What makes an RPG 'Video Gamey'?

[Jakinbandw]

So I was having a discussion in another thread, and when I brought up a rule from the game I'm developing, I had a couple players suggest that my system was 'Video Gamey'. When I asked what I meant, this was the response I got:

If the combat sequences look like I'm watching people play Mario Smash Bros? It's videogamey. Big flashy attacks, powerups, things exploding out of nothing, extra stuff appearing and doing "things" on the battle field? All videogamey to me.

And the more I thought about that, the more confused I got. While certainly that doesn't describe every game (Hello CoC) it certainly seems to describe every version of DnD I've played. In 3.5 clerics sit around yelling for minutes at a time as a large glow forms around them and they power up to their ultimate form, then they take off in a burst of flight to murder things by punching them. Wizards call explosions out of nothing all the time, and it is what they are widely known for (hello fireball!). Summoning monsters, or bringing objects to life to fight for your side are pretty standard.

But then if all fantasy games are Video Gamey (as described in this quote), then why specifically call my system out as videogamey? I feel like there has to be something more. The same person then gave an example of what they found as not video gamey:

If the combat is more about positioning of PCS and opponents, using terrain to advantage, and more subtle application of combat choices (so using an ability that allows you to tumble past an opponent to get into a better position is "normal". One that allows you to sprout firey wings that incenerates all enemies within 200' is "videogamey").

And the big thing I noticed, is that nothing there is incompatible with what they said a Video Gamey RPG was. Though again, we see them suggest that being able to nuke large portions of a battle as video-gamey, when DnD has always had spells like meteor swarm and similar. In fact, most fantasy RPGs I know of allow such feats of magic. So again, I'm not sure why if such things are video gamey, my system would be called out specifically.

So this is why I'm asking for other thoughts. What makes an RPG Video gamey in your perspective, and what separates a Video-Gamey game from a standard fantasy RPG like Pathfinder or 3.5?

[Drakevarg]

Overall "video gamey" is kind of a vague, semi-meaningless criticism. But to me, what it means when I think of it is a sense that combat is happening in a different dimension from things that are not combat. When resources are treated frivolously, enemies leap out of nowhere and have barely enough HP to endure a stubbed toe, or huge flashy moves are treated as purely cosmetic with no impact on the surrounding environment, that's "video gamey."

For instance, effects that can only be used in combat, or have a duration of "for the rest of the encounter." Health that restores immediately upon exiting combat. Giant fireballs that only deal slightly more damage than a volley of arrows and are about as hazardous to the wooden building you cast it in. A lot of convenience or 'quality of life' mechanics fall under this purview for me. In summation, when verisimilitude takes a backseat to being a game.

[BRC]

This topic has come up before, but to me it's nothing to do with the visuals and more to do with the game's approach to inputs.

The thing that distinguishes a TTRPG from other forms of game is that the first step of a player's action is not using an input.

In a videogame, you can only do the things that game gives you explicit option to do. If you walk up to, say, a bottle that's not coded as being interactable, and click the button that normally picks things up, nothing happens.

In a TTRPG, there is no difference between set dressing and "interactable" objects. The player doesn't select from inputs, they choose a thing to do.

And RPG starts feeling like a video game to me largely when it presents itself as a menu of inputs to choose from, rather than a series of Capabilities that PC's have. It's about the connection between Fluff and Crunch.

To discuss abilities, think of it like this.

Imagine I have an ability, "Leaping Strike", where my character jumps 30 feet horizontally and makes an attack, bypassing short obstacles in my path and dealing extra damage.

In a video game, I would accept that Leaping Strike is a combat move that must always target an enemy.

In a TTRPG, "Leaping Strike" establishes that my character can, in fact, jump 30 feet horizontally. If I have "Leaping Strike", I should be able to use it to cross a chasm, regardless of if there's an enemy to kill on the other side.


An RPG feels video-gamey when the artificial constructions that exist in the relatively limited design space of a video game are brought over to the TTRPG.

