D&Dvolution?

[Mark CMG]

It's the exceptions that make D&D great: (. . .)

Perhaps. However, over the time that I have played the various incarnations of the game there has been a continuous attempt to make the system and sub-systems that comprise D&D to work together more harmoniously, to mesh more effectively, to remove aspects that do not blend well with the whole.

(There's a good chance I forgot some exceptions to the above rules or mistakenly remembered the rules. Computers don't forget nor make mistakes, unless programmed improperly.)

That's just the point. Not everyone who works on the tabletop game would have the skills to understand how something they design for a tabletop ruleset might not be the best fit to port over to a ruleset that would also work well with a CRPG or even with a program/tool to use in conjunction with a tabletop game. However, what I have seen over the past few years leads me to believe that just such a simplification is in the works.

 

[Mark CMG]

Simplifying D&D, erasing exceptions and all that would not make it easier for computers to manage everything.

The discussion is about how the programs handle things not in regard to the capability of computers themselves.

It would only make it easier to design such software.

Yup. That's the point.

 

[Umbran]

I'd have to say that these were "serious" and "significant" efforts despite the results.

Looking at what I've written, I realize I need to add one adjective: "...nobody has thrown well managed, seriously paid developers at the problem for a significant period of time, because there's not enough economic gain to be had."

In that I mean that the developers are good enough to be able to demand a serious salary - you can throw huge amounts of money at an awful developer, and get trash for a product.

In the end, the WotC effort was not serious. The information we have points to half-dedicated management, poor developers, or both. The rule set does not pose a significant barrier to having tools.

I understand that other games have tools, but "enough economic gain" really does depend upon who you are - WotC is not going to bother with projects with smaller profit margins. The fact of the matter is that good developers and people to manage them well cost a whole lot of money.

Maybe the DI will change the ecnomics, so that decent tools will be worth enough for their development costs.

One hopes that with the DI, they'll get their acts together.

 

[Mark CMG]

Looking at what I've written, I realize I need to add one adjective: "...nobody has thrown well managed, seriously paid developers at the problem for a significant period of time, because there's not enough economic gain to be had."

In that I mean that (. . .)

(emphasis mine)


I think the problem with your assertion lies in the part I made bold.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Yup. That's the point.

You have to ask yourself, though: Do you want to do without extra rules or exceptions that would make the game better just so that the programmers don't have to think as hard?

It's their job to think hard about things. They're used to taking complex things and making them easy to handle (I know what I'm talking about. One of our customers has the tendency to say "just make a button that does this all", for pretty much everything, including quite complicated and comlex problems. But you don't see us telling him that they should build simpler power plants and such so we don't have to model complex systems )

 

[Mark CMG]

You have to ask yourself, though: Do you want to do without extra rules or exceptions that would make the game better just so that the programmers don't have to think as hard?

Is it your contention that only one or the other condition can be met? That only a game that would be difficult for programmers can be better or D&D or fun?

 

[Umbran]

I think the problem with your assertion lies in the part I made bold.

Given the niche market, The limits on the price point, and the requisite salaries involved, I don't think there's a problem with the assertion in the slightest. We are talking about adding a group to WotC that is equivalent to a small software startup company on it's own. Let's take a scenario off the cuff...

People already gripe about the price of hardcover rulebooks. The market isn't going to be happy paying much more than that for software to use with the book. So, we're talking maybe a $50 price point, tops.

Your market is pretty limited: DMs, or players who happen to use laptops at the table. That's a small segment of a niche market. Let's say we expect 10,000 units of this thing to sell (in the RPG world, that's a smashing success for a product, right?)

That's an overall budget of $500,000. If you pay just four people $60K each a year (that's small for a team, and a small salary for the type of job) to do this, you have already eaten about half what the product is worth. That's not counting the hardware they need to work on, artwork, documentation, support, marketing, benefits packages, cost of spinning up this team, and so on. If you use more people, or pay them more (really good developers can ask six figures), the profit margin continues to drop.

 

[Mark CMG]

Given the niche market, (. . .)

The target market being discussed is the combined markets of tabletop gamers and CRPGers, not one or the other, nor just the current overlap.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

If the complexity of the system is reduced in order to make it easier to program an electronic tool, the value of that tool is also reduced. One reason people desire a good character generator is to help them with those complexities.

As for the economic gain to be had, I think it has been the perception of large companies such as WotC that the gains would be modest at best. The free character generator in the 3.0 PHB was meant as an intro, it was pretty much an alpha test. Not follow up says that there was no committment to its development. The fact that Master Tools never saw the light of day indicates to me that someone felt the ROI was not high enough to continue development. I don't know much of what happened with D&D eTools, but my recollection of it was that is was pretty much released with low expectations and little fanfare as functionality was stripped out as development progressed. Again my perception is that they didn't see much of a ROI, so they stopped putting effort into it.

Whether the perception of little economic gain is reality remains to be seen, but it won't be known until someone creates a program that functions well with the features most people want to see.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Is it your contention that only one or the other condition can be met? That only a game that would be difficult for programmers can be better or D&D or fun?

No, but I say that no change that would only be there to make the programmers' lifes easier, or that would even hurt the system to help the programmers, should be even considered.