Demiurge - Build 0.9.4a

Demiurge - Build 0.9.4a

Demiurge is an online RPG hosting program, consisting of a chat room system, each room complete with it's own dice bot, an arena for melee combat simulations and more. The perfect tool for online, pen and paper style role-playing, especially with game systems such as WotC's Dungeons & Dragons.

What is Demiurge? A question simple enough to ask, yet complicated enough to answer. To answer in short, I would have to say that it is an online RPG hosting program, consisting of a chat room system, each room complete with it's own dice bot, and an arena for melee combat simulations. So what makes it different from other programs of it's like (who, even if few, do indeed exist)? Well, most online RPG hosts tend to develop higher and higher, towards more complicated systems, and then, finally, they end up being CRPGs (Computer Role-playing Games) or MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games). That's exactly what I, with Demiurge try to avoid. Some might say that Demiurge is simple and straightforward, but perhaps too simplistic for a computer RPG host. Well, my answer is this: Even if Demiurge is a computer program, which players use online, I want to keep it like RPGs were meant to be, i.e. Pen and Paper. Since you can't use pen and paper RPing online, you can use this program which is meant exactly for that. No sophisticated stuff, ruining all the pleasure of RPing and making players dependent on their program. Role playing is all about imagination, and it's hard to imagine something when everything is thrown right in your face, pre-made. That is why even the arena functions like it does. It doesn't have a map system, since IRL (in real life) role-playing, mapping is supposed to be done by the players. Thus, the arena is only meant to facilitate and speed up melee combat, with the use of minis, just like a table, pen and paper RPG does. Everything else in the program is just that. Tools for the DM and the players, but tools which help and do not hinder. This is the goal of Demiurge, and whether it will turn out like this or not remains to be seen, but as I said, the "default" game for use with Demiurge is the Pen and Paper, Dungeons and Dragons (tm of WotC). All that remains is to try it out and enjoy.

If you wish to know more about the current version, what it improves and what it brings new, check out the info at www.myrkul.net where you can see the readme file, view screen-shots as well as learn more about the program.

(c)2000 - 2001 Rotten (www.myrkul.net)