VTT centric RPG?

We are always looking for new tools to create to help facilitate the table top gaming experience. Let us know if you have an idea for a new gaming tool you'd like to see. (Note: this is NOT for feature requests on existing tools!)

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Benz72
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VTT centric RPG?

Post by Benz72 »

Big Idea:
All of the effort seems to be concentrated on simulating the rules of a tabletop game, written to not use a computer, on a computer. What if instead we worked on modules that would help game masters tell exciting stories and use the computer to make that as easy as possible?

The concept can be broken into chunks:

Combat Tool - Almost all gaming has fights going on and turn based strategy video games are really good at handling details like distance, hit location and ammo. What if the system built a simulator (possibly with a few option such as cinematic vs. realistic and high detail/resolution vs. summary) that could reference character stats & equipment and resolve attacks in a sequential way?
The combat rules for paper based RPG have to limit themselves to a small number of variables to keep the system playable but we already have ways to automatically check range, visibility, token speed (distance moved), posture and many other things that could go into such a calculation.

Social Tool - The other thing to do when you aren't' fighting someone in the story is interact socially. Merchants and Artisans, Politicians and Beggars all have a part to play in the story. Keeping track of which NPCs are important, what they know ( and what the PCs have to do to get that knowledge) and picture/handout can be optimized for an online or in person VTT enhanced experience. And if you end up having to fight the NPC the GM can just have their token/stats ready with a click.

Stuff Tool - Even games not about murder-hobos need to keep track of who owns what, how much it weighs, how much money was spent and a whole lot of other parameters. Once the framework is written filling details into an equipment list is simple and makes a campaign easier to run (when a character buys an item it goes straight to their character sheet with all the relevant stats pre-loaded).

Character Tool (revised) - Make a point build system with a reasonable stat selection (but not tied to any particular current game system). GMs can tailor costs for their campaign and players who build in this tool can have all of their values tracked in the...
Campaign Tool - Link the individual character sheets into a GM tool to help award character growth points, save important session notes, track adventure progress and so on.

Weather Tool - perhaps as simple as a random generator, or as complicated as a simple climate simulator. If you can tie a map to weather you can make games more vivid.

Travel Tool - Most adventures involve significant relocation and if google maps can tell me how many minutes it will take to execute the turn by turn instructions it generates it seems like we might be able to have a way to calculate road distance and travel speed in various weather conditions. This should integrate with Stuff Tool to help account for supplies and movement rates.

Clock tool - Most games have some time dilation function where a few rounds of combat take longer than a week of hiking through the woods... and they should. But if we know travel times, combat times and other durations (research, building/repairing, crop growth) we can start synchronizing all those events to make storytelling better.

Is it a pipe dream to hope that this idea makes sense to the community at large? Or to think that once the interaction of these tools is smooth and supports running a campaign easily in essentially any setting that gaming groups will find it easier to gather and play because there would be no 'system' to divide players... just preferences for genera and play style. Anyway I realize this is a LOT of stuff, but I was wondering what others thought.
Thank You :D

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wolph42
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Re: VTT centric RPG?

Post by wolph42 »

HI Benz,

Interesting ideas for sure. Note that some of those already exists either as standalone drop in or part of existing frameworks. Part is also covered in my BoT. (e.g. Calendar, Wheather, Time, Inventory, Social tools.)

Where I think you go wrong is the 'yet another system' idea. Cause a lot of stuff you mention simply requires a system which will have its quirks and pros and cons. At least the character, stuff, campaign and combat tools are 'system' based 'modules' which you can't separate from each other.
In its simplest form you cannot have a 'character module' where a character is 'very strong and good with swords' and a 'combat module' which is completely focused on battle of the minds or ship battles in space or dex based melee combat for roleplay based combat...

Which means that you're basically will create YAS, but this one with VTT in mind, which will have its own use base, its own variants as each GM wants to do things slightly different, etc.

But by all means don't let that stop you creating such a thing! Just make sure you get a good grasp of whats already out there and leverage on that!

Phergus
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Re: VTT centric RPG?

Post by Phergus »

Agree overall with Wolphs comments.

A game system that was intended to be played via VTT would certainly be able to leverage the capabilities of VTTs while also designing game mechanics that could benefit from the knowledge that a computer will handle the math.

Of course, what we are kind of talking about here is a MMORPG without the massively. :) Something that could be installed and run by a GM user with more active, dynamic GMing functions.

Benz72
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Re: VTT centric RPG?

Post by Benz72 »

Yes, LMORPG! Except that people would pronounce it LamoRPG... so maybe a better acronym.
Anyway, thanks for the responses and reality checks.

I did have another tool idea. RelationTool.
Think crime board or node map... something to display which groups or individuals interact with which others and how (ally/enemy, master/slave, family tree, &c.)

Phergus
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Re: VTT centric RPG?

Post by Phergus »

Benz72 wrote:
Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:41 pm
Yes, LMORPG! Except that people would pronounce it LamoRPG... so maybe a better acronym.
:lol: Maybe BMORPG - for Barely Multiplayer... :wink:
Benz72 wrote:
Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:41 pm
I did have another tool idea. RelationTool.
Think crime board or node map... something to display which groups or individuals interact with which others and how (ally/enemy, master/slave, family tree, &c.)
That is another area where a VTT/Campaign Manager could track details that a GM normally just remembers (hopefully) and tracks in their notes.

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