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Author Topic: How will technology change RPGs?  (Read 5272 times)

vikeen

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How will technology change RPGs?
« on: December 11, 2017, 11:40:02 AM »
Hello, everyone. I've been thinking about how about the future roleplaying games lately. Primarily, how will technology such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, or virtual reality alter the roleplaying experience as we know it?

Here are some of my initial thoughts:

* Knowledge and social learning will increase as people become more connected with technology
* Augmented reality will replace miniatures and we could see battle scenes interacted as a cinematic experience
* Verbal storytelling won't go away, but it will be exponentially enhanced by technology
* GM demand will continue to increase

How do you see the industry changing over the next decade or two?

Headless

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2017, 11:58:42 AM »
As we become ever more connected digitaly our feeling of social isolation and anxiety will increase.  More people will discover the joy and release of a purely anolog experience and pottery, painting, knitting, board games, and role playing games will increase.  

Some bleeding edge genius will find new an innovative ways to include technology into these and other anolog pursuits, they will be critically acclaimed but have limited appeal to most hobbyists.  

Chist Taylor will build a procedurally generated A.I. DM, which will be the most successful kick starter ever.  Players will quickly find it overly restrictive, absurd in a way only computers can be, and less imaginative than your average 14 year old.  As good as the interface is it will still be formal and clunky.  Some excellent DMs, like Pundit and Estar, will start useing it as an assistant to keep track of names, hp, traps and tables.  They will really like it.  The average DM will find learning to use it will be a massive chore and sucks all the fun out of gaming.  

There will be some genuine advances, like a smart table that can track analog pieces for board and minature games, but for the most part pen and paper is the peak technology for the hobby.

darthfozzywig

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2017, 12:12:09 PM »
Both AR and VR have their applications. Some people won't adopt them, lots of others will, and both will get integrated into the hobby to provide different experiences.

AR is better suited for traditional roleplaying gatherings - in-person gaming around the table. VR will supplant the Roll20/Google Hangouts-style online roleplaying.
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joriandrake

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2017, 12:25:14 PM »
Hm, let's see.

PC games can already have world emulation and simulators, although in a limited form. I can see how such RPG world simulations might become a big deal, especially if a persistent world.

Just imagine your standard fantasy setting. Kingdoms, demons, various sentiend races with their own cultures like dwarves and their undcerground cities or elves with forest towns. Without player input such a world simulated could already act/react in realistic ways, such as when food becomes sparse for a wolf pack it moves into human farms, which requires reaction from authorities. Perhaps a group of town or village guards are sent out to handle the wolves, or if the game world has an understanding of what adventurers are they might instead try to hire some adventurer.

The level of artificial intelligence will be damn important for sure as time passes.

Does the AI NPC king of a realm have a conqueror mentality? He might stir up trouble with a neighbour. Is he greedy? He might not be naturally a warmonger but might salivate at the thought of taking over the gold mines of a dwarven clan. There can be wars, peace negotiations, trade, political marriages, robber barons and so on without even a single player meddling in those.

Let me try being practical:

Players might in future still come together around a 3D holographic table for RP sessions, they would just switch on the display (surface) of the table and get into such a persistent world or a world/setting made specifically for a quest or campaign. The GMs might have less control over the enemies as they could already be 'real' and predeterminated. Perhaps the enemies could be granted additional resources or better gear, but in case a good AI exists the enemy leadership already has a personality of its own, the one they got released with by the creators and publishers of a module. (or they exist due to the natural passing of ingame time, and while the enemy is 'random' their parents or grandparents were the predeterminated canon characters)

With more tech it is more likely people will physically have less contact and play via internet even more, using either stream or if Virtual Reality tech is at a decent quality too, then meet inside the digitalized RPG world. As a computer can keep up with history and remember even minor events or previous characters of players who are already gone you might meet five years after a player of your group died an NPC who is a descendant of that player's character and the NPC girl he romanced before he passed away. A goblin a player team spared the life of might in such an RP world grow in power and have its own clan, and maybe as reaction to how he was once spared also allow a team of other players pass through his lands unharmed.

