TheRPGSite

I think "eclipse phase" could make a great video adventure RPG.  Especially if it takes place on various planets in the solar system, involves downloading, forking, differering gravities,  nano assembly the exsurgent virus.

Quote from: Schwartzwald;985367Any paper RPGs you would like to see a video adventure game of?

Why the fuck would I want to diminish the unfettered imagination of the tabletop roleplaying experience by reducing it to software-delimited boundaries?

Seems worth pointing out that Torment: Tides of Numenra is based on Numenera amd the classic Planescape CRPG.

I'd love to see the 1992 edition of Gamma World or the second edition of After the Bomb be recreated for video games.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985371Why the fuck would I want to diminish the unfettered imagination of the tabletop roleplaying experience by reducing it to software-delimited boundaries?

I dunno. Single player solitaire games that could be downloaded as an app to your phone with character uploads to your PC or a printer that also had a "Quick-Play" version of the rules could be good advertising. I think that Traveller/Cepheus Engine could benefit a lot from that.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985371Why the fuck would I want to diminish the unfettered imagination of the tabletop roleplaying experience by reducing it to software-delimited boundaries?

For the same reason there are video games I'd be interested in as TTRPGs... they have different strengths.
When transitioning between any media you gain and lose.
I'd like to see the visuals of something exotic like Jorune or Tekumel as a video game... hear the language and music and alien creatures.
Maybe have optional dialogue that let me get deeper into the setting. Deus Ex had this, there were surface dialogues that moved the plot forward, but many conversations with NPCs would go deeper if you kept talking to them... but it was stuff that might have been 'boring' to other Players in a TTRPG.
Also, I think video games allow me to engage in a play-style that would annoy other folks in a TTRPG. In Deus Ex (again) I beat the game without killing anyone. It took longer and involved a lot of patience... something I think was better done solo than with a TTRPG group, with some Player wanting to brute-force through everything. It's an approach that I might like to explore with a setting like Eclipse Phase or Transhuman Space.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985371Why the fuck would I want to diminish the unfettered imagination of the tabletop roleplaying experience by reducing it to software-delimited boundaries?

I dunno. Why would you jump into a thread with nothing useful or relevant to contribute to it and just take a steaming shit in it?

Oh,  that's right. Because you're a goatcocksucking shitcicle troll incapable of making a useful post.

Quote from: Tetsubo;985450I'd love to see the 1992 edition of Gamma World or the second edition of After the Bomb be recreated for video games.

I did a chunk of the sprite work for the FRUA Gamma World mod pack.

Dont know if it or the Famine in Far-Go module is still hosted though?

Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok could make a great action/RP video game.

Quote from: Simlasa;985463Maybe have optional dialogue that let me get deeper into the setting. Deus Ex had this, there were surface dialogues that moved the plot forward, but many conversations with NPCs would go deeper if you kept talking to them... but it was stuff that might have been 'boring' to other Players in a TTRPG.
Also, I think video games allow me to engage in a play-style that would annoy other folks in a TTRPG. In Deus Ex (again) I beat the game without killing anyone. It took longer and involved a lot of patience... something I think was better done solo than with a TTRPG group, with some Player wanting to brute-force through everything.

I think it's profoundly sad that the best argument for this may be, 'Because too many of the roleplayers I know suck at anything besides beating imaginary shit up.'

Quote from: Schwartzwald;985502I dunno. Why would you jump into a thread with nothing useful or relevant to contribute to it and just take a steaming shit in it?

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot you're new here.

One of the very few remaining noteworthy features of theRPGsite is that, unlike way too many other sites, premises get challenged. If you want to discuss why sucking cock covered in cherry syrup is just the bestest, expect the chocolate sauce fans to toss your salad.

Quote from: Schwartzwald;985502Oh,  that's right. Because you're a goatcocksucking shitcicle troll incapable of making a useful post.

Amateur.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985603I think it's profoundly sad that the best argument for this may be, 'Because too many of the roleplayers I know suck at anything besides beating imaginary shit up.'

