The future of D&D on PC

[racofer]

 

[Luzur]

This is not an andhaira thread because this is not an inane question.

I must have my D&D and I cannot bring myself to play it in front of other people.

I'm a closet nerd, you see.

You'll never get the real D&D experience on a computer, matey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vChEPj0dXXk

 

[Qwinn]

First time I ever saw that Summoner video was after actually beating Summoner, probably 1 of 3 total console games I ever finished since, oh, 1986 or so (Atari 2600 counts, damnit!)

I died laughin'.

Qwinn

 

[Turok]

D&D is dead.

Next...

 

[Spectacle]

I'd like someone to elaborate exactly on why D&D is such a terrible system for CRPGs. Most CRPG systems are some kind of variation on the basic concepts of D&D anyway.

IMHO D&D is much better for computer games than for PNP RPGs.

 

[Melcar]

I don't know about you guys, but I for one have always enjoyed D&D based cRPGs. Maybe it's because I'm familiar with the system and can relate to it, or maybe it's because I like number crunching. I'm not opposed to other systems, but I usually find them lacking in detail. Exceptions do apply of course, like SPECIAL.

 

[oldschool]

TOEE was the last one that even played like D&D. If NWN and its' ilk are the future of D&D, why bother?

 

[Qwinn]

Well, TOEE was released autumn 2003. Has there -been- any other D&D game since then, besides NWN2? None that I can think of.

NWN2 does "play like D&D" in its non combat aspects, such as character development and attribution. It does skill checks and such well enough. I really didn't mind the combat all that much either, except of course for the orc caves, but that was a single case of bad encounter design more than anything else. To me, the worst part was actually the animations/graphics.

ToEE -was-, without a doubt, a much better implementation though. Oh, to have combat as detailed as ToEE with decent writing/plot.

I'm looking forward to 4e games. Just getting out of the hugely overplayed and really rather boring Forgotten Realms will be a very nice change.

Qwinn

 

[bhlaab]

4e will make a fantastic turnbased crpg.

Well a turn based rpg will never be made again by anybody who has access to the license so keep your wishes under your hat chum

 

[JarlFrank]

I'm looking forward to 4e games. Just getting out of the hugely overplayed and really rather boring Forgotten Realms will be a very nice change.

FR =/= boring.
The Sword Coast is boring. Forgotten Realms has so many awesome places. Yet nobody ever makes an RPG in those parts of the world. It's always just the boring overused "EPIC HEROIC FANTASY" Sword Coast.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Wasn't Al-Qadim merged with FR at one point? Now that would be a great setting for a cRPG.

 

[Hobo Elf]

No, he's right. FR is boring. There are some interesting locations, but it's still boring generic shit with orcs and elves.

 

[JarlFrank]

Wasn't Al-Qadim merged with FR at one point? Now that would be a great setting for a cRPG.

Fuck, 2E had so many amazing settings. Too bad most of them were scrapped. Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, Planescape, Darksun...
The sheer fact that they discontinued all of those incredibly creative settings in favour of generic fantasy land baffles me.

 

[Erebus]

Dungeons & Dragons Online is based on the Eberron setting

Really ? Didn't know that. But I'm much more interested in single-player games.

As for the Forgotten Realms, I've regarded them as an extremely boring and generic setting for a long time, but MotB actually had me wonder if I wasn't being a bit unfair.

Fuck, 2E had so many amazing settings. Too bad most of them were scrapped. Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, Planescape, Darksun...

Yeah, that was a real pity. I was also pretty fond of Birthright.

 

[Andhaira]

JarlFrank, they ditched those settings becuase they didn't sell well. However, there are rumors Darksun may be coming back for 4e, in 2010.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Man, are you guys talking about the traditional D&D world being generic?

The Underdark. A giant cavern inhabited by darkskinned people who are able to see in the dark. These darkskinned people go through painful rites of initiation, and must swear oaths to an evil goddess. Their very failure to do so degenerates them into animals, ruptures their body, and slowly begins their transformation into spiders that inhabit the high walls of those caverns.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

I just remembered how much Drizzt likes to brood over not being fully accepted into human society because of his black skin. Subtle.

 

[Qwinn]

Yeah, the Underdark was cool. It was done very well in both BG2 and in NWN: HotU.

But that's the point. It's been done. And probably as well as we can hope for, TWICE.

Time for something new.

Incidentally, far as I know, Lolth has been part of all the major settings. I know she was in Greyhawk. I don't think the whole Lolth-driders thing is unique to or even originated in Forgotten Realms.

