Manual RPG's, their function and the online typology community

[Brontosaurie]

It seems that manual RPG's are obsolete from a pure technological point of view. Their appeal seems to lie in the meta-level social rituals surrounding them, predominantly a sense of interactive craft. The format is a structure to facilitate and manage communal story-telling. Anyone who is more experienced should feel free to correct me at this point. I'm pretty much an outside observer.

I'm thinking that the online typology community works very much like an RPG ideally should, more so than the manual RPG's. There is less cumbersome operation and more expression potential. It engages character at depth and ambiguously. One may explore layers of image and identity. Isn't this what role-playing is about?

What is the appeal and proper niche of manual RPG's?

Aren't video games better at being games and online typology better at being role-playing?

What do you think of the proposed analogy?

What do you reap from your manual RPG sessions? How do they satisy?

No offence to anyone, just a slew of highly unfinished thoughts. Any input will be appreciated, curated and synthesized.

 

[Jennywocky]

What do you mean by manual RPG? You mean tabletop/pen-and-paper etc?
Your questions are hard to parse, due to the language you're using.

I don't really understand the comparison you're drawing between typology and RPGs either.

Maybe if you took some time to better sketch out your position, it would be easier to answer.

 

[Hadoblado]

As in tabletop?

Automated RPG's are unengaging because they cater to the lowest common denominator in user-base. The balance is usually poor, and the adaptation almost non-existent. You design your character before you start, and spend the rest of the game just farming up through a sequence of usually uninspired encounters in order to realise a virtual version of the idea you had at the beginning.

As for MBTI as an RPG, yeah I can see that I guess? It makes sense to me semantically but I don't experience it that way. For some people who think they're shifting type I guess it's a fairly strong parallel, but the element of belief is a pretty big distinction. People spend their whole lives within all sorts of institutions trying to achieve different categorisations, are they also just roleplay? If you believe you are a thing that belief can affect the extent to which you become that thing, and vice versa, but in an RPG you do not believe you are actually that thing.

 

[Brontosaurie]

What do you mean by manual RPG? You mean tabletop/pen-and-paper etc?
Your questions are hard to parse, due to the language you're using.

Anything where dice are the random generator and the story emerges from player decisions moderated by the gamemaster, i suppose.

 

[Jennywocky]

Ah, okay.. so that could encompass electronic versions of pen-and-paper as well...

what hado said, at the least. Preprogrammed RPGs aren't really that flexible. As an example, my GM told me the other week about how basically he does prep work for each session to cover eventualities that are off the beaten path. Good GMs are that flexible, so that the players don't feel channeled/controlled, or at least feel like there is freedom in the story. Player choices become more complex and the possibilities more numerous, the more players you have involved in a game; and a decent GM has to be prepared to handle deviations from expectations on the fly. As an example, he said once he had running a session in Detroit for vampire/WoD and out of the blue, after he had Detroit all figured out, out of the blue they said, "We're taking a boat to Chicago across the lake," and he was like, "ooohhhhhh-kay" and luckily had some ideas by which he could wing it. And I know my current campaign, we're constantly mucking him up by doing unexpected things, but he's always been able to make up characters and motivations and story points on the fly. With automated campaigns, everything has to be preplanned and coded/implemented somehow.

I would definitely say there's a sense of communal story-telling -- we each get to play our character in this huge story, and the GM provides setting, NPCs, and helps the story keep moving. When mechanics get in the way, we ditch mechanics to make a better story... so obviously that's not something that is automated. It's fun to see what we can do together, to build something epic. In my current campaign, I've done stuff to make a better story with everyone else and altogether versus just trying to min-max the system, even when it puts my character at great risk. I can't begin to tell you how often we all are laughing hysterically during a gaming session, and in fact the typical groups I end up playing with, every session has a lot of laughter as we're all making a lot of crazy shit go down and having a blast playing character differences in ways that create humor and conflict.

And then there's the food.

I'm already kind of a social hermit. The last thing I really need to be sitting at home playing a computerized RPG. There, the emphasis is more on just skillfully finishing the game . I do it when I have no other outlets, but I find the unexpected qualities/choices of a group to be more fun.

I'm afraid I don't really understand your comments about typology, it sounds like you are saying that participating on a typology forum is like role-playing in some way and even more dynamic, so shouldn't it be more fun or something than a tabletop RPG? I don't really look at forum participation as story-telling. True, people do possess forum personas -- the way they choose to express themselves -- but I guess for me, I come to a forum to less pretend to be someone else and more to make an honest contact with people (because IRL I have very little contact with others, so this is it for me), even if everyone including myself still tends to spin themselves a particular way. I'll use an avatar and such to cast myself a certain way, but it's to reveal more about me / reflect myself in some way, versus pretending to be someone different. In my RPG games, I typically play a variety of characters who are NOT me.... they will each possess a facet or two that I share with them, as my way of connecting to the character, but often possessing traits I do not share.

 

[Brontosaurie]

Ah, okay.. so that could encompass electronic versions of pen-and-paper as well...

