About a text-based game

Sator · Post by **Sator** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 5:23 am

After reading a thread that got a bit carried away in off-topic and people stared discussing how they used to battle dragons in PnP i kind of got this idea: What if we started a text-based BG game here in the forums? I know it's not a true equivalent of a PnP game (i haven't played PnP by the way, which is a loss) but it could still be fun! I've played a text-based game online in the Wheel of Time universe, and it was grand

We were originally a party of four, but many joined us soon after, including villains that made our lives miserable

What we did was every char posts an "act" - a further development to the story from his POV, and with the agreement apart from killing any PC-s without asking in a PM first, everything was ok. We didn't have a DM figure, but we didn't need one i guess..
So what i'm suggesting now, is that we do something along those lines here, starting in the Irenicus dungeon (or even Candlekeep! ), a party of six (or more

) and someone to act as a DM (i could think of a few names already

). Now we could finally see just how hard it is to thwart a certain venerable red if one of the more experienced posters here controlled it.

What i don't know is is such a thing ok with the rules the admin set up (Fable could enlighten me here), with anyone holding the rights to the BG2 games, or will any of you guys find it interesting and worth their time..

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:03 am

I don't know how you'd work it, but you'd discuss it and get it going over in the Forum Members RPG forum. I'll move this thread, and leave a redirect, too.

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:58 am

You're looking to play a text based game based on BG2? That's called Dungeons and Dragons. The game system the IWD, BG, NWN and other similar games were built off of. It has a complicated rule set that takes time to get into and learn however.

Or were you simply wanting to roleplay through the game without any rules? Someone else brought up a BG2 role play [url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/forum-member-rpgs-95/what-can-change-the-nature-of-a-man-83539.html"]here[/url] not too long ago about the same thing. Maybe you should post there? If you are looking for playing the game with an actual rule set, I have never played BG2, but I could teach you the rules in a game I plan on starting up in a few weeks with an experienced player. Let me know if you do want to learn.

Sator · Post by **Sator** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 10:27 am

Argh! Sorry for posting in the wrong forum Fable, i should have looked around first...
What i was suggesting was that we play a game right here on the GB forums. It will be more fiction and character relations, rather than dice throwing and monster swatting, since we aren't around a table in the same room

Crenshinibon's idea is virtually the same as mine, and to those who still don't quite understand what we (just supposing, sorry if you do have something different in mind Crensh) would like to do it like that:

Each participating forum member creates a character and posts their stats and background infro. For example, i will play and write through the point of view of a Chaotic Good Elven Male Kensai named Sator with 16 str 18 dex 14 con 14 int 16 wis 18 cha (These stats are just an example).
We start the adventure at a location we know from the games (depending if we want to follow the BG storyline or not) or just wherever we want on Faerun.. We get a DM do guide us trough the adventure and we have fun

The better the writing skills and the bigger the imagination of the players, the better the game will turn out. We use the D&D rules just as a guide to what we can and can't do. This will be a challenge for me since i would really like to write fantasy in English some day, but i fear my skills aren't good enough yet. I do some writing in my native language, but that's off topic.
So, what I'm saying is that we do a PnP game, but we just do it trough writing "acts" as messages in the forums. Example:

Act:

Sator sat closer to the fire and unsheathed his right sword with a smooth sound. He fumbled trough his gear to find a sharpening stone and slowly started honing the fine steel edge. Crenshinibon raised his eyes and regarded the blade with a slight note of amusement in his eyes, but said nothing. Sator knew that the power the Sorcerer wielded was immense, but nothing came close to what he bore witness this day.
While the whole group was struggling to hold their own against the huge fire giant and is minions, the socrecer managed to stay completely out of the fray, just to the side of a huge pillar and started casting a spell he had just acquired.
Sator shuddered involuntary at the memory and focused on the sharpening of his katana. He was no coward, but a man that could stop the Time was just too powerful to be trusted.....

And so on

You get the picture

If anyone's interested please join in! We post the stats of our respected characters, we appoint a wise DM and we adventure on! I've tried this before, trust me it's tons of fun

EDIT: It seems people are doing this already, here's an example: http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/forum ... 67500.html

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:16 am

I'm on it if there are others interesting, and my schedule fits to everybody else...

