wrote about WoW being playable in spite of distance, and tabletop RPGs not, is complete nonsense (though the term "tabletop" may not be applicable anymore). While I greatly prefer to meet with the people and play together, with candlelight and all, I nevertheless know RPGs are perfectly playable over Skype (or any other Internet phone service).

Fhaolan
2007-08-21, 05:43 PM
I can see the attraction to making the tabletop RPG work in a way that could be easily ported over to videogame RPG. I disagree with doing so, but I can see how the argument might be made. The D&D MMORG and the various D&D stand-alone videogames (Neverwinter Nights, and the like) have reasonably big customer bases, so having a ruleset that can span both cleanly (unlike the 3.x version that require a *lot* of compromises on behalf of the computer game) and draw in more gamers to buy product would be a very attractive one to a gaming company.

But then, if you're going to do that, you might as well design it to be easily ported over to LARPing as well.

It's not a direction I would like to go myself, but I'm not in charge of trying to increase D&D's market share and penetration.

Kiero
2007-08-21, 05:52 PM
Really? Most of what I see here is people completely ignoring any discussion of game mechanics and instead ranting about roleplaying.

Indeed. There's a lot of beating of straw men that has little to nothing to do with what was actually posted. It's the firebrands-and-pitchforks brigade in full flow.

Nonanonymous
2007-08-21, 06:01 PM
D&D should be more like WoW, and in this sense only, at least. I don't think that combat should obscure roleplaying, but there is, more often than not, at least one hostile encounter per session. WoW has something that D&D doesn't, and that's balance. In WoW, your fighter is just as important as your caster at level 40 than it is at lvl 14, the arcane caster should essentially be your 'siege engine,' pummeling things from a distance, but being in trouble when someone gets up close, the divine caster your support, providing decent melee, buffs, and healing, and the non-casters should be able to kill things, but still need the help of the casters, as much as the casters need them to distract the monsters and keep them alive. Spells like time stop are absolutely ridiculous, in my opinion. Unless your wizard has recently ascended to god-hood, I don't believe he should be able to do something so drastic as altering the flow of time, at least not without serious repercussions, such as the wrath of a god of time descending on him, or maybe parts of the universe collapsing as a result.

And on another note, one thing about D&D is that if you don't want to use something, you don't have too. Even if you don't like the new 4E rules, you can just go back to 3.5 or earlier, or modify it to your liking. Considering how many of you have 30 minutes or more to spend making a character, I think you could also go ahead and spend 30 minutes tweaking the rules to your liking.

Zeful
2007-08-21, 06:22 PM
Actually the Spell Time Stop doesn't actually alter the flow of time, it accelerates your body's molecules till time stands still, from your point of veiw. Time hasn't stoped but it might as well be from your point of veiw.

The movie Clockstoppers is what you should look at for Time Stop, they moved so fast, that their time became different from everybody elses.

But that's not the point.

Having never played any MMO I can't touch on issues of Character creation, but I can say that if you know what the terms mean (feats, inititive, BAB, Saves, Skills) it takes ten minutes to write up a character for the game. It only gets hard when you don't know what your doing and there aren't any vets to help, that's when it gets long and difficult.

skeeter_dan
2007-08-21, 07:00 PM
Really? Most of what I see here is people completely ignoring any discussion of game mechanics and instead ranting about roleplaying.

On the contrary, a number of people have argued against adopting the character creation mechanics of WoW, as well as the "defined role" mechanics, both of which were suggested changes by the OP.

I think the character creation mechanics of DnD are just fine, thank you. I would not want DnD to adopt an MMORPG style of character creation. It's really not that hard; it can be complex if you want it to be, but I have introduced several players to the game and walked them through their first characters with only minor hiccups. Most embrace the idea of customization immediately and figure out the mechanics of character creation quite quickly.

Flawless
2007-08-21, 07:06 PM
Indeed. There's a lot of beating of straw men that has little to nothing to do with what was actually posted. It's the firebrands-and-pitchforks brigade in full flow.

So, what's your opinion? You started this thread but all you posted here so far is that you don't like what people are saying here. What do you think about the article? Is it true? Has it some merit?

bingo_bob
2007-08-21, 07:08 PM
I think that if character creation in D&D were that simple, I'd stop playing.

Even at level one, theres a plethora of choices to be made, and I for one see that as a good thing. Sure, it makes the game somewhat less accessible than WoW, but D&D doesn't have to be so easily accessible to everyone.

I, personally, am largely self-taught, and the only problem I ever came across was what stacks and what doesn't. I think that a move to simplify the game to that extent would really alienate a large portion of the playerbase, without bringing in a huge number of players. If a person wants to play D&D, chances are that accessiblity isn't going to be a huge factor.

And Kiero, you seem to be rather critical of our opinions on the matter, and how we're expressing them, both here and at ENWorld. Any reasons for that?

Indon
2007-08-21, 07:26 PM
Just like D&D.:smallsigh:

Are you Manpower the Temporary?

Kiero
2007-08-21, 08:02 PM
So, what's your opinion? You started this thread but all you posted here so far is that you don't like what people are saying here. What do you think about the article? Is it true? Has it some merit?

I don't think anyone was saying RPGs and MMOs are identical, but similarly I think you'd have to be deliberately obtuse to say neither have anything they can learn from the other. Nor was anyone saying D&D should become exactly like an MMO.

Reality check: MMOs are more popular and undoubtedly vastly more profitable (from the point of view of the designers) than RPGs. Instead of occasional purchases or the supplement treadmill, you've got subscribers who represent a regular, predictable revenue stream. I don't think it's any surprise that D&D Insider is a subscription service. Sure not everyone will sign up, but you don't need many to break even, or perhaps make a profit on it. There are people who are willing to pay for that kind of thing.

There are some things MMOs do right in terms of accessibility. D&D's layout in the current edition is a genuine barrier to entry. Elitist comments about the "worthiness" of new players aside, the lower the barriers to entry, the more likely you are to bring in a wider demographic of players. Those who aren't the hardcore willing to spend hours of their personal downtime reading rulebooks and messing about with mechanics. It's easy enough to still incorporate those elements and cater to those demands, yet still have an entry point that allows the more casual and less devoted to get involved. If that means different entry points; simpler for newbies with alternative ones for more experienced players, that can only be a good thing.

And of course there will always be things that RPGs can do that MMOs can't and vice versa. Those are givens which I don't think anyone was disputing, despite the slaying of paper tigers.


And Kiero, you seem to be rather critical of our opinions on the matter, and how we're expressing them, both here and at ENWorld. Any reasons for that?

I don't post on ENWorld, do you mean RPGnet?

Just seems to be the same old, same old on GitP. Anything remotely different is treated with a fairly predictable pattern:
-someone completely misses the point and mischaracterises the whole thing; that forms a significant tangent and leads eventually to straw men
-cries of "that's not D&D"
-someone breaks out the old false dichotomy of "roleplaying vs rollplaying" with all the attendant snobbery
-a string of very personal anecdotes, with little applicability beyond the specific, touted as "proof" that someone's viewpoint is correct.

doliemaster
2007-08-21, 08:12 PM
I read this all before checking the link and I must say that after checking the link, Mathew really, really ticks me off.....not as much as a few people on the flat earth society forums, but he does tick me off........I think I just did a quicky rant there.:smallredface: Oh well, I am just going to say I like DnD because it allows creative solutions while WOW is ckick and hit,click and hit,click and hit. In WOW I can't, as a bard, use control water to put the sorceress 20 feet under a river and laugh, later deciding, I want to pay a NPC who would just give me a quest in WOW, to use his swimming abilities to loot the corpse for me, and make sure that he gives me everything I wanted, and kill him to make sure I don't have to pay him.:smallbiggrin: That is what I can't do in WOW that I can do in DnD, and am happy about that.

Krellen
2007-08-21, 08:34 PM
Reality check: MMOs are more popular and undoubtedly vastly more profitable (from the point of view of the designers) than RPGs.
Horse hockey.

In 1998, 2.5 million people played RPGs in the US. In 2007, WoW barely touched that number. The 8 million they tout? Those are global figures, not US figures. Given that 1998 was pre-3rd edition, and I doubt anyone will claim 3rd edition did not create a resurgence of tabletop game, it's more than reasonable to assume your claim is complete balderdash, and more people play RPGs than play MMOs (WoW is more than half the market.) Considering that the price of your average suppliment is the same as several months of WoW (number varies depending on how one pays for WoW, or for the suppliments for that matter), your claim that it's more profitable is also complete baloney.

bingo_bob
2007-08-21, 08:38 PM
I don't post on ENWorld, do you mean RPGnet?

Just seems to be the same old, same old on GitP. Anything remotely different is treated with a fairly predictable pattern:
-someone completely misses the point and mischaracterises the whole thing; that forms a significant tangent and leads eventually to straw men
-cries of "that's not D&D"
-someone breaks out the old false dichotomy of "roleplaying vs rollplaying" with all the attendant snobbery
-a string of very personal anecdotes, with little applicability beyond the specific, touted as "proof" that someone's viewpoint is correct.

Ah, my bad. Said that from memory, without checking.

And sorry if that question was a bit antagonistic, I just wanted to see why you felt that way.

Thexare Blademoon
2007-08-21, 08:53 PM
Just seems to be the same old, same old on GitP. Anything remotely different is treated with a fairly predictable pattern:
-cries of "that's not D&D"

But it's relevant here. It's considerably easier to find a different RPG system that they will enjoy than it is to change an existing one, especially as thoroughly as the quoted post suggests. Additionally, from a business perspective, such changes could alienate large portions of the customer base - they'd be risking losing a lot of customers to take a chance at gaining a lot.

