Dungeon Masters in Cyberspace

The New York Times has a piece this afternoon about the launch of Dungeons and Dragons Online. They talk with some of the folks who made the game, and reflect on roleplaying's move from table-top to online spaces. From the article: "While players in most online games communicate by typing, Turbine has tried to enhance the in-person feel of D&D Online by building voice-chat software into the game so players can speak with one another using a microphone plugged into their computer. And while most video games try to adopt a cinematic mode of storytelling, D&D Online plainly reminds users that they are playing a computer approximation of a pen-and-paper game. During combat, an icon of a spinning 20-sided die appears in a corner of the screen, just as modern slot machines still show spinning reels even though a microchip has already decided if you've won the jackpot."

Comments

No Mac version. Don't bother looking.

[mooncaine]

Their support pages say they have no plans to make a Mac version, so if you're a D&D fan who only uses Macs [or just prefer them], you're out of luck.

Re:The Online Advantage...

[fake_name]

> There's only one unique advantage of online play is when you don't have any friends.

Not true; there is also ease of access. Once you and all your friends are out in the real world with jobs and partners and all those things regular peopel do it's very hard to try and schedule a time to get together to gaming.

MMORPGs let you jump in whenever it's convienient and play online with friends (both from the real-world and that you only know online) whenever it's convienient.

I'd love to be able to play more table-top RPGs with my friend, because I find them a much more enjoyable experience than online RPGs, but it's just not going to happen anytime soon.

Alternative D&D Online Programs

[jhughes]

My friends and I hoped that DDO would allow us to relive our D&D pen and paper days, but as others mentioned, DDO falls far short of that. We did however search the net and found a couple of programs that did a better job of it.

My personal favorite is Fantasy Grounds (http://www.fantasygrounds.com/, which mimics a table top with dice and such. There's no real automation in it, but if you know XML you can customize the rulesets and such.

There are a few others, Klooge (http://www.kloogeinc.com/) is a bit more complex, but you can tweak the heck out of it if you know what you're doing. OpenRPG (http://www.openrpg.com/) is another one.

To each their own, but these programs (combined with voice comms) can really help ya relive the tabletop experience if your friends are long distance like mine.

H

Necromancers POV

[ultranova]

But these days, aspiring wizards, druids and paladins are more likely to click and type their way through the evil necromancer's tower rather than huddle around a table casting spells between grabbing bites of pizza.

But suppose I'm an aspiring necromancer working towards lichdom ? Can I reanimate the remains of these intruders of my home once I've dealt with them ? And if so, what happens if they respawn and try again - or does this game actually have a permanent death system ?

Really, why do necromancers take such bad PR all the time ? Using zombies and skeletons as workforce is perfectly logical and hurts no one - their souls have long since departed, after all. Would that "noble" paladin rather have me using slave labor ?

And what does the tree-hugging hippy care - I'm not hurting any trees or small (or even large) animals, am I ? Undead are perfectly natural, or does he perhaps think that every skeleton roaming some long-forgotten tomb was rised by a necromancer ? "Nature" - bah ! Druids only accept part of nature, and declare everything else "unnatural", while using their own utterly unnatural powers without remorse - or do you think that it's natural for a human being to become a squirrel at will ?

Hmmph. It's all baseless propaganda, malicious wrongfull accusations. They are all just jealous of the fact that if they get a tiny hole in their body they die, while if I get my head hacked off I'll simply pick it up and reattach it. It is pure bone envy, I tell you !