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The Trouble With Using D&D Rules In Videogames?
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."
But I believe Knights of the Old Republic uses this sort of system internally. It's mostly hidden from the user (unless they choose to view it), and I had no problems playing the game. In fact, it was quite enjoyable. A good mix, I'd say.
Look at Knights of the Old Republic. Not even D&D even though it used the D20 system. I have rarely seen a game half as balanced as that one. The D20 system was invented just to make it easy to make video games.
... wrote a complete character sheet in VB6 (ick, I know) that was fully v3.5 compliant... All I heard about once he was knee-deep into it was how bad it sucked and how complicated it was... But it turned out pretty cool. Dice rollers and everything. Now to get him to port it to gtk or qt...
bash: rtfm: command not found
I've been playing P&P RPGs for a long time. I started in 1992, with my dad, when I was 7, playing AD&D Second Edition. Played that till Third Edition came out. I've been playing Shadowrun on and off for about 4 years. I've also played lots of CRPGs that used D&D Rules. NWN (The Version that used to be on AOL), NWN (by Bioware), Unlimited Adventures, All the Eyes of the Beholders and their many Kin (27 Beholder-Kin, if I remember) and what not. I've not played Temple of Elemental Evil, though I did see the Beta at GenCon. It seemed buggy then, too. But NWN has hit it dead on. It's an excellent game based off the rules (Based. Not entirely kosher. Think about some of the feats) and I like it alot. It's better than Unlimited Adventures. We've never had it so good.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
not because of the AD&D rules being ported to a CRPG, but because;
1. It is extremely bug-ridden. Really *really* badly bug ridden. And abandoned too. No more patches. The publishers just don't care; they have made their money back already. Atari *suck*.
2. The designers appeared to have taken the original p&p module and turned it into a game with very little 'fleshing out'. Normally, when a DM buys a module and runs it as a game, they treat it as a framework. In TOEE all we get is the framework.
As an example of just how bad it is, a single rogue character can finish the game in about 30 mins with very little levelling up; all sneaking outside of combat is 'take 20'.
Every action you need to perform, every item you need to find to complete the game can be done from stealth (except one and that only leads to a non-combat dialog). If you know where to go and what to pick up the entire game can be completed with no combat. Period. Normally that'd be a good thing (eg the original Fallout, which can be completed *almost* without combat, by a 'talker'). But here, in ToEE, its only because theres no real storyline.
However, the ToEE game engine is potentially *awesome*; it faithfuly implements the AD&D rules. There is very little problem in this regard.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I played a good bit of pen-and-paper D&D back in the day. I remember ignoring most of the rules and dice rolls entirely. The biggest rule, was that all the rules were optional. D&D was about having a good time.
In computer games, the rules sometimes get in the way of the fun (see TOEE). Your character is more a collection of numbers than a person. Sure, you could play pen-and-paper like that too, but you would have to be pretty anal.
"Good old days." Yeah. The days of absurdist playstyle created by monster manuals chock full of monsters that had once/day attacks with no other purpose but to instakill your beloved character.
Not to mention the wretched class imbalances. I'm not fond of WoTC, but at least they fathomed that perhaps the mages should actually be able to reach 20th level, and not at that point die to a single flurry of +1 arrows shot by orcs...
You see the Baron, three bodyguards, and Goldie.
Goldie's the mage! Kill her!
(different game, same problem...)
Don't get me wrong, NWN is a great example of how to put D&D as a video game -- but pen-and-paper games is only best with pen-and-paper the majority of the time. Plus you just can't get a true experience of sitting down with your buddies and having a sadistic GM.
Karma whorin' since 1999
The whole idea of using tabletop RPG rules for video games is silly. Tabletop RPGS are designed in every way around the fact that the you can only generate random numbers by rolling dice, and human beings have to resolve everything: what made Rolemaster (or "Rollmaster" as we called it) intolerably slow in person would be completely invisible in a video game.
Tabletop RPGs today go out of their way to avoid rolling too many dice and looking up results on too many tables (things that are trivial for a computer). What makes games in person fun (aside from, you know, playing with other people) is the ability of the GM to improvise, which is essentially an AI-complete program. Thus, you end up with dungeon-crawls like "Temple of Elemental Evil," where the player's choices can be limited to the extent that it's possible to plan for most of them. (Or, you get a game like Neverwinter Nights, where - despite goods scripting - you bump against the artificiality of the world at every turn.)
