I recently had a sort of epiphany about traditional games - they are significantly more rewarding than vidya. I barely even want to play video games anymore.
>The community aspect - discussing builds, stories, minis, tips and tricks
>The creative aspect - building and painting minis, making list and character builds
>The games and mechanics themselves
>The physical and collection aspect means that you're way more invested in what's happening.


Anyone else feel the same? Thanks for reading my blogpost.

>inb4 nogames
I play X-wing, Legion, used to płat 40k, and I also DM a homebrew rpg

I agree! Traditional games are amazing.

>>95868649 (OP)
Good for you man. I would be with you 100% but theres just no /tg/ way to replicate the feeling of hiding behind a door with two claymores and a shotgun

>>95868649 (OP)
You're literally me

>>95868649 (OP)
Character builds are counterintuitively antithetical to good long term play but otherwise I agree with you entirely. I also have found vidya less appealing for at least a year or so now. Good to hear you've seen the light Anon.

>>95868649 (OP)
You know those things all exist for vidya, right? Physical collecting far less so, but people still do it.
Go ahead and enjoy whichever games you like, but don't develop some weird superiority complex about it.

>>95868765
>Character builds are counterintuitively antithetical to good long term play
Can you expand on this point? I have heard horror stories of arms races between DMs and powergamers, but is there more to it?

>>95868649 (OP)
Every creative-type into vidya either starts making video games themselves, or winds up here.
For me it's just the fact that you're not limited in what you can say to NPCs. I have tried to play owlcat's wrath of the righteous RPG but I can't get into it because I can't actually roleplay. I need to get a group together and play the actual tabletop version.

>>95868834
nta but one of the great virtues of tabletop is flexibility and freedom.
There will never be a video game that's as free as TTRPGs.
Build shenanigans, by their very nature, stagnate the game and your options. By starting off the campaign with 'So my character is going to start with 4 levels of fighter, then I'm going to dip 6 levels into Meth Dealer so I can prestige into Twink Prostate Puncher for +3d6 disrespect damage per turn' you leave very little room for the game itself to take you where it will.

One of the most fun experiences I've had at a table was the time my wizard killed a minor fey lord and came under the effects of 'You killed it, you bought it, have fun being a fairy jackass', it was something I could've never planned for and the results were more entertaining than if I'd gone in there with the idea of it happening from the off.
Let me put it this way:
If, at some point in the game, your character were to get bitten by a werebeast and the DM were to say to you 'Alright, it's an all non-good party and you've got an amulet of Speak-with-animal after that sidequest at the furry convention that we'll never speak of again, so, you're going gain the abilities of a Werewolf, which comes with all the benefits of being a monster, including resistance to non-silver weapons, ect, ect, with the cost being you advance slower in your class due to increased XP costs'
Would your reaction be 'Sweet, this chance encounter has given me some really awesome abilities, I'm already a fighter so being immune to weapons is awesome.' or 'Bastard, now my carefully planned build is fucked because I'm not going to top out at the same level as everyone else.'

A good, solid system, IMO, should be flat enough that 'builds' don't become a thing, because it inevitably leads to 'Look up the answer to how to beat the game in a guide' becoming a thing.
And at that point you're not playing the game, you're just letting your older brother/the internet beat it for you.

>>95868690
Someone's never gone against cultists in Delta Green.

>>95868834
If you want a really good alternative to character builds?
Pic related, 'first few levels as character backstory' is the way older games used to do it, to the point where in some settings (Darksun) you'd start off at 3rd level to represent that your character is presumed to have Seen Some Shit™ by the time they even get to the table.

>>95868834
The arms race is part of it. Not just because it causes issues for the DM but also because it trivialises other player characters. I can answer your question but am having trouble putting it into words that aren't just a garbled stream of consciousness mess. If the threads still up when its formed in my mind I'll try to get back to you with an answer else I will start a new thread on the topic. Suppose to be studying right now so I'll get back to that. Godspeed anon.

>>95868887
Agreed, but it's tough to design a game like that that still allows for any kind of tactical options.

>>95868649 (OP)
Hey anon, I totally get you. I was encouraged by friends to buy a PS5 in last year's Black Friday sales, and while I got a good deal and have a small collection of really fun titles, I don't find /v/ as fun as I did when I was younger, or as engaging as I thought I would when I watched some YT gameplay videos.

>>95868690
>the feeling of hiding behind a door with two claymores and a shotgun
I'm not sure if this is FPS fandom, or just fedposting

>>95868887
Pretty much my thoughts exactly, especially on freedom in TTPRG. I've never been into speccing out builds - the best RPG experiences I've had, have all been much more organic and started out by what felt like a fit for the character I wanted to play. Collaborating with friends (GM and party) to tell an emergent story and shaping your character through events is just rewarding AF, and pretty cosy too.

>captcha: 2D2D4
Got to laugh when the captcha tells me how I roll...

>>95868950
>it's tough to design a game like that that still allows for any kind of tactical options.
Maybe. But only if you consider the only tactical options to be the ones set in stone on your character sheet.
Gear, positioning, where you decide to fight your enemies, negotiations, deception, hell even the weapons you use, are all tactical decisions and they're all things flexible enough that you can change them from encounter to encounter rather than having a rut your character falls into because your build is only good at one thing.
Which of these has more tactical options at the end of the day:
>Ranger 3/Arcane Archer 7 who has dipped the Fireball spell so he can launch fireball arrows every turn
>Rando 10 who has a backpack with rope, oil, marbles, a small library of elvish pornographic scrolls (with one Medusa doing a strip tease mixed in), a magic rapier that puts the weak of mind into a trance when he flynns with it (at the cost of not being able to actually do any damage), an adamantium warpick and 3d6 dragon dildos of various sizes. Has a dex score high enough to jump onto a table from standing and the disguise proficiency.
You and I both know damn well what the Ranger is going to do on his first turn in every encounter for the rest of the campaign, he's going to pull an arrow, pick the largest cluster of enemies and let loose.
He's as specialized as a Darwin Finch.
I bet you dollars to doughnuts that the Rando isn't going to start any two fights in a row the same way.

>>95868822
In my experience, vidya communities are more toxic than tabletop communities. Actually having to look another person in the eye makes people behave better than when you could just spout whatever nonsense you want online with no consequences.

>>95868649 (OP)
Another aspect that comes to mind is the heavy presence of long term gratification.

There are vidya that also do it (eg. Mmmos, Mount & Blade), but most genres don't.

>>95868834
It encourages viewing your character as a stat block rather than a person in a fantasy world. Worse, having decided what the build is going to be at a high level, you're stuck playing with an essentially incomplete stat block for some length of time.

>>95869036
>Worse, having decided what the build is going to be at a high level, you're stuck playing with an essentially incomplete stat block for some length of time.
I didn't even consider this side of it, but it's absolutely true.
Shit I remember one guy in a campaign I was in who had a build that, at level 7, would let him shift gears from 'useless sack of shit we have to haul around' to 'Can make a snow storm that covers a 10 mile radius and bring everything within that zone to its knees'
He didn't have a single damn intention to do anything useful until he reached that level though, or at least that's how the character played out.

>>95868649 (OP)
No one cares about your faggot opinions, frogposter.

>>95868649 (OP)
>>The physical and collection aspect means that you're way more invested in what's happening.
this is more of a con to me
hate accumulating stuff.