Once upon a time, gaming was sacred. It was a time to spend with like minded folk sitting around drinking Mountain Dew and eating Doritos, laughing, talking, disemboweling a goblin or two, and just having fun. MMORPGs have taken a lot of that away. Now you play alone, or with strangers. Unless you’re lucky enough to chance upon your real life friends on the same server.
My friends, I’ve looked into the abyss and seen the future of tabletop gaming, and it seems the only miniatures that will be involved are if you still use a 13 inch computer screen.
I got online this morning to do some research for a tabletop RPG I’m working on. Right now I’m just using the open source d20 rules, but the ultimate goal is to create a system of my own, something where I don’t have to force my ideas into something that doesn’t always quite fit. Don’t get me wrong, I think the current rule systems out there for tabletop RPGs are great, just want to try my hand at it.
I did a web search for RPGs, hoping to get some new rule inspiration, or maybe find a good community with a board for GMs to swap ideas about games and rules. I was very disappointed in what I found. The search results were overrun with links to sites for online RPGs. I almost couldn’t find anything on tabletop gaming aside from sites that sell RPG books. There was a day when if you did a web search for RPGs, you couldn’t find anything BUT info on tabletop gaming.
And then along came World of Warcraft. I used to use the word WOW to express excitement and astonishment, now I use it as a curse word.
I can’t fairly blame ONLY the makers of World of Warcraft for what’s happening to gamers. I also blame MTV, fast food, cellular phones, and even my beloved internet. While all of these things have a place in today’s busy world (except MTV), they are causing tabletop gaming to become a lost art. Our attention spans are getting shorter and our ability interact with other people (even if they are pretending to be a half-orc) is getting sketchier.
The glow of monitors and click of keys has replaced the wan light of a 60 watt bulb and the clatter of dice in basements around the world, but not completely. Not yet. In some places, you can still hear Lord Dalkus arguing with Dark Falconitas over a misinterpretation of the rules. But, sadly more and more gamers are getting slapped around by n00b fr4gg3r.
Don’t let this happen. We are still here. We will not go silently into the night (unless we’re a level 16 assassin). Let us take back what is rightfully ours (after all, the internet was popularized by gamers and geeks.) Let’s turn the internet into something of use to tabletop gamers. What do you think? Do you know of any good, online resources?
Technorati Tags: games, gaming, rpg, dice, dungeons and dragons, world of warcraft, n00b fr4gg3r
August 1st, 2008 at 11:33 am
I don’t think tabletop games are becoming a lost art really. It’s just that far more people are playing things like WoW than play table top games.
It’s not that the table top RPG population is shrinking - it’s that a brand new population of MMORPG players has sprung up, and it’s larger.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
We’ve found it very had to find new people for our tabletop games.
Well, we’ve found more that a few ’socially inept’ gamers, but we asked them to leave as they were…well, ’socially inept’.
The few good gamers we can find, can’t fit the schedule, or live too far away. I attribute it to getting older, and having more responsibility.
To be fair, if I played WOW, I’d be hard pressed to find time for a raid, also.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
as an ex table topper, and a current WoW player, I have to say that mmorpgs and WoW in particular are the RPG system that I always wished for.
Dealing with lame gms, encyclopedic volumes of rules, never ending melees that took 2 hours for 30 seconds of actual play.
I want all the mechanics hidden! I don’t want to ROLL 20 dice and count them up. I just want to be a knight, or a wizard, or a ninja. Or whatever. It’s a called a ROLE playing game. Not a Dice ROLLING Game. If you miss dice, pick up yahtzee.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:51 pm
The thing I don’t like about MMOs is that there is very little role playing. It’s all about hacking, slashing, camping, rinse, repeat. Gotta get to the next level, gotta get the next neato item, gotta get that huge team together for a raid.
With table top RPGs, it’s more about the experience itself. You know that old saying about the journey, not the destination? Sure there’s no way to ‘win’ a MMORPG - but there is an end point.
With many traditional RPGs, you can scale up and up, or create a game where leveling isn’t even close to the only incentive to play.
Having said that, I did spend MANY hours grinding on Everquest. Long live Toetagger! (Ahem)
August 1st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
As a tabletop player, WOW is most of what I don’t like about roleplaying - optimized builds, railroading, and a total lack of flexibility. Not to mention very little if any ‘role’ playing.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I played all the originals. AD&D, Star Frontiers, Boot Hill, Gamma World. Sometimes for 70 hours straight. Ride my bike for 8 miles with 100lbs of books in my back pack. 200 hours building the campaign. 400 DMing it. Man I hope that art is never lost. Too nostalgic for the OG (original geek)?
Played my first computer rpg Temple of Apshai on the trash-80. Loaded it off cassette.
