The future of gaming?

[1F409]

I'm curious about the direction that role-playing games are taking, at least in as much as it affects the user base of my gradual adaptation of Howard's work using GURPS. I gather that the age of "gear heads" had passed, somewhere around the time that card games such as Magic took root. My own preference is for materials and systems from back before this change, and it's hard for me to envision what gaming is now like, let alone where it's headed.

To be frank, I thought there would be more community participation in my project, as the open-source design with proper annotation permits us to explain the choices, rather than trust to a cabal of closed-source writers. Perhaps my project is seen as a competitor to the for-profit products that community members consider to be "legitimate"; or maybe I've simply misjudged the market, and my backhanded attempt at merging gaming and scholarship is unpalatable for modern audiences. It might be any number of other reasons, too, but I don't have a crystal ball.

Where do you think gaming is headed? Will there ever again be a time when the old ways resurface, or will everything from here on out be a strange mish-mash of old ideas, the latest technology, and artists' increasing deviation from the source material? Is there even any longer a point in trying to preserve the authenticity of Howard's work in gaming, or is it doomed to be increasingly bastardized, watered down, and Disneyfied?

[johnnypt]

One word: online. I'm watching my son play a couple of the Spider Man games recently and they're basically full fledged movies where you play one of the characters. I think the Russos said this is where the future of storytelling is going. I would take them up on that offer and if a TV show can't get off the ground, start doing the stories as first person interactive.

The old fashioned cards and figures probably still has an audience, I just don't know how large.

[Von K]

Virtual table top gaming seems popular these days, plus online setting and world building tools.

[finarvyn]

I don't like virtual gaming much, and my local game store is bringing back in-store RPG gaming so I think that the future will look a lot like the past. I don't do video games or card games, so my comments relate to RPGs.

As to preserving REH's characters, the time I played the 2d20 Conan I liked it and I feel like it has a real Conan feel. There are also older Conan resources out there if you look around and a guy I know occasionally runs a campaign in the old Mongoose d20 Conan system. He thinks it's pretty authentic but he lives too far away for me to try it and know for sure.

I also played a couple of sessions of the Savage Worlds version of Solomon Kane and it was fun, but not as close to the source material as Conan.

I'm not sure that any other REH characters have gaming options yet.

[bonesaw]

I was pretty heavy into high-end boardgames for a little while there- not the stuff you get at Walmart, but more the games from Fantasy Flight and others. High Quality components and complex rules- Talisman, Runebound. Played the hell out of those games and even painted miniatures for some of them. Mansions of Madness came out and it was really cool. Then they releases an updated version that incorporated an app and all the marketing showed the game being played with a tablet near the board.

It turned me off for some reason.

Anybody here ever play Talisman?

[Von K]

Used to play Talisman in the long distant past. Did some mega gaming sessions back then. Gotta say I'm not a fan of online gaming even though it seems to be an increasing trend these days - the major point of gaming for me was fun human face to face interactions like classic pen and paper rpgs, wargames or boardgames.

[bonesaw]

Well, I did pick up the new HeroQuest release from Hasbro and played it with my three sons. They liked it a lot and have asked to play it again.

I think soon, I might have to bust out my old D&D 2nd Edition stuff that I have for them and introduce them to real table top RPGaming.