Alpha Omega: a web 2.0 "table top" RPG? WTF?.

Relique du Madde

Adventurer
I'm not sure how many of you heard about the viral website ethanhaaswasright.com. Apparently, it was revealed that the site was for mindstorm labs RPG Alpha Omega . It also has been revealed that Alpha Omega is a table-top rpg which will utilize web 2.0 as its platform. Mindstorm Labs states they will attend Wizards World and Gen Con Indy so I guess we'll find out more about this project later this month. But until then...


How does everyone think this project might effect the future of table top gaming?
 

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Apparently I have the right flash drivers :)

Synopsis for those who dont:

Alpha Omega is a Sci-Fi Fantasy RPG game set in the future after a series apocolyptic event cloistered the Human race in fortified cities... {normal so far}

The twist, two alien races can occasionally {once a millineum or so} cross intersteller space to continue thier eon old battle.. and Earth is the mid-point where this battle has been fought. Previously the aliens were seen as supernatural beings, Demons and Angels, even Gods. This time the less devout humanity with technological weapons of war have the ability to join in the fight... along with genetically altered beasties like the 'Striped Ape', like hybrid Tiger Ape or the chameleon spider...

There nothing much about the game system mechanics, altho the magic system is refered to 'Weilding' that appears to be a 'Elements of Magic' point buy style system.

Character generation, rules, and GM campaign tools will all be provided online.


Looks like an awesome setting..... the lack of mechanic details worry me. The page does state that the game will 'evolve' as the game goes on based on player experience, and that the majority of the game rules will be 'plug-ins' {my term} allowing a level of customizability to the setting.

Sounds vaguely like Fuzion...

But.. really, there is alot of {good} marketing on the page and not much else.
 


When I searched around the site the lack of information dealing with the game mechanics was worrying to me. Something about how the site was being heavily marketing driven (to the point of using a viral campaign which many originally thought tied into cloverfield) was unsettling since I wasn't sure if it they were relying too much on a gimick or not. Thats is also not mentioning that if they wanted to attract RPG gamers, they seemed to ignore many of the classic rpg gaming websites when trying to build up hype.

But then I found myself wondering "if this is successful, will 4e and the digital incentive follow suit?"
 

The Idea to sell Campaign Setting, Rules and Online Tabletop Gaming Tools as a package is not too stupid, and i wondered when a site like this would turn up.
But "using web 2.0 as a platform"? Web 2.0 is a vision, an idea that the core of the "new web" is going to be collaboration and user-created content. It is not a platform.
To cite a successful movie: "THIS IS ... MARKETING!" :p

Edit: And i like the desing concept of the site: bandwith-eating crap first, real content later. Gah. Thank god for the flashblock plugin.
 


Looks awesome.

Specifically, it looks like an attempt to sell a tabletop RPG to a relevantly-sized market, rather than repacking yet another D&D-, HERO- or WoD-derived offering for the same audience (or a Forge-derived offering for a vanishingly small audience). Short of a major licensed tabletop RPG getting heavy marketing from its parent company (Final Fantasy or Harry Potter being the only ones that leap to mind), this sort of thing is exactly what the industry needs.

The modular rules concept is brilliant, as are the art direction and site design (for all the carping about flash in formal web design circles, pretty much every major motion picture and electronic game uses this style). The setting isn't my bag, but I can see how it hits all the right notes; I could see it in a PC game, possibly even a console game; perhaps an IP farm?

All they need right now are halfway decent rules (and by 'halfway decent' I mean playable and easy to grasp for people who are not currently tabletop roleplayers). Even if the game has significant problems, since it's almost certainly targeted to non-roleplayers, they won't know the difference at first.

Unless it ends up being a vehicle for HYBRID... ;)
 

Reading through the 'how to play' sections, it says the rule game rules will allow players to easily make their own game mechanics.

This worries me.

---Rusty
 


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