Can we please stop this

[Seppo87]

"if you want fighting, go play a video game" how many times has this phrase been thrown around by self-righteous "purists" of roleplaying?

Actually tho,
a game system that features most of its content as rules and content for conflict and conflic resolution, is most probably an action-oriented RPG by design and is supposed to be played as such (if we *really* want to find a "right" way of playing, just for the sake of completeness, although there is no right way except what works for you and your friends)

But the interesting -and ironic- part is:

Nowadays, most triple A games are written, directed, art directed, and acted better than what most RPG guys will ever manage to bring to the table. Even if you studied acting and writing, you're most probably nowhere near the level of actual professionals that work in the industry. You couldn't compete if you had the time, much less when you're improvising.
Most RPG performances are inferior to videogames, in a narrative sense.

So what's the deal with videogames being used as a paragon of superficial, plotless entertainment? It's time we get past this, and start to ostracize this line of thinking.

Oh, and most Roleplay purists actuyally sound quite ridiculous when "acting", and their narrative consists in convincing everyone else that their mary sue/marty stu is actually legit.
Yeah, rolling dice all the time can get stale pretty quickly, but at least it's not trying too hard.
But let's save this for another day

[Genth]

"if you want fighting, go play a video game" how many times has this phrase been thrown around by self-righteous "purists" of roleplaying?

Maybe a couple? Maybe less? You're right, ignore the gamer-hipsters, there's not that many of them, enjoy the awesome computer games, get inspired by them and make more awesome tabletop games!

[Silva Stormrage]

"if you want fighting, go play a video game" how many times has this phrase been thrown around by self-righteous "purists" of roleplaying?

Actually tho,
a game system that features most of its content as rules and content for conflict and conflic resolution, is most probably an action-oriented RPG by design and is supposed to be played as such (if we *really* want to find a "right" way of playing, just for the sake of completeness)

But the interesting -and ironic- part is:

Nowadays, most triple A games are written, directed, art directed, and acted better than what most RPG guys will ever manage to bring to the table. Even if you studied acting and writing, you're most probably nowhere near the level of actual professionals that work in the industry. You couldn't compete if you had the time, much less when you're improvising.
Most RPG performances are inferior to videogames, in a narrative sense.

So what's the deal with videogames being used as a paragon of superficial, plotless entertainment? It's time we get past this, and start to ostracize this line of thinking.

Oh, and most Roleplay purists actuyally sound quite ridiculous when "acting", and their narrative consists in convincing everyone else that their mary sue/marty stu is actually legit.
But let's save this for another day.

... I have never heard this uttered ever. Could you show an example? The closest thing I can think of is people thinking that D&D's 4th edition's ruleset is like WoW or some other MMORPG and regardless if you agree or not that is not about the existence of fighting but more how the combat system is designed.

[Vitruviansquid]

Yeah... I have literally never heard anyone say that having fighting in an RPG is wrong because you might as well be playing a video game.

Now I *have* heard many people say having mechanics X, Y, or Z means you might as well be playing a video game.

But never about fighting.

[Seppo87]

... I have never heard this uttered ever

Maybe a couple? Maybe less?

Okay, I'm genuinely surprised here.

Looks like I assumed -wrongly- that my local internet community (and by local, I mean Italy) was somehow representative of the average around the world.

Here's the story, should anyone be interested:
In my country we are literally plagued by these game hipsters.
Facebook groups are an incredible showcase of what I described.
In most of them, simply mentioning "build" or "multiclassing" summons swarms of angry players, slapping in your face their hard truth - basically the stormwind fallacy.

The most influential youtubers that talk about D&D promote this line of thinking and are usually weak on the rules side.
To the point that "The Paladin (in 3.5) is a great class choice that I encourage because paladin is a champion of good, hard to roleplay well, full of difficult choices and always at risk of losing powers because of a small mistake" not mentioning that they mecahnically have an hard time keeping up (and dismissing the Crusader as a powerplayer's weeaboo fantasy).
In another video, the same guy didn't even know you can apply metamagic on divine spells.
These people are influential, but they are not the source. They are just voicing what the majority thinks.

