I doubt we'll ever get a completely new single-player D&D game for PC but a man can hope.
I wanted to jot down my ideas for if they ever did make one, what my thoughts are on how to do it right and stay as close to the newest rules, 5E, as possible.
First, I personally prefer the Forgotten Realms setting along the Sword Coast and up to the frozen north. There are great cities, landscapes, and interesting places both above ground and in the Underdark. It would be an open-world very similar to Skyrim but would transition to more of a grid system when you either got close enough or chose to go into 'grid mode'. Grid mode would be a small, finite area; think Heroes of Might and Magic, but not an overhead view, a lot bigger, and still with an open world feel.
Let me paint a picture as an example. You are running along in the woods and you spot a campfire with a few goblins up ahead. Maybe you are 200ft away. Grid mode, to allow for gameplay similar to how you would playing pen and paper, would need to be one or two hundred feet in any direction to account for ranged attacked at max range, or close to that. The reason for that is spellcasters and archers wouldn't run up to 30ft away from the monsters and attack, they would start further back while the melee characters moved up. The game needs to account for that. So, you go into grid mode at 200ft away. This mode is, like I said before, a finite area. So if you move too far in any direction you go back to the 'world map' as long as you are not incombat. SIDE NOTE: If you are fleeing, the grid mode should move with you so that you don't run into a 'wall' where you can no longer flee. Really, either the monsters should catch up to you or you should be able to evade and hide from their perception allowing you to flee. Grid mode plays like the real world mode in Skyrim, meaning you move normally, not on a grid system despite being on a grid system, UNTIL initiative happens. Initiative happens because either combat is started OR the 'monster(s)' perceive you. Once initiative is rolled, a turn-based system begins. Now, I know I mentioned a grid system, but with today's technology it wouldn't really be a grid system, no moving squares. Rather, you just move wherever you have movement. Now this game would need A LOT of logic built into the environment for things like climbing a tree. So if a Ranger is next to a tree on his/her turn, there might be a rule for half movement to climb and 'behind the scenes' the game may roll an athletics/acrobatics check for you to see how well you climb, or if you fail to climb. Perhaps a great roll allows you more movement. The actual combat would not be similar to Skyrim because it is turn-based and hitting/damage is decided by dice rolls. But the main difference is CHOICES. There would need to be, like I said, A LOT of choices built into the game. If you are up a tree you might choose to shoot a bow, throw a melee weapon (javelin, dagger, etc), stealth, cast a spell, throw a torch to light something on fire (that is a lot of logic right there, everything in the game would need a 'burn' score and everything that can burn would need a 'heat' score, etc, so that a match couldn't set a house on fire), or maybe you want to jump out of the tree onto the monster you should be able to do that. Again, the game would need logic to know what skill to use for that and how to modify the attack. Every 10ft of fallling damage should add like 1d6 to the damage, but the attack itself would be harder as the affective AC of the monster might be higher the further away it is, and maybe you can't even jump that far based on your skill check. Again, A LOT OF LOGIC.
Once all the monsters are defeated you can loot, search, etc, and choose when to return to the 'world map'.
Other things that this game would do/need to have IMO:
Options, options, options. When you play on P&P, you can do anything. In a game, you can't. But we can bridge as much of that gap as possible. For example, impersonating other people. This would require the game to keep a list, available to the player (like a Journal), of everyone the character has interacted with and/or heard of. A skill check would be rolled when you choose this option and depending on how familiar you are with the target, and how similar you make yourself (changing clothing/armor/weapons/mask/ability to talk in different languages/dialects, etc) to that person/thing, a DC is set. In games, sometimes a group of adventurers convinces some stupid ogres/goblins/whatever to do something for them. This would be greatly hindered in the game because there are limitless ways to do this and limitless things you can say, but some basic options to do this should be thought through.
To a certain point the world itself needs to be interact-able for the player. Wanna dig a pit trap? You should be able to. Want to light something on fire? You should be able to. If everything that can burn is given a score, anything that can set other things on fire with at least that high of a score should be able to set it on fire. And fire spreads, so perhaps for every xfeet away from the source of the fire whatever was set on fire now how a heat score to set other things on fire. Etc.
Crafting and gathering skills, similar to WoW or Skyrim or any other game, are obviously a must.
Companions are also a must with a ROBUST AI system that allows you to go into great detail about their actions; when to use a healing potion on self or on you or on another NPC, when to attack, when to etc etc etc.
