Video game influences on my D&D

Paraxis said:

Warlock with it's endless blasts and spell-like abilities is another class I think is strongly based on video games.

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No, no, no.

Warlocks with their bottomless supply of blasts + a schtick or two is clearly inspired by girly animated fantasy movies like:

Swan Princess:


Barbie: Rapunzel:


Anastasia:

Geez, guys. Video games and D&D have been enjoying a symbiotic relationship for a very long time now. Nobody complains when D&D borrows from a movie, but borrow from a video game and all the grognards go up in arms.

Besides, having -some- crossover isn't bad -- video game designers occasionly hit on good concepts that work well in RPG, and making it easy for videogamers to make the transition to P&P keeps the next generation involved with the hobby, which everyone should value.

Incidentally, a lot of my players were first exposed to D&D through games like Baldur's Gate or Return to the ToEE, and all of them are very familar with computer RPGs. To a lot of them, playing in a campaign is like playing a personalized version of a Final Fantasy game. And is that badwrongfun? Heck no.

Geez, guys. Video games and D&D have been enjoying a symbiotic relationship for a very long time now. Nobody complains when D&D borrows from a movie, but borrow from a video game and all the grognards go up in arms.

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Actually, I'd argue this isn't a grognard reaction, but a reaction of gamers interested in a narrativists/storyteller point of view, which points more toward a Call of Cthulhu/Ars Magica/Vampire the Masquerade time period (and more particularly the second half of the eighties/beginning of the nineties), as far as RPG history is concerned.

shilsen said:

And some of us strongly disagree. Personally, I not only consider this concern an example of unnecessary elitism ("it's like a video game!" being one of the sillier complaints that gets trotted out on these boards), but I think that getting over-excited about a couple of elements in the game and extrapolating dire possibilities for the evolution of the game is an unfounded and knee-jerk reaction. The evolution of the game will always include some things that each of us doesn't care for, simply because our tastes differ. One of the great strengths of D&D is that one can play it many different ways, and one can use what one wants and discard what one doesn't without any real trouble.

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QFT (Again)

I would point out that the mechanic for the Knights challenge existed in 1e as Kender taunt. So, I guess that video game influence predates 99% of video games. Damn, who knew that Wiess and Hickman were that precient.

Odhanan said:

Actually, I'd argue this isn't a grognard reaction, but a reaction of gamers interested in a narrativists/storyteller point of view, which points more toward a Call of Cthulhu/Ars Magica/Vampire the Masquerade time period (and more particularly the second half of the eighties/beginning of the nineties), as far as RPG history is concerned.

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Also QFT

Sorry guys, you got it backwards. It's VIDEOGAMES that are DnDey. They've been blatantly ripping off the system for decades. As far as d20 being designed with "video game principles" and being "too complicated", well, to each his own I suppose. This is the first time I've seen the "too complicated" schtick tossed out at such a low level though. A nice change. Usually people actually play the game to higher levels, double digits at least, before they start whining about the complexity.

But, never mind me, please continue with the self validation and backslapping. Oh, here's what you were looking for.

The OP is 100% right, I agree with him/her completely. He/She has hit the nail right on the head and there is simply no room for any disagreement. Any apparent disagreement is only an illusion generated by the extreme rightness of the OP's position. We are all better people for agreeing with the OP and must now storm the offices of (WOTC, White Wolf, Paladium, company of choice) and demand that these changes be stopped since any change to the game is bad and there is only one true way of gaming.

Thank you.

Paraxis said:

I honestly just now read the new class "knight" from PHB2. Sorry if this has been discussed before, but it just tweaked a nerve in me. For most of the history of rpg video games D&D has had a strong influence on them, I think this is just natural evolution of the game as technology progresses. But I am starting to see more and more of the opposite, a strong influence on d20 by the video games we play and the designers play. I don't want to sit at a table and play a mini version of my favorite online MMORG or other game. I also fear 4.0 will be called Instances & BBEG's and have agro as a mechanic and drop rates for certain monsters for specific magic items.

Here is link to knight off the wizard's site, for those of you without PHB2.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=2

It is a tank from an online rpg, basicly it just causes agro (keeps bad guy on him) and has strong defense abilities higher AC and such.

Warlock with it's endless blasts and spell-like abilities is another class I think is strongly based on video games. Not to mention the aura's of the Dragon Shawman from PHB2 and the aura's from paladins in diablo, they even have one just like thorns.

