GoodKingJayIII
First Post
Thulcondar said:
You make it sound as if creating an excellent game with the best possible mechanics and making money are mutually exclusive, or at least unequal. They are not.
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D&D 5E Ruminations on 5E (serious)
- Thread starter hbarsquared
- Start date
You make it sound as if creating an excellent game with the best possible mechanics and making money are mutually exclusive, or at least unequal. They are not.
Thulcondar
First Post
GoodKingJayIII said:
Indeed, which is why I said, in the self-same post:
Thulcondar said:
Not mutually exclusive at all. Just one of several ways to do it.
Joe
I think that it would be a shorter jump to try to figure out what a 4.5 D&D would look like... or, even if they avoid calling it "4.5", what 4e looks like after a few Player's Handbooks are under its belt. We can also extrapolate some things from the questions and issues people are having now.
There's a strong possibility that one of the most house ruled and demanded systems will be a crafting system and a professional system. And if I'm not mistaken, they've already acknowledged that mechanics for these might be added down the road. Once 4e has been around for a while, I can see the 4e = MMO criticism gradually going away, clearing the way for them to borrow a valid approach from online games, and have a 'professional class' system. Not as detailed and robust as the core class system, but still essentially giving people the option to be a "Warlock / Blacksmith." Crafting could easily adopt the Skill Challenge system, with charts for making items (a spoon is complexity 1, a longsword is complexity 3, an advanced metal lock is complexity 5, etc.) and the mishaps or progress made in Skill Challenges for each trade skill. You don't have to write individual encounters for the spoon and the longsword, just a general "blacksmith" or "metalworking" one that details what might happen on a failed check. Other than that, you just need a table with a sampling of items and the difficulty thresholds for them. There will probably be house rules circulating along these lines in very short order, and they'll eventually have to come up with their own version of them.
So in a 4.5 or a 5e, that might become a part of the core rules, depending on how well it's received. Offering a few trade skills and Skill Challenge encounters for them in each PHB might take up 10-20 pages at most, easily added.
I think that in terms of core game mechanics, after everyone has time to look at the game for a while, time itself may be looked at - in terms of when and how powers are used out of combat and how time is measured. We might see separate recharge categories for out-of-combat power use, or a more detailed ritual system, or other similar things.
They might even try to have more integration between monsters and PCs. DMs might decide that they are getting sick of their players asking "is it five minutes yet? Can I use it again?" and then adopt something like the die roll for recharge out of combat. Something like that might eventually work it's way into the core mechanics. It's not a huge stretch because we're already seeing things like rolling to determine durations (the new saving throw.) So instead of tracking or guesstimating out-of-combat time in five minute intervals, perhaps your encounter powers recharge on a five or a six on a six-sided die outside of combat.
I think we'll see small changes like that, and they will come mostly from things people start house ruling for themselves.
In terms of how the game is played, I think that it's going to be the opposite of what people think: most people are expecting tabletop games to go extinct and for everything to go the way of MMOs and computer-based gaming. But people have been able to move games to the online environment on their computers for years now, and the tabletop experience isn't going away. We're getting to the point where, rather than moving our activities into the computer room, computers and tech are getting smaller, more convenient to use, and being moved to the places where we do various activities. I think technologies that make high tech table top gaming at home, perhaps with a mix of people sitting at the table and some people virtually present, is more likely than tabletop RPGs going completely to MMO.
When people look to the future, they tend to look at the most advanced item that currently dominates their lives and imagine that as the center of their future lives. It seems to loom larger and larger and dominate. But then things get more portable, and adaptable, and it turns out the future isn't the nuclear family dressed in polyester unitards sitting around a large console TV featuring Smell-O-Vision or interactive shows, it's having a flexible paper-thin display that you snap out and mount wherever it's convenient.
So rather than seeing RPGs move entirely to the computer, I think we're going to see technology move out to wherever we play RPGs.
I know that the guy that mentioned replacing dice with carbon nanotubes was joking, but a lot of materials scientists believe we're only a couple of years away from being able to bring things like flexible, paper-thin LCDs to market and they could be used for digital newspapers you can fold up and so forth. A few recent discoveries I read about over on PhysOrg.com indicated that the technology wasn't very far away from becoming cheap enough mass production and distribution. So imagine a Digital Battlemat: You roll it out, plug it into a portable device like a handheld or laptop, and you display images on it. You can move tokens around on it digitally, or place real miniatures right on top of it. The friend in Guam can connect to you over the Internet, and join the other 3 players who are sitting around the table. You hear his voice, he can move things onto the digital battlemat to display them, and he can move his character's token around on the mat. But everyone else is physically there.
