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No, really, I just care about hygiene
(lemmy.sdf.org)
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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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Hey everyone has their preferences but these posts gatekeeping what's called an ttrpg always confuse me. And I'm even more confused by choosing to call it a video game. But you do you. Pf1 wasn't a fun system to me 🤷♂️
This isn't gatekeeping. This is authorial intent. The companies that produce these games have increasingly co-mingled their staff with video game studios, with a very intentional and explicit eye towards making the conversion to CRPGs easier.
Mechanics in the system that are fuzzy to implement in a video game environment get cut or edited into a numerical effect. Characters and monsters that exist or behave in ways that are difficult to conceptualize as a computer game get re-engineered. Non-combat features and more artistic roleplaying elements get beveled down. And the end result is a game that ports much more easily to a digital medium.
I don't begrudge the studios for the transition, particularly given how much more money there is digital gaming. But when I've already got a stack of older edition books and mods and half-written home brews, there's no rush to jump ship. Not when I've got my eye on an even older stack of Unknown Armies and 2e Mage: The Ascension books and I'm hoping to wrangle some players into a game that's even more abstract and esoteric.
Like who?
I mean, in the case of D&D, maybe. But PF2e was written by Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, and Mark Seifter; they have a combined zero years of video game studio experience between them. In fact, most of them have been making tabletop RPGs for literally their entire professional careers, including stints at Wizards of the Coast.
For fun, I went to the Pathfinder wiki, which has brief profiles of all of the authors and contributors to Pathfinder; and I can't find a single person on any of the game's recent sourcebooks that has worked for a video game company before working for Paizo. In fact, most of them have worked for Paizo in some capacity for 5+ years, or are freelancers who have worked for big tabletop RPG publishers for ages.
You're probably right for D&D 5e 2024 (or whatever it's being called). The main focus was the virtual table top subscription service. As the other commenter says though, this isn't true for most other systems.
Also, I don't even think it's necessarily a bad thing. Table top inspired video games. It's not bad for the influence to flow the other way too. It just needs to be considerate of the format.
It was true for 3.5. Nevermind 4e, which was a naked play to shoehorn D&D back into the then-lucrative war-gaming miniatures market.
I don't think it's bad either. I just find it's a design decision that shifts how the game is played.
You lose a lot of the more avant guard aspects of table top RPGs in favor of a ridge, easier to export system.
D&D is one system.