TheRPGSite

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012998The 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!

Quote from: Headless;1012969As 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.

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

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 (https://donjon.bin.sh/name/markov.html) and Computer generated maps (https://mewo2.com/notes/terrain/).

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.

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.

Quote from: vikeen;1012960Hello, 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

Quote from: trechriron;1013051I 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.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1013043A 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 (https://purplesorcerer.com/crawler.php) 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.

Quote from: estar;1013042Depending 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.

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.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013064AI/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.

It will be very much in the minority. Everybody rolling their own dice too much a part of the hobby to go away. Early on Fantasy Grounds gain traction because out of all the first VTTs it got the dice rolling right by making it look like you are rolling actual dice. Roll20 is still playing catch up here.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1013030I'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

With your luck Krueger, the Matrix would be powered by FATE :)

Quote from: estar;1013067It will be very much in the minority. Everybody rolling their own dice too much a part of the hobby to go away. Early on Fantasy Grounds gain traction because out of all the first VTTs it got the dice rolling right by making it look like you are rolling actual dice. Roll20 is still playing catch up here.

A program taking over calculating dices would allow a game to be more complex, yet easier. See the other thread of discussing attributes/stats as example, a character could easily have 10 stats and dozens of skills while having an easy game without number crunch

Quote from: estar;10130426) 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.

AI helping in this area (it could also listen to descriptions given and such and figure out what to put into the GM notes for the session) would be a huge benefit.

Frank

@ Jon drake.  Estar.  Steven Murdock.

You are all wrong.  The more our lives become increasingly dependant on, and mediated by technology.  The more we will crave a direct unmediated experience.  

The GM helper AI will be built but most people will hate it.  

The AV support will be built, but games with that will never be as good as a game with a DM that has mastered description, pacing and flow.  For the same reason that a movie is never as good as a book.  

Now if we can get a universal income so technology can free us from the daliy grind of work (like it was supposed to) then we will see some truely amazing purely analog games as both players and GMs have more time to devote to leasure.

Quote from: Headless;1013090@ Jon drake.  Estar.  Steven Murdock.

You are all wrong.  The more our lives become increasingly dependant on, and mediated by technology.  The more we will crave a direct unmediated experience.  

I don't agree with you, but I do say just as much RPG will change the interest in classic LARP will also grow.

Quote from: Headless;1013090@ Jon drake.  Estar.  Steven Murdock.

You are all wrong.  The more our lives become increasingly dependant on, and mediated by technology.  The more we will crave a direct unmediated experience.  

The GM helper AI will be built but most people will hate it.  

The AV support will be built, but games with that will never be as good as a game with a DM that has mastered description, pacing and flow.  For the same reason that a movie is never as good as a book.  

Now if we can get a universal income so technology can free us from the daliy grind of work (like it was supposed to) then we will see some truely amazing purely analog games as both players and GMs have more time to devote to leasure.

I disagree for some reasons:

1. I am using technology now to play RPGs at all. Setting up in person face to face gaming is impractical for a variety of reasons (with a family, I can no longer host, my free time is a small enough chunk, taking even 30 minutes out of it for driving to/from some venue would reduce play time too much).

2. I use technology such as e-books (PDF) to make it easier to have my materials available.

3. I've been using technology assist in gaming almost as long as I have been gaming (ok, so the first program I wrote to try an generate some stuff caused a major disruption at my high school, the program was taking a long time to run, so I asked my sysadmin friend to boost it's priority, unfortunately, he boosted it above his priority and then it essentially got 100% of the CPU time for an hour or more, he couldn't even get enough CPU time to shut it down. I didn't have the heart to tell him the program's output ended up being useless after he handed me the large stack of output...).

I get your point that as technology makes certain things be less and less personal, we will look to our leisure activities to maintain those personal connections, but like me, many people will use technology to make their hobby fit into family life better, where the family life is the personal connection being clung to rather than the hobby.

Now on the other hand, my other significant hobbies I remain steadfastly hands on. Those are F&SF reading (real books, not e-books) and LEGO building. The LEGO building satisfies my need to have something to do with my hands and is also a major creative outlet.

So yea, some folks will keep to physical books, dice, and play props, but others will use the technology assist.

Frank

Quote from: Headless;1013090You are all wrong.  The more our lives become increasingly dependant on, and mediated by technology.  The more we will crave a direct unmediated experience.  

The GM helper AI will be built but most people will hate it.  

The AV support will be built, but games with that will never be as good as a game with a DM that has mastered description, pacing and flow.  For the same reason that a movie is never as good as a book.

That's why it won't happen next year, and why it hasn't already happened.  But it will get there, in some form or another.  The trick is, it has to be good enough to be both useful and relatively unobtrusive.  Otherwise, many will react as you say.  Heck, I work with software development every day, and I don't want tech at my table if it intrudes in the slightest.  

Think about a good pen.  That's tech that works so well you don't even think about it.  If you had to scratch all your notes with a quill and a messy inkstand, then the game for most people would involve a lot more memory and a lot less writing--whatever they had to do to make that happen.  When I had to type notes or use a very primitive word processing program to have such notes, I hand wrote almost everything, despite bad handwriting.  I only laboriously produced something typed when it was important and directly useful.  There are some sophisticated map making programs out there, and many GMs still scratch a map on paper.  I still do at times.  Stuff that gets used at the table has to be even less intrusive than that--to get widely accepted.  

Also, as this kind of tech rarely gets developed for games, it has to have some application outside of games, then get adapted to them. Otherwise, it never gets developed in the first place.  There is still plenty of technology room for growth in the "Notes and Process" assistant category.  In business, it could be a big deal.  Once someone does it, someone else will find a way to use it in a game.  Then it's just a matter of polish.  

You will always have a subset of people that don't adapt precisely in order to avoid most tech.  But even those people will generally use a pen.

Quote from: vikeen;1012960How do you see the industry changing over the next decade or two?

Technology will dumb-down RPGs further for the mass-franchise consumer. See Star Wars nerd sticks.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1013109Also, as this kind of tech rarely gets developed for games, it has to have some application outside of games, then get adapted to them. Otherwise, it never gets developed in the first place.  There is still plenty of technology room for growth in the "Notes and Process" assistant category.  In business, it could be a big deal.  Once someone does it, someone else will find a way to use it in a game.  Then it's just a matter of polish.

That's a good point, and an AI note taker for meetings is something that would have quite a good business use. It's utility for all sorts of meetings including non-profit companies suggests an open source version would quickly follow a proprietary commercial version if open source doesn't get there first. Open source of course means cheap and easy to deploy for hobbies... And easy to then modify to add the die rolling and chart lookup stuff Estar suggested...

Frank

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1013124Technology will dumb-down RPGs further for the mass-franchise consumer. See Star Wars nerd sticks.

Don't blame that on technology, that's purely due to the decision of certain people in certain companies.

Just come back from a pub basement where 3 weeks before Xmas, 4 different groups had all turned up independently (not a club/Meetup) to play RPGs on a Monday night.

It seems to me RPGs are going through a big growth phase, and Stranger Things (recently advertised all over the London Underground) shows where it's at - retro-social pastimes. This consciously retro characteristic means that many new hipsterish players will actively reject the incorporation of technology into their RP experience. They are RPing precisely NOT to be using tech. They want to relive a 1980s most of them are too young to remember.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013002... Greetings Vikeen btw, just realized that you're new on the forum!

Aww, thank you!

Quote from: Headless;1013090You are all wrong.  The more our lives become increasingly dependant on, and mediated by technology.  The more we will crave a direct unmediated experience.

Technology is a tool. People are smart enough to figure what is useful to them when they get together for a face to face session. If I wasn't clear before, the technology that impacts tabletop RPGs will do so because enhances in some way the way we been playing since the early 70s. If it works to supplant it then it will become its own thing like MMORPG, or LARPS. But the hobby will continue on.