There's a strong possibility that one of the most house ruled and demanded systems will be a crafting system and a professional system. And if I'm not mistaken, they've already acknowledged that mechanics for these might be added down the road. Once 4e has been around for a while, I can see the 4e = MMO criticism gradually going away, clearing the way for them to borrow a valid approach from online games, and have a 'professional class' system. Not as detailed and robust as the core class system, but still essentially giving people the option to be a "Warlock / Blacksmith." Crafting could easily adopt the Skill Challenge system, with charts for making items (a spoon is complexity 1, a longsword is complexity 3, an advanced metal lock is complexity 5, etc.) and the mishaps or progress made in Skill Challenges for each trade skill. You don't have to write individual encounters for the spoon and the longsword, just a general "blacksmith" or "metalworking" one that details what might happen on a failed check. Other than that, you just need a table with a sampling of items and the difficulty thresholds for them. There will probably be house rules circulating along these lines in very short order, and they'll eventually have to come up with their own version of them.
So in a 4.5 or a 5e, that might become a part of the core rules, depending on how well it's received. Offering a few trade skills and Skill Challenge encounters for them in each PHB might take up 10-20 pages at most, easily added.
I think that in terms of core game mechanics, after everyone has time to look at the game for a while, time itself may be looked at - in terms of when and how powers are used out of combat and how time is measured. We might see separate recharge categories for out-of-combat power use, or a more detailed ritual system, or other similar things.
They might even try to have more integration between monsters and PCs. DMs might decide that they are getting sick of their players asking "is it five minutes yet? Can I use it again?" and then adopt something like the die roll for recharge out of combat. Something like that might eventually work it's way into the core mechanics. It's not a huge stretch because we're already seeing things like rolling to determine durations (the new saving throw.) So instead of tracking or guesstimating out-of-combat time in five minute intervals, perhaps your encounter powers recharge on a five or a six on a six-sided die outside of combat.
I think we'll see small changes like that, and they will come mostly from things people start house ruling for themselves.
In terms of how the game is played, I think that it's going to be the opposite of what people think: most people are expecting tabletop games to go extinct and for everything to go the way of MMOs and computer-based gaming. But people have been able to move games to the online environment on their computers for years now, and the tabletop experience isn't going away. We're getting to the point where, rather than moving our activities into the computer room, computers and tech are getting smaller, more convenient to use, and being moved to the places where we do various activities. I think technologies that make high tech table top gaming at home, perhaps with a mix of people sitting at the table and some people virtually present, is more likely than tabletop RPGs going completely to MMO.
When people look to the future, they tend to look at the most advanced item that currently dominates their lives and imagine that as the center of their future lives. It seems to loom larger and larger and dominate. But then things get more portable, and adaptable, and it turns out the future isn't the nuclear family dressed in polyester unitards sitting around a large console TV featuring Smell-O-Vision or interactive shows, it's having a flexible paper-thin display that you snap out and mount wherever it's convenient.
So rather than seeing RPGs move entirely to the computer, I think we're going to see technology move out to wherever we play RPGs.
I know that the guy that mentioned replacing dice with carbon nanotubes was joking, but a lot of materials scientists believe we're only a couple of years away from being able to bring things like flexible, paper-thin LCDs to market and they could be used for digital newspapers you can fold up and so forth. A few recent discoveries I read about over on PhysOrg.com indicated that the technology wasn't very far away from becoming cheap enough mass production and distribution. So imagine a Digital Battlemat: You roll it out, plug it into a portable device like a handheld or laptop, and you display images on it. You can move tokens around on it digitally, or place real miniatures right on top of it. The friend in Guam can connect to you over the Internet, and join the other 3 players who are sitting around the table. You hear his voice, he can move things onto the digital battlemat to display them, and he can move his character's token around on the mat. But everyone else is physically there.
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doctorhook
Legend
...I hope you're joking. Please say you're joking!Aria Silverhands said:
Those are, like, Nostradamus-league dire predictions.
unan oranis
First Post
Just like every edition of dnd, over the 10ish years that will be 4e's life cycle, revolutionary concepts will be introduced as options.
