D&D General Do you want a 3D vtt?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

There is no reason a 3D VTT couldn't also handle 2D. Any 3D VTT worth a damn would need to provide a fairly wide set of default maps and models, AND permit importing of more, whether "official" or not. Those who don't want to mess with 3D but still want the advantages of a VTT wouldn't have to. The greatest advantage of a VTT isn't automation of gameplay - it's ability for a group to be in even VASTLY separated locations and still play. To that end the closer the experience can be to actually being at the same table - and even enhanced - I think the better it would be. 3d terrain, monsters, weather effects, lighting. BRING IT ON! We've been promised 3d "gaming" for 30 years, let's HAVE IT!

 

[SkidAce]

I generally agree with you but we already have on the fly tools for 3D battlemap generation (DungeonAlchemistis one prominent example). Assuming WotC's VTT allows imports, my guess is there will be a stupid number of options in very short order.

Bolded by me.

This is what I feel will be the problem, they may (and "tax" accordingly) or they may not (reaping all the monies).

 

[Guest 7034872]

I'm likely a statistical outlier for the general D&Der population, but I don't even use VTTs in the first place and certainly would not enjoy a 3D one. Maps are good, but progress on one is a pencil-and-paper deal for me. Part of the charm of this game is the extent to which it invites one's own imagination to fill in the details of a setting or scene, and VTTs often take that away.

 

[ilgatto]

Nope. Not interested.
And certainly not if using one would require me to subscribe, pay monthly fees, pay-to-win, and be advertised at and have my data monetized.

Having said that, I wouldn't be adverse to having a look at a good one so I can be amazed at how brilliantly it does what it does, how far the game has come, and to muse about how we used to want one back in the days of yore.

Besides: Isn't there such things as the utterly brilliant Medieval II: Total War and... oh dear..., what's that other thing called again? World of War? War of the Worlds? Anyway, you know what I mean.

 

[tetrasodium]

There is no reason a 3D VTT couldn't also handle 2D. Any 3D VTT worth a damn would need to provide a fairly wide set of default maps and models, AND permit importing of more, whether "official" or not. Those who don't want to mess with 3D but still want the advantages of a VTT wouldn't have to. The greatest advantage of a VTT isn't automation of gameplay - it's ability for a group to be in even VASTLY separated locations and still play. To that end the closer the experience can be to actually being at the same table - and even enhanced - I think the better it would be. 3d terrain, monsters, weather effects, lighting. BRING IT ON! We've been promised 3d "gaming" for 30 years, let's HAVE IT!

I agree on the bold bit to a degree, but the system needs to be made to support the GM doing that rather than just dumping it on the GM to make that work. 5e players have too much range & can move too high of a percentage of their visual range. Toss on the fact that PCs are overly durable & overly powerful beyond the needs for level appropriate encounters & that kind of split turns into running two or more fully separate games in parallel while the PCs are aware of literally everything & not in any meaningful risk due to being split. Phrases like "oh I've got 90/120 feet darkvision" & "I get to ignore partial cover" "cunning action dash" & so on means that it becomes very difficult for the GM to mitigate that load of running parallel games with phrases like "It's dark, you can't really tell" & "there are trees/ruined buildings/rocks/whatever".

So far we don't yet have the darkvision rules for 6e & can only hope for improvements in the new generation of forks like blackflag but I'm at the point of just saying "nobody has darkvision ever & no light cabntrips" or "darkvision counts as carrying a candle & no light cantrips" because I'm tired of players crossing their arms & demanding I zoom out to give them a gods eye view

 

[Reynard]

I agree on the bold bit to a degree, but the system needs to be made to support the GM doing that rather than just dumping it on the GM to make that work. 5e players have too much range & can move too high of a percentage of their visual range. Toss on the fact that PCs are overly durable & overly powerful beyond the needs for level appropriate encounters & that kind of split turns into running two or more fully separate games in parallel while the PCs are aware of literally everything & not in any meaningful risk due to being split. Phrases like "oh I've got 90/120 feet darkvision" & "I get to ignore partial cover" "cunning action dash" & so on means that it becomes very difficult for the GM to mitigate that load of running parallel games with phrases like "It's dark, you can't really tell" & "there are trees/ruined buildings/rocks/whatever".

