The Secret Attraction Of Tabletop Roleplaying

These days, when someone hears the words ‘Roleplaying Game’ - RPG for short - they will probably think of a computer game, such as Baldur’s Gate, or Runescape, or Neverwinter Nights, or World of Warcraft.

Some people might have heard of the older games that gave rise to these - games that use books, and dice, and sheets of paper, played on a table top, using small figures made of metal or plastic instead of computer graphics.

The most famous of these older-style games is Dungeons and Dragons. But there are many others - in fact, a huge number of different ‘tabletop’ games have been created since the 1970’s when they were first invented.

It might seem surprising, now that there are computer games available, that many people still choose to play these tabletop games. Why do they do this? You might think that it’s because they are older people who are too set in their ways and can’t adapt to new technology. If you think that, you are very wrong.

You see, most older people I know who play tabletop roleplaying games also play computer RPGs, and they’ve been playing them for a very long time, since the early days when they had really clunky graphics. We’re talking a quarter of a century here. But still, once a week they get together around a table, get a bunch of figures, and dice, and rulebooks out and play a tabletop game.

It’s also wrong to think that only older people play these tabletop games. They are still played by people of all ages. You won’t see much advertising for them out there, though. It’s an underground phenomenon, and new players usually find out about tabletop gaming by word of mouth.

Yet, there are huge numbers of people now out there who play massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft, who have never played tabletop games and who probably don’t understand the appeal of them. What are they missing out on? What’s the secret that tabletop gamers know, that the computer-only gamers don’t?

Here’s the secret that the computer-only gamers don’t realise. Asking a tabletop gamer why they still bother with dice and rulebooks and figures when they can just play WoW instead is pretty much like asking Metallica why they still bother playing instruments and touring when they could just play Rock Band or Guitar Hero instead.

Like playing a real guitar compared to Guitar Hero, tabletop roleplaying games are more challenging to learn and play than computer RPGs, and they are less convenient. But they are more flexible, creative, and imaginative. This is their secret attraction, which you can only understand by playing them and discovering it for yourself.

Another reason, and for many people this is a big reason, is that they are a more social activity. Yes, you can make friends online and have great games together with people you’ve never met in real life, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s still doesn’t beat having a bunch of people get together and spend an evening talking and playing face to face. Maybe share some food and drink and catch up on gossip, before and after the game.

But I want to get back to the flexibility, creativity and imagination thing. Why do I say that tabletop RPGs are more flexible and creative than computer games? Modern computer games offer you a huge range of options for customising your character, and huge, detailed worlds to explore. Yes, this is true, but in a tabletop RPG your only limits are human imagination, which is still superior to that of any computerised world.

In most cases, computers can only do what they’ve been programmed to do, which means that computer games have fixed sets of rules, fixed worlds to explore, and fixed options for your character - what abilities they have, and what they can do. When I say ‘fixed’ it means they can’t change.

Well, you might be thinking that they can change, because new versions or upgrades to the game can be released that expand the options in the game. And some computer games might be able to change and adapt to what the player does, to a limited extent, because they have built-in ‘AI’ - artificial intelligence. But this still doesn’t match the flexibility and creativity of a human referee.

For instance, your wizard in a Tabletop RPG might decide to research a completely new magic spell. One not listed in the rulebooks. Your human referee will decide how successful your research is, whether the spell actually works as you intended it, and how much the research costs and how long it takes. A Computer RPG might have a similar facility but it would have many limitations compared to you, as a human, imagining something, and talking it through with a human referee.

In a similar way, a warrior in a tabletop game might decide to develop some kind of combat manoeuvre that isn’t in the rules - again, by talking it through with the referee.

Suppose your character finds a dragon egg and decides to take time out of adventuring to raise the dragon until it gets old enough to be ridden as a mount. They decide to become a travelling entertainer for a while, because they don’t want to put their young dragon in danger. You don’t want to just fast-forward ten years, though, you want some experiences for your character - maybe you don’t want to play out the whole ten years, but you want some kind of rough detail about how successful your character was as an entertainer during that time. Perhaps after five years as a wandering entertainer your character decided to settle down for a bit, so they spent five years as a beekeeper. You want to know how successful they were at beekeeping, whether their honey became famous for miles around. Did the young dragon scare off the honey thieves who tried to steal your hives?

Then, after ten years, your character starts getting bored with the quiet life, and the dragon is pretty bored with it too, he needs to flex his wings and get out there for some adventure. Besides, you have developed a new combat manoeuvre during your ten years off and you are itching to try it out. You’ve heard that a great rift has opened in the ground to the south and that monstrous worms have emerged and are ravaging the countryside for miles around - a worthy challenge for you and your dragon mount to deal with. Your character takes down their sword that hangs over the mantelpiece, and heads out into the great unknown for more excitement. They discover that the rift in the ground is actually a tear in the fabric of the universe and it leads to another world where everything works differently to the way they expect.

Can your computer RPG handle these changes of pace and all these different situations? Yes, it can, if it’s been programmed with rules for raising dragons, rules for beekeeping, rules for a travelling entertainer, rules for developing completely new combat manoeuvres (this one is very tricky for a computer), and rules for a totally different world to the one you normally live in (this requires a whole new computer game). None of these things are impossible for a computer to do but you’ll be pushed to find a game that can do all of these things.

