WotC WotC blacklist. Discussion

[UngainlyTitan]

A VTT could certainly have helped with tracking situational modifiers. However, 4e was fairly streamlined in that respect when compared with 3.x and its nearly endless potential layers of buffs. If they'd wanted real value added, they could have kept things like Bull's Strength adding a Strength bonus for several hours. It's a PITA to track at the table (IMO) but fairly simple for a program. Just add a clock the GM can advance and even the buff expiration can be automated (to say nothing of interactions like Dispel Magic).

IMO, the situational modifiers and reaction triggers would have been a pain to develop and maintain. Certainly feasible, but having so many different situational triggers would have required each one to be coded for. Things like tags could have helped, but having so many conditionals would have created an environment prone to software bugs.

That suggests to me that 4e was designed with the TT experience as the priority (as opposed to the VTT).

I think it would be workable in a VTT but a complete pain in a pure MMO.

Edit:
Of course I have not tried to program a VTT.

 

[darjr]

Oh just to note. I dint think selling digital art is a bad thing on its own. I buy lots of it.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think it would be workable in a VTT but a complete pain in a pure MMO.

Edit:
Of course I have not tried to program a VTT.

I agree that it would have been workable. But if they designed the game with the VTT in mind, I think there are much more efficient directions they could have gone with it.

I haven't tried to program a VTT either, but I do work professionally on an ERP system. The biggest headaches are caused by all the crazy little business rules. Like, do this if that, except on alternate Tuesdays or on a full moon or when processing a return. Enough of those little rules piling up on each other and you can go from simple, clean, easily maintained code to an unmanageable monstrosity (I learned that the hard way when I was a junior dev and was assigned a new workflow that was way above what anyone at that skill level should have been working on, though I'm not sure a more experienced devs could have done that much better - just dozens upon dozens of rules that were scope creeped into the project). You can obviously still maintain the monstrosity, but it's headache that will consume large quantities of time that could otherwise be spent on more productive work. Therefore, if you have the luxury of designing the rules to support the workflow, it's optimal to avoid a plethora of rules.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I agree that it would have been workable. But if they designed the game with the VTT in mind, I think there are much more efficient directions they could have gone with it.

I still that coding it would not be too hard but the user experience would suck hard. Dealing with the queue of interrupts would get old fast.

I haven't tried to program a VTT either, but I do work professionally on an ERP system. The biggest headaches are caused by all the crazy little business rules. Like, do this if that, except on alternate Tuesdays or on a full moon or when processing a return. Enough of those little rules piling up on each other and you can go from simple, clean, easily maintained code to an unmanageable monstrosity (I learned that the hard way when I was a junior dev and was assigned a new workflow that was way above what anyone at that skill level should have been working on, though I'm not sure a more experienced devs could have done that much better - just dozens upon dozens of rules that were scope creeped into the project). You can obviously still maintain the monstrosity, but it's headache that will consume large quantities of time that could otherwise be spent on more productive work. Therefore, if you have the luxury of designing the rules to support the workflow, it's optimal to avoid a plethora of rules.

I have done ERP adjacent and custom software for business with business rules incorporated and I hear your pain. I have been there.

 

[Dausuul]

I still that coding it would not be too hard but the user experience would suck hard. Dealing with the queue of interrupts would get old fast.

I can think of some ways to design the UI to make it less painful.

I don't offhand recall any 4E reaction abilities, so I'll use 5E and shield as an example. Let's say you're fighting a goblin. You get hit and the "Cast shield?" bubble pops up. You can click "Yes," "Not This Time", or "No." If you click "No," it gives you a dialog where you can dismiss the option to cast shield for the rest of the encounter.

Now say you're fighting some goblins and an ogre. If you get hit by a goblin, you click "No" and the dialog pops up, but now you can dismiss the option a) for the rest of the encounter, or b) for the rest of the encounter but only for goblins. If you pick the second option, you won't get the pop-up for goblins any more, but you will get it if you're hit by the ogre.

(Obviously, you can always go back on your power list and re-enable shield if you decide you want to use it after all.)

Another thing that could help would be a "proceed with rollback" approach. The idea here would be that when something triggers a potential reaction, everyone else can carry on combat without waiting on the reaction-player to decide. If the player decides to use the reaction, the VTT then rolls back its state to the moment when the reaction was triggered. (This would definitely need to be an optional mode, and there would be some issues to work through, like whether you can still proceed if doing so would reveal hidden information.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't offhand recall any 4E reaction abilities, so I'll use 5E and shield as an example.

They were called Interrupts back then.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I can think of some ways to design the UI to make it less painful.

I don't offhand recall any 4E reaction abilities, so I'll use 5E and shield as an example. Let's say you're fighting a goblin. You get hit and the "Cast shield?" bubble pops up. You can click "Yes," "Not This Time", or "No." If you click "No," it gives you a dialog where you can dismiss the option to cast shield for the rest of the encounter.

That is pretty close to how "Solasta: Crown of the Magister" a 5e video game clone does it.

Now say you're fighting some goblins and an ogre. If you get hit by a goblin, you click "No" and the dialog pops up, but now you can dismiss the option a) for the rest of the encounter, or b) for the rest of the encounter but only for goblins. If you pick the second option, you won't get the pop-up for goblins any more, but you will get it if you're hit by the ogre.

(Obviously, you can always go back on your power list and re-enable shield if you decide you want to use it after all.)

Another thing that could help would be a "proceed with rollback" approach. The idea here would be that when something triggers a potential reaction, everyone else can carry on combat without waiting on the reaction-player to decide. If the player decides to use the reaction, the VTT then rolls back its state to the moment when the reaction was triggered. (This would definitely need to be an optional mode, and there would be some issues to work through, like whether you can still proceed if doing so would reveal hidden information.)

The problem as I recall is that there could be multiple optional interrupts in a round triggered from other player actions, enemy actions (via marks) and there there was stuff like commanders strike. Some of these triggered movement as well as attacks. It was pretty cool but at high levels it got a bit much.
Particularly for players that really want to make the optimal move every time but are a bit indecisive.

 

[Oofta]

--delete--

 

[Oofta]

I seem to remember that “virtual minis you could buy” was mostly based on a single off the cuff comment from someone at WotC that the were kind of floating as an idea but hadn’t actually been decided.

But of course as soon as anyone at WotC opened their mouth, hordes took it as gospel truth and immediately pounced to tell all and sundry how WotC was the soulless corporation only our to squeeze every penny from DnD.

That seems to happen a lot. Same with 5E being "modular" that we still hear.

 

[Oofta]

That is pretty close to how "Solasta: Crown of the Magister" a 5e video game clone does it.

The problem as I recall is that there could be multiple optional interrupts in a round triggered from other player actions, enemy actions (via marks) and there there was stuff like commanders strike. Some of these triggered movement as well as attacks. It was pretty cool but at high levels it got a bit much.
Particularly for players that really want to make the optimal move every time but are a bit indecisive.

At high (epic) levels, a single round of combat could take our group an hour to resolve. There were some good aspects to 4E, speed of play at higher levels was not one of them for us.