What makes an RPG 'Video Gamey'?

[OldTrees1]

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

The more you know about a medium the more of this breadth you recognize. I know videogames are incredibly broad (I recognized your entire list) however the "it is too videogamey" critique appears to surface from someone assuming the shorthand (videogames) is narrow enough to be useful as a shorthand for their miscommunicated critique. I used "noodles" as a comparison because I thought it was highly likely to evoke the same kind of miscommunication. I was overly optimistic about people understand how incredibly broad pasta is.

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.

This is similar to the point I made earlier. I think we should assume "its too videogamey" to indicate they have a real critique but communication broken down. So we should ask more questions rather than trying to find a single one-size-fits-all meaning of "its too videogamey"

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.

Clarification: I didn't compare D&D to videogames. I compared the comparison to a comparison of D&D to pasta (which is also quite broad to those familiar with the medium). I made that comparison to indicate that "too videogamey" might not indicate anti videogame elitism because it could be said by someone that enjoys videogames but is using it as a failed shorthand for expressing their tastes in RPGs differing from their tastes in videogames.

Based on your post, I messed up communicating that message. It would have been better if my example was something whose breadth more RPGs players were also familiar with.

[Tanarii]

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?

Makes perfect sense to me. Ubiquitous, often used to far do more than it was designed for, delicious when prepared right, but often leaves you hungry for more a few hours later. Also starchy.

[OldTrees1]

Makes perfect sense to me. Ubiquitous, often used to far do more than it was designed for, delicious when prepared right, but often leaves you hungry for more a few hours later. Also starchy.

Since it was a hypothetical within a comparison, I did not actually have a meaning predetermined. However that is not what I would have expected.

I was expecting something more like:
"Bland to not overwhelm the sauce. Comes in a variety of shapes but a handful are used much more than the rest."

Your interpretation focuses on it being overused outside of its scope. I was expecting something about it's foundation being intentionally bland and rote. Both highlight things the pasta maniac might like about pasta, but might not prefer in their RPGs. Guessing which one a randomly selected critic meant is a bit of guesswork.

[Slipjig]

I'd point out two structural points that I would describe as "video-gamey":

1) There is an extremely limited set of solutions to a problem. "The ONLY way to solve this problem is to go get [McGuffin]..." "Why don't we just [obvious solution]?" "Uhh... that TOTALLY won't work because [justification for railroad plot]."

2) When pretty much every choice is a "right choice" and ends up eventually leading you to the same point. This includes NPCs "resetting" their attitudes toward the PCs between encounters ("The Turian Counselor is going to be a jerk no matter what you choose"), and the PCs failing to gain a meaningful reputation based on their actions.

[Telok]

More possibilities:
1. City as unpopulated shopping mall.
2. Multiple planes of existance as just themed dungeons (the water dungeon, the tentacle dungeon, the fire dungeon, etc.)
3. No point in home ownership because you out level any possible defenses you can put in there so any enemies you have can trivially destroy it.
4. No point in home ownership because you carry all you value on your body at all times.
5. No point in civilization because everything you want is in some dungeon or you craft it yourself.
6. No point in governments because you and everything you fight is too powerful for them.
7. The NPCs can't help you (ever) so you have to clear a dungeon for that item/info/plot coupon.
8. Falling in the water is death in seconds/a minute unless you have the "no drown" magic item. Falling off 1500 foot cliffs is normal and a faster way down than climbing.
9. NPCs have awesome abilities until you recruit them as allies, then they get nerfed hard.
10. Random nameless NPCs/mooks can do tricks PCs never can because "balance".

Some of it's partially world building. But world building is an intersection of system rules & the narrative basis of the adventures. Thus it is informed & shaped by the system.

[kyoryu]

I'd point out two structural points that I would describe as "video-gamey":

1) There is an extremely limited set of solutions to a problem. "The ONLY way to solve this problem is to go get [McGuffin]..." "Why don't we just [obvious solution]?" "Uhh... that TOTALLY won't work because [justification for railroad plot]."

2) When pretty much every choice is a "right choice" and ends up eventually leading you to the same point. This includes NPCs "resetting" their attitudes toward the PCs between encounters ("The Turian Counselor is going to be a jerk no matter what you choose"), and the PCs failing to gain a meaningful reputation based on their actions.

Both of those fall under the basic umbrella of "the world does not respond to player actions in a meaningful way." A plastic, non-responsive world can definitely lead to that.

[gbaji]

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'.

