What We Can Learn From Computer Games
A long time ago, I wrote an essay about computer games, and how there were things that tabletop game players could learn from them by doing the opposite: boring towns, lots of travel time, repetitive dungeons, and so on. Now I find myself thinking about the things that tabletop gamers can learn from emulating computer games.
Specifically, I am going to focus on the game that has occupied much of my screen time for the last few months: Skyrim. Which means, of course, that most of the advice applies to fantasy games. But the lessons are broader than that, if you think about it.
Towns
In playing Skyrim, I found myself saying things like, “I really like Whiterun,” or “Crap, I have to go back to Markath. I hate that place.” Each town has a unique character of its own, and you typically find out what that is the very first time you walk through the gates. In the town run by corrupt nobles, the guards try to shake you down. In the town filled with danger and murder, you witness a fight even as you walk in. In the town where things are pretty laid back, the townspeople welcome you and smile.
• Don’t just have your PCs “go to town.” Take the extra 15 seconds of game time to establish the identity of the town, and make it different from the last town.
• Have actual encounters in town. It’s not just a place to visit the tavern and buy gear. Interesting things can happen there.
• For everyone in a town who wants the PCs to go off and accomplish some task, there’s someone who doesn’t want them to do it. How does that play out?
• What if the NPC sending the PCson their next mission is doing so for all the wrong reasons (intentionally or not)?
Dungeons
The dungeons in Skyrim are, to be blunt, amazing. There are places that would challenge even the best tabletop DM to describe adequately to the players. The layouts and design are varied and interesting.
• Caves lead to open-air calderas that can only be reached via the tunnels, like an isolated, forested glen in the middle of the “dungeon.” (That’s not magic–it’s creative geography.)
• Corridors wind. Passage width varies dramatically. Movement is vertical as well as horizontal.
• Lots of large, open caverns and chambers give a sense of grandeur.
• Buried buildings within caverns create strange environments from familiar ones. A set of towers inside a huge cave.
• Lots of dungeons have multiple inhabitant layers. A dwarven mine now inhabited by bandits. An ancient elvish ruin excavated by archaeologists and historians. A sorcerer’s tower now filled with evil cultists.
• While not every 10′x10′ chamber needs to be touched by Michelangelo, a bit of artistic detail–carved stone archways, tiled patterns on the floor, iron braziers in the shape of beasts–adds a lot of flavor.
• Crumbling architecture, collapsed passages, and cracked, uneven floors should be the standard in ancient dungeons.
• Doors more interesting than the standard wooden variety are always more interesting–valves opened with levers, a heavy portcullis, rotating stone mechanisms and iron hatchways in the floor are all inherently more intriguing, even if they’re just dungeon dressing.
• Multiple entrances and exits, some only discovered once inside the dungeon, make the flow of play more dynamic.
Random Encounters
I know that random encounters are pooh-poohed by a lot of people, usually those focused on story or a mathematical encounter-to-character-level-ratio. But in a game like Skyrim, running into someone on the road can be the start of a whole new story or set of encounters. It can just be a fight with a sabre cat, but even then, the nearby lair of that beast might contain an old map to an ancient treasure. The lone, random encounter (whether actually “random” or not) doesn’t have to be an interruption to the flow of things–it can be, in fact, an important part of the flow of things.
• The creature met on the journey seems like a simple enough encounter to handle, but then you discover that in fact it was a creature favored (and protected by) something far more powerful–like a giant.
• An individual runs up to the PCs and asks for help. Says he’s being chased. But is he a victim, or a fugitive from the law?
• A merchant on the road can be the source for some special object for sale that isn’t otherwise available, or a good way to sell off some recently acquired treasure.
• An old ruin lies just off the road. What mysteries does it hold? What are those odd lights? Can it entice the traveling PCs to put their current mission on hold just for a bit?
• A simple crossroads village might be just a place to stay on the journey, or the people there might be in great and immediate need of heroes. Perhaps it was fate that brought the PCs there–and can anyone really ignore fate?
Computer games have come a long way in my lifetime. Some of the designers behind them are as talented and capable at telling stories, creating settings, and detailing characters as tabletop designer. It’s worth some thought the next time you’re at the keyboard or hold the controller in your hand.
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I love your points here, of course. I think a lot of people were turned off by the flatness of video games in respect to classes and abilities; the lack of individual identity. That’s the wrong focus; video games excel in the ways you’ve mentioned. Some of my favorite encounters have been just as you’ve described: stop into town to unload all of those +1 short swords to a vendor and end up spending the week investigating a problematic evil cult, pulling the politic strings of the region. Random encounters have also been great sources of entertainment. I think a good DM will find ways to incorporate them into the existing story rather than foregoing them all together.