As you can see I mentioned GM control is likely to get less due to the system being more strict on rules, but at the same time gain much more power, especially in visual representation on what a GM can do. As example a GM might not be able to just flood half the world, but they can create a new city state which has a detailed economy, its own currency, coat of arms, construction style and law, then unleash this city state on the world which will then react to it. It might grow, become rich, or be annexed due to a political marriage. In any case player characters will have a strong impact if they decide to meddle in the affairs of that city, but the world will continue to turn even if no player is there. This is perhaps the biggest difference I can imagine for the future of RPG: In most RPG campaigns the events and characters wait for the player characters to show up to get 'triggered' and start, in a more or less self-operating world the princess won't wait for a player to rescue her from a dragon (nor will the dragon) and an orc horde which invades a realm might very well conquer that kingdom without players opposing the chieftain, resulting in the fall of a nation with strong cultural and historical background, but also in the formation of a brand new Orcish kingdom dominated by the chieftain which crowned himself, and now attempting to balance various factions/clans under his rule in an attempt to adopt the human form of feudalism with his dynasty on top.

Data being recorded in campaigns will also be much easier to be transferred and reused for other ones, as such the young elven bard you once played might become a strong political leader during your time playing it, but still be present as perhaps an elected king when he's old during a different campaign by a different GM which occurs centuries later.

What I really look forward to is how NPC and player characters would become more equal in power, position and given opportunities. How player characters could start dynasties, or how how a young street urchin girl's (who becomes a favorite NPC) grandson could also become a player character if chosen. One of the biggest issues (for me, at least) today is how NPCs are categorized most of the time as faceless throwaway puppets, no matter how much you as player or GM build up their personalities and circumstances. A more living, computer simulated world would make NPCs more important, even without considering the longterm impact of their actions and opinion of player characters.

The big question in case RPG goes this route of evolution is when the NPC AI gets so advanced that they become real mini people inside the program. When they don't need external programming and input for things like appearance or personality. Even today some people, especially in Japan care more about 2D anime characters than real people, so the risk at this point is high that players would also care more about their ingame families, ingame guilds/kingdoms/farms than their real jobs. Especially if the difference between NPC and real personalities ('souls') get blurred.


EDIT: Sorry, this got way longer than I intended.

DavetheLost

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2017, 12:51:05 PM »
The biggest impact of technology at my table has been in depicting the world to my players. I can do an image search and find pictures that show what the players see, I can find audio files of what they hear. No longer is the game limited to what I can verbally describe.

I have a friend with a company that puts on RPG events with full theatrical quality light and sound enhancements.

joriandrake

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2017, 12:54:12 PM »
Quote from: DavetheLost;1012998
The biggest impact of technology at my table has been in depicting the world to my players. I can do an image search and find pictures that show what the players see, I can find audio files of what they hear. No longer is the game limited to what I can verbally describe.

I have a friend with a company that puts on RPG events with full theatrical quality light and sound enhancements.

Yes, that's the present. We can browse ('google') stuff, use some basic RPG programs which also help with character/enemy placement, and background music (plus sound effects). However, I think the intend of the OP is to duscuss what we think is going to be the future of RPG not the present.


EDIT: Greetings Vikeen btw, just realized that you're new on the forum!

fearsomepirate
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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2017, 01:30:55 PM »
Quote from: Headless;1012969
As we become ever more connected digitaly our feeling of social isolation and anxiety will increase.  More people will discover the joy and release of a purely anolog experience and pottery, painting, knitting, board games, and role playing games will increase.

Yeah, I play TTRPGs specifically to get out of that always-connected rut. In fact, I have stopped bringing my laptop to gaming sessions. I was previously using Google docs to make campaign notes and store maps, but I've found that just the fact of having the glowing screen in front of me degrades the experience and causes me to connect with the players less.
Every time I think the Forgotten Realms can't be a dumber setting, I get proven to be an unimaginative idiot.

crkrueger

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #7 on: December 11, 2017, 01:38:31 PM »
I'm hoping at some point I will retire myself to a Matrix pod and spend my last years in simsense roleplaying games.  They can chop off my head and put it in a box, that's fine.  I'll just be Conan sailing with Belit (looking like, oh, Adriana Lima) on the Tigress until they pull the plug or my brain finally dissolves into soup. :D
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estar

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2017, 01:59:50 PM »
First off the general pattern has been that it is rare for a hobby to totally supplanted by a development of technology. Either one of two things happen with a piece of new tech.

1) It winds up enhancing the hobby but still continues on as much as it has been.
2) It winds branching off into it own thing.

For tabletop roleplaying this is illustrated by two examples

Computer Roleplaying Games - started out as a way of playing D&D on a computer (CP/M, DOS, Mac, Windows, Mainframes, etc).

Virtual Tabletop (VTT) - An evolution of play by chat. A whiteboard (to display images) was added to the text chat along with various RPG computer utility like a dice roller.

