D&D Forever ...

Upon the announcement that there's to be a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, I thought I'd re-post my initial observations about the 4th Edition:

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My "Geek Geezer" Opinion (FWLIW) on Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. (Old Geekzer? Could that be a word?)

First, a little history (if nothing else but to establish my "geezer" bona fides):

I've been an off and on Dungeons & Dragons player since 1981, starting with the "red-box" Basic Set and "blue-box" Expert Set, and then picking up with AD&D in about 1982. In mid 1991 I married (and then became a father at the end of 1992), but I still managed to pick up all the major Second Edition AD&D books, and even get together and play with a group again starting in the mid-90s. And in 2000 we all started playing 3rd Edition.

The basic game was a lot of fun, but seemed somewhat lacking, which was why I quickly jumped to AD&D, as soon as I realized what it was, and that it existed (I would have been about 12 at the time). It was a fuller-featured, more logical, more "realistic" (if the term can be applied to a fantasy world of the player's own imaginations) simulation of a Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Epic Adventure.

I really loved the Second Edition, too. It built so well on top of the older system, streamlining it, and adding tons of new options with the Character "Kits" (I think I was one of the few who really enjoyed those, though) ... it actually felt like the game was opening up - becoming a framework which a DM (and players) could use to build up any kind of fantasy story they desired. You want to focus on a stone-age, low-magic universe? No problem. You want High Fantasy, with magic as common as technology is in to-day's world? Easy. You want a Feudal East-Asian themed world full of honourable Samurai, peasants defending their homes with the tools they had at hand and skulking Ninja spies selling the keys to power to the highest bidder? You could do that, too. And you wouldn't necessarily have had to buy specific expansion books to do those things. Any DM with a little imagination and ingenuity could make the rules fit.

Now, when the 3rd Edition was published, I admit I was a little apprehensive. The rules, as they had been, had really grown on me. Nevertheless, I bought the new Player's Handbook, and, together with my regular gaming group, we started exploring the new rules set. And, behold! We found it good! Again, the rules had become much more streamlined, and more logical. The d20 system was a great boon in that it simplified the PROCESS of D&D gaming, without simplifying the GAME. Next thing I knew, I was buying a whole new set of D&D books. (As were all of my friends.)

Then there was a 3.5 edition, which I never really got into ... it seemed a bit pointless, really. Why spend all that money buying yet another new set of books with minor rules tweaks, when the rules we had worked so well? (Of course, we'd always had a few house rules here and there, depending on who was DM - who doesn't? - but the core rules were a great foundation.)

Unfortunately, my regular gaming group sort of fell apart a couple of years ago, and I haven't played much D&D since then. Besides - how are you gonna pull people away from the ease of playing World of Warcraft, and get them around a table to play a game? (This last question is important, as I'm sure it has gone through the minds of everyone who has had anything at all to do with the development of 4th Edition. In fact, I'd venture to say it was probably the guiding principle in 4th Edition's design.)

Then there was 4th Edition announcement.

Upon first hearing about 4E, I was, as with 3E, a little cautious. But I was also more than a little hopeful. After all, I had thought 3rd Edition was probably unnecessary, but I went into it with an open mind and was pleasantly surprised. I even found myself preferring it over the older versions. Couldn't the same thing happen again? Of course it could! I planned to do as I had with 3rd Edition: buy a Player's Handbook first, and if I liked what I read, pick up the other books and maybe try to get some of my old group back together and give it a whirl.

Now we come to the present. I've been reading the new 4th Edition Player's Handbook ...

So ... where to even begin?

I guess the first, most obvious thing is how dumb it is. I don't mean dumb, as in "not smart" ... I mean "dumbed-down" the way video games often are. Of course, video games have to be dumbed down to accommodate the lack of real intelligence behind them. They have to be run by AI, which is just a bunch of mathematics that run different equations based on the players' input. The whole point of a table-top game is that you have a real, live, thinking person who will make intelligent decisions or the NPCs and/or monsters in any given situation.

