When I was fourteen years old, I bought the complete Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set from my older teenaged neighbour for $10 (including colour changing dice!). I remember shaking with anticipation as I got home, imagining all of the amazing adventures that my friends and I would go on together. When I got home, I called three of my closest friends up and asked them if they wanted to come over and play a game of D&D together. The response was less than enthusiastic, and the game ended up collecting dust on my bookshelf, along with a dozen-or-so character sheets that I laboriously worked on.
I grew up in a time and place where the word “D&D” was tantamount to declaring yourself a sexless nerd, loner or devil worshipper to the entire junior high school. It was the early 1990′s, and the intense popularity of Dungeons and Dragons in the 70s and 80s was wearing off fast. The idea of sitting around a table with a few buddies and calling up fantasied worlds with a roll of the dice was coming up against the harsher realities of grunge music and the gulf war. The farm town I grew up in was predominantly Catholic. Films like Mazes and Monsters starring Tom Hanks (a teenager who suffers from psychosis and starts to live out his D&D character in real life), and the religious backlash of the 1980s against D&D was firmly embedded in the memories of parents and us kids.
In this article I consider the major comeback, at least in my life and those people around me, that pen’n'paper roleplaying games are making, and consider the repercussions that this will have for how the youth of today will experience future cRPGs.
1990: CRPGs Emerge in the Golden Age
To fill that gap, I turned to computer role playing games like the Ultima series, the Quest for Glory series, Wing Commander: Privateer, Betrayal at Krondor, and (years later) Fallout. These were games that had strong central characters who were on quests to save the world, involved dark and esoteric forms of magic or skilfulness, and demanded an imaginative leap from the player. I had to identify and empathize with the characters of the world if I was going to devote dozens of hours to saving it, and this gaming fulfilled a gigantic imaginative and moral gap in my life as a teenager, allowing me to explore dangerous or taboo topics in a safe manner. These games, while not particularly approved of by most parents and friends (I am sure that my parents worried at how many evenings I spent with Ultima VIII: Pagan), at least were too new to have acquired the stigma that D&D had. If the 1980s was the decade of pen’n'paper gaming, the 1990s was the decade of the CRPG.
(This is fairly consistent with the timeline that Matt Barton draws up in Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games. Barton argues that the late 1980′s and early 1990′s usher in a “Golden Age” of computer and console roleplaying games.)
Being a teenager during the Golden Age of CRPGs meant that I was in an awkward spot – I was part of a generation who bridged the older pen’n'paper tradition with a new CRPG-literate generation of gamers. I learned some of the language of role-playing through fantasy books, some through my brief flirts with the D&D Basic Set, and most through the dominant CRPGs of that time. My understanding of an RPG was that it was part imagination, but mostly set in a world of characters and places that were pre-determined by the author or designer. Sure, they could come up with non-linear ways of telling a story (i.e. Wing Commander: Privateer follows a largely player-directed story arc) but the content of the game was largely predetermined. Or, if the plot was predeterminate, I might focus on customizing my character and focusing on certain skills and abilities that I found important, such as my Magic User in Quest for Glory. If the game were particularly involving I might invest myself emotionally in the quest by imagining myself into the role of the Avatar or hero, making moral choices that reflected the character whom I wanted to ‘play’. But lost in all of this was the participatory storytelling that made pen’n'paper roleplaying games truly unique.
CRPG Becomes the Norm
What emerged in the late 90′s and early 2000′s was a CRPG-literate crowd of gamers with very specific expectations about what a roleplaying game is. We wanted games with statistics – lots of ‘em. We wanted games with all kinds of open-ended exploration. We wanted games that let us customize our character’s abilities. We wanted party-based adventuring, even though 4 of the 5 party members were computer-controlled. We wanted epic stories that took dozens of hours to complete, each replete with subquests or sidequests to keep us entertained while on the “main” quest.