When I DMed my first campaign, I had a player who was literally intimidated by this pressure and wouldn't try to roleplay for fear of not being good enough. That was the most depressing thing ever, and although I told him I didn't enforce acting or didn't even expect any roleplay unless the player spontaneously wanted to, I wasn't able to help him relax.

Okay, now I really feel like playing with people from other places.

[Genth]

Okay, I'm genuinely surprised here.

Looks like I assumed -wrongly- that my local internet community (and by local, I mean Italy) was somehow representative of the average around the world.

Here's the story, should anyone be interested:
In my country we are literally plagued by these game hipsters.
Facebook groups are an incredible showcase of what I described.
In most of them, simply mentioning "build" or "multiclassing" summons swarms of angry players, slapping in your face their hard truth - basically the stormwind fallacy.

The most influential youtubers that talk about D&D promote this line of thinking and are usually weak on the rules side.
To the point that "The Paladin (in 3.5) is a great class because he's a champion of good, hard to roleplay well, full of difficult choices and always at risk of losing her powers because of a small mistake" while being completely oblivious of the fact that they mecahnically have an hard time keeping up. In another video, the same guy didn't even know you can apply metamagic on divine spells.
These people are influential, but they are not the source. They are just voicing what the majority thinks.

Okay, now I really feel like playing with people from other places.

Do some PBPs here! :D

[Slipperychicken]

I saw a lot of "gaming purists" in university and on here. They act more or less as you describe -denouncing people for putting any effort at all toward their characters' performance in combat, believing that caring about game mechanics and having fun with roleplay are not compatible, and so on.


I have heard phrases like "video-gamey" and "like a video game" used as negatives on here and other forums too, particularly when denouncing someone for not roleplaying properly. Video-games are seen as a lesser medium to tabletop roleplaying, although I think that perception may be fading as insights and theory from video-game design are being more publicly applied to tabletop. It often comes up as DMing advice, to take some concepts traditionally used in video-games and adapt them to tabletop.

[BWR]

I do understand the feeling that if you want a very detailed combat system with absurd number options in combat and a game that involves little to nothing other than fighting and loot-gathering, then you're probably just as well or better off with a video game designed for these purposes. The point of roleplaying is roleplaying and if you are going to ignore that aspect then there isn't much point.

This argument about well-crafted AAA games doesn't really hold water because the roleplaying in a proper RPG isn't acting or delivering impassioned lines but creating your character and having the freedom and imagination to determine their actions and reactions with other PCs and the setting in general. No matter how well done a video game is you aren't actually deciding much of anything and are only going through the motions someone else gave you. The story may be good but it isn't your story, it belongs to someone else.

This isn't to say there cannot be a lot of combat in a properly roleplayed game, nor that there aren't games that have mostly or entirely missed the point of roleplaying and are basically a board game or video game without the medium of those games.

[Cozzer]

Looks like I assumed -wrongly- that my local internet community (and by local, I mean Italy) was somehow representative of the average around the world.

I'm Italian, and I think we do suffer from that. Our nerds are, on average, noticeably more "traditionalist" and conservative than average Internet nerds. But this doesn't say anything about any single nerd! You can get a lot of good and pleasant players if you take care to avoid the "my way or the badwrong way" ones. Try looking at these Facebook groups and whatever as an handy "who to avoid" list.

[Seppo87]

the roleplaying in a proper RPG isn't acting or delivering impassioned lines

You have no idea how many people firmly believe the opposite

[Blackhawk748]

I think i've heard that particular usage...once? And i do have a buddy who puts virtually 0 effort into his build, so i do it for him, though i do try to avoid multiclassing when possible as he prefers single classing.

"The Paladin (in 3.5) is a great class choice that I encourage because paladin is a champion of good, hard to roleplay well, full of difficult choices and always at risk of losing powers because of a small mistake"

Oh my god you are so wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. This is the worst kind of person to play a Paladin for. "Oh you Jaywalkeed? You fall."

