BattleMaster Community
Community => Other Games => Topic started by: ^ban^ on March 04, 2011, 07:56:23 AM
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Forget that online crap!
We're talking about real Dungeons and Dragons here, with the wizards and the wacky (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=727527) and everything in between.
How many here play?
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I did a little D&D but mostly got into MERP's (Middle Earth Role Playing.) and still have all of the original books too. Are you still kicking back with the pen and paper D&D?
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After discovering 1st edition rules in Canada on holiday via my cousins I spent most of my late childhood and early teens playing (A)D&D. I have no idea how many hundreds of hours I spent drawing maps and creating worlds, settings and campaigns. Miss it but just don't have the time or pool of players anymore so RPG computer games have to substitute.
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I still have a regular Pen&Paper group, though we don't play D&D. At the moment we enjoy the unfairly underrated Fireborn, before that we had a long time of Warhammer FRP, and lots of others before that (Amber, Vampire, Shadowrun and many more).
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What's D&D? :P
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I think it was about a year and a quarter ago now that the D&D group I had started putting together from BM players fell apart, due to most of them going partially or completely inactive.
I've got a low-level campaign that would only need minimal dusting off to be possible to start, but I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time just at the second. Summer will be better for that, now that I'm in a job on an academic schedule again.
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I played pen and paper D&D for.... almost 20 years. From the mid-70's to the mid-90's. I did some play-by-email for a few years after that. I don't think I've played at all in the past 10+ years. I miss it... :(
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I played pen and paper D&D for.... almost 20 years. From the mid-70's to the mid-90's. I did some play-by-email for a few years after that. I don't think I've played at all in the past 10+ years. I miss it... :(
You'd be welcome in the campaign, when and if it gets going again :)
It's intended to be 3.5 edition, by the way.
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I always wondered how interesting can play by e-mail be as compared to the real thing.
Sadly I've reached the threshold when I can't play the real thing anymore as well, and I already miss it a lot :p
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Play-by-email was fun. Almost like playing BattleMaster. :) You're writing all your actions just like you're writing an RP message. Combat is a little slow. We usually did one battle round per day. Our DM had the address of a web site where you could enter e-mail addresses, tell it how many rolls of what dice you wanted, and it would e-mail the results to those addresses. So it was kind of like rolling the dice yourself, and there was no chance of cheating. (By the players, anyway. When the DM does it, it's not called cheating. :P )
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Play-by-email was fun. Almost like playing BattleMaster. :) You're writing all your actions just like you're writing an RP message. Combat is a little slow. We usually did one battle round per day. Our DM had the address of a web site where you could enter e-mail addresses, tell it how many rolls of what dice you wanted, and it would e-mail the results to those addresses. So it was kind of like rolling the dice yourself, and there was no chance of cheating. (By the players, anyway. When the DM does it, it's not called cheating. :P )
I have some grand ideas about a good web-based package that could handle a lot of the different parts; I have a significant chunk of the map-walking part written, but mothballed.
It shouldn't be that difficult to write something that could handle it all so that it could be played in a similar manner to BM. It would lose something of the feel and flavour of traditional P&P D&D, but it would at least let people play...
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I've had mixed experiences as far as groups go; actual pen and paper groups have been difficult to find in the area I live, so much of my experience has been in play-by-post forum games. Of perhaps ten, two of those campaigns were what I would call anything even near "succesful", with only one still ongoing. And then there was that group Anaris tried to put together where everyone else buggered off...
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For me, the hardest part about online play is timing. I don't think I'd ever have a chance to sit down for an evening, or a few hours on a weekend to play. Especially not on any kind of regular schedule.
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For me, the hardest part about online play is timing. I don't think I'd ever have a chance to sit down for an evening, or a few hours on a weekend to play. Especially not on any kind of regular schedule.
That's why I was considering something along the same lines as BM—or, perhaps more accurately, like WI. Something where each player can log on, do what they have to do, and when everyone's gotten their stuff in, things can move along.
The basic idea would be that the DM has control over everything but the characters' own persons—and that includes having control over the characters' positions, so they can't go gadding about without him being able to react—and players essentially "propose" actions, which the DM can then confirm, modify, or deny. Everyone, of course, can talk all the time. Talking is a free action ;)
So if all the people are online at once, things can move pretty quickly, with everyone moving, the DM confirming actions, and the whole play flowing fast. If people can't get online together for a while, they can still play at their own pace, and the DM can make an executive decision to just let people who don't show up for a week follow the party mutely.
So, Indirik, do you think that's a system that you could play in?
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Sounds fun. I'd give it a shot.
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Sounds fun. I'd give it a shot.
Excellent.
Now I just have to write it.
