Tabletop games: Why are they fun?

[Deacon Cole]

Maybe it's just the fact that I hate playing with other people due to other people are just horrible in general, but looking online, tabletop games are still boring with spreadsheets and the fact that it takes 2 hours till you yourself can do something. So I'm asking, why do people consider these games fun?

I've been asking that question for a number of years. I don't have any answers, but I have some theories. Tabletop RPGs, or pencil and dice RPGs are a hobby for the socially inept. As such they delve into areas, that spreadsheet business, that the mainstream doesn't like to deal with because it is tedious. Having played pencil and paper RPGs, it is just as tedious, but the players endure it. Why? I think it's because they're socially inept. Much of RPGs is playing before you play. You read the source book and your imagination roams free. You fill out the character sheet thinking, this guy is going to be a badass. Why? Because I put extra points in his sword skill. Never mind that the character still gets its ass handed to it during actual play because the dice just do not favor him. He's still a badass. Numbers don't lie.

But they do lie. But their presence makes actual play an unnecessary and unwanted after thought.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Maybe it's just the fact that I hate playing with other people due to other people are just horrible in general, but looking online, tabletop games are still boring with spreadsheets and the fact that it takes 2 hours till you yourself can do something. So I'm asking, why do people consider these games fun?

I've been asking that question for a number of years. I don't have any answers, but I have some theories. Tabletop RPGs, or pencil and dice RPGs are a hobby for the socially inept. As such they delve into areas, that spreadsheet business, that the mainstream doesn't like to deal with because it is tedious. Having played pencil and paper RPGs, it is just as tedious, but the players endure it. Why? I think it's because they're socially inept. Much of RPGs is playing before you play. You read the source book and your imagination roams free. You fill out the character sheet thinking, this guy is going to be a badass. Why? Because I put extra points in his sword skill. Never mind that the character still gets its ass handed to it during actual play because the dice just do not favor him. He's still a badass. Numbers don't lie.

But they do lie. But their presence makes actual play an unnecessary and unwanted after thought.

You have a very odd perception of what roleplaying games are like.

 

[StreetBushido]

Looking through this thread, I don't think the tabletop games are the issue. It seems to me that there are some seriously nasty issues from all kinds of angles going on here.

I think that you, RaikuFA, may want to talk to somebody about the treatment you've apparently had at the hands of your friends. Furthermore, it seems that you are spending time with some fairly nasty people.

In the defence of tabletop games, I will say that they can be incredibly fun with a good group. It's basically hanging out with friends, playing a game and telling a story all in one.

 

[Xangba]

the best tabletop games are interactive oral story telling with the rules being an assistance.

BQE pretty much sums it up. tabletop gaming isnt for everyone and even then it depends entirely on the people involved AND the game. you can go from a hardcore D&D group who do the voices through to something of pure comedy and wackiness like paranoia (the computer is your friend citizen) or TOON.

generally the best way is to find a genre you find interesting from fantasy through to sci-fi, horror, etc and find a game that fits then a group that you fit with. the can be as serious as the group wants it to be and bad players or GM's can really screw things up badly

Aaaah paranoia. Good times. Imagine my reaction at my buddy Jacob's action. "Pull pins on grenades. Hope for best"

OT: Sounds like tabletop just isn't your thing. If you don't like roleplaying or learning a system like it, then don't do it. It sounds like you think that because you think it's boring and you had a bad experience that it's a terrible thing. Some people like DnD to have a relaxed time with some friends, some like it for serious roleplaying, some prefer more hectic comedic things like Paranoia, some prefer the World of Darkness, and so on and so on, and many many people just don't like tabletop RPGs. If you don't, you don't. Don't try to force yourself to do something you don't like.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

It the act of just interacting with people. I find that shitting on the dm or troll polling my my through a game of risk is a truly entertaining experience.

 

[Deacon Cole]

You have a very odd perception of what roleplaying games are like.

That's because it's true.

I used to be on RPG forums and what I described came up. No one denied it, but many defended it. I would shrug and say to each his own, but this is like masturbating regularly and thinking you a great lover. It's why I left it and what keeps me from bothering to go back whenever nostalgia takes the reins. I can daydream just fine without buying $300 in source books and world material. It's cheap, easier to store and has less spelling mistakes.

 

[Naeras]

If you try to play tabletop-RPGs without a group of people with a similar mindset as you, things are bound to go badly. If you're playing with people who take this entire thing extremely seriously without doing so yourself, the entire thing will essentially end with the other players ruining your fun, and you're ruining their fun.

If I play, it's always with people who like this sort of thing, but doesn't take neither themselves nor the game all that seriously. It ends up being a good time.

