Dungeons, Dragons and MMORPGs

[Mr. Friendly]

Inspired due to a minor thread derail, there seems to be a perception that 4e is moving towards a "WoW" style. (Worlds of Warcraft)

Now, I myself like what I see in 4th Edition. I liked 3/3.5, but it has gotten too top-heavy with having 99,000,000,000,001 combinations of class/race/PrC; magic has also gotten entirely out of control. (my opinion)

I also liked 2e; it was fun, as D&D always is, but it too got bogged down with nigh infinite numbers of sourcebooks and, like 3e, eventually leads to readily available game breaking combos. (again, my opinion)

I also liked 1e and the Red/Blue/Green/Black/Gold boxes.

Really though, the fundamental experience of D&D is, for me, creating a character I like and doing things I cannot do in this world. It is fantasy. It is escapism.

Back when Ruins of Kunark expansion (for Everquest; EQ hereafter) came out, a fellow AD&D player got me hooked. What a fun game this is I said. And even better: I can play an evil lizardman! Not just stuck as some goody-two-shoes human, I could play something I wanted to play. (though I did play other races)

The best part though was it was so much like D&D. Not the same obviously, but it was pseudo-medieval fantasy. Plus it had the same basic format as all D&D and fantasy did, do the quest, fight the monster, get the reward. I could do all of that on non-D&D days.

Really though, there was no way to quite replicate the EQ experience in tabletop RPG. At least not in 2e. Now when we switched to 3e, one of our group got the EQ RPG which ran on a heavily modified version of 3e. Even then, it could never really duplicate it.

Many things from EQ did enter as a group meme for a while though. Like fighting a tough monster we would (jokingly) "con" the monster. (In EQ there was a system called "conning" short for "consider" - basically it would tell you if the monster was equal level, lower level, really lower level, higher level or really higher level; so you wouldn't suicidally rush in and attack something) Did it really change D&D? No. After a while, as we all quit EQ, the meme went away.

Of my gaming group, only I and one other play(ed) WoW. I played for a few months, it was fun. For the most part though, it didn't impress me much. I wasn't getting that D&D fix I was looking for. Now, some have suggested that the Paragon path thing in 4e is like the WoW Talent tree. That is a fair comparison on the face of it, but it doesn't hold water if you know WoWs system.

The WoW Talent tree seems infinitely flexible, since you get a point every level, put a point in a skill you want. (It's very much like Diablo's system) In reality though it turns into an annoying system of min/maxxing and having to devote X skill points here and there and not even get the character you want. So, in a sense there is a cause of worry that the Paragon Path with sort of rigidly push you along in the same way WoWs talent tree does.

However, 4e also allows you to multiclass, something you cannot do in WoW. So that dispels the worry of rigidity.

Now, a case could be made that feat trees in 3/3.5/4 are "just like" WoW's Talent trees, since you min/max and need to follow a certain route to get to your end goal.

Which I think would be a perfectly valid point.....

If you were criticizing WoW for ripping D&D off. Since WoW came out a good 4 years after 3rd edition.

[Morty]

Even if 4ed talent trees are WoW ripoff, what's so wrong about that? From what we've seen so far, they look just like class-specific, long feat trees.

[Tallis]

I think this line of thinking comes from the fact that many, probably most, new D&D players played video games first. They see tinker gnomes in WoW and assume that Blizzard came up with it. They don't realize (because they never saw the older editions of D&D, that a lot of the things in WoW and EQ originated with D&D or in mythology and folklore.
In some ways I do agree that D&D has moved to a system more like video games. Mostly that has to do with faster leveling and power creep frm older editions though. Not all of these changes are bad, but they do seem geared more towards an audience that wants instant gratification than older editions. Unfortunately I think this also shifts the focus of the game game away from storytelling and more towards "winning" by being the most powerful. Again this doesn't make it a bad game, but it does give it a very different feel (at least for me) from OD&D and AD&D.

[Matthew]

I usually consider Massive Multiplayer Online Computer Roleplaying Games to be imitations of Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games. They bring two things that the P&PRPG does not, speedy resolution of fixed complex rule sets regardless of the number of players and direct visual representation. A third thing it supplies is permanent access (barring technical faults). In just about every other respect, I consider them to be an inferior reproduction of the Pen and Paper experience.

One thing I have noticed in recent years is a tendency for P&PRPG and CRPG companies to find themselves in competition. They basically encroach on one another's audience. Consequently, they may try to imitate what they perceive as the most successful aspects of the other.

Q1 "In what ways is D&D becoming more like a CRPG?"

