What makes an RPG 'Video Gamey'?

[Psyren]

I never understood "video game" as a pejorative. Even putting aside the gray areas between the two like VTTs and BG/Solasta-style conversions, a lot of video game designers cut their teeth on tabletop gaming and vice-versa. They share a great deal of DNA, and there are valuable design lessons to be learned from any medium, even non-interactive ones. Every tool in the toolbox has a use, whether or not it applies to the task at hand.

One of my favorite D&D youtubers is Trekiros, a channel that uses video game design principles to improve tabletop games (mostly D&D 5e, but applicable to others as well.) For example, he has a great video analyzing the problems with Legendary Resistances in 5e, and looks at how video game boss fights do a better job of approaching this idea than 5e does. I also love a lot of video game design channels such as Extra Credits, Game Maker's Toolkit, Game Overanalyzer, Up Is Not Jump and several more.

Folks who want to better understand or improve tabletop design, yet write off everything happening in the video game sphere as unworthy, are doing themselves a disservice in my view.

[Talakeal]

Some examples of games I consider quite (usually board) gamey and ones I don't:

Gamey:
AD&D 2e /w Combat and Tactics
Battletech
Shadowrun
GURPS
D&D 3e
PF 1e
D&D 4e
PF 2e

Not Gamey:
D&D BECMI
AD&D
AD&D 2e
D&D 5e (especially with TotM)
Palladium Robotech
Palladium RIFTS
Gamma World
Traveller
Apocalypse World / PBTA
Blades in the Dark
Mutant Year Zero
Forbidden Lands

It seems like your criteria is mostly based on tactical combat and battle mats. Although I do wonder why Shadowrun is in that category.

To me the premise of this entire thread seems a bit off. If you look at the OPs question, and then scratch it beyond the surface the REAL question seems to be:

"What do I do with feedback about my creation?"

Well, you really only have a handful of responses to feedback about your game:

1. Ignore it, because it is doing what you want it to do and the people critiquing it do not value or understand what you are trying to do.

2. Compromise with it. Incorporate some parts of it to try and get closer to what you want it to do.

3. Adopt it. Steal it and make it part of the game because it does what you want it to do.

4. Cut it. Realize it is causing more confusion than helping you do what you want the game to do so it is better to not be in the game at all.


However, in order to decide how to react or incorporate the feedback you need to have two things.

1. A clear idea of what your game is trying to do.

2. Clear design goals that you use to keep the game doing what you want it to do through out.


"Video Gamey" is simply a distraction from the main question you as a designer need to have. Is the mechanic helping your game do what it is suppose to be doing, and is it in line with the design goals?

• If the answer to those two questions is no, cut it.
• If it is Yes, ignore it.
• If it is maybe, adopt or compromise it.

If you re-look at the feedback you got about your system, which of those conditions applies?

It can be very hard to know what to do with feedback until you understand what the feedback means. There are a lot of vague terms that have little to no meaning by themselves, but people are using as shorthand for very real and correct feedback.

Yes, and I'm seeing a sliding scale here:

• On the top level, the game makes rules for almost everything, and gets judged for being overcomplicated. Example: Shadowrun or Hackmaster, or those large-table wargames that last for days.
• In the middle, the game makes an effort to match rules to the fluff within complexity limits. Example: 2E, 3E, 5E, but frankly most RPGs I'm familiar with fall in this category.
• On the bottom level, the game doesn't mind having disassociations, and gets judged for being "gamey" or "gamist" or "video gamey". The most prominent example here is 4E, but games like Descent or Arkham Horror tend to be here as well.

Note that this is a scale and not three distinct categories with hard cut-off points.

That seems right.

I know my system is normally in the #2 area, but certain things such as downtime actions, wealth, encumbrance, reinforcements, wilderness survival, etc. are more in the bottom category, and players often complain about the "lack of realism / agency" when those systems don't go their way.

Generally 'video gamey' is a way of dressing up 'it's not my thing'. That pretty much became clear to me when I picked up D&D4e and couldn't see where the '4e is WoW' crowd were coming from, like they could at least picked something the game vaguely resembles it like Final Fantasy Tactics. So it's kind of like being 'too anime', it's so broad it's basically meaningless*.

IIRC 4E was explicitly created to appeal to WoW fans because it was the biggest game in the world at the time, while FF Tactics was a lot more obscure.

IMO the 3 big reasons 4E plays like WoW are:

Gamist over simulationist.
Tactical encounter balance over strategic scenario balance.
and clearly defined party rolls for each class.

[gbaji]

Re: "low and slow" - I get the appeal, but for me this is the sticking point:
So it's been five years and they're getting close to launching a coup/rebellion, but not quite there yet. So maybe six years total? That's not an unreasonable span of time for a realistic rebellion, but also it's longer than the significant majority of campaigns I've been in.

The point isn't so much with the time frame, as with the methodology involved. But yeah, my main campaign is a very long running game, so I have the luxury of putting long term stuff in it. And also not just following one plot line. The one I outlined is literaly like one of maybe 5 or 6 other things all going on at the same time. So maybe one adventure they're sailing off to somewhere to deal with something unrelated. Another, they're wandering around searching for some lost treasure hidden in the area. They may interact with various bits of different plots threads while currently doing something completely unrelated, pick up some useful bit of information, contact some new potential ally, etc.

I also run and play in shorter term games. But those are usually focused on a single set of adventures being run in a given setting. And I don't expect massive buildup or conclusions there. Often "winning" simply means achieving whatever objectives were set before us at the start (though others may come along as well).

