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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8168949" data-attributes="member: 18">Worth noting that this can be done in videogames as well - i.e. co-op and PvP at the same time, and has been done a few times, with variable levels of success. The most successful approach so far is a videogame which I think hits a number of your points - Left 4 Dead.Left 4 Dead is a first-person zombie-survival game, where four players play survivors, and attempt to get through a zombie-infested level to some kind of escape point. One interesting this is that it uses an "AI Director". This is the equivalent of a DM/GM/Storyteller in RPGs. The AI Director basically moderates what zombies are spawned, how many, and where, intentionally creating lulls and creepy periods and also really wild and overwhelming rushes and so on, and pays attention to the resources the players have and so on. And it's very good at it. It makes the game vastly more exciting and involving than similar games with "standard" or just "randomized" enemies.That came out in 2008, too, so could no doubt be done better now.But that's not all, on top of all that you can have some of the zombies played by other players too, who are cooperating with each other to fight the people playing the survivors (I believe the AI director will determine what zombies are available to them to play, and when). So you have a combination of co-op and PvP, with an AI Director (AI DM) up in the mix as well.Few games have done similar, but the potential remains (indeed, a spiritual sequel is being developed right now), and I'd be very unsurprised to see something like this in the further future. I'd also note that few computer games displace TT RPGs, because they're such a different experience, but Left 4 Dead, was, for us, one of the the few that, for a while, did, because it fit into such a similar space. In the same time as an RPG session, you could cooperatively play a few levels of L4D, and you got a similar thrill to some RPGs - that of flowing cooperation against a hostile environment (which is very different to MMORPGs, for example). Mass Effect 3's Multiplayer was somewhat similar (though not as clever) and similarly potentially displaced TT RPGs. It's not a full replacement - without NPCs to argue with, without chances to actually roleplay, without problems to solve with your mind that don't involve shooting zombies or the like, y'know, there's a limit. But I could see a much broader, physics-heavy, fantasy-set L4D-type game potentially displacing some TT RPGs for a lot of people. Only some though - the more mechanics/combat-focused ones like D&D would be the most vulnerable, and stuff like PtbA would be far less vulnerable.</blockquote>

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