Question.
If you could have a campaign manager that was easily ported to say a laptop, iPad, or whatever, What options would you want in that? What functions in it would you want that would help your games progress faster and smoother?
In addition I'd want the campaign manager to link to the character builder so I can define house rules. In particular I'd like the ability to create custom magic items and custom powers.
I would essentially want Masterplan but able to use monsters and traps straight from the source, instead of having to export from the monster builder then import into the program or put them in by hand. And maybe a bit more of an intuitive interface. Other than that, Masterplan has everything I need. Heck, if WOTC just bought Masterplan from the developers of that program, put it back to the way it was before the C&D and cleaned up the UI a bit, I'd probably be happy enough to forgive WOTC for every screw-up with the tools since day 1. Masterplan is that good and there is no need for WOTC to re-invent the wheel
Other than that, the only thing I would want would be a way of tracking overall campaign data (i.e. the current date of the campaign, a campaign journal of some sort, that sort of stuff) seperately from individual adventure data, that would be good too.
Heck, I think I am going to suggest that last bit to the makers of Masterplan.
I'd want the functionality of Masterplan with a cleaner UI. I want it to directly interface with the character builder and monster builders.
In addition I'd want the campaign manager to link to the character builder so I can define house rules. In particular I'd like the ability to create custom magic items and custom powers.
Absolutely +100
Actually I'd want something more than what Masterplan currently offers. I would have to say a combination of Masterplan and MapTools. It would have to be able to connect to players over the net, have a fully fleshed out combat tracking system, one which kept track of status effects, saves, etc.
Personally I feel like that might be feature creep. I'd rather they focus on getting an electronic aid for people running games at a table in person to an excellent state before delving into the massive project that is a virtual gaming table.
But I can't find fault with people wanting that, just not at the expense of what I want. ;)
personally, I find the most challenging point of the new system all of the round by round changes in status affects, conditionals and triggering conditions and tracking those for each creature, each party member, etc.
I have a 6 person party, which is about the limit I want to see as most of them are new players. Rounds each take .. 10 minutes, lets say, with a range of 5 on occasion to 15 on occasion. We use a combat board, miniatures, felt tokens under miniatures to track bloodied, and marks (defenders and strikers), and then I track all conditions. All of those add time, which makes players less interested, and drags the game on. I have 3 women and 3 men in the party, and I can safely say that non-combat encounters also have value and will take time with this group.
It's really not feasible to track all of the conditions with little markers on the miniatures, and in the future we all know we'll be using some electronic board with touch controls that we can do all of this on. But, we're not there yet and the more I can focus on the story of the game, even during combat, the better it is for me for interacting with the players, their characters, and adding or subtracting things on the fly.
So, for me, a combat tracker that incorporates the "caster," knows the target(s), is intelligent enough to automatically apply the appropriate effects, interact with any existing effects, tell me about conditional effects and apply them when needed (think faerie fire for example, or mark effects), etc. Ideally, all management of the numbers can be offloaded to a system because it's not the game; it's just incidental to the system.
I currently use DnD4eCM. I tried several and I think this one is the closest to what I'm looking for currently, and it helps a lot. It's not all there yet, and I'm not sure it will be of course. This is one of the examples of products WotC should be looking at, as stated in numerous threads, as models for what to do, and what people are using. Masterplan, DnD4eCM, MapTools, Hero Planner, etc. All of these have sprung up from gaping holes in help areas. If WotC only wants to be a content provider, and system owner, that's perfectly fine, but I'd rather they state that and focus on that.
However, historically, the tools have always been half there. The Character Builder was (is) wonderful - but DnD has always been about customizaton and homebrew ... why not throw your DMs a bone in a system based on numbers, and essentially properties of objects, and let custom content in the CB work (read: apply the numbers properly without hacking the numbers), be easily exportable so your party can share your campaign customizations, etc. It seems obvious, but wasn't supported. Just strange.
I don't love everything about 4e, but I appreciate what its trying to do. As much as they may have improved game speed from the 12 attacks a round characters at high end, I think they've slowed the game down quite a bit for more of the levels. I think we need to see more support for custom content, especially with them essentially throwing some divergent rulesets at us in essentials that loosely follow the framework they set out (and that everyone paid quite a bit for). I've either had essentials products gifted to me, or have bought them and they're ... decent .. starter items, with some good lore/fluff in there that was probably missing from some of the other 4e books, but I'd like to see full support sooner rather than later for the whole game, from game table to rulebooks, and not just a slow migration to 4.5e without admitting it. That's my perspective, anyways.
Sorry for you TLDR folk.
Actually what I really would like is for the adventures in Dungeon to be loaded into the Campaign Manager when it is updated, also include previous issues (with updated numbers ie DCs, Monster Stats etc). But I think thats too much of a pipedream.
