The Trouble With Using D&D Rules In Videogames?

An anonymous reader writes "There's a new article on kuro5hin.org about the trouble with porting pencil and paper RPG games (such as d20 3.5) to RPG video games. One such rules-snatching video game is examined, The Temple of Elemental Evil. The article is also an introduction to a new RPG Standards Compliance system that is currently under development and will be online soon, in hopes of bridging the gap between computers and those lovable PnP evenings we all enjoy."

I'm not really into D&D stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

But I believe Knights of the Old Republic uses this sort of system internally. It's mostly hidden from the user (unless they choose to view it), and I had no problems playing the game. In fact, it was quite enjoyable. A good mix, I'd say.

I'd disagree

[rsilvergun]

The problem with D&D rules is they're set up for long term (years and years) campaigns, not 30-40 hr games. So you're characters get just a few skill points and new abilities per level; so few in fact that it's a waste to spend them on anything other than what the game intended for that character. This makes leveling up a linear and dull event, better handled by just clicking 'automatic level up'.

Re:I'd disagree

[geekoid]

not true anymore.

They designed the system so that you quickly get to about 8th level, and in 40 hours, you could get to 20th, reasonably.
However, level pails compared to a good, challenging, and exciting adventure.

Hell, if you played for 40 hour, only gained 3 levels, but had a kickass time playing, wouldn't that be alright?
The goal of the game should nopt be to make the character as high level as possible.

Re:I'd disagree

[rsilvergun]

Yeah, but if all I wanted was adventure, I'd play the old Sierra Quest games. I'd like some gameplay with my adveture, perferably of the min/max kind. I like fiddling with stats and trying out new spells and abilities. If I'm role playing a character, I want to feel like my decisions matter, or at least like I have decisions.

What follows is my Kotor rant:

Kotor's problem is it's so damn linear. Yeah, I can be dark side/light side, but when the choices boil down to stuff like, "kill this innocent person in cold blood, or don't", that's hardly a choice. You know exactly which path you're taking. I was hoping for better writing from Bioware. I know they're capable of it (see Baldur's Gate). Come on, why don't my light side companions abandon me when I do evil? Why don't I pick up dark side companions? Why aren't my light side/dark side choices (at least the inital ones) more grey area? Well, the answer's probably that Bioware needed to get the game out the door, and didn't have time for all of that. Either that, or they wanted to dumb things down to improve the game's mass appeal. What would have been cool is a slow, steady decent into darkness that's genuinely hard to avoid and that traps you once you're in.

Re:I'd disagree

[Syberghost]

If I'm role playing a character, I want to feel like my decisions matter, or at least like I have decisions.

But you're not role-playing a character. You're playing a video game.

If you want the pen-and-paper role-playing experience, you have two options:

1) Wait until artificial intelligence has advanced to the point that a home PC or console game can be as smart as a human GM.

2) Put down the controller, turn off the Orbital Mind Control receiver, pick up an actual pen and paper, get out of the house and GO PLAY GAMES WITH ACTUAL PEOPLE. Social interaction will be a side benefit that will help you in your future dealings with other human beings at work.

Is this the gamers fault.

[mo^]

Totally agree with your point here, but raised one question for me..

Would these types of games be easier to prduce were gamers less demanding of sophisticated graphics and dialogue?.

Something that produces text based storylines and conversation with a modern grpahical front end for enrything else would surely be easier to customize. People can "say" things from a large base of phrases, and the elimination of a character actor for each NPC would make this much less work.

im sure this could be worded bette

Re:I'd disagree

[cei]

The original Wizardry from Sir-Tech software had a great spell system, if I recall correctly. And I seem to remember Ultima IV also using a component based system. In both of these cases you really did customize the strengths and weaknesses of your characters. Building a balanced party was key. The little bit I've played Baulder's Gate and Neverwinter Nights doesn't really get me back to that same sense of putting my own spin on the adventure unfolding before me.

Re:I'd disagree

[fucksl4shd0t]

Ultima IV balanced party

What?! Ultima IV allowed you 8 party members including yourself, one for each virtue, and there were only (gasp!) 8 possible characters to pick up for your party. Better yet, they were one for each class, and the character for *your* class always made some excuse for not joining you. Heh. Balanced party indeed. Ultima V definitely improved the idea, though.

Nice thing about Ultima IV in this thread, though, was that while there wasn't a way to descend into darkness and still 'win the game' (i.e. no victory conditions available unless you chose the path of the avatar), the decisions (when they were there) were very much grey area decisions.

Re:I'm not really into D&D stuff

[Minna Kirai]

then if they keep repeating the same actions over and over, you could potentially detect this and trigger appropriate events accordingly.

It looks like you may be trying to write a letter!

One question...

[Cyno01]

Where are the cheetos?

Re:One question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Graham: Galstaff, you have entered the door to the North, you are now by yourself standing in a dark room. The pungent smell of mildew emanates from the wet dungeon walls
2: WHERE ARE THE CHEETOS?!?!
Graham: They're right next to you
Galstaff: I cast a spell
2: Where's the mountain dew?
Graham: In the fridge, DUH!
Galstaff: I wanna cast a spell!
2: CAN I HAVE A MOUNTAIN DEW?!?!
Graham: Yes, you can have a mountain dew just go get it
Galstaff: I can cast any of these right, on the list?
Graham: Yes, any of the first level ones
2: I'M GOING TO GET A SODA, ANYONE WANT ONE?!?! HEY GRAHAM I'M NOT IN THE ROOM RIGHT?
Graham: What room?
Galstaff: I want to cast MAGIC MISSILE
2: THE ROOM WHERE HE'S CASTING ALL THESE SPELLS FROM!
Graham: He hasn't cast anything yet
Galstaff: I am though if you'd listen- I'm casting MAGIC MISSILE.
Graham: Why are you casting magic missile? There's nothing to attack here.
Galstaff: I... I'm attacking the darkness!

(LAUGHTER FROM ALL)

Graham: Fine, fine... you attack the darkness. There's an elf in front of you
4: WHOA! That's me right?
Graham: He's wearing a brown tunic, and he has gray hair and blue eyes
4: No I don't, I have gray eyes
Graham: Let me see that sheet
4: Well it says I have... well it says I have blue but I decided I want gray eyes
Graham: Whatever... Okay, you guys can talk to each other now if you want
Galstaff: Hello
4: Hello
Galstaff: I am Galstaff, sorcerer of light!
4: Then how come you had to cast magic missile?

(LAUGHTER FROM ALL)

Graham: You guys are being attacked
2: DO I SEE THAT HAPPENING?!?!
Graham: No, you're outside by the Tavern
2: COOL, I GET DRUNK
Graham: Sigh... there are seven ogres surrounding you
Galstaff: How could they surround us? I had Mordenkainen's Magical Watchdog cast
Graham: No you didn't!
2: I'M GETTING DRUNK, ARE THERE ANY GIRLS THERE?
Galstaff: I totally did! You asked me if I wanted any equipment before this adventure and I said no, but I need material components for all of my spells, so I cast Mordenkaiden's Faithful Watchdog.
Graham: But you never actually cast it
2: ROLL THE DICE TO SEE IF I'M GETTING DRUNK!
Graham: Arghhhh... yeah, you are
2: ARE THERE ANY GIRLS THERE?
Graham: Yeah...
Galstaff: I did though- I completely said when you asked me...
Graham: NO YOU DIDN'T. You didn't actually say that you were casting the spell so now there's Ogres okay?
2: OGRES? MAN, I'VE GOT AN OGRE-SLAYING KNIFE, IT'S GOT A +9 AGAINST OGRES!
Graham: YOU'RE NOT THERE! You're getting drunk!
2: OKAY, BUT IF THERE ARE ANY GIRLS THERE I WANT TO DO THEM!

