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Role Playing (Games)

Masks in the Woods 30

Posted by Zonk from the heavy-gaming dept.
John Tynes, a tabletop RPG developer well-known for work on products for Pagan Publishing and Wizards of the Coast, has a piece in this week's Escapist about the power of the tabletop roleplaying experience. He compares it to the experience of roleplaying in a Massive game, and finds it lacking. From the article: "There is no golden age here. There's just another group of players who tried to tell some stories and couldn't bend the tools to their will. The tools even made things harder in some cases - as in the contentious area of IC vs. OOC chat. Endsong says the guild started with local chat being in character. But more and more members switched to using voice communication via TeamSpeak. If you thought roleplaying online via text messages was a challenge, try it with a headset." Please note - this article contains some disturbing descriptions. No sarcasm, reader beware.
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Masks in the Woods More

Masks in the Woods

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  • Sounds interesting (Score:3, Funny)

    by Digital Vomit ( 891734 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @10:27AM (#14606951) Homepage Journal
    I've never tried anything like what is described in Once in a while a game comes along that changes everything - Eve Online the article but it sounds interesting. Does anyone else have similar experiences to share?
    • Yes, yes, very amusing.

      But really, there aren't any ads on the real article pages, just a full-page, easily skipped ad in between them. If we take as a given that there will be ads to generate revenue, this is about as inoffensive as it gets.

      And it's certainly no worse than a paper magazine, with its "continued on page 42," "continued on page 64," "continued on page 20" routine.
      • You're right. It's not really that Have yourself a kit kat. Have yourself a break. jarring to have advertisements interrupting a document you I'm loving it! are reading. I'm not sick and Just do it tired of having ads interrupt every single aspect of my life. We should just bend Got milk? over and accept it, right?

        Seriously, though, I agree it could be worse. However, I found it pretty offensive that they snuck an ad in there. Maybe I'm just too sensitive from being over-advertised to already. I'm

    • It was an interesting ad to land in the middle of that article, given that as MMO games go Eve leaves a whole lot more in the players hands than most. The devs seem to be taking the approach of giving the players the tools to develop their own stories out on the rim- while neglecting the "official" stuff considerably of late (my Emperor has been dead for half a year, and no updates on empire leadership since shortly after his death).

      While the text does limit things somewhat, MUDs and such have lived with t
      • MUDs and online forums are the modern roleplayer's only online options.
        Because some are populated by under a dozen people at peak, MUDs are great for a small roleplaying community.

  • In-character consistency in voice chat? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @10:27AM (#14606953)
    Certainly the number of people playing as Trolls should make for lots of completely believable communication.

  • And they don't even mention LARPing... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GJSchaller ( 198865 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @10:30AM (#14606968) Homepage
    I will start off by saying I'm one of those guys who actually wears a mask in the woods, and plays a game that involves mock combat / sparring using padded weapons. When I saw the title of this article, that is what I thought it was about. It's a shame that they don't even touch on it. (Disclamier - I had to skim TFA, I'm at a work computer and some of the graphics on the site are not... office friendly.)

    I do agree that Role-Playing is much easier to do at the tabletop than online, or on a PC. I've been playing Tabletop RPGs since I was 10, over 20 years ago. In the past 5 years, that has given way to Live Role-Playing Games (Also know as Live-Action RPGs, or LARPs), where there is no tabletop, but everything is acted out in real-time. Some times it's in a hotel room, some times it's in a whole hotel, and sometimes (my favorite) it's on a campgrounds, where you have a large expanse of outdoors to play in.

    Don't get me wrong, WoW is fun - but it's not RP in my mind. RP is watching your best friend (acting the part of) breaking down in tears in a dramatic scene, live - not using /cry. Good RP is actually feeling a lump in your throat as you see a zombie (actually a player in makeup) shamble towards you, knowing it won't stop just because you ran out of it's spawn range. And truly memorable is when your S.O. scares the holy crap out of you by simply smiling on a dimly lit woodland path. The fact that you didn't know she was there, she's a Dark Elf in all black, on a moonless night, and all you can see is her teeth and fangs adds to the atmosphere. (I'd like to see a Night Elf try that online.)