At this point tabletop roleplaying is like chess, something that people enjoy for itself.  An example of technology that works with how people been playing chess for decades is digital chess clocks. Here is a rundown of all the bells and whistles of chess clocks (http://www.chessentials.com/best-chess-clocks/) these days.

Quote from: Headless;1013090The AV support will be built, but games with that will never be as good as a game with a DM that has mastered description, pacing and flow.  For the same reason that a movie is never as good as a book.

Oh for fuck sake, using computer doesn't mean it all about AI and replacing people. Yeah I am sure automated adventures will be a thing. But what you need to do make a Alexa style adventure is foreign enough to tabletop roleplaying that it will wind up being it own things. Just as Colossal Cave spawned text adventures which spawned Kinq's Quest/Ultima which spawn CRPGs in general.

If it wasn't clear before what I am talking about it is a voice aide for tracking and reference. One sense it is nothing more than a piece of graph paper or the Pathfinder combat pad  (https://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Combat-Pad-Paizo-Staff/dp/1601255470/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513097351&sr=8-1&keywords=pathfinder+combat+pad)in voice form instead of using dry erase or pen.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013129Don't blame that on technology, that's purely due to the decision of certain people in certain companies.

Star Wars is a terrible example, as it was a mass-market product that was nerded up for people who got obsessed with it.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1013124Technology will dumb-down RPGs further for the mass-franchise consumer. See Star Wars nerd sticks.

I can see that. Given that our hobby isn't big by normal market industry I'm not sure it's a bad thing. The more people are involved the more money can be spent to create cool things.

I see your sentiment and agree with it to some degree.

Quote from: S'mon;1013130Just come back from a pub basement where 3 weeks before Xmas, 4 different groups had all turned up independently (not a club/Meetup) to play RPGs on a Monday night.

It seems to me RPGs are going through a big growth phase, and Stranger Things (recently advertised all over the London Underground) shows where it's at - retro-social pastimes. This consciously retro characteristic means that many new hipsterish players will actively reject the incorporation of technology into their RP experience. They are RPing precisely NOT to be using tech. They want to relive a 1980s most of them are too young to remember.

Good point about the commercialized influx. I was speaking with someone about RPGs and DnD the other day and they only way I could describe it was in terms of Stranger Things.

"You know, that game they played in Stranger Things?".

As if the person had any idea what the game was.

I don't really think technology has changed RPGs, although that depends on your definition of RPGs. The most common role-playing experiences right now are chats held on facebook and CYOA's where the audience votes on the choices. The former function like glorified cops&robbers or cowboys&indians rather than a tabletop game, which inevitably leads to disagreements due to the lack of any real rules or conflict resolution system.

There are loads of apps which make running traditional RPGs less time consuming, but nothing which fundamentally changes the experience. Neverwinter Nights was a novel attempt to emulate traditional modules in video game form. However, it is prohibitively time-consuming to build modules and that only gets worse in more graphically intensive games.

Nothing can beat your imagination for building virtual worlds on the fly.

Modular construction in video game RPG development is already the norm, makes expansion and modification usually easier. Even the most simple forms of it like RPG Maker show a good system/concept doesn't need reimagination. I don't think when in future calculation and generation of content by computers will be even easier it would cause any problems to avoid content creation becoming time-consuming or too complex. Rather, I think the more updated the database gets the quicker we will get a detailed 'on the fly' created full setting, done faster than humanly possible.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1013068With your luck Krueger, the Matrix would be powered by FATE :)

You're probably right.  Full VR immersion ruined with AR Fate Point and Aspect Tags floating everywhere. :eek:

Now that I think about it, that's actually a great image/analogy to describe how those things can be an impediment to immersion.

As long it doesn't turn into Sword Art Online I'm happy.

How will technology change RPGs?

For the worse.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013343How will technology change RPGs?

For the worse.

With the exception of D&D 4th edition (which is basically a paper MMO) I disagree. The development or even the funding for RPG projects today, the speed of content creation and quality is all already positively affecting us (just look at digital art or printing tech as examples). I don't mind the last 2 decades of computer advancement making it possible to have games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, or Expeditions: Viking either. Not to mention mixed genre games like Mount & Blade.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013335Modular construction in video game RPG development is already the norm, makes expansion and modification usually easier. Even the most simple forms of it like RPG Maker show a good system/concept doesn't need reimagination. I don't think when in future calculation and generation of content by computers will be even easier it would cause any problems to avoid content creation becoming time-consuming or too complex. Rather, I think the more updated the database gets the quicker we will get a detailed 'on the fly' created full setting, done faster than humanly possible.

You give computers way too much credit. Have you tried building areas for a game with modding capacity? For any 3D game built within the last decade or two, it takes years. All art assets still have to be created by real artists. Randomly generated levels are still crappy compared to even the shoddiest handcrafted levels. Few people have the patience to finish such staggering projects, so the majority of mods either involve creating anything else or what areas do exist are very shoddily constructed.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1013347You give computers way too much credit. Have you tried building areas for a game with modding capacity? For any 3D game built within the last decade or two, it takes years. All art assets still have to be created by real artists. Randomly generated levels are still crappy compared to even the shoddiest handcrafted levels. Few people have the patience to finish such staggering projects, so the majority of mods either involve creating anything else or what areas do exist are very shoddily constructed.

I didn't think of modding per se (although I have some experience with that), I thought more about the likely release of DLC and expansion packs for such a system. Additional building/design styles (gothic, ect), regions, or monsters all made and published normally. Perhaps even culture/species packs with fully detailed AI character(itic)s and their laws/religion. Digital content would be pushed out for such virtual RPG worlds/generators just like how books are for D&D or Pathfinder (just examples)

At some point of course the AI would be so advanced the ingame world would develop its own cultures and construction norms.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013348I didn't think of modding per se (although I have some experience with that), I thought more about the likely release of DLC and expansion packs for such a system. Additional building/design styles (gothic, ect), regions, or monsters all made and published normally. Perhaps even culture/species packs with fully detailed AI character(itic)s and their laws/religion. Digital content would be pushed out for such virtual RPG worlds/generators just like how books are for D&D or Pathfinder (just examples)

At some point of course the AI would be so advanced the ingame world would develop its own cultures and construction norms.

Wait, what? I thought we were talking contemporary technology and trends, not far future gibberish! By the time we get to the point where it is feasible for GMs to create simulated universes I highly doubt our civilization will be recognizable.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1013352Wait, what? I thought we were talking contemporary technology and trends, not far future gibberish! By the time we get to the point where it is feasible for GMs to create simulated universes I highly doubt our civilization will be recognizable.

The OP wrote
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?

We're closer to AI than most assume, this isn't 'far future' just as small, easy to use mobile phones weren't far future even if people believed that in the seventies or so, and I don't think anyone would call DLC and expansion packs futuristic either.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013345With the exception of D&D 4th edition (which is basically a paper MMO) I disagree. The development or even the funding for RPG projects today, the speed of content creation and quality is all already positively affecting us (just look at digital art or printing tech as examples). I don't mind the last 2 decades of computer advancement making it possible to have games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, or Expeditions: Viking either. Not to mention mixed genre games like Mount & Blade.

The gameplay of any computer game is marginal at best compared to playing live with humans.  This goes at least double for RPGs; the best session of any computer RPG is barely up to a mediocre face to face game.

And it has harmed tabletop games.  The only advantages of computer games are convenience and the art budget; the instant gratification aspect of them has destroyed patience.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013361The gameplay of any computer game is marginal at best compared to playing live with humans.  This goes at least double for RPGs; the best session of any computer RPG is barely up to a mediocre face to face game.

And it has harmed tabletop games.  The only advantages of computer games are convenience and the art budget; the instant gratification aspect of them has destroyed patience.

I used video games because that is the closest thing to what  I can use as comparison for what I believe the future brings to pnp. We already use things like internet, skype, google, youtube, rollmaster, who knows what other programs to fill the gaps or replace manual work to make playing and calculating easier. People used figures for characters for decades when in my corner of the world we didn't even think about doing anything else than describing characters by word and placing them down using coins or caps.

