Ideas to make a campaign feel "Video Gamey"

[braveheart]

I am about to start a new campaign with my playgroup and the primary premis is going to be that the players are trapped in a video game, simmilar to SAO. I've already got some ideas for how to make the game have more of a video game feel, such as increased stats, making a system for loot grinding, and more frequent levels that give less reward. I'm also differentiating between Player NPC's and Game NPC's (game NPC's care about your charisma stat, while player NPC's will require players to accruals roleplay) But I'm wondering if anyone has any other ideas for what to implement in order to adjust the feel more towards that of an MMO, without bogging my group down in too many rules and changes.

(Base system is Parhfinder)

TLDR: making a video game campaign looking for thoughts, already implemented things are above

[oxybe]

You may want to investigate into the WoW & Diablo D&D material.

Yes, you read correctly: AD&D Diablo 2 crossover material. Made by Wizards themselves. I cannot speak of it's quality, but the material is out there. There's also the

www.wizards.com/dnd/main.asp?x=d2/diabloii,3

And as mentionned, there is also the closer to pathfinder, 3rd ed based World of Warcraft supplement:

https://www.amazon.ca/World-Warcraft.../dp/1588467813

[Vrock_Summoner]

Well, for starters, I think D&D 4e would work much better for that goal than Pathfinder.

Beyond that, though... Replace certain recovery and empowering items with health drops and temporary stat boost drops, like instead of a Potion of Bull's Strength, it's a little floating aura that you walk through and it gives you the Bull's Strength boost for X number of strength-based actions before it's spent. Or instead of items that have multiple charges of healing effects, the drop gives you fast healing that lasts until you've healed a certain amount of HP.

Expand each class's abilities (maybe integrating all the archetypes into one super-class?) and give them points every level to unlock those abilities with to make it more of a skill tree-like progression.

[Mutazoia]

Well, for starters, I think D&D 4e would work much better for that goal than Pathfinder..

With out trying to start another round of Edition Wars....4e was pretty much designed to mimic MMO's with abilities that had "cool down" times (ie. once per day, once per encounter, etc).

But anyway....

What style of video game are you trying to mimic? Are you going for the "trapped in an MMO" style, ala Sword Art Online? Or are you going for more of a "real life is an arcade game" style, ala "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" ?

[Martin Greywolf]

Like SAO? Well, okay, your protagonist needs to be as bland as possible, all even remotely interesting female characters must fall in love with him for no reason and literally everyone has to be dumber than a box of rocks.

Okay, now that I got that out of my system, some actual advice.

First thing you mus absolutely, positively do is determine what part of PF is just used to resolve actions of your characters and what part of it is an actual in-world game mechanic. For a lot of players, a major draw of a campaign like this is gaming the rules of in-game game. (Well, that was a sentence.) Allowing that is pretty essential for the feel of your campaign, but the players can't be allowed to take it too far.

For example, does your in-game game have turn based system? If so, can you use shenanigans to transport someone instantly over arbitrarily long distances? Can you pull a Sans and completely stall an enemy by just not taking your turn? Does your game have all the bells and whistles to make PunPun, and if so, why hasn't anyone made him yet?

Once you have that part down, you should make some exploits - small bugs/glitches that everyone uses by now and knows about, and devs can't be bothered (or don't want) to remove them. Melee-jetpack glide in No Man's Sky (makes you move faster) or move cancelling are good examples of such things.

Lastly, a simulation will always be a simulation. Things like glitches and crashes can happen, and if the players try to infinitely loop something, they'll run into a hard cap or an overflow eventually. The looks on their faces when their overboosted attack does a metric to of negative damage should be pretty priceless (do expect them to try and use it to heal themselves, tho).

[goto124]

Like SAO? Well, okay, your protagonist needs to be as bland as possible, all even remotely interesting female characters must fall in love with him for no reason and literally everyone has to be dumber than a box of rocks.

I heard Log Horizon is much better. I don't know anything about it though, I'll leave the explanation to someone else.

[GloatingSwine]

I heard Log Horizon is much better. I don't know anything about it though, I'll leave the explanation to someone else.

It isn't really. It's just differently bad. The main character is a different type of sue, he's the one who makes awesome plans that always work, a lot of the humour is "insert joke here" stuff, the pace is glacial and most of the interesting stuff happens in the preview of the next episode but is then glossed over in the episode itself.

