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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.
Where are the cheetos?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The main problem encountered here is that a system designed primarily for abstraction, that relies on mental visualisation to compensate for the abstraction, is being ported to an environment where complexity can be handled and arbitrary visualisation is provided. Additionally, IMO hitpoints really don't work representationally after a set point.
BTW, I'd like to just point out that I haven't touched a P+P game since I was 12
He's making a remark to the excellent D&D parody by the Dead Alewives. If you search Google for it you can probably find it.
Problem is that D&D's number-crunching sucks and instead of focusing on giving the player a thousand numbers to concern himself with, it'd be better to make a fun game.
... 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!?"
If you're mostly into Hack & Slash, then video game D&D is workable. In fact, it's been around a long time: Rogue was released in the mid-80's wasn't it? Man, I still love that game.
But if you're mostly into grand sweeping epic storylines, or intricate political manipulative shenannigans, or just the camaraderies of hanging out at the gaming table, eating pizza & diet coke (or cheetos & Mt. Dew) and rolling dice and making bad puns or acting out like your character, then the computer version is very, very tame.
I can handle both styles fine though. THey both have merits.
BTW (off-topic) how many people still play older editions? I'm very much into old-school Basic/Expert D&D (those old boxed sets from 1981). That's what I started out with back in the day, and it's what I keep going back to for some reason. I know the new editions are technically better, but I just don't like 'em that much. *shrug*
The most amazing thing to me is, the fact that this article posted at all over on K5. I can't believe it did, since it was on it's way down last I looked at it. Looks like K5 really has gone to pot. :-(
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
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 would say that it is a much better idea to use the tried-and-true D&D rulesets than to create your own on the fly. Heck, for starters, it saves you a huge amount of time.
For success they must roll at least an 18
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
It still doesn't tell how Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is different from regular Dungeons and Dragons. I've asked around and no one knows. I'm starting to think nerds just made it up to sound smart.
"I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons."
"Oh yeah? I'm playing ADVANCED Dungeons and Dragons"
"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...)
Ask and thou shalt receive...
8bit D&D Flash Movie
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.
Actually, he basically invented the modern RPG. Unless your complaining because everybody played makebelieve, D and Ds only real predecessors are wargames -- a completely different genre.
Found this history in two seconds googling:
http://ptgptb.org/0001/history1.html
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.
Baldur's Gate? This article confuses me on several levels.. First, it's operating within a microcosm of video games that are based off of AD&D - in particular just one. This isn't really that great of a study if it's just using one source. I'm taking an introductory statistic's course right now at my college, and my professor would fail me if I used only one souce. (He also mentions something called d20 in passing a few times but makes no arguments over it.) Second, what about Baldur's Gate? There are very few more successful game series then the Baldur's Gate line. The game is able to be played as a traditional RPG with pause's after each move, the storyline is diverse, and with BG2 onward you have different plots devlop based on your char's alignment, class, race, etc.. it's quite a wonderful and diverse game. Neverwinter Nights continues to expand it allowing user/gameplayer customization of the settings and rules. This customization of the rules of the game is also my third point with what's wrong with this "article". The author says that Pen and Paper games are much more flexiable and adaptable based on their player's needs.. well, if I am playing a game of NWN or BG or Ice Wind Dale, all I have to do is change the settings in my preference box to change the level of hardness of the monsters or the speed of the game, etc. It's not difficult, and just requires a few clicks of a button. So in conclusion, what happened to the Baldur's Gate line of games? I mean, come one... the games span three platforms, are wellknown amongst gamers, and have won more awards then I can count. Why didn't the author include BG and Black Isle analysis in his article? All this means is that this article is a bit of FOO and should be sent to /dev/null, or rather /dev/menzoberranzan.
- Simrook.
'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it...
It takes a lot of programming to make a game truly "open ended". Baulders Gate I and II did this quite well, although there is simply no match for the imagination of the human mind. There may be 'open ended quest' but today that only means that there are a few endings, that could perhaps change later events in your game. But for intigrating the rules, it seems simple, but when you add the rules to the open-endedness of pencil and paper games, it becomes that much harder.
