WotC: Character Builder's effect on Third Party Publishers

[Asmor]

I can't help but think that the DDI's side effect of hurting third party publishers is considered a good thing to some at WOTC. However, that's just a crazy conspiracy theory; or is it?

DUH DUH DUH!

If they wanted to hurt third party publishers, they could have just not put out the GSL in the first place. Aside from a bunch of people on the internet who'd scream bloody murder because they felt entitled to it, it wouldn't really affect D&D much at all.

if they drag their feet on adding easily incorporated house rules and 3pp to the CB, some clever reprobate will make an easy to use, DIY create your own content patch for the pirated CB.

Can't wait for that to happen... I've tried figuring it out myself (decrypting and modifying the database), but let's just say my hacking skills are extremely limited and they were wise enough to obfuscate the portion of the code responsible for that so it's non-trivial.

On the bright side, the vast majority of the program is not obfuscated, so if you're ever bored you can download a reflector and poke around most of the code.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

On the bright side, the vast majority of the program is not obfuscated, so if you're ever bored you can download a reflector and poke around most of the code.

Hey, I've never considered doing that! Might be interesting indeed.

 

[miscreationist]

The Character Builder is not a necessity in my game. We build characters by hand when we need to, which is not often so far. My players prefer the Advanced Players Guide classes over their WotC equivalents (Druid/Nature Priest and Barbarian/Savage Warrior), and I do as well. Only one of my players has even heard of the Character Builder and it was because I mentioned it.

 

[mgehl]

I forego 3rd party content because I can't use it in character builder. What's stopping a consortium of publishers from working with a company like Code Monkey Publishing to develop an independent char builder that can use WotC's XML output and can modify the character with publisher material? Or even just creating an independent charbuilder with a mutually agreed upon schema for creating new content?

WotC may be in a good position, but they are not (or don;t have to be) the only game in town.

It's already been done in HeroLab (www.wolflair.com).

 

[Nylanfs]

Or use PCGen

And to address the issue on the previous page of having the crunch being free. PCGen has in the data quite a few publishers that have given permission to have their crunch freely distributed. It's called marketing, we have had many people post on our main forum that they have bought a book because they say the classes and/or feats from the book and it intrigued them enough that they wanted more. So they bought the book.

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

Is PC Gen supporting 4E?

 

[Odysseus]

I don't really use the character builder, despite having a DDI subscription. That's mainly because it doesn't support 'house rules' (read: 3PPs) very well/at all.

~ fissionessence

The lack of support for houserules is the main reason for not subscibing to DDI. And because I want to use 3pp, and my own ideas/houserules, i'll continue not to subscribe to DDI.
Heroforge are working on a character builder, with the specific idea of DMs being able to import custom content for their player. I'd like to be able to use a character builder, and the heroforge one looks good for me.
I did notice on the wotc boards under the topic 5 most desired improvements for the CB, 5 pages of requests for improvements to house rules.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I don't buy 3PP material because I don't have any spare money - but then I'm also getting so much stuff from my DDI subscription that I don't feel the need to look elsewhere at the moment.

 

[Storminator]

Zip it and upload it. Zip files are fine.

Here it is. It's nothing fancy. I went to the Campaign tab of the Manage tab, and made some custom elements.

Saving it (from the CB) puts it into

C:\Program Files\Wizards of the Coast\Character Builder\SampleChars

on my machine. Then use the Load Campaign button in the same tab and it loads up, and puts a Custom Element section in the various places.

PS

 

[Solodan]

Fascinating observation. Personally, there is so much crunch coming out that I can't keep up with it, let alone try to incorporate 3PP into my game. Thus, never really though about how the CB would exclude them.

It is an interesting dilemma.