D&D General Ray Winninger on 5e’s success, product cadence, the OGL, and more.

[dave2008]

Is it me or does it feel like WOTC is strangely silent on the 3d VTT? It feels like I haven't heard anything about it in months.

I'll make a big hairy prediction you can call me out on later. I don't think the 3D VTT, if and when it comes out, is going to be a big deal at all for one major reason -- it requires installation on a PC. D&D Beyond works on everything without needing to install anything. It works for in-person games and online games. The 3D VTT is super niche just by needing a PC client. I'm pretty sure I can't even run it at all and I'm a pretty big D&D nerd.

I don't know how we would measure this when our insights are very likely to be opaque, but I don't think the 3D VTT is going to be successful at all. About half of the DMs I've surveyed use D&D Beyond. What percent do you think will be using the 3D VTT a year after it comes out? I'd bet 5%.

I think it was super smart for WOTC to put more resources behind the 2d "Maps" part of D&D Beyond. It was a very smart hedge on the bet on the 3D VTT when you absolutely could have seen an executive questioning why you'd have resources for both. I think Maps is going to be far more successful than the 3D VTT simply because it runs in a browser.

I have similar feelings, but I am biased - I have no interest in a 3D VTT (so I naturally assume everyone is the same).

 

[mamba]

There isn't one. So which is it? Does the DM decide, or does cover and obscurement determine if you can hide?

I reconciled that by assuming that the DM is the one who knows whether the character meets the criteria, not the player

 

[Dire Bare]

Interesting. I don't seem them as a contradiction. To me, this is clearly the process:

1. The DM determines the circumstances are acceptable for Hiding.
2. The player decides to take the Hide action.
3. to be successful with the Hide action, it must meet all the requirements of page 368

I don't see what the issue is here. What am I missing. This seems very clear to me (though I admit I am weird and always have been).

Yeah, I don't see the contradiction, although I do think the rules could be worded more clearly.

But D&D started out with rules for wargamers already immersed in the hobby and were still so confusing that it lead to multiple interpretations and styles of play. Since the white box in 74, D&D has been improving on this with every iteration . . . but crafting "perfect" (or near-perfect) rules is hard.

But overall, I think Mike's point stands. If the D&D team was given more time, they could iron out these sorts of things. There would still be unclear rules, there always are, but there would be less.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The core game play of WoW was portable to other games. It wasn't.

Whilst I think your point is generally well-made, I wish people would stop repeating this canard.

Nothing about 4E's "core gameplay" resembled WoW's core gameplay particularly. In fact, the closest comparator for 4E's design is tactics RPGs in general. Roles weren't even WoW's "core gameplay" in 2007 - that's historical revisionism. In 2004 through 2007, WoW was still developing and struggling with the concept of roles. When WoW launched, roles in that sense didn't exist - the "holy trinity" of WoW was not Tank, Healer, DPS - it was Warrior, Priest, Mage - they were the core classes that were to form the spearhead of every raid. Everyone else was kind of in a hybrid limbo to a greater or lesser extent - even the other "pure DPS" classes. In practical terms, Druids could perform the same role as Priests, almost - but Blizzard buffed Priests in various ways to try and make this less true in Vanilla. Bears and Prot Pallies were a joke - totally second-rate and non-viable as real tanks. Paladins were also inadequate healers - they couldn't be the "main healer", because they were a hybrid. This was totally intentional - Rob Pardo was part of a movement, in EverQuest, to try and stop "hybrid" classes being as powerful/useful as Warrior, Mage, Priest (which was then also EQ's Holy Trinity). Only towards the end of TBC, so 2008, did Blizzard really relent on this and make all specs capable of fulfilling actual roles - the change to Prot Paladin in late TBC was particularly spectacular, they went from being terrible tanks that couldn't even really tank normal dungeons, let alone heroics or raids, to being pretty masterful ones, absolutely on-par with Warriors.

Further, even if we say inaccurately WoW had the Holy Trinity when 4E was beign developed, and that roles were inspired by it, it's a bad comparator because 4E uses 4 roles - unlike WoW, but very like EverQuest 1 and arguably Final Fantasy XI and Dark Age of Camelot - specifically, Tank, Healer/Buffer, Pure DPS, and CC character. WoW has never, at any point in its existence, had CC as separate from DPS, but 4E was very clear on separating them and the secondary roles classes had in 4E also reflected this.

I think it's fine to say "MMORPG-inspired roles" or the like, but they're a fraction of 4E's gameplay, not the whole of the core (which was very much about AEDU and tactical movement and so on, stuff that's alien to MMORPGs of that era and even mostly is today), and they're explicitly not WoW's take on roles. WoW finally introduced a 4th role in the previous expansion, like 2022, and it wasn't even CC - it was "Support" (which is a combo of buffs and DPS in that vision)!

