Video Games

I started playing Dungeons & Dragons when I was eleven. My brother and I found an abbreviated version of the game from the 80s -- complete with a video tape of terrible CGI, if you're interested -- in the basement of our Unitarian Universalist Assembly during a church yard sale. That's right: I got introduced to table top RPGs via religion. And they say God is dead.

My father is a hardcore gamer and has been since his childhood,d hard enough to have Dragonlance novels with paper covers published by TSR instead of Wizards of the Coast. My brother and I absconded with his 3.5 rulebooks -- and plenty of his other books -- and then never actually returned them. Wizards of the Coast moved on to the 4th and now the 5th edition, but I just stuck to 3.5. Between both myself and my mandatory RPG partner (Jack) we've had a lot of discussion about the path WotC has taken D&D down, but one of the reasons for not switching over is that I have gathered a library of 3.5 hardcover rulebooks and I just didn't want to go out and gather more.

I've always been more of a tabletop game girl than a video game girl. I think that the tabletop medium supports a far greater deal of collaboration, imagination, and flexibility than the video medium. However, the video medium is pretty. And ambitious games offer a consuming experience of pixels and obsession.

I started playing The Old Republic -- a massive multiplayer online role playing game based on Bioware's earlier Knights of the Old Republic games -- to distract myself from doubling medication dosages and having fevers and generally feeling awful. To give you an idea of how far I've gone down the rabbit hole with it, my local video game advocate (Jack again) has begun refusing to play with me, citing things like "burnout" and "being tired" and "stop trying to reprogram my brain while I sleep, Katie, it's just not gonna work."

There are a number of features Bioware has given SWTOR that really stand out after playing WoW, Everquest, and Allods. The fully voice acted interactions are a nice touch: they make you feel involved in the game to a level that others don't quite match. Having your equipment need repairing can be an irritant, but it gives the experience a sense of realism. The shining beams of light that signal treasure keep you from missing anything to loot. I miss Allods' quest function that allows your character to follow an animated ball of yarn to your objective, but I concede that it would feel out of place. Maybe they could use a droid.

The dialogue is precious, though. "[A character] is trouble, see," one of the Imperial NPCs tells your character, "Big trouble. Mad scientist type. Likes weapons. Cyborgs. Droids. Ergonomic chairs."

The picture of Barney Stinson makes sense now, right?

#videogames #tabletopgames