Here is the thing with this. Grok and ChatGP and Azure can all - with a minimal prompt - DM you, for free, right now. I tried it early on... I thought to myself, "Can this damn thing lead me through an adventure?" and ChatGP did a damn good job. I fed in the prompts, told it what I wanted - and it DMed a good module it was, evidently, making up on the fly. From rolling a character to combat - it found the rules, interpreted them, read some modules, figured out how to throw together an adventure - and it was better than ANY "Make your Own Adventure," book... or... ZORK... 

So with THAT out in the wild, for free - what value add does WoTC and Kenner or whoever owns the official franchise - make any money on a commercial product? It isn't even piracy at this point.... It is just in the public domain. The Ai can make a UNIQUE rule base that doesn't infringe on WoTC copyright - simply because Ultima and Phantasie and other CFRPG and FRP games exist with such similar rules about attributes, and skil

Fri Jan 23 2026 15:09:52 UTC from darknetuser

I am pretty sure I have heard the plan for future Dungeons and Dragons is to turn the franchise into a game as a service. You buy your digital library, play at a digital tabletop, and miniatures and other materials are digital extras. I am sure at some point they will switch to AI NPCs and Dungeon Masters.

Telegaming is popular just because people has a hard time organizing an actual table. In places that still have an active local community you don't see telegaming happen that often.

This - exactly. And you're right - it could be game agnostic - anything SHOULD work. Once you get the framework in - all you have to do is feed the rule set in... from before the original pre-blue-book BASIC rules to the 5th edition Alphabet Army version... Champions, GRUPS... Ogre, GEV, all the original TSR games like Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Boot Hill... 

It is such an achievable thing - and with VR gear it would feel like you were sitting RIGHT there. I don't know if you've played with VR - but when you FIRST experience it - the simulation is SO convincing - you feel the presence and weight of all the atmosphere around you. 

I don't know why it hasn't been done. All the talk about Metaverse and other VR realities - and no one has realized THIS is the killer app for VR. You could play Monopoly or Clue or Risk in this environment - it doesn't have to be FRPs. It can be ALL the games. Digital, virtualized versions of... heck... do you remember Milton Bradley's "The Dark Tower"

Wed Jan 14 2026 02:53:23 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

Right, that's what I had envisioned 30+ years ago ... a real "telepresence" setup that joins a pair of tables in two conference rooms as if they were a single table. Those do exist.

It doesn't have to be D&D, you could choose any game you want. I played 2nd Edition with some modifications ... I doubt I'd want to have anything to do with the post-Gygax editions.

What we need is a VR room where you all sit at a table, you've got your paper and dice in front of you, you see one another. It is absolutely do-able. At this point, you could have an Ai DM and actually the party could be filled in with NPC Ai. 

I'm surprised that nobody has done this. The problem is - if it were done today, it would be 5th edition Inclusive "Mexiorcs" and "Gay Beholders" AD&D... which I suppose would be great for the demographic that they would want to be marketing for. It would gatekeep most of the old time 1st edition players out of the experience, though.

It's kind of funny, isn't it.  When I finished college in 1993 and moved back to NY, I wished more than anything that we could have enough bandwidth for videoconferencing, so we could keep our gaming group together.  Today we have plenty of bandwidth but that group has been scattered to the four winds.  I probably couldn't find them even if I tried, even if I could remember all their names.  And a few have been turned into enemies by facebook.

I wish I had enough friends to play FRPs or tactical games. Look up Gaslands. I bought the book, made a bunch of cars - 3d Printed the dice and templates. I can't find anyone to play with. My friends are all too normal to geek out with me. That is my personal hell - I'm simply too smart and all my other smart friends are worlds away. 

Just make a House rule. You've got the template with however THEY handle it.  This is what DIY is about. 

Thu Apr 29 2021 10:34:06 EDT from darknetuser

Subject: Trhough the Ages

I was disappointed when I realized Hitler was not playable, but then I found out Bill Gates IS, which is basically the same thing isn't it?

Only if you use real currency and actual military weapons.

WTF.... what is Monopoly without the kickbacks, backroom deals and the corruption? 

We just bought the new version of Monopoly; there's a device in the middle of the board which keeps track of all money. Each player has a debit card that you swipe on it, and each property card is swiped as well. Same thing for the "event" cards...

I heard about this, Monopoly was a game that treated everyone equally, the politically correct crowd found a way to make Monopoly sexist.

Thu Sep 05 2019 10:03:34 EDT from darknetuser

Well you can tell her that she can choose to let you play weird childish games, or let you descent into a spiral of depression, drugs and alcohol because she won't let you be yourself. See what happens. Then tell us :-)
Sincerely, that people looks down on us geek gamers and then go out and get drunk and participate in all sorts of dangerous behaviour always felt a bit off to me.

Honestly, my peak drug use was when I was playing a regular campaign of AD&D at around 14-15. But I still binge drink like I was in college. Maybe not quite that bad anymore... but I like to tie one on. 