Two things come quickly to mind. One is the tendency towards representing every aspect of the game world mechanically. Rather than treating the mechanics as an abstraction of the fantasy world, the mechanics are increasingly perceived as the 'physics' of that world. This seems to me a bleed through from the CRPG to the RPG.
Linked to this perception is the idea of discrete 'options'. Whether character building, combat orientated or craft related, the rules for X, Y and Z are laid out and DM innovation and deviation from the established 'norm' appears to be discouraged, in effect asking him to behave like the computer.

Q2 "Is this a direct result of the D20 rule set?"

Probably not. The D20 rule set doesn't help, nor does it discourage players from thinking like this, but at it's heart, this is a self created problem. A group could easily play D20 and not experience the above, when it comes down to it, it is up to the group to create the pen and paper fantasy experience.

[Snadgeros]

By my understanding, it went something like this:

Myth and folklore begat Tolkien's work.
Tolkien's work begat DnD.
DnD begat Warhammer.
DnD also begat many updated editions.
Warhammer begat two children, Warcraft and Warhammer 40k.
Warcraft begat two sequels, and then World of Warcraft.
Warhammer 40k, combined with Warcraft, begat Starcraft.
Starcraft begat a sequel I'm really looking forward to.

Everyone is a long line of ripping each other off, and this is an incredibly simplified analysis. In reality, some of the earlier creations later stole ideas from the later creations, and vice versa, but this is the general flow of the fantasy genre RPG/RTS tree.

[daggaz]

This is funny. A long time ago, in the early nineties, there was a dikuMud called Sojourn. It was loosely based off of Forgotten Realms, with only text and no graphics, and was one of the first multiplayer internet RPG games to become really popular. (im sure there were others, there are now hundreds of muds, dont bother nitpicking this one). This is back in the time of the 2400 dial-up modem, the dawn of the internet, and the demise of 4-person BBS's running Usurper and other chat based games.

On this mud, there was a guild of players who became really powerful. Besides mudding constantly, they also spent a fair amount of time programming. At one point, they decided to work out a way to make a DnD-like game graphical, instead of just text. Now, this is back when it could take you a half an hour to download a single .jpg file, so of course, most everybody laughed at them. Some years and a lot of microchip improvements later, WoW made its first appearance, and about a year after that, these guys were millionaires.

So here we have a TT game that spawns a text based internet game that spawns an MMPORG which now in turn is influencing the original TT game. Funny, isn't it?

EDIT: Sojourn is still running in its latest reincarnation, TorilMud. Go to torilmud.org and search the forum database for threads about this. There's even a thread where the gods are griping that WoW didnt give them any mention whatsoever in the credits, as a nod of respect.

[Kurald Galain]

DnD begat Warhammer.
Warhammer begat two children, Warcraft and Warhammer 40k.


Er, how's that again? Warhammer is a miniature battle game; it shares a common ancestor with D&D, but isn't based on D&D.

And how is Warcraft a "child" of Warcraft? Warcraft is more apparently a child of Command & Conquer, which is a child of Dune 2, which is arguably a child of Herzog Zwei.

[Albonor]

Er, how's that again? Warhammer is a miniature battle game; it shares a common ancestor with D&D, but isn't based on D&D.

And how is Warcraft a "child" of Warcraft? Warcraft is more apparently a child of Command & Conquer, which is a child of Dune 2, which is arguably a child of Herzog Zwei.

Warhammer began as its fantasy RPG counterpart but the miniature game became more popular. The RPG was developped because DnD felt too kids-oriented. It's like a new start on Tolkien's work but it is too much of a reaction to DnD to neglect the relation between them.

[Leadfeathermcc]

Picasso had it right. Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.

[Wabbajack]

Not many people know that Warcraft I had should be an Warhammer RTS-Game^^

[Prophaniti]

Not many people know that Warcraft I had should be an Warhammer RTS-Game^^

Er... not quite following the sentence there...

Warhammer Fantasy Battles actually did come out about 3 years before Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, both in the mid 80's, whereas Warcraft: Orcs & Humans came out in '94... so at least chronologically one can make the claim that Warcraft spawned from Warhammer. Really, though, I don't see it, unless you count the Orcs and Orks correlation. But then, who hasn't used Tolkien's race? They've become a staple of nearly every major fantasy genre since the 60's. It's nice to have a brutish, ugly foe who you don't have to have moral dilemas about killing, and orc(k)s fill that role quite nicely. Now people, myself included, like them, so you see a lot more of them, with a lot more detail. Warhammer made them green, though, that's one thing that I'd have to credit them for. One of the things I've always liked in D&D is they don't jump on the 'green orcs' bandwagon, (in the MM they're grey-skinned) and I hope they never do.

