Beyond the Digital Curse

Wizards of the Coast has once again launched a digital effort for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition with Curse's D&D Beyond. This is a good time to review D&D's rocky relationship with digital platforms and the opportunities where Beyond might succeed where previous attempts have failed.

A Brief History of D&D Online​

The D&D brand has always had a presence online, evolving along with the Internet. The collaborative fan community was strong in magazines like Alarums & Excursions, helped in no small part by the fact that original D&D ruleset was open-ended enough to accommodate a wide range of innovations and contributions.

Then-D&D-owner TSR changed its tune with the creation of Dragon Magazine GEnie's TSR Online RoundTable. The Online RoundTable was followed by D&D newsgroups, which TSR eventually saw as a threat, attempting to restrict content to MPG-Net, a TSR-themed American Online forum, and GEnie.

Wizards of the Coast's acquisition of D&D from TSR raised hopes of a better relationship with the online community. WOTC launched Gleemax, which was supposed to be an all-encompassing platform for WOTC's digital content. It didn't work out that way.

Gleemax was followed by D&D Insider (DDI), a five-part plan to encompass the Fourth Edition of D&D: digital versions of Dungeon and Dragon Magazines, a rules compendium, an online character builder, and a monster builder. It also included a virtual tabletop that was failed and restarted several times.

Fourth Edition D&D's chilly reception coincided with the cancellation of several digital efforts. As the company moved to Fifth Edition, WOTC threw in the towel on digital entirely. PDFs were yanked from the Internet. Dungeon and Dragon Magazine were cancelled. Citing the growth of other social media platforms, WOTC shut down their own online forums at the end of October 2015.

Fifth Edition: A New Hope?​

The arrival of Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons seemed like a restart for how WOTC engaged with digital. It didn't turn out that way.

Trapdoor Technologies promised a comprehensive platform similar to the D&D Beyond announcement, including rules, character sheets, and adventures together into a clean interface. It was codenamed Morningstar. WOTC's relationship with Trapdoor didn't last. After WOTC abruptly broke up with the company and cancelled the project, Trapdoor Technologies transitioned to Pathfinder and struggled with alternative funding through Kickstarter, eventually shutting down entirely on October 19, 2016:

On Wednesday, Oct 19th, Slingshot Capital Partners, the group who own Trapdoor decided to close our company immediately. It is now the staff and management’s sad duty to tell you that there will be no new products, product updates, Trapdoor Tuesday releases or other company functions. As you may already know, our Kickstarter campaign for Playbook Essentials on Android has also been canceled. Despite the efforts of the former staff to find a way to keep Playbook going, we have exhausted our options.

Despite Trapdoor's failure, WOTC wasn't done with the digital space. The release of the DMs Guild provided a path forward for PDFs and fan-created content once more. There were more changes to come though, and it started at the top.

A Digital Leader​

WOTC's latest CEO, Chris Cocks, has his roots in online gaming:

Chris Cocks, who most recently served as Vice President, OEM Technical Sales at Microsoft Corporation, where he led a global sales and technical engagement team. Prior to his eight-year tenure with Microsoft, Chris served as Vice President of Educational Games at LeapFrog, where he led a cross-discipline team to drive hardware planning, software design and development, marketing and channel management. He began his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble and served in product management and marketing leadership positions in Xbox and MSN, including work on hit franchises like Halo and Fable, prior to joining Leapfrog.

With WOTC's announced partnership with Curse to create D&D Beyond, Cocks is revisiting a platform where the company has yet to be successful...at least by WOTC's own standards.

D&D Beyond will include a D&D compendium (like DDI), character management (like Trapdoor's Project Morningstar), D&D forums (like the old WOTC forums), and the ability to leverage homebrew content (presumably an outgrowth of DMs Guild content). One additional and important note, as Morrus confirmed, is the ability to play offline. Notably missing is any virtual tabletop, which at this point has largely been outsourced to online platforms like Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.

With Cocks' experience and some hard-won lessons about digital initiatives under WOTC's belt, D&D Beyond seems like the company's best chance at getting digital right. Here’s hoping that the name of WOTC’s new digital partner is not a sign of things to come.

 

[iwarrior-poet]

I posted my take on the history of D&D digital on my blog... http://rpg.brainclouds.net/2017/03/13/wotc-announces-digital-tools-again/

And, yeah, Trapdoor still owes me $14.

You missed quite a bit. There were attempts going back to 2e to have digital tools for D&D, but each attempt has ultimately failed. The 4e attempt might have lasted the longest---but I wouldn't consider it successful by any means.

And again---I got burned so badly by the 3/3.5 fracus---that I'm not going to buy in unless it's very clear they are putting out a quality product that they will support for some time.