PaladinBoy
2007-08-21, 09:08 PM
I don't know about this. While I don't play WoW (tried it, didn't like it), I do play some MMOs and don't really agree with many points in the OP.

First, about character creation. In the MMO I play, you get to pick between 3 spec lines to put points in. The only customization involved is in your gear and which lines you specialize in. My short experience with WoW suggests that its customization is not much different. Compare this to DnD, where you have many different feats and skills. It might be a little daunting for a new player, but that problem will fix itself with time...... and you can still have fun in the meantime! I know I did when I started playing.

I also disagree with the "no decisions that you can't understand" bit. Not because I think D+D doesn't force you to make said decisions, but rather that videogames aren't much better. Even in an MMO, where balance can be modified and corrected with every patch, there are still going to be suboptimal decisions. You want to be good at PvP? Sorry, your tank's aggro control ability is useless against enemy players and you don't do nearly as much damage as the nukers. In D+D, the DM can modify the challenges and give you something to do with your abilities, whether they are suboptimal or not. Even if it's useless in combat, you can turn it into roleplaying fodder.

Next, "you get into the game quickly". That depends on whether you consider character creation part of the game. I do. I have fun coming up with interesting combinations of abilities, thinking about my character's past, and coming up with some equipment. For that matter, in D+D it's possible to play an epic level campaign given the time for character creation. In an MMO, you better pray for someone to powerlevel you....... and it'll still take a while. WoW and the MMO I play don't spend nearly as much time on the character creation, but that isn't necessarily a good thing or a bad thing.

"You are rewarded very quickly." Not really. I can level up 10 times in about 2 hours in the MMO I play, from level 1, and I'm still small fry. Better yet, I've already done it once, and it's not really as much fun the second time. Then, when you reach higher levels, it can take literally days to level up. Once. And that's if you spend most of your time playing. Any game's rewards are measured in the fun you have playing. And you don't need to level up to have fun negotiating with the orcs, killing the orcs, or doing anything else to the orcs.

As for the roles bit....... frankly, I'm satisfied with knowing that those guys over there need to fall down, time to do it. I think that the roles will naturally evolve from character abilities and typical actions, and that it's unnecessary to say, "I'm the nuker." Frankly, I usually find it unnecessary even in the MMO I play....... I just attack the enemy, unless there's a good reason not to.

Finally, the technology bit...... D+D is doing that with the new system, for one thing. It's also possible to use online voice chat and mapping utilities to play online...... or do something like the PbP on these forums. The only advantage WoW has in that department is that the technology is part of the game. And for WoW or other MMOs, that runs both ways....... If the technology isn't working, you can't play. D+D can be played any time you have more than 1 person, the Player's Handbook, and some pens and paper. Or it can be played with technology if you want. Also, I think that the social and low-tech aspects of D+D are usually advantages. I'd prefer to gather some friends in my house and play with my dice and battlegrid paper rather than sit in front of the computer for 4 hours.

kpenguin
2007-08-21, 09:26 PM
Horse hockey.

In 1998, 2.5 million people played RPGs in the US. In 2007, WoW barely touched that number. The 8 million they tout? Those are global figures, not US figures. Given that 1998 was pre-3rd edition, and I doubt anyone will claim 3rd edition did not create a resurgence of tabletop game, it's more than reasonable to assume your claim is complete balderdash, and more people play RPGs than play MMOs (WoW is more than half the market.) Considering that the price of your average suppliment is the same as several months of WoW (number varies depending on how one pays for WoW, or for the suppliments for that matter), your claim that it's more profitable is also complete baloney.

Actually, I thought it was 9 million they tout. Anyway, from what I've read, an estimated 20 million people have played D&D. MMO players are just a lot more vocal that PnP players.

horseboy
2007-08-21, 09:42 PM
And yet, oddly enough, WoW is how I see D&D. Monty Haulism taken to it's logical conclusion. Combat where if your "I win" button doesn't work you're stuck slogging away slowly and with no visible sign you're even really hurting it. "Characters" where the rules prohibit growth past little more than crudely drawn stereotypes. Saying that D&D needs to emulate WoW without recognizing just how much of Wow is based on D&D really strikes me as the whole "Art imitating life or life imitating art" question.

The one thing that D&D defiantly could learn from WoW (other than learning how to balance classes) is how important a well developed world story is for long term player satisfaction.

SalSar_Thiran
2007-08-21, 10:06 PM
And in all honestly Horseboy, that world should be left up to each and every GM to design and make their own. That is the other benefit of DND. It is never the same game twice. It can't be. WoW is exactly one game with exactly one world.

I love new things. DnD please, oh and its a homebrew world? Even better.

BanjoTheClown
2007-08-21, 10:20 PM
Id never want D&D to be more like WoW.

dr.cello
2007-08-21, 10:49 PM
Why is it that every time someone disagrees with someone else they say it's a strawman? Or, whenever someone says that they'd rather have good roleplaying that they're making a false dichotomy? It's perplexing. I haven't seen any strawman arguments, except, perhaps, the ones that are calling everyone else a strawman.

What people here are trying to say is that they like D&D's long, involved creation process. D&D, in sum, is a hobby game. It's designed to take up lots of time, and it's designed so you can do it with your friends. WoW is designed as a game you can plug-and-play. Hobby gaming has never been very plug-and-play.

And as many people have pointed out, there's already starting kits if you want to get into the game right away. All you have to do is roll. And then you can "customize through gameplay." And it doesn't take a lot to decide you want to tailor your race from one thing to the other.

Greenfaun
2007-08-21, 11:16 PM
Welp, I'll go ahead and respond to the troll too, because there are some points I haven't seen anyone make yet.

If the OP wants operant conditioning with a thin dusting of fantasy literature for cosmetic purposes, then yes, WoW beats DnD. Hands down. Diablo II does it even better- nothing but combat, you only have to talk to other people when you want to, and nobody's dwarf wedding makes ironforge laggy for you. Heck, why not take the need for random rewards for feverish clicking to its logical extreme and use progressquest? :)

I don't want operant conditioning to be the focus of the fun. Granted, it helps keep the game moving forward, but if a game ever turns into monty haul, I've probably stopped having fun, and I often play games where there isn't a kill-stuff-get-loot dynamic at all, and I still really enjoy it. So I guess it's a problem of basic assumptions about what makes a game good.

As for the quick-start issue, WoW has an unfair advantage: it's a program on a computer. When real people are playing a game, they have to remember (at least most of) the rules, and use various tricks to make sure everyone's getting the same out of the experience. Computers take care of all the dicerolling and remembering numbers, everything can just be point-and-click, so all the math fades away into a simulation that's as good as whoever wrote the program made it. Out in the real world, players have to run the program themselves (arguably the GM runs the program and the players use it, but really it's pretty cooperative) so the system has to be simple enough to run using pencil, paper, and tragically unoptimized wet squishy neural networks. :) This is why DnD has lots less numbers to keep track of than WoW, and it still takes hours of reading and character generation before you can start: you have to copy the program, and you're limited by certain unavoidable attributes of the brain.

Personally, I don't mind the long prep time. I'm the kind of person who'll spend 2 hours writing a program so I don't have to spend 30 minutes repeating a boring task over and over. I like other front-loading activities for RPG's too, like making cards representing items and potential actions to make combat go faster, or finding/drawing a character portrait to avoid dry description.

Also, I like that the fundamental nature of a RPG is narrative, and the mechanics are just for assistance. It lets you skip to the good bits instead of, say, waiting for ships to come to menethil or fishing over and over to skill-up. It also lets you handle situations outside of the rules, because the GM can just say what happens. Computer-gamers are stuck with whatever level of verisimilitude got programmed in, and so they can't, for instance, use their flying mounts in azeroth or do any other dances than the one that every member of their race does. Or bump into each other, for that matter. :)

Man, this post was geeky. Gamer geeky, science geeky, and computer geeky. I'm drained. :)

Bitzeralisis
2007-08-21, 11:21 PM
I disagree.

But I'm too lazy to type out my thoughts and supporting details.

Toric
2007-08-22, 12:56 AM
On the part about roles:

One of the things I like about DnD is party planning. Taking what you have and both learning and establishing tactics to use what you have to its fullest extent. In WoW, if you deviate from the established roles of tank, nuke, buffer, etc, you'll be alienated pretty quickly as people pick chars with established builds over yours for their parties. In DnD on the other hand, you and your friends just have each other. It's a matter of choosing a strategy to fit the team instead of choosing a team to fit the strategy. For example, my current DnD gestalt group consisted of a rogue/fighter, psychic warrior/sorcerer, healer/nymph monster class, and beguiler/something. Tactics were pretty simple, PW fought using psionics, melee, and self-buffing while setting rogue up for sneak-attacks, while beguiler and healer messed the enemy up with sleep, confusion, and other debilitating effects, and range-attacked. At one point, the PW left and a barbarian/ranger joined, who then did massive damage while the rogue tumbled around and drew enemy attention from the casters. The barbarian and healer then left and were replaced by a psion/sorcerer and a ninja/swashbuckler. The psion did decent ranged damage and had a good ability range but no healing, so potions and wands of cure were purchased, and the ninja and rogue had to fight smart against their enemies using flanking and tumbling to finish the fight with minimal HP loss. When the ninja left, the psion emulated the role of tank by making astral constructs to grapple or slam enemies while the rogue sneak-attacked.