[King of Nowhere]

And the more I thought about that, the more confused I got. While certainly that doesn't describe every game (Hello CoC) it certainly seems to describe every version of DnD I've played. In 3.5 clerics sit around yelling for minutes at a time as a large glow forms around them and they power up to their ultimate form, then they take off in a burst of flight to murder things by punching them. Wizards call explosions out of nothing all the time, and it is what they are widely known for (hello fireball!). Summoning monsters, or bringing objects to life to fight for your side are pretty standard.

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. those are definitely more videogamey.

i'm unsure on positioning. i'd say a videogame is more likely to give importance to positioning, because it's a lot better at tracking position.

[Kurald Galain]

There are certain tropes that are common in video games (and often poked fun at, too) that are not usually found in TRPGs, and including these anyway makes the TRPGs more "video gamey".

For instance, a door that can only be opened by the correct key and not by bashing it or teleporting past; or an attack that is described/animated as a massive explosion but inexplicably only hurts a single target; or characters having specific "combat abilities" that cannot be used outside combat. Often these boil down to "I should be able to do <X> but the interface won't let me".

(of course, there are other definitions of "video gamey", as I'm sure this thread will show)

[Eldan]

Hmmmm.

For me, it's not about what the powers look like, or how big the power level is. It's about how things interact with the world. Basically, what makes a thing gamey is the sentence "you can't do that, the rules say so", where the thing you want to do is a thing that would make sense if we're simulating a world, not a fighting game. I.e. BRC's example with the Leaping Strike. But there's more of that. I can throw fire from my hands in combat, but can't use them to set a house on fire? Not because it's not enough fire damage, but because combat spells don't affect objects? Gamey. Gust of wind can blow enemies away, but can't knock a small item off a high ledge? Gamey. Your massive blows make the ground shake and rocks errupt from the floor, even if you're actually on the second floor of a wooden house? The gamiest.

One example I always think of is Gloomhaven. It's usually not too bad about being gamey (for a boardgame), because the setup is very limited. But there's that stupid rule that if you kill all the enemies, the game ends, and you can't finish looting anymore, even if you end your turn two steps away from the treasure chest. That's super gamey.

4E had rules like that. Fire elementals without resistance to fire.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm not sure how things being anime-like makes it video gamey?

However, the fact is that video games, especially RPGs, have been influenced by tabletop games since the 80s, and a lot of things that evolved from those early video games are still a part of our tabletop RPG systems. D&D in particular had a strong influence on games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, which came out around 10 years later.

[Just to Browse]

This topic has come up before, but to me it's nothing to do with the visuals and more to do with the game's approach to inputs.

Really liked this description. I would add that a common term for this sort of distinction is dissociated. Associated mechanics make sense in-world, like there's a in-character understanding of how and why a particular mechanic works. From the link:

For example, consider a football game in which a character has the One-Handed Catch ability: Once per game they can make an amazing one-handed catch, granting them a +4 bonus to that catch attempt.

The mechanic is dissociated because the decision made by the player cannot be equated to a decision made by the character. No player, after making an amazing one-handed catch, thinks to themselves, “Wow! I won’t be able to do that again until the next game!” Nor do they think to themselves, “I better not try to catch this ball one-handed, because if I do I won’t be able to make any more one-handed catches today.”

[False God]

To echo the first response, I generally find "video-gamey" to be an empty criticism. There's no consistency to the criticism IME, different people point out all sorts of different elements of "video games" as problematic, but there's rarely any agreement on those elements. Many people miss the fact that a lot of these "video game" elements have grown out of D&D and similars. They're really not different at all, yet somehow when on a screen with 3D graphics and a controller, they're bad.

So yeah, I generally ignore "thats video gamey" complaints. I don't think the "video" portion of the clomplaint has merit.

That said, there are "gamey" elements, and those are IMO, when the meta-rules of the game: the things the DM, the player, and the group interact with IRL become visible in the gameworld itself. Not to be confused with "game worlds" where the meta is real and the average PC and NPC is aware of their existence and function, if "leveling up" is a real element of this particular Fantasy Land, that's not a problem. If "leveling up" is something only player-facing, yet it comes through in the world when it shouldn't, that's "gamey". Decision-making on the basis of player-facing rules, rather than in-world logic. "I can jump off the 500ft cliff, because I have more HP than I'll take in fall damage." sorts of things.

Anything that takes you out of the role-play and focus instead on the roll-play is IMO "gamey".

