Online Roleplaying

Ramblus 15

Like many old school gamers, I've been following rather closely the development of D&D Online. Turbine Entertainment (of Asheron's Call fame) has entered the alpha testing phase of their latest labor of love hoping to bring the magic of tabletop roleplaying to the online computer game arena.

And of course I signed up to beta test. Hopefully I'll have better luck than I did with World of Warcraft

One of the age old debates hit their forums almost immediately. Should the game have naming conventions for the players' characters (Some believe that warriors named "BootyCall" destroy the immersiveness of the environment) and should there be dedicated roleplaying servers. I weighed in, and as I wrote I decided my answer would make a suitable blog entry. Here it is.

It's clear to me due to my experiences in face to face PnP D&D games combined with my experiences with online MMORPG games that one simply doesn't translate into the other - yet.

Should D&D Online attempt this? I don't think it can. There is no substitute for a live DM who can "lay down the law" on what is so and what is not so. And until some AI breakthroughs of a profound nature come along, a pseudo-live DM of any quality will not be programmed for some time yet.

So comparison of PnP D&D and DDO can stop. One is D&D and the other is a video game which utilizes recognizable elements from D&D.

The problem before the devs is to attempt to bring the magic of a PnP game to a multiplayer video game environment. I have read all of their bios, as many of you have as well, I am sure, and I'm pretty sure that DDO is not just a job to them, but is a labor of love based on their own experiences with PnP D&D. As I have pointed out, they are starting their "at bat" with one strike already against them. No DM is a huge hurdle to overcome.

Now this post is about RP servers, names, etc, and I haven't forgotten.

Given the premise that the devs want to attempt as a close a translation as possible between PnP and video game, how would they answer the questions being asked here? Would roleplaying servers and naming conventions aid the reaching of their goals? Well you have to add the goal of creating a successful game (read: bought and played by many) to the goal list, and that severely changes the questions we're asking.

Unfortunately, my experience says no, RP servers and naming conventions would not aid the reaching of their goals. My experience with five different MMORPGs tells me one unfortunate fact. The far greater number of people that play these games have no interest in role playing, and of the ones that do, only a small percentage are very good at it. The rest use trite backstory, thees and thous, and archetypical approaches to their classes and call it role playing. And it is, technically, but it's like acting. There are good actors and bad ones.

So we have one strike against the PnP to Online conversion. No DM. No RPers is strike 2. In order for an RP server to work, you have to have RPers. Unfortunately, there is an element of being online that makes good RP way harder to come by than in PnP. Writing ability.

In PnP, you don't have to be able to spell your name. You don't have to set any kind written mood. You can be completely illiterate and be a good roleplayer. But online, that's a different story. There is nothing that will undercut the believability of a mage character whose primary attribute is intelligence than someone who writes poorly. I'm not judging the bad writers, so don't react if you feel you're one of them. I'm just saying it is an additional hurdle, often a huge one, that people must jump in order to be good online roleplayers that they do NOT have to jump in PnP.

So is there a 3rd strike? I guess it only really matters if we are going to concern ourselves with how close of a translation this is going to be. I myself am not very concerned. I will naturally gravitate to and seek out the good writers so that I can regain for myself some of the brand of RP I prefer. I will ignore the rest, and if they get enjoyment from how they play, I have nothing bad to say about that.

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Zoomba

Join Date 11/2002

+114

The main reason MMOs fail to capture that special essence of a Pen and Paper game of D&D (or any RPG for that matter) is the storyline. Sure, games like Asheron's Call, Everquest and World of Warcraft have hugely detailed backstories and plots and factions etc... but they all lack that crafted story experience you get in a PnP game (or even a single player RPG like Baldur's Gate). In PnP, your group is guided through an adventure that is written for a small group, and it ultimately customized (if your DM is any good) to fit your needs and abilities. MMOs can't do that

MMOs cater to a very large audience and there is no ability for them to craft stories that center around a particular party. There's also no real persistence to speak of in terms of achievements. You kill UberOrcBoss #12 to retrieve The Ring of Ultimate Power #58 to save the Kingdom of Magical Faeries #3, but when you wander back through the area at some later point, the boss is back, and you see people in global chat asking how to find the Ring and save the Faeries... didn't you already do that?

They're cookie cutter and mass produced to satisfy the most people. MMOs will never ever come close to approximating a true DM run RPG experience. MMOs are going to become more and more complex until they become engrossing world simulators where you'll be a regular citizen amongst thousands of others. For a good story driven experience, go with a good old-fashioned single player game any day of the week.

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The main reason MMOs fail to capture that special essence of a Pen and Paper game of D&D (or any RPG for that matter) is the storyline.

Exactly, because in MMO's there is a world populated almost entirely by epic heroes instead of your small group of heroes in conventional stories.

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Zoomba

Join Date 11/2002

+114

Yeah, it's the reason I fell out of City of Heroes pretty quickly. I was one superhero in a city where superheroes outnumbered the average citizens. If everyone is super, is anyone really? How can crime and villians exist in these worlds when the balance between UberHero and JoeCivilian is like 10:1? Now, if I'm in a band of 5 heroes and we have to run around the countryside saving towns and villages of hapless peasants, or help secure some magical artifact that will turn the tide of a battle or something.

But when I secure the great artifact and nothing visibly changes, and when I'm knee-deep in epic world-saving heroes, the edge is lost. The illusion falls apart.

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Here's some rules a MMORPG should follow to maintain a PnP style.

1. Naming must have realistic names (from a list if really needed), and must be capable of having multiple same-name characters.
2. RP'ing is mandatory on specific RP servers/channels.
3. Questing with few uniques/procedural uniques. A-la Mythos?
4. The rules must be based on PnP, not more traditional CRPG (except if they are, of course, PnP inspired).
5. Procedural generation. Have each machine make a little bit of town.

Now, granted, I don't play any PnP RPG's (I would, but I don't have anyone to play with), my closest experience being Classic Battletech, but that's Wargaming.

I've read through the rules of most of the free systems, and played a lot of roguelikes, though. I'm working on a Parkour and Cyberpunk inspired PnP game. Hopefully it'll be simple enough to play blind.

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