Not all "computer/console games" are what I would call "video games". Maybe I'm using an older use of the term, but when I say "video game", I'm referring specifically to the "video" part of it. When the graphics and whatnot are more important to play than the decisions/actions of the player, it leans into "video game" territory. We could certainly play chess on a computer, but neither of us would call that a "video game", despite the fact that we are playing on a computer, and looking at a video display instead of using a physical board.

Many CRPGs straddle that line quite a bit. Leaning more in the direction of Diablo or Balur's Gate? More "Computer"RPG, and less "video game". Something like the old arcade game "Gauntlet" (wizard needs food badly!), leans more in the "video game" side.

Again. I get that many people use the term very dfferently. But that's how I use it.

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.

Somewhat. But it's not merely that it *has* flashy effects, but that the flashy effects and even mechanisms are an inherent part of the gameplay rather than just graphical depictions of something else. When I feel like the game starts with "something we could do in real life (even a fantasy version of real life)", and then depicts it in a graphical game format, it doesn't feel "videogamey" to me. When it starts with "build an engine to diplay all sorts of coof effects" and moves from that to "wrap some basic gameplay around it", then yeah.... that feels videogamey to me.

And let me also be clear. I don't have an issue with any of that when it's an actual video game. I love playing smash and crash video games, with power-ups and life bonuses, special weapons/powers you find/earn, special moves with sequences to follow, and whatnot. Used to play Doom/Quake/<tons of other follow ups> back in the day (like... a lot, as well as a bunch of others as well). But they are very much video games and I enjoy them for that aspect. But if someone ports Doom/Quake back to a tabletop game, I would find myself not being terribly interested in playing that.

On a side topic: Something with limited choice options, I don't consider to be "video gamey", becuase that's not a function of the "video" part of that. It's just a limitation that is common to all CRPGs, usually due to coding restrictions. Also not really something great to port back to a tabletop game, but in a different category IMO. The old school text based dungeon hack games had the same restrictions, and they were not, by any real definition "video games" (you are eaten by a Grue).

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.

Because, as I thought I just explained in the previous post, the post you made and to which I responded by speaking about it being "video gamey" did not mention anything about the moral quandaries you are now talking about. I was responding purely to the kinds of mechanical powers/feats you were highlighting in your descriptioin. Many of which feel like the kinds of powers and abilities I see more like video game abilities (as described above).

I have no issue at all with the moral implications you are putting into your game as a response to the power level of the PCs. That's perfectly fine. Also not at all what I was resonding to.

I'd point out two structural points that I would describe as "video-gamey":

1) There is an extremely limited set of solutions to a problem. "The ONLY way to solve this problem is to go get [McGuffin]..." "Why don't we just [obvious solution]?" "Uhh... that TOTALLY won't work because [justification for railroad plot]."

2) When pretty much every choice is a "right choice" and ends up eventually leading you to the same point. This includes NPCs "resetting" their attitudes toward the PCs between encounters ("The Turian Counselor is going to be a jerk no matter what you choose"), and the PCs failing to gain a meaningful reputation based on their actions.

Yeah. As I mentioned above, this is more a feature of CRPGs in general, and does not at all have anything to do with the "video" component. The video component is about seeing objects on the screen, picking them up, and gaining something from them, and using powers/abilities in ways that create big showy effects, that don't necessarily follow any sorts of base logic or physical requirements (but again, work just fine on a video game screen). And yeah, powers/abilities that work in contrived combat situations, but would actually break a world if they were allowed elsewhere (shades of video games where all there is is the combat sequences, so considerations like that just don't matter).

There's certainly a fair amount of spillover, but just because something exists in a video game, doesn't mean it can't exist elsewhere (and vice versa). But there are some things that are somewhat unique to video games that (IMO) should stay there. They're fun when blasting enemies on a screen, but become somewhat silly when played out on a tabletop. That's all I'm trying to get across here.

[Duff]

I'd point out two structural points that I would describe as "video-gamey":

1) There is an extremely limited set of solutions to a problem. "The ONLY way to solve this problem is to go get [McGuffin]..." "Why don't we just [obvious solution]?" "Uhh... that TOTALLY won't work because [justification for railroad plot]."

2) When pretty much every choice is a "right choice" and ends up eventually leading you to the same point. This includes NPCs "resetting" their attitudes toward the PCs between encounters ("The Turian Counselor is going to be a jerk no matter what you choose"), and the PCs failing to gain a meaningful reputation based on their actions.

