Ways to prevent powergaming....

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As i see it, this might be the most obvious reason why real D&D players wint be playing it. Surely it will deter many to see half-orc barbarians with 20 strenght, 6 wisdom and 6 intelligence with mind-protection helmets bought for 5gp running around alone solving all kinds of dungeon puzzles and looting wizard towers.

It is one of the most obvious reasons why MMORPGs are so popular, though. Maybe the developers dont even want to prevent powerplaying. Some MMOPRG players play for the first month or so purely because of power-hunger. Maybe even more. In the short run this is the perfect snare for getting more players. Attractive, easy to advance world. In the long run, though, it does turn out that social relationships are better to keep players. After all even the most determined munchkins will get bored with constant farming on some 345th demon spawn if they dont get to show off with their Uber characters aplenty to other players. They'll join the guilds, participating in major, world-changing quests, cooperate with other players,...

So, all in all a common MMOPRG these days has both. Short term snare and the long term snare. However, if D&D online follows this, only changing the rules and the world i suspect it wont be succesful. Already there are too many MMOPRGs, many have been canceled. This new wave of them is coming up (World of Warcraft, Middle earth online, Matrix, Everquest 2,...) I suspect D&D online will come out much later than these, but by then most of the players will choose one or two of these and not bother to check out the new ones for a few years. Especialy if D&D online wont have something new and i dont mean minor improvements, something pretty large, it wouldnt stand a chance next to the older, more developed ones.

There are of course quite a lot of people who would prefer to not spend at least 5 hours a day circling around the map, killing new spawns all the time, only to catch up with the rest of the characters to be able to play "normaly" then. It's a big circle this. You arent strong as the other players are, so you powergame. Players who start behind you powergame to catch up to you. And on and on it goes for years. Sure, when you have a well developed character, then you can start playing like most of us SPers would prefer. Roleplaying,... well, just about anything else than fighting really.


So, what i'm interested in is how do you think this early stange of gathering power could be stopped?
How to brake this repetitive circle. I'm sure a lit of players would appreciate playing differently and those who love to powergame all the time (i'm sure there arent that many) can just stay with other MMORPGs.

 

There's one way to prevent min-maxing scores: make low scores affect the game.

Low STR is a pain when you don't have a bag of holding. Or when you're trying to do some damage. It's already handled somewhat efficiently, isn't it?

Low DEX harms your AC. You can get around it with some potent spells, armour or items, but it all costs. It costs, takes slots and isn't as useful as actually avoiding the DEX penalty.

Low CON directly affects your HP. Low Fort save isn't really a munchkin's dream, either. Have people roll without reloading and they will start getting good CON scores.

Low INT doesn't hurt if you aren't a caster or rogue. That's all too bad sometimes. There are classes that don't need skill points and there's only one class that relies on INT for casting. What to do? Give people the real consequences of low INT that they should face. Retarded dialogue options should help. In certain environments, they don't really welcome retards with open arms. Especially if retards aren't just simpletons, but clinically retarded people. Make it feel like having Down's IRL for people who take low INT scores.

Low WIS? That's a hard one, mostly because WIS is very abstract and hard to measure. However, with a decent quantity of Will save intense encounters, low WIS should start making a problem. Also, creating sufficient opportunity for rangers and paladins to use their spells would make them further dependent from it. Low WIS rangers and paladins wouldn't pay off.

Low CHA? Don't make it like in BG2, then. I'm not saying make them ugly and smelly, nay. CHA isn't only looks. However, characters with low CHA don't have much appeal. They rarely make good leaders - they can still be good managers, but it takes more to be a leader. The same goes for any attempts captivating the audience, convincing someone to your vision... and so and so forth. Conversation skills typically cover such situations, so it could be a good idea to make them really matter. There are still situations when raw CHA checks could apply, though.

Next thing would be low level mix-ins of different classes than your main one. Well, the point would be to make classes more meaningful. What about having to train for any class other than your starting one?

Here's one problem: Wizards are Political Correctness freaks. They wouldn't like the idea of it being easier by far to get fighter levels than monk or paladin or ranger ones. They would instead place the exact same number of teachers for any class on the map and make sure the requirements are equally difficult (or easy). Realism doesn't count. That's what I hate when it comes to Dungeons and Dragons computer games.

Certain classes could affect your obligations in the game world. Most notably paladins and rangers, but also monks and bards have specific roles. Wizards and fighters have academies and orders as well - and those could perhaps be the only way to become a wizard or fighter. After all, someone has to teach you.