And of course games by nature of being games will sometimes have gamey elements, it's not IMO possible to never run into this within one system. It's a 300-page book trying to present a way for IRL people to play fantasy people in fantasy-land.

[MrStabby]

For me its about freedom.

"Video Gamey" is about the limitations of explicitly programmed worlds. Its about things coming down to limited options, with pre programmed outcomes or probabilities of success. Its about excluding the things a flesh and blood and brains DM can make a call on.

You want to sneek into a room and stab the guard? There are probably rules for that.

You want to use some kind of detect thoughts effect to uncover their deepest shame and to whisper it loudly from just out of view to creep them out - most systems probably don't have a defined set of rolls for that.

Video gamey is, to me, where there is no support for the second type of action. It fails or it gets mapped to some other action for both difficulty and effects without being treated on its own merits.


Video Gamey is where what is written on a character on a character sheet matters more than a PC's character and experience at the table all the time (is swinging a sword, a strength stat might naurally matter more that a character having formed a loving polyamorous relationship with a pair of goblins from warring tribes or that they have tried but repeatedly failed to forge a magical shortsword or whatever). Video gamey is squeezing the richness that can reallistically still only be achieved with a human DM our of an RPG experience.


As a criticism of a system, I would guess its maybe about reducing things to dice rolls with little nuance (tables of DCs for different tasks, no flexability to use ad-hoc abilities to raise or lower success, diplomacy comming down to a die roll rather than depending on what you say etc.). Its not the most harsh criticism, and many tables like a bit of that. It may be you don't have a lot of open ended abilities - polymorph gives you a choice of three creatures, fireball has a set radius, searcing for traps always takes 30 seconds and so on.

[Tanarii]

For me, it's board-gamey not video-gamey. Anything that makes you make decisions for your character as piece within a set of rules is board gamey, anything that makes you make decisions for your character as a person within a world is not. They can and do overlap, and it's possible to also make a decision based on neither (e.g. for story/narrative/plot reasons).

And neither is inherently bad. TTRPGs are also games. Everyone has tolerance for different levels of

Really liked this description. I would add that a common term for this sort of distinction is dissociated. Associated mechanics make sense in-world, like there's a in-character understanding of how and why a particular mechanic works. From the link:

I don't say this often, but The Alexandrian is wrong. His definition of disassociated isn't correct, it is too simple and doesn't properly cover all the bases. And his example shows this, because it is also wrong, getting a +4 bonus to something once a day doesn't prevent you from doing it without the bonus later on.

[Pauly]

I tend to notice it more in world building and encounter designs. I think any system can be made video-gamey.

Two examples, being flip sides of each other.
1) Quests having no timers and are held in perfect stasis until the players interact with it.
2) Quests having unalterable timers. Once event A happens, outcome B will happen in [x] days unless the party solves the quest no matter what else the party does.
There’s a happy medium in between where quests will go stale if you fail to follow them up, or will be held as fresh due to the party’s attention being elsewhere.

The world having straight edge borders, progress to other areas being blocked by a sleeping pokemon despite a perfectly climbable fence nearby kind of thing.

Encounters that involve infinitely spawning enemies that need the party to shut a gate to stop.

Railroad progression - i.e. you must find a/the sanctioned solution to the problem, any other solution will fail.

Grinding. Enemies that exist only to be killed for the XP.

[Tanarii]

Grinding. Enemies that exist only to be killed for the XP.

Would XP for GP trigger the same response?

[Pauly]

Would XP for GP trigger the same response?

It depends on how its presented. If the monsters have no reason to exist other than to drop goodies for the PCs to farm then it feels video gamey to me.
It worsens if the PCs have incentives to cultivate random encounters or slay every possible enemy instead of concentrating on story objectives.

[Anonymouswizard]

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*.

There's also the fact that some common video game tropes get a free pass when others do not. I can think of at least three games off the top of my head that have extra lives as a mechanically enforced concept, and I remember the days where 'how do I boss monster' threads were common. It's a way to make criticisms without having to be specific about why you have them.

Hell, RPGs could probably learn more from video games. I just hope WotC doesn't try selling loot boxes again, it didn't work that well for Gamma World.