I still don't see how video games harmed tabletop, I could say they're the reason why RPG even became mainstream around the world.

Placed down figures will change to 3D, perhaps once figuring out how to actually do it also change to holographs, the demand for visual representation will grow, just as digital representation for what events/situations happen which will move more and more towards a full visual representation of the setting including character/cities/world. The more or less simple character mechanics (abilities/skills/traits/ect) will start to become more detailed and complex while handling the numbers/data will be more and more the job of program/AI. The discussion which is going on right now in the other thread about how some stats/attributes/skills don't really fit due to simplistic nature of the systems will not be a problem anymore, and things like flying characters, speed or size of characters will easily be calculated for scenarios in combat or otherwise. Even the most simple questions like "Is the wingspan small enough to maneuvre around the ogre and fly out the window?" will have an immediate, precise answer as the system will become more and more a working and expanding simulation.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2013[/ATTACH]
I'm ready for the future of gaming!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013361The gameplay of any computer game is marginal at best compared to playing live with humans.  This goes at least double for RPGs; the best session of any computer RPG is barely up to a mediocre face to face game.

And it has harmed tabletop games.  The only advantages of computer games are convenience and the art budget; the instant gratification aspect of them has destroyed patience.

For my part I am not talking about computer games. Good or bad computer games are their own thing and the fact that now a lot less expensive to produce and distribute RPG materials, along with the OGL,  means that the hobby can move towards it wants to do rather than being held hostage to the whim of a few individuals who hold the rights to IP.

Among these things are figure out what applications have in a role in a tabletop roleplaying campaign. For that matter developing unique apps tailored to help with a pen & paper campaign.

@ Jon drake.

The glorious futur you imagine is already hear.  Estar has been doing it in his Magistic Wilderlands Campaign for 35 years did you say?  My internal art assets will always be head and shoulders above what anything but the best artists can produce.  
Gorm is right vidya games hurt table top.  They pull energy away, they pull players, the pull commitment and when you do get players you have to retrain them.  Table top isn't online, its very different, but seems very similar.  

However, everything you said will happen, but from the other side.  Seriously cool engrossing immersive and living games will appear, but they will grow from the computer game side.  The next big MMORPG will take lessions from second life and EVE online, as well as Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress.  It will be forward compatible with VR but the bug innovation will be it will have an excellent suit of content creation tool.  Making it an excellent platform for online computer mediated roleplaying.  It will have persistent worlds and factions and NPCs.  Your charcter will be able to build and destroy and create their own strong holds which others characters can then vist.  It will have AI GMs as well as human DMs running factions and NPCs and which ever company buolds it will learn to be hands off, either letting content be completely player driven, or have 1 author.  They will finnaly avoid the pitfall of design by committee and focus group.  



Unfortunately this will be very shiny and almost as good as a good table top game, and will have the convience of being able to play when ever you want from home.  It will seduce even more table toppers.  

So improved tech will be great for computer games, but won't help role playing games.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1013338You're probably right.  Full VR immersion ruined with AR Fate Point and Aspect Tags floating everywhere. :eek:

By then, you will be used to tags everywhere, due to AR;).
The only problem will be to distinguish which tags are Tags you can use, and which lead to an infomercial starting:D!

My son plays in a D20 home-brew RPG multi-GM 35+ player campaign over the internet....


They use a Minecraft server to auto generate and then sculpt their world (GMs+a subset of the players). All combat/conflict that is not with Minecraft generated monsters is RPG-rules based and done in chat, but all resource gathering and thus arms/armor making is Minecraft-game-world based using various plugins for magic, etc (dig up that iron, cut down those trees, build those sheep farms, enchant the tunic, etc).

He has at various times played the Vampire King's personal surgeon, the right hand to the Pirate Queen, tribal leader to a band of berserkers on the outskirts of the civilized land, and the most powerful fae blacksmith in 12 kingdoms. Starting from scratch each time & earning various skill packs from the RPG rules (some of which get implemented as Minecraft plugin mechanics) by doing what was required in the Narrative _and_ manipulating the Minecraft world to match.

I think my favorite was the Viking Longboat he actually built in this tiny slice of his town radius on the coastline where "free building" was still allowed (a Minecraft program limitation to avoid new players becoming griefers and wreaking the "wild" environments), in a secret hidden cove that had a view to the harbor. He could see when other captains were at dock, hide moving actual Minecraft items needed to build the boat to chests hidden in the area, and build the damn thing over a week (He needed my help lying out the keel line and placing the keelson block and mast). Then he gave it to the Pirate Queen as a gift and was on his way to becoming the "right hand".

Our kids are already doing this with the tools they have available. I was kinda shocked at how close to the Westmarches style he described it as.. each "town" has a handful of player characters, and a GM or two, and GMs would arbitrate whenever two or more "town" factions got into conflict over something (land, resources, etc).

What some forget there another major variant of roleplaying games thriving and that is Live Action Roleplaying or LARPS. And because of the demands live action and the fact you are working with dozens of people at a single event it is pretty much developed into its own thing like CRPGs. Related to tabletop RPGs but evolving on it own.

What VR has the potential for is creating a new hybrid of LARPS+ Computer graphics. But again it unique demands will cause to be another off shoot of the hobby.

In a previous post Minecraft was mentioned. What been happening in recent years is that a new form of computer games have rose that are basically sandboxes. Games like Rust, Seven Days to Die, Minecraft, and others don't have any real endgame or point to them. What they all share is that they are about throwing players into an environment and doing whatever the they can given the game rules. They tend towards "building block" type stuff involving resource extraction, crafting, and building. What it used for not really specified. Most have a mode where the environment is hostile and you have to build enough in order to survive. This type of game is quite recent and developed over the past decade (since the mid 2000s).

In the beginning there was just tabletop RPGs for all of this and most of that was using the Dungeons and Dragons rules. PvP, minecraft type stuff were all done back in the day by different groups. At least in my hometown despite it being a small rural city of 12,000 people. But as computer games matured and LARPS were figured, paint ball was developed, D&D and tabletop roleplaying were not the only game in town anymore.  There were better way for gamers with specific interests to pursues. Back in 1980, players going from campaign to campaign to kill other PCs was actually a problem that was talked about. It died down in part of the explosion of wargames like Battletech and later the advent of Doom and its successor really wiped it out as far as tabletop roleplaying goes. It happens but very rare.

However tabletop roleplaying survives because it has unique strength compared to the alternatives it spawned. Namely the flexibility of a human referee and the power of imagination to paint pictures in one's mind. It kind of like verbal storytelling, people still do it and there are still masters of the form, but there many alternatives like theater, film, books.

What technology gets used by the hobby is are those that work hand and hand with the elements of tabletop roleplaying. Anything else, if popular, will spawn yet another form of gaming and be it own thing.

Quote from: Headless;1013090The GM helper AI will be built but most people will hate it.  

The AV support will be built, but games with that will never be as good as a game with a DM that has mastered description, pacing and flow.  For the same reason that a movie is never as good as a book.  

Now if we can get a universal income so technology can free us from the daliy grind of work (like it was supposed to) then we will see some truely amazing purely analog games as both players and GMs have more time to devote to leasure.

1&2: this WILL happen because of the limitations of the media. It simply can not satisfy as a real GM can.

But it will fill in for those who wither cant find a GM or players, or other reasons. Same as how FU and Mythic work perfectly fine. But the player is taking on all the workload. Thats the same with things like any given online tabletop sim. The player still has to gather the elements and set the stage, or get someone else to do it for them.

Example Neverwinter Nights 2 in multiplayer mode. You still have to set down all the elements and code the NPCs.

3: What will instead happen is a magnification of whats allready happening. Lunatics devoting absurd amounts of time just to fuck with people at the emotional level.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1013124Technology will dumb-down RPGs further for the mass-franchise consumer. See Star Wars nerd sticks.

