Pen and Paper RPGs vs. Computer RPGs - Part 2

Okay, so which is better?

A tough question by any stretch of the imagination, well lets weigh up the two!

Now I'm trying to be fair here, so bear with me as a dice rolling fanatic; but also one of those people who cried when Aerith died in Final Fantasy VII, mostly because I'd equipped the hell out of her and not bothered with the others characters.

So I'll try my best to be fair.

Setting:-

With the sheer weight of RPG books out in the world, there is no shortage on rules and settings for you and your friend's campaigns, one off missions or even re-telling episode 4 of Stargate if you so chose. Otherwise you're pretty much down to your own imagination - especially as a DM. But the unique thing is the setting can be wherever and whenever you like, with no shortage of humour or dark fantasy... the world is what you make it.

With our console counterpart the setting is there, an entire world for you to explore visually, technically and physically - if you move the controller's d-pad you're moving your avatar... you get the idea. There is no shortage of settings and worlds, all from the post apocalyptic to the high Japanese industrial magic revolution.

In contrast you need very little imagination. After all, everything is set out for you. But I find a common complaint is that you haven’t exactly got the freedom to explore. Okay, Bethesda games give you huge maps, more nooks and NPC crazies than you can rattle your sabre at; but there is limit: there is a point where that invisible wall comes down!

Gameplay:-

With our pen and paper RPGs, gameplay varies greatly; not because of the players, but due to the rules and the settings they're attached too. These obviously affect the "pick up and playability." After all, some systems will grind everything to a halt with character creation alone - you should not need 2 hours to create a character unless its 2 hours going "Hmm, broad sword? Axe? Broad sword? Axe..."

Anyway, "rules are rules," and rules are meant to be broken. RPGs in this way do have that degree of customizability, allowing players and game masters alike to be able to keep the game going, and have fun doing so. Game play in this way, in some respects, relies on your group and some quick thinking.

Our console buddies have one great advantage: easy to play in comparison. Granted, you can just blitz the whole game or really take your time and plan.

With games like Fallout 3, you have fair and levelled system, loads of customizability - from characters appearance to perks that affect the game play, and giant world exploration. On the other hand you have a very linear game with good back story and pre-generated characters. Granted some are easier to play than others, but I find there is a inherent problem: GRINDING!

Quite possibly the most annoying, boring and tedious activity of all! And for what? To level up!

Okay, I can understand that yeah, you need to make progressively harder enemies, and Okay, unlike the pen and paper RPGs you can't just have a new adventure each time: you are stuck with no other option but to grind and grind... not all are like this, but we all know which ones they are!

Which semi leads me to my last point,

Playability:-

Seriously, how many times can you play something before you get bored of it, or fancy a change? This I feel is the advantage of pen and paper RPGs: as many settings as you like, each game varied and thousands of settings in which you and your friends can battle through, or you could be really daring and change the rule sets!!

Unless you're stuck in a grinding loop, or are a dedicated player, there’s what, 4-8 hours of game play? Maybe more? And yes, with some you can get different results through your actions and playing style; but it all seems so boxed in. Don’t get me wrong, the worlds are interesting, varied and really imaginative, I appreciate that. And yes, there is the add ons and downloadable content which add to game play settings and the like... but how many times will you play before you go "Oh, I do this, this and this and its done... what to do now??"

After all, console games only really have a shelf life of 2-4 play throughs before its relegated again to the ever growing pile.

It does tend to be a very solitary activity, Okay there the "achievements" to share with your friends online or your mate who’s popped around to steal your beer.

But on the other hand the same could be said for pen and paper RPGs.

After all, there are some advantages, granted most of them hinge on a good DM and having a decent group. It is a very sociable activity, unless it's a fighting fantasy book.

But it only takes one person to spoil the group dynamic, so choose your friends wisely. lol

As I said, a lot hinges on good DM: being able to think on your feet when the players completely negate the campaign you’ve spent last month working on, by going "Nah, I don't want to stay in this pub, let's go raid the bath house."

However there is freedom as your character, granted there are systems where character creation is the game or is so damn complicated 3 hours later you realize you’ve got work in the morning, can pretty much do anything and everything, and the only thing that anchors you to reality is the DM, who will simply penalize your stupidity. On the other hand, a few quick tests made on the spot and you could have the most epic fight scene ever; no doubt Mr. Dare will remind me once again about how he dived into the water and had boxing match with an giant octopus.

It is dependent on your players and their imagination, something console gaming has solved by giving you a visual medium; but hand outs, visual references or as DM your prime role as story teller simply weave a magical mystical world around your setting.

So which is better?

If I'm feeling creative: pen and paper RPGs.

If I'm feeling lazy: console RPGs.

I'll let you decide...