 

[geizr]

...
Tabletop RPGs, or pencil and dice RPGs are a hobby for the socially inept. As such they delve into areas, that spreadsheet business, that the mainstream doesn't like to deal with because it is tedious.
...

I'm going to guess you have never been to GenCon, because there you would find that RPGers run the gamut of social demographics, from socially inept to social butterflies and just about everything in between.

OT: Sounds to me like the OP either just has bad friends to game with, or he just has a bad attitude about gaming.

 

[Syzygy23]

You have a very odd perception of what roleplaying games are like.

That's because it's true.

I used to be on RPG forums and what I described came up. No one denied it, but many defended it. I would shrug and say to each his own, but this is like masturbating regularly and thinking you a great lover. It's why I left it and what keeps me from bothering to go back whenever nostalgia takes the reins. I can daydream just fine without buying $300 in source books and world material. It's cheap, easier to store and has less spelling mistakes.

Y'know you can just use google to download PDF's of sourcebooks, right? Or buy them much cheaper from drivethrurpg. Or have your friends do that then send you a copy of the PDF.

 

[Deacon Cole]

Y'know you can just use google to download PDF's of sourcebooks, right? Or buy them much cheaper from drivethrurpg. Or have your friends do that then send you a copy of the PDF.

Or you can just make up my own shit, which was the point you so cleverly missed.

 

[vIRL Nightmare]

The fun comes in who you're doing it with, and an understanding that you make the fun. As a player of D&D I have to say that it is an activity more for bonding with friends then anything else. Let me give an example: we were playing a campaign that at one point involved us climbing a sheer tower. Using my ranger we were able to get a rope up there and start climbing up. Myself (the ranger), the druid, and the halfling rogue got up there when we were jumped by a mob. I stayed to fight as did the druid, but the rogue decided to steal the druids ring of feather fall and run away. The DM said, "ya you can steal one of the 18 rings in his bag". Not picking up on the threat he wen't through with it and stole the ring of water breathing, as he jumped off a 100 ft. tower. He makes a reflex save to grab the rope, but out of spite the druid cuts the rope so the rogue fell to his death. Now to us who were slightly inebriated from our booze as well as the the back-and-forth on the situation we found it all very funny. We were laughing our collective asses off. That was fun because we made it fun.

Table top games, from my experience, is more a game of what ifs. I've gotta say that it's some of the most entertaining things I've experienced. If you are not there to have fun with it, or you pick the wrong people to play with, you're going to be bored.

 

[Griffolion]

-snip-

Sounds like your experiences/observations have all been with bad people?

My local TT club are full of great guys, so the games are all a lot of fun.

 

[Scars Unseen]

You have a very odd perception of what roleplaying games are like.

That's because it's true.

I used to be on RPG forums and what I described came up. No one denied it, but many defended it. I would shrug and say to each his own, but this is like masturbating regularly and thinking you a great lover. It's why I left it and what keeps me from bothering to go back whenever nostalgia takes the reins. I can daydream just fine without buying $300 in source books and world material. It's cheap, easier to store and has less spelling mistakes.

I'm trying to decide whether or not you are being intentionally offensive here. You take a hobby - which you admit to having never actually participated in - and then call the people who engage in it socially inept and delusional practitioners of group masturbation. If that's why you left the forums then I dare say that they were the winners in that parting.

The only thing about a group of hobbyists that you can be sure of is that they are interested in their hobby. People from all walks of life are attracted to them, and trying to generalize them is about as effective as it with any group of people spread across the entire world. That is to say it isn't effective at all.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I remember playing Knights of the Old Republic. I loved that game, but the truth of the matter is the writing for the player choices is horrible. Five Options, usually 'get more information', 'explain this again', 'wait, what was that other thing', 'I'm totally going to do this because I'm Light Side Personified' 'Dude, I'm so really evil and about to fuck up your shit'.

That's not player choice. That might not be my actions or desires. I might want to choose something else.

In a tabletop game, my exact actions will have a result to what I'm playing. Not that the game won't allow me to do that because no one scripted it. It might cause my death, it might make the GM completely revamp what he was planning to do (happened to me... well.. every time I played a game), and it's always fun. If you're friends with your group, you can laugh at bad rolls, mess with each other, and just have a good time.

 

[DoPo]

Y'know you can just use google to download PDF's of sourcebooks, right? Or buy them much cheaper from drivethrurpg. Or have your friends do that then send you a copy of the PDF.

Or you can just make up my own shit, which was the point you so cleverly missed.