This hilights an element of "Videogamey" which may be a legitimate criticism.
Some GMs are very much inclined to follow what is written*. Some game writing reinforces this sort of behavior from a GM some demands the GM not do this but the best sort coaches the GM through this sort of process

* Inexperienced, inflexible, underprepared, overcommitted to the rest of their life, reluctant to say they can do better than the people who wrote stuff down. There's lots of reasons for a GM to be like this.

[Jakinbandw]

Somewhat. But it's not merely that it *has* flashy effects, but that the flashy effects and even mechanisms are an inherent part of the gameplay rather than just graphical depictions of something else. When I feel like the game starts with "something we could do in real life (even a fantasy version of real life)", and then depicts it in a graphical game format, it doesn't feel "videogamey" to me. When it starts with "build an engine to diplay all sorts of coof effects" and moves from that to "wrap some basic gameplay around it", then yeah.... that feels videogamey to me.

I'll be honest, I still don't understand your definition. Is a wizard casting a fireball a flashy effect (Wizards should be able to make big explosions!) with basic mechanics wrapped around it? Or is something that wizards can do in the setting, and the mechanics are there to represent that? Those don't seem like opposites, so I feel that I'm getting something wrong.

[Trask]

I think a better word for this phenomenon would be "cheesy", I've seen that adjective a lot in Old School D&D circles, which is a decent source for this "feel" because many of them can remember a time playing D&D before the D&D-Videogame feedback loop. Here are some examples I've read.

A lot of old schoolers find it "cheesy" how Paladins can summon their warhorse out of thin air, and if it dies no big whoop. I've seen it derided as "Pokemon mechanics". I've seen old schoolers mock healing to full HP after a night's rest as "stupid", but not care about lining up in front of the temple every morning for cleric healing. I've seen old schoolers complain that WotC D&D is full of too many wacky races and that makes its game worlds "cheesy"...and there is no irony, its kind of true. I've seen them complain that modern D&D characters, especially fighting types, sprout too many magical superpowers, but then lament that magic is so gamey and weak in 5e.

[kyoryu]

I think a better word for this phenomenon would be "cheesy", I've seen that adjective a lot in Old School D&D circles, which is a decent source for this "feel" because many of them can remember a time playing D&D before the D&D-Videogame feedback loop. Here are some examples I've read.

A lot of old schoolers find it "cheesy" how Paladins can summon their warhorse out of thin air, and if it dies no big whoop. I've seen it derided as "Pokemon mechanics". I've seen old schoolers mock healing to full HP after a night's rest as "stupid", but not care about lining up in front of the temple every morning for cleric healing. I've seen old schoolers complain that WotC D&D is full of too many wacky races and that makes its game worlds "cheesy"...and there is no irony, its kind of true. I've seen them complain that modern D&D characters, especially fighting types, sprout too many magical superpowers, but then lament that magic is so gamey and weak in 5e.

I think there's a lot of things that people have internalized and so don't think about any more. Then when it's changed, they think about the new thing, and (reasonably) criticize it in some ways, without realizing that the old thing wasn't really any less "bad" in terms of realism.

Like, honestly, D&D-style HP is just so inconsistent you can't really reconcile it with any kind of "realistic" world in any meaningful way. If you really try to think about it, it's one of the least "realistic" things in gaming.

As far as being video-gamey, I think it's not one thing. It's a bunch of different things, and it's highly subjective. So as a term in a discussion, it's almost never actually that informative, and is usually worth getting more detail - not that the person using the term doesn't have a point (they usually do, in some ways at least), but the term itself doesn't communicate anything well.

[False God]

I think a better word for this phenomenon would be "cheesy", I've seen that adjective a lot in Old School D&D circles, which is a decent source for this "feel" because many of them can remember a time playing D&D before the D&D-Videogame feedback loop. Here are some examples I've read.

A lot of old schoolers find it "cheesy" how Paladins can summon their warhorse out of thin air, and if it dies no big whoop. I've seen it derided as "Pokemon mechanics". I've seen old schoolers mock healing to full HP after a night's rest as "stupid", but not care about lining up in front of the temple every morning for cleric healing. I've seen old schoolers complain that WotC D&D is full of too many wacky races and that makes its game worlds "cheesy"...and there is no irony, its kind of true. I've seen them complain that modern D&D characters, especially fighting types, sprout too many magical superpowers, but then lament that magic is so gamey and weak in 5e.