In this example, some of the classic MMO roles were used - tank, buffer, damage-dealer, etc. but they were swapped around as needed and even discarded in some cases as the party makeup changed. At any given time, a long-running DnD party can have two tanks, three tanks, or no designated tanks at all. This adaptation is possible mainly due to the same players and characters sticking with each other and finding out what works and what doesn't given what they have; assigning specific, established "roles" to the party members prevents them from seeking out and finding tactics that don't rely on the standard lineup. DnD allows people to form parties that don't have a tank, don't have a healer, or don't have a batman or trapmonkey. The linked author himself said that the "role cards" of his hypothetical new DnD edition would trump WoW in that anybody could fill the roles, but my point is that in current DnD, characters aren't required to fill those roles at all.

To summarize a lengthy post, DnD would suffer from having established "roles" to be filled because it's a game meant for millions of people to play in their own individual styles that would be impossible to execute if they were limited to specific molds.

Kiero
2007-08-22, 05:29 AM
Actually, I thought it was 9 million they tout. Anyway, from what I've read, an estimated 20 million people have played D&D. MMO players are just a lot more vocal that PnP players.

Have played isn't the same as "are actively playing right now". That's the difference. That 20 million includes huge numbers of people who played once and never played again, have long since retired, play only occasionally and many others. It's just how many people have ever played D&D in the 30+ years it's been around.

Whereas the 9 million is actual play, though I haven't seen a breakdown of whether that factors activity into the equation. And they didn't even exist a decade ago, that's some exponential growth by comparison.

Whomever was saying "oh it's global" well of course. Why would anyone care about the US market alone, when there's significantly more consumers to be got at worldwide than looking at just one market.

As to "hobby gaming has never been plug-and-play", why should we be forever beholden to the forms that were observed in the past? If "tradition" is a barrier to the growth of the hobby, then it should be cast aside. Interestingly, there were lower-entry barrier points in the past - the old boxed sets which offered a cut-down experience to get people started.

Tormsskull
2007-08-22, 05:41 AM
Why is it that every time someone disagrees with someone else they say it's a strawman?


Because some people still fall into "If you disagree with me, you're committing a logical fallacy."



Welp, I'll go ahead and respond to the troll too, because there are some points I haven't seen anyone make yet.


Which troll, the quoted articles author or the OPer of this thread?

Kiero
2007-08-22, 05:53 AM
Because some people still fall into "If you disagree with me, you're committing a logical fallacy."

The specific one was ignoring the "more" in the thread title. No one was saying "D&D should be like WoW", yet that's exactly what a number of posters were choosing to dispute.

lordmarcoos
2007-08-22, 06:03 AM
I think it's important for someone to mention that WotC is a company, and as such, they're trying to do two things: maintain current players, and add new ones.

I think in that model, it's fair to look at the issue of the 12 year old nerd with some nerd friends, living in butt-nowhere, or even in a big city. These kids are bored, and nobody else wants to play with them because, well, they're nerds, and might well smell bad or be unpleasant to look at. Nerd #1, finding free time after he's done studying, finds a hobby store and looks at the Player's Handbook thingy, and thumbs through it. Now, does he buy it and show it to his friends, or does he put it back down and keep looking around? What this comes down to is, indeed, accessibility.

Not all players may like the idea of insta-characters, WoW style. But I can certainly see how an RPG whose first chapter says, "pick a race, pick a class, and go" might be more appealing to them, at least in the beginning. This is why Wizards should boil down the rules closer to WoW style

I think a lot of the drive in the forum boards here for customization has a lot to do with everyone's experience with the game. I think that's why Wizards shouldn't boil D&D down to WoW style.

And that's the important point. If Wizards really wanted to increase accessibility, and increase the size of their base, they shouldn't do it by decreasing the level of complexity of D&D, they should do it by making a separate, and hopefully even compatible, rules-lite version. I think that was the goal with D&D basic, but I've never played it, and have no idea how good of a job they did. But I certainly don't think releasing a book where each race came with a predefined set of stats, and each class came with a predefined set of abilities/skills (or maybe even fudge it a little and give them some "racial" skills and some class skills), is a particularly bad idea, and maybe even give them some options at higher levels (by which i mean up to about level 5, at which point you'd make them go buy the real game if they wanted to keep playing), like "blaster," "ambusher," or other things that are basically templated advancements for each of the classes.

Alright it's late and I need sleep. I hope any of that made sense and wasn't redundant (I was kinda skimming by the last page there).

Krellen
2007-08-22, 09:27 AM
Whomever was saying "oh it's global" well of course. Why would anyone care about the US market alone, when there's significantly more consumers to be got at worldwide than looking at just one market.
I said that because my figures for tabletop gamers were US-only, and I wanted to nip the desire to say 'Well, WoW has 8 million players' as a counter in the bud before it came up. Ten years ago there were as many active tabletop gamers as there are WoW players today in the US (more, actually, because the figures I had were only for ages 12-35). So before 3rd edition and d20 created a tabletop "renaissance", there were as many people playing tabletop RPGs as currently play WoW - which means the growth rate has to be negative for there not to be more players today. Therefore, as I stated, your statement is blatantly false - WoW and MMOs are not more popular than tabletop RPGs.

dr.cello
2007-08-22, 09:39 AM
The specific one was ignoring the "more" in the thread title. No one was saying "D&D should be like WoW", yet that's exactly what a number of posters were choosing to dispute.

That's sort of a loaded question then, isn't it? If I say "D&D should be more like WoW," and someone disagrees with me, I could say "Well, I just mean there should be more levels." You're attacking from a position that relies on a variable that you get to define, so any time someone disagrees with you, you can say (here it comes) "You're committing a strawman fallacy!"

Fortunately, the author of this article provided a definition of his terms. And guess what? Every instance I've read herein has been either (a) ironic, or (b) based on something the original author wrote. Usually explaining how WoW differs from D&D, and thus why his analogies don't work. "You get into WoW faster!" "D&D was designed as a hobby game, not a plug-and-play." "You level up faster in WoW!" "D&D was designed as a game where you can gather your friends and devote an evening a week to collectively telling a fantasy adventure story." The best way to explain this is by examining the mechanics of WoW and D&D, respectively, which is, admittedly, often tangential. But a tangent is not a strawman argument. If anything it would be a red herring--but not in this case.

But really, even if these people were guilty of strawman arguments (or other logical fallacies), as you claim, the correct way to deal with people you disagree with is not to say "that's a logical fallacy," but to, well, show them why you disagree with them, and possibly point out material which is irrelevant, or show them a point where you believe them to be erroneously representing their arguments. Instead of rudely claiming their fallacy and nothing else, try to politely point it out to them, and maybe you'll be able to work out to an understanding.

Fhaolan
2007-08-22, 09:51 AM
I said that because my figures for tabletop gamers were US-only, and I wanted to nip the desire to say 'Well, WoW has 8 million players' as a counter in the bud before it came up. Ten years ago there were as many active tabletop gamers as there are WoW players today in the US (more, actually, because the figures I had were only for ages 12-35). So before 3rd edition and d20 created a tabletop "renaissance", there were as many people playing tabletop RPGs as currently play WoW - which means the growth rate has to be negative for there not to be more players today. Therefore, as I stated, your statement is blatantly false - WoW and MMOs are not more popular than tabletop RPGs.

It depends on how you measure the growth rate. If you use sales of WotC/TSR D&D products per quarter in dollars as a measure, I've been told the growth rate has in fact been negative since it peaked in 1989 or so. I'm sure the total number of gamers has increased, but they're buying less and less stuff per quarter. Or they're buying other third-party suppliments and other game systems. In any case, WotC's D&D-based revenue is slowly dropping over time.

I'm not saying the MMOs are more popular than tabletop RPGs, but if that's still a growth industry and tabletop RPGs are not, I think I can guess what direction most executives would jig.

Kiero
2007-08-22, 12:43 PM
But really, even if these people were guilty of strawman arguments (or other logical fallacies), as you claim, the correct way to deal with people you disagree with is not to say "that's a logical fallacy," but to, well, show them why you disagree with them, and possibly point out material which is irrelevant, or show them a point where you believe them to be erroneously representing their arguments. Instead of rudely claiming their fallacy and nothing else, try to politely point it out to them, and maybe you'll be able to work out to an understanding.

With the level of reactionary bias present in this forum, it's barely worth the effort.

Someone who was willing to do more than I elsewhere:


A few points:

Reading books/learning game:
I game with several people who spend next to 0 time preparing or even thinking of games, other than when we're actually at the session. They aren't stupid or jerks, they are busy people with medical issues, a newborn, busy jobs, and so on. It's nice to have a game that can appeal to those who DO want to tinker and read in depth, and those who don't want to or can't.

WoW:
I realize it's natural, in a situation where little is certain and only a limited amount has been disclosed, to grab on to those details and worry them like terriers, but I think people are blowing the WoW comparisons WAY out of proportion.

I mean, it's like someone saying 'the Romans had innovative bridge-building techniques that we're trying to learn from' and everyone getting huffy about how they want to bring back slavery and invade neighboring countries.

There's also a bit of bitterness about how MMOs are 'destroying' the hobby, and it's leading to some 'us vs. them' which is unwarranted -- I play MMOs, and enjoy them thoroughly. I also play ttrpgs, and enjoy them thoroughly. They punch buttons in similar and different ways, and it's not a bad idea to examine each to see what it can tell us about the other.

Which leads to...

