The top result for the tool that subscribers most wanted to see (at 83%) was a tool to create and manage campaign info. So, making the assumption that this is a tool that is going to get fairly high priority, what would you like to see a campaign manager do?
As always, WotC will be watching this thread to see the types of ideas that we come up with, as well as the arguments for why a certain function should or should not be in the tool. [1] So please, go into detail. Give your reasons why you would like something, and why you would not like something else. There may be disagreements over
[1] I am making the assumption that it will all be in one tool.
[2] :P
General:
These tools provide support computer-aided management and printouts to support pen-and-paper style gaming.
The complete suite of DDI tools should be interconnected and synergistic
All suites provide schemas for content from Dragon, Dungeon, and 3rd Parties
All suites can produce suitable printouts that match official formats, i.e. monsters can have MM-style stat blocks, and encounters can be printed in the same layout as Dragon Magazine encounters.
Desirable formats include: Dungeon, Dragon, MM, Delve-night, Two-page layouts
Any tool which has an option for notes or writing provides formatting options similar to forum posting
Tools are multi-platform
All tool support 3rd party expansion
Tools allow Insiders to share their creations in an online database
Campaign Builder:
Supports a Campaign Wiki, with search support
Acts as a Master program to integrate Char builder, monster builder, encounter builder, adventure builder and combat manager.
DMs can plan, make notes, track and link elements in Space and Time
Supports notes and links for people, places and things
House rule support is critical. Not only does this tool need to provide a place to record house rules, but it must also allow DMs to create and share custom game elements for players to import into the Character Builder and integrate seamlessly (e.g. feats and powers calculate correctly)
Custom game elements include, Gods, powers, feats, weapons, other items, races and classes
Random name generator
Aids handout creation
Aids creating and recording: Climate, Calendar, Weather, Organizations, Settlements, Businesses, key NPS and notes about them, plot hooks
Supports timelines for planning encounters ahead and recording past party accomplishments
Timelines AND campaign maps should be able to link to monsters, encounters, adventures,
Provides many options for the DM to review and track PCs and the party as a whole and compare to benchmarks
Supports treasure planning: wishlists, parcels, awards, random generation options,
Supports top-down world design and inside-out world design
NPC management
Space for Session Logs
Record XP earned from completed encounters
Adventure Builder:
This is best summed up by imagining what it would be like to grab an adventure from dragon and having everything hyperlinked.
Adventures may be viewed as a flowcharts, adventure maps, or Dungeon Magazine-style adventures, but clicking on “objects” (monsters, towns, whatever) brings up the details of that area
Creates a complete adventure composed of maps, encounters, monsters, traps, hazards, vehicles and mounts and other game elements. All elements are linked to be easy to input and easy to use. The program allows DMs to export and share their adventures with others readily. The program will also support adventure authoring with space for backstory, NPC notes, synopsis.
Provides support for treasure parcels, including tracking what has been awarded, and to whom, and may suggest specific treasure for race/class/build/level or randomly generate based on adventure level
Has a template that shows the number of encounters for the adventure, the difficulty of the encounter, and the XP budget for each encounter.
Can utilize a library of encounters that can be placed in adventure “slots”
Track the number of encounters of a certain difficulty, and compare it to the recommended mix from the DMG. It would take the level range of the PCs (i.e. the size of the adventure), into account.
Encounter Builder:
Supports skill challenges
Supports searching a public “library” to be browsed and searched with filters, keywords and themes
Drag-and-drop interface places monsters, NPC’s, traps, hazards, and treasure on the map and simultaneously tracks XP budget, encounter budget, etc
Clicking on elements of the encounter triggers a pop-up with relevant information, e.g. monster stat block, terrain effects
Supports weather and environment notes/effects
Generates random encounter groups, but also allow the DM to limit the results to specific level ranges, keywords, or themes.
See general notes on formatting.
If possible, can make recommendations based on party make-up for good mixes of monsters by role
Exports to game table or combat manager, including monster tokens (if appropriate) and stat information
Map Builder/Editor:
Maps supported at world, regional, adventure/dungeon, and encounter level
Provides a “library” of maps
Provides a “library” of Dungeon Tiles, and allows the user to limit the library to tile sets owned
--doubles as a tracker for collectors
Can assemble maps from Dungeon Tiles and custom tiles
Supports scales other than 1”=5’ grids
Allows users to link encounter-level maps to adventure-level maps and adventure-level maps to world maps
Can print large sheets for those that have access to plotters, or break large maps into 8.5x11 for those that do not.
Can allow comments similar to Adobe-style pdf commenting, but also be able to tag groups of squares
Be able to print maps with or without DM notes
Monsters, Traps, and Hazards Builder/Editor:
Provides a monster “library” to be browsed and searched with filters, keywords and themes
Uses the MM format, but allows customization, DMs to alter the layout
Provides a means to quickly and conveniently create, save and share new monsters and alter “core” monsters
-alterations include creating and removing templates, dial-up/dial down level adjustments
-Option to abandon system math and fully alter any stat.
Can produce a random original or “core” monster but also allow the DM to limit the results to specific level ranges, keywords, or themes
Optionally provides space for notes or comments to allow monsters to also be used NPCs or BBEGs
Combat Manager:
Supports "in play" laptop use of encounter management including PCs, Monsters and Traps
Supports computer dice rolling and resource expenditure, Initiative, damage, healing, condition tracking,
Prompts stepwise by initiative for rolls, status changes, status effect changes, auto damage, duration of spells, effects, zones etc.
Clearly ID’s Bloodied combatants
Everything fits on a single screen (Probably not possible)
Other:
A place to store characters and your world and act as a community hub/wiki for campaign settlings...
An art library
A central place for DDI subscribers to upload custom monsters, encounters, adventures, or whole campaigns to share with the community.
A way to rank the creations, by popularity (downloads) or by a ‘stars’ system
A way to filter by creator, level, range
Feedback forum for each upload
Paypal ‘Donate’ option to reward particularly good designs
1) It would, of course, need to keep information about all my player's characters. (Import and view data from Char Builder, obviously.)
2) The ability to detail the world the players are in and /keep track/ of the NPCs, and how the PCs have interacted with those NPCs.
3) Record of adventures both past and future. Make it easy to create and organize encounters.
4) Journal and Note's functionality.
5) Link in Maps and organize them.
6) SEARCH features for all data contained within.
So - to be somewhat flippant - I guess it would be an application that is:
The encounter builder, and
The monster builder, and
The compendium, and
A Text editor
...in one package.
I have to admit that I don't envy them the development of this tool. It's such a vague and potentially broad requirement set.
Edit: it occurs to me that it would be better for Wizards to say "Okay, this is what we think a Campaign Manager looks like. Now, tell us what you think." Because to me, a campaign manager is Google Docs, or something like CELTX.
To look at it from the ground-up, here is what I would like to see:
Combat manager
[indent]By this, I mean something that will enable me to input PCs, monsters, traps, and have it deal with initiative, damage, healing, etc. What with the monsters *already* in database format (see Compendium), it should be trivial to have them be pulled in. Ideally, as was mentioned previously, have the PCs be pulled from the Character Builder as well. Die rollers would also be great.[/indent]
Adventure Manager
[indent]This would allow the DM to lnk to sections on a map of some sort, be it a dedicated mapping tool that would be part of DDI or some imported jpg map, encounters and the monsters in the encounters. It would allow the DM to, when he clicks on the room, a page is brought up that includes the monster stat blocks, any notes the DM has on the room.[/indent]
Campaign Manager
[indent]Ideally, this would track XP, but a place to put notes for the campaign. NPCs talked to, places visited, decisions made, etc. If it could be formatted in such a way as to allow the DM to make his/her own catagories, it would be great. To be able to then export the resulting files in a format (html, rich text, BBcode, etc...) that could be sent to players as a summary would also be great.[/indent]
I would like to see an Adventure Builder.
Where you create a complete adventure including a map and encounters and rooms with monsters and other terrain in them.
A backstory and setup would be included as well as a conclusion.
The full stats in an easy to use form for all the monsters you encounter would be easy to access with a single click.
The map could be scanned in or built from scratch using all kinds of different shapes and sizes and colors.
That is what my vision is for the next tool.
This with Traps, Hazards, Vehicles and Mounts available as well.
A way to export the map with monster and PC markers in an image format would be something I want as well so that it can be used in the Play by Post forums. :D
So if WOTC is asking the customers what they want to see in a campagin manager right now, seems to me that have not even started working on it. So it should be awhile. Would'nt it make more sense to work on one of the other tools that are closer to being done?
I get the feeling that the developers have an idea already, and this is farming for additional ideas. That's why I'd like to hear from them what they envisioned, as a starting point, instead of the shotgun approach.
I get the feeling that the developers have an idea already, and this is farming for additional ideas. That's why I'd like to hear from them what they envisioned, as a starting point, instead of the shotgun approach.
this shotgun approach was started by mudbunny.
so far, i have not seen any dev of ddi asking questions like this around as a whole thread - they usually don't.
so: user input is nice and all that - but i've come to the conclusion (might be wrong) that this is just what bunny believes would help them - whether or not they use it, has to be seen.
Currently when I am playing I use the character sheet given to me in CB to run my character, I would like a tool that helps me when I am running con games as a GM.
-Red
this shotgun approach was started by mudbunny.
so far, i have not seen any dev of ddi asking questions like this around as a whole thread - they usually don't.
so: user input is nice and all that - but i've come to the conclusion (might be wrong) that this is just what bunny believes would help them - whether or not they use it, has to be seen.
Could be - I always assumed that the "Directed Discussion" threads were something that someone "on high" (so to speak) thought would be a good idea, and MB just ran with them. I don't think they're a bad idea - in fact, I think they're a good one - but I think this one in particular needs more direction beyond "what do you want to see?".
I like all the Dungeon, Town and World maps done in 3D. There should be plenty of objects to fill that world with too.
That would be sweet.
How To Approach the Project: To me, what defines a necessary set of campaign tools is determined by examining all the CURRENT tools I use. This is includes other software, management methods, and self-created documents.
A Second Survey: It occurs to me that if the first survey proved how much of the community wants one tool or another, a similar follow-up survey would be educational about the quantity of players looking for this module or that module of campaign management software. I recommend using the suggestions on this thread as a starting point for building an additional survey, so that you can determine how much of the community wants SUB-TOOL X first.
Modular: I agree with Mudbunny; campaign management tools, to be effective, must/needs-be modular in nature, with multiple components which interact. This could build more faith with the community of customers also by dividing the project up into manageable smaller chunks with realistic but near-future release dates. After determining what ought to completed first (see above), some measure of "the first tool you'll see in Q1 2010 will be..." and give us something to look forward to each time, rather than waiting in totality for a massive suite of tools which increasingly appears abandoned or in limbo.
Each module would LINK TO or LAUNCH other modules as appropriate when you're trying to drill down or expand out in world creation or at-the-table reference.
___
Totality of the Tools: Once all modules are released, where does a typical DM start his campaign? Methods vary:
1. Top-down World Building: I draw a world map. I label areas of interest. I sketch out types of government, and decide how they got there, political and culture histories. I pick a particular nation, then city/town to drill-down into. I identify interesting figures there, and then determine how the first adventure begins. At this point, it is usually related to the history of the whole world somehow.
2. Inside-out World Building: I identify an adventure hook. The type of hook determines which NPCs and monsters I'll need. This in turn helps define the local region, at which point I examine its involvement in a larger story. The whole outline of the campaign need not be known by the first session, or even the 20th. I start with a single adventure and let the world unfold as the PCs discover it.
3. Skip (most of) the hard work: Non-World Building: Use published adventures and/or campaign worlds.
Which of the above methods will we want in Campaign Tools? All three.
__
Module Ideas
Each of these was determined by examining how I currently DM, and what a WOTC Campaign Tools Suite could do to replace those other methods.
Comprehensive Mapping Module: The first step (for me) in top-down World Building. It would need to be of similar-to-better quality but with an easier learning curve than Campaign Cartographer and related tools. See http://www.profantasy.com/.
This module would need to interact with later ones; click on a city in the World Map, and it takes you to the City Creator module.
City Creator: A reasonable second stop in top-down World Building. Also needs a city mapping tool, but that's addressed above.
This module lets us decide the population, basic government, geography, wealth, and other features of the city. These can also be randomly generated. Based on our choices, percentages of later choices also come into play, and can be overridden if we desire.
Example: A fiefdom would auto-generate high numbers of knights, warriors, and peasants in later sub-menus, but we could instead choose that the "knights" of this fiefdom are all priests, or vice versa: Create a theocracy in which the acolytes are mostly fighters and warlords instead of clerics.
Here's a quick sketch of how I picture this interface.
Population: (Slider or drop-down menu which equates numbers to types like "Hamlet", "Town", "Metropolis", etc.)
Primary Government: (Drop-down menu): Feudal, Theocracy, Democracy, Magocracy, Commune, Republic, Anarchy, (etc)
Secondary and Tertiary forms of Government also selectable.
Architecture: (Drop-down menu): D&D examples such as Eladrin structures from the feywild, real world examples such as Egyptian, Japanese, Native American, other RPG examples such as WoW Orcish, LOTR Elvish, etc.
City Sections: This sub-module would let us build and name (identify) such portions of the city as the slums, the religious quarter, market, etc. We could identify sub-governments, and any particular rules/notes associated.
"No one is allowed to pass through into Highgarde without a blue armband."
"Duke Beldarand has almost complete control over the docks."
Guild/Organization Generator/Creator: A logical next stop in top-down building, and/or an early step in inside-out world building.
This module would walk us step-by-step or auto generate Thieves Guilds, Mage Towers, religious sects, worker unions; whatever we wanted to use in our campaign. It would let us select/name/generate an NPC leader and other high ranking officials, and let us design/map the headquarters and/or typical structures to be used as templates elsewhere.
We could identify wealth thereof, current standing in the city as pertaining to other organizations, to the law, or other politics, jumping to those related modules as needed.
NPC Creator/Generator: A common starting point for inside-out world building, but useful in many other regards. This would walk us through the step-by-step NPC guide in the DMG, but incorporating elements from more recently released materials. Basically, it would be faster, easier tool than the CBuilder, but with a few additional sections like NPC personality quirks and features, both those listed in the books and custom ones we choose to add.
Auto-generation of a whole NPC with certain "locked" features is a must, much like the quick character options of the CBuilder, but with ANY race/class/monster combo we choose.
