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Dungeons and Dragons Goes Digital (theregister.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: Seems like a new digital Dungeons and Dragons will soon be offered. It's not a game in the Baldur's Gate style but rather seems to be about using apps to complement the experience. I wonder if it includes some kind of VOIP facility so the D&D session can be established without everyone being in the same room. From The Register: "The game's publisher, Wizards of the Coast, calls its new effort 'D&D Beyond,' describes it as 'a digital toolset for use with the Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition rules' and has given the service the tagline 'Play with advantage.' Wizards' canned statement says the service will 'take D&D players beyond pen and paper, providing a rules compendium, character builder, digital character sheets, and more -- all populated with official D&D content.' We're also told the service 'aims to make game management easier for both players and Dungeon Masters by providing high-quality tools available on any device.' That repetition of the 'any device' point point suggests this will be a web-based effort, rather than an app. The service will debut in 'summer,' presumably northern hemisphere summer so that folks who play D&D will spend up big on their breaks from school or university." You can watch the promo video here.
So it's roll20 and MythWeavers - but only for 5e?
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providing a rules compendium, character builder, digital character sheets, and more
I'm hoping it will have a free tier, at least for players (I would be OK with only the DM having to pay, but only a very small fee.) If it's too expensive, we'll all just go back to the free options floating around. PCGen for charater sheets and overlays, d20 SRD for the rules, classes, monsters and items, and our imaginations for the rest.
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AD&D Core Rules 2.0 remains even today a pretty decent set of tools and an excellent reference. The 4e character tools certainly didn't top it for their own edition despite its age, and 5e likely won't either.
This isn't because it cannot be done, but rather that they have been and likely still are unwilling to put in even the modicum of effort needed to top a product from the mid 1990s in both utility and completion.
Sad.
"I wonder if it includes some kind of VOIP facility so the D&D session can be established without everyone being in the same room."
This has been possible for almost 2 decades, there are several programs and websites dedicated to running games over the internet. Wizards of the Coast already directly support Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.
The **best** game ever, period.
If that 'aint country, I'll kiss your ass.
It's basically just a prettied up version of Combat for the Atari 2600...
What are you, some kind of senator?
What do you call Neverwinter? How about DDO? Or hey, let's take a blast from the past, what do you call Hillfar or Poolrad?
D&D Goes Digital? Who writes these fucking things?
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Does more, for more systems and is a lot more stable than Roll20
http://www.fantasygrounds.com/home/home.php
Watched the introduction movie and think it looks nice, but... more and more I think phones and tablets don't belong at the D&D table. It simply distracts too much. With several friends, I play D&D 4th edition and some of them use tablets for the character sheet. But in many cases they use the tablet to do other stuff, show funny movies, etc. I know we all don't take D&D extremely serious, it's just part of an evening hanging out, but it's one of the main causes we don't achieve much in our campaign. Often we set rules like 'tablets only for the character sheet'. That works for several evenings and allows us to really move forward in our adventure, but after that, the browsing etc slowly comes back.
Because of the arrival of the 5th edition, I fear the 4th edition online character builder will soon be taken offline. A few months ago, I decided to go back to only use the books. The only thing I really missed was an easy way to deal with the power cards. I made myself an Excel template to solve that. Extra bonus: no more need to cut out all the individual power cards. I hated that after printing out a new version of my character sheet. And although it's less digital, reading and browsing through all the D&D books feels more nerdy. :D
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
The social contact....
For so many reasons.
First and foremost, how long do you play your characters? If the answer is "maybe a year or two, tops", it may be ok. If you have characters that date back ten and more years, you might want to consider that your phone or iPod most likely won't last that long. Can you transfer that character sheet at all? What if your phone gets stolen or breaks? Are you prepared to lose a character you've been playing for years and grew attached to because technology croaks?
And then there's that other aspect. The character sheets that are so old that the sheet itself is already at +2 for the thousands of times you erased HPs and rewrote them, the different pencils used that tell the story and tell even more of the time it took to gain your treasures and equipment and yes, even the various stains the sheet accumulates over the years, where the level of a character can already be deduced by the state the char sheet is in.
I don't really think I'd want to replace that with a phone app. Not to mention that people fiddling with their phone during RPG night are already annoying as fuck anyway.
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I can't wait to tell m'ladies about this! Imma gonna be drownin' in consensual intercourse at my next gatherng.
There is something to having a book shelf of dusty old D&D tomes that screams D&D. Now if you'll excuse me, my mind flayer roomie needs to get on and troll political boards for his daily feeding.