Let's take concepts like threat and aggro from the realm of MMORPGs. Why do these concepts exist? These terms represent the outcome of formulae that work behind-the-scenes in order for creatures in a MMORPG to react within some set of pre-defined parameters. (Let me just note here that I'll be using examples from WoW, because it's the most popular MMORPG out there, and the one with which I am most familiar.) These formulae can be tweaked, depending on the characteristics that the creators of the game want a particular creature to display. This way, if you're running through, say Elwynn Forest with a level 76 character, it's unlikely that any of the low-level Defias Bandits (or whatever) are going to bother you, unless you walk right up to them and stand there - or even hit them first. But, if you go through there with a level 3 character, they'll come running to attack you from many yards away. This is what allows a Murloc to decide that it's time to go running and bring back more Murlocs to help in its fight unless you take it down very quickly. This is also what allows your main "Tank" to use specific abitlities that increase her threat to any given mob, so it will attack her, instead of the poor cloth-wearing mage who is doing, probably, a lot more damage. It's these behind-the-scenes formulae that determine the reactions - and it's these same formulae that players have learned to game in order to have success. That's why it's vitally important, especially when going into an instance, to have a good tank (and a good healer) - you have to game the systemic formulae in order to make the monsters play to your strategy.

Now, in a video game this becomes a necessity. The only way around it would be to hire a lot of people to play mobs, which would be very cost-prohibitive. Another way would be to develop AI that is beyond anything that can be accomplished, currently. But, see ... this is a WEAKNESS in the video game world - one which developers are either constantly struggling to overcome, and make as transparent as possible, or which, in the case of WoW, they use as a tool in building abilities and classes within the game. Players are going to figure these things out anyway, so why not just make it part and parcel of the whole MMORPG experience? This is one of the things that annoys me about WoW - but it's something I can accept, considering the limitations of the medium.

So why, in the name of all that is Good and Right in the Universe, would the developers of a table-top RPG take the biggest weakness of MMORPGs and incorporate it into their game? WTF?!?

D&D 4E is chock FULL of this kind of malarkey. They've even gone so far as to give each class a "role" to fill in combat ... Strikers=dps, Controllers=Crowd-Control, Defender=Tank, Leader =Healer. These aren't necessarily EXACT cognates, but they're pretty close. The new combat rules are pretty much ALL about managing aggro and threat zones - a concept which really shouldn't even EXIST in this setting! So, what - now the DM is supposed to pretend to be a computer AI?

And now, characters are constantly using all these special powers ... no one ever just attacks any more. And instead of cool-downs you have frequencies of time in which to use the powers - daily, once per encounter, at will, etc. The only thing missing is the buttons on a menu bar. And these "healing surges" ... what's up with that? Why not just give us a random number of hit points to put on top of what we already have? In essence, you are rolling up hit points - you're just doing it on the fly, in the middle of combat, instead of at creation or level-up, AND you're giving every character a huge hp reserve right from level 1. (Don't even get me started on this "martial power-source" bunk.)

And speaking of rolling ... does any one else find it odd that using dice to get your character's stats is so strongly discouraged? Again, I have to compare this with video games. It makes sense in a video game - especially in an MMORPG, or any game with an on-line component, that you want to level the playing field to a certain degree. This evening-out of the playing field was traditionally handled by a DM, but again, the lack of a human DM is the big obstacle to overcome in a computer game. So we use point-buy systems, or some such thing to prevent players cheating or gaming the system to gain an unfair (or just lucky) advantage over other players. But what's the point, again, of taking a system that is primarily a response to a weakness in one system, and moving it to a system that does not share this weakness? If a DM is afraid her players will cheat on stat rolls, all she has to do is make them roll their stats in front of her! Problem solved ... and, more importantly, UNIQUENESS of CHARACTER is maintained! With the systems that 4th Ed. presents and encourages, almost all Elven Wizards are going to have the same (or VERY close) stats! As will all Dwarven Paladins, or Tiefling Rogues, or whatever ...

Whatever happened to the DEX-based fighter who could dish out damage like no one else? Doesn't exist anymore. A Fighter is a Tank is a Fighter is a Tank, with only a few possible modifications. Trying to build a truly creative, unique character, within the framework of these rules, is pretty much impossible.