Tanks/taunt:
How about a bodyguard? How many times have you, in D&D, been near a door or something and wanted to guard it, or distract an enemy from hitting a wizard, or manipulate the enemy at all, and faced a lack of rules? Intimidate and Bluff have very narrow functions in core rules, and movement rules make 'blocking' maneuvers next to impossible.

I've tried to play such characters, but have given up because it requires me to wade upstream against the current of rules.

Right now I AM playing someone a little more like this, but it's only possible because we're playing a loose gestalt 3.5 (I'm playing a paladin-variant bard), and because the DM is amenable to my use of Intimidate to manipulate enemies.

Roles:
Why do people think 'clear and protected roles for various classes' is the same as requiring each role in a party?

I think, given the way 3.X has evolved, it's more a matter of ensuring that one class doesn't umbrella roles of other classes. That is, it sucks if you pick a healer, and heal just as much as the healer/blaster class.

It's also probably something along the lines of not being surprised, like with the monk; the monk has a role that is completely obscure until you've played it for a while or have a lot of experience with the system. Most folks pick a monk thinking 'oh cool, I'll be a kick-ass martial artist who can tear people a new one with my bare hands.' Which is utterly not what a monk is about.

A game that's a lot more transparent about 'what does THIS guy do?' would be very nice, for much of the reasons you have classes in the first place.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-08-22, 01:12 PM
Jeez, Kiero. Calling people jerks not worth your time really isn't how you debate. You've only actually presented a handful of actual arguments that weren't directed against a perceived, biased view of how you think everyone on the board is. But to address what you have claimed-

Tabletop gaming has been on the wane since video games in general began becoming more popular, so it's not surprising that the number of people that play D&D versus the number of people that play (arguably) the single most popular video game on the planet is going to be unfairly stacked against D&D. I hate to bring out stereotypes, but think about the sorts of people that used to play D&D back in the old days compared to now. A lot of the guys that used to have trouble socializing due to whatever reason will typically pick WoW over D&D since they can remain safely anonymous at all times. Also add in people wanting acceptance but afraid of being cast aside, or a (relatively) cheap and easy escape from life for a bit. These sorts of people used to play D&D because it let them escape best, but you could only hide so much when everyone in the group knew who you were. WoW makes you truly anonymous.

I don't think clear-cut player roles is necessarily a good thing. I like greys a lot, though I do have to agree that it's nice to have epitomes in particular roles to stand as the measuring stick or the go-to place if you're trying to fill out a balanced roster. And, we do- fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard. I know a lot of groups that play with just those four. I know a lot of other groups that try the other classes because they cover more roles, allowing a bit of modularity in their fighting tactics in case something goes wrong or just out of necessity if there aren't enough players. What I'm saying is, if you want to start out as a completely generic character with a clearly defined combat role, those four classes already exist.

Now, power balance has always been an issue with D&D. That is something I'd like to see fixed, but not in a Blizzard way. It might make the gameplay more fun for a PvP warrior if he can kill mages one-on-one without any problems, but from a storytelling viewpoint (which is the strong suit of tabletop gaming) it's ridiculous. We're talking about a guy who wields a sword kinda fancy versus someone who can manipulate the very fabric of the universe. It's nonsensical for them to be a match, and it ruins suspension of disbelief a good bit. I'd much rather see a rock-paper-scissors sort of system where a particular combat role is innately good at taking down one other combat role, but is weak against another. So, while I'd like to see the casters nerfed and/or the martial classes buffed, I really wouldn't want to see them all evenly matched one-on-one.

Blocking rules would be nice, though aggro doesn't seem to be the right way to do it. Think about it from a story point of view- does a knight trying to protect someone start yelling at his enemies about their mothers? No, he just blocks them. That's what I'd like to see.

PaladinBoy
2007-08-22, 01:53 PM
To address the points in the quote that Kiero posted:

Aggro control. Frankly, it only makes sense in a limited number of situations. Mostly, it comes into play when you have a stupid opponent who doesn't know much about tactics, or even a mindless opponent. Many of the situations in the quote aren't even a matter of aggro. A bodyguard protects his master by blocking/grappling/standing in front of his master. Guarding a door, which is represented by a 5-foot section of wall, is as simple as standing in front of it. For that matter, it appears possible to start a grapple with an AoO, which would allow you to block people trying to move past you. Or you could ready an action to move into someone's path when they try to move past you. Basically, what I would say this means is that D+D has plenty of ways to block enemies trying to get past you. As for making the target angry at you........ Yelling interesting things about your enemies' mothers doesn't work in PvP, where the enemies can realize that the nuker in the back is a much bigger threat than the tank in the front. As long as the opponents know how much of a threat each member of your party is, they can go for the biggest threat no matter how much invective you employ. Unless they're stupid/egotistical enough to be distracted by it. And that type of roleplaying is something which D+D does much better than an MMO.

Next: The preparation time can be a problem, but for long-term campaigns, you can get it completely out of the way at the start and then have your next sessions available for playing. The DM can purchase premade adventures or ask for help in designing adventures from someone who does have time. For that matter, the players could get help from others as well; such as asking the people that read the character builder thread on these forums to stat out their concept. This can be a problem, but I'm not sure it's quite as much of one as you might think.

Finally: Kiero, some of your statements appear to be subtly insulting of every single poster on these forums. That certainly doesn't seem to be a good way to win an argument, even if it complies with the Forum Rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?a=1). Which, in my opinion, it doesn't seem to, frankly.

Thinker
2007-08-22, 01:57 PM
With the level of reactionary bias present in this forum, it's barely worth the effort.

Someone who was willing to do more than I elsewhere:

Your statements make me think that either you are trolling or that you are just complaining because people don't agree with you.

Jayabalard
2007-08-22, 02:08 PM
Why is it that every time someone disagrees with someone else they say it's a strawman? Because on this board it's fairly commonplace to see someone overstate their opponent's argument in order to make it easier to "win" the debate (ie, a strawman argument).

Kiero
2007-08-22, 02:31 PM
Finally: Kiero, some of your statements appear to be subtly insulting of every single poster on these forums. That certainly doesn't seem to be a good way to win an argument, even if it complies with the Forum Rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?a=1). Which, in my opinion, it doesn't seem to, frankly.

Come on, no one ever "wins" any argument on the internet, and rarely does anyone change their mind. Mostly it's resignation and the realisation that I have even less in common with the prevailing mindset on GitP than I do some other RPG boards.

Indon
2007-08-22, 03:16 PM
Come on, no one ever "wins" any argument on the internet, and rarely does anyone change their mind. Mostly it's resignation and the realisation that I have even less in common with the prevailing mindset on GitP than I do some other RPG boards.

Dude, if you could isolate how the mindset is different, then that would still be a good thing.

As it is, the original post was made, many people made rebuttals based on the wildly different industries of MMO's versus Tabletop RPG's (some rebuttals weren't even based on that, even), and they were pretty much ignored by you. You weren't obliged to answer them, certainly, but you acted like you were and that you simply declined to do so.

It would have been more tactful, and possibly more productive as well, had you simply not posted in the thread anymore. As it stands, if your intention is to be productive, by all means, let's talk.

Deepblue706
2007-08-22, 03:17 PM
Kiero, if you're going to use terms used to define logical fallacies of argumentation, you really should follow the "protocol" and state your counter-argument instead of saying "Your argument is bad, but I'm not saying why".

Did I make any strawman arguments earlier in my post? My arguments were based on what is resultant of certain WoW-like implementations. I'll restate them, and I'll try to be more coherent.

I recognize D&D isn't perfect, but I disagree that taking a path that introduces more WoW-ish stuff inherently makes it better.

Customization is something that comes with the lengthier process of character creation. It only takes so long because you have options. WoW limits options, and by taking that short-cut, the creation process moves a lot faster. Now, short-cuts aren't always good. Why? Much of my enjoyment of the game lies in the ability to customize my characters with many details.

So, I'd compare this situation to coming across a river, blocking your path, in the jungle. If you have time, it's probably a good idea to look for a crossing (exploring the depth of character creation process). If you've gotta move quick, you can swim across, but this might cause you some misfortune (the sacrifice of some elements). As you say, some people don't care so much about tiny details, as they may be trivial when you have limited amount of time. So, as I said earlier, a quickened creation process should definitely be an option. But not the default. The post you made appeared to be saying that it should always be the simpler path, which would leave the "more experienced" players to be forced to start at higher levels to get the satisfaction of fully-developing their characters.

I don't like that idea. It just seems like that route is lazy, and clumsy design. I think there should be choices for everyone from the beginning, but there should be "quick sheets", with everything you need to play. There are already starter kits, aren't there? They pretty much tell you what skills, feats, even what equipment you get.

But, I don't think that the choices and abilities should only come in at later levels. Why? This limits distinctiveness of your character. As I mentioned earlier, this leaves gear to take the place of talents/skills, etc. I don't like that path one bit.

Quick rewards? They can be had from the beginning, in D&D, just as well. But, not in XP form, since levels are limited (unless you change the XP rates to mirror WoW). A DM is free to determine a storyline, express a mood, and give the players the idea that they just did something worthy of note. They can be rewarded just as quick, although that indeed requires effort of a DM, rather than quick level-ups, preprogrammed into a database, ready to move when you're ready.

Now, as for your more recent post: Yes, "Tanks" should be better at keeping monsters at bay. Yes, the specialty of each class should be clearly defined, so players don't get the wrong idea when they go for Monk, etc. But, thinking about it, only the Monk really seems to have that problem, for me. Most of the others seem pretty straightforward.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. So, am I "worth the effort"?