Where video games lack, personal development, table top/pnp games naturally fill in. Making them settings and encounters richer is where video games can shine, and be an excellent teacher for budding DMs. Thank you for pointing out these ideas for people!
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I agree with both the pros and the cons of computer games. Skyrim is excellent.
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Flavor is a good point, and while I have not played Skyrim, courtesy of a too outdated computer, I did play Morrowind, so I can relate. The main problem I face with this is that most of my players are hardly rules-savy (to put it nicely) and prefer to be entertained whilst always asking for an explanation of this spell or that feat. I agree that creativity is required, on both ends, but of late I found myself looking more and more into older game-systems where most of the rules are fairly simple, even for the laziest of my players.
The less both players and GMs are burdened by rules, in my opinion, the more room for flavor. -
I’m glad to see a commentary article like this, especially one that praises random encounters. Wandering monsters and random encounters were, and for me still are, some of the things that make RPGs truly unique. Or they were; as mentioned, videogames like Skyrim are making advances in that area. Still, tabletop RPGs continue to have the advantage due to the presence of the human gamemaster, making really random encounters truly possible. The scaling back/elimination of random encounters and wandering monsters in recent years has stripped away one of tabletop gaming’s most distinct advantages over videogames…and now we begin to see videogames begin to make moves towards that advantage.
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I don’t play video games, so I am a little out of my element here, but all the thing you propose sound solid to me. In my campaigns, towns are a big focus of play, so they tend to get more fleshing out than wilderness or dungeons. I just tend to run a lot of adventures set in settlements (and when the players pass through a settlement I like offering up unique flavor). Not much of a dungeon crawl GM, as my dungeons are usually a bit on the small and realistic side. But I am definitely on board with making them interesting. Random encounters are another area I have strong feelings about. I started GMing with Ravenloft and fully embraced its GM philosophy, but overtime I grew less enthralled with the planned encounter and started leaning on random encounters. I think random encounters lend a feel of life and believability to a setting. If the players set out through the northern woods and run into finely crafted encounter, I think they can kind of tell the GM planned it and for many this deducts from their sense of agency (for lack of a better word) but if the GM is rolling randomly it just feels (at least for me) like I am really exporing the unkown. And in the hands of a good GM these kinds of encounters can breath life into a game (they dont have to be combat, for example, the PCs could encounter a group of refugees fleeing persecution from a city in the region). Good solid observtions here monte. Even if I don’t play video games this seems like reasonable stuff to emulate.
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I wish an MMORPG would have a GM creating small encounters for players on a random basis in towns/caves…etc, where players go to complete listed quests. No online game seems personal enough with the “feel” of a fantasy tabletop game. I love the computer fantasy games and environments they have. However I do wish it wasn’t the same old grind. I been playing tabletop games since 1975ish and still have a dream that someday a company will take online gaming to a higher threshold of excitement and wonderment and give them a more personal connection to the players characters.
My game mastered creations have all fell into the category of what Monte had laid out concerning towns and places of interest of having unexpected avenues of conflict and social intrigue. However one has to form their home games around the players likes and dislikes to hold their attendance and enjoyment. Some like the hack/slash concepts of which have to be included for those that enjoy that. Other players like the financial concept of using the “dungeon” “cave” “old town” for a future economic gain and possible continued income market area. I haven’t seen any game where one can clean out the “monsters” create a home for their party and use it as a hideaway or safe area, decorate it,set up alchemical labs,magic creation workshops…etc. We need a computerized game to actually change to the situation the players actions/inaction’s formulate. Maybe I am ahead in thinking that the ability of an AI to change environments and creature encounters based on PC action/inaction is possible. Maybe I need to await quantum AI where there is more choice than “yes” or “no”.
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To be blunt, I did not like Skyrim. It was not for the points that Sir Monte of Cook has made, but instead for the fact that it is “Fallout Lite.” The creators promised us a new engine to Elder Scrolls series, what they released was the Fallout engine. Many of these lessons are also true of fallout. That person asking for help might actually be a slaver that was chased out of town by the local authorities. He might try to enslave your character when you seem weakened enough. That person who asked you for help could be a thrall of a lich whose phylactery was stolen. The lich is just trying to get it back before someone breaks it and releases his soul.
