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Programming Role Playing (Games) Technology

Coding and Roleplaying - Is There a Connection? 417

Posted by Cliff from the dice-and-keyboards dept.
TossCobble asks: "With table-top roleplaying giant Wizards of the Coast (makers of Dungeons & Dragons, for those not in the know) broadcasting an open call for adventure designers and developers (including an entertaining developer test to gauge your own game-design talent and knowledge), I found myself once again considering the odd appeal of gaming for us programming types. It's interesting that something so free-form-ishly creative, socially dynamic, and utterly fantastical be fun for folks so grounded in logical programming. Of course, my theory is that gaming and programming actually have more in common than we might think. Tabletop roleplaying involves coming up with creative solutions to problems set in a clearly-defined ruleset, involve constant data-tracking and minor mathematical equations, and involve working together with small groups of people toward like-minded goals. Conversely, love of roleplaying can illustrate how important creativity is to good programming. What do you think?"
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Coding and Roleplaying - Is There a Connection? More

Coding and Roleplaying - Is There a Connection?

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  • A connection? Yes... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, 2005 @06:52PM (#13860129)
    A lack of women!

    • Re:A connection? Yes... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Arivia ( 783328 )
      Oddly enough, every important-enough-to-affect-the-product-line D&D campaign has had at least one female in it, without fail.

      Take it as you may.

      We women *do* play D&D too.


      • I'm glad someone does.

        I must not have a DnD gene. I had clients by the time I graduated from high school twenty-five years ago, earned a paycheck in nearly two dozen languages, worked on any number of platforms & OSes, and DnD holds absolutely no interest. I used to watch friends waste countless hours with pencil & graph paper. I'd almost rather spend the time pulling out my own short & curlies, one by one, with a pair of tweezers.

        I've suggested to the PC-specific game magazines (PC Gamer

  • roleplaying? (Score:5, Funny)

    by charliebear ( 887653 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @06:53PM (#13860133)
    Well, I used to code, and me and the wife like to role play every once in a while, so I guess there is a correlation.

    • Re:roleplaying? (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by CyricZ ( 887944 )
      I like when your wife dresses up as the garbage man and then she takes out my trash with a whip.

  • What do I think? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @06:56PM (#13860146)
    I think if Wizards of the Coast had an interesting idea they'd probably not know what to do with it, assuming that they recognised it.

    TWW

    • mod parent up... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ltwally ( 313043 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:48PM (#13860413) Homepage Journal
      Just because the parent's comment wasn't exactly nice to WoTC does not invalidate it... Many, if not most, "serious" dnd players/dm's very much miss TSR -- a company that was full of innovative ideas and actually seemed to want to please its customers.

      Gamers have several reasons to be less-than-satisfied with WoTC, compared to TSR, including:

      • Bringing out crappy products just to fill the monthly release cycle, instead of focusing on polishing products to a point where DM's don't have to read through a book to be able to sanction official content.
      • Releasing books that seem more focused on pretty artwork than solid material -- and, of course, the artwork costs more to print, so the cost for the book is increased. Go figure
      • Refocusing resources into creating entirely new realms (ie. Eberron) instead of updating much-loved and heavily-played pre-existing realms (ie. the Forgotten Realms). (note: I'm not saying Eberron sucks. I'm just saying that FR needs a lot of work before it is updated to d20, still.. and it's been 5 years since 3.0 debuted.)
      • "Updating" the ruleset (ie. version 3.5) to the point that half the "current" DnD books are using incompatible rules which require serious work by the DM in order for their material to work with the 3.5 rule-system.
      I could go on... but I think I've proven my point: WoTC hasn't always shown consideration to its customers. The parent was perfectly justified for voicing dissatisfaction with WoTC. Mod him up.
      • Actually... to be honest, TSR wasn't *that* much better in the old (pre-WOTC) days, either.

        • Re:mod parent up... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Golias ( 176380 )
          I think all the threads going on about how great (or sucky) TSR is (or was), and all the threads about gamer personalities, and all the threads about various campaign worlds are overlooking something very, very important.

          Pencil-and-paper RPG's are (and always have been) nothing more than a vehicle for nerds to gather with nerd friends to eat dorito chips and pizza while chatting about Joss Whedon shows & anime, and repeating old Monty Python jokes they've all heard a million times.

          And there's nothing wr
      • Most serious gamers don't buy games out of a shrink wrapped box any more - they take packages from a number of sources and roll their own rules distro ... wait, what was the the article's original question? :)

      • Re:mod parent up... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Wavicle ( 181176 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:34PM (#13861349)
        a company that was full of innovative ideas and actually seemed to want to please its customers.

        What? Are we thinking the same TSR? The TSR that put itself into bankruptcy by alienating itself from its customers - threatening any who dared post a module they made themselves with legal action citing the module as a derivative product of their IP?

        Is this how one pleases one's customers?

