If you read my response to your thread about "what do you see when you play" it's pretty apparent I understood what Baudrillard was trying to protect. Baudrillard was writing largely before digital culture as we know it today was a thing, but whatever you're trying to say there aside, I don't get your challenge. It's abundantly clear I'm not a VTT type, and I also see them as something not to bemoan. Really if Baudrillard is your warning flag about VTTs, everything he's pessimistic about in Simulation and Simulacra equally applies to TTRPGs and many other forms of play, so mise en abyme on that ;). Baudrillard's arguments are more plugged into the alarms of Mazes and Monsters or Dark Dungeons as much as whatever anxiety VTT haters are trying to provoke.
Baudrillard was critical of the digital space. As are those inspired by him and his ideas.
He was also critical of digitization because it would see the withdrawal of our interaction with tangible things. Which for many it has. And arguably to their detriment.
There is a big difference between a group of players sitting in the same room in one another's company and playing a game with physical objects and a group of players instead staring at screens.
Simulacra and Simulation in no way suggests he'd have been critical of role-playing games any more than he would have been critical of chess or child's play. Which he wasn't.
The point of the work isn't to critique experiences that simulate combat or whatever. But to critique a culture in which "the image" imitates experiences. Which is exactly what the VTT is trying to do. "Trying" be the keyword here.
This is really shallow application of Baudrillard. Sure, folks name drop him to critique the digital, but simulation and simulacra contends with the reification of abstractions and representations of many sorts, to include tangible maps and printed matter, that accrete to the present moment (that has been here a long time) where the contents of those abstractions transcend in significance over "the real." When I've taught Baudrillard and hyperreality, I used Negativland's "Aluminum or Glass the Memo," the notion of soft drink manufacturers in the 80s was that Pepsi was a thing. It wasn't just the brown sugar liquid in can and glass "Pepsi" was more than that. More than a logo. It was Michael Jackson. it was Burger King. Pepsi, or Coke or Dungeons and Dragons are the hyperreality much like religions and states before them. You can't use Badrillard to excise the VTT and say "this is bad". I mean, you can, you did, but you aren't really appreciating what Baudrillard was getting at. Simulation and Simulacra is not a tool or manual of evaluation of individual components of hyperreality in some sort of good and bad list. It's a description of what it means to be human, to describe what humans do.
You know Baudrillard hated The Matrix, right? Yeah they're a lot of "digital critics" who use Baudrillard as their preferred French post structural cookie cutter through which to "read" particular phenomenon. But really, a bunch of folks engaged in a room with their imagination would fall under Baudrillard's "critique" (an investigation not a castigation) because of their use of the abstraction of language.
tl;dr a VTT isn't a step too far into hyperreality, dungeons and dragons is one phenomenon of our present hyperreality.
If you read my response to your thread about "what do you see when you play" it's pretty apparent I understood what Baudrillard was trying to protect. Baudrillard was writing largely before digital culture as we know it today was a thing, but whatever you're trying to say there aside, I don't get your challenge. It's abundantly clear I'm not a VTT type, and I also see them as something not to bemoan. Really if Baudrillard is your warning flag about VTTs, everything he's pessimistic about in Simulation and Simulacra equally applies to TTRPGs and many other forms of play, so mise en abyme on that ;). Baudrillard's arguments are more plugged into the alarms of Mazes and Monsters or Dark Dungeons as much as whatever anxiety VTT haters are trying to provoke.
Baudrillard was critical of the digital space. As are those inspired by him and his ideas.
He was also critical of digitization because it would see the withdrawal of our interaction with tangible things. Which for many it has. And arguably to their detriment.
There is a big difference between a group of players sitting in the same room in one another's company and playing a game with physical objects and a group of players instead staring at screens.
Simulacra and Simulation in no way suggests he'd have been critical of role-playing games any more than he would have been critical of chess or child's play. Which he wasn't.
The point of the work isn't to critique experiences that simulate combat or whatever. But to critique a culture in which "the image" imitates experiences. Which is exactly what the VTT is trying to do. "Trying" be the keyword here.
This is really shallow application of Baudrillard. Sure, folks name drop him to critique the digital, but simulation and simulacra contends with the reification of abstractions and representations of many sorts, to include tangible maps and printed matter, that accrete to the present moment (that has been here a long time) where the contents of those abstractions transcend in significance over "the real." When I've taught Baudrillard and hyperreality, I used Negativland's "Aluminum or Glass the Memo," the notion of soft drink manufacturers in the 80s was that Pepsi was a thing. It wasn't just the brown sugar liquid in can and glass "Pepsi" was more than that. More than a logo. It was Michael Jackson. it was Burger King. Pepsi, or Coke or Dungeons and Dragons are the hyperreality much like religions and states before them. You can't use Badrillard to excise the VTT and say "this is bad". I mean, you can, you did, but you aren't really appreciating what Baudrillard was getting at. Simulation and Simulacra is not a tool or manual of evaluation of individual components of hyperreality in some sort of good and bad list. It's a description of what it means to be human, to describe what humans do.
You know Baudrillard hated The Matrix, right? Yeah they're a lot of "digital critics" who use Baudrillard as their preferred French post structural cookie cutter through which to "read" particular phenomenon. But really, a bunch of folks engaged in a room with their imagination would fall under Baudrillard's "critique" (an investigation not a castigation) because of their use of the abstraction of language.
tl;dr a VTT isn't a step too far into hyperreality, dungeons and dragons is one phenomenon of our present hyperreality.
You're saying a lot to say nothing of the obvious differences between people in one's another's company using their imaginations to essentially tell a story and others staring at screens and having the environment digitally constructed for them.
