Digital age: The discussion on how we should model our pnp and video game RPGs

Submitted by alderneyvamp on Fri, 2009-10-02 03:47.

Here's what has been said so far. I've emphasized the title of every post for ease of reading.

That cracks me up
Submitted by SheikhJahbooty on Thu, 2009-10-01 10:02.
I don't know why, but I find that comment hilarious.

Maybe I read it with a lot of attitude, like, "How will you do that? Bring it cheese boy. Show us what you got."

Go ahead and challenge him to Game Chef too. Of course you would want to lose a challenge like that, like you would hope he comes up with a game about heroism, decency, and hope in the face of inescapable tragedy, and the PCs are French privateers who know such powerful secrets of the sea and Haitian voodoo that they make Elric look wimpy, and he posts the rules for his game in youtube, dressed as a pirate with a French accent, and the game mechanics involve posting French limericks on each others' Facebook walls.

I always hope that something like that is about to happen when I see a newbie in the lab, that I'm about to learn a game as fun and dramatically powerful as My Life with Master.

Or maybe he's just here to read what we're doing, to inspire him or to learn about new RPGs, stuff he hasn't seen on the shelf.

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Hahaha!
Submitted by Ar Kayon on Thu, 2009-10-01 11:45.
No - there was no snide subtext intended. I see anyone who thinks current RPGs as uninspired as a like-minded individual. D&D has turned into a MMORPG; Warhammer Fantasy jumped on the bandwagon too. Huge shoulder pads; huge FF7 sword rip-offs; cartoonish artwork; collectible cards; my suspension of disbelief is effectively dispelled.

What I would like to see is a natural progression of role-playing that gets better as time passes by. Perfect examples of this are Paizo's Pathfinder (although I still hate the artwork, despite the skill), and Godlike, who in my opinion, have the most elegant dice mechanic of all time. I guess Ambrose Diceless as well, because it helped me to think outside the box and come up with my semi-diceless concept.

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You might also like...
Submitted by SheikhJahbooty on Fri, 2009-10-02 04:18.
The dice mechanic for Godlike, if I recall correctly, is called ORE, One Roll Engine, you know, cause the one roll tells you two different things.

You might also want to check out Reign, because it also uses the ORE, and because I find the setting interesting.

And then there's A Dirty World, a noir style game that uses the same mechanic, but the game is basically about social conflicts, and your stats can change wildly during a conflict as a dame tries to eat away your incredulity by getting you to fall for her, or a scoundrel tries to eat at your integrity to get you to take a bribe.

I soon may get my first chance to try Amber Diceless. As one of the house rules, the GM proposed replacing the bad stuff mechanic with a system like the plot twist rules found in Sufficiently Advanced. I can't wait to see how it plays.

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It's all about the video games baby.
Submitted by alderneyvamp on Thu, 2009-10-01 15:59.
And that's the problem. Modelling tabletop games on a large aspect of current culture is a great way to get new people involved. Saying DnD is like WoW but you play with people in the same room has probably turned a few people from just comp gamers to pnper. Just like the first games were modelled on popular literature, later games following film titles it only makes sense that mimicking of video games is the next step. Sad fact is, RPGs on the computer are shit (as a general rule, there are some shining examples) in fact I would say there hasn't been a truly ground breaking RPG game on a computer or console since Planescape Torment, which was modelled on a DnD setting. So we get game copying (lets say utilizing material from) pnp, pnp copies game, game copies pnp and so on and so forth, and everytime it's got a little worse, a little more shallow, a little less intellectual.

Not that I'm against PC/console games, I'm an avid follower of both. But I want the two times a week I meet to roleplay not feel like I'm casual gaming on my PC. Not to say the mood can't be relaxed, but the game should be involving, less pick up and play.

Hot damn I feel strongly about this. Actually shamed that I've not done anything new or innovative for awhile. Might revisit dreamer now.
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Don't remind me of Torment
Submitted by SheikhJahbooty on Fri, 2009-10-02 05:08.
I always remember that there was one thing I really really hated about that game... the fact that it ended.

I screamed when it ended. I begged the computer, "No, really his soul separated from him so that as a soulless creature he could undertake a further quest that the fate of the entire ring of outer planes depends upon, and on this quest he meets angels and demons that want to discuss with him just what is a soul and if its important at all, and the nature of free will, and suffering, I mean because demons like being in hell, or at least they fit in, right, so is it really suffering for them? But then it turns out the quest was a lie, a ruse, and the nameless one's been duped, please? Please, let there be more!"