Personally through I prefer for games to borrow from other art forms. ATM I'm interested in transferring the format of a TV serial into RPG mechanics, it'll pretty much never be used, but I'm throwing out the mechanics of a pulp space opera project and it helps me focus.

* Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Engine is too anime for some. However the dramatic poses are less for combat encounters and more for explaining to your housemates why it's not your responsibility to restock the milk.

[Pauly]

Hell, RPGs could probably learn more from video games. I just hope WotC doesn't try selling loot boxes again, it didn't work that well for Gamma World.
.

You mean supplements that could have things like additional subclasses, new spells, new magic items, additional feats?
I don’t think it will catch on. Players will be happy playing with what’s in the base set.

[GeoffWatson]

You mean supplements that could have things like additional subclasses, new spells, new magic items, additional feats?
I don’t think it will catch on. Players will be happy playing with what’s in the base set.

Random supplements with random additional subclasses/items/spells/feats so it costs a fortune to get a complete set.

[Tanarii]

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.

That's why I like "board gamey" instead. Because most TTRPGs that are being accused of being to gamey are ones that are leaning into battlemat use.

That's not a disparagement. For combat I enjoy heavy battlemat use as well as games that don't, if they're well executed. And also it's important to note that built to work well with a battlemat doesn't automatically translate to "board gamey". That requires a strong emphasis on making decisions for your character as piece within a set of rules, and that doesn't automatically follow from battlemat-oriented combat rules. They can just as easily flow from making decisions for your character as a person, then utilizing the appropriate rule.

Edit: I should note I'm also a big fan of strong game structures. Which, if implemented or used in a certain way, can definitely increase the "gamey" feeling of a system.

[Witty Username]

Usually when I hear the term used, it is a comment on player agency, how a GM is supposed to adjudicate, or the amount of meta gaming assumed.

The most common thing on the system side is either, that it doesn't have good tools for handling situations outside a small number of set expectations , or the system is harmed by attempting things outside those expectations (usually, combat is easy to run, everything else is non-existent, or poorly organized).

This could be as simple as a less effective layout, or inadequate GM guidance. Or it could be the actions that players can take is too strongly defined (I have heard D&D 4e accused of this, as some read it as not being able to do actions in combat outside of powers, I can't read the things so I would need someone with greater system to comment).

[Telok]

One issue with discussing this is that early D&D strongly influenced early video games, and the cross pollenation has never stopped. As soon as you leave that sort of feedback loop ecosystem, as soon you're not talking D&Ds and sword/sorcery games, nobody cares. This issue never seems to ever come up.

But within that D&Ds-crpgs ouroboros there seems three main cults;

1. The grid, only the grid, and nothing but the grid. Basically every action you take has to fit within a rigid structure. Examples: You can move 30 feet. It's not a walk, jog, run, or anything, you can just move 30 feet (or 60 if that's all you do). Your character isn't walking or running, not taking corners by grabbing a pole or skidding on a polished stone floor in your metal soled boots or sliding down a bannister, it's moving a mini across a grid. You have a 'grand master pyromancer archmage flame lord' character where everything is so bolted to the rules that you have 27 "burn people" spells that may or may not (decided seemingly at random for each spell) start any fires, create smoke, shed light, work underwater, melt ice, heat or warm things, or make sounds. They all "do fire damage" of various sorts but everything else hast to be explicitly allowed, or is just completely ignored by the rules.

2. Combat, non-combat, and never the twain shall meet. Not limited to actual combat, but really any system where the rules so massively change the the character suddenly gains (or loses) abilities based on the "game phase" that has to have a hard bounded start & end. Examples: The party druid can shout so loud it can kill people, and those it doesn't kill get blown back 10 feet. But only once in a combat for as many times a day as you get into fights. No more, no less, no matter how long a "combat" lasts or how little time there is between "combats". And it doesn't do anything outside a fight. Or sure, maybe your character can scry on the other side of the planet, teleport to the moon, and accurately tell the future during regular combat while on fire and being stabbed by three kobolds. But this is a spaceship combat phase where you're in a comfy chair with a mai tai in your hand. Therefore, no, you can't do any of that.