If you want to drop Baudrillard, that's fine. That brings us back to you and others seemingly not really following how VTTs work, including the one proposed for "official D&D". No one "stares at the VTT" entranced the way we used to be afraid of television. A VTT is a game aid, not the game. VTTs haven't "changed" ttrpgs in any fundamental way. I don't use VTTs, but if I see some folks using a VTT at their table, or watch an actual play where a VTT is in the mix ... I don't see the impoverishment of the game playing experience you seem to believe has been taking place across the hobby over the years VTTs have been produced. It's fine not to like them, just as it's fine not to like minis, just as it's fine not to like theater of the mind. The VTT simply provides points of reference, like those minis, like that map for the group, who may be at a table or who may only able to be brought together through virtual meeting technology, to tell that collaborative story.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I’m curious how it can be used with a single screen in the middle of the table for physical get togethers. The demo just showed everyone sitting together looking at their own screens like a LAN party. I found that a bit off putting. That’s fun in its own way, but we have digital maps and then put our minis on them.
This is getting very video gamey, but it seems that is what is trending?
This new VTT is going to be a big learning curve to know how to build adventures in it - and it will ONLY work for playing D&D.
It will only be optimized for playing D&D. You can use it as a tool for online map tools and handle everything else with something like a discord bot, the same as you'd do for any unsupported RPG with any VTT.
I’m curious how it can be used with a single screen in the middle of the table for physical get togethers.
Use a laptop running a client and link it to a wall or projection display. For controlling it, have a bluetooth mouse you pass around the table. The DM probably wants to run a separate client because the DM view of a VTT often shows things you don't want the players to see.
This new VTT is going to be a big learning curve to know how to build adventures in it - and it will ONLY work for playing D&D.
If you want to play any other game system then you will need to use a different VTT.
So why would players bother learning a VTT that ONLY supports D&D?
(Obviously I know that WOTC want you to play on ONLY this VTT so that you will ONLY play D&D.)
I think WotC is betting they can get enough "only D&D" players to buy into the VTT to make it worth their while. The VTT will also thereby act as an additional layer of insulation from the rest of the ttrpg space because why would someone want to stray from D&D if they've bought into a VTT that only works with the "one game". It's certainly an assertive move.
I'm also presuming D&D isn't going to retreat from Roll20, Foundry, etc. But I haven't heard anything definitive either way on that.
If Spelljammer has taught us anything, it's that they're going to skimp on anything that looks like actual work. The older part of their work force is being replaced by younger folks, meaning they simply don't have the collective work ethic to go around.
This is an inaccurate take. If you look at the credits for Spelljammer, the section where the ball is dropped the most, the rules book is credited to "the older part of the work force." That's also putting aside the fact that the VTT is being developed by hires with totally different skillsets from "the older part of the work force" and the "younger folks" whom you've been exposed to through D&D publications.
And - apparently - they're dumping what little effort they're bothering to spare into more inclusivity nonsense. They're too busy pandering to the Connie Changs of the world (who it seems made a fool of herself at the summit with some good old-fashioned grievance grandstanding). Wouldn't be a bit surprised if they hired her and handed over the keys to the kingdom rather than set some adult boundaries for once..
This sounds less like a reality based criticism than a grievance over the role of influencers and diversity at the ongoing summit and D&D in general. I mean the boundaries of this discussion seem to be the VTT, yet here's a post shoehorning complaining about cultural politics or something.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This new VTT is going to be a big learning curve to know how to build adventures in it - and it will ONLY work for playing D&D.
If you want to play any other game system then you will need to use a different VTT.
So why would players bother learning a VTT that ONLY supports D&D?
(Obviously I know that WOTC want you to play on ONLY this VTT so that you will ONLY play D&D.)
Because there might be some players who primarily play D&D? If you play other systems like Pathfinder or literally anything else besides D&D, then yeah this VTT is pretty worthless to you. I honestly don't understand this mindset of Wizards "Forcing you to ONLY play D&D", at the end of the day it's up to YOU the consumer to decide on how you want to play, if you wanna use this VTT to play, then go for it, if not, cool. It's honestly really not that complicated or that much in-depth.
This new VTT is going to be a big learning curve to know how to build adventures in it - and it will ONLY work for playing D&D.
If you want to play any other game system then you will need to use a different VTT.
So why would players bother learning a VTT that ONLY supports D&D?
(Obviously I know that WOTC want you to play on ONLY this VTT so that you will ONLY play D&D.)
If you only play D&D? Or if it's only D&D that you play on a VTT?
Cost is another issue. If the cost of the VTT is included in the adventures you buy on DDB...then I'm very likely to use it (or rather, if I decide to use a VTT and it's included in the cost of the DDB adventures, then I'm very likely to choose DDB).
Different strokes for different folks.
Personally, in terms of TTRPGs, I only play 5e and STA. There are a couple of other games I'm interested in but don't have the community to play - and my time is taken up by 5e and STA anyway. Of those two, STA doesn't really meld to well with VTTs so well, and the group I play with has zero interest in VTTs anyway. Seeing as 5e is the only game I play with any scope for actually using a VTT, why would I care if the VTT only supports D&D? If anything, it's a positive for me - focused products tend to have more support, have more tightly focused mechanics and it's easier to get help.
Your social group may not be like that and so you don't see that point of view, but I daresay that there are lot more people like me than not - people who only play one or maybe two TTRPGs, and wouldn't be bothered about not having a massive catalogue of games on a single site to choose from (after having had to buy or otherwise work to obtain them).
And to be honest, in principle, it's the same reason why we're here. You could go to Roll20 for all your D&D stuff, but instead you're here on this specialist site...because for you it's worth learning it even if it's just for the single game, unlike if you were to go to Roll20.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I’m curious how it can be used with a single screen in the middle of the table for physical get togethers. The demo just showed everyone sitting together looking at their own screens like a LAN party. I found that a bit off putting. That’s fun in its own way, but we have digital maps and then put our minis on them.
This is getting very video gamey, but it seems that is what is trending?
This was my take as well. To me the idea that the future of D&D is a bunch of people sitting around a table with their laptops out staring at screens is a bit more than off-putting, for me personally, I found it offensive to think that this is somehow the future of role-playing games, in particular, D&D. Not that I oppose the concept of creating a good VTT in a D&D eco-system, I'm cool with that, but I think Wizards of the Coasts doesn't understand their audience at all if they think playing online is a preference. Playing online and using VTT's is a supplement to playing D&D, a sort of last resort workaround for people who can't find a way to play the game for real, in a real social circle for whatever reason. This happens to a lot of us, so we need VTT's, but when a group of players get together to play D&D live, the point of that experience is for people to look each other in the eye, pull out real miniatures, real dice, real pencils and talk to each other in person and play the game as the interactive storytelling game D&D is.
