D&D porting to a video game has a couple of major hurdles that consistently throw up no-win scenarios for anyone looking to build a D&D based game.
Solo or Group: Tabletop RPGs differ greatly from Video Games in that it is very much a game based entirely on group play BETWEEN individuals as much as it is AGAINST the game. Part of the great draw is the interaction, or ‘competition’ depending on your playstyle preference, between Individual characters; a simple “Go downstairs and open the front door” request from Player A, could simply allow player B the space to suddenly make their own decisions (e.g. execute the goblin they’d tied up rather than killed). It is also generally accepted that any given player does not have all the solutions themselves, and collaboratively need to work together.
This causes a huge design problem. If you play completely solo (e.g. the Witcher), how do you retain the group play D&D feeling of classes and roles, skills and solutions? If you play collaborative Solo (e.g WoW), how do you functionally promote competition and individual action over turning it into a MOBA, and what do you do when no one else is about? If you play as a Group (e.g. Divinity, BG), how do you trick the player into thinking like 4-6 different characters, rather than 1 character and a puppet?
People broadly want a D&D video game to fix 2 things – To Automate the DM (and other players) and Automate and replace the physical act of meeting and playing. And it is really, really hard to fix one without hindering the other; the more you design the game to facilitate group play, the further away from a tabletop D&D simulation for an individual.
Turn based Vs RTS: I said this on another thread but I think it bears repeating, because it’s one of those things I bet big game designers spend endless hours testing, but we just don’t think about. D&D is, inescapably, turn-based. That’s fine. It is, however, a group experience, which does one massive thing: it modifies failure. Generally speaking, at a table, failing is probably more fun than succeeding. In almost no video games is screwing up a succession of actions/rolls and dying, both potentially incredible and fun, and a possible avenue for bigger and better adventures. The reaction of the GM and your other players can (and should) change how the player feels about failure. Rolling a Nat 1 causes as much mirth as a Nat 20 – can you imagine running a WoW instance and suddenly the healer’s gear all unequips itself and whatever they try and cast, they instead performs the dance emote. The party then wipes, 80% of the way through. This is not funny.
How does this apply to Turn-based Vs RTS? Well, you can mute the impact of failing by running the maths in the background and upping the repetition rate. In BG, you pointed, clicked, and Minsc ran over and chopped stuff while numbers appeared. Anytime there was a miss, you didn’t feel it because you aren’t active. You can also nullify this in Turn-based games by having a much lower “fail” rate, but modifying the outcome instead. In Divinity, your miss rate is 1) Pretty low, and 2) often mutable by tactics/builds/gear. D&D has neither of those – it has a very high fail probability in reality (~30-60%) , and a limited number of turns to do something in (most combats are 5-8 turns) or have 1 chance of success (You bribe the king’s bodyguard and fail – Yeah, no second chance at that).
The obvious solution, therefore, is to lower the fail probability to <10% in normal conditions, and create a game barrier if the chance of failure is too high (e.g. a minimum +5 in Persuasion before the Bribe Dialogue option appears). But because failure and invention is such an important part of D&D, the more you mitigate failure chance, the more streamlined and predictable and un D&D like the game becomes.
Brand Vs Rules: So a sort of catch-all approach would be to skin the D&D brand over several existing, successful games, or even create simply a playable D&D book devoid of mechanics and all about the world and lore of D&D. While that’s OK, the problem here is that the ‘Brand’ part of D&D isn’t the attractive part to the fan base compared to other IPs. I reckon the number of Players who get excited by running around a graphical representation of Neverwinter as percentage is pretty small compared to, say, the Percentage of Wheel of Time fans who want to run around Tar Valon. The Rigid Branding of D&D is far less in its narrative details than it is as a facilitating ruleset to play a game.
And this is where the problem comes from – if you strip away the rules, and leave only the IP, or Brand, of Faerun or Eberron, you are playing to the worst strengths as a Brand. Yes, some people love the Lore, but the mechanics are what really sets it apart. Give me a RPG night with the choice between D&D and a WoT RPG, I’m picking D&D – however, give me story based game with minimal mechanics, and I’ll pick WoT every time.
These 3 core conflicts, IMO, are what make D&D so very, very hard to port into a video game, and why so many people disagree on the best way of doing so.