Character creation in 4E feels as cold and impersonal as in WoW. Sadly, even the Neverwinter Nights character generation felt more organic. The beauty of D&D (or any table-top system) was that you could create and play something new and different - you weren't just playing another cookie-cutter hero (or anti-hero, or even villain).

Let's talk about what a framework rules set for an RPG should NOT do (unless it's set up for a specific milieu) - and that's tell us what kind of world we're in. That's what campaign settings are for! "Points of Light in the Great Darkness" or whatever, is great for a specific setting ... but don't try to implement it as part of the basic rules! In fact don't even give us deities - unless you just want to include a few as examples (much like 3E) to help guide the players and DMs in creating their own. Each setting (whether published or home-brewed) should have its own feel - its own cosmology. I want to see vast continents full of cosmopolitan societies, where social and political intrigue play as big a role (or even bigger) as martial prowess. Or how about a universe without gods? Or maybe a whole campaign that takes place within a single huge city? Yes, you can do those things in the 4E rules - but they seem to go against the spirit that the rules are trying to set forth.

And what happened to Alignment?!? So now there's no such thing as Chaotic Good?!? WTF?!? You're telling me that a person of my own personal moral persuasion can't exist in the D&D world? And no Lawful Evil? (I guess there are no Dick Cheney's in D&D either ... so maybe it's a fair trade.) I can forgive Unaligned, I suppose ... but in a sense, that's more of a Chaotic Neutral sentiment, a "who gives a crap about all this morality anyway" attitude, that actually is, in itself, a moral stand. Now, I was never a huge fan of the old alignment restrictions, except in specific cases (Paladins are Lawful Good, End of Story.) I never used alignment languages or any of that - but I DID ask players to choose an alignment - not to punish or control their actions, but as a Role-Playing device.

Ah, Role-Playing! Anyone else remember role-playing? Ostensibly, that's what the "RP" in "RPG (and even "MMORPG") stands for. But MMORPGs tend to break the mood of real RPing. There's too much "gaming the system" and meta-talk to ever really role-play. That's where a lot of the old text-based MMORPGS had it over WoW. There was always MUCH better RP on those - even if it wasn't always consistent. Go to one of the WoW RP-specific servers, and what do you see? The same thing as on any other server, except with the occasional thee or thou or m'lady thrown in. People are still talking about movies and shouting about selling their crap over the General channel and such - and discussing meta-game concepts. Again, this is a great weakness of the electronic versions of RPGs which should NOT be brought into the Table-Top versions.

Now, I'm not an RP purist, per se. I'm not saying that I believe that everyone at the table should always speak as their characters, or anything like that. In fact, one of the great things about playing with a group, in-person, is that the amount of RP can be measured out according to the tastes and whims of the group. When you're on-line with 2,000 of your closest "friends", this isn't so easily accomplished!

I'm also not saying that D&D 4E is anti-role-playing. Role-playing is something anyone can do with any game if one so chooses - though it's easier with some games than others. (Ever tried to behave like a millionaire real-estate developing shoe in Monopoly?) However all of the emphasis in the new PHB seems to be about combat and powers and "what can you do with your cookie-cutter hero character?"

The whole intangible "feel" of 4th Edition D&D is that it's a specialized tactics game, on a par with the old Milton Bradley Hero Quest game. Its emphasis is no longer on encouraging friends to get together and use their imaginations to weave together a story, complete with character development, and plot. Now it's all about getting to the next Big Action Sequence.

Now, It's not ALL wrong. I like the idea of a hero being able to summon forth great reserves of strength to make a real difference - to do something almost super-human, just in the nick-of-time, to save the day - or even to fail while making such an attempt, and die a truly heroic death. (Though, it shouldn't be a daily occurrence.)

Again, I'm not saying D&D 4E is ALL bad. I just don't see this as D&D anymore. It's a small unit combat tactics game set in a medieval/fantasy setting, with video-game-type powers being used in Hollywood-Style Action Sequences. In short, it's D&D with all the heart and soul ripped out.

I'm sure it'll be fun for what it is - and for the generation raised on XBox and MMORPGs, and movie versions of classic stories, I'm sure it will be a lot of fun. And if you enjoy it, good for you! I'm certainly not here to ruin anyone's good time.