There are so many options, even a halfway decent game would need a team the size of Blizzard to be any good. The world would need to be massive to really make it feel like you are in the FR and can find any of the monsters in the monster manual. AI logic should be built in to include things like roving bands of goblins/any monster on set and random paths. There could even be 'timed' events, like if a group of orcs isn't attacked by the PC in x time it grows to the size of x and then ventures out and attacked a town/village, etc.
In my opinion, the game would be based off of the 5E rule set and so things like advantage and disadvantage would be built in. The graphics we have today would make for some amazing sights in a modern D&D game with enough funding.
This is another area I thought could be a great part of the game. Give the players a ton of choices based on their race/class (like where are you from, what god do you worship if any, family, friends, acquaintances to some degree, etc) and the game can build out parts of the world that can let you 'play out' things specific to you. Maybe you are from a town not listed, you should have the option to choose that if its a small enough village to not be on the list or if it is outside of the game's boundaries. You should have the freedom to give a pretty detailed backstory and, because it would all just be code (the otpions you choose), the game would have no problem using AI logic to string it together. Maybe you say a dragon destroyed your town it could easily take either a random name or you could choose a name for it, it's age/size/color and even underlings. That could make immersion pretty freaking awesome in the game depending on how detailed you made your backstory.
Leveling up and gaining new abilities/skills/spells/attributes.
I, personally, would like the game to force you to go see a mentor and/or do something as a facade to 'leveling' and gaining all your new level's stuff. A wizard may go to a special library where he/she can find new spells to copy or learn. Some abilities/skills/spells would not require this; a sorcerer's spells are innate, not learned like a wizard. Everything like that would be mapped. Perhaps hit points move up when you get to a 'rested' area, like inside a tavern or perhaps anywhere in-town would be considered a 'safe-zone/rested area' where you can do that kind of stuff. Maybe to gain a new proficiency point you have to go do something like defeat x monster.
It's always cool to see someone think something through, however, (and I don't mean to disrespect) what's the point of making D&D a videogame? The reason why I play this game is because I don't want a producer to tell me hice I'm going to have fun, most of entertainment productos are OKeyed by a group of people that just wants to make money spending/investing the least possible amount, si many good ideas won't reach the final product because it hasn't been done before.
I'd rather come up with mechanics to just play tabletop alone haha...but that's weird :p
It's always cool to see someone think something through, however, (and I don't mean to disrespect) what's the point of making D&D a videogame? The reason why I play this game is because I don't want a producer to tell me hice I'm going to have fun, most of entertainment productos are OKeyed by a group of people that just wants to make money spending/investing the least possible amount, si many good ideas won't reach the final product because it hasn't been done before.
I'd rather come up with mechanics to just play tabletop alone haha...but that's weird :p
Tabletop and video game each have their perks. Video games will never be able to have the freedom of a tabletop game where you can literally do anything you want. Video games have the advantage of visualization. Both have the power of immersion from different sources. I love pen and paper games but I would pay big money to be able to run around the Sword Coast in a game like I'm describing with the phenomenal graphics we have today. It's not that one's own imagination -can't- give you the same feeling and immersion that a video game can (when I read any of R.A. Salvatore's books it's like a video playing in my mind) but it's just different -actually- seeing a visual representation of what you are doing. Tabletop and video games each hit a different area of the all-around gaming experience in different but equally great ways.
One problem that you face in some games is finally getting an idea to do something but don't have the time to pull it off because of buttons and clicks. Let's say you are in a city running from some guards. Normally in video games you have to either out-run, kill, or have an ability that let's you lose them. In a game like this, though, you could have the option, since it is a single-player game, to switch to an initiative mode. Once you click into this mode, everyone/everything within a certain area rolls initiative and you play that way. You get to use your turn with the world effectively frozen and click a button to end your turn, then you are frozen for 6 seconds, etc.