 

[Koloth]

As one who used the CMP datasets with PCGen, I liked the end product. The other option was something called E-Tools which IIRC was the descendant of a product WOTC included in the early 3E PH called Master Tools. CMP got the license when the originator of Master Tools failed to deliver a finished product. WOTC pulled the CMP license for 3.5 when they announced V4, which pretty well killed CMP's cash flow and gutted the company. At least one dataset ready for release was cancelled. That is why I suggested that one of the questions needing answering on the newly announced product is how the end of life licensing will be handled. IMO, it needs to be a lot more customer friendly then how WOTC handled the wind down of 3.5 prior to the V4 release.

 

[Dire Bare]

As one who used the CMP datasets with PCGen, I liked the end product. The other option was something called E-Tools which IIRC was the descendant of a product WOTC included in the early 3E PH called Master Tools. CMP got the license when the originator of Master Tools failed to deliver a finished product. WOTC pulled the CMP license for 3.5 when they announced V4, which pretty well killed CMP's cash flow and gutted the company. At least one dataset ready for release was cancelled. That is why I suggested that one of the questions needing answering on the newly announced product is how the end of life licensing will be handled. IMO, it needs to be a lot more customer friendly then how WOTC handled the wind down of 3.5 prior to the V4 release.

I'm also concerned about end-of-life or change-in-edition will be handled. The 4th Edition D&D Insider tools worked very well, and were put in the fridge upon the transition to 5th Edition. Not sure, but they may be entirely dead by this point.

I don't expect WotC to go backwards and provide support for 0th through 4th Edition (although, that would be super cool), but I don't want to invest in D&D Beyond and have it all disappear when the inevitable 6th Edition of the game comes out.

 

[ddaley]

I spend a lot of money on Kickstarter projects, dmsguild/drivethrurpg products, and on Fantasy Grounds content (I also own Realm Works and Hero Lab, though don't use either of those much... yet), not to mention physical content from stores/amazon/etc. I have no problem spending money on content. However, I draw the line at paying a subscription. Oh well.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm happy that WotC has decided to partner with a bigger company this time around. Almost all the previous instances have involved WotC working with a tiny company without much of a track record in the space. Unsurprisingly, most have been a bit of a trainwreck for WotC, D&D gamers and, eventually, when the licence is pulled, the company making the product.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Thats quite a brief summary.

Just focusing online, if you wanted an example of success, the closest was 4E, whose online tools probably became the biggest source of revenue for that edition.

Of course, first there was horrible Gleemax (never forget), then the failed VTT, then a popular downloadable character builder that was replaced by the online version and pissed off a lot of people in the process. But it did work well, and the DM monster builder was extremely useful. They also made maps and images from published books available, which facilitated playing on Roll20 and other online platforms.

I loved the 4e Compendium, Monster Builder, and Character Builder. They were excellent tools.

 

[Gorath99]

Cautiously hopeful about this one. Would love to reduce some clutter at the table. But a subscription model is not something I like.

Anybody remember AD&D's Core Rules CD-ROMs? (These things: https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/130515/add-cd-rom-core-rules-20 ) My friends and I still remember those fondly.

 

[MNblockhead]

I spend a lot of money on Kickstarter projects, dmsguild/drivethrurpg products, and on Fantasy Grounds content (I also own Realm Works and Hero Lab, though don't use either of those much... yet), not to mention physical content from stores/amazon/etc. I have no problem spending money on content. However, I draw the line at paying a subscription. Oh well.

I also spend way too much for underused digital tool. I use RealmWorks and HeroLabs heavily, but many a map-making program sit unused on my laptop.

Actually, I don't mind a digital subscription at all in the right circumstances. If instead of paying hundreds up front to get all the content up front, I would rather pay a reasonable monthly fee. But it will also need to include cloud-based backup (buy still be able to run off-line), automatic software and content updates, and enough content to make the fee worth it.

 

[ddaley]

First, I don't like having a regular monthly expense for something that I am not going to use consistently. Second, I don't like the feeling that I will lose all of my content once I "unsubscribe." I would rather pay more upfront, not have my data stored in the cloud, and have my application and data permanently...

I also spend way too much for underused digital tool. I use RealmWorks and HeroLabs heavily, but many a map-making program sit unused on my laptop.

Actually, I don't mind a digital subscription at all in the right circumstances. If instead of paying hundreds up front to get all the content up front, I would rather pay a reasonable monthly fee. But it will also need to include cloud-based backup (buy still be able to run off-line), automatic software and content updates, and enough content to make the fee worth it.

 

[Morrus]

First, I don't like having a regular monthly expense for something that I am not going to use consistently. Second, I don't like the feeling that I will lose all of my content once I "unsubscribe." I would rather pay more upfront, not have my data stored in the cloud, and have my application and data permanently...

That reminds me I need to get back to the gym and cancel Spotify.