Re:One question...

[ackthpt]

Yeah, that's how I remember it too. Though on one occaision my brother was the GM and was really pissed that we spent an entire afternoon and part of evening running amok in a the town he expected us to just outfit in and get going. (instead we tried to rob the store, burglarize a house, my half orc [int of 5] was crawling down mainstreet under an overturned boat like Homer Simpson, burned a store and got half the party almost killed, it was fun :-) another time involved creative methods of interrogation with a pair of pliers.

And people have to ask why we played those games. It wasn't for killing and treasure and shit, that's for sure. :-)

Unintended player behavior

[Old Man Kensey]

In engineering there's the maxim "build an idiot-proof device, and nature will build a better idiot." In RPGs there seems to be a parallel: build a better locked room, and someone will cast a better portal spell:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=35eaccc3.6520 1896%40news.earthlink.net [google.com]

Re:Unintended player behavior

[Feanturi]

That reminds me of a time our DM had us prepped for a really 'heavy' campaign one night, he had hyped up how incredibly hard it was going to be. He had characters too, that had various things, and one of them gave me a wish somehow (don't remember, wand scroll whatever) to take along in case we needed it bad. He wasn't playing any characters that night. So I burned the wish right near the beginning *grin*, when we ran into his big uber-puzzle that we were supposed to be incredibly frustrated with for a long time.

As we hemmed and hawed on what to try, I muttered, "I wish I could figure this thing out.."

The DM responded, "Well, you guys will have to figure it out, I told you this was going to be hard."

I clarified: "No, I said I WISH I could figure this thing out!"

The look on his face was priceless. "You fucking bastard!" He'd apparently forgotten about giving me the wish earlier, from one of his characters.
He let it work (I think it was even a God Wish), he had to. :)

Re:Unintended player behavior

[Frogbert]

I once had DM make a seriously long quest to retrive a new mirror for a town's lighthouse before a ship was due in. We had three days to complete the quest so I wispered to my comrades a daring plan that would involve much drinking and doing not a lot at all. After three days of drinking and resting in the local tavern (and the local lockup due to an impromptue brawl) I walked up to the lighthouse, put my hand on its wall and cast glow.

The DM was so annoyed by then he had the towns people chase us out of t

Re:Unintended player behavior

[barawn]

I clarified: "No, I said I WISH I could figure this thing out!"

The look on his face was priceless. "You fucking bastard!" He'd apparently forgotten about giving me the wish earlier, from one of his characters.

Unclever GM. The classic response there is, of course, "OK. You are now capable of figuring this thing out." To be nice, give them a bonus to intelligence or something. Heh.

Or, of course, the classic response...here [reallifecomics.com]. (Check the two previous for better examples).

Re:One question...

[33degrees]

If any of you are scratching your heads, trying to figure out where this text is from, it's from Summoner Geeks [ifilm.com].
Figured I'd could save someone the trouble I just went through trying to figure it out...

Actually...

[SkOink]

If any of you are scratching your heads, trying to figure out where this text is from, it's from Summoner Geeks [ifilm.com].
Figured I'd could save someone the trouble I just went through trying to figure it out...

The sketch in question was originally done by a comedy group called the Dead Alewives, an improv troup based out of Milwaukee whose webpage now seems to be defunct. The Summoner Geeks clip as linked above was actually a hidden feature in the computer/PS2 game Summoner, which could be accessed by pressing ESC (X) during the credits. The original Dead Alewives version had a very amusing intro, which was cut in the Summoner Geeks flick.

The audio is, however, preserved in its entirety in a flash animation called 8bitDandD [cybermoonstudios.com].

Spot on...

[Cyno01]

There's also a second part to it, another round after school at the Brown Deer High (where my mom used to work, dead alewives are local for me) D&D club, one of them brings his girlfriend, hilarity ensues. Its probably avalable on p2p, thats where i got it, the DAs advocated getting their stuff there on their site since most of their cds are out of print.

Re:8bit D&D Flash Movie

[Pluvius]

That's actually a reinterpretation of the Dead Alewives' D&D parody, which was audio-only. Here [ifilm.com] is another one which I think people might be more familiar with.

Rob

Using long words gets me +5 Insightful

[Slashdot Hivemind]

The main problem encountered here is that a system designed primarily for abstraction, that relies on mental visualisation to compensate for the abstraction, is being ported to an environment where complexity can be handled and arbitrary visualisation is provided. Additionally, IMO hitpoints really don't work representationally after a set point.

BTW, I'd like to just point out that I haven't touched a P+P game since I was 12

Re:Using long words gets me +5 Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, I'd like to just point out that I haven't touched a P+P game since I was 12

Last year must seem like a long time ago eh?

The problem is

[timothv]

Problem is that D&D's number-crunching sucks and instead of focusing on giving the player a thousand numbers to concern himself with, it'd be better to make a fun game.

Re:The problem is

[Aglassis]

You said: " Problem is that D&D's number-crunching sucks and instead of focusing on giving the player a thousand numbers to concern himself with, it'd be better to make a fun game."

Thats why the White Wolf games are so lax on numbers and vague on what some attribute to your ability will do. The point of a RPG is to role play, not to kill monsters and powergame. Unfortunately, most of the public thinks the latter is what an RPG is. It is painstakingly difficult to talk about a pen and paper RPG without others thinking your are a D&D powergaming freak. Its sad really, since RPGs are a great intellectual game. Once anyone focuses more on making the RPG compliant so that the numbers balance out, they've lost the point of the game altogether.

Re:The problem is

[bahwi]

Powergaming in D&D?

No way! I don't believe it! [wizards.com]

Re:The problem is

[crashfrog]

Powergaming is roleplaying.

Not everybody wants to play the role of a whiny, neurotic, tortured Gothic denizen of the night. Some of us think vampires are about as sexy as ticks.

Some of us want to play the role of a master of fighting prowess. who puts evil abominations to the sword. Some of us are into kicking down doors and divying up the loot. Since we don't do that IRL but rather construct personas to do it in a game, it's still role-playing. Just because I'm not interested in exploring the many facets of a character that, in real life, would be in a padded room, don't pretend like your games are somehow more legitimate than mine, ok?

Powergamers are role-players. They're just playing a role that you apparently don't like. Well, stuff it. You play Vampire: The Wearing of Stupid Dog Collars and I'll stick with D20 and hopefully, we'll never be at the same gaming table, ok?

Re:The problem is

[Aglassis]

You said: "Powergamers are role-players"

This reminds me of an old problem that existed in Ultima Online. At one point the halberd was the best weapon for a fighter. Now if people were actually roleplaying they would probably pick weapons more suited to different fighting roles than the halberd which is a fairly exotic military weapon. You could probably expect some people to play knights using swords as their weapons, others as archers, etc. But did this happen? No of course not, everyone picked the halberd. Later when a game patch came out that made the kitana the most powerful weapon, did those people stay with the halberd? Nope. They jumped ship for statistical reasons.

How is this roleplaying? How is knowing that your weapon will deal 2 points more of damage a turn on average versus a competitor the deciding factor for someone who wants to play a role as a knight (as an example)?

Its powergaming, not roleplaying. Roleplaying is taking all the good and the bad of a character and making due with it. When you powergame, there is no role being explored; it more like fun with statistics.

Re:The problem is

[Feanturi]

Its powergaming, not roleplaying. Roleplaying is taking all the good and the bad of a character and making due with it. When you powergame, there is no role being explored; it more like fun with statistics.

