Why should they? That's not the job of the mechanics. It's not the job of the system. It's not even the job of the platform.

Yes, I can pretend to be the one-eyed dwarf who secretly likes elven cakes all by myself. But it would be nice if there were others to play along with. That is what I was trying to get at. I also understand this game might not exist, and said as much in the article to which all of this is a response.

And, oh yes, somehow having a labyrinthine abstract interface which doesn't actually represent the environment and doesn't give someone enough information to make decisions about which way would be more or less advantageous, and thus give them feedback in order to become "getting better at escaping danger" is superior to literally immersing the player in the first person perspective or third person perspective of their avatar representation and basing their "skill at getting better at escaping danger" to learning the actual environment and how to use it.

Ah, I think I wasn't clear. I love the "getting better at escaping danger" aspect of modern FPS and RTS games. I think they are superbly designed, but I find this aspect severely lacking in every open world sandbox style game with PvP I've played.

I'm not trying to be difficult. I apologize if I seem unappreciative or dismissive of the games you've suggested. Yes, I am looking for a particular type of game that probably doesn't exist: "Like a wargame, but where you create and play act a unique character. Like D&D, but more like a wargame in that there is player vs player conflict." Perhaps even where the conflict isn't the objective, but is a baked in part of the world.

This showed up in my Facebook feed last night: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/112107051/itherverse-fantasy-turn-based-game-dandd-5e-rpg-pl

I might have to back it.