After about thirty minutes of tile-by-tile slaughter, the party finally reached Kostas, the quest-giver, their only source for the directions to the hidden orc fort. It was after Kostas killed Brian that I realized that my faction script had now set Kostas to be the party's enemy. Too many deer had been killed, you see.
Scott, Jon, and Newton soon joined Brian and the deer in the land of the dead and the zone fell into a grim quiet. "You weren't supposed to kill the deer! Now I have to raise you from the dead and the module is ruined!" I typed as loudly as I could.
"If you didn't want us to kill the deer, why'd you put them there?" asked Scott.
"BECAUSE REAL FORESTS HAVE DEER! IT'S MORE IMMERSIVE THIS WAY!"
At that moment, I felt that the problem with computer roleplaying games wasn't the games. It was the players. They just didn't get it. Here I was with friends who were perfectly good tools for executing my storylines in the living room, but put them behind a keyboard and they simply couldn't be bothered to try and do what they were supposed to.
After a few minutes of further hazing, the group glumly agreed to try harder to play right. I respawned them and told them where the orc fort was hidden. Play commenced. Finally, the module began to proceed smoothly. The rogue found and disarmed the cunning orcish traps. The heroes battled through the guard at the bridge. They dispatched the first band of orcs. And then they came to the worgs. (Like all hidden orc forts, this one was guarded by a fierce pack of worgs.)
This is the aftermath of the battle with the worgs: The worgs are dead. Newton is growling. Jon, Scott, and Brian are silently wondering what the hell is going on. The confusion goes on for literally forty-five minutes.
"Why are you howling like a wolf, Newton? Speak English!" I demand.
"Grrrr.... I am lyncathropic! I have transformed into a wolf! Woof!"
"Newton, why do you think your character has lyncathropy?" I text.
"OOC: My avatar has been replaced with a wolf. I must have gotten infected during the fight and transformed!"
"your lousy dialup connection sux. u got a lag-bug!" says Jon. He's right, I realize. Newton's modem connection is prone to terrible lag. Somehow during the fight his game client has replaced the avatar of his ranger with an image of one of the worgs. We're still seeing his ranger, but he's seeing a wolf. It's a bizarre bug.
And we've lost almost an hour because Newton has been roleplaying the bug.
"Newton, stop growling. Stop roleplaying! Log out and log back in and let's get this module going again."
That moment was the turning point when I began to realize: Even with a hands-on gamemaster and a small group who knew each other, the unpredictability of the computer environment wreaked havoc. How, I pondered, could I hope to capture the essence of immersive tabletop play when I couldn't even protect the players from bugs?
Everything went downhill from there. The escape route from the orc fort took the players into an underground tunnel swarming with fire beetles and an umber hulk! The tunnel was another favored area where I had lovingly spent hours crafting and designing. The beetles fed on mushrooms I had painted onto the tiles throughout the tunnel network. The umber hulk fed on the beetles. A special spawn script created the fire beetles and caused them to trek through the tunnels, while the umber hulk (a very powerful monster) was set to a faction opposite the beetles. My thinking was the group would lead the beetles to the umber hulk and use them to distract the creature while they snuck out.