That aside, the VTT looked pretty good, but my main concern about it is that they are going to turn this whole thing into an endless series of paywalls. The whole thing reeks of a corporate money grab from the lowest levels of hell and given Hasbro's reputation, I don't hold out hope that this will be something that will ensure D&D remains a game for everyone. Its going to be a game for whales.
At this stage for modern D&D, I don't think the official version of the game is the future anymore. Paizo is already making a better version of the game as it is and there are a lot of people working on the next generation of D&D variants which are already way ahead so far as game design goes. I just don't see much of a future here anymore.
I’m curious how it can be used with a single screen in the middle of the table for physical get togethers. The demo just showed everyone sitting together looking at their own screens like a LAN party. I found that a bit off putting. That’s fun in its own way, but we have digital maps and then put our minis on them.
This is getting very video gamey, but it seems that is what is trending?
This was my take as well. To me the idea that the future of D&D is a bunch of people sitting around a table with their laptops out staring at screens is a bit more than off-putting, for me personally, I found it offensive to think that this is somehow the future of role-playing games, in particular, D&D. Not that I oppose the concept of creating a good VTT in a D&D eco-system, I'm cool with that, but I think Wizards of the Coasts doesn't understand their audience at all if they think playing online is a preference. Playing online and using VTT's is a supplement to playing D&D, a sort of last resort workaround for people who can't find a way to play the game for real, in a real social circle for whatever reason. This happens to a lot of us, so we need VTT's, but when a group of players get together to play D&D live, the point of that experience is for people to look each other in the eye, pull out real miniatures, real dice, real pencils and talk to each other in person and play the game as the interactive storytelling game D&D is.
That aside, the VTT looked pretty good, but my main concern about it is that they are going to turn this whole thing into an endless series of paywalls. The whole thing reeks of a corporate money grab from the lowest levels of hell and given Hasbro's reputation, I don't hold out hope that this will be something that will ensure D&D remains a game for everyone. Its going to be a game for whales.
At this stage for modern D&D, I don't think the official version of the game is the future anymore. Paizo is already making a better version of the game as it is and there are a lot of people working on the next generation of D&D variants which are already way ahead so far as game design goes. I just don't see much of a future here anymore.
"Everyone was staring at their screens" because the whole video was demonstrating the capacity of the tools on the screen, I mean the vid was somewhere in the five minute mark, they're not going to show a whole actual play session in that time frame. Like if they were demonstrating a new set of official D&D dice, or minis, the video would dedicate a lot of time to that content.
To clarify some confusion, again, I think there's a lot of sky is falling rhetoric around the VTT and the false premise that the VTT itself will be the flagship produce and central to all future representation of D&D. That's a claim that's only been made by alarmists. The most recent "content creators summit" was largely a top to down review of "the next evolution of D&D" and the VTT was discussed, but in no way was it stated the VTT was essential to future play of the game. No more than any VTT is essential to playing D&D. No more than D&D Beyond is essential to playing D&D. Will it cater to the more so called "digital native" market? Maybe. But folks, the summit and the event discussed a number of products for the future of D&D, and none of them had integration with the VTT as some essential component. Some people may not like the look of folks "lost in a screen" but it simply replaces the battlemat and folks getting lost in tracking down tables or notes in manuals and notebooks. Digital = inherently bad is a ship that sailed away generations ago, and the present entertains old school modes of play, paper and pencil, just fine and there's no indication that mode is going to be abandoned. The VTT is simply another play accessory for folks who like to organize their TTRPG experience digitally, like a lot of DDB users, and also don't want to invest in the shelf space for terrain and minis, this is a new product people can buy into.
You can watch actual plays with people using digital devices at the players table and see the "folks are lost in their screens" is a thing that's just not happening. Even the remote games don't suffer that concern.
Now those of us not used to tech may find a learning curve if we try to jump on say an online convention, or a start playing games event or what have you, but one of the cool things about the TTRPG community is that folks always seem pretty generous with showing others the ropes of new tech. Last game store event I went to, 6 players, one DM, DM and 2 players were playing device supported, other fours ran off paper. There was a battle mat, but it could have easily been replaced with a VTT and I don't think the session would have ran radically different had the device ratio changed or the battle mat was replaced with a reference on a VTT screen. As I've implied, I'm not a digital native either, but I don't find the boundary between digital and paper preferences really a battlefront, the bridge between the two is actually pretty easy with a lot of mutual aid.
I don't know if I have missed something, is there an estimated release date on the DnD B VTT?
The most recent video that started this thread says the earliest, outside of WotC's internal testing, anyone in the public would see some version of the VTT I think is very late 2023, with a big MAYBE on that. An official release date hasn't been announced, but the rumor is an official release won't be till 2025 the earliest.
I don't know, I get what you're saying and honestly, I'm not trying to be alarmist. I suppose it has a lot to do with a complete lack of trust or faith in Hasbro or Wizards of the Coast. Every time they do anything it's always underhanded in some way, with some sort of agenda that is by design meant to trick us in some way.
The VTT looks great on paper, but even if their intention is to just make this a supplement to online play rather than a fundamental shift of the entire way D&D is played, it may very well turn out that way anyway.
I don't know, I get what you're saying and honestly, I'm not trying to be alarmist. I suppose it has a lot to do with a complete lack of trust or faith in Hasbro or Wizards of the Coast. Every time they do anything it's always underhanded in some way, with some sort of agenda that is by design meant to trick us in some way.
The VTT looks great on paper, but even if their intention is to just make this a supplement to online play rather than a fundamental shift of the entire way D&D is played, it may very well turn out that way anyway.