Kinda, but it's more about enjoying the solo gaming aspect of most video games. Hogging the spotlight for some 'Me time.'
Like, I played a lot of World of Warcraft and while some players chased after PVP or getting to the 'endgame', I got a lot of fun out of the (at the time) complex crafting sub-game. Wondering around collecting materials, sneaking into areas beyond my level to get higher level materials... fishing in dangerous places. I leveled-up mostly to be able to continue crafting new formulas/recipes.
I could kind of see something like that working out in a game like Ars Magica (which has a Minecraft mod) but in a video game I don't have to worry if I'm being an attention pig by wanting the group to help my wizard seek out roc eggs and spider wine.
In a solo video game I can geek out on the details (or ignore them) as much as I like with no concern for the social niceties of a TTRPG. Not that I think the social aspects of a TTRPG are some sort of burden.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985371Why the fuck would I want to diminish the unfettered imagination of the tabletop roleplaying experience by reducing it to software-delimited boundaries?

There are blocks of what we do in TTRPGs that absolutely are not acts of unfettered imagination. Resource management subgames, playing with numbers until you have an optimal point, pure combat (whether attempting to perfect the optimal strategy given the mechanics of the game, or pure rote rolling dice). Those are all things that people enjoy doing in TTRPG games, but are not specific to them. Some can be just as easily done in, or sometimes even done even better, in a computer format. Some of them, like the pure rote combat, is frankly a guilty pleasure and we probably shouldn't feel bad if it can be done better elsewhere. :-P

Quote from: Simlasa;985673I got a lot of fun out of the (at the time) complex crafting sub-game. Wondering around collecting materials, sneaking into areas beyond my level to get higher level materials... fishing in dangerous places. I leveled-up mostly to be able to continue crafting new formulas/recipes.

I think a lot of the building things in a point or cost/mass/volume system, like making characters in GURPS/HERO system ( just for the sake of making them), or ships in Traveller (or even 3e GURPS: Vehicles) would probably be easier in a computer game.

QuoteIn a solo video game I can geek out on the details (or ignore them) as much as I like with no concern for the social niceties of a TTRPG. Not that I think the social aspects of a TTRPG are some sort of burden.

If that leaves more time when spent with fellow roleplayers doing the unfettered imagination part, it probably works out best for everyone.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;985684There are blocks of what we do in TTRPGs that absolutely are not acts of unfettered imagination. Resource management subgames, playing with numbers until you have an optimal point, pure combat (whether attempting to perfect the optimal strategy given the mechanics of the game, or pure rote rolling dice). Those are all things that people enjoy doing in TTRPG games, but are not specific to them. Some can be just as easily done in, or sometimes even done even better, in a computer format.

If you see the most important parts of playing a roleplaying game as charop and arena fights, then yes, computers can help you get your freak on, because crunching numbers is what they are fucking built for from the motherlovin' giddyup.

But a computer will not allow you to go off-script. Ever. Because it can't. A computer game is a script, perhaps massively complex and layered, but a script nevertheless.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985690But a computer will not allow you to go off-script. Ever. Because it can't. A computer game is a script, perhaps massively complex and layered, but a script nevertheless.

That's why, despite enjoying various video games, I always find myself, at some point, straining against limits that are not present in TTRPGs.
World of Warcraft looked great, had nice music, lots of fun lore to get into... but yeah, that guy in the inn has all of 5 things he might ever say to me. Once I'd done the quests in an area that's it... move on. Made me want to play a TTRPG version of the game (and there was one).
Still, the video game was pretty good at SOME things that TTRPGs can't/don't do so well.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985690If you see the most important parts of playing a roleplaying game as charop and arena fights, then yes, computers can help you get your freak on, because crunching numbers is what they are fucking built for from the motherlovin' giddyup.

But a computer will not allow you to go off-script. Ever. Because it can't. A computer game is a script, perhaps massively complex and layered, but a script nevertheless.

Correct. Computers are good at what computers do.

Almost from the beginning of RPGs nerds set out to recreate elelments of the experience via computer games. Adventure, Zork, etc. MUDS were perhaps the most promising form and I think it was Spinachat who said there's still some running out there amazingly enough.

Seems like the promise of more open and interactive PtP worlds in games like Ultima Online was abandoned for the more reliable resource management and numbercrunching of WoW. As always trolls were a major issue in realizing that kind of game too.

Considering the huge dropoff in RPGs with the introduction of CRPGs it seems that the combat and numbercrunching was the real attraction for the majority.

Quote from: Voros;985844Considering the huge dropoff in RPGs with the introduction of CRPGs it seems that the combat and numbercrunching was the real attraction for the majority.

Majority? Who knows. Is it an enjoyable part for many, a part that can be peeled off and separated from the unfettered imagination part and run in isolation (and actual isolation, as in you could play them at home alone)? Clearly.

