View From the Bushes

For long-time readers of blog (isn't that an oxymoron), you may recall that I talked about the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies at some time in the past. Guessing correctly that no one read that, I'll repeat my point. The problem with Star Wars role-playing on any level is that ultimately everyone wants to play a Jedi. Now if you've got a small table-top game, it probably isn't that big of a thing. On the other hand, if you have a server with thousands of people on it, it's a big problem. The reason I'm reminded of this is an excellent three-part series on SW Galaxies, in particular how Jedi nearly destroyed the game.

Obviously that is a topic unto itself, but what I'm interested in is how certain settings don't make good role-playing games. Obviously, Actuaries and Accountants is not going to make the bestseller list anytime soon, but even things which seem natural on closer inspection are discovered to be somewhat tough to play. One of my friends is running a game set in Arthurian England. Seems similar enough to classic D&D that there should be no problem right? Well, so you've got one person who wants to be a Knight of the Round Table; this is fine if that's what everyone wants to be, though it makes it difficult for any one player to feel special. But what if someone doesn't want to be a knight, do you make him a squire? How does that work, does the player with the squire really sit by while the other player bosses him around and gets all the combat and glory?

I'm not saying that it can't be done, just that for everything negative said about D&D, it's very easy to role-play in. It's obviously impossible to compare table-top RPG's and CRPG's but I think that there's a lot that could be learned by the computer guys (especially the MMOG ones) from the table-top games that might be instructive. As a final brief example, they're trying to make a MMORPG out of the Matrix. How do they expect to make that? Being Neo is just like being a Jedi...

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Ross