Quote from: Opaopajr;815948It seems like diminishing returns. So much GM preparation for so little effect. The imagination comes with an unlimited effects budget and any and all camera lens angles. The lack of a tight script demands a flexibility currently unmatched with all our tools.

I guess it could be a nice gateway for the MMORPG set. But I think selling up tabletop RPG's differences is a better attractor to the table product. However, if it is to be a gateway for TTRPGers to migrate to a Hasbro MMORPG with recurring buy-in costs... not a wholly bad idea. Not for me, but it will likely snag a few back into the MMO/MOBA treadmill.

I can already see the pricing lists for new skins.

That was my whole problem with NWN 5 hours prep for 1 hour's play.
The platonic solution I suggested where you can just sketch out terrain and flip in objects on the fly and the engine renders it all in 3d on the fly has minimal prep. An effects box with a dozen skins and a couple of dozen special effects would be all I would need.
Now the compute power is big and the typical standard where the setting is downloaded and the traffic is identifiers , positioning etc won't work. You need to runt eh engine on a big beefy box or a blade array and have the clients log in with remote client so they just see s view and all the work happens remote, but that technology is common place now.
I also think that the community for a product like this would massive and after minecraft indy games are really hot. In a game like this the commercial side would be guys setting up farms to host games. You rent space on the farm to run your game and you get a split of the clients who pay a monthly fee. If you keep the core open source each hosting service basically chooses the mods it wants to run. The hosters get both a GM fee and a cut of the client fee. Imagine it like an open source MMO where you can set up your own environment and run it. You could entirely build the base setting or load a "world" and just edit it on the fly adding objects from a menu list.

Any way like I said its a Platonic ideal

Creating the dungeon or setting on the fly has its drawback too though vs prepped ahead of time.

There will be pauses while you call up the system tools or worse yet, while the new terrain is rendering.

Then theres the problem that the NPCs arent going to be talking. It will be text or voice chat. Mouths likely not moving, etc. For some that is immersion breaking.

We are though getting closer. Take a look at Facerig and what it is pulling off now. Just a head. But thats the sort of animation and expression Id optimally want to get.

SecondLife looked like it was going the way wed have wanted. If you have the parts you can create stuff on the fly as you go. But it lacks viable NPC progs. You can simulate them partially. But its more effort than its worth last I saw. And to do anything lasting costs money.

Quote from: Opaopajr;815948The imagination comes with an unlimited effects budget and any and all camera lens angles.

Exactly, all of the flashy wiz-bang tools you add are things that the GM needs to learn and manipulate at the table at the expense of the game itself. The majority of people don't like learning software; it's just adding a barrier to entry that won't necessarily make the game experience any better.

This is a PC-Only release and co-op is still limited to 4 people?

FUCK YOU CONSOLE GAMERS! I KNOW MORE THAN THREE OTHER PEOPLE WHO MIGHT WANT TO PLAY!


....*cough*


Sorry, carry on.

Quote from: Opaopajr;815948It seems like diminishing returns. So much GM preparation for so little effect.

And any unexpected choice is going to be painful as the GM scrambles to have the system catch up. Like talking to those automated callers; they take an uncomfortably long time to analyze what you said and then reply with a breezy scripted line ("Are you a real person?" [very long pause] "Ha ha ha, of course I'm a real person!"). So, either scale down the expectations a lot (I can see some tools for managing the GM workflow or just for using random charts you've decided to use) or wait for a lot more computing power.

Quote from: Omega;815983Creating the dungeon or setting on the fly has its drawback too though vs prepped ahead of time.

There will be pauses while you call up the system tools or worse yet, while the new terrain is rendering.

I don't see this as any different to ad libbing at the table. Rendering might be an issue which is why you would aim to keep all content server side but again lust like Ad libing on a table top you need to be two steps ahead of the party so the stuff will be rendering as you play the guard for some RP and are sketching out the place after the one that is rendering if you see what I mean.

I do agree that you would need to be familiar with the software but the idea would be that the system interface would be customisable. I can certainly see myself on line with a tablet sketching out a rough map or dragging in premade objects pre skinned  whist interacting with the party.

QuoteThen theres the problem that the NPCs arent going to be talking. It will be text or voice chat. Mouths likely not moving, etc. For some that is immersion breaking.

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I don't think we need rully rendered faces do we ? I mean that would be great and all but unless we get a movement recognition scanner to scan our face as we play the NPCs ....

Definitely would want voice not chat though.

Quote from: jibbajibba;816014I don't see this as any different to ad libbing at the table.

You must ad lib very slowly then... ahem...

Quote from: jibbajibba;816014I do agree that you would need to be familiar with the software but the idea would be that the system interface would be customisable. I can certainly see myself on line with a tablet sketching out a rough map or dragging in premade objects pre skinned  whist interacting with the party.

I don't think we need rully rendered faces do we ? I mean that would be great and all but unless we get a movement recognition scanner to scan our face as we play the NPCs ....

Definitely would want voice not chat though.