Encounter Generator: Something a bit more robust than the one currently offered with DDI tools. All the features of that one should also be available, but also some from here:
http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eEncounterGen/index.php
I can't find a link to the Excel one I use, but it's the one I primarily use. First column lets you select level, next column you select a creature OF that level, then number of monsters you want; the sheet RETURNS the level & role, type, and "XP" cost, then adds all costs to compare to your XP budget, which is determined automatically at the top based on # of PCs and their level.
Each row is room for an additional monster type, and there are ten rows for monsters, two for traps, which means you can calculate up to ten monster types and two trap types in the same encounter. (I've never needed that many.)
Where the excel sheet fails is there is no quick link to stat blocks, so WOTC's version needs to give you those, and also some form of "automatch" feature based on the suggested "level" encounters in the MM and other cross-referencing features. For example, if all I know is I want a vampire, it would search for undead to match it, plus maybe wolves and bats. Or there could be a drop-down for "generate this encounter" or "generate the rest of this counter" for the user to ask the generator to FAVOR creatures of a certain type or RESTRICT to creatures of a certain type. If I'm creating a Feywild encounter, I don't want level 10 city guards to crop up.
Monster Creator:
This needs to have all the functionality found here:
http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eMonsterMathCruncher/
...at minimum. You determine the basics, the software determines the rest. OR, it guides you step by step to design every detail.
You start with a concept and you finish with a statblock.
Tavern Creator: Another drill-down below the city level, or drill-up after NPC creation. Even if you don't begin in the cliche tavern, your players will visit one eventually.
For this, I use a program called "InnMage" downloadable here:
http://www.mapmage.com/downloads.htm
It creates or lets you decide the Inn's name, the Landlord's name, choose one of four quarters (Wealth/Merchant/Docks/Poor) and quality (Excellent, Good, Normal, Fair, Poor). From this, it generates main courses, how many single, double, and common rooms there are, gives a quick "Bar scene" hook, and automatically generates quick NPC descriptions table-by-table for the whole scene.
You can choose to regenerate all or lock any and regenerate the rest of the info listed above. In practice, I skim over the tables generated until I find an interesting one, and use it as a hook. And if the PC's ever ask that annoying, "Who ELSE is in the bar?" question, I have answers until the cows come home.
Here's a quick example I just generated:
Table No. 1 (6 patrons)
An affluent looking gnome ruffian wearing non-descript clothing. He has a dreadful haircut and a tattooed face.
A youthful halfling ranger wearing stark white robes. He has pure white hair and a haggard face.
A puny elven carpenter wearing dark blue clothing. He has dirty hair and a hard face.
A gnome musician wearing foodstained clothing. He has black hair and a pox marked face.
A furtive looking human farmer wearing dark blue clothing. He has blond hair and a dirty face.
A small elven thief wearing dark brown clothing. She has gray hair and a freckled face.
They are drinking loudly.
Table No. 10 (1 patrons)
An old dwarven monk wearing foodstained clothing. She has dark hair and a frightened face.
She is glancing your way.
I would expect the WOTC version to be interconnected with the city quarters created in City Creation, above, and the NPC generator as well.
Name Generator Module: This is such a small thing, and yet so valuable. The same programmer who created Innmage, above, also offers Namemage, which I use religiously in world developement as well. It lets you filter by culture, both real and fictitious cultures.
This lets you generate a list of Celtic names, Egyptian names, or LOTR Elvish names.
For a WOTC paid-subscription generator, some additional features would be wicked cool, like combining two cultures. Obviously including all cultures/races in the D&D core worlds (Grayhawk, FR, and just "Points of Light" too) which Name Mage doesn't have, plus modifiers based on all kinds of fantasy/sci fi worlds we enjoy: Battlestar Galactica, Conan, whatever. And be able to generate both first names and surnames, or both together, etc.
This seems like the easiest module of all to develop, and yet it alone would add significantly to the ease and fun of my world building and campaign development. (Obviously the NPC creation module would link to it.)
Combat Management Tool: Something on my laptop to replace the following at my table:
* Magnetic tokens with status effects
* Whiteboard for tracking initiative
* Duration of spells/effects/zones
* Figuring out who and what is Bloodied
I picture this as being populated by the "Play Info" card from the Character Builder (manually if necessary) and info imported from the NPC Builder and Encounter Generator. Options to auto-roll NPC/Monster initiative would be great.
Before the game, the DM populates his players' info, including defenses and passive checks. Also secondary and tertiary defense "modes" are a MUST; as a DM, I hate that all the info on my spreadsheet is outdated as soon as someone uses Second Wind or a similar Power. If a player has a Daily which increases his AC by four for a whole encounter, the DM should be able to save that "mode" of the player in his interface and switch over to it whenever the player announces his intent.
The obvious use for this tool is tracking initiative order, and drag-and-drop those who delay action as well so a new order is quickly and easily determined.
The next most important thing it should track is HP. Instead of crossing out my old monster total and writing the new one, there's a field where I type "damage", and the mob's health drops as a result. I also get a notification if it's bloodied, reminding me to inform the players, AND any prompts about actions taken when the mob is bloodied (such as a Dragon's free extra breath weapon).
The table of data should also summarize monster defenses and attacks, no more flipping through books for it or even through my massive list of copy-pasted data from the compendium into my printed version of the adventure.
It should contain check-boxes for different effects, or some other "apply effect" (and duration) to each creature, including players, so you get prompted when Orc #3 is no longer Slowed, when Player 1 is no longer Dazed. This should be scaleable in terms of how necessary and involved it is that you use this section; some DMs may prefer to do this manually, and find constant prompts/typing annoying. I type quickly and suspect it would be faster for me to use such an interface.
Adventure Creator/Generator/Reader: I should have listed this earlier, if not first, because it will have to be a keystone to the whole package. It should allow identification of key NPCs (linked to NPC generator), objects, and enemies, as well as point-and-click pre-populated quest hooks and custom added ones as well.
For example, when creating the quest, the DM can select from a list of verbs like, "Explore", "Rescue", "Recover", "Perform", "Deliver", "Slay", etc, and then link that verb to a start and end object or NPC elsewhere in the suite or wiki (below), and/or prompt the DM to create that object/NPC then and there.
Same for locations: When you type "Cave of the DRIM" as the location to EXPLORE, you are prompted create or generate a map of this location if you would like to do so now. (See Map Creator, at the top.)
Campaign Documentation Wiki: Enough has already been said about Obsidian Portal. A WOTC paid-subscription version should be easier to use, even more robust, and even fancier. I don't know what else to add.
Campaign Management Overview: This is where you link your NPCs, quest hooks, and locales together into a larger story arc through some sort of series of prompts and menus with a lot of flexibility. It should have pre-populated fields (like "Arch Villain" and "Local Adviser") and offer the chance to customize your own.
This is where you determine how your campaign unfolds in 3 Acts or Thirty Acts, in two adventures or 100, from levels 1 to 5 or 1 to 20. It would have to rely heavily on other modules to be successful and useful.
Planet, Climate, Calendar and Weather Creator/Generator: I'm including this last because it's the most fanciful/unnecessary.
For the life of me, I can't remember the program I used to use for this, but there was a program that let you specify world size, number of moons and their orbits and cycles, your world calendar and seasons, etc.
Although mostly superfluous, it was a lot of fun to create custom worlds like desert planets, water worlds, ice worlds, and so forth. This sort of thing may seem really extraneous, but if you consider how large a role the moons of Krynn play in the Dragonlance setting, for example, you can see why this sort of insanely broad info might matter to some DMs.
I firmly believe this should be the last tool ever developed, because it has the least DIRECT influence on actual gameplay. But I'm including it here because I still would like to see it eventually.
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Was that wall of text sufficient feedback from twenty years of DM experience?
____
For more info/ideas on one or more of the modules mentioned above, feel free to consider the following sites. My "dream" campaign tools suite would include ALL of these tools in ONE location, and more.
http://chattydm.net/2008/06/16/first-crop-of-4e-tools/comment-page-1/
http://www.dmtools.org/
http://www.mapmage.com/
http://www.rptools.net/
http://www.dungeonmastering.com/
http://www.dungeonmastering.com/campaigns-adventures/instant-campaign-builder-official-release
http://www.dungeonmastering.com/tools-resources/dd-instant-world-builder-official-release
So by now, you have all seen the results of the survey, and are probably even discussing it somewhere.
The top result for the tool that subscribers most wanted to see (at 83%) was a tool to create and manage campaign info. So, making the assumption that this is a tool that is going to get fairly high priority, what would you like to see a campaign manager do?
As always, WotC will be watching this thread to see the types of ideas that we come up with, as well as the arguments for why a certain function should or should not be in the tool. [1] So please, go into detail. Give your reasons why you would like something, and why you would not like something else. There may be disagreements overmygood ideas and bad ideasthat are contrary to my thoughts[2], but please don't take it personal.
[1] I am making the assumption that it will all be in one tool.
[2] :P
The Game Table
Lee
Mudbunny asked us (presumably on behalf of WOTC) what we wanted for these tools. If you don't speak up now, you can hardly complain later when the tools are released without the feature you needed most at your game table.
We can't have exhausted the possibilities in just two pages...can we?
We're tabletop gamer's for Bahamut's sake. I'm hoping we're a little bit smarter and more creative than that!
So say we all!
Could be - I always assumed that the "Directed Discussion" threads were something that someone "on high" (so to speak) thought would be a good idea, and MB just ran with them. I don't think they're a bad idea - in fact, I think they're a good one - but I think this one in particular needs more direction beyond "what do you want to see?".
Directed Discussion threads are not started by me on behalf of WotC. It was something I started well before DDI was officially released as a way to provide WotC with a single thread that they could go to and see a variety of options and reasons for and against a particular possibility. It is discussion that is more focused than typical threads. usually, the level of discussion that I have seen in these is fairly high and there is some good ideas that are thrown about.
WotC *does* look at them, that I know.
Come on guys, don't let this thread die, I beg of you.
Mudbunny asked us (presumably on behalf of WOTC) what we wanted for these tools. If you don't speak up now, you can hardly complain later when the tools are released without the feature you needed most at your game table.
We can't have exhausted the possibilities in just two pages...can we?
We're tabletop gamer's for Bahamut's sake. I'm hoping we're a little bit smarter and more creative than that!
So say we all!
Well, my Campaign Tools suite is is Google Docs + RPTools + Mediawiki + Character Builder + Freemind + GIMP + Google Sketchup.
So...give me all those things in an integrated, platform-independent, portable tool, that lets me import what I have already made seamlessly, and I'm golden.
I think the thread is winding down because everything has been covered. There are a hojillion things that DM's do to manage a campaign; my advice to WotC is "collate every idea in this thread, and Do It."
Come on guys, don't let this thread die, I beg of you.
Mudbunny asked us (presumably on behalf of WOTC) what we wanted for these tools. If you don't speak up now, you can hardly complain later when the tools are released without the feature you needed most at your game table.
We can't have exhausted the possibilities in just two pages...can we?
We're tabletop gamer's for Bahamut's sake. I'm hoping we're a little bit smarter and more creative than that!
So say we all!
This is only the first iteration of this thread. As more information is released about the Campaign Manager, there will be other threads on this topic. With the info that we have on the campaign manager so far, this thread is pretty much as I expected: A bunch of fairly broad ideas that mostly overlap in scope. Chances are good that most of these ideas are things that WotC has probably already thought of, but chances are also good that there is an idea or two in here that WotC will look at and go "Hmmmm...I wonder if..."
I want the material included to default to being DM only, but be easily set to allow PC access. I want to be able to make parts of a page DM only, while other parts are for players and DMs. Toggling text to full PC access should be as easy as highlighting text and using 1 mouse click.
I want the format to be like an automatic wiki, where proper names are automatically turned into Hyperlinks if there is a "page" devoted to that proper name.
I want something that will provide places for me to describe Gods, Locations, and important NPCs.
I want the ability to make adventure maps easily, and for those maps to be something I can import into the game table when it is completed. For overland maps, I want to be able to add hyperlinks to location names or 'scroll over text'.
I want to be able to make house rules in it, and have those house rules import into the character builder.
I want to be able to drag and drop monsters intop an adventure.
When a monster is added to an adventure, I want to be able to automatically 'rescale it' to a higher or lower level monster with only a few clicks of the mouse.
I want to be able to transmit entire campaigns to other people by sending files.
I want campaign info stored online.
I want to be able to export the campaign and save it as a word or excel file that could be used like a book if printed out.
I want to be able to hyperlink terms in the campaign to compendium information - for example, if I have a reference to azer in my campaign, I want to be able to hyperlink to the description of an azer.
I want it to be easy to add pictures - with lots of premade art available. My suggestion is to involve the community - ask the community to make and donate art to WotC - no compensation - with full waivers of rights - and then ask community members to volunteer to create an art library that includes this free art as well as any WotC owned artwork that they create. There would need to be some oversight to avoid plagerized art, but this would be incredibly useful, and I know there are a lot of decent artists willing to contribute, even without compensation.
I want the campaign builder to offer suggestions to DMs based upon the PCs in a party. A DM should be able to link to a set of character builder files and have the campaign builder offer up advice on magic items that would be useful for the party, monster configurations that are well suited to the combination of PC powers, etc... This is an aggressive goal, but you're asking what I want, not what I expect.
Well, my Campaign Tools suite is is Google Docs + RPTools + Mediawiki + Character Builder + Freemind + GIMP + Google Sketchup.
So...give me all those things in an integrated, platform-independent, portable tool, that lets me import what I have already made seamlessly, and I'm golden.
Your concise version of my enormous post puts me to shame.
Your concise version of my enormous post puts me to shame.
Brevity is the soul.
Brevity is the soul.
Wrd.
Second is managing magic item wishlists and treasure parcels, along with XP progressions and such (number of sessions between level and so on)
Finally, the above feature works best if I can link it to saved encounters that I created in the same tool. So yeah, that means linking to the compendium monsters & hazards, plus being able to customise monsteres (level up/down, minions, elites and solos).
That would save me an immense amount of time in my weekly game prep.
1. Encounter builder: This allows you create an encounter and prints it out so that it can be used in your table top games or put into the encounter manager for a GM that has a computer at the game.
2. Encounter management: Allowing the GM to run the combats and mod from his computer in face to face games if he wishes. including monster state tracking and initiative tracking. this should allow you to put Character builder files in here as well to track the PCs in the encounter as well.
3. Champaign notebook for the GMs notes on his game word. this should be divided and organized to allow different towns to be brought up or printed off and should have some sort of a hierarchy.
4. The compendium: I would love to have the compendium become a part of this application so that I can access it during games that I run without needing access to the Internet.
Once this is out then I would love to see add ons that expand the tools in this order.