As much as I enjoy the imaginative part of the game, I have no illusion that what we are doing is completely big ideas, grand stories, or an uninterrupted test of great skill. Yesterday I looked out the window and saw the neighbor kid bouncing a tennis ball against a brick wall, and a lot of RPGing is an equivalent to that--it's a thing to do, that you want to do, and finding deeper meaning in it is probably fruitless. If that part can be split off and packaged as a separate thing, more power to them.

What's interesting to me is how the gaming industry keeps shifting between trying to fill that need or to cede those only interested in that to the computer game industry and focus on those left.

A game done by a AAA company of Talislanta would be nice, with all that neat imagery to build an open game world, as Witcher 3 or at least the Dragon Age games.  It's really a question of table game settings pulled out to develop an electronic game.  Better for them to make up their own world that they have total control, though.  That is true for table games too.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;985902Majority? Who knows.

Seems pretty clear doesn't it? How else do you explain the massive decline in TTRPGs just as CRPGs grow by leaps and bounds?

Quote from: Voros;986101Seems pretty clear doesn't it? How else do you explain the massive decline in TTRPGs just as CRPGs grow by leaps and bounds?

Oh Voros, I know very little about you, but I'm pretty sure you know the whole correlation =/= causation thing. Much less even if we can link the decline of TTRPGs with the rise of computer gaming, we still haven't come near to proving the assertion that this shows that "the combat and number crunching was the real attraction for the majority." I don't mean to harp on this, but this is my education and my job, discerning what question we are actually asking and whether we have answered it. And what we have here is an interesting hypothesis, nothing more.

But as a simple answer (to the question, "how else do you explain..."), lots of ways, and more importantly, our lack of an other explanation does not prove a connection.

Or even simpler, if we haven't shown our work, we haven't actually answered the question (Trippy and the other educators here will be familiar with that one:D).

It seems to me that computer games overtook TTRPGs for similar reasons that theaters, radio, television, and now streaming services have supplanted each other... all while reading books for entertainment became rarer.
Not that any of those mediums provide precisely the same sort of entertainment... but people seem to favor the most immediate forms of excitement that require the least input... while TTRPGs and books are slower and require more from their audience.

There's also the social aspect, which must keep away nearly as many (more?) people as it attracts.
.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;986147Oh Voros, I know very little about you, but I'm pretty sure you know the whole correlation =/= causation thing. Much less even if we can link the decline of TTRPGs with the rise of computer gaming, we still haven't come near to proving the assertion that this shows that "the combat and number crunching was the real attraction for the majority." I don't mean to harp on this, but this is my education and my job, discerning what question we are actually asking and whether we have answered it. And what we have here is an interesting hypothesis, nothing more.

But as a simple answer (to the question, "how else do you explain..."), lots of ways, and more importantly, our lack of an other explanation does not prove a connection.

Or even simpler, if we haven't shown our work, we haven't actually answered the question (Trippy and the other educators here will be familiar with that one:D).

*hugs post tightly, never lets it go*

Finally, a glimmer of hope in the stygian dark.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;986147Oh Voros, I know very little about you, but I'm pretty sure you know the whole correlation =/= causation thing. Much less even if we can link the decline of TTRPGs with the rise of computer gaming, we still haven't come near to proving the assertion that this shows that "the combat and number crunching was the real attraction for the majority." I don't mean to harp on this, but this is my education and my job, discerning what question we are actually asking and whether we have answered it. And what we have here is an interesting hypothesis, nothing more.

But as a simple answer (to the question, "how else do you explain..."), lots of ways, and more importantly, our lack of an other explanation does not prove a connection.

Or even simpler, if we haven't shown our work, we haven't actually answered the question (Trippy and the other educators here will be familiar with that one:D).

Course I know what you're saying but there does seem a reasonable causal link here. No doubt there are other factors.

For instance I notice in reading people's memories of playing D&D as kids it becomes a common trope that by the mid-80s as the fad faded many kids couldn't find others to play witth, combine that with the nerdy loner syndrome and the attraction of CRPGs becomes clear.

Ironically that is why many parents these days like their kids to be into D&D, it is a social instead of isolating past-time (in the main) plus encourages reading and math skills.

Quote from: Voros;986264Course I know what you're saying but there does seem a reasonable causal link here. No doubt there are other factors.

There seems to be a potential causal link there. It is, indeed, reasonable. I am wholly behind it as a very possible explanation. Again, I'm just saying that it is a hypothesis, not something that we've actually established in any significant way. We have done literally nothing as movement towards the state of "does seem a reasonable causal link here." Nothing, as in we haven't even started the trip yet, let's not say that we've arrived, because that just makes us look silly.

