Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Trouble With Using D&D Rules In Videogames?

Posted by simoniker on from the cheeto-replenishment-is-near dept.

An anonymous reader writes "There's a new article on kuro5hin.org about the trouble with porting pencil and paper RPG games (such as d20 3.5) to RPG video games. One such rules-snatching video game is examined, The Temple of Elemental Evil. The article is also an introduction to a new RPG Standards Compliance system that is currently under development and will be online soon, in hopes of bridging the gap between computers and those lovable PnP evenings we all enjoy."

4 of 503 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Major Problem by wmacgyver · · Score: 5, Informative
    If I remember correctly, the evolution of the whole D&D series started with the Basic D&D set. (I'm not counting Chainmail ruleset, which I feel is still a wargame.) My Basic D&D set was a red box, it even came with dice and crayon for you to fill in the numbers. In this rule set, Elf is a character class, not a player race. Elf played very similar to Fighter/Mage for those of you that cared. There were 5 such sets. Basic(1-3), Expert(4-14), Companion(15-25 levels), Master(26-36 levels), and Immortals(37+).

    AD&D came after that, it was published in 1978 as three hardcover books: Player's Guide, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. It's a format that's follow even to this day. Various player race were introduced, and the rules were changed so that races are no longer classes.

    Then came AD&D 2nd edition in 1989. For a while, they went to a 3 ring binder format for you to keep track of all the monsters, which drove me crazy. It may have been a good idea for adding new monsters, but pages tear and fall out all the time.

    D20, or D&D 3rd edition, returned to the original Dungeon and Dragon name. The changes are quite drastic compare to any of the previous editions of D&D/AD&D.

    The most recent release is 3.5E, which was last year. (2003)

    For a history of D&D/TSR, take a look at here

    The core of D20 is also published here as a set of rtfs.

  2. Re:One question... by 33degrees · · Score: 5, Informative

    If any of you are scratching your heads, trying to figure out where this text is from, it's from Summoner Geeks.
    Figured I'd could save someone the trouble I just went through trying to figure it out...

  3. Actually... by SkOink · · Score: 5, Informative

    If any of you are scratching your heads, trying to figure out where this text is from, it's from Summoner Geeks.
    Figured I'd could save someone the trouble I just went through trying to figure it out...

    The sketch in question was originally done by a comedy group called the Dead Alewives, an improv troup based out of Milwaukee whose webpage now seems to be defunct. The Summoner Geeks clip as linked above was actually a hidden feature in the computer/PS2 game Summoner, which could be accessed by pressing ESC (X) during the credits. The original Dead Alewives version had a very amusing intro, which was cut in the Summoner Geeks flick.

    The audio is, however, preserved in its entirety in a flash animation called 8bitDandD.

    --
    ---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
  4. D&D wasn't based primarily on Tolkien's work by lsw · · Score: 5, Informative


    The article states that the main base for D&D wasn't Tolkien, but actually was Jack Vance's Tales of the Dying Earth.
    If you read the novels it now looks like someone wrote that book with the D&D player's guide in front of him. All the funny magic items and weird magic system comes from there. While everyone agrees that Tolkien (and his Inklings group of which CS Lewis was also a member) had a great influence on fantasy, in this case it was Vance's fault :-).

    PS the article also fails to give credit to Dave Arneson (hope got the name right) as a co-creator.

    be seeing you

    --
    Ironclad Security only exists when you have Chuck Norris on the shift. Do we really have to discuss this? (Plutonite)