[Segev]

I would suggest that it's less "Italy" and more "Facebook" that is your problem culture, here. Facebook does lend itself towards a more free-form style of RP, and that style of RP is rife with god-mode mary sue characters who try to make everything about them and fix everyone's problems in uninteresting, reality-warping ways. The vigilance against this kind of "but I should be GOOD at this!" argumentation for why the free-form character never loses or fails leads to a suspicion of those who are even competent in "too many" areas (a highly subjective thing).

When people with this formative experience are introduced to more rules-heavy games, they bring that bias against being "too omni-capable" with them, and they retain their sense that you should self-censor your character's power. In free-form, you should never be as powerful as you could possibly write a character to be, so obviously, in rules-restricted/defined games, you should never be the maximum power the rules would let you.

They therefore equate mechanical optimization with the god-mode mary sues. Discussing your build means, to them, that you're fishing for those "backstory excuses" to make your character "too powerful." And since such omnicapable PCs are almost always badly RP'd in their free-form games, obviously anybody focused on making a powerful, widely-capable character in a rules-heavy RPG is going to be bad at RP, as well.


The Stormwind Fallacy is seductive because it is easy to look at a stat page full of semi-randomly-named abilities, or at a stat page which has the same familiar high-efficiency options as a bunch of others, and assume that a "real role-player" would have accepted a sub-optimal stat page in the name of doing something different, something that "fit the character" (because obviously, if you wrote your character such that it fit this thing, or you want to use this thing in spite of the fluff the book gives it not fitting, you're a bad RPer). They don't generally "get" re-fluffing, ironically. A rules-heavy game, to them, is rigid, and the mechanics must be tied to the fluff of the rule, rather than used as a tool to achieve the effect you want. And, because free-form has to have flaws simply voluntarily taken for story value, rules-heavy games must have you take bad choices to prove your role-playing chops.

It rarely occurs to them to blame the game's design for the Boxing skill being something that literally everybody who wants to be good at any sort of combat should be seriously considering taking. Only "powergamers" would want that. "Real roleplayers" understand that flaws such as attacking less often make the character more of a "real character." Because, again, in free-form, you HAVE to impose those limits. And those limits don't mean your character fails all the time, because it's free-form, so when the story is better if you succeed, you get the "one in a million" success. Or your failures are narrated with pre-planned results to lead to more story. (It is a failure of a GM to have failure stymie the game entirely, but failure being an option without it being the only option is rarer in free-form than in rules-heavy games.)


So it's easy for me to see WHY people fall for the Stormwind Fallacy. WHY they assume that wanting rules is just an excuse to abuse them and ignore RP. They're wrong, but that's where it comes from.

[Belac93]

I've honestly never heard this. I quite enjoy both.

The game is built to do combat and roleplaying, and I usually optimize my characters. I make my character concept before my build, but that's because I get bored if I just have a blank character, and have to develop them later.

Try playing a PbP here (find one that you think will last a while), or hang out a bit in the individual game forums. About half of everything in the advice sections is optimization or Q&A.

[Seppo87]

@segev
This is an interesting digression about Facebook and freeform RP, but my experience is different and I suspect is a european (or simply italian) thing, bor out of our traditional artistic and literary roots - more specifically, out of our nostalgia of the classics.
(as if roleplaying well was somehow a way to stay true to our ideals of artistic expression, which is a very common need in hipsters and not-so-social people who incidentally happen to be plenty in the D&D crew)

Most people playing tabletop around here do not have a freeform background.
They have most likely read Tolkien tho.
There's this basic assumption that the purpose of RPG is to enact dramatic scenes that should be performed by the actors, rules used only as a supporting tool.

Naturally there are fans of other gaming styles around. I'm describing the majority, and it's not just Facebook, it used to be like this way before Facebook existed.
The biggest italian D&D forum used to be ran by these people, and I'm not joking here, there was a rule that would get you banned if you did not write properly in any of the sections.

For a long time the only two games with a wide fanbase were AD&D and whitewolf's wod stuff (mostly Vampires) and those people were used to a pure old school, perform-heavy, railroaded and punishing (i.e. you played bad no XP, you're challenging the questgiver you character gets humiliated etc) style of play
The old generations "trained" the new ones and their legacy is still alive.

