House Rules in the Character Builder

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. Were I blessed with the job of managing that whole thing I'd definitely be moving in that direction. Outsourcing CAN be useful, but a business like DDI really is probably best done mostly in house, with maybe some low level work farmed out when you have a good handle on it and just need some extra hands for a short time. I think they'll get there. Seems in fact like they've been slowly upping their game for a while now. I notice that recently CB and MB have been moving forward a good bit. That MIGHT just be the fruits of many months of work behind the scenes, but hopefully the pace will be a little quicker and they've got more stuff in the pipeline. It is a pretty good product overall now, but it would be really mind-blowing if it reaches its potential!

 

[Crazy Jerome]

On the content rights and risks there of, wouldn't something like this work: Let people enter new content, and always have it flagged as fan-submitted. (Agree that a separate application a good idea here.) Set up DDI so people need to opt to see this stuff. You go to a separate section to include fan-submitted stuff in your DDI material (preferably, with a DM campaign option to make this standard across a given campaign.) If you want to customize material for your own campaign, you do it the same way, and you can make it public or not.

Basically, all DDI is doing at this point is saving you typing it in yourself, when someone else has made an option public that you like.

Then, because the quality will range all over the board, WotC checks out things that are good (probably that are getting flagged as good by users). If there is no problem with it (legal, standards, etc.), they flag the option as something they are interested in making "official". If the author agrees, the author gives up rights to the material. WotC flags it as official and it now shows up for everyone in the standard lists. WotC offers whatever rewards make sense to get the volume they want--credits on subscription, actual micropayments, recognition, etc. If the author rejects the offer, no big deal--leave it as fan submitted only.

IANAL nor experienced in any way in content management.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

On the content rights and risks there of, wouldn't something like this work: Let people enter new content, and always have it flagged as fan-submitted. (Agree that a separate application a good idea here.) Set up DDI so people need to opt to see this stuff. You go to a separate section to include fan-submitted stuff in your DDI material (preferably, with a DM campaign option to make this standard across a given campaign.) If you want to customize material for your own campaign, you do it the same way, and you can make it public or not.

Basically, all DDI is doing at this point is saving you typing it in yourself, when someone else has made an option public that you like.

Then, because the quality will range all over the board, WotC checks out things that are good (probably that are getting flagged as good by users). If there is no problem with it (legal, standards, etc.), they flag the option as something they are interested in making "official". If the author agrees, the author gives up rights to the material. WotC flags it as official and it now shows up for everyone in the standard lists. WotC offers whatever rewards make sense to get the volume they want--credits on subscription, actual micropayments, recognition, etc. If the author rejects the offer, no big deal--leave it as fan submitted only.

IANAL nor experienced in any way in content management.

Well, IANAL either. My guess is any kind of thing like this has SOME potential legal issues, but they're probably not huge. Something like that wouldn't be unprecedented, so it seems like it can be made to work.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Judging from the past, people will gripe and complain about not having X or Y a bunch, and talk about how horrible WOTC is for not including it NOW NOW NOW but as soon as X or Y shows up they move on.v

It's a pretty well documented thing in psychology: people focus more on problems than on good things. This shouldn't surprise anyone too much.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I'd say in all reality it's a little of both.

All different groups want various things to be worked on, and they only have some much time/money to split.

Some poor chump has to juggle the demands of what various people want and what can be done in a given amount of time, and with that given amount of money.

That guy probably gets yelled at a lot by everyone, and is probably loosing his hair (if he has any left.)

Wow - I couldn't care less about the 'poor chump' who runs the DDI online stuff. If his job is too hard for him - boo hoo. Not my problem. Get the online builder to be equal to the offline one we had I'll resubscribe. Until then - no money for WotC.

 

[Quickleaf]

Quote: Originally Posted by Quickleaf
So with adding extra powers...is it from anywhere or is it restricted by character class? Or is it no holds barred allowing you to select powers from other races, themes, and such?

See, I resisted my knee-jerk bashing of DDi! Aren't you proud of me?

Quote: Originally posted by Scribble
I haven't done a ton of testing but from my quick glance over it looked like from anywhere.

Thanks Scribble Can anyone else chime in on this?

 

[delericho]

Wow - I couldn't care less about the 'poor chump' who runs the DDI online stuff.

Eh, I'm torn.

On the one hand, I have huge sympathy with the guys who have to build the DDI. The problems with the system appear very much to be a case of really bad management, they're under huge pressure, and they probably don't have the resources that are actually required for a task this size.

On the other hand, the people who are complaining about DDI have every reason to be upset. The product is very far from where it should be, never mind any comparison with what was promised when 4e was announced. So, yeah, complaining is very valid.

I just hope that WotC realise what DDI could be, recognise that it is now the best hope for D&D continuing (at least as an RPG), and actually give it the resources (and consistent direction) that it requires.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Thanks Scribble Can anyone else chime in on this?

Likewise, not a ton of testing, but it apears you can grant powers, class features (I just gave a hexblade Healing Word), racial abilities (also granted Fey Step). So it's safe to say that it works with anything.

 

[babinro]

This is the best D&D news all year

I can't wait to award my PC's with free feats as quest rewards, not to mention they can finally add artifact powers to their character sheets.

This was my number 1 complaint with the current state of D&D, so glad they finally got around to addressing it on the Character Builder!

 

[Umbran]

Eh, I'm torn.

On the one hand...

On the other hand...

Quite. There are a couple of groups here - there's the folks who make the business decisions, and the folks who execute the business decisions, and they generally aren't the same. Your complaints are probably best thought of as targeted to the business, not the engineers.