I understand what you find Roleplaying to mean, and that's cool. However, the guy saying powergaming is roleplaying is right. It's taking on a role enacting things you don't normally do. Does it lack character depth? Sure, yeah, but it's still playing a role that is not one's normal life. You're just into two different types of roleplaying.

Re:The problem is

[Darth]

no it isnt. it is never role playing to use knowledge outside of the realm of your character's experience to influence your character's actions.

do you think it's role playing to read the monster manual and suddenly your character knows everything about every type monster in the game?
is it role playing to read the module ahead of time and then, at the beginning of the module, kill the guy who betrays your party at the end of the module?

what role are you taking on in those cases?

Re:The problem is

[Sloppy]

How is this roleplaying? How is knowing that your weapon will deal 2 points more of damage a turn on average versus a competitor the deciding factor for someone who wants to play a role as a knight (as an example)?

Why did Thulsa Doom, [imdb.com] in his younger days, quest for the secret of steel? And then why did he change his whole strategy when he learned that flesh was stronger than steel?

Because he learned. He wanted power, and he learned better and better ways to get it.

Powergaming happens in the meta-game above real life. The guy who plays me, is probably explaining to his DM why the character switched to Python a few years ago. I can see it now, the DM says, "But Sloppy was into C! You're playing him wrong, you fucking munchkin, just to get a +2 on your programming roll." Then the player tries to explain that the character learned something about the relative values of programmer time vs compute time, but the DM shakes his head. "Sloppy is too dumb to learn," he says.

The player complains, and the DM threatens, "Look, just shut up, already. I'm getting tired of this." But the player persists.

Finally, the fed-up DM says, "That's it. Cthulhu appears and kills your character."

Ok, Aglassis, I want you to think about what you did. You just got me killed in what we call "real life", and Cthulhu is now wandering around. Do you think anyone in the world is safe, now? Cthulhu is out, and you're going to die too. Way to go. I hope you remember that, when your player rolls up the next Aglassis. And ask yourself: who is the real munchkin? The guy who was trying to convince the DM that I could learn from experience to try to become more powerful? Or the narrow-minded DM who thought characters shouldn't adapt, and then in a childish tantrum, set Cthulhu loose on the world?

Re:The problem is

[Aglassis]

I've said this before and I'll say it again: personal attacks do not win arguments, they are only intended to confuse the facts. Only the truth wins arguments, and it doesn't matter who says it (it could be a trashman or Niels Bohr himself who says it, it doesn't matter). Additionally, its generally not a very good idea to make generalizations or try to draw conclusions from the behavior of a person you have never met. Chances are your conclusions are off. Now to get to my point.

You said: "But it is p

Re:The problem is

[crashfrog]

I think you missed my point on the halberd. Its not a general purpose fighting weapon.

Says you. I guess what I didn't understand, because you haven't said, is what experience or expertise you have that leads to you make this claim.

Now I'm no expert in medieval weapons myself, but I've read stuff, been to museums, and kept my eyes open. And I fight with re-enactment weapons, so maybe I know a thing or two. And as far as I can tell, the halberd (or any variant of the polearm) is in fact a "general purpose

Re:The problem is

[bm_luethke]

"I think you missed my point on the halberd. Its not a general purpose fighting weapon."

Says who? In our world? Sure. But in the game world you are playing the stats determine when and where something is useful. If a halberd was not useful in a field then it would have penalties. As such I would say that halberds, like magic, do not function exactly the same there as here. Unless you are roleplaying a psychotic person who thinks their reality is based on another world I would have to say that you are not remaining faithful to that world.

"How exactly is using it on the field a good idea?"

Well, if it didn't work well in that situation the game rules should take care of that shouldn't it? As such in the make believe world of where you are talking it works quite well in the field. How is it a bad idea if it is the most effective killing impliment.

"If you would put yourself into that role I think you would understand that in general field usage you would get killed very quickly."

So, if I played this mythical character and put him in this role he would have to think "Well, I could slay many people in the field of battle with this mighty halberd. But in another world I know nothing about it will not work so I will use this rusty sword!!!" How is that accurate role playing?

"If you put yourself into the role of a master of fighting prowess, for example, I would expect you to more likely pick a weapon that is more general purpose."

Actually I tend to pick whichever weapon I could kill with easiest. Since, at that time, the halberd was obviously the best tech in that world I would use it.

" A powergamer picks it because a simplistic game world gives it more points of damage"

This is correct. A powergamer can still roleplay. I can look at tables to figure which spell will kill the best based on damage. That does not mean that I can not roleplay as a researcher of effecient killings by reading various texts on the effectiveness of weapons and choose accordingly. It would be foolish to think that anyone that thier life depends on thier equipment qould choose anything other than the best available weapon and exercise program (in any world, real or make believe). Since those points represent reality in that game world it is a good place to look. If you wish to use the real world you have to look no further than our own wars - most everybody has the same weapons (except for the specialised troops) and it was the best combination of cheap/killing power at that time in history - exactly what you are bemoaning in said game.

Now, the most telling thing about what you have written is that you constantly use a form of "If you think like I do" and guess what, not everyone does. Just because you do not like said role (or would not play it the same as another person) doesn't mean it isn't roleplaying. I am certain that there will be quite a few people that do not like your methods (and, given that you are using the real world to base what a weapon is good for I would say that I am one of those individuals).

Ultimatly you are making no distinction between a powergamer and a munchkin. A munchkin is one that is strickly min/max best weapons and no role playing.

Re:The problem is

[PsiPsiStar]

Not everybody wants to play the role of a whiny, neurotic, tortured Gothic denizen of the night.

No, you go to Slashdot for that.

Of course, that's not really fair of me.

You're probably not gothic.

Re:The problem is

[bahwi]

Problem solved, but not in the way you want:

Make the number crunching fun.

HackMaster by KenzerCo [kenzerco.com]

The quirks and flaws system is incredibly fun, and yes, you can skip the parody part and have a great game!

Well you need this for computer games

[Sycraft-fu]

I mean ya, a pen and paper game can actually be played without the pen or paper if you want. My friends and I did, for the most part. All we used was charater sheets. This was mainly a process for organizing your thoughts. The player had to put thought into what kind of character they wished to play, and the GM (we weren't playing D&D) got an idea of what that character was and could formulate a story around them. Then we basically told an interactive story. The sheets were also useful if you wanted to

A Friend of Mine...

[ErichTheWebGuy]

... wrote a complete character sheet in VB6 (ick, I know) that was fully v3.5 compliant... All I heard about once he was knee-deep into it was how bad it sucked and how complicated it was... But it turned out pretty cool. Dice rollers and everything. Now to get him to port it to gtk or qt...

Re:A Friend of Mine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now to get him to port it to gtk or qt...

That'll work, if by "port" you mean "completely rewrite in another programming language".

I have an Informative +9, Troll Slayer!

[PakProtector]

I've been playing P&P RPGs for a long time. I started in 1992, with my dad, when I was 7, playing AD&D Second Edition. Played that till Third Edition came out. I've been playing Shadowrun on and off for about 4 years. I've also played lots of CRPGs that used D&D Rules. NWN (The Version that used to be on AOL), NWN (by Bioware), Unlimited Adventures, All the Eyes of the Beholders and their many Kin (27 Beholder-Kin, if I remember) and what not. I've not played Temple of Elemental Evil, though I did see the Beta at GenCon. It seemed buggy then, too. But NWN has hit it dead on. It's an excellent game based off the rules (Based. Not entirely kosher. Think about some of the feats) and I like it alot. It's better than Unlimited Adventures. We've never had it so good.

The miracle here, folks...

[raehl]

Is that someone who played AD&D managed to procreate.

