• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

From a narrative perspective, role-playing has always been about invisible limits. Although the game master certainly has some boundaries in mind, they are not immediately visible to the players. Interactive fiction, gamebooks, and computer role-playing games all are forced to artificially restrict the player’s progress with a tightly-walled world due to the constraints of the system. No current game system can reproduce the depth and breadth of human imagination. It’s possible we never will.

This is not to say that the simulationist style of play, with its multitude of numbers and attributes, has no place in gaming. If anything, it has defined gaming. But simulationist gaming has evolved remarkably little since the advent of Dungeons & Dragons. It was years before MMORPGs took advantage of their massive player bases with raids. It took just as long for PBBGs to fill the niche of casual gamers who had very little time available to play. We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go.

Each of the previously discussed gaming mediums will never truly disappear. Hobbyists will keep them alive in perpetuity. It’s what they can learn from each other that matters more: adopting the narrative immersion of LARPS, the rules adjudication of MUDs, the power of massive groups from MMORPGs, the problem-solving of IF, and the statistical framework of tabletop RPGs.

But there’s hope. With innovations like the CRPG Heavy Rain and the live action True Dungeon, the rules are adapted to the narrative instead of the other way around. We are at the brink of a new era of immersive gaming.

Of course, the old games will never be forgotten. They live on in our hobbies, in our storytelling, and in our memories. I rediscovered Wizard’s Castle two decades after I first encountered it on a PET computer in fourth grade. A simple game with simple graphics, it’s beckoning me from my desktop now. I’ve played it every time I worked on this book. And I still can’t find that damn orb.

GLOSSARY

AC (armor class): The defense of a character, relating to his armor as well as his other equipment. This term was inherited from a naval battle game, where the term “class” is used in a different context to differentiate ships. It is somewhat archaic, so modern games rarely use the term.

AD&D (advanced dungeons & dragons): A later edition of the original game led primarily by Gary Gygax. It usually references the first edition of AD&D.

agency: The ability for a player to interact with a gaming environment in a natural, engaging way.

BD&D (basic dungeons & dragons): The offshoot of the original Dungeons & Dragons game, led by J. Eric Holmes. It had simplified classes and less distinction between races.

class: A profession, job, guild, or occupation that helps define a character’s role in a fantasy universe. This term has become less popular over time as it’s not used in modern parlance.

CRPG (computer role-playing game): A graphical role-playing game played on a console (e.g., Xbox, Playstation, Wii) or computer that involves at most a few players.

cyberdrama: A new type of storytelling that encourages players to participate in shaping the story through the game.

diegesis: A fictional world in which situations and events occur. In gaming terms, diegesis is the level at which role-players experience their role. Generally speaking, the less media-rich a gaming environment, the less likely diegesis will occur. However, there are advantages to reduced media richness in that it allows anonymous participants to handle a role.

DMG (Dungeon Master’s Guide): Can refer to any edition of this series, beginning with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons edition. All were published in hardcover format, the basic and original rules being boxed sets.

ergodic literature: Dynamic text where the reader must perform specific actions to generate a sequence, which can vary with each reading

farming: Collecting items of value in a MMORPG or MUD by exploiting repetitive elements of the game’s mechanics.

frame: A situational