Indon
2007-08-22, 03:33 PM
You know, I'll elaborate a little on some things, not from the "Tabletops are different" perspective, either:

Party roles:
There is a reason, in MMO's, that there is little diversity in character configuration (In WoW, this is exemplified with talents and gear). The most optimal, 'cookie-cutter' builds, are used almost exclusively to attain goals in the game. This, compared to the wealth of diversity in D&D, is stiflingly boring, and would be a bad thing to introduce into a tabletop game (it's arguably not good in an MMO, either).

Aggro:
Aggro is, put simply, a nonsensical system. An intelligent opponent should work out an aggro-based attack strategy within seconds, nullifying its' intent. Intelligent opponents, such as the ones demonstrated in WoW's arena system, demonstrate that aggro simply does not work against intelligent opponents. Humans know to hit healers. Dragons, who are almost universally superior to humans in intelligence, will know.

Aggro thus has not only no place in a tabletop RPG that even pretends to have vermillisitude (sp), but is a poor contrivance even in MMO's such as World of Warcraft.

Murongo
2007-08-22, 04:08 PM
Sounds like someone wasn't playing Horde :P

How do you figure that? I had a 60 orc rogue back when 60 was the max. Everyone was a carebear in that game, horde and alliance alike.

Indon
2007-08-22, 04:52 PM
How do you figure that? I had a 60 orc rogue back when 60 was the max. Everyone was a carebear in that game, horde and alliance alike.

That comment was in reference to questing, I do believe.

You do some stuff for the Royal Apothecary Society which is... um, less-than-savory.

Flawless
2007-08-22, 05:03 PM
Ok, I want D&D to be as complex as it is today (with some few exceptions). New players might want it to be simpler, so that they can get into the game more easily. I can understand that, but that's what the starters rules are for.
Now, if you're saying that severely limiting your choices (i.e. only class, race and specialization) for 1st level characters and more choices as you level up gets you both (easy entry as well as complexity/diiversity) you are wrong, imho.
I want highly customized characters that are tailored to how I envision them right from the beginning. And I want the mechanics to resemble this.
What the OP posted might be a compromise and appreciated by new players but it's simply not what I'd like to see for the new edition. A rules light starters edition with pre-made characters can do this. And there is already such a thing for 3rd edition. I don't see a problem for 4th edition to have one as well.

horseboy
2007-08-22, 06:18 PM
And in all honestly Horseboy, that world should be left up to each and every GM to design and make their own. That is the other benefit of DND. It is never the same game twice. It can't be. WoW is exactly one game with exactly one world.

I love new things. DnD please, oh and its a homebrew world? Even better.
To be as honest, how many DM's do you think can actually do that? I know if I had the time I could. As well as Mat and Thorm, and several of the others, but honestly how many DM's can do it? I'm willing to wager that percentage is far lower than 1 in 5. (5 being four players and a DM). The whole point of this was to make D&D as inviting as WoW. The thing that D&D could do to make itself more open would be to actually create a solid, GOOD setting. FR is just too WAY out there and Eberron is a biter. Something that's at least as good as your average WW, 40k, or FASA line.

A game system to be Good has to either have Good setting or Good rules. When asking a gamer "Who's the open lord of Waterdeep" gets me the same blank stare as "Explain the grapple rules" that will tell you it has neither.

Zel
2007-08-22, 07:23 PM
There are a lot of easy, fun elements in WoW that could be applied to D&D 4.0. You can be sure that Wizards is not stupid, and will attempt to put out a version of D&D that will make them the most money. The WotC designers are certainly aware of WoW, and since that MMO represents a new generation of game theory/design it follows that some design elements will make it into the new version of the rules.

Character creation:
I agree that a character should not be as "front loaded" as it is in D&D. A player that is new to the game should be able to pick a class, play for a few levels, then start making decisions about prestige classes and so forth without being penalized for their choices made at character generation.

Just like in WoW, this problem is somewhat alleviated with the retraining rules, and I expect to see this idea expanded upon in D&D 4.0.

Party Role:
WoW does a great job of balancing the roles that a party needs to succeed in an instance or adventure. The tank is useful and gets to feel good about soaking up damage, and the healer holds the fate of the entire group in his/her hands. The rest of the DPS classes have various forms of crowd control effects and can perform certain necessary tasks depending on the encounters. This means the synergy of a group is very important, and increases the dependence and necessity of team play. This can make WoW very exciting when you are playing with a skilled group of people that you are personally and emotionally invested in, along with the feeling of "not wanting to let the team down."

My personal opinion is that the D&D rules need to reward and facilitate teamwork and class synergy even more, to increase the feeling of fulfillment and usefulness that each individual player can feel. The vibe I myself get when playing D&D (or DDO) is that personal glory and direct competition between party members is often more important than teamwork. Read the stories posted on D&D boards and ask yourself "Is this player most proud of what they themselves personally accomplished, or the adventuring party?" The potential for character optimization and the overpoweredness of many classes furthers this problem.

I believe that the Tome of Battle is a step in the right direction, in particular the maneuvers such as White Raven Tactics that are concerned with strategic team play. I expect to see much more of these types of "special moves" in the new edition of D&D.

PvP
I think the biggest problem with D&D is the lack of player vs. player combat. This is essentially an unsolvable problem since there are no universally agreed upon rule sets for character creation or combat, but in my view is a huge weakness in the game.

The thing that makes people play online games is competition. Competition and teamwork. The success of simple, formulaic games like Counterstrike clearly demonstrate this. In CS or WoW, you can directly engage with someone and see who wins. If you're having an argument about character optimization in an MMORPG, there are concrete ways to demonstrate it, none more personal than defeating the other's character in direct combat.

What I see in the D&D community is a prevalence of self-proclaimed D&D experts. If you took a survey of players/posters, I imagine a huge portion of them would claim they are in the top 5% of D&D players (as far as playing ability, inventiveness, problem solving, rules knowledge etc). The great thing about WoW is you can have structured competition like Battleground and Arena tournaments, and the losers go home. No one cares about your unique caster build, or your interesting team makeup that lacks healers... you lose and you are done. If only D&D could somehow, magically pit players against each other in a fair fight that gives concrete results, it would help sort out the true experts from delusional scrubs.

That may seem like a mean-spirited rant but I firmly believe that the impossibility of direct competition between D&D players of different groups is a weakness in the genre that will become more and more apparent as online games become more sophisticated and accessible.

Flawless
2007-08-22, 07:48 PM
But D&D isn't about PvP like competition. A highly effective build doesn't make a good character (and not necessarily a bad one either). It's about fun characters and solving problems (including fights, but not PvP). Where is the harm for D&D in not being able to proove that party 1 totally pwns party 2? It's irrellevant.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-08-22, 08:06 PM
Wait, no PvP? My players try to kill each other like every other session (I'm not exaggerating). They love doing that, though they mostly play it as a slightly bigger version of the Miniatures game (that most of us play as well). Nothing fancy, just hit out your best spells and maybe a few tactical nuances every here and there. Sometimes they don't even do it to kill each other, just to "spar" every now and then.

Pokemaster
2007-08-22, 08:07 PM
What I see in the D&D community is a prevalence of self-proclaimed D&D experts. If you took a survey of players/posters, I imagine a huge portion of them would claim they are in the top 5% of D&D players (as far as playing ability, inventiveness, problem solving, rules knowledge etc). The great thing about WoW is you can have structured competition like Battleground and Arena tournaments, and the losers go home. No one cares about your unique caster build, or your interesting team makeup that lacks healers... you lose and you are done. If only D&D could somehow, magically pit players against each other in a fair fight that gives concrete results, it would help sort out the true experts from delusional scrubs.


That's... not how D&D works. My Changeling Rogue has miserably failed at every single fight he has ever been in. All of them. He has never killed anything, I don't think he's actually hit anything more than three times, none of his attempts at sneak attack have succeeded and he has probably taken more damage than the rest of the party combined. And I have no intention of ever making him any better at combat besides getting him some arrows to get through damage reduction.

What he does have is a +12 bonus to Bluff and a +17 bonus to Disguise. At level 2. It'll probably turn into +13 to Bluff and +21 to Disguise when he hits level 3. Eventually, the party's going to need to get somewhere they're not supposed to be and he's going to be the one to do it.

horseboy
2007-08-22, 08:49 PM
Character creation:
I agree that a character should not be as "front loaded" as it is in D&D. A player that is new to the game should be able to pick a class, play for a few levels, then start making decisions about prestige classes and so forth without being penalized for their choices made at character generation.

Just like in WoW, this problem is somewhat alleviated with the retraining rules, and I expect to see this idea expanded upon in D&D 4.0.

If you think D&D's character creation rules are too "front loaded", I'd hate to find out what you think of REAL RPG's.


Party Role:
I believe that the Tome of Battle is a step in the right direction, in particular the maneuvers such as White Raven Tactics that are concerned with strategic team play. I expect to see much more of these types of "special moves" in the new edition of D&D.
I will say this: I find it amusing that all these people keep screaming that D&D doesn't have "class roles" and how much they also will scream about Batman making Rogues obsolete.


The success of simple, formulaic games like Counterstrike clearly demonstrate this.
As much as it seems so, D&D isn't about about epeen waving the way PvP video games are. That and I really wouldn't consider Counterstrike to be a successful RP anything.

Flawless
2007-08-22, 09:01 PM
Wait, no PvP? My players try to kill each other like every other session (I'm not exaggerating). They love doing that, though they mostly play it as a slightly bigger version of the Miniatures game (that most of us play as well). Nothing fancy, just hit out your best spells and maybe a few tactical nuances every here and there. Sometimes they don't even do it to kill each other, just to "spar" every now and then.

