Whatever happened to

[DeistPaladin]

No version of a story is challenging. It does not affect the imagination whether it is given words to prompt the senses/memory or pictures or videos or sound. The imagination can do it with none of these, and it can do it with all of these. I play symphonies in my head when music I don't like comes on the radio, and I do it as easily when I turn the radio off. It's a mistake to confuse challenge with anything more than lack of skill on part of the challenged. Find your own fun with what you are given

Maybe I haven't been clear. It is not the graphics or sound that rob from the creativity of RPGs. I enjoy computer RPGs as well and there are some good stories to be found in some. Others feature only hack-and-slash which usually bore me quickly.

My point is that even in the best of stories to be found in computer RPGs, there is little creativity involved in playing them as far as player input to the story goes. The story is largely set with only a few limited options for player influence. Compared to how the story is shaped in a face-to-face, tabletop RPG (assuming a competent GM), player input to the story is greatly constrained by the very nature of the medium.

Once as a GM, I made the critical mistake of taking a cool story from a computer RPG and applying it to a tabletop. The result was what we call a "lock step adventure". A lock step adventure is where every event and choice is largely predetermined. Go here. Do this. Go there. Collect that. Such adventures are inherent in a computer RPG, even with the best of stories. The players of the table top session even said so but the lack of player input made it unsuitable.

The "lock step" is a faux paus among GMs in a tabletop setting. In computer adventures, it's an inherent characteristic.