Re:I have an Informative +9, Troll Slayer!

[corbettw]

I started in 1992, with my dad, when I was 7

Hmm, 1992-7=1985. Holy shit, kid, I've been playing RPGs since before you were born!

depends on your playing style

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're mostly into Hack & Slash, then video game D&D is workable. In fact, it's been around a long time: Rogue was released in the mid-80's wasn't it? Man, I still love that game.
But if you're mostly into grand sweeping epic storylines, or intricate political manipulative shenannigans, or just the camaraderies of hanging out at the gaming table, eating pizza & diet coke (or cheetos & Mt. Dew) and rolling dice and making bad puns or acting out like your character, then the computer version is very, very tame.
I can handle both styles fine though. THey both have merits.
BTW (off-topic) how many people still play older editions? I'm very much into old-school Basic/Expert D&D (those old boxed sets from 1981). That's what I started out with back in the day, and it's what I keep going back to for some reason. I know the new editions are technically better, but I just don't like 'em that much. *shrug*

Re:depends on your playing style

[WiPEOUT]

if you're mostly into grand sweeping epic storylines, or intricate political manipulative shenannigans ... then the computer version is very, very tame

I've been a PnP DM and player for well over a decade, and have to say that while the above is generally correct, there are exemplary exceptions. Take PlaneScape: Torment, for example. This is easily the best CRPG made in the last 15 years of computer gaming, and has a plotline so deep it's humbling.

There are also many action games masquerading as RPGs, and

Re:depends on your playing style

[Minna Kirai]

This is easily the best CRPG made in the last 15 years of computer gaming, and has a plotline so deep it's humbling.

Not exactly. There is a difference between "plotline" and "backstory". PS:Torrent has much backstory, but little in the way of actual plot that occurs while you are playing.

The storyline is revealed as you play, but is out of your control (since it already happened, and the protagonist is just recovering from his amnesia). Not much different from how most computer games present their story.

What a crappy article.

[Scott Lockwood]

The guy has no clue about D20 on PC, as exemplified by the comments he responded to in the article. That, and he has an affinity for twenty-five cent words, when a nickle word will do.

The most amazing thing to me is, the fact that this article posted at all over on K5. I can't believe it did, since it was on it's way down last I looked at it. Looks like K5 really has gone to pot. :-(

No troll here. Thanks for...

[freeBill]

...saying what should have been obvious to everyone.

This guy has no clue about RPGs (computer or otherwise). He doesn't know the history of roleplaying games. He doesn't understand Gygax's contribution. He uses buzzwords to hint at computer knowledge, but uses them in such a nonsensical manner as to suggest he's trying to get revenge on geeks for the jokes they've played on social science journals.

I mean, look at this quote:

"...these rules have to be interpreted by a computer server client, which leads to many standards violations from a programming standpoint."

What the heck does that MEAN? I mean, know a little about client-server architectures (having written an engine designed to power a server for a game which uses such an architecture) and I have no idea what he means by "server client." All clients have to have a server, but no client is a server. So "server client" is either redundant or contradictory. And in what sense is Temple of Elemental Evil a client? I thought it was a stand-alone CRPG which played on your home computer. And, even if it was a client in some sense, what would client-ness have to do with intepreting rules. Every time I have tried to port an RPG from paper to computer (quite a few times, both successfully and unsuccessfully since I first tried it with Traveller in 1979), "intepreting rules" was the job of the programmer. And how would that lead to "standards violations" from any standpoint, let alone a programming standpoint?

Please...

The subject of this article is of intense interest to me. As I said, I have been facing the issues of porting RPG rules to computers since 1979. My first RPG was published by a major publisher in 1982. I've been playing CRPGs since they first came out. I want an intelligent article to be written on the subject so we can all discuss something that is obviously of interest to many of us. But this is not that article.

The author makes some statements about Troika's development of ToEE. Maybe we could learn something from some of them. But how can we assume they have anything to do with the game's actual development, when they're surrounded by pure gibberish? What's his source for this inside information about the development? (Assuming we can figure out what is being said among all the buzzwords. I'm not even going to try to figure it out until I have some reason to believe it would be worth trying.)

Temple of Elemental Evil is SO BAD

[myowntrueself]

not because of the AD&D rules being ported to a CRPG, but because;

1. It is extremely bug-ridden. Really *really* badly bug ridden. And abandoned too. No more patches. The publishers just don't care; they have made their money back already. Atari *suck*.

2. The designers appeared to have taken the original p&p module and turned it into a game with very little 'fleshing out'. Normally, when a DM buys a module and runs it as a game, they treat it as a framework. In TOEE all we get is the framework.

As an example of just how bad it is, a single rogue character can finish the game in about 30 mins with very little levelling up; all sneaking outside of combat is 'take 20'.

Every action you need to perform, every item you need to find to complete the game can be done from stealth (except one and that only leads to a non-combat dialog). If you know where to go and what to pick up the entire game can be completed with no combat. Period. Normally that'd be a good thing (eg the original Fallout, which can be completed *almost* without combat, by a 'talker'). But here, in ToEE, its only because theres no real storyline.

However, the ToEE game engine is potentially *awesome*; it faithfuly implements the AD&D rules. There is very little problem in this regard.

Re:Temple of Elemental Evil is SO BAD

[Babbster]

I haven't played the game, but the bug point seems to be key to the "op-ed" piece linked to in this story, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the D&D system and it somehow "failing" computer RPGs.

Just because someone does a shitty game based on D&D doesn't make it a failure of D&D. It's a failure of the developer. D&D rules have served quite well in many computer RPGs over the years (my first true D&D CRPG was "Eye of the Beholder," which was a blast).

Of course, this is a failure of videogame reviews in general. If a game element is poorly implemented, that means to some reviewers that the game element itself is flawed as opposed to the way it was integrated into the game.

I guess you know something the developers don't

[stupkid]

According to this Link [troikachronicles.com]

There will be a new patch coming out in the next couple of weeks. Since Steve Moret is only the lead developer for ToEE I guess you would know better.

Re:Temple of Elemental Evil is SO BAD

[limpdawg]

That is entirely incorrect. At this time the second patch is being prepared to be released and the publisher still supports the game. Secondly it is not as badly bugged as you think. The game does have issues with some computers but on mine I didn't experience a lot of the problems people have complained about.

The game is intended to be played with a party not a single character. If you know what you are doing, sure you can avoid combat and not have any fun, but if you're playing the game to have fun then don't do the things that cause you not to have fun. If you make a full party that's good at combat then you can complete the end by going through the elemental nodes. If you bypass them then you bypass a good bit of story in the game. Just because beating them isn't necessary to beat the game doesn't make them superfluous.

Mature and robust

[mao che minh]

The D&D systems/rulesets are always robust and mature, having been in the making for the better part of forty years. Furthermore, they always translate very well to any medium, be it paper and pencil or PC video game.

I would say that it is a much better idea to use the tried-and-true D&D rulesets than to create your own on the fly. Heck, for starters, it saves you a huge amount of time.

Re:Mature and robust

[mabinogi]

I agree, the author of this article seems to think that D&D rulesets were invented overnight on a whim by a bunch of people with no clue, for the sole purpose of selling rulebooks.
I'm sure selling rulebooks is an important buiness issue, but creating a solid game experience comes in to that as well, and you sell more rulebooks by steadily refining and improving the rules, than by randomly changing stuff for the sake of changing it.

Also the idea that people can handle complicated rules better than a computer seems a little bizzare too.

