WotC D&D Historian Ben Riggs says the OGL fiasco was Chris Cocks idea.

[Oofta]

And actually, I would point out that you don't NEED a square based map if you are using a VTT. They likely will go that route, but grid maps evolved as a way to speed up gameplay without the need for rulers, that is why each 5ft square is 1 in IRL. A VTT could easily allow things to move based on simulated feet with in-built rulers. For an example... Baldur's Gate 3 took this exact approach, using rulers and colored circles to demonstrate range and area of effect.



Yeah, I could see a Virtual system handling that better than doing it manually at the table.

I use a hex grid now, but before that I had templates from sqwire that implemented the approximation of a radius from spells. It's simple for a VTT to do the same thing, actually much easier for the computer to do it than a person.

 

[Parmandur]

The VTT is no more a threat to tabletop gaming than miniatures are a threat to Theatre of the Mind play.

I don't use digital tools in play, I don't use miniatures: thst doesnmake either of those things bad for people who do use them, it isn't a threat.

 

[Alzrius]

But they can't put in any sort of kill switch, whether to stop bigoted content or not.

In a tabletop context, no they can't. But in terms of content on the VTT? They might not be able to stop something that happens in the course of play as it's happening, but they can absolutely review and curate anything users make.

The Gloomstalker has an ability to deal d8 psychic damage on a hit X times per day. Am I pirating content if I allow a ranger to deal a d8 fire damage on a hit X times per day? What if it is psychic damage, but it is on a fighter? What if it is psychic damage, on a ranger, but is tied to a blessing from a god?

I would say no, but it's not up to me. WotC's attitude in regards to questions like this could charitably be described as "hit or miss" with regards to putting the interests of the consumer above their own goals of monetizing their content to the maximum extent possible.

You literally cannot police this.

You literally can. I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise; WotC's ability to curate content isn't going to be subject to any sort of review or appeals process. If they decide that you're doing something they don't like, then it's too bad for you, regardless of how nonsensical their actions might seem.

Because the line between "exactly what the ability in the book they didn't buy on our VTT" is and what the players just come up with is razor thin.

Hence the problem with operating on a platform where WotC has both unilateral oversight and a desire to monetize their content to the fullest.

And then you need to contend with the bad press of attempting to do so.

That honestly doesn't seem like a concern of theirs, beyond anything short of another DDB boycott.

It really boggles me how on one hand you constantly think WoTC is going to have this immense capability to oversee everything and control everything...

I don't know what you mean about "immense capability," since at this point they're still struggling to get everything off the ground. In this regard, they don't seem especially more competent than they are in anything they've attempted in the last two years, or with regard to a lot of their technical ventures going even further back.

but also be completely incompetent beyond what any random person on the street could see is obvious.

Again, look at their track records. Trying to kill the OGL was a manifestly bad idea, and yet they went through with it anyway.

Won't happen.

Your ability to know the future, in terms of how all people everywhere will react for absolute certain, is quite the superpower.

You just assuming the VTT will be their money maker doesn't make it true.

And your assuming that it won't be doesn't make it true. So tag, you're it.

The thing isn't even out of development yet.

And yet you seem certain that it will be comparably open to other finished VTTs.

As for rules it can't handle... you realize that that is the entire skill system if I take you seriously, correct?

No, your assumption about what I'm referring to is flawed in this regard, as I've never once mentioned the skill system in this context.

Because they can't animate conversations or intimidation.

Which is relevant how? Or is this a sly reference to the AI DM thing?

So, they are already going to have rules that the VTT can't handle, because in your mind "handling it" is animating it.

Leaving aside that you've repeatedly gotten what's in my mind wrong, if the skill system is something that the VTT presents as being less interactive than other systems, then I'd posit that it's not going to be as enticing for players (particularly new players). Of course, you're the one assuming they won't try to make some sort of A/V reaction to skills being used, which strikes me as odd. You don't need to animate "conversations" to apply some sort of visual indicator to a character that's been frightened, for instance. Which would be meta-game in the extreme, but I doubt WotC would care.