None of the big "trapped in a videogame" anime have been any good, really. Even Overlord which everyone said was good was dull, there were no stakes for the protagonist ever, and even when there suddenly might have been it took literally an entire episode of exposition about the game rules to explain why there were actually stakes. It is exactly the wrong way to do an OP protagonist (in the way that One Punch Man is the right way to do it).

[Cluedrew]

Personally the best "we are in a video game" story I have seen is the Greed Island ark of Hunter x Hunter. Which is kind of sad, it did better as an ark than stories that focused on that.

Anyways my main suggestion is never forget you are in a video game. It may sound weird but there are a lot of oddities I have seen that actually come from people trying to make it to much like real life.

Roll out ruling changes in patches. Have random restrictions that don't quite make sense narratively, but actually lead to good game balance (say enforcing wealth-by-level). Let NPCs be disinterested (or even unaware) of big things going on around them (unless they represent players). Also there should never, ever be an easy fight against similarly leveled players. Losing should be more common and have less consequences. And so on.

[goto124]

Let NPCs be disinterested (or even unaware) of big things going on around them (unless they represent players).

I haven't figured out how to make NPCs be like video-game NPCs without making the whole game boring. Don't these roleplaying games thrive on having the in-universe characters react somewhat realistically to the world and what the PCs do?

[Joe the Rat]

There's a delightful little manhwa called The Gamer, where the protagonist's life is a game, or more accurately, has a video game interface. Doing his chores have quest-like notifications, for example. He sees his stats, levels, allocates points, can look at some stats of other people and monsters (unless they are too far above his level), automatic radio-like communication with anyone else in his "party," looks for broken-as-hell exploits (which all of the not-living-life-as-an-rpg-character characters comment on), heals by eating, etc. The Visible Interface would certainly sell the environment. Extra-sensory abilities create notification windows ("You detect killing intent"). Whether or not the players can see one another's screens is your call.

A few specific thoughts:

Ping!Leveling is instantaneous wherever you are, whenever it happens. Whether or not that comes with hp/mana/spell slot/rice pudding refills is your call. New skill/stat allocations have to be between combats, though.
Hit points are Meat Points. losing hit points leaves a mark, or a wound, or a scorch, but nothing is serious or debilitating past the 6-second window they were injured (unless there is a status effect attached). Until you hit 0 that is, at which time you face plant. Food either heals, is subtracted as you travel, is only consumed at 8-hour-rest, or does nothing. Or you could nethack it for starvation rules and can everything for food (in which case ignore the disappearing corpse part of Money Spiders, below).
Visible Status Effects. Getting sickened/frightened/poisoned/on fire/ etc. includes a visible change - poisoned/sickened/nauseated characters have boozles (booze bubbles), mind-controlled characters change color, etc.
Hammerspace Inventory. Whether or not you have an encumbrance limit, everything the player carries is in a "backpack" or "pouch" or "inventory screen". They reach "somewhere" and grab whatever it is they need. Handy haversack is a redundant item. You do need to decide how long the retrieval process is, but equipping armor is probably a LOT faster.
Money spiders. Everything has a chance of leaving treasure. The bodies fall, go poof, and there's a pile of coins and potions and whatnot. Enemies will sometimes, but not always, drop whatever armor / weapons / etc. They carry. Dropping "magic stones" that can be used for item crafting in lieu of actual items is a possibility.
BGM for the BBEG. Use background music - a specific song or playlist for a specific environment. city music, NPC music, quest point sound effect, battle music, dungeon music, wilderness music, and of course Boss Monster music. Always stop and switch to the fight music right before you say "Roll initiative." This can also be helpful to the players, because they can get a sense of the scene mood by what's playing, or differentiate between encounter types (random, story, climax, End Disk 1, etc.) and prepare accordingly.
No Wizards. Unless you are tapping into the SSI Gold Box games, you might want to have your casters be Known Spell classes only.
There is no OOC. When you are not speaking directly to an NPC, they ignore what you are saying, unless they are a decidedly different type of monster - something else from outside, or that is somehow involved in the reality-breaking that brought them here. Let them spend 10 minutes discussing ideas, saying insulting things about the conversationalist, whatever - so long as they do not specifically address or interact with the NPC.
Game-breaking characters: You Are Not Alone...And after 10 or so levels of that, introduce a social interaction scene that, gasp!, the NPC is actually paying attention in real time, and can do decidedly un-NPC-like things like casting or attacking when the fight music hasn't started yet, or tries to invoke "Cut Scene Incompetence" to get the upper hand in a situation.

