Wait - isn't that what games like Maid are for?

Quote from: tzunder;648504No, but people seem quite happy to roleplay within the constraints of the world, and eventually there will be bootlaces.

Not in this lifetime, or the next. You'd need to be able to accurately represent an entire world down to the molecule to get even close to what RPGs can do using just the imagination, the flexibility and open endedness which allows anything to be possible, that is the magic. In fact you'd have to mimic not just the world but all possible worlds, since players do all sorts of wacky things ad hoc. Bootlaces are just one example.

As for WoW roleplaying, I know a great many WoW players and not one of them roleplays their character, aside from the odd battlecry of  'Leeerroyyyy Jenkinnnnss', which isn't really their character. They are playing a team sport competitively.

Now maybe these rp servers are out there, maybe you can even link to transcripts, but to say it represents more than 0.0001% of the whole WoW population, or some similarly tiny number, doesn't represent reality in my opinion.

And even for those who do roleplay, they still can't find their bootlaces.

I can do more with a pencil, paper and some dice than the entire information infrastructure of WoW or for that matter the world can achieve. Of course the other side of that is tabletop roleplaying games are limited in ways that WoW isn't; you can't have a hundred people playing at your table for example, which just underlines that these are very different activities.

Quote from: tzunder;648504But the more I reflect on it the more I tend to agree that young kinds could really get the same kick from face to face gaming that we did, but isn't the real questions, how do we get them off the Xbox or Facebook and meet each other?

Easy, just show them what they're missing, highlight the strengths of the hobby. Well maybe not easy but certainly a departure from the heel dragging lower lip jutting nuh-uh attitude most major industry players have been indulging in for the last ten years.

Quote from: The Traveller;648510Not in this lifetime, or the next. You'd need to be able to accurately represent an entire world down to the molecule to get even close to what RPGs can do using just the imagination, the flexibility and open endedness which allows anything to be possible, that is the magic.

I do not believe we are that far. First, there were DOS, a command script environment. Then came windows, a revolutionary 2d interface. In the near future there will exist 3d interfaces with the ability to create or modify 3d objects on the fly: you will be able to give them interactive properties, like gravity, elasticity, toughness and resistance. There will also be the possibility to do this in an open and shared environment, real time. It is not that hard to imagine it really.

Quote from: xech;648536I do not believe we are that far. First, there were DOS, a command script environment. Then came windows, a revolutionary 2d interface. In the near future there will exist 3d interfaces with the ability to create or modify 3d objects on the fly: you will be able to give them interactive properties, like gravity, elasticity, toughness and resistance. There will also be the possibility to do this in an open and shared environment, real time. It is not that hard to imagine it really.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Cutting edge theoretical mathematics can't even solve the three body problem, and that's just vertical difficulty, massively parallel computations trying to accurately mimic every element of a universe that might be interacted with in every way it can be interacted with are not a short or mid term possibility.

Even if you could, the bandwidth required to bring it to the doorstep would need transat cable levels of throughput on every street. We can and do approximate sure but on the fly anything and everything is centuries away, you're talking about holodecks here.

And that's before you even begin to consider the showstopper that is artificial intelligence.

Quote from: The Traveller;648539You have no idea what you're talking about. Cutting edge theoretical mathematics can't even solve the three body problem, and that's just vertical difficulty, massively parallel computations trying to accurately mimic every element of a universe that might be interacted with in every way it can be interacted with are not a short or mid term possibility.

Even if you could, the bandwidth required to bring it to the doorstep would need transat cable levels of throughput on every street. We can and do approximate sure but on the fly anything and everything is centuries away, you're talking about holodecks here.

And that's before you even begin to consider the showstopper that is artificial intelligence.

Huh? Are players when playing rpgs interact by analysing physics of this kind? Interface is a tool to interact and communicate certain things. Obviously most people do not want or need to communicate about this kind of things. More simple physics like weight against earth is enough for 99.999% of people to play out or simulate. We are not far off to develop interfaces that will allow you to digitally create what you do in a tabletop rpg session on the fly.

Quote from: xech;648545Huh? Are players when playing rpgs interact by analysing physics of this kind? Interface is a tool to interact and communicate certain things. Obviously most people do not want or need to communicate about this kind of things. More simple physics like weight against earth is enough for 99.999% of people to play out or simulate. We are not far off to develop interfaces that will allow you to digitally create what you do in a tabletop rpg session on the fly.

