Quote from: CRKrueger;468858The last thing we need are people putting out fundamental changes to the publishing paradigm because "OMG!111! tablets is the shiznit!".  The RPG hobby has, traditionally, been about the individual creativity of the players and GMs.

I'm not seeing the dichotomy of individual creativity vs. publishing paradigm shifts.

Quite the opposite, from my POV - I think there's a potential for new kinds of creativity that can emerge from the change in publishing paradigm.

Quote from: jgants;468860I'm not seeing the dichotomy of individual creativity vs. publishing paradigm shifts.

Quite the opposite, from my POV - I think there's a potential for new kinds of creativity that can emerge from the change in publishing paradigm.

Aside from interfacing with a social networking site or simple draw programs, what apps have you seen that allow a lot of customization/input from the user?

Sure, you could make an RPG app that 6 people could join in on, with live videoconferencing, sharing of information, built in resolution mechanisms, but making it so that a GM can change the stats of a greatsword or swap out the picture of an orc?  Not so much.  Tablets are still, for all their promise, the retarded toy brothers of PCs at this point.  Sure, they've upgraded from the smart sophisticated brothers of cell phones, but that's not a really big jump.

Now if you're talking about having a program like FGII or any other VTT have a tablet online interface in a client/server model, then you're getting closer to the mark.

Quote from: jgants;468837This week, Borders finally realized it was dead (after a couple years of being a zombie) and will be closed down; that leaves all of one major brick and mortar bookstore left (at least, in the USA), and it has major problems of its own plus is heavily focused on marketing e-books, which are slowly increasing in market share.

Along similar lines, computer tablet sales are skyrocketing, and the industry expects over a 130% increase in sales next year.


So why is everyone in the RPG industry still talking about physical books?  Why are the producers of The One Ring, Legend, Runequest 6, etc throwing money into a sinking ship?

Why aren't there new RPGs being developed solely for an ebook or tablet app world?  And with a mindset of creating a game that utilizes the technology (for example, you can have a much more complex system for combat, etc, if the game is not designed for people to figure out calculations by hand).

Why isn't anyone in the industry even attempting to leverage the popularity of these newly emerging markets and the capabilities of the new technologies?

The best we've done so far is some mediocre pdfs and WotC's half-hearted attempts at add-ons.  It's not nearly enough.

Why ? Because it blows ass.

I think RPGs will stay in print form. Hobbyist and collectors tend to want things in hand. Maybe that will change, but I doubt it will for a while.

Just because you can play 40k on the PC, or fuck, chess on the PC, doesn't mean people WANT it on the screen. It just sucks that way.

Quote from: jgants;468855That's a good question.  I'd love to see someone building games that start to experiment with those kind of ideas.

Remember back when TSR started out and every game was really different because they were just experimenting?  It could be like that again for a while.  People could publish all kinds of crazy systems and see which ones ended up being popular and/or worked best with the new medium.  

As I see it, a whole new frontier of game design to explore is out there.

Yeah.
I think I mentioned a few years ago that we have 100% laptop compliance ion my live (and obviously the online ones).
We actually have 2-3 spares floating around in both groups.  

We've always used our own rulesets.  No rulebooks, etc.  And they are all on wikis I've made.
So everyone has access to the rules and setting from their laptops at all times.

Main one is the Celtrician Wiki, well over a thousand individual pages.  
Changes are available to all users instantly!

That's how we do it.

Quote from: jgants;468847For example, the new Runequest guys are going to pump out another edition of Runequest when there will be one live and one only recently dead version to compete with.  Why not take advantage of what the iPad offers and design the initial Runequest 6 game for that instead of just printing yet another set of the same old runequest books?

From the RuneQuest 6 FAQ:

QuoteYou can buy RuneQuest 6th Edition directly from our partners, Moon Design Publishing. Its available as a PDF from DrivethruRPG and we are also planning to release a special ePub format edition for e-readers and Kindle.

They are taking advantage. Others are, as well (I've specifically heard Clash mention it for his games). I don't think the industry is neglecting the e-reader medium.

Personally, I'm only going to buy the print versions, though.