OMG OMG OMG WTF OMG WTF BBQ STFU RTFM, OMFG OMG OMG OMG ROFL LMAO OMG WTF STFU ROFLMAO
Knights of the Old Republic used essentially the same rules as D&D, the d20 game, Star Wars Roleplaying Game. I've played the RPG, it works well as a table top game.
I think that KotOR makes it pretty obvious that a great game *can* be based directly on a table-top RPG. But a crappy game is a crappy game, no matter what property they license to go under it.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
My biggest problem with porting pencil and paper games to video games was finding a pencil that would write on the screen. Then I realized that dry-erase markers worked really well, and as an added bonus it was much easier to change the stats on your character without leaving those nasty eraser smudges.
paintball
Is that someone who played AD&D managed to procreate.
paintball
d20's a pretty sucky system, rules wise. Shadowrun and Whitewolf games have a nicer system, overall (though I don't like either game genre, personally). The various games jumping on the d20 bandwagon are just making their games sucky. Sucky but sellable.
Give me a nice smooth, fast system that's as open ended in character design as Shadowrun any day over any d20 crap.
I'm told 3.5 is a massive improvement over v3.0, but it's still not for me.
As for RPGs in computer games, I've yet to see one. Arcanum was the closest to one I've seen. It was fun. It was also lightyears from being an RPG. We'll need truely imaginative AIs before we have that.
Which RPG system do you have in mind that predate this?
The article pretty much seems to ignore its premise.
The fact that TOEE is bug-ridden doesn't say *anything* about the suitability of adapting Pen N Paper RPGs to the computer. It just means there were sloppy programmers.
According to this Link
There will be a new patch coming out in the next couple of weeks. Since Steve Moret is only the lead developer for ToEE I guess you would know better.
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
All I got from this article was that the guy wasn't happy about the d20 system, he really didn't seem to be all that coherent, which he warns us of this ("this is no review of TOEE, although it could be"), it apparently could also be a rambling condemnation of WotC, or a big circle jerk about how great J.R.R. Tolkien was.
/. aside from the usual comments about the editors?
As people pointed out in the thread below, a computer is more than capable of performing the functions that the d20 system has laid out. I for one have never found it difficult to comprehend, as everything is simply a plus or minus on a random interger 1-20. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it really isn't that tough (compared to say, creating some good content) to establish these scripts and commands?
I mean really, for now all we're going to get is a fairly modular design, but the rules are not the problem, shit games with tons of bugs are the problem. Who wrote this article, why are they qualified to make these statements, why is it on
From the comments: "I've seen d&d accused of being satanist for years, but I've never seen an actual personal perspective on d&d from the Devil." (link)
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
I mean ya, a pen and paper game can actually be played without the pen or paper if you want. My friends and I did, for the most part. All we used was charater sheets. This was mainly a process for organizing your thoughts. The player had to put thought into what kind of character they wished to play, and the GM (we weren't playing D&D) got an idea of what that character was and could formulate a story around them. Then we basically told an interactive story. The sheets were also useful if you wanted to pick up later (it's hard to remember what the fuck you were doing a month ago).
Not the case with computers. They are as of yet not nearly advanced enough to engage in that sort of thing. So you need a set of rules for them to adhere to. For combat they can't deal with telling a story about it, they need to crunch numbers to determine a winner.
D&D is good for that. It provides a robust, and very tested system. It's not the easiest thing in the world to come up with a good system for a game. This provides a ready made (and good) one to use. Now some games expose perhaps too much of it to the gamers, but some of us find that fun. I really like BG2, despite it being really complecated.
D&D also has a very large and developed universe to draw on. Again, good stories aren't the easiest thing to come up with, espically from scratch. The D&D universe gives you a rich background with many story frameworks from which to start, and write your specific adventure.
Not saying that all games should be D&D or even D20, but I don't think it's bad that many are. I mean BG2 stands as my all time favourite computer role playing game. I'm not sure it would have been as good had they not used a rich preexisting universe like D&D.
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.
On a somewhat related note, I just read on EN World that Gary Gygax recently suffered a mild stroke. Man, hearing news like this makes me feel old.