So far we don't yet have the darkvision rules for 6e & can only hope for improvements in the new generation of forks like blackflag but I'm at the point of just saying "nobody has darkvision ever & no light cabntrips" or "darkvision counts as carrying a candle & no light cantrips" because I'm tired of players crossing their arms & demanding I zoom out to give them a gods eye view

I am not sure this problem has anything to do with VTTs. I think @Man in the Funny Hat point was that the VTT allows for us to play together when we are separated by distance. I know my play group extends from coast to coast, and occasionally across oceans. But the issues of "battlemap versus TotM" are the same as they would be at the table.

That said, I actually think VTTs have lots of advantages and automation is certain one of them. If you can cut down page flipping because the computer remembers the rule every time, you can speed up play. Vision and light on the battlemap are another place where it can be advantageous if that is what you were doing at the table: laying down exactly what you can see and where spell effects are is very useful. these advantages are so strong that lots of people use VTTs for in person games, in fact.

One place where I think most VTTs fall down, though, is they aren't very good for certain kinds of improvisational play where you just scrawl some terrain on your dry erase board and make up monster stats in your head because the party zigged when they should have zagged. A high fidelity 3D VTT tied to a highly automated rules database would be even worse for this style of play.

 

[tetrasodium]

I am not sure this problem has anything to do with VTTs. I think @Man in the Funny Hat point was that the VTT allows for us to play together when we are separated by distance. I know my play group extends from coast to coast, and occasionally across oceans. But the issues of "battlemap versus TotM" are the same as they would be at the table.

That said, I actually think VTTs have lots of advantages and automation is certain one of them. If you can cut down page flipping because the computer remembers the rule every time, you can speed up play. Vision and light on the battlemap are another place where it can be advantageous if that is what you were doing at the table: laying down exactly what you can see and where spell effects are is very useful. these advantages are so strong that lots of people use VTTs for in person games, in fact.

One place where I think most VTTs fall down, though, is they aren't very good for certain kinds of improvisational play where you just scrawl some terrain on your dry erase board and make up monster stats in your head because the party zigged when they should have zagged. A high fidelity 3D VTT tied to a highly automated rules database would be even worse for this style of play.

They have lots of advantages & I like them, but they are also useful for in person play where players all share the same screen& vision range. VTTs are not simply digital battlemats though. The biggest mat chessex makes is still limited by the physical size of the table you sit it on. A VTT like roll20 might start to have load issues after the entire gridspace crosses 120x120 or so, but more capable VTTs (especially in person use of them like linked) have a limit more like millions before starting to get floating point issues.

They can be difficult to "scrawl some stuff on the dry erase" type play as you note, but actually scrawling the lines like that is pretty easy in some VTTs & the difficulty comes from the fact that too many of the 5e rules were written using the size of a dry erase map to constrain excess player expectations placed on the gm. When that constraint goes away it leaves the players with a club known as the social contract if the players feel like the only reason they suffered X-thing was because the GM simply refused to zoom out for them to see.

 

[MNblockhead]

Yeah, for it to really take off and integrate with a lot of campaigns via DDB I think whatever WotC comes up with has to be simple and intuitive to use. Foundry and 3d Canvas look cool but way too complicated for technology idiots like me.

Exactly. 3D Canvas is a hobby kit for enthusiasts. We are still in a transition stage. Like the early days of computers. I have no doubt that even if Hasbro/WotC doesn't pull it off, someone will. And it will be over the next couple of years. In under 5 years, 3D VTTs will be as simple as Minecraft and Fortnite and older elementary and middle school kids and even many of us old folks will be happily running games and creating scenes in them without much more difficulty than faced by playing any video game. It'll be easier to create a 3D map and environment than it currently is to prep a 2D map in current VTTs.

 

[MNblockhead]

A bunch of 3D terrain and models honestly does not sound that system intensive on most video games.

Exactly, why would it be more intensive than Fortnite for example?

 

[MNblockhead]

Bolded by me.

This is what I feel will be the problem, they may (and "tax" accordingly) or they may not (reaping all the monies).

They'll have to allow third-parties to sell assets and for people to share community creations or they just won't be competitive. I suppose that they could go with a model where they only sell their official games all prepped and optimized, but they would be leaving a lot of money on the table. At launch, perhaps that will be their focus. They will want their VTT to provide the absolute best experience for running official WotC adventures. But if they don't support a vibrant marketplace and community content sharing, their competitors will fill the gap and draw away customers.