And she knows I won't quit that... so... this strategy isn't going to work! ;) 

It isn't that she looks down... ok... yeah, it is. We're a weird tribe. I've always been able to blend in with regular people - but as I said somewhere else, I'm not actually as smart as most of you - just a lot smarter than average people. My social IQ seems to be higher than the typical nerd/geek/dork - in that I can play all the social cards and get invited to all the reindeer games, and always have. Not that nerds/geeks/and dorks *couldn't* play those games if they wanted to - they just have so much contempt for them that they wouldn't. 

My wife knows I've got a legion of friends from Retrogaming, FRPing, SCAing, BBSing, and other various nerd activities, and sometimes our paths cros

Tue Aug 13 2019 13:25:21 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I call bullshit on the tariffs. I have a friend who published a board game a few years ago, and China only charged him a couple of bucks a piece for a game he sold at $30. A publisher who raises the price of a game from $60 to $100 isn't doing it to cover manufacturing costs.

Who is raising the cost of games from $60 to $100 due to tariffs?   

When I have seen games go up in price it is because the quality of components goes up.  As an example, the game Frag from Steve Jackson Games when first published was a $30 game.  When Frag! Deluxe came out it was a $60 game.  Why did it double in price?  In the original it was cardboard figures, and a paper map.  In Deluxe it was plastic figs, and a thick double sided cardboard map, character sheets, and dry erase markers.  So the price increase was due to the increase in quality of the components, and extra components.  Now granted, Frag! is out of print, and the tarrifs are new, so your friend, and my friends that publish games might not have seen the prices go up, since this just happened this year. We wouldn't see increases in costs till around right about now anyways.   So a game published a few years ago with games in the pipeline, might not show an increase till Q3 or Q4 of this year.  

The original Ogre game from Steve Jackson Games was a $4 game.  The Designer's edition was $100.   SJG made no money on the Designer's edition kickstarter, the cost of each box was right around the $100 mark, it should have been much more expensive, but no one would have bought it at a higher price.   The re-release of Ogre 6th Edition, I think runs around $60.  The original came with paper figures that you cut out  The 6e comes with cardboard 3D tanks that you punch out instead.  Again an increase in quality of the components, and size of components.   

As far as Kickstarter goes, this is the risk you take investing in a product.  This is no different than the stock market.  It is legalized gambling.   I back kickstarters by either people I know, or companies I know.   So far I have had a single Kickstarter not deliver on what was purchased.   So I am out $$60 on that one.  I backed that project at $85, I got the graphic novel, but none of the extras that I wanted.  So for my $85 I got $25 retail worth of product.   

I have backed around 60 Kickstarter projects, some of them by established game companies, some by newer game companies.  That doesn't mean that established companies do it right every time.  Take a look at Palladium and the Robotech game, they didn't fulfill their Kickstarter promises before losing the license.   However as I said, it is legalized gambling.   

Kickstarter has become a way to offset all the preproduction costs.   

Cheapass Games is still out there, for cheap games.   White Wizard has Star Realms which is a $20 game with lots of replayability.    There are other inexpensive games out there as well.  

The tariffs have raised prices, and prices were already going up.   A decade back Fantasy Flight proved that people would by a $60+ game, if the components were worth it.   Since then we have seen some games shoot up to $100 or more.   There are a number of reasons for this, better components usually play a big part.  

I did the kickstarter for The Fantasy Trip, and backed it at the "I Want it All" level, which ended up being $120, but the box it came in is huge.  Like 26 lbs huge.   

Due to the fact that the Illusion kept me busy and entangled me with work, I came late to the party myself: Kult, the pen and paper RPG, got a new iteration:

http://kultdivinitylost.com (Partially NSFW and in some cases not safe for your mind.)

There was also a kickstarter, which I totally missed. But everything is looking very interesting.

That was the un-post

The latest Amiga OS is just Emacs.

Mon Sep 01 2014 11:46:42 EDT from zooer

I used VAX/VMS but I don't remember the editor.

do you still remember howto change directories? ;-)

What it needs is 3-D virtual reality (and not needing to put a silly helmet on).  If you can feel like you're actually sitting at a table with the other players, it would be almost like the real thing.  (Except you can't pass around the munchies.  There was this place in Reading, PA that had awesome spicy fried potato wedges that we always had on hand during gaming night.)

Crap, I was hoping to hear that it worked out.  I guess that is a bit more of an in person game than I thought.

I have been invited to play (DND), but found that there is invariably something else that I am needing to do as well.  Online sounds like fun.  Let me know if it ends up working Fleeb.  Sounds like something that could be scheduled for later in the evening so one would not need to drive home.

The knock off word processor I used was not my first one. The first one did not have lower case.  That was fancy back then :-)

Back to un-video games.  Who still plays D&D here, and if you do, is it still fun with the over 40 crowd?

I like VI, but then again, I am warped by purchasing a Word Perfect knock off back in the 80's.  WP was strange enough (but you could be proficient in just a few keystrokes that it made you seem to type like a stenographer).

remained with emacs. like the gdb integration.

Interesting, I think had that on one of those asian multi-game cartridges for the original Gameboy. The whole thing was full of stuff I didn't understand, including this card game I could not make sense of. Also it drained the batteries in about 5 minutes. Thanks for filling this gap in my education!

Texas Holdem is probably the most braindamaged version of poker I came across, I totally fail to understand its popularity. I'd rather play Koi-Koi.

Uncensored lithping?

http://roll1d12.blogspot.com/