by icycalm » 07 Sep 2020 18:32
Let me be clear of what my ultimate goal is with this project.
My goal is for Ultimate Edition to be a videogame some day, just like there are many videogames for 1st Edition, and 2nd Edition, and 3rd Edition, etc. I think Baldur's Gate 3 will be 5E, if I am not mistaken.
So really, what we are doing here is designing the rules for a future videogame. It probably hadn't crossed the minds of Gygax and Arneson in the '70s that their rules would one day be digitally adapted, but it happened, and now we know it happens if the design is good enough. And this design will be the best ever. So when I talk about a They Are Billions phase in the Empire phase, I can very easily see it playing out in TaleSpire if they added fighting animations and AI for the "zombies". Then the game would not have to be turn-based since the DM would no longer need to move every single individual enemy by hand, and the players could be left to fend for themselves and their domains in real-time, issuing generic orders to their NPCs as in the Kingdom Under Fire games. Then the DM would be freed from the micromanagement of every single enemy so that, while the players are fighting their epic fight, he could modulate the numbers of the attackers and the direction of their attacks etc., sort of like playing an RTT against the players. And THAT'S how we would finally get the "AI director" of Left 4 Dead, but with a super-intelligent human in control instead of a dumb AI. Real-time improvisational theatre direction... That's the future of multiplayer role-playing, from where I am standing, and my D&D Ultimate and Battlegrounds projects will be at the center of that.