D20 was thought as simplification to limit amount of calculations performed by players at cost of adequacy of simulating the world. So, you lose part of the reality by using very simplified system, then lose a lot more by limiting the player to what the authors had thought of and disabling all what the player could think of, but authors didn't implement. (classic problem of "you can't do that!. Why? Because you can't." In paper RPG you can try to climb a wall, dig through it with a pickaxe, throw a rope over it, stack items to climb them etc. In computer RPG you can only curse because it's the wall of the map and there's nothing beyond.).
I'd take Morrowind as the best example of modern system for computers.
Take a fight. You press mouse button, by holding it longer you increase strength of hit a bit. But then there's calculation of fact of hit: Agility, speed, unarmoured, distance, fatigue, load and luck of the enemy vs your attack, weapon skill, agility, height comparing to enemy, fatigue, load, damage of weapon and luck.
Then point of hit: Where you aimed your aiming cross, your skill, fatigue, luck.
Then HP taken: Point of attack, armour on that point, corresponding armour skill of the enemy, damage of the armour, endurance, fatigue, HP, luck, your strength, weapon hit ratio, damage of weapon, your fatigue, your luck.
And possibly quite a few I forgot.
3 hits with a dagger in one second, not a problem for a computer to calculate that. Think of a player performing such calculation "manually" at each attack.
Porting paper systems straight to computers is plain dumb.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=35eaccc3.6520 1896%40news.earthlink.net
-- Old Man Kensey
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)
The problem with D&D rules is they're set up for long term (years and years) campaigns, not 30-40 hr games. So you're characters get just a few skill points and new abilities per level; so few in fact that it's a waste to spend them on anything other than what the game intended for that character. This makes leveling up a linear and dull event, better handled by just clicking 'automatic level up'.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
At the top of the article the author says "Computers are very rational, and people are abstract;"
Programmer joke: if people are "abstract" how come I keep seeing so many instances of them. Maybe they are subclasses?
Anyway it's completely trite. And untrue. Computers are algorithmic. Humans can be rational, which is usually defined as 'capable of exercising reason'.
Unless, of course the author means rational as in mathematics, as in a rational number (i.e. a number that can be represented as a fraction). But in this definition, the author is even more wrong; computers are of course binary machines.
This is just the sort of faulty reasoning that makes me stop reading articles. Quite aside from that first sentence !!! from this single example, perhaps we can conclude (erroneously) that people aren't abstract, they are illiterate. At least in this instance.
-A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed-
Mod me troll for saying this... but i'd actually like to see game designers move AWAY from D&D or other paper based rulesets. Don't get me wrong, P+P can be great fun... but when's someone going to make a ruleset that takes advantage of a computer? I've always felt that paper systems were simplified because rolling 20 dice just to see if your right-handed 32 degree slash hit, wasn't deflected, broke a link in their chainmail, and caused a wound... well its just not fun. So in paper, thats all done in what... 2 rolls? But hell, with a computer you could make 20 dice rolls in an instant and the user would never know the difference. Basically I just think the rules for computers need to be streamlined for FUN, not some non-existant physical limitations. And by the same token, much of the power and flexibility in having a real DM is lost with a computer... so compensation in that area is definitly needed. Its all about limitations and tradeoffs IMO, and paper's are definitly NOT the same as a computers.
The other thing is, and do excuse the tangent, i've always HATED D&Ds magic and ability system. Maybe i'm just a Diablo-noobie, but if I can do some kick ass backflip-powerstrike, or ultimate-spell-of-destruction... why the fuck can I only do it twice a day?! What, is there some internal clock on my character? Does he go "DING!" when 24 hours pass? Thats stupid. I've always preferred the mana/stamina "pool" method because its so much more flexible. Mana is raw ability... do anything with it, but your supply is limited. D&D you've got all that memorization and per/day limit stuff... its just stupid. Say your mage character unleashs some raging inferno and completely annihilates a whole clan of orcs in an instant. Once. Now imagine the conversation:
"That was badass! Do it again!"
"Sorry man, I can't".
"Why not?"
"Oh because I have to wait 19 hours to do that again."
"Oh, so like you're tired?"
"No, not tired... I just can't do that again."
