… and then keeps walking.
Someone linked Gareth M. Skarka’s blog to Fark.
To be fair to Gareth, he makes some very valid points in his blog and I think they are worth reading and discussing. But DAMMIT! We’re all missing the fucking point.
For me, roleplaying has always been about cooperative storytelling. It is the human interraction that makes roleplaying different. That, and the fact that we are walking in the hero’s footsteps, not just telling the story, but being the story.
But I’ve been hearing more and more that games like World of Warcraft, Neverwinter Nights, and other MMORPGs are stealing away the paper roleplaying audience. Why?
Here’s why. Because for the vast majority of gamers, World of Warcraft perfectly simulates the roleplaying experience.
All the bitching I do about games like D&D being nothing more than overly-complicated board games is vindicated by the comments left after Skarka’s link. You can find them here.
Here’s the bottom line folks: people get the same emotional experience from World of Warcraft, Everquest and Neverwinter Nights as they do from roleplaying games. Why?
Because their level of involvement is exactly the same.
Your D&D character doesn’t need a name. He may as well be Fight-Or.
Your D&D character doesn’t need a background. He’s an orphan with no family, no friends, and no past.
Your D&D character doesn’t even need a gender. Let’s use the Rich Dansky “thon” to denote your character’s gender. That is, your character doesn’t have one.
Fight-Or. The Thon Fighter. That’s all I need to know about my character to enjoy the D&D experience.
And the people who are leaving the paper RPG industry for WoW are doing so because their nameless/genderless character in WoW fulfills them. Fulfills them even better than D&D ever did because the computer does all the math for them; because the game has graphics; because they can turn on their computer, find a party, and play all by themselves.
WoW > paper roleplaying for these people because their only experience with roleplaying is the empty, soulless experience of playing the world’s worst roleplaying game: Dungeons and Dragons. The game that isn’t a roleplaying game; it’s just an overly-complicated board game.
This has been your Friday rant.