Carefully debugging the engine and testing the interface could help prevent glitches and exploits that don't have much to do with D&D rules per se but rather the way in which they're implemented.

I'm afraid puzzles would have to be placed out of player control, at least partly. We don't want 140 IQ people playing 6 INT fighters do puzzles and people of average smarts playing 16 INT wizards to get stuck in the same place. Or do we? Something really needs to be done to prevent this blatant example of power gaming. Low character INT is low INT, no matter if the player is a genius.

Some sort of NPC-driven police force supervised by DMs would be necessary to prevent level 2-3 characters from killing newbies at ease for starting equipment and XP. Or would players do the job? Perhaps. But there must be some system in place to prevent griefers from doing harm and making the game no fun for newcomers or people starting over.

That would be it.

 

I agree, there's no point in making all classes equaly awailable. They have to be balanced, of course, that's pretty much taken care of because of well developed D&D rules. However, if you're playing a monk or a wizard in a fighter&barbarian world it'll surely give you more prestige. There are things warriors cannot do and you can. If wizards are rare, even better, you're even more needed.


Low stats results with NPCs can be fairly easy to resolve. All it takes is more time to add more dialogue options depending on characters mental stats.
But then, this only works as long as the NPC is uncontrolled. When a DM comes by (there must be DMs in D&D, even if it's online) and takes over the NPC, if the character is talking with some high language and having low int, what's he going to do? Punish him for being out of character? I suppose
But even more problematic are Character vs character relationships. If a good roleplaying atmosphere wont be established right in the beggining and carefuly cultivated through and through, people will talk about XP, levels, considering if a level of ranger might be worth it, all IC. Some people might not have problem with that, but others who want to roleplay do.


The main point i'm raising here, though, is hunting-farming. Knowing where certain monster spawns are and circling them, continiously killing the spawns and looting the treasure. Some people enjoy very much doing so for a while. Then they get obscenely powerful, even while they have next to no knowledge of the world and other players except the spawns and fellow powerplayers. And then he comes by and kills a player that's been roleplaying his character for a much, much longer time than the powerplayer and still being half his level. His character experience doesnt match player experience.

 

Yeah, there's not much that could be done when players are talking to each other like two eggheads while their characters have hefty INT penalties. And what about players who have leadership abilities and good people skills while their characters are minmaxed with 6 CHA?

Let's put it to the extreme:

John is a military university graduate. He's also a lefty deep in heart and reads Mao in bed. He starts the game as Grom the Barbarian and puts everything in STR, DEX and CON. He has an 18 in INT, WIS and CHA... sumed up What's the result? The local barbarian chieftain or rebelion leader who should be dumb like a brick is a guerilla genius, predicting your every move, knowing the size of your socks and owning you big time whenever you move an inch out of your city.

I'm afraid there's no way to block people with formidable skills from using them when their characters don't have them. There's no way to prevent people from using knowledge that shouldn't be accessible to their characters. Heck, you won't even do anything about people playing characters that officially have half the player's IQ.

As for the latter part, there might be some realism to that. If you spend whole your time battling some monsters, you're bound to become a better fighter. However, levelling up in D&D is meant as a wider concept than just pushing your main abilities further or the ones you use (like it was in Dungeon Siege, for instance). The problem is, you don't have to be a fighter with practically no class skills to pull that off. You can be a ranger or a paladin and earn XP from killing monsters, while putting the skill points in Diplomacy, for instance. Still, it happens even in PNP games. I guess it will be enough if they prevent you from level-squatting and killing legions of monsters as a low level fighter to emerge suddenly as a potent battlemage with several consecutive level-ups. But it would be hard to achieve. Sometimes people will wander around with enough XP to level up, in order to find a specific class teacher or be allowed a particular prestige class. Still, there's no need to allow squatting more than just one level and it would be very unrealistic.

 

Gah. You two cover too much. Up to this day all I could've done was say "I agree with everything mentioned above". Now, however, I've something to add.

Powergaming is basically just a means to reach the top level as fast as possible. At least it's fueled by the same attitude that makes people reach the top level: desire for power. Powergaming can is in many ways similar to "hardcore" gaming. To be precise, powergamers crave for power through any means necessary, while hardcore gamers just spend a whole lot of time on the game itself. But I believe more often than not, these 2 features can be found in the same person. So I'll throw my coment about hardcore gaming in here.