    • Re:What do I think? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @08:20PM (#13860564) Homepage Journal
      AD&D is the Windows of roleplaying games, and WotC is its Microsoft. Unlike others, I'm not going to praise the halcyon days of yore when Gary Gygax ruled TSR, because that's where the problem started.

      • Re:What do I think? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Arivia ( 783328 ) <arivia@gmail.com> on Sunday October 23, 2005 @09:12PM (#13860779) Journal
        However, in comparison, D&D is willing to throw out the entirety of the code base every 10 years or so and say to developers: You're working to our new system. No legacy programming framework cruft in our new system.
        (And the stuff that sticks around between editions is the stuff that *defines* D&D-without it, it would be like a GUI without the graphical part. During the really major revision that was 3e, a lot of thought went into this-for the history of all this, see the 3 years of Dragon immediately preceding 3e's release.)

    • Re:What do I think? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @08:24PM (#13860586) Homepage
      Jeez, does anyone remember T$R and their hordes of SCO-like lawyers? How fast we forget.

  • Umm, poor people skills? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fuzzy12345 ( 745891 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @06:56PM (#13860147)
    Admit it folks, building or exploring fantasy worlds has a special appeal for people who feel they're having less than average fun in the real world.

    It's sad but true, and we know it.

    • Re:Umm, poor people skills? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:05PM (#13860207) Journal
      Shhh!

      I ban you away from my wow tower! Begone!

    • Re:Umm, poor people skills? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Raindance ( 680694 ) <johnsonmx@@@gmail...com> on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:16PM (#13860267) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, that could be part of it. But it's certainly not the whole story.

      I've known people to prefer a MUD PK war to a date with a beautiful woman; a game of capture the flag to sex; Word of Warcraft to their loving SOs. There's something about the gamer/coder personality type that is more than a function of
      1. Being good at analytical thinking
      2. Poor performance in social situations.

      It's more of an attraction to certain modes of thinking and systems of reward than failing at the "real world". In some people, at least.

      • Re:Umm, poor people skills? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TrappedByMyself ( 861094 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:31PM (#13860332)
        It's more of an attraction to certain modes of thinking and systems of reward than failing at the "real world"

        You really have something there. Alot of geeks are conditioned to compare themselves to the popular crowd. They put themselves up against standards which they're not designed to meet, like an apple becoming depressed because it's not orange. They become 'losers', so they sink into this gaming world where they can win. On WoW for instance, there are so many people playing, that the field is very average. Any dedication will make you 'better' that alot of the other people you compete against. It's a huge ego boost to take out someone else in one-on-one combat. It's a well defined world, where winning is easy, much much easier than competing in the real world.
        And I'm not talking about gaming for fun, it's the people who game for survival. The sad thing is that these reculsive geeks do have the tools to compete in the real world, they are just afraid to try.

        //recovering gaming geek ;)
        • I think poor people skills is a direct result of Dungeons and Dragons attribute buy system. If you spend points on your charisma score, then you don't have enough for constitution and your primary statistic. Everyone who plays D&D knows that charisma is a worthless stat and maybe that mentality just spills over to the real world.
      • Lots of D&D players may have bad social skills, but I don't think there is much of a correlation (negative or otherwise) between "analytical thinking" and "performance in social situations"

        Geeks on slashdot tend to band together, but to claim a monopoly on Intelegence betrays a lack analytical thinking skills more then anything.

        Plus, most slashdot types aren't even that smart. Being able to whip up a Perl script isn't the same thing as being smart.

    • Re:Umm, poor people skills? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by heavy snowfall ( 847023 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:18PM (#13860273) Journal
      I think it may be true to some extent, but not necessarily sad. Life is what you make of it. If you like RPGing, reading or coding, go for it. There's no Law of Joy that says you have to be a socialite to be happy.
    • I think it goes beyond the people skills issue, or the fantasy wish fullfillment issue. Problem solving is one key aspect to it.

      Way back before real network connectivity started appearing in RP games (Muds, etc.), there were similar games that you played solo. "adventure" is the classic one which comes to mind. It was quite popular, and still can be found in the BSD releases. This game was one of the first, if not the first, of the exploring-a-fantasy-world times of games. It was also mentioned in the boo

      • I really enjoy getting into the characters - developing them.

        Its not about the problem solving. Its about using my imagination to shape things. Coding is the same. I build upon the world, and the structures that I make please me.

        A lot of the entertainment in role playing is in the fact that doing so is easy. I can code a behaviour I envision in perhaps a few hours or a few days, but I can create a character in a few minutes - and act him out with much greater detail.

        I think that the reason behind this i
    • Bingo. Dorks like tabletop roleplaying for the same reason they like to read pulp science fiction/fantasy, read comic books or watch harem anime: not because they're more "creative" or whatever but because they want to escape into a pleasant fantasy land. They avoid reading mainstream literature, which is too concerned with reality for comfort. (Note: I don't mean this as a putdown of all SF/F, comic books and anime, just most of them.)