Its a good idea, But rather than focusing on all the things that can be done with pnp. And trying to make them all possible with a video game. My idea would be to work with the rules. To give people access to making different area's, Of the game rule-able by people who have gotten to certain levels, And then depending on how many people are playing they could over rule and take over someone else's area or area's. And everyone who takes over an area, Would have a different way of playing there. Because they could have the choice to be friendly to people or to not be friendly to set up their base maybe select a bunch of quests from a list in order to get new people from other area's to tell the kind of story they want told about their land. With this approach rather than people thinking oh this game can never have as many things to do as pnp people can think of as many quests as they want to have people allowed to do at level 3 in the orc lands as say how many quests they want to let people have at say level 6 in the goblin lands. and maybe it would be nice if players had a quest builder so they could homebrew some content of their own if they didn't like the premade stuff. but all the mechanics aside the point is to have fun making up a story where any rule of who ever is ruling an area can be broken. But that means that it leaves the rule breaker open for a possible punishment and imo that is kind of the fun of making lots of options like for a ruler to access when someone breaks their rules maybe they have things like lightning bolts or tornado's and whatever myriad elements they can throw at people who don't want to use the area like the ruler would intend until they have been over ruled of course and then the new player would probably get
Its a good idea, But rather than focusing on all the things that can be done with pnp. And trying to make them all possible with a video game. My idea would be to work with the rules. To give people access to making different area's, Of the game rule-able by people who have gotten to certain levels, And then depending on how many people are playing they could over rule and take over someone else's area or area's. And everyone who takes over an area, Would have a different way of playing there. Because they could have the choice to be friendly to people or to not be friendly to set up their base maybe select a bunch of quests from a list in order to get new people from other area's to tell the kind of story they want told about their land. With this approach rather than people thinking oh this game can never have as many things to do as pnp people can think of as many quests as they want to have people allowed to do at level 3 in the orc lands as say how many quests they want to let people have at say level 6 in the goblin lands. and maybe it would be nice if players had a quest builder so they could homebrew some content of their own if they didn't like the premade stuff. but all the mechanics aside the point is to have fun making up a story where any rule of who ever is ruling an area can be broken. But that means that it leaves the rule breaker open for a possible punishment and imo that is kind of the fun of making lots of options like for a ruler to access when someone breaks their rules maybe they have things like lightning bolts or tornado's and whatever myriad elements they can throw at people who don't want to use the area like the ruler would intend until they have been over ruled of course and then the new player would probably get
I like some of your ideas and not so much others. This idea of mine is strictly single-player, not an MMO, because many of the mechanics wouldn't jive right in an mmo. Like the 'grid mode' I explained where even in the open world you can go into a turn-based system to make sure you can get everything done if time is stressed. You can't slow down time or do turn-based in an MMO. I think there is currently a dark-ages-esque MMO that is all PVP and somewhat similar to some of your post.
Its a good idea, But rather than focusing on all the things that can be done with pnp. And trying to make them all possible with a video game. My idea would be to work with the rules. To give people access to making different area's, Of the game rule-able by people who have gotten to certain levels, And then depending on how many people are playing they could over rule and take over someone else's area or area's. And everyone who takes over an area, Would have a different way of playing there. Because they could have the choice to be friendly to people or to not be friendly to set up their base maybe select a bunch of quests from a list in order to get new people from other area's to tell the kind of story they want told about their land. With this approach rather than people thinking oh this game can never have as many things to do as pnp people can think of as many quests as they want to have people allowed to do at level 3 in the orc lands as say how many quests they want to let people have at say level 6 in the goblin lands. and maybe it would be nice if players had a quest builder so they could homebrew some content of their own if they didn't like the premade stuff. but all the mechanics aside the point is to have fun making up a story where any rule of who ever is ruling an area can be broken. But that means that it leaves the rule breaker open for a possible punishment and imo that is kind of the fun of making lots of options like for a ruler to access when someone breaks their rules maybe they have things like lightning bolts or tornado's and whatever myriad elements they can throw at people who don't want to use the area like the ruler would intend until they have been over ruled of course and then the new player would probably get
I like some of your ideas and not so much others. This idea of mine is strictly single-player, not an MMO, because many of the mechanics wouldn't jive right in an mmo. Like the 'grid mode' I explained where even in the open world you can go into a turn-based system to make sure you can get everything done if time is stressed. You can't slow down time or do turn-based in an MMO. I think there is currently a dark-ages-esque MMO that is all PVP and somewhat similar to some of your post.
Yes, I see your point I totally breezed past the single player part of your idea. Well I guess ill go back to playing my mmo style campaign bymyself since nobody else plays I guess it can be a kind of single player mmo :)
what if you play single player mmo and enter grid mode when in nubercanober zone ruled by super noob :) and he has the rule selected from homebrew quest builder to change people rolling d20 to attack to d19 and if people roll d20 they get a lightning bolt :) and time slows down.
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I doubt we'll ever get a completely new single-player D&D game for PC but a man can hope.
I wanted to jot down my ideas for if they ever did make one, what my thoughts are on how to do it right and stay as close to the newest rules, 5E, as possible.
