Sneak Peek At Ghosts of Saltmarsh Maps

Here's a sneak peek at some of the maps to be found in the upcoming D&D Ghosts of Saltmarsh, courtesy of WotC's Twitch stream.

​

And Dyson Logos, one of the cartographers for the book, has shared some of his work which will be appearing!

 

[WaterRabbit]

I listed a full example of what might be needed, and those are all needed for an example of a book that probably every person using a VTT to play 5E might want, the Player's Handbook. I barely scratched the surface of the many backend processies that are required to make an electronic version of a WotC book that a company would be proud to sell to any user for HALF of what Roll20 does. There's just way more to it than what I laid out in a simple example that a person could read in a minute or two. Until you actually develop titles (which I have), you really wouldn't apprecaite the process. But to say what you did that just because making a licensed work conversion is a lot of work, that doesn't speak well to the VTT itself, well that just makes no sense (to me)!

You are expanding the process beyond the initial discussion is why you are going there. The initial discussion was about adding modules to FG. Most of what you are describing the work has already been done.

Also, try to be a bit less condescending. You have no idea my background and I assure you that putting together a title for production doesn't even rise to my list of difficult projects. I am also quite familiar with the "Scotty" syndrome which is on full display here.

 

[Rob Twohy]

You are expanding the process beyond the initial discussion is why you are going there. The initial discussion was about adding modules to FG. Most of what you are describing the work has already been done.

Also, try to be a bit less condescending. You have no idea my background and I assure you that putting together a title for production doesn't even rise to my list of difficult projects. I am also quite familiar with the "Scotty" syndrome which is on full display here.

Hey whoa whoa whoa... As I understand it, condesension implies "an attitude of patronizing superiority" and I never intedned that at all. I was simply stating that expressing a position of "not boding well for Fantasy Grounds" simply because there is a complicated process behind making a good product for the public is not very valid. It's only my opinion. I never meant to be anything other than observant.

 

[Tom B1]

Reading a full IP like a PHB or DMG seems like a big effort. Preparing a digital version of something that largely depends on other core rulebooks (such as the PHB) seems to me like it should be a lot less time-consuming. The context of the discussion was the amount of work required to enter a module vs. the cost of one. Now, I do recognize that the WotC 'modules' now seem to include splat-book content (rules for handling environments, etc) so that will bloat a full conversion.

That said, for something where I'm likely to want to just run the module (and usually with customizations which won't be supported by the original conversion effort), $25-30 is steep on top of buying the WotC hardcover.

I understand you get a lot of automation and press-and-magic-happens from the added integration.

I just feel like that is largely wasted effort for DMs like me and players like I tend to DM - most of them can't be bothered to learn more than the rules directly impacting their build and even them somewhat half-heartedly, so if I make up a ruling to handle any situation at the table, my players aren't going to complain.

The 8 hours of one person's effort to get the module in is more like what I'd be expecting and looking for (just like me prepping monster cards, studying up encounters, reading spell effects cards, etc. before I run an adventure). That sounds more like an appropriate investment of time.

I get that a lot of people probably like all that automation (and likely testing for it too). But if it turns a module into $25-30 for an FG conversion plus buying the core rulebook material, plus buying the actual books and module in dead tree (which is where I usually start), that's a lot of $

I'd rather have 8-hour-effort module prep vs. 1 x 400-hour supplement integration. In theory, by the time you get one conversion in place, I can have 50 modules inserted. Yours has a bunch of automation and magic that's nice if you are just running the story as is and that's a matter of personal taste to say whether that's a good investment.

The way in which I would look at it is that FG has chosen a way of integrating adventures that is more complete but also more expensive than I require or can afford. It's not exactly a disrespect to FG to say that their chosen approach is (for my purposes and budget) inferior to the cheaper and less labour intensive option and that other tools that are cheaper may be all I require where FG is the pink cadillac with chrome trim and booster rockets.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=6879023]Tom B1[/MENTION], I'd go a different direction.

What's the point of using a VTT if you aren't actually going to use what it can do? Having everything integrated makes the game run so much smoother.

Think about it this way. Every time you want to make an attack on a virtual tabletop, you need to type something like /r 1d20+x. Then you have to type the damage. Every time. Now multiply that by everyone sitting at the table. It's mind numbingly slow. Automated, and it saves massive amounts of time which you can then spend on role play and whatnot.

Having had to suffer through one VTT Dm who refused to automate and then could barely type 30 words per minute is an experience I'd rather never repeat.

OTOH, I am finding the 600-800 man hours to be a touch inflated. Looks like someone's protecting their job. I mean, it's a 256 page book. You're telling me it takse 3-4 HOURS to input one page? What are you doing? Typing by smoke signal?