    At the risk of sounding like a promotion, check out http://gallery.knightrealms.com/ [knightrealms.com] - Yes, I'm the webmaster, so it's my own damn fault if we get slashdotted. ;-)
    • You know, wearing a mask in public is illegal in most states. (With specific exceptions for holidays where masks are usually worn)

      No exceptions for cold weather in most states though. Anyway, a rarely enforced law, generally used to hold someone suspected of burglary until they can come up with better charges.

      Still something to keep in mind, if some redneck cop wants to harass "freaks playing with fake swords" they could use it against you.
    • Indeed, I do LARPing as well. Our group owns a 40 acre plot of land, including buildings and trails. The role-playing experience when you are doing face-to-face character interaction is beyond ANYTHING you find in table-top or MMO scenarios.

      Granted, if you're a role-player, be careful about just running out an joining a LARP. Most are just a bunch of dorky D&D nerds who though it'd be cool to dress up and hit each other with foam weapons. Finding a *good* LARP ain't easy.

      Especially avoid NERO if you
    • Good RP is actually feeling a lump in your throat as you see a zombie (actually a player in makeup) shamble towards you, knowing it won't stop just because you ran out of it's spawn range. And truly memorable is when your S.O. scares the holy crap out of you by simply smiling on a dimly lit woodland path.

      What does that have to do with playing a ROLE? Being scared or intimidated as a player should have nothing to do with how your character reacts.

      Maybe it's my tabletop prejudice coming out, nothing about you
      • You are absolutley correct, what you describe is good RP. What sets a full-costume & contact game apart from a tabletop RPG is that there is less of a need to suspend one's disbelief, in order to achieve the feeling of being truly In-Game. If my buddy Fred, who has been my GM for 10 years, describes or even voice acts a scene during a tabletop game, yes, it's possible for me to imagine it,and react to it as my charcter. But in a Live situation, the layer of imagining the scene has been (partially) re
    • > zombie (actually a player in makeup) shamble towards you

      I used to LaRP years ago. One of the best moments was the look on a players face as he crawled out of a tunnel to see three zombies, just before one (me) hit his candle, the only light source.
      (He didn't know we were exceptionally slow low hit zombies, and that we only animated one at a time as more players came through, so he only actually had me to fight in the dark, and he had no real problem.)
  • Obviously, pencil-n-paper RPGs are so incredibly superior to MMORPGs, that doesn't need to be discussed. But the author should compare apples to apples (fantasy PnPRPGs to fantasy MMORPGs, etc.) and not crime/dramatic/near-goth jerkfest to MMORPGs.

    It still is a shocker to me that there are tons of people who are currently playing MMORPGs who have never played PnPRPG. That is not so much an issue with games like WoW or EQ2 but it is a huge problem with games like NWN. The number one is PnPer knows why cer
    • "Obviously, pencil-n-paper RPGs are so incredibly superior to MMORPGs, that doesn't need to be discussed. But the author should compare apples to apples (fantasy PnPRPGs to fantasy MMORPGs, etc.) and not crime/dramatic/near-goth jerkfest to MMORPGs."

      That's... not true. MMOs are different, with different advantages. You have a computer taking care of the grunt book keeping work, conjuring up fantastic visuals instead of a couple lines of text. The downside, of course, being that you're limited to what the d
      • I almost accept the fact that they are horses of two different colours (PnPs and MMO). It kills me that MMOs still attached RPG to their genre and in doing that, makes their genre a RPG.

        We could argue round and round on what makes a true RPG. But I think it is what we expect out of an RPG is what defines the term "Roleplaying Game"

        For some, like myself, want movement of story, development of plot and the ability to create incredible character development while not depending on magic, items or gods to do i
    • It still is a shocker to me that there are tons of people who are currently playing MMORPGs who have never played PnPRPG. That is not so much an issue with games like WoW or EQ2 but it is a huge problem with games like NWN.