3. The power of the rules compels you (but not me so neener neener neener)! This is where some of the characters (usually player characters) are bound by the rules to do things a certain way or required to use specific mechanics that put strict bounds on their abilities. But everyone else (usually npcs) is just bound by "whatever the GM thinks is OK" or the similar "whatever the narrative needs". Often it results in npcs that are, narratively & 'in the fiction', the same as a pc but with cooler and more fun abilities. Examples: The npc evoker wizard casts the same spells the pc does, but instead of casting fireballs they just make stuff blow up. Even in antimagic zones, can't be countered, and it stuns people too. Your pc can't do that because you can't have nice toys. Maybe you got the GM to let you play a kender so you get the racial taunting ability to play with. Oh, but only one guy at a time and only a couple times a day because apparently that's as many insults as you can think of. Don't pay any attention to the npc who has the at-will aoe version. The npc necromancer gets 50 zombie archers with extra large crossbows while your higher level and "more powerful" pc necromancer gets 5 unalterable stat blocks that say "zombie" and still need to get a good nights' sleep or else suffer exhaustion.

Those are the things I think I see get called out the most as video game like.

Now people will rush to defend all this in the name of "simplicity", or because they can come up with excuses for it, or they'll claim something about magic because I used convenient & easy examples. It's not 'just the magic' because that's some of the easiest and most obvious examples. You can have simple, understandable, coherent game play & npcs without the problems that get games called "video gamey". You shouldn't have to be making up excuses to cover up janky bad writing in rules. If some mechanic needed an excuse the authors of that mechanic are perfectly capable of coming up with one if they aren't just being sloppy **** writers. If the game literally just handwaves a bunch of in genera, on trope, directly relevant stuff, that's been previously successfully handled, as "too hard to do well"... **** writers.

[Pauly]

Random supplements with random additional subclasses/items/spells/feats so it costs a fortune to get a complete set.

That was Dragon magazine. Haven’t seen or heard of it in a while so I assume WotC have killed it.

[GeoffWatson]

That was Dragon magazine. Haven’t seen or heard of it in a while so I assume WotC have killed it.

Gamma World literally had random booster packs with extra feats/powers for players to use. That's why Gamma World was brought up when Loot Boxes were mentioned.

[KillianHawkeye]

That was Dragon magazine. Haven’t seen or heard of it in a while so I assume WotC have killed it.

Dragon and Dungeon magazines went digital when 4th Edition launched (and Paizo left to focus on Pathfinder), but I think they were both eventually phased out and replaced by D&D Beyond content by the time 5th rolled around.

[Lucas Yew]

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.

Such as Health-Damage Asymmetry (including the Minion/Mook template, and all other PC-NPC Blatant Asymmetries in general). Or wobbly physical constants (like if the gravitational constants factoring in for your Jump task difficulty loosely related to your GM's mood that day being a colossal NO).

[Duff]

For the topical OOTS comic:

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html

The first 4 responses give you a range of options. Any or all could be part of what they mean, and referring those concepts back to them may help to clarify the critisism. I'm assuming the way it was said meant those people at least feel it is a criticism.

I'm going to say my biggest objection to videogameyness is when powers have descriptions of their effect that don't consider the effect on the world.

As others have described, rocks from the ground, even on the second floor, fire that can't be used to light things up and jumps that can only be made as part of an "Attack action" or "once per encounter/day" abilities which are not explained by mechanics.

A gamey encounter power:
EG, once per encounter I can leap 30' and attack for extra damage.
OK, why only once per encounter? If it's because it uses up too much energy, then can I still do it while exhausted? How about if I have a 2nd power that uses my leg muscles as well? Why would I not be able to make 2 jumps of either kind?

In contrast
You can wrong foot your opponent, getting +x on your roll. Anyone who's seen you do this won't fall for your tricks so you would only be able to do this once per fight.
And then allow the GM to say "This enemy hasn't seen that trick, you can catch them with it"

[Ignimortis]

This topic has come up before, but to me it's nothing to do with the visuals and more to do with the game's approach to inputs.

The thing that distinguishes a TTRPG from other forms of game is that the first step of a player's action is not using an input.

*snip*

To discuss abilities, think of it like this.

Imagine I have an ability, "Leaping Strike", where my character jumps 30 feet horizontally and makes an attack, bypassing short obstacles in my path and dealing extra damage.

