Interesting article about "Mixed Reality" games.

Includes a shout out to using this tech for D&D.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/11/castars-latest-demos-show-how-it-plans-to-enable-tabletop-mixed-reality-games/

Would you use it?

A blending of Virtual Tabletop software like Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 with VR technology (Virtual Reality TableTop or VRTT) is inevitable.  But, it would take the reality of VTT software now, which is that if you're not a programmer, you're stuck with the base tools essentially playing 100% RAW, and multiply it 100 fold.  Are your elves tall Noldor like elves, smaller Greyhawk like Elves or anime-animalistic Warcraft Night Elves?  If the VRTT comes with one set of graphics, you're fucked, relying on others to do the computer graphics for you.

Minecraft and other similar "digital lego" games show what you can do as far as putting together a do-it-yourself approach to graphics and environment building, unfortunately someone would have to take that user-friendly UI approach, meld it with user-friendly form-editing tools and put it out as a cohesive whole.  Supposedly there's not enough money in tabletop to do that.

What will happen is various companies will come out with their own, proprietary VRTT systems, and some of them will include mod tools.  Maybe a decade after the first few professionally polished VRTT boardgames come out (which itself is probably 5-10 away) the tech will be ubiquitous enough that people will be putting together software systems that would let you easily pick from massive libraries.  We'll be rocking it from the old folks home.

Ironically, the company that has the heft to buy themselves into the God-spot with this technology is Hasbro themselves.  With a billion boardgames, Magic the Gathering and D&D, a universal VRTT system with graphics and rules packages to allow you to play their entire library of games on the VRTT would definitely make them the market leader and probably grab them up a ton of patents if they went for it.  Unfortunately, they would require such ridiculous IP licensing like $9 a month per game or $5 per day per game for access to the Hasbro catalog.

Second Life has that level of creativity and customizability and has been used for extensive VR TTRPGing. On the text only scale theres at least one complete translation of Shadowrun into a MUD. Unfortunately the admin are worse than abusive so no one plays it.

Quote from: Omega;895123Second Life has that level of creativity and customizability and has been used for extensive VR TTRPGing. On the text only scale theres at least one complete translation of Shadowrun into a MUD. Unfortunately the admin are worse than abusive so no one plays it.

Do tell.

Would I use it?  Well... no.  I stopped using miniatures and battle setups for D&D.  I want people to play inside their mind.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;895260Do tell.

SL? A very freeform builder MMO that allows alot of freedom to craft about anything. Bodies, gear, vehicles, environments, etc. I saw briefly a Dune zone (until it was shut down) and one player I know has an extensive aerospace museum with replicas of many aircraft and vehicles. Limited only by ability to 3d model or failing that build from the systems basic shapes. At least one D&D zone.

Shadowrun? As mentioned in other threads, a near perfect translation of the SR RPG rules into a MUD. Character gen, skills, races, equipment, everything. Also alot of areas created and NPCs to get missions from. Problem is the admin. Theres a reason (several actually) why only a handfull play it anymore. At the time I quit I didnt know just how bad off things were. Up to and including one of the admin using login data to stalk and harass.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;895261Would I use it?  Well... no.  I stopped using miniatures and battle setups for D&D.  I want people to play inside their mind.

"... because the graphics are better."

Quote from: CRKrueger;895103Are your elves tall Noldor like elves, smaller Greyhawk like Elves or anime-animalistic Warcraft Night Elves?  If the VRTT comes with one set of graphics, you're fucked, relying on others to do the computer graphics for you.

That's a problem with miniatures and cardboard heroes/FR pawns and Dwarven Forge/Dungeon Floor Plans as well.
Or with games that rely on lots of physical components, like card-based RPGs.

If the platform is good, it will be modded, I did that with wargames for a long time, and found that someone updated one of my old campaigns and ran it as a challenge in a wargame forum, which was pretty cool. I could totally see some sort of VRTT doing ok with enough support, most likely in another order of processing power, so it's down the road some.

Would I use it?  Doubtful.  A lot of the hobby's interaction with computing solutions involve expensive, clunky products with high learning curves, with the end users as unpaid beta testers, and a high obsolescence rate as the ephemeral companies making them go out of business or drop the line.  When you add up that these "solutions" are often for things we've been doing all along at almost no expense (mapmaking being one of the lead offenders), no thanks.

Nope, I don't want any part of "VR RPG Tabletop" for $500 from Fanboyz, Inc., in 2020.  I'll consider "VRPG 5 Pro Suite" from Apple in 2035, maybe.

No one does LAN parties anymore. VTT looks like something the Internet will over-ride as well.

