Over the past few weeks, I attempted a 1:1 time campaign using OVA: The Anime Role-Playing Game as the basis. I came up with a narrative involving a drug lord who had come with an army from another world to conquer Earth. Amid this chaos, many different characters tried to fulfill their own agendas, from small-time heroes to big CEOs and the government of the Earth Federation itself. It was ambitious and large — surely, this was how tabletop was meant to be played!
But one month later, I learned firsthand why tabletop RPGs were abandoned for video games.
In short, gaming out everyone’s paths (player and NPC alike) was too much work, to the point where I dreaded it. I would spend too many hours evaluating one scenario or another, which killed any fun I thought I’d have. When I began, I was so excited for it, and I couldn’t wait to use the various tools I had amassed for this purpose.
By the end of one month, I was completely burnt out. Due to circumstances, one of my players had to cancel a session a week or so ago, so we couldn’t play.
But it was a blessing in disguise. I was released from the burnout when that player made it clear that a play session was unlikely in the near future. Finally, I no longer had to spend nights playing out these scenarios.
And that was with computer programs I created to speed the process up.
It became clear to me why video games, despite their lack of narrative flexibility, completely replaced tabletop RPGs: it left all the work to the computer. Actions are evaluated at the press of a button; combat only requires a few inputs. You get motion, color, and music while all the lookup tables and decision trees are handled by various lines of code. Far and away, video games offer a superior experience, especially for RPGs. Once the Nintendo Entertainment System dropped, the tabletop RPG would lose its shine and lose it fast (after first being wounded by Ultima, of course.)
No one cares about Dungeons and Dragons anymore because Final Fantasy made it irrelevant. Why run yourself ragged poring over character sheets and lookup tables when you have machines that do the work for you? I know what I’d rather choose.
And so, the job of “Dungeon Master” has been lost to automation.
In the mood for a video game? Play my game Parasite Lance, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. If visual novels are more your thing, go for my mid-2000s work Jitteh Dawn — also for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Both were made with the excellent and powerful Ren’Py engine.
You’re on to something.
Now compare what mode of play PC and console RPGs focus upon, what other modes got spun off into their own genres, and what fell away entirely to the tabletop model.
Revealed Preferences are Revealed.
Normies look at gaming as a pastime, not a hobby. Hobbies require work from participants. Pastimes do not.
Couple this with (a) an entire generational cohort never taught how to play proper (mine, Gen X ) due to Boomer being Boomers and (b) a clear alternative that gave that new cohort what they enjoyed from the RPGs they did play (not knowing, for the most part, about the rest of it) and the result is clear.
Most RPG players are Normies. They do it to past the time and give the socializing they’re really after some structure. It’s the GMs that are the Hobbyists more often than not, as that requires putting in work. Give a Normie a more convenient way to Do The Thing while socializing? Sold.
Tabletop RPGs are a Hobbyist medium. That limits its appeal, which is a strength in the right circumstances.
Very well put. Even I found myself automating a lot of my game’s systems such as dice rolling and random tables, just to reduce the workload. As I thought of more things to automate, I thought “why not automate some GM functions?” At that point, I realized that such a thing would be…a video game.
Two entire generations have been raised with video games as the dominant mode of play. With computers that conveniently handle game rules, doing anything physically seems painfully slow by comparison. This is especially true of RPGs, since they have so many variables that they beg for a computerized solution.
This is why tabletop games are far more suited for improvised play. Any kind of railroading scenario should be left to video games. I myself just plan the bare minimum, but focus the most detail into the NPCs and their motivations, and let the characters’ actions impact the world around them, with no real set storyline.
Good point. That was probably my mistake.