The MMORPGs are great today, but they are no replacement for the traditional RPG. I’ve got all my stuff in mothballs just waiting for my six year old to get old enough to geek out with me. I already showed him the map for the Tomb of Horrors and he talks about it all the time. Maybe he’ll have the time to do it the old way once in a while.
Right now I have to pry him away from his webkinz.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Also, if you had to “Dealing with lame gms, encyclopedic volumes of rules, never ending melees that took 2 hours for 30 seconds of actual play.” then you were doing it wrong.
That’s one of the beauties of tabletop gaming. You make it what you - as a group - like. Don’t like the DM? find a new one, or run a game yourself. Don’t want hack and slash? Run an Amber diceless game (and not feel like you are playing Yahtzee). Don’t want 2 hour combats? Ditch D20 and try Savage Worlds. Etc. etc. etc.
Tabletop RPG’s can be anything you want them to be - MMORPGs can only be what the developers want them to be.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I feel your pain. It’s hard to compete with a medium that offers thousands of people to play with at any time of the day as compared to a couple scheduled games a month if you can manage to get everyone to show up. There are no good online roleplaying communities; the few that are offered are either proprietary and oriented toward a single system or lacking the essential features to make online gaming plausible on a large scale.
That’s not to say I have anything against MMOs, they potentially offer a different kind of gameplay and a different kind of immersion. It’s just too bad they suck time like a…
August 1st, 2008 at 4:54 pm
To expand on what cavtroop said, it is worth realizing that there are a lot of different tabletop games out there with very different rules, and the best ones are very open about how you play.
DnD is the stereotypical one, and yes, that did have lots of dice and volumes of rules. Of course, you didn’t have to use all those rulebooks, and once you have some familiarity with the game you don’t need to keep referencing rules. But on the other hand, consider something like White Wolf’s Mage (World of Darkness). There is only one type of die, and spell-casting rules are so open that you actually have to (and are encouraged to) make up spells because the books don’t provide you with very many, not to mention the lack of focus on combat in general and how you pretty much have to just do what makes sense because there just aren’t rules for many of the little details.
I hate to sound like another basement-dweller griping about DnD 4e, but it seems like Wizards forgot about a lot of what makes tabletop gaming such a great and unique experience. They argued that they wanted to streamline the game instead of having huge spellbooks and lots of rules. It’s true that an overload of rules can detract from a game, but most gamers already hate the rules-nazi. The surplus may seem restricting on the surface, but if you’re creative enough they become a way to make the game much more flexible. But apparently creative doesn’t sell like it used to.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Started tabletop in 1977 with D&D before the A. I am not much of an actor so when I role play I don’t do funny voices or make big speeches.
The fun of MMO is in effortless battle. I like to bloody the blade in gaming, MMO or tabletop. But MMO is brutally limited.
The leather-clad halfling walks up to your veteran fighter and offers his hand to shake, saying “Welcome to our city, stranger!” Do you attack the thief and hope to win, but worry about city guard troubles? Do you blow him off and wait for the knife in the back in an alley? Attack him and LOSE? Shake his hand and walk down the street in your chain underwear for a block before realizing you were robbed?
The best programming can only offer you as much as the designer thought up. In that 1977 RPG I told the halfling (they were “hobbits” back then) thanks for his greeting, but I would not shake hands because I just heard there was plague in the last city I visited. Halfling jumped back and told me where the apothecary was. I was so proud of myself.
Five minutes later, two city guards showed up with shields and spears to escort me to the apothecary! The DM had his own edge and humor.
Spontaneous creativity is what MMO and console gaming CANNOT even get close to replicating … until genuine AI is found.
Game in beauty.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Spontaneous creativity is what MMO and console gaming CANNOT even get close to replicating … until genuine AI is found.
This.
I do enjoy MMO’s - don’t get me wrong. The don’t satiate my RPG needs though, moreso my hack/slash needs. The lack of flexibility turns me off - that and even trying to roleplay with some of the bozos online is enough to make you go crazy.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Well, I’m not sure how relevant it is to other RPG systems, but I’ve found dumpshock [ http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?act=idx ], a fantastic resource for Shadowrun. Its a very active community, and at worst, I’m sure some of the members could point you towards forums for other RPG systems as well.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:06 am
I can understand where you are coming from, but I don’t think that everyone who used to play tabletop has forsaken RPGs for online gaming. It seems more like the internet’s wide appeal and use has drawn large numbers of people who wouldn’t otherwise play any kind of RPG. I know plenty of people who play D&D, Magik, and other games, in addition to online games.
August 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 am
I completely agree with cavtroop. MMO’s are basically just focused on hack and slash and just trying to maximize your character. Tabletop games allow for so much more freedom and creativity. In fact part of the name is RPG, “role-playing” game. Until MMO’s can allow you to truly take on the role of a character, they won’t even come close to tabletop games. As a DM for a D&D game, every time one of my players makes a comparison to WoW it makes me flinch.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
What other games are out there that you all are playing (tabletop or online) which takes the focus away from a sole hack ‘n slash fest?