1. Monster builder: This allows you to create monsters in the same venue of the character builder and can be used in the encounter builder tool. The encounter builder gives you stock monsters from the compendium this allows you to create your own things. This should also have a tool for loading an existing monster and leveling it fast. as an additional tool it should have a trap builder as well.
2. Dungeon builder: this should be expanded for a robust map set that includes larger continental maps that can have mouse over highlights that can be linked to the campaign notes created in the campaign management tool.
3. Visualizer: this should also be expanded to include visualizing the monsters as well as the characters.
4. The VTT: This is the final tools that allows you to use all of the other tools in an online tabletop game.
The main thing is full robust tool sets are great but I would rather have a smaller tool set that is steadily improved that I can use in a month from now instead of a tool set that may come out a year from now that is full featured.
So to sum up this post, asking for everything all at once means that we wont have this anytime soon and also means that we are going to set ourselves up for the disappointment that it will take a year to get what we need now.
As a DM I want a slick monster builder.
As a DM I want a slick skill challenge builder and trap builder
As a DM I want a slick campaign organizational web site.
As a DM I want the campaign site to help me keep track of Quests, Monsters, NPCs, Maps, Adventures.
As a player I want a campaign sight that I can help my DM with.
As a player I want help making backgrounds for my characters.
A combat manager for using on my notebook would be good.
Incidentally, if you need something now, I just noticed a post about a tool to do initiative, condition, and combat tracking over in the Digital D&D subforum (nebulorum, I think the poster's name was?). It's java-based, so it's cross platform.
If you use MapTool, I wrote a combat manager for that product too. But regardless, a combat tracking tool is a good idea for this kind of thing!
I would not need it to be something that is used at the table on a laptop during a game. I don’t want it to be a combat tracker.
I also don’t think this application needs more mapping options beyond the Dungeon Tiles – there are already many applications for mapping that will be superior without WotC investing a huge amount. If you want different maps than Dungeon Tiles can build, pick up one of those applications and import it into the Campaign Tools. Don’t reinvent the wheel here.
Like others here, I envision it as a collection of modular tools.
1. Create new elements of encounters
- Create monsters from scratch using templates by role (skirmisher, brute, etc), with a searchable, filtering database of existing monster powers so the user could select powers and quickly add them to a new monster. XP would be auto calculated.
- Create new traps, or modify existing ones.
- Be able to save each element for later use, or sharing with the community.
- Mapping program, using Dungeon Tiles from every published set and updated with new sets. Maps can be saved in a format that can be shared between users, or exported into generic graphic formats (.jpg). Tiles would be ‘drag-and-drop’, and snapped to a grid.
2. Assembling Encounters
- Search, filter, and import monsters from the compendium database
- Modify monsters by
[INDENT][INDENT]o Leveling them up or down
o Applying templates
o Making elite or solo versions of the monsters
o Recalculate XP value of the modified monster[/INDENT][/INDENT]
- Add traps, from a database or from previously designed user created traps.
- Be able to launch the monster creator or trap creator without leaving the encounter builder.
- Calculate XP budget, and given the number of PCs and their average party level, determine the relative difficulty (n+0, n+1, etc.).
- Add a map by choosing an existing map created either by the Dungeon Tile map creator or importing a .jpg (or launching the map creator).
[INDENT][INDENT]o Be able to zoom and crop the map to the relative encounter location.
o Drag a monster that has been added to the encounter onto the map to indicate its starting location. A labeled icon appears on the map.
o Drag a trap that has been added to the encounter onto the map, and label it.[/INDENT][/INDENT]
- Text boxes for writing set-up, tactics, and features of the area including illumination (radio buttons), and other notes.
- Add treasure parcels. It would provide a list of parcels available, link to the character’s magic item wish list, and warn the user when a selected magic item is already possessed by a character (by checking the Character Builder files). An option to randomly generate treasure would be nice.
- Add Skill Challenges
- Save encounters, with all elements including custom monsters and cropped maps, imbedded in a format that can be shared.
3. Assemble Adventures
- Establish the level range of the PCs the adventure is designed for, and therefore its size
- Have a template that shows the number of encounters for the adventure, the difficulty of the encounter, and the XP budget for each encounter.
- Import, or drag-and-drop individual encounters, and be able to launch the encounter builder without leaving the Adventure Design screen (i.e. in a pop-up or new window). For a new encounter, the XP budget would be set by the ‘slot’ chosen from the adventure template.
- Track the number of encounters of a certain difficulty, and compare it to the recommended mix from the DMG. It would take the level range of the PCs (i.e. the size of the adventure), into account.
- Import overview maps, regional maps, and building maps. Link locations on the overview map with individual encounters. Clicking on a room will launch the encounter builder.
- Display which encounters use which treasure parcel, and display which parcels are duplicates or have not been handed out yet.
- Add text boxes for: introduction text, adventure outline, setting, plot hooks, recent developments, rumors, important NPCs.
- Be able to identify which encounters have been completed (check box), calculate the XP reward (which can be over-ridden), and totaled with each PC’s current XP. A notification would appear if the PCs have earned enough XP to level.
4. Printing, exporting, and sharing
- Automatically create encounters in two-page layouts similar to the Keep on the Shadowfell, where all the encounter elements are present and formatted (text for set-up, tactics, and features of the area, stat blocks for monsters, cropped maps, and treasure). Individual encounters can be selected to be printed, or the entire adventure.
- Assemble individual encounters in the order they are listed in the Adventure designer, and add the text boxes for introduction text, adventure outline, setting, plot hooks, recent developments, rumors, important NPCs.
- Add overview maps for dungeon levels, regional maps, buildings
- Add a title page
- Provide options for printing, export to PDF, or an option to save that embeds all elements that could be imported by another user.
- Designed in such a way that the file can be loaded into the upcoming Virtual Game Table
- A way to print out maps without DM notes and starting monster locations, at 1”=1 square scale (even if it means tiling several pages and taping it together) for battlemaps.
5. Campaign management
- Calculate average party level
- Total each players gold and number of magic items, value of items (by level or GP), and compare them with the expected wealth.
- Enter each players ‘wish-list’ of magic items (which would appear as options when the user assigns treasure parcels in the encounter builder). Updated when the item is selected as a treasure in the Encounter Builder.
- Track ‘the big three’ (weapon, armor and neck enhancement) items for each player, and compare it with the expected enhancement bonus.
- List each skill rank for each character loaded
- Automatically create initiative cards for the entire party, with the ability to print[/INDENT][/INDENT]
- - Define which resources are available for use in your campaign, which can be saved, exported and sent to each player for importing into their Character Builder.
NPC management
[INDENT][INDENT] - Stat blocks, either imported from Compendium, modified from Compendium, or built from scratch using the monster creater, or import vital NPCs from the Character Builder
- Space for appearance, motivation, characteristics (or select from a list)
- Current location
- Portrait
- PC – NPC interactions
- The ability to print NPCs[/INDENT][/INDENT]
Session Logs
[INDENT][INDENT] - Record date, location, present players at the session, average party level
- Add encounters completed from the Adventure Designer
- Record XP earned from completed encounters
- Ability to record miscellaneous XP, and XP from Skill Challenges.
- A place for notes
- Ability to copy to clip-board, or upload to a blog site.[/INDENT][/INDENT]
Organizations and Affiliations
[INDENT][INDENT] - Locations (linked to maps), major NPCs (linked to NPC manager)
- Notes for PC interactions[/INDENT][/INDENT]
Calendar (game time) - Customizable for unusual number of days per week, weeks per month, or months per year.
- Click on a day and select which encounters occur on that day, or link to entries from the Session Log
- Semi-random weather generator, based on seasons
- Printable
World Manager
[INDENT][INDENT] - Regional maps imported from .jpgs. Hotlink from the map to adventures, NPCs, town descriptions, Nation descriptions, encounters, pictures, and general text.
- Gods and their portfolios
- Nations, their rulers (linked to/from NPC manager)
- Towns (size, racial mix, trade, taverns, temples, NPCs, stores, plot hooks)[/INDENT][/INDENT]
Player Manager
[INDENT][INDENT] - A place for your player’s name, phone, email, RPGA number
- Links to the player’s characters (read from the Character Builder’s ‘Player Name’ field in the .dnd4e file).
- Attendance record (linked from the Session Logs)
- Notes (what kind of player is he/she – slayer? Storyteller?)[/INDENT][/INDENT]
- Tables Rules
- House Rules
- - Save the whole thing as a single campaign. Separate campaigns could be loaded individually. Individual elements (monsters, encounters, adventures, NPCS) that have been created in another campaign, but saved individually, can be imported into two or more campaigns.
6. Community
- A central place for DDI subscribers to upload custom monsters, encounters, adventures, or whole campaigns to share with the community.
- A way to rank the creations, by popularity (downloads) or by a ‘stars’ system
- A way to filter by creator, level range
- Feedback forum for each upload
- Paypal ‘Donate’ option to reward particularly good designs
I'm really looking forward to seeing how WotC envisions their Campaign Tools.
This program did have it's flaws but not many. For the most part, it kept track of the characters, the monsters, the initiative order, conditions; you could add maps, DM notes, build encounters (including groups), build treasure hordes (including creating magic weapons), track the weather, figure out movement according to the characters in the party, setup reminders, and it had dice and roll windows.
I used it extensively and exclusively in the 3.5e games that we played. It even allowed you to add custome data (so as the new books came out i created all the classes and feats and programmed them in- but since this is coming from WotC, that should not be a problem as it should be included automatically, with subscription of course).
I know that DMGenie allowed you to generate characters, and we now have the amazing Character Builder, so it would be great to have the Campaign Manager be able to take input from the CB to get the Character info in.
Combat Tracker/Encounter Manager
There is no greater, more practical time-saver or organizational tool than than a technological tool or app for this right now for any DM.
Every single DM has to run and track encounters, every single game session.
The more integrated with all existing tools (Encounter Builder, D&D Compendium), the better.
Thank you!
There is no greater, more practical time-saver or organizational tool than than a technological tool or app for this right now for any DM.
i actually strongly disagree. players can help out their dm with initiative tracking without a problem, and a table for tracking hp+conditions is pretty easy as well. software at the table makes games actually slower than faster.
i actually strongly disagree. players can help out their dm with initiative tracking without a problem, and a table for tracking hp+conditions is pretty easy as well. software at the table makes games actually slower than faster.
Wow, I'm shocked to hear that. I can't imagine most people feel technology slows their D&D game down. Its whole purpose is to save time by doing some mundane things efficiently.
It's 2009, and DM'ing (and even playing as a PC) with a laptop and technological tools and apps is a lot more natural and time-saving than it's ever been. It's a direction D&D has needed to go in for a long time, but I'm glad it's finally blossoming now.
Wow, I'm shocked to hear that. I can't imagine most people feel technology slows their D&D game down. Its whole purpose is to save time by doing some mundane things efficiently.
It's 2009, and DM'ing (and even playing as a PC) with a laptop and technological tools and apps is a lot more natural and time-saving than it's ever been. It's a direction D&D has needed to go in for a long time, but I'm glad it's finally blossoming now.
I have to agree with the Baron on this one. I've used trackers and a laptop at the table, it does slow things down. Not only during play, but adds to prep time too. You just can't beat the speed the flexibility of paper and a pencil for things like tracking HP, and conditions.
There are a lot of ways technology can be used to speed up and enhance D&D, but in my experience, combat trackers are not it.
Basically, Wizards should set up something that basically lets people write their own Dungeon adventures. They should be designed in such a format that they're easily shareable and able to be opened up by the virtual game table whenever it comes along.
That's what I think the mid term goal should be. That'd include things like beefing up the encounter designer, adding skill challenge designer, stuff like that. I think this is a something that can be done within a reasonable amount of time and then released.
Create an area for people to upload adventures and vote on good ones, help build a fan based adventure making community. You can do things like mention really good adventures in Dungeon.
Imagine how much of an enticement that would be for people, access to a whole database of ranked ready adventures. How grateful a new DM might be to find the top five highest rated beginner adventures.
Once that's in place, then work on campaign manager tools to tie it all together. Custom items, rules, classes or races that you could export as a file so that you could give it to your players to use with their character builder. Basically linking everything together and adding an overlay. I'm a lot more vague about this part because I've spent a lot more time thinking about the first part.
Wow, I'm shocked to hear that. I can't imagine most people feel technology slows their D&D game down. Its whole purpose is to save time by doing some mundane things efficiently.
the only good way to have this speed up your gameplay would be to use a real full gametable, which in my opinion no longer constitutes playing an RPG - it's more like a lanparty. A DM has many things to do besides combat, and so i feel it's best if the players help him out as much as possible, to get back to other stuff sooner.
also, being a professional sw-dev, i know: software pretty much never speeds up tracking something. it makes fewer mistakes, that's for sure - but the human mind is organising stuff better than you could ever do it on screen. also, there are some problematic additions which make it go slower:
a) you need to have everything on a single screen, to use it properly.
so you need to have monsterstats, playerstats and current values, initiative and combat layout, all in one place. if you have to switch between laptop, paper, dice and minis, you'll be even very much slower.
b) to arrange all that stuff on a single screen, you'd either have to have very good eyes, a very big screen, or it is just not possible. let's take some online MMO as an example here - most people like to play them on two screens, as there are so many things to be tracked - and that's just as a player. As a DM, you've got this information for 4-6 players and 5-10 monsters.
in my game, computers have no role whilst playing (invaluable for prep-work though), and that's from someone who spends/spent pretty much his whole life in front of one.
that's also why i want them to make something for prep first, and then we can talk about table-game-aids: the time saved by speeding up preparation has a lot more potential than speeding up play at the table - a good prep tool can save hours per week - a good table tool likely some minutes per session.
* Handouts
* Hyperlinks
* Histories
Handouts - Tools for making quality handouts. Take plain text and whip it quickly into a sharp calligraphy font on an aged-parchment background for quick printing. Image galleries, ideally with interchangeable elements, to quickly generate a picture of what your PCs are looking at (a complete compendium of all appropriately licensed WotC art would be awesome).
Hyperlinks - All your bits of setting info, crosslinked wiki-style. Ideally with the ability to link sound and video in order to quickly call up an appropriate soundtrack from your MP3 collection.
Histories - Ways to easily track who did what, where. NPCs sortable by name, level, alignment, or location encountered. Magic items sortable by where players found them or which player is carrying them. Notes of who levelled up when and what they powers they took. The whole shebang.
None of this goes very far beyond what a combination of a wiki and Photoshop offers so I'm still doubtful as to why we'd possibly want Wizards to waste time developing it. I'm pretty sure Wizards are ecstatic about the survey results, because we just saved them a bunch of development time and money - they now get to reinvent the wheel instead of delivering an actually new product.
