You down with OCB?

[SparqMan]

This looks to me like an engineer created wireframes based on a requirements doc, rather than an information architect.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I didn't mean to derail the thread with my question earlier in the thread. I'm also of the 'just make it work' mindset, mostly, despite my technical preferences.

The whole idea of online tools and a rule/monster/item/stuff database appeals to me. If my return to D&D pans out into a regular thing, I prefer DDI (or something similar) to books. I just don't have the time, money or space for an RPG collection.

But anyhoo:

In my 3e days I never much used crunch from outside the core books, because it was just too much of a bother (and I had ample time, back then). I did buy a lot of the books, though, but mostly for the fluff.

But does DDI offer any kind of fluff? Or is it all crunch, all the time?


EDIT: Having just posted this, I realize the fallacy of apologizing for derailment, then asking a question that might do the same.

Well, the online Compendium and OCB are pretty much giving you crunch. There's some fluff in there, but not much. The magazine articles have both fluff and crunch. Player stuff generally tends towards being crunchy. The more DM oriented stuff is usually more fluff with a few chunks of crunchy stuff tossed in here and there. 4e tends to be like that overall though, DMs get more fluff/guidelines and players deal more in crunch and are expected to fluff up their characters however it makes sense or they feel like.

 

[Shroomy]

But does DDI offer any kind of fluff? Or is it all crunch, all the time?

While the exact ratio of crunch vs. fluff has varied over time, there's always been a lot of fluff in the magazines, and we're currently in what a lot of people would consider a fluff ascendant phase.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I'm not against crunch in any way; and I'm more likely to use it if it's in a compendium. It was digging through multiple books and keeping track of it all that I didn't want to bother with.

While the exact ratio of crunch vs. fluff has varied over time, there's always been a lot of fluff in the magazines, and we're currently in what a lot of people would consider a fluff ascendant phase.

I do like a good dungeon.

 

[KarinsDad]

OTOH I argue that the very fact that 4e requires a CB with 26 different feat categories is telling us something about the design of the game itself...

No, it is telling us something about the design of Character Builder.

For example, Weapon Focus or Implement Focus or Weapon Proficiency.

Those are one feat each. The tool was designed to make it 20 feats for one, but that's not necessary. These could just as easily been placed into the Heroic list and when you select it, a dropdown asks you what you want it for. And because you can pick that feat for a different weapon or implement, it isn't removed from the list.

 

[SSquirrel]

Silverlight (although preferable to Flash) really puts a dent in it's appeal to me. I would've liked something that works with my iPhone or on an iPad.

Microsoft has a version of Silverlight coming to iOS this year. Full version before year's end, beta in Q2. Microsoft’s Silverlight To Gain iOS Support in 2011

- Less functionality. I can't houserule to add feats/powers/etc., which as I said, I give a free feat to my players. It may be possible, but I can't find the feature to add custom items either and I love creating my own magic items to hand out.

- Interface feels weird. I like that you pick your class before your race now, because that makes more sense to me. But everything else feels like it's laid out in a weird way. Especially the "fluff" like name, age, etc. being required before almost anything else, which bothers me because I typically don't know what the character will be like personality-wise until I'm almost done making it. It just feels really weird the way things are laid out.

- Character sheets. This would probably be my biggest complaint...if I'd actually gotten finished making ANY character on the online CB. There's just one point every time I've tried - even with something as simple as a Knight - that I get frustrated and go back to the offline generator. So I can't say anything other than what I've seen on the current Encounters pre-gens, but I just don't like the way those were laid out. The actual sheets may be different from those, but I just can't bring myself like that layout no matter how hard I try...

Houseruling things is on their known issues list, as is the lack of custom portraits. They also know about the non-customizable character sheet issue, altho considering you admit you haven't even made it thru character gen once, have you seen the 2 versions they offer?

You do realize that it isnt' required that you know the name and stuff to proceed. You can always select another box down the side and move on to other things first.

Yeah, well, lets just say that a company like WotC is going to instantly say 'no thanks' when you tell them you're going to make it impossible for 30-50% of their existing DDI users to use the new tool you're coming out with.

Actually IE 6 and 7 total just over 20% of all browsers according to this site:
http://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2

Here we have the 2 totaling less than 15%:

http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2011/03/05/ie6-usage-below-5-percent-browser-trends/

Here's the thing, for an HTML5/JS version of OCB to be worth the hefty extra chunk of resources required to develop vs SL AND the abandoning of as much as 20-25% of your desktop user base they would have captured basically the iPad market, at best.

The iPad sold 15M units last year, which is probably larger than the D&D market. Not to mention that it is predicted to sell up to 60M more this year. Sounds like making sure a version functions well on the iPad could be a good move on their part. Luckily they are using SIlverlight, which MS will have working on their platform in the near future.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Yes, the Ipad market is good to aim for.

 

[Dannager]

Yeah, there are plenty of bad rough human factors considerations in there. OTOH I argue that the very fact that 4e requires a CB with 26 different feat categories is telling us something about the design of the game itself...

4e doesn't require a Character Builder any more than any other edition of D&D required a Character Builder - which is to say, it would have been nice to have one, but hardly required.

Unless that's not what you meant here?

 

[SSquirrel]

4e doesn't require a Character Builder any more than any other edition of D&D required a Character Builder - which is to say, it would have been nice to have one, but hardly required.

Unless that's not what you meant here?

Plus as other people have mentioned, you could have Implement Expertise or Weapon Proficiency as single feats and have them handled in the same manner as Versatile Expertise is. Would save a ton of design space. Having more categories can be a good thing tho. Much better than just saying "Here are all the Heroic feats" as one massive list.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

4e doesn't require a Character Builder any more than any other edition of D&D required a Character Builder - which is to say, it would have been nice to have one, but hardly required.

Unless that's not what you meant here?

No, I don't mean you can't make a character by hand. I was just commenting that there are (apparently, I didn't personally count them) 26 categories of feats. Yes, a few of them are effectively 1 feat, but that still leaves a lot of feat categories, and a lot of feats in each one for that matter.

My experience has been that players really don't enjoy the feeling of going in and picking a feat and not really knowing if they are missing something more interesting or better. The people I play with, some of them have CB, they all have some books, maybe DDI, but they're not spending hours pouring over lists of feats, nor really wanting to. There's nothing wrong with their being a nice selection of interesting feats. It is just that somewhere between 300 and 3000 there was shark that got jumped somewhere in there...