Yes.

what hado said, at the least. Preprogrammed RPGs aren't really that flexible. As an example, my GM told me the other week about how basically he does prep work for each session to cover eventualities that are off the beaten path. Good GMs are that flexible, so that the players don't feel channeled/controlled, or at least feel like there is freedom in the story. Player choices become more complex and the possibilities more numerous, the more players you have involved in a game; and a decent GM has to be prepared to handle deviations from expectations on the fly. As an example, he said once he had running a session in Detroit for vampire/WoD and out of the blue, after he had Detroit all figured out, out of the blue they said, "We're taking a boat to Chicago across the lake," and he was like, "ooohhhhhh-kay" and luckily had some ideas by which he could wing it. And I know my current campaign, we're constantly mucking him up by doing unexpected things, but he's always been able to make up characters and motivations and story points on the fly. With automated campaigns, everything has to be preplanned and coded/implemented somehow.

I would definitely say there's a sense of communal story-telling -- we each get to play our character in this huge story, and the GM provides setting, NPCs, and helps the story keep moving. When mechanics get in the way, we ditch mechanics to make a better story... so obviously that's not something that is automated. It's fun to see what we can do together, to build something epic. In my current campaign, I've done stuff to make a better story with everyone else and altogether versus just trying to min-max the system, even when it puts my character at great risk. I can't begin to tell you how often we all are laughing hysterically during a gaming session, and in fact the typical groups I end up playing with, every session has a lot of laughter as we're all making a lot of crazy shit go down and having a blast playing character differences in ways that create humor and conflict.

I see. Flexibility is a strong point of the medium, and a good, well-prepared GM makes a world of difference - along with committed players.

What i kind of don't understand is two things i suppose:

1. The computations are much slower and everything is limited to turn-based. You might as well not actually go through the motions of these slow, vague mechanics, instead just deciding what happens all the time.

2. The challenge seems to vanish somewhere in the midst of the open-ended tentative limiting conditions and the focus on story-telling, as you describe. What's left, in my eyes, is a communal story-telling party conducted through the medium of elaborately constructed random-algorithms.

The things overlap a lot.

Blah, i'm not getting this across.

I'm afraid I don't really understand your comments about typology, it sounds like you are saying that participating on a typology forum is like role-playing in some way and even more dynamic, so shouldn't it be more fun or something than a tabletop RPG? I don't really look at forum participation as story-telling. True, people do possess forum personas -- the way they choose to express themselves -- but I guess for me, I come to a forum to less pretend to be someone else and more to make an honest contact with people (because IRL I have very little contact with others, so this is it for me), even if everyone including myself still tends to spin themselves a particular way. I'll use an avatar and such to cast myself a certain way, but it's to reveal more about me / reflect myself in some way, versus pretending to be someone different. In my RPG games, I typically play a variety of characters who are NOT me.... they will each possess a facet or two that I share with them, as my way of connecting to the character, but often possessing traits I do not share.

I get the impression that the type community and forums in general are a kind of role-playing endeavour. At least that's how i must admit to myself that it works for me. Any authenticity is authenticity in relation to the persona. I read this as a sign of emergent Uploading.

The archetypes, the atoms of consciousness, the complementary niches brought forth by evolution - these themes are sufficient for a grand myth.

 

[Brontosaurie]

As for MBTI as an RPG, yeah I can see that I guess? It makes sense to me semantically but I don't experience it that way. For some people who think they're shifting type I guess it's a fairly strong parallel, but the element of belief is a pretty big distinction. People spend their whole lives within all sorts of institutions trying to achieve different categorisations, are they also just roleplay? If you believe you are a thing that belief can affect the extent to which you become that thing, and vice versa, but in an RPG you do not believe you are actually that thing.

They sure are role. I'm not sure they're play.

If you catch my drift

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

A well written and played tabletop rpg is very close if not a virtual reality. It sets apart the limited medium of sound and visuals that computers can offer that is called a 'game', because it can never be a reality in so many ways the tabletop session could. No computer sandboxes even come close to what human input can provide, essentially a big part of tabletop experience is being in a deep multiplayer mode with others, socialising, getting to know everyone and forming bonds.

Imagination is a limitless storyteller, it can take any game plot and enhance it with creative input, flexibility is a part of it, but the authenticity of the experience and immersion is second to none, save for masterpieces of adventuring literature that also manage to make you forget the world around you.

I'm not sure what you mean with typology, there's no roleplayer when it boils down to being yourself, or it's just a single role out of many.

Games are and will be inferior, because tabletop allows to avoid any compromise of artistic expression, whatever the game master desires or players want to reenact, it is feasible as long as they can think of it.
To have a game reach this depth and open field, it would have to be run by intelligent beings or AI, making the distinction pointless.

You mentioned computational complexity, but very few computer games try to have complicated mechanics or advanced computations, they mostly fall into basic molds of standard interactions. It is true that sometimes mechanics require too much time to calculate for the game master, but firstly they also tend to be more complex than their crpg counterparts and secondly I don't see any reason against tabletops employing the advantages of computing in the future, to let the game master focus on their part and relieve the tedium of realism back to the box.

There's also storytelling games, tabletop sessions with limited or nonexistent mechanics and no calculations required.

 

[Brontosaurie]

A well written and played tabletop rpg is very close if not a virtual reality. It sets apart the limited medium of sound and visuals that computers can offer that is called a 'game', because it can never be a reality in so many ways the tabletop session could. No computer sandboxes even come close to what human input can provide, essentially a big part of tabletop experience is being in a deep multiplayer mode with others, socialising, getting to know everyone and forming bonds.