It takes many hours of render time to create even simple scenes; even using monster render farms like Pixar does, the render time for every single frame of Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings was around 48 hours. That's not for the sum of his total appearances, that's for one single frame.

Are the problems starting to become clearer? The difficulties inherent in representing something as simple as a bootlace for the one in a billion players that might somehow make use of it once are staggering in the context of keeping track of everything.

And if you could reasonably accurately emulate a world in the same way that RPGs can, you wouldn't waste your time with games, you'd just fast forward a little bit to see the future and rule mankind with an iron fist for all eternity. Or more likely you'd bounce around a bit in your ichor because by the time we have that technology everyone's going to be either a brain in a jar or a godlike immortal sauntering lazily between the dimensions, exploding suns just to watch the pretty lights.

RPGs shortcut the entire mess by plugging directly into the biggest entertainment centre anywhere, the human imagination, and letting that run free. This even has advantages beyond a holodeck, since the imagination fills in the blanks in a very personal way for each player, a brief description can conjure up different vistas for everyone at the table, a hotline direct to primal wonder, shivering apelike creatures sitting around a fire enthralled at the shaman's tale.

It's a very different experience.

I been a programmer dealing with CAD, CAM, and motion control for nearly 30 years now. And I have a fair amount knowledge about the technology combined with 35 years of tabletop roleplaying.

When stripped of everything else Tabletop roleplaying hallmark is a human referee adjudicating the action of players interacting as individual characters. Every strength and limitation of tabletop RPGs stems from the presence of the human referee.

What distinguishes a CRPG/MMORPG from Tabletop is the refereeing is automated. And every strength and weakness stems from the fact that the referee is automated.

When you try to use Bioware's Neverwinter Night in DM Mode it become quickly obvious that a human referee doesn't scale well and a Neverwinter Night module is almost impossible for a human to referee without using the built in automation. At best it becomes a computerized LARP and would remain so even in a fully immersive Virtual Reality.

When immersive Virtual Reality are developed they will be more like LARPS than the cRPGs we see today.

Tabletop can benefit from computer technology but on a different path than what CRPGs took. Virtual Tabletops, and automated rule utilities are what works for Tabletop. Basically using the Internet as a sophisticated phone and whiteboard.

The wild card is the development of artificial intelligence.

Quote from: The Traveller;648546It takes many hours of render time to create even simple scenes; even using monster render farms like Pixar does, the render time for every single frame of Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings was around 48 hours. That's not for the sum of his total appearances, that's for one single frame.

Are the problems starting to become clearer? The difficulties inherent in representing something as simple as a bootlace for the one in a billion players that might somehow make use of it once are staggering in the context of keeping track of everything.

And if you could reasonably accurately emulate a world in the same way that RPGs can, you wouldn't waste your time with games, you'd just fast forward a little bit to see the future and rule mankind with an iron fist for all eternity. Or more likely you'd bounce around a bit in your ichor because by the time we have that technology everyone's going to be either a brain in a jar or a godlike immortal sauntering lazily between the dimensions, exploding suns just to watch the pretty lights.

RPGs shortcut the entire mess by plugging directly into the biggest entertainment centre anywhere, the human imagination, and letting that run free. This even has advantages beyond a holodeck, since the imagination fills in the blanks in a very personal way for each player, a brief description can conjure up different vistas for everyone at the table, a hotline direct to primal wonder, shivering apelike creatures sitting around a fire enthralled at the shaman's tale.

It's a very different experience.

A billion players? Tabletop sessions have half a dozen players and a DM. But this isn't it what I am trying to tell you here. As I told, it is not about representing life like experiences (our senses from taste to sight are too advanced for current technological standards), just recognizable, acceptable and aesthetically pleasing results of a number of interactions of the kind that a DM could handle. This, modern technology will be able to achieve in the very near future, if not allready.

Quote from: estar;648547When stripped of everything else Tabletop roleplaying hallmark is a human referee adjudicating the action of players interacting as individual characters. Every strength and limitation of tabletop RPGs stems from the presence of the human referee.

Not so simple, as I hope my comment on the illustrative powers of the imagination highlighted above, to say nothing of player creativity and flexibility.

Quote from: xech;648548A billion players? Tabletop sessions have half a dozen players and a DM.

Yes, I made this point. But their possible choices of action far exceed a billion, something that computer games cannot boast, and won't be able to boast for the foreseeable future.