QuoteFor instance I notice in reading people's memories of playing D&D as kids it becomes a common trope that by the mid-80s as the fad faded many kids couldn't find others to play witth, combine that with the nerdy loner syndrome and the attraction of CRPGs becomes clear.

This is evidence that the D&D fad faded concurrently with the rise of video games. This does not provide a causal link. Further, even if it did, that would just show a link between video games as replacing TTRPGs, not show evidence toward the assertion that, "[with] the introduction of CRPGs it seems that the combat and numbercrunching was the real attraction for the majority", which is the assertion I believe we're actually discussing.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985690If you see the most important parts of playing a roleplaying game as charop and arena fights, then yes, computers can help you get your freak on, because crunching numbers is what they are fucking built for from the motherlovin' giddyup.

But a computer will not allow you to go off-script. Ever. Because it can't. A computer game is a script, perhaps massively complex and layered, but a script nevertheless.

I run into this problem way too often over on BGG/RPGG and some PC gaming fora.
"Its an RPG because the units have... STATS!"
"Its an RPG because theres experience and levelling!"
"Its an RPG because its got a... DUNGEON!"
"Moving wooden cubes on a board is Role playing!"
"Its an RPG because Im playing a role!"

end rant.

The closest I've seen so far are a vanishingly rare few MUDs where the builders were trying to capture exactly that ideal of being able to interact with the environ. Still limited. But at least the effort and thought was there.

QuoteThat's why, despite enjoying various video games, I always find myself, at some point, straining against limits that are not present in TTRPGs.
World of Warcraft looked great, had nice music, lots of fun lore to get into... but yeah, that guy in the inn has all of 5 things he might ever say to me. Once I'd done the quests in an area that's it... move on. Made me want to play a TTRPG version of the game (and there was one).
Still, the video game was pretty good at SOME things that TTRPGs can't/don't do so well.

Right now all a PC game can do is automate the rolling and move it "behind the screen" as it were. Its still rolling dice or moving the minis around like a GM would (Though sometimes not as intelligently). The old SSI D&D games are a good example of that.

Quote from: Voros;986264Course I know what you're saying but there does seem a reasonable causal link here. No doubt there are other factors.

For instance I notice in reading people's memories of playing D&D as kids it becomes a common trope that by the mid-80s as the fad faded many kids couldn't find others to play witth, combine that with the nerdy loner syndrome and the attraction of CRPGs becomes clear.

Ironically that is why many parents these days like their kids to be into D&D, it is a social instead of isolating past-time (in the main) plus encourages reading and math skills.

The TTRPGs never declined. PC games though attract players who lack viable gaming groups. We've known that for a long time now.

What we do though now have are players who think that PC games are RPGs or that this is how actual RPGs play. Ive lost track of the number of players who were amazed and pleased to find a TTRPG and the freedom of it.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;985371Why the fuck would I want to diminish the unfettered imagination of the tabletop roleplaying experience by reducing it to software-delimited boundaries?

Beaten to the punch.

Edit: but I also don't  play video games and find it odd when grown men are into that. But whatever floats your boat.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;986566There seems to be a potential causal link there. It is, indeed, reasonable. I am wholly behind it as a very possible explanation. Again, I'm just saying that it is a hypothesis, not something that we've actually established in any significant way. We have done literally nothing as movement towards the state of "does seem a reasonable causal link here." Nothing, as in we haven't even started the trip yet, let's not say that we've arrived, because that just makes us look silly.



This is evidence that the D&D fad faded concurrently with the rise of video games. This does not provide a causal link. Further, even if it did, that would just show a link between video games as replacing TTRPGs, not show evidence toward the assertion that, "[with] the introduction of CRPGs it seems that the combat and numbercrunching was the real attraction for the majority", which is the assertion I believe we're actually discussing.

I did say 'it seems combat...' so not so much an assertion as a theory.

Quote from: Dumarest;986689Beaten to the punch.

Edit: but I also don't  play video games and find it odd when grown men are into that. But whatever floats your boat.

But its ok to play RPGs...

One moment while I open the tanker of sarcasm...

Quote from: Omega;987026But its ok to play RPGs...

One moment while I open the tanker of sarcasm...

Is one tanker going to be enough? What if miniature games get involved? Might as well just tap the oceans themselves...

