You can say you heard it here first, audio RPGs, char sheets etcc.. in audio, locations in audio, actions etc... all done in audio recordings,

imagine sitting back a lisening and recording audio, so when you need to know something you play an audio file. this could even be good for disabled players.

so your stats would be recorded in a small file for each character etc... location descriptions, and what you do each turn.

I think this could make it very atmospheric too , like the old radio shows preTV

I am going to use a text to MP3 coverter to try it out, I have some natural voice software.

the idea would be to have a folder structure for the game charsheets locations turnactions etc... and record each action in a charectors turn

if rpol allowed mp3 , this would be good

It sounds fun, but players would probably have to be prepared not to need to check back on what was said, or update or correct what they said. Even when the wording is available for review, there tends to be a lot of back and forth questioning (there doesn't necessarily need to be, there just often is). So, while I think this could work and be a lot of fun, it would have to be treated as a very different animal from live or posted play.

say you have a shop of weapons, instead of looking at a list, you click on an item like a long sword and the audio would tell you its cost and strength etc...

or say you want to know the recipe for a poision,

or directionions from an NPC you can keep lisening to

I realise its different, but seems like a whole branch of gaming no ones explored

also with "text aloud 3" & a natural voice from nextup.com the recording are done with no microphone , and are done in a second, so just as easy to alter as text, it takes me no longer than typing the text and pressingfg record to file. Ive already tried an experiment , it works great,

I see this turning into a phone game easily.

You walk into a weapon shop. Press:

1: For a list of weapons
2: For a list of Armor
3: To see the quality weapons
4: To see the quality armor
5: For the discount rack
6: Speak to the next available representative
7: To crack a flirting smile with the store owner.
8: To repeat this menu
9: To leave the store.

you could record the full list in one go, or groups of items.

what I found is "text aloud 3" and a natural voice from nexup.com, its so quick and simple , if you used it you would definatly find a use

imagine a list of effects for a d20

eg what happens when you enter a room

roll d20

click 1,mp3 to 20.mp3 for event

1.skeletons attack.mp3
2.a bow lays on the floor.mp3
...
20.the door slams behind you.mp3

another thought you could drag a recording of an item into your char sheet inantory folder. so you could have a dagger.mp3 a sword.mp3 that would tell you its damage etc...

A bit disheartening that the initial examples of this concept involved shopping and inventory. Apart from generally being the least interesting aspects of roleplaying, those are exactly the kinds of things that this wouldn't be suited for. Ideally, one would listen to a file once and record a response to it. The GM describes the skeletons attacking, the player describes their response to that, another player records their response to that.

Though even that is probably not making the most of the potential of this approach, especially given how prone people can be to asking questions in a combat scene, and how confusing such scenes can get.

It's probably best suited for a game that's more about conversation, or anything that focuses more on what someone says and hears than on what they see, or their physical actions. Then again, I suppose the same could be said for text-based gaming, but at least it's easier to review and revise writing than audio.

there seems to be many ways to use audio, I found it to be more interesting to me in a solo game rather than reading sheets, it would be nice to lisen.

whats excited me is that its a new aspect that has not been used before, I'm not as pro as you, but I kknow it seems like a good idea, I'm sure everybody would have different ideas on its use,

what has shiocked me, is the App "text aloud 3£ and a natural voice from nextup.com, its super easy to record, I keep mentioning it because you've no idea how easy and fast it is, its no more than one click after typing the text.

a really interesting thing I just thought of, is when you have a lot of audio clips, they can be reused, and rearranged in new rpgs cutting the work.

In reply to batfrog (msg # 10):

Okay.

It seems a tad bit like you're advertising for this app. You might want to reconsider how you phrase things, if that's not the impression you want to give.

No sorry not advertising, just amazed how it fitted, but I see what your point is, . I'm sure there are many ways to make audio.

I did a quick game experiment, and I was trying to share my surprise at the results.

I think why I mentioned the apps was , no many people would have experience of computerised voices, and text to speech, I was justr trying to show how it was possible, and I bought the apps a long time ago, they would be much newer stuff now

In reply to batfrog (msg # 13):

Okay, cool. I'll keep it in mind. I like audio stuff.

if your good at audio, you could do a far better job that computer voices, I'm just putting one method forward.

This is an interesting topic.  Those interested in doing actual audio recordings (as opposed to text-to-speech) might look at free and open source digital audio editor software for use in recording, or, for that matter, for post-production and mixdown of audio tracks into a coherent script.

I use a particular FOSS "digital audio editor" which I won't mention for fear of straying into advertising territory.  Your favorite search engine will get you there, I'm sure, if you are at all interested.

I see where there might be room for both types of technologies in this game space.
Use your text-to-speech gear to produce scripts quickly, then use the digital audio editor to add other tracks, background music, sound effects, etc, and mix down the results to a single track for a more polished and professional final product.

One thing I've noticed in my limited experience with text-to-speech scripts:  don't get lazy and abbreviate or salt your scripts with acronyms.  Instead, spell out the words as you want them pronounced.  For example:  T-34 would be read as "Tee dash thirty four" when you actually want the audio to sound like "Tee thirty four".  If an acronym has a meaning or pronunciation, best to spell it out phonetically, as in "You In" for UN or, better, "United Nations".  Plural "s" at the end of an acronym can be especially jarring to the ear.

To use the earlier example: "A column of T-34s" would sound like, "A column of Tee dash thirty four ess" when what you want is "A column of Tee thirty fours"

A simple interface for the various audio clips could be built on HTML or BBCode links in a forum or webpage.  That would, with proper design, make it accessible to computer, tablet, and phone users alike.

Way to go, Batfrog.  You've opened up a whole new world.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:44, Fri 21 July 2017.

Hi Horus

thanks, sure glad others can see it too. I think even games already done in text could be quickly coverted too if the GM was interested in doing something like that, you could also mix games with text and audio.

adding your own effects ontop of the text to speech is nice idea.

reusing audio would be usefull too.

and text from books can be used foe descriptive locations.

can you imagine, a random text creator, one that builds a location randomly, then text to speech :)

In reply to batfrog (msg # 1):

An audio game presents an issue with data retention.  Characters typically have statistics or abilities that affect their ability to interact with the gameworld. Anyone who's played the telephone game knows something about our ability to consistently take in detailed information through our ears, especially if that information is emotionally weighted with prose.  (And off-the-shelf TTS's ability to deliver prose is questionable...)

The need to go back and sift through an audio file for salient details sounds maddening to me.

If you want a true RPG rather than a choose-your-own-adventure adventure game, you're looking at some pretty steep problems from a design standpoint.

In reply to GreyGriffin (msg # 20):

its dosnt have to be all audio, but I'm not saying it cant be all audio

but a stat sheet read out I did works surprisingly well, it felt enjoyable to lisen, different! it was a really new experience, it may seem like it would not work, but it does if you try it. maybe everyone wont like it, but seems like fun to me, and an rpg should be fun.

In reply to batfrog (msg # 21):

Did you actually try this in a game with other people?

In reply to Gaffer (msg # 22):

no just some basic char sheets and turn examples etc... just for fun themed on my friends to see how it sounded. and the speed of the scripts being turned into audio was the most important thing we found,

there is a really unusual feeling lisening to it, it was really different,