Do we really need this to run better games? Or are we all just on board for some truly epic computer-powered navel gazing?
i actually strongly disagree. players can help out their dm with initiative tracking without a problem, and a table for tracking hp+conditions is pretty easy as well. software at the table makes games actually slower than faster.
This is down to how confident people are around computers and how innovative you are in their application and use.
Our Character status screen is a single screen that has:
All Player and Henchmen Hit Points and status both as graphics, numbers, and percentages. You can add states and conditions in two clicks, certain states will be applied automatically (dying for instance). Once you set up for instance "Poison 5 (save ends)" the damage is applied automatically at player round start and a reminder pops up saying he/she should roll a Save at end.
Experience points for all party members, average xp for last five encounters/skill challenges/whatever, number of encounters needed for level up using this average as well as xp needed this and next level.
If you click a name you can either heal, deal damage, use healing surges, rest or whatever. One click. Then one or two clicks to set the number (potentially three, but no-one in our campaign has taken 100+ dmg yet) and enter.
If a participant dies the initiative list is updated to reflect this and everybody knows when the various parties act. First round Initiative is only shown on my screen though to keep the players on their toes.
Compare that to the hassle of manually erasing, writing, noting, calculating, and I find it hard to see how IT doesn't smooth gameplay immensely. In our games we have decided that game mechanics are just game mechanics, the computers take care of those, while describing actions, playing the role of our characters and getting immersed in the actual story is where the fun is.
Another benefit is that now books are all in .PDF you have a much less cluttered table when everything is digitalised and no one is getting upset another player is shaking the table while erasing ammunition or something like that ;)
#1 Priority?
Combat Tracker/Encounter Manager
There is no greater, more practical time-saver or organizational tool than than a technological tool or app for this right now for any DM.
Every single DM has to run and track encounters, every single game session.
The more integrated with all existing tools (Encounter Builder, D&D Compendium), the better.
Thank you!
I strongly agree with this, then all the other fancy things mentioned in this thread.
EK
This is down to how confident people are around computers and how innovative you are in their application and use.[...]
First round Initiative is only shown on my screen though to keep the players on their toes.
[...]
Compare that to the hassle of manually erasing, writing, noting, calculating, and I find it hard to see how IT doesn't smooth gameplay immensely. In our games we have decided that game mechanics are just game mechanics, the computers take care of those, while describing actions, playing the role of our characters and getting immersed in the actual story is where the fun is.
1: i work with computers, my entire life. its not confidence, its experience that tells me: whenever you use a display it slows things down compared to an organized human without such help. whether or not it is more ardous or requires more concentration, is another topic.
2: multiple screens for players and dm? well, this is a kind of setup one should not require for playing d&d. even if some have that, it's not the norm. still, even with that setup, dm would be constantly typing or clicking in between.
3: erasing? hmm, why would a dm ever bother with that? strikethrough is the way to go. also, a dm has only to track his monsters. players conditions and players hp should be done by them.
1: i work with computers, my entire life. its not confidence, its experience that tells me: whenever you use a display it slows things down compared to an organized human without such help. whether or not it is more ardous or requires more concentration, is another topic.
2: multiple screens for players and dm? well, this is a kind of setup one should not require for playing d&d. even if some have that, it's not the norm. still, even with that setup, dm would be constantly typing or clicking in between.
3: erasing? hmm, why would a dm ever bother with that? strikethrough is the way to go. also, a dm has only to track his monsters. players conditions and players hp should be done by them.
Depending on how it is arranged, it could speed things up.
Assuming that conditions, damage, etc can be put in with a simple click or two, it could speed things up dramatically. As opposed to the players, at the beginning of their turn, going "what do I have to save against this turn", the DM looks on the screen, and tells the players.
But it all depends on the group that it is being used at. For some groups, something to track combat would be a godsend. A centralized place for tracking HP, etc (could easily be done in an excel-style setup) would speed up combat as the players wouldn't need to keep track of it themselves. For other groups, it would be just a hindrance.
See http://www.exnebula.org/vcc or http://www.turnwatcher.com/ for examples.
Hyperlinks - All your bits of setting info, crosslinked wiki-style. Ideally with the ability to link sound and video in order to quickly call up an appropriate soundtrack from your MP3 collection.
More hyperlinks, everywhere, are a great idea.
They're extremely effective when needing to look up and understand massive amounts of small bits of related information - such as D&D rules. Yes, there's some already, but more, more more.
And yes, agreed 1000% - more multimedia options!
More video, more sound, etc. Let's get with the times!
click on the monster, select who hit the monster, select a condition or mark, hit apply. adjust hitpoints, click next.
compare this to the player who hit taking his token for this kind of condition or damage and placing it on the board, whilst the DM substracts HP and the player in charge of tracking initiative announces who goes next.
the whole stuff takes just as long as the dm deducting HP.
the whole stuff takes just as long as the dm deducting HP.
Ah, but now in addition to taking just as long we gain accuracy.
If a program (I haven't checked MB's links yet) further starts to automate things like what condition is on who (for how long) or were smart enough to apply things like auto damage/healing (regen/ongoing) this starts to improve the game.
Most games I sit at end up slowing down when a player or the DM has to roll back combat a few steps to remember to apply this or that effect that they'd forgotten was present.
That would streamline a game.
Online VTTs (FGII) use this sort of tracker, and I've always found it much simpler than keeping notes or expecting everyone to remember their bonus on themselves, plus the bonus from the bard, oh, and the penalty they applied on the BBEG, oh, and. . . .(etc).
If well written, I could see a similar benefit here.
Online VTTs (FGII) use this sort of tracker, and I've always found it much simpler than keeping notes or expecting everyone to remember their bonus on themselves, plus the bonus from the bard, oh, and the penalty they applied on the BBEG, oh, and. . . .(etc).
If well written, I could see a similar benefit here.
the problem is, that the DM has to track everything - even stuff that is usually handled by the players, and a lot of stuff that could be handled by the players.
example 1: durations. different tokens for different conditions and timings.
as for online tracking, surely this is a lot faster - after all, you're only using your screen to play. on a real battlemat, this is different in that you let go of your mouse to move stuff.
example 2: tracking initiative. just have a player do this. it's pretty easy: one index card per player/monster/monster group. cycle them through if all is in correct order, take them out if someone delays, tap them 90° if someone readies.
tracking HP should not need an example.
example 3: forgetting stuff. this can happen with a good tracker as well. the DM is not looking, the player forgot to tell, the player forgot to roll something and the monster would be dead...
Online, though - this kind of stuff is invaluable. I have MapTool track all of that for me when we play (actually, it pretty much does everything except determine cover) and it's much better than trying to remind people via chat and voice. If you're already at the screen, then tools like that are almost essential (IMO).
Seriously, right now I consider it a light week if I spend less time preparing each session than the combined total amount of time the players spend playing it. Okay, 15-20 hours is a bit of an exaggeration, but it's easily 8-12 hours of work per 4-hour session. Much of that is copying and pasting stat blocks, modifying/designing monsters, and creating dungeon maps. If I could dramatically reduce the amount of time those tasks took, it would probably cut my prep time in half without adversely affecting the quality of the game I'm running.
I'm a technophile. If these tools include a combat tracker, I'll at least give it a try to see if it is intuitive enough to make my job easier. If so, I'll likely stick with it. If not, I won't shed any tears as long as the rest of the tools are rocking.
But if I have to continue manually typing up (or copy/paste) the stats of every monster, trap, hazard, and skill challenge I want to include in my game, I'm going to be deeply, deeply disappointed.
You guys have actually given me a new way to think of it.
Suppose instead of merely tracking initiative and stuff like conditions - a tool that take it a step further might be a good thing.
I use Fantasy Grounds, so I'll use that as my basis for an example here.
In FGII there's one screen for the DM to track initiative, and then, if I recall correctly - it's been a while since I've used it - one goes to the monster's "character sheet" to roll the monster's attacks.
FGII lets you, if you've taken the time to run the not-so-easy-to-use parser, import monsters into an XML file with all their stats - so encounter building is fairly simple if you'd done the prep work.
So. . . let's say hypothetically WotC went to FantasyGrounds and licensed all that "Good Stuff" into a program. Essentially creating a Game Table without the actual table part (for that matter it doesn't have to be WotC who did it - pretend I'm an aspiring entrepreneur and I do it myself).
Spackle up a clean interface, and give a DM a tool that creates encounters (with maps? without maps?), let you import/edit/create statblocks, put in a combat/iniative tracker, integrate a dice roller - am I missing anything? Make it a part of DDI so that it works with everything else (links to Compendium for rules, import PCs, use images from the Visualizer, then export the whole ball of wax to the Game Table).
That - THAT sounds like:
A) Quite a tall order, and quite a bit of work (to my non-programmer eyes).
B) A nifty tool that - assuming UI issues could be tailored so as to be, at the very least, no WORSE than tracking stuff by hand - might even encourage ME to try my cowardly hand at writing a module for the RPGA.
Ooooh! Bonus! Add in a dundjinni (or FGII) application that will let the DM write (and later read/edit) his module - IN the software, or allow for "publishing" or otherwise printing the module in a format not unlike WotC's published mods, or at the very least in the RPGA format. *drool*
Mmmmm. See, NOW I'm starting to see where Campaign Tools could be a Very Good Thing(tm) that might edge out the Game Table - at least for Face to Face games.
except that you would not have the map on your screen, but before you. i do not see this as a tool worthy of making, and it definitely is not a campaign tool - it would be a lot else, but i can't see how it helps you handle a campaign in its entirety.
also, why would you want to roll with a dice roller? real dice not good enough anymore?
one of the most flavorful things to do at RPing is to roll your own dice. the suspense, the sound - it's all part of the experience.
honestly people, you have to get your priorities right. you're off to a social encounter (roleplaying) and bring all that tech stuff with you. absolutely disgusting in my eyes. what's the next step? surely to get rid of the need to sit together, which is essentially a part of why you are playing an RP and not an online game.
*shakeshishead* - why is it that so many people hate to actually play Pen and Paper and try to make it a computergame? Also why does the DM have to do everything? track every condition, every HP, every position? I am a computer freak, but this... honestly, it just smells very, very wrong.
honestly people, you have to get your priorities right. you're off to a social encounter (roleplaying) and bring all that tech stuff with you. absolutely disgusting in my eyes. what's the next step? surely to get rid of the need to sit together, which is essentially a part of why you are playing an RP and not an online game.
*shakeshishead* - why is it that so many people hate to actually play Pen and Paper and try to make it a computergame? Also why does the DM have to do everything? track every condition, every HP, every position? I am a computer freak, but this... honestly, it just smells very, very wrong.
You play your D&D, I'll play mine, but please do not explain to me how the game should be played.
There is no One True Way.
You play your D&D, I'll play mine, but please do not explain to me how the game should be played.
There is no One True Way.
well, i play pen and paper and dice.
i just got a little upset, sorry for that.
but please note that i never actually wrote "everyone should play like that" - i was just voicing my disgust, even asking a question and stressing that this is "in my eyes"...
well, i play pen and paper and dice.
i just got a little upset, sorry for that.
but please note that i never actually wrote "everyone should play like that" - i was just voicing my disgust, even asking a question and stressing that this is "in my eyes"...
To quibble, though it's hardly worth continuing the argument since it's off topic, saying that methods I, for instance, enjoy are disgusting is not softened much by "IMHO." But anyway - I play with dice, paper, pen and computer or whatever mix seems fun at the time.
So, in any case, don't be surprised that suggesting such things are "disgusting in your eyes" is bound to raise a few hackles.
As I mentioned above, what would be a great time-saver for one group will be something that slows down play dramatically for another group.
Combat Manage
This tool would work with the Character Builder. It would give a basic idea on the status of all the characters, monsters, etc present in a current battle. It would track hit point, bonuses, minuses, marks, stances, rages, you name it. I imagine it as program that shows up with little cards that would have the character portrait (or monster portrait), the character's hit points and defenses. The whole status update thing would be cool because sometimes it is hard to keep track of everything going on.
Dungeon Tile Planner
I am not sure this exists, but this would be a way for the DM to plot out all of their dungeon tiles. The program would also include a few sample dungeons. The DM would just input which sets of Dungeon Tiles they own, and the program would allow them to build dungeons using virtual Dungeon tiles (I guess they could build dungeons using tiles they do not own, but it would complicate things). Have it be able to make a print out of the planned dungeon too, so they can have it ready for play.
Random Shop Generator
Like it says, this program would make random shops, such as smithies, magic item shops, apothecaries, etc. It would make a list of available items at the shop, have the available GP of the shop, and keep track of items bought and sold from the shop.
I am sure I could come up with a few more if I put my mind to it. Stuff like random tavern generators, loot generators, etc.
also, why would you want to roll with a dice roller? real dice not good enough anymore?
If I'm a player - I want to roll dice, absolutely.
If I'm DMing, and this monster uses 2d8+x that one rolls 3d6+y or 2d10+z depending on attack, and I'm give choice betweenn a "FantasyGrounds" interface wher one click guves me the d20 roll, and another the damage roll (or heck, both in one) - I see where that can be a time saver.
One that lets me focus on keepung the game moving smoothly, and lets me focus on the fun of he combat - not on "Which dice do I need now> Ohyeah - where are those. . . .*dig through stash*
(this post typed one-haned while my nine week old squirms in my othr arm, please excuse typos)
One that lets me focus on keepung the game moving smoothly, and lets me focus on the fun of he combat - not on "Which dice do I need now> Ohyeah - where are those. . . .*dig through stash*
as a player, i would greatly dislike my dm using other means to play than me. also, i have to say, if you really have to do it like mentioned above, you could just need a better setup for your dice. don't throw them back into a stash or some dicebag, and search for it again later put all the dice you might need in this encounter in front of you, and sort them in piles.
also, i want to stress once more: the amount of time saved via shortening prep work is a lot more valuable than the time saved at combats.
let's take an example from one of my sessions:
prep-time: ~4 hours, depending on the amount of encounters.
play-time: ~ 4 play hours, assume about half of it combat, and about 1/4th of the combat time taken by the dm.
so, if i get a tool that speeds up the dm in combat by 25%, i win about 5 minutes per session.
if i get a tool that speeds up preparation time by the same, i win 30 minutes per week.