I'm all for moving away from PDFs to a more reference-friendly format -- you could do some neat stuff if you know what you're doing (interactive tables, multiple live bookmarks, etc.) that could bring electronic formats more in line with physical books (or maybe even more efficient).  PDFs just generally suck ass for anything other than archiving.

Getting rid of physical books?  Nah.  Not until they perfect those oil-based electronic screens and we can get painting-like quality pictures and whatnot.

One quibble, though:

Quote from: jgantsfor example, you can have a much more complex system for combat, etc, if the game is not designed for people to figure out calculations by hand

Why?  Why add an expensive requirement for play?  What does a much more complex combat system add that having a simpler system that does the same thing doesn't already have?  The mathematician/engineer in me will never understand the obsession with calculation for the sake of calculation.  It's the most boring part of math.  It's why AD&D uses charts, so you don't have to do any calculating.  You can have conceptually interesting mechanics without making them so burdensome as to require a computer, and the results will usually be just as consistent/satisfying.

That all said, I think that some professionally designed organizational software could be useful, but I don't think it'd be tied to one game so much as you could have plugins for different products (the same way maptools and other things function).

Quote from: Peregrin;468867That all said, I think that some professionally designed organizational software could be useful, but I don't think it'd be tied to one game so much as you could have plugins for different products (the same way maptools and other things function).

Besides if houseruling requires programming skills and/or a degree in Maths I'm pretty sure it will alienate many gamers.

Quote from: boulet;468868Besides if houseruling requires programming skills and/or a degree in Maths I'm pretty sure it will alienate many gamers.

I don't think many people use houserules so extensive that it'd be a problem.  It's also not that difficult to have an option in the software to alter minor variables.  And if you're attempting to reach newer gamers, it won't matter much at all, since houseruling isn't an assumption.

I still don't think going the "electronic media" route is going to do anything good for RPGs, though, as there's already too much competition.

Quote from: Peregrin;468869I don't think many people use houserules so extensive that it'd be a problem.  It's also not that difficult to have an option in the software to alter minor variables.  And if you're attempting to reach newer gamers, it won't matter much at all, since houseruling isn't an assumption.

I disagree. For many gamers houseruling is very much an assumption.

Quote from: Benoist;468874I disagree. For many gamers houseruling is very much an assumption.

I said for new gamers.  Magic players and video-game players don't assume house-ruling as an intrinsic part of gaming, so having a limited ability to house-rule isn't going to irk them as much if you bring them over to RPGs.

Two aspects I haven't seen mentioned:

- Distraction. I'm not letting my players phone, SMS, or browse the Internet or play the Playstation at my gaming table. Why would I let them fuck around with their ebook readers?

- Longevity. With reasonable care, a 35 year old AD&D Player's Handbook is perfectly usable, and will continue to be so for... hell, another 10, 15 years? More?

That ebook you download today, do you think you'll even be able to read the file format with some device in 45 years? Don't keep your hopes up. Hell, even if you keep the reader device, it might not work that far down the road. Electronics have nowhere near the longevity of paper & ink.

I think the issue is that once you have an e-reader to read your book the question comes why not have a whole game built on the device. Why play a TTRPG when you can play WOW.... now we few might not think that but you can bet a lot of gamers would and when you look at the numbers for ipad or iphone or facebooks apps its the numbers that matter. You make money selling an app for $1 a million times certainly not selling an app for $30 a thousand times which is what a ttrpg tool would sell

There are loads of RPGs for facebook or ipads but hey are just level grinds that encourage you to spend hours working your way up the maffia or growing fish or whatever. That is how tomake money in that market so why woul you invest thousands developing somethign no one will use.

Quote from: Peregrin;468879I said for new gamers.  Magic players and video-game players don't assume house-ruling as an intrinsic part of gaming, so having a limited ability to house-rule isn't going to irk them as much if you bring them over to RPGs.

Yes, maybe that's the reason why I don't play Magic nor video games.

I'm a fan of RPGs, if houseruling will be discouraged, they can go on without my money.

Quote from: Claudius;468887I'm a fan of RPGs, if houseruling will be discouraged, they can go on without my money.

Ditto.