And the VTT cannot do that.

See above. If you make an intimidate check, would it really be that hard for the VTT to, say, play a small clip of a scream as a character is shaded blue and vibrates slightly? I think not, since that's far more easy to render than something to animate a completely custom spell.

It cannot animate my fighter giving a carrot to a horse, because the sheer amount of space and design that would need to go into any possible PC or NPC giving any possible animal any possible item is absurd.

Precisely. Which is why you'll likely have less instances among new players of their PCs giving carrots to horses or other particular interactions like that. Instead, you'll likely get specified animations not unlike those used for spells. Which will likely serve to equate skills with (low-level) spells in the minds of players, in terms of their breadth of applicability, narrowing the range of imaginative play with regard to the uses of skills.

By your logic, that means that they are going to remove animal handling from the game, or they are going to state that animal handling only works with carrots and no other item.

No, that's not where my logic leads. It's more likely that animal handling will be made ancillary, receiving less and less attention over the course of future releases, and as a consequence made more and more irrelevant.

By my logic.... they just don't animate it and let people say whatever they want.

Which has a not-inconsiderable chance of leading to my logic, which is that it becomes less relevant as a skill over time, so it sounds like you're agreeing with me.

No one is actually going to be upset that they can animate swinging a weapon but can't animate giving a horse a carrot. It is wasted effort for little gain.

I'm not sure why you're talking about "upset," as I've been talking about the constriction of the breadth of imaginative play as a consequence of certain options being (unintentionally) disincentivized as a course of other options being played up by the VTT.

Company doesn't want to be beholden to 3rd parties.

You forgot to add "or lose business to," there.

Shocked pikachu face.

Your emoji didn't work; see the issue with not knowing how to perform even simple technical functions?

But see, there is a problem.

Not really; see below.

They ALSO agreed to release 5e24 to Creative Commons.

I'm not sure why you think this is notable, since there's no guarantee on how expansive that will be or when precisely it will come out.

That means that the entire set of rulebooks being printed right now is ALSO CC content.

The "entire set"? So you think that the next SRD is going to have everything in the Core Rulebooks? Because that would be a huge change from the 5.1 SRD.

So if they were just "buying time" then they are going to release another new edition to get their control.

They don't need to release another new edition to do that; an anemic SRD and a bunch of supplements work just as well.

But... well, there are some problems with that isn't there?

Yes, mostly in the presumption that they need to release an entirely new edition after this 5.5 one to do what you're saying.

They have had the single most successful version of DnD by having an open playtest,

Is that why 5E has been so successful? Because that seems like an odd thing to say was the key to its success.

they have declared this edition evergreen

They also declared the OGL was perpetual, and then played word games to try and do an end-run around that promise, so the idea that we'll never see a new edition strikes me as highly implausible.

and that they don't want to replace it,

And yet they're replacing their current with with a sort-of-new-edition-but-not-really. So their commitment to not replacing or changing things going forward seems to be undercut by them changing things going forward.

they have made making this edition for free trivial and legal for anyone who wants to riff off this product.

And we saw how much they wanted to walk that one back during the OGL debacle; it was only after a community revolt that they promised to release the 5.5 game under the CC, I'll note, and even then there are the problems outlined above.

And that is the environment their VTT is being released into.

The same environment as them trying to close the OGL in the first place, and offering weak concessions only after the community forced them to stop. I don't know why you think that means they've had a change of heart.

Even if it does gangbusters, five years down the line WoTC execs are going to either continue doing what they have done to be successful.... or completely ruin everything they have built and anger the community.

This strikes me as a rather stringent binary, though I'll note that the latter possibility seems entirely probable, given their number of missteps to date. Even then, I think the execs are the people who can take the least credit for the successes of 5E, as the designers and developers almost seem to be working against them.

And it is only AFTER ruining everything that the rules would be catered to the VTT.