Thats largely because to make a fast buck people are slapping the term RPG on things that arent. And on things that absolutely are not. Or because they have stretched the term to the point its literally "everything on earth" and has lost any meaning. This happens alot over at BGG and I've about given up trying to explain why someones board game is NOT and RPG sumply because the units have... stats... or something else absurd.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013343How will technology change RPGs?

For the worse.

Depends. Remember those old Dragonbone electronic dice? Or the articles in Dragon for simple programs to track certain things. Little stuff like that can work as it either is just a new form of the same thing. Or is a helper to free the DM up or just to handle some bookkeeping.

Its when you need a phone and an app just to play a game that it starts to impact negatively. A few weeks ago we had no less than two brainiacs wanting to sell their boadgame game with no rulebook. You'd have to download it or app it. The general response was "No Rules. (in the box) no Sale."

We've also several times pointed out that apps are notoriously short lived sometimes, as are sometimes web sites, and if the app or PDF is gone then you now have a potentially useless game. Mansions of Madness re-release got some flack for that as they locked off part of the game on an app.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1013347You give computers way too much credit. Have you tried building areas for a game with modding capacity? For any 3D game built within the last decade or two, it takes years. All art assets still have to be created by real artists. Randomly generated levels are still crappy compared to even the shoddiest handcrafted levels. Few people have the patience to finish such staggering projects, so the majority of mods either involve creating anything else or what areas do exist are very shoddily constructed.

It took me about a month to recreate Keep on the Borderlands in Minecraft to scale. Digging, placing blocks, landscaping and then decorating within the limits of the system. And thats just the keep and the caves and the road between.

Quote from: Omega;1013490It took me about a month to recreate Keep on the Borderlands in Minecraft to scale. Digging, placing blocks, landscaping and then decorating within the limits of the system. And thats just the keep and the caves and the road between.

Minecraft has deliberately simplistic graphics intended to foster relatively rapid building of areas. Skyrim not so much.

Quote from: Omega;1013490It took me about a month to recreate Keep on the Borderlands in Minecraft to scale. Digging, placing blocks, landscaping and then decorating within the limits of the system. And thats just the keep and the caves and the road between.

Imagine how much it would take for a proper AI to do all that with a better quality, more complex system. 10 minutes?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1013515Minecraft has deliberately simplistic graphics intended to foster relatively rapid building of areas. Skyrim not so much.

No. I meant it took me a month to build it. As in, a long time. Minecraft might have simplistic graphics but you still have to lay down every brick by, virtual, hand.

That though is very different from building things in 3d graphics. And a different skillset. One of my players dabbled in it for Halflife wayyyyy back and the results were often hilarious in unexpected ways. And really detailed 3d items takes some work even with task saving tricks. But it can really pay off.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013519Imagine how much it would take for a proper AI to do all that with a better quality, more complex system. 10 minutes?

Theres actually one or two existing techs that can do that without the AI. Though only for the general landscape and layout. And another that might be able to embellish the landscape. You dont need an AI. you just need programs able to apply the textures where indicated and possibly an RNG to spice things up.

An AI youd want for different tasks like an AI GM that can assemble an adventure and landscape on its own. Something like the Star Trek holodecks. But for VR.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013361The gameplay of any computer game is marginal at best compared to playing live with humans.  This goes at least double for RPGs; the best session of any computer RPG is barely up to a mediocre face to face game.

And it has harmed tabletop games.  The only advantages of computer games are convenience and the art budget; the instant gratification aspect of them has destroyed patience.

^This...in spades.

The way I see it, the only worthwhile benefit of technology to tabletop RPGs is better printing capabilities to get more quality books and materials produced. That's where it ends.

Quote from: Omega;1013525Theres actually one or two existing techs that can do that without the AI. Though only for the general landscape and layout. And another that might be able to embellish the landscape. You dont need an AI. you just need programs able to apply the textures where indicated and possibly an RNG to spice things up.

An AI youd want for different tasks like an AI GM that can assemble an adventure and landscape on its own. Something like the Star Trek holodecks. But for VR.

IMO an AI for an RPG setting/world system would be something like a goddess of that world. Being able to create or change landscape, NPC civilizations while calculating everything for specific characters and encounters up to battles, 'natural' catastrophies and whole population migrations. At this scale I don't think there is a need for multiple programs or AI, just that one.

Quote from: Omega;1013523No. I meant it took me a month to build it. As in, a long time. Minecraft might have simplistic graphics but you still have to lay down every brick by, virtual, hand.

I never thought otherwise. Landscaping in 3D games made a decade ago still takes years for anyone not being paid to make it.

Quote from: vikeen;1012960Hello, 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?

I already use programs I've coded to augment my GM experience. I use them to random roll NPC actions in combat, resolve my dice rolls (for exploding dice games, so useful!), dynamic initiative roster and a combination of those three so essentially the battle is running itself from my end. This is awesome because it relieves me of think time spent on number crunching (which is still one of my favorite bits of RPGs!) and more on tactical play against the PCs. And I can favor certain actions over others by providing a wider spread of numbers for a given outcome I desire (so 1-3 are "Attack" instead of just 1).

Other than that, AR is where it's at. You want to augment the experience at the table and providing stuff like stat overlays, condition-based auto-rollers or game logs is what will bring the money (and commerce will drive this, make no mistake). That shit in games like Shadowrun, WH40KRP,  VR and the like aren't gonna produce stuff that enhances the TT experience. It'll just compete with it.

Quote from: joriandrake;1012981[...]Especially if the difference between NPC and real personalities ('souls') get blurred.


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

You started describing BTL chips at some point in there, hah hah. Not the future I'd like...

I don't see really any of this happening. It's not functional. It needs to be functional and utility-based. Once you get to a point where you have game AI in your TT game, you've effectively relegated the TT part of the game to being an overlay in and of itself. It would be totally unnecessary. You've effectively made a more complex version of The Sims.

Quote from: estar;1013042[...]Alexa: (sound effect) Blackbeard grunts with pain as you slash him on his arm. The wound is only minor.

I already do some of this for my own games. They are crude programs but they get the job done for me personally. It's very utility-based. Anything further than this detracts from the experience (and obviously, we all want to avoid that).

In fact, it's made it so with my logger that some of my "questioner" players don't bother challenging me when they don't like getting hit because they'll see the dice they were up against and everything is auto-calc'd so there's no chance for "human error" (please... you made a combat beast rolling 17 dice and yet didn't invest in decent defence options...).

Quote from: CRKrueger;1013030I'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

Just head down to SoCal and ask for the local outreach branch of any prominent drug cartels. They'll do you an offer on headchopping and mailing it to your relatives at the same price as a headchopping w/ free postage!

(Just kidding! It's gorgeous over there)

Quote from: Headless;1013090@ Jon drake.  Estar.  Steven Murdock.

You are all wrong.  The more our lives become increasingly dependant on, and mediated by technology.  The more we will crave a direct unmediated experience.  

The GM helper AI will be built but most people will hate it.  

The AV support will be built, but games with that will never be as good as a game with a DM that has mastered description, pacing and flow.  For the same reason that a movie is never as good as a book.  

Now if we can get a universal income so technology can free us from the daliy grind of work (like it was supposed to) then we will see some truely amazing purely analog games as both players and GMs have more time to devote to leasure.

What kind of Dark Eldar shit is this?

Quote from: S'mon;1013130Just come back from a pub basement where 3 weeks before Xmas, 4 different groups had all turned up independently (not a club/Meetup) to play RPGs on a Monday night.

It seems to me RPGs are going through a big growth phase, and Stranger Things (recently advertised all over the London Underground) shows where it's at - retro-social pastimes. This consciously retro characteristic means that many new hipsterish players will actively reject the incorporation of technology into their RP experience. They are RPing precisely NOT to be using tech. They want to relive a 1980s most of them are too young to remember.

Advertised right next to swap-meet apps, questionable cold medicines and christmas films starring notorious anti-semites...

