[MUD-Dev] D&D vs. MMORPG "complexity"

[shren]

On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> Ryan Dancy wrote:
 
>> In fact, having played most of the current MMORPG offerings, I'm
>> tempted to say that the MUD-Dev community has a long, long way to
>> go before the complexity of the games offered on-line begins to
>> match up to the complexity of most popular tabletop RPG systems.
>> Sure, those systems usually don't bother with a real-world
>> physical model, and while I have an understanding of the coding
>> complexities required to achieve those effects I consider them at
>> best windowdressing on top of what amount to very, very simple
>> games.

> D&D has a lot of breadth and some depth in a very limited part of
> gameplay: looting and leveling. It doesn't even begin to approach
> the overall complexity of muds (or mmogs or whatever you want to
> call them) in that it pretty much only deals with bashing
> monsters. There are no formal politics, no formal economic systems
> and you only have to deal with a handful of people at a
> time. There is very little complexity beyond the bashing in D&D.

I find myself wondering why a tabletop system would need such
things.  Politics and economics usually spring out of the DM's head,
and isn't it better off that way?

On a personal level, I've never played a MUD or MMORPG over any kind
of live RP event or tabletop game, and I never expect to.  I find
that my online gaming experience consists mostly of the bashing of
monsters, and the stuff that I do offline has some real roleplaying
in it.

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