SWG is the first MMO I've played that was actually fun for a casual gamer (lasted 4 months, till the hardcore-oriented Jedi came along). I did PvP there, and with complete honesty I can say I beat well over 70% of the pro PvPers simply because of understanding the essential skills and items needed for combat (around 80-90% solo). Other games such as DAoC and AO have ended in a month. I didn't even make 1/3:rd of max level in either of them in that time, and since level was all that mattered for someone who wanted to adventure and do clanraids without being killed, I concluded that the games were clearly not for someone like me.

So what I came up with, is a mixture of the SWG Jedi idea and the SWG casual gamer friendly system. It seems initially DDO will feature 20 levels. Traditionally the choice is a balance between either slowing the experience gain down to a pace that would allow a casual gamer to reach max in around 6 months, or alternately the SWG approach that would allow a hardcore gamer to play all classes through in a few weeks. What I would suggest is make a dramatic out-of-rules increase to the experience gain after a certain level. Not a fluent rise even, but a very dramatic one. As per the example I used in vnboards: If there are 20 levels, then the first 16 should be so easily acquired that someone who plays 2 hours a day on average can get there within a month's time (possibly faster). This would mark the well-known *cap* for the casual gamers. Then the remaining 4 levels would require a tremendous amount of experience. This way the casual gamers could experience advancement, power, and try out different race/class /multiclass combinations within a reasonable time. While at the same time the hardcorers would be given the essential few levels to raise their power beyond the norm, to truly climb to the top while competing with each other instead of the casual gamers.

Sorry for the possibly confusing nature of the text. Once again my mind was springing forth too many ideas and I was interrupted at my work too many times to allow for a clear easy-to-read text.

Edit: I have to point out though, that the stats MUST make a difference. I'd really love to see the size, looks etc affected by the stats. Looks are actually very important to many players, so charisma could be used add options to customizing one's looks. Facial features, hair, colour etc. And since experience will be quest based, what better way to make int and wis matter than to make the quests and their rewards depend directly on those stats? However, I expect you all already know about the 'twitch' gameplay in the DDO. As shown by a video where player's own buttonmashing skills saved him from a fireball before it even came down to reflex throws. Read the threads in vnboards for more details on that if needed.

 

I always thought the major weakness with the D&D attributes was Intelligence. I have always thought that weapons should have intelligence minimums and the to hit and damage modifiers should also have an intelligence component.

Someone with an intelligence of three should be limited to clubs and even then they should get a penalty to hit as a more intelligent opponent would dodge. There is no way someone with an intelligence of three should be allowed to get grandmastery in dual weilded katanas.

 

I don't agree. If some stat, any stat save perhaps charisma was 3 then obviously the effects from it should carry to anything the character does. If constitution was 3, I don't expect the character to have the physique to take the strain from making grandmaster level moves, for example. Intelligence however is not to be overrated, which is fairly common in "intelligence" driven circles such as SP (ok maybe saying that was a bit controversial relative to what I just said, but you get the idea). Skills, saving throws, lore and dialogue options as well as spells for spellcasters cover enough for that one skill I think.

And ultimately, if intelligence *was* reasonably included as a factor in one's ability to use weapons, then the other skills would have to be applied to other abilities more realistically as well.

It's the computerization that makes it not work properly however. In PnP our GM's often made it obvious that an orc with an intelligence of 6 couldn't have come up with the masterplan one of our players suggested. Which of course led to someone else suddenly getting the same idea. Which in turn led to the GM deciding that idea was out of the question permanently because it was suggested by an orc so stupid nobody would dare follow him. Which in turn made sure the player of that orc no longer spoiled the chances of the group by adding overly intelligent advice to the game, just as he was supposed to not to do. Etc, etc.

 

There is NOTHING repeat NOTHING that will prevent any and all MMORPG's today from degrading into rampant powergaming, pvp, clans, hacked characters, etc.

The best hope would be to form a roleplaying club that gets together and actually roleplays, but such clubs may run into difficulties from "clanz" that decide to go on a PKing spree.

Try as we might, MMORPG=haven for powergamers. And even if they did conceive of a way to make it hard to powergame, they wouldn't implement it because MMORPG's main audience is powergamers. As much as the developers may claim that they want the game to appeal to the "hardcore" or "traditional" fans, they would much rather sell a million more copies and miss out on the "hardcore" and "traditional" fans.

 

Agreed.