[Telonius]

I haven't figured out how to make NPCs be like video-game NPCs without making the whole game boring. Don't these roleplaying games thrive on having the in-universe characters react somewhat realistically to the world and what the PCs do?

The players walk into town; they notice two guards standing on either side of the gate. "Welcome to Riverton!" says one of them, looking straight ahead.
"Hello there! We're travelers ... " They notice that the guards haven't moved an inch. "Er..."
"Welcome to Riverton!" he says again. Perception or sense motive will show that he's starting to sweat. Though his body has barely moved, you can see that he almost seems afraid.
As they walk through the town, they see that people are marching back and forth aimlessly, speaking a single phrase over and over. Several of the shopkeepers are wearing identical sets of clothing. All of them seem very thin, as though they haven't eaten in a while. Some of them have parched lips, barely croaking out their phrase.

Spellcraft will reveal the presence of a powerful curse.

[Cluedrew]

I haven't figured out how to make NPCs be like video-game NPCs without making the whole game boring. Don't these roleplaying games thrive on having the in-universe characters react somewhat realistically to the world and what the PCs do?

That depends on exactly what type of story you are trying to tell. Change the NPCs to fit. You could say that there is a computer cranking out dynamic dialogue, or you could wait for the voice actors to do their bits before updating the dialogue. You can fill up some of the other dialog with other players (non-player players) or you could have NPCs only react to in story events. So they might be very aware of the king's affair (celebrity gossip in the middle ages) but completely miss that do to a glitch the sky is now purple.

"You detect killing intent"

Your ability to detect killing intent has leveled up.

One of my favourite scenes in that story. At least I think that is the one (the one with Dad glaring at them).

[wumpus]

It isn't really. It's just differently bad. The main character is a different type of sue, he's the one who makes awesome plans that always work, a lot of the humour is "insert joke here" stuff, the pace is glacial and most of the interesting stuff happens in the preview of the next episode but is then glossed over in the episode itself.

None of the big "trapped in a videogame" anime have been any good, really. Even Overlord which everyone said was good was dull, there were no stakes for the protagonist ever, and even when there suddenly might have been it took literally an entire episode of exposition about the game rules to explain why there were actually stakes. It is exactly the wrong way to do an OP protagonist (in the way that One Punch Man is the right way to do it).

I suppose Erfworld is "trapped in a tabletop game", but you might look there for inspiration. As someone who remembers when "D&D on a computer" was a distant goal and things like Zork and rogue were the best available, this seems like a really odd direction to go.

The only real way to make NPCs interesting is to assume that they are "other players in a MMO", otherwise you are stuck with obviously limited dialog trees. You might make mooks (friend, enemy, shopkeeper) stereotypically limited "video game mooks" and let the more important NPCs be "real characters", this would at least give some of the feel.

The problem with this whole concept is that video games typically have those choices to deal with limitations. Lack of those limitations is likely a big reason you are still playing pen and paper. Think twice before taking too much of the faults of software into your game.

[JeenLeen]

I'm assuming this game is "you (player) play as real life people (PC) playing in an MMO (as a PCC) and trapped there".

Advice One
Have all the stats be the PCC's stats. No it doesn't make sense, but it's easier. If you want, have two sets of mental stats and skills, but you don't level up the PC's stats and they only apply to stuff like knowledge rolls (for metagame knowledge perhaps) or to solve puzzles.
...actually, having PC stats with Knowledge (metagame) or even more broken down (bugs, monster stats, optimization, etc.) sounds cool.

But the point being the PCC's stats are what matter (at least mostly) and what are stat'ed out, since those impact your PCC in-combat. Maybe the guy playing a dumb fighter is a genius, but that doesn't let his fighter cast spells.