Qwinn

 

[Wyrmlord]

No, he's right. FR is boring. There are some interesting locations, but it's still boring generic shit with orcs and elves.

I think we take the idea of orcs way too much for granted.

I am sure alot of you have seen The Searchers. A bloodthirst native American tribe rapes and murders the eldest daughter of the family, scalps and kills the parents, strips them naked so that they can take their clothes for use as decoys in their ranks, and kidnaps the youngest daughter, all after pillaging and burning down their household. (This was a 1950s movie, for heaven's sake!) And after doing this, they ensure that they draw out all the white men thirsting for their blood, so they can ambush them, and destroy their strongest men then and there.

Orcish tribes are pretty much an allusion to such stories, of all those Swedish immigrants to the wild west, who were uncompromisingly hunted and murdered by such people who could not think to mingle or even bargain with them, whom they saw as a standing obstacle to their own living, and would do nothing short of destroying theirs. That's exactly what orcs in fantasy are, that same unconditionally hateful, terrorizing, and monstrous people. Much of the lore in recent D&D games is about the city of Neverwinter sitting right in the fringe of the forest inhabited by the Uthgar tribes who regularly have to fend off the orcs who decimate and smash down human settlements. And the orcs always ensure that the humans get the message, because they must deliver the ultimate humiliation to their women, so that they will have half-breed children who will always remind them of how they were defeated. And even as generic as Bioware stories may be, many of the half-orc characters are always about the theme of how they are people whose lives are based on carrying the shame that they are half-orc.

Like I said, you guys are taking certain elements of traditional fantasy and D&D for granted. Had the LotR movies not been made in this decade, perhaps there would not be such a reaction.

 

[Hobo Elf]

No, he's right. FR is boring. There are some interesting locations, but it's still boring generic shit with orcs and elves.

I think we take the idea of orcs way too much for granted.

I am sure alot of you have seen The Searchers. A bloodthirst native American tribe rapes and murders the eldest daughter of the family, scalps and kills the parents, strips them naked so that they can take their clothes for use as decoys in their ranks, and kidnaps the youngest daughter, all after pillaging and burning down their household. (This was a 1950s movie, for heaven's sake!) And after doing this, they ensure that they draw out all the white men thirsting for their blood, so they can ambush them, and destroy their strongest men then and there.

Orcish tribes are pretty much an allusion to such stories, of all those Swedish immigrants to the wild west, who were uncompromisingly hunted and murdered by such people who could not think to mingle or even bargain with them, whom they saw as a standing obstacle to their own living, and would do nothing short of destroying theirs. That's exactly what orcs in fantasy are, that same unconditionally hateful, terrorizing, and monstrous people. Much of the lore in recent D&D games is about the city of Neverwinter sitting right in the fringe of the forest inhabited by the Uthgar tribes who regularly have to fend off the orcs who decimate and smash down human settlements. And the orcs always ensure that the humans get the message, because they must deliver the ultimate humiliation to their women, so that they will have half-breed children who will always remind them of how they were defeated. And even as generic as Bioware stories may be, many of the half-orc characters are always about the theme of how they are people whose lives are based on carrying the shame that they are half-orc.

Like I said, you guys are taking certain elements of traditional fantasy and D&D for granted. Had the LotR movies not been made in this decade, perhaps there would not be such a reaction.

Generic as fuck

 

[Wyrmlord]

And yet, the alternative would be to make the orc a noble savage, and we all know how that worked out in Warcraft 3. Melodrama. Orc roaring and thumping his chest in tears when his comrade dies. Orcs lamenting their persecution by humans. Orcs talking about nobility in battle.

That stuff is far far worse and clownish. Thank goodness recent D&D games have always kept orcs as violent and sadistic creatures.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Or maybe we just don't use orcs at all.

Edit: But yes, D&D orcs are better than WarCraft orcs. I'd still rather have less orcs as generic sword fodder monsters, though.

 

[JarlFrank]

While Elves have been made in so many different forms in different settings, orcs are almost always the same.

 

[Liberal]

While Elves have been made in so many different forms in different settings, orcs are almost always the same.

Actually, Tolkien-esque and Warhammer-esque orcs are almost completely different. Elves, on the other hand, are, as a rule, some kind of a variation of the Elves in LotR/Silmarrion.

 

[Durwyn]

It's a pity that nobody made a cRPG based on WFRP. It's a great system, that could be translated to cRPG with success. Especialy the 2ed.