The last turn-based Dungeons & Dragons game was released 10 years ago...

[Ebonsword]

...will we ever have another?


This question occurred to me this week while I was replaying Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics and noticed that the copyright date on it was 2007.

I find it quite sad that the role-playing system which has had so many great turn-based games in the past has not had a single one in 10 years.


Hell, we somehow managed to go through the entire life-span of 4th edition (perhaps the edition best suited to be developed into a turn-based video game) without getting one.

So, what do my fellow Codexers think? Is the long drought going to come to an end, or is it time to declare this genre a desert and move to more well-watered lands?

 

[octavius]

Is even the tabletop version still turn based?

 

[Skittles]

Obsidian is going to release a Pathfinder game that make ToEE look like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, haven't you heard?

 

[LESS T_T]

Technically this is the last turn-based D&D video game, from 2013:

 

[CryptRat]

Pierre Begue, Allyx and the FRUA community are our only saviours.

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

I've given up on computer-based D&D ... get my fix via the tabletop / pen&paper

 

[Jaesun]

Since WotC is owned by HASBRO, I don't see anything Official™ D&D Turn-Based coming anytime soon. HASBRO is too focused on mass accessibility and not focusing on their core players (which is incredibly fucking stupid, but there you go). They are not going to fund anything that isn't for the average consumer.

I can only hope *some day* a smaller A or AA Developer might get a licence for the current D&D rules, and possibly do something turn-based. Hell I would even back that if it were a Kickstarter project (provided the Developer is shown to be competent).

In fact I just wish someone would just fucking do FRUA 2.0 and bring it into the 21st Century (and possibly with the current D&D rule-set, but the ability to implement other editions, but that might be too complicated, licence wise)..

 

[Siobhan]

Isn't D20 under an open license? Guess it's time for me to do a kickstarter scam campaign for an indie RPG with the D20 ruleset. Gotta milk those grognards.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Technically this is the last turn-based D&D video game, from 2013:

The hell is that? They turned D&D into Angry Birds??

... SCL's starting to look pretty good. I'm sorta glad there aren't any more D&D games coming out right now.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Since WotC is owned by HASBRO, I don't see anything Official™ D&D Turn-Based coming anytime soon. HASBRO is too focused on mass accessibility and not focusing on their core players (which is incredibly fucking stupid, but there you go). They are not going to fund anything that isn't for the average consumer.

I can only hope *some day* a smaller A or AA Developer might get a licence for the current D&D rules, and possibly do something turn-based. Hell I would even back that if it were a Kickstarter project (provided the Developer is shown to be competent).

In fact I just wish someone would just fucking do FRUA 2.0 and bring it into the 21st Century (and possibly with the current D&D rule-set, but the ability to implement other editions, but that might be too complicated, licence wise)..

KoTC2 is hoping to provide something analogous to that. Though it won't be AA or even A level, maybe that's a good thing?

 

[Dyspaire]

In fact I just wish someone would just fucking do FRUA 2.0 and bring it into the 21st Century (and possibly with the current D&D rule-set, but the ability to implement other editions, but that might be too complicated, licence wise)..

You just described the holy grail of crpgs for many, many gamers.

You have to figure a Kickstarter or Fig campaign featuring a modern version of what FRUA was trying to do, would almost have to attract the attention and subsequent funding from a few tens of thousands, at least.

You make a game engine in Unity or Unreal with TOEE or POE-level graphical fidelity, create an easy way for the community to create, share, and use scenery and models, make the rule-set open-source or even better allow different rules to be swapped in and out as you suggest... enough people would want something like that to justify its creation, I think.

NWN done right and turn-based. TOEE with easy content-creation tools. What Sword Coast Legends sounded like pre-release. Something like that.

The studio that did it could crank out faithful and professional-quality versions of all the old classic modules... what I wouldn't give to have a way to play White Plume Mountain or Queen of the Spiders in a turn-based, POE-level engine with a few friends one weekend.

I gather the prohibitive part of all this would the creation of art assets... there must be a way around that though. I would think by now the Unity Store or Unreal equivalent must have a ton of suitable art... I dunno.

But, yeah... FRUA 2.0 for the 21st Century sounds damn good.

Cheers.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Tens of thousands as audience base for a PoE graphic fidelity game engine is a non-starter IMO.