 

[Tom B1]

I don't usually see a problem at the table, but then again the players often like to just roll a physical dice. We use voice for narrating, conversing, etc. The only typing needed is for private messages.

I'm also not saying I'm against 'the magic' in some VTT designs.

BUT, a) can't afford it (pretty much a deal breaker)
b) Integration is almost always to RAW and I can't think of a campaign I've run in my last 32 years of GMing (maybe some in the 6 years before that in B/E/X) or that didn't include additional rules so often I can't use a fully integrated product as well as I can use a less integrated one in support of my games
c) For some of the lesser supported games (Traveller for one, Spycraft/Stargate, others), there either isn't any support or there isn't complete support

Almost uniformly, as Rob Twohy explained, it takes a long time to add a new chunk of rules and associated information from a product. For homebrew, that can also be true. For me to duplicate the Player's Option version of 2E that we used to play with each cleric type or paladin type built as a separate class using Skills and Powers and then supporting the Channeling magic system... well, in most systems, that would be a crippling number of hours if the game could support it.

So, there are my three reasons for generally not being interested in closely integrated automation. I step too far off the reservation almost every time I run a game to be effectively supported by close integration to be more than a hindrance.

I'll throw in one bonus reason:
d) Players inevitably want to step off the railroad in ways that break or avoid key parts of the adventure or that would require new encounters be created on the fly. That happens so often with my players, a set piece 3 Act structure or a Railroad (common in D&D modules) would never work. I always end up having to ad hoc encounters (I can estimate and pre-prepare about 40% I think, but the other 60% are surprising in some respect). This is less true in a dungeon, but in outdoor adventures or city adventures or mysteries or chases or any number of other sorts of less railroad-ish structures, you get frequent non-standard.

My D&D worlds tend to be more sandbox with modules giving bases of operations and some dungeons, but a lot of the stuff between base and dungeon are usually ad hoc. City stuff is heavily ad hoc. And anything not driven by me (rather than players reacting, they are taking initiative) is ad hoc. I can usually know who some of the enemies/NPCs will be, but not where or how the encounters will occur.

So, VTT with tight integration isn't as great a benefit for me as it might be for a DM and players who just want to run dungeon delves or who want to follow railroads (however gentle) in module design. Sandbox style play is much less suited to integrated pre-made encounters.

 

[MNblockhead]

I have no problem paying for content in different formats multiple times, as evidenced by the fact that I buy the non-adventure books in both dead-tree format and on D&D Beyond.

But I would certainly appreciate a discount on the electronic format if I buy the more expensive dead-tree format.

I realize that this is complicated by the fact that there are a number of companies selling licensed electronic versions of 5e books (D&D Beyond [i.e. Twitch/Amazon], Fantasy Grounds [SmiteWorks], and Roll20 [The Orr Group LLC]).

Yet, Paizo faces the same challenge and they took it head on and mostly solved it. Basically, Paizo requires third-parties to integrate with the Paizo's sales system so that they can apply discounts to those who have already purchased Paizo material. It caused a lot of pain to some smaller developers like Lone Wolf Development (has held up the release of the RealmWorks Content Market), but the result will be that Paizo customers will be able to get discounts on Paizo content they already bought when they buy the content in another format from a third party.

Maybe the WotC team looked at it and couldn't make the business case to justify the cost of developing a similar system for DnD to their Hasbro overlords. Don't know, but rewarding customers who repurchase their content in multiple forms is possible if WotC had the will/permission to do it.

 

[Rob Twohy]

[MENTION=6879023]Tom B1[/MENTION], I'd go a different direction.

What's the point of using a VTT if you aren't actually going to use what it can do? Having everything integrated makes the game run so much smoother.

Think about it this way. Every time you want to make an attack on a virtual tabletop, you need to type something like /r 1d20+x. Then you have to type the damage. Every time. Now multiply that by everyone sitting at the table. It's mind numbingly slow. Automated, and it saves massive amounts of time which you can then spend on role play and whatnot.

Having had to suffer through one VTT Dm who refused to automate and then could barely type 30 words per minute is an experience I'd rather never repeat.

OTOH, I am finding the 600-800 man hours to be a touch inflated. Looks like someone's protecting their job. I mean, it's a 256 page book. You're telling me it takse 3-4 HOURS to input one page? What are you doing? Typing by smoke signal?

As happens on INTERNET, numbers are being hyperbolized. I said 400-600 not 600-800. And there's much more things than just copying and pasting, so yes, I've done these conversion, granted mine were much smaller, but Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron took me about 120 hours and it's pretty lore heavy, no combat encounters, only one NPC, etc.