That easy teddy bear to snag in the shopping cart that actually summons a Super Mutant Behemoth (classic bait trap where it could summon a pissed off dragon in a game of D&D because the PCs just stole his favorite toy. Towns of course should be unique and have a few planned encounters. I still run Forgotten Realms with the Pathfinder system for rules, and my players can definitely tell many differences from the towns leading up to castle High Horn from Suzail. A wealthy nobleman sent them to the farsea marches to get a cure for a pestilence that had infected his elderly father. The group got the cure and on the way back from the swamp (after one of the party had passed away from a Bubonic Plague infection), they decided to take a rest in espar. Only upon getting healing from the Temple of Tymora did they learn the whole town was infected with the same pestilence the nobleman’s father had been suffering from. The temple asked for the cure they found in the swamp, so that they could study it and mass produce it to save the town. The characters then had to make a choice… a politician’s life vs. the lives of many. It put their alignment and character goals under a spotlight as they had to commit to a couple hours of roleplaying the pros and cons of both options. As a DM you have to sit down and think about things a bit, I do a lot of work on my campaigns to make them fun for the players. (Every december the characters play in Christmas land and have to save Christmas for the children of the world. They’ve fought snowmen that threw snowballs packed with rocks and magic along with fighting fruitcake golems, which even thri-kreen find untasty, and ultimately they defeated the grinch. Heck, we have statistics for the Whoo race from Dr. Suess as a result of this game.)
To add flavor to a town, you can always use random generation tables (something many books include but few DMs take the time to actually utilize). There are a lot of free ones you can get from sites like chaotic shiny to spice up your campaigns as well. I have their random tavern generation table, and it is nice because it can generate everything from a dive bar where the characters would feel the need to drink antidotes upon leaving, all the way up to super clean best food in the region style taverns. For those that don’t have some of the older 2e books as reference that actually stated up some of the taverns, such tables can be a great tool. These tables also come in other forms such as treasures, (from mild to wild, what will your PCs do with a strange illithid object in a treasure horde?), NPCs ( What they wear, what they look like, what their personalities are like, etc.). As a DM that has done this game for over 20 years now, I can not tell you how indispensable it is to have a notebook full of random tables. If you are running a game like Dark Sun (Which I do for about 3 or 4 months a year), you can get even more value from the Fallout series. Play New Vegas in hardcore mode for a few hours and you will find a very realistic experience of life on Athas (Needing to find food and water every so often makes the game much different than just running around shooting banditos).
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I think most of this is fairly common sense. The key for many GMs (like myself) is preparation. If I am taking the time to prepare the locations, situations, people and creatures encountered, I will be adding those details (okay, not as detailed as Skyrim, but…). When I don’t prepare, the details must be added on the fly, and that doesn’t usually happen; encounters are flat, places are not interesting, situations are straightforward and therefore less interesting.
What I’ve found is if I add more detail and history than I expect the characters to find out, the depth of the game, the scenarios, and the interest level all increase.
And one small thing, if you remember it, adds dramatically to realism: motivation. What is the motivation of this NPC or monster?
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I really enjoyed this article and found it useful. In particular, I liked how this post had a positive helpful tone throughout the post. Thanks!
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Thanks. Positivity is something that I’m really focusing on, actually.
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It’s probably worth pointing out that the lead designer on Skyrim was Bruce Nesmith. Bruce came up through the ranks at TSR in the ’80s, where he was responsible for such projects as the Ravenloft Campaign Setting and Lakhmar, City of Adventure. Bruce earned his RPG chops the honest way.
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Agreed, Steve! Bruce is an awesome guy. I didn’t make it explicit in the article, but overall I think it’s a benchmark moment when a tabletop designer (me) can play a computer rpg and feel like I take tabletop ideas (or at least reminders) from it. Obviously, until now it has mostly been the reverse–trying to get crpgs to have more of the ideas and approaches of tabletop.
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The Realm of Terror boxed set was incredible.
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One of the guys I work with pointed me to this article. Thanks for the shout outs Steve and Monte. I loved my time at TSR, and I’m loving my time here at Bethesda.
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Skyrim is amazing, Bruce. A real triumph.
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I only started playing Skyrim recently and I must say that your thoughts on the game and what it has to offer to tabletop GMs reflect mine 100%. I especially agree with you on the point about random encounters: they make the world feel like a living and breathing place where isn’t scaled to match the PCs’ power level. Furthermore, when it’s possible to run into, say, a dragon at level 1 only for the PCs to have to run away out of fear of dying, it becomes so much more gratifying when they finally get to kill said dragon a number of levels later. I personally think that modern fantasy games have lost a bit of something by shying away from random encounters in favor of finely tailored set-piece encounters.
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