But seriously, I'm not sure I 100% agree on the retro thing. That's more of an aesthetic detail than a core practical one. It just comes down to the fact that RPGs are going through another renaissance right now but it's not the systems but the image, CR and market that is. Online RPG series like Critical Role help major time with this but those only attract people who were already interested in trying the hobby or are pretty nerdy already. Big Bang Theory doing Christmas specials with D&D games is what garners mainstream attention and enhances the image of the game away from basement-dweller stuff.

Quote from: estar;1013281[...]Oh for fuck sake, using computer doesn't mean it all about AI and replacing people. Yeah I am sure automated adventures will be a thing.[...]

Yep, exactly.

Quote from: vikeen;1013285Good point about the commercialized influx. I was speaking with someone about RPGs and DnD the other day and they only way I could describe it was in terms of Stranger Things.

"You know, that game they played in Stranger Things?".

As if the person had any idea what the game was.

^ This

Additionally, I've gotten pretty good at describing what RPGs are to people. If they seem game, I tend to load up an RNG on my phone and just run them through a 10sec scenario with a couple rolls and two stats. 'Instantly get what it is and always get a positive reception. The problem with RPGs is they seem arcane to most people, including other nerds who only know computer games or comic stuff or other different parts of the culture. Hell, before I got my very first RPG in the form of the NWOD blue book, I had no fucking idea what TTRPGs were but then I'm that guy who will actually get out of my comfort zone and explore and try things out.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013345With the exception of D&D 4th edition (which is basically a paper MMO) I disagree. The development or even the funding for RPG projects today, the speed of content creation and quality is all already positively affecting us (just look at digital art or printing tech as examples). I don't mind the last 2 decades of computer advancement making it possible to have games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, or Expeditions: Viking either. Not to mention mixed genre games like Mount & Blade.

Games like Baldur's Gate aren't really RPGs. They are small-scale tactical combat games with RPG elements. They focus on combat, primarily to the exclusion of everything else. Not to mention modern CRPGs don't even really "do" stats anymore. Sports games like NBA2K are closer to RPGs these days (and have been for a long time) because EVERY stat in those games matter to your character's performance and affect the long-term gameplay and choices (and that's just in the career mode) far more than useless dump stat syndrome.

That said, you should check out Age of Decadence. I think everyone who's an RPG aficionado should do so. It is totally possible to have a non-combat run through that entire game and that is for multiple types of characters, not just one. And it's actually properly satisfying, which is rare. The more non-combat options and paths through the game, the closer to an actual TTRPG a CRPG gets. I've just finished replaying it and I tried most each of the classes starting missions and it's great how much the gameplay focus and narrative changes depending on your choice.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013373[...]will have an immediate, precise answer as the system will become more and more a working and expanding simulation.

RPGs aren't mainstream yet. Not by a longshot. But it's getting there, slowly. Having people trained to be charming and personable playing the game in web/tv series helps a lot in this regard.

Again, anything that provide tools to mitigate the admin and number crunching and that can provide random generators of stuff like names is where it's at and what will drive the next decade. Adventure Lookup (https://www.adventurelookup.com/adventures/)-type programs are another great example of utility-focused stuff that people will pay money for if done up profess

Quote from: Telarus;1013423[...] factions got into conflict over something (land, resources, etc).

Games like WURM revolved around this entire focus. I played that MANY years ago (like 2009/2010-ish) and it was a really rough diamond then (have no idea what it's like these days, haven't played it since) but the power of the group and the organizing of many individuals for a common purpose made you so powerful. As it was crafting-focused and had survival elements, it was life and death to ensure you knew or had someone who could bake bread and stitch clothing well and reliably or you wouldn't last very long. And then you had to feed the dudes who farmed and mine raw resources otherwise they wouldn't help you. It was a very Settlers-style 3D MMO game and it was so unique to everything else. Combat was deadly and only a handful ended up focusing on it (because like warrior classes in real-life, you need support structure in power to feed and clothe you!) I ended up leading my own faction numbering about a dozen people and we had to keep our base a secret (which we'd found exploring the mountainside), otherwise we'd be raided and our stuff stolen (because items weren't lockable unless you had chests and those took a lot of resources/time to make and were locked to players, not groups) and for awhile we didn't have decent fighters to insta-kill opportunists.

Quote from: estar;1013458What some forget there another major variant of roleplaying games thriving and that is Live Action Roleplaying or LARPS. And because of the demands live action and the fact you are working with dozens of people at a single event it is pretty much developed into its own thing like CRPGs. Related to tabletop RPGs but evolving on it own.

[...]

In the beginning there was just tabletop RPGs for all of this and most of that was using the Dungeons and Dragons rules. PvP, minecraft type stuff were all done back in the day by different groups. At least in my hometown despite it being a small rural city of 12,000 people. But as computer games matured and LARPS were figured, paint ball was developed, D&D and tabletop roleplaying were not the only game in town anymore.  There were better way for gamers with specific interests to pursues. Back in 1980, players going from campaign to campaign to kill other PCs was actually a problem that was talked about. It died down in part of the explosion of wargames like Battletech and later the advent of Doom and its successor really wiped it out as far as tabletop roleplaying goes. It happens but very rare.

However tabletop roleplaying survives because it has unique strength compared to the alternatives it spawned. Namely the flexibility of a human referee and the power of imagination to paint pictures in one's mind. It kind of like verbal storytelling, people still do it and there are still masters of the form, but there many alternatives like theater, film, books.

What technology gets used by the hobby is are those that work hand and hand with the elements of tabletop roleplaying. Anything else, if popular, will spawn yet another form of gaming and be it own thing.

LARPs are a totally different thing to TTRPGs. I don't get them but I know people who do and who go to them. I've even helped cart around boffer crap for friends (free Starbucks! also, the joy of helping a friend in need, hah hah). Their evolution is parallel to RPGs but is augmented by them, not driven. They evolve along with reenactment culture because from what I've been told, they're getting more and more realistic and more focused around RP, group stories and factional conflict than individual dick-measuring and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw)

Quote from: Omega;1013486[...]Example Neverwinter Nights 2 in multiplayer mode. You still have to set down all the elements and code the NPCs.[...]

That game is my shit. That and KOTOR 2 and Tyranny and New Vegas -- pretty much any game made by Obsidian. Fucking love those guys, was sad when Avellone left to go rockstar elsewhere.

Quote from: Omega;1013488Thats largely because to make a fast buck people are slapping the term RPG on things that arent. And on things that absolutely are not. Or because they have stretched the term to the point its literally "everything on earth" and has lost any meaning. This happens alot over at BGG and I've about given up trying to explain why someones board game is NOT and RPG sumply because the units have... stats... or something else absurd.

I maintain this: NBA2K is more of an RPG than CRPGs are right now.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013519Imagine how much it would take for a proper AI to do all that with a better quality, more complex system. 10 minutes?

It takes Google BigQuery 1-2mins to crunch through a million-numbered dataset. That is still fucking ages in the tech world. And that is purely first names and phone numbers. The complexity involved in even a rudimentary "AI"-based (because AI is being used really loosely on here as a stand-in for other tech) systems capable of quest, environment and encounter generation is... well, let's just say you're not touching your tablet or laptop for awhile.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013531IMO an AI for an RPG setting/world system would be something like a goddess of that world. Being able to create or change landscape, NPC civilizations while calculating everything for specific characters and encounters up to battles, 'natural' catastrophies and whole population migrations. At this scale I don't think there is a need for multiple programs or AI, just that one.

Again, you don't need AI for this stuff. You just need generic algorithms to "reliably" solve dynamically manifested problems in the game world at some workable level (i.e. mountains don't intersect through someone's fucking house). Feed that into pseudoherustic stochastic powered retrogenerative sub-systems and you're good to go.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1013540I never thought otherwise. Landscaping in 3D games made a decade ago still takes years for anyone not being paid to make it.

