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Subject: 
Re: Lego RPG DraK'en.
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.fun
Date: 
Wed, 27 Nov 2002 17:47:11 GMT
Viewed: 
4193 times
  
"Hendo (John P. Henderson)" wrote:
> 
> In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > 
> > What I was most taken with about NWN is how rich the adventure building
> > (Aurora) toolset is and how many high quality adventures have been built
> > with it already.
> > 
> > What parts do you see it lacking (making it a simulation of an RPG?)
> > 
> > In general though I agree with you, games are what you make of them...
> 
> Actually, I love NWN, and I agree that the character development is very
> exciting to play.  I go the extra step and actually develop a character
> history and try to role-play it (e.g. my Half-Orc Monk grew up being
> discriminated against, so now he fights to stop discrimination everywhere,
> even if that means I don't complete certain side-quests and miss out on XP
> that my friends get).  Because it is based on D&D 3ed, it is arguably one of
> the best attempts to bring role-playing to a PC game.  ...However, it falls
> short of allowing the true social interaction that I think of for an RPG.
> It is *very* close though, and perhaps close enough that distintion is not
> important.

That shows an area where a computer based game can get almost as good as
a traditional RPG. This actually points out the existence of two forms
of computer game, well three actually. One if the traditional single
player game. Another is a multi-player networked game, and a third adds
a referee to the mix.

However, for some time, a computer RPG will still have two significant
limitations in my view:

- people in the same room together totally beats online socializing
- a computer moderated game still constrains the game more than a
  traditional RPG
  - it may not allow quick rules changes
  - it may not allow overriding die rolls
  - I think it will be a long while before the computer is as
    fast to put together a battle map and place miniatures
    and move them

These limitations may not be seen as such by all, and certainly there is
an advantage of online socialization that it's a lot easier to get a
group together.

By the way, the first time I encountered an online computer moderated
RPG was about 15 years ago. A small start up in Troy NY had bought a
Stratus computer (which was quickly noted by one of my fellow gamers who
went over to look at what they were up to - he worked for Stratus during
the summers, and his dad was a manager [or higher] at Stratus), and a
bunch of phone lines. The client software ran on Comodore 64s. The
software provided a mapping module, and a die rolling module if I recall
(I'm pretty sure it was rules independant, or at least it was flexible).

Frank



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Lego RPG DraK'en.
 
(...) Actually, I love NWN, and I agree that the character development is very exciting to play. I go the extra step and actually develop a character history and try to role-play it (e.g. my Half-Orc Monk grew up being discriminated against, so now (...) (24 years ago, 27-Nov-02, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)

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