In a video game, I would accept that Leaping Strike is a combat move that must always target an enemy.

In a TTRPG, "Leaping Strike" establishes that my character can, in fact, jump 30 feet horizontally. If I have "Leaping Strike", I should be able to use it to cross a chasm, regardless of if there's an enemy to kill on the other side.

Pretty much this. A "videogamey" is what a TTRPG becomes when things you can do are severely limited by context of use and what's explicitly stated in ability text. If Power Attack is its' own separate attack instead of "I can swing harder on every swing", that's videogamey. If the only way I can use a Firebolt is to deal fire damage to an enemy with HP, rather than set a bunch of wood on fire or melt some wax, that's videogamey.

As for:

If the combat sequences look like I'm watching people play Mario Smash Bros? It's videogamey. Big flashy attacks, powerups, things exploding out of nothing, extra stuff appearing and doing "things" on the battle field? All videogamey to me.

If the combat is more about positioning of PCS and opponents, using terrain to advantage, and more subtle application of combat choices (so using an ability that allows you to tumble past an opponent to get into a better position is "normal". One that allows you to sprout firey wings that incenerates all enemies within 200' is "videogamey").

That's BS. The most videogame-like TTRPG I've played was PF2, and it's precisely about positioning, using terrain and subtle choices. Except it's so full of discrete actions that don't mesh with anything else unless explicitly called out, it feels like a video game (and a bad one at that).

Meanwhile in something like Vampire, I could throw a guy through a wall, jump ten feet high, summon shadows from nothing to assail my enemies, and it was all pretty much informed by numbers on my sheet and maybe a couple abilities that could be combined on the fly in various ways because nothing said you can't.

[Lord Torath]

For example, the Dungeon Crasher feat. Thog can only damage the dungeon if he has someone to crush against its walls (or columns).

[Willie the Duck]

Generally agree with others that it's mostly a non-sensical term. There isn't enough consistency within video games (much less in ways that RPGs, much less only some RPGs, can also fit) for there to be a discrete set of things which are 'video-gamey.' More to the point, I don't think that a majority of people who use that terms as a criticism against certain TTRPGs are using the term to mean the same thing. And even beyond that, of the things people do use as descriptors of how things are video-gamey, the tend to either be universal/been in TTRPGs since time immemorial, or are fairly selective in the interpretation that they are a problem, which this other thing (that is near-universal/been in TTRPGs since time immemorial) is somehow okay. Example:

If the combat is more about positioning of PCS and opponents, using terrain to advantage, and more subtle application of combat choices (so using an ability that allows you to tumble past an opponent to get into a better position is "normal". One that allows you to sprout firey wings that incenerates all enemies within 200' is "videogamey").

As mentioned, spells routinely do the later. Even moreso, they do so in a manner that emulates that Alexandrian definition of dissociated mechanics, just with a superficial justification*. Your character performs an act, and a really contextually convenient** happenstance occurs that cannot be infinitely repeated (nor just plain exhausting the caster from a general endurance pool***). Somehow that's okay for casters, but not for anyone else (even other supernatural types like 'spellblades' or the like). That's the guy in the gym issue***, just wrapped in the packaging of a complaint that the martial-not-just-from-the-gym is 'too video-gamey.'
*Vancian magic or a near analog, usually.
**generally conforming to typical-battle-scenario-sized
***excepting HERO SYSTEM and a few others
****And to be clear, I'm okay with the one wanting limited non-magics as the guy in the gym issue alludes -- so long as you acknowledge that that's your real complaint, and offer solutions for the 'so why doesn't everyone play a wizard?' issue it invites.

One issue with discussing this is that early D&D strongly influenced early video games, and the cross pollenation has never stopped. As soon as you leave that sort of feedback loop ecosystem, as soon you're not talking D&Ds and sword/sorcery games, nobody cares. This issue never seems to ever come up.

D&D has done a massive amount of shaping of computer games, from Dungeon and Zork to Final Fantasy and WoW to general concepts like Hit Points and magic power meters (long-stapolated from various alternet spellpoint systems and just the concept of spells-per-day). Computer games have likewise brought back many concepts, themes, and genre elements.