Well, you surely can play like that and it's fun. But I don't think this is where D&D shines. As far as I can see, D&D is (supposed to be) balanced on the assumption that it's a group of 4 trying to accomplish certain tasks or solving encounters.
It just isn't balanced with PvP on mind, imho. You can still do PvP and have a lot of fun, though. But what I was trying to say is that the fact that it's impossible/difficult to judge which party/character is most effective in combat isn't one of D&D's major drawbacks. I'd argue that it isn't a bad thing at all.

Golthur
2007-08-22, 09:11 PM
If you think D&D's character creation rules are too "front loaded", I'd hate to find out what you think of REAL RPG's.

Someone's certainly never played the old TSR Top Secret game. I remember that one taking about 4 hours or more to make a character - who then can be killed in 5 minutes of play time.

I guess it beats being killed during character creation like Traveller, though :wink:

horseboy
2007-08-22, 09:23 PM
Someone's certainly never played the old TSR Top Secret game. I remember that one taking about 4 hours or more to make a character - who then can be killed in 5 minutes of play time.

I guess it beats being killed during character creation like Traveller, though :wink:

Oh my God! I had totally forgotten about SI! Yeah, I spent a week on that char, then school let out and I never got to play him. :smallannoyed: It was going to be so sweet being the Master of Kung-fu.

Traveller, ah, good times, good times, Don't you really hate it when you double nut on your reenlistment and you've got to do two mandatory terms, only to die at the end of the second!?

Yeah, throw in Rolemaster and GURPS to that list and D&D really does seem pretty easy pretty fast.

PaladinBoy
2007-08-22, 10:03 PM
What I see in the D&D community is a prevalence of self-proclaimed D&D experts. If you took a survey of players/posters, I imagine a huge portion of them would claim they are in the top 5% of D&D players (as far as playing ability, inventiveness, problem solving, rules knowledge etc). The great thing about WoW is you can have structured competition like Battleground and Arena tournaments, and the losers go home. No one cares about your unique caster build, or your interesting team makeup that lacks healers... you lose and you are done. If only D&D could somehow, magically pit players against each other in a fair fight that gives concrete results, it would help sort out the true experts from delusional scrubs.

That may seem like a mean-spirited rant but I firmly believe that the impossibility of direct competition between D&D players of different groups is a weakness in the genre that will become more and more apparent as online games become more sophisticated and accessible.

Actually, this is something I would point out as a weakness of MMOs. It's true that no one cares about a unique or interesting build. If you want to do PvP, you need to have the best gear, an optimized build, and a reasonable amount of luck. There is nothing available for the guy that wants to build something interesting and fun. Requiring optimization can limit creativity.

I wouldn't even say it's impossible to do PvP with people in a different group..... It just requires preparation and the two DMs agreeing on their respective sets of houserules.

And why does it even matter? It's possible to do PvP within a group if you absolutely need to defeat other people to have fun. If you can find another group, possibly even over the internet, then you can agree on rules and do some PvP via IM or PbP. But why is it necessary to separate the good from the bad? Let the masses have their delusions of being in the skilled minority (actually, that should probably be us masses and our delusions). It's not like delusions on someone else's part will make the game less fun for the skilled minority, so long as said skilled minority doesn't need to have their superiority be self-evident.

Tor the Fallen
2007-08-22, 10:17 PM
you lose and you are done.

So what, someone comes by to confiscate your D&D books; or does the group just shred your character sheet and send you home?

Why don't you just stick with videogames if you can't seem to function around real people?

Xuincherguixe
2007-08-22, 10:20 PM
Why don't you just stick with videogames if you can't seem to function around real people?

You make it sound like other people are real.

Bassetking
2007-08-22, 10:22 PM
There are a lot of easy, fun elements in WoW that could be applied to D&D 4.0. You can be sure that Wizards is not stupid, and will attempt to put out a version of D&D that will make them the most money. The WotC designers are certainly aware of WoW, and since that MMO represents a new generation of game theory/design it follows that some design elements will make it into the new version of the rules.

Character creation:
I agree that a character should not be as "front loaded" as it is in D&D. A player that is new to the game should be able to pick a class, play for a few levels, then start making decisions about prestige classes and so forth without being penalized for their choices made at character generation.

Just like in WoW, this problem is somewhat alleviated with the retraining rules, and I expect to see this idea expanded upon in D&D 4.0.

Party Role:
WoW does a great job of balancing the roles that a party needs to succeed in an instance or adventure. The tank is useful and gets to feel good about soaking up damage, and the healer holds the fate of the entire group in his/her hands. The rest of the DPS classes have various forms of crowd control effects and can perform certain necessary tasks depending on the encounters. This means the synergy of a group is very important, and increases the dependence and necessity of team play. This can make WoW very exciting when you are playing with a skilled group of people that you are personally and emotionally invested in, along with the feeling of "not wanting to let the team down."

My personal opinion is that the D&D rules need to reward and facilitate teamwork and class synergy even more, to increase the feeling of fulfillment and usefulness that each individual player can feel. The vibe I myself get when playing D&D (or DDO) is that personal glory and direct competition between party members is often more important than teamwork. Read the stories posted on D&D boards and ask yourself "Is this player most proud of what they themselves personally accomplished, or the adventuring party?" The potential for character optimization and the overpoweredness of many classes furthers this problem.

I believe that the Tome of Battle is a step in the right direction, in particular the maneuvers such as White Raven Tactics that are concerned with strategic team play. I expect to see much more of these types of "special moves" in the new edition of D&D.

PvP
I think the biggest problem with D&D is the lack of player vs. player combat. This is essentially an unsolvable problem since there are no universally agreed upon rule sets for character creation or combat, but in my view is a huge weakness in the game.

The thing that makes people play online games is competition. Competition and teamwork. The success of simple, formulaic games like Counterstrike clearly demonstrate this. In CS or WoW, you can directly engage with someone and see who wins. If you're having an argument about character optimization in an MMORPG, there are concrete ways to demonstrate it, none more personal than defeating the other's character in direct combat.

What I see in the D&D community is a prevalence of self-proclaimed D&D experts. If you took a survey of players/posters, I imagine a huge portion of them would claim they are in the top 5% of D&D players (as far as playing ability, inventiveness, problem solving, rules knowledge etc). The great thing about WoW is you can have structured competition like Battleground and Arena tournaments, and the losers go home. No one cares about your unique caster build, or your interesting team makeup that lacks healers... you lose and you are done. If only D&D could somehow, magically pit players against each other in a fair fight that gives concrete results, it would help sort out the true experts from delusional scrubs.

That may seem like a mean-spirited rant but I firmly believe that the impossibility of direct competition between D&D players of different groups is a weakness in the genre that will become more and more apparent as online games become more sophisticated and accessible.

Some of us CAN say, objectively, "I'm a better Optimizer than other people." Tempest Stormwind, Tleilaxu_Ghola, LordofProcrastination, psly4me...

Essentially, anyone who has a build up on the WotC "Campaign Smashers" Theoretical Optimization thread.

This is, however, missing the point.

The way to sort out the true champions in D&D from the Degenerate Scrubs is to see How they play their character, not how they fare in combat.

A true champion of D&D(in WoW Parlance, a Rank 15 PvPer) can play anything thrown at them. A Drunken dwarf fighter, they bring to life, and add depth and feeling above and beyond the ale he quaffs, and the hammer he swings.
A frail, know-it-all Wizard is rendered forth as an individual wracked with insecurities, Who shrouds himself in Academia and Knowledge, as an insulation and defense from a world that has displayed an open willingness to throw displacer beasts at him. A kleptomaniac thief, craven and cowardly, Is revealed to be converting his stolen funds into funding for alchemical research, working to cure a plague, to run a criminal underground, to pay for all the little luxuries to which the party has become accustomed...

A true "Champion" breathes life and depth into his group, no matter his role. He helps, rather than hindering, all forms of the gameplay. He understands that in a squad-based, team game, there are times when it is not his character's turn in the spotlight, and during these times, he remains engaged and involved.

THAT'S how you separate the scrubs from the supermen. Forget Combat; the key's cooperation.

[Insert Neat Username Here]
2007-08-22, 10:43 PM
This is essentially an unsolvable problem since there are no universally agreed upon rule sets for character creation or combat

There's this really useful book that covers both of those. It's called the Player's Handbook. You might want to read it.

Jothki
2007-08-22, 10:48 PM
Some of us CAN say, objectively, "I'm a better Optimizer than other people." Tempest Stormwind, Tleilaxu_Ghola, LordofProcrastination, psly4me...

Essentially, anyone who has a build up on the WotC "Campaign Smashers" Theoretical Optimization thread.

This is, however, missing the point.

The way to sort out the true champions in D&D from the Degenerate Scrubs is to see How they play their character, not how they fare in combat.

A true champion of D&D(in WoW Parlance, a Rank 15 PvPer) can play anything thrown at them. A Drunken dwarf fighter, they bring to life, and add depth and feeling above and beyond the ale he quaffs, and the hammer he swings.
A frail, know-it-all Wizard is rendered forth as an individual wracked with insecurities, Who shrouds himself in Academia and Knowledge, as an insulation and defense from a world that has displayed an open willingness to throw displacer beasts at him. A kleptomaniac thief, craven and cowardly, Is revealed to be converting his stolen funds into funding for alchemical research, working to cure a plague, to run a criminal underground, to pay for all the little luxuries to which the party has become accustomed...

