D&D General Interview with D&D VP Jess Lanzillo on Comicbook.com

[Blue]

So both Fantasy Grounds and Foundry meet your criteria. Agreed that DDB doesn't. You have 2 digital options that you can use and you say you should be happy with. Are you happy now?

I'm not sure, let me explore.

How good are those sources as references? I can not assume that every DM I play with will use my tools of choice, nor that both now and over time they would be my preferred VTT. How good are they as references for doing things like prepping for a session that will not be run on them? Including finding monsters based on criteria like CR, not just looking up things I know the name of. Are they easy to copy and paste to another document, in a text (not image) format?

Since one of the hard requirements was that they cannot take it away, do they have a policy that if they are closing their doors that they will provide the data in a downloadable way to people who have bought it? And that they will continue to support 5e for the rest of my gaming life? You said these meet my criteria, I just want to make sure it actually does.

 

[dave2008]

I think it is safe to assume that WotC will do that which is most profitable for them, ....

They will do what they think is most profitable. That doesn't mean they will be correct!

 

[jerryrice4949]

I'm seeing a lot of people miss the

"I'm a big fan of being able to provide play experiences to people any way they want to play them," Lanzillo continued.

part.

They didn’t miss it. It just doesn’t support what they want to get upset about.

 

[Mannahnin]

Why? It's not like all online tools are donkey poo, we're having a discussion on one right now.

They're not, but many are, and cost factors are why we're recently dealing with a lot more pop-up ads on this one. Which is certainly a worse user experience.

 

[Malmuria]

First, "control their digital ecosystem" is not what people seem to be worried about. Second, what does that even mean?

It works well for a lot of people because of how we can share products with everyone

It means precisely this--that when you are in their ecosystem they set the terms of your engagement. They can change the sharing setup at any time. That's why the real tension is not between physical/digital but in how tightly they control their digital ecosystem.

It's not anything dramatic, fwiw, this is the way contemporary subscription-based services work across many areas of our lives. But it doesn't mean that people who are in or adjacent to those digital ecosystems have no basis for interest or concern in how they are made available.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Awesome interview, and I gotta say @SlyFlourish it feels like you're reading a lot of your own biases into what was said. I think it's totally fair to push back on anti-digital sentiment as a type of gatekeeping. Without online software like Roll20 and DDB/maps, I wouldn't be playing RPGs at all these days both due to the pandemic and most of my gaming group moving in the last 5 years. And if the day ever comes that WotC stops printing physical books, (which again, from the interview, doesn't sound like it will be anytime soon) that just opens an opportunity for competitors to take over the segment of the market that is willing to pay for that.

Agreed. I think the fear of going digital only is vastly overblown. I think WoTC will continue to promote digital and hope to move some people over but just as the belief that ebooks would replace paper books was wholly unfounded I suspect this will be too.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I'm pretty sure all of that was sarcasm.

How dare you accuse me of using something as lowbrow as sarcasm when discussing perhaps the greatest iteration of the best RPG ever made. It's got everything any player could want. Tons HP. Great (and multiple) saves. A million powers to choose from! Heck, you might even forget you have half of them on a regular basis! Never having to worry about things getting to dangerous that some cool ability or spell or simply resting fo r8 hours can't fix. The DM gets to tell a great story or perhaps use one of many of WotC's official adventure book options that seem to get better one after the other.

D&D 2024 looks to be the best yet and I for one cannot wait to run my friends through the brilliantly written 5th ed Dragonlance campaign book.



Pistols at dawn?

 

[Lazybones]

I am just a user of Fantasy Grounds, so I can only comment on my personal experience with the software.

How good are those sources as references? I can not assume that every DM I play with will use my tools of choice, nor that both now and over time they would be my preferred VTT. How good are they as references for doing things like prepping for a session that will not be run on them? Including finding monsters based on criteria like CR, not just looking up things I know the name of. Are they easy to copy and paste to another document, in a text (not image) format?

Since one of the hard requirements was that they cannot take it away, do they have a policy that if they are closing their doors that they will provide the data in a downloadable way to people who have bought it? And that they will continue to support 5e for the rest of my gaming life? You said these meet my criteria, I just want to make sure it actually does.

It's a good resource at the table, if you have a laptop, and my understanding is that SmiteWorks is working on an app that could be used on a smartphone or tablet. Searching for monsters by type, CR, or both together is quite easy (there are dropdown menus that you can use for searching). You can copy-paste text but not things like NPC/monster statblocks, but I have copied them as images and pasted them into my off-line adventures without difficulty. I even use the program to test encounters for my in-person games, since it is very fast to resolve combats once you're familiar with the software.

There are threads on the SmiteWorks forums about what would happen if Hasbro/Wotc cancelled their license. Here is what one of their developers posted there during the OGL fiasco:

We would still be able to keep all existing copies on our system for customers to use, reinstall, etc. even if the worst-case scenario happens, and they did cancel our license to produce and sell D&D content. We would just be unable to sell any of those going forward.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

If WotCs new digital tabletop turns out to be super successful and rakes in those MTX dollars, that will inevitably result in focus shifting to digital D&D, publishing books will become an afterthought.

 

[Umbran]

This is an outright and known lie

Mod Note:
One wonders why you think it is okay to call someone else a liar, without bringing the receipts to prove it. Especially when this concerns their private practices - how do you know what they do for characters sheets at their own table?

If they have made public statements, you should cite them. "Known" is not sufficient. There are lots of things that are "known" that are entirely incorrect.

And, to make it clear that calling folks liars without evidence is not okay - you are done in this discussion.