It can still take years even if you are being paid for it. A lot of levels and environs are crafted by multiple people taking on parts of a whole. I don't see GMs (most of whom aren't that technical IME) spending time doing that when they could just draw it out on their tablet or vinyl mat.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1013578But seriously, I'm not sure I 100% agree on the retro thing. That's more of an aesthetic detail than a core practical one. It just comes down to the fact that RPGs are going through another renaissance right now but it's not the systems but the image, CR and market that is. Online RPG series like Critical Role help major time with this but those only attract people who were already interested in trying the hobby or are pretty nerdy already. Big Bang Theory doing Christmas specials with D&D games is what garners mainstream attention and enhances the image of the game away from basement-dweller stuff.

Well, my thinking is that the tabletop RPG renaissance is connected to and lagging the board game renaissance. People are looking for social pastimes that get them together and specifically do not involve computers. They work with computers all day. They go home to computers. They want to get away from computers for a few hours. They play board games, but now they also find out about (or are reminded about) RPGs via Big Bang Theory & Stranger Things. They get curious and find stuff like Critical Role. They talk to a friend who says "Oh yeah, I used to GM X in college..." and away they go.

Anyway that's my theory. :)
I do think the other groups I see meeting spontaneously in the pub look very smart and normal, whereas 8 years ago at the Meetup it was more nerdy. Now I think we nerds are in a minority. :eek:

I RPed for years in both Neverwinter Nights and NWN 2. Persistent worlds were great. There was a couple of Planescape themed games I really enjoyed. The first NWN wasn't too hard to build in, I used to make stuff for some of those worlds.

As I mentioned in an older thread here on AIs and RPGs.

Way way back I played on a MUD a friend had made and met another player and we wandered around a bit together. Eventually I realized this was not a player. It was an AI. It was an early learning AI and when I met it it had been running enough that its activities were more lifelike.

Theres been headway with this on MUDs ever since and some new techniques are things like NPCs that remember what you have talked to them about or said within their presence and then may talk to you later about those things. Theres also MOBs that alter their behavior slightly depending on what the PCs do or dont do.

The main example was a farmer who is awoken in the morning by a rooster. If you kill the rooster the farmer wakes up later and will talk to different other NPCs that day.

@ PromethenVigil.

Go a head and worship your corpse god if you want to.

Quote from: vikeen;1013285Good point about the commercialized influx. I was speaking with someone about RPGs and DnD the other day and they only way I could describe it was in terms of Stranger Things.

"You know, that game they played in Stranger Things?".

As if the person had any idea what the game was.

I have the same problem. I run a business around helping people write adventures and it's brutal when I have to describe tabletop roleplaying games games to people. I end up just saying "We help people write collaborative stories with their friends". It's just fluff, but atleast there aren't confusing terms for them.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013345With the exception of D&D 4th edition (which is basically a paper MMO) I disagree. The development or even the funding for RPG projects today, the speed of content creation and quality is all already positively affecting us (just look at digital art or printing tech as examples). I don't mind the last 2 decades of computer advancement making it possible to have games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, or Expeditions: Viking either. Not to mention mixed genre games like Mount & Blade.

I understand if someone believes technology to ruin genuine, in-person social relationships, but Roll20 has done so much for expanding RPGs to people who would have never had a real chance to play with their friends.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013373... the demand for visual representation will grow...

The demand for GMs and visualization are my predictions. I have no idea what the solutions will look like, but AR looks promising and maybe someone will create a DM academy and call it Warthogs.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1013578I already do some of this for my own games. They are crude programs but they get the job done for me personally. It's very utility-based. Anything further than this detracts from the experience (and obviously, we all want to avoid that).

Part of what makes a something technological succeed is whether it strike the right balance as being detracting. Also because people have strong opinions on this stuff, like the use of Dwarven Forge, it will be in use but not by everybody in the hobby.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1013578LARPs are a totally different thing to TTRPGs. I don't get them but I know people who do and who go to them. I've even helped cart around boffer crap for friends (free Starbucks! also, the joy of helping a friend in need, hah hah). Their evolution is parallel to RPGs but is augmented by them, not driven. They evolve along with reenactment culture because from what I've been told, they're getting more and more realistic and more focused around RP, group stories and factional conflict than individual dick-measuring and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw)

I disagree in part, LARPS got their initial push from people who want to play D&D in the woods. Then after first initial successes (IFGS, NERO, etc) then naturally the reenactment groups fed into this. I started playing LARPS in the early 90s when this was all gaining traction. The attitude of SCA, and Dagodir and others reenactors was very much like the attitude wargamers had toward the first Fantasy RPG campaign. Very negative and condescending. Then as LARPS evolved throughout the nineties things changed in the way you are describing. Now nearly 30 years later LARPS are roleplaying games but their own things.

And note I define roleplaying games as any game where the focus is on playing a character interacting with a setting. Tabletop roleplaying are what they are because a human referee adjudicate the interactions. CRPGS, have software adjudicate the interactions, LARPS uses the rules of a sport, and people roleplaying (in the traditional sense of the word) to adjudicate the interactions. While they all roleplaying games each are their own thing because how things are resolved.

Until there's full-on Holodeck-style VR, I doubt it'll 'change RPGs' in any kind of universal sense at all. Of course stuff like roll20 lets people who are otherwise unable to form stable gaming groups in their own community to game more. But that's not going to bring about an end to people playing in person.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1014290Until there's full-on Holodeck-style VR, I doubt it'll 'change RPGs' in any kind of universal sense at all. Of course stuff like roll20 lets people who are otherwise unable to form stable gaming groups in their own community to game more. But that's not going to bring about an end to people playing in person.

I think LARP is acting out in real, while pnp RPG is 'virtual' roleplaying. If holodecks (as in Star Trek) become real it will greatly affect LARP but not as much pnp.

Quote from: joriandrake;1014353I think LARP is acting out in real, while pnp RPG is 'virtual' roleplaying. If holodecks (as in Star Trek) become real it will greatly affect LARP but not as much pnp.

Probably true. Meaning that I should correct my previous statement and say that basically no amount of technology will change RPGs.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013361The gameplay of any computer game is marginal at best compared to playing live with humans.  This goes at least double for RPGs; the best session of any computer RPG is barely up to a mediocre face to face game.

And it has harmed tabletop games.  The only advantages of computer games are convenience and the art budget; the instant gratification aspect of them has destroyed patience.

Well said.   Tabletop RPGs seem to be hip again though in college, spent some time discussing them with my girlfriends college age son.  Thinking the younger generation has tired a bit of only twitch reflex gaming.  Maybe like we balanced the Arcade with D&D.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013361The gameplay of any computer game is marginal at best compared to playing live with humans.  This goes at least double for RPGs; the best session of any computer RPG is barely up to a mediocre face to face game.

And it has harmed tabletop games.  The only advantages of computer games are convenience and the art budget; the instant gratification aspect of them has destroyed patience.

This.. doesn't make sense. Computer and tabletop RPGs are different forms of entertainment. And if you think computer RPGs are about "instant gratification", then you never played things like Dark Souls series, or the Stalker series, for example.

About the OP question, the only tech I see effecting the hobby is online gaming (through software like Roll20, Discord, etc), and even so in a peripheral way. Actual face to face roleplaying will always exist, and no technology will change that.

Quote from: Telarus;1013423My son plays in a D20 home-brew RPG multi-GM 35+ player campaign over the internet....


They use a Minecraft server to auto generate and then sculpt their world (GMs+a subset of the players). All combat/conflict that is not with Minecraft generated monsters is RPG-rules based and done in chat, but all resource gathering and thus arms/armor making is Minecraft-game-world based using various plugins for magic, etc (dig up that iron, cut down those trees, build those sheep farms, enchant the tunic, etc).

He has at various times played the Vampire King's personal surgeon, the right hand to the Pirate Queen, tribal leader to a band of berserkers on the outskirts of the civilized land, and the most powerful fae blacksmith in 12 kingdoms. Starting from scratch each time & earning various skill packs from the RPG rules (some of which get implemented as Minecraft plugin mechanics) by doing what was required in the Narrative _and_ manipulating the Minecraft world to match.

