In the WG proposal, @sophie-isla.myatproto.social asked a very good question:
In the WG description it only says video games but I think all games are including right?
[ref]
With The Pentaract, I’ve only considered video games for the data set; the existing games.gamesgamesgamesgames.* lexicons are tailored specifically for video games.
To sharpen the question, I believe we’re discussing analog games like board games and TTRPGs (please correct me if that’s wrong).
I think the answer is no for two reasons:
- This makes the GWG mandate overly broad. We now need to consider all games rather than just video games. That could dilute the value of our standards for video games, which I expect to be the largest user of our standards.
- Analog games receive limited utility from atproto. Depending on the outcome of the “Is the GWG just one group?” discussion, this may change. Currently I envision this group developing tools for both games metadata and games infrastructure. I’m sure analog games could benefit from metadata on protocol, but there’s just no value for them on the infrastructure side.
All of that said, I could see a world where we define a more generic game metadata lexicon that can support both digital and analog games, along with sidecars to cover the further requirements of digital vs analog games.
Personally I think we’d be better served in the long run by creating a separate WG/lexicon namespace for analog games, so let’s discuss.
I would love to hear from some more TTRPG players/board gamers (I’m only peripherally involved) but there have been a lot of projects integrating analog games with digital tools. Just off the top of my head: projected maps, remote play, open art assets, generators (maps, npcs, random encounters, etc), coordination/outreach/meetups, sales and marketing, game design collaboration, sound tracks, all the cool stuff @rpg.actor is doing. I think all of these aspects, and many more, could benefit a lot from atproto integration.
But to your first point, that’s understandable. Maybe a separate lexicon would be the better way to go; though I do wonder if that could be a lost opportunity for gamers/designers who increasingly integrate between the digital and analog worlds. That being said, I’m way outside my wheelhouse so have no objections to a narrower video game only lexicon.
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I think that tabletop games wouldn’t be entirely out of scope for the GWG, but support would definitely be limited to VTT systems or other auxiliary features. It would be very cool to be able to use atproto to make a campaign-specific setup of Pulser from Hard Wired Island, for example, but it would take some work to figure out what would be needed and coordination with rpg.actor would be key.
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We are very pro-tabletop!
Our lexicon already supports 9 different TTRPG systems officially, and continues to grow as the community expands it with new additions. They’re already being used by a few characters in LitRPG and private virtual campaigns. Systems like these provide commonly understood mechanics that can work cross-game. (see games.laurenshof.online)
On the paper front, we’ve already had success with IRL onboarding via print-and-scan character claims, which provided newcomers their first ATproto account via an rpg.actor powered session. The master records also offer a way for servers and dungeon masters to validate a stats equally, opening a chance for verified table-hopping like with the classic Adventurer’s League community. We’re very curious what that could become, at-scale.
There are already a few other lexicons that support defining games beyond the expected examples. Projects like rolld.at offer a quality board game option, and deckbelcher.com does cards, and both can lead to inventive interoperability. Where could that lead?
Whether this workgroup is exclusive to video games or not won’t change our approach to anything, but may leave great opportunities at the door if people aren’t sure they qualify.
Anything that’s fun should be welcome!
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I’ve been experimenting a lot with hybrid gaming.
I’ve got a whole system half built for something I’m calling ePnP basically a Pencil and Paper / Table Top game where your character sheets are digital and connected to a GM hub. The idea is to make the interactions between players physical but the interactions with the game systems (eg. “What movement modifier do I take while walking in mud?”) be digital. A system like this could gain some benefit from atproto
I would look at the spectrum here regarding the amount of interaction that occurs via computers.
So something like a video game - yes clearly the target here
Something like DnD when played with electronic character sheets on a computer (like a lot of people do) - likely worth considering
A board game - Probably not worth considering
This is not to say that the lexicon describing a game can’t also describe a board game, but to be frank that’s somewhat the least exciting bit about games on AtProto
The absurd example would be me seeing on some system that Trezy is playing Monopoly. I ‘m not going to jump on a plane to go play with him. But if I see that he’s playing Chaos Soccer I could join his run through. The logistics to get me on a plane to play a board game is covered in the events WG while the logistics to get me to join an in progress video game belong here.
That being said if people want to join here and talk about the application of this work for board games and other entirely in-person games then I’m happy for that. I think the important part is that we shouldn’t let “but that doesn’t work for board games” be something that derails an otherwise good plan.
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Board games and TTRPGs are similar enough mechanically that I suspect any system that integrates hybrid TTRPGs would have no problems doing the same for hybrid board games.
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I do wonder if that could be a lost opportunity for gamers/designers who increasingly integrate between the digital and analog worlds
This is a very good point. I bias towards more generics, so I’m fully open to moving down this path.
The existing games.gamesgamesgamesgames.game record only requires three fields: name, createdAt, and applicationType. That last one is the only issue for analog games.
I think we could benefit from deprecating the applicationType field and renaming it something like kind, which eliminates the implication that a game must be an application. Then we can work on other modifications to the lexicon.
The one thing I think we’d really need to add is a modality (or similar) for analog, digital, or hybrid. I think it’ll be critical for lexicon consumers to be able to differentiate between them. For example, Cartridge is only interested in video games. Hybrid games may also be interesting eventually, but it’ll never cover analog games.
Another example: Stream Place currently uses games.gamesgamesgamesgames.game records to allow streamers to choose the game to be associated with their stream. It could be interesting to allow streamers to select board games as well (maybe we grow a whole genre of boarg game streamers!), but they would want to be able to disambiguate so search is easier for users.
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Yeah, i’d be curious to hear about what guidelines we could use to decide what is or isn’t a video game.
I definitely agree that there’s a continuum or some kind of distinction to draw, but for me it’s something more along the lines of aptoro records that are metadata about games vs some kind of system integration w/ games.
ATProto integration with games is way clearer to me about why it’d fit into this working group. The metadata about games is messier and i don’t know how to define the scope. I wouldn’t count a choose your own adventure book on paper as a video game. I would count a branching narrative game on Itch. I also don’t know what to say about board games that have digital versions, say Wingspan or Carcassone. But perhaps those just get wrapped up as different release formats/platforms.
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