I'll note again that declaring how something will be "only after" five years have passed is quite the declaration of how the future will unfold. At least I keep saying that I'm speculating.

Meanwhile, if the VTT does gangbusters in this environment, with all the creative unlimited play we have...

Which would seem to run entirely counter to WotC's current strategy of monetization via standardization and top-down control.

then if they DON'T make stupid decisions with the rules that make no sense, they KEEP everything.

Which is a good summary of what they want to do: "keep everything," as in, all to themselves. I'm just pointing out how that's not necessarily good for the community. Remember, we're the obstacles between them and "their" money.

No. I'm pointing out that 20 years ago, when I searched "Dungeons and Dragons" on Ask Jeeves, the 3rd result was a comic by Jack Chic called "Darkest Dungeon", I'm sure you heard about it.

You mentioned "songs and videos" with regard to "creativity of the community" insofar as the content on the VTT goes. So unless you think that people are going to be posting comics on there, this is quite the tangent.

Now? Now if I search "DnD Comic" not only are there 6 official DnD comics (and I know there should be a seventh and an eighth because I own them) but there are comics like Table Titans, Dungeons & Doodles, 1Hp, Critical Role and dozens of others based on people's own games.

Which isn't really here or there with regard to the VTT, save for a rather broad showcase of how WotC's primary goal is to generate money, and that the idea of "making money = providing quality" seems at best orthogonal to what they're doing now. A "recurrent spending environment" isn't something that speaks to how good something is, and there's no reason to assume that's implied.

You are so scared

Not really, certainly not to the extent that you're angry.

that people will become less creative because it will be hard work,

Which strikes me as a reasonable concern for how the medium will shape the community, particularly with regard to new players.

but when I look out into the TTRPG space, I am seeing people composing original songs based on their campaigns,

Which leaves aside the "play" portion of "imaginative play," i.e. the play is taking place within the context of playing the game.

ultiple people have built entire brands based on Actual Plays or just recounting their games, Dingo Doodles, Dimension 20, High Rollers, Drakkenheim, Legends of Avantris.

Cool. But unless they're doing that while actually playing sessions of D&D (or some other game) on a VTT, that's not really relevant to this discussion. You're not able to quote a single instance of me saying that the VTT will stop people from writing songs or recounting sessions, just that it runs the risk of narrowing the scope of imaginative play (during the course of play).

I literally cannot possibly list all of them.

Which is good, because those aren't what we're talking about.

Not all of the comics, not all of the actual plays, not all of the brands, it is so much.

And how many of those are created (or consumed, for that matter) on a VTT? Because otherwise this is turning into an even greater digression than I thought.

There was Kraken Week at the start of the month, and they had over 100 TTRPG youtubers, most of whom either started or only do DnD content.

And if you think that the VTT is going to kill Kraken Week, then you're wildly misunderstanding what I'm saying, though at this point that's par for the course.

And to your mind this means nothing.

As usual, you're misstating my position.

None of this creativity and personal expression means a thing to you.

See above. You've completely twisted what I'm saying into something else entirely. I've never once touted the idea that using a VTT will somehow rob people of any ability to express themselves.

Because WoTC has declared they are going to make a subscription service VTT.

In conjunction with their actions over the last few years, don't forget.

And people just are no longer going to put the effort into being creative.

And this is where you've gone off the rails; I've said before that the VTT will (unintentionally) disincentivize going beyond what it does well, and that this has the potential to hurt imaginative play among people for whom that becomes the standard mode of engagement. Nothing more.

Okay, and?

See above. If encourages the perception that if it's not something you pay for (or isn't something worth paying for), it's not something used in the course of play.

WoTC sells an aesthetic thing to people, that doesn't mean they are going to start changing the rules.

Because the issue of the rules are only one aspect of what I mentioned earlier, wherein it's the engagement with the VTT itself that brings up the aforementioned concern.