Well, I think Covid changed the way TTRPGs are played by many since remote play was the default introduction to many new players (and creators). DDB itself was designed as a digital device you were supposed to take to your table (they even wrote articles on "how to use DDB in online play" when lockdown became a thing). Even as players have returned to table, some of them have returned with their devices instead of papers.
I guess I'm agnostic about "the" VTT since I've seen there's always been a space for "super users" (who have all the books, all the minis, supplemental minis and terrain, and everythgibg on DDB, plus using VTT) and there are folks (and I'd say this is the bulk of the D&D market) who play much more minimalistically or at least with a much smaller library. It seems a lot of folks think the VTT is an effort to convert the entire D&D player market into VTT whales or high roller tables and I just don't see that since that would only accomplish them losing marketshare to games with a much lower marketshare (I have $100s worth of Pathfinder in PDF through a Humble Bundle I paid like $25 for). If anything, the past six months or so WotC has definitely learned the D&D playerbase can be fickle and will vote with their wallet. I think maybe they, hopefully, learned this time around that D&D literally ain't Magic, so can't hold the playerbase over the barrel in the way "serious" Magic players are. As I understand it, to play Magic competitively, you largely need to keep current with the release cycle. That's just not the case with D&D, and I think they're realizing that.
I could be wrong, hopefully I'm not, but if I am, as I've said with every pronouncement about the game's ill-tidings (not you, but there are some folks really hammering the death knell bell), if it does come to that, in the end I'm very much content with the games I currently run. If it ceases to interest me, the line loses my buy in; and I think WotC is aware there is a diverse range of D&D consumers and consequently a diverse range of offerings they need to provide to get buy in. It's a balancing act, but the current One D&D stuff looks like lessons learned from 5e's current cycle, and one of the things they must know is that many players have no interest in adopting a VTT or abandoning their current VTT. To insist players must, just isn't good judgement by WotC (and I know many folks have felt burned by WotC before, but I'm optimistic about this).
Just want a VTT that's actually user-friendly and easy to pick up. So many I've tried to use online that make me feel like I need to read a non-existent instruction booklet to figure out how to work, when in reality I feel like it should be common sense, drag-and-drop type interactivity.
Hoping for a clean, navigable UI, with lots of customizable options that make importing assets easy whether it be DnDBeyond character stats or 3D models and .stl files. Doesn't need to have all this flavor-stuff like animations and effects. Half the fun of d&d is using your imagination anyways.
Just want a VTT that's actually user-friendly and easy to pick up. So many I've tried to use online that make me feel like I need to read a non-existent instruction booklet to figure out how to work, when in reality I feel like it should be common sense, drag-and-drop type interactivity.
Hoping for a clean, navigable UI, with lots of customizable options that make importing assets easy whether it be DnDBeyond character stats or 3D models and .stl files. Doesn't need to have all this flavor-stuff like animations and effects. Half the fun of d&d is using your imagination anyways.
Agreed. Most of the VTT's really don't have a particularly easy setup, they are reliant on a considerable amount of IT know-how to get working properly and things aren't getting easier but more difficult as we progress into the digital age. Foundry for example while on paper a much better tool, no question about it than roll 20, it is also about 2000% more complicated to setup and manage. Its buggy as hell too, every single time I have a game session, something inevitably stops working that had worked in our previous game thanks to the constant barrage of updates.
That said for me the issue with a 5e D&D VTT is that D&D is not the only game I run or play and I don't see that ever-changing. For me D&D is all versions of D&D and the hobby itself is far more than just D&D, so if I'm going to put the time to learn how to use a VTT and or spend money on it, It needs to be my VTT of choice for all my games, not just one. I think this is actually the most likely reason I wouldn't get involved with this VTT... its like.. ok you can run 5e in it, but what if I want to run a 1e or 2e game? What if I want to run a Star Wars Edge of Empire or Pathfinder 2e game? Being able to only run 5e and only using the RAW rules, that is too limiting for a VTT.
Agreed. Most of the VTT's really don't have a particularly easy setup, they are reliant on a considerable amount of IT know-how to get working properly and things aren't getting easier but more difficult as we progress into the digital age. Foundry for example while on paper a much better tool, no question about it than roll 20, it is also about 2000% more complicated to setup and manage. Its buggy as hell too, every single time I have a game session, something inevitably stops working that had worked in our previous game thanks to the constant barrage of updates.
That said for me the issue with a 5e D&D VTT is that D&D is not the only game I run or play and I don't see that ever-changing. For me D&D is all versions of D&D and the hobby itself is far more than just D&D, so if I'm going to put the time to learn how to use a VTT and or spend money on it, It needs to be my VTT of choice for all my games, not just one. I think this is actually the most likely reason I wouldn't get involved with this VTT... its like.. ok you can run 5e in it, but what if I want to run a 1e or 2e game? What if I want to run a Star Wars Edge of Empire or Pathfinder 2e game? Being able to only run 5e and only using the RAW rules, that is too limiting for a VTT.
I'm old-school and have no intention of using the VTT but if people want to use it or need to use it I'm not gonna stand in their way.
But your'e right about how limiting the thing will be.
Some are a bit funny about this and will decry any suggestion it will be at all limiting. But as you said we ain't going to be able to run anything but 5 and 5.5 on it. When the response to this is we can always play older editions at our tables—physical tables—this is true but it's not like that ain't an admission of its limitations.
Old-school is growing. It's not just us old grognards.
Youngins at Dicebreaker and other YouTube channels promote classic D&D and Kelsey Dionne who's a far-from-ancient 29 had her old-school take on D&D earn 1.3 million dollars on Kickstarter.
D&D is more than 5 and 5.5.
But maybe if interest in what's new wanes and that in what's old grows and grows Wizards might be left with little choice but to explore hosting earlier editions and games compatible with them. Perhaps unlikely. Money will decide in the end.
I thought it was odd that they were all in the same room, had actual dice, a gaming table, and a huge battlemap in front of them, but were playing on Alienware laptops.
I do most of my tabletop gaming on Foundry and Roll20 these days, with people all over the world, and I would have liked to see how that is supposed to work with webcams and voice chat, instead of the weird hybrid in-person VTT they showed.