This kind of feedback would be invaluable to us when we're designing updates and new features. Feel free to email or private message so that the thread isn't derailed.
Not to derail the thread, when people talk about wanting Masterplan with a cleaner UI, what changes to Masterplan would help? What parts of the UI are unclear or difficult to use?
This kind of feedback would be invaluable to us when we're designing updates and new features. Feel free to email or private message so that the thread isn't derailed.
What I would assume people mean by cleaner interface, is making the interface more uniform with Adventure Tools
Not to derail the thread, when people talk about wanting Masterplan with a cleaner UI, what changes to Masterplan would help? What parts of the UI are unclear or difficult to use?
This kind of feedback would be invaluable to us when we're designing updates and new features. Feel free to email or private message so that the thread isn't derailed.
What I would assume people mean by cleaner interface, is making the interface more uniform with Adventure Tools
I agree, imagin the character builder holding the 5 pcs, the monster builder holding custom monsters, and both sliding into a masterplan like system... imagin encounter/map designers that fit in as well and whokle campisgns with optional rules clicked on and off...
Actually what I really would like is for the adventures in Dungeon to be loaded into the Campaign Manager when it is updated, also include previous issues (with updated numbers ie DCs, Monster Stats etc). But I think thats too much of a pipedream.
YES, in a digital world there is NOTHING that should prevent WoTC from releasing a "ready to run" digital copy of the adventure for their campaign/combat tool. None of the fluff, nothing to really take away from the purchased adventure, but a pack with the monsters and map tokens ready to run.
And when I say this I don't mean releasing it a month later (like they do now with the CB). This should be available when the adventure hits the stores.
What I would assume people mean by cleaner interface, is making the interface more uniform with Adventure Tools
*Shiver* - what a scary thought!
I've always thought that while Masterplan's UI is very messy (requiring 5 windows to edit an encounter, or making navigation between campaign points slow, and just generally being bulky), I've always felt it is much cleaner than the custom UI built for the Adventure and CB tools. There's just something about the design of that toolset that doesn't flow... you know?
Not to derail the thread, when people talk about wanting Masterplan with a cleaner UI, what changes to Masterplan would help? What parts of the UI are unclear or difficult to use?
This kind of feedback would be invaluable to us when we're designing updates and new features. Feel free to email or private message so that the thread isn't derailed.
I keep forgetting that there is a direct line of communication to you guys. I have grown accustomed to working with... other products.
Which leads me to a tangential train of thought.
What I would assume people mean by cleaner interface, is making the interface more uniform with Adventure Tools
The UI and interface of the adventure tools is a crime against interface design humanity. Having anything in this world try to be uniform with the adventure tools should be punished by no ice cream (or treat of choice) for a month.
Do not make the Masterplan UI anything like the Adventure Tools!
Ok, with that out of the way, I'll give you a brain dump of UI and other feedback...
The biggest issue I have with the Masterplan UI is that it's kind of unintuitive and newbie unfriendly. When I first started using it I was having problems figuring out how to do stuff. And as I continue to try using new features of Masterplan I feel like the skills I develop learning the UI aren't helping me do new things faster.
Case in point: I tried creating a regional map for the first time to detail out a plot point in my flow chart. When I closed it as far as I could tell it just disappeared. I couldn't access it anymore. It wasn't until tonight when I looked through one of the drop down menus I saw the option for Regional Maps that had the three versions of the map I tried adding and thought I failed adding.
Using subplots is also unintuitive at first because the subplots don't appear in the navigator until there is more than one plot point in the plot. I opened up an example file someone had put up on the net and thought "how did they do that?" I ended up trying to import one project into another one before I understood that subplots are invisible until they have more than one plot point.
I feel like I should be able to right click on a plot point in the navigator and add a subplot.
There are new user traps like "oh I want a skill challenge or trap here." I make the skill challenge or trap and realize that I want to reuse it or add a combat encounter to it. And I can't. Or at least I couldn't figure out how to. I end up having to remake the trap in the trap editor and add it to the library instead of just saying "hey add this thing I just made to the library."
Using flowcharts isn't like how other flowchart programs (like Visio) work. Once I understood it I could work with it just fine, but it meant there was a bit of a barrier to jumping in. And I understand there is really only a small percentage of users that have that kind of experience. It's just that flowcharts seem backwards in linking, as I drag against the arrow.
This is a quibble, but I miss having the custom D&D icons in the stat blocks. It slows down the process of reading the blocks ever so slightly.
The combat tracker does the job, but it seem to be a bit behind the curve compared to the DnD4eCM:
The Masterplan UI is cleaner and the stat blocks are easier to read (especially since DnD4eCM hasn't really been updated to use the new MM3 style blocks), but it lags behind in functionality when actually running the combat. The damage / healing panel in DnD4eCM is a lot quicker to use. I can hit the damage 5 button when I have a minion selected and just kill it vs. the right click context menu which is a slower process. Now granted I love the fact there is a context menu so I can see all the options I just want a quick damage / healing panel to make combats easier to run.