Re:Mature and robust

[canadian_right]

Having actually implemented AD&D rules in a commercial video game (way, way back in 1989) , I can say that the rules SUCK for computer implementation. There are special cases and exceptions to everything. Evey look at the "Turning Dead" table? The original rules listed monsters from the MM only - all monsters from other books would say something like "turn like a skeleton", or "turn like a wight".

AD&D is agreat system for role playing with a bunch of friends around a table while eating junk food - it is not a great set of rules for a computer game. My favorite implementation is BioWare's Baldur's Gate.

Re:Mature and robust

[Bagheera]

The D&D systems/rulesets are always robust and mature, having been in the making for the better part of forty years. Furthermore, they always translate very well to any medium, be it paper and pencil or PC video game.

Come again? The D&D rules have, historically, had a large following but a lousy game mechanic. They ALWAYS had a lousy game mechanic, all the way back to the original Dungeons and Dragons and the "Three book set" that came before. D&D worked as a game system more because of the extensive source material and the huge number of pre-packaged modules than because it was actually any good. D20 is a little better than old versions, but it's still a Level and Hit Point based system - at least in it's AD&D incarnation.

I would say that it is a much better idea to use the tried-and-true D&D rulesets than to create your own on the fly. Heck, for starters, it saves you a huge amount of time.

Actually, since the programmers have to implement it, there are a number of considerably better and more versatile systems that would make a good base for a CRPG.

Considering that any CRPG that's run by the machine (rather than an active GM, as you could get in, say, NwN) lacks the dynamic "Rules Bender" called the Game Master (A good GM makes the STORY run the game, not the DICE. CRPG's don't know when to fudge a roll so the hero can survive, or kill a monster, or whatever is needed to tell a good story.) they're ALL going to basically suck.

Personally, the hypothetical "best" CRPG would allow GM interaction at whatever level was required. A fast and clean implementation. And a good way to make characters ballance within the rules. Any game that tries to port the inherently unbalanced AD&D rules over is going to have holes.

That's the fact.

Re:Mature and robust

[Zalgon 26 McGee]

That's why Paranoia is the best game system - players are forbidden to know the rules, and the GM's one main rule is: Keep it lively. If a player is boring, they're dead.

Re:Mature and robust

[Bagheera]

I'm sorry, Citizen. You are not allowed to know that you are playing a game. Please report to the Computer for routing debriefing and clone incrementation.

Thank you.

Have a nice day.

The computer is your friend.

(You know, I seem to remember someone doing a text adventure of Paranoia...)

Re:Mature and robust

[Xenographic]

All that & you didn't even give them a link!

The Slashdot story [slashdot.org] about the new version, and Paranoia-Live [paranoia-live.net], where you can find folks online to game with :]

How do I know all this you ask? That's far above your security clearance, citizen, as is this ULTRAVIOLET (white) page you're viewing. Report for Reactor Shielding Duty immediately!

For success...

[ackthpt]

For success they must roll at least an 18

Did anyone actually use all the rules?

[Ritorix]

I played a good bit of pen-and-paper D&D back in the day. I remember ignoring most of the rules and dice rolls entirely. The biggest rule, was that all the rules were optional. D&D was about having a good time.

In computer games, the rules sometimes get in the way of the fun (see TOEE). Your character is more a collection of numbers than a person. Sure, you could play pen-and-paper like that too, but you would have to be pretty anal.

Using ALL the rules: a cautionary tale

[steveha]

I can tell you a true story, a sad story, about using all the rules.

When I was in high school, there was a game shop near my home, and one day they had a tournament. A bunch of guys volunteered to be Dungeon Masters. One of the DMs, a guy I knew, was familiar with all the rules of AD&D. This was around 1981 or 1982, so we're talking first edition AD&D.

The store said the tournament was to use the standard AD&D rules. This guy assumed that meant all of them.

The characters in the tournament were all around 4th to 6th level or so. So this guy's group got into some kind of fierce battle, won the victory, but were injured. Their cleric started casting lots of heal spells.

This guy knew that, according to the rules, if you used lots of psionic powers within a short period of time, you have to roll on the Psionic Encounters Table. And he also knew that, according to the rules, certain spells count as using psionic powers -- among them, heal spells.

So he rolled his dice. Oh, a psionic encounter. He rolled his dice again. Oh, it's Mind Flayers. He rolled for how many. Three.

So three Mind Flayers attacked a party of 4th to 6th level characters that was only partially healed after a major battle. Everyone died.

The players were not exactly happy at this turn of events. They were all immediately finished with the tournament, and all because this one DM knew all the rules and applied all the rules. The store wasn't exactly happy, either. And the DM didn't really feel happy about it either, I'm sure.

steveha

Re:Did anyone actually use all the rules?

[steveha]

I used to read Dragon magazine, and there would be all these cool rules about how to calculate how far you could jump, or whatever. Calculate how much weight you have, index with your strength score, adjust for difficulty, yada yada yada.

My friends and I came to the conclusion that the game just slows down too much when you do all that. It's better just to say, "that's a hard jump, it's -3, so try to roll your Dexterity minus three." We played actual combat according to the rules, but pretty much everything else was rolling against statistics, possibly at a plus or minus.

steveha

Major Problem

[DumbWhiteGuy777]

It still doesn't tell how Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is different from regular Dungeons and Dragons. I've asked around and no one knows. I'm starting to think nerds just made it up to sound smart.

"I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons."
"Oh yeah? I'm playing ADVANCED Dungeons and Dragons"

Re:Major Problem

[Ritorix]

I went from D&D to AD&D2ed, somehow skipping 1st edition...

In 'normal' D&D it was rather simplistic. Your choices for what to play were basically fighter, thief, cleric, mage, dwarf, elf, halfling. Good for getting new people into roleplaying without 10 different rulebooks.

AD&D opened up the doors to class / race combinations, was a lot more rule-heavy, and let them sell a slew of new books.

Re:Major Problem

[wmacgyver]

If I remember correctly, the evolution of the whole D&D series started with the Basic D&D set. (I'm not counting Chainmail ruleset, which I feel is still a wargame.) My Basic D&D set was a red box, it even came with dice and crayon for you to fill in the numbers. In this rule set, Elf is a character class, not a player race. Elf played very similar to Fighter/Mage for those of you that cared. There were 5 such sets. Basic(1-3), Expert(4-14), Companion(15-25 levels), Master(26-36 levels), and Immortals(37+).

AD&D came after that, it was published in 1978 as three hardcover books: Player's Guide, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. It's a format that's follow even to this day. Various player race were introduced, and the rules were changed so that races are no longer classes.

Then came AD&D 2nd edition in 1989. For a while, they went to a 3 ring binder format for you to keep track of all the monsters, which drove me crazy. It may have been a good idea for adding new monsters, but pages tear and fall out all the time.

D20, or D&D 3rd edition, returned to the original Dungeon and Dragon name. The changes are quite drastic compare to any of the previous editions of D&D/AD&D.

The most recent release is 3.5E, which was last year. (2003)

For a history of D&D/TSR, take a look at here [wizards.com]

The core of D20 is also published here [opengamingfoundation.org] as a set of rtfs.

The really old ones

[steveha]

No, you are a little bit mixed up as to the history.

The Basic Set was around the same time as AD&D. I'm pretty sure it actually came out after AD&D, at least after the AD&D Player's Handbook.

The original was a set of very poorly edited, poorly organized books. You can see pictures and read about them here, if you like:

http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/d_and_d.htm l [lyberty.com]

steveha

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Major Problem

[canadian_right]

The original D&D game in a box set, only had rules for chracters up to level 3, had fewer classes, monsters, etc... AD&D had much more detail, more classes, more monsters, rules up level 20. No big changes, just more detail. AD&D 2nd edition was a bit bowdlerized (thief is a rouge, no demons, etc...) - I didn't care for it.