Unfortunately, the article chooses to talk about AI bugs, scroll menu bugs, and other things that are entirely unrelated to the choice of the D&D ruleset.
Problem solved, but not in the way you want:
Make the number crunching fun.
HackMaster by KenzerCo
The quirks and flaws system is incredibly fun, and yes, you can skip the parody part and have a great game!
seriously, though. It's a great engine. I love how you can either roll characters or do the good old point buy. What I dont' like is that the story line is terrible.
On the other side of the coin in NWN. It's a dated game engine for sure, the mechanics are an edition ago, but on the other hand, the story line in the single player is absolutly awesome. The second expansion, Hordes of Underdark, is probally the best game experience that I've ever had in my life. The characters (Aribeth especially) were very well done. The main enemy, Mephostopheles, was actually scary. No angst-filled BS like a lot of other games. None of that 'he was a good person gone bad' crap. He was just plain evil.
Really? which sytems, exactly, are you talking about?
When Gygax & Arneson published D&D in 1974, it was pretty much the first RPG.
I have HEARD of something called "Aerosmyth" from the 1940's, but never found any details.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Which RPG system do you have in mind that predate this?
AD&D is agreat system for role playing with a bunch of friends around a table while eating junk food - it is not a great set of rules for a computer game. My favorite implementation is BioWare's Baldur's Gate.
Anarchists never rule
This article seems poorly thought out, fails to address the topic with many points, and is generally confused. Let's take a few examples...
Problems: Distributed Database vs. Brain
I'd be more impressed with this if I knew what the author thinks distributed databases have to do with computer games. And "systemic pliability for quick changes and alterations to code blocks"? What does that mean?
The Adventure
There's already nine starting stories, which is eight more than most games. How will you make the quest depend on class when the party can have up to five people of any combination of classes?
Solution: Standards Compliance
The problem with this list is, as far as I can tell, D20 already has all this. Though I may be wrong, since the article is hardly clear.
I could go on but I can feel my IQ decreasing with every paragraph I read, so I'll stop here...
Human/Ranger/Zangband
I have have a couple of thoughts on this:
1. First of all, there are a couple things about the D&D ruleset that trouble me - example: last time I played, there was nothing about size of an enemy effecting chance to hit. Throwing a knife at an enemy 12 feet side should be notably more likely to hit than an enemy 4 inches wide. Unfortunately, its not... according to D&D rules. I think games should concentrate more on Logical game rules incorporating whatever rulesets seem fit that also support a logical view of a gaming universe. There is no reason to religiously attach ourselves to a ruleset that may be imperfect, just as ancient astronomers tried to attach themselves to a view of the universe that rotated around the earth. Imperfect concepts Must be improved upon. Its evolution.
2.In D&D, a DungeonMaster had at least a little room to embellish. A newbie who isn't a jerk and isn't incredibly stupid probably won't be instantly killed if a good DM is hosting the game. Their gameplay will lead them further in to the game, teaching them and immersing them in the action, like how a teacher of Go will open a students eyes through a game on the board. Computers aren't there yet, even Neverwinter Nights, which was supposed to send pen&paper to obscelence, somehow missed. There is an empathetic human nature with proper D&D that hasn't been replicated with video games yet - and it may still take a while to happen.
The K5 article makes a good point about people being able to exploit a game, but can't exploit a DM for too long. I'm not sure if a game could ever become smart enough to sense when its rulesets are being tampered with and then adjust accordingly... but if it could, it would be a massive step forward out of the cookie-cutter solutions we find in so many games today.
The Bronte Sisters (Charlotte & Emily & Anne) - They developed an active role playing system with character generation, a rudimentary success/failure system with dice and a story master. Of course no one else on the planet played their game so they didn't invent it in the way Gary did.
Thalasar
...I've got something I've mentioned in feedback to the "big three" PC-game magazines (Computer Gaming World, PC Gamer, Computer Games) - there are others, but these three seem to be the only ones which focus solely on PC games. The question I've posed to them is essentially a "RPGs for Dummies". I never played D&D when I was younger, and I play a lot of games but most of them are FPS and strategy games. I do however, own a ton of other games, including a lot of RPGs, which I've never played (which I guess would classify me as a collector). I purchase the ones I keep as a collector based on reviews and feedback from people I know - so that puts me in the range of 700 games (according to my electric inventory). Anyway, the RPGs have never really made sense to me but I've never seen a good explanation regarding their actual, underlying philosophy and play.
