The Unreal World Gets A Little Less Real
In the
best of all possible worlds, every gamer and aspiring gamer out there would
have a friendly, well-established, long-standing tabletop or LARP group to call
their own and attend once a week or more.
For most of us down here on Earth, however, this isn’t the case. Summer vacations and work conflicts can
break up groups for months at a time, and cross-country moves and lifestyle
changes can do so permanently. Most
gamers will tell you that they’ve experienced the sudden evaporation of what
seemed like a very stable group and the subsequent confusion as everyone rushes
to find a replacement and/or longs for a return to “the way it was.” Fortunately, in cases such as this the
gamers of today have an option which was not readily available to their
forebears. I’m speaking, of course, of
online gaming.
The
idea of bringing tabletop action to the PC is at least as old as the Internet
itself. Play-by-email or
message-board-based games, where gamers roleplay by trading emails or message
board postings, are out there and have a small but devoted following. MUDs, MUSHes, MUCKs, and MOOs have existed
for years, giving procrastinating gamers a great way to while away their
evenings and weekends killing beasties in a text-based environment while their
GPAs plummet in protest. There are as
many of these as there are gaming systems under the sun, though more visually
pleasing games such as EverCrack, I mean Everquest, and Ultima Online are
beginning to replace them. The biggest
problem with MU*s, however, is their all-too-frequent focus on combat and
killin’ stuff and exclusion of real roleplaying. Gamers in search of a more interactive environment have
gravitated to games taking place via IRC, chat rooms, or the ever-popular WebRPG software. Online gaming may have begun as a mere supplement to “real”
gaming, but now there are plenty of people around the world who play Everquest
every day but wouldn’t know a d20 if it bit them in the ass. Clearly, online gaming has something that
face-to-face gaming does not—but what?
The
denizens of GamerChickPlanet, my site’s forum, noticed this phenomenon and
began to discuss the merits of face-to-face (“flesh”) gaming versus online
gaming. Eventually, the thread became a
survey about which type of gaming the roleplaying community preferred. A slight majority of respondents seemed to
prefer online gaming, primarily for reasons I’ll go into a bit later. However, I have to dissent. Both have their good points, but in the end,
I’ll have to say that nothing can ever replace a good old-fashioned tabletop
session. Why? Read on.
Online
gaming, first of all, has two major pluses going for it. The first is privacy. Thanks to instant-messaging systems such as
the “whisper” or “page” commands, players can trade messages with each other or
with the GM without anyone else having the slightest idea what is going
on. This makes it easier for players to
spring fun, nasty little surprises on their fellow gamers. Players who do the same in a game via
passing notes or asking for a private conference with the GM have a much more
difficult time keeping their evil intentions secret, since everyone sees you
doing it and knows something is up. I
experienced this firsthand when, while playing in a MOO-based Mage game (about
which I’ll tell you more later), I was able to secretly cast some Mind effects
on an evil fellow member of my cabal and prevent her diabolical plan from
succeeding. It was truly a beautiful
sight to behold, and never would have worked in a normal tabletop game; the GM
and I would have been unable to keep straight faces long enough to fool the
player on the receiving end!
The
second (and most important) merit of online gaming is its convenience; you can,
quite literally, do it from the comfort of your own home. All it takes is a computer, an Internet
connection, and the proper (and often free) software. Apart from a few logistical hurdles such as time-zone differences,
there are next to no worries about getting everyone in the same place at the
same time. Online gaming also makes it a
cinch to connect groups of people who would otherwise never be able to game
together. The GM of the MOO game I
mentioned before, for example, has been able to keep playing with members of
his college gaming group despite moving across the country. It also allowed me to finally “meet” a
number of GCP regulars and readers of my site who I might never have been able
to game with otherwise.
However,
the two biggest bonuses of tabletop gaming outweigh even these benefits, in my
humble opinion. The first bonus has to
do with the technical side of online gaming.
Earlier this year, my friend Eustacio and some GCP regulars started a
Werewolf: The Apocalypse game via WebRPG and asked me to join. Excited, I made a character, downloaded the
program, and successful accessed it on several occasions. But when the first night of the game rolled
around, the program quite suddenly refused to work. After many hours of swearing, frustration, and trying everything
I could think of to get the program to work, I found out the school’s firewall
was the problem, which led to many more fruitless hours of trying to find a way
around it. Eventually I gave up,
resigned to playing only when I had access to a dial-up connection at
home. Summer came, and I looked forward
to finally getting to play in Eustacio’s game...until, once again quite
inexplicably, the program quit working AGAIN.
I gave up on the game again, this time for good. Technical problems such as these were
definitely the most prohibitive factor working against my being able to fully
enjoy my first experience with online gaming.
With tabletop gaming, the biggest technical problems I’ve ever had were
a car breaking down and preventing me from getting to a session on time, or
having to walk across campus in a snowstorm.
Secondly,
there’s the social aspect of a good face-to-face game. One of my top reasons for gaming is the
excuse it gives me to spend a few hours with my friends every week, goofing off
and having fun. My current Mage group
has been unique among online gaming groups in the amount of ambience (virtual
furniture and vending machines “selling” everything from Mountain Dew to
Doritos to barbequed wenches) and social interaction provided, partially
because so many of the players knew one another beforehand. But no matter how many new gadgets we add,
the fact remains that my fellow gamers are spread far across the country,
sitting at home and typing the same as me.
It’s still enjoyable, but it’s definitely missing that out-of-character
fun that I’ve come to depend on so much.
I
don’t want to make it sound like I haven’t enjoyed my foray into the world of
online gaming, because I have. My
current online Mage game has been one of the best roleplaying experiences of my
life, and I’m dreading the prospect of leaving the group at the end of summer. But no matter how many virtual Mountain Dew
machines and pots of manch line the walls of Malakai, I still get the
inexplicable feeling of missing something by gaming while sitting in front of
my computer rather than in the midst of a boisterous group of friends who are
right there, right then. This tells me
that while online gaming may be better than nothing when it comes to keeping a
group together, there will never be anything to replace real, honest-to-God
human contact—in gaming or in any other area of life.
At
least, I’d like to think so.
Copyright (c) 2001 by Beth Kinderman. This is my original work, so please respect it.