I think my favorite was the Viking Longboat he actually built in this tiny slice of his town radius on the coastline where "free building" was still allowed (a Minecraft program limitation to avoid new players becoming griefers and wreaking the "wild" environments), in a secret hidden cove that had a view to the harbor. He could see when other captains were at dock, hide moving actual Minecraft items needed to build the boat to chests hidden in the area, and build the damn thing over a week (He needed my help lying out the keel line and placing the keelson block and mast). Then he gave it to the Pirate Queen as a gift and was on his way to becoming the "right hand".

Our kids are already doing this with the tools they have available. I was kinda shocked at how close to the Westmarches style he described it as.. each "town" has a handful of player characters, and a GM or two, and GMs would arbitrate whenever two or more "town" factions got into conflict over something (land, resources, etc).

Fascinating! :eek:

Quote from: Xanther;1015163Well said.   Tabletop RPGs seem to be hip again though in college, spent some time discussing them with my girlfriends college age son.  Thinking the younger generation has tired a bit of only twitch reflex gaming.  Maybe like we balanced the Arcade with D&D.

I think that a big part of this is the success of 5e. But also, an outcropping of the earlier revival of board gaming.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1014642Meaning that I should correct my previous statement and say that basically no amount of technology will change RPGs.

Reminds me of how Paizo thought they could just slap tech bits onto their Pathfinder and change the RPG to something that's not still Pathfinder.

Quote from: Xanther;1015163Well said.   Tabletop RPGs seem to be hip again though in college, spent some time discussing them with my girlfriends college age son.  Thinking the younger generation has tired a bit of only twitch reflex gaming.  Maybe like we balanced the Arcade with D&D.

Well, the thing about the gaming arcade was that it was expensive. Getting five or ten bucks and blowing it in the arcade on Pinball machines, Pacman, Galaga, Defender, Centipede, Missile Command, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Joust, Tempest, Asteroid, Ikari Warrior, and my personal favorite SpaceWar! and Star Control was an easy matter, and ten bucks would last just an hour or two at the arcade.

RPGs were way less expensive, $10 would get you a copy of D&D and $35 would get you all three 1eAD&D core books.

Even after hundreds of hours of practice I would still spend $2-3 a day playing Galaga or Space Invaders.

So it was a simple matter of cost. What we got using our imaginations was a virtually limitless amount of play time.

Quote from: Itachi;1015261This.. doesn't make sense. Computer and tabletop RPGs are different forms of entertainment. And if you think computer RPGs are about "instant gratification", then you never played things like Dark Souls series, or the Stalker series, for example.

In recent years Survival Games, Minecraft, and other computers featuring wide open play and sandboxes have gotten popular. A lot of the kids I talk to at scouting better relate to tabletop RPGs, in part, because of these game. I think there a intersection of factors that tabletop RPGs are benefiting from.

Quote from: Itachi;1015261This.. doesn't make sense. Computer and tabletop RPGs are different forms of entertainment. And if you think computer RPGs are about "instant gratification", then you never played things like Dark Souls series, or the Stalker series, for example.

Actually Gronan is right. PC games claiming to be RPGs give the player an instant gratification by being there now. No need to get a GM. No need to wait for your turn while other players go. Combats tend to be faster. the player and their PC tend to be centerstage all the way. And most of all less thinking is required as theres no actual role playing. Just interaction selections, if even that. Most of your attention tends to be on strategy, grinding, and inventory management.

And alot of PC games are designed to be completed in 24 hours or less. Thats about 6 four hour sessions. Others obviously can stretch out far far longer. But few approach the lengths many real RPG sessions can go.

On the good side it seems that more and more PC games are going for really long gameplay after what seemed a span when the push was for shorter games.

Quote from: estar;1015597In recent years Survival Games, Minecraft, and other computers featuring wide open play and sandboxes have gotten popular. A lot of the kids I talk to at scouting better relate to tabletop RPGs, in part, because of these game. I think there a intersection of factors that tabletop RPGs are benefiting from.

Um... people were scouting and strategizing just fine in RPGs well before PC games even came about. PC games are not benefiting RPGs. There is simply the occasional overlap of approaches. Or more often people discovering something thats been around all along in an RPG but is only recently really emerging in PC games. Before 2000 there were the occasional moments. But not like there are now.

Quote from: vikeen;1012960Hello, 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?

I'm currently working with AR, I think it has a long way to go before it can replace physical miniatures. The tech is in it's infancy.

The most technology has affected RPG is the ability to make decent to really great resources on a desktop computer. Mapping software, background music, handouts, that kind of stuff.

Personally, I use table top games (RPGs and wargames) to geta away from tech and interact with people in person. If I want to use my computer, I'll play a game designed for it, like an MMORPG.

This ancient old gamer is using a lot of technology in the game room, but to get people playing rather then anything else. Hybrid box in the video production rack for the You Tube channel, Polycomm for on-the-road gaming, and a new PC (feeding the 40" plasma screen) in the game room to connect to the Internet for video teleconferencing. The Macs already feed the pictures and maps to the room. All of it brings people in, anywhere they have access to phone service or the Internet.

Quote from: Omega;1015603Actually Gronan is right. PC games claiming to be RPGs give the player an instant gratification by being there now. No need to get a GM. No need to wait for your turn while other players go. Combats tend to be faster. the player and their PC tend to be centerstage all the way. And most of all less thinking is required as theres no actual role playing. Just interaction selections, if even that. Most of your attention tends to be on strategy, grinding, and inventory management.

And alot of PC games are designed to be completed in 24 hours or less. Thats about 6 four hour sessions. Others obviously can stretch out far far longer. But few approach the lengths many real RPG sessions can go.

On the good side it seems that more and more PC games are going for really long gameplay after what seemed a span when the push was for shorter games.

You switch from discussing CRPGs to PC games in general. Lots of classic and modern CRPGs are made for very long (sometimes more than 100+ hours) and involved play beyond just fighting, builds and resources: Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Divinity, Pillars of Eternity and more.

Of course these still no where near the flexibility of a TTRPG but they are not as limited as you suggest.

Quote from: Omega;1015605Um... people were scouting and strategizing just fine in RPGs well before PC games even came about. PC games are not benefiting RPGs.

And how this relevant to how a 13 years relates to tabletop RPGs? Unless you have your observation of a group around 20 11 to 16 years old like I have through scouting.

Of course when are talking about young teenagers they "rediscover" shit. But having worked with youths since the mid 90s what they choose to follow up on differs from generation to generation. The current generation is a lot more proactive creatively as reflected by their interest in games like minecraft. They don't seems as entralled by the story driven AAA titles of a decade ago.

Quote from: VorosYou switch from discussing CRPGs to PC games in general. Lots of classic and modern CRPGs are made for very long (sometimes more than 100+ hours) and involved play beyond just fighting, builds and resources: Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Divinity, Pillars of Eternity and more.

Of course these still no where near the flexibility of a TTRPG but they are not as limited as you suggest.

Yeah, Omega is so full of crap that I'm unsure if he really has played any computer games (or CRPGs) at all. Anyone who played classic CRPGs like Baldurs Gate 2, Fallout 1/2, Arcanum, Planescape Torment or Deus Ex knows everything he says is bullshit, because these games DO allow for in-character roleplaying (AKA taking personal decisions and seeing the consequences ripples in the setting around), and take much longer than a single session of tabletop RPGs. For example, the cited ones could take between 20h to 40h to finish. And some of those have little or optional combat, which means you take most of those 40h just roleplaying your character.

Now, if you consider roleplaying to be "making funny voices and gestures", then sure, the electronic medium don't allow that, but then I rarely see that happen in actual tables.

Quote from: Itachi;1015747Yeah, Omega is so full of crap that I'm unsure if he really has played any computer games (or CRPGs) at all. Anyone who played classic CRPGs like Baldurs Gate 2, Fallout 1/2, Arcanum, Planescape Torment or Deus Ex knows everything he says is bullshit, because these games DO allow for in-character roleplaying (AKA taking personal decisions and seeing the consequences ripples in the setting around), and take much longer than a single session of tabletop RPGs. For example, the cited ones could take between 20h to 40h to finish. And some of those have little or optional combat, which means you take most of those 40h just roleplaying your character.