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:30 am
It’s not about the system, it’s about the GM and the players. (I don’t play any MMOs). If you don’t want a hack’n’slash game, use a system like Nameless, InSpectres or The Window. Heck, if you do want hack’n’slash, there’s always Fungeon for those times when nobody wants to DM.
Tabletop/Pen’n'paper RPGs are still alive and well, you just have to look beyond DnD - which is fun, but certainly not the only game in town.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Stay off my lawn! Damn kids and their computer RPGs. In my day we played in the basement with dice and Mountain Dew and we liked it.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:02 am
It isn’t a matter of the tabletop RPGs becoming a lost art, it’s a matter of things changing with time. You’ll notice that when you follow D&D and other tabletop games they tend to get more streamlined and easier to follow. And games borrow heavily from each other as well as from other mediums. When Conan was big suddenly barbarians and cavaliers were big in D&D and they were REALLY REALLY powerful. When the Elric saga came out we saw White Plume Mountain with Blackrazor wielded by a pale elven fighter/mage. I’m just saying that I think it’s disingenuous to complain that somehow the changes these days are a result of low attention spans or anything like that. RPGs are made by businesses, they look for models that work and appeal to people. I haven’t seen too many games that are successful that try to go throwback to the old ways. Just saying.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:16 pm
While I do not know if this has already been suggested(not much time atm, so I couldn’t read all the suggestions) how about you use the internet to, instead of loosing people through it to MMORPG’s, make an online RPing community. Create objects in whatever program you wish to emulate the dice roll(of course make it impossible to undo a roll so people don’t cheat for those high rolls), post the rules, tell how it should be working out, and generally, people interested will get to it by spreading it’s name by word of mouth to the others they play with. If you do decide for this I’d like to help,and you can contact me at silverknight12321@gmail.com.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:56 am
Virtual Tabletop RPG. There are plenty of them, some cost money, others are free, I cannot find a free one that suits my needs, however.
bluevertro@gmail.com (If you have some forum, or anything RPG related. =D)
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I will say that I disagree with your asseriton that tabletop rpgs are dying. Have you seen the D&D 4e sales numbers? Fuck, I do both and so do many of my friends. We play WoW and we play in multiple D&D campaigns. Why choose one?? Don’t kid yourself into thinking that people are playing less tabletop RPGs - they aren’t.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:50 am
I personally am wholeheartedly with you. While I’ve never played a tabletop myself, I feel deprived for not being able to do so. Considering I am a very open-end preference player, the “go ahead and customize how you look, you’ll end up looking like everyone else that’s the same class/race/whatever anyways” viewpoint of most MMORPGs feels too constricted to me (however, that being said, I still think the MMORPG medium is the best way to get ideas across [see my website]). I’d rather describe me jumping off a platform ten feet off the ground and landing/rolling on/over a tyrannical demon that want’s to blast some peasant with a fireball than just jump off a platform, take almost no damage, then see a timed series of attacks that I can in no way what so ever effect by mouse movement or random button pressing.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Good Riddance. If Tabletop games refuses to get with the times then they deserves to die.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Let’s do it then. Right here, right now. Let’s revitalize the internet for tabletop gaming. I’m ready for it and I want it. Know a good scripter? Let’s make an engine that is capable of running a “tabletop” rpg on the internet.
I’m a relative newcomer to the tabletop RPG world and I’m designing some myself (my website link should take you to my main project) but I see the need to ‘ditch the dice’ as it were.
The players like you and I want, more than anything, to get into the game, and be part of the puzzle solving, dungeon exploring comradery that is the essence of RPGs. The vast amounts of dice have become a crutch of sorts that allow people to stop thinking and use a mechanic to make the game work for them. This is exactly why one would turn to a computer, to hide all of that dice rolling and make it happen automatically.
What we need to do is remind people how ‘real’ gaming captures something more than just fighting and killing. The human element that cannot be emulated or simulated needs to re-become the focus.
The latest D&D will not do that, the focus there can easily be simulated by computers
I’m serious about all of this
Let’s band together
I’ve got some ideas, and I just need to know if anyone’s with me
April 13th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
I just wanted to post a new comment to get email confirmation any time a new comment is posted. I forgot to do that the first time around
June 24th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Checkout Maptools, Battlegrounds, or Fantasy Grounds.
These are Virtual Table Top (VTT) systems that can accommodate various game systems (D&D, Savage Worlds, GURPS, and the like…) You can connect thru the internal chat, or use a Voice Like Ventrilo, Teamspeak, or Skype to connected everyone from everywhere to play what YOU want to play…