Dungeons & Dragons Tabletop Comes To VR Through Partnership With AltspaceVR (roadtovr.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Wizards of the Coast today announced an official partnership with virtual reality firm AltspaceVR to bring the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game to virtual reality. AlspaceVR is a social virtual reality platform which allows groups of users to share a virtual space. "AltspaceVR bridges the gap between Dungeons & Dragons video games and physically sitting around a table with friends," said Nathan Stewart, brand director for Dungeons & Dragons. "You get the same sense of excitement and drama in the AltspaceVR tavern, from laughing at your buddy's funny goblin voice to watching the d20 bounce and finally land on the natural 20 you needed to hit the beholder terrorizing your party." Starting today, AltspaceVR users have access to a virtual tavern space and officially licensed character sheets, figurines, and terrain tiles.

Comments

Re:Misguided move

[MagickalMyst]

I think that the appeal of D&D has much to do with the fact that it is a table game. For me, the best part of the game is seeing the action happen in your imagination.

While computer games (and by extension, TV & movies) can be entertaining and a lot of fun, they fail to fully illuminate the mind's eye and spark the imagination - so to speak - in the way that traditional role playing games and novels do.

It's kind of like reading a book vs. watching a movie. With a movie or video game, the visuals and audio effects have been created for us. We see and hear the characters as they are portrayed by the creator's imagination.

While reading a book the story becomes more personalized because your own imagination fills in the blanks. This is why people are often disappointed with seeing a movie after reading the book (e.g; In the movie Johnny X didn't look anything like how I pictured him to be!)

Imagination, in my opinion, is the heart and strength of role-playing games - especially D&D.