@thenomain said in Repurposing a Tabletop RPG for MU* Play:
And yet, we do. We love it. We want more of it. People over and over say, "I would love to play <rpg system> online!" that we should identify the challenges and methods of overcoming them so we don't end up with more WoD Tabletop Shoehorn Madness.
I'm going to say the dreaded words, Theno. I'm sorry. But I gotta, because... it depends.
I sincerely believe that sometimes it's not the system people want, but the game world. Again, WoD proves this in its own case: the tabletop system and the LARP system are very different; people enjoy both and many times the same people enjoy both.
That isn't actually about the system at that point -- it's about the world and it's general vibe that was made, because the system isn't the actual draw, as it's different in both.
You can even narrow this down further, because it isn't just setting and flavor (even if these things are bigger than I think they're given credit for in many cases). Look at what the game allows players to do. Not the mechanics of how they do it, but what it allows them to do. This is also a major draw for many.
For example, again, take the WoD setting. "I get to be a monster that eats people" is a draw for some folks. "I get to turn into a <something else>!" and "I can do magic!" and "I can be that human that discovers all of this stuff is real!" are the draws. If you set up a game that doesn't allow for their specific personal draw, those people are going to lose interest.
For plenty of us, "Be someone who has to contend with the realities of that different world and the challenges in it" is what we genuinely believe and what we'd intuitively answer. This makes it sound like that means everything is fine as it is on its face -- and it's true to a point, but what those challenges are and which people are interested in splits dramatically, and it's essentially the same as the '...but not... ' or '...but not without... ' elephants in the room that are being overlooked, and shouldn't be.
(Also, glad you didn't delete this post. It's a conversation I know I've tried to have here before and it's one I think is valuable for all of us to consider.)