First, I personally prefer the Forgotten Realms setting along the Sword Coast and up to the frozen north. There are great cities, landscapes, and interesting places both above ground and in the Underdark. It would be an open-world very similar to Skyrim but would transition to more of a grid system when you either got close enough or chose to go into 'grid mode'. Grid mode would be a small, finite area; think Heroes of Might and Magic, but not an overhead view, a lot bigger, and still with an open world feel.
Let me paint a picture as an example. You are running along in the woods and you spot a campfire with a few goblins up ahead. Maybe you are 200ft away. Grid mode, to allow for gameplay similar to how you would playing pen and paper, would need to be one or two hundred feet in any direction to account for ranged attacked at max range, or close to that. The reason for that is spellcasters and archers wouldn't run up to 30ft away from the monsters and attack, they would start further back while the melee characters moved up. The game needs to account for that. So, you go into grid mode at 200ft away. This mode is, like I said before, a finite area. So if you move too far in any direction you go back to the 'world map' as long as you are not incombat. SIDE NOTE: If you are fleeing, the grid mode should move with you so that you don't run into a 'wall' where you can no longer flee. Really, either the monsters should catch up to you or you should be able to evade and hide from their perception allowing you to flee. Grid mode plays like the real world mode in Skyrim, meaning you move normally, not on a grid system despite being on a grid system, UNTIL initiative happens. Initiative happens because either combat is started OR the 'monster(s)' perceive you. Once initiative is rolled, a turn-based system begins. Now, I know I mentioned a grid system, but with today's technology it wouldn't really be a grid system, no moving squares. Rather, you just move wherever you have movement. Now this game would need A LOT of logic built into the environment for things like climbing a tree. So if a Ranger is next to a tree on his/her turn, there might be a rule for half movement to climb and 'behind the scenes' the game may roll an athletics/acrobatics check for you to see how well you climb, or if you fail to climb. Perhaps a great roll allows you more movement. The actual combat would not be similar to Skyrim because it is turn-based and hitting/damage is decided by dice rolls. But the main difference is CHOICES. There would need to be, like I said, A LOT of choices built into the game. If you are up a tree you might choose to shoot a bow, throw a melee weapon (javelin, dagger, etc), stealth, cast a spell, throw a torch to light something on fire (that is a lot of logic right there, everything in the game would need a 'burn' score and everything that can burn would need a 'heat' score, etc, so that a match couldn't set a house on fire), or maybe you want to jump out of the tree onto the monster you should be able to do that. Again, the game would need logic to know what skill to use for that and how to modify the attack. Every 10ft of fallling damage should add like 1d6 to the damage, but the attack itself would be harder as the affective AC of the monster might be higher the further away it is, and maybe you can't even jump that far based on your skill check. Again, A LOT OF LOGIC.
Once all the monsters are defeated you can loot, search, etc, and choose when to return to the 'world map'.
Other things that this game would do/need to have IMO:
Options, options, options. When you play on P&P, you can do anything. In a game, you can't. But we can bridge as much of that gap as possible. For example, impersonating other people. This would require the game to keep a list, available to the player (like a Journal), of everyone the character has interacted with and/or heard of. A skill check would be rolled when you choose this option and depending on how familiar you are with the target, and how similar you make yourself (changing clothing/armor/weapons/mask/ability to talk in different languages/dialects, etc) to that person/thing, a DC is set. In games, sometimes a group of adventurers convinces some stupid ogres/goblins/whatever to do something for them. This would be greatly hindered in the game because there are limitless ways to do this and limitless things you can say, but some basic options to do this should be thought through.
To a certain point the world itself needs to be interact-able for the player. Wanna dig a pit trap? You should be able to. Want to light something on fire? You should be able to. If everything that can burn is given a score, anything that can set other things on fire with at least that high of a score should be able to set it on fire. And fire spreads, so perhaps for every xfeet away from the source of the fire whatever was set on fire now how a heat score to set other things on fire. Etc.
Crafting and gathering skills, similar to WoW or Skyrim or any other game, are obviously a must.
Companions are also a must with a ROBUST AI system that allows you to go into great detail about their actions; when to use a healing potion on self or on you or on another NPC, when to attack, when to etc etc etc.
There are so many options, even a halfway decent game would need a team the size of Blizzard to be any good. The world would need to be massive to really make it feel like you are in the FR and can find any of the monsters in the monster manual. AI logic should be built in to include things like roving bands of goblins/any monster on set and random paths. There could even be 'timed' events, like if a group of orcs isn't attacked by the PC in x time it grows to the size of x and then ventures out and attacked a town/village, etc.