But for me ... it's just not the same anymore. I dunno ... maybe I'm just getting old. Or I'm just old-fashioned. Whatever it is ... YOU KIDS NEED TO GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

Are Video Games an Art Form?

I know I'm a little late to this party, but I've been busy. I've been mulling this topic over in my head for a while, too, and now I just feel the need to get it out on virtual paper.

Roger Ebert, some time ago, made the statement that video games could never be art. In response to this, Kellee Santiago of thatgamecompany gave a talk at a TEDxUSC event taking the opposing view. Ebert, unusually, felt the need to respond to that.

As usual on the Internets, a shitstorm arose in the gaming community and everyone from Gabe & Tycho at Penny Arcade to G4 TV's Adam Sessler to "Yahtzee" Croshaw have posted responses. Responses have ranged from outraged disagreement with Mr. Ebert to agreement on certain points and others basically wondering why anyone gives a rat's ass.

Well, I certainly don't kid myself that I belong in company of those people above, but I still have my opinions. For what it's worth, here they are:

First off, we sort of have to define just what art is. Andy Warhol's quip about most Americans thinking it's a man's name notwithstanding, I think art can be appreciated and defined by anyone ... but people will always have their disagreements about that definition. I think of art as a process (or product of that process) of arranging elements (whether visual or auditory, or whatever) in order to elicit an emotional or sensual response in an audience. I believe art can be the work of one individual or of a collaborative process.

Most importantly, though, we need to remember that whether something is art or not, does NOT determine its quality or value. There is good art and there is bad art.

Let's take one of my favorite paintings as an example: Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. (I'm sure you know the painting, even if you don't recognize the name. Just do a Google Image Search.) I think pretty much everyone would agree that this is an example of art. Now, take the crayon etchings of a 2-year old that's up on the refrigerator of a typical middle-American home. Very few people would argue that the child's art is objectively the better of these two works. (Some might argue over purity of expression, or some such, but I'm not going there.) Most people would also consider both of these works an art form.

Similarly, the prehistoric etchings on cave walls have a certain beauty in their lines and are very expressive, but the objective technical quality doesn't compare to Leonardo Da Vinci's work. And furthermore, take a look at different forms and styles like the surrealism of Magritte or Picasso's cubism. These are all art. So is the spoof of Nighthawks featuring Elvis and Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. What about the Velvet Elvises and Dogs Playing Poker and the Unicorns with Rainbows being sold out of a van on the corner? I think most people would consider those art. Mostly bad art, yes, but art nonetheless.

I believe most people consider the act of storytelling to be an art, as well. Storytelling can take many forms: verbal communication or sign language, drama (stage & screen), literature, or sequential imagery (comics). And once you move from someone's individual vision, you're moving into collaborative art.

Mr. Ebert says he tends "... to think of art as usually the creation of one artist." I'm not sure why he brought this up, because he almost immediately shoots the concept down by providing examples of collaborative art: a cathedral, a tribal dance - though he goes on to claim that the dance is made up of individual choreographers. "Everybody didn't start dancing all at once." I find it odd that he neglected the most obvious form of collaborative art in our modern society - the field in which he works professionally: Film. Modern film is a collaborative art. Not everyone who works on a film is an artist - there are technical people and all sorts of behind-the-scenes workers involved - but there are many artists involved: writers, directors, actors, designers of props and sets. The end result of their efforts, both artists and non-artists alike - is a film - which I think most people, Mr. Ebert included, would consider a work of art. Maybe not all films are really "art" in their purest sense. But I think the medium itself is an art form. Sure there are some really lousy films out there, but that doesn't mean they're not art. They're just bad art.

So, I think we can dismiss the idea that art must be the result of one artist's singular vision.

One of Mr. Ebert's biggest issues seems to be with the non-static nature of video games.

Our modern method of photography didn't exist 200 years or so ago. At one time it was a new technology. An argument could be made that photography isn't an art, because all you're doing is pointing a tool at something that already exists and pushing a button. You're just mechanically producing two-dimensional representation of something from the real world, using a technological tool. Of course, anyone who's seen and been moved by the photos of Ansel Adams or Alfred Stieglitz or even Mathew Brady's portraits and documentary photos of the American Civil War will disagree with this argument. Photography is definitely an art, and I think most people today would agree with me. At one time, however, that wouldn't have been the case.

