Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912377This. Videogames do a lot of things better than tabletop RPGs. The future of the business of TRPGs focuses on what this medium does better than rival RPG media.

Yeah riiight.

PC/Console games do about one thing better than a TTRPG. They handle all the dice rolling and background mechanics and free the player to just play.

But a PC game is never going to equal a TTRPG because you can not do things that you can in an actual RPG. And all PC RPGs. Well. Arent RPGs. They amount to a pick-your-path storybook at best and others are little more than a slightly interactive movie.  

Console games are so far a totally different media from TTRPGs. Even the SSI or Capcom D&D games are still not actual RPGs.

heh that's why I asked. It's like being told that airplanes do a lot things better than my lawnmower. Although I guess I could have my lawn cut with the blades of a Cessna...

Quote from: Omega;912421Yeah riiight.

PC/Console games do about one thing better than a TTRPG. They handle all the dice rolling and background mechanics and free the player to just play.

Don't underestimate the power of striking visuals, well-timed music, lightning fast combat, no group scheduling hassle, and NPCs that don't all look and sound like a bearded butterball in a Megadeth T-shirt.

Quote from: tenbones;912418I'm not sure I buy this. I'd like to know what precisely you mean by saying Videogames do a lot of things better than TRPG's? If you mean - "give you a single-player experience better." Sure, because TRPG's are designed to do that. What else could you be implying? I'm genuinely curious.

The "Future Business of TRPG's" doesn't appear, to me, to have anything to do with videogames other than perhaps distribution or setting ideas. TRPG's are about people rolling dice and interacting. Whether that is happening over Roll20, or at a table doesn't change that fact. That's why I'm wondering what exactly are you referring to?

Every medium does some things better than others. Videogames are strong in presentation of audio and visual spectacle, handling complex mechanics, and offering immediate as well as wholly user-controlled convenience. The Dragon Age series is a good example of this. As are all MMORPGs. But they are terrible at speed of content release, have hard arbitrary limits to player agency, and as a consequence rarely approach what a human GM running a proper campaign at the table is able to do. The hitch is that most players are not pro-active; they don't make plans and carry them out, but rather react to events and follow instead. (There's also the known issue of scheduling your fun, which is a big deal, and contributes to the friction.)

If TRPGs are to remain at all viable, when videogames are getting ever-closer to doing competently all that tabletop does, identifying and emphasizing those qualities that tabletop does better than videogames (or better than RPG-like boardgames, e.g. Descent), while mitigating or flipping weaknesses (such as that scheduling issue) somehow into selling points, is required.

Quote from: Omega;912421Yeah riiight.

PC/Console games do about one thing better than a TTRPG. They handle all the dice rolling and background mechanics and free the player to just play.

But a PC game is never going to equal a TTRPG because you can not do things that you can in an actual RPG. And all PC RPGs. Well. Arent RPGs. They amount to a pick-your-path storybook at best and others are little more than a slightly interactive movie.  

Console games are so far a totally different media from TTRPGs. Even the SSI or Capcom D&D games are still not actual RPGs.

So long as the servers are up, I can play WOW anytime I want for as long as I wish. I don't have to schedule a damned thing. I only need to do so if I want to engage in high-end PVP or PVE gameplay. If I want to play D&D, I have to find other players and schedule a time and place to meet; for most people, this is work and not congruent with any gameplay form of entertainment. You underestimate the power of convenience at your peril.

Most people don't want to study to play. The normie perception of tabletop RPGs is just that; there is little, if any, idea that you can just learn as you play and be good enough. That's the key; no one wants to be the dead weight that has to be carried. They also don't want the commitment; they want to come and go as they wish. The play culture we have is notorious for that, and normies aren't keen on scheduling time to pretend to be an elf. Videogames are better fits for their entertainment wants, so they prefer them.

We have solutions at hand: restore the original play culture, as seen in the Ars Ludi posts on the West Marches and Justin's Open Table posts at his blog. Do that, promote that, run tabletop games that exploit that. Then get them excited; excited players make and execute plans, being the drivers instead of the driven, and that compels that necessary speed of content creation that TRPGs are good at doing. Play to the medium's strengths, and we have a viable RPG medium for years to come.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;912424Don't underestimate the power of striking visuals, well-timed music, lightning fast combat, no group scheduling hassle, and NPCs that don't all look and sound like a bearded butterball in a Megadeth T-shirt.

