Ray Winninger comments on the OGL

[mhd]

Not that doing a 5E auto-calculating sheet is such a big deal. We're not talking Pathfinder 1E here, where creating all-inclusive rule support requires more SAN checks than Masks of Nyarlahotep.

 

[Greg Benage]

I run mostly analog in a virtual environment all the time, and see no difference at that end from playing face to face.

Sounds like we have different experiences, which is cool.

 

[SkidAce]

Considering that Kleenex and Google still have their trademark, you have a very long wait before for that to happen. Maybe our grandkids might play generic D&D, but not us.

The way my group and casual folks use the term "play D&D" to mean a game night with any (fantasy) RPG scheduled,

I would say that in a way we are playing generic d&d.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sounds like we have different experiences, which is cool.

Sure. I just tend to leap in on claims that somehow VTT is vastly more demanding here than face-to-face, because there's no intrinsic reason that should be true. That some people may find it so is, well, up to them, but spreading it as revealed knowledge seems to turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Reynard]

Sure. I just tend to leap in on claims that somehow VTT is vastly more demanding here than face-to-face, because there's no intrinsic reason that should be true. That some people may find it so is, well, up to them, but spreading it as revealed knowledge seems to turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think half-assed VTT is much harder than just analog. But generally the difficulties of remote play have less to do with the VTT than player distraction, IMO.

One element I do find constantly frustrating is Fantasy grounds does not have a robust white board drawing tool, which makes it harder for me to run like I would at the table.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think half-assed VTT is much harder than just analog. But generally the difficulties of remote play have less to do with the VTT than player distraction, IMO.

I absolutely agree with the latter half of this, though I'm not sure what you mean by the first part.

One element I do find constantly frustrating is Fantasy grounds does not have a robust white board drawing tool, which makes it harder for me to run like I would at the table.

I'll give you that kind of thing can be an issue if you do a lot of maps-on-the-fly. Maptool is pretty limited in this regard, too. It doesn't usually bother me overly much because I've always found doing that on, well, anything time consuming and kind of terrible because my drawing skills are so awful. When I want to do my own maps and not slap them together with tiles, I really want to go to Fractal Mapper, and that's not a thing you'd want to do on-the-fly.

 

[Lojaan]

Huh. It just clicked for me. I bet Ray knew what was coming and that's why he quit. Or was shown the door because he wouldn't support it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Huh. It just clicked for me. I bet Ray knew what was coming and that's why he quit. Or was shown the door because he wouldn't support it.

It appears he trained in his replacement, or at least it was so claimed on these boards, that would rule out sacking. My guess then would be he was shown the proposal and realising what was coming down the pike decided he was not going to deal with the fall out of this. Kind of like how a horde of senior and near retirement British civil servants retired once the decision to Brexit had been taken.