Tabletop Simulator

[Warhawk]

Righto, so there's this thing called Tabletop Simulator. Now I know what some of you are thinking: Usually either A) "Who wants to play something meant to be tangible on a computer?" or B) "What the heck does "tabletop" mean again?" Personally, I blame their lack of marketing; they seem to expect enthusiastic players to do all of that for them by word of mouth... And so here we are.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the platform, I gotta clarify just what exactly this thing is and how it can be used, otherwise any discussion about it won't make any sense. Tabletop Simulator would be better described as "Virtual Reality Semi-Computerized Tabletop/Wargame/Cardgame/Boardgame Creator." Though you'll find paid DLC for it focused on specific games, and screenshots of the usual standbys like chess, checkers and poker, what you'll find on the Steam Workshop is a gigantic pile of everything from out of print games from the 1950s to wild homebrew designs that otherwise never would have seen the light of day. All of that stuff on the Workshop is free, and you can make more of it, too. And quite easily, especially for those of you already familiar with 3D modeling and modding.

TTS is different from a competitor called Vassal mainly in that the playing field is a fully-rendered 3D table, with a working physics engine to boot. Though it can be rough around the edges in some places, this means that it isn't just a 2D grid or board. It can be a billiards table. It can be a whole bowling alley. The physics part isn't really its strong suit, but I hope you get my point: It's a VR environment, where rolling dice actually involves cubical objects rolling over a surface using a value for gravity and friction.

But it's also a semi-computerized VR environment. Objects have all sorts of properties that an in-person tabletop game never could. More text can be crammed into pop-up object descriptions than could ever fit on cardstock. Objects can be re-tinted with different coloring at a moment's notice. Objects can be cloned, deleted, re-scaled, locked into place, suspended in mid-air, and (if you're enterprising) even scripted using Java to have working buttons with all kinds of functions. It straddles the boundary between a videogame and a tabletop setting, permitting game designs that are uniquely suited to this environment.

Players of conventional tabletop are understandable in their concern. A lot of the fun comes from building and painting models, for instance. True, there's no replicating that. But you can make and texture a 3D model (complete with bumpmap and collider), import it into the game and rig it with fancy things like rotational pivot points and particle effects. But what about the face-to-face interaction that's lost? Well that's true, also. But nothing stops you from using voice chat, and many features are intended to replicate the experience anyway: Other players' mouse cursors (rendered as "hands") are always visible; Players can be "blindfolded" to represent looking away or moving to separate rooms; Hidden zones and even card hands prevent people from peaking (the ultimate poker face) and so on.

But the best part of all of this is that it is entirely customizable, from the background panorama and lighting to the hundreds of objects you can throw in there. Plenty of generic things exist like playing cards, dice, coins, building blocks and whatnot, but you can "import" pictures, models and Javascripting almost to your heart's content. These assets can be stored in your Steam profile's data cloud so that they are readily available, uploaded to third-party websites if you'd prefer, or even loaded directly from your hard drive (though this last one prevents other players from seeing those objects). When it's all said and done, when you load up a chess board it ain't just chess. You can literally toss the board into the abyss off the side of the table and then build an entirely new game from the ground up, then upload it to the Workshop and play with anyone in the world. Real-time not your style? Heck, just let them use your save instance of the game so they can stew on it for a week and get back to you. Instant Play By Email.

It's an insanely powerful platform for how cheap it is, and barring copyright strikes for Workshop uploads (which never touches anything locally saved or played in small groups anyway), the world is your oyster.

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With all that out of the way, let the discussion begin!

I've been designing tabletop wargames for almost a decade now. At first it was with clumsily compiled cardboard and printouts, usually without any willing playtesters, but TTS changed all of that overnight for me. But truth be told, my passion was in designing, not fighting to get published in a very, very competitive and expensive tabletop market. Because of this, I ended up leaning towards hybridized games, meant to be played on TTS specifically. But don't let that stop you; I've seen more than one Kickstarter project being demoed on this thing. Maybe yours will be next?

My current project is TRS BSG-related, but in the past I've made games involving TOS BSG, Star Trek TOS, LotGH, Ace Combat and a bunch of other stuff. My weakest point is Javascripting, but every day I learn something new. If anyone here is just starting to get into this program and could use some help, just hit me up and I'd be happy to oblige.

Must warn you up front: There are a lot of assets circulating around on the Workshop. Many are ripped from videogames, but some come from other sources. TTS isn't capable of handling really high-quality models, so that tends to weed out most theft I'd imagine. For my part, I just about always state that I'm not responsible for 3D models, though the 2D assets are often my original work.

Now for the good stuff: Pictures! All of the attached are from projects I've worked on over the years. Some are published and playable. Others got bogged down in design troubles or I otherwise ran out of motivation. Enjoyed every minute of them anyway. Feel free to ask about any of them!