      This is blindingly obvious to everyone except themselves; like the

      • Re:Umm, poor people skills? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:41PM (#13860377) Homepage Journal
        Ya know what.. when I hang around with my fiancee and her friends, all they talk about all night is work. And not the technical workflow details.. they spend all night talking about the people at their work. Someone will say a name, someone else will say their opinion of that person, someone else will counter with an anecdote about that person, etc. Basically it's nothing more than gossip. The other alternative is a discussion about religion or politics in which someone will inevitably take someone elses' opinions personally, get all flustered and maybe break down crying. If this is what "normal people" talk about I think I'd rather hang out with geeks.. at least we can have a conversation without backstabbing other people or thinking others are personally attacking us when they express their opinions.
        • You're making the old fallacy of making a binary division between the world of "geeks" and "normal people". I don't have much respect for shallow people who are unable to discuss abstract topics either, but you can be intellectual without having no social skills. A balanced conversation between friends is one that includes both abstract topics and personal life: if you're completely unable to discuss one or the other, you have a problem.
      • This is blindingly obvious to everyone except themselves; like the story submitter, they tend to make up all sorts of more palatable justifications for why they like their hobby.

        Agreed, but "hobbies" are not created equal, so it's not entirely fair to over generalise. If the poster is looking for associations between creativity and programming, I'd suggest he'd be more likely to find it in the study of music [menc.org] and stop ... playing around.

      • Re:Umm, poor people skills? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by achurch ( 201270 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @09:52PM (#13860925) Homepage
        This is blindingly obvious to everyone except themselves; like the story submitter, they tend to make up all sorts of more palatable justifications for why they like their hobby.

        Resorting to ad hominem attacks like that really doesn't help your point.

        I'll agree that some people use roleplaying (or anime, novels, what have you) as a form of escapism. But I'll bet there are a lot more who use them simply as a form of entertainment, as they are designed to be. Not all of us have this urge to rip on anything that's not a true literary work of art; what is fun, is fun, and doesn't need justification beyond that.

      • Re:Umm, poor people skills? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by daigu ( 111684 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:31PM (#13861084) Journal

        I don't know what kind of science fiction you read. But, I don't think most can be described as pleasant.

        I also find it interesting that you leap to these conclusions. Would you say the same of people that do needle point? They should just stop deluding themselves and get more social and "adult"?

        How about gardening, reading, golf, long distance running - or any other mostly solitary activity that people enjoy. What all these people need to do is just go to more parties and be more social?

        Gaming is, in fact, more social than these activities, yet no calls you socially inept if you happen to be an ultra-marathon runner - even though as one you spend much more time away from people. What makes gaming such that you assume gamers are socially inept? Might it merely be a prejudice on your part? I've known people to make these comments because they don't find gaming useful - whereas running, gardening, needle point are considered useful in our society.

        Further, it is okay for people not to like social situations. I've found that most people are fairly interesting alone. Turn something into a social situation where people do not know one another, and they immediately make themselve less interesting. I've wasted enough time talking about the weather with people and I'm extremely anxious that someone will take up more of my life wanting to talk about this inane topic. You know what I mean?

      • Umm, no? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Psychochild ( 64124 ) <psychochild.gmail@com> on Monday October 24, 2005 @01:46AM (#13861817) Homepage
        How did this garbage get modded "Insightful"? Wow.

        First of all, creating a fantasy world in a computer game is an incredibly collaborative effort these days. The days of some lone geek sitting in his garage making a game is long over. Even small casual games have teams of at least 3 people. You need a minimum amount of people skills if you're going to create a fantasy world in the medium I'm most familiar with.

        Now, let me give you some real insight: a book doesn't have to be set in a "magical fairy realm" or "deep space" or "an alien planet" to be escapist. Hell, most "mainstream literature" is escapist; why do you think people read books like The Hunt for Red October or Patriot Games? Because they're fascinated by Russian sub or missile technology? No, because they want some adventure and excitement in their lives. They live vicariously through the spies, CIA operatives, and other characters as much as the person reading A Game of Thrones lives through the knights, schemers, nobles, and other characters in that book. Of course, that book isn't all "pleasant", and hopefully you didn't identify too closely with the character that gets beheaded or died of a seemingly minor wound....

        So, stop with the tired "lolz @ teh dorks!" attitude already. Everyone engages in a bit of escapism once in a while. And sometimes people read a book because it's genuinely a good story, whether it's fantasy, science fiction, or "mainstream".

      • Here's my own definition of a dork, then (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Monday October 24, 2005 @03:09AM (#13862013) Journal
        You know, there's a disturbing trend I'm noticing among a lot of nerds, and your post, complete with name calling (" Dorks like roleplaying") and armchair shrink trolling ("the sooner they stop the self-denial and start becoming adults, the better") is just a prime example of that: the "I'm Mr Perfect, you're all idiots, losers and in denial to boot" kinda mentality. In fact, I'll postulate that that should be _the_ definition of a "nerd" or "dork", and might well be the reason for social ineptness.