In this case, it actually was about the term Video Gamey. I have a very set goal of the game I want to build, IE: one that allows for a character to level from standard levels of power to extreme levels of power. I'm frustrated with systems that make using powerful abilities have no effect on the world, and ones that limit the PCs access to the highest levels of power. For example, in Exalted the selling point of the game is often stated that you get to play powerful superheroes in a fantasy setting, but when you play the game you're surrounded by beings that make a mockery of the maximum power you can reach, the Unconquered Sun being a prime example.

So with those solid goals in mind, I've made a system that matches them, along with a few others that makes the system playable and fun for me and my group.

Obviously that means I'm not going to change the system because someone feels that they don't want to play a system where they can gain that much power, but the whole Video Gamey comment left me confused because, well, the things that were brought up certainly felt like they applied equally if not more to dnd and dnd-alikes.

After reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion that video-gamey is a messy term, and I shouldn't worry about it too much. Also that most people here wouldn't find my system video gamey (Though, I wish to stress, if the opposite was true and the general consensus was pretty solidly that what I was building was Video-Gamey to most, I'd likely embrace it and use it as marketing. There is no right and wrong answer here, and what excites some people drives others away. Knowing what audience you want to appeal to is always the first step).

Yeah. In hindsight, perhaps I should not have used the term "videogamey", since that has a lot of different meanings to different people (far more than I thought). I'm hard pressed to precisely label it though. Maybe "powergamey" (although that also has a lot of very different connotations). But yeah, I'm not super comfortable with games where the power scale for the PCs is, well... extreme. There should be things more powerful than the PCs in the game setting. There should be lots of such things IMO. And (again IMO based on my own preferences), at all times the PCs should be bounded by "more powerful people/forces" around them, which force them to come up with ways to deal with the situation at hand by working within those constraints.

And I guess that's why I went with "videogamey". In a lot of videogames, the solutions are always about using the players own abilities in a somewhat direct manner. Yes. There are constraints around you, but each and every single individual "scene" you deal with you must have the correct power/items/whatever to win it. That's somewhat the nature of most such games. I suppose we could except various scripted CRPGs, but even those, it's a matter of the player picking the correct sequence of choices, and as long as they do so, any conflicts are directly winnable.

That's not to say I don't like PCs having powers and abilities that kick butt. Just that there's a scale to that. Kicking butt on large numbers of "normal" opponents? Sure. But there will be NPCs with similar powers as well. And things like gods? So far outside that power range as to be laughable. The closest the very most powerful characters in my game setting can manage is an avatar of a god (which are by rules limited in power when operating on the material plane). Said avatar might represent like .0001% of the actual power of the god, but will still represent a massive epic fight for the PCs to manage. If they actually traveled to a god's home plane (or just encountered them on any higher plane)? The most powerful party in existence would be incinerated to ash (or equivalent effect depending on the powers of the deity) in one second. No exceptions. Not because I'm being arbitrary here, but because in the game rules, gods have well defined amounts of primal power. Power measured in the hundreds of thousands of points, with no casting limit. While mortals, if they've managed to obtain some relic or whatnot with primal power in it, might have like 5 or 10 points. Maybe. God magic just ignores anything less than that, so all your other magic does nothing against a god. An avatar, for example, could have up to 100 such primal points (and casting limits if on the mortal plane). Possible, but incredibly dangerous. An actual god on a higher plane? A casual handwave puts several hundred points of damage/effect to everyone in the area, with nothing but primal magic protecting against it. In a game sytem where max hps are in the mid double digits. So even those super powerful characters might be able to block the first 40 points of damage/effect, then take the remaining couple hundred, and then die immediately. No saving throw. No takebacks. No do-overs. That stuff is simply out of the scope of player characters. As it should be IMO.

Does that mean that PCs in this game can't have an impact on stuff at that power level? Sure they can. But it'll never be "fight a god". We have, however, had scenarios where we were recovering lost or imprisoned deities from the gods age (or in one case a diety had trapped and was stealing the power of another and the PCs, with another deity's help, snuck into the "jail" and opened it up to free him). Or another where we were locating the tomb of a dead god and releasing its last bit of power back into the world (for "reasons", but the PCs who did this got some rewards for it as well). Every one of those had an impact on the world, even a significant impact, but never required that the PCs themselves have power anywhere near that of the gods. There's also a bit of setting rules about gods where they are more or less "stuck" doing their various functions, and can't really act so directly. Which is why they often need to have mortals act in situations like this (with some help from them, of course). But those types of adventures are rare, specifically because I find that the "god stuff" gets a bit tedious if over used.


And sure. In theory, I could scale this same game up and hand out super powerful artifacts and relics (or just direct power) to PCs to give them that sort of power. But I've seen what happens to game settings when you do that. You kinda can never come back afterwards. It's a one way trip. And I supppose, if you're runnning a one shot sequence type thing, you could use this sort of progression to build PCs up to where they are fighthing gods, and changing the flow of time, and whatnot. But where do you go from there? Nowhere. You're done. Start a new campaign in a new setting with new characters. Again, fine for the single shot stuff. But IME, players like to replay their characters. Having a more flat progression allows them to do that, and allows you as the GM to continue to provide a variety of challenging and fun things for them to do with those characters. Once you go to the god level? You kinda can't do much except new and more poweful god level stuff. And that becomes so disconnected from the "normal world" that you run into the problem of "why are we doing this" stuff I mentioned earlier.


Again. That's just my experience and my preference. YMMV of course.

[icefractal]

There should be things more powerful than the PCs in the game setting. There should be lots of such things IMO. And (again IMO based on my own preferences), at all times the PCs should be bounded by "more powerful people/forces" around them, which force them to come up with ways to deal with the situation at hand by working within those constraints.

