The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons • Hacker News Board

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#121

Post by Steko » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 6:14 AM UTC

azernik wrote: post #88

BillBohan wrote: post #38

I tried getting friends to play RPG's in the early 1980's but they didn't show much interest until I came across a supply of 6" (150 mm) square pieces of styrofoam (discarded packing material from work) which I painted with gray acrylic paint. I cut some in half and some in quarters and used them to depict the dungeons for use with metal miniatures. After that I had a group which showed up every month for 5 years. I…

Not just empathy - it's also a sense of drama that's required. A DM writes the story in (semi-)real-time, whereas in CRPGs the "DM" (the writers) have to predict player actions in advance and railroad the players a lot more in order to get a good story progression going.

Eh, they don't have to (cf Eve), they just decided not to and so they've largely missed the chance for more interesting and sticky player driven story (cf Eve) by following EQ's model of "here's what you do next kids".

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#122

Post by malloryerik » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 6:30 AM UTC

sago wrote: post #75

I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless. Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play,…

Maybe then a new game could be related to D&D as Clojure is to Java? Like, built on the D&D runtime?

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#123

Post by zaroth » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 6:30 AM UTC

A few months later, a parent stopped him on the street with tears in her eyes. “What are you guys doing?” she asked him. Her son was dyslexic and had been role-playing at Brooklyn Strategist for a couple of weeks. Before D. & D., he couldn’t focus on writing for more than a few seconds. Now he was staying up all night to draft stories about his character. “Whatever it is, bottle it and sell it to me,” the mother said.

I mean, product endorsements don't get any stronger than that!

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#124

Post by sago » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 6:35 AM UTC

glogla wrote: post #118

sago wrote: post #75

I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless. Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play,…

Try Nobilis or Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine. It's something completely new again - no dice rolls and more about "what do you do with power?" than "what can you do?". Oh and the author has incredible command of English so it read like poetry, and she has PhD in Computer Science and it shows - the games are modular, the algorithms are precise, etc.

Thanks. I've not read or played Chuubo, but my 1ed Nobilis is a prize possession! A wonderful achievement, and seminal, at least for my journey in the hobby. Though I'm tempted to say mechanically now it does feel a little tired (or perhaps my memory is biased, it's been quite a few years since I played it).

James Wallace (of Hogshead as was, who published Nobilis, and other really groundbreaking games like De Profundis, and his own Adventures of Baron Munchausen) has been slow-motion (i.e. mostly failing at) releasing an interesting game "Alas Vegas" via kickstarter for a few years now. Given the esteem he was held in at one point, it's a shame to see so many folks who felt burned by the kickstarter. His publishing decisions definitely helped get the hobby where it is today. Nobilis being a particularly good example.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#125

Post by andybak » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 6:43 AM UTC

dcw303 wrote: post #87

sago wrote: post #75

I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless. Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play,…

If we're going to go off on a tangent of comparing rpgs to programming languages, I fondly remember GMing a Paranoia campaign back in the day where I took great delight in breaking the rules to kill off the player's clones in quick and gruesome succession. And then they all had lots of fun backstabbing each other to death. I guess you'd call that RPG the equivalent of INTERCAL.

The Paranoia rulebooks were a joy to read. Comedic masterpieces in themselves.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#126

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 6:54 AM UTC

pfooti wrote: post #101

SubiculumCode wrote: post #98

I always wanted to give it a go, but could never find a group. Now as a careered adult with kids, it is even harder to find time to try this kind of thing, especially since my spouse has few gaming tendencies. Last year or so though, I saw a Pathfinder Humble Bundle for a bunch of rule books and I decided to buy them for fun. And that got me thinking..I started poking around some forums and ended up joining a play-by…

depending on where you live, you might have some luck via meetups. i'm a long-time rpg player, but I lost my group when I moved to esseph. Meetup started the networking process - there's a lot of D&D and other RPG meetup groups.

[deleted]

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#127

Post by digi_owl » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 6:58 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #96

azernik wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just empathy - it's also a sense of drama that's required. A DM writes the story in (semi-)real-time, whereas in CRPGs the "DM" (the writers) have to predict player actions in advance and railroad the players a lot more in order to get a good story progression going.

This is the key insight which many new DMs seem to miss. D&D isn't a "game", it's a framework for telling an engaging story together.

Kinda. I would say that story is the least important bit when in the moment as a player. It is once the session is over that the story emerges.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#128

Post by digi_owl » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 7:00 AM UTC

sago wrote: post #75

I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless. Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play,…

I am of two mind of some of those games. They seem to have taken the role out of roleplaying, and instead involve a group of authors gambling over who gets to write the next page or so of story.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#129

Post by digi_owl » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 7:02 AM UTC

ceades wrote: post #97

mikepurvis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a total noob to all of this, where would I go to find helpful commentary on how these different games compare to each other and what they offer?

A good start would be the beginners guide on /rpg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/beginnersguide If you've never seen how a particular game works and want to get a feel, search around and watch an episode or two of the game online. Rollplay on Youtube has a good channel that covers a lot of different types of games. You can also find games on Roll20's channel as well, and many more on Twitch and other channels. As…

Funny mix of games, as most of them are rather new in RPG terms, while Shadowrun has been around since the 80s (and has maintained a mostly coherent timeline since first release).

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#130

Post by sago » Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 7:13 AM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #128

sago wrote: post #75

I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless. Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play,…

I am of two mind of some of those games. They seem to have taken the role out of roleplaying, and instead involve a group of authors gambling over who gets to write the next page or so of story.

Which, specifically? I chose them because, in my experience, they have deeper roleplaying than vanilla D&D (which, in the old threefold model is much more simulationist).