An hour spent playing a paper-RPG is not equivalent to an hour spent playing an MMORPG. How many of one is equal to how many of the other? How many paper-RPG sessions constitute playing “a lot?” How many hours with an MMORPG does it take to constitute “a lot?”
So I put the question before you? How much is a lot? How much before you feel like you can speak intelligently about the way a game plays? How much do you have to play it before you start picking it apart?
I get a whole crapton more out of an hour of paper-RPG. A lot of the memories are tied into the players themselves and my interaction with them. Whereas in MMOs its more end-result driven–such as finish a raid/mission/quest. Also, paper-RPGs have the ability to speed up, slow down, flashforward, and flashback, whereas in an MMO I might spend 20 minutes out of the hour just traveling between objectives.
I’d say 5+ hours of a paper-RPG are “a lot” at one time. Strangely, I’d say 3+ hours of MMO play at a time is “a lot”.
Sorry my quick answer didn’t address a lot of your questions…but a very interesting topic you bring up, Will.
Because a pen and paper RPG is a collaborative effort where people get to interact with other people, I think the time there feels better spent, and thus seems to be less time.
“How much do you have to play it before you start picking it apart?”
I’m not sure it is a matter of time spent engaged in the activity, but more of exposure to the rules. Pen and Paper RPGs expect a player to be familiar with the basic mechanics of the system, whereas an MM0RPG, Japanese RPG, or any type of CRPG hides this from the players. It makes it easier to engage in, but you don’t interact with the actual mechanics. When you , as a player, begin to pick apart elements of your experience it is the rules that get attention in a pen and paper setting. You wonder how and why the crunchy bits work. To bring the discussion back to the element of time, I think it will take a significantly longer to interact as deeply with an MMORPG (or similiar type of game where the mechanic is hidden) than it will for a pen and paper.
There is also something to be said for what gets engaged with each type of play. With an MMORPG you get pretty graphics and more structured images to look at. This will engage your brain in a different way than a pen and paper RPG where you will imagine and make up things on your own.
Average session length: ~4 hours.
If you’re single, going to school, or its a weekend: x2 = 8 hours.
If you’re married, working full-time: divide by 2 = 2 hours.
If you have children under 4: divide by 8 = 30 minutes, you’ll be lucky to get in a game of Guillotine or Car Wars: the Card Game.
Special Note: However much time you have available for gaming, Arkham Horror will exceed this amount by 2 hours minimum.
Another observation: when we don’t have much time, why do my friends always insist we play Ninja Burger, which is THE GAME THAT NEVER #*&%ING ENDS???
Darrin, you are right on about the way the player’s life circumstance alters the equations.
If think that if you’re serious about getting to know a given tabletop RPG, and especially if the rest of the players are willing to engage in a serious discussion right after playing, one session of play is enough to speak intelligently about the way it plays.
The designers’ group I was a part of in Los Angeles played different games every week, and had very fruitful discussions about them; I felt like I was learning about gaming on fast-forward those days. But maybe that’s just because Josh, Mark, Judson, and Jim were especially brilliant, and some of it got stuck on me.
John Arcadian said, “Pen and Paper RPGs expect a player to be familiar with the basic mechanics of the system, whereas an MM0RPG, Japanese RPG, or any type of CRPG hides this from the players.”
Hrm. The more time I spend in the MMO world, the less I feel this is true. Well, no, let me clarify. John is right that for the vast majority of the casual/popular player base – you pretty much need some fundamental understanding of the mechanics to play a pen&paper game, and not so much to create a new character in WoW or CoH.
However there is a huge number of hardcore players that work to unravel and master the MMO systems (and I suspect do a similar study of ComputerRPGs*). If you don’t have a good grasp of the min/max choices for MMOs, you’ll often feel frustrated as people around you kill enemies more quickly, level faster, and get more loot.
For me, the MMOs I have tried are so crammed with content (albeit often repetitive, but that’s neither here nor there), and combat moves so quickly, that it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. Despite years of working in games, and despite the many hours I’ve put into City of Heroes (the game I’ve played most), there are huge sections of the game I haven’t mastered. You introduce something new – like the Dual Blades set with combo moves – and not only can I not intuit what the best choices are, but I have to spend serious effort parsing other people’s spreadsheets and data models to figure out what the optimal build is.
To respond to Will’s question, based on the logistical requirements (1 person and a computer vs. 3+ people and books), you can form a reasonable opinion of a computer game much faster. Let’s say within the first 8-10 hours.** Assuming that’s the equivalent of 1-2 pen&paper sessions, no, I think you need 3-4 sessions to really get a sense of how the game plays.
But over the longer arc, I think MMOs require many more hours to truly “master.” If I played one pen&paper game regularly, and one MMO regularly over the course of a year, I’m sure I’d know the pen&paper game inside & out. In contrast, I still don’t have a Level 50 character in City of Heroes, and have no real PVP experience.
cheers,
JS
* I think “Choose Your Own Adventure Game” is a better title, but no one else seems to agree with me.
** ‘course for new games I often have a “2 Hour rule.” If I can’t figure out what I’m doing/am bored after 2 hours, the game gets uninstalled.
A tabletop RPG session is both more rewarding and more demanding. I peter out after about 6 hours of role-playing, and that’s if I’m dong it infrequently – 4 hours if it’s back to back days. MMORPGs I can put in more, depending. My usual sessions are only 2-3 hours in the evening, but if I have like 8 hours to put in I can.