I suspect grogs of all stripes probably all agree everything was better "back in the day" and that everything now is "too easy" and "casual". Maybe we should just call them all boomers?

----

In response to some other comments above, I really do dislike the complaint about it being video-gamey due to a "lack of options". As I read these critiques, modules and adventure books spring more to mind than video games. That's not to say video games aren't limited, but they're limited because there's only so much that can be reasonably programmed, and only so much that can be reasonably programmed thats worth including. Yes, you could make a check at the table to stomp a bunch of squirrels, but there's a question of how meaningfully that adds to the game, instead of your DM saying "Why are you wasting time Bob?" the programmer just said "No, we're not programing that."

In the same way while on the adventure to defeat Strahd, you could certainly attempt to have an affair with the local barkeep, but this doesn't meaningfully add to the adventure. Sure, the DM could choose to work it in some way, but by default, by the "programming" of the adventure, your little side-tryst has no bearing on anything.

I often see this (I want to say anti-complaint) lauding of TTRPGs as the players having the ability to do theoretically anything, because you could potentially make a check for anything and attempt to do anything you can imagine. And while this is technically true, I think it overlooks the more important issue of how much value does "theoretically anything" actually add to the game at hand. Worse, I think it encourages players to disregard well-made games, prepared content, in favor of banal absurdity. It's sort of the opposite of the 101 flavors of ice-cream problem, instead of "choice lock" where there are too many decisions, they hyper-focus on the decisions that have no meaning.

And yes I suppose one could argue that since they're making those decisions, those decisions have meaning to the player, but IME, I don't think thats true. I feel a lot of people simply "go left" for the sake of "going left", the choice only has value as an "anti-choice", because they can theoretically do anything, they feel they must do something else. It doesn't matter what the initial choices are, whatever choice they make must always be something else.

A good number of video games present limited, but meaningful choices within the context of the game. What they don't offer is the hypothetical "infinite choice" of a TTRPG. Which, finally circling back, I think makes "limited choice" an unfair critique of video games. Limited choices can of course be bad choices(in the sense that they do not advance the story, improve the game, or are generally meaningful) but it's counter of "infinite choice", which again I've seen lauded about TTRPGs, is not necessarily any better.

[Metastachydium]

on the other hand, there are versions of d&d where martials hit with a weapon, and versions where each move they make has weird names that they have to call in advance like some anime characters.

GIRALLON WINDMILL FLESH RIP!! FIVE-SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!!!! (I… Kind of didn't read the rest of the thread. Please do carry on with your conversation.)

[Telok]

GIRALLON WINDMILL FLESH RIP!! FIVE-SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!!!! (I… Kind of didn't read the rest of the thread. Please do carry on with your conversation.)

The five finger creepy diddly squat strike was astonishingly dissapointing in action. Bad save, mediocre damage, random second effect, lots of stuff immune to the second effects.

[Lord Raziere]

GIRALLON WINDMILL FLESH RIP!! FIVE-SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!!!! (I… Kind of didn't read the rest of the thread. Please do carry on with your conversation.)

the thing is with this and what your responding to, is that such attack-calling and such isn't really a videogame trope, or even anime trope. those are both mediums. to be more specific this is a martial arts trope. its just that videogames have certain limitations in their animations, so, specific names for their attacks just translates to doing specific routines for their swordplay or brawling real well, when that is like, something you see in real life all the time, you'd think that given how fast combat can be that they'd just improvise everything but no, every move has a name, even in wrestling and boxing, they just aren't as fanciful or called out like in martial arts fantasy stuff, they train to do specific moves all the time, they do improvise and have to be adaptable yes, but ultimately there is a reason why they do certain specific moves and thats because the less you have to manually control with your mind in combat the better, and if you get a certain move down so much that you can pull it off like breathing, thats real good because you don't have to think about it, you just react, because the muscle memory has been trained so well that just knows exactly what to do without you guiding it.

like, this kinda of thing is why we are taught how to type on a keyboard at a young age, at first the way your taught seems like unnatural movement and hard, but at some point the fingers just dance to make the words happen. so imagine how you are keyboard typing except its your entire body moving to kill things and thats the logic behind specific moves in combat. attributing it to videogames is frankly just silly. like any sport or contest that revolves around doing movements to win will accumulate specific movements or techniques that are named that will just be considered very good to use for the sake of ease and communication. all martial arts fantasy stuff is a romanticization and exaggeration of that with cool fancy names and those moves doing cooler stuff.

