My concerns for D&D Insider

[BiggusGeekus]

Think about it this way. You can buy the books. Then you can pay the monthly subscription fee to use certain aspects of the DI, which is likely to include the aforementioned goodies. Then you can read the Gleemax TOS that say you cannot republish anything created using their IP, and make damn sure that there isn't something that makes those maps and characters WotC's IP. Then, if they want, WotC can republish whatever you create on that site, and they don't have to pay you a cent. And even if you trust the current crew not to do this, the right to do this lasts forever.

No thank you.

For all intents and purposes, this was possible with 3e. You write the Book of d20 Awesome as a PDF. It sells 400 copies (outstanding pdf sales) and gets nominated for an ENnie. WotC picks it up for free and republishes it with their logo and you are only mentioned in the legal section in 8pt font.

Some d20 companies did do this with spells and feats and other such things without even bothering to toss off an email to the original creator. Totally legal. Not un-ethical. A little rude, yes. But I personally didn't see any lasting outrage.

If it hasn't happened that much already, why should things change under the upcoming license restrictions for 4e?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Oh and another thing about the message boards....


The automatic ownership of content? Good. TSR/D&D got burned on that with the Dungeon CD-ROM. There's a million internet wanna-be lawyers out there. Just claim ownership up front and get it over with. Many IP industries are trending this way so they don't get burned when they open up a letter and find some guy's magnum opus that's very similar to something they'd been working on already.

 

[EricNoah]

The only electronic tool/content that matters to me is the character generator. If it "lives" on their server, and I can't tweak the rules or output to my heart's content, then it's no better than doing it on paper in my opinion.

 

[Mallus]

Characters, adventures and campaigns appearing similar isn't necessarily a bad thing. Uniformity builds a common experience.

For DM's like me, it's not just a bad thing, it's a deal-breaker. I want simple tools (including the base rule set) that I can use to make a highly idiosyncratic experience. That's the joy of D&D, as far as I'm concerned, that no two group's games look exactly alike. Or even remotely alike.

 

[bento]

I'm for some uniformity. I'd like to see that some options are available, but can easily be turned off if you're not using it. Such as incarnum, sanity or corruption.

I'd also like to see some plug-and-play options where someone wanting to play a fighter isn't flooded with a thousand and one feats when they usually pick the same ten or twenty. I think our current option bloat is a detriment to new and casual players, as well as DMs looking to save time.

I hope they use a tool like HeroForge as a model for their character generator.

 

[wedgeski]

The only electronic tool/content that matters to me is the character generator. If it "lives" on their server, and I can't tweak the rules or output to my heart's content, then it's no better than doing it on paper in my opinion.

I imagine that you will set up any number of characters you like, hopefully using a *comprehensive* chargen tool, and update the character as it progresses through your campaign. It will no doubt be printable via a selection of templates, and I would expect Wizards to open the door on user-created templates as well. As long as you're happy running your games with the RAW, the chargen will probably do everything you need it to.

What's exciting to me about this is that Wizards will no doubt add splat books to the generator as they are released (at least, I would expect them too, else what's the point of subscribing to it?). What *worries* me is the subscription model... will you be required to prove you have bought the book to get the online tools? Or will you have to pay a separate one-off fee for each supplement? Or will it all be included in the monthly sub?

So many questions. Still pretty exciting though.

 

[Mallus]

As long as you're happy running your games with the RAW, the chargen will probably do everything you need it to.

Again, a deal-breaker.

I'll don't want to be limited to playing the game WotC is willing to sell me. Or, more accurately, a tool that only helps me play that game isn't of much use to me.

 

[Irda Ranger]

DM's and players will be tied to the character sheet the PC generator uses, so no room for house rules like insanity rules or your own version of action points, etc.

eTools was a disaster in that respect. I would expect them to have learned something from that experience.

But, in the end, they can only anticipate so many possibilities. Unless they give you the ability to directly edit some sort of data files (so, for instance, you could tweak how Power Attack works in your campaign, or make Elves more Tolkien for +LA adjustments), they'll never be as flexible as a GM's house rule doc.

The dungeons will start looking the same because they are made with the dungeon builder that is likely to be more limited than paper and pencil (most likely just lets you lay down Dungeon Tiles).

Not so worried about this, actually. The sheer amount of free and unique maps on the WotC site means I've never used them all yet. A generator that starts with those as a base, and then lets you edit them? Infinite, for all intents and purposes.

God knows what the adventure builder is like...

I hear you on this one. Unless it's a collection of "Random Generators" that a GM can tweak settings for and then trigger as needed, which output to a Word file (or some ODF format), it'll never be flexible enough to suit me.

 

[GreatLemur]

The "character visualizer" will probably just be something on the order of the old HeroMachine thing, and the character sheets--while probably intended to be flexible and houserule-friendly--will definitely never be able to handle everything I might want to change about the game. But, honestly, these tools will doubtless go a long, long way to making pen-and-paper RPGs a whole lot more palatable for the MMORPG crowd. Use them or disregard them as your own table demands, but I think that, on the whole, they could do the whole hobby a lot of good.

I just hope there's a way for casual users to access these tools for free. They won't help lure in new players if people need to sign up for a five-bucks-a-month subscription before they can get to the shiny toys.

 

[Khairn]

Think about it this way. You can buy the books. Then you can pay the monthly subscription fee to use certain aspects of the DI, which is likely to include the aforementioned goodies. Then you can read the Gleemax TOS that say you cannot republish anything created using their IP, and make damn sure that there isn't something that makes those maps and characters WotC's IP. Then, if they want, WotC can republish whatever you create on that site, and they don't have to pay you a cent. And even if you trust the current crew not to do this, the right to do this lasts forever.

No thank you.

Maybe my hackles are up a bit too much, but the same folks who said "don't worry about that sort of thing" are the ones who said "4e isn't coming any time soon".

DING-DING-DING! And the gentleman wins a cee-gar!