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Nick LS Whelan

I used the argument just last week to talk about combat in general actually. I want to work towards making it take up as little space as possible---because video games do it better.for me.

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Zedeck Siew

I will admit that it is often a go-to, personally, because I play so much videogames---so when I sit down with friends for a tabletop roleplaying game I do want a different play experience ...

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1 прямых ответов · 13 сообщений

Zedeck Siew

And what that difference is (to answer your first comment), is not really combat per se, but the capacity for surprise. Take a courtroom drama in RPGs. Videogames also do this well. Phoenix Wright. Neverwinter Nights 2 had a big courtroom thing as a climax for one of its acts, IIRC?

Ответ для Zedeck Siew
Zedeck Siew

But, great as they are, the arguments and investigation points and ways the scenes can go are predetermined by the parameters of coded outcomes, ya? Bounded choice. Whereas a courtroom drama in a TTRPG? GM might have an idea, players may have a plan---bug it genuinely can go *anywhere*

Ответ для Zedeck Siew
Zedeck Siew

Thinking about courtroom scenes because we just had one in a game, and one of the players is an IRL lawyer, so: shenanigans!

Ответ для Zedeck Siew
Chase

I think most of what you’ve said about having deeper, more complex antagonists is largely true for many games. But I do think it’s worth pointing out that this example of bounded choice in video games extends to combat in video games vs TTRPGs as well…

Ответ для Chase
Chase

This bounded choice problem can also be overcome in a combat TTRPG. The problem and solution space becomes much much larger in a way that many players find engaging. It makes sense to me that some players find that engaging and don’t care too much about the broader narrative/emotional stuff.

Ответ для Chase
Zedeck Siew

Sure. In the case of combat TTRPGs, surprise comes from players drawing on unexpected texture somewhere in the imagined world: stuff / situations around that can have meaningful reality, otherwise dismissed as "clutter" in videogames. The culture of one's foes is one of these elements, no?

Ответ для Zedeck Siew
Chase

Yeah, sure. But I just mean that a lot of players more interested in the problem solving and tactics don’t care about that texture. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you. I just have seen first hand players balk at the idea of complex, nuanced antagonists in games of D&D I ran years ago.

Ответ для Chase
Chase

So I understand both the audience this is being made for and why they might design something like this, even if I don’t agree or find it interesting. As far back as LoTR foundational media in the fantasy genre has struggled with this exact problem. So it doesn’t shock me it’s still here.

Ответ для Chase
Zedeck Siew

I guess---and perhaps it is naivete or my cultural unfamiliarity talking, but---I don't understand where that urge, that kind of player comes from! Because *even if* it is just about problem-solving and tactics---isn't understanding the culture and psychology of your foe a legit tactical front?

Ответ для Zedeck Siew
Chase

Totally! And I often wish I had a better understanding of the people I’m talking about. I also am probably in some ways over rationalizing a not-very-rational instinct for the type of players they wanted tbf. Or at least lumping it in with other, more well thought out, player types.

Ответ для Zedeck Siew
Zedeck Siew

And the shutting-down that the "alway-evil pig orc" represents is a closure of a whole wing of problem-solving! Also: somebody else elsewhere points out that even in LOTR a hero's relation to the always-evil orc is not textureless: bsky.app/profile/mrsp...

Mrs.Platypus

LotR focused entirely on how "good guys" behave when faced with evil. His evil was not morally complex at all, but the reaction to it was. And even when the focus is on a battle and a hero plowing through a horde of orcs, it's NEVER because that hero enjoys the release of uncomplicated violence.

Ответ для Zedeck Siew
Chase

Yup! It totally is. That’s a great point, but also there are definitely examples I can think of from the movies (been a long time since I read the books) where characters relish in some form of violence. Like Legolas and Gimli having their competitions.

Ответ для Zedeck Siew
Nick LS Whelan

"Surprise" is a good way to put it. I usually end up bloviating about how the human-processed intertextuality of all elements of the world allow a completely unique degree of lateral thinking to address problems, lmao.