This is another kind of stormwind. It's not about the character lacking any flaws because that's poor taste, it's more a Player VS Story thing. Optimization is seen as the tool bad players use to prevail at the expense of the narrative.
Also, being interested in action scenes is deemed childish and shallow.

Of course I can see the situation here (on gitp) is entirely different, but I thought the phrase I quoted in OP was common worldwide and this place being visited by expèerts was the exception, not the rule.

Anyway, the situation is slowly changing for the better here, the forum I mentioned earlier has a new staff and they were so bitter about the situation that they made a rule against people who try to enforce a single right way of playing (i.e. answering "you should play a single class othwerise you're a munchkin" in an optimization thread - yes they were free to do so before, and they still do where there are no rules against it, i.e. on Facebook)

The very group I'm playing in currently, in 2016, has a player who at some point said the phrase in OP.

I guess it's just a matter of time.

[Talakeal]

I have heard it all the time, both online and in person. Heck, my former DM said it so often that it was almost his catch phrase.

I also has one PC who has a completely opposite oppinion. He likes lots of combat in his RPGs and claims that if he wanted plot he would just go and read a book.

[sktarq]

Another side to it is that some people play a very "video-gamey" play style seem horribly inefficient. If that was the mental itch you wanted to scratch why play a TTRPG when video games can now do it better?

For me the above only makes sense for players who want to only dungeon delve have four things to do entering a room (trap search, loot search, kill what ever moves, and pick a door). I figure the OOC. Socialization drives them to play the slower more awkward TTRPG over a computer game. And those people can be just as pushy about the game being played "wrong" if it is dealing with politics and doesn't have enough stabbing for their tastes.

[Slipperychicken]

Oh my god you are so wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. This is the worst kind of person to play a Paladin for. "Oh you Jaywalkeed? You fall."

It is a horrible way to DM for paladins, and one which I strongly discourage, but he is right if the DM is playing it by the book. A long time ago, I put together a list of things that 3.5 considers to be evil actions. For example, willingly killing a bandit for treasure is considered a "nefarious purpose", and that's an evil act by the book, which in turn falls the paladin.

[BWR]

It is a horrible way to DM for paladins, and one which I strongly discourage, but he is right if the DM is playing it by the book. A long time ago, I put together a list of things that 3.5 considers to be evil actions. For example, willingly killing a bandit for treasure is considered a "nefarious purpose", and that's an evil act by the book, which in turn falls the paladin.

I would agree. Killing people in order to take their gains, ill-gotten or otherwise, is pretty evil. If, however, the paladin kills the bandits in accordance with local law to protect innocent people from ne'er-do-wells and cannot find the original owners of their loot and takes it for herself (probably donating a certain amount to charity), it is perfectly acceptable.
It's not the killing in itself that's a problem in D&D, it's the targets and the purpose that make all the difference.

[Lord Raziere]

well this a new complaint.

personally, I wouldn't want any roleplaying where I DON'T have combat. I may be a good roleplayer and want to play characters with their flaws and shortcomings and problems and so on, but I also want to kick evil's behind, be an awesome action hero, save the day, be a badass. if I can't have both, its not a roleplay I want to be in. like y'know, stuff like Marvel comics, or anime heroes....

I think the closest equivalent to what your talking about Seppo, here in the US is the murderhobo accusation. basically, murderhobo is a term to refer to the common "wandering fighting adventurer" archetype, and it has negative connotations, implying that the character is nothing but a murderous hobo who does it just for the exp and loot, with no connections to the world around them. an accusation which of course is completely ignoring the long history of knight errants from chinese wuxia, to japanese samurai to european knights to even american cowboys who count as that archetype, who are all basically wandering adventurers and great characters as well.

so yeah. might just be murderhobo accusation in different clothes.

also, whoa Italy is way more anti-optimizer than I used to be back when I was stupid. unfortunately, even if that had been known to me at the time, I'm still a combat person, so they still wouldn't appeal to me at all.

[Talakeal]

The IP seems to have the implication that most roleplayers put a lot of stake in the wuality of the players performance and everyone's acting ability. I dont think this is a very fair assumption, and it has never really been something that I have even noticed and is never discussed in my groups, most of which are pretty much on the far side of a high combat game.