Advice Two
Let stuff like grinding for loot be done in downtime, much like (in a typical D&D) crafting or doing Performance/Profession rolls could be downtime. The PC is actively having their PCC do it, but the Player shouldn't have to waste time on that. Even minor, routine quests could be done during downtime. If you want to allow this to give a level-up, feel free.
This is probably best coupled with some sort of timeline that matters to the PC (and thus to the player), such as everyone will die if not freed within x days.

Some ideas for inspiration
Beyond Sword Art Online, check out the .Hack (dot-hack) anime and video game series. The first anime, I think, was very well done, and it could express how hacks or... well, whatever is going on (never finished the game so I never figured out what was really happening)... can disrupt players. Maybe everyone is trapped there as in SAO or only some folk as in .Hack.

As an aside, I was in an oWoD game, and had the players go into a base that they knew has a Marauder mage in it. They didn't know his insanity was thinking things were a video game like Final Fantasy 7. It was very disorienting for the players when they first entered combat.

"Okay, as you enter the asylum, some odd background music plays. Creepy. Nobody is around."
players walk around, and grab something to put in backpack
"As you put it there, it vanishes. You notice no discernible difference in backpack weight."
player takes it out and puts it back. Odd but okay, whatever.
"Okay, as you walk forward, all the world swirls around you, the music changes to a fast-upbeat tempo, and you find yourself in a similar but different-looking room facing two... what appear to be orderlies."
players roll initiative, and guy with highest starts to talk
"Um, wait. You start to move, but notice you can't. One orderly runs towards you, punches you twice, and jumps back to his spot. <roll Attack, Defend, Soak, etc.> You see a number 2 pop above you in red, and you take 2 damage. Suddenly, you see an option screen pop up in front of you. You grasp you can mentally control it. Your options are 'Attack, Defend, Item, or Special'. What do you do?'

At that point, they figured out what was up.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Want to make it seem videogamey? Drop healing potions, silly-tons of them. Make it feasible for a player party to go into a huge dungeon complex and traverse the whole thing without needing to take a rest break at any point. Just chug potions like crazy.

You may want to investigate into the WoW & Diablo D&D material.

My favorite thing in the Diablo 2 book was the silly potions. Drink a mana potion to restore used spell levels! Rejuvenation restores a fixed proportion of total hit points! Full rejuvenation potions are just as good as a full rest! Those sorts of potions should drop as well (so your wizards/clerics don't need to rest).

It's been a while since I've seen the book, but those were the most amusing things I recall in them.

[Kitten Champion]

Three things with regards to a video game-based narrative

First, unlike a D&D-esque game where you play the PC's role directly, the role the character within a MMO's universe is only indicative of what they - the real-world character who your players are actually roleplaying - picked in character creation, not something that defines them in any meaningful fashion. They could be a hard-liner atheist whose never stepped into a church all their life and yet be a cleric of some fictional in-universe god, be a junior high kid playing a grizzled sword-master with grey hair and a beard, or a Barbarian who thinks lacking wi-fi for a night is roughing it.

Something about that character and play-style attracted them to it and people have their own motives for entering the game - so the PC's game avatars should probably say something about the person who's controlling it even if its "I have no earthly idea how to play an MMO and wound up with a generic template/broken character" - but the main point is to define the Person they're ultimately roleplaying. This is one thing Dot.Hack did well, you have this veil of anonymity for every character you encounter in-game that all you get is their online persona at first, but advancing through the story reveals more and more about the Real person behind... so to speak.

Secondly, meta-game is the game. Everyone knows, or can easily find-out, what their character can do and will be able to do when they meet pre-defined experience quotas. They know what weaknesses monsters have, where to go for quests, what the in-game bugs are, and basically what's most efficient. While you can minimize what's known by making the MMO the PCs are in very recent in its launch or making the game absurdly large, that information would still quickly get around because that's how communities work online. More to the point, it's what human characters would talk about in-game. Only dedicated RPers and NPCs will take the programmers' in-setting lore seriously, which effects the level of emotional investment one could have at whatever conflict they provide as one could expect to be detached from the thought of NPCs suffering. Additionally, in-game utility functions will be available to all regardless of class, like communication via Chat function, sending screenshots, and other things which would break immersion but logically would be there anyways.

You have the option on the other hand of establishing the out-of-game-game-lore, as in the "real world" is going to have some fictional elements as well - how far in the future is it? Anything significantly different from our mundane contemporary reality you might want to point out?