      NWN is not an MMORPG.

      It might be more useful to think of MMORPGs in terms of what they actually are -- team sports.

      You have 40 people trying to accomplish a single goal, and each person has a position (MT, MH, OT, DPS, Cleansebot), and you work together to accomplish something. The point
      • As MMORPGs is to PnPRPGs, so is football is to hockey.

        It all makes sense now.

        • No, that's not really what I was saying. But it's clear that you're not really interested in understanding why MMORPGs are what they are, and you're just out to act superior to MMORPG players.

          Hint: They're only called RPGs because they use combat resolution mechanics that originated in RPGs. That's it.
  • The article at several points mentions the "tools" that people need in order to roleplay in MMORPGs, yet never actually says what those tools are. So what are these tools, exactly? What features to hard-core RPers dream of having in MMORPGs?
    • I'm not a hard-core roleplayer, but I did spend a whole lot of time when I was younger playing pen-and-paper rpgs. The obvious advantage table-top rpgs or LARP has is direct interaction with other players. Things can happen as quickly as the players can talk, you aren't limited by the horrid spelling of your companions, you don't have to wait for people to peck at the keyboard, you aren't left waiting for a response because someone ran off to throw some laundry in the dryer without letting the others know
    • Faces.

      Meaningful gestures.

      Time to wait a heartbeat of two before responding to someone - without being interrupted by some pwner and their exclamation marks.

      Shared expectations for the RP experience.

      I played a couple of MMORPGs, and found each time that there were crowds of people wanting to level-up, other people talking about where they lived and what job they did (real life, of course), people asking for weapons. It's a really crowded, noisy environment. Like trying to LARP in a shopping mall: sure you c

  • This can't come as any surprise (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fair_n_hite_451 ( 712393 ) <crsteel&shaw,ca> on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @10:54AM (#14607135)
    Face-to-face roleplaying brings body language, facial expressions, voice pitch and human interaction to the table (pun intended).

    Not sure how on-line roleplaying ... until we reach the nirvana of immersive 3D, holodeck-like technology ... will ever compete with that.

    His whole article can be summed up like this:
    "I went to a marionette show, and you know what, movies look more realistic."

  • IC vs OOC is an issue in tabletop, too (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @11:05AM (#14607225) Journal
    This issue has come up with me several times. Some people are able to shift gears back and forth fairly quickly, and saying "Pass the chips" between rolls isn't a big deal. Some people seem to treat IC like some sort of holy meditation and get annoyed when you break it.
  • There is a good deal more to online play then just the WoW's of the world....IRC used to be a haven for RP, but has since moved on to MUSHs and MUDS. These mediums are at the same time more successful and less successful then then WoWs of the world. They tend to be more in the spirit of TT games, but have horrific player turn overs. I also remember when Never winter nights appeared on the gaming scene...There was a hope among MUD/MUSHers that that was going to be the "next" level of gaming. Unfortunately t
    • I can't imagine doing any effective roleplaying across a MMORPG, certainly not to the level of MU*s. I've tried out Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot, and I felt they were about as much about roleplaying as, say, Half-Life.

      On a MU*, you can actually have your own plotline, events affect you in very definite ways, you can tell the DM or plotmaster or whatnot "I want to do this" and it becomes reality (whether your actions are successful or not). You can't get any of that on a MMORPG.

  • I'm a member of a MMORPG RP/writing collective, the RP Congress [rpcongress.com] on the Pinnacle City of Heroes server. It's pretty fun, and I don't have all that hard of a time with it. The other people in the group are great RPers and writers; we even manage to write stories and chat together out-of-game by using MoonEdit [moonedit.com].

    The thing about in-game RP is that you're limited by and large to text chat only. There are a few emotes--special animations that your character can go through, like waving, dancing, or gesturing imperio

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