But lost in this emerging literacy were the original pen’n'paper games that created the metaphors for gameplay that CRPGs aped algorithmically. Kids born in the mid-1990′s have grown up in a world where Dungeons and Dragons no longer carries any meaning beyond being a particular brand of computer role-playing games. Many of the teenagers in our “Art Guild” after-school program are very literate when it comes to playing computer games, but the idea of playing a pen’n'paper adventure seems quaintly confusing to them. Like driving around in your Ford Model-T when you have a Porsche sitting in the garage.
Discovering that the Old is New
Of course, D&D has not remained dormant for the last 30 years. In fact, there are probably more pen’n'paper systems available today than there ever were. So for the last few years, my wife and I have had the great fortune to have participated in a number of campaigns – some as DM, some as players – from Deadlands to Planescape to a re-imagining of Ultima VIII: Pagan. Each time we play, I am struck by the rich and complex social scene that plays out before us.
A few weeks ago I brought in a D&D Basic Set to the Art Guild, and asked a handful of teenagers if they wanted to “play a real role-playing game”. Only one of them had played a pen’n'paper game before, and the rest were curious but totally unfamiliar with D&D. So we sat down, rolled up some very basic character sheets, and began our journey.
DM: “You are standing on a 30-foot high cobblestone wall.”
Player 1: “Why?”
DM: “I’m not sure. You hear the sound of a gong behind you, along with villagers screaming ‘get him!’ and ‘he’s on top of the wall!’
Player 2: “What do I do?”
DM: “I’m not sure. What do you want to do?”
Player 2: “Ummm. What are my options?”
DM: “Well, the wall is a 30 foot drop. You figure that you might be able to climb down if you take your time. There are handholds in the rough cobblestone.”
Player 2: “I want to climb down then.”
DM: “Give me a roll on your D20.”
Player 3: “Which one is the D20?”
And so on.
Three hours later, they had been assaulted by guards dressed in red gowns, fled down a steep switchback mountain path, clung for their lives after falling off the steep sides of the path, got lost in a forest, were assailed by pygmies, and buried a skeleton that they found laying alongside the road. In each of these situations, the characters found themselves arguing over complex issues of trust, greed, courage, friendship and disloyalty. They bargained with one another, joked and teased one another, and learned to tread the fine line between what is ‘in game’ (their character) and what is ‘out of game’ (themselves).
At an individual level, I noticed that each player learned how to communicate their actions and express their thoughts in a much more clear and articulate manner than usual. Ambiguous speech acts like “I walk into the dark forest” were usually met with clarifications from the DM “Well, which direction? In front of you? Do you have a light?” or sometimes with outright remonstrations from the DM, “You walk into the dark forest without a light. You are now lost.”
I also noticed that a few players also took risks that they would have never taken in real life. Stealing something from another person would be impossible for most of these teenagers, but in the game they were able to explore iniquitous acts without serious repercussion. They learned, for instance, that a character needs a motivational space that makes sense of their action – they can’t just walk off the side of a mountain without a sensible reason, or commit an act of evil without some kind of moral context.
Recovering a Tradition
What I am beginning to appreciate is that there is a new generation of CRPGers, who were previously unfamiliar with D&D that are just becoming familiar with pen’n'paper games. Judging by the two three-hour sessions that I have played with the teenagers from the Art Guild, D&D is by far the most successful group activity we have had in 7 months. Already several of them want to learn how to DM and create their own worlds, and take other players out on adventures.
The upshot of this, I hope, is that this new generation of gamers – who are now playing pen’n'paper games – will create a desire to completely revitalize the idea of a CRPG. I don’t think that we need another Baldur’s Gate. I think we need to recapture the vitality and rich social space enacted in pen’n'paper sessions. Designers of the future need to remember that role-playing games are primarily played with friends and involve working out complex social relationships that exist outside of the game. I think that we need CRPGs that aren’t about “choosing moral option A or B”, but rather about having the player ask themselves, “what kind of character is s/he? Would s/he do this?”