Simple, because they cannot remove core game mechanics like "creative and unlimited play"

"Creative and unlimited play" isn't a mechanic, and so isn't something they can't program into the VTT, which means it can't incentivize that unto itself.

by releasing a splatbook.

Which has contents which can be incentivized.

And the rules that already exist in the core rules cover such a broad range of things,

This "broad range" is necessarily narrower than the scope of imaginative play, even where it comes to devising your own rules.

that the idea they will suddenly not do something with a subclass because of the VTT seems silly.

I'm sure they'll do "something" with it, but that the "something" will also be sure to take into account how well it can be presented in a digital environment.

Nah, Skippy is my evil twin who bothers to try to counter things that are what I consider at best borderline conspiracy theories when there hasn't been anything new for hundreds of posts.

Oddly, this sounds like a conspiracy theory in and of itself.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I use a hex grid now, but before that I had templates from sqwire that implemented the approximation of a radius from spells. It's simple for a VTT to do the same thing, actually much easier for the computer to do it than a person.

Yeah, I much prefer hex grids when I get the chance to use them, because it makes circles so much easier to work with.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, I much prefer hex grids when I get the chance to use them, because it makes circles so much easier to work with.

It's a little funky in corridors and whatnot, but I'm just a little flexible and let people locate in half hexes. But movement, AOEs and so on work better.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In a tabletop context, no they can't. But in terms of content on the VTT? They might not be able to stop something that happens in the course of play as it's happening, but they can absolutely review and curate anything users make.

I would say no, but it's not up to me. WotC's attitude in regards to questions like this could charitably be described as "hit or miss" with regards to putting the interests of the consumer above their own goals of monetizing their content to the maximum extent possible.

You literally can. I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise; WotC's ability to curate content isn't going to be subject to any sort of review or appeals process. If they decide that you're doing something they don't like, then it's too bad for you, regardless of how nonsensical their actions might seem.

Hence the problem with operating on a platform where WotC has both unilateral oversight and a desire to monetize their content to the fullest.

That honestly doesn't seem like a concern of theirs, beyond anything short of another DDB boycott.

I don't know what you mean about "immense capability," since at this point they're still struggling to get everything off the ground. In this regard, they don't seem especially more competent than they are in anything they've attempted in the last two years, or with regard to a lot of their technical ventures going even further back.

Again, look at their track records. Trying to kill the OGL was a manifestly bad idea, and yet they went through with it anyway.

You seem to not have a very firm grasp of how moderation on a digital platform works. No. They cannot do what you are proposing. The only possible way to do it would be to prevent all typing of all text into the VTT. Which they can do, but would cause the entire project to die an expensive death.

Your ability to know the future, in terms of how all people everywhere will react for absolute certain, is quite the superpower.

It comes from effective cost-benefit analysis.

Which is relevant how?

Because you literally have said people will not make custom spells because they won't be able to animate them. So the fact that they cannot animate persuasion checks is relevant, because it is the same exact thing you are discussing.

Precisely. Which is why you'll likely have less instances among new players of their PCs giving carrots to horses or other particular interactions like that. Instead, you'll likely get specified animations not unlike those used for spells. Which will likely serve to equate skills with (low-level) spells in the minds of players, in terms of their breadth of applicability, narrowing the range of imaginative play with regard to the uses of skills.

So, above you asked why it was relevant, now you say precisely. So I've got your opinion pegged it seems. And you seriously think not animating a carrot is going to stop people from giving carrots to horses? Again, no, it will not. That position is nonsense.

No, that's not where my logic leads. It's more likely that animal handling will be made ancillary, receiving less and less attention over the course of future releases, and as a consequence made more and more irrelevant.

Which has a not-inconsiderable chance of leading to my logic, which is that it becomes less relevant as a skill over time, so it sounds like you're agreeing with me.

No, it has a zero chance of that. How do I know? Because it already isn't animated and people still do it.