        I know society as a whole is judgmental, relatively self-centred and "us vs them", but (like many other activities and social rituals they don't understand) nerds take this to an extreme it was never supposed to be taken to. It's like noticing that people use salt and vinegar in their soup, and deciding to make your soup out of _only_ salt and vinegar.

        The social "us vs them" theme is supposed to find some common ground for the "us" part in that gossip. It's real purpose, conscious or not, is to find some common grounds to backpat each other in that "us" group. E.g., yeah, we might have other differences of opinion, but we're both fans of the same football club, so we're great. Not to become an "Me vs the rest of you losers" extreme.

        Basically you know you're a nerd when your world is made of one Mr Perfect prototype, yourself, and sad losers who fail to measure up to that. And every single tiny difference of interests or difference of opinion is put on a pedestal, as definitive proof that everyone else is an idiot. And hey, it was said by Mr Perfect himself, so it _must_ be true.

        Basically you know you're a nerd when you find yourself passing such broad sweeping judgments, like:

        - did you study, say, law or medicine while I was learning to optimize assembly? Bah, what a sad loser. I bet you can't even code your own kernel drivers. Is that sad or what?

        - ok, so you studied CS too, but do you use the same OS, language or editor that I do? You use another one, huh? (E.g., so we're both on Linux, but you code in C++ while I do Java, or viceversa, and use vi instead of emacs, or viceversa. Or worse yet, you use an IDE.) Ah-ha! I knew it. Idiot. It's people like you who are what's wrong with the world today.

        - and how long is your uptime anyway? Only two weeks? Hah. Loser.

        - what hobbies do you have anyway? Is it books or movies while I prefer gaming, or viceversa? What a sad loser you are, then. You're in denial. Grow up, get a life, get the One True Hobby.

        - Ok, so if it's the same hobby, what flavour of it is it? E.g., do you prefer SF/fantasy books movies while I prefer murder mysteries, or viceversa? Haha, I knew it, it sucks to be you. You only read those because you don't have a life and are in denial. Or if it's games, do you like story-driven games while I like Mario-style jump puzzles, or viceversa? You guessed, you're a loser again for failing to measure up to my perfection.

        Etc, etc, etc.

        It's a sort of a sieve that really doesn't let anything through. There is no "us" in a nerd's "us vs them", it's one big case of Mr Perfect vs 7 billion sad losers who fail to measure up.
  • We can't interact as easily in the real world...which makes knowledge as a pursuit much more interesting to us. It also means that being able to experiment with a world that obeys laws we can understand is much more satisfying.

  • Other hobbies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by saintlupus ( 227599 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @06:57PM (#13860157)
    I've noticed that cooking is also a big hobby for us computer nerd types.

    Home brewing, too.

    --saint

    • Re:Other hobbies (Score:4, Insightful)

      by conJunk ( 779958 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:26PM (#13860310)
      interesting, and true... would you classify those in the same set as "rigid rule structure where creative manipulation of those rules = success" the way one could for coding or gaming?

      • interesting, and true... would you classify those in the same set as "rigid rule structure where creative manipulation of those rules = success" the way one could for coding or gaming?

        +1 Insightful to that. Speaking as somebody who has just taken the time to whip up a batch of cheese and bacon scones, I have always thought that programming and cooking where very similar pursuits. The same goes for music and gaming - there are rules, the satisfaction comes from using the rules (and knowing when you can break

  • I... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, 2005 @06:58PM (#13860160)
    I ... [rolls d20] ... agree totally!

  • It's Independant Thinking (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WebHostingGuy ( 825421 ) * on Sunday October 23, 2005 @06:58PM (#13860161) Homepage Journal
    Whenever you have a set of people who can creatively think outside the box you will get unique solutions to common problems. A lot of the time people are told this is the way you must do something. By reinforcing play at with no constraints except for the effect from the choice you will get different ideas and solutions from the norm.

    If you contrast table gaming with no rules for the players versus console gaming in which you must do x to get to y you will alwasy have more creative solutions in the table gaming. This doesn't mean a standard solution will not work or will not be better, but you can't change the boundaries of a console game for a unique solution to a problem so you never challenge the creative juices of a player and reinforce creative ideas; just the opposite you reinforce finding a solution only within the rules. Is this what you are talking about?
    • Who said anything about "thinking outside the box"? The original poster highlighted how both activities involve strict, "clearly defined rulesets;" just as in Dungeons and Dragons your level 5 elf can't defeat the level 10 goblin king (OK, I admit it, I've never actually played the game), in any (good) programming language your int value can't be treated as a double without casting. There's no "thinking outside the box" in which you can ignore the type system, ignore the rules, or what have you. Most of the

  • The REAL connection: (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Shrewd Dude ( 880136 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @06:58PM (#13860162) Journal
    You see, it's actually that coders have no life sitting in front of their computer screens all day, and thus they try to make up for it by roleplaying.

