If you compare them to a novel, yeah, they usually are not worth the reading. But the idea of playing an RPG is not ending with an award winning piece of literature. The idea is you jointly ‘create’ and the fun is in the creating.

I dont know, if you consider the ‘story’ a by product then what is the actual aim of an RPG in your opinion?

It’s a rather poor analogy, but I think of it as the difference between watching a sports event live at the stadium or at home from the DVR. It’s the same game, but two different experiences. Some prefer to see it live, but just as many prefer to watch it on their own time with all the amenities provided by being at home (as well being able to see the event through several cameras).

The primary advantage I see of a platform like this is exposure and serving as a gateway to the hobby.

To me, it is the physical presence and the complexity of human interaction that make an RPG session. Online activities lose too many of the nuances to really work.

This is not say that some MMO / Social Network / RPG crossover cannot work or be a lot of fun but what I love involves the intensity generated by a small group of people dedicating a few hours to a communal imagination. Anything on-going would have its own strengths but will be diluted form of the tabletop experience.
.-= Chris Tregenza´s last blog ..Six Dee Six = Miniatures Photo Gallery =-.

No doubt this platform will have it’s share of complaints and problems. Any problems you could encounter with tradition games would be magnified (I’m sure I could find favoritism at conventional game tables). A lot of that can be minimized by taking the actual transactions of rewards out of GM hands (and say the engine automatically hands out rewards to any characters “logged in” to a module when it completes) and by some sort of administrative moderation.

Also, it’s goal would not truly be to replace the traditional gaming group. It would be a trade-off between intimacy and story-consistency for accessibility and immediacy. I would imagine that some players would still have “go-to” GMs and some groups might only take advantage of features they have full control over (no one says you have make your games public).

@Jonathan: Thanks for spark that inspired this post!

Also.. i friggen LOVE the idea of developing a “arcane research, personal questing, or stronghold building” component for an SMRPG that includes table top gaming. Like Daniel – I’ve got more to chew on now.
.-= jonathan´s last blog ..Role Playing Games, Social Media Games, and the Shared Fence =-.

Using GM’s with a lot of freedom also allows arbitrairy behaviour and favoritism and opens the door for advancement for little to no ‘work’ upsetting people who actually went to trouble to advance.

The first thing a succesfull RPG needs is a social group and the rules, tools and whatever is secondairy. For MMO’s it’s the other way around, the game is always the core and social groups within the game are secondairy.

Considering a social group cannot function as a group if not all members of the group are able to listen and respond to each other you cant ‘poke the game’ in a meaningfull manner unless your groupmates are online to respond.

If not you get a slowchat kind of game so I agree with you the whole ‘poking 24/7’ and the game beeing an RPG experience and not a MMO as we know (and enjoy) them doesnt make sense.

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