Quote:
Originally Posted by TSCavalier
Nowadays D&D, as a social game, is in direct competition with MMORPGs. The gamers that would be playing D&D in the past are playing MMO's in the present.
So, it is to the advantage of D&D to change with the times and become easier for "pick up groups" to play... and especially, for players to volunteer to be DM (for without the DM, a D&D game doesn't happen.
That doesn't mean that you can't play the game with a tight group of friends and play an extended campaign, but D&D also needs to serve the much larger pick-up-group style of game session creation.
D&D has to stay relevant to today's generation of gamers in order to survive.
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Well, this is what I'm afraid the line of reasoning is, and the thing is it doesn't make any sense. With the one exception of RPGA organized play, which is utilized only by the vast, vast minority of gamers, who plays "pick-up D&D"? And more importantly, who wants to?
With a MMORPG you are usually forced to play "pick-up" because you're logged on at the same time as some guy from Antwerp and you take what you can get. But in MMORPGs people do a lot of work to eliminate pick-up groups, that's what guilds and the like are for.
Saying that D&D should become more like MMORPGs in this sense because MMORPGs are more "with it" contains a horrible logical fallacy. Not every aspect of MMORPGs is good per se - some of them are "necessary evils" of their implementation. As a L64 priest in WoW, I would say that the strict role division in WoW is a necessary evil of the huge distributed aspect of MMORPGs.
It's like the whole "respawning" thing. I don't think anyone would seriously argue that in a tabletop RPG, bad guys/bosses should "respawn" after you defeat them. But they have to do that to make a MMORPG work (instanced dungeons are a related mechanic).
D&D could certainly learn some things from WoW, but it's important that it look carefully and learn the good lessons and not the bad ones.
If you look at the problem carefully, you'll see all the differences. In WoW, if you need a pick up group, you need people around your level. Characters have to be grown up to that level. In D&D there's a time-honored solution, which is just build a level whatever character. That's not allowed in MMORPGs.
It seems a weak contention that "these kids nowadays" are demanding some larger pick-up style of game creation. You still need a prepared DM, characters around the same level, etc. The only format in which that works as "pick-up" is the Living campaigns where you can get a critical mass of prepared DMs and loads of PCs together. As a former LG Triad, I can say that format does not require LESS, but MORE effort and planning, and adding "character roles" will have nothing to do with that.
Playing "chase the MMORPG" will be a losing strategy. They have more and more skilled developers and money to realize their visions. It's better to analyze where tabletop has advantages over MMOs and to maximize those.