Games like Mass Effect 2 and BioShock have returned us to the original problem of telling a story in a coherent manner, while inviting input from the player, but still have not addressed the more fundamental problem that an RPG involves: learning how to clarify one’s own decisions and emotions within a safe, bounded, environment.
I appreciate that CRPGs have become their own modes of expression with standards of their own that do not refer back to pen’n'paper games. But, judging by the quality of the RPG sessions I have participated in, they could still learn a thing or ten. I hope that this new generation of gamers creates a desire for richer CRPGs – games that are more connected to the human feeling and morality that is expressed in the average pen’n'paper session.
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From gnome:
A hopeful trip down memory lane? Why, yes please! Also, let it be noted that I never met anyone who thought that D&D was nerdy or evil. Well, besides the dear grandmother of a friend who was mortally terrorized by the Ravenloft cover.
From chris:
You must be running in better circles than I then
That Ravenloft cover even chilled *me* to the bone! I would pay to see this grandmother’s face
From guttertalk:
Interesting. I’ve been mulling a very similar tale. I badly wanted to play D&D in high school, but in Bible belt East Texas, it might have been easier to admit that you were gay than to say you played D&D. And like you, I spent time with CRPGs. But now, I’m playing a great D&D 3.5e campaign and playing a couple of tabletop RPGs with my kids.
But to confirm that resurgent interest, I have to tell you about my 18-year-old nephew in Mobile, AL. He’s been a longtime gamer, and about a year and a half ago, he had a physics teacher who talked about D&D. My nephew mocked it (and me, as I was starting to play the campaign I’m now in), but between the two of us, he became very intrigued.
Today, he plays D&D regularly with about 4 others, and they will sometimes pull into 1-2 others . . . even a girl!!
He enjoys playing the DM, and they’ve branched out somewhat, even working on their own tabletop game. They also play sessions with an art teacher as well as their former physics teacher. That’s the part that amazes me: two teachers playing games with the kids. I would have loved that 30 years ago.
And it sounds like there are a couple of other tabletop game groups at his school. So, based on this small sample, it certainly seems like tabletop RPGs are regaining popularity.
From chris:
Gary, I’m elated to hear that you’re experiencing something similar out there. Honestly, I wondered if this was just a local phenomenon and wasn’t happening elsewhere. I can relate with being a “closeted” D&Der in the 90s. Being gay, in some ways, would have been more acceptable because at least there was a premade social category for it in rural Alberta… people wouldn’t even know what to do with a D&Der in those days, other than think they were a devil-worshipper. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be in the Bible Belt O.O
My wife (who is an art teacher at the high school in this town) has been operative in all of this. It’s funny to hear that your nephew’s physics teacher was just as involved
With our Art Guild, which is basically an after-school hangout for the town kids, we get the chance to play games like this as a group. 20+ years ago, D&D would never have been allowed in this school – but now, I think there wouldn’t be as much resistance to the idea. Glad to hear that your nephew lives in a place that allows for it. It’s gratifying to hear that he’s kept up with it on its own.
Interestingly enough, about 1/3rd of our D&D group is female. That is a huge change from a long time ago, where finding ANY girl that was interested in D&D was less likely than finding a palm tree in Tuktoyuktuk. (Sorry, some Northern humor there).
How do your kids find the 3.5E adventures? Is it set in a specific campaign, or do you switch things up? I’m very fascinated by the idea of D&D as a way of helping kids grow and develop.
From Aaron:
I recommend exploring the weird and wonderful world of indie RPGs (http://www.indie-rpgs.com). Games like “Sorcerer”, “Dogs in the Vineyard”, “My Life With Master”, “Capes”, and many others have really stretched the boundaries of RPG design. I think you would enjoy the articles by Ron Edwards and others.
From chris:
Aaron,
That’s fantastic! I had never heard of this until now – I can’t wait to start digging into the articles there.
From Andrew:
I’m of the mind that there are two main draws to a pen and paper RPG; the social aspect and the ‘do anything’ aspect.