Imagination is a limitless storyteller, it can take any game plot and enhance it with creative input, flexibility is a part of it, but the authenticity of the experience and immersion is second to none, save for masterpieces of adventuring literature that also manage to make you forget where you are.

I get what you're saying and i agree that doing something creative together, or more specifically telling a story together, can be a worthwhile activity. I just don't see why the game mechanism component is necessary. It can't be as intricately skill based as a computer game, because the computations are crude. The time element is missing (?) and while i don't think it's necessary i think the lack of it complicates things quite a bit. All the game mechanism offers is a structure as far as i can tell, though only from playing one session and talking about game design and parameters and mechanisms with a friend who is GM for a group of like 5 others. I can share his enthusiasm about a system. The gaming enjoyment is enigmatic to me. Is this just prejudice?

I guess the angle is i sort of understand RPG and i sympathize with it but i just can't see the need for going about doing it. Maybe lack of experience, maybe outsider holistic perspective, maybe both.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

See the point I made on storytelling, or just google what it is.

I think it depends on what we enjoy, I used to be a game master for many years, now I don't get as much opportunities to meet up irl, but I have at least 6+ years of proactive gming and participating in games, 8+ years of being familiar with the overall convention. The main reason I wanted to gm wasn't the players, it was my love for creating a consistent, unique and my own world, with its own stories and events, I've described it in another post here more extensively, which you are free to find, but I could spend hours designing dungeons or character backgrounds that were very unlikely to appear before the player's "eyes" for more than a brief moment. I did it because I enjoyed creation and rules I made and how it made players react and interplay with it.

Not everyone has to enjoy it, I've met many people who simply couldn't get it, they compared it to another diablo game, or just were ashamed to participate for fear of becoming outcasts, out of more than 30 people I tried to engage in tabletop, 9 were interested and out of them 6 became my relatively stable player and most importantly friend-base.

Being a gm is special, I think it requires different motivations than being a simple participant, out of my 6 friends only 2 became interested in gming, none of them to the same extent I was, but I'd ascribe it to our different styles of narration and visions.

I'm not sure if I'm replying to your questions at this point, but since you asked for a perspective of someone with experience, I provide it.

Also, don't give up because it isn't your thing too early, I'd try it a few more times to break your habit perhaps, I remember exactly how my players matured and their actions, interests and campaigns they participated in became more serious and realistic.

Maybe contrary to popular belief, none of the players who played with us to relieve stress or act out their twisted fantasies stayed, they got what they wanted, but they weren't interested in the game as much as getting their fantasies come to life. So these 6 people weren't like that, they wanted to explore, learn, interact with the world as much as they wanted to be in this friendly environment we created together.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Also, don't give up because it isn't your thing too early, I'd try it a few more times to break your habit perhaps, I remember exactly how my players matured and their actions, interests and campaigns they participated in became more serious and realistic.

Maybe contrary to popular belief, none of the players who played with us to relieve stress or act out their twisted fantasies stayed, they got what they wanted, but they weren't interested in the game as much as getting their fantasies come to life. So these 6 people weren't like that, they wanted to explore, learn, interact with the world as much as they wanted to be in this friendly environment we created together.

Hey that does sound kind of intriguing, personally never felt an urge to get into roleplaying. It just seems so time consuming and patience testing without giving much back. When people talk about their roleplaying sessions its always in excited voices saying "and then X did this which turned into that so that Y was effected this way but then because of C it turned out X had to this to Y and then shit exploded and but he rolled a 20 so miraculously this but then the crocodile attacked and Y rolled a 1 and so the gator went and got his leg lol now he has -5 agility permanently LOL and wow ain't this stuff crazy!!!!" which sounds kinda yawn inducing. But the way you describe it makes it sound like it could be something much more.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I used to have that mentality during my sessions too, my players would desire powerful items, hoard money, build fortresses, etc. We were 14-16 years old at that point, later some of them talked too much for the sake of it and we could have these improvised dialogs lasting hours, less shooting more word fencing and later more cooperating and staying involved.

I think you'd want to meet up with people of similar maturity and motivations and it doesn't have to be a big group, 2 players and a gm is a good enough experience to begin with.

I'm not sure how easy it is to start much older than I did, but I'd still encourage you to try it. I think the first few meetings is more people's lottery and getting used to who you get to "work" with and then scheduling meetings with those, whose company your really enjoyed.
The first meetings also break the ice and debunk misconception about what you all were supposed to be doing, (tbf the only thing you are supposed to be doing is to have a valuable experience) becoming less restrained to speak out or roleplay, or being more tolerant or encouraging when others open up, and so on.

I'd agree it's quite difficult to make it work and as you've said the benefit may be not as big compared to something else, except I don't think it's possible to compare this form of socialising to many others.

 

[Jennywocky]

What i kind of don't understand is two things i suppose:

1. The computations are much slower and everything is limited to turn-based. You might as well not actually go through the motions of these slow, vague mechanics, instead just deciding what happens all the time.

it can be, which is the threshold of player patience determines what game system(s) people are willing to play. Some people want more mechanics, some will opt for games like The Strange / Numenera for games with far less mechanics. (And WoD tends to be somewhere in-between a mechanics-style game versus a completely story-based game.)