I suppose it doesn't matter much, if this thing doesn't run in a web browser, it will be better for making D&D simulation video games than for actual online play.
Agreed. Most of the VTT's really don't have a particularly easy setup, they are reliant on a considerable amount of IT know-how to get working properly and things aren't getting easier but more difficult as we progress into the digital age. Foundry for example while on paper a much better tool, no question about it than roll 20, it is also about 2000% more complicated to setup and manage. Its buggy as hell too, every single time I have a game session, something inevitably stops working that had worked in our previous game thanks to the constant barrage of updates.
That said for me the issue with a 5e D&D VTT is that D&D is not the only game I run or play and I don't see that ever-changing. For me D&D is all versions of D&D and the hobby itself is far more than just D&D, so if I'm going to put the time to learn how to use a VTT and or spend money on it, It needs to be my VTT of choice for all my games, not just one. I think this is actually the most likely reason I wouldn't get involved with this VTT... its like.. ok you can run 5e in it, but what if I want to run a 1e or 2e game? What if I want to run a Star Wars Edge of Empire or Pathfinder 2e game? Being able to only run 5e and only using the RAW rules, that is too limiting for a VTT.
I'm old-school and have no intention of using the VTT but if people want to use it or need to use it I'm not gonna stand in their way.
But your'e right about how limiting the thing will be.
Some are a bit funny about this and will decry any suggestion it will be at all limiting. But as you said we ain't going to be able to run anything but 5 and 5.5 on it. When the response to this is we can always play older editions at our tables—physical tables—this is true but it's not like that ain't an admission of its limitations.
Old-school is growing. It's not just us old grognards.
Youngins at Dicebreaker and other YouTube channels promote classic D&D and Kelsey Dionne who's a far-from-ancient 29 had her old-school take on D&D earn 1.3 million dollars on Kickstarter.
D&D is more than 5 and 5.5.
But maybe if interest in what's new wanes and that in what's old grows and grows Wizards might be left with little choice but to explore hosting earlier editions and games compatible with them. Perhaps unlikely. Money will decide in the end.
I mean the "R" is OSR is for Renaissance, so and the word is loaded with the notion of renewal and growth ... but there's the notion that OSR is a competitor with WotC D&D as opposed to an alternative to WotC D&D.
You're right that OSR gaming isn't an old heads game. My orientation on present OSR came initially through Questing Beast, who looks rather youthful too. Now $1.3 million for a TTRPG KS is decent funding; but there are many projects for 5e and non 5e D&D (and let's be honest, Shadowdark claims to be a hybrid of 5e and OSR games ... and Dionne is a popular designer for 5e products) that pull in that funding level. None of them capture the marketshare WotC has. I've read analysis that describes the ~$1 million KS range as "micropublishing". These are lean operations and there's not a lot of stock beyond the backer fulfillments, most games are de facto limited editions. To scale to WotC levels, I don't know if a lot of OSR or other 3rd party designers would really want to go that route.
Present VTT's who also support 5e support many games including prior D&D editions (the VTT sets up for the latter often being true labors of love by older school communities). That is there's an established, relatively successful industry out there (not to mention the nascent industry in things like higher quality VTT custom mini ports etc) and instead of building a coalition of partners with expertise in this growing area, WotC goes "Nah, we're going to do our own in house thing." They do that because they feel they can control their market share (which dwarfs pretty much everyone else in TTRPG). Yes, their market share includes let's call us "versatile" gamers who play lots of systems, but I think they're doing that because we're a minority of the D&D market. A one game VTT also may be presumably be less difficult for a newbie to set up than a system agnostic VTT since it's being built around one ruleset. Basically, WotC D&D is relatively unique in the volume of "casual" players it caters to, and this VTT product, in its limitations, is catering to this as well.
Don't know how to quote two posts that appear on different pages so apologies for below formatting
I thought it was odd that they were all in the same room, had actual dice, a gaming table, and a huge battlemap in front of them, but were playing on Alienware laptops.
I do most of my tabletop gaming on Foundry and Roll20 these days, with people all over the world, and I would have liked to see how that is supposed to work with webcams and voice chat, instead of the weird hybrid in-person VTT they showed.
I suppose it doesn't matter much, if this thing doesn't run in a web browser, it will be better for making D&D simulation video games than for actual online play.
The Summit discussion of the VTT seems to hint that 1.) the VTT is nowhere near where they want it to be and 2.) the set up of the demo video, including setting and the beefy laptops they realize in hindsight sent the wrong message as to how they envision the VTT being used. They want the thing to work on phones and tablets and envision the VTT having utility in person and in remote play.
At the end of the day, maybe the VTT flops, but it's a project being developed in parallel to the D&D revision. What I've seen from the UA's and the upcoming product calendar seem like D&D 5e business as usual, so I don't see the fate of the VTT really harming or hurting the actual game of WotC D&D. If it fails it's egg on face for executives, but the ttrpg game studio keeps plugging away that looks to be churning out at a quality level I recognize as the consistent with 5e's product cycle to date, for better or worse.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Can't seem to edit the above post, so I'll just add basically "D&D" and TTRPGs are really noisy spaces. The 5e 3rd party eco system supporting 5e, folks using SRD to make "independent" 5e games, the OSR crowd, other "major" game publishers and the smaller "major but boutique" publishers, and then the true indy game developers. Add in additional VTT and digital tool vendors. WotC is clearly trying to play "one stop shop" for folks who don't want to negotiate the broader scene outside 5e's "curated" space. It's like D&D is Disney World and the rest of TTRPG is Burning Man. Does Burning Man make a decent amount of money, and to some seen arguably cooler? But it's not competing with Disney. That's the present asymmetry between WotC and the rest of the TTRPG space. And a failed VTT launch, if that's in the cards, isn't going to change that dynamic.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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This is really shallow application of Baudrillard. Sure, folks name drop him to critique the digital, but simulation and simulacra contends with the reification of abstractions and representations of many sorts, to include tangible maps and printed matter, that accrete to the present moment (that has been here a long time) where the contents of those abstractions transcend in significance over "the real." When I've taught Baudrillard and hyperreality, I used Negativland's "Aluminum or Glass the Memo," the notion of soft drink manufacturers in the 80s was that Pepsi was a thing. It wasn't just the brown sugar liquid in can and glass "Pepsi" was more than that. More than a logo. It was Michael Jackson. it was Burger King. Pepsi, or Coke or Dungeons and Dragons are the hyperreality much like religions and states before them. You can't use Badrillard to excise the VTT and say "this is bad". I mean, you can, you did, but you aren't really appreciating what Baudrillard was getting at. Simulation and Simulacra is not a tool or manual of evaluation of individual components of hyperreality in some sort of good and bad list. It's a description of what it means to be human, to describe what humans do.