Quote from: xech;648548But this isn't it what I am trying to tell you here. As I told, it is not about representing life like experiences (our senses from taste to sight are too advanced for current technological standards)

Treebeard looked pretty good to me, and that was what, ten years ago?

Quote from: xech;648548just recognizable, acceptable and aesthetically pleasing results of a number of interactions of the kind that a DM could handle. This, modern technology will be able to achieve in the very near future, if not allready.

Look, I just rendered Treebeard standing on his head. I just rendered him riverdancing. I just rendered him sitting outside a tavern with Elric, Elrond, and Druss, holding forth on matters earthy and esoteric, a giant mug of tree juice in his woody paw. It's not "good enough", it's perfect and perfectly visualised in my mind. And I can do the same thing with an infinite number of other choices.

Even as far as what you're saying, you still aren't grasping how massively complex the problems are in terms of technological representation. The bootlace was just one example, what about the blades of grass the character walks on, the footprints left in the mud, prevailing weather conditions, the bird that may or may not notice an orc hiding in the bushes, the observation that may or may not notice the bird, it's an endless list.

You won't be able to get the tabletop RPG experience from computers anytime soon, and by soon I mean possibly thousands of years.

Quote from: The Traveller;648550Even as far as what you're saying, you still aren't grasping how massively complex the problems are in terms of technological representation. The bootlace was just one example, what about the blades of grass the character walks on, the footprints left in the mud, prevailing weather conditions, the bird that may or may not notice an orc hiding in the bushes, the observation that may or may not notice the bird, it's an endless list.

The same techniques that allow storytellers, novelists, theatre, radio, movies/TV to gloss over the lack of details are available to those creating virtual worlds. The problem isn't a lack of detail, a skilled team can make the players forget that the details aren't there.

The problem is the lack of flexibility. CRPGs are more interactive than a movie or novel but there are bounds to one's actions. Tabletop RPGs are among hugely flexible because the ability of a human referee to respond to what the players are doing. This is the niche that will allow Tabletop RPGs to endure alongside other forms of roleplaying and gaming.

Quote from: estar;648558The same techniques that allow storytellers, novelists, theatre, radio, movies/TV to gloss over the lack of details are available to those creating virtual worlds. The problem isn't a lack of detail, a skilled team can make the players forget that the details aren't there.

Depends on the players I guess. But hey, I can count the leaves on Treebeard's head as he riverdances. Also computer games are very visual, and people for various reasons have very highly developed visual capabilities when it comes to distinguishing what should and shouldn't be there. These are not problems associated with storytelling and radio plays, the mind's eye fills in the blanks. This is a strength RPGs have over computer games.

Once again, I'm not saying computer games are bad, they are amazing at what they do, and very enjoyable. That just happens to be something different to RPGs.

Quote from: estar;648558The problem is the lack of flexibility. CRPGs are more interactive than a movie or novel but there are bounds to one's actions. Tabletop RPGs are among hugely flexible because the ability of a human referee to respond to what the players are doing. This is the niche that will allow Tabletop RPGs to endure alongside other forms of roleplaying and gaming.

While I broadly agree you're ignoring player creativity in this picture. Whatever, we're more or less on the same page here.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;648287Look, maybe this hurts your delicate feelings, or maybe you're just white knighting on yet another thread for shits and giggles. I neither know nor care. Instead, I'm going to follow the advice bolded below in this definition of you:



Mistwell, you're an idiot.

Allow me to once again state that I wrote the wiki entry on myself.  It was done tongue-in-cheek, and Jeff took it seriously.  But, if you want to create cross-board drama, be my guest.  I suspect Pundit will not like it, but hey, it's your decision to make.

Just kiss already, for Bane's sake.

Personally I would love to write a wiki entry on myself. But then, I thought, I really have accomplished what!? So.

Just a thought. These same Players/Gms that are playing the name brand RPGs, these are Dragon Slayers - and they refuse to try something new?

Quote from: StormBringer9;648369I may not have the largest retro-clone, nor the flashiest, but it exists, and is sold. Something works. It has already reached the European market, and India. Weird. The point I am making is that people need to stop treating RPGs like disposable creative systems the moment they get ticked with the mechanics. For the company, it is about major dollars; for the Players - read consumers - it should be about fun. Arneson knew this. Thank you for your attention

In what sense have you "reached India"? I'm curious what you mean by this, for obvious reasons.