Motion Pictures didn't exist until just over a hundred years ago, either. If photography is an art form, does the non-static nature of movies make them not art? I'm guessing that Mr. Ebert would agree that motion pictures are an art form. Maybe he wouldn't consider all films art, but he certainly wouldn't say, as a result, that motion pictures could never be art. Of course, once a film is printed and shown, the film itself is identical for all the audiences viewing it, so in that sense, motion pictures are static.

So there's an argument - since each "audience" or player of a video game experiences the game differently, the game cannot be art.

But what about live drama? Each performance is slightly different from each other performance, even if working from the same script and using the same props, actors, backdrops, etc. Even tougher to categorize is improvisational theater or performance art, or dance, or live music. These performances of art are never quite exactly the same, even in cases, such as choreography and music, where the artists rehearse repeatedly to make each performance as similar as possible. How about improvisational jazz, or "jam" sessions? Does the fact that the various musicians are reacting to one another (and even the audience response) in real time make the performance no longer art?

And what about the audience? I believe that art exists in stages - there's the artistic concept, the execution of the concept, the presentation to the audience and the audience reaction. All of these are parts of art. And all of these can exist within video games. A video game can certainly elicit an emotional response in its audience. Sometimes it's curiosity, or wonderment, or simply frustration with the game, but there is an emotional response. And some games - especially story-based games - can invest the player/audience with emotional reactions every bit as deep as a film or book or play.

Mr. Ebert also has issues with the fact that one can win or lose a game. As he admits he has never played a video game, I will cut him some slack for such an ignorant statement. (Though I have to wonder why a person with pretty much zero knowledge on a subject, would feel the need to offer opinions on it without exposing himself to it at least a little bit!) I have played games where there is no win or lose state. Take The Sims for example. That game is simply a simulation. Sure there are goals within it, but even if you fail at them, the game just keeps moving along, and the story you're creating within it doesn't stop, either. I've also played games where, even though player death is possible, you get to re-load and continue the story. So even though there may be multiple fits and starts in the story line, I know, as long as I keep playing, I will eventually get to witness the whole tale unfold. Prime examples of this include BioWare's CRPG games, such as Mass Effect or Dragon Age. These games tell involving stories, that keep the player playing just to see the tale unfold - these are stories to rival or even exceed many of the stories told in to-day's cinemas.

Just as an example: when you watch a movie that involves the main character being faced with acts of brutality, you find yourself hoping that the hero manages to overcome adversity and put an end to the situation. In Mass Effect 2, there is a scene on a penal ship where there are some nasty and abusive activities going on. As a player I found myself disturbed by this and hoping that I would get a chance to right the wrongs being committed. Now, just because I have a certain amount of control of the character, and because I can chose, to some degree, the order in which certain events happen, does that artistically invalidate my response as an audience? I don't believe it does. My emotional response as a player was the same as it would have been watching the same scene in a movie, or reading it in a book. The only difference is that there is a certain interactivity involved. This is called audience participation, and it certainly doesn't invalidate the artistic merits of a live theater performance or improvisational theater. When the Blue Man Group interacts with its audience, it changes the performance. Does that suddenly mean the whole endeavor is no longer art? Of course not!

I think Mr. Ebert just can't get his head around the fact that video games are a new, interactive art form. It's a form that is just too different, and too outside his realm of experience for him to see the artistic merits within it.

Does that mean all video games are art? No, probably not. Just as maybe not all photos are art, and maybe not all motion pictures are art. I wouldn't call Tetris a work of art, necessarily. It's a clever and addicting game, but probably not art. I would say most strategy games aren't art. They're more akin to board games - though there can certainly be artistic elements within both.

But some games are art. And that's where I have trouble with Mr. Ebert's statement. It's just such a dismissive, blanket declaration to say that video games can never be art. And coming from a man who has never played a video game, it comes across as disingenuous.

I don't think that's his intent, though. I think it's simply a case of an opinion borne of ignorance.