There's also a second part to it, another round after school at the Brown Deer High (where my mom used to work, dead alewives are local for me) D&D club, one of them brings his girlfriend, hilarity ensues. Its probably avalable on p2p, thats where i got it, the DAs advocated getting their stuff there on their site since most of their cds are out of print.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I have to wonder if the writer of the article has ever really played D&D d20 (3.0 or 3.5) or AD&D/D&D from previous iterations. I suspect, given the tone early on in, that he was blinded by his personal gaming political prejudice.
The latest incarnation lends itself very easily to implementation on a computer. Heck, we've been toying with converting an old LPmud to d20 because for the first time the D&D has a standardized machanic that can be more consistently implemented.
The author even goes on to state that d20 fails to take a standard approach in monster/character creation. Clearly the autlor has no clue what he's on about. d20 applies the same ruleset to everything. You want to play a Minotaur sorceror. No problem. You want to play a goblin barbarian. No problem again. Heck, you want to play a half-dragon assassin, you can do that. Now try doing that with earlier versions of D&D. Good luck coming up with a standard approach.
If there is one complaint I do have about d20 D&D it is that it feels too much like a computer game. The rules are so clear on everything now, that it all feels too structured. I find that the game is geared more towards the video game generation and less to those of us who prefer role-playing.
It might be workable to make a CRPG that actually responds to the player's needs with rule changes. The premise would be: let the player succeed at everything they try but with a weighting factor based on the importance/significance of that action. For instance, the player would essentially get invisible bonuses in random encounters, so that they would only lose if they really weren't ready for that area at all. However, on an epic 'boss' type fight, they wouldn't get those bonuses. Similarly, if the party is out of money or 3 gold short for something and tries to pickpocket it, the game would let it succeed trivially, but if the party is already rich (beyond a certain threshold) the game ups the difficulty (equivalent to a GM saying 'okay, you've got enough, do something else now'). These would still be somewhat rigid as they'd have to be preprogrammed in.
A more sophisticated would be something that actually has a way of calculating how important arbitrary actions/events are with respect to the storyline, in the same sort of way as chess AI. That seems very difficult to implement without some very general way to describe the events of the game so that the computer can somehow 'understand' what's going on and what the consequences of party action are.
...saying what should have been obvious to everyone.
This guy has no clue about RPGs (computer or otherwise). He doesn't know the history of roleplaying games. He doesn't understand Gygax's contribution. He uses buzzwords to hint at computer knowledge, but uses them in such a nonsensical manner as to suggest he's trying to get revenge on geeks for the jokes they've played on social science journals.
I mean, look at this quote:
What the heck does that MEAN? I mean, know a little about client-server architectures (having written an engine designed to power a server for a game which uses such an architecture) and I have no idea what he means by "server client." All clients have to have a server, but no client is a server. So "server client" is either redundant or contradictory. And in what sense is Temple of Elemental Evil a client? I thought it was a stand-alone CRPG which played on your home computer. And, even if it was a client in some sense, what would client-ness have to do with intepreting rules. Every time I have tried to port an RPG from paper to computer (quite a few times, both successfully and unsuccessfully since I first tried it with Traveller in 1979), "intepreting rules" was the job of the programmer. And how would that lead to "standards violations" from any standpoint, let alone a programming standpoint?
Please...
The subject of this article is of intense interest to me. As I said, I have been facing the issues of porting RPG rules to computers since 1979. My first RPG was published by a major publisher in 1982. I've been playing CRPGs since they first came out. I want an intelligent article to be written on the subject so we can all discuss something that is obviously of interest to many of us. But this is not that article.
The author makes some statements about Troika's development of ToEE. Maybe we could learn something from some of them. But how can we assume they have anything to do with the game's actual development, when they're surrounded by pure gibberish? What's his source for this inside information about the development? (Assuming we can figure out what is being said among all the buzzwords. I'm not even going to try to figure it out until I have some reason to believe it would be worth trying.)
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
The original Wizardry from Sir-Tech software had a great spell system, if I recall correctly. And I seem to remember Ultima IV also using a component based system. In both of these cases you really did customize the strengths and weaknesses of your characters. Building a balanced party was key. The little bit I've played Baulder's Gate and Neverwinter Nights doesn't really get me back to that same sense of putting my own spin on the adventure unfolding before me.
This sig intentionally left justified.
if you're mostly into grand sweeping epic storylines, or intricate political manipulative shenannigans ... then the computer version is very, very tame
I've been a PnP DM and player for well over a decade, and have to say that while the above is generally correct, there are exemplary exceptions. Take PlaneScape: Torment, for example. This is easily the best CRPG made in the last 15 years of computer gaming, and has a plotline so deep it's humbling.