[Wabbajack]

Originaly WarcraftI was meant to be an Warhammer game, but later Gamesworkshop didn't want it anymore so WarcraftI became a game with his own world.

[Tough_Tonka]

I'm pretty certain the Talent Tree System DnD is using for 4th has little to nothing to do with WoW since Wizards of the Coast has been using Talent Trees since 2002 with the RPG d20 Modern.

[Crow]

I'm pretty certain the Talent Tree System DnD is using for 4th has little to nothing to do with WoW since Wizards of the Coast has been using Talent Trees since 2002 with the RPG d20 Modern.

Yes. Let's hope they include a nice table depicting these trees as well. Though a minor annoyance, I always hated looing up D20 Modern talents.

[dentrag2]

yeah, magic makes no sense now. i mean come on. i checked the players handbook

Power word kill, 9th lvl spell, "DIVINATION"
Shouldent it be necromancy or evocation?

[Zenos]

yeah, magic makes no sense now. i mean come on. i checked the players handbook

Power word kill, 9th lvl spell, "DIVINATION"
Shouldent it be necromancy or evocation?

Ain't it on Enchantment?

[Prophaniti]

Originaly WarcraftI was meant to be an Warhammer game, but later Gamesworkshop didn't want it anymore so WarcraftI became a game with his own world.

Ah. Hadn't heard that... any links?


yeah, magic makes no sense now. i mean come on. i checked the players handbook

Power word kill, 9th lvl spell, "DIVINATION"
Shouldent it be necromancy or evocation?

It doesn't belong in Evocation or Conjuration because it doesn't create anything, isn't Necromancy because it's not negative energy... None of the other schools really fit. Mostly, though, Divination needed some good combat spells. That said, there are a lot of things with spells that don't make sense.

[Albonor]

Warhammer Fantasy Battles actually did come out about 3 years before Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, both in the mid 80's

Ok, my bad for the order.

[Moff Chumley]

There are no original ideas anymore. Just mutations and fusions of old ones.

[Kurald Galain]

Originaly WarcraftI was meant to be an Warhammer game, but later Gamesworkshop didn't want it anymore so WarcraftI became a game with his own world.

Got a source on that?

Because I see zero relationship between Warcraft and Warhammer, other than the first three letters of their name.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Didn't the warcraft entry on wikipedia comment on it?

[Thinker]

Didn't the warcraft entry on wikipedia comment on it?

Yes, with a citation needed attached to it and in the discussion talking about how there's no proof of this claim, whatsoever.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Good. Then, considering the tremendous amount of proof that has been gathered over the years, it MUST be tah truthz0rz.

[dentrag2]

Ah. Hadn't heard that... any links?



It doesn't belong in Evocation or Conjuration because it doesn't create anything, isn't Necromancy because it's not negative energy... None of the other schools really fit. Mostly, though, Divination needed some good combat spells. That said, there are a lot of things with spells that don't make sense.

Then wouldent it be in universal if it dident fit in anything? come on. PWS is actually in ABJURATION in my book, although thats probably a typo.

I am the lone user of the :roach: emoticon

[Prophaniti]

Then wouldent it be in universal if it dident fit in anything? come on. PWS is actually in ABJURATION in my book, although thats probably a typo.

I am the lone user of the :roach: emoticon

Well, not to derail the thread, but I kinda agree with you. The PW spells should be universal school, but for some reason they decided to spread them out. Probably so specialist mages couldn't access all of them.

:roach: There. Now you'll never be alone again. Give me a hug...

[dentrag2]

Well, not to derail the thread, but I kinda agree with you. The PW spells should be universal school, but for some reason they decided to spread them out. Probably so specialist mages couldn't access all of them.

:roach: There. Now you'll never be alone again. Give me a hug...

Thank you for giving me a reason to live. anyway, elves seem a bit overpowered now, and humans are gonna have to get a new bonus because a feat and 4 extra skill points doesnt stand up to +2 dex and wisdom.:roach:

[Titanium Dragon]

As I said previously:

Dungeons and Dragons inspired the 1980 game Rogue.
One of Rogue's successors (Rogue-like games) inspired Diablo, which even included Rogue's "go to hell and beat a huge monster there at the end of a giant random dungeon" thing.
Diablo spawned Diablo 2, the obligatory sequel.
Diablo 2 spawned World of Warcraft, except it stole its flavor from the Warcraft series, which stole their flavor from... D&D.

Thus, World of Warcraft is itself based on duneons and dragons, more or less. I don't think good stuff from WoW is really a bad thing, as it IS a successor to D&D.