2. The challenge seems to vanish somewhere in the midst of the open-ended tentative limiting conditions and the focus on story-telling, as you describe. What's left, in my eyes, is a communal story-telling party conducted through the medium of elaborately constructed random-algorithms.

Not sure what you mean by 'challenge vanishing." I find the games very challenging -- you learn the mechanics and synergies in classes/skills so that you can make a particular type of character effective either solo or in context of the group, and then have to use your brain on the fly to most effectively use your character skills to reach success. It all depends on things are anchored in stone and what things are more flexible. For example, regardless of story, no one fudges "death" in our campaigns; if you die, you're dead unless there's a way someone can bring you back within game rules.

I get the impression that the type community and forums in general are a kind of role-playing endeavour. At least that's how i must admit to myself that it works for me. Any authenticity is authenticity in relation to the persona. I read this as a sign of emergent Uploading.

The archetypes, the atoms of consciousness, the complementary niches brought forth by evolution - these themes are sufficient for a grand myth.

Not really sure what you mean per se. I might just have a different use and experience on forums than you do, as I noted -- I don't go on a forum to play roles, authenticity to me is "who I am IRL." I'm not really using foruming as a persona-developing experience, where persona is not equivalent to "me."

 

[SpaceYeti]

Isn't this what role-playing is about?

Also, beating up orcs.

What is the appeal and proper niche of manual RPG's?

Mostly it's the open-ness of action. Yes,. you're constrained by the game mechanics, but you are not limited to a list of responses, you can respond however you wish, granting your character is capable of it. The social interaction among close friends is also important, though.

Aren't video games better at being games and online typology better at being role-playing?

Video games are not better at being games, because a game is just a formalized method of playing. They're better for the individual or small group who does not care about artificial, yet necessary, choice constraints. Video games are not as interactive or immersive, because these missing options are very obvious. Video games don't allow you to flesh out a character, you play as a pre-ordained one, even with plenty of options. Online typology, on the other hand, is on the other end of the spectrum. How do you determine what a made up character can do? how do you determine if they've succeeded or failed? There must be mechanics to determine success.

What do you think of the proposed analogy?

Not good.

What do you reap from your manual RPG sessions? How do they satisy?

Openness of character and story, but the structure to determine success, while socializing with close friends.

 

[Brontosaurie]

Not sure what you mean by 'challenge vanishing." I find the games very challenging -- you learn the mechanics and synergies in classes/skills so that you can make a particular type of character effective either solo or in context of the group, and then have to use your brain on the fly to most effectively use your character skills to reach success. It all depends on things are anchored in stone and what things are more flexible. For example, regardless of story, no one fudges "death" in our campaigns; if you die, you're dead unless there's a way someone can bring you back within game rules.

The absence of hard limitations defeats the challenge. It resembles an ouija board. The game goes where people are ready to go, and it takes the turns people desire. Maybe one doesn't fudge death, but if the only limitation is death (as compared to the variety of dexterity and problem-solving limitations in real-time computer games) and death means a player is out of the game permanently, i take it one wouldn't go into situations where death is a serious risk. Instead it becomes proactive. Is this correct? And if on the other hand death results merely in starting over with a new character, it's not that much of a limitation. You just gotta collect stats/skills/gear again. Which isn't fun or challenging (?).

I understand how synergy works and could provide great fun. What i don't understand is how situations could arise where the need for playing synergetically poses an actual challenge. Unless i missed a big piece, the game is preparation rather than game. It's like writing Robinson Crusoe but using math (which you first stipulate) for some events.

I'm not as assertive or bigoted as i may sound :$

Perhaps the conclusive main gripe: Everything not ouija board-ey is dice.

Not really sure what you mean per se. I might just have a different use and experience on forums than you do, as I noted -- I don't go on a forum to play roles, authenticity to me is "who I am IRL." I'm not really using foruming as a persona-developing experience, where persona is not equivalent to "me."

To each their own. In my view, the "persona-ness" is intrinsic to the medium and one cannot be honest communicating through the medium if one imagines it transparent and featureless.

 

[Jennywocky]

The absence of hard limitations defeats the challenge. It resembles an ouija board. The game goes where people are ready to go, and it takes the turns people desire. Maybe one doesn't fudge death, but if the only limitation is death (as compared to the variety of dexterity and problem-solving limitations in computer games) and death means a player is out of the game permanently, i take it one wouldn't go into situations where death is a serious risk. Instead it becomes proactive. Is this correct?

*confused* not really.

there are rules in the game world, just like in real life, that you can't really break. So you have to use your brain and figure ways to beat each challenge. Like in real life, there are various challenges you face or tasks you try to complete daily, from the mundane to sometimes very complicated; and the game setting is no different. There are constraints on everything.

I'm not really sure what preconceptions you are bringing into this, but you seem to be overcomplicating things greatly and are viewing things as far more amorphous than they are .

I understand how synergy works and could provide great fun. What i don't understand is how situations could arise where the need for playing synergetically poses an actual challenge. Unless i missed a big piece, the game is preparation rather than game. It's like writing Robinson Crusoe but using math (which you first stipulate) for some events.