I used to use my TI 99/4A and my Radio Shack Colour Computer as my digital "assistant DM" all the time (in 1984). Character generators, (pseudo) RNG's, lots of little jobs... :-) Coding support programs for AD&D was one of the things that got me into programming in the first place.
I played d&d many years ago, more or less when it started, and since lurking on Twitch recently started watching some sessions to see how the old girl's been getting on. It rather bummed me out, tbh. It feels exactly like I remember, except for endlessly elaborate rule addendums. *Exactly*.
I realize the DM drives the experience but I've watched quite a few different sessions, many of which are clearly popular, and I can't imagine wanting to consume my already limited free time like that. The instant that combat starts, that's 30+ minutes of your life you've lost forever. One of the reasons I've enjoyed licensed rpg computer games is that the tedious rolling and chart lookups is managed automatically. Relying on wetware for this simply escapes me. Useful software for this would literally auto-manage the process apart from quick input from the player, but this seems more like a database reference, replacing a book. Basically, you get to do a search. Call of Cthulhu seems âless about stats and charts, more about story, and seems more appealing.
I mean, whatever turns your crank. Grognards still exist, too, and while not for me, that's cool. It just seems like what the game needs is to manage the tedious crap.
How is this news for nerds? What has D&D got to do with nerds? I'm angry! I want my Slashdot back.
/ sarcasm
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
As I grow older I keep on comparing the behaviors of those in their late teens and 20's to my own to best understand how the world, or at least the culture around me, might be changing. "Kids" today take for granted having a personal computer in their pockets at all times. They are not really forced to memorize as much, be quite as creative, or have as much face to face time. I've seen them sitting in the same room staring at their phone texting/instant messaging each other as a form of communication. WotC are latching on to this idea. Though I believe there is a lot lost in not seeing a friend stand up gleefully and make sword thrust motions after rolling a Nat 20 and confirming. I suspect this product will work. The biggest concern will be WotC's ability to be a software/service provider instead of just licensing to other developers as they have done in the past http://www.mobygames.com/compa.... Presumably WotC would use their Magic Online development group to do this.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Its interesting the WotC is doing something, but honestly there have been computerized D&D aids as long as there has been D&D. One of the first real computer programs I conceived, designed, and wrote myself was a TRS-80 BASIC program to quickly create character sheets back in 1979. Back then the official rules (as I read them anyway) said you were supposed to roll for all abilities, and then decide if you wanted to use that set of rolls. It wasn't uncommon to blow an entire gaming session just in character creation. Very time consuming if you wanted something to fit in the stat-limitations of a class like a Paladin...unless you have a computer.
That edition's GM manual also had rules for randomly generating dungeons on the fly (using die rolls). That could be computerized too, allowing for someone to efficiently GM their own solo campaigns. Sort of like a computer/pen-n-paper hybrid Diablo.
I've got a set of paper forms that were an anomaly back 'then', when GIFs were a novelty and it took three days to download all 28 pages. Fairly cool at the time, it standardized the process. I worked at an office machine dealer and scanned a set of mimeograph stencils to run them off for bunches of people. Laser printers were too expensive for me, and dot matrix was ugly, but I could enhance the scan original with a few tricks.
Then I got the worst idea of my young life. Put all this into a dBase III+ database, build some forms, and get all interactive. Yeah, even a dice roller no one trusted. Just as well, it was my waste of time project.
Which coincided with my discovering and gaining access to NovaNET, Avatar, and ashamedly I'bee been playing that through three platform changes and 3 major revisions. And this is as much DnD as I will eve, ever need again.
Still I get emails from old players, asking if I'm programming anything mobile. D&D Beyond should stop those calls, except for one who will try and figure out if Drake is actually playing.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Worth every damn penny I paid for that product plus add-ons. It's by FAR the best character builder and resource tool that one can use. Their iPad app makes using those characters and playing them a breeze. It's stupidly simple, and it's a single price that gives you everything you need. If you can afford an IOS device you can afford the pittance that is HeroLab to 100% manage your character creation. I haven't used the rest of the tools that HeroLab offers so I can't speak to them.
WOTC's approach is going to trickle out after a year, no updates, and then vanish into the mists of time. Can you even imagine having WOTC keep a company around long enough with the upgrade cycles of Android and IOS? Never happen. Capcom has a better track record at updates than WOTC.
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I think locale based quests could be a fun experience.
Is if they allowed apps to all share the same map and such (like roll20, FG, etc...) so the DM could have detailed maps with character positioning, etc... without them having to do all the busywork of drawing out rooms all the time. Anything that this app can do to cut down on busywork during a game is a win-win.
