Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting, Volume 5(2008), no. 8 The TViews Table Role-Playing Game Ali Mazalek, Basil Mironer, Elijah O’Rear, Dana Van Devender Synaesthetic Media Lab, GVU Center Georgia Institute of Technology 85 5th Street NW, TSRB 209, Atlanta, GA 30332 +1 404 385 3179, email:
[email protected] www: synlab.gatech.edu Abstract 1 Introduction The TViews Table Role-Playing Game (TTRPG) is People across all cultures and age groups engage in a digital tabletop role-playing game that runs on the different forms of gameplay and storytelling, in both TViews table, bridging the separate worlds of tradi- analog and digital form. As pastimes, games and sto- tional role-playing games with the growing area of rytelling offer various kinds of benefits, such as en- massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The tertainment, relaxation, skill building, and competitive TViews table is an interactive tabletop media platform challenges. Many games incorporate storytelling ele- that can track the location of multiple tagged objects in ments, and certain stories also unfold in a game-like real-time as they are moved around its surface, provid- form. ing a simultaneous and coincident graphical display. One form of storytelling gameplay that has gained In this paper we present the implementation of the first appeal since the 1970s are role-playing games, com- version of TTRPG, with a content set based on the tra- monly referred to as RPGs. In RPGs, the players take ditional Dungeons & Dragons rule-set. We also dis- on the roles of fictional characters that they themselves cuss the results of a user study that used TTRPG to have created, and work together to tell a story within explore the possible social context of digital tabletop a given system of rules.