Which isn't really here or there with regard to the VTT, save for a rather broad showcase of how WotC's primary goal is to generate money, and that the idea of "making money = providing quality" seems at best orthogonal to what they're doing now. A "recurrent spending environment" isn't something that speaks to how good something is, and there's no reason to assume that's implied.

WoTC can have a subscription service and microtransactions. It isn't going to stop this flood of creativity from the community that you seem blind to.

Cool. But unless they're doing that while actually playing sessions of D&D (or some other game) on a VTT, that's not really relevant to this discussion. You're not able to quote a single instance of me saying that the VTT will stop people from writing songs or recounting sessions, just that it runs the risk of narrowing the scope of imaginative play (during the course of play).

Um... yeah, they use VTTs. Not all of them because some of them are able to meet in-person, but Dungeons & Doodles author DoodlePoodle is part of the ForeverDM actual play, maybe give it a listen and a watch and see how their use of Roll20 hasn't limited their creativity in any possibly measurable way

And this is where you've gone off the rails; I've said before that the VTT will (unintentionally) disincentivize going beyond what it does well, and that this has the potential to hurt imaginative play among people for whom that becomes the standard mode of engagement. Nothing more.


"Creative and unlimited play" isn't a mechanic, and so isn't something they can't program into the VTT, which means it can't incentivize that unto itself.

Watch the above video then, and tell me how their use of a VTT hurt their ability to have "Creative and unlimited play"

Or, if you don't like that one, why not some of these

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTj75n3v9eTkbCUgWwwaco6sjz6Fjf-xI&si=vsWlWQz7gqBjRIz4

Carbon2185 | The Freelancers - Part 1 | w/ GM DungeonMisterTy | 5e D&D Cyberpunk Actual Play

Here is someon using Foundry with some homebrewed 5e
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaMDrDIHMitKDCDBMoNL_MYkh1tC35NnA&si=IOiNQ0jEaoqTh9eQ
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaMDrDIHMitKH2lYop8cvIWc3lXFGVG51&si=4T8b_7olWnlVP_-2

But please, keep insisting to me that anyone who uses a VTT will have less "creative and unlimited play" because we do not have thousands of hours of content sitting around showing us it literally will not.

 

[Malmuria]

I could imagine a (far) future where WotC (or whoever controls D&D) changes the rules of the game to better fit a VTT (ex. making combat or character creation exceedingly complex for OTT play, because everything is automated on the VTT).

I can't find it now but I feel like they were trying to do this in some of the early playtests even. I remember they had more hard-coded rules for social mechanics that struck me as being easier to automate

 

[Oofta]

...
But please, keep insisting to me that anyone who uses a VTT will have less "creative and unlimited play" ...

The fortune teller in me predicts a reply: But it could!

 

[Alzrius]

You seem to not have a very firm grasp of how moderation on a digital platform works.

You seem to be applying some idealized version of moderation (apparently on all digital platforms) to how WotC is will treat theirs, rather than letting their past actions serve as an indicator.

No. They cannot do what you are proposing.

Yeah, they can. I'm not sure what makes you think they can't go into someone's account and alter permissions, remove content, etc., but that's something which can be safely taken as a given.

The only possible way to do it would be to prevent all typing of all text into the VTT.

No, that's not the only way to do what I said, since I flat-out said that they wouldn't be able to prevent an action being undertaken as it was happening. I said that they'd be able to go in and delete custom content that they decided they didn't like.

Which they can do, but would cause the entire project to die an expensive death.

Well to hear you say it, that will happen anyway if they don't make the entire thing just like every other VTT except better.

It comes from effective cost-benefit analysis.

No, it really doesn't; it comes from pure guesswork and an idealized view of how both WotC and their user base as a whole will operate.

Because you literally have said people will not make custom spells because they won't be able to animate them.

No, in fact that's literally not what I've said; I've literally said that doing so will be disincentivized because they won't be animated, and because there's now a two-fold issue with creating and balancing them under the game rules and inputting them into the VTT's interface.