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I remember writing a DM assistant in BASIC on my Atari 800 back in the 80s that did many of the tables we frequently used (treasure tables, combat, random weather from a Dragon article, etc.). People have been doing this sort of thing for at least 30 years. My Echo will do arbitrary dice rolls. "Alexa, roll a 17-sided die."
There are, in fact, dozens of them, some of the many years old. There are so many, there are guides to choosing the right one.
Some, like Battlegrounds, are extremely good at handling any flavor of d20 systems, and are very, very easy to learn to use. Some, like Roll20, are less versatile, but have free versions, and run in a browser and are thus truly (as) cross-platform (as anything can be). And some, like MapTool, are completely free, with an active support community that is very user friendly, and a macro language that can do virtually anything if you work at it.
This is yet another attempt by Hasbro to turn tabletop gaming into computer gaming, which demonstrates, yet again, that they have absolutely no clue what tabletop gaming is, or what the appeal is, but they know that there are people with money they aren't giving to Hasbro, and dammit! that's not acceptable!
If you have characters that date back ten and more years, you might want to consider that your phone or iPod most likely won't last that long.
Newsflash: There are some apps I've been using for 8+ years. Even though I've had many new phones along the way... do you know what wizardly makes that possible? The magic of system backup and data migration! OOOOOHHH!
Can you transfer that character sheet at all?
Why would you NOT be able to???
What if your phone gets stolen or breaks?
Restore from backup OOOOOHHHH!
Are you prepared to lose a character you've been playing for years and grew attached to because technology croaks?
I had character sheets back in the day, paper is plenty risky all by itself. If for no other reason, Pizza Finger Decay. Then there's also fire or theft (no-one wants to steal your character sheet but they may very well take the backpack it is in).
Offsite Phone backups (which most phones offer) are more reliable than a single piece of paper.
The character sheets that are so old that the sheet itself is already at +2 for the thousands of times you erased HPs and rewrote them
Proof that people can develop nostalgia for even the most annoying of things. I personally despised having to copy character sheets because of the thousands of times things got erased and re-written. Have you no memory of the billions of eraser particles that get everywhere over time???
I don't really think I'd want to replace that with a phone app. Not to mention that people fiddling with their phone during RPG night are already annoying as fuck anyway.
Aha, but with character sheets on the device they can use it for other things LESS because they have to switch back to the character sheet. It's a way to make player more, not less, focused.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not a fan of mixing D&D and tech. I don't want to play virtually, and I don't want a bunch of phones and tablets and laptops at the gaming table. I want to get out my AD&D books (1e, of course), papers, pencils, and dice and sit around a table with my friends. No checking facebook or getting text messages or browsing the web. No distractions. Maybe some low-volume Sabbath or Yes on the turntable, but that's about it...
The sole non-CRPG I ever had fun with was the D6 Star Wars (which was almost like playing yahtzee unless you had two similiarly skilled opponents with a serious of notoriously neutral die rolls.)
Given how many of the RPGs waste times on rules then tell you to 'throw them out when they get boring.' Then what was the point of wasting a huge amount of money on a set of rules you will never use?
And if you're not bothering to use the rules, why aren't you just using an existing gameworld without a defined set of rules, like whatever book series you and your friends really enjoy, or like me and my friends did in gradeschool: A gameworld we collectively crafted over the course of dozens or hundreds of GMed sessions trading off DMs every other time, so each got to be a player and GM (barring people who HATED storytelling and preferred to pass for one of us who enjoyed it.) The GM can be benevolent or a dickhole regardless of if you're playing by rules, or playing without them, and with all the money saved from not expending it (n players times, for the PHB or equiv at minimum) you could either have a lot more props, or a lot more soda/beer and pizza to enjoy the sessions together with.
My groups disbanded at the end of gradeschool, and while a few smaller groups popped up in middle/high school most people moved on to other interests, some even spending huge amounts on RPG supplies because somehow the charsheets were more legitimate. Which is such a weird stockholm-esque attitude, not unlike people's conforming to society later in life.
... around 1981 or so for the Commodore PET.
Can't say it was especially useful though as far as I took it. It did dice rolls. I think I included a module that did random dungeon generation and also random treasure generation based on what was in the Gamma World DM guide. I don't think it distracted much -- except a personal computer back then like a PET took up a lot of table space.
Kind of miss those Commodore days...
I had donated my Commodore equipment to my local school district long ago.
I tried a few months back to order a Commodore diskette drive from an Amazon vendor to get stuff like that off of old floppies to but the drive never showed up and I got a refund... Still hoping to come across a working one someday somewhere... Or maybe I will try again to get one through Amazon.
I also bought a ZoomFloppy board to bridge USB to Commodore, but it is useless without a drive:
http://www.go4retro.com/produc...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.