I think the real problem with modelling a game on an MMORPG is that MMORPG quests are usually amusement park attractions rather than compelling stories.

I am totally for making RPGs more like computer games, but to me, that means taking out most of the math, not taking out most of the options or putting the story in the hands of the authors who write adventures for Living RPGworld vetted quests and convention events.

And I will even play a pickup game. I will play the hell out of some Geiger Counter, or Monkey Ninja Pirate Robot. But if I play MNPR, I want to sound like my friends and I are talking about some really silly Saturday morning cartoon we watched as kids. I want to throw down those dice to support or refute something cool that I, Jahbooty (or whatever my friends call me) said, something I made up myself that made them laugh or grin in excitement or cringe, not something I picked out of a list of pre-sanctioned options.

Hot damn. I guess I also feel really strongly about this.

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I remember when I popped my cherry...
Submitted by Ar Kayon on Fri, 2009-10-02 05:56.
...and beat Torment. I didn't save his dead love, he didn't hook up with Anna, and I didn't reanimate Fall-from-Grace after the Transcendent One kills her. And I also never got around to getting Lawful Good alignment so I could wield Trias' sword. I completely missed Vhailor. Fuck it - I'm gonna download that shit and beat it the right way.

I wish we could duplicate Chris Avellone so he could churn out more games of that caliber.

And now, I feel that Obsidian and Bethesda are the last bastions of role-playing, whereas my old-time friends D&D and Squaresoft have sold out and betrayed me. Blizzard too; Diablo 3 is now all fun and colorful - remember when you played the original at night and then a scary ass boss with a meat cleaver and hordes of minions pop around the next corner and you shit your pants?

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Stories of the past
Submitted by alderneyvamp on Fri, 2009-10-02 08:43. *new
You know one thing I've noticed. Stories of the past seemed better. When I look into it, they weren't particularily, they were just presented better. I've been waiting for Dragon Age to come out for awhile now, but with every video I've become more dissapointed. The voice acting is god awful. It's stale. You see that with a lot of RPGs these days. Back when there wasn't voice overs, all that mattered was what was being said, you put your own how in as you read the text. RPG video games are like b-movies made of your favourite book, whereas before they used to be the book.

What I don't get is how this as happened. Take any other video game genre and they've seemed to nail the story telling aspects on more occassions. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the voice acting was great, so what if my character didn't talk I felt more involved with him and his compatriates than I did for any of the two bit hussies in The Witcher. The Command and Conquer games presented (and are getting into the habit of doing it again) their mission backgrounds in wonderfully entertaining real life cutscenes. I played the missions in order to see those, not the other way round. RPGs are like the hare in the tortoise and the hare story. They were once so far ahead, so they stopped and now they are so far behind.

This really deserves it's own thread. Which it will have in a moment. Sorry Chris! So what are your plans? Have you got something cooking up, wanting to do a collab or just having a browse at our wares?
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Yeah I was excited about Dragon Age for two seconds.

Submitted by Ar Kayon on Fri, 2009-10-02 18:26.

But the character models are uninspired, and as you said, the voice acting stale. Also, I think they should have gotten some D&D licensing if they were going to do their old Infinity Engine style. Maybe they should stick to Mass Effect...and here's hoping for a Jade Empire 2 with more realistic martial arts mayhem.

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The saddest thing is...

Submitted by alderneyvamp on Sat, 2009-10-03 04:22.

...I'm still going to buy it out of sheer hope that it's somewhat passable and they've just been showing bad clips. What needs to be done is a decent open world setting that's properly reactive. A space setting would be awesome for this (listening up Mass Effect guys?) because you don't have to desing all the worlds at once (release a new engine system once you've designed another rung of planets and there is a story excuse for why they couldn't be accessed before) and you don't have to design all the bits inbetween your set peices (planets.)

I had an idea for a MMORPG, based roughly on the ideas I had for Deus (and I suppose to a degree WW's Scion) in which the world is mostly generated by players. Characters operating on Hero level are running around in what is effectively a world generated by those who have made it too god level (moving into RTS style gameplay)There wouldn't be any quests so to speak of, but when the town you are in is invaded my monster spawned by a god attempting to destroy another gods faith base, your probably going to defend it, or at least yourself. I know it would take alot to pull off, but that would be a dynamic world with towns prospering and becoming cities, or being crushed underfoot by a god of war. Just musing.