However, i do belive there can be something done to prevent or rather minimise powerplaying. I dont know about other people, but to me powerplaying doesnt seem to be fun that can last for a long time. For a few weeks or months even, fine, but when you get to some stage i suppose anyone would ask himself what exactly is he doing. Wasting time to watch some numbers grow (as Chevy categorised powerplaying a while back )

How long do you think powerplaying keeps fun for an average player?


@Foradasthar
Something of a similiar idea has been implemented on ALFA. Level cap is 40 as per NwN rules, but as ALFA was a low-magic powered persistent world it capped max level to 10. Eventhough the XP gain was as NwN rules set, the character could not advance to 11th level unless approved by the Dungeon Master. So even if someone powerplayed all the time to reach lvl10 in a few months, it didnt matter that much since he couldnt go on.
More work is involved, though, so reduced XP would make it much easier.

 

I think we might be looking at this the wrong way, some of us. The question should no so much be of preventing powergaming. After all, people will do what they want. One should instead concentrate on discouraging powergaming.

If one could set the game up so that every stat is useful to every character class in some way, powergaming would be a lot less obvious.

This could be implemented in a number of ways, such as making some weapons require a certain intelligence level to operate, as some weapons are more complex than others.

Conversely, one could require a certain amount of, say, constitution or dexterity to be able to cast a certain spell. Maybe this spell would kill anyone weaker attempting to cast it, or a less dextrous character simply couldn't make the necessary motions.

Perhaps certain magical items have a will of their own, and prefer a wielder with some charisma. Or maybe a person needs a strong enough will to make said item do its bidding.

My point is, there are plenty of ways to add positive incentives without trying to clamp down with an iron fist. If you're worried about scaring away powergamers, just do away with the restrictive level caps. D&D rules don't have level caps, why should D&D based games?

 

Simple solution.
DMs and lots of them.
Reward people for playing in character.

Change the XP system. The more of one type of monster you kill, the less XP you earn for killing ANOTHER moster of the SAME TYPE - rather logical since you would learn more from killing your first troll than you would learn after killing your 30th bugbear. Eventually after killing so many Goblin Guards your character would only be earning about 5xp a pop (never nothing! Even killing a monster type you have killed a thousand times will still grant someone experience of some type simply by having to kill the monster).

Disallow characters with low INT the opportunity to go on certain quests, the person looking for adventurers doesn't want a half-orc brute/idiot trying to save his daughter.

A character can only take a quest ONCE a hour/day/week/month (depending on quest) - promotes moving around.

Killing monster XP is dividing among party whereas quest XP is not.

Charisma rewards - extra XP, extra gold, extra items, lower shop prices (not a major change, maybe 2% for every 2 Char points).

Wisdom XP bonus (not huge, maybe just like Charisma at 2% bonus every wisdom point for quest XP and +/- 1/10/100 for every monster killed (depending on how much XP for the monster - i.e. +100 if the monster would grant you 2500 so a person with 18 wisdom would earn 3300xp whereas a person with 6 wisdom would earn 2100xp).

Also apply CON, DEX and STR to certain quests (i.e. arm wrestling, juggling and drinking games).

 

I like Fet's idea, and not just for an MMORPG. It's really easy to have such rules in a PnP RPG, but the great thing about them is that they're not that difficult to adapt to a computer game. Let's face it, back in 2E games INT was utterly USELESS to anyone other than a mage. Even 3E doesn't address this issue much, because it's sometimes easy to get by without the extra skill points, or by lowering INT to 3 (seriously, how many of you have built a pure warrior with more than that?).

But if INT had a more direct effect on which combat feats you could take, which weapons you can use, how good you are at dodging blows or wearing armor, which magical items you can use... then no one would lower his INT to 3 if it means you can't even drink a potion (animals have 3 INT. when was the last time you saw an animal with the intelligence to drink a potion?)

Now for the other side. Anyone remember Raistlin Majere? Why doesn't CON affect the number of spells you can cast per day? It would make so much more sense than INT or CHA. Casting spells should make you tired, and that should depend on your constitution, not how good-looking you are.

Betrayal at Krondor didn't have mana, or spells per day, or anything. It had stamina. Spells you cast take away stamina. If you cast too many powerful spells, you exhaust yourself.

The problem with all these suggestions being made is that they require a total rewrite of the D&D rules, and I doubt WOTC are about to do this.