You know Baudrillard hated The Matrix, right? Yeah they're a lot of "digital critics" who use Baudrillard as their preferred French post structural cookie cutter through which to "read" particular phenomenon. But really, a bunch of folks engaged in a room with their imagination would fall under Baudrillard's "critique" (an investigation not a castigation) because of their use of the abstraction of language.
tl;dr a VTT isn't a step too far into hyperreality, dungeons and dragons is one phenomenon of our present hyperreality.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If you want to drop Baudrillard, that's fine. That brings us back to you and others seemingly not really following how VTTs work, including the one proposed for "official D&D". No one "stares at the VTT" entranced the way we used to be afraid of television. A VTT is a game aid, not the game. VTTs haven't "changed" ttrpgs in any fundamental way. I don't use VTTs, but if I see some folks using a VTT at their table, or watch an actual play where a VTT is in the mix ... I don't see the impoverishment of the game playing experience you seem to believe has been taking place across the hobby over the years VTTs have been produced. It's fine not to like them, just as it's fine not to like minis, just as it's fine not to like theater of the mind. The VTT simply provides points of reference, like those minis, like that map for the group, who may be at a table or who may only able to be brought together through virtual meeting technology, to tell that collaborative story.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This new VTT is going to be a big learning curve to know how to build adventures in it - and it will ONLY work for playing D&D.
If you want to play any other game system then you will need to use a different VTT.
So why would players bother learning a VTT that ONLY supports D&D?
(Obviously I know that WOTC want you to play on ONLY this VTT so that you will ONLY play D&D.)
I’m curious how it can be used with a single screen in the middle of the table for physical get togethers. The demo just showed everyone sitting together looking at their own screens like a LAN party. I found that a bit off putting. That’s fun in its own way, but we have digital maps and then put our minis on them.
This is getting very video gamey, but it seems that is what is trending?
It will only be optimized for playing D&D. You can use it as a tool for online map tools and handle everything else with something like a discord bot, the same as you'd do for any unsupported RPG with any VTT.
Use a laptop running a client and link it to a wall or projection display. For controlling it, have a bluetooth mouse you pass around the table. The DM probably wants to run a separate client because the DM view of a VTT often shows things you don't want the players to see.
I think WotC is betting they can get enough "only D&D" players to buy into the VTT to make it worth their while. The VTT will also thereby act as an additional layer of insulation from the rest of the ttrpg space because why would someone want to stray from D&D if they've bought into a VTT that only works with the "one game". It's certainly an assertive move.
I'm also presuming D&D isn't going to retreat from Roll20, Foundry, etc. But I haven't heard anything definitive either way on that.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This is an inaccurate take. If you look at the credits for Spelljammer, the section where the ball is dropped the most, the rules book is credited to "the older part of the work force." That's also putting aside the fact that the VTT is being developed by hires with totally different skillsets from "the older part of the work force" and the "younger folks" whom you've been exposed to through D&D publications.
This sounds less like a reality based criticism than a grievance over the role of influencers and diversity at the ongoing summit and D&D in general. I mean the boundaries of this discussion seem to be the VTT, yet here's a post shoehorning complaining about cultural politics or something.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Because there might be some players who primarily play D&D? If you play other systems like Pathfinder or literally anything else besides D&D, then yeah this VTT is pretty worthless to you. I honestly don't understand this mindset of Wizards "Forcing you to ONLY play D&D", at the end of the day it's up to YOU the consumer to decide on how you want to play, if you wanna use this VTT to play, then go for it, if not, cool. It's honestly really not that complicated or that much in-depth.
If you only play D&D? Or if it's only D&D that you play on a VTT?
Cost is another issue. If the cost of the VTT is included in the adventures you buy on DDB...then I'm very likely to use it (or rather, if I decide to use a VTT and it's included in the cost of the DDB adventures, then I'm very likely to choose DDB).
Different strokes for different folks.
Personally, in terms of TTRPGs, I only play 5e and STA. There are a couple of other games I'm interested in but don't have the community to play - and my time is taken up by 5e and STA anyway. Of those two, STA doesn't really meld to well with VTTs so well, and the group I play with has zero interest in VTTs anyway. Seeing as 5e is the only game I play with any scope for actually using a VTT, why would I care if the VTT only supports D&D? If anything, it's a positive for me - focused products tend to have more support, have more tightly focused mechanics and it's easier to get help.
Your social group may not be like that and so you don't see that point of view, but I daresay that there are lot more people like me than not - people who only play one or maybe two TTRPGs, and wouldn't be bothered about not having a massive catalogue of games on a single site to choose from (after having had to buy or otherwise work to obtain them).
And to be honest, in principle, it's the same reason why we're here. You could go to Roll20 for all your D&D stuff, but instead you're here on this specialist site...because for you it's worth learning it even if it's just for the single game, unlike if you were to go to Roll20.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
This was my take as well. To me the idea that the future of D&D is a bunch of people sitting around a table with their laptops out staring at screens is a bit more than off-putting, for me personally, I found it offensive to think that this is somehow the future of role-playing games, in particular, D&D. Not that I oppose the concept of creating a good VTT in a D&D eco-system, I'm cool with that, but I think Wizards of the Coasts doesn't understand their audience at all if they think playing online is a preference. Playing online and using VTT's is a supplement to playing D&D, a sort of last resort workaround for people who can't find a way to play the game for real, in a real social circle for whatever reason. This happens to a lot of us, so we need VTT's, but when a group of players get together to play D&D live, the point of that experience is for people to look each other in the eye, pull out real miniatures, real dice, real pencils and talk to each other in person and play the game as the interactive storytelling game D&D is.