Lastly, there isn't going to be an End to the game. Yes, Sword Art Online had a Tower of Druaga-esque "climb 100 levels and beat every boss and you'll be free" plot, but unless you stipulate some specific condition MMORPGs are meant to have no specific endpoint or linear achievement. So, either the campaign stems from the personal goals of the Players or it's something unnatural to its design which is being imposed on it. For instance, while slightly different in concept, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline has an Easter Egg hidden in a enormous VR space by its eccentric creator that serves as a Grail Quest worth an enormous real-world fortune if they find it. Dot.Hack has an A.I hidden in its code that's used the MMO-environment for prolonged processing power, and for reasons has turned malevolent and is creating calamities throughout the game and real world. There's a few books where MMO's are used as part of The Running Man-style gladiatorial theater imposed on inmates or where its just fun for thrill-seekers, and another where it's become the basis for economic class as a society-wide preoccupation with in-game currency replacing real-world money.

Then you have something like Only Sense Online, which has nothing like an End Goal as an MMO wouldn't or serious conflict with forces external or internal to the game and is simply driven by the protagonist's desire to play the game as its intended of which the his goals and consequences for achieving them or not are entirely rooted in the character.

Point being, Meaning has to be added into it by the players, the complexities of the setting outside the game, or some unnatural event from within. Because an MMORPG is about wasting as much of your time as possible until you grow tired of it or there's another expansion. The world will not change and nothing will be effected by you not playing it.

[Honest Tiefling]

I heard Log Horizon is much better.

Did they seriously name it Log Horizon? Because that brings an interesting image to mind. Speaking of immature humor, how realistic is the game world? Because you should take out toilets. When is the last time you saw one of those in an MMO, eh?

On another note, I'd look at the Mythic system. It was created to make well, mythic characters, but I think that level of being beyond the ordinary NPC might help as well. But imagine a monster rampaging in a village that can't be beaten because the NPCs aren't players, so the game gives plot armor to the monsters so only a player can defeat it. Now you have Mythic Damage Reduction!

I have not played with it myself, but I do hear it has a few problems with balance so you might want to look into that.

And personally, I think throwing in some glitches would be hilarious! Characters randomly get naked due to server lag. Characters accidentally meld into each others and get stuck. People fall through the world into a yawning abyss. Monsters accidentally speak with the voice of the town baker as they are murdering innocent townsfolk. Invisible walls crush or impede characters. All the while the NPCs are smiling and acting like this is perfectly natural.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'll just leave this here....

Spoiler

Show

[halfeye]

As someone who remembers when "D&D on a computer" was a distant goal and things like Zork and rogue were the best available, this seems like a really odd direction to go.

I remember Dungeon Master on the Atari ST, also available on the Commodore Amiga. Zork was what, five years before that, or less? it's nearly 30 years ago now. It was set in a dungeon, and there was a dragon (big red fire-breathing thing, it didn't fly).

Do/es you/the original poster actually know video games? They are typically both silly and very complicated, with the computer taking care of a lot of the complicated, if you're doing that, it will be a lot of work.

[Prime32]

I heard Log Horizon is much better. I don't know anything about it though, I'll leave the explanation to someone else.

Log Horizon (and Overlord for that matter) isn't a "trapped in a videogame" story so much... At least, they're both very different from SAO.

Spoiler: Log Horizon

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In a world called Theldesia, a powerful curse was used to create a race of monsters - magical constructs that come in many shapes and respawn when they die. In response, the world's greatest wizards created a second race of constructs called "Adventurers" that hunt monsters and absorb their power.

In order to provide direction to the mindless Adventurer constructs, the spell seems to have somehow reached out to another world, becoming linked with an MMO called Elder Tale. That is, ET's game world is an almost 1:1 copy of Theldesia, and its players are unknowingly creating and controlling Adventurers. ET is also not a VR game; it's basically Everquest in a world where World of Warcraft never happened.

The story begins with the players' minds being suddenly pulled into the Adventurer bodies, effectively transporting the entire playerbase of ET to Theldesia in the form of their avatars. From the perspective of the natives, it's basically an AI uprising - tools they've used for generations have become sentient, with strange knowledge and vastly different values from their own; there's hundreds of thousands of them, they're ridiculously powerful, and they can't even be permanently killed. The players are likewise confused by the natives because at first they think they're NPCs that become sentient.