And I guess that's why I went with "videogamey". In a lot of videogames, the solutions are always about using the players own abilities in a somewhat direct manner. Yes. There are constraints around you, but each and every single individual "scene" you deal with you must have the correct power/items/whatever to win it. That's somewhat the nature of most such games. I suppose we could except various scripted CRPGs, but even those, it's a matter of the player picking the correct sequence of choices, and as long as they do so, any conflicts are directly winnable.

Interesting definition - I think we have fairly different ideas of "videogamey", because I find bounds/constraints very compatible with being video-game-like. Not inherently so, there's plenty of real situations where constraints are important, but video games are full of constraints and boundaries.

"Despite that you are a master infiltrator, you can't just go steal the key, you must Do The Quest to gain access"
"And no, you can't steal from the shop either, that's Not How It Works"
"You may have beaten giants and dragons, but nothing you can do will move this boulder from your path or let you go around it, because you need to Convince The NPC to move it (probably by Doing The Quest)"
"You might have a crowbar, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, and an alien plasma cannon, but there's nothing you can do to this wooden fence, because that's Not The Path"
"No matter what you do, you can't defeat the Big Bad in any way other than Following The Plan that the quest giver explained to you"
"You may be literally saving the entire world and everyone knows it, but don't expect free lodging, or permission to access the royal library without Doing The Quest"

The point where this feels video-gamey is (IMO) when there's insufficient justification for the constraints. See The Plot-Driven Door for a notable example.

But like, "the characters are very powerful, and the world acknowledges that"? Not at all video-gamey, IMO, any more than "the characters are pretty average, and treated as such" is.

[Telok]

"You may be literally saving the entire world and everyone knows it, but don't expect free lodging, or permission to access the royal library without Doing The Quest"

Game: "Only you can save the world from this terrible scourge!"
Player: "Dude, the nameless door guards in every town have 10x my hit points and put a 300% one-shot beat down on my ass if I accidentally button A without holding down C first. But I'm the only person who can go stab a half dozen goblins?"

Game: "Only you can save the world from this terrible scourge!"
Player: "What about that army that's camped outside? They union and won't go into dungeons that aren't OSHA approved? You need four rando semi-criminals to clear the giant ants out of your gold mines?"

Game: "Only you can save the world from this terrible scourge!"
Player: "Yeah yeah, we get it already. We're still taking seven weeks off to upgrade our ship & gear because we'll get there just in the nick of time no matter how fast or slow we go."

[Ignimortis]

Game: "Only you can save the world from this terrible scourge!"
Player: "Dude, the nameless door guards in every town have 10x my hit points and put a 300% one-shot beat down on my ass if I accidentally button A without holding down C first. But I'm the only person who can go stab a half dozen goblins?"

Game: "Only you can save the world from this terrible scourge!"
Player: "What about that army that's camped outside? They union and won't go into dungeons that aren't OSHA approved? You need four rando semi-criminals to clear the giant ants out of your gold mines?"

Game: "Only you can save the world from this terrible scourge!"
Player: "Yeah yeah, we get it already. We're still taking seven weeks off to upgrade our ship & gear because we'll get there just in the nick of time no matter how fast or slow we go."

And that's the reverse side of the philosophy that gbaji seems to be suggesting. Unless the players actually are above the average weight class for problem-solving, why won't any of those high-power NPCs that keep the players bounded go do that? The answer usually is along the lines of "they are too busy with REAL problems" and causes some meaningful doubt about whether the plot is worth following, especially if your party is made up of people who don't particularly care as long as the world's not getting destroyed.

If the local lord can take 40 of his men and send them to clear out the goblin caves with good chances of success, and they'll maybe lose 10 people, then they'd better care SO MUCH about those 10 men that putting adventurers on the task is reasonable.

And this gets pretty easily extrapolated onto higher-level plots too, since such a philosophy also has to have limiters on high-level characters too. If a sorcerer king can pop over to the big bad of the plot, two-round them to death with negligible risks of failure and zero risk of death, and then pop right back - why aren't they doing that, again?

[Telok]

And this gets pretty easily extrapolated onto higher-level plots too, since such a philosophy also has to have limiters on high-level characters too. If a sorcerer king can pop over to the big bad of the plot, two-round them to death with negligible risks of failure and zero risk of death, and then pop right back - why aren't they doing that, again?

True, although that's more world building. I've played current mainstream games where such questions were brought about mechanically by basic relevant rules.

Perception is everything. Mechanics and presentation shape everything the players know about the game & game world. You can write the exact same setting & metaphysics & adventure & party & fights in Gurps, Conan 2d20, D&D 5e, and a Fudge hack. They'll just all be wildly different games because the mechanics are wildly different.

Perhaps... perhaps "video gamey" as an epithet came about when computer memory & processing were more limited. With more constraints on programming there were more constraints on what a crpg could allow you to do. For those of us without the free time to keep up with current open world sandbox crpgs "video game" carries more connotations of that earlier era of much more limited games where occasionally rules trumped reasonable/believable because they had to. Thus some of us perceive rule bits like "magic missile can't target doors but psychic brain melt can explode a chair and while force blast can't move either of those objects it can push around 100 foot tall giants with ease" as a video game-like rules flaw because the designer was inconsistent or sloppy and not because they're "leaving it open for the GM to interpret".

[Just to Browse]

Another thing that definitely comes to mind when I think of "video gamey" games that I was reading recently is the Plot-Driven Door:

Most videogames in the RPG genre have plot-driven doors. You know, a locked door which may be made of wood and 100 years old, but which is indestructable, un-pickable, and un-openable until some plotpoint takes place. Some games are better about this than others, but it’s a necessity of the medium.

