I mentioned this in the Regimental Chess thread, but I think this deserves its own thread since it may be of interest to anyone who plays tabletop games (regardless of the type of game): I'll quote myself here: And:
It's a cool program, but I got stuck in the tutorial trying to hold one object and pick up a second (couldn't get it to work following the very explicit directions). The only question I have about all of this is the legality of playing some copyrighted games. Obviously, there's no problem with playing most standard or player-invented card games. But there's talk of games like M:TG, and Coup (wondering if its the same game I tried over 20 years ago) and so on...
I played uh, Netrunner? On some sort of simulator a while back, as long as you're not making money off it I doubt they'll care, although Magic is a interesting one. This looks like a cool thing though, I might grab it if it goes on sale!
The general consensus is that the makers of the game are off the hook as far as legality is concerned, because they are not actually supplying any of the mods. And there's some concern though about Steam Workshop -- Steam may decide what is and is not permitted as far as what they host, in order to avoid problems for themselves, at least until the holders of the copyrights chime in. It's not just the games themselves, but people can actually scan the physical cards and boards and then distribute them. They could do that before, but it wasn't much of a risk to allow it.
BTW, one of the neater things I saw was the rpg module -- it has a variety of fully animated miniatures for monsters and so on, as well as pieces you can use to build a small dungeon layout.
I hope it requires the Surgeon Sim hand-grab mechanics to pick up pieces and your massive wooden arm can knock things everywhere... (Not really, but I would sure as hell download that mod)
I think it may be time for me to revisit Tabletop Simulator, considering that the all-time best (and one of the most influential) board games of the 20th century, now has an official DLC: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/10/01/cosmic-encounter-tabletop-simulator/ Granted, I haven't played around with it much since it was in beta, mostly because I felt the controls were kind of awkward, and I was waiting for them to add scripting capability to objects (which no one ever would confirm to be in their plans, or agree with me about that being a desirable feature). But... IT'S FREAKING COSMIC ENCOUNTER!!! BTW, without CE, you possibly may never have ever had Magic: The Gathering (and hence, CCGs, to me, "no great loss", except for the fact that I paid for 2 weeks in Europe through sales of my old unopened M:TG cards). CE was one of the very first significant asymmetrical strategy games, and thus was a big influence on the gaming industry, particularly with its card-based combat, and a rich, but simple/elegant design that ensured that no two games would ever feel the same. http://store.steampowered.com/app/405130/