This. Videogame RPGs are multi-milllion dollar franchises for damn good, sound, and easy to grok reasons. Tabletop can't beat that, so it should not try; it needs to emphasis what it does better than videogames and appeal to those strengths in all marketing thereof.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912425But they are terrible at speed of content release, have hard arbitrary limits to player agency, and as a consequence rarely approach what a human GM running a proper campaign at the table is able to do.

I'm curious if you could expand on this. One of the major selling points in my view of video games is that their time to content ratio is exponentially higher than TTRPGs. VTM Bloodlines or the Shadowrun returns series compress about a year long or more campaign into a tightly crafted 15-30 hour experience. This is especially apparent in combat, where VRPG encounters taking far less time and often being more tactical due to the greater time put into each map. VRPGs just slice apart the time delay between action (I swing my sword) and consequence (the orc takes 10 dam). Due to the time that goes into designing each level, they also offer a degree of flexibility in problem solving (besides the motherfucking Nosferatu Warrens, goddammit Troika) that would take a GM putting a substantial amount of work into each session. On the other hand, they miss out the human factor of interpersonal interaction and the players driving the story. Yet, this requires players to walk a balance between Timmy the murderhobo and the guy who just sits there in order to work. It's why I tend to advocate baking in VRPG style choices and options into games for new ish people.

On a side note, VRPGs do solo play much better than TTRPGs, no question. What I was advocating was for 1- a sort of "testing lab" where people trying to develop ultimate characters could see how it plays out in combat and 2- a way so people not able to make sessions could still engage with the story, gain exp and advance the group even without being there.

Quote from: Anglachel;911938I'd rather play tennis/soccer/what have you than watch it.

3.2 billion people disagree with you.

Quote from: Mistwell;912211

Quote(2) The idea of designing games that play great on heavily edited Youtube video shows and Twitch streams makes my head hurt.

Critical Role is unscripted and unedited.

True. It is, however, a Twitch stream.

Quote from: Omega;912421Yeah riiight.

PC/Console games do about one thing better than a TTRPG. They handle all the dice rolling and background mechanics and free the player to just play.

But a PC game is never going to equal a TTRPG because you can not do things that you can in an actual RPG.

Sure. But at the moment what we're literally talking about are tools for solo play including:

- Procedurally-generated rogue-likes.
- Choose your own adventure paths.

And video games are so clearly better at delivering those experiences that it's the rhetorical equivalent of Muhammed Ali at his prime in a boxing match against a six-year-old quadriplegic.

Quote from: tenbones;912418I'm not sure I buy this. I'd like to know what precisely you mean by saying Videogames do a lot of things better than TRPG's?

Graphics. Sound. Speed/complexity of mechanical resolution. Real-time action. On-demand play. And, arguably, the execution of predetermined plot lines with a light patina of interactive content.

TTRPGs have three things they do better:

(1) Social interaction.

(2) Rapid implementation of unique creative visions, allowing for rapid prep of new material (and even improvisation of new material).

(3) The creative flexibility of human-mediated action adjudication, allowing for any action to be attempted.

Procedural content generators for creating solo-play scenarios take advantage of literally none of those things.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912425Every medium does some things better than others. Videogames are strong in presentation of audio and visual spectacle, handling complex mechanics, and offering immediate as well as wholly user-controlled convenience. The Dragon Age series is a good example of this. As are all MMORPGs. But they are terrible at speed of content release, have hard arbitrary limits to player agency, and as a consequence rarely approach what a human GM running a proper campaign at the table is able to do. The hitch is that most players are not pro-active; they don't make plans and carry them out, but rather react to events and follow instead. (There's also the known issue of scheduling your fun, which is a big deal, and contributes to the friction.)

