Zaruthustran
The tingling means it’s working!
(thread title to be sung to the tune of Video Killed the Radio Star)
In another thread an ENworlder named Upper Krust suggested that 4E should incorporate these elements:
1) Less/No Book-keeping, meaning more play time.
2) Faster game.
3) Easier to create for.
4) Less daunting to new players.
5) More visually attractive.
6) Collectibility.
7) Better from a tactical viewpoint.
I think all 7 elements can best be served by integrating online functionality into D&D. I'm not suggesting that 4E should be exclusively online, or require a computer at the gaming table.
Just that online tools would make things easier before, during, and after the regular old physical tabletop game. My reasoning follows; would love comments.
1) Less/No Book-keeping, meaning more play time. Character creation should take place online, using an interface similar to that for Neverwinter Nights 2. Right now there are just too many feats, skills, PRCs, Spells, etc scattered over way too many physical books. Want to make a 1/2 elf Bard/Duskblade/Artificer with 1/2 elf substitution levels and decent bard spells? You've got at *least* 5 books open in front of you. What a user-unfriendly experience!
NWN2's interface is just better: you have all your available feats selectable from a list. Want to know what "Curse Song" does? Right click on it, and all the rules pop up. With just a few clicks you've got a full character, with all the skills and modifiers computed for you. Less BS, more play time.
Level up? Log on and update your guy. No erasing, recalculating, fussing around. Forget your character sheet at home? Use your buddy's PC to logon to the database and print out a fresh sheet. Want to have a fully-statted sheet ready for when you're fully buffed? Apply the modifiers once (drag and drop the spells onto your guy; it'll handle the math) and print out a buffed sheet. Have an animal companion, mount, or familiar? He's auto-updated too.
Everyone is familiar with a computer game or video game levelup screen. Don't force players to dig through dozens of heavy textbooks and scratch around with a pencil and eraser. Make it easy and familiar.
2) Faster game. What stalls games? Spells, in my experience--the poor fighter working out flank, plus bard song, plus bulls strength, plus who knows what. WotC could create PDFs of common spell effects and make them available online. Casters print these out and pass them around to players.
The other time-gobbler is casters looking up their spells. Let them instead create custom spellbooks: drag from a list and drop into your virtual book, all inside the online character database. Then just click "print" and a concise collection of all your spells comes out in a just-the-facts table format (complete with auto-calculated save DCs appropriate for your abilities and feats!) followed by full spell descriptions. Take that to your game, and you'll never have to waste everyone's time flipping through a rulebook (or more likely than not, rulebooks) at the table.
3) Easier to create for.. Most critical element, and the element best aided by the computer. Let DMs drag dungeon tiles, traps, items, treasure, and monsters onto a map. Handy filters for level, CR, and whatnot would let DMs properly scale adventures for their particular number of players (even less than/more than 4 players!) quickly and easily. Then click print. Out comes the map, a room-by-room description containing each room's contents (complete with Challenge Rating, DCs, XP, and other stats), followed by an appendix with each monster's full entry in its entirety. A right-click on any monster will let you add equipment, class levels, spell effects, templates, whatever--and the resulting stat changes auto-calculate. Much better than cobbling together everything on the fly.
Last game I played, our wizard cast Animate Dead on a hydra. We collectively wasted twenty minutes looking up the spell, figuring out if he could create a skeletal hydra, applying the template, adjusting stats, recomputing attacks, AC, move, and saves, etc. etc. etc. How much better would it be to glance at the character's pre-printed spell list (which already computed max HD for that character's Animate Dead spell), turn to the computer (we game in the basement/computer room), logon to WotC, pull up "Hydra", drag "Skeletal template" onto the entry, and click "Print". Done in four clicks and 60 seconds.
4) Less daunting to new players.. World of Warcraft has over seven million subscribers. Seven million. The very worst-selling videogame RPG sells many more copies than the best-selling tabletop RPG. It's safe to assume that the vast majority of potential players are much more familiar with interactive online character creation than they are with flipping through books, looking up charts, scribbling on paper. Take away the hassle, make it easy and accessible. You'll be able to add *more* complexity, more fun.
5) More visually attractive. An elegant interface, perhaps with music and even animated art, is much more attractive than a book dense with text.
6) Collectibility. Apple, Blizzard, even WotC itself have proved people will pay real $ for virtual property (bits, whether the bits are music, MMORPG, cards, or books). You'll be able to sell MORE books online, since you're not limited to finite shelfspace in a brick-and-mortar book or game store.
7) Better from a tactical viewpoint. This is where it all comes together. Imagine a D&D game taking place on an online battlemap, only the map is animated (rustling tree branches, flowing streams) and the minis actually move (dodge, swing, bleed). Everyone is talking together over voice-over-IP. All the calculations occur behind-the-scenes, letting players concentrate on the gameplay. Moving your Blessed invisible ranger into a flanking position on a wagon over a ogre who's been hit with Bane spell? Click to move, click to attack, done. No fussing with adding up bless + flank mod + high ground + invis attacker + no dex bonus to AC for ogre + Bane effects + favored enemy.
Battles will go much faster, meaning you get to have more battles, meaning you get to actually PLAY more. The non-combat bits can be handled on the battle map (for location-specific puzzles, exploration, etc.) or off the battle map (for NPC dialogue, etc.--just like today's D&D).
The #1 killer of D&D campaigns is player attrition due to job, spouses, kids keeping them from being able to physically travel to the game. so instead, have everyone meet online. that half hour commute to, and from, the hosting player's house directly translates into 1 additional hour of actual playing time. Assuming a weekly game, it's like getting 4 extra hours a month--or an entire extra game session per month.
I tell you: the Internet will save the tabletop genre.
