d20 publishers and D&DI

[Shawn_Kehoe]

A thought:

It would be very cool if Wizards gave the best d20 publishers the tools to port their print adventure modules to D&DI, much as how Dungeon modules will be "plug-and-play." So if you bought Crucible of Freya Revised and went to Necromancer's website, you could download a module file to load onto the Digital Game Table.

 

[Glyfair]

Scott Rouse has mentioned something related (but not exactly the same) here.

Yes in a way. Third party publishers can register for community pages to promote their RPG product etcs. Also if a DM want to run a module using the D&D Game Table they can.

In terms of us loading a 3rd party designed monster, feat, spell, or magic item into our tools that is unlikely.

I believe it's pretty unlikely WotC will support the ability to do this. It might work if the program allows user input. Advertising that they have that data available might be a problem.

 

[wedgeski]

I'm extremely interested in developments in this area.

If Wizards provide the tools for third parties to write adventure modules using material found in the SRD, that can then be loaded on the Game Table, that will be uber-powerful.

 

[Yair]

I doubt this kind of functionality is what Scott is talking about. It sounds to me like he's talking about a DM being able to run a 3rd party adventure just like he can run his homebrew ones.

I agree it may very well be a great thing. Being able to download the adventure's module and have all the maps there, all the text pregenerated, all the encounters set up and their game mechanics referenced... this could be worth a lot. I haven't seen anything that says this will be offered even for Wizard's products, however, let alone a 3rd party one. I suspect rather that the on-line registration will open up a digital ebook version of the physical product and insert its new bits (monsters and so on) to the databases; I'd be surprised if they'll even bother inserting the maps in a ready-made format for the virtual tabletop. I'll be happy to be proved wrong.

What I really don't get is the last part,

In terms of us loading a 3rd party designed monster, feat, spell, or magic item into our tools that is unlikely.

I don't understand Wizards' objection to this. As noted elsewhere, house rule functionality is a huge part of the DI and Wizards wants to encourage people to release data-sets with their tweaks. It immediately follows that people will want to use tweaks that will insert rules from non-WotC products, such as Iron Kingdoms feats or so on. I don't understand why WotC wouldn't want to offer a channel to sell those. It's a win-win situation - Wizards gets to earn money from the sale of these patches, and the 3rd party publishers get to use the DI propriety formats and get to use DI to support their gaming products more fully. (Wizards could limit this to D&D-supportive products only, if it so desires - but I think it's be doing itself a disservice.) The only thing Wizard's objection will achieve is the transfer and proliferation of (technically illegal) fan copies instead of approved and legal copies.