That aside, the VTT looked pretty good, but my main concern about it is that they are going to turn this whole thing into an endless series of paywalls. The whole thing reeks of a corporate money grab from the lowest levels of hell and given Hasbro's reputation, I don't hold out hope that this will be something that will ensure D&D remains a game for everyone. Its going to be a game for whales.
At this stage for modern D&D, I don't think the official version of the game is the future anymore. Paizo is already making a better version of the game as it is and there are a lot of people working on the next generation of D&D variants which are already way ahead so far as game design goes. I just don't see much of a future here anymore.
I don't know if I have missed something, is there an estimated release date on the DnD B VTT?
"Everyone was staring at their screens" because the whole video was demonstrating the capacity of the tools on the screen, I mean the vid was somewhere in the five minute mark, they're not going to show a whole actual play session in that time frame. Like if they were demonstrating a new set of official D&D dice, or minis, the video would dedicate a lot of time to that content.
To clarify some confusion, again, I think there's a lot of sky is falling rhetoric around the VTT and the false premise that the VTT itself will be the flagship produce and central to all future representation of D&D. That's a claim that's only been made by alarmists. The most recent "content creators summit" was largely a top to down review of "the next evolution of D&D" and the VTT was discussed, but in no way was it stated the VTT was essential to future play of the game. No more than any VTT is essential to playing D&D. No more than D&D Beyond is essential to playing D&D. Will it cater to the more so called "digital native" market? Maybe. But folks, the summit and the event discussed a number of products for the future of D&D, and none of them had integration with the VTT as some essential component. Some people may not like the look of folks "lost in a screen" but it simply replaces the battlemat and folks getting lost in tracking down tables or notes in manuals and notebooks. Digital = inherently bad is a ship that sailed away generations ago, and the present entertains old school modes of play, paper and pencil, just fine and there's no indication that mode is going to be abandoned. The VTT is simply another play accessory for folks who like to organize their TTRPG experience digitally, like a lot of DDB users, and also don't want to invest in the shelf space for terrain and minis, this is a new product people can buy into.
You can watch actual plays with people using digital devices at the players table and see the "folks are lost in their screens" is a thing that's just not happening. Even the remote games don't suffer that concern.
Now those of us not used to tech may find a learning curve if we try to jump on say an online convention, or a start playing games event or what have you, but one of the cool things about the TTRPG community is that folks always seem pretty generous with showing others the ropes of new tech. Last game store event I went to, 6 players, one DM, DM and 2 players were playing device supported, other fours ran off paper. There was a battle mat, but it could have easily been replaced with a VTT and I don't think the session would have ran radically different had the device ratio changed or the battle mat was replaced with a reference on a VTT screen. As I've implied, I'm not a digital native either, but I don't find the boundary between digital and paper preferences really a battlefront, the bridge between the two is actually pretty easy with a lot of mutual aid.
The most recent video that started this thread says the earliest, outside of WotC's internal testing, anyone in the public would see some version of the VTT I think is very late 2023, with a big MAYBE on that. An official release date hasn't been announced, but the rumor is an official release won't be till 2025 the earliest.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don't know, I get what you're saying and honestly, I'm not trying to be alarmist. I suppose it has a lot to do with a complete lack of trust or faith in Hasbro or Wizards of the Coast. Every time they do anything it's always underhanded in some way, with some sort of agenda that is by design meant to trick us in some way.
The VTT looks great on paper, but even if their intention is to just make this a supplement to online play rather than a fundamental shift of the entire way D&D is played, it may very well turn out that way anyway.
Well, I think Covid changed the way TTRPGs are played by many since remote play was the default introduction to many new players (and creators). DDB itself was designed as a digital device you were supposed to take to your table (they even wrote articles on "how to use DDB in online play" when lockdown became a thing). Even as players have returned to table, some of them have returned with their devices instead of papers.
I guess I'm agnostic about "the" VTT since I've seen there's always been a space for "super users" (who have all the books, all the minis, supplemental minis and terrain, and everythgibg on DDB, plus using VTT) and there are folks (and I'd say this is the bulk of the D&D market) who play much more minimalistically or at least with a much smaller library. It seems a lot of folks think the VTT is an effort to convert the entire D&D player market into VTT whales or high roller tables and I just don't see that since that would only accomplish them losing marketshare to games with a much lower marketshare (I have $100s worth of Pathfinder in PDF through a Humble Bundle I paid like $25 for). If anything, the past six months or so WotC has definitely learned the D&D playerbase can be fickle and will vote with their wallet. I think maybe they, hopefully, learned this time around that D&D literally ain't Magic, so can't hold the playerbase over the barrel in the way "serious" Magic players are. As I understand it, to play Magic competitively, you largely need to keep current with the release cycle. That's just not the case with D&D, and I think they're realizing that.
I could be wrong, hopefully I'm not, but if I am, as I've said with every pronouncement about the game's ill-tidings (not you, but there are some folks really hammering the death knell bell), if it does come to that, in the end I'm very much content with the games I currently run. If it ceases to interest me, the line loses my buy in; and I think WotC is aware there is a diverse range of D&D consumers and consequently a diverse range of offerings they need to provide to get buy in. It's a balancing act, but the current One D&D stuff looks like lessons learned from 5e's current cycle, and one of the things they must know is that many players have no interest in adopting a VTT or abandoning their current VTT. To insist players must, just isn't good judgement by WotC (and I know many folks have felt burned by WotC before, but I'm optimistic about this).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Just want a VTT that's actually user-friendly and easy to pick up. So many I've tried to use online that make me feel like I need to read a non-existent instruction booklet to figure out how to work, when in reality I feel like it should be common sense, drag-and-drop type interactivity.