[Dienekes]

GIRALLON WINDMILL FLESH RIP!! FIVE-SHADOW CREEPING ICE ENERVATION STRIKE!!!! (I… Kind of didn't read the rest of the thread. Please do carry on with your conversation.)

I am always somewhat amused by this criticism, as if the real world doesn't have: The Murder Stroke, Master Hewing Strike, Crooked Strike, Reverse Crooked Strike, The Strike of Wrath, Scalping Cut, and the Squinter.

If you strike in certain ways, you gotta name them if you want to talk about them. Now I'll admit, not all the names D&D designers came up with were particularly good.

Edit: for the record, on the actual topic of the actual thread.

I kinda see “video game-y” as a bit of a relic as far as criticisms go. But as I understand the criticism, it’s just when the mechanics of the game break from verisimilitude so much that the person can’t really rationalize how it makes sense in the game fiction.

4e got called out of this a lot, because the AEDU system (which is a fairly unique and interesting by itself) was forced to represent essentially everything even when it did not fit at all.

I personally have a similar criticism with 5e’s Short and Long Rest systems, where everything gets folded into those mechanics whether they make sense to be so or not. But those for away with it a little better because it has the veneer of a reason behind it. That only really breaks down when you think about it.

The irony of course is that there are now video games that model things much better than any ttrpg ever has. One of the benefits of having all the difficult computations and math in the background. You can create games like Hellish Quart, Mount and Blade, and hell even For Honor which portray combat in varying amounts of more dynamic and realistic ways than most versions of D&D I’ve played. And only a handful of other ttrpgs match them.

[Talakeal]

the thing is with this and what your responding to, is that such attack-calling and such isn't really a videogame trope, or even anime trope. those are both mediums. to be more specific this is a martial arts trope. its just that videogames have certain limitations in their animations, so, specific names for their attacks just translates to doing specific routines for their swordplay or brawling real well, when that is like, something you see in real life all the time, you'd think that given how fast combat can be that they'd just improvise everything but no, every move has a name, even in wrestling and boxing, they just aren't as fanciful or called out like in martial arts fantasy stuff, they train to do specific moves all the time, they do improvise and have to be adaptable yes, but ultimately there is a reason why they do certain specific moves and thats because the less you have to manually control with your mind in combat the better, and if you get a certain move down so much that you can pull it off like breathing, thats real good because you don't have to think about it, you just react, because the muscle memory has been trained so well that just knows exactly what to do without you guiding it.

like, this kinda of thing is why we are taught how to type on a keyboard at a young age, at first the way your taught seems like unnatural movement and hard, but at some point the fingers just dance to make the words happen. so imagine how you are keyboard typing except its your entire body moving to kill things and thats the logic behind specific moves in combat. attributing it to videogames is frankly just silly. like any sport or contest that revolves around doing movements to win will accumulate specific movements or techniques that are named that will just be considered very good to use for the sake of ease and communication. all martial arts fantasy stuff is a romanticization and exaggeration of that with cool fancy names and those moves doing cooler stuff.

This is kind of a tangent, but is this the case in actual combat?

Obviously there are moves for certain maneuvers and techniques, but I have heard that people who do combat sports are at something of a disadvantage in actual fights because their muscle-memory is used to specific routines that work in highly controlled environments but lack the adaptability in an actual fight were almost anything can happen.

[Telok]

Obviously there are moves for certain maneuvers and techniques, but I have heard that people who do combat sports are at something of a disadvantage in actual fights because their muscle-memory is used to specific routines that work in highly controlled environments but lack the adaptability in an actual fight were almost anything can happen.

It depends. If you're trained in a structured sport combat then yeah. Its about as useful being trained in skeet shooting in a war zone with people shooting automatic weapons at you.

If you're actually trained in chaotic melee scrums then a lot carries over. Some of the more historically accurate HEMA stuff could probably carry over pretty well if you have time to grab your usual arms. Several of the other martial arts work just fine if you've participated in more chaotic multi-person practices but not if the only thing you've ever done is single controlled duels.

Edit: I guess I should be more specific. It's less about muscle memory training type stuff and more about focus & situational awareness. If you're trained to block with a shield or parry with a sword it works in both sport & lethal combat. What's really different is going to be the fact that there are probably more people & confusion or that you'll need to be prepared to really hurt the other opponent and not slow or pull blows.

In a multi combatant melee or full battle the person trained in individual duels is at a disadvantage, whether or not it's lethal or sport training. Because individual duels let you focus on one opponent at a time and that's what will trip you up, not muscle memory for strikes or parries.