Solo or Group: Tabletop RPGs differ greatly from Video Games in that it is very much a game based entirely on group play BETWEEN individuals as much as it is AGAINST the game. Part of the great draw is the interaction, or ‘competition’ depending on your playstyle preference, between Individual characters; a simple “Go downstairs and open the front door” request from Player A, could simply allow player B the space to suddenly make their own decisions (e.g. execute the goblin they’d tied up rather than killed). It is also generally accepted that any given player does not have all the solutions themselves, and collaboratively need to work together.
This causes a huge design problem. If you play completely solo (e.g. the Witcher), how do you retain the group play D&D feeling of classes and roles, skills and solutions? If you play collaborative Solo (e.g WoW), how do you functionally promote competition and individual action over turning it into a MOBA, and what do you do when no one else is about? If you play as a Group (e.g. Divinity, BG), how do you trick the player into thinking like 4-6 different characters, rather than 1 character and a puppet?
People broadly want a D&D video game to fix 2 things – To Automate the DM (and other players) and Automate and replace the physical act of meeting and playing. And it is really, really hard to fix one without hindering the other; the more you design the game to facilitate group play, the further away from a tabletop D&D simulation for an individual.
Turn based Vs RTS: I said this on another thread but I think it bears repeating, because it’s one of those things I bet big game designers spend endless hours testing, but we just don’t think about. D&D is, inescapably, turn-based. That’s fine. It is, however, a group experience, which does one massive thing: it modifies failure. Generally speaking, at a table, failing is probably more fun than succeeding. In almost no video games is screwing up a succession of actions/rolls and dying, both potentially incredible and fun, and a possible avenue for bigger and better adventures. The reaction of the GM and your other players can (and should) change how the player feels about failure. Rolling a Nat 1 causes as much mirth as a Nat 20 – can you imagine running a WoW instance and suddenly the healer’s gear all unequips itself and whatever they try and cast, they instead performs the dance emote. The party then wipes, 80% of the way through. This is not funny.
How does this apply to Turn-based Vs RTS? Well, you can mute the impact of failing by running the maths in the background and upping the repetition rate. In BG, you pointed, clicked, and Minsc ran over and chopped stuff while numbers appeared. Anytime there was a miss, you didn’t feel it because you aren’t active. You can also nullify this in Turn-based games by having a much lower “fail” rate, but modifying the outcome instead. In Divinity, your miss rate is 1) Pretty low, and 2) often mutable by tactics/builds/gear. D&D has neither of those – it has a very high fail probability in reality (~30-60%) , and a limited number of turns to do something in (most combats are 5-8 turns) or have 1 chance of success (You bribe the king’s bodyguard and fail – Yeah, no second chance at that).
The obvious solution, therefore, is to lower the fail probability to <10% in normal conditions, and create a game barrier if the chance of failure is too high (e.g. a minimum +5 in Persuasion before the Bribe Dialogue option appears). But because failure and invention is such an important part of D&D, the more you mitigate failure chance, the more streamlined and predictable and un D&D like the game becomes.
Brand Vs Rules: So a sort of catch-all approach would be to skin the D&D brand over several existing, successful games, or even create simply a playable D&D book devoid of mechanics and all about the world and lore of D&D. While that’s OK, the problem here is that the ‘Brand’ part of D&D isn’t the attractive part to the fan base compared to other IPs. I reckon the number of Players who get excited by running around a graphical representation of Neverwinter as percentage is pretty small compared to, say, the Percentage of Wheel of Time fans who want to run around Tar Valon. The Rigid Branding of D&D is far less in its narrative details than it is as a facilitating ruleset to play a game.
And this is where the problem comes from – if you strip away the rules, and leave only the IP, or Brand, of Faerun or Eberron, you are playing to the worst strengths as a Brand. Yes, some people love the Lore, but the mechanics are what really sets it apart. Give me a RPG night with the choice between D&D and a WoT RPG, I’m picking D&D – however, give me story based game with minimal mechanics, and I’ll pick WoT every time.
These 3 core conflicts, IMO, are what make D&D so very, very hard to port into a video game, and why so many people disagree on the best way of doing so.