The social aspect is something that’s not easily translated into a CRPG: some games have tried (Neverwinter Nights and it’s “DM Mode” come to mind), but it feels flat in comparison.
Instead, I’d like to see the next generation of game designers attempt to bring the freedom of Pen and Paper games into a new CRPG structure.
In a CRPG there is an absolute definition to what the player can do and what the game world can accomplish. To tell a narrative within that structure tends to require a very defined path as well. In a Bioware game you may make several decisions, but you will always reach the same endpoint.
An RPG session, however, can go off the rails at any moment; and can often be the better for it. I’d like to see CRPG’s develop to the point where the player has the ability to improvise instead of just selecting options off a dialog wheel, and a narrative structure flexible enough that you don’t end up with frustrating “But thou must!” moments.
Of course, some restrictions have to be there. Or you end up with players who throw out such gems as “I motorboat his bloody neck-strump”.
From chris:
Hah, you and me both, brother. Designers have been trying to emulate the narrative structure of pencil’n'paper for years, with varying successes at making something open-ended. I’m playing through Ultima VII right now, and it has enough “oh wow, I can’t believe I could do X!” moments that keep surprising me. I’ve found that a well-told story keeps me to the straight-and-narrows anyway – most players stick to the storyline when it is engaging and committable. I think I tend to start hunting for ways of derailing a CRPG when I’m bored. Mass Effect 1 and 2 are good examples of that – the game has barely any interactivity and is narratively linear, yet I rarely find myself trying to grief the system. I’m happy just letting the story unfold according to however the designers imagined it.
I think that you’re right – the social aspect is probably never going to catch up to the kind we have in pencil’n'paper games. But I like some of the clever tricks designers have come up to deal with that in single-player RPGs… Knights of the Old Republic has some wonderful NPC-to-NPC bonding moments that really make me feel like I’m in an adventurer’s party, ribbing each other like old friends. Mass Effect 2 had several of those moments also, although I rarely found myself emotionally connected to the characters in that game. And honestly, Shepherd was as close to a sociopath as I ever want to be.
Thanks for the thoughts – your DMing has been pretty instructive in my thoughts about the future of pencil’n'paper RPGs.
From Andrew:
Somehow I don’t see my own ‘make shit up as you go along’ style of DM’ing being adapted all that easily into a CRPG, but thanks!
From Andrew:
The DM’s ability to adapt on the fly is something that cannot be simulated with CRPG’s yet. Mass Effect doesn’t have the ability to adapt it’s plot: it’s written in stone and the only thing the dev team can do is to make it as compelling as possible.
There’s a massive technical challenge to create a world that’s reactive; some games attempt it with varying results.
Games that attempt to demonstrate that they’re tracking all the players decisions often come across as shallow or schizophrenic in tone (IE: Anything Bethsedsa or Peter Molyneux make).
The player can do anything, but there’s so little impact or emotional investment that it’s really hard to care either way. In a tabletop RPG, the player can do anything, and the DM is there to create an impact and emotional impact to make those choices matter.
I’d be very interested to see an ambitious game that tries to do that; but i think the technical hurdles involved will keep us from actually playing something along those lines for a good long while yet.
From chris:
Yeah, I get you on the Bethesda games and weirdness of tracking player decisions – without a tight and emotional storyline, I really don’t care if my decision to murder person X in realm Y really has any bearing on the price of tea in Skyrim.
Interestingly, Mass Effect 2 tried something along those lines, and I think did a wonderful job with it. Importing my character from ME1 had some very interesting outcomes in ME2 that were all told with fidelity to the storyline, and quite a bit of emotional impact. It was subtle, and just enough to make me say “Hey, this place feels like home”. Instead of taking a simulationist approach (let’s face it, who the hell actually has *fun* playing GURPS?), I’d like to see more companies try to minimize simulation in favor of your “if it looks right, it is right” approach.