[ngilop]

"if you want fighting, go play a video game" how many times has this phrase been thrown around by self-righteous "purists" of roleplaying?

Actually tho,
a game system that features most of its content as rules and content for conflict and conflic resolution, is most probably an action-oriented RPG by design and is supposed to be played as such (if we *really* want to find a "right" way of playing, just for the sake of completeness, although there is no right way except what works for you and your friends)

But the interesting -and ironic- part is:

Nowadays, most triple A games are written, directed, art directed, and acted better than what most RPG guys will ever manage to bring to the table. Even if you studied acting and writing, you're most probably nowhere near the level of actual professionals that work in the industry. You couldn't compete if you had the time, much less when you're improvising.
Most RPG performances are inferior to videogames, in a narrative sense.

So what's the deal with videogames being used as a paragon of superficial, plotless entertainment? It's time we get past this, and start to ostracize this line of thinking.

Oh, and most Roleplay purists actuyally sound quite ridiculous when "acting", and their narrative consists in convincing everyone else that their mary sue/marty stu is actually legit.
Yeah, rolling dice all the time can get stale pretty quickly, but at least it's not trying too hard.
But let's save this for another day

In my 29 years of gaming, never once have I ever heard anybody say this or anything remotely close to it. But guys who design RPGs are inherently better actors that lets say Sir Ian Mckellan? That's is something I am going to call bull pukcy on.

But then I never heard of murder-hoboing before this website, so I would assume its the same people doing both? Not sure.



I'd rather the game-ist, or what have you, would stop referring to people who have 'sub optimal' characters in RPG (specifically D&D) as: wastes of life, should kill themselves, are stupid and should not breed, should never play a RPG ever, and some other such nonsense.

And yes some of these have been said to me on these very forums as well as in private messages.

Not everybody needs to be playing at the highest levels ofoptimization to have fun
playing a gam with friends ya know. There do exist games, many of them actually, where the knight, bard, rogue, cleric, and wizard can all play together and have a blast.

[Seppo87]

I'd rather the game-ist, or what have you, would stop referring to people who have 'sub optimal' characters in RPG (specifically D&D) as: wastes of life, should kill themselves, are stupid and should not breed, should never play a RPG ever, and some other such nonsense

This is bad news and I feel sad thinking about it.
I do not support any of this and if that happens again its best to report such messages to the staff

[Segev]

The only times I'd criticize somebody for a sub-optimal character is if they're complaining their character can't do something and refuse to take advice on how to make it do it better, personally.

[wumpus]

I saw a lot of "gaming purists" in university and on here. They act more or less as you describe -denouncing people for putting any effort at all toward their characters' performance in combat, believing that caring about game mechanics and having fun with roleplay are not compatible, and so on.


I have heard phrases like "video-gamey" and "like a video game" used as negatives on here and other forums too, particularly when denouncing someone for not roleplaying properly. Video-games are seen as a lesser medium to tabletop roleplaying, although I think that perception may be fading as insights and theory from video-game design are being more publicly applied to tabletop. It often comes up as DMing advice, to take some concepts traditionally used in video-games and adapt them to tabletop.

A character who doesn't pay attention to combat performance is outright suicidal in most games. It might be a popular trope to role-play (especially with a drawn out death scene), but I'd hardly call it role-playing. Much of the issues with "builds" is that the mechanics are outright bizarre in terms of the characters lives. Just imagine the weird turns that Nale went through to build his class, and how odd it was when Elan threatened to take a level of wizard. But something like a sword and board character would be equally odd since (unless the character had an intelligence of a "D&D 7 or 8") they would be aware of how dangerous it was and how ineffective the shield was.

You have no idea how many people firmly believe the opposite

It works really well if you are playing a bard. Possibly in a "everyone is a bard" party. Not so well if you are playing a stoic barbarian.

[MrNobody]

As a fellow player, and as fellow Italian, i plead guilty of having defined a game "video-gamey" in a negative way. There is a difference, though: i use this term talking about the structure of a game, and not about its plot.

When i play, i like being free of choosing what to do and even if i'm not an optimizer i like to have plenty of options to pick from. The more a game gets closer to locked skill-trees, the more it looks like a video game to me, the less i like it.