So where does the future lie, kids and kiddies? Well D&D4th edition took elements from both formats of RPG and turned it into a table top game... not necessary what we're after... but until the next technological leap, or until books are eliminated I'm quite happy to roll some dice.

DM

Pen and Paper RPGs vs. Computer RPGs - Part 1

Once again i take to the typing machine, and bring you another DM ramble!

Today I am tackling (mostly attempting) to answer my own personal question...

Pen and paper RPGs vs. computer RPGs, which s better?

Okay, where shall I start? Of course!

Back in the mists of time before the gaming industry really took off and we were stuck with pong yer back too the good old 70s!!

We as people didn't have a lot to choose from, granted there were the ultimate board games of the time dealing with war, strategy and seeing how many times your little sister could land on that row of hotels around Piccadilly!

The concept of 'role playing' is a simple one: you take the persona of a warrior or a crafty thief but really its only an upgrade, dare I say, from playing games as kids using your imagination to well and truly live out your favourite cartoon or comic (many times when I was younger I'd be a Power Ranger or Michelangelo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

But I digress...

Role playing 'games' as we know them was a concept drempt up by David Wesely with the Braunstein Game.

In 1967, Wesely served as referee for a Napoleonic war game set in the fictional German town of Braunstein.

Two players acted as commanders of the opposing armies, but because he was interested in multi-player games, Wesely also assigned additional, non-military roles. (For example, he had players acting as town mayor, banker, and university chancellor. When two players challenged each other to a duel, Wesely found it necessary to improvise rules for the encounter on the spot).

Needless to say initial experiments were not exactly popular (from all reports simply chaotic) the Braunstein game was never published but in the eyes of the world 1967 had sown the seeds of role playing games.

It wasn't until 1974 when arguably the corner stone of all pen and paper RPGs was invented! Dungeons and Dragons!

Giving us poor mortals a chance to use our imagination to play out those fantasies of being Gandalf or Conan in a structured way! And it kept people from murdering each other playing diplomacy.

Now with the concept of RPGs established and the gaming industry growing it was only a matter of time before the popular 'table top game' became a console game only a year later!!

In 1975 Claremont graduate university student wrote the first Computer RPG. The game was an unlicensed implementation of the new role playing game Dungeon and Dragons!

Granted it was in text format, it was still the first game to use line of sight graphics, as the top-down dungeon maps showing the areas that the party had seen or could see took into consideration factors such as light or darkness and the differences in vision between species. Truly revolutionary!

Okay people lets do the time warp *cue Dr who theme tune.*

Fast forward and we find ourselves at the ever developing peak of technology and social interaction known simply as....err, today?

Anyhow!

Where does this lead us? Do I even need to to list the hundreds upon thousands of role playing games out there? Most people can name at least 4 console RPGs... but can they name 4 pen and paper RPGs?

Once upon a time getting your mates around, grabbing some dice, some soft drink, order a pizza and once again assailing the heights of Wizard's Tower, was cool, popular and of course dictated the basic core concepts of console RPGs!

Epic back story, <check>
Player characters, <check>
More monsters and booty and exp! <check>
And of course the dungeon with optional sewer level (because there's always a sewer level). <check mate>

But somewhere along the line we became geeks, pen and paper games became unpopular and so shunning sunlight and girlfriends (or boyfriends. After all, girl gamers do exist - I know 4) it simply became a stereotype, but once again I'm going off point...

Wait what is my point...?

Oh yes...

You see, with time comes innovation with that we look back and go "hmm, how can we make that better?"

Both console games and pen and paper games have come a hell of long way: rules, graphics and dozen other things.

But which is better?

Find out in part 2!

AD&D vs. D&D 4th... Part 1 (the seriously cut down ramble).

An updated version of D&D was released as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (often abbreviated to AD&D) 1979. Dungeons & Dragons 4^th edition (D&d4th) the Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide were all released in June 2008.

If you’re not sure check Wikipedia go on ill wait..........

Are you done? Excellent!

You know back in the day I would’ve never considered myself interested in role playing games let alone as I do owning at least 9 of varying rule systems worlds logics and 100 other in game factors.

When I was growing up I didn’t have a good gaming background or even being you stereotypical geek, I was the average 11 year old when I first came across D&D. Id got to that stage when collecting dinosaur magazines was getting old, Lego wasn’t fun anymore and my collection of ww2 model aircraft was quite extensive, for my generation this was common after all I didn’t play on a ps1 until I was 13 and our saga mega drive had died years ago.

It was during one of my father’s clear outs of a cupboard that he happened up old Games Workshop lead figures and soon after the most fascinating books id ever read AD&D1st edition.

He of course not resisting would and still to this day regales me with stories of his lv 6 thief, my mother’s half elf magic user the insane man beast and his Druidic half brother. I think I can say one way or the other my imagination was hooked.