[...]

This is the key to good writing in a game. KOTOR had many roadblocks and a couple of plot doors, but they were portrayed in a way that made sense at first glance, they didn’t insult the player’s intelligence, and the sidequests kept the player engaged along the way. Yes, the player must be on rails to some extent in a computer game, but a good writer can camoflage those rails. A bad writer draws attention to the rails and quickly makes the player resent them.

[Talakeal]

You can easily have situations where an army / town militia can defeat the PCs but not the monsters, and the PCs can defeat the monsters but not the guards.

You just have to balance the numbers right, factor in the terrain the battle will be taking place in, the logistics of supplying people, and have qualities like area attacks or needing magic weapons to hit a monster.

Basically, don't do what 5E did.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You can easily have situations where an army / town militia can defeat the PCs but not the monsters, and the PCs can defeat the monsters but not the guards.

You just have to balance the numbers right, factor in the terrain the battle will be taking place in, the logistics of supplying people, and have qualities like area attacks or needing magic weapons to hit a monster.

Basically, don't do what 5E did.

IMX, that kind of thing gets super railroady fast. Or at least has that very strong appearance. Because it requires carefully balanced situations that don't respond well or stably at all to PCs doing anything but approaching it exactly as planned.

Effectively (and this goes for other things as well), the tighter your balance is, the more fragile your system is to deviations from the expectations. Or modifications made by DMs.

I'd much rather have a flexible system with loose balance than an inflexible one with tight balance. In fact, even a small amount of inflexibility (outside of the "ok, here are the supported archetypes and genres" form) in situations, any amount of "if you don't play it exactly this way, the system starts fighting you" turns me off fairly immediately. Because it makes for worlds and fictions that require absurd levels of contrivance.

[gbaji]

And that's the reverse side of the philosophy that gbaji seems to be suggesting. Unless the players actually are above the average weight class for problem-solving, why won't any of those high-power NPCs that keep the players bounded go do that? The answer usually is along the lines of "they are too busy with REAL problems" and causes some meaningful doubt about whether the plot is worth following, especially if your party is made up of people who don't particularly care as long as the world's not getting destroyed.

If the local lord can take 40 of his men and send them to clear out the goblin caves with good chances of success, and they'll maybe lose 10 people, then they'd better care SO MUCH about those 10 men that putting adventurers on the task is reasonable.

And this gets pretty easily extrapolated onto higher-level plots too, since such a philosophy also has to have limiters on high-level characters too. If a sorcerer king can pop over to the big bad of the plot, two-round them to death with negligible risks of failure and zero risk of death, and then pop right back - why aren't they doing that, again?

Telok was primarily describing some elements of MMORPGs though, which exist purely as a means to prevent players from just wrecking the game world for everyone else by killing of NPCs that others use for various things (merchant and quest related). So you have town guards who can slap the PCs in no time, despite them being apparently unable to clear out the rats, snakes, and spiders roaming around killing everyone just outside their front gate. That's not at all what I was talking about (though, again, the term can be very very broad).

There's certainly a power level range where PCs would be much more powerful than any individual town guard (and I pretty much expect them to), but still well below power levels where they are blasting whole armies of enemies with single activations of their powers. There is, in fact, a very very large range between those two things.

Sure. That local lord could take 40 of his men and clear out the goblin caves, and lose 10 of them in the process. 10 men he's paid to train, has gotten to know, have families in town, etc. Or, he can hire out a group of strangers and have them do it instead. Or, better yet, just let these adventurers do it for free because they seem to just love doing such things merely for the rewards they will find in the goblin caves. Of, better better yet, there's one thing in the goblin caves that the lord knows about and wants retrieved, and he gets the adventurers to go kill the goblins, hand him the one item he's looking for, all for the "cost" that they get to keep any other treasure they find. Sounds like a pretty standard adventure setup, and makes 100% economic sense to all involved.

And sure. Higher level stuff gets explained away easily as well. There are lots of NPCs who are similarly powered as the PCs. The PCs happen to be the people right here at this moment. We can assume that lots of other quests are going on, right now, involving NPCs that the PCs themselves are unaware of. The false assumption here is that the PCs, and only the PCs, are powerful enough to do the task at hand. And when one extrapolates that concept and actually makes it so that it is true (ie: no one else is actually as powerful as the PCs), then that is where it feels "videogamey" to me.

It's less about whether there are bounds, but whether those bounds feel realistic or constrained. And yeah, a lot of this comes back to the kinds of adventures the setting places in front of the players. I suppose it also calls back to questions like "why doesn't Iron Man call up the whole Avengers to help him?". If there exist a whole world of heroes, as powerful or moreso than the PCs, why aren't they here to help out with this one world saving quest? Which leads one to assume that either they just don't exist (ie: game is in a vacuum with only the PCs really existing as "people who can complete the adventure", like in a videogame), or there is some reason why they aren't there (which IMO, can be good or bad given the actual rationale involved). The latter can also feel videogamey (like the guards that don't save the town from rats), but when done correctly feel "right" (to me at least). If the scenario is "PCs follow a set of clues from A, to B, to C, and then find themselves dealing with something really nasty at D", you can explain why there aren't other folks there, even though some may be more powerful: They just aren't there. You could leave and go find them, but hey, you are here, you can probably handle things (but it'll be a tough fight), so you do it. If the scenario is "super powerful being arrives and threatens to destroy the entire world", it's somewhat hard to explain why every epic level person in that world doesn't show up to fight it.

