malraux
First Post
snip
Actually I'll agree with pretty much all of that, and that's why the announcement of the VTT now has me really annoyed. For the VTT to have real value, it needs to have a bunch of other pieces in place first. The VTT in isolation from most other things is pretty pointless. I could be a capstone product.
In more detail, here's what my preference would be. First step is a good character builder, and obviously WotC is working on that.
Step two is a good monster builder, and the advantage of the MB is that it leverages all the value of Monster Manuals, adventures, fluff books, etc. That is, work done on a monster for an adventure module also counts as work done for the MB, since that use those. Starting with a mapping tool doesn't do that nearly as well (especially back when the mapping program was a 3d concept). In fact, adding monsters becomes an additional cost to design the model; though if they are just going 2d then its much much less of a problem. Regardless, the monster builder makes more sense as a starting point than the mapping tool (at least to me).
From there, having a good monster builder means that the next step is a good encounter builder/manager. And then to either a robust campaign manager or a VTT as those would both leverage the tools of the encounter builder/manager.
So perhaps my point isn't that I think the VTT is a bad idea, just that I think its a bad idea before tackling other issues.