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D&D Next

rob said:
Some assumptions above require clarification.

In general, the only companies who actually sign something at GenCon or other such events are the small ones. For sizable companies, meetings and discussions take place at GenCon, but any contracts must still go through lawyers, so nothing gets signed at GenCon.
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Darn lawyers, always the lawyers. ;-)

And, in the case of Wizards, they don't even send people of sufficient clout to GenCon to actually attempt to work through licensing details.
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Sad when the folks running a gaming company aren't interested in attending the largest gaming convention. That's a problem when a niche company with a rabid fan base is bought by a much larger company manage a diverse portfolio of brands. Still, I'm impressed with what WoTC has been able to accomplish with 5e.
 
ddaley said:
For what it's worth, I have been mentioning Realm Works every chance I get on the wizards forums. Not sure if that helps at all...
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Another thing that helps is to complete the monthly surveys that WoTC runs. There is always and other-comments question at the end. I figure the surveys are more closely looked at by developers and business leaders at WoTC than the forums.
 
RavenX said:
It seems a bit backwards having a convention for industry authors and the writers not being there. Gary Gygax loved attending. What happened to Gen Con? It's like the spirit of the convention is gone. It feels like Santa giving up on Christmas and just sending out the Krampus.
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I think the 60,000+ attendees would say the convention's about them and the thousands upon thousands of events they attended, games they tried out, and products they purchased. That's always been my focus at Gen Con, and to me the spirit's alive and well!

If you want only industry folks, that's the GAMA Trade Show.

As far as what happened, I'd put forth that the Internet and cell phones have reduced the value of gatherings for face-to-face time and centralizing announcements. You can communicate instantly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can put an announcement on your website and have people talking about it immediately on social media, fan sites, blogs, and such. There's times where sitting down with folks is still needed and/or very useful, but you can do a lot more without getting together than you could in the past.
 
MNBlockHead said:
I'm running a campaign in a world I'm creating myself, and RW was the best product for me to manage it. But if I were interested in running WoTC's canned adventure paths, I would definitely consider FG.
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Seems like I need to have a closer look at RW for the management of my own campaign...

As for HL and D&D5 I'm not so sure. Pathfinder with all those complex rules and endless flow of additional material made playing virtually impossible without a tool to manage the information. D5 on the other hand is so simple that you don't always have to investigate rules and their exceptions and discuss them with the players, so you can instead concentrate on real role playing.

It is even possible to play with paper character sheets like in the good old times... in PF that's completely out of scope. I think I should ban electronic tools from the gaming table completely, since in my opinion RPGs are mostly about social interaction between real human beings.

Some people might call me oldfashioned but yes, I am, and proud of it.
 
wurzel said:
Seems like I need to have a closer look at RW for the management of my own campaign...

As for HL and D&D5 I'm not so sure. Pathfinder with all those complex rules and endless flow of additional material made playing virtually impossible without a tool to manage the information. D5 on the other hand is so simple that you don't always have to investigate rules and their exceptions and discuss them with the players, so you can instead concentrate on real role playing.

It is even possible to play with paper character sheets like in the good old times... in PF that's completely out of scope. I think I should ban electronic tools from the gaming table completely, since in my opinion RPGs are mostly about social interaction between real human beings.

Some people might call me oldfashioned but yes, I am, and proud of it.
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Everyone load up your iTorch and uPitchfork apps, and run burn_the_luddite.exe! Crap. Internet's out and they have always on DRM? Oh well, screw it then.

You win this one, wurzel! But we'll be back as soon as we can lynch people without exerting more than our index fingers. ;)
 
wurzel said:
Seems like I need to have a closer look at RW for the management of my own campaign...

As for HL and D&D5 I'm not so sure. Pathfinder with all those complex rules and endless flow of additional material made playing virtually impossible without a tool to manage the information. D5 on the other hand is so simple that you don't always have to investigate rules and their exceptions and discuss them with the players, so you can instead concentrate on real role playing.

It is even possible to play with paper character sheets like in the good old times... in PF that's completely out of scope. I think I should ban electronic tools from the gaming table completely, since in my opinion RPGs are mostly about social interaction between real human beings.

Some people might call me oldfashioned but yes, I am, and proud of it.
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Let me re-iterate - Yes, D&D5e is simple enough to build a character and play without e-tools. However e-tools (like Hero Lab) allow me to easily test builds without wasting stacks of paper and pencil, allow me to easily stock up custom-built NPCs, BBEGs, etc, without the constant page-flipping and toil of building from the books.

They are not a necessity; they are a god-send of convenience. :)
 
I gave up on Herolabs, even though I've been using it for years.

I went ahead and picked up Fantasy Grounds, and the 5e ruleset. I didn't think I would, but I really like the online games you can get in to on Fantasy grounds.
 
If I were to play or run an on-line game, I would consider Fantasy Grounds, but I just didn't see the need for it for at-table gaming. Even if running a game online, I worry that FG would be just too much extra work required for Game Prep.

I did experiment with a remote player at my at-table game using Roll20 through Google Hangouts. That worked well. Not sure what FG would really add to that other than combat automation. But I'm not sure that the time saved on combat makes up for the extra data entry.