    .
    ..
    ...

    (the sound you just heard is the myraid slashdotters modding this into oblivion)

  • Virtual worlds (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Shishberg ( 819760 )
    I've always characterised software engineering as "the only engineering that doesn't do physics" (true at my university).

    I think us programmer types are drawn to the appeal of being able to create our own virtual worlds, within which we define the laws of "physics" based on elegance and usefulness in the problem/game domain. The real world is too arbitrary and chaotic to be able to understand all the interactions in any given system properly. Programs and RPG worlds don't have that problem.

  • So does working at McDonalds. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:00PM (#13860172)
    Tabletop roleplaying involves coming up with creative solutions to problems set in a clearly-defined ruleset, involve constant data-tracking and minor mathematical equations, and involve working together with small groups of people toward like-minded goals.

    That applies just as much to the workers at McDonalds and to farmers as it does to basically any other job that requires an ounce of skill. Before the 1960s such tasks were often called "common capabilities". That is, they were the basic tasks that pretty much anyone and everyone was expected to be able to do. It's only now, with declining education systems in many western nations, that we consider mastery of such menial tasks to be an accomplishment.

    • Uh huh. If I recall correctly, the 1960s was when the US realised that snubbing science was making them a sitting duck for the russians and began the great brain trust policy. Remember Sputnik?
      • Remember that Americans (as in those born and educated in America) weren't responsible for the space feats of the 1960s. Those were the work of German engineers captured after WWII.

        • Yeah yeah, but the DARPA programs that began in the 60s were a deliberate attempt to realign US education onto a science and technology footing.. before then kids were more than likely to go into sales or farm work.

        • Remember that Americans (as in those born and educated in America) weren't responsible for the space feats of the 1960s. Those were the work of German engineers captured after WWII.

          Wow, talk about oversimplification. Reality is significantly more complex.

          German engineers played a role, but there was a whole lot more to putting man in space (and eventually on the moon) than straight rocketry, which is what most of the German engineers were specialists in. Indeed, a significant number of engineers on th

    • Since when did working at McDonald's require creativity?

      There's a well-defined ruleset, well enough defined that no thought is usually required. This also removes the need for cooperation--I don't call it that when one finite automaton passes an item to another for further processing, just as I don't call it cooperation when an application uses GTK libraries.

      Minor math may be required sometimes. On the other hand, some of the cash registers these days require no more than counting skills.

      Face it, if the har
    • The problem is that every job, from coal miner to president of the United States, can be defined in the terms that the submitter posited. Fortunately, the submitter's definition does not cover the gamut of skills required for either computer programming or desktop role-playing games, so to state that the skillset for either is not sufficient to garner respect is to burn a strawman.

      I gather that your comment has more to do with the criticism of the submitter's choice of words rather than the subject of whet

  • Of course (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro&gmail,com> on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:00PM (#13860175) Journal
    We like to dream , and we like to make our dreams reality .After all programming is about turning thoughts in to something tangible .Role playing is about turning the dreams of adventure we all have in to some sort of reality .
    The only reason some people look down on it , is because they don't have the courage to do it for fear of looking silly.
    • After all programming is about turning thoughts in to something tangible .

      What do you think engineering is? What do you think architecture is? What do you think carpentry is? What do you think artistry is? What do you think music is? What do you think making a fucking McDonalds hamburger is? It's turning an idea into reality. Nothing special there.

      • Yeah , and I have played a fair few games with Musicians and people working at burger king .
        Engineers are also included in this , after all many programers are software engineers .
        Never played a game with a football player though (Probably some do though ).
      • The true genius of the McDonald's cheeseburger lies not in the repetitive process by which an individual sandwich gets made, but in the recognition of a consumer demand and the way in which resources were allocated in order to fill that demand on a global scale. The fact that you recognize the McDonald's brand as opposed to Burger King, Wendy's, or any of the several hundred hamburger restaurants that have been in existence at since McDonald's was founded, is credit enough to this genius. I wish you would
    • Gosh. I can't imagine a post more loaded with derision and smug superiority than yours.

      Except for this one.
      • You haven't read many of my other posts then have you ?
        This is me on a humble vent . Seriously though...

        You need to develop a thick skin sometimes ,after all you will get the piss taken out of you for playing RPGs.
        It's a guilty little pleasure for many many people , still has a great deal of stigma attached to it .
        One of those things that when you walk into a news agents to buy your weekly RPG magazines , you hide it inside a copy of horny babes or big hooters .

  • Is there a connection? (Score:4, Funny)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <<kt.celce> <ta> <eb>> on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:00PM (#13860176) Homepage Journal
    Good programmers are usually just as nerdy as good roleplay gamers?

    Or am I missing some non-obvious shared characteristic?