 

[Rob Twohy]

Reading a full IP like a PHB or DMG seems like a big effort. Preparing a digital version of something that largely depends on other core rulebooks (such as the PHB) seems to me like it should be a lot less time-consuming. The context of the discussion was the amount of work required to enter a module vs. the cost of one. Now, I do recognize that the WotC 'modules' now seem to include splat-book content (rules for handling environments, etc) so that will bloat a full conversion.

That said, for something where I'm likely to want to just run the module (and usually with customizations which won't be supported by the original conversion effort), $25-30 is steep on top of buying the WotC hardcover.

I understand you get a lot of automation and press-and-magic-happens from the added integration.

I just feel like that is largely wasted effort for DMs like me and players like I tend to DM - most of them can't be bothered to learn more than the rules directly impacting their build and even them somewhat half-heartedly, so if I make up a ruling to handle any situation at the table, my players aren't going to complain.

The 8 hours of one person's effort to get the module in is more like what I'd be expecting and looking for (just like me prepping monster cards, studying up encounters, reading spell effects cards, etc. before I run an adventure). That sounds more like an appropriate investment of time.

I get that a lot of people probably like all that automation (and likely testing for it too). But if it turns a module into $25-30 for an FG conversion plus buying the core rulebook material, plus buying the actual books and module in dead tree (which is where I usually start), that's a lot of $

I'd rather have 8-hour-effort module prep vs. 1 x 400-hour supplement integration. In theory, by the time you get one conversion in place, I can have 50 modules inserted. Yours has a bunch of automation and magic that's nice if you are just running the story as is and that's a matter of personal taste to say whether that's a good investment.

The way in which I would look at it is that FG has chosen a way of integrating adventures that is more complete but also more expensive than I require or can afford. It's not exactly a disrespect to FG to say that their chosen approach is (for my purposes and budget) inferior to the cheaper and less labour intensive option and that other tools that are cheaper may be all I require where FG is the pink cadillac with chrome trim and booster rockets.

Tom B1, fair enough. But one thing to consider is that most FG users don't bother with the hard cover. Rather than that $50, they spend only $25 on the electronic version which has everything the book does (and often more). As one example, the reason I started this thread in the first place was my dissatisfaction of WotC selling us B&W maps. Both Waterdeep modules (and the upcoming Saltmarsh will) have color maps. They are the same maps, just colorized and stylized a lttle so as not to be so bland. Another example would be the Dungeon Master's Guild "Item Forge" which allows you to mix items and create new items. It's pretty cool. BEcause it's all math and algorithms, FG can do some really great stuff.

 

[Hussar]

As happens on INTERNET, numbers are being hyperbolized. I said 400-600 not 600-800. And there's much more things than just copying and pasting, so yes, I've done these conversion, granted mine were much smaller, but Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron took me about 120 hours and it's pretty lore heavy, no combat encounters, only one NPC, etc.

Apologies. Sorry, missed the numbers.

OTOH, even at 400, you're still talking almost two hours per page. That's a LOT of time to convert. Particularly when you're going from electronic to electronic.

That seems very, very excessive considering that most of the conversion really is just cut and paste. Sure, there's some linking to do, and, yes, Fantasy Ground's UI is a dinosaur and utter garbage, but, still, it shouldn't be taking about 2 hours to input a single page.

 

[WaterRabbit]

I will also point out that I did in fact only do U1. U1 with the original maps is fairly easy to recreate in Roll20 since it is all straight lines. I didn't do anything fancy other than putting down lines using the built-in tools. My exterior map was a hand drawn contour map, again using only the built-in tools. However, it all works well enough to run the game.

I know a lot of people really like the color maps for VTT, however, I don't particular care from them since they present too much visual clutter. I really like the maps in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist because I could easily reproduce them in Roll20. There is no need to purchase the module at all if you have easy to work with maps.

I also didn't bother with U2 for two reasons: 1) I think it is a weak adventure, and 2) my players lost to the "Smugglers" since they decided to fight them all at once and used very poor tactics. This resulted in them being enslaved, so I transitioned them to a shipwreck scenario based upon a very old adventure called "The Red Isle" featuring Alik the Red as an undead ghost.

Here again I just used the built-in tools to draw the island and then some cave and ship parts to fill in the rest.

The only module I have purchased for Roll20 was Curse of Strahd. To be honest I didn't find it all that helpful except it did include some maps that were not in the book -- 2d floor plans of the castle. Did it save some prep time? A bit. However, I still had to import/draw lots of maps and create monsters to run the adventure. So, I am skeptical of modules that cost more than about $10 for VTTs.