Here’s one :-

http://birdsofwar.wikidot.com/

These are Virtual Table Top (VTT) systems that can accommodate various game systems (D&D, Savage Worlds, GURPS, and the like…) You can connect thru the internal chat, or use a Voice Like Ventrilo, Teamspeak, or Skype to connected everyone from everywhere to play what YOU want to play…

I’m a relative newcomer to the tabletop RPG world and I’m designing some myself (my website link should take you to my main project) but I see the need to ‘ditch the dice’ as it were.

The players like you and I want, more than anything, to get into the game, and be part of the puzzle solving, dungeon exploring comradery that is the essence of RPGs. The vast amounts of dice have become a crutch of sorts that allow people to stop thinking and use a mechanic to make the game work for them. This is exactly why one would turn to a computer, to hide all of that dice rolling and make it happen automatically.

What we need to do is remind people how ‘real’ gaming captures something more than just fighting and killing. The human element that cannot be emulated or simulated needs to re-become the focus.

The latest D&D will not do that, the focus there can easily be simulated by computers

I’m serious about all of this

Let’s band together

I’ve got some ideas, and I just need to know if anyone’s with me

bluevertro@gmail.com (If you have some forum, or anything RPG related. =D)

Tabletop/Pen’n'paper RPGs are still alive and well, you just have to look beyond DnD – which is fun, but certainly not the only game in town.

This.

I do enjoy MMO’s – don’t get me wrong. The don’t satiate my RPG needs though, moreso my hack/slash needs. The lack of flexibility turns me off – that and even trying to roleplay with some of the bozos online is enough to make you go crazy.

The fun of MMO is in effortless battle. I like to bloody the blade in gaming, MMO or tabletop. But MMO is brutally limited.

The leather-clad halfling walks up to your veteran fighter and offers his hand to shake, saying “Welcome to our city, stranger!” Do you attack the thief and hope to win, but worry about city guard troubles? Do you blow him off and wait for the knife in the back in an alley? Attack him and LOSE? Shake his hand and walk down the street in your chain underwear for a block before realizing you were robbed?

The best programming can only offer you as much as the designer thought up. In that 1977 RPG I told the halfling (they were “hobbits” back then) thanks for his greeting, but I would not shake hands because I just heard there was plague in the last city I visited. Halfling jumped back and told me where the apothecary was. I was so proud of myself.

Five minutes later, two city guards showed up with shields and spears to escort me to the apothecary! The DM had his own edge and humor.

Spontaneous creativity is what MMO and console gaming CANNOT even get close to replicating … until genuine AI is found.

Game in beauty.

DnD is the stereotypical one, and yes, that did have lots of dice and volumes of rules. Of course, you didn’t have to use all those rulebooks, and once you have some familiarity with the game you don’t need to keep referencing rules. But on the other hand, consider something like White Wolf’s Mage (World of Darkness). There is only one type of die, and spell-casting rules are so open that you actually have to (and are encouraged to) make up spells because the books don’t provide you with very many, not to mention the lack of focus on combat in general and how you pretty much have to just do what makes sense because there just aren’t rules for many of the little details.

I hate to sound like another basement-dweller griping about DnD 4e, but it seems like Wizards forgot about a lot of what makes tabletop gaming such a great and unique experience. They argued that they wanted to streamline the game instead of having huge spellbooks and lots of rules. It’s true that an overload of rules can detract from a game, but most gamers already hate the rules-nazi. The surplus may seem restricting on the surface, but if you’re creative enough they become a way to make the game much more flexible. But apparently creative doesn’t sell like it used to.

That’s one of the beauties of tabletop gaming. You make it what you – as a group – like. Don’t like the DM? find a new one, or run a game yourself. Don’t want hack and slash? Run an Amber diceless game (and not feel like you are playing Yahtzee). Don’t want 2 hour combats? Ditch D20 and try Savage Worlds. Etc. etc. etc.

Tabletop RPG’s can be anything you want them to be – MMORPGs can only be what the developers want them to be.