Okay, at the time I was in games workshop per verbally going gooey over space marines and Gorkamorka! And yes I had played few examples of D&D games including First Quest! And AD&D introduction game with audio CD...it was bit pants and yes I never quite got my head around role-playing.

My career in geekenss and gaming revolved mostly around Games Workshop until once again a quick adventure to the realms of storage revealed character sheets books tiles and figures; from then on I endeavoured to play! Learning from the meanest DM of all: my father (guess something are fated) before long dad would get a campaign going which would die out before it began, he encouraged us to DM ourselves; and when it came my turn I crapped out.

But then I read, I listen to the my old man, I understood I researched and after one hypothetical question the winds of magic swirled around me and with the blinding green light a crack like thunder I became the DM and my friends the patrons of a small town legendary for being built upon an ancient city some saying that through the basements you could gain access to a lost city! and who knows what untold riches lay beneath!

But I’m rambling.

There’s a fundamental differences between the two games apart from the sheer time span; granted D&D has been the corner stone of role playing games since before I was born and has been considered as such amongst the role-playing community.

So in the natural order of things games must evolve.

Character creation:-

I’m not going to go through the pre-flight checks of how to literally create a character, you know roll 3d6 find what class roll hit points make racial adjustments... no its a granted I just want to give you a overall view... from me to... well... thee.

Now in my younger days I used to do nothing but create characters its a bad habit I've never broken out of, now initially AD&D has a relatively straight forward creation system roll up stats pick race and class, then fill in the tell tale gaps on your sheet, for a long time this has been one of the most tedious tasks in D&D finding out what bonus your strength has, how likely you are to know languages, your thieving abilities (which I can assure with racial bonus's coupled with a high dexs score and levelling up can be a minor headache) and hell I’ll admit I’ve never had a instance to use the percentile for resurrection chance. As for races you were, granted a bit limited to the standard line up elves, dwarf, half orcs (yes orcs with a C and yes they do procreate not spawned from mushrooms thank you Warhammer)! Gnomes, humans and good old halflings....really that was it.  Granted there were supplements released later on for other races and even articles in white dwarf magazine that allowed you to be something unique.

In 4^th edition its simply a case of let’s see how many books we can bring out with a stupidly extravagant array of creatures, monsters and some of the weirdest and unique player characters even invented the shard mind springing to mind (a physically animated crystalline humanoid) of course the classics still exist humans, half orcs, halflings, gnomes and no less than 3 breeds of elf? What like elves aren’t bad ass enough now there’s the wood-ish magical elves the normal elf the dark elf types and half elves just to make sure? But there you go. My only gripe with the character creation in 4^th is the character sheet!! Seriously people is it too much to ask for a how to fill in guide? I’ve played and experimented and still found stuff on there I needed to fill in!

OK granted 4^th is a D20 variant and yes once you understand (oh boy did it take me a while) its pretty dam comprehensive just long winded and daunting to say the least.

Maths is not my strongest point so really do I need to do semi quadratic equations to figure out what damage I do? What number I need to role on the dice just to hit?? But it’s the little things that are saving graces, a box to put your party member’s names in, a list of personality flaws, mannerisms and such: simplification at its best....maybe too simple. Oh and skills and feats! Practically every D20 base has skills list and yes this does help in the long run.


OK I need to chat up an elven waitress ill use bluff then diplomacy! Yeah it’s a helpful aid but where has the role playing element where the character psychically grovelling begging for more troops for the front when you can go ill use diplomacy *rolls I pass give me more stuff! It’s almost heartless although it does stop the DM being a bastard.

Feats something else that you can do that makes you just that little bit more awesome in game, and near enough forgettable but as the lords of D20 command there must be more stuff for you to remember!!!

In classic AD&D you had your stats you had equipment list you had this tiny space in which to make notes and of course the usual class, sex, flavour which you normally expect. The rest is up to you as the player to role play. With 4^th literally everything you ever need to know is on the sheet EVERYTHING!! (Granted the class cards a supplement with every option and power available to you do help but not at 7.99 they don’t).

Ok onwards!

Races...take your pick....classes... right?

Fighter, thief, magic user, cleric with added bonus of illusionist, assassins, druids and everyone’s favourite whipping boy the paladin and ranger, as I’ve stated there were more out there for the “old school” D&D player in supplements, options etc. but it wasn’t that hard to tweak/ hell change the names of weapons, clothing, even just borrow a few elements other classes or find the right trader (Mr. Dibblar esquire located near Fred's magic emporium) you could be that ninja or samurai or whatever; and 9 times out of 10 looking at your stats helps.

So choose class, gain some money grab your gear and off you go......straight to the nearest pub.

Simple, right…?

In 4^th same motions grab stats choose race spend ages filling in appropriate stats and skills. Choose a class...

