How D&D Shaped the Modern Videogame

PC Gamer UK, via the CVG site, has a feature up on the influence Dungeons and Dragons had on the development of videogaming. The role D&D has had in inspiring gamers is fairly well known; Masters of Doom chronicles the inspiration the Johns' campaign had on the creation of Doom and Quake. The article discusses more recent confluences of the tabletop game and videogame development, such as Obsidian's use of pen-and-paper to develop the early areas of Neverwinter Nights 2. Ideas for the late, lamented, Fallout 3 were sparked by a number of tabletop roleplaying moments from developer campaigns.

Comments

HP

[Spazmania]

Two words: Hit Points. Every game has them and as kids we learned the concept from D&D.

Re:HP

[lymond01]

And now that we have computers that can easily represent and display physical damage in terms of gameplay and character efficiency...we still use hit points.

At times I wish game designers would FORGET about hit points.

Re:HP

[__aaclcg7560]

I don't think "miss points" would work out that well. You don't want the monsters to chant, "Loser! Loser! Loser!"

Re:HP

[p0tat03]

We have forgotten about hit points. Play games like Gears of War or Call of Duty, where death is based on the rate at which you're taking damage, as opposed to depleting an existing HP supply.

Call of Duty: Get shot, it's ok. Get shot too much in too little time, your screen starts turning red. Keep getting shot, die.

Re:HP

[Nasarius]

Well, it's an abstraction. I've talked to someone who has extensive real-world experience with sword/knife combat and the injuries that result, and he sketched out a system (in the context of a true medieval RPG) where each limb would have its own status: broken, different levels of bleeding, etc. All of which would have an effect on gameplay; for example, if your arm was damaged, you couldn't fight as well. Like MechWarrior 2, but for people.

It's an interesting idea, and likely something I will be implementing for various reasons, but does it really add enjoyment for the player? Probably not. Just get rid of the absurd situation where a character is nearly dead and can still fight at full capacity, and the traditional global HP isn't a bad abstraction.

Re:HP

[Feanturi]

you say "Ow." and you might go woozy or you might get emotional or some part of your body might not work right

Call of Cthulhu the PC game handles this very well. While you do have a form of hitpoints on your character sheet (an EKG), your real indicators of your state are the blurred vision that gets worse with additional damage, blood spatter in your view, vision slowly going white from blood-loss, controls that stop working quite correctly, labored breathing, and the slow shuffle of walking on a broken leg with that horrible little crunching noise with each step. Insanity-inducing events or locations pull in some of these elements as well, such as the vision problems, breathing, and loss of movement control. All in all, the game is downright heart-pounding at various points throughout.

Re:HP

[Qzukk]

and he sketched out a system (in the context of a true medieval RPG) where each limb would have its own status: broken, different levels of bleeding, etc.

Phantasie III on the C64 (I think there was a PC version as well, amongst others) had that kind of a system. In addition to hit points, your limbs, chest, and head could be "injured" "broken" or "gone", with obvious implications for losing your head or body. It led to interesting battles, where I'd have characters with two broken arms continuing to fight because they still had most of their hitpoints and I needed to conserve the appropriate level of potion (IIRC, Potion 3 would heal 60hp and either 2 broken limbs or one lost limb). As far as actual gameplay went, it didn't really add or detract anything significant, it just made it different.

Re:HP

[Anonymous Daredevil]

CoD absolutely had HPs. Just because they added some temporary damage as well doesn't mean it's suddenly a new concept. If I recall correctly, when you got hit you took some permanent damage and some temporary damage that slowly returned. Temporary damage wouldn't kill you, but if you got hit again while your temporary damage had you below zero you would die.

It even had a bar that clearly represented a hidden numerical value (Hit points) and you died when it was empty (zero).

Not sure if this link will work, but here is a screenshot (off GameSpot) showing the hit points in action:

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/pc/callo fduty/1029/call_screen006.jpg

Re:HP

[Kuciwalker]

And people say Halo isn't innovative... as far as I know, this type of health system was invented in Halo 2. IMO it's infinitely superior to hit points.

Re:HP

[dyslexicbunny]

Call of Duty: Get shot, it's ok. Get shot too much in too little time, your screen starts turning red. Keep getting shot, die. I agree completely. I run in blindly and kill as many people as possible and when I go red, I hide until I "heal." This makes the game way too easy when combined with the number of checkpoints in every level. Why both playing seriously? Honestly, I wished for something more after beating the game.

It feels like the game is more suited for a casual gamer than serious players that want more realism. I forsee this trend to continue since although design for both is not impossible, adding features and programming additional characteristics to be more than publishers would like to do. I would almost be willing to believe completely that the serious player desiring realism is going to be ignored more and more in many major games.

Imagine that..

