Another post here was worried about the future of D&D and DDB with the new folk coming into WotC who have a history of digital games (and while successful, maybe not a beneficial history), which is the inspiration for this dream.
I REALLY REALLY hope that a digital focus going foreward is on single player play on something like your phone to bring people in.
When I first thought about this, it was a way to do Adventurer's League during and after the times of Covid in order to reduce cost and spread awareness. Imagine a digital game, almost like the SNES Legend of Zelda games where you can play through the AL adventures. Whatever season you're on is probably free with older seasons at a premium.
To do this, they'd need to create a whole system (or obviously buy one), but the most user friendly method would be a 2d top down style pixle art game (32bit in my preference, again like the Super Nintendo). The benefits include the ability to distinguish several things while maintaining a large/zoomed out map. Want to do something to a creature? Click on it and your menu of valid options pops up. Darkvision now works how it's supposed to. Nobody gets upset over a linear adventure when that's all the game has to offer.
Even better yet, it allows for episodic games the way they're meant to be... bug again, just dreaming.
Now that we've sunk a ton of money into a Free to Play system, with art assets and and servers, what can we do to make money? Why not Mario Maker for D&D? Why not allow one player to run several characters? Why not charge to unlock content from other books? Heck, if we're doing a Mario Maker, and we already have most of the art assets, why not include stuff involving the older editions which WotC already owns the rights to?!
And lastly (though this would take a lot more investment) why not let a group of players play together, like a VTT on a DM's Mario Maker-ed map?
Yeah, this all cuts into roleplay a bit, but the point is to get people into the D&D brand, or give them a way to play when they can't get a group.
Dungeons and Dragons, as in the original product, is by definition not a single player game unless you enjoy talking to yourself.
What you are describing would be D&D branded video games, which already exist in numerous forms and could very possibly be ported/adapted to a mobile platform in some way.
As to VTTs for actually playing D&D with other people and not some D&D branded game that is not actually D&D, WotC has not, to my knowledge, expressed any interest or plans to make any such programs in house though with the new higher up hires many folks in the community seem to enjoy speculating that they may decide to take a more hands on approach in the foreseeable future. Currently there are numerous VTTs available that work with D&D and other systems. I know that Roll20, the only VTT I have extensive experience with, can be played on a tablet or phone though it is not optimized for such. Though as technology continues to steadily improve I imagine it's only a matter of time until somebody does make a viable mobile friendly VTT, though any such product will still have the rigid limitation of the fact that your phone screen simply can't show as much information at any given time as a physically larger device. Also, actual sessions of D&D are generally scheduled ahead of time and take up several hours; these are things one prepares for and doesn't do "on the go" at random times as with most mobile games so the demand for products that specifically enable that is pretty much nonexistent.
Let's dream for a minute.
Another post here was worried about the future of D&D and DDB with the new folk coming into WotC who have a history of digital games (and while successful, maybe not a beneficial history), which is the inspiration for this dream.
I REALLY REALLY hope that a digital focus going foreward is on single player play on something like your phone to bring people in.
When I first thought about this, it was a way to do Adventurer's League during and after the times of Covid in order to reduce cost and spread awareness. Imagine a digital game, almost like the SNES Legend of Zelda games where you can play through the AL adventures. Whatever season you're on is probably free with older seasons at a premium.
To do this, they'd need to create a whole system (or obviously buy one), but the most user friendly method would be a 2d top down style pixle art game (32bit in my preference, again like the Super Nintendo). The benefits include the ability to distinguish several things while maintaining a large/zoomed out map. Want to do something to a creature? Click on it and your menu of valid options pops up. Darkvision now works how it's supposed to. Nobody gets upset over a linear adventure when that's all the game has to offer.
Even better yet, it allows for episodic games the way they're meant to be... bug again, just dreaming.
Now that we've sunk a ton of money into a Free to Play system, with art assets and and servers, what can we do to make money? Why not Mario Maker for D&D? Why not allow one player to run several characters? Why not charge to unlock content from other books? Heck, if we're doing a Mario Maker, and we already have most of the art assets, why not include stuff involving the older editions which WotC already owns the rights to?!
And lastly (though this would take a lot more investment) why not let a group of players play together, like a VTT on a DM's Mario Maker-ed map?
Yeah, this all cuts into roleplay a bit, but the point is to get people into the D&D brand, or give them a way to play when they can't get a group.
How do you guys feel about this sort of idea?
Dungeons and Dragons, as in the original product, is by definition not a single player game unless you enjoy talking to yourself.
What you are describing would be D&D branded video games, which already exist in numerous forms and could very possibly be ported/adapted to a mobile platform in some way.
As to VTTs for actually playing D&D with other people and not some D&D branded game that is not actually D&D, WotC has not, to my knowledge, expressed any interest or plans to make any such programs in house though with the new higher up hires many folks in the community seem to enjoy speculating that they may decide to take a more hands on approach in the foreseeable future. Currently there are numerous VTTs available that work with D&D and other systems. I know that Roll20, the only VTT I have extensive experience with, can be played on a tablet or phone though it is not optimized for such. Though as technology continues to steadily improve I imagine it's only a matter of time until somebody does make a viable mobile friendly VTT, though any such product will still have the rigid limitation of the fact that your phone screen simply can't show as much information at any given time as a physically larger device. Also, actual sessions of D&D are generally scheduled ahead of time and take up several hours; these are things one prepares for and doesn't do "on the go" at random times as with most mobile games so the demand for products that specifically enable that is pretty much nonexistent.