In my copious spare time.
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Which you won't have until /after/ the treaty system is done, right?
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Which you won't have until /after/ the treaty system is done, right?
And religious schisms, and the guild reorganization fixes, and the Population Rebalance.... :-\
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I have some grand ideas about a good web-based package that could handle a lot of the different parts; I have a significant chunk of the map-walking part written, but mothballed.
There are a number of specialized softwares that do it. Most are windows-only, half of the suck and the other half is barely acceptable. I never liked any of them very much.
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That's why I was considering something along the same lines as BM—or, perhaps more accurately, like WI. Something where each player can log on, do what they have to do, and when everyone's gotten their stuff in, things can move along.
The basic idea would be that the DM has control over everything but the characters' own persons—and that includes having control over the characters' positions, so they can't go gadding about without him being able to react—and players essentially "propose" actions, which the DM can then confirm, modify, or deny. Everyone, of course, can talk all the time. Talking is a free action ;)
I think you just re-invented play-by-(e)mail roleplaying. (and SpellMaster) :-)
The problem with this is that you lose one of the most important tools of storytelling: Pacing. You have to make it up somehow. In SM I had something, for a D&D thing you'd have to come up with something.
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I think you just re-invented play-by-(e)mail roleplaying. (and SpellMaster) :-)
Well, yes and no. And SpellMaster was a significant part of the inspiration for the idea ;-)
The difference would be that the players can look at the map any time, and the computer can keep track of everything that's happened, both the text of everything people have said, and the record of where they've all been, etc. They could even look at the party members who are currently with them, see what they're carrying, etc.
The problem with this is that you lose one of the most important tools of storytelling: Pacing. You have to make it up somehow. In SM I had something, for a D&D thing you'd have to come up with something.
Yes, I know, that is the main problem, and I haven't yet been able to come up with a way to make up for it :-/
But I guess the question is: is it an acceptable sacrifice to make to be able to play D&D with a bunch of people who are, in all likelihood, never going to be able to come up with a single time when they can all meet to play, even over the internet?
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Hm, that's an interesting concept indeed.
Yes, providing the online tools so that the game is accessible even when "paused", and everyone can look at all the info at any time, and leave notes for other players and/or the GM - that might work.
Yes, could be an interesting project. Unity 3D webplayer springs to mind almost immediately as a solution for an interactive map. :-)
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Heh, I was just making it a simple top-down map. No more than line-art at the moment, though I was hoping to add some sort of tile/texture support in future to make it look nicer.
So far, most of the work has been in getting the movement to work nicely, and in automatically calculating line-of-sight, so it can reveal the map as it is walked through.
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That's why I was considering something along the same lines as BM—or, perhaps more accurately, like WI. Something where each player can log on, do what they have to do, and when everyone's gotten their stuff in, things can move along.
The basic idea would be that the DM has control over everything but the characters' own persons—and that includes having control over the characters' positions, so they can't go gadding about without him being able to react—and players essentially "propose" actions, which the DM can then confirm, modify, or deny. Everyone, of course, can talk all the time. Talking is a free action ;)
So if all the people are online at once, things can move pretty quickly, with everyone moving, the DM confirming actions, and the whole play flowing fast. If people can't get online together for a while, they can still play at their own pace, and the DM can make an executive decision to just let people who don't show up for a week follow the party mutely.
By the way, this is exactly how Fantasy Grounds 2 and MapTool work (two popular tools for dnd-over-the-net).
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By the way, this is exactly how Fantasy Grounds 2 and MapTool work (two popular tools for dnd-over-the-net).
I've tried MapTool, and been deeply unimpressed.
I don't recall all the details at this point, but it seemed incredibly cumbersome to get to work, and was a bit clunky in the interface.
A quick glance at Fantasy Grounds 2's website indicates that it's Windows-only—which isn't necessarily a showstopper, since Wine works very well these days, and I do have VMs, but it's a definite minus.
What is a showstopper is that it costs money. I'd be willing to at least consider shelling out some for a tool that would let me host for anyone, but so far as I can tell, you need to at least buy a $25 "lite" license to be able to even play as a regular player.
Rolling my own will take longer, and not give such a comprehensive featureset as something like FG2, but it will be free for everyone, and accessible through a web browser. And heck, if I open-source it once it's in usable condition, maybe enough geeks will like it that it can gain some of those other features.
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Jeez it must be a good 20 yrs since I last played AD+D or MERP!, as what with losing track of my old circle of friends when I joined the forces, and likewise this long distance hauling lark preventing me building up a new one, (saves a small fortune on heating my flat etc though, as often away 8 days in 10 lol) I've never had the opportunity again, so can't wait until this takes off.