[Lord Raziere]

This is kind of a tangent, but is this the case in actual combat?

Obviously there are moves for certain maneuvers and techniques, but I have heard that people who do combat sports are at something of a disadvantage in actual fights because their muscle-memory is used to specific routines that work in highly controlled environments but lack the adaptability in an actual fight were almost anything can happen.

In modern combat? eh. probably not. its all guns. muscle doesn't matter when we got the hax insta-death lead sticks around.

in medieval combat that we have manuals about? probably a bit more so. we have manuals of people who use techniques to fight with swords and such. they wouldn't have done the training if wasn't useful to what they do. granted the people who used them also had better armor, horses, bows, and often social standing that made them a bad idea to kill even if they were from another kingdom because of some social things worked so.....there is room for other factors to influence that. shot in the dark: being clad in plate mail and thus being the medieval equivalent of a tank to most people probably allows you to do your well-practiced sword swings more easily.

none of which matters for fantasy combat of course. but that, and my opinion on it, are a different can of worms.

[Dienekes]

This is kind of a tangent, but is this the case in actual combat?

Obviously there are moves for certain maneuvers and techniques, but I have heard that people who do combat sports are at something of a disadvantage in actual fights because their muscle-memory is used to specific routines that work in highly controlled environments but lack the adaptability in an actual fight were almost anything can happen.

So, we actually live in a particularly interesting time in terms of martial arts. Because you are right, that when a martial art stops being about "how to defeat/kill your opponent" and turns into "how to win in this sport without killing anyone" then the structures used to train and prepare for the sport can hinder you when facing an unwilling opponent.

What makes today interesting, is in the early days of MMA we got to see people of various martial arts try and face each other with relatively sparse rules (as far as martial sports went), and we got to see which training methods really had become too structured to face differently trained opposition. However, regardless of that, we never really saw some random strongman who never trained in any martial art win anything, as far as I can remember.

Same is mostly true with weapon based martial arts. Modern Olympic fencing has a lot of rules on right of way and touch, that work well for the sport. But if they're fighting with actual weapons, it didn't matter if the opponent didn't have technical right of way, you still got stabbed.

But we do have actual warriors from the medieval and early modern period who wrote down some of their techniques and guides. We know Fiore dei Liberi for example was a knight, and a mercenary. And he wrote about how he fought, and we know he fought for a living. So it worked for him. And he has his own named techniques and stances, and he explains when and why to use them. It's actually interesting, because he even makes a point in his work about how he tries to keep his moves precise and streamlined in a way so that they can be used with little variation regardless of if your opponent is armored or unarmored, or whatever primarily knightly weapon you're holding. Specifically so he did not get himself confused and doing the wrong thing in battle.

[Kane0]

I am always somewhat amused by this criticism, as if the real world doesn't have: The Murder Stroke, Master Hewing Strike, Crooked Strike, Reverse Crooked Strike, The Strike of Wrath, Scalping Cut, and the Squinter.

And the most infamous of special attacks, the steel chair

[Metastachydium]

the thing is with this and what your responding to, is that such attack-calling and such isn't really a videogame trope, or even anime trope. those are both mediums. to be more specific this is a martial arts trope.

I am always somewhat amused by this criticism, as if the real world doesn't have: The Murder Stroke, Master Hewing Strike, Crooked Strike, Reverse Crooked Strike, The Strike of Wrath, Scalping Cut, and the Squinter.

If you strike in certain ways, you gotta name them if you want to talk about them. Now I'll admit, not all the names D&D designers came up with were particularly good.

I know that. I just love the mental image of someone shouting one of these mid-combat before doing… Well, as Telok points out, something oddly underwhelming. Plus based on my very limited experience with shounen anime (which, unlike anime, is totally a genre of sorts), these two in particular are stuff I can imagine being employed there.

[Jakinbandw]

I know that. I just love the mental image of someone shouting one of these mid-combat before doing… Well, as Telok points out, something oddly underwhelming. Plus based on my very limited experience with shounen anime (which, unlike anime, is totally a genre of sorts), these two in particular are stuff I can imagine being employed there.

Not quite combat, and yet it's the first thing I thought of:

Spoiler: Kinda what you asked for

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[Kurald Galain]

I'll be honest, I still don't understand your definition. Is a wizard casting a fireball a flashy effect (Wizards should be able to make big explosions!) with basic mechanics wrapped around it? Or is something that wizards can do in the setting, and the mechanics are there to represent that? Those don't seem like opposites, so I feel that I'm getting something wrong.