There are also many action games masquerading as RPGs, and these cast a dark shadow on the rest of the market (Diablo springs to mind here).
Finally, there is NWN. In and of itself, it's rather lame. However, the cream of the user-made content freely available is amazing.
Don't write CPRGs off entirely.
Totally agree with your point here, but raised one question for me..
Would these types of games be easier to prduce were gamers less demanding of sophisticated graphics and dialogue?.
Something that produces text based storylines and conversation with a modern grpahical front end for enrything else would surely be easier to customize. People can "say" things from a large base of phrases, and the elimination of a character actor for each NPC would make this much less work.
im sure this could be worded better, but you get what i mean
bah!*@%!
This is easily the best CRPG made in the last 15 years of computer gaming, and has a plotline so deep it's humbling.
Not exactly. There is a difference between "plotline" and "backstory". PS:Torrent has much backstory, but little in the way of actual plot that occurs while you are playing.
The storyline is revealed as you play, but is out of your control (since it already happened, and the protagonist is just recovering from his amnesia). Not much different from how most computer games present their story.
Further, while it would be nice to think that the mechanics under the hood can make or break a game (because it would mean the work of game-system designers is really that damn important...), the reality is that it's the ability and work of the game designers. KotR demonstrates that a d20-controlled video game can be stellar. And there are other examples that prove that d20-controlled video game suck. It has next-to-nothing to do with the use of the d20 System as the engine for the game and everything to do with the skill of the game designers.
D&D 3E (and 3.5E) have come a LONG way from their humble roots, and for the most part have fixed every stupid-ass idea to choke the genre except hit points.
This is an artificial mechanic that never worked well. Never. Green Ronin, for their Mutants and Masterminds game (a superhero d20 game) eliminated hit points in favor of a "Damage Save": if you make the save (like any other save) you take no damage, fail and take damage in various levels.
This totally fixed the HP problem, and works well for a superhero system--the problem lies in taking that idea (simple as it seems) and applying that mechanic to the fantasy element. The result is usually characters dying faster than before--which may even be more "real to life".
Levels, to an extent, are also broken; but they're such a mainstay of the genre that eliminating them from D&D altogether would be damn-near impossible--and unwarranted. Such a thing could kill the player-base. Players like levels, it's almost like dick size to them.
For a MMORPG how they handle these two things is key. The rules weren't written for computers at all--they were written for a GM and players. No matter how many CPU cycles you put into it, a computer will never "out imagine" a human. Thus you get canned effects and hard-coded plot points that need to be met.
I'm kind of amazed that it works at all, actually.
> Most of the author's gripes were about storyline or AI.
I'm the author of the k5 article, and I will say that my problems with TOEE are rules based problems leading to systemic bugs. The d20 rules are too subjective, and as a result, an objective use of them failed the game. Without a DM to ref the gameplay, TOEE suffers from a lot of leftover problems from implementing the d20 system. Most of the bugs in the game are there as a result of the rules and the needed programming to sustain the rules.
Furthermore, I pointed out in the article that these problems come from a plethora of complications as a result of using d20; the publishers were expecting miracles, the designers were playing whack-the-mole with bugs, and the system was very difficult to get under control.
The story module that this game was built on was likely one of the better elements of the game, IMHO, because it was a classic module for Greyhawk, and it's indeed a very fun world to play in. The story of the game could have been better implemented, but I maintain, and I maintained in the article, that the designers were likely too busy working on problems with d20 to have time to work on the more abstract elements of the game. You don't have time to tell a great story if you are too busy doing other things.
ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS!
"The rule, it seems, is that when a monster identifies a target, the monster will stick with the target until death. Now if it were me, and some guy is standing there like a statue, I would ignore him."
[[[I am familiar of no rule in the D20 system that says a monster has to attack the same person repeatedly, nor that the monster has to only attack on individual. Hmm...in fact, I've fought creatures that have attacked myself and several companions in a single round. Dragons are a good example....
No...this is an attempt at an excuse for poor AI logic. A simple flag would have resolved this problem. "IsTargetCurrentlyAttackable". If equal "1" continue attack. If equal "0" select new target. Problem resolved. Has no relation to "D20" or "RPG"...was simply a programmer caught in a failure to cover all the scenarios. Yes, that is a challenge. With a PnP-RPG the GM can respond dynamically where as in a PC-RPG all such responses must be coded in the AI. But hey, that's why it's called "AI" or "Artificial Intelligence".
