Twenty-sided Dice and 3D Graphics:

The Pen-and-Paper Classic goes Mainstream

By Ralsu



The high priest of the god of Darkness and Evil lay in a bloody heap
over the very alter where he'd been sacrificing the village's children.
Propelled by his fervor for banishing wickedness and a desire to please
his goddess, the paladin reached down to remove the high priest's
wicked talisman—a symbol of a giant snake eating an infant.

The Dungeon Master (DM) asked incredulously, “You pick it up?”



Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (DDO) community member Chant
confesses that he did just that. “[I was] a very zealous paladin who
wanted to purge the world of evil,” Chant remembers.



Chant is only one of thousands of Pen-and-Paper (PnP) Dungeons &
Dragons (D&D) fans excited by the prospects of DDO. While some
players just enjoy a good massively-multiplayer online game (MMOG),
D&D fans like Chant are drawn to Turbine's rendition of the PnP
classic in the hopes of rekindling the exhilaration of their tabletop
experiences.



A quick survey of the DDO community reveals that a major source of the
exhilaration of D&D is the feeling that “anything can happen at any
time to anyone.” And they mean anything.



Diinen recalls one “misadventure” that changed the life of her PnP
character forever. “After one src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/Site-Graphics/babyinblue.thumb.gif"
style="width: 104px; height: 104px;" align="left" hspace="6" vspace="6">combat
session, while drinking at the tavern, I was told to make a saving
throw,” she explains. “A short while later I was told to make another
saving throw.” Diinen's DM notified her that she had failed to notice
the love potion in her drink (the first failed save), and that the drug
had now taken hold of her (the second failed save). After a wild night
and a third failed saving throw, Diinen was informed, “Your character
is pregnant.”



Perhaps only Spokelse could top Diinen's misfortune. He relates the
tale of his PnP character downing what he though was an elixir of
speed. The DM asked him to roll a save and advised him, “You feel a
tingling in your groin.” Spokelse discloses, “I spent the entire
campaign looking for the cure to my newfound femininity.”



Just as Spokelse's character found great adversity from the outset of
his campaign, PnP fan Dambro describes how his first D&D character
“was killed in a gingerbread castle by a giant pancake that fell off
the ceiling.” “It smothered me before my party members could make a
decision on how to save me,” he adds.



The thousands of D&D veterans who eagerly await the North American
release of DDO on February 28, 2006, share the nostalgia expressed by
Chant, Diinen, Spokelse, and Dambro. The expectations of these PnP
adventurers are shaped by fond memories of marathon sessions at the
kitchen table and the friendships that formed around a game of
imagination and practically unlimited possibilities.



One method Turbine uses to capture the range of possibilities of PnP
D&D is the setting of Eberron. A fairly new campaign setting,
Eberron lacks the plethora of materials written about older settings
such as Forgotten Realms. The newness of Eberron removes some of the
limitations of campaign settings that have been fully explored and
contain notable non-player characters (NPCs) difficult to portray
accurately in electronic media. With Eberron, Turbine may enjoy an
opportunity to allow the player base to somewhat dictate the history of
the world.



Another device Turbine will have at its disposal for replicating the
intensity of the tabletop experience src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/Site-Graphics/20_sided_dice.thumb.jpg"
style="width: 150px; height: 120px;" align="right" hspace="6"
vspace="6"> is to return a very real sense of danger to MMOGs.
Dungeons in DDO contain traps the pose a serious threat to careless
explorers. Creatures possess abilities that can render a character
helpless for just enough time to be sent for a dirt nap. Though
Turbine's DDO developers promise not to make instant deaths too common,
the threat is there.



DDO beta tester KeAahr wonders if Turbine might be able to recreate one
of his most memorable PnP moments. He tells of a party of characters
wandering a mansion, searching for clues as to the owner's
disappearance. The group discovered a ruby “in a locked room with no
monsters, on a worktable.” The rogue had searched for traps and felt
confident that it was safe to grab the gem, which was actually a soul
trap gem. “The party had to carry his body through the rest of the
dungeon until they found a magic well that restored life to him,”
KeAahr concludes.



Mithrandir2k feels certain DDO players can experience what his PnP
rogue once faced when he strayed too far from the group. The DM asked
him to make several save rolls against magic, petrifaction, and death
before revealing, “You've found the beholder. And most of his eyes have
found you.”



Once aspect in which DDO will differ greatly from PnP is time
commitment for a single play session. Turbine deliberately designed
many of DDO's quests to last an hour or less. More than a practical
business model as MMOGs become more mainstream, Turbine's intention was
an acknowledgement that the time commitment of PnP campaigns can make
them difficult to maintain for working adults and busy students.



Berkin, a MMOG fan interested in DDO, observes, “Time as an adult has
been less permissive [for a PnP campaign].” DDO may allow people like
Berkin to enjoy D&D goodness in short bursts with good friends—even
if they live on opposite sides of the country.



Ultimately, Dambro notes, “The energy…happens when you get four or more
people together to create and participate in a fantasy world.” Turbine
has created the world, but D&D fans will certainly seek to infuse
that same energy into the MMOG community.



Readers new to D&D and looking to learn more should visit Wizards
of the Coast's href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome">official
D&D site. PnP veterans who have never adventured in Eberron
will want to read more at the href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eberron">official
Eberron site. Anyone gearing up for DDO's release will want to
bookmark Darkgolem's href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=36">Guide
to DDO's Monsters, the list of href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=45">DDO's
General Feats, and the DDO class guides found on the DDO @ Ten Ton
Hammer main page.