Now in this edition not only do you think hey I want to be the paragon of justice lord of the gnomes and have a big sword, granted you can do that but also if your more like hey what do I want to be today? There’s another factor to take into account... namely your role: Controller, defender, striker and leader. Each class is now associated with one of these happy concepts, for example thieves are strikers (not trap finder) a fighter is a defender (form shield wall and crap self) warlords are leaders... etc now each of these introduce powers to your character, whether it be nasty attacks or the ability to heal or even 'buff up' your party so at last you can kick some ass (and trust me without at least a 1controller stuff will hurt you... lots).

Now I was never a fan of the 'powers' thinking hang on I'm over powered at lv 1 orcs won’t stand a chance....well your wrong! And I found out the hard way fighting against lv 1 goblins is embarrassing; especially when you’ve used half your healing surges just to crawl your sorry ass to the point where you can face the dreaded goblins of the butt-fuckery clan.

It’s interesting because by the end of it you crave more power and there’s only one way to get it: staring death in the face ripping off his nipples and asking “do I gain bonus exp if I call him Nancy?”

With each class comes great power and there’s a lot you can choose from so customization is a granted coupled with bit of imagination but you are spoilt for choice: Ardent, Avenger, Barbarian, Bard, Battlemind, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Invoker, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Ranger, Rogue, Runepriest, Shaman, Seeker, Sorcerer, Warden, Warlock, Warlord, Wizard to name but a few.

And each of these with up to 3 build options (5 if you have specific divine or primal power books) just so you can truly have the weirdest most custom character ever!

With the powers and the skills and what you can buy form the armoury! Its comprehensive I admit it’s all laid out there just waiting for you.....it’s simple, not particularly fast but it is a mountain of information literally at your finger tips.

Pick up and playability... well I leave that to you? AD&D I find simpler to understand and grab character and go, D&D4th its long you miss stuff but by the dark gods of my dice tin! Your character encapsulated in 2 sides of a4 with more info than you'll ever need… but that’s me.

Next time on scratching my head trying to remember stuff!

Game play: AD& vs. D&D4th.

DM

DM: What is to come.

The atmosphere is electric as a hundred or more bodies crammed in around the long house. You force your way to the front, past the drunkards and the reviling spectators until you reach the edge of the fighting pit.

Around the edge you see the patrons: men and women even a few children from a dozen races, from lands beyond those known to you and your kin.

A silence falls as a figure steps into the pit form an unknown entrance. He is clad in the deepest of red robes, his face hidden beneath his cowl.

“Ladies and gentlefolk; creatures form the furthest planes, fey from the woodlands and norscans form beyond the Wulfren!!” a series of cheers go up from the assembled crowd, even you cannot help but smile at the sight and sound, all too soon the hush returns.

“You have come from far and wide to witness the once in a life time fight,” the robed figure’s hands raise pointing to either side of the pit, as he does so gangplanks are lowered revealing the two contenders. “From the seas of Gygax, his forging a mystery champion for many a year, brought once again from retirement, he is the monster crusher, the hide of iron, the scion of the gods - yes that’s right: DRUNG THE HUN!!!”

The crowd roars in excitement the stamping of feet the clashing of flagon upon wood. By cue he emerges – it was quite the sight, this wall of muscle and scars. His body seems heavy cumbersome, the pelts and talismans he wore doing nothing more to than to enhance his appearance! His age was clear that time hadn’t been to kind the network of scarring across his features, his body telling his every fight, every battle, like that of the darkin would wither they’re flesh totems.

“His opponent the upstart from across the wilds to the coldest valley, he has carved his name in blood and now we see him here! The crusher of skulls, the slayer of the fen beast, butcher of Kull: HANGIR THE UNSTOPPABLE!!!” This time the crowd was near deafening as smaller, broad figure came. You could see the strength not only in his muscles, but in his cold eyes, and the strange swirl of tattooed skin. His hands were like troll claws - strong and bigger than a man - still huge but nothing compared to Drung.

“My friends,” bellowed the robed figure “TONIGHT WILL BE ONE TO REMEMBER!!! GENTLEMEN, LADIES, PLACE YOUR BETS FOR ‘DING TIME’ IS HERE!!!”

The two combatants stare calmly at each other as the crowd move and swell towards bookies and friends, suddenly there’s a voice in your ear “So which is it to be?” You turn seeing a disheveled man, his clothes faded, caring a tray parchment stuck to his front “Drung or Hangir?” he asks. The parchment consists of some kind of code that you’re unsure what it means... “Oh its simple” says the man “it’s naught more than simple code between us bookers: it gives you odds and returns on your investment, ya see?” You nod and consider your options, gold in hand you take one last look at the parchment, trying to will some figure out of the coded odds: AD&D 1st ed. vs. D&D 4th ed.