 

The main problem as I see it is the DnD rules are poorly balanced for online play if you wish to prevent powergaming. Now I understand alot of people do like the DnD ruleset, and it's a good ruleset IMO for pen and paper, and even single player game. But for online play, it's poor if your main concern is how people chose to play the game.

Regardless of what cross class restrictions you put in place, regardless of what stat points you make important, or what skills, level caps, etc the developers have, there will always be ways to powergame within the DnD system. Hey, if all else fails, make a cleric or battle mage. Yes, the rules can be made more strict, but people will always find the way to the most powerful character classes, and DnD clearly has certain classes that are more powerful than others.

Unfortunatley with an open game like DnD online, hardcore roleplayers will have to learn to adapt and play along side jerks, powrgamers, and all around morons. And since game makers are out to make as much as they can from this venture (as they should be), they likely won't put in harsh restrictions on how people play the game. I don't think you'll see DM's penalizing, punishing, or baning people unelss they are real troublemakers. Running off paying customers isn't the motto of MMORPG's.

So what then would be a solution? Well I don't see anything terribly wrong with powergaming to be fair. Roleplaying and powergaming can go hand in hand with one another. So I would say instead of worrying about stopping powergaming, it would be more fruitfull to figure out ways to encourage roleplaying. Because as the heart of the matter, class mixes, xp, item hordes, or whatever else may be important to the powergamer won't discourage people from roleplaying if that's what they really want to do. What will discourage roleplayers is an over abundance of OOC talk. So I think the best method available to make the game more palatable to people who enjoy roleplaying as opposed to leveling is to put in some sort of system that gives real rewards to people staying in character. Whether it be gold, items, xp, whatever, put in a system where DM's can spend their time rewarding roleplaying with tangible rewards. Let people powergame if they wish, as they'll find ways to do it anyway. Worry more about finding ways to encourage people to stay in character so meaningful roleplaying can take place.

 

I'd say the only realistic method to curb powergaming in an honestly D&D based MMORPG is GMs and lots of them, as someone stated earlier.

D&D is a ruleset designed to require supervision. GMs must replace DMs since there exists no AI sophisticated enough to replicate this function.

 

CMF─I agree about DMs.

However, there are ways to make stats matter, and here are a few of my ideas:
STR ─ the character with low STR is a weakling. Even mages have to lug around their spellbooks, supplies and clothes. If you want to move from place A to place B, and the journey takes 5 days, you have to take 5 days' food with you. Simple as that. Let's say you have to eat 2 kilos a day and drink 2 litres of water, this makes 20 kilos. A high-level mage's spellbook easily weighs about 10 kilos. That makes 20. Add clothes to change and to protect from bad weather will all add up to about 40. That's all without weapons even, or potions. That will wear the wearer down. With low STR, the wizard will most certainly have to get henchmen, or go around with a party.

DEX ─ aside from combat, make a lot of DEX checks when regarding traps, or stepping on bush while in a forest. With high DEX, the character, even when not moving silently, should create enough noise to alert all the bandits in the vicinity. That should affect the frequency of ambushes in such a place.

CON ─ no question about it. A character with low constitution should have terrible problems with fatigue. Take that example from STR─with low CON to boot, the journey will not take 5 days, but 15, and the character will have to eat more on the way. This will certainly cause the player to think over dungeon quests─if you have to spelunker in a place for prolonged time, you'll definitely have to take enough food with you to survive the journey and the quest itself. No matter how powerful of a mage you are, you still have to eat, drink and move around. Not to mention poisoning (for example), falling to disease or eating spoiled food. If a character with high CON failes their Fort Save, they should still lose less HP (which they have more of) per turn than those with low CON, plus they should feel less pain, fatigue, and have less clouded judgment.

INT ─ whenever you see orcs with low INT, they will most certainly wield simple weapons. And use very simple and predictable moves. Even if they are at 4th level or higher─if a stupid fighter is able to learn proficiency in any weapon, they should at least have the same opportunity and amount of skill points for their intelligence. So, make the stupid fighters make stupid mistakes. If they wield a sword, they should forget (memory to be coupled with WIS) to clean it or sharpen it, thus rendering it less usable in combat and prone to destruction. Make such actions automatic and uncontrolled by the player, so they can't find rocks to sharpen the edge, or wipe the blood in grass. Same goes for moves─make the fighter fixated on hitting from above the head with his weapon, and hitting hard. If they hit hard, they expose themselves to another hit. If not in such a way, make weapon skill advance dependent on INT, and make some skills quasi-randomly disappear when the dumb fighter advances in level. When the player advances, they should only be able to advance in those skills that their character is fixated on, or has used recently. As for puzzles─this should be coupled with WIS (which handles perception). The puzzles should look different for characters with high intelligence (obvious patterns, visible clues around the puzzle piece, availability of a 'hint device,' or other facillitators).