Log Horizon is basically a story about how no man is an island, and people have to work together instead of trying to solve problems on their own. The Players have to build a society from scratch and figure out how to establish peaceful relations with the People of the Land. At the same time, they're investigating the different physics of the new world and how Earth knowledge can be applied to them. The fights also have a lot of emphasis on raid tactics - since the players now have to fight with their own hands and don't have a third-person camera, communication with your teammates has become more important than ever.

Spoiler: Overlord

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Overlord is about a guy who's transported to a low-level fantasy setting in the body of an epic-level D&D 3.5 lich, and forced to act like a stereotypical evil overlord... only for the act to become more and more genuine as he slowly goes mad with power and starts to forget what a mortal body was like. It ranges from black comedy when the story is told from the lich's perspective, to straight action/suspense/tragedy/horror when we see things through the eyes of the world's native inhabitants.

Log Horizon also has its own TTRPG with some interesting mechanics (such as aggro management), though most of the material for it hasn't been translated.

[goto124]

Thanks for the info on Log Horizon!

There's a webcomic called Elf Only Inn. It's about the drama between players and the game developers in an MMO.

[Chimera245]

This reminds me of a game I tried to run once.

I had each PC roll up two characters, one "Modern-day dude who plays that popular MMO" using d20 Modern, and one "MMO character that the first would likely create" using 4e D&D. The players would have to flip back and forth with their "real-life" and MMO characters to find the dark secret behind the company running the game, kinda .hack//-like.

Group broke up before it got very far, though...

By far, the biggest impact you can have to make the world seem game-like is just the fluff.
Describe the way monsters vanish and leave floating loot drops.
Describe the green bubbles or floating "Z"'s that come out of people's heads when they have status effects. Describe the floating names over other "PC"s heads, and how some of those names are "-=LeGoLaS=-" or "Warriorgirl_69" or "ghf7694828".
Describe the occasional "player" who creates their character in the obvious image of something else. Like the Warlock in red-and-yellow full plate named "ir0n_man".
Let the players find out that other "PC"s are being played by someone vastly different than their character, like the big-breasted bikini-wearing elf sorceress, who's actually a chubby sweaty guy in a basement, or an eleven-year-old kid. Or the paladin who's played by a total jerk, etc.
If something that shouldn't have, play it off as a bug or glitch. Or do it intentionally sometimes. Like have an AI NPC be walking in place, stuck on some obstacle, clipping into it slightly.
Don't forget to let the players have access to the kinds of tools one would have in a game, like friends lists, and instant messaging.

Pen-and-Paper RPG's are already games, just play that up this time, instead of trying to suspend disbelief as usual. The only thing I would suggest suspending the disbelief of is the turn-based initiative system. I Highly doubt any MMO would be successful if it had a turn-based system. And the P&P RPG that you're truly playing won't be successful WITHOUT it. In the game world, everything happens in real-time, and rolling initiative just represents which players hit their keys and clicked their mouse first, etc. (or whatever kind of control scheme the game has).

[Vrock_Summoner]

... Which, actually, is another potential tip. If you go the route mentioned above about giving the MMO-playing character their own separate but mostly mental stats (for things like metagame knowledge and exploits/bugs) you should also make Initiative be attached to the person behind the screen.

[Âmesang]

Force characters to only move in one direction and, if they die, their characters jump straight up before disappearing into the ground.

It's sure to give you game that real arcade feel!

[bulbaquil]

By far, the biggest impact you can have to make the world seem game-like is just the fluff.
Describe the way monsters vanish and leave floating loot drops.
Describe the green bubbles or floating "Z"'s that come out of people's heads when they have status effects. Describe the floating names over other "PC"s heads, and how some of those names are "-=LeGoLaS=-" or "Warriorgirl_69" or "ghf7694828".
Describe the occasional "player" who creates their character in the obvious image of something else. Like the Warlock in red-and-yellow full plate named "ir0n_man".
Let the players find out that other "PC"s are being played by someone vastly different than their character, like the big-breasted bikini-wearing elf sorceress, who's actually a chubby sweaty guy in a basement, or an eleven-year-old kid. Or the paladin who's played by a total jerk, etc.
If something that shouldn't have, play it off as a bug or glitch. Or do it intentionally sometimes. Like have an AI NPC be walking in place, stuck on some obstacle, clipping into it slightly.
Don't forget to let the players have access to the kinds of tools one would have in a game, like friends lists, and instant messaging.

