Pen and Paperless

Many contemporary virtual worlds draw a lot of their structure of play as well as thematic content from Diku-Muds, which I would argue in turn drew a lot of their structure and themes from pen-and-paper roleplaying games (and from early non-multiplayer computer games like Wizardry that also drew from pen-and-paper as a source).

I think we sometimes do not pay enough attention to the embedded influence of pen-and-paper games on current virtual worlds, both in terms of how they are designed and in terms of some of the gamer practices and discourses that surround them.

In this context, it's interesting to look at the discussions swirling around announced plans for a 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which will begin rolling out in 2008. The new edition is intended to have a substantial online, digital, subscription-based component. As I read it, part of the intent appears to be to allow players who are not physically in each other's presence to nevertheless play a session of Dungeons & Dragons.

It's not clear to me how thoroughly developed this service is going to be. I can imagine a fairly crude set of graphical tools, a random-number generator and some kind of voice-communication tool, or I can see a much more robust platform than that.

Robust sounds good. But on the other hand, the more robust the ability that some online service might have to represent visually what a DM says has just happened in a gaming session, the more that online D&D might be bound to some of the limitations of existing Diku-MUD style virtual worlds.

For example, one discussion I've seen in a few forums regards the role of a game mechanic like "taunt" in the 4th edition. "Taunt" is a classic game-mechanical kludge in a Diku for a tanking class. Since most contemporary virtual worlds don't implement collision detection, largely due to the potential for griefing (and players getting stuck) that follows on that feature, there isn't any way for a tank to control combat using the spatiality of virtual worlds. (E.g., by having well-protected characters block access to more vulnerable characters). But a computer-controlled virtual world can't deal with the subjective and creative ways that a pen-and-paper character might "taunt", either. In a pen-and-paper world, a player controlling a fighter might simply say to the DM, "I tell the orc chieftain that I spotted him smelling the pretty flowers and singing a happy song outside his cave", and the DM can decide subjectively if that aggravates the orc chieftain into preferentially attacking the fighter.

This kind of flexibility is what the devotees of pen-and-paper sometimes hold up as the advantage of their games over the virtual worlds that millions of contemporary players spend time in, an advantage that some define in almost moral terms, that pen-and-paper promotes creativity and imagination in the experience of gameplay and in the ability of players to interpret and alter the rules of play on the fly. At least some of the older players in virtual worlds that I know have a love-hate relationship with their games of choice for that reason. They relish the flexibility of online play, but resent the ways in which it is so much less imaginative than pen-and-paper. Of course, this is also the limit condition of pen-and-paper: it takes a lot of time to design a world or an adventure and play in that world. It also is more challenging to find a sufficient number of people who can be gathered together in one physical place for a fixed period of time and who are all congenial or at least tolerable in their real-world, embodied presence.

An online 4th Edition addresses this latter problem. Getting people together online is simply logistically easier. I can see why some D&D devotees are worrying about the impact on the creativity and flexibility of pen-and-paper, however. The more that the representational tools used for online play are intended as a fundamental part of the gameplay, the more that they may end up constraining players and dungeon masters. If I can't represent what a player just said that he did using the tools that are available to me, will I choose to disallow the action? If I need to translate a complex action into something that can be coded into a computer-mediated gaming session, will I choose to standardize it so that it has less and less resemblance to actions that we can narratively imagine in a fantasy world, like infuriating an orc with insults about his mother?

On the other hand, a lot of discussions of these plans are noting places where a standardized computer-mediated visualization of game mechanics would actually be really helpful. It's not as if Dungeons and Dragons defined the effects of a fireball as "a big explosion" that the dungeon master had to subjectively judge in terms of effects. The game in all its editions, influenced by its minatures background, has always had precise measurements, scales and so on. I can think of a lot of gaming sessions where I would have appreciated a computer modelling the visual field of a player so I could know whether they actually could see the door at the other end of a large room.