Also I seem to have a lot of problems when creatures / characters in combats ready / delay actions. They never seem to come back in right. I also miss the ability to back-up and fix an error. In Masterplan it seems like I have to cycle through again or try to hand edit stuff.
And the biggest issue I have with running combats is tracking conditions. It's great being able to track them, but it's slow entering them. I wish there was a way that the conditions a creature could apply were extracted from its statblock, with the option to hand edit to fix up weird language. The more interesting creatures have more interesting conditions that they apply to their targets. Also there doesn't seem to be a way to create one condition that does ongoing damage and has other effects.
Oh, and copying RTF format to the clipboard and pasting it in is much more convenient than exporting and importing XML files.
On a micro-UI level you guys are doing great. You're using standard windowed elements and not cluttering things up like the Adventure Tools do. I feel like the Adventure Tools focus too much on giving the UI a kind of D&D IP value and not on usability. When I use the Monster Builder I have to use the Compendium to search for stuff because the Monster Tools UI is slow and weird.
The reason I would like to see Wizards create a tool that supplants what you are doing has nothing to do with how well you've executed, which by the way is very well despite all the feedback in this post. The reason is that I want my campaign and combat management directly integrated with the other tools I use, which can't happen when Wizards sends out C&D orders all the time.
When I buy an adventure or download a Dungeon adventure there should be files that let me run that thing immediately using my various tools. Like there should be the equivalent of a masterplan file for every adventure. And I should be able to run it my way. If I want to take the adventures in the DM's Kit and mod them for Dark Sun I should be able to do that. And do it quickly.
Of course the assumption I am making is that Wizards would actually do that, instead of something that will probably be far more subpar than what I want.
I've always thought that while Masterplan's UI is very messy (requiring 5 windows to edit an encounter, or making navigation between campaign points slow, and just generally being bulky), I've always felt it is much cleaner than the custom UI built for the Adventure and CB tools. There's just something about the design of that toolset that doesn't flow... you know?
I am intrigued by this; editing an encounter requires a single click, and navigating between plot points likewise requires a single click. Is this messy?
I've always thought that while Masterplan's UI is very messy (requiring 5 windows to edit an encounter, or making navigation between campaign points slow, and just generally being bulky), I've always felt it is much cleaner than the custom UI built for the Adventure and CB tools. There's just something about the design of that toolset that doesn't flow... you know?
I am intrigued by this; editing an encounter requires a single click, and navigating between plot points likewise requires a single click. Is this messy?
I feel a little bad jumping into your discussion (especially since I don't use Masterplan), but I can't help since this is relevant to what I do in my day-to-day job. I just want to say that click count is almost never a good measure of how good an interface is. When users claim that they think something is messy they often refer to visual hierarchy, groupings and/or visual find-ability.
- Campaign map with meta-tags, and ability to drill down to regions, towns, adventure sites, and dungeons.
- Customizable calendar with flexibility to create systems widely divergent from the Gregorian Calendar. Also the ability to have different calendars (linked) for different political/cultural regions.
- Player Character and Non-Player Character tracker with dated entries (tied to calendar system above) for notes. Linked to Character Builder, Monster Builder and Adventure Designer so information is easily portable back and forth.
- World, Kingdom, Region, Town, Point of Interest tracker with dated entries for background/history notes and current details.
- Plot tracker (flow chart based).
- Handout creator.
- Full featured combat initiative tracker.
If WotC (or anyone) are going to release a World Builder package, as part of a Campaign Manager or not, then I'd like for it to support:
1. Cut and paste - lots of us have own own notes on our worlds and we don't want to have to type them all in again.
2. Hyper-links or similar functionality - to link places to sub-places, to link people to the places they live in, to link people into organizations, etc.
I am intrigued by this; editing an encounter requires a single click, and navigating between plot points likewise requires a single click. Is this messy?
It's true that editing a plot point requires a single click, but exploring plot points (or even their existence at first) was non-intuitive.
When users claim that they think something is messy they often refer to visual hierarchy, groupings and/or visual find-ability.
That's basically what I meant. I'm not "UI-lingo savvy", but the "visual find-ability" pretty much describes the issue in my eyes.
If you do, I would like to see you expand the character file (like the monster file) so that I as a GM can click their powers and get dice rolls, and mark powers expended. I don't normally make the dice rolls, players do, but I do like to keep track of powers used. Players are, shall we say, sometimes a bit forgetful when it comes to them.
You apparently already have a lot of the logic there since you do this for the monsters, so if you can look into it.... please