Let us assume for a moment that you have a gaming group or members of a gaming group who have for whatever reason been living under a rock or just plain don't computer game at all.

Assuming then that they haven't had the faintest inkling of any information about Portal, and you along with this (small, 2-3 people) group do regular pick-up games or one/two/three session "off" games would you consider using Portal and if so, what changes would you make to fit it into an RPG mold?

You'd just about have to keep the whole "You've been in here a lot longer than you realize" feeling once the characters confront GLaDOS.  

Valve had initially planned for an NPC to be present in the game, ala the G-Man of Half-Life, another test subject living in the ducts and "backstage" areas outside of GLaDOS' surveillance to guide the PC along, eventually meet them, and assist them in finding a way out/through GLaDOS.  This was dropped in favor of the (more creepy and IMO better) abandoned "rats nests" with psychobabble graffiti, mundane objects turned in to survival tools, etc.  Would you keep the NPC or drop them?

Pen and paper RPGs tend to "break" computer game scenarios quite a bit, especially when the game you model the RPG on isn't a "sandbox".  In Half Life 2 there's no option (even with the physics gun and other neat tricks the Source engine lets players do) to build a raft (for example) and go around obstacles on the Coast Road missions.  Likewise you can't armor your dune-buggy, put on MetroCop uniforms and try to sneak into the Citadel, etc. etc. - but these are all things pen and paper gamers would probably try.  In Portal, the situation would become even more exacerbated.  The "material emancipation fields" would delay the players' ingenuity a bit but once you get to places like the "android testing area" where there's virtually limitless cubes falling out of the broken dispenser, while in the game you can't really do much with that, two or three folks in a pen and paper RPG could have a field day with them - and the tools.

"We'll stack the cubes up to the office window and use these wrenches to smash through and find out who's running the show." and so on.

I think, other than a little bit of fun with portals and a couple of test chambers you'd practically have to get off those rails quickly.  To design a good scenario based on Portal you'd have to strip it down to:

You are in a sterile laboratory of some kind.

The computer is hiding something (with a corollary of things are definitely not "right").

You've been in "here" a lot longer than you imagine.

Something horrible has happened outside.

Thoughts?  Or am I needlessly rambling?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;423563Thoughts?  Or am I needlessly rambling?

The only problem I see is visualization of the places. "Portal" requires you to think hard about your resources in relation with the geometry/architecture of the place. It is important for the players to have the latter clearly depicted in their minds.

You could also consider to watch "The Cube" for a setting with a similar flavour. I can already see how he two could be integrated

Exactly wot he said.
 
Visual puzzle games work on the PC/XBox because of their very visual nature. Translating the visual puzzle elements to a tabletop RPG doesnt work.
 
The premise of a RPG game scenario set in a ruined test laboratory could be interesting, but using the games's existing puzzles essentially would reduce the game down to players solving puzzles, then making shooting/jumping skill rolls.

Could you give me examples of the types of puzzles one finds in that game?
Just to make sure I can relate to what you guys are talking about.

Quote from: Benoist;423640Could you give me examples of the types of puzzles one finds in that game?
Just to make sure I can relate to what you guys are talking about.

Gap between point "A" and point "B".  You have a gun that creates portals on certain surface materials (surface can't be moving, can't be metal, can't be liquid, can't be glass).  You create Portal 1 on your side of the gap, point it at the far wall on the other side of the gap, create Portal 2.  Step through Portal 1, come out through Portal 2.

Something a little more complex:

Across the gap, there is no surface a portal can be created on.

At the bottom of the gap is a surface that a portal can be created on.  Above you, on your side of the portal, high on the wall, is a surface that a portal can be created on.

You create Portal 1 on the floor at the bottom of the gap.

You create Portal 2 on the wall above and behind you.

You jump off the edge of the gap and fall through Portal 1.

Momentum is conserved through the portals.

You are "flung" across the gap by your own momentum; you literally fall sideways.

In layman's terms, "speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out".

And they get way more complicated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X38qm9pO9B8

edit: the desire, though, for an RPG scenario set in the Aperture Science Personal Enrichment Facility (where that video takes place) isn't so you can pen-and-paper the jumping puzzles; it's more for the overall comedy/horror plot (it's sort of Paranoia themed, if you've played that game or know about it).

Oh OK. I can't see how that couldn't work in a TRPG. I wouldn't use that kind of puzzle all the time, but that's a cool idea for a portable hole or something.

I don't see why something like a complex 4e encounter setup could work for this. You have to make the puzzle related to the 2D Grid while using portals.

For a similar example take the classic chess puzzle for Dungeons. The passage exits onto a square and the only way to get across the room is by moving like the piece on the square.  The Ghost Tower of Inverness had this and a bunch of other puzzle room.  

In short take the basic idea but implement for the limitations of the tabletop setup.

Quote from: Benoist;423658Oh OK. I can't see how that couldn't work in a TRPG. I wouldn't use that kind of puzzle all the time, but that's a cool idea for a portable hole or something.