  • number-crunching + play-acting = f***ing crack, man
  • Your correlation may be right, but your reasoning isn't.

    Tabletop roleplaying involves coming up with creative solutions to problems set in a clearly-defined ruleset, involve constant data-tracking and minor mathematical equations, and involve working together with small groups of people toward like-minded goals. Conversely, love of roleplaying can illustrate how important creativity is to good programming. What do you think?

    You could say the same about football and roleplaying or coding, but there happe
    • Geeks tend not to be terribly athletic, and tactical puzzles of the sort 'How do we get the ball past this stinking heap of muscle?' aren't exactly brain intensive. Or rather, they require reflexive tactical decisions rather than careful pondering.

      Programming well requires careful pondering; programming poorly usually uses more reflexive or instinctual decisions. So roleplaying situations which involve algorithmic puzzles or other such problems would likely be more suited to most programmers.

      Though culture

  • future conditional thought processes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:01PM (#13860183)
    I think both role-playing and programming involve a "what if I do X" future-conditional thought process. Controlling a character in game or a byte-character in a program are not that different. They both require some explicit thought of future consequences of scripted actions in the context of a mechanistic system. This is especially true for DMs or scenario developers who must constantly think about how their setup will affect the player's future actions to guide those players toward some attainable game goal.

    Thinking abstractly about "what-if" is key to creating code that does what you want and expect it to do. Thinking about what-if is fantasy, by definition.

    • Not a lot of what-if in coding really... it's very determininstic (I've seen people who use what-if to operate and program computers... it's really annoying - I usually end up grabbing the keyboard off them and finishing the damned thing for them.. too many people out there who can't see the bleedin' obvious when it's starting them in the face).

      Coding is more like painting or sculpting - you have the finished product in your minds eye, and you have to do the bit in the middle to go from A (your main() funct

  • It's cultural (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scenestar ( 828656 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:02PM (#13860184) Homepage Journal
    It's like asking, why do football players attend keg parties? Coding and roleplaying are part of geek culture
    • It's like asking, why do football players attend keg parties?

      It's not about culture. It's about fucking drunk chicks.

    • It's like asking, why do football players attend keg parties? Coding and roleplaying are part of geek culture
      i thought kegs were part of geek culture too?

      beer is pretty universally cultural... football players, geeks, coder, gamers, accountants, scientists... granted, the people i know who've worked for nasa and the hard-core gamers seem to be more likely to order fruity drinks in huge vases with multiple straws when out for an evening... but *everybody* likes a keg

  • Building with your mind (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phamlen ( 304054 ) <phamlen&mail,com> on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:03PM (#13860191) Homepage
    In both programming and FRPs, you can make things happen so long as you can imagine it correctly. As someone once told me, "Programming is like building with pure thought-stuff." Everything happens in an alternate realm from the physical world (the computer's memory or the group's imagination) and isn't limited by what you can do in the physical world.

    I think people who are attracted by programming's allure of creating programs just by thinking are also attracted by a FRP that lets you create a world with your own imagination.

    -Peter
    • So true. Both require a solid imagination, enjoying using it and an ability to see the effects of your actions and how they ripple out into the whole system over time, wether it's a game or a program.

  • Maybe "systems" is the common thread? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FlyByPC ( 841016 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:03PM (#13860194) Homepage
    Geeks in general, and programming geeks in particular, seem to be very much interested in systems of all sorts. Not just systems in the IT sense, but any group of objects and/or forces with interactions between the elements of the group.

    The combination of various skills, languages (another reason a lot of geeks like Tolkien), lands to explore -- and above all, magic -- comprise a field day for the geek intellect.

    Either that, or it's the improbably skimpy leather armor those amazons are wearing...

  • Roleplaying boring...! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sploxx ( 622853 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:06PM (#13860213)
    I always found roleplaying boring and the same goes for star wars cultism. Well, people still call me a nerd as I fulfill many other qualifications (socially awkward, hw/sw tinkering, programming - of course).

    Somehow (this is not meant as an offense) I feel that those roleplayers like to detach themselves from the real world in their games and that this is their primary motivation to do this.

    Maybe some people are fascinated by detached fantasies and others are fascinated by the real world around them and maybe extrapolations (how the world could be changed).
    • I love role-playing and I am a total Nerd in many many ways (I am a UNIX geek , hacker and systems admin . I also program in C ) . though I am not socially awkward and rather extroverted .

      I like to explore both reality and the worlds of our minds . Naturally I do like to fantasise about how the world could be ,something more glamorous and filled with adventure In real life would possible be rather unpleasant(I don't fancy taking 2d12 damage from a battle axe) .

      All role-players like to detach themselves fro

  • Is it due to enjoying intellectual challenges? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by siliconbunny ( 632740 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:08PM (#13860227)
    imho, programming is a quite cerebral endeavour, and the types who are attracted to it (especially as a hobby) are also likely to be attracted to other intellectual pursuits.