"So you could cast another spell?"
"Yeah sure."
"So cast that spell again!"
"Can't dude, like I said. All i've got left is... light. Want me to make the room glow? Its really cool, watch!"
*Grumbles* "Stupid wizard."
And yeah, I know there are some ways to fudge that stuff... but the flexibility just isn't built into the game, and thats what I hate about it. Don't get me wrong, the D&D universe is a blast... I just wish there was some plausible explanation why, in NWN, my badass, "more pissy than a castrated dragon", lvl 22 human female Fighter/Thief/Weapon Master with dual flaming longswords can only perform 6 "Ki Powerstrikes" a day. Bah.
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."
In the article, the meld with stone which makes a cleric impervious to damage is used as an example of how the paper rpgs have rules that are more complex than computer based rpgs. Well the paper rules never cover anything about behaviour of the monsters in these situations unless it's something like fear/flee response, it's the GM that does so.
In computer games, it's the AI governing the monsters reaction that does this. The game obviously doesn't take into account situational knowledge. Advanced AI would have taken into account estimated enemy's damage, behaviour of monster ( rage, bezerker) and assesment of areas of danger. It might have been an oversight really, but i've never seen game AIs anymore intelligent than scripted behaviour. Probably the games also uses line of sight for attracting monsters, as opposed to noise based on encumbrance values.
Besides morrowind, nothing ever comes close to that sense of adventure.
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.
Video game RPGs need to be *less* standardized if you ask me.
The rules aren't really that important in a video game, as opposed to a pen and paper RPG. It's mostly done behind the scenes.
What we need is games with more imagination than "kill rat 500 times, then kill spider 1000 times".
Because you know these rpg developers are too focused on "standards". How about a mafia rpg where you start with collecting money for loan sharks, then move up the ladder? Yeah, you never thought about that, assholes. Thanks for all the spiders and small poisoned rats. I want to kill you by drilling a hole in your eye.
Please. Change.
Will code a sig generator for food
I can tell you a true story, a sad story, about using all the rules.
When I was in high school, there was a game shop near my home, and one day they had a tournament. A bunch of guys volunteered to be Dungeon Masters. One of the DMs, a guy I knew, was familiar with all the rules of AD&D. This was around 1981 or 1982, so we're talking first edition AD&D.
The store said the tournament was to use the standard AD&D rules. This guy assumed that meant all of them.
The characters in the tournament were all around 4th to 6th level or so. So this guy's group got into some kind of fierce battle, won the victory, but were injured. Their cleric started casting lots of heal spells.
This guy knew that, according to the rules, if you used lots of psionic powers within a short period of time, you have to roll on the Psionic Encounters Table. And he also knew that, according to the rules, certain spells count as using psionic powers -- among them, heal spells.
So he rolled his dice. Oh, a psionic encounter. He rolled his dice again. Oh, it's Mind Flayers. He rolled for how many. Three.
So three Mind Flayers attacked a party of 4th to 6th level characters that was only partially healed after a major battle. Everyone died.
The players were not exactly happy at this turn of events. They were all immediately finished with the tournament, and all because this one DM knew all the rules and applied all the rules. The store wasn't exactly happy, either. And the DM didn't really feel happy about it either, I'm sure.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
No, you are a little bit mixed up as to the history.
l
The Basic Set was around the same time as AD&D. I'm pretty sure it actually came out after AD&D, at least after the AD&D Player's Handbook.
The original was a set of very poorly edited, poorly organized books. You can see pictures and read about them here, if you like:
http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/d_and_d.htm
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
...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.
What kind of retarded street justice is that? Do you see every CS player ganging up on the guy who shoots for the head? This is just plain dumb.
-Christopher Wu
http://www.christopherwu.net/
There are a few howlers in the D&D game mechanics. Note: I haven't seen Third Edition yet.
0) You are a 12th level Fighter being marched down a corridor, no armor, your arms bound behind your back, and four men with crossbows are guarding you. So you run for it. Why not? After all, you have almost 100 hit points, and a crossbow does something like 1d6+1 and is slow to reload besides. Sure, we don't want our game to be like the real world, but should there be no chance that they can kill you?