Stated this personal opinion (that is, remember, purely personal), i add that i do not consider a "video-gamey" RPG to be an inherently a bad game, or superficial, or plotless. For example, i'm not a big fan of WoD "dots" system, but i consider it to have produced marvellous plots and "historical backgrounds"!! I simply don't play those games by my initiative: if my gaming group decides to give it a try, i'll try it too, but i won't be the one to propose it.

RPGs are, after all, social games, and the base for an enjoyable game is to play one (and play it in a way) that everyone agrees on. In my 10 years experience i've mostly played D&D 3.5, and i've addressed it in different ways with different groups: "Standard" dungeon crawl, heavy roleplay... i had my "drama queen" moments at the table acting with tears at the corners of my eyes and i organized a small Dragon Ball -like tournament in which every player controlled four 15th level characters at the same time in TOTAL CLASH FOR UTTER AND MINDLESS DICE-DELIVERED DESTRUCTION!!!!

I indeed agree that here in Italy we have gamers that share strange habits*, but the behaviour you describe looks more like a form of extremism like many others (and thus relate to being a rude and a little close-minded human being) and less a gaming-specific problem.

@segev
This is another kind of stormwind. It's not about the character lacking any flaws because that's poor taste, it's more a Player VS Story thing. Optimization is seen as the tool bad players use to prevail at the expense of the narrative.
Also, being interested in action scenes is deemed childish and shallow.

In all the groups i've played in (it counts up to 25-30 people), optimization is seen as something everyone (DM and players) has to agree with before anyone (DM or player) brings it to the table.
An example: recently in my gaming group a player decided to come up with a new PC. He quickly browsed the net and found out a wizard-incantatrix-something-something uber-build digging out feats and additional rules (even ones that my group never used, like LA buy off) from different splatbooks. Where's the deal? the deal is that half of the group likes to play as simple "hobby" and does not care that much about builds, resulting often in sub-optimal PCs. Bringing to the table such a PC would have broken an enstablished balance, the player understood the matter and accepted to tune the build down to match the general level.


*For example my first DM claimed that no adventure could start at a level different from the 1st. He also liked short games, so you could grow up a character up to 5th level at max before the adventure stopped. After a 5th level paladin, a 5th level rogue-wizard, and a 5th level druid the whole group forced him to change: we started at 2nd level and ended at 6th
Another DM i briefly played with made us roll a d6 instead of the standard spot/listen check to notice things (it may have taken it from a previous edition of D&D but i'm not sure), and set up a special sub-quest for our 5th paladin to find his mount because it was "acceptable" that a warrior could summon it out from nowhere...

[Darth Ultron]

So what's the deal with videogames being used as a paragon of superficial, plotless entertainment? It's time we get past this, and start to ostracize this line of thinking.

Well, most video games after Pong had a plot. Even if it's a boring, superficial, railroaded plot. So, yes, video games are paragons of simple, straight forward game play. You must do X adventure is every RPG type video game.

Video games have to be simple, that is just a rule of reality until they invent Artificial Intelligence. When you walk up to a NPC in a video game they will say ''ho, adventurer! For no reason other then you need to know..wink,wink, the red circle is the way to the north door. Here take this potion of life i have for no reason and good travels." Simply put they can only program so much.

[BayardSPSR]

I realize some of the posts on this thread, which I started, may have been an immediate contributor to this one. I didn't address them there, since they were a bit off-topic, but I will here.

Video games and tabletop RPGs have similarities, appeal to many of the same people, and evolved almost symbiotically, drawing inspiration from each other, over the same handful of decades. The fact that they're entangled - that there are RPGs of video games, and video games of RPGs - is inherent to both industries. They inhabit overlapping pop cultural spaces. This is okay.

This means, inherently, that some RPGs will resemble some video games relative to other RPGs, and that some video games will resemble RPGs relative to other video games. There's a whole genre of video games called "RPGs," even. Venn diagrams overlap; this is okay.

