by jcwitt

Created on: February 16, 2009

Tabletop gaming is, by far, superior to online roleplaying games. Though I do use both forms for my gaming experience, I have found that tabletop offers so much more as far as material goes. Economically, online may seem like the better choice, until you take into account the computer itself, in which case tabletop is less costly. Also, there is the graphics versus imagination question, which isn't all that hard to decide on behalf of your imagination, and with it tabletop gaming. Finally, comes the social aspect. A few people you know well, or a plethora of international people you may never meet in the real world.

As far as material goes, online gaming is a bit limited. On the one hand, there are so many different games you can play online. However, because of technological restrictions, no online game could ever compete with the thousands of possible source books that tabletop offers, or the rich background that only a close-knit gaming group can produce. Also, while an online game may have a great environment and storyline, it must inevitably be limited by its genre, while tabletop gaming suffers no such boundaries, thanks to the d20 system, gurps, and various other systems that can unite any genre under the same rules.

Of course, there is the price of using these thousands of books. With an online game, there is the computer (anywhere from a few hundred to several thousands of dollars), the game (maybe 50 bucks) and a possible monthly fee (we'll say 10 dollars). Now each book we'll round down and say 25 dollars. Either way, for maximum gaming experience you are looking at several thousand dollars worth of materials, right? Wrong! You see, unlike with online gaming, with tabletop gaming you can split the cost with friends because not everyone needs to have their own copy of each book. Also, and this is the best part: you don't need all the books to play! You can just make up rules if you don't have any books. Try to improvise with online gaming and you get nothing but a big box of lag and tears in your eyes.

Then we have graphics. Now, I'll admit, online games have some killer graphics. Even the older games look great, and their gaming worlds are large and rich with beautiful sights. Sadly, however, they are static. Once you've seen a part of the world, it will always be the same. Not so with tabletop gaming! What you experience and see is only limited by your, and your game master's, imagination. A beautiful city? Not if you level it. A terrifying haunted

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>