----
i'll go as far as to say that prep can be speeded up a lot more than combat. and prep for a good game takes a lot of time. time invested in planning nice combats, time which could be used a lot better by doing more work on the story.
integrating a monster builder (+uplevel, +downlevel, +solos, +elites, +minions, +templates), a dungeon mapper, background notes, some randomizers (names, locations, maybe even maps or full encounters), along with some other tools - well that would reduce overall prep time, making dming less ardous and at the same time, allow those who want to invest the same time, heighten their campaigns to new depths. you players will thank you a lot more for the increased prep than for 5-10 minutes more play each week. (since a dm only has 20-30 minutes of actual combat time, saving time there is not a priority)
of course, this all is assuming you want to play a homebrew campaign. play the h1-e3 series, and it will likely won't do much to your campaign to have such a tool.
As much as I seem to moan about prep time, I actually don't mind the time commitment. I'd just much rather spend more of that time on building stories and brainstorming cool encounters/adventures than on manually creating/altering monsters and then transcribing/formatting stat blocks.
WolfStar76: The "which dice do I need" problem can indeed be solved by creating nice, neat piles of the same dice - a pile of d4s, a pile of d6s, a big pile of d20s, etc... - on the game table within easy reach. I find it also helps if I limit myself to 6-8 dice of each type (more for d20s, but that's more a matter of superstition than actual need), with the rest staying in the dice bag. Of course, I'd say real dice vs. electronic dice are another example of a personal preference, so I'm merely describing my way of handling this, not trying to convert you to my my way of thinking.
A very simple and streamlined tracker would be quite helpful to me. I took a quick look at the two links Mudbunny provided and without actually giving it a test drive, the TurnTracker looks close to what I'd want. Ideally, I'd be able to have the players and monsters listed in initiative order, press a button to cycle through the order, keep track of damage received ([u]not[/U hp totals) by each combatant, and either drag and drop or use a pull down to apply status effects. I'd be able to apply all the common status effects like marked, damage ongoing, stunned, ect. as well as custom ones. The tracker would note the duration of the effects and remove them accordingly - automatically for things lasting only a round, on command for save ends. I'd like it to keep a history of the combat, perhaps creating a new tab for each round.
I think keeping track of status effects is the key for a tool like this, because they seem to be the most difficult combat item to track in 4e. With all the products like Alea magnets on the market, it's fairly evident to me how a tool like this could be useful. When my group gets together we use a small whiteboard to track initiative, and I have to ask a player to do it each session. Sometimes I ask that player to record the damage each combatant takes to have a second source in case of a miscalculation. When we play 3.5, we also keep track of the duration of long spells with it. We usually have a laptop at the table as well, so it would be simple to add a tool like this to our sessions. Like WB said though, if care isn't taken to make such a tool quick and streamlined it would simply bog down the session too much to be worthwhile. It would have to do nearly any function it would be capable of with just a few clicks.
But you are right. For it to be effective, it needs to be fairly quick and intuitive to use. It should be fairly obvious on how to add conditions, determine initiative order, and ideally apply ongoing damage automatically, and also have the option to turn it off for the PCs if the players are keeping track of their own stats.
I would like to see a feature where I can print out sheets of “cards” (double-sided) that mimic what will be found in the D&D Minis monster packs for both official monsters, as well as monsters I create with the monster builder being discussed. That feature alone would probably make me subscribe. (No I’m not currently a subscriber, but this new direction, while not being what I wanted –the VTT—looks like a game-changer for me. Currently I don’t see enough value with DDi, but the DM tools could certainly pull me in if done “right” –meaning for me, which is of course different from everyone else.)
Having “cards” for every monster would help me keep track of everything going on at the table. Even better if I can have cards with my players’ basic stats as well. It would be like index card-based initiative tracking, but much better.
I want a map tool that prints out maps with 1” squares, which I can lay side-by-side to provide seamless maps. The same map should be printable in small-scale for my use, with my markers for monsters/traps/whatever that don’t show up when I print it large for the table. (An interesting feature would be to allow it to show on-screen with areas “covered” so that it’s optimized for people who play with projectors. I don’t use projectors, but they’re becoming popular for table-top use, so I think it’d be a good idea to include for that crowd.)
Related to the things above, and things discussed around the boards, I’d love a random encounter generator. Honestly, I’d love a random dungeon generator. It doesn’t even need to be perfect. Just something that I tell it how many rooms I want, how many easy/normal/hard encounters, and what level I am targeting, and it spits out a map with a bunch of connected rooms with encounters scaled to the given specifications. From there, I’d want to be able to edit the map/encounters. This would be awesome on a night where I just want to run a quick game but don’t have a lot of time to plan something out in detail.
Another thing I’d like is some way to track the miniatures and dungeon tiles in my collection, and link those to my encounters while building. Sure, I can look through Bifur (which I am currently one of the builders for) and compare what I have to what I need, but an integrated tool would work so much better. Bonus points if you allow the Dungeon Tiles to integrate with the map builder, and if you allow me to put in custom miniatures (such as Reaper minis) in addition to the tons of DDM I own.
Another “cool” option would be to be able to print out 3D dungeons. There are a number of PDFs out on the market now that allow you to print out dungeon features and put them together to be played in 3D. This might be really ambitious, but it doesn’t hurt to ask!
Modularity has been mentioned a few times, and I definitely agree that it needs to be built from the ground up as modular. People are surely going to say “Hey, this is awesome, but it would be better if it also did X, Y, and Z.”
Another thing mentioned a few times that led to me to another concept is the idea of encounter tracking. I don’t currently need an encounter tracker on a computer screen, but I can see the usefulness of it for some people.
What this led me to though, and it would make it very useful for me, would be if you had a tabbed interface, where initiative order was on one tab, then when you click on a creature’s entry in the initiative order, it switches to a tab where that creature’s stats are located. The initiative tab could simply hold current HP, and any conditions currently affecting the creature, along with obviously the position in initiative order each creature falls.
This would of course need to be integrated with the monster builder, as well as contain all of the creatures in the Monster Manuals. It would be really helpful if you could import XML formatted files, so a company like Goodman Games could put out their 4e monsters from sources like Blackdirge’s monster book and Level Up magazine. This should work with the above “double-sided card” idea as well. (In the end though, I’m in agreement with the faction that would prefer tools that help speed up preparation over handling in-game things. It’s the prep-time that takes far more time than I have or want to spend. So if there were a priority list, this paragraph should fall on the bottom. That doesn’t mean I think this tool is not worthwhile, just that it falls lower on my own personal priority list.)
The ability to generate handouts would be very welcomed by me.
Below I’ll list a few specific things already stated that I see as useful to me. Count these as “if you include these in addition to the above, you are certainly assured I’ll become a subscriber.” Bolded text indicates my comments on what was suggested. I didn’t quote anyone so please don’t take offense that I’m stealing your text. You just made a good point that I agree with so I’m pointing it out rather than repeat it.
1) Random original monster stat production. I want a level 6 controller *poof* all the system math is correct for this monster...use at your own risk ability to save the files for future adjustments (Yes, a lot of this! Goes with the other random stuff above.)
2) Adventure Template - yup the Dungeon magazine format set up as an Adventure Template. This has a two fold reasoning: 1 a preset template is one less thing people need to bother with, and people could then easily submit these files for inclusion with Dungeon. Because let's face it the Magazines are only artificially constrained by size right now (and there are a lot of opportunities for WotC in that). (This is an interesting idea. Not the part about creating submission material for the magazines, but rather, having a template that I could fill in with my entire adventure so that it reads like a “professional” one, like are found in magazines, the Dungeon Delve book, or modules.)
3) Future WotC campaigns could be XML tagged to allow easy import into the Campaign manager, which would allow you to make any changes you see fit to an imported campaign. (This is a great idea. No offense meant to WotC, but people tweak your stuff all the time. Also, publish the XML format so that other companies can offer their adventures to their customers this way as well.)
4) Compendium Binder: One of these virtual binders should contain all the custom monsters, traps, hazards, terrain features, and so forth I've created and saved. I should be able to further organize and search these like a sort of personalized version of the Compendium. I should be able to search only for monsters (etc...) created for the current campaign, include additional campaigns' stat blocks, or search for every monster I've created for every campaign I've run. As always, I should be able to click-to-add or add-and-alter these when building encounters. (This sounds really ambitious, but I like it. It would be nice to replace the myriad sheets of paper stuffed into this folder or that in one tidy, searchable computer file.)
The more I think about it, the more I think this tool is potentially more useful to me than the Virtual Table Top. Not that I don’t still want it, but this tool has the potential to really be something huge in terms of making a DM’s life easier.
The DM survey on WotC main site seems like it is trying to gauge the relative importance for the various modules that could potentially make it into the Campaign Tools. I hope they post the results like the last poll.
one major gripe i have about that poll is the following: if i say i don't use a PC when playing, i can't answer the questions what toool i want for prepping my games. if i say i do use a pc for playing, they'll count me as one in favor of using PCs at the table, which i am absolutely not. so what to do? lie to get my answers in? ...
one major gripe i have about that poll is the following: if i say i don't use a PC when playing, i can't answer the questions what toool i want for prepping my games. if i say i do use a pc for playing, they'll count me as one in favor of using PCs at the table, which i am absolutely not. so what to do? lie to get my answers in? ...
If you prep your games using a PC then you do, at least indirectly, use a PC for playing. I don't believe that it specifically asks about using PCs at the table.
I am very much in favor of using a laptop at the table, for the DM. I have banned the laptop for players because it tends to slow my players down and they take forever as it is with paper and pencil. Now they have to learn where everything is on the program and it takes them a while.
As for mudbunny's list, I have looked at Turn Watcher and it is still stated for 3.5 and as far as I can tell there is not a lot of customization that would allow you to change that. I have setup the VCC and was using v0.90 and there were some bugs in it that I was having problems with. However I just downloaded and installed the "patch" up to v0.92.2 and those have been fixed so i will be using it this week for my game. I like it better than the other one that I was testing (Encounter Manager) however I just found an updated version for that as well, so i need to do more testing but both VCC and Encounter Manager (you need to create a free account on the forum to get the download info) are very easy to use and other than the bugs have sped my game up considerably.
If you prep your games using a PC then you do, at least indirectly, use a PC for playing. I don't believe that it specifically asks about using PCs at the table.
actually, the question is:
"Do you ever use a computer during your game sessions when you play D&D?"
sounds hardly like prep work to me. i retook the survey and answered with yes, to see what happens - actually, this is a good example why you should not allow those at the table. "surfing the internet" was the topmost answer, and i believe, many players and parties fall to that issue, if many people use their pcs. we have just one player at our game where i play in - and he's playing solitaire, spider, and probably would be surfing the internet - if the wlan of our host would be strong enough to reach the gaming area.
Just a slight counterpoint WB, surfing the internet can be conducive to the game as well.
the DM can provide the answer for the time being. resolution can be done at a later date. the usefulness of getting one answer 100% right at the first try is very limited. it might change stuff a little, but only a little - nothing a good dm can not fudge/change/have the players roleplay their way out.
i'd advise anyone who wants to play smoothly, to even ban rulebooks from the table. it helps with focus, and it really removes those akward times when a player would say "how does this work, i need to look it up." - "can someone give me the phb?" instead of just asking the dm how it works now. he can still look it up later. i believe most of the time, this is a result of believing that you can play the game wrong. most games are at their best when this is given no chance to sink into the minds of the players OR the dm. rules are not the reason why we play this game, and never should be.
How much volume is a hogshead?
What's the draft on the average schooner?
What altitude do trees stop growing?
Do dolphins sleep?
I'll admit those questions indicate some level of trivia-driven desire for knowledge, but when all my players turned to me one session and asked "Do dolphins really sleep?" I consider it important enough to look up. We did however wait until we were ready to take a break for that one.
I would like random magic items of appropriate levels to be selected for the magic item parcels, with the option of clicking on them and selecting specifially from a list (Much the same as you might click "Auto-Add" in the character builder to get random appropriate level magic items, then delete a few and select specific ones. Except as a quick-and-easy one step swap, without the delete/add two-step process of the Character Builder)
I would like a fully-featured Monster Builder, that actually displays monster entries properly (I've never gotten the Monster Builder to display right, no matter what system set-up I use). There would be no limit to the amount of powers/attacks a monster would have, unlike the bonus tool Monster Builder which limits you to 5 powers/attacks. Also, when selecting the monster's role, there'd be another dropdown menu for "Minion, Standard, Elite, Solo". If minion is selected, apropriate static damage for the minion's level is precalculated for all attacks. If Elite or Solo is selected, HP are automatically multiplied by the set amount, a drop-down menu should appear to select the enhanced Defenses, Saves would automatically be noted the appropriate bonus, and the appropriate amount of AP would be added to the stat block.
I'd like a quick-and-easy NPC generator. Select class, select race, select level, click button, get a Monster-Format style NPC, complete with Elite HP, Saves, and Action Point. The class powers chosen should be easily swappable by, say, double-clicking on them on the monster format and selecting from a list of same-level powers from the class. You should also be able to add unique powers as you see fit.
EDIT: Also, to be able to select Monster Themes (Such as previewed from the MM2), Grafts (Such as undead grafts from Open Grave), or appropriate Alternate Powers (Such as those for chromatic dragons in Draconomicon 1, and specific types of undead in Open Grave) for the monster you are looking at, and add them to or swap them into, as appropriate, the stat block for your monster or NPC.
EDIT 2: Revenge of the Edit
Also, if the Dungeon Builder is going to be subsumed by the Campaign Tools (which would be awesome, by the way), then you should be able to assign monster stats to tokens on the map, and be able to roll-over them while viewing the map for their stats. Also, while rolled over, you should be able to edit things like: HP, recharged/un-recharged powers, used encounter powers.
Also, you should be able to assign a particular treasure parcel to a square, and maybe note a Perception DC to notice if you want hidden treasure. (If you are able to load up Character Builder PCs, you should be able to assign them to tokens on the map, and any Perception DCs for hidden treasure parcels OR stealthing monsters/nps should be noted with a "Noticed By: X, Y, and Z" where X, Y, and Z are PCs who's Passive Perception is high enough to beat the DCs for these things.)
(Lots of things)
These, all of these. Personally, I'd really like, in terms of a dungeon builder, if that's included, to have access to the published and homebrew monsters and traps, so that they can be used to populate dungeons. In addition, as a long term thing, I really hope that eventually, all the DDI programs can interface with each other, or at least with this, to make it easier to manage all the aspects of D&D with the automation that Character Builder gives.
If you prep your games using a PC then you do, at least indirectly, use a PC for playing. I don't believe that it specifically asks about using PCs at the table.
I don't recall how the question was worded, but I too took it to mean "do you use a PC at the table"
I don't recall how the question was worded, but I too took it to mean "do you use a PC at the table"
The question is:
Do you ever use a computer during your game sessions when you play D&D?