Quote from: CRKrueger;895103A blending of Virtual Tabletop software like Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 with VR technology (Virtual Reality TableTop or VRTT) is inevitable.  But, it would take the reality of VTT software now, which is that if you're not a programmer, you're stuck with the base tools essentially playing 100% RAW, and multiply it 100 fold.  Are your elves tall Noldor like elves, smaller Greyhawk like Elves or anime-animalistic Warcraft Night Elves?  If the VRTT comes with one set of graphics, you're fucked, relying on others to do the computer graphics for you.

I share your sentiment. For me Neverwinter Nights by Bioware convinced me that 3D technology is of little utility to traditional tabletop campaigns. The overhead of creating custom 3D content is just too much for most for the foreseeable future.

It not the presentation but what you have to do to make the image what you want. 2D Art in contrast is far more approachable and more readily available. So the chance of you (player or referee) of finding something that matches your vision is several order of magnitude greater.

Now what could work is something like Tabletop Simulator on Steam. They are not trying to go for the 3D virtual reality experience but rather replicate bits and pieces of an actual boardgame. It incorporates 2D images like a playing board or a piece of paper. So it seems to strike a good balance between 3D and 2D.

However I think the key development is the maturing of Virtual Tabletops. If 3D makes an appearance it will be a specialized add-on like dwarven forge is to face to face. Not a central part of the experience.

One thing that could alleviate the issues with 3d modeling is the counterpart to 3d Printing - 3d Scanning.  For example, there are people out there taking old GW figures and scanning for a 3d Printer, and putting the datasets online.  If you had a way of 3d scanning for a computer modeling dataset as opposed to a 3d printing dataset, then you could take your entire miniatures and terrain line, scan it in and have it available for use in a 3d digital tabletop that people from all over the world could be seeing on their own tables.

We'll get there, but only after the fortunes have been made and the tech is ubiquitous enough to make it into open source models.  Maybe Hasbro would do it for their own games, or Games Workshop, or FFG, Privateer Press, Wizkids, whoever the god of minis are these days, but it's highly unlikely that any of them would want an open, extendable system, and without the IP sales, no startup is going to get very far with just the tech that needs a ton of self-coding to be useful.

What we'll get in the short and near term is a bunch of competing startups running around looking for IP licensing for extremely limited configurations.

Quote from: CRKrueger;895607What we'll get in the short and near term is a bunch of competing startups running around looking for IP licensing for extremely limited configurations.

I will admit I am pessimistic about the whole VR thing. What I see is people trying but failing. The 3D virtual reality will develop but it will develop similar to D&D on the computer back in the late 70s and early 80s. People will succeed in getting the rules working but the whole package won't feel anything like a tabletop session. But it will develop from there into its own thing from that point the first megahits will develop.

What I think is a more likely possibility is surface computing and 3D printing. You have a table that is in essence a giant monitor. You have physical playing pieces with encoded bottom or chips that interact with the surface. The 3D Printer will allow people to print the pieces of the game they just downloaded onto their surface. Just apply the barcode/chips and off you go playing.

The action for the next five years will be the VTTs like Roll20 and Fantasy Ground and the biggest changes will be in the support that surround the VTTs rather than the software itself. For example both Roll20 and FG have stores that make it easy to purchase and integrate content. The software will continue to evolve and I will leave myself some wiggle room by saying as VTT developer gain experience they may come up with surprising tricks that really work well. For example Roll20's dynamic lightning is a pretty sweet bit of tech. But it more work to setup.

Quote from: Omega;895123Second Life has that level of creativity and customizability and has been used for extensive VR TTRPGing. On the text only scale theres at least one complete translation of Shadowrun into a MUD. Unfortunately the admin are worse than abusive so no one plays it.

And there is Neverwinter Nights by Bioware.

Running campaigns using NWN (or SL or any freeform 3D RPG engine) is more like running a LARP event then refereeing a tabletop session. It not a substitute for tabletop roleplaying.

Quote from: estar;895611And there is Neverwinter Nights by Bioware.

Running campaigns using NWN (or SL or any freeform 3D RPG engine) is more like running a LARP event then refereeing a tabletop session. It not a substitute for tabletop roleplaying.

One of the main drawbacks is NPCs. A single DM can only control and speak through one at a time. Or move groups around unless you pre-code some paths and canned conversation. Youd need something like a LARP with a DM and a crew to play the NPCs. Though as mentioned in an older thread. I've met two free roaming AIs now. One was on a MUD and was very sophisticated. The other was on Second Life and not as sophisticated by far.

Who knows where we will be in a few more years.