[Lithdren]

A Game built around Math, paper, and your imagination inspired the development of other games.

I've been a long time player of D&D type games, and I personally think they should be done in school. They helped me in school early on learning Math, giving me a solid foundation to build on. Story writing being the DM of such a game gets developed quite well if you're sucessfull anyway.

But the most important part is it spurs your imagination into high gear. Something that alot of people, old and young, are lacking more and more. Its nerdy as hell, but its fun to pretend to be that strong warrior loping the head of an orc off.

What if TSR had patented "hit points?"

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

What if TSR had patented "hit points?" Or, "the idea that one hit doesn't kill the player"?

Could you teach computer to run a D&D campaign?

You'd probably have a better shot with English, first. But for Christ's sake, who among us DIDN'T write a dice simulator or treasure generator before hitting the teenage years?

Re:What if TSR had patented "hit points?"

[Planesdragon]

What if TSR had patented "hit points?" Or, "the idea that one hit doesn't kill the player"?

They would have licensed it, managed it badly, and the patent would have been hocked to a bank to keep them afloat a bit longer into the 90s. At worst, WotC might not have bought them.

That's easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

CAST MAGIC MISSLE!!!

Emergent Gameplay

[Anonymous Coward]

What D&D still rules at is emergent gameplay- IE, setting the gigantic boss villain on fire by collapsing the house on her, etc. Rather than focusing on simple "dice mechanics," game devs should be putting their money towards physics engines and other things that will let players PLAY with the world.

What's funny is a lot of devs get it backwards trying to emulate the simplicity of D&D: D&D uses simple mechanics because players have to do all the work themselves. Computers are happy to calculate THAC0 a hundred times a minute if it makes for better gameplay.

Helped shape the gamer too!

[Morris Thorpe]

How D&D Shaped the Modern Videogame

How D&D shaped the modern videogamer: like a pear.

Re:D&D Was great back in the day...not so much

[CrashPoint]

Before it was a simple game now theres like 75 books you have to buy if you want to understand the rules.

If by "75" you mean "between one and three", sure. The Player's Handbook is the only "required" book. The DM's Guide and Monster Manual make things easier but are not strictly necessary - you can run a perfectly good game without them. Everything else is purely optional. This, by the way, is exactly how it was in the older editions, so nothing has changed in that respect.

Also, the rules in 3rd Edition are actually a lot simpler, saner, and more streamlined than in 1st or 2nd.

This should have a follow up

[crossmr]

called how the modern video game raped D&D and abused its children. Early D&D games were great. lately they've been rotten.

Full Sail

[Anonymous Coward]

All you need to know about this: There is a class at Full Sail, the world's top video game design school, called Rules of the Game. It talks about how all games - from card games to D&D to video games, are all based on the same principles. Best game design class I've ever had.

The instructor? Dave Arneson, co-creator, Dungeons and Dragons.

destructing rule books

[Rizzer]

Did your old D&D rule books suddenly self-destruct or something?

Heh, mine did. That is, my mother burnt them while I was studying away from home. "satanic" or something, apparently...

Why do we still use classes?

[ductonius]

Like others in this thread I wish video games would forget about D&D for a while. Just a little bit. Not permanently, just enough to let other ideas have their time in the light.

There's a reason why I'm hesitant to buy any medieval-looking RPG nowadays. It's because I know, absolutely know that when I start up the game the first thing I'm going to have to do is choose to play a fighter guy, a magic guy, a stealth guy and or a ranged attack guy. Why in God's name, during the age of computers, do we still have to pick classes?. There is no need for this abstraction. Anything you can do with classes you can do with simple attributes or skills. Furthermore, many things that are done with classes make no sense ("I'm sorry, you can't wear that shirt, you're a mage, mages only wear the purest right-spun Italian cotton"). Role playing games work well with out them. Fallout1/2 and Deus Ex. Both great RPGs. A huge variety in play, enabled by simple attributes and skills. No fucking classes. Game designers: Please stop using classes, at least for a bit.

Also, why do most games have ludicrously low numbers of hit points? Most games out there (including Fallout and Deus Ex, I might add) I only allow the player one, maybe two hundred hit points. There is an almost infinite difference between a bullet to the brain and pricking your finger. Again, with computers a character could have 100,000 hit points instead of 100 and it wouldn't cause any disruption in game play. All it would do is allow the game to represent a greater variety in levels of damage. The same attack by an enemy could do a wide variety of damage depending on where it hit. Eg. arrow to the cranium vs. arrow stopped by chain mail (yes, that would hurt). Low hit points work well when they need to be tracked by hand and the calculations that go into them are fairly simple, but when a computer can do them automatically faster than you can blink, low hit points do not make sense.

D&D is fun. That's why it's popular, it's just also possible for things other than D&D to be fun too, and I'd like to see more of that.