In my opinion, the game would be based off of the 5E rule set and so things like advantage and disadvantage would be built in. The graphics we have today would make for some amazing sights in a modern D&D game with enough funding.
What ideas would you like to see?
Backstory.
This is another area I thought could be a great part of the game. Give the players a ton of choices based on their race/class (like where are you from, what god do you worship if any, family, friends, acquaintances to some degree, etc) and the game can build out parts of the world that can let you 'play out' things specific to you. Maybe you are from a town not listed, you should have the option to choose that if its a small enough village to not be on the list or if it is outside of the game's boundaries. You should have the freedom to give a pretty detailed backstory and, because it would all just be code (the otpions you choose), the game would have no problem using AI logic to string it together. Maybe you say a dragon destroyed your town it could easily take either a random name or you could choose a name for it, it's age/size/color and even underlings. That could make immersion pretty freaking awesome in the game depending on how detailed you made your backstory.
Leveling up and gaining new abilities/skills/spells/attributes.
I, personally, would like the game to force you to go see a mentor and/or do something as a facade to 'leveling' and gaining all your new level's stuff. A wizard may go to a special library where he/she can find new spells to copy or learn. Some abilities/skills/spells would not require this; a sorcerer's spells are innate, not learned like a wizard. Everything like that would be mapped. Perhaps hit points move up when you get to a 'rested' area, like inside a tavern or perhaps anywhere in-town would be considered a 'safe-zone/rested area' where you can do that kind of stuff. Maybe to gain a new proficiency point you have to go do something like defeat x monster.
It's always cool to see someone think something through, however, (and I don't mean to disrespect) what's the point of making D&D a videogame? The reason why I play this game is because I don't want a producer to tell me hice I'm going to have fun, most of entertainment productos are OKeyed by a group of people that just wants to make money spending/investing the least possible amount, si many good ideas won't reach the final product because it hasn't been done before.
I'd rather come up with mechanics to just play tabletop alone haha...but that's weird :p
World/Live Mode and Initiative/Turn Mode
One problem that you face in some games is finally getting an idea to do something but don't have the time to pull it off because of buttons and clicks. Let's say you are in a city running from some guards. Normally in video games you have to either out-run, kill, or have an ability that let's you lose them. In a game like this, though, you could have the option, since it is a single-player game, to switch to an initiative mode. Once you click into this mode, everyone/everything within a certain area rolls initiative and you play that way. You get to use your turn with the world effectively frozen and click a button to end your turn, then you are frozen for 6 seconds, etc.
Take Divinity Original SIn II mecanics and engine, add the D&D lore, landscape, characters and classes.
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Can very well make a game/mod that allows for the change of the camera angle.
my point was that a game with the mecanics and engine of DoSII and D&D material would be legendary.
unfortunatly we've got only Sword coasts Legends and the new "tactical" RPG like thing that is coming out i think?...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Its a good idea, But rather than focusing on all the things that can be done with pnp. And trying to make them all possible with a video game. My idea would be to work with the rules. To give people access to making different area's, Of the game rule-able by people who have gotten to certain levels, And then depending on how many people are playing they could over rule and take over someone else's area or area's. And everyone who takes over an area, Would have a different way of playing there. Because they could have the choice to be friendly to people or to not be friendly to set up their base maybe select a bunch of quests from a list in order to get new people from other area's to tell the kind of story they want told about their land. With this approach rather than people thinking oh this game can never have as many things to do as pnp people can think of as many quests as they want to have people allowed to do at level 3 in the orc lands as say how many quests they want to let people have at say level 6 in the goblin lands. and maybe it would be nice if players had a quest builder so they could homebrew some content of their own if they didn't like the premade stuff. but all the mechanics aside the point is to have fun making up a story where any rule of who ever is ruling an area can be broken. But that means that it leaves the rule breaker open for a possible punishment and imo that is kind of the fun of making lots of options like for a ruler to access when someone breaks their rules maybe they have things like lightning bolts or tornado's and whatever myriad elements they can throw at people who don't want to use the area like the ruler would intend until they have been over ruled of course and then the new player would probably get
what if you play single player mmo and enter grid mode when in nubercanober zone ruled by super noob :) and he has the rule selected from homebrew quest builder to change people rolling d20 to attack to d19 and if people roll d20 they get a lightning bolt :) and time slows down.