Quote from: Omega;986626The TTRPGs never declined. PC games though attract players who lack viable gaming groups. We've known that for a long time now.

What do you mean by 'never declined'? From my personal experience I remember D&D being known by every kid in the early 80s and played by a decent number, enough that there were D&D clubs and the like.

By the late 80s only the hardcore nerds were still playing or remotely even aware of the continuing existence of the game.

By early 90s again outside of that tiny circle there was no trace of TTRPGs. I looked for an RPG club in vain for the first two years of university. I was aware and owned Vampire but there was no active scene in my town that I was aware of, no doubt if I had sought it out I would have found an even smaller group playing it, even smaller than those playing D&D.

Of course that is all the dreaded 'anecdotal' evidence I realize won't past muster in the labs of RPGSite so I'd refer to the massive drop off in sales in the early 80s at TSR as the fad faded. (https://medium.com/@increment/the-ambush-at-sheridan-springs-3a29d07f6836)

Seems TSR and later WoTC were able to keep D&D proftiable by playing to the collection-mania of the hardcores and pumping out more material than anyone could actually ever use at the table. But the numbers of people playing seems to have clearly shrunk and was continuing to shrink. People use to be able to have semi-profitable careers in RPG design, those days seem to have disappeared after the arrival of CCGs and the bursting of that bubble.

Things are certainly better these days, 5e seems to have arrived at the right time in the wider culture to get more recognition and buy-in from kids and youth. It also has brought back the older players who abandoned it when they hit university. Smaller RPG companies and designers have sprung up everywhere as the net has for once enabled instead of destroyed a market, even if it is profitable only in the most relative sense.

Arrows of Indra; for selfish personal reasons of course, but also because it would probably make for awesome visuals.  Indian myth is, as far as I know, an artistic genre that has thus far been underused in video-gaming, and that's unfortunate given how obviously well-fitting it would be.

Quote from: RPGPundit;988172Arrows of Indra; for selfish personal reasons of course, but also because it would probably make for awesome visuals.  Indian myth is, as far as I know, an artistic genre that has thus far been underused in video-gaming, and that's unfortunate given how obviously well-fitting it would be.

I've had some interest in Indian myth since I read some descriptions of Angie t Indian gods at war that sure as hell sou see like diesxiptions of nuclear weapons being used.

Given the size of the market, and the existence of Bollywood, part of me kind of assumed that they had a burgeoning video-game industry (probably brimming with not-particularly-accurate Indian myth), same as for Japan and the west, and I simply hadn't heard much about it.

GURPS, actually.

Would play the hell out of a fully mechanized GURPS rules combat-sim.

Eclipse Phase. At least a videogame would make it playable. :P

Quote from: Simlasa;986171It seems to me that computer games overtook TTRPGs for similar reasons that theaters, radio, television, and now streaming services have supplanted each other... all while reading books for entertainment became rarer.
Not that any of those mediums provide precisely the same sort of entertainment... but people seem to favor the most immediate forms of excitement that require the least input... while TTRPGs and books are slower and require more from their audience.

There's also the social aspect, which must keep away nearly as many (more?) people as it attracts.
.

Yeah, this.

I'd love to both see a video game and a saturday morning cartoon show of Rifts.

Quote from: Johnnii;988363I'd love to both see a video game and a saturday morning cartoon show of Rifts.

A saturday morning RIFTS cartoon would have been pretty great, in the 1990s. Today, it would be hard to take seriously, I think.  And I say this as someone who loves RIFTS.

Quote from: RPGPundit;988769A saturday morning RIFTS cartoon would have been pretty great, in the 1990s. Today, it would be hard to take seriously, I think.  And I say this as someone who loves RIFTS.

That's kind of how I think of RIFTS in general-it's awesome in the eXtreme!, and I love it, but don't take it seriously.

My own games, natch. But beyond that Eclipse Phase, something Traveller, Jadepunk and Remnants.

Quote from: RPGPundit;988769A saturday morning RIFTS cartoon would have been pretty great, in the 1990s. Today, it would be hard to take seriously, I think.  And I say this as someone who loves RIFTS.

It was called Thundarr the Barbarian.

Quote from: Tetsubo;988974It was called Thundarr the Barbarian.

I don't remember any Mecha in Thundarr.

Quote from: RPGPundit;989430I don't remember any Mecha in Thundarr.

They had a walking train engine, close enough.

Quote from: Tetsubo;989935They had a walking train engine, close enough.

It's not quite the same. There's nothing quite the same as RIFTS.