Online Digital Tools Disappearance Risk Discussion

[MNblockhead]

While I understand that I could easily lose physical books, etc. in a variety of ways- fire, rot, puppies, left on a bus, spilled a drink, etc.- I’ve actually lost more electronically stored data than physical.

Some of that was due to someone else’s child downloading a virus onto my Mac. Some was lost becau of lost passwords. But the bulk of it was due to obsolescence of hardware or software, sometimes due to a lack of portability to another platform or program.

So I don’t really buy electronic gaming material. I do get some for free, on occasion. And I’ve been creating my own content digitally since 1991 or so.*


* which comprises most of the stuff lost to obsolescence.

Each to their own. But my experience has been the opposite. Also, I've become a pretty fanatical declutterer. Further, I have to work away from home so often that digital is the only way I can participate in the hobby on a regular basis at this point in my life.

That said, as much as I like web tools and software for actually running the game, I do like to have PDFs for long-term storage to mitigate against the software or website losing support.

I still buy physical books, but I have cut back on my physical purchases drastically, especially adventures. Generally the only books I keep are those that are high quality, look nice, or have strong sentimental value. And at my age few new materials are going to earn and pay dividends on sentimental value.

 

[Dustin Cooper]

Whereas, for me, if those tools still existed, I'd likely be running 4e right now. As it is currently, the system is too unwieldy to run without the tools. The tools were so integrated with that particular edition that I think it affects its stance in the hobby.
You'd probably have triple the number of players (or more) if those tools were still available.

Most of the tools do still exist. Some 4e die hards have managed to hack together a way to get the offline builder to have all the content, and they've gotten every single power, enemy, item, etc. in a version of the Portable Compendium. I've been using it to successfully run and play 4e at least a year and a half. It's sadly not a legal way of doing this, as it's copy/pasting text directly from WotC sources without getting their permission, but much like when it comes to video games, staying strictly with what's legal is terrible for preservation.

And I will note that while 4e is playable without tools like this, it's far from an ideal way of doing it. For instance, the final errata document for 4e is 140 pages long, and with the proper electronic tools, whether in the current hacked together form or D&D Insider back in the day, you don't even have to think about that. It's just all already correct.