TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
Ahem.
Okay, perhaps it's not the next innovation, but I hope to see it in my lifetime.
Okay, perhaps it's not the next innovation, but I hope to see it in my lifetime.
The Next Innovation in Gaming
garyh
First Post
EN World's been doing that for years.
Living EN World - EN World D&D / RPG News
Living 4th Edition - EN World D&D / RPG News
Living Eberron - EN World D&D / RPG News
Okay, the last one uses an official WotC world. But the first two are EN World community created shared settings.
Celebrim
Legend
I would bet on something electronic as well. Every generation of electronic aid thus far has just been too clunky at the table to be widely accepted by game referees. Spreadsheets and builders help, but mostly in preperation rather than with the sometimes serious burden of running a game. But the game has long needed an electronic aid for tracking turns and circumstantial modifiers.
Electronic artifacts like the kindle and the iphone point the way toward a truly portable computing device that you could actually replace the graphite pencil and legal pad as the DM's tool of choice. I don't think we are there yet, and I don't think the market is big enough to support individually developing the hardware with the gaming market in mind, but sooner or later we are going to have a programmable electronic tablet that can be wrote on via a stylus/mouse, and at that point, a truly functional game management application becomes possible.
At that point, for better or worse, game systems will start to be written with transforming things into code in mind (4e's strict codification of powers is a first step this way IMO).
Where I don't see the game going any time soon is toward more electronic graphics. Until such time as I can conjure something that looks like Avatar with the wave of my hand (not this century), the human imagination is just simply going to outstrip any graphical bells and whistles. One of the attractions of PnP is that still beats video games in this regard. Gimicky animations and such may impress the suits, but they aren't I think what will win acceptance at the table.
When I was a kid, I used to play the board game Risk alot. A six player game of Risk would often last until the sun rose. One day, I played Risk on the computer vs. 5 AI programs. I found that I could play the whole game in like 15 minutes if the book keeping was automated. To my even bigger surprise, I found that 6 human players could play the whole game in 40 minutes if the book keeping was automated. I've never touched the paper version of the game since. What will really transform PnP RPG's isn't an app that animates minatures and badly or well rendered electronic dire wolfs, but an app that automates the book keeping associated with games in the same way that Risk could be simply automated. Imagine a tablet capable of reading the pips off dice thrown on to its surface that then wireless communicates with my referee table the results, and when I click on one of the creatures in my encounter list automatically computes damage. Imagine a player casting a spell with two taps of a stylus, and having the spell effects transmitted to all the players at the table. Imagine everyone's spells automatically counting down every time the DM clicks 'round over'. That's the sort of thing that would revolutionize PnP gaming, potentially reuniting the hitherto disparate camps of 'rules lite'/'rules heavy' or 'simulationist'/'narrativist' because the one groups desires in a rules system would no longer be interfering with the others.
Electronic artifacts like the kindle and the iphone point the way toward a truly portable computing device that you could actually replace the graphite pencil and legal pad as the DM's tool of choice. I don't think we are there yet, and I don't think the market is big enough to support individually developing the hardware with the gaming market in mind, but sooner or later we are going to have a programmable electronic tablet that can be wrote on via a stylus/mouse, and at that point, a truly functional game management application becomes possible.
At that point, for better or worse, game systems will start to be written with transforming things into code in mind (4e's strict codification of powers is a first step this way IMO).
Where I don't see the game going any time soon is toward more electronic graphics. Until such time as I can conjure something that looks like Avatar with the wave of my hand (not this century), the human imagination is just simply going to outstrip any graphical bells and whistles. One of the attractions of PnP is that still beats video games in this regard. Gimicky animations and such may impress the suits, but they aren't I think what will win acceptance at the table.