I'm glad it isn't me who had to react and reply to Omega this harshly. BG alone was for me a hundred hours in the game, made me even interested in the pnp form of Forgotten Realms setting to begin with. Fallout 1/2 were why we got three new players into pnp who then went on to play games like Shadowrun and V:TM, people tend to bash Alpha Protocol but it was great as far actions/consequences are considered. Many PC RPGs include construction/faction mechanics today (having a castle or other base you can improve) and even early turn-based strategy games have strong RPG elements, like Jagged Alliance 2 where in the setting of Arulco you could send various fun messages to your main enemy or prepare defense forces/guards for settlements in a Fallout-like visual environment where your characters can then walk around and see how those guards are at the gates or top of buildings/walls.

Let me also give a honorable mention to forgotten gems like Blue Byte's Albion or Septerra Core (although this is more linear).

I really doubt that computer games and technology won't have any kind of beneficial effect on RPGs because that already happened. While I don't consider MMO-s a good example of meshing (I really disliked the MMO-ish 4th Edition of D&D), however the already mentioned persistent worlds/servers for Neverwinter Nights 1 are a good example of how a virtual world can be built and modified depending on what adventures happen, what actions playes take. The next big step will be when the visual, virtual setting can properly react to changes on its own, something I detailed in one of the first comments of mine in this thread.

Joriandrake, a friend of mine keeps telling me to try Alpha Protocol because of the choice & consequence factor. I will lookout for it. Have you tried Fallout New Vegas? He says it's very good too.

Not exactly related to role playing, but I find what STALKER do with its environment AI very interesting. It's entities (NPCs, fauna, factions, etc) have necessities and goals, and they wonder the map pursuing them in emergent/non-scripted way, so at anytime of the day you can find a lone stalker out there looking for artifacts while being ambushed by a hungry snork, while a couple bandits prowl nearby waiting for loot. It's all dynamical/randomical.

Kids playing Minecraft may end up leading to a greater interest in the openness of D&D, it's true. Yet another thing that gives me hope about the generation coming after the garbage-fire that was the Millennials.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1016306Kids playing Minecraft may end up leading to a greater interest in the openness of D&D, it's true. Yet another thing that gives me hope about the generation coming after the garbage-fire that was the Millennials.

Someone had to give birth to them and do a piss poor job of raising them.

Do you mean the millennials? Or gen-z?

The millenials were mostly the children of Baby Boomers, who were also awful.

The Gen-z are mostly children of Gen-x, which explains why they kick ass.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1016749Do you mean the millennials? Or gen-z?

The millenials were mostly the children of Baby Boomers, who were also awful.

The Gen-z are mostly children of Gen-x, which explains why they kick ass.

I'm Gen-X and I can concur. Last time I was in a kickboxing class, a kid of a Gen-Xer broke one of my teeth. :D Mind you it did solve an impacted wisdom tooth problem I had most of my life in a roundabout way. :D

Back on topic. Minecraft is certainly a neat game, though I really don't like the blockiness of it. I had preordered the D&D game Sword Coast Legends in hopes that it would be a good platform for online D&D play which it was not. It was Diablo, which was okay because I liked Diablo. I spent a lot of time playing in online Persistent Worlds (which I may have mentioned in this thread but am too lazy to check) on both Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2. There was a couple of nice Planescape servers. Those games were very limited in what you could do setting wise, but there were DMs that ran RP and quests and it was RP with D&D mechanics.

Augmented Reality may be the next big thing once someone figures out how to make it practical. Having a pair of glasses with a HUD that has game information would be immensely useful as a DM, but we're not there yet. I do connect with real live people on Pokemon Go, which is based on Ingress (which I was in the beta). Those games are not really AR quite yet, more like location based GPS games or fancy geocaching (I may be repeating myself, brain fog). Parallel Kingdoms had a similar idea. The foundations are there for digital RP, but the technology is still in it's infancy.

I want something I can interact with when I'm out and about or while at home on a computer.

Quote from: Itachi;1015747Yeah, Omega is so full of crap that I'm unsure if he really has played any computer games (or CRPGs) at all. Anyone who played classic CRPGs like Baldurs Gate 2, Fallout 1/2, Arcanum, Planescape Torment or Deus Ex knows everything he says is bullshit, because these games DO allow for in-character roleplaying (AKA taking personal decisions and seeing the consequences ripples in the setting around), and take much longer than a single session of tabletop RPGs. For example, the cited ones could take between 20h to 40h to finish. And some of those have little or optional combat, which means you take most of those 40h just roleplaying your character.

Now, if you consider roleplaying to be "making funny voices and gestures", then sure, the electronic medium don't allow that, but then I rarely see that happen in actual tables.

Except that alot of Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter, or other PC games is wandering around. Stuff that is normally fairly condensed or abstracted. Ive played them and the old SSI games and a huge chunk of the game is... wandering around. Far moreso in the newer games. Realtime dungeoncrawling is oft very time consuming. Its closer to a LARP experience in that respect as theres alot of time spent getting from point A to point B that would in a regular RPG session take far less time.

So your defense fails. Miserably.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1016306Kids playing Minecraft may end up leading to a greater interest in the openness of D&D, it's true. Yet another thing that gives me hope about the generation coming after the garbage-fire that was the Millennials.

Possibly. Open games like Minecraft are very different experiences. You can spend hours, days even just mining and not much else. Building can take quite a long time even with help. I built the TOS Enterprise to scale in Minecraft and that took a long long time due to the scale. Same with the Keep on the Borderlands project.

But you are right in that these games are showing players the wonders of just exploring. Het out there and see whats over the next hill. (probably a creeper)

Quote from: Omega;1016981Except that alot of Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter, or other PC games is wandering around. Stuff that is normally fairly condensed or abstracted. Ive played them and the old SSI games and a huge chunk of the game is... wandering around. Far moreso in the newer games. Realtime dungeoncrawling is oft very time consuming. Its closer to a LARP experience in that respect as theres alot of time spent getting from point A to point B that would in a regular RPG session take far less time.

So your defense fails. Miserably.

I don't recall a lot of wamdering around in BG, which I played in the past couple of years. Believe there was a fast travel option that allowed you to jump from one location to another. Also Planesape Torment had pretty much zero downtime, it is almost all talk.

Quote from: Omega;1016985Possibly. Open games like Minecraft are very different experiences. You can spend hours, days even just mining and not much else. Building can take quite a long time even with help. I built the TOS Enterprise to scale in Minecraft and that took a long long time due to the scale. Same with the Keep on the Borderlands project.

But you are right in that these games are showing players the wonders of just exploring. Het out there and see whats over the next hill. (probably a creeper)

Well, in some old-school games you spend a lot of time doing stuff other than adventuring too. Planning, domain management, etc.

Maybe they will have a style that will be more focused on that kind of stuff?

Quote from: Omega;1016981Except that alot of Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter, or other PC games is wandering around. Stuff that is normally fairly condensed or abstracted. Ive played them and the old SSI games and a huge chunk of the game is... wandering around. Far moreso in the newer games. Realtime dungeoncrawling is oft very time consuming. Its closer to a LARP experience in that respect as theres alot of time spent getting from point A to point B that would in a regular RPG session take far less time.

So your defense fails. Miserably.

Baldurs Gate has a lot of dialogue and combat besides wandering around.

And I take you never played Planescape Torment, right? As Voros said, it's almost all dialogue.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013361The gameplay of any computer game is marginal at best compared to playing live with humans.  This goes at least double for RPGs; the best session of any computer RPG is barely up to a mediocre face to face game.

And it has harmed tabletop games.  The only advantages of computer games are convenience and the art budget; the instant gratification aspect of them has destroyed patience.

In his mind if it weren't for computers, he could have been a contender.