So, that's pretty clearly "at the table" or "during a session" (in my case, my answer was yes, because I always use a computer - we play online using a VTT, and don't play face-to-face). But the question is about using a computer during the session itself. The follow-up question asks to indicate one or more activities you use the computer for during a session, and they're all non-prep things.
There should be a tool for sorting ideas and concepts. When I play, I come up with a lot of random things, like City names, NPCs, factions. Between games, I try to write them down, but it would be nice to have them organized, so I can easily look up the different ideas. Like if I introduce a new NPC, it would be nice to have an index of the different groups I have already established.
I like the journal part of the CB...I think there should be something to maintain recaps and significant events (this has to do with my "historian" style of DMing).
One idea I am infamous for is my "cliche maker" idea, a random plot seed generator based on paper and dice that I use when I have writer's block. A tool to help formulate (not just give you) ideas would be nice.
A treasure generator and tracker would be nice. At the moment, I alternate between using my own parcel gen, and Quartermaster. As a DM, I find these tools invaluable.
I think the character vault concept back when 4e was announced was brilliant, and I would love to see something similar implemented. One issue I have is players neglecting to make me copies of their character sheets, and it gets to be a lot of trouble getting everyone to copy generated files and stat blocks to my computer. Having a repository for characters would be nice.
That's all I can think of now...
Edit: After reading a little of some other posts, I concur with something. There needs to a decent NPC generator. And the 1" printable maps, I would love to have that.
If you prep your games using a PC then you do, at least indirectly, use a PC for playing. I don't believe that it specifically asks about using PCs at the table.
Um, well as a DM I have come to use the computer for everything prep-wise in 4th edition, except map generation. Have to do something by hand, you know. I still use graph paper and posterboard (or dry erase). But once the game gets going, the computer is off (except when used for background music). So there is no way I would ever say that I use a computer for "playing", only prep and archiving. It's a completely different question, and it's a different kind of gaming.
So basically, create a database for my campaign.
actually, the question is:
"Do you ever use a computer during your game sessions when you play D&D?"
sounds hardly like prep work to me. i retook the survey and answered with yes, to see what happens - actually, this is a good example why you should not allow those at the table. "surfing the internet" was the topmost answer, and i believe, many players and parties fall to that issue, if many people use their pcs. we have just one player at our game where i play in - and he's playing solitaire, spider, and probably would be surfing the internet - if the wlan of our host would be strong enough to reach the gaming area.
Even though we see very differently on the aspect of using computers while gaming I cannot imagine the situation in which a player could have time for surfing the internet. Unless he is dead.
I use about 30-60 minutes to prepare for each 10 hour session. I use several computers, monitors as well as a ceiling-mounted projector for main maps and due to this we accomplish the following:
We don't miss any States or Conditions. We never have the "Who's next?" question, once a participant is done, the system goes "Thraknar is afflicted with Poison, roll save - Successful Y/N?" Once key is pressed, "Gunthark, leader of the Mush Cave Goblins up next!"
I tell what Gunthark does, how he hollers orders while waving his weird little staff and rolls for his attack. I click the Mage, Ifarsuatia, and choses "Slowed - Save Ends". Now she is clicked, when I roll damage it is automatically applied to her, the main player monitor reflects the change, the player spends time describing her characters anguish at being hit.
This involves the players and allows them a bit of roleplaying during the monsters' turns instead of simply, "I was hit, how many HP? OK.... Slowed? Yes, yes, I'll remember, save ends, right?"
When it is the player's they decide what to do, I move them on the big overhead map, they choose and describe what action to take and roll their dice. I record the result, again very few clicks. All Conditions and States that can pop up in the Encounter is already looked up in the database and available for each character based on applicability (ie if the Fighter is the only one who can mark, only the NPCs can get this state since he will never mark another player character).
In a 10 hour session we could advance the plot three to eight social scenes (primarily roleplay backed up by various relevant skills) and 15 to 20 Encounters (including Skill Challenges, Traps, Hazards and Combat Encounters). I think the largest battle we have had were an Encounter using 24 Minions, 1 leader with two body guards and five Level 4 characters. It took place on a 60 x 85 square map and was completed in 45 minutes. When I think of the speed of Encounters before we digitalised everything I would assume at least twice the time would be needed, perhaps more.
Just to be clear: I use random map generators to get a good location and then tailor them afterwards. If you want to accellerate these processes I can recommend getting a good stylus/digitizer.
We have changed to ShadowRun4 now which requires far less book-keeping, but we still use computers as an important gaming aid.
also, i wonder: 30-60 minutes for a 10 hour session? sounds either like you're a genius, the game is shallow, or most of it is combat. looking at your figure of 20 combats, i guess it is just mostly combat.
also, i wonder: 30-60 minutes for a 10 hour session? sounds either like you're a genius, the game is shallow, or most of it is combat. looking at your figure of 20 combats, i guess it is just mostly combat.
IMO, we've found our fun to be maximized when the GM (me) does not confuse himself with an author, and keeps the game shallow and full of combat.
But anyway, holy crap klausgreen, you play 10-hour sessions? Man. I'm done after 4 hours, tops, and our weekly sessions wrap in 2.
And they're all combat. Far as I'm concerned, I can do politics, backstabbing, and intrigue at work. What I can't do is try to rip a paladin's head off. :D
For instance, if I drop ghouls into an encounter, the Suggestions window would search for monsters with "immobilize" in their stat block and provide a list of such monsters in the appropriate level range. This would give me a handy list of monsters that can either take advantage of the ghouls' Claw attack or can immobilize PCs so the ghouls can use their Ghoulish Bite.
This would also be filterable by things like origin, creature type, etc.
by my definition, you are not playing a pen and paper roleplaying game anymore. you're playing social variant of an mmo.
also, i wonder: 30-60 minutes for a 10 hour session? sounds either like you're a genius, the game is shallow, or most of it is combat. looking at your figure of 20 combats, i guess it is just mostly combat.
20 encounters, not combat. An encounter could be a lot of things. It could be a series of traps at the entrance of an old temple, it could be a ball at the local noble where the players has to locate the baron's mind-controlled daughter while avoiding the attention of guards and the mindcontroller herself, it could be navigating a treacherous waterway with nasty currents and even nastier critters, or it could be trying to persuade a guard to let them out of prison and later on sneaking out of the camp where they were held prisoner. Most of my encounters are a mix between pure roleplaying backed by Passive Skill Values, Skill Challenges and perhaps a small skirmish. Some are ofcourse full blown combat scenes.
We only play bi-weekly so 10 hour sessions are needed. We all have jobs, families, hobbies (apart from roleplaying), and other obligations so when we game, we game a full Saturday.
As for preparation time I find it has to do with how confident the GM is. Some GMs write out a story and let the players take part in that story, essentially railroading the players along a set series of events and actions in a more or less predetermined fashion and order.
If you do it like that you have long preparation times because there will be a need to pre-think everything.
We did that 15+ years ago as well but eventually it began to feel too much like episodials and the world would become this strange place that evolved too heavily around the player characters. So we changed (gradually) to a situation in which I create a world with various interested parties, goals, opportunities and development between these. The players then allow their characters to get immersed into this world and take part in what is happening, shaping something here, having an influence there, making their presence more and more known on the world stage. Before the D&D4 campaign stopped we had 21 major factions and about 100 minor factions that had a vested interest.
That made for about 7 complicated plot lines and between 20 and 30 minor plot lines so my preparation was primarily thinking about how those plotlines evolved based on what the factions did (without player character influence) and how they reacted to the player characters' actions (often they would only influence a few but as they grew in level their presence was more and more heavily felt). For these things I need a computer otherwise it becomes too complicated for me to maintain a cohesive image of where the game world is heading.
So all in all, my games are like this:
1) I create a gameworld and introduce the players to the area in which they start. They take the information home and read it.
2) They meet at my place and create characters that fit together and fit with the starting area. This includes deep backgrounds.
3) We start by me more or less saying "What do you do?"
Based on the initial plot-lines (which are hidden from the players ofcourse) and the actions of the players, the game evolves.
This means my initial preparation time is very long, it will take me at least 14 days setting up a campaign as outlined above more often three weeks. But to sustain it I need only very little.
As to your "you are not playing a pen and paper roleplaying game anymore" I have only a mild shrug. For me the pen and paper isn't the roleplaying, for me the atmosphere, immersion, storytelling, development of character, and mutual expansion of the game world is the roleplaying. The pen and paper as well as the computer are tools to keep track of the rollplaying (game mechanics).
What do I want in a Campaign Manager?
First: The possibility to buy the books in a digital format that has to be verified by the use of login/active subscription before opening. It should still be possible to print out single or several pages from this format as well as taking snap-shots to paste into other documents. All the benefits of .PDFs but with a login/verification procedure to satisfy the copyright paranoia of Wizards' legal department.
Second: A gaming table that allows you to game with people over the internet offering varied layers of rulesets to be applied (line of sight, modify game table to reflect character's vision for each player etc.). This should ofcourse be backed up by a map/dungeon builder with strong random generation options (size, vegetation, elevation, terrain type, density placement of objects and so on).
Third: XML export of log files generated during play for ease of entering into a database.
take a campaign that lasts 2 years, is played every other week: thats around 50 sessions, and you prepared 3 weeks for that. that's an additional 1-4 hours per session, depending on how many hours a "campaign building day" is for you.
of course, the work invested upfront helps between the sessions. you already have their motivations and ressources set up, so deciding for each faction what will happen is easy. i still wonder how you prep your encounters though - do you just do everything(most) on the fly or via random generation? In 4e, it takes me about 5-10 minutes to set up a combat encounter with hand drawn map+monsters, which already is a big headstart on 3.5 more time if something custom is involved, like classed npcs or a fully customized monster. less if i can reuse stuff. however, there's no way i could setup 20 encounters, with DCs for skill challenges etc in a mere 30 minutes. this means 1.5 minutes prep...
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as for your second and third points, well, this is a gametable, a different tool, even according to wotc. (the visualizer and gametable have been sidelined according to wotc statements, so it's a save bet that this will not be included in those tools)
The two to four weeks is idle time, the odd half hour between clients or the two hour wait at the airport, maybe an hour after dinner and so on. Two to three weeks of that and you have a world. The important bit I have found is to always have a computer on me so that every little bit and scrap of idea I get I can synchronize with the main part when I get home.
It's the same as always having a paper pad and a pencil on you but it ensures I only have to write things once.
I create a lot of maps on the fly, using randomization software for the background (landscape) and a few placement triggers linked to zones on the map makes a map take a very short time to sort out. I rarely use monsters created from the bottom up, I use monsters from the Monster Manual primarily.
I find that simply taking a monster and perhaps replace one power for a Class power or two makes for a bit of variation.
But it's the way we game, just because last session happened in an abandoned dwarf town in an area now taken over by a half-giant cult of death worshippers I cannot know that the players will be remotely interested in following through with finding the leader of the cultists. They rescued the town mayor last time and that might be it. For the next session the characters might head out, after having talked to the mayor's brother, a famed caravan leader, they go with him since he is headed to Tawanor - city of Rapture, the greatest port within 400 miles and one of the Characters is missing the open sea.
If I spend time creating a detailed camp for the death worshippers as well as an entourage around the cultist leader only to see the players go in a different direction I would feel I wasted my time.
That's another reason why I use IT so much, it assists me in creating the objects I need to bring what I imagine and improvise to the table.
D&D4 is a very easy game in that respect since it is rules-tight. Since Wizards cut their .PDFs we have been playing ShadowRun4 which is a lot more complex to "run" (pun intended). But complex isn't adverse to fun and on the plus side, that game has a lot of background story that saved me time up front.
Again, I would just like to ask people to stop using their perceptions of whether another poster is playing (or preparing for playing) D&D the "right" way to dismiss the desires of other posters.
All of us play (and prepare) D&D in a different fashion. For some people, preparation by pencil, dice and paper is the best way. For others, using a laptop and various combinations of software works best. The fact that someone else's preferences are radically diferent from yours does not make theirs wrong and yours right. At the same time, it also does not make theirs right and yours wrong.
All it does is make theirs different. Nothing more, nothing less.
Takes off VCL hat
Can you do anything to encourage (request) the developers to drop by and talk to us? Or provide some feedback on this discussion?
As always, I make no promises.
I will see what I can do. Perhaps more threatening mankini pics will work...
As always, I make no promises.
Heck, if that's all it takes, here! I can make it worse, if need be,
I was just threatening. But you, sir, you took it too far!!
You just make sure the devs get an eyeful!
I am passing all this information on to the devs and others in the company, but I wouldn't expect any clarifying comments at the moment. I'm hoping I'll have some more information for you on the Campaign Tools in the very near future and then we can start talking about some of this stuff. Until then, keep mulling over your ideas/concepts and thanks for doing so!
however: keeping people in the dark about what they should be discussing aside from a buzzword, is bound to produce inferior results.
sure, you can gather lots of ideas here, but many of them will definitely be for an entirely different product then the one wotc wants to produce.
thanks trevor,
however: keeping people in the dark about what they should be discussing aside from a buzzword, is bound to produce inferior results.
sure, you can gather lots of ideas here, but many of them will definitely be for an entirely different product then the one wotc wants to produce.
I get that. I wish I could shed some more light on the subject, but for now all I can say is that discussing tools that concern monsters, maps, and encounters is the best way to go. I'll point you all in a more focused direction when I can :D
What may have gotten lost in my previous wall of text is just how much I want to see something that creates monster cards that mimic those that will be found in the monster minis boosters. It would be really great if we could generate cards for both officially created and our own created monsters.
I never thought I would live to see the day where I actually wanted cardas as part of my D&D games, but I really do. They make life so much easier.
I believe DungeonMastering.com has something like I am talking about but I haven't tried it. Besides I'd prefer a single place to get all I need. No offense to that site's people.
So how much do we think they're going to charge for this?
i assume it will stay within or close to the current subscription range, as long as they don't offer something where you need to actually use their servers, they probably would lose customers over a price increase.
Since that is free I obviously expect it to do everything Obsidian Portal does...but better.
What I really want from a Campaign Builder is:
1. A character visualizer, not just options to upload art. This would be a great way to create NPC/PC pages
2. A monster builder / encounter tool that is intuitive and follows the rules and guidelines set forth in the monster manual, DMG and online content
i assume it will stay within or close to the current subscription range, as long as they don't offer something where you need to actually use their servers, they probably would lose customers over a price increase.
I agree, one more tool shouldn't warrent a cost increase, unless it's like 50 cents. Only if the tool is like super amazing. I expect it to be on the same quality as the CB.
i assume it will stay within or close to the current subscription range, as long as they don't offer something where you need to actually use their servers, they probably would lose customers over a price increase.