The latest set of rules from WotC remains true to the original rules, but is much more consistent and easier to use once you get use to it.

The trouble with D&D-style rules in video game

[gatesh8r]

Is that is it made for pen and paper. Seriously, my project has somewhat of a pen & paper combat and statistic system, but in the end, we're not going to bog the players down in it. Sure there will be some stats visible to the end user, but instead of having "OK Roll to see if you hit!" we'll likely let the user do armed combat. Let the machine calculate weither it can make a block, or have a percentage for taking 1/2 damage and the like.

Don't get me wrong, NWN is a great example of how to put D&D as a video game -- but pen-and-paper games is only best with pen-and-paper the majority of the time. Plus you just can't get a true experience of sitting down with your buddies and having a sadistic GM. ;)

The real trouble with using D&D rules in video

[NSash]

The whole idea of using tabletop RPG rules for video games is silly. Tabletop RPGS are designed in every way around the fact that the you can only generate random numbers by rolling dice, and human beings have to resolve everything: what made Rolemaster (or "Rollmaster" as we called it) intolerably slow in person would be completely invisible in a video game.

Tabletop RPGs today go out of their way to avoid rolling too many dice and looking up results on too many tables (things that are trivial for a computer). What makes games in person fun (aside from, you know, playing with other people) is the ability of the GM to improvise, which is essentially an AI-complete program. Thus, you end up with dungeon-crawls like "Temple of Elemental Evil," where the player's choices can be limited to the extent that it's possible to plan for most of them. (Or, you get a game like Neverwinter Nights, where - despite goods scripting - you bump against the artificiality of the world at every turn.)

Unfortunately, the article chooses to talk about AI bugs, scroll menu bugs, and other things that are entirely unrelated to the choice of the D&D ruleset.

Re:Battletech and paper vs. computer

[skermit]

What kind of retarded street justice is that? Do you see every CS player ganging up on the guy who shoots for the head? This is just plain dumb.

The problem with TOEE...

[Lord_Slepnir]

The problem with Temple of Elemental Evil is that they have yet to release a patch to fix the 'boring'.

seriously, though. It's a great engine. I love how you can either roll characters or do the good old point buy. What I dont' like is that the story line is terrible.

On the other side of the coin in NWN. It's a dated game engine for sure, the mechanics are an edition ago, but on the other hand, the story line in the single player is absolutly awesome. The second expansion, Hordes of Underdark, is probally the best game experience that I've ever had in my life. The characters (Aribeth especially) were very well done. The main enemy, Mephostopheles, was actually scary. No angst-filled BS like a lot of other games. None of that 'he was a good person gone bad' crap. He was just plain evil.

What about..

[simrook]

Baldur's Gate? This article confuses me on several levels.. First, it's operating within a microcosm of video games that are based off of AD&D - in particular just one. This isn't really that great of a study if it's just using one source. I'm taking an introductory statistic's course right now at my college, and my professor would fail me if I used only one souce. (He also mentions something called d20 in passing a few times but makes no arguments over it.) Second, what about Baldur's Gate? There are very few more successful game series then the Baldur's Gate line. The game is able to be played as a traditional RPG with pause's after each move, the storyline is diverse, and with BG2 onward you have different plots devlop based on your char's alignment, class, race, etc.. it's quite a wonderful and diverse game. Neverwinter Nights continues to expand it allowing user/gameplayer customization of the settings and rules. This customization of the rules of the game is also my third point with what's wrong with this "article". The author says that Pen and Paper games are much more flexiable and adaptable based on their player's needs.. well, if I am playing a game of NWN or BG or Ice Wind Dale, all I have to do is change the settings in my preference box to change the level of hardness of the monsters or the speed of the game, etc. It's not difficult, and just requires a few clicks of a button. So in conclusion, what happened to the Baldur's Gate line of games? I mean, come one... the games span three platforms, are wellknown amongst gamers, and have won more awards then I can count. Why didn't the author include BG and Black Isle analysis in his article? All this means is that this article is a bit of FOO and should be sent to /dev/null, or rather /dev/menzoberranzan. - Simrook.

The main problem is...

[Obscenity]

It takes a lot of programming to make a game truly "open ended". Baulders Gate I and II did this quite well, although there is simply no match for the imagination of the human mind. There may be 'open ended quest' but today that only means that there are a few endings, that could perhaps change later events in your game. But for intigrating the rules, it seems simple, but when you add the rules to the open-endedness of pencil and paper games, it becomes that much harder.

Knights of the Old Republic

[tm2b]

Knights of the Old Republic used essentially the same rules as D&D, the d20 [wizards.com] game, Star Wars Roleplaying Game [wizards.com]. I've played the RPG, it works well as a table top game.

I think that KotOR makes it pretty obvious that a great game *can* be based directly on a table-top RPG. But a crappy game is a crappy game, no matter what property they license to go under it.

My biggest problem...

[raehl]

My biggest problem with porting pencil and paper games to video games was finding a pencil that would write on the screen. Then I realized that dry-erase markers worked really well, and as an added bonus it was much easier to change the stats on your character without leaving those nasty eraser smudges.

d20? Sucks at 3.5 or any other revision.

[Cheetahfeathers]

d20's a pretty sucky system, rules wise. Shadowrun and Whitewolf games have a nicer system, overall (though I don't like either game genre, personally). The various games jumping on the d20 bandwagon are just making their games sucky. Sucky but sellable.

Give me a nice smooth, fast system that's as open ended in character design as Shadowrun any day over any d20 crap.

I'm told 3.5 is a massive improvement over v3.0, but it's still not for me.

As for RPGs in computer games, I've yet to see one. Arcanum was the closest to one I've seen. It was fun. It was also lightyears from being an RPG. We'll need truely imaginative AIs before we have that.

I have to say

[Aexia]

The article pretty much seems to ignore its premise.

The fact that TOEE is bug-ridden doesn't say *anything* about the suitability of adapting Pen N Paper RPGs to the computer. It just means there were sloppy programmers.

A partial critique

[RML]

This article seems poorly thought out, fails to address the topic with many points, and is generally confused. Let's take a few examples...

Problems: Distributed Database vs. Brain
I'd be more impressed with this if I knew what the author thinks distributed databases have to do with computer games. And "systemic pliability for quick changes and alterations to code blocks"? What does that mean?

The Adventure
There's already nine starting stories, which is eight more than most games. How will you make the quest depend on class when the party can have up to five people of any combination of classes?

Solution: Standards Compliance
The problem with this list is, as far as I can tell, D20 already has all this. Though I may be wrong, since the article is hardly clear.

I could go on but I can feel my IQ decreasing with every paragraph I read, so I'll stop here...

God, are we ever nerds...

[softspokenrevolution]

All I got from this article was that the guy wasn't happy about the d20 system, he really didn't seem to be all that coherent, which he warns us of this ("this is no review of TOEE, although it could be"), it apparently could also be a rambling condemnation of WotC, or a big circle jerk about how great J.R.R. Tolkien was.

As people pointed out in the thread below, a computer is more than capable of performing the functions that the d20 system has laid out. I for one have never found it difficult to comprehend, as everything is simply a plus or minus on a random interger 1-20. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it really isn't that tough (compared to say, creating some good content) to establish these scripts and commands?

I mean really, for now all we're going to get is a fairly modular design, but the rules are not the problem, shit games with tons of bugs are the problem. Who wrote this article, why are they qualified to make these statements, why is it on /. aside from the usual comments about the editors?

