There’s probably someone out there that has the “table” side of this all figured out and ready to go and we could use TalkShoe for the “interactive fun.” Hmm… <reaches for Google>
I know what you mean, I role play during computer games as well. I like to put on earphones, turn out the light, pull the screen right up to my nose and get totally immersed. I was reading a message board on Oblivion once and it explained the mathematical system of levelling up and how you can supposedly screw up the game by missing points when you levelled. My wonderfully roguish dark elf was, by these standards, horribly flawed. I restarted the game, got out a pen and paper and levelled a character perfectly for about 7 levels until I gave up in bored disgust. It was just no fun. I had absolutely no connection to this little mathematical construct. I deleted her and resurrected my less than perfect character and played the rest of the game in marvellously flawed happiness. My Mass Effect Sheppard is probably poorly constructed as well, though she can snipe the arse end off a mosquito and 1000 paces – which gives me no end of thrills.
The only pen and paper RPG game I play is a kiddie one called a Faery Tail. I would enjoy playing a grown up RPG, but in this little city it appears only high-school and university aged boys/men play. If there is a group of middle aged gamers out there, I haven’t met them.
I just bought Bauders Gate 2 at a thrift store and am looking forward to trying it out. I’m near the end of Fallout 3 and Dragon’s Age is nowhere in site. A blast from the past might be what just I need.
Edit: Mr. Lister, Sir! OMG! Kings Quest! I LOVED Kings Quest. Never really thought of them as role playing though. More point and click puzzle. Blast from the past.
My first games didn’t even have graphics. Just a big blank screen and a paragraph in the middle to tell you what was going on. Kings Quest seemed soooo advanced in comparison. Graphics – wow! If you squinted really hard, you could see the little guy running round the kingdom. Looked almost real. —Come to think of it – perhaps they were role playing games as I recall the stories in my head as if they WERE real.
Grrr…I so upset cuz I somehow lost my Feary’s Tale rule book. I was all set to play Feary’s Tale with the kids over the holiday’s but I couldn’t find the damn book. 
You’re all overthinking. Only the GM needs the random-number-generator, and nobody else needs to see it (only a tad different from the table top version.) You’ve got to trust your GM, otherwise rocks fall, everybody dies.
Holy craaaaaaaaap…way to make a relatively young guy feel old! Where did I put my metal hip?
<scrounges>
I think I have the best of both worlds. I played the original D&D rpgs, sometimes being the DugeonMaster but mostly being a player. I even DMed some alternate rpgs (Toon anyone? and some space game)
Given the difficulty and logistics of putting together multiple people I turned to computers as my outlet. Zork, Hitchiker’s Guide, Ultima 3/4, King’s Quest, Wolfenstein, Doom…you can rattle off the list and I have played most of them. I agree with Chuck strongly here: computer RPGs don’t suck…especially when you are “playing a character” and instead of walking into rooms and blowing the craaaap out of everything you thotfully make choices based on your character’s motivations.
As RPGs evolve into the Fable and Mass Effect level we may be approaching a point where the interactions in a game mirror those in real life: you wrong someone in the game and they won’t forget instead of being a 2 dimensional figure.
That’s sad. Let me know if you still can’t find it in a few days. Might be able to help with a few pages. I bought the actual book instead of the downloaded version. Since you have played before you won’t need everything.
I dunno. I think players like to have the feel that they’re participating by at least being able to roll the dice for their own characters—even if it’s virtual dice. But I take your meaning—you need to simplifying when you’re playing virtually I suppose.
As for “rocks fall everyone dies”, well there’s nothing you can do about a “difficult” player except don’t let them play next time. If some pulled that “I stabbed the King” with me as GM, I’d say “No you didn’t. Stop ruining the moment and ruining the fun for everyone.”
Hmmm…maybe you can direct me to the link for the downloaded version.
I don’t feel like waiting for and paying for a new hard copy version, but I might invest in a downloaded one, since, like you said, I already know the game.
Fallout 3 has come closest to doing this i think. If you play nice in the beginning it will completely affect how characters treat you much later in the game. Depending on how your character acts depends on who will join you. If you start acting to bad or to good its likely that they will leave your party. The only real limits on the game is that you cannot kill major plot point characters…or kids (as i understand it you cant kill kids) But if you wanted to you could wipe out the entire world and the people would not come back alive. Thats something that is really cool.
Wait, so you’re saying that we need:
1: a way to talk to one another (like Talkshoe or IRC… we already have it)
2: a way to throw a dice so that everyone can see and verify the result. (trivial code. Anyone can write this in 45 seconds.)
3: a way to post a map or other files where it’d be visible to everyone. (Just a public upload drop bucket… we can use any hosting and upload for this, or anyone can write this code in 25 seconds.)
So… it seems like we have everything we need to get a game going!
My Jove, I think you’re right! And as for dice rolller, there’s a variety of sites already existing that one could use, like http://www.rpglibrary.org/software/securedice/
And in the above example dice roller, I wouldn’t bother with the “Send the signed results of this roll to yourself /GM” part. I’d just cut and paste the dice roll results into the TalkShoe chat.
I didn’t see anyone mention it, Star Control 2!!! Loved that game, and there is a free version out there called ‘The Ur-Quan Masters’ for XP, OS X, and Linux
Here’s the link: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php
You would enjoy Brilliant Gameologists, if you have time for another podcast.
Thanks! I’ll check it out.
I’ve never downloaded it, but you can try:
http://www.roninarts.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=40&products_id=372
or
Nice to see that I’m not alone in my love of RPG video games. I would say that Pen and Paper RPGs are just a different experience than computer RPGs. PnP is more of a social event, while CRPGs are fun in a different way. They are both great, though.
I have done some PnP as well, mostly Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition and Shadowrun. If you want to get an online game going then you don’t need an elaborate setup with multible things. There are already programs that have everything(including voicechat) built in. Look up OpenRPG or FantasyGrounds