1: I agree there. I was a mod on a MUD and I could slap down stuff on the fly pretty good even with a system with no drop down menus or such. Once you get the feel of a procedure it can flow along.
But you are though still describing needing to prep beforehand even if its just a little. If you are prepping NPCs and Monsters to the roster then why not prep the terrain to? That would likely the least complex of the procedures. Leaving you free to focus on interaction and seeing where things go.

2: Thats the FaceRig I mentioned. Its up on Steam now as it succeeded funding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbIWRd514-s Right now its just a head. But you can see the potential there. Its being developed to work with MMO type models.

Quote from: Ladybird;815990Exactly, all of the flashy wiz-bang tools you add are things that the GM needs to learn and manipulate at the table at the expense of the game itself. The majority of people don't like learning software; it's just adding a barrier to entry that won't necessarily make the game experience any better.

From personal experience using Dwarven Forge is a fiddly experience. But IF you want the spectacle there are ways of doing and not doing it. If you learn how to manage your DF terrain, it not as fiddly as everybody thinks it is.

The same with boffer LARPS, they are incredibly limiting in the types of adventures you can run and experience except for one major exception. However IF you are going to run a LARP there again ways of doing it that plays up to its strength and minimizes it shortcoming.

The major exception for LARPs is natural face to face as a character. If you have the bodies on staff you can have multiple NPCs interacting with multiple PCs in a way that not possible with tabletop. Combined with a good set of rules, interesting events, and reasonable costume standards the result is a highly immersive and addicting experience.

The shortcoming of LARPS are due to the Live Action, the most serious is that event staff get tired and you have to actually setup anything you need
which take time and energy.

All the stuff beyond sitting around a table, talking, and rolling dice is optional. The vast majority of the stuff are useful for a variety of reasons. They also come with limitation and consequences. The smart referee is one who understands both the benefits and consequences and when to use which type of thing.

My opinion that Virtual Tabletop is the long term future for on-line tabletop rpgs. It complimentary rather than a total replacement like MMORPGs. Groups including my own, easily switches between face to face and VTTs. There are multiple VTTs with large audiences driving development.

Practical 3D for tabletop RPGs will be developed in somebodies' VTTs first. My guess it will be Roll20 or a new VTT coming out of left field.  I think Fantasy Grounds will develop into more of general purpose RPG tool.

That the first use of 3D will be a Dwarven Forge style set of models that you snap together to make a map. Then open up to artists that will offering detailed setups and models that you just drop in. Similar to finished terrain and building you find on ebay.

I used to run an NWN Persistent World server, with a series of additional rule scripts for things like rest and food. It was pretty big with many areas of different levels. I would occasionally add more areas from time to time and expand the world, as well as more NPCs, etc. whenever I felt like noodling.

This way I could go in with a PC and play in the world, or I could have some friends log in and go in as DM and run an adventure for them in the world if I liked. And since it was a persistent world, we could make permanent changes to the game world and have them stay between adventures.

That was a lot of fun. I miss that game.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;816075I used to run an NWN Persistent World server, with a series of additional rule scripts for things like rest and food. It was pretty big with many areas of different levels. I would occasionally add more areas from time to time and expand the world, as well as more NPCs, etc. whenever I felt like noodling.

This way I could go in with a PC and play in the world, or I could have some friends log in and go in as DM and run an adventure for them in the world if I liked. And since it was a persistent world, we could make permanent changes to the game world and have them stay between adventures.

That was a lot of fun. I miss that game.

Yeah I loved the old NWN PW servers - which one was yours?

Also like building modules and running them for my friends. The learning curve was pretty steep at first but once you got the hang of it, it wasn't bad.

Quote from: Omega;8160431: I agree there. I was a mod on a MUD and I could slap down stuff on the fly pretty good even with a system with no drop down menus or such. Once you get the feel of a procedure it can flow along.
But you are though still describing needing to prep beforehand even if its just a little. If you are prepping NPCs and Monsters to the roster then why not prep the terrain to? That would likely the least complex of the procedures. Leaving you free to focus on interaction and seeing where things go.

2: Thats the FaceRig I mentioned. Its up on Steam now as it succeeded funding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbIWRd514-s Right now its just a head. But you can see the potential there. Its being developed to work with MMO type models.

I don't prep NPCs for tabel top just spin em up as they occur same with monsters, I rarely even use a stat block preferring to gen it as mood takes me. I can see a pool of NPCs rogue gallery style. I grab a guy drop them in role play a while then as they grow select and alignment and 1/2 a dozen background stuff and pass it to the AI to run whilst I do the next thing. I might have a rough idea of the monsters but happy to pull them from a generic list and maybe tailor a big boss drawing down one of those rogue gallery NPCs and sticking him in Orc "skin" or whatever.
If I did prep the terrain i would want it as simple as here is my map, climate type, cultural quirks please prep me the terrain. I would maybe liek to lay out some setting ideas. But nothing more detailed than the Micro settings I posted here for 5e. So about 30 minutes work in a setting menu tool.

ii) I will check it out