I wish you could speak more specifically about your issues. Like, provide concrete examples or scenarios as to how you think something would work. Your criticisms tend to be so general that I have trouble seeing exactly what the issues are so that I can provide a response that might alleviate some of the confusion.

 

[Brontosaurie]

Mostly it's the open-ness of action. Yes,. you're constrained by the game mechanics, but you are not limited to a list of responses, you can respond however you wish, granting your character is capable of it. The social interaction among close friends is also important, though.

I get it. You can do anything within the thematic constraints of the agreed fictional environment, and apply relevant stats and dice rolls. But is there meaning in the many things when - beyond the story-telling - it's just attribute numbers, random-inputs, and a slight input of rudimentary imagination/resourcefulness. Do you see why i get the impression that the game mechanic is mostly a story skeleton?

Video games are not better at being games, because a game is just a formalized method of playing. They're better for the individual or small group who does not care about artificial, yet necessary, choice constraints. Video games are not as interactive or immersive, because these missing options are very obvious. Video games don't allow you to flesh out a character, you play as a pre-ordained one, even with plenty of options. Online typology, on the other hand, is on the other end of the spectrum. How do you determine what a made up character can do? how do you determine if they've succeeded or failed? There must be mechanics to determine success.

To me, what you're saying here is that manual RPG's are better at being interactive modular story-telling environments. Not at being games. "Fleshing out characters", having multiple choices etc - the things you mention don't pertain to problem-solving (with emphasis on problem and solving) or skill but on imagination and creativity.

So i think manual RPG's could be distilled a lot and we could get rid of many formalities, and still retain the core appeal to communal story-telling and soft, open-ended "problem-solving" that isn't actually problem-solving because there aren't real, hard problems to begin with.

 

[Brontosaurie]

*confused* not really.

there are rules in the game world, just like in real life, that you can't really break. So you have to use your brain and figure ways to beat each challenge. Like in real life, there are various challenges you face or tasks you try to complete daily, from the mundane to sometimes very complicated; and the game setting is no different. There are constraints on everything.

I'm not really sure what preconceptions you are bringing into this, but you seem to be overcomplicating things greatly and are viewing things as far more amorphous than they are .



I wish you could speak more specifically about your issues. Like, provide concrete examples or scenarios as to how you think something would work. Your criticisms tend to be so general that I have trouble seeing exactly what the issues are so that I can provide a response that might alleviate some of the confusion.

First off: Thank you for being patient with my selfish requests

"Like in real life" - great. This provides an opening. Aren't "real lives" typically boring? Shouldn't we strive to eliminate the ordeals real life put us through, if we want enjoyment?

Relevant text: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/01/16/on-the-design-of-escaped-realities/

There are limitations to the environment, sure, i know RPG is not (or rarely) an arbitrary sandbox. But those creativity-facilitating limitations would apply even if one didn't play it as a game but instead just collaborated on a story through role-playing. Then it would also be easier to elevate the story above the mundane.

I liken the manual RPG to a story-telling, supported by game mechanics. You too seem to be high-lighting the "soft" problem solving which isn't contained in the game mechanic itself, such as being imaginative and coming up with: "Oh, there's an imminent attack and we're in a barn. In barns, there's typically a [makeshift weapon X]. My action is to search for it". I realize it gets a lot more intricate than that. But for this purpose, why not just make up a story together? I can't get past that. Why is it interesting not only to create a fictional environment together and explore it, but to assign crude computations to the events in order to introduce an element of apparent challenge aswell? Does the game mechanic give a propellant, incentivizing sense of urgency even though it doesn't really pose hard skill-testing limitations? Is the turn-base simply necessary for people to get along?

 

[Urakro]

People were initially confused about the topic. For shits, I tried seeing how much sense it would make reading RPG as rocket-propelled grenades.

What do you reap from your manual RPG sessions? How do they satisy?

A mind-altering experience of stress relief I can't find anywhere else.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Bronto, I don't understand what you are trying to achieve here.

It's like you are trying to have a theoretical discussion to conclude the inferiority, or redundancy of some qualities of tabletop genre.

First of all, every element in tabletop is completely optional and modifiable, secondly I don't think your conclusions matter, no one is going to prove to you how good something really is, you have to test it yourself and spend a good amount of time to make your own judgment.

You are infected by popular ways of thinking and acting, it's likely that many of the game masters will have the problems you think the "tabletop genre" has, but I'd say it's more of a gm's own issue. Doesn't matter, ultimately if you want to enjoy it, you have to participate and experience it, no amount of theoretical denominations or redefinitions will help you.

Unless you were predominantly interested in bashing/discussing, instead of getting into the core of things.

Let's say you are about to swim in cold water, we could discuss how cold water is inherently inferior to warm water and how the perceived benefits of such actions are not worth it in comparison, or maybe we could establish that coldness of water is an artificial obstacle to enjoyment, etc.

I'm not sure what else to say, I find further defence of the obvious awesomeness of rpg too boring to drag out.

As a side note: if you decide to try it out, Cherry Cola is a good bet, having a friend play helps alleviate many of the initial obstacles. The rest is learning to become a gm yourself, or changing (gm-player) roles regularly and maybe finding a few more players for your team, again your go-to folks are your friends who already have good relations within the group. If you have friends with differing personalities that's even better, it helps bring conflicts, fresh perspectives and original play-styles to life. Usually any mistakes you point out in other gms disappear if you take their place.