I've seen a lot of people complain about games* being 'too video-gamey' when they are doing what much of early D&D always was -- playing relatively background-less characters exploring funhouse-of-death dungeons** for loot and XP for no other reason than advancing to get better and exploring dungeons for loot and xp. It's not everyone's cup of tea, and it's a good thing that additional playstyles have developed (and were experimented with effectively since the very beginning), but it's worth noting that it's always been with gaming and certainly isn't an artifact of video-games.
*systems, or more frequently just individual campaigns, as in the 'I like role-playing, you're just roll-playing, like a computer-game' mentality.
**often with traps and challenges that only make sense as ways to challenger/threaten the PCs

[Kurald Galain]

Generally agree with others that it's mostly a non-sensical term.

Funnily, most people in this thread that don't say it's a meaningless term are rather clearly in agreement over what the term means.

[BRC]

To expand a bit


The line between a video game and a TTRPG is the difference between a living world and an obstacle course.

A TTRPG exists in the realm of imagination, and so gives us the ability to create a true living world for the game to inhabit.

A Video Game, no matter how wonderful it is, and how much of an immersive sim it is, is always going to have limits. Sometimes, those limits are due to hardware or programming limitations, such as having players pick between pre-set dialogue options instead of saying whatever they want. Other times, it's just a decision the developers made. To use my "Leaping Strike" example, I would think nothing of playing through a puzzle section where I had to go lower a drawbridge over a chasm despite having Leaping Strike available for use in combat. I signed up for this experience, and part of that experience is solving this puzzle.

I might try to Leaping Strike across the chasm, but if I was blocked, I'd just think "Oh, the developers thought of that" rather than "That's Ridiculous".

In a TTRPG however, the contract is different. I'm here to inhabit a living world, rather than a very well dressed obstacle course. Forcing me to bring down the drawbridge when I should be able to launch myself over the chasm serves no purpose.

If the accusation of "Video-Gamey" has any true meaning, it's when the GM or designer backports assumptions and limitations from video-games into the TTRPG space. When they neglect the living world in favor of re-creating an experience from a different medium, even if it doesn't fit well.



The most "Video-Gamey" experience I ever had was when a group of friends from a nearby town (friends with each other, I didn't know them) came to my FLGS to run a playtest of the system they'd created. A sort of "magic returns post-apocalypse" type deal. Mechanically, the system wasn't great, featuring a ton of clunky nested rolls (Roll to hit, roll to dodge, roll to damage, roll to resist or something like that). I actually felt pretty bad for this group, it seems like they'd paid to have a professional-looking binding of their sourcebook, and were here mostly to try to drum up interest/ show off this game they'd made, but they had only really playtested amongst themselves, so they were pretty caught off guard when our group started tearing the game to pieces in the intro scenario they ran for us.


One thing that always stuck out to me about that intro scenario, which took place in "New York, while the magic-returning apocalypse is happening", and featured the pre-built PCs trying to use their newfound magic powers to escape from an incursion of demons and chaos, was that at one point we had a random encounter with "Bandits". In this scenario, Demons are flowing out of holes in the ground, the world has become magical less than an hour ago, and we're accosted by random armed people who want to kill us and take our stuff. There was very little thought put into this, just, an encounter with Bandits. And these were the same Bandit statblocks they'd drawn up for the post-apocalyptic setting that the game was supposed to be mostly about, wielding assault weapons and the like.

And it stuck with me because it felt like they were re-creating the experience of a CRPG on a tabletop. We had our initial tutorial fight, and then an objective marker "Escape the City", and on the way had some random encounters against low-level foes, like Bandits. Because in a CRPG resources are limited, and you don't want to design bespoke enemies for each random encounter, so you can just slap something close enough on there, like the Bandit mobs you created for the rest of the game, even if it doesn't make a ton of sense for those bandits to be present in this exact scenario. In a Video Game, those Bandits are just a blob of hit points and attacks. In the living world of a TTRPG, Bandits are NPC's who happen to be attacking you, so they need to make sense within the world.

It felt video-gamey because it felt like the designers were using a TTRPG as a way to actualize their ideas for a video-game, but without all that annoying computer stuff, rather than for the medium that it was.