RPGs Must Leave Their Tabletop Roots

[GameBanshee News]

An editorial at Next Generation called "Adventureland" argues that since games are really immersive now, we should get rid of those pesky numbers.

Pen-and- paper (PnP) games are an obvious place to look for answers to these questions – these social and imaginative exercises distinguish themselves from the unruliness of play-acting through structures like inventories, experience and hit-points which fix fantasy with statistical representation. For many years, such mechanisms and the needs of videogames have dovetailed neatly. More than this, they have become such a visible and celebrated part of the roleplaying genre that the term ‘RPG’ has itself begun to denote these peripheral features to the exclusion of the core idea of ‘playing a role’.

This is changing. Looking back over RPGs from the last few years, a trend is evident. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and, more recently, Mass Effect all pursue a more direct, visceral means of representing action, searching for an immediate feedback that circumvents the prominence of PnP mechanics. Increasingly, the RPG is relegating tabletop conventions to the background in favor of the ultimate goal: complete immersion.

Spotted on RPGWatch.

[Siberys]

Ummm...yeah, someone who thinks that a pen and paper game is simply a bunch of numbers and that this is the fault of crappy RPG's in the modern computer era has NO clue what the hell he's talking about.

[Brother None]

The "no clue what he's talking about" vibe is very strong in that article. Just a lot of buzzwords about shiny graphics and "immersion" without showing any real grasp of pen and paper mechanics or how they've been applied to computer games. Apparently the author thinks this was a copy-n-paste process. Jeeeesh.

Very funny how much Bethesda is mentioned in there. Those Pete Hines quotes are very telling.

[Tricky]

You could argue that *some* of the games that are decidedly not based on a PNP franchise failed precisely because they tried to incorporate some of those elements anyway. But it's plain wrong to assume that one RPG-type evolved from the other, and that some kind of umbilical needs to be severed. The fundamental attribution error claims another victim.

[swcarter]

Oh, boy. What a sad and meandering article. Some other quotes:

"Black Isle, responsible for many acclaimed RPGs including Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate..."

"Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion arguably stands as the high-water mark for this blend of roleplaying and responsive visualization."

"The dependence upon statistics and other abstracted means of representation is becoming an albatross."

I got the sense that the author only likes RPGs with a first person perspective, and that he wasn't good in math.

SWC

[Kheros]

The author just completely misses what RPG stands for. If Oblivion is the high-water mark, then he's playing an FPS, not an RPG. There is a vast difference. As much as I liked the Diablo games, and there is a growing market for "console action-rpgs"(for lack of a better term, evne the PC has its share.) they are not true RPGs by any stretch, they're a subgroup.

Those Black Isle games mentioned should be the high-water marks, not Oblivion. Gr4fix does not an RPG make, and immersion is not item-dependant (which is how Rise of the Argonauts sounds like, and how Oblivion was built.)

I just don't understand how that whole article can make sense, at all. So wrong...so completely wrong.

[galraen]

This is changing. Looking back over RPGs from the last few years, a trend is evident.

A trend sure is evident, all glitzy graphics, infantile simplicity and little gameplay. I wouldn't go as far as calling Oblivion a low water mark, but the tide is certainly ebbing.

[fable]

Originally Posted by swcarter

I got the sense that the author only likes RPGs with a first person perspective, and that he wasn't good in math.

Fact challenged, too. But what do facts matter, when you've got a pulpit, an idea, and a mouth?

[Xandax]

Yeah - remove them pesky numbers, cause adding and subtracting is to taxing on modern gamers, even when the game does most of it for you.......

Go play FPS instead.