So Adam Kinney isn’t quite as ga-ga over Oblivion as I. Understandable. As he points out, it is missing the key ingredient of social interaction with other real humans.

Now why would you want to interact with other humans when you have the computer? ;) I suppose it is true that conversation via a drop down list isn’t doesn’t produce quite as stimulating a conversation. What if the AI reaches the point that a game like Oblivion is indistinguishable from an online multi-player game? Would that be as satisfying?

I digress. As Adam states,

I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed any RPG video game as much as carefree pencil, paper and dice role-playing from the high school years.

Well that’s because no amount of HDR lighting, Anti-aliasing, large texture maps is going to match the lighting effects and graphics going on in your noggin.

I admit, I was into the paper and dice game back in the day. I lived in Guam at the time and kept it on D-L for very self-conscious reasons. The funny part is that my friends, all in different circles (Hawaiian volleyball player, skateboarder, heavy metal dude, African American dude, etc…) didn’t know there was any stigma (imagined or real) to the game. I would cringe when they would tell our friends we were heading to so and so’s house to play Dungeons and Dragons.

But again, I digress…

My company regularly hosts internal conference calls via Skype. It got me thinking one day that Skype would be a wonderful means to play paper and dice Role Playing Games. The difficulty in getting a game together after highschool was not only the lack of time, but also the sparseness of interested parties. There is no way you are going to get six people to drive across town to meet all on the same day and time.

With Skype, geographical location is no longer a limitation. Granted you still lose some of the benefits of physical presence such as passing the Doritos and knocking over your friend’s figurine when he accidentally hits you with his fireball. But at least you have a much larger pool of people to choose from to start a game. Is anyone doing this?