Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Jennifer Grouling Cover [27]
In addition, the social setting is a key reason that gamers give for wanting to play a TRPG. One participant says, “I play tabletop for the interaction with actual people. To laugh with them and pig out together on chips and soda. I do tabletop to feel the dice in my hand when I make a roll, to scribble down notes and stats for my character. I play tabletop for all the things that I can do that I can’t with a computer RPG.” This participant draws on the physical aspect of TRPGs that isn’t present in CRGPs. Other users agreed that social interaction is important when they choose to play a TRPG over a CRPG. Yet, online games (particularly MMORPGs) have begun to change the shape of social interaction as players form tightknit online groups that can chat and work together in real time. Furthermore, several respondents also pointed out the disadvantages to in-person social interaction. In particular, they commented on the difficulty of meeting people and coordinating schedules to game together regularly.
An important distinction that came up in the responses was the difference between games that are controlled by the computer (CRPGs) and the use of computers for role-playing games. Several respondents mentioned that in addition to tabletop games, they had participated in roleplaying via email, Multi-User Shared Hallucination (MUSH), or another type of online forum. These games do not involve a pre-programmed interface the way many CRPGs do, but are instead built by the players as the game progresses. The new movement toward open-source MMORPGs may fall into this category as well, although it was not commented on by the participants in the current study. Several respondents mentioned that they felt these online games allowed them to exercise their creativity, while in contrast, they played CRPGs to “waste time.” A detailed analysis of these texts falls outside the scope of my current study; however, a preliminary assertion is that they should be excluded from the CRPG genre despite the use of their use of a computer interface. If we define genre in terms of purpose, one could argue that these types of human-moderated text-based forums are more closely related to the TRPG generically.
A key difference here is the difference between interactivity and agency. Both the adventure game and the gamebook had interactivity, but interactivity (even productive interactivity) does not necessarily imply agency. Players can, in a sense, leave a mark on the storyworld by creating their own character in a CRPG; which is productive, rather than selective interactivity. However, the degree of control the player has over that character and his or her actions is a matter of agency, not interactivity. CRPGs are always limited by the code inherent in the computer programming. A gamer who responded to my survey explains why he or she prefers TRPG to computer games:
There’s no hard-coded limitation on what can and can’t be in the game; it’s all up to whatever your players are willing to roll with. If someone doesn’t like the direction the story’s going, they can act to change it ... and they have opportunities to do so in ways that make the audience participation in “American Idol” feel like scraps thrown to dogs.
Even in the best computer games, at this point there are areas that cannot be explored,