Best quote

[andfarm]

From the comments: "I've seen d&d accused of being satanist for years, but I've never seen an actual personal perspective on d&d from the Devil." (link [kuro5hin.org])

D20? Stupid.

[SharpFang]

D20 was thought as simplification to limit amount of calculations performed by players at cost of adequacy of simulating the world. So, you lose part of the reality by using very simplified system, then lose a lot more by limiting the player to what the authors had thought of and disabling all what the player could think of, but authors didn't implement. (classic problem of "you can't do that!. Why? Because you can't." In paper RPG you can try to climb a wall, dig through it with a pickaxe, throw a rope over it, stack items to climb them etc. In computer RPG you can only curse because it's the wall of the map and there's nothing beyond.).

I'd take Morrowind as the best example of modern system for computers.
Take a fight. You press mouse button, by holding it longer you increase strength of hit a bit. But then there's calculation of fact of hit: Agility, speed, unarmoured, distance, fatigue, load and luck of the enemy vs your attack, weapon skill, agility, height comparing to enemy, fatigue, load, damage of weapon and luck.
Then point of hit: Where you aimed your aiming cross, your skill, fatigue, luck.
Then HP taken: Point of attack, armour on that point, corresponding armour skill of the enemy, damage of the armour, endurance, fatigue, HP, luck, your strength, weapon hit ratio, damage of weapon, your fatigue, your luck.
And possibly quite a few I forgot.
3 hits with a dagger in one second, not a problem for a computer to calculate that. Think of a player performing such calculation "manually" at each attack.
Porting paper systems straight to computers is plain dumb.

Will getting closer make games more fun?

[re-Verse]

I have have a couple of thoughts on this:

1. First of all, there are a couple things about the D&D ruleset that trouble me - example: last time I played, there was nothing about size of an enemy effecting chance to hit. Throwing a knife at an enemy 12 feet side should be notably more likely to hit than an enemy 4 inches wide. Unfortunately, its not... according to D&D rules. I think games should concentrate more on Logical game rules incorporating whatever rulesets seem fit that also support a logical view of a gaming universe. There is no reason to religiously attach ourselves to a ruleset that may be imperfect, just as ancient astronomers tried to attach themselves to a view of the universe that rotated around the earth. Imperfect concepts Must be improved upon. Its evolution.

2.In D&D, a DungeonMaster had at least a little room to embellish. A newbie who isn't a jerk and isn't incredibly stupid probably won't be instantly killed if a good DM is hosting the game. Their gameplay will lead them further in to the game, teaching them and immersing them in the action, like how a teacher of Go will open a students eyes through a game on the board. Computers aren't there yet, even Neverwinter Nights, which was supposed to send pen&paper to obscelence, somehow missed. There is an empathetic human nature with proper D&D that hasn't been replicated with video games yet - and it may still take a while to happen.

The K5 article makes a good point about people being able to exploit a game, but can't exploit a DM for too long. I'm not sure if a game could ever become smart enough to sense when its rulesets are being tampered with and then adjust accordingly... but if it could, it would be a massive step forward out of the cookie-cutter solutions we find in so many games today.

Re:Will getting closer make games more fun?

[sugar and acid]

A computer game can never account for a truly open game play of a human. The freedom to do anything, bith but dumb and stupid, but more importantly ingenious without running along the usual rails of a computer game set out by the game developer a year ago is the compeling aspect of game play for a human DM.

Re:Will getting closer make games more fun?

[shut_up_man]

Absolutely. What ends up happening in a pen and paper game is never quite what the GM plans, or what the players want. Plus, there's always that one critical fumble out there that will totally mess up the storyline, leaving the GM in stitches and the main hero in pieces...

D&D rules: glaring holes

[steveha]

There are a few howlers in the D&D game mechanics. Note: I haven't seen Third Edition yet.

0) You are a 12th level Fighter being marched down a corridor, no armor, your arms bound behind your back, and four men with crossbows are guarding you. So you run for it. Why not? After all, you have almost 100 hit points, and a crossbow does something like 1d6+1 and is slow to reload besides. Sure, we don't want our game to be like the real world, but should there be no chance that they can kill you?

D&

D&D wasn't based primarily on Tolkien's work

[lsw]

The article states that the main base for D&D wasn't Tolkien, but actually was Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth.
If you read the novels it now looks like someone wrote that book with the D&D player's guide in front of him. All the funny magic items and weird magic system comes from there. While everyone agrees that Tolkien (and his Inklings group of which CS Lewis was also a member) had a great influence on fantasy, in this case it was Vance's fault :-).

PS the article also fails to give credit to Dave Arneson (hope got the name right) as a co-creator.

be seeing you

computers vs people

[scotartt]

At the top of the article the author says "Computers are very rational, and people are abstract;"

Programmer joke: if people are "abstract" how come I keep seeing so many instances of them. Maybe they are subclasses?

Anyway it's completely trite. And untrue. Computers are algorithmic. Humans can be rational, which is usually defined as 'capable of exercising reason'.

Unless, of course the author means rational as in mathematics, as in a rational number (i.e. a number that can be represented as a fraction). But in this definition, the author is even more wrong; computers are of course binary machines.

This is just the sort of faulty reasoning that makes me stop reading articles. Quite aside from that first sentence !!! from this single example, perhaps we can conclude (erroneously) that people aren't abstract, they are illiterate. At least in this instance.

Break away from D&D?

[MachDelta]

Mod me troll for saying this... but i'd actually like to see game designers move AWAY from D&D or other paper based rulesets. Don't get me wrong, P+P can be great fun... but when's someone going to make a ruleset that takes advantage of a computer? I've always felt that paper systems were simplified because rolling 20 dice just to see if your right-handed 32 degree slash hit, wasn't deflected, broke a link in their chainmail, and caused a wound... well its just not fun. So in paper, thats all done in what... 2 rolls? But hell, with a computer you could make 20 dice rolls in an instant and the user would never know the difference. Basically I just think the rules for computers need to be streamlined for FUN, not some non-existant physical limitations. And by the same token, much of the power and flexibility in having a real DM is lost with a computer... so compensation in that area is definitly needed. Its all about limitations and tradeoffs IMO, and paper's are definitly NOT the same as a computers.

The other thing is, and do excuse the tangent, i've always HATED D&Ds magic and ability system. Maybe i'm just a Diablo-noobie, but if I can do some kick ass backflip-powerstrike, or ultimate-spell-of-destruction... why the fuck can I only do it twice a day?! What, is there some internal clock on my character? Does he go "DING!" when 24 hours pass? Thats stupid. I've always preferred the mana/stamina "pool" method because its so much more flexible. Mana is raw ability... do anything with it, but your supply is limited. D&D you've got all that memorization and per/day limit stuff... its just stupid. Say your mage character unleashs some raging inferno and completely annihilates a whole clan of orcs in an instant. Once. Now imagine the conversation:
"That was badass! Do it again!"
"Sorry man, I can't".
"Why not?"
"Oh because I have to wait 19 hours to do that again."
"Oh, so like you're tired?"
"No, not tired... I just can't do that again."
"So you could cast another spell?"
"Yeah sure."
"So cast that spell again!"
"Can't dude, like I said. All i've got left is... light. Want me to make the room glow? Its really cool, watch!"
*Grumbles* "Stupid wizard."
And yeah, I know there are some ways to fudge that stuff... but the flexibility just isn't built into the game, and thats what I hate about it. Don't get me wrong, the D&D universe is a blast... I just wish there was some plausible explanation why, in NWN, my badass, "more pissy than a castrated dragon", lvl 22 human female Fighter/Thief/Weapon Master with dual flaming longswords can only perform 6 "Ki Powerstrikes" a day. Bah.

Re:Break away from D&D?