This is where a human referee has complete flexibility, because they can change and expand the rules of the game according to the needs of their players. You don’t have to wait for an expansion or upgrade and hope it’s got the stuff you want in it.

Now you might be thinking that some computer games allow a human referee to manage things. This is true. These games are somewhere in between a computer game and a tabletop game. They are more flexible than a game that has no human referee at all. But some parts of the game will be handled by the computer, and those parts will be fast, convenient, but limited in flexibility and creativity.

Have you heard of interactive fanfic? Or freeform roleplaying? If you have, you might be thinking that this kind of game has all the flexibility and creativity I’ve talked about already. For those who don’t know, interactive fanfic is a game played on a forum or message board. Sometimes it’s called narrative roleplaying, or story-based roleplaying, or freeform roleplaying. There are some differences but they are all mostly similar. Sometimes a human referee (‘moderator’) is involved. Sometimes there’s no moderator and people are free to do what they like.

In these sorts of games you talk about what your character says and does on the message board, and so do the other players, and between you, you write a story together. If there’s a human moderator, then you might have to submit your actions to them and they judge whether you have succeeded in what you are trying to do.

These games are definitely very creative, and a lot of fun, in a very different way to a hack-em-up monster-bashing computer game like World of Warcraft. But they have no rules - aside from maybe some social rules about what you are allowed to post on the board. In other words there are no rules for deciding what happens in the game. It’s all make-it-up-as-you-go-along. Often people decide what will happen based on what would be ‘cool’ or what would fit the story.

Because they have no rules, these games tend to lack realism. They may also be lacking in fairness - if there’s a human referee they might be too generous towards players that they like, even if they try very hard to be fair. And they might not be consistent - suppose your character has to leap across a deep dark hole in the ground; in a tabletop RPG they will always have the same chance of doing it, they have to throw a dice and get higher than a certain number to succeed, but their chance of doing it is always the same. In a freeform rpg or interactive fanfic type game their chance of doing it may be based on whether the referee, or the other players, decide it would be good for them to succeed, or fail.

So in a way, there is more realism in a tabletop RPG than in a freeform one. Though the referee in a tabletop game can still be unfair - something like WoW or Baldur’s Gate is ‘fairer’ because the computer doesn’t have any bias, it doesn’t like or dislike you. But tabletop gaming is still more realistic and fair than a freeform or fanfic type roleplaying game.

And you may discover, as many other tabletop roleplayers have, that this balance between fairness and realism, together with the flexibility and creativity aspects, makes the imaginary world of a tabletop RPG more ‘real’ and believable than that of a computer game. And this enables them to really identify with and enjoy roleplaying their characters, who are also more real and believable.

It might sound as if I am trying to tell you that tabletop roleplaying is better than any kind of computer game, either a monster-basher like WoW or a freeform game like, say, a Harry Potter fanfic message board.

I’m not actually saying it’s better for all purposes. Both those other kinds of game have some advantages over tabletop games. What I am saying is that tabletop games have their own special advantages, and that computer games aren’t replacements for tabletop gaming.

Here’s a quick summary of the advantages (+) and disadvantages (-) of the three kinds of gaming I’ve talked about:

Computer Gaming (e.g. World of Warcraft):

+ Completely fair - no human referee
+ Fast action
+ Make friends online
+ Graphical display of game action
- Lacks flexibility
- You don’t really own your character, you only pay rent on it
- Not much character roleplaying going on

Freeform Gaming (e.g. Harry Potter interactive fanfic):

+ Completely flexible, limited only by imagination
+ Creative, lots of character acting and storytelling going on
+ Make friends online
- May lack realism, and therefore believability
- May lack fairness, because there are no rules
- There may be little or no character ‘progression’ in a measurable sense, these games are mostly about story and interpersonal relationships

Tabletop Roleplaying:

+ Very flexible, limited only by imagination - and the rules of the game, which the referee can change and expand
+ Creative, players can think of new things that can be added to the game - with the referee’s permission - and there are aspects of storytelling and character acting going on
+ Rules ensure a good amount of fairness and realism
+ Sociable, encourages people to get together
+ A workout for the brain, because sometimes you need to remember rules and do simple sums - and it’s more fun than ‘Brain Training’
- Slower than a computer RPG
- Difficult to play if you can’t add and subtract numbers in your head
- Less convenient - needs a time, a place and physical stuff and people to come together

So there you are - all of these games have their good points and bad points. It may seem as if I’ve gone into more detail about the advantages of tabletop gaming - that’s because the advantages are more subtle and require more explanation. But subtle advantages are sometimes the most powerful.

You might remember that I started this by saying that most people these days think of computer gaming when someone talks about Roleplaying Games. This is a real problem at the moment, because most tabletop gamers look at computer RPGs - even the ones they play themselves - and say ‘That’s not roleplaying’. The computer gaming industry has stolen the word ‘roleplaying’ and now everyone thinks roleplaying is hacking up monsters on a computer screen.

This didn’t happen with movies versus books, because movies aren’t described as ‘cinema books’. Calling a computer game a roleplaying game is almost exactly like calling a movie a ‘cinema book’.

So, for anyone who wonders what the secret attraction of tabletop roleplaying is, and why people still bother to play them when computer gaming is available, I hope I’ve given you an answer. Playing with dice and figures and rulebooks isn’t obsolete - no more than riding a bicycle or walking is obsolete just because someone invented the motor car.