    Hence the correlation with RPGs. My initial thought would be that that correlation (ie take someone off the street[*] who likes RPGs, and they are relatively likely to like programming) is probably stronger than say enjoyment of computer games (ie take people off the street who like playing FPS games, there would probably be a lower percentage who like to program, but still a higher percentage than, say, that of random football fans. Because RPGs usually require more abstract visualisation than FPSs)

    I expect you would find a similar correlation with things such as chess and puzzles, and traditionally geekly pursuits such as astronomy, rock/stamp/dinosaur collections, etc. (ie things where the attraction tends to be cerebral rather than visceral.)

    The fun thing I found when I took up fencing long ago was that there was also a strong correlation between fencers and RPGs - wannabe hack'n'slashers, I assume. :-)

    The above of course is highly generalised, but it's something I had previously wondered about.


    fn *: Although in my experience most RPGers spend too little time outdoors to be accosted, even for the the purposes of idle thought experiments.

    • I an not interested in pen/paper RPG's much at all and I've been programming since the mid 80's. I find them pretty boring. Same with Sci-Fi--hate it. I attempted playing D&D a few times as well as Cyberpunk and it just didn't appeal to me. However, I love to program and solve problems. I even tried the Neverwinter Nights RPG PC game and it bored me.

      Why do I not like RPGs? I prefer action and do not like a lot of background story or reading. I do not get excited about some made up world with hard to pro

  • socially dynamic? quite the opposite, in a way (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fross ( 83754 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:11PM (#13860243)
    the social aspects of roleplaying are far less dynamic than real social interactions, because they are so much more controlled. you understand what your fellows are driving towards, the dialogue and situations are often cliched, or at least familiar, and there is less at stake, less responsibility, socially - if you make a jackass of yourself you can just claim you're roleplaying, and you already know that the people you're playing with are of a like mind to yourself, especially given the intelligent nature of a "game" such as RP.

    there are less unknowns, less uncertainties - and this is what is usually a problem for the socially inept - lack of confidence because of lack of certainty, which is what comes across as nerdishness.

    add into this the familiarity with the subject matter through books, films, and more recently computer RPG games, and the (to the mainstream) hurdle of a fantasy world is a non-event. the other aspect, which certainly will appeal to the mathematically design minded (not to mention the neurotic obsessive-compulsive detail freaks) is the range of stats, rules - *formal* descriptors of how the world interacts. if someone chucks a baseball at you, it's not down to something an unsporty nerd has little practice/familiarity with (ie catching it with his hands), but rather something quantifiable and determinate, stats, modifiers and a dice roll.

    this may sound harsh, particularly as i'm a programmer and have been a roleplayer quite extensively myself, but in our heads we're all great actors, witty people, conversationalists, sometimes we just need to find the right outlet for it to come out in.

  • Mmmm, no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Reality Master 201 ( 578873 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:12PM (#13860249) Journal
    Being a successful programmer involves more than just applying abstract rules. In fact, the most significant factor in one's success in real world programming is not ability in solving problems (creatively or not).

    A succesful programmer is one that can sucessfully characterize and identify a problem. Far too often, I've seen people jump right into solving what they think the problem is (often during a meeting with a client), without first doing the (admittedly boring) legwork of ensuring that you understand the domain of the problem and the specific things that require solutions.

    Unless, of course, you're talking in the realm of 133t h4x0r programmers. But there, the concern is being the hot coding stud, not in delivering a workable, maintainable, stable software product.

  • Not in my experience (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pantaz ( 316654 )
    Two of the three best programmers I know have no interest in role playing games, or game coding. They work primarily with hardware interface/control and embedded systems.

    However, I can imagine game programming talent might benefit from RP playing.

  • At one point I recall reading a paper that, while perhaps a bit too self-praising, described unix culture (and similarly the programming crowd associated with it) to be a very literate culture, viewing the flow of information through various streams, filters, etc, as something that draws similar people to those who have a love of words, wordplay, and literature. Anyone recall the specific paper/website/source?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • WotC wtf? (Score:2, Informative)

    by zephris ( 925151 )
    Wizards of the Coast did NOT make Dungeons and Dragons. It was made by Gary Gygax, sold originally by TSR and then TSR was bought by WotC. When will people start recognizing this????
  • I don't know that there's necessarily a correlation. I enjoy programming, and I also enjoy role-playing, but without the influence of my friends, I never would have started RPing. These friends have pretty much zero interest in programming. In fact, one of the best roleplayers I know is definitely not the logical, problem-solving oriented type, at least in a programming/engineering manner. I think it's more of the whole geek/nerd culture thing going on...my friends come from a video-game playing backgro

  • Sick of staring at a monitor all day long (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bohnanza ( 523456 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @08:08PM (#13860505)
    I know a lot of folks who play tabletop RPGs, boardgames, tabletop wargames, and other "old-fashioned" types of games. A LOT of these people (and they are not all male) work with computers all day; many of them are programmers or engineers. They get sick of staring at a PC monitor all day and like to hang around with actual people every once in a while.