I am not commenting of the power or balance issues of these classes, just I want my game (D&D) to be inovative and influence other mediums not the other way around.

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See, I think this is a matter of what one is familiar with. The knight's ability you point to actually has a lot of precedence in fantasy and legend. I enjoy reading old legends and tales and fiction, from Arthurian tales to William Morris' knightly tales of the the late 1800s. When a knight challenges an opponent in those tales, quite often that knight gets all the attention from the bad guy. Further, I'd say that this trope of knightly tales influenced video games, rather than being created in video games themselves. The Warlock is a class that really seems influenced by many examples from movies and comic books that pre-date video games, and those games themselves seem to have derived their tropes from these earlier sources. I don't play video games much at all, so when you say all these elements come from those games, I have to say that I see sources for them that were around a long time before video games. Did the designers of these games consciously or unconsciously use video games as inspiration for some of the current edition of D&D's elements? Possibly. But a lot of those designers are roughly around my age, and perhaps their influences range beyond video games.

Psion said:

No, no, no.

Warlocks with their bottomless supply of blasts + a schtick or two is clearly inspired by girly animated fantasy movies like:

Spoiler

Wonder if anyone is going to take this seriously. But then, the thematic resemblance is striking...

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Y'know, an obvious inspiration for the Warlock that rarely gets mentioned seems to be comic book wizards, especially Dr. Strange.

ColonelHardisson said:

Y'know, an obvious inspiration for the Warlock that rarely gets mentioned seems to be comic book wizards, especially Dr. Strange.

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Bah! Everbody knows that the Warlock was created specifically to model Venger.

Paraxis said:

Warlock with it's endless blasts and spell-like abilities is another class I think is strongly based on video games.

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In other words, like virtually every other RPG on the planet except D&D? D&D was fifteen years late to the party with most of the changes to 3E. Most of those ideas and concepts have been a part of other RPGs for many, many years now.

scourger said:

The granularity of 3e is nice, but it emulates a video game. Even the OGL was based on some computer software development theory.

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You mean 'we really playtested things and tried to develop an actual plan instead of just making stuff up off the tops of our heads and worrying about fixing it all later'?

Some of this has been said before, but I would agree that the direction of influence is definitely two-way, if not in the reverse direction (still). MMORPGers are mostly D&D players looking for some of the main elements of D&D in a more immediate form that can be played solo and online. Computer game content is being informed by RPGs as much, if not more than, the other way around.

IMHO, there are two main reasons why computer games have had such a visible influence on D&D, neither of which are bad.

1) Computer games have to follow rules, so they force designers to think about game rule design and what makes a good mechanic. The best thing, to me, about 3e is what makes it most "computer gamey": explicit, generalized rules that address all the "seat of the pants" issues that annoyed us in 1e.

2) New mechanics or abilities that translate well to tabletop RPGs. Auras? Sounds great! What's so wrong about this ability, as long as it's balanced?

Paraxis said:

I bet when 4.0 comes out, and it will alot sooner then I ever want it to. You will have 4 core classes Warrior,Adventurer,Arcane Caster, and Divine Caster you will have a ton of options at every level, or just Feat points kind of like skill points and all feats will have diferent costs. The magic system will be the next to go and we will have mana points and mana potions, all characters will get kicker hit points ala KoTDT or DDO, and the level cap will be no more everything will keep going and no need for epic characters or special rules.
Monster will have 10,000 hit points and players will easily do 100's.

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I don't think so, for at least two reasons.

1) It has to be a tabletop, pen and paper game, and lots of things don't translate from video games to RPGs, especially things involving large numbers.

2) Sacred Cows. D&D players cherish the "good old days," and they don't easily relinquish their favorite classes/spells/monsters/etc. How many D&D consumers would scream bloody murder if the ranger was left out of the base classes?

--Axe

Pickaxe said:

2) Sacred Cows. D&D players cherish the "good old days," and they don't easily relinquish their favorite classes/spells/monsters/etc. How many D&D consumers would scream bloody murder if the ranger was left out of the base classes?

--Axe

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Yeah, that's what they said about THAC0 and the old saving throws. And has anyone seen my sacred cows named Heal, Harm, Haste and Hold Person recently? Not that they were bad changes, but they were "sacred cows". My point being, I don't think the current designers of D&D are all that interested in preserving "sacred cows" anymore.