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

[tetrasodium]

so we don’t know any of those details. We don’t even know if Micro transactions will be involved yet. Though it’s not likely to need a notable purchase as it’s just using the Unreal Engine.

Edit: the preview we got looked nicer than that tech demo.

You do know that a some of the modern VTTs other than roll20 load with this

Spoiler: splashscreen

I see that splash every time I load up a 3d vtt capable of doing

Spoiler: this

What do 3d assets add to that year+ old video & what I've been doing at my table without touch the year or two prior to them adding support?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

What do 3d assets add to that year+ old video & what I've been doing at my table without touch the year or two prior to them adding support?

It looks nice. That and being easy to use are all that is required.


Did you watch the video? VTT stuff starts at 4 minutes.

 

[darjr]

Video qued up to that point.

 

[MichaelSomething]

For reference, has anyone here ever played Gary's Mod???

 

[tetrasodium]

It looks nice. That and being easy to use are all that is required.


Did you watch the video? VTT stuff starts at 4 minutes.

Yes months ago... "more minis. more options for character customization"... What does that do for me as a GM? I have tons of monster tokens & can do things like link a torch/sword/mace/shield image to them if I need to for some reason(spoiler: almost never). Who is the primary target user of this VTT, GMs or players?

That last bit is the big problem with the announcement teaser. & what the vtt has to offer gm's. Players aren't going to be buying /building TV boxes & tables or building dungeons week after week in it but it is mostly focused on appealing to players. The interface and ui I needs I have while being a gm are going to differ from while being a player but the gm is usually the one who makes the decision on which vtt to use. What does 3d do for me as a gm and how much work does that save me or create for me? The vtt might be too early in development to show that answer. That "too early but.." would be understandable if they at least mentioned what the 3d or this vtt expects to do for me as a gm in ways the announcement did not. The only "too early but" features it seems to mention are monitizing my players or selling me token image replacements that are in 3d. Even using it for AL games I've never once had a player push back on me using a vtt at the table for map stuff in like five years because their workload is saying "here" while pointing or touching the screen. When an announcement seems so clearly mistarketed & hints at microtransactions its hard not to be skeptical of the benefits I'm expected to find on my own.

 

[fjw70]

I voted no. I am not a VTT fan in general (just not my preferred style of play). When we switched to online during Covid I ran TotM style online. It worked well. Since then I found Owlbear Rodeo and used that some online due to its ease of use. Ease of use is by far my number one criteria for using a VTT.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Yes months ago... "more minis. more options for character customization"... What does that do for me as a GM? I have tons of monster tokens & can do things like link a torch/sword/mace/shield image to them if I need to for some reason(spoiler: almost never). Who is the primary target user of this VTT, GMs or players?

Both

 

[tetrasodium]

Both

That's part of the problem though, they aren't marketing it that way & it's not really used that way. Players aren't the ones who need to adopt the vtt because the GM is the one who does most of the work involved in building dungeons/running the game/etc. Taking that a step further they might not even be the ones who buy the hardware running/displaying the vtt itself. "we might give you a premade campaign from us that has an exciting castle or keep with a dungeon inside of it. Exciting NPCs... But then you're going to be able to take this playset, take it apart & build your own. We're going to have a really robust tool for you to create your own dungeons" That's about the only part talking to the GM but the video is exclusively showing the player view of that stuff or is swooping over a view that is at best of questionable use to me as a GM. A couple powerpoint slides telling me anything about the "really robust tool" or what things the GM interface is planned to support/enable might have been even more useful in that section. Instead it swoops a playerside view over some skeletons towards a dragon on a raised dias like a player might see as a GM is describing it.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

waste of resources and they will try to rip people off so much it will fail corporates always do.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Well, I think asking my friend to leave the game to drive back home so they can follow the fight scene on their computer before getting back would kill the mood of my playing sessions.

I agree that it looks nice, more than a 2d color battlemap inexpensively printed on vinyl, but I still think throwing dice in physical tabletop is easier than getting your phone, loading the dicerolling app, telling your friends the results because they likely won't see it... No, frankly, I don't want a 3D VTT. I don't have 3D tabletop (only flat terrain) and it was enough for my enjoyment. Switching to 3D, whether physical through building decors or, more easily, through a computer, might not help me to have more immersive sessions (if anything, I feel the focus on the computer would lessen the immersion). Also, it would need, more seriously than sending everyone home, to have the group focusing on a computer by the gaming table, which is not very practical compared to just pulling a map on the table and using glass beads and physical tokens to represent a scene when TotM becomes too difficult to ensure everyone is on the same page.

I might get interested in a 3D computer VTT if it is really to use (maybe by having a large library of set pieces, on par with battlemap one can find on the Internet, only with better quality to make interesting fights), and the total price of investment to have a "digital gaming table" like the one in the surface demo + virtual tabletop price drops around the same price tag as printing 2D maps (which is under 2 € a map if grouping your prints) over the long run. So I could be convinced, but the requirements are stringent.

Also, the fact that I don't want it for me doesn't mean that I want other to suffer by depriving them of it. If a company (WotC or another) offers a 3D tabletop, more power to them.