When I was a kid, I used to play the board game Risk alot. A six player game of Risk would often last until the sun rose. One day, I played Risk on the computer vs. 5 AI programs. I found that I could play the whole game in like 15 minutes if the book keeping was automated. To my even bigger surprise, I found that 6 human players could play the whole game in 40 minutes if the book keeping was automated. I've never touched the paper version of the game since. What will really transform PnP RPG's isn't an app that animates minatures and badly or well rendered electronic dire wolfs, but an app that automates the book keeping associated with games in the same way that Risk could be simply automated. Imagine a tablet capable of reading the pips off dice thrown on to its surface that then wireless communicates with my referee table the results, and when I click on one of the creatures in my encounter list automatically computes damage. Imagine a player casting a spell with two taps of a stylus, and having the spell effects transmitted to all the players at the table. Imagine everyone's spells automatically counting down every time the DM clicks 'round over'. That's the sort of thing that would revolutionize PnP gaming, potentially reuniting the hitherto disparate camps of 'rules lite'/'rules heavy' or 'simulationist'/'narrativist' because the one groups desires in a rules system would no longer be interfering with the others.
Celebrim
Legend
I've seen it.
They have their hearts in the right places, but the app they are creating stinks and will never amount to anything unless they seriously rethink their goals.
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I traveled to the future and I got a glimpse of what is coming next, so brace yourselves: Pogs. Yeah, pogs are coming back big time, but now with miniaturized holographic projectors that crate a 3d holographic images that render miniatures obsolete.
I'll take 20.
I'll second what somebody else said and say Google Wave... although Google needs to make it an actual, functioning application before that will happen. (You're trying to centralize text-based into an app that reduces my typing speed based on network connectivity? Fail.)
If somebody can design a program that makes running a game online as easy as running a game at the tabletop, that will be huge. Right now the difficulty of prepping maps and handouts for any online interface makes it look like that goal is still a long way in the future, though.
Garyh - I don't know enworld really well but I've had that idea, and I know living (gameworld)'s too. These may be popular, but they aren't a phenomenon yet. Something giving a greater spark is needed, perhaps a development platform done in a new way making community efforts more manageable and easy.
Darrin Drader - I believe video feature is already being developed for electronic books, so that one isn't far away.
RangerWickett, now that I think of it, your idea is pretty good, although I'd alter it a bit; Of course we'll be getting lots of different stuff so there will be lots of different variations, everything different from each other... What I'm thinking of is a hybrid between rpg's and roleplaying games. Sometimes large tablets might be common; RPG modules could be sold for such and have AI-GM; AI could handle different situations and wouldn't restrict the game to the normal railroading.
Instead of full multiplayer-online functionality, the game could use what other players are doing to create events for the world, each game kind of being an alternate reality which affects the other games even if not exactly same way. If players are encouraged to make their characters well with provided tools, and AI can simulate personalities and use them for NPC's. This would be partially community-created game world and players might not even realise it as such!
I don't know if current gaming softwares for tables have already built-in musics and other atmospheric effects.
Beginning of the End, I agree that Google wave could be BIG. it allows you real-time conversation using text in a way I haven't seen possible before - well, when it isn't stalling due to huge effort it's trying to do But the gaming potential is huge!
And thanks Darjr!
Darrin Drader - I believe video feature is already being developed for electronic books, so that one isn't far away.
RangerWickett, now that I think of it, your idea is pretty good, although I'd alter it a bit; Of course we'll be getting lots of different stuff so there will be lots of different variations, everything different from each other... What I'm thinking of is a hybrid between rpg's and roleplaying games. Sometimes large tablets might be common; RPG modules could be sold for such and have AI-GM; AI could handle different situations and wouldn't restrict the game to the normal railroading.
Instead of full multiplayer-online functionality, the game could use what other players are doing to create events for the world, each game kind of being an alternate reality which affects the other games even if not exactly same way. If players are encouraged to make their characters well with provided tools, and AI can simulate personalities and use them for NPC's. This would be partially community-created game world and players might not even realise it as such!
I don't know if current gaming softwares for tables have already built-in musics and other atmospheric effects.
Beginning of the End, I agree that Google wave could be BIG. it allows you real-time conversation using text in a way I haven't seen possible before - well, when it isn't stalling due to huge effort it's trying to do
But the gaming potential is huge!And thanks Darjr!
I am interested to hear what kind of thing you mean. How do you craft a mechanic that adequately defines, much less requires, immersion? Short of outright sci-fi brain-scanning that detects your mental state, I mean.