A true "Champion" breathes life and depth into his group, no matter his role. He helps, rather than hindering, all forms of the gameplay. He understands that in a squad-based, team game, there are times when it is not his character's turn in the spotlight, and during these times, he remains engaged and involved.

THAT'S how you separate the scrubs from the supermen. Forget Combat; the key's cooperation.

That's exactly why we videogamers are so suprised when tabletop gamers defend mechanics so vehemently. We assume that you're in it for the roleplaying, and we can see why you are and respect you for that (heck, I'm mostly here just to hear your anecdotes), but nothing can take that away from you, other than perhaps mechanics that are so cumbersome that they leave you unable to actually play the game. Many of the changes being discussed here, as well as the future ones in Fourth Edition, would act to simplify the game, leaving more room for you to do whatever you want in between the gaps.

I certainly wouldn't suggest adopting some of the more standard MMO features like rapid levelling or power based entirely on items, but stuff like streamlining choices does have some merit, and might be worth discussing.

kpenguin
2007-08-22, 10:53 PM
That's exactly why we videogamers are so suprised when tabletop gamers defend mechanics so vehemently. We assume that you're in it for the roleplaying, and we can see why you are and respect you for that (heck, I'm mostly here just to hear your anecdotes), but nothing can take that away from you, other than perhaps mechanics that are so cumbersome that they leave you unable to actually play the game. Many of the changes being discussed here, as well as the future ones in Fourth Edition, would act to simplify the game, leaving more room for you to do whatever you want in between the gaps.


The rules don't place limitations on play. They simply give the illusion of limitation.

horseboy
2007-08-22, 11:15 PM
I certainly wouldn't suggest adopting some of the more standard MMO features like rapid levelling or power based entirely on items, but stuff like streamlining choices does have some merit, and might be worth discussing.

Streamlining doesn't help roleplaying. D&D isn't a good example of roleplaying friendly mechanics, but to make it "more" streamlined would make it worse, not better.

Arlanthe
2007-08-22, 11:50 PM
What he does have is a +12 bonus to Bluff and a +17 bonus to Disguise. At level 2. It'll probably turn into +13 to Bluff and +21 to Disguise when he hits level 3. Eventually, the party's going to need to get somewhere they're not supposed to be and he's going to be the one to do it.


Indeed. WoW has naught for social skills. I have a silver tongued roguish type as well. Long live role playing.

Stephen_E
2007-08-22, 11:57 PM
PvP
I think the biggest problem with D&D is the lack of player vs. player combat. This is essentially an unsolvable problem since there are no universally agreed upon rule sets for character creation or combat, but in my view is a huge weakness in the game.

The thing that makes people play online games is competition. Competition and teamwork. The success of simple, formulaic games like Counterstrike clearly demonstrate this. In CS or WoW, you can directly engage with someone and see who wins. If you're having an argument about character optimization in an MMORPG, there are concrete ways to demonstrate it, none more personal than defeating the other's character in direct combat.


I don't play DnD for competion.
When I want competion I play board games. If I want competition with fantasy violence I play war games (ok, sometime I turn non-war games into war games. Killing off another player in Evo is fun).
DnD is a mixture of socialising and fantasy adventuring. Escapism.
PvP is wargaming. I don't confuse the two.
Even worse, a lot of the PvPing I've seen and heard of has more to do with ego-stroking than what I think of as wargaming.

Stephen

Roderick_BR
2007-08-23, 05:32 AM
We have some companies here in Brazil, that tried the "simple" method. They said that it was a utter failure, because what people want is to make their own characters. If all 1st level characters look all the same, the game gets boring, unless the game starts at high level.

For fast leveling up... That would be hard. Maybe if we had 40 levels instead of 20, or something, or "half levels". Thing is, we need to "spread" character evolution, so it has nearly the same speed the current game already have.
D&D has a completely different pace from MMOs. Some campaigns lasts for years, where the group barely reaches level 10. The main difference is that in D&D, you play each level. In MMOs, you grind quickly to get on high level as fast as possible.

Costantinov
2007-08-23, 06:16 AM
Ok let's "settle" things down...

First of all, D&D and WoW (as mentioned before) are different kind of games, therefore can't be compared.
But, As both games player, I can say thoose:

In WoW, i played in the RP servers, that are servers with some additional roleplaying rules (the behavior of the player in-game), which is really fun.

WoW is not a "luck" game, it's a "skill" game, like it or not. For example, i played a Warrior (orc, yeah Horde ^^) and warriors are ment to do the "tanking" as its called, which is taking the damage, protecting the other players. In PvP, warriors are the "one-that-needs-more-time-to-kill" and you use that helping the teamates to eliminate the other players, while you create some havoc in their lines (consedering though in which Battleground you are in, Warrior's role may change). If you can't follow such things, then you should try a class that is more "your-style" which could be the damage-dealer (a mage, a Warlcok ect), healer (priest), or Stealthy-guy (rogue). Luck is minor, really minor.

The meaning of all thoose are to show that WoW is not that simple game. Also, a good player can win someone with better gear.

Consedering all thoose, I choose WoW as the best MMO (not Rpg)

Personaly, from what I've heard for the 4D edition of D&D, I doupt i'll ever use that, I'll stay in 3.5 . I believe they put all the fantazy away. When you created a character, you imagined him the way you liked, now using a computer is like...yuk!

Indon
2007-08-23, 07:27 AM
but nothing can take that away from you, other than perhaps mechanics that are so cumbersome that they leave you unable to actually play the game.

You're right, but this is not because we have to, or are willing to, RP with a bad system (which is what the proposed changes would do, make it a bad tabletop system, for many reasons that have been elaborated on already).

It's because tabletop RP'ers know how to properly jump ship when it comes time. There are many, many good systems out there, and as much as it pains an RP'er to remove one from the weekly group's rotation, so be it.

Jarlax
2007-08-23, 08:39 AM
Character creation:
I agree that a character should not be as "front loaded" as it is in D&D. A player that is new to the game should be able to pick a class, play for a few levels, then start making decisions about prestige classes and so forth without being penalized for their choices made at character generation.

Just like in WoW, this problem is somewhat alleviated with the retraining rules, and I expect to see this idea expanded upon in D&D 4.0.

Party Role:
WoW does a great job of balancing the roles that a party needs to succeed in an instance or adventure. The tank is useful and gets to feel good about soaking up damage, and the healer holds the fate of the entire group in his/her hands. The rest of the DPS classes have various forms of crowd control effects and can perform certain necessary tasks depending on the encounters.

PvP
I think the biggest problem with D&D is the lack of player vs. player combat. This is essentially an unsolvable problem since there are no universally agreed upon rule sets for character creation or combat, but in my view is a huge weakness in the game.


i want to touch on a couple of things from this so i've quoted the relevant parts.

Character Creation in WOW if vastly different to PC creation in D&D, you are not stuck with your PC for 70 levels where the only option available to you is to respec your character. if you don't like a PC or its not working for you, you just roll a new one at the same level.

Party roles to the extent they appear in WOW are not something i would like to see in D&D, too often i see dungeons and raids in WOW that don't go ahead because the group are lacking X class, because the dependency on having that one class is so critically important the game grinds to a halt without it.

in WOW when the tank goes down its a guaranteed Total party kill, in D&D the rouge or the cleric can take over and the rest of the party can still continue to adventure one person short and even though their healer is also now their tank, the game is loose enough to let them do that and not to punish the party because they are suddenly lacking a certain class. death in wow is a minor inconvenience, death in D&D means your re-rolling your PC.

PVP does not exist in D&D for a reason, the system isn't built for it. the game is built for a balanced party, not a balanced PC. the game is designed for 3-4 PCs and a DM to play together, not against each other.

wizards comes out with new classes, spells and feats on a monthly basis in books or magazines or web enhancements, WOW has brought out no new classes 10 new levels and only 2 new races since its release, and is still trying to get those to balance in a PVP setting.

the time and effort that wizards could waste trying to get PVP "balance" for the 5% of total players who actually want to waste time fighting each other instead of using the rules for their intended use would be a colossal waste of time.

Wizards don't remove or change class features to balance classes for PVP, they do it when a class is so over powered that it begins to overshadow all the other PCs, like in the case of a druid's wildshape.

I enjoy my 70 Dwarf Holy Priest and i enjoy DMing Expedition to Undermountain. in fact i play both with the same group of friends, but not once have they ever suggested including elements of one into the other. they are two very separate games which happen to share some common elements.

Jayabalard
2007-08-23, 08:40 AM
in WOW when the tank goes down its a guaranteed Total party kill, Not necessarily; guaranteed is much too strong of a word; try "likely" instead. I've had multiple fights where someone took over tanking after the warrior died. Groups can function with multiple tanks, and some classes can function as a backup tank in a pinch.

Nor is this necessarily true of other MMO's, which have the same sort of class interdependency.


I agree that a character should not be as "front loaded" as it is in D&D. A player that is new to the game should be able to pick a class, play for a few levels, then start making decisions about prestige classes and so forth without being penalized for their choices made at character generation.The other result of that is: "A player that is new to the game should be able to pick a class, play for a few levels, then start making decisions about prestige classes and so forth without gaining any advantage for good choices made at character generation."

If anything you can choose will give you an advantage, then not choosing it "penalizes you"

Even ignoring the (large) portion of the player base want there to be optimal choices even at the beginning of the game, almost everyone wants to feel like the decisions that they make has some effect on their character development. Realize that this is coming from an anti-optimizer: I don't believe that you can eliminate all character decisions in the early levels without completely losing the point of playing a tabletob RPG.