 

[Darkzone]

I think wee will see an D&D OGL turn based game, in 3-4 years. I'm pretty sure about it, somehow.

 

[MRY]

In fact I just wish someone would just fucking do FRUA 2.0 and bring it into the 21st Century

Impossible.

What made FRUA viable was the very limitations* of the engine, and what made those limitations permissible was the state of technology in the late 80s, which were only acceptable in the early 90s because they were so recent. For example, FRUA combat sprites have only three frames of animation (if that? attack, not attack, dead, but I think dead were generic), towns and dungeons don't show NPCs or monsters moving around, etc., etc. The text is limited to like 40 words in a window, and you can't do interactive dialogues for the most part. All of that makes it possible for people to relatively easy build a certain kind of game. But even if you only improved the resolution, you'd immediately find that stuff like the lack of animation frames or the repetitious environments would look much worse, and suddenly to make the same product requires 50 times the assets, which in turn makes it harder for people to make their own assets, and proper fonts mean more text, and people want dialogue trees, etc., etc., etc. and by the end of it you have the NWN Toolset: extremely expensive to build, and extremely time consuming to use in comparison to FRUA.

(* Some may have been unreasonable, like the inability to rename sprites or import art, but those were hacked around.)

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I think wee will see an D&D OGL turn based game, in 3-4 years. I'm pretty sure about it, somehow.

KoTC2 is not that?

 

[deuxhero]

Obsidian has the Pathfinder license and rather than make what should be a really easy conversion of Kingmaker (popular module very well suited for cRPG thanks to its non-linearity and open-ended nature and plenty of places to stick original sidequests)+a toolset for custom modules they do shit nobody cares about like PoE2.

 

[crakkie]

In fact I just wish someone would just fucking do FRUA 2.0 and bring it into the 21st Century

... by the end of it you have the NWN Toolset: extremely expensive to build, and extremely time consuming to use in comparison to FRUA.

I'd be quite happy with something as easy to use as the NWN toolset, but a bit prettier and for turn-based RPGs. It found a sweet spot of structure vs. flexibility, and people made thousands of custom maps & scenarios. Most were shit, but the same was true with UA and any crowd-produced content.

 

[deuxhero]

What was the budget for NWN1 anyways?

If you make everyone "snap" to a grid of 5x5 spaces once combat starts and require world design built accordingly it it could simplify the engine and toolset a decent deal.

 

[Darkzone]

I think wee will see an D&D OGL turn based game, in 3-4 years. I'm pretty sure about it, somehow.

KoTC2 is not that?

Yes, it looks quite like the D&D 3.5 OGL 1.0 in an turn based game.

 

[mondblut]

In fact I just wish someone would just fucking do FRUA 2.0 and bring it into the 21st Century

Dungeon Craft already did, yet it doesn't appear to have much going on in terms of modules.

 

[getter77]

Iceblink Engine 2 at least has a shot in near sense I guess/hope if they can find greater momentum than the first iteration. http://www.iceblinkengine.com/

 

[prodigydancer]

Tens of thousands as audience base for a PoE graphic fidelity game engine is a non-starter IMO.

PoE had less than 74k backers.

 

[Thonius]

Obsidian has the Pathfinder license and rather than make what should be a really easy conversion of Kingmaker (popular module very well suited for cRPG thanks to its non-linearity and open-ended nature and plenty of places to stick original sidequests)+a toolset for custom modules they do shit nobody cares about like PoE2.

Nuh they are making POE2 and some shitty card game heartsnote killer or something.

 

[Mustawd]

This guy, an ex Sword Coast Legends modder, was gonna make a D&D OGL game from scratch using Unreal engine.

But radio silence since December, so I guess that's scrapped for now. Not surprising as it was super ambitious. Turn based combat, tile by tile world editor, and basically all the functions SCL had PLUS all the stuff they wish they had. It was gonna basically be a new NWN. *shrug*




https://www.facebook.com/theherosaga

 

[Jaesun]

In fact I just wish someone would just fucking do FRUA 2.0 and bring it into the 21st Century

Dungeon Craft already did, yet it doesn't appear to have much going on in terms of modules.

Dungeon Craft still has a bit more work to be done. Though it is still quite promising.