And make up shit you do - none of what you said makes much sense. There isn't 300 bucks investment in any system that has any popularity, at least from what I know, that is. D&D is probably the biggest dip at something like $50 in books (new) (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual) and add another ~10$ for dice and stuff if nobody has them. That'd be everything you need for the group...even then, you can go perfectly well with just the PHB and the MM, the DMG is more for beginners and not really needed. That's 4e, for 3.5 and Pathfinder, you get the rules and stuff absolutely free online, so you only need dice and stuff. That's the most expensive system, others are not much more than 10-30$ others still are free. That's the cost that either 1 person should pay or the group as a whole - you could very well join a group and not pay anything for the privilege.

There isn't "I play spreadsheets because it's fun", that's not what happens...not all the times, at least. Unless you mean rollplayers, in which case you should be aware that...we're talking about role playing games here.

All in all, I'm calling bullshit on your claims. Next time when you make shit up, please don't share it with us.

 

[Snowbell]

I have only played a tabletop game with a spreadsheet character once. I wasn't looking forwards to it and the character creation was hella dull - that is until we started playing. We were doing a homebrew Scion with the DM creating a scenario set in our town. We had to solve a mystery, seduce a demon (I succeeded but the DM decided that the demon was not allowed to join our party since she was a Bad Guy), fight a pack of demons and an evil Welsh fairy which saw me running around for ten minutes looking for a nail while my party had the stuffing kicked out of them! While my team mates were interrogating a water demon they were aiming to torture it into speaking and aimed for his kneecaps with a gun - and blew his head off when he rolled way too high with the dice!

It was fun, imaginative and companionable, now I look forwards to making my character all over again if I can only find someone to play it with :3

 

[Gatx]

The other day, I was reminded of the crap I endured trying to play these in the first place. I took a look online and it looks very boring. When I tried playing, the character creation took eons which seems to not have changed. Then there's the whole shitty DM thing I hear still happening(DM's making sure one or more players suffer just for the lulz). Can't you usurp a DM if he's acting like this?

Maybe it's just the fact that I hate playing with other people due to other people are just horrible in general, but looking online, tabletop games are still boring with spreadsheets and the fact that it takes 2 hours till you yourself can do something. So I'm asking, why do people consider these games fun?

If you want to expand your definition of tabletop games a bit, boardgames and card games are a great way to go. They have all the good stuff like player interaction while streamlining the boring number crunching side of things and the dependency on one person in charge (the DM) to keep things running smoothly.

This video gives a good idea of the possibilities out there:

This is all provided that your problems lie with the game itself and not the act of multiplayer. Also I saw that you were worried about getting ganged up on - a lot of games have "slingshot" mechanics so to speak like Mario Kart's blue shell that ensure that everyone stays in the game.

 

[Godhead]

I've always thought that tabletop and pen and paper games were as fun as they were just because of the social aspect. DM's usually aren't a problem, they just seem more frequent than they are because the internet, or if you make them foreverDM's. And the character creation taking a long time really only goes down to inexperience, after a few times it will take a lot less time to make and even then it's more than likely for you to play a character much longer than it took to make him (unless you're playing CoC or something). Remember, games like D&D are 85% socializing, 15% game.

tl;dr character creation gets easier the more you do it, and it's fun when you have fun people to be with. And don't make people only DM.

 

[Garrett]

I'd say the problem is you. No, not your friends, not games but you. If you took similar attitude while trying out those games as you take responding here (short answers, generally unimpressed attitude, feeling of "I'm right you're wrong") then it's no wonder they ganged up on you. If they had to explaing to you same things multiple times then it's even more understandable. See, when you present such attitude you're also killing the game for others and they don't like it. Unfortunately, people have this strange problem of not being able to say mean things stright. So they won't tell you "Dude, look, you're killing our game. We don't want to play with you. Go away (we also don't like you, you stink and *insert 'yo mama' joke*)". No, instead of saying stuff which would clarify things they act. And so, for games they often gang up on someone in the hopes he/she will get discourage and leave and will never be back again. That's what I think happens in your case. Of course, you might be perfectly fine and your "friends" are just dicks. But you got enough posts explaining that case so I'll pass on this.

 

[clippen05]

My personal problem with tabletop games: (Well not DnD or Warhammer but in this case Axis and Allies I don't know if it counts but it is a game you play on a tabletop) Is that it is extremely hard for me to get a group together. When we first got into it we had around 5 people playing and that was perfect but since then we can only get 3 (Including myself) That's not to bad, but considering we've moved on to bigger, more player-versions of the game it is somewhat difficult. Of the people we've tried to introduce to the game, no have liked it. I think this is just a problem of living in a small town so it might be rectified when I head off to college, but still, its made playing difficult.

Why tabletop games ARE fun though? Well, definitely the social element. That's something that you can only get when playing in real life. And also, there's really no equivalent in videogames so these games are very unique; youre not gonna find something similar to Dnd or Axis and Allies online. (For the most part)