So the fact that they cannot animate persuasion checks is relevant, because it is the same exact thing you are discussing.

No, I'm pretty sure WotC can animate a simple status buff/debuff, which is how I'm guessing they'll handle skills if they decide to bother with them at all in terms of incentivization via animating them.

So, above you asked why it was relevant, now you say precisely. So I've got your opinion pegged it seems.

And to think it only took a few dozen posts to get you to correctly reiterate one aspect of one point of what I was talking about.

And you seriously think not animating a carrot is going to stop people from giving carrots to horses?

And there goes the correct understanding, since you're back to absolutes of "stop people" rather than "make less incentivized."

Again, no, it will not. That position is nonsense.

You're wrong on this one, for reasons I've explained before.

No, it has a zero chance of that. How do I know?

The correct answer here is that you don't, but go on.

Because it already isn't animated and people still do it.

Which is another appeal to absolutism which I never stated. I'm talking about a gradual reduction in the course of imaginative play over time, by virtue of WotC's VTT becoming the primary mode of engagement for many (new) players.

WoTC can have a subscription service and microtransactions. It isn't going to stop this flood of creativity from the community that you seem blind to.

And here again we have the bizarre insistence that the disincentivizing of imaginative play can be equated to a loss of imagination/creativity in other venues, such as writing songs or skits. It's quite the odd tangent to fixate on, but there you go.

Um... yeah, they use VTTs.

See above for why this isn't relevant, unless you think that VTTs are designed to specifically enable songwriting, etc.

Not all of them because some of them are able to meet in-person, but Dungeons & Doodles author DoodlePoodle is part of the ForeverDM actual play, maybe give it a listen and a watch and see how their use of Roll20 hasn't limited their creativity in any possibly measurable way

I'll reiterate once more that no one is saying that VTTs limit people's ability to be creative, just that WotC's VTT looks like it has the potential unintended consequence of disincentivizing imaginative play. The comparison you're making is inherently flawed therein.

Watch the above video then, and tell me how their use of a VTT hurt their ability to have "Creative and unlimited play"

Or, if you don't like that one, why not some of these

Waterdeep Dragon Heist | 5th Edition D&D | Roll20 Games Master Series

Carbon2185 | The Freelancers - Part 1 | w/ GM DungeonMisterTy | 5e D&D Cyberpunk Actual Play

Here is someon using Foundry with some homebrewed 5e
Mythic Odysseys
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight
5e D&D Campaign Prep: Curse of Strahd Isekai

I'll note here that posting a flood of tangential content and saying "watch this and then reply" is a variation of the gish gallop fallacy, where you give someone a "bogus" homework assignment in hope that they'll give up the debate. In point of fact, besides being itself a flawed manner of debate, it's particularly irrelevant here, as it's arguing against a point I never made, as this is not only presenting VTTs which aren't WotC's (and so can't be judged as being the same not only from a technical perspective, but also because they lack the same circumstances of consideration in not having the brand recognition, purchasing considerations, ownership/promotion of content, etc.), but pushes forward with the idea that I said "VTTs destroy creativity," which is wrong.

But please, keep insisting to me that anyone who uses a VTT will have less "creative and unlimited play"

Not only did I never say that, but you're actually using a made-up quote inside of your quotation marks. The first person to start talking about "creative and unlimited play" was you, over here.

because we do not have thousands of hours of content sitting around showing us it literally will not.

Insofar as responding to the point I actually brought up, that's correct: you do not have that.

The fortune teller in me predicts a reply: But it could!

That makes you the very first person in this thread to say such a thing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's a little funky in corridors and whatnot, but I'm just a little flexible and let people locate in half hexes. But movement, AOEs and so on work better.

The biggest issue with hexes is you can get some odd artifacts in right angles on corridors (which might be what you're talking about). On the other hand it makes the whole diagonal movement thing largely go away (unless someone is trying to be cute with vertices), so it may well be a fair trade-off.