An interesting question as to possible price increase.
It should be noted.
Current subscription was priced ar a "Web content" only price (which uses WotC servers).
That the CB was released which provides an automatic check for updates once a month, not sure if auto however a down load does use servers.
Thus as it stands right now WotC has expended server load already without a price increase.
I do understand the VT would become a much larger server load and might result in biggest price increase, however saying the servers are not now under a server load from released applications clearly is not correct.
In fact I expect a price increase to be announced in next few moths to start paying for the CB if they believe they can keep the current base. That or the other option of selling past issues. It however appears to take a long time for policy changes to go up the chain of command and finally come down to implementation. So price increase might be 6 months out or longer.
Assuming the devs have not started the actual development and are in design stage, taking suggestions are not so bad. However, once they have started they should not seriously take any suggestions as feature creep could slow down development and possibly screw things up.
Also, Trevor why are you apologizing? You shouldn't have to. I know you are a community leader and supposedly you are the VOICE of the community here but I'd like to hear an apology for all those past ads and not-so-noticeable notifications that some of the features have been abandoned straight from whoever promised it in the first place.
That the CB was released which provides an automatic check for updates once a month, not sure if auto however a down load does use servers.
Thus as it stands right now WotC has expended server load already without a price increase.
I do understand the VT would become a much larger server load and might result in biggest price increase, however saying the servers are not now under a server load from released applications clearly is not correct.
the CB updates are a one-time thing. it requires 2-20mb (not sure how big its usually, but thats what i'd estimate it to be) once per month to be downloaded. thats about the amount of server traffic a fast paced game takes per player for playing 1 hour, so i assume the game table to be somewhat below that. if they want gametable to run via their servers, they'll need a lot more of bandwidth than they currently have. this is what would justify a price increase. when you pay for a mmo, you mostly pay for the servers, not so much for the content.
and: I do NOT believe that they can keep their bases if they increase prices with just the campaign tools out. if they want to charge extra for the campaign tools, they'd better set up another subscription model.
campaign tools, like dungeon, is all for DMs. CB is all for players. why should players stick to a product if it gets more and more expensive, and adds nothing of use to them?
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@revenant: it is more than likely, that most who promised such things were laid off. ;)
The way my group works is that everything that I have made is "on the fly". I do not specifically place things in locations in the world unless the PCs visit them. I have an overall story arc that is followed, but I cannot rely on the players following a set course. Alot of what I do is on the fly DMing.
For instance, I have maps, mini plots, overall plots, towns, NPCs, etc - but the key part for me is that they are not placed anywhere in the world BEFORE the game. I place them on the fly based upon what the PCs do.
What I need from a Campaign Manager is a way to keep all that stuff as a sort of notes area, and then be easy enough to place in the world in some way as we game.
Also a way to note that the PCs have been to a certain location and what the status of that place is - for instance - a dungeon - they only explored the first 3 areas and then moved on. A town where they had a bar fight and are on the bad side of the law right now.
I would like an easier way to keep track of this information that a notebook that I have to flip through right now - that slows gameplay down when I don't remember some details.
If the campaign manager had some rudimentary wiki-like capacity, it would be great!!
That's true, but I would hope that anything implemented into the system would not be "rudimentary." There are already sufficient complaints about the rudimentary houserule capability of the Character Builder, after all.
After much thought, I don't think I want wiki, blog, forum, etc. features. That stuff is basically just hyperlinking, which is not exactly rare technology. Plus, I don't really want to wedge my current campaign management workflow into a new tool that will inevitably not be a perfect match for my process. I acknowledge the completely selfish nature of the statement. This is a thread about what I want to see in a Campaign Tools, after all.
What I want - what I have decided, from my lofty position of J. Random Userhood, the Campaign Tools should be ;) - is a tool that lets me create a campaign world - races, places, feats, powers, and other rules elements - and then allows it to interface seamlessly with the character builder. That's it. Everything else I already have excellent solutions for.
Okay, perhaps an NPC maker and an improved Monster Creator, but that's part of the foregoing.
But otherwise, there are strongly established existing tools to handle many of the things mentioned in this thread as "campaign management" activities. Blog, forum, wiki, mapping, and Text Editor features are beginning to strike me as a waste of developer time.
making maps, however, would be awesome - yes, sure we can use dundjinni, dungeoncrafter/forge/ whatever. But something official, with all the tiles ever sold supported and the possibility to add you own - that would be just awesome.
as for wiki, i believe what bunny wanted to state with his wiki quot was the following: hyperlinking and easy editing. because that's what wiki really stands for. and i believe that's the same you want.
Start with a map of the world, and let me set up clickable areas on it for towns, dungeons, etc. As I click, send me to other maps that provides more and more detail, map of dungeon (or town, etc) with rooms (buildings) that, when clicked on, bring up details of the room, or the details of the shop/building etc.
As a bonus, allow me to package different areas together (town with all of the sub-areas that make up the town for example), save it as a package and send it to other people to use, or allow me to use it off-line.
the CB updates are a one-time thing. it requires 2-20mb (not sure how big its usually, but thats what i'd estimate it to be) once per month to be downloaded. thats about the amount of server traffic a fast paced game takes per player for playing 1 hour, so i assume the game table to be somewhat below that. if they want gametable to run via their servers, they'll need a lot more of bandwidth than they currently have. this is what would justify a price increase. when you pay for a mmo, you mostly pay for the servers, not so much for the content.
and: I do NOT believe that they can keep their bases if they increase prices with just the campaign tools out. if they want to charge extra for the campaign tools, they'd better set up another subscription model.
campaign tools, like dungeon, is all for DMs. CB is all for players. why should players stick to a product if it gets more and more expensive, and adds nothing of use to them?
You need to recall who we are dealing with , auto logout after 30 minutes to reduce sever load (It used to be 15). The DDI project is far off budget. Development costs clearly increased above what was planed, income stream clearly has been lower then expected. Perhaps the current price covers server load and ongoing development costs, I do not know (and they are not telling). However sooner or later they will increase prices to try to achieve profit goal for unit, unless policy change to make DDI become a loss leader in order to sell other products. WotC has indicated that they would consider other pricing models, so far no change has been announce. Just another piece of news still being waited to be read at sometime in the future.
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@revenant: it is more than likely, that most who promised such things were laid off. ;)
There are a few, AFAIK still some employed however no longer posting to the forums, busy doing more important work. *shrugs*
@Mudbunny: Hope you don't mind? not trying to steal thunder...
@Trevor, let me know if any alterations to the summary would make it more usable for you.
@Everyone else: quibbles, feedback, or new ideas?
I've edited my first post, at the top of the thread, to summarize what's come out of this discussion so far.
@Mudbunny: Hope you don't mind? not trying to steal thunder...
Nice!! Thanks for this! For those who are wondering, it is located here.
Copies into weekly report
To sum up:
"The Campaign Tools should comprise downloadable versions of the WotC development team, as well as the art and layout group. The downloaded individuals must be hyperlinked to all possible sources of D&D information and have an intuitive user interface." ;)
Yeesh. That is one tall order.
To sum up:
"The Campaign Tools should comprise downloadable versions of the WotC development team, as well as the art and layout group. The downloaded individuals must be hyperlinked to all possible sources of D&D information and have an intuitive user interface." ;)
You picked your username well.
*tries to think of something on-topic to say*
The idea of an online repository is very awesome. While I don't want to see it right away (because that would hurt the release time of the application), this is absolutely something I would like to see in the future. The idea of letting 3rd parties (including other publishers and users with houserules, etc.) add content to the system would be super-epically awesome. But ploease, let's finish the other applications before we set this up.
You picked your username well.
Zing.
Actually, it has nothing to do with "mocking." It's a mispelling of the name of the bad guy from Rock 'n Rule; I grabbed this handle on RPG.net, and stuck with it here. I tend to alternate between "Mock," "Rumble," and "Festschrift."
But anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with the requirements listed - the thread was started to get information on what everybody imagines Campaign Tools to be. Such a comprehensive tool would be awesome to see; but it is one impressive list of features (to which I contributed, you may note). I was not mocking anyone here, in particular; I was simply cracking wise about the breadth of what Campaign Tools means to people. If WotC hits half of those, it will be the most impressive RPG aid there ever done was.
Yeesh. That is one tall order.
To sum up:
"The Campaign Tools should comprise downloadable versions of the WotC development team, as well as the art and layout group. The downloaded individuals must be hyperlinked to all possible sources of D&D information and have an intuitive user interface." ;)
Yeah, I got the giggles as I was putting this together because we're asking for the world.
On the other hand, I make my living as an engineer, and one of the early steps in the design process is "generate the customer's requirements", which tends to be a free-for-all. So it's better to ask for it up front, regardless of feasibility, you know?
Yeah, I got the giggles as I was putting this together because we're asking for the world.
On the other hand, I make my living as an engineer, and one of the early steps in the design process is "generate the customer's requirements", which tends to be a free-for-all. So it's better to ask for it up front, regardless of feasibility, you know?
Absolutely. I would love to see the meeting where they read through these, though. I picture the devs drinking whole pots of coffee at a draught, calling their families to say they won't be home for 2 years, and wondering what the road crew job market is like.
a "Tool to create and manage campaign info", many of them had some pretty diverse ideas of what that would entail.
I get that. I wish I could shed some more light on the subject, but for now all I can say is that discussing tools that concern monsters, maps, and encounters is the best way to go. I'll point you all in a more focused direction when I can :D
Trevor,
I'm callin' yer bluff -- I don't think WotC has a clue where to go with these "Campaign Tools." You're just chasing polls, hoping the masses will somehow write your Statement of Requirements for you. Prove me wrong. Give me a vision of where you're headed; otherwise I'll assume you're lost.
A lot of the jibber-jabber in this forum is stuff I can do myself using MS Word. What we really need is the stuff we can't do with Word... stuff like what's displayed in the advertisements in the back of the PHB, DM, and MM. Make it happen!
V/R,
JP
Something that ties a lot of other software tools together.
To build a campaign you need a number of components. Adventurers, and adventures for them to adventure in. And the means to tie them altogether.
Adventurers component , you would need to track the PCs and their equipment/treasure with option for a party treasure/magic fund. Means to import and export homebrew/custom options and character updates with the CB.
The adventure component. An adventure can be broken down again into encounters. Which can be again broken down into monsters/traps/skill challenges, rewards(treasure information& magic items) and battle maps. The monster builder and encounter builder already do some of this.
So the adventure component would need to be an adventure builder, including an encounter builder, monster/trap/skill challenge builder, a battle map mapper and reward generator. And then you would need an adventurer tracker so you could export the experience and rewards after completing each section of the adventure to the adventurers/PCs.
And to tie all these in some sort of campaign log. To track who the party has fought and what rewards they received. Recapping what they have done and information they have found out etc. Also something that can create handouts would be really useful, although probably difficult. Things like maps, notes, diagrams pictures etc.
1) A monster builder/customizer. Much of the info for this is in the Compendium, and the encounter builder bonus tool could be rolled into the design. Mainly it would calculate XP for user made monsters. and provide the option to add and remove powers and change levels of monsters.
2) Along the same ligns of the Monster Builder, an NPC builder that lets you build NPCs. Using similar technology to the character builder you could create a pretty awesome system for these two things.
3) Someway to view monsters as a group, for instance if i want to run a campaign in a snow or Ice setting Showing the monsters that would appear in that sort of area as awell as the types of friendly towns or trading posts. Also a set of sample NPCs like aprrentice trader NPC, a Trader NPC and a Master Trader NPC.
4)A system for barganing/bartering. beyond you can sell magic items for 20% their value. You can sell that awesome item for ah well enough gold to buy you another iteam albeit five levels lower = boring.
(steering away from the main topic) - Whatever it is make it worth the recent price increase.
Here are some more things I'd really like to see:
A D&D Miniature collection tracker. This should include the set name the mini is from. Keywords associated with the mini. User defined fields that would then be searchable. You should also be able to link an image of a mini to the monster entry in the encounter. This feature should not be constrained to only minis you own, as you may choose to acquire a mini once you have a purpose for it, or another group member may already have it. The ability to import collection numbers from a resource like Bifur (which I program for, so I would be happy to share information with Wizards for this purpose) would be awesome. (Another feature that I don't personally need, but others in my group could use, would be the ability to enter your own non-WotC minis for tracking and linking.)
I started a thread elsewhere but copies of all books in digital form would be appreciated. Even if it were in a form where I had to keep my subscription active in order to keep using the documents. I don’t know how feasible it would be, but if there were a way to “unlock” a copy of a book for 24 hours of use before it relocked (in some proprietary format so people couldn’t steal the PDF) so you could use the books at a game table without internet access, or reading on the subway on the way to work, this would be ideal.
In addition to a DM’s combat tracker, it would be really great to have a player’s combat tracker, where a copy of the Character Builder character sheet could be used and the player’s powers could be checked off, hit points and conditions tracked, etc. Keeping track of what powers are available as a wizard with the Tome of Readiness (plus the Improved version) as well as being a Spellstorm Mage, along with having a bunch of items with powers is annoying to try to keep track of. If there were a way to help with this, it would be appreciated. I know it’s not necessarily a DM tool, but it would help DMs as it would speed along a session where a player is sitting there digging through books and/or character sheets trying to figure out what powers he has available.
A tabbed interface, rather than multiple windows for everything to be running simultaneously and easily accessible during a session.
An extension that creates real gold pieces.
J/k on that last one. Well, sorta. ;)
1 thing was, if WotC goes with a tabbed interface, it would be really nice to have a tab dedicated to the Compendium. Now, I wouldn't want to have the Compendium data saved on my machine, but it would cool if there were a tab that had the Compendium interface, just like what comes up in the browser, rather than having to open the browser as well.
The other thing was, there is a really cool piece of work out there right now by the name of Masterplan. It's a campaign planner, and it has an interface very much like I'm imagining. I don't know if this link is allowed, but I'll post it and feel free to remove if inappropriate: http://www.habitualindolence.net/masterplan/
Sorry for the latest threadnomancy, but I had a couple more :lightbulb: to add.
1 thing was, if WotC goes with a tabbed interface, it would be really nice to have a tab dedicated to the Compendium. Now, I wouldn't want to have the Compendium data saved on my machine, but it would cool if there were a tab that had the Compendium interface, just like what comes up in the browser, rather than having to open the browser as well.
The other thing was, there is a really cool piece of work out there right now by the name of Masterplan. It's a campaign planner, and it has an interface very much like I'm imagining. I don't know if this link is allowed, but I'll post it and feel free to remove if inappropriate: http://www.habitualindolence.net/masterplan/
That is a pretty neat piece of software. Now if it just connected to the Compendium ;)
I'm more of an old school pen and paper DM so please bear with me, I'll go level by level. . .
