Knights of Pen and Paper 2 is a little hard to explain. It’s released today though, so we’re going to have a go anyway…
Long before Knights of Pen and Paper 2, role-playing games began their life as pen and paper affairs, with a dungeon master or game master spinning an adventuring tale for their friends, who unfurled individual yarn through stat choices and dice rolls: you can read our history lesson on RPGs to catch up. The trouble is, they were sort of dependent on two things: having an imagination, and having friends to play with.
Then computer RPGs came along and the developers took over the role of dungeon master, compiling your adventure from afar, and the computer started handling the stats and logic. Before long, you could have any number of adventures without leaving the comfort of your home, or having to talk to anyone! What a world we’re living in!
What happens if you aren’t quite ready to give up on your twelve-sided die, but you’re missing some of those key components? Then Knights of Pen and Paper 2 – out now on Android and iOS – is (probably) for you.
You build a party. You pick their stats. You set off on quests. You generally delve into some dungeons, fight some monsters, gather experience and somewhat save the day. So far, so standard. But in Knights of Pen and Paper 2, the field of play is a little unusual, as computer RPGs go: your party are sitting at a table, with a dungeon master on the other side. It’s a novel idea, and an interesting new/old take on the bloated RPG genre.
Is Knights of Pen and Paper 2 the best RPG ever? No, probably not. But like its predecessor, it can be a lot of fun, and you can be as interactive or hands-off with the dungeon master role as you choose – you can dictate the pace and style of play, or let the game’s engine generate things on the fly if you want to be surprised – so the replay potential is high. You could say it’s sort of like the RPG equivalent of the procedurally generated endless runner, but that’s probably not doing it justice.