Pen-and-Paper RPG's are already games, just play that up this time, instead of trying to suspend disbelief as usual. The only thing I would suggest suspending the disbelief of is the turn-based initiative system. I Highly doubt any MMO would be successful if it had a turn-based system. And the P&P RPG that you're truly playing won't be successful WITHOUT it. In the game world, everything happens in real-time, and rolling initiative just represents which players hit their keys and clicked their mouse first, etc. (or whatever kind of control scheme the game has).

Right. If you use descriptive combat, rather than saying something like "Bob, the dire bear angrily rips its claws across your chest, raking into your skin leaving a vicious-looking scar as it deals 21 points of damage," say "Bob, the dire bear angrily rips its claws across your chest. As is usual, you feel no pain and bear no visible wounds, but Alice and Dave, you see the number 21 flash above Bob's head."

[Slipperychicken]

I'll just leave this here....

Spoiler

Show

That sounds like a great way for the GM to commit suicide-by-angry-player.

One of the lesser-known benefits of video-games is that the developer is not present for the player to pummel or berate over these kinds of shenanigans.

[Vrock_Summoner]

That sounds like a great way for the GM to commit suicide-by-angry-player.

One of the lesser-known benefits of video-games is that the developer is not present for the player to pummel or berate over these kinds of shenanigans.

Also, the video game's equivalent of the player handbook is not nearly as durable or suited to being used for bludgeoning.

[8BitNinja]

I'm new to this thread, so forgive me if I mention an already suggested idea.

Add a crafting and resource gathering system. Mining for Mithril to make a sword will definitely make them feel as of this was a video game. I know from firsthand experience.

[CoreBrute23]

You might want to see if your game is more a serious drama (perma-death/a time limit to resurrect people) or a comedy (think Southpark Stick of Truth, where the enemy complains about the time turn orders take, or Order of The Stick cheesing the rules). Just the way the people around you act, either treating the rules as sacrosanct 'I can't hate you, you succeded on your diploamcy roll' or appreciating the logic of it 'we can't escape from battle-there's a magical barrier preventing us from running away' can really give a video game feel.

None of the big "trapped in a videogame" anime have been any good, really. Even Overlord which everyone said was good was dull, there were no stakes for the protagonist ever, and even when there suddenly might have been it took literally an entire episode of exposition about the game rules to explain why there were actually stakes. It is exactly the wrong way to do an OP protagonist (in the way that One Punch Man is the right way to do it).

I would suggest Grimgar and Konosuba as examples of how an anime did the 'living in a video game' well. Grimgar worked because it played the drama straight, showing how scary the world was if you had no idea how video games worked, along with permadeath.

Konosuba is the exact opposite, with world rules like Fantasy RPGs (classes, quests, monsters, etc) but everyone except the hero is almost a complete moron. And even he isn't that bright, getting in terrible amounts of trouble. The best part is, he's supposed to be the hero-but no one treats him like it. Good comedy.

I'd suggest Re-Zero, but that has less fantasy rpg video game rules, and more like Dark Souls but more traumatic. It's an excellent series though.

I haven't figured out how to make NPCs be like video-game NPCs without making the whole game boring. Don't these roleplaying games thrive on having the in-universe characters react somewhat realistically to the world and what the PCs do?

You could have the NPCs be indestructible, and see how the world goes from there. NPCs might have personalities, but they can't actually engage enemies or protect themselves from monsters, which is why they give quests to heroes. The Heroes can't hurt them, but they need each other, in a sort of symbiotic relationship.

[AMFV]

Well the first part of the problem you have is this: Sword Art Online is NOT a Video Game, it's a Manga, it uses certain video game tropes for it's story, but it's a manga not a game, the rules fit a different narrative structure. If you're trying to do something like Sword Art Online you'd do better examining it and the tropes it uses rather than trying to make something similar to a video game which isn't even what it really is.