Just a warning, though: As the game is run in forum, where people post from all over the world, it's quite difficult to schedule sessions... one alternative is to run the game with "posting time limits", ie. eveybody has 3 days to post, then DM puts in the result, and again there is 3 day timelimit... or something like that...

Sator · Post by **Sator** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:55 am

Yes well, if somebody doesn't have the time to post his pov we could just adventure on with his character being "passive" for a while - meaning, we can just mention his doings based on his profile trough our own pov's but not doing anything drastic. Furthermore i suppose that if we do start a game, the players will be limited (a party of around 6 and a DM ) and will get to know each other. So limits like that are pointless, i mean it's all for fun right?

Let's see what the others have to say about it.

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:26 pm

Ah, well, if you read through past the first few pages of that thread you linked to, you will see that was an actual DnD game run on the forum for new players. What you're looking for is a free-form role play, not the same thing.

Jedi_Sauraus · Post by **Jedi_Sauraus** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:32 pm

I think it's a great idea but hard to implement. I'm no great story writer but what the hell, I'll give it a shot.

ok

char name: Jedi
Profession: Sorceror
Level: ?? depending on rest of team

stats:
STR 12
DEX 18
CON 16
INT 18
WIS 10
CHA 12

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:56 pm

Jedi_Sauraus wrote:I think it's a great idea but hard to implement. I'm no great story writer but what the hell, I'll give it a shot.

ok

char name: Jedi
Profession: Sorceror
Level: ?? depending on rest of team

stats:
STR 12
DEX 18
CON 16
INT 18
WIS 10
CHA 12

Umm....not only are there no rules to this free-form idea of a text RPG, but there's no story to begin with, so why even bother starting a character in the D20 format?

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 11:17 pm

Yeah. First you need to pick a DM, who will create a storyline. Then you need to develop your character (if I was DM I'd require either an entire character sheet or a post with all of the information that would be on the sheet.)

The information that you provided is next to nothing. I suggest you take a look at a standard character sheet. I believe that the campaign should start with all characters being at level one.

Also, might I ask as to why your Charisma is so low? You do know that Sorcerers use Charisma instead of Intelligence, right?

They way you have it, you won't be able to cast spells past the second level.

Sator · Post by **Sator** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 1:16 pm

umm well *my* stats were just an example.. And i believe he was thinking of a 2ed sorc (which still uses int). That does raise the question which ruleset are we going to use (if we ever get to do this thing). IMO if it's going to be a BG setting, it should be the 2nd ed rules. But I'm fine with 3rd ed as well, the only unfamiliar set for me is 3.5.. In any case, let's see just how many people are interested and do we have a DM.. Also i suggested that we discard dice rolling and such, since anyone can LIE about what they rolled, i don't know how the rest of you feel about that.

EDIT: Yeah, about the story.. I originally suggested we use the BG storyline. Maybe the protagonist will be a NPC, so it's more interesting. As i said, i got the idea while imagining what would it be if a real DM controlled ol' fiery Firky and not the retarded game AI..... And yes it's a free form rpg, but that doesn't mean we can't establish some rules at least..

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 1:22 pm

Sator wrote:umm well *my* stats were just an example.. And i believe he was thinking of a 2ed sorc (which still uses int). That does raise the question which ruleset are we going to use (if we ever get to do this thing). IMO if it's going to be a BG setting, it should be the 2nd ed rules. But I'm fine with 3rd ed as well, the only unfamiliar set for me is 3.5.. In any case, let's see just how many people are interested and do we have a DM.. Also i suggested that we discard dice rolling and such, since anyone can LIE about what they rolled, i don't know how the rest of you feel about that.

Well, basically if we discarc dices, then we cann discard other rules undependable of the rules we are using...
This is because the rules of D&D bases mostly in dices, so without dices there won't be any reason to use D&D rules either...

just my point of view...

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 3:46 pm

>>>>And i believe he was thinking of a 2ed sorc (which still uses int).

Sorry, but no, that isn't true. Second edition doesn't even have sorcs IIRC. They have mages, which use int because it's based off of wizards.