So imagery and audio aside, which obviously are conceits of videogaming - I don't see the connection you're drawing. They're forms of entertainment that draw upon setting material, and they engage people, like all games ideally should. But the only material things I can agree with you on are the production deliverables. The point of TRPG's to give manicured experiences of their respective settings is problem that has always been part of TRPG's but with the advent of popularity of videogaming and MMO's in particular, somehow I feel people have misunderstood that as a function of videogames they've somehow projected that fact onto TRPG's where in reality it's a bit of a "beginner phase" (and please don't take that term to be some kind of perjorative or anything other than an observation about TRPG's in general over the last 30+ years on my part). Nearly everyone starts playing TRPG's with a very railroady mindset. Hence modules and adventure paths are wildly popular. But if you stick it out long enough - or if you're lucky enough to have an experienced GM, you get to a point where player agency grows beyond such things.

That is the entire reason why videogames are leaning heavier on open-world concepts by design these days. To give players that very agency. Does that translate to TRPG's? I still don't think it does. While it might inspire a GM to use elements of a videogame for fluff or even sub-system homebrew fodder, I don't know of any TRPG's that I'd draw some overarching connection to from videogames writ-large. Even the worst cases of 4e which has been argued to death are equally board-gamey as they are MMO-inspired. To whatever degree that it informed the design of TRPG's writ-large would kind of fly in the face of the fact it's a dead game. And while this is a singular instance, and there are certainly other TRPG's that have similar leanings, I still don't see how it warrants enough consideration to support your idea.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912425If TRPGs are to remain at all viable, when videogames are getting ever-closer to doing competently all that tabletop does, identifying and emphasizing those qualities that tabletop does better than videogames (or better than RPG-like boardgames, e.g. Descent), while mitigating or flipping weaknesses (such as that scheduling issue) somehow into selling points, is required.

What you're proposing here is essentially decades away. You're essentially talking about having an AI GM (which would be fucking FABULOUS) - but I think there's some false equivalency at play here. #1 TRPG's will *never* attract as many player (i.e. more to the point: CONSUMERS) than videogames. The conceits of even trying to do things like a videogame has almost zero to do with the production and play of a good TRPG. Production values aside. Mechanics for videogames require more and more sophisticated code. For TRPG's it requires more experienced GM's. Abstractly for these two things to meet eye to eye - your problem will still remain that TRPG's are not Videogames.

Of course... now where some rubber might hit the road will be VR/AR. Now that! is where the real discussion can/will begin.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;912427This. Videogame RPGs are multi-milllion dollar franchises for damn good, sound, and easy to grok reasons. Tabletop can't beat that, so it should not try; it needs to emphasis what it does better than videogames and appeal to those strengths in all marketing thereof.

Well, yeah.  It's one reason I've moved entirely to "theater of the mind" on tabletop, I will NEVER rival the visuals of somebody who has an actual graphics budget.  And you can't beat computer, video, or online games for convenience.

On the other hand, my NPCs don't have canned responses.  That's the big advantage of tabletop.

Quote from: tenbones;912438Of course... now where some rubber might hit the road will be VR/AR. Now that! is where the real discussion can/will begin.

I don't know if VR/AR necessarily are required, but computer tools that allow a live GM to essentially 100% control a video game environment like they control a tabletop space will be a revolution.  EQ2 for a while had a system that picked up voice chat and made the character's mouth move, lots of mods for Skyrim allow for more "intelligent NPCs", etc...

If you basically combined all the computer RPGs, MMOs, Steam Mods, and toolsets from games like NWN but give them an interface actually designed for an end-user GM, not a coder, then at some point the capabilities of tabletop and virtual tabletop will merge.

No one on the computer gaming side of things currently sees enough potential to invest enough dollars in it at this point, so it will have to get to the point where the tech of modding A-list titles drifts down to where others can use it.  At that point, a good virtual tabletop might run 5 years behind the A-list games.

Now the people on the VR/AR side of things have already shown interest in Universal Tabletop Simulators, so like Tenbones says that's probably where the tech will come from.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;912440On the other hand, my NPCs don't have canned responses.  That's the big advantage of tabletop.

I dunno, a percentile table where 01-95 is "Tongue my pee-hole" seems a little canned.

Quote from: CRKrueger;912442I dunno, a percentile table where 01-95 is "Tongue my pee-hole" seems a little canned.

But with a human GM, each NPC can say that in a slightly different way.

Quote from: Bren;912445But with a human GM, each NPC can say that in a slightly different way.

"No matter how you slice it, it's still bologna." - Harlan Ellison