CRPGs spawned their own thing that parallel RPGs but never had much utility for a tabletop RPG campaign. The software that came the closest was Neverwinter Nights by Bioware but even there it wound but more like a MMORPG for a small group that required it own very different preparation and play style. Then there is MMORPGs some of which have roleplaying with other people but their flexibility is extremely limited compared to what a human referee can do with pen and paper. The same with CRPGs. The advantage of both is that they automate everything, often has great graphics to look at, and a person can hop on at a time their own choosing.

In contrast Virtual Tabletop proved a perfect fit with tabletop RPGs allowing groups to seamlessly so from face to faced to online game and back. While there extra work to use the whiteboard part of a VTT everything else is what you do when running things face to face. The main downside is the one that plaques all video/audio conferencing is that with only virtual presence it hard to feel like you are there with the other players. But on the other groups and friends who live far apart can easily get together for some gaming.

VTTs got a shot in the arm with the maturing of the internet with HTML5 and other technology. Allowing easy to setup server based VTTs like Roll20 to flourish. But advances in programming frameworks for games are also benefiting standalone VTTs like Fantasy Grounds.

My opinion that tabletop roleplaying is about players interacting with a setting as their character with their actions adjudicated by a human referee. Any technology that support any part of the above will get adopted by the hobby. Any technology that tries to supplant any part of the above will become it own thing and ignored by the hobby.

Somethings I can see coming for Tabletop RPGs.

1) Virtual battleboards. Flexible screen and smaller electronics results in a bar with a roll out screen that you put on any flat surface and display a gameboard. Prior to this will we see large format monitor designed to lay flat as a gameboard. Note that that we are in the midst and there are a variety of "almost there" solutions available. But all have a major cost factor.

2) Virtual pieces, while not as popular the above will work with either real game pieces that are stored separately. Or have the option to display on screen pieces like with the current iOS/Android pass and play board games.

3) Augmented reality - Physical game pieces capable of working with a interactive surface. Like Dwarven Forge it is a part of the hobby but not widely adopted because of the expense, prep, and inflexibility of the setup.

4) Virtual Reality - Virtual tabletop software now becomes immersive with the ability to put on a VR Google and actually look at a board and move pieces. Like interactive surfaces this is something that "almost there". Best example is Virtual Tabletop on Steam which you can use with the keyboard and mouse.

5) Computer Learning - Developed by fans, computer learning tools are used as roleplaying utilities that greatly ease preparation.  For example Markov Name Generators and Computer generated maps.

In my opinion true artificial intelligence is going to be remain 20 years away for a long long time. However AI techniques, like computer learning, will have a huge impact over the next 20 years. Basically software developers are becoming very good at teaching or having computer figuring out the rule and techniques to accomplish specific tasks. And synergies are occurring as people are mixing and matching these technologies.

For example the Markov Name Generator works by feeding it a list of example names and figuring out how to construct new words out of the names on the list. It does this for looking for patterns of repeated letters. While not quite as good as a hand tuned generator, it so much easier to setup that it is of great utility.

What all of this will amount to is that increasingly the amount of computer generated usable and complete material for use in a campaign will increase. Yeah some people will just use whatever is spit out 'as is' with predictable result. And some people will always write everything from scratch. But in-between the majority will do by hand only what they want to and incorporate the rest.

6) Better references - RPGs at different levels of complexity will always be part of the hobby. However advanced in other fields will feed back into the tabletop hobby to produce better references for rules and information during a session. Imagine something like Alexa from Amazon but tuned to providing answers during a tabletop session.

Depending on how it implemented it could be wind up as co-GM handling most of the bookkeeping. I think it will be rare to supplant all the dice rolling but I can see an Alexa type device listening to the table and being used as part of the session. For example

Joe the Referee: Everybody roll initiative!
Joe the Referee: Alexa record initiative
Joe the Referee: Alexa The monsters rolls a 5 initiative
Joe the Referee: Alexa Blackbeard the Cruel rolls a 6 initiative
John (Player): Alexa Luven Lightfinder rolls a 6 initative
Mary (Player): Alexa Aleena rolle a 4 initiative
Andrew (Player): Alexa Roghan rolls a 3 initiative.
Joe the Referee: Alexa initiative finished.
Alexa: Ready for combat, Blackbeard the Cruel and Luven Lightfinger both go at the same time.
Joe the Referee: Alexa Blackbeard attack Luven.
Alexa: Blackbeard rolls a 18! (sound of a weapon hitting). Does 12 points of damage to Luven who now has 24 hit points left out of 36.
John (Player): Alexa Luven attacks Blackbeard with his short sword.
Alexa: Luven rolls a 12 and misses Blackbeard the Cruel.

or

John (Player): Alexa Luven attacks Blackbeard with his short sword.
Alexa: Roll 1d20 and add +4
(john rolls an 15)
John (Player): Alexa Luven rolls a 19 to hit Blackbeard
Alexa: Blackbeard hits roll 1d6+1 damage
John (Player): Alexa I roll 4 points of damage on Blackbeard
Alexa: (sound effect) Blackbeard grunts with pain as you slash him on his arm. The wound is only minor.