WIS ─ difficult, but still applicable. A character with high WIS is alert, and perceives more. With low WIS, your long range vision should be blurred, and combat should be less controllable, as with INT, with higher percentage of blunders. Alertness feat should grant what's automatic for characters with high WIS─hearing of more sounds, more faint sounds, detecting lower contrast (could be made possible for the player to appreciate that thanks to graphics engine), better night vision (this, in turn, should be automatic for some demi-humans), etc. Of course, alertness should improve all these abilities for those with high WIS.

CHA ─ make it affect conversation choices. Make characters with low CHA have to choose from bad and worse replies from time to time, have them anger easier (WIS to play a role here), and make their jokes sound really bad in some situations, easily angering some people (like a dwarf-elf joke in a dwarf-only bar). As for shop price differences─I don't think it's a good idea. After all, a party would then need just one character to do the shopping, and everyone else would just tell what they want from the shop. Not as easy with conversation─any NPC can talk to anyone in the party, and the high CHA PC won't always be there to the rescue, and the low CHA one saying he's mute, and pointing to talk to the high CHA one will not be appreciated ("he is mute for a reason" attitude of some people and places). This is just an example, but WotC will stay away from any show of political uncorrectness because of their twisted principles. Oh well...

All this is possible, but will require a lot of time, implementation and testing. But it will pay off in all the players that should love the game.

 

To prevent power gaming and xp hunting just make the main way to gain xp = Quest "but then people would just do the same quests again and again" No they couldnt because they've done something in the game so every game is different, as easy as that

 

I have played only one mmorpg and that is guild wars. the reasons why are stated in the post above this one. I will wait with playing this one until I hear that those problems are solved. And that is the possible and only strenth of this game.

Why not items that are customized for one character like in Guildwars. after the kill an item drops for one players in the group. and only that player can pick it up. On the rare places you can buy armour, it is also for that one player. So no xp for killing other players, no itmes for other players and a log that saves who killed who(Playerwise)to be able to ask for dm intervention.

only once xp for quest, and no lingering in low level places after reaching high ones. a levelpenalty perhaps to prevent high levels chars to return to hire themselves out as hencman for payment.

as for the stats, use the point to buy system and set sharp restrictions.

 

I have played some MMORPG's most recently WoW. You can debate forever about if it's good or not but I'll leave that questiob to those who want to bother with it.

But I can't understand why it's called MMORPG, role playing game..... It should mean that you roleplay, right?

But it seems not I haven't played a single MMORPG where you even get the chance to roleplay. A more fitting name would be "MMO-action game where you gain levels to addict players".

 

(okay - sorry for the multi-month bump, but it's still the #3 thread here )


I've found that even many offline 'CRPG's in fact use that familar set of initials, but in fact mean something different than our beloved "Role-Playing Game":

RolL-Playing Game - a gaming system played through computers (on- or offline) that encourages players to develop playing avatars into stronger and more powerful adventurers by repeatedly performing actions that simulate learning and gaining practice, expertise and experience in the activity of adventuring. Often the 'character' has all the depth and personality of a vehicle like a car - customized appearance for the driver's (player's) tastes, but by no means a representation of a senitent organism...

Now I've played a handful of MMOs (note what I'm leaving off here ) and I find some deal with RolE-playing better than others. Typically the player has the desire to be IC ('in-character') before getting into the MMO, anyway, and the developer merely makes it easy to do so - some of the in-game player organizations like guilds or clans typically are made up of people more enclined to 'be someone else'.

In an average popular MMO, no - these 'IC' types are a minority, as there's still plenty of people who wanna take the Incredible Hulk and transplant Prof.X's brain into it.

But...if desired, it is possible to find these 'RPG with an E' groups within the game and stay more towards them. I'd say in a mainstream MMO, it's possible to get into IC gaming fully and what little 'munchkins' that are encountered can be overlooked...


"NEED GP PLZ", "CAN U DO THIS QUEST FOR ME?" and "CAN I HAVE YR SWD?" is a little more difficult to ignore, though...