 

[Echohawk]

I'll make a big hairy prediction you can call me out on later. I don't think the 3D VTT, if and when it comes out, is going to be a big deal at all for one major reason -- it requires installation on a PC. D&D Beyond works on everything without needing to install anything. It works for in-person games and online games. The 3D VTT is super niche just by needing a PC client. I'm pretty sure I can't even run it at all and I'm a pretty big D&D nerd.

Specifically, it requires installation on a PC running Windows 10. I would love to have put my Alpha testing invite from back in October to good use, but I am a Mac user so I can't.

 

[dave2008]

Specifically, it requires installation on a PC running Windows 10. I would love to have put my Alpha testing invite from back in October to good use, but I am a Mac user so I can't.

I am not a gamer, but my children are /were. That is an issue with a lot of games. They had macs and then had to build their own PC to play games!

 

[mamba]

Is it me or does it feel like WOTC is strangely silent on the 3d VTT? It feels like I haven't heard anything about it in months.

same, and I expected it to be out by now. I assume they hit some snags along the way, I doubt that was their plan all along

I'll make a big hairy prediction you can call me out on later. I don't think the 3D VTT, if and when it comes out, is going to be a big deal at all for one major reason -- it requires installation on a PC. D&D Beyond works on everything without needing to install anything.

I doubt this is a big issue, I’d expect most of the clients connecting to DDB to be PCs (maybe phones win, so leave it at computers and operating systems, I doubt the VTT was meant to run on a phone)

I think it was super smart for WOTC to put more resources behind the 2d "Maps" part of D&D Beyond. It was a very smart hedge

agreed

 

[Echohawk]

I am not a gamer, but my children are /were. That is an issue with a lot of games. They had macs and then had to build their own PC to play games!

Oh, I'm very much aware that my gaming options are limited by my choice of operating system. But it does speak to SlyFlourish's point that a VTT that doesn't run in a browser is going to immediately reduce the potential paying user base.

My gaming group (which spans five cities and two continents) uses D&D Beyond's Maps tool extensively. Frankly, I don't think that gets as much attention and praise as it deserves. It's an incredibly easy to use tool, and it works across all of the different devices and operating systems that my players use without anyone having to struggle to install or configure anything. I'm really happy that they have continued to develop that tool. I'm not convinced I need much more than what that currently does to run online games, but every time I've thought that previously, they've improved it again and I've like it even more.

 

[hojulation]

Is it me or does it feel like WOTC is strangely silent on the 3d VTT? It feels like I haven't heard anything about it in months.

I actually received an alpha test code for the 3D VTT a few weeks ago. Completely forgot I had even signed up to test it!

My group used it for a night but then bounced off it by the end. It's got some potential, and I have to remind myself it was an Alpha test, but my group concluded that 2D maps is more useful at the moment, although we are still going to continue using Owlbear.rodeo because it meets our needs just right.

 

[darjr]

Is it me or does it feel like WOTC is strangely silent on the 3d VTT? It feels like I haven't heard anything about it in months.

I'll make a big hairy prediction you can call me out on later. I don't think the 3D VTT, if and when it comes out, is going to be a big deal at all for one major reason -- it requires installation on a PC. D&D Beyond works on everything without needing to install anything. It works for in-person games and online games. The 3D VTT is super niche just by needing a PC client. I'm pretty sure I can't even run it at all and I'm a pretty big D&D nerd.

I don't know how we would measure this when our insights are very likely to be opaque, but I don't think the 3D VTT is going to be successful at all. About half of the DMs I've surveyed use D&D Beyond. What percent do you think will be using the 3D VTT a year after it comes out? I'd bet 5%.

I think it was super smart for WOTC to put more resources behind the 2d "Maps" part of D&D Beyond. It was a very smart hedge on the bet on the 3D VTT when you absolutely could have seen an executive questioning why you'd have resources for both. I think Maps is going to be far more successful than the 3D VTT simply because it runs in a browser.

I think among many gamers here there isn’t a need or desire for a 3D vtt. I think it’s been polled a few times.

I thought that there would be among the wider newer audience, but I don’t see it. But I am probably blind to this demand.

I thought that maybe if it could provide an on-ramp for games with GMs and player meetups or like Baldman Gemes D&D digital weekends then it could be a hit, but isn’t that attendance slacking?

So now I think maybe there is an avenue with BG3 players looking for more. Maybe.