These options combined with near universal houserules will reach a critical mass that constitutes a new edition.
The only ones I could predict now would be further technology intergration, such as a program for writing adventures simular to a script writing program or some-such. Perhaps options to use something like the ps3's "eye of chaos" game camera.
On the other hand, magic the gathering hasn't really had a wildly new edition once they nailed their basic formula down. Maybe as far as the fundamentals go we have hit the bedrock after all.
--
unan
These options combined with near universal houserules will reach a critical mass that constitutes a new edition.
The only ones I could predict now would be further technology intergration, such as a program for writing adventures simular to a script writing program or some-such. Perhaps options to use something like the ps3's "eye of chaos" game camera.
On the other hand, magic the gathering hasn't really had a wildly new edition once they nailed their basic formula down. Maybe as far as the fundamentals go we have hit the bedrock after all.
--
unan
Specifically on the subject of RPGs disappearing completely into MMOs, I'm quoting myself for emphasis, as I vomited a lot of text onto the screen up there:
As I hinted at just a few moments earlier, I think anyone making predictions about the future does well to look at how people in the past made predictions about today. When you see how silly our grandparents' take on the future looks, then you can check yourself against making the mistake of taking the most important piece of tech in our present lives bigger and more central.
Paleo-Future is a good blog for looking at the silliness of the futures that never were.
Especially things like this video from 1989.
Cryptos said:
As I hinted at just a few moments earlier, I think anyone making predictions about the future does well to look at how people in the past made predictions about today. When you see how silly our grandparents' take on the future looks, then you can check yourself against making the mistake of taking the most important piece of tech in our present lives bigger and more central.
Paleo-Future is a good blog for looking at the silliness of the futures that never were.
Especially things like this video from 1989.
Kobu
First Post
LostSoul said:
Sure, but I imagine it would get very boring. In a PnP game, you generally handwave most simulation things. You have an understanding with the other participants of what goes on and don't actually play everything out. Ultima Online had you doing ridiculous simulationist things like cutting down trees for hours on end. In PnP, you would just tell everyone that is what you are doing and that is that.
Aria Silverhands
First Post
Eh, I never said we would all be zombies sitting at our computers. Even if my "dire" predictions came true, the advances in ten years of computers would make that kind of software easily useable at the game table. Imagine a table with six monitors inset into the table or a holographic view everyone can see and interact with. I'd like it. As much as I enjoy trying to piece together a description from the DM in my mind, I'd much rather have a concrete view so there's no mistakes about what they meant.Cryptos said:
The technology to create a game table like that exists now, but would be pretty expensive. Six flat screens, six keyboards, six mice, six of everything. Well, seven if you want a DM and six players. That kind of game table would be the first thing I "buy" if I ever one the lottery. Hrm, second thing. I'd have to buy a new house with a bigger room for it. ^_^
Thulcondar
First Post
I daresay that when we get to the point that the game relies on embedded monitors and holographic battlemats, we're going to be talking about something other than D&D as we know it.
Part of what makes an RPG an RPG, to my mind, is the person-to-person interaction that it requires and encourages. That's what the naysayers never really got back in the early days of RPGing; the games don't make the players insular. The games give them a way to reach out to other people.
You take out that across-the-table factor, and you might as well be playing WoW or AOL Gor or whatever...
EDIT: I should point out that neither is necessarily better than the other. They are simply very different things, and just as folks still read books since the advent of television, and just as folks still play minis since the advent of RPGs, so too do folks still play RPGs with the advent of MMORPGs. The key is not to see it as an evolution from one to the other so much as a sprouting of the tree into multiple branches, all of which can still exist from the same trunk at the same time.
Joe
Part of what makes an RPG an RPG, to my mind, is the person-to-person interaction that it requires and encourages. That's what the naysayers never really got back in the early days of RPGing; the games don't make the players insular. The games give them a way to reach out to other people.
You take out that across-the-table factor, and you might as well be playing WoW or AOL Gor or whatever...
EDIT: I should point out that neither is necessarily better than the other. They are simply very different things, and just as folks still read books since the advent of television, and just as folks still play minis since the advent of RPGs, so too do folks still play RPGs with the advent of MMORPGs. The key is not to see it as an evolution from one to the other so much as a sprouting of the tree into multiple branches, all of which can still exist from the same trunk at the same time.
Joe
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