On Having Fun in Role-playing Game

Having fun, of course, is the ultimate goal of any leisure activity--and role-playing is no exception--but what exactly constitutes “fun” in this context? It’s a question that strangely never came up until I started playing Ultima Online, nearly twenty years into my role-playing “career”. Not even Ultima Online itself that raised the question but rather, more specifically, role-playing online (the PK’s that I hung around with just played the game and if they “lost” we all knew that it was just part of the game). Therefore, is role-playing online something especially prone to “not being fun” if certain conditions are not met? Is it harder to have fun?

Certain frustrations might crop up with online play that are not necessarily obvious for the pure online player. After all, players do not have the complete freedom offered in tabletop games. If I wanted to add a new rule or break an old one for the sake of the story, it could be easily done. On the contrary, online games trade the elasticity of pen & paper games for a concrete reality, with rules that are hard-coded into the system. Even with Neverwinter Nights, it’s often almost impossible to make even simple adjustments on the fly and completely impossible without advanced planning.

Another frustration for online gaming is the pace, especially where combat is concerned. For table-top players, a single fight might last anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. There’s plenty of time to think out each move, discussing tactics with your fellow players as the action is unfolding, carefully choosing spells and expending magical items. That is just not the case in online game play, where a typical combat sequence only lasts a few seconds. This makes combat in online games much more dangerous and difficult to control (as much so for the Dungeon Master as it for the players).

The final obstacle to fun in role-playing games is the issue of “winning and loosing”. Certainly, everyone wants to play the game to overcome the bad guys, gain treasure and have experiences that allow for interesting character development. Everyone is required to focus on their character, to give their character the benefit of doubt, to take that character wherever it goes. This is great fun: watching your character grow, advance, solve problems, overcome obstacles, and acquire wealth, prestige and power. This process is, in reality, almost competitive in nature, especially when the character itself is competitive. I know many players do, in fact, see role-playing games as a completive activity to one degree or another, and, perhaps, they are correct to think so.

For me though, it’s difficult to think about role-playing in those terms. For role-playing games, I think a different definition for “winning” is required. Indeed, it hinges on the concept of fairness and a player can be expected to have fun if the playing field is level and there is a reasonable chance of overcoming odds.

Is it fun to watch as your character dies because he or she wandered into a pit of sulfuric acid, perhaps rolling a 1 on dex check? Is it fun to have a high level wizard/rogue steal all of your character’s magic items and then disappear into the fog, never to be seen again? Is it fun to get hopelessly lost in a maze when the fate of the world rests on your character’s ability to quickly escape? The answer, in my opinion, is yes. While I think it’s would be impossible to have fun when I have to come up with a new character every time I play (due to death, etc.), having the prospect of real death or “defeat” makes the “winning” much more enjoyable.