 

[Hadoblado]

I liken the manual RPG to a story-telling, supported by game mechanics. You too seem to be high-lighting the "soft" problem solving which isn't contained in the game mechanic itself, such as being imaginative and coming up with: "Oh, there's an imminent attack and we're in a barn. In barns, there's typically a [makeshift weapon X]. My action is to search for it". I realize it gets a lot more intricate than that. But for this purpose, why not just make up a story together? I can't get past that. Why is it interesting not only to create a fictional environment together and explore it, but to assign crude computations to the events in order to introduce an element of apparent challenge aswell? Does the game mechanic give a propellant, incentivizing sense of urgency even though it doesn't really pose hard skill-testing limitations? Is the turn-base simply necessary for people to get along?

Well, when you write a story you're basically sandboxing, but you're sandboxing the limitations of your sandbox too. This is inherently devoid of any challenge that isn't the result of a standard enforced either internally or externally; you cannot both experience the story and write it at the same time. So writing a story without the intervention of chance or other people is sort of altruistic in this sense, as you are consistently spoiling the story for yourself; only the reader benefits.

With the participation of other people, and the limitations of a system of chance, every person, even the DM, does not know what is going to happen. To me, this makes tabletop games special in a way that computer games are yet to sufficiently replicate. When I play a standard RPG I am bored, because I feel like the person who made the game for me has made the decisions, and I'm just testing my ability to think of one of the solutions that they prescribe. This is rarely satisfying.

In tabletop RPGs, because the world is fluid, balance can fix itself in real time. Unlike a computerised RPG, where you tend to solve the entire game with your decisions made in character creation, a GM can address your bullshit directly or indirectly, which means that you need to keep adapting and keep thinking. If you've made some OP build, the story in front of you shifts and adapts to retain challenge. Got a silly crit build, how well does it work on undead? Got a stupid boring armor class as a result of your custom full-plate and towershield? I hope you enchanted it with water breathing because you're going swimming. Not that the GM should be trying to constantly make it impossible, just that the challenge does adapt, and thus so must you.

Real roleplay also basically can't happen without a GM interpreting your actions, not as a group anyway. Within any rigid game universe there are some things that just benefit you more, and you're rewarded for doing the cost/benefit analysis each time. Maybe you're lawful good, but you can be a little bit evil this one time if the reward is high enough. The vast majority of gamers do not really bother with roleplay as anything but a further selective pressure for optimal game behaviour, especially when in a group where there is competition for loot. A GM can pierce the veil that a computer cannot, and can incentivise roleplaying while punishing people for throwing their character's personality out the window in pursuit of loot. While this may sound overbearing, it creates the space for tabletop RPGs to thrive when otherwise they'd be a dungeon grind.

Lastly, the social mechanics in tabletop are really rather fucking interesting. You work as a part of a party of characters often of differing alignments, who are all in service to the psych of their player at all times. I literally had someone try to pressure my character into dangerous situations last night because they think I took their favourite die. There can be crazy politic and often the GM gets involved too, and while this can be very frustrating at times, it is also very interesting to be a part of.

Spoiler

My current 2e homebrew character is a gentleman by the name of Marcus 'Mash Potato' Johnson. The idea of him came from a number of complex factors:
- making use of two 17's and a 15 I rolled in character creation
- abuse core dual classing rules
- abuse homebrew rules
- the most ridiculous level of utility possible
- a vehicle for my passive aggression against the party that let my last character die when he was trying to save them
- surviving in a world balanced against a party of 150,000 average xp, and a large number of powerful items, with only 10,000 xp and no items
- bimodal displays of power that are misinterpreted by party, leaving them with the impression Johnson has a consistently obnoxious level of power
- manipulating party actions into playing less stupidly and less meta
- roleplaying a dispassionate and manipulative lawful evil ENTJ
- filling a niche in the party as the only character that's seen the sun (it's set in a subterranean city), allowing for me to apply standard solutions to problems that are derived from the surface world that I as a player am familiar with.
- appease my own sense of insecurity I get from constantly forgetting the rules in public displays, by demonstrating mastery of particular rule sets that other people are largely ignorant of (as I frequently switch editions and the more arbitrary rule paradigms are consistently lost)

He's currently 3rd level fighter, 4th level thief, 9th level wizard (but can never take levels in thief or fighter again). He had by far the best armor class in the party for a long while, despite not having any items, meaning he survived when most wouldn't. He's got about twice as many skills as any other character in the party. He has been of constant service to the party despite lagging sorely behind in level and equipment (though it's almost evened out now). He's been pushing his weight around as if he was the most powerful, because nobody knows what he actually does. By using disposable items and publicly displaying his temporarily enhanced abilities, players think him more powerful in combat than he actually is. His use of drow poison and his demonstrated to-hit numbers scare people. His use of homebrew disposables has allowed him to cast the equivalent of three powerful spells a turn while firing arrows (the spells are actually tied to the arrows, which only effect specific enemy types, and have a sorely limited supply).
Johnson has been bluffing the party into shape for the last few months, at a player level. When they go to unlock the cage of some cthulu monstrosity, Johnson intercepts them and intimidates them into submission at a metagame level (the only reason they were releasing it was for meta-reasons). When players are doing stupid shit expecting the rest of us to pick up after them, Johnson will go and bully the other characters into leaving them to suffer the consequences (often death, though this usually means either resurrection costs or indebting themselves to someone), guilting them with their alignments or other loyalties. When the group is being lost to bystander effect, Johnson will antagonise the right person (be they player or NPC) into instigating the outcome he sees as inevitable.