 

[kjc733]

Nice informative post and clearly a lot of enthusiasm there, always good to see.
I had no idea of the level of capability on this software, clearly I'll need to take a closer look at it. Shame I didn't realise it earlier in lockdown
Honestly I feel more intreaged by this than virtually any other pc game I've seen announce over the last few years. From what you've described there's a ton of potential here.
The words low polygon jumped out with large flashing highlights and a loud klaxon. Being an Armada community low poly is our bread and butter here. There's a model request thread here so if you are struggling to find something then ask and if it tickles someone's fancy we may be able to work something out. No promises, we all have lives after all.
So your bsg project, are you using existing mechanics (eye b5wars hex, x-wing flight) or is this something you're building completely from the ground up.

 

[Warhawk]

I had no idea of the level of capability on this software, clearly I'll need to take a closer look at it.

In my experience it's been a huge hurdle just getting folks to take the thing seriously. Usually it's a glance at the page, "Whoopee, 3d chess," and they give it a pass. It's the customization that really makes it shine, and sadly that isn't really visible up front because (surprise, surprise) the TTS developers don't want to get embroiled in copyright problems by using exact renditions of existing games for marketing purposes. That, and who knows how many homebrews exist that we'll never see because they're all private affairs.

The words low polygon jumped out with large flashing highlights and a loud klaxon. Being an Armada community low poly is our bread and butter here.

It sure isn't an RTS like Armada, but with a bit of elbow grease you can stretch it pretty far. Ever since they made dealing with meshes easier it's possible to make games look pretty darn good, and so long as you're willing to accept that it's gotta be a turn-based game, the sky's the limit. Heck, you can always integrate it backwards with other games anyway; for instance, I already used it to build my own campaign for BSG: Deadlock and played it out using skirmishes.

I think the most frustrating thing a community like this will find is that to keep your models from being used willy-nilly, you'll have to "paywall" them behind a Unity 3D project asset bundle. It's the only way to prevent someone from extracting the .obj files and textures that TTS allows you to use otherwise. Even then, you can copy and paste an asset bundle from one board and import it into a totally different one with no restriction, to say nothing of download directly, so as far as public Workshop uploads are concerned you might as well assume it's going to be used without credit. I can't deny that I've seen tons of this behavior and already leveraged some of it myself, so it is what it is. Doesn't mean you can't keep your work private and between friends, of course.

There's a model request thread here so if you are struggling to find something then ask and if it tickles someone's fancy we may be able to work something out. No promises, we all have lives after all.

Bearing in mind the above, I was already a bit worried about asking. Was only gunning for Coxxon's old models because those were originally released for public use anyway, and I'm only missing a couple. Anything more than that could get tricky, so it depends on what folks think about it.

So your bsg project, are you using existing mechanics (eye b5wars hex, x-wing flight) or is this something you're building completely from the ground up.

Personally I don't like importing games 1:1, even if they are good, and when it comes to my homebrew designs I try to use them for inspiration, not foundation. Also, most of the folks I've been able to play with tend to shy away from the really crunchy mechanics, so I design them with simplicity of execution/depth of planning in mind. The results can get a little strange but it works.

The current project is called BSG: CIC. It's basically taking the combat and resource management portions of the Fantasy Flight boardgame (a TTS fan favorite) and expanding them to their logical conclusion. Think of it as a rag-tag fleet simulator, with the Pegasus added for good measure. The combat system is totally original (at least as original as you can be with an existing setting) but not terribly complex, while the strategic layer is a bit like the boardgame but with much more content. An entire player role is just being the President of the Colonies, managing the food and fuel consumption of every single civilian vessel while trying to keep them alive whenever they get pulled into combat. Though it hasn't been given a trial run yet, it's thematically balanced such that the humans have rather superior units, but depend on scarce and depleting resources to keep them in operation, and they have to babysit civilians, while the toasters... you get the idea. Besides, why try to crack open the Galactica when you can just snipe the fleet's food supply and watch the meatbags eat each other, eh?

A TOS-themed grand strategy game was mostly completed earlier, using simplified mechanics of the above, but it didn't catch on. A shame, since I went all out and made that 3D star map, which, as it turns out, does let you measure the distances between objects in three-dimensional space. I took huge liberties with the background lore, though, so I'm sure someone on here will give me an earful if they ever get to see it.

Once I get the first test run going, I can upload the manual here if anyone would like to take a look. Did I mention that you can straight up drop a PDF onto the table and treat it as if it were a book with nearly unlimited pages?

 

[Warhawk]

First test run of CIC resulted in the humans blind-jumping onto a Cylon outpost, taking to the offense in a reckless manner, then losing some of their best pilots by attrition before being jumped by two basestars. Felgercarb happens.

I wonder if there's any kind of game that folks here would like to see? Armada probably spoils a lot of things compared to tabletop, but still.