Quote:
Originally Posted by NineDaysDead
I'd go with "There is no point to giving detailed stats to anything that PC's can't get their hands on"; ... The reason for having this opinion is simple: It's to reduce the GM's workload!
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I would have to say that my major reason for advocating TRPGs over computer games is that in a TRPG the player-characters can potentially get their hands on anything.
To steal a term from Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced
"chicks send me high," ) statting every detail of a game world can sometimes lead to deeper
flow.
In a simple game, like Doom, guards might be unrealistically stupid. Players might break their flow as they notice how stupid the guards are.
In a more realistic game, like No One Lives Forever or the original Deus Ex, enemies might try to use stealth to avoid being spotted, or might break stealth by whistling. The added detail adds more immersion for some players. (On the other hand, some very popular games *lack* this realism; Dragon Age: Origins seems to be very popular, but the world strikes me as clunkily flow-breaking.)
My former GURPS group used to compare TRPGs to Grand Theft Auto III, in that they could jump off my railroad tracks and the game would still provide just as much flow.
Unfortunately, when the level of detail that I consider appropriate is so overwhelming that I don't have time to recruit table-top players, the entire table-top enterprise can get displaced by quicker, easier, lower-commitment forms of gaming, including board games and computer games.