The chances Johnson could actually win a fight against other party members is around 5%, but he presents as an 18 strength melee monster with save-or-die effects on his sword, a bow that only misses on a 1 that holds opponents in an AoE, drawing for best AC in the party, the ability to negate death 3xday, the greatest non-magic utility, near permanent invisibility and flying, a small pack of permanent shadow summons, a comparable spell repertoire to the highest level casters in the party, and an inventory full of powerful disposables. Nobody need know he can only be 2-3 of these things at any one time, nor that he has poor saves or HP, nor that some of these are things he won't be able to do in future, or that he's reliant on other members to cover his weaknesses in standard encounters. The GM is constantly getting in a huff for the shit I pull, but I take him aside and show him the numbers and the weaknesses I'm having to work around, and he's sort of suspicious but accepts my explanation (I'm entirely honest with him), in fact he often thinks me stupid for giving up so much for largely cosmetic benefits.

These sort of dynamics can't really happen in a standard mmorpg, and almost certainly not organically. The depth in game mechanics and choice just isn't there, and the loot party interactions are almost always socially engineered. In fact, compared to standard MMOs and RPGs I've seen consistently more complex social interactions in RTS and MOBAs.

 

[Polaris]

Edit: Uhrmegurd, so muh txt...

I don't know if I am understanding the OP correctly, so please forgive me for any redundancy or accidental wandering off topic.

From my interpretation, The OP kinda hits home. I have never quite understood the appeal of online or tabletop RPG games. I think this may have something to do with my own inability to immerse in fantasy though. I have come to understand that many other people have incredibly vivid imaginary abilities, and thus, RPG games would be a necessary outlet while also providing a level of meta-social interaction ideal for introverted types.

I have no trouble reading fantasy, provided it has a very good story line which never fails to grasp my attention. To do that, it must have elements of surprise/unpredictability, but not to the point where it is impossible to deduce an outcome. I also get that some RPG games have these elements of surprise as the algorithms provide enough options within the restrictions of that particular game.

Now, I'm of a generation that did not grow up with computers and I was additionally not exposed to groups where people engaged in such activities, so I may have a very wrong impression, forgive me if that is the case. I have engaged in roleplay where I could build a character but I had severe trouble focussing on this task as I got very bored with the limitations inherent in a human- designed character.

I'm having equal trouble verbalising this....I hate words sometimes.

I am not sure if online typology forums can be compared to RPG games, but I think I understand why OP is making this comparison.

With the acquired knowledge of my type (or indicator) there was definitively a shift in perception of self. A new layer of identity, or a layer which emerged on the surface from years of sleeping below the surface. I think this is inevitable as we are highly impressionable beings, despite the notion of self-awareness. External reinforcement of subtle characteristics encourage more dominance. We have multiple facets to ourselves, and some become suppressed and others encouraged, depending on external feedback.

When I started interacting tentatively with other people supposedly of similar nature, the perceived possibilities for novel outcomes seemed to amplify tenfold. If all these individuals had recently come to a new understanding of their multi-layered identities like I had, there was a lot of room for experiment and discovery. Here was a different dynamic based on people of similar dispositions as opposed to people of dissimilar dispositions. Which one of them would have the most elements of surprise?

In my experience, having come from a background which seemed to me extremely limiting in terms of culture and level of dogmatic constraints - an online forum for people of similar disposition was a significant step up in the process of my own self-development.

However.....I'm getting to the point here, type is but one aspect of the general thing that is existence. We seem to evolve to become quite different people as we get older, and thus, activity on a forum is a point in time where one is finding oneself at a particular stage of development. So within the context of a forum for a specific type, I am releasing aspects of myself conducive to my existence at a particular point in time in order to communicate with other people of similar disposition. It is not actual roleplay (although it may be for some) but it is a focus applied to a specific audience. It is limiting in a strictly technical sense, but that is not how I experience it. For me, it is a form of liberation, with the added advantage of anonymity, and thus could be said to have a similar function as a character based on pure imagination, only with seemingly endless options for themes and strategy (although, I think modern RPG games certainly provide enough options, but only within the context of one particular game, although that limitation sometimes poses the greater challenge and thus pushes the players harder into problem-solving territory as time constraints and immediate threats allows for that kind of flow).

However, I think am lacking this type of imagination immersion for gaming, although the rapid problem solving and group dynamic within that context would be quite addictive.

....I think I just made the argument for why RPG gaming can be equally challenging, ergh, nevermind - let me continue the argument for why I think typology forums are better (keeping in mind that 'better' here would be completely subjective)...

