Toopan Games was born with the mission of promoting immersion tools for the RPG Player.
Before creating Toopan Games, there was already an affinity with the RPG market. We participated in the original translation process of D&D into Portuguese, and a translation and style manual was created by us. We are very proud of having created terms that are still used by all Brazilian RPG players.
One of the most interesting things that happened during this period was a meeting with Dave Arneson, one of the creators of the first role-playing game (along with Gary Gygax). We met Dave when he was invited by the defunct publishing company Abril Jovem to launch the Second Edition of Ad & d, translated by us.
What struck us most about this meeting was the fact that Dave spoke openly that neither he nor Gary Gygax thought that the role-playing game would have so many rules. He told us that he thought the only possible future for playing RPG would be to put these rules on computers that would then solve the countless small rules that exist today in almost all rpgs. That would be a way, according to him, to facilitate the entry of new players.
On this subject, we can say that this is perhaps the biggest obstacle to the genre. There are so many and so detailed rules that it keeps new players away. In this sense, the 5th edition of D&D – and the 2nd edition of Pathfinder – go in the direction of simplifying these rules. The great difficulty is to be able to have rules simple enough not to be a hindrance but detailed enough to not create improbable or ridiculous situations.
This balance between Complexity vs. Likelihood is very delicate and can spoil even the best of adventures. For example, if there is a huge chasm between players and fate but the rules are broken, a lucky player can cross the chasm in a lucky leap and end the adventure before starting it. And then we are in an unsolvable situation: If the DM prevents the action, the players lose their credibility in the rules of the game and there is a feeling of “injustice”. If, on the other hand, the master allows the “impossible jump”, the situation can be comical or ridiculous and then, the story was damaged.
Initially, we focused on what we had been doing for years, that is, the production of playing fields in the form of “tiles”. Taking advantage of the fact that we are in Brazil, we use local materials and managed to build playing fields using organic materials for simulating grass, sisal for the canopies and small sticks like tree trunks.
When the pandemic began, we realized that the focus should be different: we needed a virtual alternative. Then we started to create the Multiverse Designer.
But that’s another story…