And also, anyone interested in this article should check out Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) free to play MMO. My gaming group and I have found it to be a happy medium between old table top RPGs and Munchkin MMOs discussed here.

Our group meets a couple times a week online and picks up our characters where we left off last, just like old PnP. And anyone familiar with 3.5 D&D will be pleased to see how much they have recreated. COmplete with d20 rolls for EVERYTHING!

Happy gaming, whatever you play^^

“You do what? Shit. All right, give me a minute here…” scribbles furiously….

Beyond that, I would argue that modern MMO’s such as WOW, have more in common with traditional adventure games such as the aptly named “adventure”, the infocom line, or the sierra “quest” lines, than they do with table-top conversions like rogue or wizardry. Once you add in the real-time element required to easily interact between many players, you get even further away.

All that aside, I could envision a true computerized MMORPG, where the player interaction drives the story (as another commenter suggested for RP-PVP). Modern AI algorithms could even provide somewhat responsive npcs. However, I can’t imagine such a game would have large scale commercial appeal.

unfortunately after I moved to west coast I’ve never been able to get together a regular group, but oh these memories

have you ever convinced a dragon to fly away and leave her “hoard” behind?
have you ever taken pity on a dragon and emptied your own bag to add to his meager hoard?
have you ever played a character that had no stats, but only a piece of music defining him?

Rauxis, chosen of CAT

Some groups can get away with a certain… sparring between the GM and players. Some just can’t. I’ve been in games where the GM was just so matter of fact about the game going the way it was written, that if you tried to deviate from where he was going, you’re better off not coming. Other games it was a matter of the GM looking across the table at the players going, “That’s really what you want to do?”, look down, swear, and start trying to figure out how off the track we just went. There isn’t a right or a wrong way, there’s just… the group’s way.

If I’d been more clever, I’d have had the cultists that were working with the monster show up to try and ambush the players after they’d burned down the building. That would have been bad, I think. Boxed in and no way out. ;)

Some tabletop games I’ve played turned into exactly this sort of one-upmanship between the GM and the players. Maybe we were doing it wrong, but it was fun.

The answer: “We’re going to bar the door and burn it down.”

I… well, I had to let them do it. It completely negated the entire encounter that was supposed to happen, but I couldn’t say no. It was rather brilliant, but it really highlights the difference. I simply can’t burn down the house that the bad guys are hiding in, nor can I kick a boss in the jimmy and run away. If ever a MMORPG comes out that allows me to be inventive and rewards me for doing so? No more WoW for this guy.

A computer game cannot have the freedom that an RPG does. Unless it’s been thought up by someone and programmed in, you can’t do it, at all. You are choosing from a certain list of choices. A very LARGE list in some cases, but still a limited list. You can go here or there, you can fight that monster or not, you can cast the blue spell or the yellow one or beat it with a stick. You can’t ask the shopkeeper about his kids, you can’t pinch the barmaid’s butt. You can’t kick Garrosh in the gnards and tell him to stop being a douche then go apply the same treatment to EmoWrynn. Whether or not you’d receive a beating or beheading afterward is not relevant; you don’t have the option to find out. An RP server, (when it’s not being besieged by the ‘I AM roleplaying, my character is a dick!’ types) is better…because you have choices in what you can say. You’re still stuck in what you can DO, but at least you have more choice. Putting points in this stat or that does not an RPG make. It’s an adventure game. Possibly an extremely complicated one, but an adventure game nonetheless.