-z
EDIT: added clarification from later reply
In another thread an ENworlder named Upper Krust suggested that 4E should incorporate these elements:
1) Less/No Book-keeping, meaning more play time.
2) Faster game.
3) Easier to create for.
4) Less daunting to new players.
5) More visually attractive.
6) Collectibility.
7) Better from a tactical viewpoint.
I think all 7 elements can best be served by integrating online functionality into D&D. I'm not suggesting that 4E should be exclusively online, or require a computer at the gaming table.
Just that online tools would make things easier before, during, and after the regular old physical tabletop game. My reasoning follows; would love comments.1) Less/No Book-keeping, meaning more play time. Character creation should take place online, using an interface similar to that for Neverwinter Nights 2. Right now there are just too many feats, skills, PRCs, Spells, etc scattered over way too many physical books. Want to make a 1/2 elf Bard/Duskblade/Artificer with 1/2 elf substitution levels and decent bard spells? You've got at *least* 5 books open in front of you. What a user-unfriendly experience!
NWN2's interface is just better: you have all your available feats selectable from a list. Want to know what "Curse Song" does? Right click on it, and all the rules pop up. With just a few clicks you've got a full character, with all the skills and modifiers computed for you. Less BS, more play time.
Level up? Log on and update your guy. No erasing, recalculating, fussing around. Forget your character sheet at home? Use your buddy's PC to logon to the database and print out a fresh sheet. Want to have a fully-statted sheet ready for when you're fully buffed? Apply the modifiers once (drag and drop the spells onto your guy; it'll handle the math) and print out a buffed sheet. Have an animal companion, mount, or familiar? He's auto-updated too.
Everyone is familiar with a computer game or video game levelup screen. Don't force players to dig through dozens of heavy textbooks and scratch around with a pencil and eraser. Make it easy and familiar.
2) Faster game. What stalls games? Spells, in my experience--the poor fighter working out flank, plus bard song, plus bulls strength, plus who knows what. WotC could create PDFs of common spell effects and make them available online. Casters print these out and pass them around to players.
The other time-gobbler is casters looking up their spells. Let them instead create custom spellbooks: drag from a list and drop into your virtual book, all inside the online character database. Then just click "print" and a concise collection of all your spells comes out in a just-the-facts table format (complete with auto-calculated save DCs appropriate for your abilities and feats!) followed by full spell descriptions. Take that to your game, and you'll never have to waste everyone's time flipping through a rulebook (or more likely than not, rulebooks) at the table.
3) Easier to create for.. Most critical element, and the element best aided by the computer. Let DMs drag dungeon tiles, traps, items, treasure, and monsters onto a map. Handy filters for level, CR, and whatnot would let DMs properly scale adventures for their particular number of players (even less than/more than 4 players!) quickly and easily. Then click print. Out comes the map, a room-by-room description containing each room's contents (complete with Challenge Rating, DCs, XP, and other stats), followed by an appendix with each monster's full entry in its entirety. A right-click on any monster will let you add equipment, class levels, spell effects, templates, whatever--and the resulting stat changes auto-calculate. Much better than cobbling together everything on the fly.
Last game I played, our wizard cast Animate Dead on a hydra. We collectively wasted twenty minutes looking up the spell, figuring out if he could create a skeletal hydra, applying the template, adjusting stats, recomputing attacks, AC, move, and saves, etc. etc. etc. How much better would it be to glance at the character's pre-printed spell list (which already computed max HD for that character's Animate Dead spell), turn to the computer (we game in the basement/computer room), logon to WotC, pull up "Hydra", drag "Skeletal template" onto the entry, and click "Print". Done in four clicks and 60 seconds.
4) Less daunting to new players.. World of Warcraft has over seven million subscribers. Seven million. The very worst-selling videogame RPG sells many more copies than the best-selling tabletop RPG. It's safe to assume that the vast majority of potential players are much more familiar with interactive online character creation than they are with flipping through books, looking up charts, scribbling on paper. Take away the hassle, make it easy and accessible. You'll be able to add *more* complexity, more fun.
5) More visually attractive. An elegant interface, perhaps with music and even animated art, is much more attractive than a book dense with text.
6) Collectibility. Apple, Blizzard, even WotC itself have proved people will pay real $ for virtual property (bits, whether the bits are music, MMORPG, cards, or books). You'll be able to sell MORE books online, since you're not limited to finite shelfspace in a brick-and-mortar book or game store.
7) Better from a tactical viewpoint. This is where it all comes together. Imagine a D&D game taking place on an online battlemap, only the map is animated (rustling tree branches, flowing streams) and the minis actually move (dodge, swing, bleed). Everyone is talking together over voice-over-IP. All the calculations occur behind-the-scenes, letting players concentrate on the gameplay. Moving your Blessed invisible ranger into a flanking position on a wagon over a ogre who's been hit with Bane spell? Click to move, click to attack, done. No fussing with adding up bless + flank mod + high ground + invis attacker + no dex bonus to AC for ogre + Bane effects + favored enemy.
Battles will go much faster, meaning you get to have more battles, meaning you get to actually PLAY more. The non-combat bits can be handled on the battle map (for location-specific puzzles, exploration, etc.) or off the battle map (for NPC dialogue, etc.--just like today's D&D).
The #1 killer of D&D campaigns is player attrition due to job, spouses, kids keeping them from being able to physically travel to the game. so instead, have everyone meet online. that half hour commute to, and from, the hosting player's house directly translates into 1 additional hour of actual playing time. Assuming a weekly game, it's like getting 4 extra hours a month--or an entire extra game session per month.
I tell you: the Internet will save the tabletop genre.
-z
EDIT: added clarification from later reply
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