Yes. There is a fundamental difference between (a) the wizard can cast fireball and this is represented by 10d6 damage; and (b) the wizard can deal 10d6 damage and this is represented by a fireball. The difference is that (a) doesn't work under water and may set a forest on fire, and (b) deals 10d6 damage regardless of circumstances, and the fluff gets changed if you do that underwater or in a forest or whatnot.

(b) is video gamey, (a) is not. Clearly the GM has influence over which of the two will happen; also clearly some RPG systems or editions lean strongly one way or the other.

[Jakinbandw]

Yes. There is a fundamental difference between (a) the wizard can cast fireball and this is represented by 10d6 damage; and (b) the wizard can deal 10d6 damage and this is represented by a fireball. The difference is that (a) doesn't work under water and may set a forest on fire, and (b) deals 10d6 damage regardless of circumstances, and the fluff gets changed if you do that underwater or in a forest or whatnot.

(b) is video gamey, (a) is not. Clearly the GM has influence over which of the two will happen; also clearly some RPG systems or editions lean strongly one way or the other.

So by that reading, 5e is mildly less videogamy than 3.5, as 3.5 let casters use fireball as normal underwater, while in 5e its effect is lessened.

[Vahnavoi]

Kurald Galain's point is excellent example of a genuine distinction where "videogamey" serves no purpose or is even actively misleading.

Why? Because actual videogames are often closer to a), and many roleplaying games are very much b). The reason is because for a functional videogame, the description has to be codified along with the abstraction, you can't leave one half of the equation undefined or you get a glitch. There is no fundamental difference between making a videogame that runs on moon logic versus one that does realistic physics simulation, and there are quite a few games in the latter genre, from UnReal World to Tears of the Kingdom.

By contrast, tabletop games have a living human who can come up with any missing description for the abstraction. The rules can say fireball does 10d6 damage and then leave it up to a game master to decide what that happens to mean in the game on a situational basis. The most famous case of exactly this... is D&D. It was in fact one of the original points of contention about hitpoints, to the point it was officially commented upon and discussed by the game maker in official game books, notably 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. What does a hitpoint stand for? It can be anything from skill to luck to physical toughness, depending on context. What kind of injury is one point of damage? Nobody knows before a game master or a player narrates a description after-the-fact.

[Kurald Galain]

Kurald Galain's point is excellent example of a genuine distinction where "videogamey" serves no purpose or is even actively misleading.

Sure, people could have picked a better word than "video gamey". A more fitting term is "disassociated mechanics" but that's a bit of a mouthful.

many roleplaying games are very much b)

There's not many tabletop RPGs that are "very much b", but I'm sure that most TRPGs have a couple of "b" mechanics. The primary example of a TRPG that is "very much b" is of course 4E D&D, and unsurprisingly that's the RPG that is most often accused of being "video gamey".

There is no fundamental difference between making a videogame that runs on moon logic versus one that does realistic physics simulation

There is, in fact, a fundamental difference; and that difference is that one of them runs on moon logic and the other does realistic physics. It's pretty hard to get more fundamental than that. But yes, players also commonly make fun of disassociations in video games.

What does a hitpoint stand for? It can be anything from skill to luck to physical toughness, depending on context.

That's a very good example. "Characters have health, which is represented by hit points, and therefore HP loss equals physical wounds" is not video gamey. "Characters have HP, which represents a whole lot of different things depending on what the fiction needs at the time" is video gamey. And indeed, it's quite common for that debate to come up on these forums, because players don't like the latter, because that is video gamey.

It's very straightforward. Whenever a game (that has a narrative) goes mechanics-first instead of fiction-first, some players call the designer out on it, and other players counter that they fail to see a difference between the two approaches.

[Vahnavoi]

Sure, people could have picked a better word than "video gamey". A more fitting term is "disassociated mechanics" but that's a bit of a mouthful.

As AD&D put it, your a) is reality simulation, and b) is just a game - with explicit game instruction being that AD&D is the latter, not the former.

There is, in fact, a fundamental difference; and that difference is that one of them runs on moon logic and the other does realistic physics. It's pretty hard to get more fundamental than that. But yes, players also commonly make fun of disassociations in video games.

I'm afraid you missed the point.