The dynamics that emerge as a result of a group of people of similar disposition, and of similar intellectual capacity acting in a collaborative, but also somewhat competitive (technical or personal, depending on the individual) atmosphere surrounding a specific topic, where the rules and options are not prescribed as it is in a game, is to me very exciting when it hits a certain level of intensity and focus. Every contribution in the form of written words (and this is where the written word becomes a powerful catalyst for visualisation, data collection which further enhances pattern building, and thus higher acceleration of creative feedback processes bouncing between people which results in new understanding and different perceptions of the same thing) constitutes a new piece of the puzzle that somehow makes up a total.

Uhh..where the hell am I going with this. I'm still struggling to express what I'm perceiving.

I don't actually play a role here, but within the constraints of typology and the fact that we are also limited by not seeing people we interact with, as well as the absence of immediate feedback through subtle things like body language, etc - it is a restricted role in some ways. However, I don't experience it as limiting because the rewards of the somehow unpredictable outcomes that are the result of the unique dynamic within this group far outweigh the limitations, and is thus preferable to something like an RPG game.

Although....I've made them sound pretty fkn similar, haven't I....

 

[Jennywocky]

It's kind of an interesting discussion, although the either/or tone at times seems faulty; I mean, you can enjoy and do both (RPGs + typology forums), for similar and/or different reasons. There might be personal preference involved, but objective superiority of one over the other? If they were truly redundant, I suppose I'd drop one; but I guess each fulfills a different place in my life. (For example, the "problem-solving" factor is much more obvious in the RPG.)

Bronto does often have a tone to his posts (not just on this topic) where he sounds more dismissive/critical (like what Blarraun said -- "It's like you are trying to have a theoretical discussion to conclude the inferiority, or redundancy of some qualities of tabletop genre") than merely exploratory. I haven't yet figured out whether this is accidental and just his way of doing things, and so should adjust how I read his posts; or whether it properly describes the intent. But I usually want to "look underneath" an argument and understand and address the questioner's "need" when their text is unclear, and I'm not sure what the need/desire is here, so I'm not sure what to say anymore.

As far as changing needs within a person as they age, while I used to interact with people on forums for the purposes of learning about topics of discussion, the reality is that I'm isolated in real life at this stage, so time I spend on forums is for the purposes of making a bond and connection with someone else -- discussions that teach me about who they are as people are of interest to me, versus arguing over positions. I want to feel like I know them, because that's what I currently lack. In the modern day and age, I find information to be readily available and I don't need to go to an online forum to find it; if I'm here hanging around people, it's because I want to have a connection with people who I can relate to and communicate with. I know that reason can differ from the reasons some others participate on online forums (including here), but perhaps it explains my personal needs better. And I've had to deal with so much turmoil in my regular life, I've already ended up exploring some unforeseen facets of my personality at this stage; I don't need a forum to trigger them.

Again, different reasons for participation are driven by different needs and priorities in the individuals which can stem from a confluence of the intrinsic or circumstantial.

 

[redbaron]

Romance options in Tabletop RPGs are better.

 

[Brontosaurie]

Hadoblado: You manage to convey the excitement you experience. I'm sorry to say that it still doesn't explain why it has to happen inside a game mechanic that is really a pseudo-game mechanic since it doesn't pose hard limitations. Isn't it just as possible to create stories about these warrior comrades and their peculiarities (or anything) without reliance on the game?

Your character sounds awesome btw. Really enjoy hearing stories like that.

Polaris: You describe the role-playing aspect of forums very well.

Jennywocky: The tone you perceive isn't reflective of my intent. The black/white is simply to outline distinctions and parallels. It so happens that i'm interested in exploring whether the manual RPG has some superfluous elements and could be reduced into a purer phenomenon, which i propose exists as a potential in forums. I'm not saying RPG is bad or anything, so much as i'm saying the medium could go in other directions while preserving the core appeal of communal interactive RP story-telling which in itself i deeply respect.

 

[redbaron]

Video game RPGs and discussion forums can never quite encapsulate the spontaneity that occurs so often in a tabletop RPG. Slapstick is a dying art mostly, but it's well and truly alive in tabletop RPGs.

Also 99% of video games made are shit and totally forgettable timesinks. Formulaic by necessity and the limitations of their design, even the most in-depth mechanics will be figured out and turned into a recipe for success eventually.

It happens to an extent in TTRPGs but all it takes is an imaginative DM to solve it.

 

[Hadoblado]

I'm sorry to say that it still doesn't explain why it has to happen inside a game mechanic that is really a pseudo-game mechanic since it doesn't pose hard limitations. Isn't it just as possible to create stories about these warrior comrades and their peculiarities (or anything) without reliance on the game?

No, it's not. When a writer writes a narrative, they always do so from their holistic goals. They intend for X to happen, then they figure out a way for X to happen, and the omnipotence they hold in respect to the universe they create is applied according to predictable whim. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there're very few writers in the fantasy genre doing unpredictable stuff.

Even those that explicitly set out to avoid tropes, such as Martin, inevitably fall into a rhythm of counter-troping.

In tabletop games, this power is broken up and redistributed, just like it is in real life. You cannot 'read' the author to predict the story, not if they know what they're doing. You don't necessarily know which elements are RNG or not. You don't have a holistic narrative to refer to. You are actually experiencing the story in the first person, but the nature of the medium still allows for unpredictable things to happen as a result of the actions of others: which would be bad story-telling if you were writing in the first-person.