Right; see, the plot of Portal goes thusly:

You're woken up after an indeterminate length of time and informed by the omnipresent GLaDOS that your rest period is over and you're to begin a series of aptitude tests using Portals.  Initially the portals are fixed, and you simply walk through them when the opportunity presents itself.  Then you're given a Portal device that can create one Portal, and you go through a few test chambers where the other Portal is pre-generated.  You just have to figure out how best to use the one Portal you can create.

Later, you are allowed an upgraded Portal device, which can create two Portals.

During the course of the test chambers, it becomes clear that GLaDOS maybe doesn't have your wellbeing as her foremost concern.  Her comments become increasingly fractured and sinister at times; at one point she tells you that if you don't agree with the test regimen the ideal time to complain was "on 'Bring Your Daughter To Work Day'." (If you create two Portals close enough that you can see yourself through, you'll note that your avatar in the game is a woman - implying that you came to Aperture Labs with mom or mom and dad and have been here your entire life...)

The tests become increasingly dangerous, with robotic gun turrets, toxic water flooding the floors of some chambers, and so on.

Additionally, you'll come to a point where you start to note that someone else has been in the test chambers - hydraulic lift panels have been wedged open in some places, permitting entry into machine spaces, where you'll find broken down office chairs used as beds, psychobabble (and frightening, at times) graffiti (including things like "help me..." and "the cake is a lie" - GLaDOS at times mentions cake being served at the end of the test cycle), and the remains of basic supplies (empty cans and bottles).  Occupants, however, are never found.

The final test chamber brings you to a series of easy-to-solve puzzles that culminate in you riding a conveyance through a metal corridor into an incinerator - it is clear GLaDOS intends to "reward" you by killing you.  Quick use of the Portal device gets you out of it, much to her consternation, because it puts you in a series of access corridors that it's clear she didn't want you in.

Here, the mystery begins to unravel: it's evident that the lab facility has been abandoned for a long, long time.  The office spaces you can occasionally see from the test chambers (through frosted glass windows) are unoccupied.  All of the computer screens scroll screen after screen of junk text, including scraps of code, bits of GLaDOS' dialogue, and cake recipes.  While you explore these spaces, GLaDOS initially pleads with you to return to the test area, saying the entire thing was a joke on her part.  Then she begins to get more strident, ordering you to return, and then turns to outright threats, and finally she gives up saying that this time, for real, she is going to kill you.

This (short) odyssey through the access hallways culminates in you finding GLaDOS' main server room - her systems array hangs from a gantry in the middle of the room, a conglomeration of spheres and curvilinear shapes and cameras.  Once you're in the chamber, she seals you in and begins taunting you, until one of her modules falls off.  If you dispose of the module in the "Emergency Artificial Intelligence Incinerator" in the room, you discover (quickly) that you have destroyed her moral inhibitor system, and she floods the chamber with poison gas.  You have three minutes to use portals to blast her component systems off with the help of her own automated defenses.  During the entire process her taunts and threats get more fractured, although at one point she informs you that things have changed "outside" since the last time you were out there, and not even she is sure what's out there, but that she may be all that stands between it and humanity (Portal is part of the Half Life story line; she is likely talking about the Combine).

Once you "destroy" here, there is a singularity-like event that leaves you lying in the weed-overgrown parking lot of Aperture Science labs with a cascade of burning GLaDOS parts falling down around you...then just before the fade to black, a robotic voice (not GLaDOS') thanks you for assuming the party submission position and you see yourself being dragged backwards, away from the main gate...

Once again, the real thrust is the escaping of GLaDOS and finding out just what the hell went wrong; only a few actual Portal puzzles are required, I think.

I guess my real issue is in dealing with the gameplay once we've accepted that the characters won't have to do a bunch of Portal flinging and so forth.

Maintaining that sense of wonder/horror/etc. as they discover the abandoned access tunnels and so forth, that's really what I'm after.

I see one major problem with this as a TRPG: the feeling of confinement and the assumption that you're being railroaded from one situation to the next. It creates the feeling you've built a series of bottleneck encounters, if you will. So in most scenarios, with most players, it's going to backfire on you with the frustration it's building.

Quote from: Lawbag;423575Exactly wot he said.
 
Visual puzzle games work on the PC/XBox because of their very visual nature. Translating the visual puzzle elements to a tabletop RPG doesnt work.
 
The premise of a RPG game scenario set in a ruined test laboratory could be interesting, but using the games's existing puzzles essentially would reduce the game down to players solving puzzles, then making shooting/jumping skill rolls.

It does lead me to thinking that mapping, in itself, is sort of a "puzzle."

Quote from: Cole;423726It does lead me to thinking that mapping, in itself, is sort of a "puzzle."

Well it is, at several levels actually. It's translating information into visuals that you then tranlate into a map format. It's a game within the game, pretty much. Some people will love this, others will find it really tedious. That really depends on the players and DM.

Isnt Portal just a really good computer game version of Paranoia? if you think of glados as the gm(or friend computer) it sort of makes sense.

RPG.net used to be full of threads where GMs wanted to create scenarios which emulated Tomb Raider or Prince of Persia etc... They just dont work, as the emphasis on a computer/console game is vastly different from a TRPG.
 
Even computer RPGs are far removed from the TRPG that they shouldnt really share the same name.