When writing software, 10d6 damage that changes from fireball to something else underwater takes the same effort to code (and the same kind of code, to a large degree) as a fireball that fails to work underwater. Whichever aesthetic a game is after, the abstraction and description have to both be codified, or the game won't work; the finished product has to run mechanics first regardless of what a game's concept is.

[NichG]

However it doesn't take the same effort to code '10d6 damage + play effect' and 'this is an expanding ball of rapidly combusting fuel-oxidizer mixer where the fuel and oxidizer are magically provided at a certain rate and pressure - it sets things on fire, makes a loud noise, makes light, gets channeled by confined spaces, struggles to expand in high pressure environments, can startle wildlife, has an exact distribution of pressure somewhat dependent on the caster's will which can be commented on by skilled observers, creates a briefly noticeable drain at a random point on the elemental plane of fire when produced which can maybe be traced back to the caster, and other things which we can't even pre-emptively list and you should figure out via the implication of how exactly it is that a fireball works'.

Treating something as 'first of all, real' means that even if there is something unanticipated by the designers, the mandate is for the (GM/players/author/etc) to fill in those gaps as if the thing were more real than the rules are capable of establishing. Whereas treating something as 'first of all, mechanics' instead would hold that if you find such a gap, you should figure out a reason why that actually isn't a gap at all and that the specific mechanical way of resolving the situation should still apply.

Why the second might be called videogamey is that this is a restriction that in videogames you have to work very hard and very intentionally to escape, whereas in anything run by a person you have easy access to natural language which lets you make open-ended rules, utilize ambiguity, and thereby make things flexible to when someone tries to do something the author of the mechanics did not previously anticipate. When videogames do escape this limit its a big deal because its legitimately difficult to give the feeling in a preprogrammed environment that you could 'try to do anything' and have the game actually respond reasonably, for a game that purports to be presenting something even remotely close to the complexity of a real world.

You can easily make a physics game where you can push sand however you want, but if you want the NPC kids on the beach in that game to react to your sand castle based on recognizing what you actually made, well, now you're at frontier AI-in-games research.

[Jakinbandw]

'this is an expanding ball of rapidly combusting fuel-oxidizer mixer where the fuel and oxidizer are magically provided at a certain rate and pressure - it sets things on fire, makes a loud noise, makes light, gets channeled by confined spaces, struggles to expand in high pressure environments, can startle wildlife, has an exact distribution of pressure somewhat dependent on the caster's will which can be commented on by skilled observers, creates a briefly noticeable drain at a random point on the elemental plane of fire when produced which can maybe be traced back to the caster, and other things which we can't even pre-emptively list and you should figure out via the implication of how exactly it is that a fireball works'.

I think this highlights one of the hard things about RPG design. Mainly, the purpose of rules. Now there are several purposes for them, but one I want to highlight is the part where they help a player and GM get on the same page.

Let's take your fireball example up above. This description says that a fireball works as normal underwater and in space. But what if you view a fireball like that, and another player views it as conjuring fire from the elemental plane? What if another views it as just bringing forth the fuel mixture magically, but not the oxidizer? What if the GM views it as making the air rich in O2, and then providing a flame that ignites it?

Each player expects the fireball to act differently, and it can lead to frustration where one player expects one outcome but doesn't get it. For example, you suggest that it produces a lot of noise, but going back to my 2nd edition adnd handbook, "The burst of the fireball creates little pressure and generally conforms to the shape of the area in which it occurs." Since the sound of the explosion is created by the pressure wave, I wouldn't expect fireball to be that loud at all. If I am playing a wizard and cast a fireball, and you say it alerts the entire dungeon, then our understandings differ. Now in this example, I can point to the rules as a justification on why the fireball probably wouldn't be loud. But for many things, that isn't the case (while I might be able to argue the sound, each of the points of view I posted above change how the spell works if cast in a vacuum).

This leads to the question: Is it important for the players to all be on the same page with how an ability, such as the spell fireball, functions?

It feels like people say that if the answer is yes, then the rpg is video gamy. If the rules tell you exactly what happens, and you aren't expected to extrapolate, then each player can agree on what occurs when the fireball is cast.

If the answer is no, then each player is free to extrapolate based on their interpretations of how the mechanics interact with their fictional version of the world, with the GM having the final say as they are in charge.

I will admit, that for me, I like knowing how a character's abilities work, and it frustrates me when I'm expecting one outcome to a plan, only to be overruled. I also find it frustrating when players don't share my understanding of the rules, and try to work with them on a compromise, usually codifying the result to limit future miscommunication as much as possible.