  • Short Answer: "Yes" with an "If,"... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sesshomaru ( 173381 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @08:29PM (#13860599) Journal
    ... Long Answer: "No" with a "But"

    Role Playing Games encompass a lot. One big part of role playing games is designing logical systems for determining the outcome of events. Example: You are Jay D'Canton, a Paladin, you are wearing chain mail and carrying a mace. You enter a room with four Orcs. Three of the Orcs are armed with wooden clubs and wearing thick animal furs, the fourth has a short sword and studded leather armor. How does the battle go?

    Well, figuring out whether the Orcs get Jay's head for their pointy stick, or whether Jay makes short work of them depend on a lot of factors. Is Jay fresh out of Paladin school, or has he been at this for a while? How much protection does his armor give? Are the furs the Orcs are wearing purely decorative or do they offer cushioning versus Jay's mace?

    So, varous systems are created, if Jay has killed x number of Orcs, he'll become a "level two" Paladin who is better at fighting and avoiding attacks. The Orcs will get a damage and "to hit" penalty based on Jay's armor, which will also be represented by a number called an armor class. So too will every aspect be determined, with each step be given a logical number value and with the steps relating logically. You should be able to take a list of numbers, including numbers created by die rolls, run them through your system, and figure out the outcome.

    Ah, the systems... the beautiful beautiful systems. Everything from systems for determining the weather to a system determining the random effects of the Wand of Wonder.

    This all works until those horrible Players come along and mess up your beautiful system. "I don't think the Orcs should be able to hurt me with wooden clubs. Oh, and," quick edit to Jay's character sheet, "turns out my mace is a magical mace +5 versus Orcs."

    Meanwhile, you have some people across the street dressed up as Vampires, but they aren't rolling dice at all. They are treating the game as improvisational Theatre. They may have a system, too, but they seems to see things in terms of "roll playing" versus "Role Playing." (I really don't know much about them, though I have one of their game books, for the collection of course. Still... I got a distinct impression from reading White Wolf magazine while looking for Call of Cthuhlu articles.)

    Personally, I prefer board games in the popular genre's to their role playing equivalents. They have a nice, rigid sense of order. Of course, you don't get to create your own systems, or build a big "Dungeon" or "Module" system out of the smaller systems provided in the books. However, what does it matter when your fellow players would rather ignore the rules or shoot the breeze.

    Besides, I more likely to get a "non-gamer" to play a game of Dungeon! or Black Morn Manor with me than a game of Dungeons and Dragons (and believe me I've tried!)

    Of course, my brother (call him "Inu Yasha"), who is deathly afraid of computers loves getting together with the guys for an evening of pizza and D&D. I think it is more for the comaradery than enjoying of watching a rigid system designed to determine the effects of an undead invasion in a small medieval hamlet. Trust me, the guy just started using Email, and when he sees some of the things I do with my computer, he's like, "That's horrible, that's like the inventions of that guy from Gremlins. I'll be happy using a DVD player to watch movies rather than that complicated set-up." Actually, he may have said The Goonies, but I think Gremlins is a cooler movie...

    What was my point again?

  • crap. (Score:3, Funny)

    by griffjon ( 14945 ) <GriffJon&gmail,com> on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:17PM (#13861018) Homepage Journal
    Now we'll have a wave of LARPers applying for coding jobs, and all office disputes will be resolved by a fiesty game of paper-rock-scissors.

  • On coding, roleplay, and Jack Chick (Score:5, Funny)

    by dacarr ( 562277 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:29PM (#13861071) Homepage Journal
    Well, according to Jack Chick, RPGs of any flavor are satanic. And so if there's a correlation, coding, by extension, must be satanic.

    Which means that computer programs generated from said satanic code are satanic.

    Which means that, if there's a correlation, and Chick comes to this conclusion, his website will be off the net pretty soon.

  • MUD RPG:s are great escapes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by StarBar ( 549337 ) on Monday October 24, 2005 @06:59AM (#13862550) Homepage Journal
    I was during a year or two adicted to a certain LPMUD and spent like 2-3 hours every day/night in that RP world. It was a MUD biased towards RP rather than hack and slush. This sounds normal to any teenager not knowing the alternatives in life but I was 35 years old, a husband with two wonderful kids and a woman in the state of divorce and my own webcompany was going out of business. I was also a programmer with 15+ years experience.

    Did I see the crash comming? Yes. Did I do anything about it? No. Instead I spent time in the world of RP ending up as a wizard writing my own part of the world. That was mush easier than trying to work with the real world and make it work for me and the people around me. After the crash of my life I haven't spent anywhere near the amount of time in the world of MUD:s again.

    It's all about where you can get in control. For me it was clearily programming and RP in combination. Today I am a dormant mudoholic.

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