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How come mmo's arn't designed like pnp d and d?
Dzone
Member UncommonPosts: 371
I never got to experience playing the pnp version on dungeons and dragons, but I've worked with someone who used to DM. He would be on hes lunch break looking through a book figuring out how hes gona do there next game. Even at times hes group would show up at work and thed be up front figuring out what roles and what not they were gona do. So I've noticed it takes planning for dnd.
I've also watched a vid stream before where people would have there web cam's set up, there were 4 in the party with 1 dm. It looked like fun. The group of players worked together and socialized and rolled diced and let the DM know what they were doing. Was really an adventur with a group of people never new what the dm had in store. They even shoped and talked to npc's at an inn and ect.
How come mmo's aren't designed like pnp dnd, they seemed like they used to be, but not anymore. You know like let the players tell the story while others players experienced there campaign's I think they were called.
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On a side note, look into Sword Coast Legends. i think it's going to be a great asset for players who want to play a video game that is actively worked by a Dungeon Master.
As far as your topic, I dont' recall any mmo that was designed like a pen and paper D&D game. Could you expand upon that?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
HIs statement is so broad you can't tell what he feels it is like. DMs used to be able to make changes on the fly to make the story better I don't know of any major mmorpg that does that. How about something like in S1 tomb of horrors where the players could fight off the big boss lich and believe they won when it was not the real ending bag guy. How about characters dying permanently?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
They're pretty much all designed like P&P D&D.
Classes - check
Levels - check
Armor Restrictions - check
Weapon Restrictions - check
Skill Trees - check
... I could keep going on for a while. In fact if a GURPS based MMORPG were to come out, then I'd be truly astounded, but Gary Gygax won the MMORPG battle.
I think we all know that therefore the OP is asking for something outside of those bits.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
To do something like that would require giving players way too much freedom for it to ever happen on an MMO.
The best that you can hope for is that someone will make a good game where you can make custom worlds and adventures, similar to what Bioware did with Neverwinter Nights back in the day.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Some text MUDs may have gotten a bit closer than MMORPGs.
Builders create the adventure, computer serves it to players. So in a way Builders are time-delayed DMs, but how similar the two are would depend on the Builder and the MUD framework they work in.
Because it is 2015 where everything is about hack 'n slash action combat, power leveling and pvp. What do you think these ppl would think of a game that would require for them to take turns in every combat encounter and let a D20 f.e. decide the fate of their actions? Yes they would tear it apart.
Also these days everything is about numbers: ppl just love to be standing around in the center of the main hub letting everyone stare with awe at their lvl 60 'toon' of 33455 Strength, 6547 stamina and 2mil accuracy. And they want to get there fast. Where in pnp actually reaching a lvl like 12 is very difficult, takes time and it gives a great sense of accomplishment.
As far as i'm concerned in pnp everything is about the voyage and not the destination whereas in MMOs it's the complete opposite where everyone takes part on a crazy marathon to get to the engame.
It's because computer games have clearly defined rules.
I'll give a small example. Say in D&D you imagine your character doing a backflip, running over some benches and doing a jump shot at the enemy head. In D&D the DM just makes a dice roll and you IMAGINE yourself successfully doing that. Simple right? Why can't we have this in games?
To do the exact same thing in a video game give it less meaning. In a game that backflip is pre animated, the benches are automatic walking points and the bow is auto aim. This means an entire group of people will have to create features that most normal players would never even use. Wasting developer time, publisher money and ultimately delivering on a poorer product for the players.
The reason why it hasn't been done is because no graphics, physics or world engine is ever going to compare to how awesome we IMAGINE ourselves to be. That and having a good DM 24/7 for millions of people is completely unreasonable in terms of ensuring quality DMing is happening across the board.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
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I still remember something from a game of MERP. I was playing some kind of character with arcane magic, I fumbled, and an energy bolt went astray and hit a friendly character in the chest and create a big hole there *character died*. ^^
I guess such things aren't featured in MMO's, because most dev's probably suck.
No dev could afford to have a GM who is also a programmer that could create things on the fly for every 5-6 players running a dungeon. Or actually you would need a GM for every player to cover solo content.
Neverwinter still has some nice options with the player created content, but still not like having a live GM.
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While PnP indeed thing that can change and create evolution of MMORPG , it too hard to archive .
Make it simple , lack of man power .
How many people need to run all NPC in an MMORPG ?