I suppose the answer here is to not have so many "world ending" type scenarios in the first place. The PCs are the ones doing <whatever> because they happened to be the folks who stumbled upon whatever lead them to that. If they weren't there, maybe someone else would be instead? To me, that's what feels "real". So I prefer to run settings like that. The whole powerlevel escalation thing is what results when you do adopt the idea that "the only way the PCs would be doing this is if they are, in fact, the most powerful and only people who can". Which leads rapidly to said escalation via logical progression (and oten requires that the GM provide powers and abilities to the PCs to make them such as well, effectively cutting them out of any "lesser" tasks because they become too trivial).

I just think there are ways to construct a game setting that can be both challenging and fun to the players while not requiring that sort of escalation. Again, maybe "videogamey" was not the best term to use, but whatever the correct term, it's something I find to be problematic when run at a tabletop game, but (and I guess this is where I was coming from) seems to work just fine in video games due to the artificial constraints on the story/scenes/whatever.

Eh. There's probably other aspects to this I've got jangling around in my head as well. Just hard to express it.

[Jakinbandw]

I just think there are ways to construct a game setting that can be both challenging and fun to the players while not requiring that sort of escalation. Again, maybe "videogamey" was not the best term to use, but whatever the correct term, it's something I find to be problematic when run at a tabletop game, but (and I guess this is where I was coming from) seems to work just fine in video games due to the artificial constraints on the story/scenes/whatever.

Eh. There's probably other aspects to this I've got jangling around in my head as well. Just hard to express it.

It's really interesting, because in my experience the reverse is true. Most videogames strongly limit the amount of power you can get, while TTRPGs are ones that can fully explore the effects of giving players the power to affect the setting. To be clear, I'm fine with low powered games where PCs aren't expected to progress. It's just for me, I already have rpg systems that allow me to play those games that I love. I don't need a new system to play Ravenloft. I don't even need DnD, as I am a massive fan of FATE, and I've GMed in it more than any other. I don't have any need of another system of low level play. DnD and FATE do just fine. If for whatever reason I couldn't use those, I'd probably use worlds without number, as it's alright.

But from where I stand, there are distinct lack of games that try to allow for really high levels of power, and fewer that contain the rules to support it. I remember playing in a game of Dungeons the Dragoning, where the GM quit because the system didn't give him enough options to challenge the players. I also remember that game, as it lacked tools for handling the types of battles that occurred. Honestly, my current favorite high powered game is free and unfinished, and goes by the name 'Badass Kungfu Demigods.' It's a more narrative system, but it works, and it gives guidance on how battles should affect the world around the combatants.

But it still doesn't scratch the itch I have for a more crunchy game, and it doesn't have a lot of options for going from 0 to hero. You basically start as the strongest thing in the setting, rather than it being an end goal you work towards.

I think the real draw of wanting to give the PCs power can can be found in an old quote that I have seen repeated many ways, many times:

"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test."

There is no greater moral quandary that I can give a party, then to put them in charge of a town or faction full of people they care about, and like, and then give them full power over that town with no oversight. Then to slowly ramp up that power as they gain control of towns where they do not know the people. To give them control over locations that have traditions they aren't comfortable with. To force them to walk the line between shaping a society they view as desirable, and committing cultural genocide.

It's not something that you could every replicate properly in a video game, where as I cut my teeth on games like Neverwinter Nights, and Siege of Avalon, where you never have the power to make the choice, only the choice of what quests you wish to take on. Another example is something like Skyrim or Oblivion. At the end of the day, you lack the power to do anything but choose your own personal destiny.

Everyone wants something different from their RPG. That's why we have so many settings, and so many systems. It's what makes the hobby so diverse and wonderful.

[Tanarii]

Game: "Only you can save the world from this terrible scourge!"
Player: "What about that army that's camped outside? They union and won't go into dungeons that aren't OSHA approved? You need four rando semi-criminals to clear the giant ants out of your gold mines?"

I am definitely using a guards and army union next time I'm running a taking-the-piss silly buggers single party one shot.

[Lord Raziere]

"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test."

There is no greater moral quandary that I can give a party, then to put them in charge of a town or faction full of people they care about, and like, and then give them full power over that town with no oversight. Then to slowly ramp up that power as they gain control of towns where they do not know the people. To give them control over locations that have traditions they aren't comfortable with. To force them to walk the line between shaping a society they view as desirable, and committing cultural genocide.

It's not something that you could every replicate properly in a video game, where as I cut my teeth on games like Neverwinter Nights, and Siege of Avalon, where you never have the power to make the choice, only the choice of what quests you wish to take on. Another example is something like Skyrim or Oblivion. At the end of the day, you lack the power to do anything but choose your own personal destiny.

Indeed, and strategy games don't allow for that either- its too detached from people and makes them nothing but pawns in some overly complex chess game, reducing things like city loyalty to a number, and thus whether they rebel against you a matter of proper play rather than roleplaying that requires some personal moments, that requires the human element to be seen, but strategy games while determining the course of an entire civilization, also makes the civilization a mere extension of yourself.

only a ttrpg can truly give the experience you speak of, because either way you do it, the videogame needs to be simplified so that its a fun game with no room for elements that detract from it.

[Telok]

You can easily have situations where an army / town militia can defeat the PCs but not the monsters, and the PCs can defeat the monsters but not the guards.

You just have to balance the numbers right, factor in the terrain the battle will be taking place in, the logistics of supplying people, and have qualities like area attacks or needing magic weapons to hit a monster.

Basically, don't do what 5E did.

Yeah, I basically did that when I converted the d&d tarrasque over to DtD40k7e. Built a couple simulators, knew the strength/power level I was aiming for, set the intended terrain & start distance it'd be at. Then you just tweak the numbers until it slaughters a couple few thousand veteran troops or a some hundreds of space marines, make sure that appropriate high end pc characters can take it down, and use it.

I had more knobs to tune with and viable play range than 5e has though so I didn't need hacks to fake it being a tough critter. It's like the kaiju thread, you use a system that handles the scale & range in a reasonable way or you make ugly kludges and selectively ignore/change rules to square the circle.

But it results in a critter that has the right level of lethality vs common & elite soldiers is straight combat. No fudging or excuses needed, just straight basic mechanics. Yet the heroes can still take it down or stop it if they work as a team and pull some stunts (or are just ultra tough).

[Vahnavoi]

If the local lord can take 40 of his men and send them to clear out the goblin caves with good chances of success, and they'll maybe lose 10 people, then they'd better care SO MUCH about those 10 men that putting adventurers on the task is reasonable.

This is a problem with conceptualization of who the player characters are. The root cause is treating them as a special class of people detached from rest of the setting. The solution is to cut that out - in this case, it would mean player characters just being those 10 men of the local lord, rather than random extras. A lot of computer games manage this just fine too when they're not burdened by tabletop D&D trope of player characters being ill-defined "adventurers".

[Anymage]

Indeed, and strategy games don't allow for that either- its too detached from people and makes them nothing but pawns in some overly complex chess game, reducing things like city loyalty to a number, and thus whether they rebel against you a matter of proper play rather than roleplaying that requires some personal moments, that requires the human element to be seen, but strategy games while determining the course of an entire civilization, also makes the civilization a mere extension of yourself.

only a ttrpg can truly give the experience you speak of, because either way you do it, the videogame needs to be simplified so that its a fun game with no room for elements that detract from it.

The experience of being a superhero whose actions can have dramatic effects on normal people and whose actions can only be meaningfully challenged by other superheroes is not too functionally dissimilar from being a government official. You're granted a fair amount of power over other people's lives and often some level of remove from the consequences of your choices. You have comparatively fewer checks on your ability to act, and many of those checks do create perverse incentives. And ultimately there are questions of what issues you prioritize over others, and how much you focus on those vs. self interest/self-preservation. (E.G: cozying up to special interests who can help fund your reelection campaign, vs. taking principled stands and leaving your coffers depleted.) There are games that do focus on the hard choices you might have to make when you're in power.

TTRPGs in theory are better at this because a human GM is much more flexible, but D&D in particular is far from the best case for this. There are very few rules for anything beyond personal heroics, and those few that exist are spell effects/magic items where it's entirely on the DM to think how those would impact the world at large.

[Jakinbandw]

TTRPGs in theory are better at this because a human GM is much more flexible, but D&D in particular is far from the best case for this. There are very few rules for anything beyond personal heroics, and those few that exist are spell effects/magic items where it's entirely on the DM to think how those would impact the world at large.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure we are talking about TTRPGs in general, and this specific topic is about the one I'm writing which does in fact have such rules.

[gbaji]

"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test."

There is no greater moral quandary that I can give a party, then to put them in charge of a town or faction full of people they care about, and like, and then give them full power over that town with no oversight. Then to slowly ramp up that power as they gain control of towns where they do not know the people. To give them control over locations that have traditions they aren't comfortable with. To force them to walk the line between shaping a society they view as desirable, and committing cultural genocide.

It's not something that you could every replicate properly in a video game, where as I cut my teeth on games like Neverwinter Nights, and Siege of Avalon, where you never have the power to make the choice, only the choice of what quests you wish to take on. Another example is something like Skyrim or Oblivion. At the end of the day, you lack the power to do anything but choose your own personal destiny.

I get that we've diverged a fair bit into power levels here, but allow me to reign this in a bit by observing that this is not what you said earlier (in the other thread) that I responded to with "extremely videogamey". Here's what you said:

Trust me, my system gives players many options to make themselves stand out, I'm just against feat taxes. Some example of Low level archer feats increase their range, allow them to spend actions aiming for an extra high damage/high accuracy shot, cause a failed ranged attack to ricochet back at the target during the next round, shoot everyone withing a (DnD adjusted) 30' radius of a location within their bow's range, and other fun things. At higher levels they unlock feats that allow them to shoot spells and other ranged attacks out of the air, attack every single opponent within range, Fire off swords and spears instead of arrows, Or shoot an arrow at a target when only the existence of that target is known, but not their location (and at this tier of play, archers can have infinite range). I've got 24 Archer only feats, and that doesn't touch on the fact that my game has innate multiclassing (thing gestalt from 3.x) that allow players to grab some interesting options to enhance archery from other classes.

Noting in here about presenting moral quandaries to the players by handing them power over NPCs. This is 100% about mechanical rules. My previous comment about something being "videogamey" was also about mechanics in that thread (providing a bonus to ranged attacks when there are melee folks engaged with the target instead of the other way around). My argument to the first was that it's a mechanic you see only in video games because it forces combined class tactics (and deals with clippping/agro issues), which video games handle well, but are not at all good simulations of "real world physics".

My response to the seccond (quoted above) statement was similarly about the mechanics and how they "feel" to me. To me, feats are people using innate skill/ability to do things. They should not violate the laws of physics (well, much). Spells do that. And yeah, I get that some games mix and match these, so that's fine. But yeah, the kinds of powers you describe here are the kinds of things I expect to see in video games. Causing other people's missile attacks to bounce back? Video game. One shot spreads out into a bunch and hits everyone (presumably just your enemies) in an area? Videogame effect. Your arrows transform into swords or spears? Video game. Heck. I'm pretty sure I've literally played console video games with these exact effects in them.