D&D should have critical hits, or "impale" rules like Runequest, or something.
1) A typical town person has 1 hit point. 1 hit point is the smallest amount of damage you can do. Any blow with a sword will kill a town person. Okay. But also, say, a house cat: three attacks, claw/claw/bite, any one can kill a town person.
2) A 1st level mage is incredibly easy to kill, and only has one spell per day, and that one spell might even be something lame like Burning Hands. A 20th level mage, on the other hand, has so much firepower as to render the rest of the party irrelevant. This is overall considered to be balanced?
It would be better if 1st level mage characters were a bit stronger, and 20th level mage characters were a lot weaker.
I could name other things, but that's plenty.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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!*@%!
Most of the author's gripes were about storyline or AI. He was griping about PnP games on the computer when his points were really about a specific implementation.
I will retort by bringing up NWN. I DM a weekly group and many of these same people I have played PnP with over the decades.
AI- AI is a general computer game problem. What does the ogre do when you cast a certain spell? Generally this is always scripted and the AI is only as good as its code. The Meld into Stone exploit mentioned by the author is an AI exploit. An AI exploit is an AI exploit; it does not matter if it is on CivIII, a FPS or CRPG. The standard AI in nwn is not the smartest, but it IS replaceable. The individual scripts that fire on various events (when a NPC perceives another creature, when attacked, etc) can be tweaked or replaced. There are several user created AI systems available and some are quite good. If it bothers you that the ogre is still focused on the cleric, check at the end of a combat round to see if he is under the effect of Meld into Stone. If so, go after the fireballing mage instead. Oh and if a DM is possessing the ogre, he will probably flatten the mage first in any case.
Stroyline? Come on! Creating a quest is like writing dialog for a play, except that the story can branch because of whatever. If the creators of TOEE did not do this well, it is because they did not do this well. The BG series did this well. NWN's expansions did this well. There are numerous modules available for NWN that do this well. Then again, in any story without a GM, it is impossible to vary from the story in any meaningful way. I recall playing a neutral good ranger in BG2. On returning from the underdark with the Githyanki sword in my possession, I was confronted by the Githyanki seeking its return. The verbal exchange turned into a fight and fretty soon the area-of-effect spells were flying. Mind you this happened in the promenade district and several bystanders were killed by Githyanki AOE spells. This bothered my because my "good" character had chosen to fight to keep the nice sword despite the fact that innocents would die in the process. I was not penalized as the designers did not think of this situation beforehand. A good GM would have shifted me toward evil for putting personal gain before the lives of innocents. Any non-linear story will have such bugs because the designers will not be able to think of and script for every possible situation.
That is what a good GM is for.
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.
The article is really just bashing the implementation of the D20 3.5 SRD in TOEE. It then tries to generalize to all CRPGs based on a review of one game. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it with me.
I really think that the best implementation of D20 on a computer is Bioware's Neverwinter Nights. It does a good enough job of implementing the rules and is still playable.
What makes NWN so great is the toolset that allows you to create your modules, set up servers, and play with other people. The also have a DM client that allows you to play online with a human DM. This is the closest you are going to get right now to a tabletop RPG on a computer.
NWN has become my RPG fix. Since I moved to MA from KY in 2002, I've not found anyone in my area that plays RPGs, so I started playing NWN online with other people. It's great fun.
I do think that for a single player computer gaming experience, the D20 SRD is a bad choice. Bioware's implementation is as good as it gets, but single player is just so boring. I much prefer playing with others online.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
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
Thereare a few problems with the article. First, the writing:
...The result is a good experience, with beautiful environs and general ease-of-use, and all types of cubism present in Arcanum are missing from TOEE; therefore, any problems are not graphical in TOEE, IMHO.
The problems experienced by TOEE users might be best described as systemic, rules based problems that were not developed by Troika, but by RPG rules publisher Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a bastardized version of what TSR used to be in its hey-day, prior to the removal of a very important figure from the company: The Father of RPG, Gary Gygax, first created Dungeons & Dragons with a bunch of people who hung out with him regularly, and it was through this intensive and subjective process that the rules of all future video games were spawned.
Huh? Nice sentence.
