D&D 5E Dungeonscape no more?

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm disappointed to hear this, but I can't say that I'm overly surprised, given WotC's track record with digital tools for D&D.

We don't really know enough to know which party dropped the ball here (Trapdoor, WotC or both). However, given that there hadn't been a lot of forward progress in the last few weeks, my guess is that WotC weren't happy with the speed of development and decided to end the relationship.

I hope that we end up with some sort of digital tools for this edition of D&D but I'm firmly in the "I'll believe it when I see it" camp.

 

[hardvice]

A good digital character sheet app makes the game better. If I'm not stopping to look up a spell or the stats for a creature I'm wild shaping into or how many times I can use a class feature, then I'm paying more attention to the game, and having more fun. Getting the rules and the bookkeeping out of your way is just plain better.

Unfortunately, the web beta for DungeonScape wasn't there (yet) — you could mostly make a character (albeit with some showstopping bugs), but usability in-game was still pretty bad. It was improving quickly, but had a long way to go. And there were ways it was worse than pen-and-paper because the numbers it was displaying were just plain wrong (like making it impossible to equip armor).

If what's going on is a conversion into a freestanding app without the licensed stuff, I wish them luck. There is a lot of promise there, for as far as they had left to go, and I like the idea of expanding past just a character sheet to a party and campaign app, which nobody has really done well yet.

In the meantime, if you're looking for an alternative character sheet, I'd second the recommendation for Fight Club on iOS. There's still a few tweaks it needs, and manually entering stuff like spells and class features due to the lack of licensing is a chore, but once it's in there, it plays beautifully.

 

[darjr]

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And I think people who want digital tools have a right to be asking WotC some serious questions. I hope they had plans beyond distribution through DungeonScape (as much as I like the product and the TDT team); I seriously hope they're not starting from square one. (Though, I'll reiterate that if ultimately they felt they were going to have to restart from square one, sooner is better than later --- the vestigial limb metaphor made earlier was on point). But they sure have been quite about all this.

They do have a ready alternative. Mearls was using the PDF of the books at GenCon, and they have a way to distribute PDF's via dndclassics.com and drivethru. An already existing proven successful infrastructure that, from what I understand, makes them money.

 

[DM Howard]

I'll actually say I'm surprised by this. Seemed to come out of no where. I'll be interested to hear what the details are, eventually, as to why this happened. I'll still take my Dungeon and Dragon magazines WotC.

 

[pepticburrito]

They do have a ready alternative. Mearls was using the PDF of the books at GenCon, and they have a way to distribute PDF's via dndclassics.com and drivethru. An already existing proven successful infrastructure that, from what I understand, makes them money.

Why do people keep talking about PDF as a replacement for what Dungeonscape was supposed to do? I'm not saying having a PDF isn't a good idea, my iPad has been a godsend in Pathfinder and PDF has been part of that equation. Thing is, a PDF isn't the best thing to use at the gaming table.

Everyone I know who plays Pathfinder has some app on their phone that has the classes, rules, spells, feats, ect all sorted and searchable. Little things like having your spells already sorted and searchable makes playing a caster a hell of lot easier. If all they did was release an app that did the 5e version of this, I'd be happy.

 

[BrockBallingdark]

I hope this means we can get PDFs sooner, even if digital tools are slower. Or, hopefully, WotC will partner with a company that makes digital tools. Like Lone Wolf. HeroLabs isn't as pretty as DungeonScape but it works and there's already an app.

PDFs or give it to Lone Wolf, they have a proven record, they are all about RPGs.

 

[Evenglare]

Why do people keep talking about PDF as a replacement for what Dungeonscape was supposed to do? I'm not saying having a PDF isn't a good idea, my iPad has been a godsend in Pathfinder and PDF has been part of that equation. Thing is, a PDF isn't the best thing to use at the gaming table.

Everyone I know who plays Pathfinder has some app on their phone that has the classes, rules, spells, feats, ect all sorted and searchable. Little things like having your spells already sorted and searchable makes playing a caster a hell of lot easier. If all they did was release an app that did the 5e version of this, I'd be happy.

The thing is that people were defending dungeonscape because it was supposed to fill the roll of the PDF. Now thats gone and we want our PDFs since there is no other course of action currently. We know they have them , there's no reason other than knee jerk reactions to piracy, and clearly that's idiotic considering pathfinder's success. Fantasy flight games is guilty of this as well with their star wars game.

 

[pepticburrito]

The thing is that people were defending dungeonscape because it was supposed to fill the roll of the PDF. Now thats gone and we want our PDFs since there is no other course of action currently. We know they have them , there's no reason other than knee jerk reactions to piracy, and clearly that's idiotic considering pathfinder's success. Fantasy flight games is guilty of this as well with their star wars game.

Well, they're asking for the wrong thing. If I had to choose between having a simple phone app that does the kinds of things Pathfinder apps do at gaming tables OR having a PDF, I'd chose the phone app without hesitation. It's significantly more useful. I suspect part of the problem is that the early adapters of 5e aren't coming from the Pathfinder side like I am. It seems most of them don't seem to realize just how useful having that kind of tool at the table really is.

 

[BrockBallingdark]

Well, they're asking for the wrong thing. If I had to choose between having a simple phone app that does the kinds of things Pathfinder apps do at gaming tables OR having a PDF, I'd chose the phone app without hesitation. It's significantly more useful. I suspect part of the problem is that the early adapters of 5e aren't coming from the Pathfinder side like I am. It seems most of them don't seem to realize just how useful having that kind of tool at the table really is.

I've been playing Pathfinder since four months after 4E edition launched. I have Herolab to handle Pathfinder and if WOTC doesn't want to license out to Lone Wolf, then I want the PDFs.

 

[SkidAce]

Well, they're asking for the wrong thing. If I had to choose between having a simple phone app that does the kinds of things Pathfinder apps do at gaming tables OR having a PDF, I'd chose the phone app without hesitation. It's significantly more useful. I suspect part of the problem is that the early adapters of 5e aren't coming from the Pathfinder side like I am. It seems most of them don't seem to realize just how useful having that kind of tool at the table really is.

I think your suspicion is wrong.

My group is an early adopter of 5e and we came from Pathfinder.