Dungeons and Dragons
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The thread name is intentionally generic so we can reuse it for D&D stuff, but...
I was looking at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/15/dungeons_dragons_finally_going_digital/ . How do you folks feel about that?
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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I don't play D&D anymore, but it looks like (on the surface), exactly what it needs. So many people play online now, via a hodgepodge of tools/sites.
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@Arkandel said in Dungeons and Dragons:
I was looking at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/15/dungeons_dragons_finally_going_digital/ . How do you folks feel about that?
About fucking time? But about 10 years too late for me to give a shit.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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My first thoughts come after reading the comments about it on Slashdot. Some people objecting to these new forms - and notice this was on a major technology-related site, so we're not exactly talking about luddites here - was due to the fact this is online at all. Someone specifically mentioned the state of old character sheets, for instance, and how much they value them after they've been erased and re-written over years, how you could tell a character's age by the state of the sheet, etc.
It just reminded me a lot of people objecting to ebook readers because it doesn't feel and smell the same. I mean I guess I get it? But... that's nostalgia, something very subjective; a kid starting D&D today wouldn't give a shit if they don't get to use a paper character sheet, all other things being equal.
More reasonable objections can be raised about the loss of camaraderie around the table. Now that I can get into, since even assuming the players are physically present but just using their phones/tablets to keep track of the action there's something very distracting about the devices even being there (and yes guys who spend half the session looking at/pointing out youtube videos are literally the worst).
But, and this isn't irrelevant to MU* either, catching new players is probably much easier if some of the record-keeping and footwork can be made nice and become automated, at least optionally; a nice graphical GUI like in games can go a long way into turning some of those filthy casuals into RPG hobbyists.
Some of you will grumble at me for saying so, but if they could even largely automate or at least speed up combat I'd be grateful.And of course, the distance factor. Some of us just don't have RL gamer-friends willing to play, so something has to give. The more tools we have out there to play online campaigns (and I know there are several onlne) the better.
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I have signed up for the beta and look forward to seeing what all it will offer1
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Didn't they try to do this when 4e was out and it failed outright?
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I think it is a good idea to attempt to grow their market, though honestly i would never use it.
The main draw for tabletops to me is the in personal social interaction which would be pretty much lost on the computer, but I am not big on on-line tabletops in general. From my limited experience with them they have tended to combine the main downsides of table tops with the main downsides of mushing with little gain. -
I think it's high time that D&D emphasized digital access, but aside from that? The editorial comments in that article are really kind of mean and stereotyped.
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@Bobotron said in Dungeons and Dragons:
Didn't they try to do this when 4e was out and it failed outright?
I suspect this has to do with edition wars type stuff going on. 4e was loathed by a very large portion of the established playerbase, so they wouldn't be likely to adopt things branded 4e, and a lot of the newer players, I imagine wanted something specifically offline to play in person.
Bad timing.
In addition to this, there were free srds already floating around that would compile all the rules already.
I'm still waiting for Pathfinder's video game to come out. It looked suspiciously like a Mount & Blade mod, which I think would have been awesome.
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@Bobotron said in Dungeons and Dragons:
Didn't they try to do this when 4e was out and it failed outright?
Well, just because they failed once it doesn't mean they will again. When did that stop us around here from making new shitty MUSHes?
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel
LOL. This is true. And hopefully they'll succeed this time. -
This kind of makes me miss Treyvan. It had it's problems down the road but it was a lot of fun for a long while.
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Meh. I don't know what they're trying to accomplish at this point. Pathfinder pretty much stole their lunch money, ate their cake and slept with their girlfriend already; what with putting in a compendium of all the official core and most of the base expanded material on Paizo's site for free and open access, and having pretty much all additional suppliments being available through pdf for years now.
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@Killer-Klown said in Dungeons and Dragons:
Meh. I don't know what they're trying to accomplish at this point. Pathfinder pretty much stole their lunch money
They are trying to get their money back.
For many companies, not just WotC or even RPG makers, somehow figuring out how to monetize being online is the dream. Selling people conveniences through microtransactions - unlocking more than the basic classes for example, letting players download or export campaign logs and character sheets, offering GMs more options to create monsters and maps through a nice UI - might be it.
Or they might not go the microtransactions way but pick a different route? Ads? Players-are-the-product? Dunno. They probably don't either, and for now they don't have to - they need to hook us in first before they ask for something in return. If they don't get the users it will fail no matter what, so at first they'll need come up with an attractive honeypot.
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@Bobotron said in Dungeons and Dragons:
Didn't they try to do this when 4e was out and it failed outright?
Did it fail? Their online tools is the only thing that made 4e workable for me. So many powers to track...
WoD needs this, too, but I don't think they'll ever get there.
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@Lisse24 said in Dungeons and Dragons:
WoD needs this, too, but I don't think they'll ever get there.
At least WoD is available online. D&D .pdfs are not. Or were not, I don't know if they are available now.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@Ganymede Everything up to 4e is, I presume this is WotC's attempt to perhaps release 5e pdf's without having to go through third party sellers.
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The first stage of the beta opened today. So far there... really isn't that much to test, really, from what I can see. What they've made available is a help files with a simple index, and categorized searchable spellbook and monsters' compedium. The interface is clean enough, but so far it's nothing that much better than what you can see on a wiki.
Hopefully the next stages will bring in the oomph.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel Actually, what they've put up is THE Compendium. Not just monsters. The basic rules for how to play the game. Basic equipment, armor, mounts, lifestyle costs, spells, etc. A breakdown of the stats (both abilities and skills). How to run a basic campaign. Essentially... everything you would need to run a D&D 5E starting campaign.
Edited to add: Spells. All the spells. Searchable by class, name, level, tags, casting time, or any mixture of the above. You can search multiple classes at once, refine the search through level, toss in any tags (healing, utility, etc.)... its easier to find that one spell you want than ever before. The spells list has a handy button that takes you back to the Compendium to if you need to refresh on how to cast a spell, under the same header you can look at schools of magic, combining effects... this is pretty nifty stuff!
Items are listed as searchable first by Category (armor, potion, etc.), then name, rarity, if it requires attunement, tags, and the magic bonus the item offers. Again, you can search multiple categories at once and the top righthand of the page has a handy link to take you back to the Compendium for Magic Item rules.
Monsters: Searchable by Category (Aberration, Celestial, etc.), Name, Challenge Range, Size, and Environment. Also with handy button to take you straight to the Monster Rules.
They've just put everything from at least one, and possibly two books, online, for free.
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@Miss-Demeanor said in Dungeons and Dragons:
@Arkandel Actually, what they've put up is THE Compendium. Not just monsters. The basic rules for how to play the game. Basic equipment, armor, mounts, lifestyle costs, spells, etc. A breakdown of the stats (both abilities and skills). How to run a basic campaign. Essentially... everything you would need to run a D&D 5E starting campaign.
That sounds more promising then. I just hoped to see the actual interface they have up for running campaigns - the sleeker that is the more likely I am to actually pay for it when it goes live.
I suppose it'll also depend on what the payment model will be... a monthly subscription, buy to own, features like print on demand etc.
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@Miss-Demeanor said in Dungeons and Dragons:
They've just put everything from at least one, and possibly two books, online, for free.
It's not for free, it's for the free beta.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