Since I'm about 1/2 a year into DMing after decades of not playing any RPGs, I am doing my best to try out the various digital tools. But more often than not, I don't find that they add much to at table games. For example, I find it much quicker to set up and play a combat encounter with minis/pogs/rocks than move things around digitally. I'm also finding myself increasing doing away with battlemaps and minis, whether analog or digital and just describing the room and having the party describe what they do, or putting up a map but just talking through what the party is doing.

I save battlemaps for more complicated encounters or where the location is interesting enough where having the map adds to the encounter.

I'm trying to spend less time on maps, duplicate data entry, and setting up technology, and more time on developing the stories. When it comes down to it, the only software I really need for my games is Realm Works.

IF WoTC and RW every enter an agreement so that DnD 5e content is made available in HL, I'd check it out, but I see it more as a nice to have. I've certainly been playing fine without it.

If someone took RW away, however, I would probably stop game mastering. At least I wouldn't bother with a home brew world and on-going campaign. I would likely stick to stand-alone adventures with pre-gen characters. Either from published sources or my own creation. But I just can't see managing all the history, session info, background, plots, etc. on paper or even in Evernote or other tools. I would just be work at that point and would take too much time.
 
rob said:
Something to consider...

There are a LOT of companies with digital tools who all view D&D 5E as a huge opportunity. I know of multiple that have been actively courting a deal with Wizards. In our case, we've been talking to them in earnest for about two years now. Thus far, exactly ONE company that I'm aware of has actually signed anything (FG).

There may be inferences that can be drawn here...
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So what I infer from this is WOTC has digital tools through FG; It's extremely expensive and as part of the deal they are not really motivated to license to anyone else. This probably means, that there aren't really any negotiations happening at this point.

How "off" is my inference? :)
 
patience is a virtue the guys at d20pro are in talks with them and i am sure the team here is too and like rome it may take time to iron out the licencing for 5e and i am sure it is not going to be cheap like pathfinder content is
 
Rob's post indicates that there may be some kind exclusivity clause in that contract for tools, but without seeing the actual signed contracts (which will likely never happen) we can only make guesses unless someone does an official press release. And fantasy grounds likely has more going than just character builder support at this point if it was part of their deal...

Also, for those who want to know... yes I've nearly completed my own 5e data files. I only have to finish a couple more things in them and they will be ready for data entry from the books.
 
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MNBlockHead said:
Sigh...when will WoTC give us AT-TABLE players some love?
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When guys like Wil Wheaton quit throwing money at them? To be honest I was angry when I read this because it's not something that is going to be in the realm of affordability for most people. Is it nice? Yes. Is it practical and affordable? Not likely. Guys that are rich can afford it, but for the rest of us this is just a fancy item we will never get to use outside of a convention.

I am not going to be the guy dropping a couple grand into something like this.
 
Maybe I'm turning into an old guy that doesn't understand the new generation, but I don't see the appeal. A VTT like Roll20 or even something with a higher learning curve like Fantasy Grounds seems easier to use and more visually appealing. The graphics in AltspaceVR look like they would just get in the way. Maybe I just need to experience a game.

Let's hope that this is good news and that WoTC is slowly but surely expanding the number and variety of software they will license content for.
 
OMG, the video on that page looks like garbage. Their VR work looks so 1990's that they have to intercut Drizzit animations to make it look "exciting".

I think WotC really have missed the boat with digital tools. All they had to do was licence someone like LW & Hero Lab to be on board from the start. Instead they ditched whoever that original lot was & Fantasy Grounds is so expensive it's stupid.

It doesn't matter how good 5E actually is, but without decent quality & decently priced digital tools, they just don't cut the mustard in this day & age.
 
DMG said:
OMG, the video on that page looks like garbage. Their VR work looks so 1990's that they have to intercut Drizzit animations to make it look "exciting".
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That's not entirely true. 1990's were a lot better than that piece of bullshit.
 
So where does it say Wil Wheaton threw money at them for this? Honestly WotC will let whoever gives them more money do the stuff. They stopped caring about the game when they stopped working on it in house. Most 5E books are now done by 2PP (publisher writing in another's IP) like Kobold Press and Green Ronin.

Look at how much FG charges for each pack of the very little material that's out there. Can you imagine HL customers actually willing to pay prices like that for the material? I know I never would and I've got A LOT of money invested in HL.
 
Well, given the quality and popularity of the 5e books, they are doing something right. The community involvement in the development of 5e during DnD next showed a commitment to the community. I'm sure being part of Hasbro ties their hands quite a bit. But having the "evil suits" involved isn't totally a bad thing. It seems that whenever the nerds were totally in charge they drove DnD into the ground. WoTC saved the property when TSR was crash and burning only to give too much away with their OGL.

Like you, I found FG prices too high, but that was in part because I didn't see much value add for at-table play. I may very well pay those prices for that content in HL, given the ability to integrate with RW and the demonstrable at-table value that HL would bring.

Even more, I probably would pay to have the core rules in RW. I think it would be better to loyal customers to give those who bought the book some kind of discount on digital content, or/and vice versa, but even if the content was priced the same as or even higher than the books, the time saved and convenience provided by having that content in RW may make it worth it.

Like anything else, it will have to work itself out in the market.
 
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