Check this recap of the Visible Dark fun in TSW: https://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?85057-The-Visible-Dark-Investigation-RP-event&p=1857058&viewfull=1#post1857058 (long one, and still only at around 70%, it went on several hours)
There was a GM (sorta), and all the NPCs were player characters, each with their own "tell", so you had to find that and use it - as in not "hi, im one of the players, where should i go next"
Had to talk with them (in-character of course) and either earn the trust, or threaten them, or seek something for them, etc.
Was one of the best-written rp adventure I had in the last couple years - online one I mean, tabletop not included
As for the thread question,
this. I wrote several times I guess, that I don't give a f*** about combat or pvp or "life starts at endgame" crap because I love rpg, and rpg (at least at our tables, and in the '80s-'90s) had none of those BS. Rpg is about the world, the characters, the story and the Journey. It's absolutely not about charts and combat rolls and gear/loot hunt, etc.
Not to mention, with our GMs even the charts were just guidelines, if someone ran ahead yelling and swinging the sword, s/he died, period. "But... just rolled three natural 20s in a row! - so what, no saving throw against stupidity"
And heck, in Amber for example there were no dice in the first place.
I agree with those above who said the closest implementations of p'n'p rpg were NWN and a few MUDs / MUSHes.
One of the best P&P Game Masters that I ever had the pleasure to play under didn't even let us make our own character sheets. He sat down with each player individually and had us describe our characters. Where did you grow up? How tall are you? How often do you perform physical activities? What do you do for a living? Did you graduate high school? Go to college? What subjects did you study in college?
Then after we had this conversation where we told him all about our characters he would hand us our character sheet and ask us if we agreed with it. The vast majority of the time we did.
This was a World of Darkness: Werewolf session that we were playing and I don't think I've ever had more fun playing a character before or since.
But honestly, this kind of thing will never work in a game. There's just entirely too many variables that have to be programmed for modern computers. Maybe we'll get more variable games when adiabatic quantum computation is commonplace. lol
I suppose it could still be done in a video game.
Games like Assassin's Creed allow lots of free running and jumping skills. Now tie those to stats on a character sheet. Each action requires a roll, so you could attempt just about any action you want, but failing a roll means "falling down" and losing out on the end result.
One way I could see this implemented to make it worthwhile is to add modifiers for action combinations and a bit of "player skill" which could in turn buff your next roll check for the next action in the sequence. So using your example:
You are playing a highly dexterous archer with Dex of 18 (must roll 18 or below to succeed on all actions):
Backflip - Roll 18, you successfully backflip and land on the first bench. Damage multiplier bonus +150%
Bench #1 - You must balance while running (using strafe keys), if you balance for the length of the bench you get +1 to your next roll. You reach the end of the bench and jump. Total damage multiplier bonus +300%
Bench #2 - You rolled a 19, but because of your balancing efforts, it hits 18 and you succeed (remember this happens in the background instantly). You land on bench and run along it balancing again. +1 to next roll. Total damage multiplier bonus +450%
Jump shot - You jump and aim with mouse, using soft hitboxes that just improve hit chances. So you roll for the jump and easily succeed get +1 to next roll total damage multiplier bonus is at +100%. Now you aim and click for the shot, you have +1 to roll and you roll for accuracy. You manage to click the head of the enemy while jumping and you get the roll giving an extra 150% damage. You end up dealing 600% damage bonus for the effort (assuming each action took roughly 1 second - 4 seconds).
Of course at any point during this scenario, you could fail losing the bonus damage and the few seconds it would have taken to perform all the tasks. So it would be up to players to determine if just standing in place shooting for 100% regular damage is worth it or if they should go for more and try to string together multipliers.
Basically it would just take a game that is willing to make all surfaces interactive (at least object on object contact) with background rolls. I guess, it's basically like Devil May Cry with a character sheet and roll checks in a free running enabled environment.
Awesome, sounds like a great GM.
One of my favourite characters was a city guard wannabe, his dream since childhood. Then after the backstory and all, came the rolls (love that way of character creation, just like in life, you don't pick, you live with what you get from nature), and with an unlucky roll on strength turned out he's too weak and was turned down by the guards... had some really great adventures as a faux, "ex-guard"
Garriot pulled a similar character creation in his Ultimas, the great ones I mean, before he screw his own creation with UO
This sounds more like what the OP may be aiming for... http://shardsonline.com/ ... I know I'm interested in how it pans out.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/6696480/Shards-Online-PreAlpha-2-Launches.html#6696480
The best you can do is software options like Roll20. It works because it isn't a game, but simply a framework that facilitates PnP play online.
Some reasons this works best are:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver