#evolution of rpgs

[spewagepipe]

The Evolution of RPGs: The Reisswitzian Kriegsspiel

Here we have largely caught up with the start of my original "On the Origin of RPGs, Part 1" post. The Prussian baron, Georg Leopold von Reisswitz, cites all three of the previous wargame designs as direct sources of the ideas that would feature in his own game – but he saw that those games all faced the same inescapable criticism: real war is not played on a grid where only a single formation can exist in any mile-by-mile square space. Apart from the invention of the "vertrauter", which I describe in that older post, solving the grid problem was von Reisswitz's key innovation: he used game pieces that were proportionally scaled to the real-world size of their respective formations, on a map of modeled terrain – at first a sand table, and later manufactured from plaster-cast terrain pieces. Units could move in any direction, with their relative speeds tracked by physically measuring proportional distances on the model terrain. Later, when his son Georg Heinrich Rudolph Johann von Reisswitz took up further developing the game, he chose to replace the model terrain with a much cheaper alternative, perhaps inspired by Venturini: highly-accurate, real-world topographical maps had only recently become available, but were much easier to duplicate and distribute than plaster tabletop terrain.

Click here for the index of my Evolution of RPGs posts.

[slutpoppers]

Remastered evolution sequence for Silphymon from the Digimon Adventure 02 movie

: The Beginning

[swirley1618]

[videogamepolls]

Requested by anon

[ninebaalart]

RPG Crabs

Based off that meme of the guy grinding crabs in a rpg

[disgustedorite]

Been working on recording evolution games and their history on fanlore. Do you have any idea how deep it goes. It might go even deeper than we can ever know. a

[eraenia-era]

Magatsuhi

[poly404]

Do we have a niche Evolution Worlds community on Tumblr or nah

[maspers]

I think one of the most hilarious things an RPG could do with its setting would be to make use think we're in something like Persona, only to reveal we're actually in something like Xenoblade. The player starts out in a really well known location, like New York City or Tokyo or London or something, and the entire starting arc of the game happens there. Only once that arc is over, it's revealed that the game isn't on Earth AT ALL but an entirely separate fantasy universe that just so happens to have a city called New York City or whatever that looks exactly like the IRL version of that city but is explicitly a completely different place. All of the characters have known about the world outside the city being an epic fantasy land this entire time, they just never talked about it. Or if they did, it was framed in a way that hid that info from the player. The characters in the first arc occasionally refer to what the player thinks are other real world settings, only to reveal that nope the "Los Angeles" of this universe is actually this crazy magic forest city literally inhabited by angels and has no resemblance to the IRL Los Angeles whatsoever.

It would drive players insane. And if you aren't driving your players insane, can you really call yourself an RPG?

[spewagepipe]

On the Origin of RPGs, Part 1

To truly understand the origins of RPGs, one must know that a Feudal economy will inevitably collapse if the ruling lords ever stop acquiring new arable land. Since there is only finite land available on Earth, the lords are therefore forced into territorial wars, which exposes another fundamental flaw with that system: that although the legal right to command a fief's military forces is hereditary, the ability to command those forces with any semblance of competence is not.

By the end of the 1700's, the standard practice among the kingdoms of central Europe was to send the medieval nepo-babies off to military college to hopefully learn a smattering of elemental strategy before they reached a battlefield. It was under these conditions that the first ever "combat simulator" board game was invented, as a way to trick the kids into learning principles of warfare while having fun. Dismissed by experienced officers for being too abstract, the game inspired a deluge of successors before one of them was recognized by the Prussian military for being a genuinely realistic game worthy of inclusion in their academy curriculum.

A noteworthy feature of this last kriegsspiel (wargame) was the idea of a "vertrauter" (confidant) who could simulate the fog of war. Players on both sides (i.e., military students) would secretly issue their orders to the vertrauter (i.e., the students' instructor, a seasoned veteran). The vertrauter would then take measurements, roll dice, refer to statistical tables, and consult various other rules in order update the game state on the players' behalf. Finally, the vertrauter would deliver a battle report to the players, containing only whatever intelligence would be known to their (simulated) front-line staff.

The game was generally considered a great tool for both training and planning, but many of the academy instructors found mastering the rules to be a huge pain in the ass – a problem that was exacerbated by the ensuing 50 years of rules updates and feature creep. Eventually, the Prussian brass concocted a solution: if the ultimate measure of a wargame's realism is to see whether or not its rules agree with the expectations of a seasoned officer, then why not just have the rules say "whatever the seasoned officer expects to happen is what happens"?

This "free" wargame (in contrast to the "rigid" former one) enjoyed a dramatic increase in both popularity and perceived realism among the officers. Incidentally, the concept of "cognitive bias" would not be invented for another 100 years. Nevertheless, the Prussian victory over France in 1871 had the entire world looking to copy Prussian military doctrine, and so the kriegsspiel was exported around the globe.

The American localization, dubbed Strategos, tried to bridge the gap between "rigid" and "free" by including the byzantine rulebook of the former, but also granting the so-called "referee" license to deviate from the rulebook where their expertise with both warfare and game design deemed it necessary. Despite the endorsement of the USA Department of War (and perhaps because its author was one of the only living humans possessing the unusual combination of skills required run it), Strategos seems to have languished in obscurity.

That is, until 1967, when it was rediscovered by a recreational wargamer named David Wesely.

[slutpoppers]

Tailmon evolves into Nefertimon

Battle display here.

Digimon Adventure 02 (2000)

[thecreaturecodex]

Protean, Yexhul

"Naga" © Igor Klymenko, accessed at his ArtStation here

[This monster is picking up a plot thread I laid down years ago: how to introduce slaadi into the Pathfinder cosmology. It also continues me use of anagrams as the namesakes of proteans. This one is fairly short, so I suspect it's going to be one of the more solvable ones.]

Protean, Yexhul CR 16 CN Outsider (extraplanar) This serpentine creature has four arms, each ending in a clawed hand. Instead of a single head, a riot of dozens of small necks and heads grow from its shoulders like the branches of a great tree. The scales of its chest have eyespots, like the feathers of a peacock.

Yexhuls are the proteans that observe and meddle with animal evolution. Yexhuls push animals in new directions, both by introducing organisms into new habitats and by physically altering organisms, taking what is typically a slow and orderly process and interjecting sometimes bizarre flights of fancy. The touch of a yexhil can alter the abilities of an organism permanently, and the transformations they imbue are heritable. A number of the magical beasts found on Material worlds, especially those that are incongruous hybrids of two animals, are yexhul creations.

No two fights with a yexhul are likely to progress the same way, as these creatures can alter their bodies on the fly. They also have an experimental approach to violence, changing their abilities in different ways for different fights, and summoning different animals to assist them in combat. Although they have many heads, a yexhul can only bite a single target at once, striking with all of their jaws simultaneously (unless it gives itself more bite attacks with its acclimation ability). If their enemies are gaining the upper hand, a yexhul will turn them into something harmless with baleful polymorph, or use primal regression to disable their ability to cast spells.

Most other types of proteans distrust yexhuls, as they were the creators of the Spawning Stone. That continent-sized chunk of reality brought to the Maelstrom was an enormous experiment in the survival of the fittest, and its “fittest”, the slaadi, swiftly escaped the Spawning Stone and eventually the Maelstrom entirely, running amok through the planes. Yexhuls, for their part, consider the slaadi a resounding success, and they are among the proteans more likely to work with slaadi than against them. Annunaki are a species that have a great dislike for yexhuls, and try to exterminate them when their paths cross.

One of the great philosophical debates among yexhuls concerns domestication.  Some yexhuls consider it a natural outgrowth of evolution, and use their abilities to make unusual species more likely to associate with humanoids and start the process of becoming domesticated. Other yexhuls consider artificial selection by any hands other than their own to be a grave insult. Some even “un-domesticate” animals, rendering livestock and pets aggressive and uncontrollable or helping feral populations adapt better to the wild. Other proteans encourage this infighting, as it keeps the yexhuls from conducting any more experiments as far-reaching as the Spawning Stone.

Yexhul    CR 16 XP 76,800 CN Large outsider (chaos, extraplanar, protean) Init +10; Senses all-around vision, blindsense 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft., Perception +26

Defense AC 31, touch 15, flat-footed 25 (-1 size, +6 Dex, +16 natural) hp 241 (21d10+126) Fort +15, Ref +18, Will +17 DR 15/lawful; Immune acid, electricity, sonic; Resist cold 10; SR 27 Defensive Abilities amorphous anatomy, freedom of movement

Offense Speed 40 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect) Melee bite +27 (3d8+10 plus 1d6 cold), 4 claws +27 (1d6+7 plus 1d6 cold), tail slap +22 (1d12+3 plus 1d6 cold and grab) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with tail) Special Attacks constrict (1d12+7),powerful blows (bite), probing bite, rend (2 claws, 1d6+10), specialization, trample (DC 27, 1d8+10) Spell-like Abilities CL 16th, concentration +22 (+26 casting defensively) Constant—speak with animals At will—atavism (DC 20), hold animal (DC 18), magic circle vs. law (DC 19), pup shape (DC 19) 3/day—animal growth, baleful polymorph (DC 21), quickened chaos hammer (DC 20), summon nature’s ally VII (animals only) 1/day—animal shapes, plane shift (DC 23), polymorph any object (DC 24), primeval regression (DC 23)

Statistics Str 25, Dex 23, Con 23, Int 24, Wis20, Cha 22 Base Atk +21; CMB +29 (+33 grappling); CMD 46 Feats Combat Casting,Dodge,Flyby Attack, Great Fortitude,Greater Vital Strike, Improved Initiative,Improved Vital Strike, Mobility, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (chaos hammer), Vital Strike Skills Acrobatics +24, Bluff +27, Climb +25, Fly +18, Handle Animal +27, Intimidate +27, Knowledge (arcana, religion) +25, Knowledge (nature, planes) +28, Perception +26, Spellcraft +25, Stealth +26, Survival +26, Swim +25 Languages Abyssal, Protean, speak with animals SQ acclimation (7 points, energy attacks (cold), reach (tail), rend, trample) change shape (animal or magical beast, beast shape IV), wild empathy +27

Ecology Environment any (Maelstrom) Organization solitary, pair or council (3-6) Treasure standard

Special Abilities Acclimation (Su) A yexhul can alter its physical traits on the fly. It has a number of evolution points equal to 1/3 its Hit Dice, which it can spend on any evolution as if it were a summoner’s eidolon. It may take any evolution legal for a serpentine shape, and treats its Hit Dice as its summoner level for the purpose of qualifying for evolutions. A yexhul can change its acclimations by taking 1 full round, and can carry them over into its alternate forms with change shape if it so desires. Change Shape (Su) A yexhul may change shape at will, but does not heal when it reverts to its normal form. Probing Bite (Ex) The many heads of a yexhul strike simultaneously, but reach around obstacles. A yexhul’s bite ignores any cover short of total cover, as well as ignoring shield bonuses to Armor Class. Specialization (Su) As a standard action, a yexhul may touch a creature to alter its ability scores. An unwilling creature can resist this with a DC 26 Fortitude save. The creature touched gains a +6 bonus to one of its ability scores, but a -2 penalty to two of its other ability scores, as chosen by the yexhul. This is an instantaneous effect, and can only be removed with a break enchantment, limited wish, wish or miracle spell. This bonus is passed on to this creature’s offspring. If a creature’s Intelligence is raised above 3, it gains the ability to speak and understand one language of the yexhul’s choice (typically Protean). These penalties cannot lower a creature’s ability scores below 1. A creature that successfully saves is immune to the specialization of that yexhul for the next 24 hours. No creature can be specialized in this way more than once simultaneously. This is a polymorph effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Wild Empathy (Ex) A yexhul can use wild empathy as a druid with a level equal to its Hit Dice.

[bysooyoo]

KIM Nakyoung ☾ TRIPLES, TRIPLES AAA, TRIPLES EVOLUTION, TRIPLES VISIONARY VISION

9 avatars / 400*640  ↬ light coloring

G A L E R I E (+19)

[autisticfoxgirl333]

GlaDOS vs. Glaceon!

[posthumanwanderings]

Evolution: The World of Sacred Device (Sting / Sega - Dreamcast - 1999)

[eldritchwaffless]

This is my rendition of the Tanakan Scorpionids from the Alien TTRPG

The Alien RPG book doesn't have illustrations for these guys, so I decided to draw them how I see them in the game I'm gonna run. I've attempted to follow the basic of the description given by the book, which describes them looking like prehistoric sea scorpions, while giving them some "Alien Vibes".

I've personally never been a fan of the trope of an Alien species being "Like this species on earth but..." in my personal opinion an alien species is always more cool when it's completely separated from anything on Earth.

So I gave them a "scorpion" vibes to them but also an exoskeleton as well as an interna endoskeleton.

For their stinger I decided to attached it to a barbed whip. I imagined that the whip would lodge itself into the tail, the opening in the tail where the whip is lodges secretes the venom and the whip and dart coats itself with it when inside.