Dizlag
2007-08-23, 08:42 AM
As a player of both WOW and D&D, I will reiterate what's been said before ... they are two totally different games because of one simple fact ...

PATCHES

When I play WOW, I'm forced to upgrade with a "patch". A class is tweeked here, an ability is replaced there. And as far as an "expansion" is concerned, new races and classes are added.

Looking at D&D, I don't have to "patch" my game. I create the game I want to play, but more importantly when I DM ... I create the game my players want to play. If I don't want Dranei in my world, poof whola ... they are not in there. If I don't want the Alliance to have a shaman class or the Horde to have a Paladin class ... poof whoa, not in there.

In other words, computer gaming is someone else's game where roleplaying is your own game.

Dizlag

Costantinov
2007-08-23, 10:51 AM
A good point from Dizlag.

Although there are some books like Underdark that has a certain Background story, but you can always be creative :smallsmile:

Drascin
2007-08-23, 10:55 AM
Yeah, it can be. But you don't HAVE to get just more and more weapons and armor anytime you get money. Sure, as you get higher level, and fight bigger things, new gear will be necessary. But, what makes your character is his/her own abilities, not just what they carry (or at least, that's how it should be).

...except if you're a Fighter, of course, in which case, you're pretty screwed anyway :smallwink:

The Glyphstone
2007-08-23, 10:58 AM
As a player of both WOW and D&D, I will reiterate what's been said before ... they are two totally different games because of one simple fact ...

PATCHES

When I play WOW, I'm forced to upgrade with a "patch". A class is tweeked here, an ability is replaced there. And as far as an "expansion" is concerned, new races and classes are added.

Looking at D&D, I don't have to "patch" my game. I create the game I want to play, but more importantly when I DM ... I create the game my players want to play. If I don't want Dranei in my world, poof whola ... they are not in there. If I don't want the Alliance to have a shaman class or the Horde to have a Paladin class ... poof whoa, not in there.

In other words, computer gaming is someone else's game where roleplaying is your own game.

Dizlag

Addendum to that...said "patches" in D&D can be added or removed at will. If you decide halfway through the game that you do want Alliance Shamans after all, you can suddenly decide that there is a reclusive subgroup of Night Elves living in the deep forests who follow shaman traditions...and then kill them all off with a magical curse if you change your mind...

Krellen
2007-08-23, 11:04 AM
Addendum to that...said "patches" in D&D can be added or removed at will.
Yeah. If WoW was more like D&D, I could remove the "Draenei"* from my version of WoW and be happy. Quilboars for Alliance! :smallbiggrin:

*They're Eredar, dammit. Metzen's a hack.

Indon
2007-08-23, 11:08 AM
Addendum to that...said "patches" in D&D can be added or removed at will. If you decide halfway through the game that you do want Alliance Shamans after all, you can suddenly decide that there is a reclusive subgroup of Night Elves living in the deep forests who follow shaman traditions...and then kill them all off with a magical curse if you change your mind...

Indeed.

Imagine if MMORPG's could be run by vast, superintelligent computers, which made for a massive, but mediated (not just 'ran'), multiplayer RPG; basically D&D on a large scale.

Present-day MMO's would be instantly obsoleted. Really, even now, the only thing an MMO has over a tabletop game, in terms of engaging mechanics, etc, is a greater scale. Other changes are neccessary abstractions, downgrades from non-computer RPG's, in order to make the system viable on that massive scale.

Aggro is a clear example of this. As I noted earlier, intelligent opponents don't care if they're being taunted! They're going to see the healer, add two and two, and kill the healer. But an MMO can't afford to pit everyone up against intelligent opponents; it would require far too much computing power. So they make a simple, abstract system, which is exploitable through 'aggro-generating' moves.

Jothki
2007-08-23, 12:52 PM
Present-day MMO's would be instantly obsoleted. Really, even now, the only thing an MMO has over a tabletop game, in terms of engaging mechanics, etc, is a greater scale. Other changes are neccessary abstractions, downgrades from non-computer RPG's, in order to make the system viable on that massive scale.

Not completely. Computer-based games have the advantage of allowing for vastly greater crunch, since thousands of random decisions can be made and complex formulas can be evaluated in less time than it takes to roll a single die. Most of the mechanics in tabletop RPGs are very abstract, simply because if they became more realistic they would take forever to evaluate. Computer games aren't limited by this, though it is true that few use the full potential of that capability. Computers are inherently better at simulation than anything you can do with dice and charts.

Edit:


Aggro is a clear example of this. As I noted earlier, intelligent opponents don't care if they're being taunted! They're going to see the healer, add two and two, and kill the healer. But an MMO can't afford to pit everyone up against intelligent opponents; it would require far too much computing power. So they make a simple, abstract system, which is exploitable through 'aggro-generating' moves.

Are the enemies in tabletop games really being played intelligently? You hear about how nasty Tucker's Kobolds are, but it seems like players never run into 'Tucker's Cultists', or 'Tucker's Demons', or 'Tucker's Dragon'. From what I hear, it seems like the enemies are never as resourceful as the players, even when they should be.

Dizlag
2007-08-23, 12:59 PM
Addendum to that...said "patches" in D&D can be added or removed at will. If you decide halfway through the game that you do want Alliance Shamans after all, you can suddenly decide that there is a reclusive subgroup of Night Elves living in the deep forests who follow shaman traditions...and then kill them all off with a magical curse if you change your mind...

And as Indon said ... "Indeed". Very nice addendum to my point about "patches", Glyph. Being able to add or remove "patches" at will is very, very important and it is truly the essence of roleplaying. Again, like I said before ... making the game yours and making it the game you want to play is the heart and soul of roleplaying.

Dizlag

Indon
2007-08-23, 04:11 PM
Not completely. Computer-based games have the advantage of allowing for vastly greater crunch, since thousands of random decisions can be made and complex formulas can be evaluated in less time than it takes to roll a single die. Most of the mechanics in tabletop RPGs are very abstract, simply because if they became more realistic they would take forever to evaluate. Computer games aren't limited by this, though it is true that few use the full potential of that capability. Computers are inherently better at simulation than anything you can do with dice and charts.


You do make a good point; computers allow for bigger, more concealed numbers. But a computer of human-intelligence would be able to do both complex simulation and good DM'ing, I imagine. It was, in the end, just a hypothetical rant to make a point.




Are the enemies in tabletop games really being played intelligently? You hear about how nasty Tucker's Kobolds are, but it seems like players never run into 'Tucker's Cultists', or 'Tucker's Demons', or 'Tucker's Dragon'. From what I hear, it seems like the enemies are never as resourceful as the players, even when they should be.

I'll counter that with, how resourceful are players, really? I mean, the fighter runs in, the rogue flanks, the wizard casts a save-or-die, etc. Most players have a few tricks for their character to do. A group of "Tucker's Players" would be frightening. Playing at the level of strategy that most players play at is not very hard, methinks, but AI generally can't even manage that, at least not at the moment.

Stephen_E
2007-08-23, 09:53 PM
Are the enemies in tabletop games really being played intelligently? You hear about how nasty Tucker's Kobolds are, but it seems like players never run into 'Tucker's Cultists', or 'Tucker's Demons', or 'Tucker's Dragon'. From what I hear, it seems like the enemies are never as resourceful as the players, even when they should be.

I remember watching over the shoulder of a flatmate playing a starwars MMO.
They had these big non-flying dragon-like creatures which players hunted for loot and XP. My flatmate been a reasonably smart and analytical person was busy killing them singlehanded most of the time because he could manipulate their programed responses. I reckoned they needed to pick some of the veteran players and give them some of the monsters to play. It'd scare the hell out of the PC's to run into the occasional "smart" creature who wasn't just a bunch of programed responses.

Stephen

Fhaolan
2007-08-23, 11:56 PM
I remember watching over the shoulder of a flatmate playing a starwars MMO.
They had these big non-flying dragon-like creatures which players hunted for loot and XP. My flatmate been a reasonably smart and analytical person was busy killing them singlehanded most of the time because he could manipulate their programed responses. I reckoned they needed to pick some of the veteran players and give them some of the monsters to play. It'd scare the hell out of the PC's to run into the occasional "smart" creature who wasn't just a bunch of programed responses.

Stephen

I have vague memories of some MMO doing that at some point. Giving the programmers and top players one day of utter rampage against all the other players by giving them direct control of some of the bigger monsters. If I remember correctly it was a 'end game' prelude to a massive patch release.

Stephen_E
2007-08-24, 12:12 AM
I have vague memories of some MMO doing that at some point. Giving the programmers and top players one day of utter rampage against all the other players by giving them direct control of some of the bigger monsters. If I remember correctly it was a 'end game' prelude to a massive patch release.

Sigh..., I would've loved to see it. My sympathies generally lie with the monsters in MMO's. The players go hunt and kill them purely for XP and loot (mostly XP) with little if any risk of losing stuff. Grinding there way up.

At least in DnD I ussually have a reason for killing something beyond XP and loot (well OK, my evil PCs do it just for loot).

Stephen

horseboy
2007-08-24, 12:16 AM
I have vague memories of some MMO doing that at some point. Giving the programmers and top players one day of utter rampage against all the other players by giving them direct control of some of the bigger monsters. If I remember correctly it was a 'end game' prelude to a massive patch release.

A buddy of mine played SWG. He was a part of "X". (They're like a super loot guild, everybody has mandalorian armour before mandalorian was available) Well, one day the developers sent Bobba Fett to their freaking player city and told them that an attack was coming. They then had to fend off the "Black Sun" from taking over their town. It was a hella cool moment.