Jade Empire was incredibly fun, a mix of action/adventure with RPG is one that often leaves one element or another lacking, but it pulled it off. Better controls would have been nice, something that stopped it being 'I hold block until are having to recharge their power.' Plus you could spend most of the game running around as a giant toad.
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OMG, put the two ideas together!

Submitted by SheikhJahbooty on Sat, 2009-10-03 13:23.

Have you ever seen the old Amazing Engine game, Kromosome?

You could have a slightly transhumanist, slightly cyberpunk, near future MMORPG.

Instead of having gold pieces or credits or whatever, characters could have Credit Ratings. Players could get together to form their own startups or they could join an already existing corporation or they could just freelance.

If your credit rating is massive, compared to someone else, it becomes insignificant to increase his credit rating. This would mean that players could work their characters into a position where he pretty much hands out free money. But of course, encourage them to hand out money for stuff, like make it a part of the culture of the game for rich old characters that have become corporate heads to make up quests for other characters to accomplish.

They need not be real quests either. Someone could have just been watching (I don't own a television, so I mention a drama I've heard of from my mum) True Blood and they want to see a love story like they saw on the show take place in their game world, so they will offer CR to characters that manage to embroil themselves in something like that in the game.

Characters should probably be able to give XP to each other, on a time basis, so if you play for an hour, you have 12 XP to hand out that you can't use yourself, and you would just give to whoever did something awesome that you witnessed.

Of course all the first corporate heads would be sprites or staff members, but you could semi-retire those characters into mysterious recluses once you have a decent amount of player CEOs.

You only need three systems at first, a couple of planets in each system, all fictional, no Earth. The three systems are linked by The Gatekeepers, a quasi-religious organization of time dilated space travelers who build wormholes and then drag one end to another star system. (In essence, you are using the old concept of stargates linking the different star systems, but the process of building them is going on right now) so as time goes on, you can just announce that the Gatekeepers have finished another wormhole and a new system becomes accessible. Since gatekeepers are secretive and spend a lot of time in deep space travelling at relativistic velocities, you never have tell anyone when another system will come on line.

This doesn't totally get rid of the problem that MMORPG adventures are attractions rather than stories, but it does create the opportunity for the game designers and the players themselves to create more engaging and rewarding stories and to reward each other in game for interacting and taking part in those stories.

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I think we just invented a new genre.

Submitted by alderneyvamp on Sun, 2009-10-04 04:27.

That sounds like a game I would love to be a part of. The credit rating idea sounds shit hot. The secondary XP (the one you give out to others) could be called Influence and could be tied to the amount of players you affect. For example if a Underground Crime Boss keeps setting bounties on a group of players who have taken it upon themselves to set up a police force in their sector.* Like guilds you can assign your self to one or several groups. So as the underground crime family gets larger ther bosses influence increases a little bit, but if the boss can set big enough rewards (or incentives like, we will stop hurting your friends) and have other groups start doing their missions, say a group of elite mercenaries or perhaps even some traders who find the laws being imposed to restrictive, then your influence gains a massive boost.

So as you spend Influence, if you do it in smart and intelligent ways, you can get alot more back (the Influence stat would probably be a divided one like HP so your max score goes up and your current score is 'spend' and regenerates slowly back towards your max. Or have it so the points regenerate at a rate depending on what your score it.) You could use your Credit Rating (CR) in a similair way. Keeping pitting your CR against merely buying things for yourself and it might just stay the same, or get worse. Lending portions of your CR to others temporarily could mean getting more back in the long run.

I know this is getting complicated now, but perhaps investing in a business (for example) will see it's physical building grow and develop and their wares increase.

I'm not saying there should be no NPCs, but perhaps they should always be in the employ of a PC. A guard is always guarding something for an actual person, you'd think twice about just killing him. Same if someone had an interglactic trading house and had employed captains to transport his goods, one would be silly to simply raid that vessel without thought of how to cover your tracks and protect yourself if you invoke someone elses ire.

Hell if this had only a 100 people playing in a relatively small star system, it would be more involving than most MMOs I've played (not slating MMOs, I do play them.)

*As you mentioned having staff members play certain characters, the game could start with a rich and vibrant culture, which will slowly be completely run by players, perhaps maybe with only a few 'storyteller' staff hanging around rather insidiously in postitions of more advisotory roles (after a few months no staff member is player the head of a religious cyber cult, but still maintains a role as archbishop or whatever.)
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Don't steal... The Government hates competition.

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