5 Videogame Lessons for the Tabletop

This won't come as a surprise to most of you, but videogames and tabletop roleplaying games are two different things.  As such, they end up doing things rather differently.  But that doesn't mean they can't take lessons from each other.  As roleplaying videogame series like WoW, Fallout, Mass Effect, and The Witcher have grown more popular, RPG-like elements have begun to invade other genres of videogames, to the point where players of popular first-person shooters find themselves spending skill points and leveling up their characters between matches.  Videogame elements can work their way into tabletop RPGs as well, especially as more players enter the tabletop realm through the gateway drug of videogames.  This can have mixed results - some say 4th Edition D&D was an attempt to make D&D more videogamey, and it ended up being the most controversial and shortest-lived edition since the 70s.  But while there are many elements of videogames that would translate poorly to the tabletop, there are lessons from videogames that we can safely bring to the table.

Tutorials

Call of Duty 2

Most videogames have a tutorial level - a soft introduction meant to allow new players to learn the basic rules and gameplay mechanics.  Sometimes this takes the form of a literal training exercise, as in the above screenshot from Call of Duty 2, where Pvt. Vasili Koslov is practicing his grenade potato tossing.  But sometimes it is a short, low-stakes in-game mission that happens to lead the player through many of the common situations they will encounter in the game.

This latter type of tutorial is a great way to introduce new players to the game mechanics.  Send them on a simple mission that exposes them to a simple combat, a skill challenge, and some diplomacy.  For most people, it is a lot easier to learn through gameplay like this than to have the rules explained to them or to read it in a book.


How to Use Cutscenes

Zero Wing

Cutscenes are to videogames what narration is to tabletop RPGs.  Cutscenes take control away from the player to let the game designers show them a little video.  Similarly, narration takes control away from the players to let the GM describe a scene to them.  With both cutscenes and narration, there are good and bad ways to employ them.  Whenever you are doing something that takes control from the players, you need to tread lightly.  When looking at videogame cutscenes, we can see where they work best and where they end up being intrusive, and apply those lessons to our use of narration at the tabletop.  

If you've ever watched the video series Unskippable, which lampoons videogame cutscenes MST3K-style, you'll notice a common refrain is "Wow, that looks like a cool game.  I wish they would let me play it."  A good rule of thumb with narrative cutscenes is that they should never act for the player.  A good cutscene ends right when the player wants to start doing something.  It should never choose the player's actions for them, make a character act in a way they ordinarily wouldn't, or otherwise step on the player's toes.

Cutscene narration is good for setting a scene (eg. "As you step through the door, you see...") and delivering exposition (eg. "'When I escaped from the gnolls,' the old man begins, ale long-forgotten, 'they was already halfaday from Greslond and heading south...'").  When you are writing narration for your game, ask yourself, 'If this were a cutscene in a videogame, would I resent it?'

Power Fantasies

Sid Meyer's Civilization 5

One of the most satisfying experiences in a videogame is encountering an enemy that used to be a real threat and just slaughtering it in one hit.  It doesn't just act as catharsis - it gives the player a visceral indicator of how far they have come over the course of the game.

As a GM, it is easy to get wrapped up in presenting the players with bigger and better challenges, but from the player's perspective, this makes everything seem like an uphill climb.  try to find some way to work in an encounter with something that vexed your players when they were still low level adventurers.  After all, if you never face anything less powerful than yourself, how are you going to feel powerful?

Design Around Multiple Play-Styles

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Many games are designed with the assumption that different players will want to play the game differently.  Games like Deus Ex let you be a tough melee fighter, a skilled gunman, a sneaky little bugger, or even a specialist in nonlethal takedowns.  In games like Morrowind, you can solve nearly any problem with brawn, magic, ranged weapons, or stealth (or some combination of all four).  Tabletop roleplaying games allow for an even greater range of play-styles, but sometimes when you are designing an encounter you get so caught up in what you would do that you forget to account for other player options.  If your players try to solve a problem through stealth or diplomacy that you only thought of solving through combat, you'll find yourself at a loss, and end up delivering a less-than-complete experience for your group.  When you are creating an encounter, make sure to throw in some helpful Easter eggs for players of different playstyles: some cover for stealthy characters, a good vantage point for ranged characters, some motivations to be toyed with by diplomacy-focused characters, etc.

Choose Your Own Immersion Level

Morrowind

The Elder Scrolls games (most famously Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim) take place in a fantastically in-depth world.  Much of this can be accessed by reading the hundreds and hundreds of books that can be found in the game.  This means it is up to the player to determine how much of the worldbuilding they want to absorb.  Similarly, in the game Bioshock, your character picks up dozens of audio recordings that give him insights into the underwater city he has become trapped in; plot-critical recording play automatically, but other recordings are left up to the discretion of the player.

If you create your own campaign world, you'll naturally want your players to appreciate all the hard work that you put into it.  But front-loading every play session with several paragraphs of narration describing the ancient war between the Elves of Thannar and the Five Kings of Men will only bog things down.  Let the depth of your campaign setting shine through in your descriptions, and encourage players to explore it further if they want, but don't force it on them.  If they are the sort of players that want to know more, let them make Knowledge (history) checks or ask NPCs to explain things.  If they aren't the sort of players who want to dive into that worldbuilding, dumping it on them isn't going to give either of you what you want.

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-your dunmer d20 despot