Hoping for a clean, navigable UI, with lots of customizable options that make importing assets easy whether it be DnDBeyond character stats or 3D models and .stl files.
Doesn't need to have all this flavor-stuff like animations and effects. Half the fun of d&d is using your imagination anyways.
Agreed. Most of the VTT's really don't have a particularly easy setup, they are reliant on a considerable amount of IT know-how to get working properly and things aren't getting easier but more difficult as we progress into the digital age. Foundry for example while on paper a much better tool, no question about it than roll 20, it is also about 2000% more complicated to setup and manage. Its buggy as hell too, every single time I have a game session, something inevitably stops working that had worked in our previous game thanks to the constant barrage of updates.
That said for me the issue with a 5e D&D VTT is that D&D is not the only game I run or play and I don't see that ever-changing. For me D&D is all versions of D&D and the hobby itself is far more than just D&D, so if I'm going to put the time to learn how to use a VTT and or spend money on it, It needs to be my VTT of choice for all my games, not just one. I think this is actually the most likely reason I wouldn't get involved with this VTT... its like.. ok you can run 5e in it, but what if I want to run a 1e or 2e game? What if I want to run a Star Wars Edge of Empire or Pathfinder 2e game? Being able to only run 5e and only using the RAW rules, that is too limiting for a VTT.
I'm old-school and have no intention of using the VTT but if people want to use it or need to use it I'm not gonna stand in their way.
But your'e right about how limiting the thing will be.
Some are a bit funny about this and will decry any suggestion it will be at all limiting. But as you said we ain't going to be able to run anything but 5 and 5.5 on it. When the response to this is we can always play older editions at our tables—physical tables—this is true but it's not like that ain't an admission of its limitations.
Old-school is growing. It's not just us old grognards.
Youngins at Dicebreaker and other YouTube channels promote classic D&D and Kelsey Dionne who's a far-from-ancient 29 had her old-school take on D&D earn 1.3 million dollars on Kickstarter.
D&D is more than 5 and 5.5.
But maybe if interest in what's new wanes and that in what's old grows and grows Wizards might be left with little choice but to explore hosting earlier editions and games compatible with them. Perhaps unlikely. Money will decide in the end.
I thought it was odd that they were all in the same room, had actual dice, a gaming table, and a huge battlemap in front of them, but were playing on Alienware laptops.
I do most of my tabletop gaming on Foundry and Roll20 these days, with people all over the world, and I would have liked to see how that is supposed to work with webcams and voice chat, instead of the weird hybrid in-person VTT they showed.
I suppose it doesn't matter much, if this thing doesn't run in a web browser, it will be better for making D&D simulation video games than for actual online play.
All generalizations are false.
I mean the "R" is OSR is for Renaissance, so and the word is loaded with the notion of renewal and growth ... but there's the notion that OSR is a competitor with WotC D&D as opposed to an alternative to WotC D&D.
You're right that OSR gaming isn't an old heads game. My orientation on present OSR came initially through Questing Beast, who looks rather youthful too. Now $1.3 million for a TTRPG KS is decent funding; but there are many projects for 5e and non 5e D&D (and let's be honest, Shadowdark claims to be a hybrid of 5e and OSR games ... and Dionne is a popular designer for 5e products) that pull in that funding level. None of them capture the marketshare WotC has. I've read analysis that describes the ~$1 million KS range as "micropublishing". These are lean operations and there's not a lot of stock beyond the backer fulfillments, most games are de facto limited editions. To scale to WotC levels, I don't know if a lot of OSR or other 3rd party designers would really want to go that route.
Present VTT's who also support 5e support many games including prior D&D editions (the VTT sets up for the latter often being true labors of love by older school communities). That is there's an established, relatively successful industry out there (not to mention the nascent industry in things like higher quality VTT custom mini ports etc) and instead of building a coalition of partners with expertise in this growing area, WotC goes "Nah, we're going to do our own in house thing." They do that because they feel they can control their market share (which dwarfs pretty much everyone else in TTRPG). Yes, their market share includes let's call us "versatile" gamers who play lots of systems, but I think they're doing that because we're a minority of the D&D market. A one game VTT also may be presumably be less difficult for a newbie to set up than a system agnostic VTT since it's being built around one ruleset. Basically, WotC D&D is relatively unique in the volume of "casual" players it caters to, and this VTT product, in its limitations, is catering to this as well.
Don't know how to quote two posts that appear on different pages so apologies for below formatting
The Summit discussion of the VTT seems to hint that 1.) the VTT is nowhere near where they want it to be and 2.) the set up of the demo video, including setting and the beefy laptops they realize in hindsight sent the wrong message as to how they envision the VTT being used. They want the thing to work on phones and tablets and envision the VTT having utility in person and in remote play.
At the end of the day, maybe the VTT flops, but it's a project being developed in parallel to the D&D revision. What I've seen from the UA's and the upcoming product calendar seem like D&D 5e business as usual, so I don't see the fate of the VTT really harming or hurting the actual game of WotC D&D. If it fails it's egg on face for executives, but the ttrpg game studio keeps plugging away that looks to be churning out at a quality level I recognize as the consistent with 5e's product cycle to date, for better or worse.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Can't seem to edit the above post, so I'll just add basically "D&D" and TTRPGs are really noisy spaces. The 5e 3rd party eco system supporting 5e, folks using SRD to make "independent" 5e games, the OSR crowd, other "major" game publishers and the smaller "major but boutique" publishers, and then the true indy game developers. Add in additional VTT and digital tool vendors. WotC is clearly trying to play "one stop shop" for folks who don't want to negotiate the broader scene outside 5e's "curated" space. It's like D&D is Disney World and the rest of TTRPG is Burning Man. Does Burning Man make a decent amount of money, and to some seen arguably cooler? But it's not competing with Disney. That's the present asymmetry between WotC and the rest of the TTRPG space. And a failed VTT launch, if that's in the cards, isn't going to change that dynamic.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.