Larsdangly

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2017, 02:01:37 PM »
A near future dream: Someone will finally put together an app that instantly resolves attack rolls in Rolemaster so you don't have to spend 15 minutes paging through tables each round.

trechriron

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2017, 02:08:37 PM »
Quote from: vikeen;1012960
Hello, everyone. ...

How do you see the industry changing over the next decade or two?

First, welcome to theRPGsite!

I really LOVE the idea of AR being used for a virtual tabletop. That would seriously revolutionize my current setup. I remember someone telling me about Neverwinter Nights, and how GMs could program custom games, and run them real-time for players. I would love something like this where I GM, but players could log in to my server and play a real-time, AR/VR game with me controlling the world like I do as a tabletop GM. This would be revolutionary IMHO.

I have a vast digital collection of books, and I find using PDF much easier than toting around hard copies. I do enjoy my library of hard copies however for reading on the porcelain throne. :-D
Trentin C Bergeron (trechriron)
Bard, Creative & RPG Enthusiast

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D.O.N.G. Black-Belt (Thanks tenbones!)

estar

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2017, 02:15:56 PM »
Quote from: trechriron;1013051
I really LOVE the idea of AR being used for a virtual tabletop. That would seriously revolutionize my current setup. I remember someone telling me about Neverwinter Nights, and how GMs could program custom games, and run them real-time for players. I would love something like this where I GM, but players could log in to my server and play a real-time, AR/VR game with me controlling the world like I do as a tabletop GM. This would be revolutionary IMHO.

Imagine sitting down for a session, and the ONLY thing you can use for maps is whatever you have in your Dwarven Forge collection.

That the downside of anything 3D like Neverwinter Nights. The best case scenario I see is a well stocked store that has a variety of creator types publishing collections that you can download and use. It will be certainly cheaper than Dwarven Forge but still be limited to only what in your collection.

Don't get me wrong, it may be a thing, but it will be own thing and no where near as flexible or easy to use as what we do for face to face or even a a VTT style whiteboard.

estar

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #12 on: December 11, 2017, 02:22:01 PM »
Quote from: Larsdangly;1013043
A near future dream: Someone will finally put together an app that instantly resolves attack rolls in Rolemaster so you don't have to spend 15 minutes paging through tables each round.


What needs to be rolled by the players as part of the process? It is one d100 roll that you can input in? Or players expect to roll multiple times for different reasons.

Because if it is the former then it will be straightforward to do with Inspiration Pad Pro. Pick the right initial table, just have the player make the first roll, input it in and click go.

The DCC RPG has something like this called the Crawler Companion The brilliant part of it is that is has two mode, one is have it roll, the other is called look up, where the player tells you what they rolled and you input the number and tells you the result.

Steven Mitchell

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2017, 02:58:36 PM »
Quote from: estar;1013042
Depending on how it implemented it could be wind up as co-GM handling most of the bookkeeping. I think it will be rare to supplant all the dice rolling but I can see an Alexa type device listening to the table and being used as part of the session...

That is where I see it going most productively, and anytime soon.  Only once all that is in place will we start to see some decent AI begin to develop, because the most useful way to get to decent AI is to begin by building AI GM helper routines for such a GM assistant.  It's a huge step to functional AI, and outside the scope of technology in the near future.  It's a relatively small step from a useful GM assistant to one that can make very minor, default decisions with GM ability to override when it screws up--much as you might start teaching a young teen to GM by letting them run a few monsters for you in your game.

The other side of that particular coin is that once such assistant technology is in place, games can be developed that run fine with it, but are too complex for a person to manage without the technology.  Some people will love this, and others will hate it--largely dependent upon whether they play table top games for the intense game or world experience or play them as a social outlet away from technology.  And a lot of people won't have strong preferences either way, as long as the technology works.

joriandrake

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How will technology change RPGs?
« Reply #14 on: December 11, 2017, 03:11:50 PM »
AI/Program will take over most of the rolls, that's already happening if you consider video game RPGs, but it will cross over to normal 'pnp' games too.