]]]
"This is the first chip against TOEE's use of d20; what would it take to have a mini-quest given to each class/alignment suited for both these vars?"
[[[Not too much...could simply be an option of "raiding the nearby village for $$$" or "defending nearby village from raiders". Do you lead the rampaging greedy hordes or do you lead the peasants defending the farm. Which ever side you choose (based on alignment...which adjusts based on actions) determines which side you lead. Now was that so hard?]]]
"Considering, there are nine (9) possible alignments and eleven (11) classes that you can start out with, you can now see ninety-nine possible story threads"
[[[I disagree....as it doesn't matter WHAT a character's chosen alignment is, rather, their actions should affect alignment (per D20 rules). There really are only a few distinctions to affect story plot. "Good, Evil, Neutral". Are you helping, destroying, or staying uninvolved unless it affects you directly. Someone passing up many quest opportunities would move to a neutral state. One doing evil or greedy tasks would move to evil alignment. And one being helpful = good. That's not a giant big deal. KOTOR does this easily with their Darkside/Lightside. I don't see this as an issue. The other end of the spectrum (Chaotic/Lawful). Simply goes to whether you are dependent of a code or not. Thief's honor (example: "Memba is a member of the thieves guild...picking her pocket would violate the thief's code of honor." Doing so would move you from a lawful to a chaotic state. The state really should have minimal affect on plot other than interaction and perhaps the benefits one might receive. If you pick pocket you find a "journeyman lockpick" if you had just talked to "Memba" she'd have given you the pick. I see this as more whining.]]]
"Scroll Bugs and a Solution"
[[[Not quite getting what he's trying to say? *shrug*]]]
"The first premise of this new system is that all things are created equal. Effects are equal to all other effects of the same level, and such effects are standardized to be simple to adapt to CRPG or PPRPG."
[[[Never going to happen....because a creative person will find an time to use said effect when it is most helpful. Example: freeze monster...nice effect. But in a canyon, freezing the monster in a narrow path is much more effective when it blocks the 5 other monsters behind it. Lob grenade...thunderstones.]]]
BENEFITS AND EXAMPLES:
First off, Morrorwind is an amazing example of a game based on what PnP-RPG'ers are used to. Stats, construction, growth, etc. Now for some the slowth growth at first (very MUD-like in that manner) was too much for the casual Comp-RPGer. But a lot of die-hards loved the depth of that game.
Star Wars: KOTOR uses the D20 system and seems to do so quite well. Furthermore, it was very easy for me to get used to as I was familiar with the D20 system (D&D, Wheel of Time...but not SW). It wor
That's why God created conditional expressions, my friend.
I believe his point was that it sucks to program a whole bunch of them in, both initially and later when it comes to code maintenance. Programming would be a lot easier with fewer of them. Also, when a new edition of the rules comes out, it's nice not to have to modify a bunch of existing special cases.
It's very possible that a pseudorandom sequence of numbers just won't cut it for AD&D-based gaming systems.
I don't believe you know what you're talking about with this one. If you don't need a zillion random numbers every second, there are clever ways to reseed the random number generator periodically to increase arbitrariness of the random number stream. Considering the relatively few number of dice rolls in a game (less than 10e6), you're not ever going to see structure in the random numbers.
Thank you! I just played through a little bit of XIII, and it is EXACTLY like that, and it kinda sucks really bad. As in, no REAL plot, and the gameplay sucks. At least the graphics are good...wait...
I think I'll stick to Comix Zone.
You have obviously never played with some of the unimaginative Dungeon Masters that I have, who became unimaginative GameMasters, who became unimaginative StoryTellers...
So, how many times have you started out the adventure in a tavern?
Humanity is no sure sign of creativity. And I've seen the toolkit for Neverwinter Nights (which is almost the same engine for KOTOR, but different Art Resources). It's capable of a lot more depth than many P+P modules have built into them.
I was hoping for better writing from Bioware. I know they're capable of it (see Baldur's Gate).
Black Isle was involved with both the Baldur's Gate games. Look at the plot in BG, and other Black Isle games (Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment), and then compare it to the games Bioware did by themselves (Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR). The stories in the Black Isle games are head and shoulders above. Bioware has made some good games, but I would not put them in the same category as Black Isle.
I once shot a man in Reno 'cause they cancelled Firefly.