That's what I was talking about. And yeah, your description of a guy standing on the sun firing heat blasts at someone on a planet. Replace that guy with a giant ape, and the heat blasts with barrels, and you've just replicated freaking Donkey Kong. Video game.

[icefractal]

That's what I was talking about. And yeah, your description of a guy standing on the sun firing heat blasts at someone on a planet. Replace that guy with a giant ape, and the heat blasts with barrels, and you've just replicated freaking Donkey Kong. Video game.

I've got to say I don't get this part, at all.

"Your description of a warrior fighting undead with a sword - add some health and mana gauges in there and you've just replicated freaking Diablo. Video game."

And heck - gritty? Low power? Realistic? Those are also in video games! Is old-school OD&D video-gamey because the entire Roguelike genre exists? Is wilderness survival video-gamey because Don't Starve exists? Would a game about the ethics of working as a border guard for a dystopian regime, while supporting a family, be video-gamey to you? Well it literally is a video game, it's called 'Papers, Please'.

I mean, I guess if you personally think of "flashy" as "videogamey" (and "videogamey" as "undesirable") then fine, but it's not a definition I'd agree with.

[Jakinbandw]

I get that we've diverged a fair bit into power levels here, but allow me to reign this in a bit by observing that this is not what you said earlier (in the other thread) that I responded to with "extremely videogamey". Here's what you said:

Noting in here about presenting moral quandaries to the players by handing them power over NPCs.

I'm curious how you think a character could have that level of power in a setting and not have power over NPCs, and thus cause the exact moral quandaries that the games brings about? Like let's take a look at an established setting: The Sword Coast. If we put a character in the sword coast that could target any NPC they were aware of with an instant death attack, including gods (and able to have an equal battle against Ao), how would that not cause the player moral quandaries over what to do with that power? They have the power to choose who lives and who dies, but they aren't omniscient. They can still make mistakes. They can't make people do what they want, only threaten them.

I just don't understand how you can look at what I wrote, and not see how it both hands the pc power over NPCs, and how that power would create moral quandaries.

I've got to say I don't get this part, at all.

"Your description of a warrior fighting undead with a sword - add some health and mana gauges in there and you've just replicated freaking Diablo. Video game."

It's worse than that though. Like yours at least make sense. But seriously, shooting interplanetary blasts of plasma is the same as Donkey Kong? I can't even begin to figure out the parallels there. Donkey Kong is the 'archer'? Jump Man is the target... The barrels are attacks. But then what's the parallel of jumping over the barrels? Of climbing the structure? Of the Ladders? Honestly, a low level dnd archer would be a closer comparison, as running towards the archer would be like climbing the structure, and jumping over barrels could be like ending each turn in cover or something.

I agree, it just doesn't work.

[Marcloure]

My conclusion reading this thread is that lots of people who say a ttrpg feels "videogamey" actually mean it feels anime. Limited powers that can only be used under special circumstances, moves with evocative names, characters getting wounded and quickly recovering, anime bull**** overall. Which is far from bad if that is what you are looking for.

[Vahnavoi]

@Marcloure: that's just another example of the same bad behaviour: defining something by example, when the person doing so has limited experience of the relevant medium.

Because that's what anime is, a medium - Japanese animation. It covers ground from serious period dramas to goofy children's shows. It isn't limited to speculative fiction or single aesthetic; people who think it is just don't watch anime beyond fighting series aimed at young boys.

So, just like I can't appreciate "videogamey" as criticism, I can't appreciate "animey" or some such. Specify the series, and then we're talking. "I wanted Berserk, not Dragon Ball Z" is legible and doesn't rely on stereotypes, similarly to "I wanted Maus, not Donald Duck".

[OldTrees1]

@Marcloure: that's just another example of the same bad behaviour: defining something by example, when the person doing so has limited experience of the relevant medium.

Because that's what anime is, a medium - Japanese animation. It covers ground from serious period dramas to goofy children's shows. It isn't limited to speculative fiction or single aesthetic; people who think it is just don't watch anime beyond fighting series aimed at young boys.

So, just like I can't appreciate "videogamey" as criticism, I can't appreciate "animey" or some such. Specify the series, and then we're talking. "I wanted Berserk, not Dragon Ball Z" is legible and doesn't rely on stereotypes, similarly to "I wanted Maus, not Donald Duck".

A good comparision.

My conclusion when hearing "too videogamey" or "too anime" is:
1) The person has a real critique that they would be able to consistently single out. However communication has broken and I did not receive enough to understand the attribute(s) that they are critiquing. I better ask more questions to get past the failed shorthand.
2) These moments of broken communication are all independent despite having some indirect correlation. The correlation stems from similar but not identical experiences with a fraction of one medium that is then used as a shorthand that does not work when communicating to someone with a different experience with that medium. When the fractional experiences correlate, the miscommunication's intended message might also correlate.

[Bohandas]

To OP: the less the general verisimilitude of the game rules is (as an representative of the game world's general physics), the more "video?board-gamey it feels for me.

That sounds right to me

[Trafalgar]

I would agree that "Video Gamey" is very much a pejorative. It sounds very elitist as in people who play TTRPG are somehow better than people who play video games. However, in my opinion, there is a very big difference between the two in that my character is very much limited in what they can do in a video game.

Let's say my character casts an illusion spell to make an open door appear closed. In a video game, this can only happen if the programmer/ game designer built that into the game. In a TTRPG, it is completely up to the DM's discretion. After 40 years, video games still suffer from the "you need the blue key to get through the blue door" problem. Maybe someday there will be an AI DM that can adapt to the players animation but we are not there yet.