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 10:11 pm

That's why I wanted a dice system on the forums, so that everyone can view the result of the roll.

Again, I can make the program but not the GUI.

Sator · Post by **Sator** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:34 pm

Siberys am i missing something here, or does Baldur's Gate 2 have Sorcerers, they use Intelligence as their primary statistic and it's all based on Second Edition D&D rules? (also called AD&D) I could be wrong on one of these points, i admit... But I'm pretty darn sure my BG2 sorcerer uses INT as his primary stat.

About a GUI - I'm not sure what exactly is needed, I've done some work with flash and Dreamwaver and I can draw buttons and such with Photoshop. So if you think i could help, let me know.

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:18 pm

Sator wrote:Siberys am i missing something here, or does Baldur's Gate 2 have Sorcerers, they use Intelligence as their primary statistic and it's all based on Second Edition D&D rules? (also called AD&D) I could be wrong on one of these points, i admit... But I'm pretty darn sure my BG2 sorcerer uses INT as his primary stat.

I can't either recall that there would have been any Sorcerers in BG2...
There were mages, but notr sorcerers...

About a GUI - I'm not sure what exactly is needed, I've done some work with flash and Dreamwaver and I can draw buttons and such with Photoshop. So if you think i could help, let me know.

To mamke GUI you need much more than just draw some buttons in photoshop... you must as well be able to make those buttons so that you can actually click them, and construct them in the way that something even happens when you click them. Not as easy as it may sound...

So, to be able to make GUI you need knowledge from coding as well, Java perhaps...

And no, my knowledge isn't even close to that yet, and I have studied programming for some time now (years as by myself and over half an year in university...)

Sator · Post by **Sator** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:46 pm

OMG I can't believe we're having this argument! There ARE Sorcerers in Baldur's Gate 2, look at this screenshot if you still don't believe me!

This raises the question if you ever played the game and if you have the right to raise an argument on the subject...

And for the GUI, i have some experience with Visual Basic 6.0, I've done simple programs with it and crated interfaces for quizzes and tests. I don't know if that would be of any help.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 5:00 pm

They have sorcerers in baldurs gate two, I didn't disagree on this. I said they don't have sorcerers in second edition DND. I have the players handbook open right now and all there is is a "Mage."

Sator · Post by **Sator** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 7:36 pm

Well actually my last post was a reply to Kipi who said there were no Sorcerers in bg2.. Well, as i said (in some other thread) i never had the option to buy these books. I saw them for the first time this summer in tha States. A Barnes&Noble (uhh i could be wrong on the name) bookstore had them all - i just stared in awe

SO i cannot argue on that, but i thought the game designers followed core rules. So i took BG2 as s representation of 2n ed rules. Actually since you seem to have the resources could you check how did Time Stop work in 2nd ed rules, because i found this information: Time Stop :: d20srd.org and it differs severely from the spell we have in the game (the BG variant lets you attack whatever you want at whim) Thanks!

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:31 pm

BG 2 I have noticed is a mixture of 2nd and 3rd edition rules, which is insanity in and of itself. If you plan on running a game based on those rules, I wish you luck. That's crazy.

As far as dice rolling programs, I posted this in the "What Can Change A Man" thread, but go here: Dice Bag :: d20srd.org. It isn't perfect, but it's a ready made dice rolling program. Just a note, again, if you plan on using DnD, you really won't want to base it off of BG2, as they're rule system is wonky and I am honestly wondering how in all hell they set up a mix of 2nd and 3rd edition DnD. They are completely incompatible. :speech: I would suggest learning the rules on the The Hypertext d20 SRD (v3.5 d20 System Reference Document) :: d20srd.org website first. Perhaps joining in a game with someone who has played to learn with them and have someone who knows the rules teach you as you play.

Then again, people do learn on their own in groups where no one knows. So, if you want to do that, good for you. Maybe it will work out, and you will like it.

As far as Time Stop, time stop didn't exist in 2nd Edition I don't believe, or if it did, it worked different. Why? Because 2nd edition was made under a different ruleset, by different people who worked for a different owner/company. Comparing that website to BG is not going to work. Ignore BG and read the website like a text book. The rules are all there, you just need to absorb them and apply them.