D&D (2024) D&D's Upcoming Digital Tabletop

Perhaps the showstopper of todays D&D Direct event was a preview of the upcoming D&D digital playspace. Hosts Gina Darling and Ify Nwadiwe met with Kale Stutzman, principal game designer of D&D Digital, where he ran them through an adventure using the technology. The video shown in the presentation, though, was labeled “Pre-alpha gameplay footage.”

The upcoming D&D VTT uses Unreal Engine 5 to power it.

“There are a lot of ways to play D&D online and we don't think a lot of them hit the big three things we think are important – fun, convenience, authenticity,” said Stutzman.

In the demo, you see the dice roll on the screen, and it bursts into the result. Encounter mode is when you roll initiative

“The DM can set the mood, the lighting, what time of day is it. Is it raining? Are there fire embers falling from the sky?” said Stutzman.

The community will be able to create and share assets. “We want to make content that's building blocks that people can break apart and make their own content with. That remix is core to the DNA of D&D, said Stutzman.

Stutzman didn't answer when the VTT will release, but he did say that D&D staff and limited friends and family are trying it now and that they're going to gradually open it up. “...and a lot of people listening will be able to play it this year,” Stutzman added, which means a play test in “late 2023.”

 

[doctorbadwolf]

About creating new assets in unreal engine 5.

Asset Creation for Unreal Engine 5 | Community tutorial

I show you a very easy way to create game assets for Unreal Engine 5, all for free without needing any external plugins or add-ons.

dev.epicgames.com

Spoiler: it’s not some unattainable thing that “will never happen”.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

If they really want to, they can stop selling any official adventures or books on other platforms.

Just responding to this part: I think it's pretty good marketing that their books are consistently top sellers on Amazon. Until that stops, I bet they continue to publish dead trees

 

[MNblockhead]

Looks nice. I am hoping though that you can remove the bases from the figures? I don't need them in a VTT.

Hmm...I actually prefer the bases. Actually, in most of my games (currently using Foundry), I use "pog" style markers. Just circles with art. I find that they are just easier to track. But I'm running in 2D now. In 3D, pogs would likely look weird. But having 3D "minis" are still easier for me to track when they have bases, if for no other reason that they are easily differentiated from all the 3D dungeon dressing. That said, I'm all for options and it would be great if you could toggle "bases" on or off.

 

[Hussar]

There are a couple of points about having bases.

1. Presumably, VTT play would use a grid. Having a base makes it easier to "snap" to the grid.
2. Having the base also dovetails with the idea that this is a virtual Tabletop. We're not playing a video game. This isn't Skyrim or something like that. This is trying to recreate the physical experience of playing at a real table. At a real table, your minis have bases.

As someone who has played on VTT's for a very long time, I can totally see why this would be a fantastic idea. Move forward a bit and imagine you're playing this through something like an Oculus Rift or something like that. The point isn't to create an in game reality video game. We already have things like Skyrim or whatnot for that. The point is to recreate you and a bunch of other people playing around a kitchen table.

 

[MNblockhead]

Cheers! Yeah I can see real value in having a dedicated environment for the ruleset. My disappointment lies in the fact that I love hacking the rules of the games I play, so locking it strictly to RAW will be a negative to me. (Also I like to play enough games that aren’t 5E, but I’d like to preserve the same environment.)

I hear you. It would be great if there were ways to easily edit rule changes, but I'm guessing it will at most support toggling various common alternate/option rules, like you can currently do in D&D Beyond. Most of my homebrew is downtime related, which doesn't really need VTT support. I've been able to get various custom powers or feats to work by creating them in D&D Beyond or in Foundry and I expect as long as they have feat and spell templates, I could gerry rig something to get most homebrew working. One thing that I doubt I would be able to get working with automation are my custom gang rules. But if mass-combat works smoothly in the game with automation of AOE saves and damage, then I probably don't need my homebrew game rules.

I really want to see how well they support combat with a lot of participants. Are there options to support grouping of sides or similar combatants in the initiative tracking? Will it support the DMG's rules for mass combat (e.g. select 10 archers and be able to easily have them target a single PC and resolve the hits per the DMG mass-combat rules).

The next most important thing is how well it trackets status effects.

If AOE, mass combat, spell targeting and templates, and status effects are all well supported and simple to use, I would happy give up a lot my homebrew and stick with RAW.

I fully agree about the “looks pretty for streaming” part. If only we all had all day to work on our games like some streamers, lol. It’s frustrating that some tools are more about form than function, I agree.

Yeah. But when you have system neutral engines, they are going to compete on the eye candy because they typically depend on publisher support for the systems and adventures. It just frustrates me that the things that suck the most about DMing are things that a VTT should be able to handle. Targeting, AOE, status-effect tracking, legendary and lair actions, etc. I've yet to use a VTT that handles these well. They all require a high learning curve and often lots of tweaking, testing, and troubleshooting. The visuals could look like minecraft or 1980s Q-Bert, but if the mechanics were fully supported, I would happily drop Foundry and run D&D in the system that supported the mechanics well.

 

[MNblockhead]

My big question is, how hard is it for the DM to override a result or recon something? It's pretty easy in Roll20 because you just ignore the roll. With the graphics and automated calculations to targets, etc., that's an important question.

Good question. In Foundry I can just click on the undo icon in the cat card for any result (and also have other options for halving/doubling damage). I can also prompt for rolling for damage, rather than auto rolling damage after rolling to hit. I hope that the WotC VTT will have options to set the preferred amount of automation and make it easy to undo/edit results.

 

[teitan]

Looks cool but I’m not going to get into that. Things like that are complicated to program and I don’t have the time to set all that up.

 

[MNblockhead]

I own foundry and i don't want or need this and really it is a little too late to the market place as many have used others and the distrust of this company was made clear so good luck selling this to the masses.

If they support the RAW for 5e/OneDnD well, have a good GUI, with a low learning curve, and is responsive on a decently modern PC, they will bring the masses.

Most of the existing VTTs just are not great for the average D&D player. I love Foundry, but it is intimidating with a high learning curve and its support for D&D is disappointing out of the box. Once you get into community mods to make it do what you want, it becomes a hobby onto itself. The "masses" are not going to run to Foundry. I have hard-core gamer players who work in highly technical IT jobs that just didn't want to deal with Foundry for DMing their own games. Fantasy Grounds also has a very high learning curve for DMs. Great support and community but it places more work on the shoulder of the DM. I don't see it winning over the "masses". Roll20 is probably the most successful at attracting the "masses" but it still fall short on its support of DnD Mechanics.

I think the WotC VTT is likely to going to quickly become the most-used VTT just because the masses of 5e/OneDnD players will move it.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I wonder if this could be used for "solo games" whose goal is to playtest homebred ideas, for example new classes with some special mechanic. Somebody could a homebred system about catching and summoning collectable monsters.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I wonder if this could be used for "solo games" whose goal is to playtest homebred ideas, for example new classes with some special mechanic. Somebody could a homebred system about catching and summoning collectable monsters.

Cool idea for solo play with D&D...