My short list of things that make a TTRPG feel like a video game:
-All encounters result in combat
-All problems have 1 solution that was thought of ahead of time by the DM
-Interactions with NPCs feel like a video game conversation tree
-Your PC is limited in their ability to interact with the environment
-PC actions have no long term effect/consequences on the world/society/towns/etc.

[OldTrees1]

I would agree that "Video Gamey" is very much a pejorative. It sounds very elitist as in people who play TTRPG are somehow better than people who play video games. However, in my opinion, there is a very big difference between the two in that my character is very much limited in what they can do in a video game.

I am not so sure. How much of it should we chalk up to broken communication instead?

I love noodles. If, hypothetically, I told you D&D was too noodley (whatever that might mean to me failing to be communicated to you), would that be elitism, merely sound like elitism, or sound like broken communication?

[Lord Raziere]

I am not so sure. How much of it should we chalk up to broken communication instead?

I love noodles. If, hypothetically, I told you D&D was too noodley (whatever that might mean to me failing to be communicated to you), would that be elitism, merely sound like elitism, or sound like broken communication?

Hypothetical doesn't track. You are not talking about DnD being a food. you are talking about DnD having traits ascribed to an entire medium of entertainment which has its own fans, identity, and so on that while seemingly similar to some mindsets in DnD is technically completely separate as many of them have no idea that DnD exists.

noodles are highly specific. videogames are incredibly broad: like, do you mean the kind of videogames Nintendo makes? Sega? Microsoft? Ubisoft? EA games? Indie games? What genre? Action? horror? strategy games? beat em ups? shooters? puzzle-solving? platformers? minecraft-likes? Soul-likes? Rogue-likes? 4x games? visual novels? immersive simulators? city builders? collectathons? stealth games? survival games? rhythm games? battle royale? metroidvania? text adventure? MMORPG? tactical rpg? sandbox rpg? monster tamer? vehicle simulator? life simulator? construction and management simulator? artillery game? auto battler? MOBA? RTS? tower defense? turn-based strategy? sports? racing? digital card game? gacha? party games? social deduction? trivia game? programming game?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about halfway through that list, thats intentional, those are all genres or subgenres of videogame I can think of, off the top of head or looking them up. I don't expect people to know all of these, I can't remember all of these genres.

More probably I should be asking what specific named videogame you mean? which could be even more names to list?

like the complaint "its too videogamey" can mean anything because videogames have done a lot of things. your gesturing vaguely at the ocean here and expecting me to know which specific fish your talking about, its that useless of a phrase.

Edit: because we can't read your mind to know what videogame background you have. I don't know what videogames your comparing DnD to. I doubt its the same videogames that the other guy saying the same complaint as you is thinking of, because what videogames someone likes and dislikes can get highly personal and taste-based. its a very generalizing statement for both the people making the complaint and what is being complained about, because I doubt all the people complaining are complaining about the same thing.

[Kane0]

When you hit a barrier that breaks your immersion in a way that comes off as 'computer logic'. Stuff that in the narrative should intuitively not be a problem, but the game (or the DM) treats in an alien manner.

'I dont want to kill him, ill try to put this sack over his head since he's already grappled'
'You cant, you dont have the feat'

'i'll follow Bruce and climb up the rope behind him'
'Well since you only have one point in climb your chance of success is like 2%'

'Well i have fireball, ill cast that to ignite the barrel from a safe distance'
'Fireball only damages creatures, not their belongings or other objects, nor does it catch anything on fire'

'Ill try to unlock the door with my magic thieves kit'
'Youre going to need the green key, even with magic lockpicks and a dispelling rune and the gnomish door breacher'

'I break the puzzle box open!'
'it still needs an intelligence roll to figure out'

'Ill stop moving and see if i can hear him'
'theyre invisible, so you have a -4 on the roll'

'Ill run over and touch him with my healing glove'
'That would use too many of your actions'

*visible confusion*

[stoutstien]

When you hit a barrier that breaks your immersion in a way that comes off as 'computer logic'. Stuff that in the narrative should intuitively not be a problem, but the game (or the DM) treats in an alien manner.

'I dont want to kill him, ill try to put this sack over his head since he's already grappled'
'You cant, you dont have the feat'

'i'll follow Bruce and climb up the rope behind him'
'Well since you only have one point in climb your chance of success is like 2%'

'Well i have fireball, ill cast that to ignite the barrel from a safe distance'
'Fireball only damages creatures, not their belongings or other objects, nor does it catch anything on fire'

'Ill try to unlock the door with my magic thieves kit'
'Youre going to need the green key, even with magic lockpicks and a dispelling rune and the gnomish door breacher'

'I break the puzzle box open!'
'it still needs an intelligence roll to figure out'

'Ill stop moving and see if i can hear him'
'theyre invisible, so you have a -4 on the roll'

'Ill run over and touch him with my healing glove'
'That would use too many of your actions'

*visible confusion*

It's not necessarily computer logic as much as just having a system that is inherently trying to work backwards with resolutions out comes. Plenty of mediums do this for good reason as that is the goal.

Take battleship for example. Everything is designed backwards from the sole goal/resolution of sinking all the opposition's boats. The grid, markers, rules for ship placement, and even the actual physical materials are all meant to facilitate that single goal. *It was actually a pen and paper game for years prior*

Even with modern version of the game that have different rules for opening salvo, larger grids, or ship movement still fall back on the premise that the goal is to sink before you get sunk. You change that assumption and you have a new system.


Any game you have that inherently works backwards like this will have a gamey feel. This usually present itself as "balance" with some semi open resolution systems as they are trying to have the appearance of being open ended but in reality they tend to just shift some stuff around and give it a quick coat of paint. PF2 is a good example here as everything is working back towards a single design goal.