Pen-and-paper gameplay is one of the roots of contemporary online virtual worlds. Are they about to become parents to their ancestor? What might that mean?

Comments

[JuJutsu]

1.

"It's not clear to me how thoroughly developed this service is going to be. I can imagine a fairly crude set of graphical tools, a random-number generator and some kind of voice-communication tool, or I can see a much more robust platform than that."

So far it doesn't sound very 'robust'. As a result, there is a lot of commentary [mostly negative] about pricing. Especially in contrast to other available virtual tabletops. In my 5 person group, I'm the only one at all interested so far...

[Moses Wolfenstein]

2.

I have to say that a fundamental concern with DM control has got to figure into some of this speculation. Sometimes when running a campaign the dice rolls for your NPCs just don't do what you want them to do (e.g. the damn Kobolds keep rolling 20s).

What happens behind the DM screen stays there, but what if those rolls are automated? Will there still be tools for the DM to work around these sorts of issues?

[greglas]

3.

Hey Tim -- Call me cynical, but I think the motivation of WotC here is to rake in the cash, not to offer the solitary table-top gamer added value.

They've gotten used to the profits from the card games like Magic and Pokemon and they've seen how they can use Magic Online to sell ridiculously prices cards --without even selling cards!!!-- and now they've decided that they've found a new way to tap the wallets of their fans, by turning D&D into something like WoW, where you pay to get started and then pay by month to participate.

It's hardly surprising, given what happened with the 3d edition's never-ending series of $25 tomes...

But in answer to your call question, which is whether MMOGs are becoming the new parents of tabletops. Well, it depends on the generation. For those who already know D&D of some stripe at this point, there is no need to rush out for the "new" version, right? So it's not something like Halo 3 where new graphic cards and processors suddenly transform the nature of the game. The old guard doesn't have to pay unless it gets new value, and I doubt there's much value here. So they won't have a new parent in the MMOG.

For kids, though, I don't know. I doubt they'll be grabbing the old books off eBay, so maybe they might get lured into this hybrid form if it gives them something that WoW doesn't. But my sense (totally intuition -- if anyone has market stats, please comment) is that MMOGs, in terms of new converts, are eating the lunch of tabletop RPGs. Recalling Nate's post on Grognards -- I think tabletop RPGs will never go away, but they'll be more and more of a niche thing. So yes, MMOGs will be the new parents because WotC will be doing its best to get its lunch back.

[thiago falcao]

4.

Agree with greglas.

WotC published the 3.5 edition less than 4 years ago, and didnt stop publishing its accessories and stuff, and yet, they choose to publish a 4th edition they say will rely more and more on miniature sets - since you mentioned the miniature background, i guess that this is the central point of the rulebooks now: they wont publish Players Handbook AND Miniatures Handbook, it'll be all one big thing, to generate i-dont-know-how-much money to Hasbro vaults.

About the online tool, i believe it wont look - FOR NOW - like a virtual world. Curious, i discussed this on a Richard Bartle post kinda a month ago, and I just said that i didnt understand WHY hasbro had not a VW running around. I guess D&D insider = the 'online space' - will be the first step towards it.

Coming back to the point, I believe the online tool will be used as a resource to combat moments, but it wont be used 100% of the time, as we tabletop players dont use miniatures 100% of the time. In this sense, i think it should be fine, and not crude at all. But it's just a premise of one who likes the Realms.

Finishing it, this MIGHT be a big change to the tabletop players. Perhaps, if there's enough room to the worldwide players to interact and change the ways of some world, as the Realms, for instance, we can be at the brink of the first globalized rpg experience with real chances to work.

But again - that's just hopes.

[AusJeb]

5.

There is another connection between virtual worlds and the tabletop: many of the designers either play or used to play tabletop roleplaying games. But, it can also be a two-way street. I'm currently in a game where I am the only person at the table who isn't working on an MMO. Several of the other players have commented that because they spend their work week dealing with complex game mechanics, they favor the simplier mechanics and the focus on play in many contemporary tabletop games.