[mark-t]

I've got two words for you that, I believe, explain much better than any other reason why the rules are the way are: Game Balance.

A lot of people don't like this reason because it offers no explaantion that makes sense _within_ the framework of the world.

For an in-game explanation, one of the best explanations is that the gods simply made it so, perhaps for easons beyond the character's ability to comprehend.

Sounds too contrived? Perhaps it is... but the characters within the game world wouldn't know that, and the only reason you actually know it is contrived is because you exist outside that domain in the first place, and have another perception of reality to compare it to. Characters within the fantasy realm wouldn't have that luxury, so it would appear completely natural to the average (or even well above average) character.

The exceptionally intelligent character may have a rational basis for questioning the arbitrariness of that sort of law in the world, but there would be nothing he or she could do about it, much as cutting edge physicists today raise theories about the nature of the universe which illustrate how some phenomena that most people take for granted can be seen as slightly... well... arbitrary. Most people can't be bothered to think on this level though... and even those that do are powerless to do anything about it. Further, this level of thinking is exceptionally modern anyways... and in a D&D setting, you're involved in a middle-ages type environment where advanced scientific questioning isn't exactly commonplace anyways.

Yoda speaks Yiddish

[Myrmidon]

Where does this sentence come from?

The rule in computing is that the more bugs you encounter, the further from standards you must be adhering.

1. the article
   
2. Zippy's Guide to Software Project Mangement
   
3. Eric Raymond after drinking three bottles of vodka
   

Obviously AI isn't the author's strong suit

[Anonymous Coward]

In the article, the meld with stone which makes a cleric impervious to damage is used as an example of how the paper rpgs have rules that are more complex than computer based rpgs. Well the paper rules never cover anything about behaviour of the monsters in these situations unless it's something like fear/flee response, it's the GM that does so.

In computer games, it's the AI governing the monsters reaction that does this. The game obviously doesn't take into account situational knowledge. Advanced AI would have taken into account estimated enemy's damage, behaviour of monster ( rage, bezerker) and assesment of areas of danger. It might have been an oversight really, but i've never seen game AIs anymore intelligent than scripted behaviour. Probably the games also uses line of sight for attracting monsters, as opposed to noise based on encumbrance values.

Besides morrowind, nothing ever comes close to that sense of adventure.

d20 D&D would be easier to implement in a CRPG

[CapeBretonBarbarian]

I have to wonder if the writer of the article has ever really played D&D d20 (3.0 or 3.5) or AD&D/D&D from previous iterations. I suspect, given the tone early on in, that he was blinded by his personal gaming political prejudice.

The latest incarnation lends itself very easily to implementation on a computer. Heck, we've been toying with converting an old LPmud to d20 because for the first time the D&D has a standardized machanic that can be more consistently implemented.

The author even goes on to state that d20 fails to take a standard approach in monster/character creation. Clearly the autlor has no clue what he's on about. d20 applies the same ruleset to everything. You want to play a Minotaur sorceror. No problem. You want to play a goblin barbarian. No problem again. Heck, you want to play a half-dragon assassin, you can do that. Now try doing that with earlier versions of D&D. Good luck coming up with a standard approach.

If there is one complaint I do have about d20 D&D it is that it feels too much like a computer game. The rules are so clear on everything now, that it all feels too structured. I find that the game is geared more towards the video game generation and less to those of us who prefer role-playing.

More standardized?

[nnnneedles]

Video game RPGs need to be *less* standardized if you ask me.

The rules aren't really that important in a video game, as opposed to a pen and paper RPG. It's mostly done behind the scenes.

What we need is games with more imagination than "kill rat 500 times, then kill spider 1000 times".

Because you know these rpg developers are too focused on "standards". How about a mafia rpg where you start with collecting money for loan sharks, then move up the ladder? Yeah, you never thought about that, assholes. Thanks for all the spiders and small poisoned rats. I want to kill you by drilling a hole in your eye.

Please. Change.

Notes from an old school D&D-er

[fudgefactor7]

D&D 3E (and 3.5E) have come a LONG way from their humble roots, and for the most part have fixed every stupid-ass idea to choke the genre except hit points.

This is an artificial mechanic that never worked well. Never. Green Ronin, for their Mutants and Masterminds game (a superhero d20 game) eliminated hit points in favor of a "Damage Save": if you make the save (like any other save) you take no damage, fail and take damage in various levels.

This totally fixed the HP problem, and works well for a superhero system--the problem lies in taking that idea (simple as it seems) and applying that mechanic to the fantasy element. The result is usually characters dying faster than before--which may even be more "real to life".

Levels, to an extent, are also broken; but they're such a mainstay of the genre that eliminating them from D&D altogether would be damn-near impossible--and unwarranted. Such a thing could kill the player-base. Players like levels, it's almost like dick size to them.

For a MMORPG how they handle these two things is key. The rules weren't written for computers at all--they were written for a GM and players. No matter how many CPU cycles you put into it, a computer will never "out imagine" a human. Thus you get canned effects and hard-coded plot points that need to be met.

I'm kind of amazed that it works at all, actually.

Never the Same adventure twice!

[BobRooney]

The difference between a true PnP game of AD&D and the computerized experience of a D&D themed game can be slight or immense depending on the skill of you RL GM compared to the auto-scripted content of a computerized world.

A bad/unimaginative GM is little better, or possibly WORSE than online or computerized gaming environments. In contrast a talented GM will bend the adventure to fit the individual characters involved.

A good GM is many things, including an Actor, Story teller, statistician, and above all else a quick-thinker. Players like to try and out-smart the GM and a good one will do their best to limit how successful their players will be, preferably in humorous ways.

The real trick is the Story-telling apect. A good DM makes you believe you're actually in another world. That suspension of disbelief is only maintainable if the number crunching is done quickly and with as little distraction to the players as possible.

Computational talk should be limited to "Roll for Perception", or "Roll to hit" and even then it helps to not get too into the numbers. A good GM hears your roll and paints a picture of the action it caused.

Free Will vs. Determinism in RPGs

[goodviking]

One of the major issues that I have with CRPGs is that ultimately, regardless of how good the AI in a game is, you are still fundamentally limited in the possibilities for game play. It's like a big "Choose Your Own Adventure Book". Maybe every so often you flip a coin to choose the next page, or maybe there are so many paths that you can't enumerate them all before you just get bored, but your still limited.

I contrast this to pen and paper games like D&D or Palladium [palladiumbooks.com] (my fav fantasy). You are limited by the creativity of the GM, and the limits of your belief in human free will (and how long the pizza lasts). It's always been the unexpected turns of other players that makes these games fun to play.

Re:Gygax?

[PoesRaven]

Actually, he basically invented the modern RPG. Unless your complaining because everybody played makebelieve, D and Ds only real predecessors are wargames -- a completely different genre.

Found this history in two seconds googling:
http://ptgptb.org/0001/history1.html

Re:Gygax?

[paganizer]

Really? which sytems, exactly, are you talking about?
When Gygax & Arneson published D&D in 1974, it was pretty much the first RPG.
I have HEARD of something called "Aerosmyth" from the 1940's, but never found any details.

Re:Gygax?

[Thanatopsis]

The Bronte Sisters (Charlotte & Emily & Anne) - They developed an active role playing system with character generation, a rudimentary success/failure system with dice and a story master. Of course no one else on the planet played their game so they didn't invent it in the way Gary did.

Re:Gygax?

[wmacgyver]

Basic D&D was published in 1977. If you accept that Chainmail is close enough to be an RPG, then Gygax wrote his first RPG in 1969 [wizards.com].

Which RPG system do you have in mind that predate this?