Not completely sure what got me thinking about this, but here you have it. I recently got involved in a weekly, livestreamed TTRPG with some friends. (Saturday's 8-11pm Eastern twitch.tv/kazooaloo) so I'm sure that's part of it, but some how that got me thinking about the nature of roleplaying and tabletop games and how, MMOs and cRPGs have tried and failed over the years to capture the same thing.
Now first, let me say, that cRPGs and MMOs will never truly match TTRPG because, the role of a GM, that ability to interpret and translate the ideas and actions of the players into not just the system but into the story, isn't something that can completely be programmed for. The player will always find a way to come up with something that the GM (or programmer in the case of a cRPG or MMO) didn't think of. But where a GM can asses and make a ruling for anything that's coded if it's outside of what the established options are there's no way to do it in the game .... dialog is a prime example NPC says 'what do you want?' and the player is offered choices, usually 4 or 5 tops, that may not actually encompass what they feel their character would want, but have to try and decide which is the closest to what they want. A player in a TTRPG just says what they believe their character would want and the GM reacts as needed ... the GM may still decide that they CAN'T have a mini nuke launcher but at least they could ask for one.
Of the games I've played, the original Everquest probably did the best job of making a game that FELT like a TTRPG. You could say anything to the NPCs that you wanted, they'd only respond to specific key phrases or words, but you could still make it fit your character's style. If the key word for a quest was 'Rats' (for example) you could say "Hey, I hear you're have a problem with rats here" or "What's the deal with all these rats?" Likewise, much like most TTRPGs the world in Everquest was just there, you lived there, that was your connection to the world ... any back story you cared to make up worked as long as it was set within the world of the game. They didn't try to make you the center of the world, you were just a person in the game ... You could make yourself into something in your own story, but the game didn't make any pretense of revolving around you. Likewise, the 'story' of the game was the lore of the world and the events that happened as they added expansions. Beyond that it was a sandbox in which to tell your character's story, to meet other players, and begin building a story all your own. It was a world, a structure, yes there were quests and stories to find and learn in the game, but it was just a world and much like life, your efforts were a small effect on the world as a whole. ... You weren't going to stop the gnolls from attacking Qeynos so it was no surprise when you saw them later, still attacking the city, that was just the world.
Later MMOs started trying to 'involve' the player more, tried to make the story of the game mean more to the character (and thus players) and many of them began to focus to a greater or lesser degree on the 'story' of the game often creating a tutorial or early levels that focused on the story and, often, how the character was important to that story. I would say that one of the biggest ones to make this mistake was the game TSW (The Secret World) ... a great setting, wonderful world building, but ultimately it was a game that didn't know what it wanted to be. It would have made a great setting for a story driven single player or co-op game (like Balder's Gate or other more recent games) where the player could immerse themselves in the game and their character and enjoy the story of this dark modern mythos setting. But they decided to make it an MMO ... One of the problems here is in an MMO, by nature, you need to pace your characters, you need them to repeat content to get drops, complete quests, and take time leveling up, but in a story driven game .... we defeated the evil cultists why are the minions still attacking? Why is the evil cultist back in the sewers summoning undead? The story doesn't work and the immersion gets lost meaning that players start to focus on the grind OR once the 'story' part of a section is complete then they move to the next 'chapter' of the story ... but that invariably means that the players, even the casual players, will consume story and content faster than the developers can create it ... sooner or later they run out of story and stop playing until the next update, leading to a rising and falling player base based around updates and usually those falls get deeper and the rises get smaller each time .... TSW had other issues as well, an implied PvP faction system (Templar v Illuminate v Dragon) that was just a glorified arena battle ... like I said it was a game that really felt like it didn't know what it wanted to be ... a great setting with a series of half-hearted elements duck taped together in an attempt to please everyone.
The thing with a TTRPG is that it gives you a world ... maybe a map, some history and lore, but most of the details are up to the GM and players, sure maybe your going through a story, an adventure pack, or a published adventure, but the world is out there and, depending on your GM, you can go off script and go explore it, your group can make it's own adventure and the possibilities are limited only by the players imagination and the GMs willingness to put up with their shenanigans.
Where was I going with this? I have no real idea, but maybe that's the point ... the ability to ramble, to create and discuss ideas. One take away for me is that there are 2 things that I want ... 1 is a old school MMO like Everquest was ... open, sandbox, exploration ... a blank canvas of a world that me and my friends can write our story in ... and 2 ... time to actually play it.