Because of this symbiotic development and ongoing exchange of inspiration, it is fair to criticize both RPGs and video games for having drawn elements from each other that are inappropriate for their medium. It's also fair to credit RPGs and video games for having drawn concepts from each other that are evocative, work well, are fun, or good in any other way. That is, "being like a video game" isn't a criticism; "being inappropriately like a video game" is.

RPGs and video games are not better than each other. They are different media that include games with elements inspired by each other, and that's not inherently bad.

I saw a lot of "gaming purists" in university and on here. They act more or less as you describe -denouncing people for putting any effort at all toward their characters' performance in combat, believing that caring about game mechanics and having fun with roleplay are not compatible, and so on.

Ironically, I've seen the opposite. That is, the "gaming purists" I've run into were heavy online gamers, actively studying game design, and the kind of people who play collectible card games with the express intention of creating the most elaborate rule-spirit-crushing victory-engines possible.

Tangent: the games of theirs that I playtested were an excellent demonstration of the fact that "good design" and "fun" are two totally different things.

Personally, I wouldn't want any roleplaying where I DON'T have combat.

Any? Ever? Wow. To be clear, I don't think this is a bad thing, or that I wouldn't be able to participate in a fun RPG with someone who had the same preference to the same degree, but I didn't realize anyone wanted that much consistency out of it.

As a fellow player, and as fellow Italian, i plead guilty of having defined a game "video-gamey" in a negative way. There is a difference, though: i use this term talking about the structure of a game, and not about its plot.

This seems like a valuable distinction to make. Video gaming is fun, but the medium isn't noted for being characterized by engaging narrative structure (with notable exceptions).

[goto124]

Video gaming is fun, but the medium isn't noted for being characterized by engaging narrative structure (with notable exceptions).

Due to the difference in medium (live human vs pre-scripted computer running the world), TRPGs and CRPGs have very different ways of going about narrative. The latter is much more linear and 'railroady', for example. Conventions acceptable in CRPGs (e.g. you must get to the next area by killing this specific monster for this specific key to take to this specific door) are not acceptable in TRPGs (why can't I pick or bash down the door? Why can't I pickpocket the monster holding the key? Why is the monster even holding the key? Why is there no other way to get to the next area? Why can't I choose to go to a different area instead?).

[BayardSPSR]

Due to the difference in medium (live human vs pre-scripted computer running the world), TRPGs and CRPGs have very different ways of going about narrative. The latter is much more linear and 'railroady', for example. Conventions acceptable in CRPGs (e.g. you must get to the next area by killing this specific monster for this specific key to take to this specific door) are not acceptable in TRPGs (why can't I pick or bash down the door? Why can't I pickpocket the monster holding the key? Why is the monster even holding the key? Why is there no other way to get to the next area? Why can't I choose to go to a different area instead?).

Exactly. Ironically, this seems particularly prevalent (or at least, feels most egregious) in the video games most inspired by tabletop RPGs.

[2D8HP]

"if you want fighting, go play a video game" how many times has this phrase been thrown around by self-righteous "purists" of roleplaying?

I've read it online (which is also where I learned the phrase "Murder-hobo"). I've never actually heard it spoken IRL, but I'm pretty much out of the loop, having not played a video game since the 1980's, and having never played a "MMORPG". But a lot of the criticism of a certain type of play seems to be aimed at what I remember as being the usual way we played in the 1970's and 80's, which was glorious fun, and I would love to play again!

I read a lot of criticism of 4e D&D (which I never played so maybe some of the hate was valid, I couldn't say), and often times I would read how it was "video gamey" or "like a MMORPG", and when I'd read how the play 4e encouraged was supposedly like that I'd think, "but that just seems like what we were trying to play in the 1970's"!
What can I say "haters gonna hate"
Fun is its own reward, and I don't recall getting paid to role-play "the right way" ever.. Last I checked, it's a game for fun. Maybe once upon a time those who wanted the games to be more of an improvisational theater practice session received sass and now they want to send some back?
I like rolling dice with friends, but maybe the haters are right and video games are just so awesome were fools not to try them?
I already have enough demands on my time and wallet so I don't plan on finding out, but getting around a table with dice, friends, and pizza while imagining whomping on (or running from) monsters, without worrying about your PC's "motivation" and "tragic deal"? Good lord how I miss it.