Adventure Tools: what's next?

[fireinthedust]

so I like the Monster Builder. A lot. I think I'm going to be able to people my campaign with, well, people... and horrors from the beyond, but you get me.

Anyhoo, there are 4 other tools that are going to come out before the final program is done. Let's get some predictions/demands for what we the people want!


1) Trap builder: I want traps, hazards, pitfalls, whatever; and I want to throw them at my players like a monkey with trots. If I can build them like I built my Barbarian's Tiger mount this morning, I will be one happy DM.

2) Item builder:

3) Encounter formatter: I want to take my monsters and plan how I'll smash the pcs. Could also be a formatter for adventures, so I can print them out in module format.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I think the next release will be a tile-based mapper based off the Dungeon Tiles that have been published by WotC. There was an early release a few years ago made by a fan and I think it will be the simplest to update and a logical "next step" in terms of tools for DMs, especially new ones, and it cross-sells the Dungeon Tiles.

 

[Belorin]

Well, there will definitely be an encounter builder, which I believe will include skill challanges, traps, terrain and more.
After that there should be dungeon builder for placing the encounters and terrrain, etc.
A treasure builder for creating items and packets.
A world creator for those that want to create a campaign.

Bel

 

[Piratecat]

I'm definitely expecting a skill challenge builder.

 

[fireinthedust]

I think what it needs is a way to take all the stuff I'm building and make it look like a proper module. Like the encounter booklet in Demon Queen's Enclave. Maybe also a format for making the adventure booklet that comes with the encounter book.
The monster builder could use it also. I would like to take my monsters and have a section for writing them up in a MM style page.

I could then take my product, write it up, and pitch it to DUNGEON!

Maybe a Table-builder: random encounter-generator? If I could say what level the encounter needs to be, I could grab the number of monsters the party would want to face (or a checklist of what could be on the list that I could pick from).

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think traps and skill challanges and then an encounter builder, so you can print out the entire encounter.
A tile mapper is pretty close in functionality to the vtt. It is essentially a vtt without the networking layer. I suspect that they will build that with that in mind.

 

[Jack99]

AFAIK there was a seminar at GenCon, but I haven't been able to find any info about what was said there.

 

[Piratecat]

One thing is for sure. I had a 45 minute long chat with the president of WotC (that I'll be writing up separately), and I walked away with the impression that enabling remote play is a definite priority. I'd bet that a virtual tabletop and a map builder are on the list.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

One thing is for sure. I had a 45 minute long chat with the president of WotC (that I'll be writing up separately), and I walked away with the impression that enabling remote play is a definite priority. I'd bet that a virtual tabletop and a map builder are on the list.

That is pretty interesting, I wonder if any of the original VTT was salvagable or if they have had to start from scratch. I suspect the latter.
However, I would like an encounter builder that integrates with the monster builder.
I have not had much opportunity to use it so far as i am running Thunderspire Labyrinth but I could foresee using it in the future.
Still an encounter builder would be my prefered next thing.
If they do create a map builder then I would like if one could import graphic from other applications. I have a lot of art for Dunjinni and Maptools but i would use a WOTC map builder if i could import the art and it included combat management. So i could have token automatically generated from the encounter builder, import character sheets from file and generate tokens based on the portraits and automatically produce a nice interface to track initiaitive and current conditions.

 

[mearlus]

One thing is for sure. I had a 45 minute long chat with the president of WotC (that I'll be writing up separately), and I walked away with the impression that enabling remote play is a definite priority. I'd bet that a virtual tabletop and a map builder are on the list.

My biggest hope is they modularize adventures that get published in Dungeon and in physical formats so they can be inserted into a virtual tabletop and/or map builder. Both to allow online/remote play and customization of a dungeon/scene.

It'd be awesome for the RPGA to have all of their adventures within this format to facilitate some LFR games easily online through an 'officially' supported mechanism.