Second, his comment about "Meld into Stone" isn't a fundamental flaw in crpg systems using d20, it's nothing more than a bug in prioritization during combat for the AI. BFD.
(And, his experience with P&P RPGs is pretty freakin' sad if the only way his DM would resolve such a use of the spell would be to whack them with a 50d6 lightning bolt; I'd say his P&P weren't all that bug free either...)
He's barely coherent in much of his commentary, such as this paragraph: Right away, TOEE is behind the eight ball in terms of fluidity; the publisher must be held accountable for this, as publishers set the cycles of development in terms of funding and maximum resource allocation into projects. While some would say that developers determine scheduling, I am a firm believer that the market and external factors truly determine development cycle. Atari is an arcade games manufacturer, and therefore they must have thought in terms of the arcade lifecycle, and not what Troika was going for, which was the conversion of PPRPG into CRPG (something that could have worked if enough time and money was devoted).
Again, HUH? WTF are you SAYING?
I gave up reading it about halfway through, frankly. The guy can barely put two words together to convey a thought.
The problems with d20 as a CRPG ruleset are many and varied. The problems with d20 rules THEMSELVES are many and varied.
This article really illuminates nothing, and isn't anything more than a rant about someone who was disappointed with their CRPG purchase. So?
-Styopa
The difference between a true PnP game of AD&D and the computerized experience of a D&D themed game can be slight or immense depending on the skill of you RL GM compared to the auto-scripted content of a computerized world.
A bad/unimaginative GM is little better, or possibly WORSE than online or computerized gaming environments. In contrast a talented GM will bend the adventure to fit the individual characters involved.
A good GM is many things, including an Actor, Story teller, statistician, and above all else a quick-thinker. Players like to try and out-smart the GM and a good one will do their best to limit how successful their players will be, preferably in humorous ways.
The real trick is the Story-telling apect. A good DM makes you believe you're actually in another world. That suspension of disbelief is only maintainable if the number crunching is done quickly and with as little distraction to the players as possible.
Computational talk should be limited to "Roll for Perception", or "Roll to hit" and even then it helps to not get too into the numbers. A good GM hears your roll and paints a picture of the action it caused.
One of the major issues that I have with CRPGs is that ultimately, regardless of how good the AI in a game is, you are still fundamentally limited in the possibilities for game play. It's like a big "Choose Your Own Adventure Book". Maybe every so often you flip a coin to choose the next page, or maybe there are so many paths that you can't enumerate them all before you just get bored, but your still limited.
I contrast this to pen and paper games like D&D or Palladium (my fav fantasy). You are limited by the creativity of the GM, and the limits of your belief in human free will (and how long the pizza lasts). It's always been the unexpected turns of other players that makes these games fun to play.
It's taking on a role enacting things you don't normally do
That definition applies to, like, 90% of all games. It would apply to all FP games (from DOOM, to Halo, to Spliter Cell); it would apply to all sports games (if you don't play those games in RL); basically it applies to pretty much everything, except puzzle games and such. And, yes, technically all these games (e.g. Halo, etc..) are "role-playing", but they aren't RPGs. And the parent poster's defition: 'Roleplaying is taking all the good and the bad of a character and making due with it' is extremely narrow. That's a part of role-playing, but it's not the defintion.
A distinction needs to be made between 'role-playing' and the RPG genre. People can have differing opinions about what constitutes 'role'playing', but the defintion of the RPG genre is a lot more well established. In the RPG genre there are two extremes. On one side are the adventure games (e.g. Sierra King's Quest), and on the other side are the hack-and-slash games (e.g. Diablo). What do these games have in common? Uh.. nothing. Currently the RPG label is applied to everything that falls somewhere between those two. Personally, I think there should be three separate genres here, one for each of the extremes and one for the middle (when a game contains both elements). Those divisions sortof exist today ('Adventure RPG', 'Hack-and-Slash RPG), but everybody always uses the term RPG to refer to one or all of them.
People shouldn't get all riled up if a game labeled an 'RPG' doesn't have enough role-playing elements for thier taste. The RPG genre and the defintion of 'role-playing' diverged a long time ago.
Aw crap, ninjas!