Campaign setting level:
The ability to manage published campaign settings and create our own on a step by step basis. A world map creator that allows you visualize on the fly eg. Sim City, ya I know it sounds silly but if you've ever used it you probably know where I'm going with this. It could work as a multi tier map editor, a level for the world, a level for towns, and a level for dungeons, structures, and encounter settings. Also A logical method to generate custom pantheons is a must.
Campaign manager:
Staying with a simple to use step by step format I'd like to see a comprehensive NPC generator, monster & treasure generator, and a storyline manager. An event log to track progress would be great.
Episode manager:
Here is where my biggest request is, polish. Look at the published adventures format from D&D and try to find a question and answer method to assign values to the various fields of these adventures in order to allow us easy to use complete control over creating our own polished adventures in a printable format. Important, please allow us to create these adventures in a printable format that includes everything, encounters, story, etc.
Integrate the character generator:
For obvious reasons, including, but not limited to, creating and integrating NPCs into the story lines, one place to manage everything, creating classed monsters, etc. I would also like to see the ability to share custom content and campaigns with the community.
A visual, color 2D or 3D tool or app to actually build and plan encounter areas ahead of time out of existing, integrated official Dungeon Tiles! Similar to Dungeon Delve's presentation.
Encounter Dashboard
A simple, 1-screen "live" tool or app to track and run all the monsters, traps, hazards, etc. of an encounter. Including "reminders" that pop up depending on actual events - i.e. a monster with a special "when bloodied" power has its when-bloodied-power highlight or flash as a visual queue and remeinder to the DM.
NPC Designer Tool
A simple tool that supports and integrates the rules for NPC creation in the DMG pp. 186-187. Essentially, there's two types of NPCs - 1) typical, short description NPCs, and 2) the more calculation-heavy important NPC, such as the party ally NPC (which ultimately looks like a monster stat block per these rules). The latter would be tremendously useful to create quickly for insertion in the campaign and any encounters.
I will say adventure design can take a back seat - there are so many existing templates and advice already starting with the DMG, adventure modules, Dungeon Delve... I don't see the point to this unless it's fully integrated with other tools and very outline/basic in style. But encounter prep and design needs a lot of digital attention - that's the heart of D&D.
Sorry for the latest threadnomancy, but I had a couple more :lightbulb: to add.
1 thing was, if WotC goes with a tabbed interface, it would be really nice to have a tab dedicated to the Compendium. Now, I wouldn't want to have the Compendium data saved on my machine, but it would cool if there were a tab that had the Compendium interface, just like what comes up in the browser, rather than having to open the browser as well.
The other thing was, there is a really cool piece of work out there right now by the name of Masterplan. It's a campaign planner, and it has an interface very much like I'm imagining. I don't know if this link is allowed, but I'll post it and feel free to remove if inappropriate: http://www.habitualindolence.net/masterplan/
Alio, this is AWESOME. Thank you so much for sharing it. It's elegant and useful - brilliant stuff.
Heh. Looks like WotC can drop the Campaign Tools idea and move on to something else now. ;)
Heh. Looks like WotC can drop the Campaign Tools idea and move on to something else now. ;)
Careful everyone. If we ask WOTC to put too much stuff in the campaign tools, they can use that as an excuse as to why its not done. " well we are still working on it"
I would hope Wizards makes the application modular; that way, they can release a base tool to start, and add pieces as time goes on.
I would hope Wizards makes the application modular; that way, they can release a base tool to start, and add pieces as time goes on.
yes, thats a GOOD IDEA. make it modular, so they can backburn all other features except for the first, which is to be delivered in full. sounds familiar?
yes, thats a GOOD IDEA. make it modular, so they can backburn all other features except for the first, which is to be delivered in full. sounds familiar?
I'm certain you're referring to the lack of the Virtual Table Top, in which case, if they don't make the Campaign Tools modular, you may as well kiss the VTT good-bye for good, rather than it simply being on the backburner.
You can also probably forget about it linking into the Character Builder or Compendium as well, though that might work out without modularity.
Modularity would not be an excuse to release a product that is underdeveloped, and I don't tend to believe that Wizards is planning on releasing a simplified tool and being satisfied with that.
I am just as upset at losing the VTT as anyone else. At the same time, I have come to grips with the fact that it happened. It's time for people to stop dwelling on it. We're being given the opportunity to dictate what we'd like to see in a tool that is currently in active development. It's actually pre-Alpha, which is unheard of for software feedback. Complaining about products that are not currently in development is not going to improve what is being developed now; nor does it make them any more likely to listen to feedback when/if they decide to revist prior projects.
I'm fairly certain WotC wants to do everything within their power to assure that the Campaign Tools are released and fill at least the majority of needs of DDi customers. They know that they only have so many chances to impress the masses, and if they don't properly handle this, they risk losing a basic foundation of the RPG division's direction, and as a result, the entire division itself.
Directed Discussion threads are, by their very nature, limited to an extremely narrow subset of a topic. In this case, it is brainstorming ideas that people would like to see in the Campaign Manager that has been announced by WotC as the next tool to be released for DDI. I would appreciate it if we could stick to this topic.
Discussion of whether it will come out or not is out of the scope of this particular thread. There are *any* number of other threads currently ongoing in these forums where a discussion of whether the Campaign Tools will come out or not would be on topic.
nudge
Directed Discussion threads are, by their very nature, limited to an extremely narrow subset of a topic. In this case, it is brainstorming ideas that people would like to see in the Campaign Manager that has been announced by WotC as the next tool to be released for DDI. I would appreciate it if we could stick to this topic.
Discussion of whether it will come out or not is out of the scope of this particular thread. There are *any* number of other threads currently ongoing in these forums where a discussion of whether the Campaign Tools will come out or not would be on topic.
Agreed.
In that vein, has it been brought up that it would be nice to have some form of utility to print out player handouts? If not, it would be really nice to have.
It should allow free input of text fields, image support, and the ability to include maps minus markups for "DM eyes only."
Careful everyone. If we ask WOTC to put too much stuff in the campaign tools, they can use that as an excuse as to why its not done. " well we are still working on it"
I would expect any claims on Wizards part saying that they're "working on it" will be rather promptly met with "prove it" from the community or a simple shrug of uncertainty.
I would say they are nearing the point of complete consumer confidence loss on the part of digital development. There might be a few left that has every confidence in Wizards skill at delivering on promises and meeting development deadlines but I would bet money that they are few and far between.
I would expect any claims on Wizards part saying that they're "working on it" will be rather promptly met with "prove it" from the community or a simple shrug of uncertainty.
I would say they are nearing the point of complete consumer confidence loss on the part of digital development.
I have to disagree. IMO WOTC has lost all consumer confedence with there digital products long ago. They have a history of promising and not following through with computer products.
The community can say "prove it". But WOTC has no obligation to show us. Even if they did show us screen shots, videos, ect.. Me and I think alot of people will think "well they showed us screen shots, demos, videos with the 4th ed. tools and promised them on time. I won't think its done until I have it installed on my computer." Alot of peopel said that they got to use the character viewer and duongeon builder at cons. WOTC said they were in beta. We have not seen those, so why should we trust WOTC with anything they say about digital products?
I have to disagree. IMO WOTC has lost all consumer confedence with there digital products long ago. They have a history of promising and not following through with computer products
Emphasis mine. I don't think you speak for all consumers.
What I want in a Campaign Manager!!!
A character builder ( we have one )
A dungeon crafter ( make a dungeon or town )
An NPC Generator ( these get annoying for me to make, seriously )
An accurate encounter assistant ( Like the tool now, but man that thing needs some work )
An ability to handle plug-ins/addons made by WotC or the Community
Thats just for the Manager program
Such plug-ins/addons could be the Visualizer, the Virtual Game Table, a Monster Crafter, an auto DM(so I can play with my group)
but thats just what I want!!!
- Choose monster level, role, type
- Choose the attack stat. Should default by role.
- Powers should be filled out as defaults by level/role. For example, a 5th level brute would have a basic attack that does 2d8+4 and an encounter power that does 3d10+4.
- Allow tweaking of the power, with the suggested damage changing. If it's an "small" AOE, the damage expression goes down by 1. It's it's a large AOE, it goes down by 2. If it's adds a condition, it goes down by 1, that sort of thing.
- Allow every single generated number to be over ridden.
- Automatically reduce HP for insubstantial, and other similar guide lines.
- Have some indicator that says the tool thinks the monsters too good or too weak.
- Pretty Print in the standard format.
The monster generator should also be able to load up any existing monster (from the Compendium or custom made earlier) and
- Up/down the level automatically according to the guidelines
- Apply templates
- Reskin (just change the name/fluff, and print)
A map generator that has high quality (150dpi) images of the dungeon tiles, and can automatically poster print maps (so large maps can be stitched together from normal sized pages) at 1" scale.
Emphasis mine. I don't think you speak for all consumers.
I never said I did. Do you know what IMO means? In My Option.
1) As a DM, tools to make my job easier would be fantastic. I use OneNote to organize my campaign; I'd like the Campaign Manager to work with that.
2) I'd like the 'Bonus Tools' to expand: include traps/hazards from available materials.
3) An NPC generator. The Monster Generator does a mediocre job of what it does, but there's nothing to help create a, say, a retired 6th level Ranger running the local inn.
4) Something for applying templates to creatures. It's tedious to upgrade a monster to an elite by applying a class or monster template; and no way to grab the final product in a proper stat block.
Personally, I've been mostly pleased with what I'm getting out of DDI--the character generator is fantastic, not counting this month's buggy update--but if prices are rising I'm hoping the quality of the product will as well.
-M.
Plus what do you mean by "Campaign Manager"? Is it a database and/or collection of tools that will assist the DM in preparing for the game, or is it designed to be ran at the table and assist him/her in actually running the game.
Functions I'd like to see:
Integrated encounter builder
Campaign Calendar builder/tracker
XP tracker and treasure generator
The ability to create a Campaign Data Set containing customised races, classes, feats, items and powers that can be imported into the Character Builder.
A Party View mode, that allows you to add Character Builder files and view them in a spreadsheet style format, so you can compare defences, attacks, passive senses and so on at a glance.
Setting Information that contains any piece of setting fluff the DM writes, organised like a wiki.
If you are intent on making this a Game Manager as well...
Dice roller
Combat tracker that handles monsters attack rolls, applies damage directly to NPCs and PCs, and so on.
Electronic DM Screen
Anyone remember the Core Rules 2.0 CDROM for ADnD 2nd Edition?
I still use the mapping and dice rolling modules from that program to this day.
I'd like to see:
1) Map creator/editor that we can download maps from published adventures into and print them off, make notes on. (Printing should be scalable)
2) Monster/NPC creator
3) House rules compendium that we can modify and would tie into the character builder.
What I don't want to see:
1) A combat tracker. I know that a lot of people want this but in my mind the encounters are what makes DnD what it is. If dice rolls, initiative and damaged is all tracked in a computer program I may as well be playing a computer game.
1) A combat tracker. I know that a lot of people want this but in my mind the encounters are what makes DnD what it is. If dice rolls, initiative and damaged is all tracked in a computer program I may as well be playing a computer game.
I think WOTC needs to define precisely what they mean when they say Campaign Manager because it could conceivably mean three things.
1. A tool (or set of tools) that assist the DM in preparing adventures, encounters and managing campaign information. Map creators, encounter builders, a tie-in with the compendium and character builder, camapign info database.
2. A tool intended to be run at the table assisting the DM in running the game. Tracking HP and init of monsters and NPCs, a quick reference look up of conditions and other combat critical rules, a virtual DM screen, a virtual battlemap so the DM knows where to place monsters at the start of an encounter and where traps/hazards are located
3. All of the above.
Option 2 and 3 MUST be offline tools otherwise they will have limited appeal to those who do not have webaccess at the table (which I hazard a guess would be significant percentage of the DDi userbase.
As an aside, last night I ran a game of DnD4E and I used the program MasterPlan (mentioned a few times upthread) to assist me during combat. It helped a great deal in keeping track of info for monsters and stuff, and I was able to store encounter maps electronicically. Next session we'll be experimenting with using an external LCD monitor lain flat on the table and using MasterPlan's Player map Mode to replace the battlemap and minis. My hope is that this will allow a much more seemless flow between encounters without needing to stop and spend a couple of minutes cleaning the battlemap and redrawing the new map between each encounter. Until last night, I was VERY sceptical about the usefulness of "Combat Managers" but masterplan really helped last night.
I use MPTW the campaign I've been working on for the past few weeks. The link's in my sig.
What I'd like to see is at the very least is an Encounter Builder Lite that will let me find monster combos that match party level quickly. I wouldn't even mind having to look up the info in the book (I actually like looking up stuff in the books). I just want to provide a balanced encounter without having to dedicate my life to combing through them.
This could be the lead in to getting someone to subscribe to DDI if then they could print out the info or at the very least get them to buy more books if the Encounter Builder included monsters from all the books but maybe I only invested in the Monster Manual I. If I want that creature from Dragon Magizine or Monster Manual X I'll either need to subscribe or purchase more stuff.
In this situation I can building encounters that are engaging with the basics and can scale as my interests and gaming group grows.
Just my two cents. Give it some thought. I think you'll see the value in a scaled approach.
What else could a GM ask for?
(I also want the export quality and format to be fully compatible with the RPGA/LFR requirements so that LFR authors can use MB. Right now they can't, which is absolutely ludicrous. LFR authors should be showing off WotC tools.)
I then want to see an encounter designer, just showing recommended XP values at tiers and allowing me to choose a budget and drag over either monsters from the MB or a saved holding pen.
I then want to create a map using tiles and put letter codes for where the monsters will be, plus a few bits of explanatory text.
I finally would like the ability to print a map at actual size.
As for a campaign manager. I would like all the features that Microsoft One Note provides. A place to store and catagorize monsters, cities and dungeons all in neat and easily findable tabs and folders. The ability to save maps and refrence them at a moments glance, and a place to store campaign notes and session notes.
But then what would I need my One Note for?
Hello?
Bueller?
Once again, though, it is WotC's wonderful expectation management (add sarcasm to taste).
Where are all the tools that were promised two years ago and whatever happened to all the wonderful demos I watched videos of (the game table, the character visualiser etc.). Don't get me wrong, the Character Builder is superb but packages such as the excellent Masterplan have got further with no resources than WotC has got with all the money we give them.
As this thread was started by a Community Lead couldn't somebody in the company tell us something new?
community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...