Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 talsharien Oct 30, 2014 14:23:01	So, having dangled the Morningstar carrot which lead us to Dungeonscape. We have followed the Wizards of the Coast along their Hasbro tainted path to find the wonderful promised digital support at the end of this road of intrigue.   But wait......   Where has it gone?   No digital support and no communication to let us know why or what is next!   Am I the only GM/Player out here that now feels desecrated.   It is as if the mighty Wizard who has been funding my constant raids upon the evil lands has been a Lich in disguise since the beginning.........
#2 CCS Oct 30, 2014 15:00:29	What? You didn't learn to disbelieve WoTC/Hasbro concerning digital promises with 4e?
#3 AaronOfBarbaria Oct 30, 2014 15:23:10	I am confused as to why people outright demand digital support for D&D.   How many RPGs out there actually have digital support? I've counted those that I can find, and it seems a dramatic minority, even when counting fan-made digital tools. Not counting fan-made tools, the minority becomes an outright rarity.   Yet I keep seeing people insisting things like "It's 2014! Get with it!" as if it is anything but absolutely normal that a table-top game doesn't have meaningful official digital support.
#4 talsharien Oct 30, 2014 15:28:24	A lot of us have groups of players that meet online rather than face to face. Such things GMing so much easier.
#5 blake_marlowe Oct 30, 2014 15:29:31	c'mon, desecrated? don't you think you're being just a smidge dramatic?   i'm disappointed--DS looked promising--but honestly, 5e doesn't really require an online tool the way 5e does.   yes, yes, i know, some of you guys do without. you guys are not the norm.
(Reply to #2) Hrall	CCS wrote:
#7 MonsterEnvy Oct 30, 2014 15:42:03	They said it their notice they still want to do digital support. It's only been a day stop being impatiant.
#8 pukunui Oct 30, 2014 16:05:27	MonsterEnvy wrote:
#9 MonsterEnvy Oct 30, 2014 16:31:57	pukunui wrote:
#10 ORC_Cricket Oct 30, 2014 16:34:27	We’ve removed content from this thread because of a violation of the Code of Conduct.   You can review the Code here: http://company.wizards.com/conduct   Please keep your posts polite, on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks. You are welcome to disagree with one another but please do so respectfully and constructively.   Remember, a community is a joint effort of all those involved, and while we want intelligent meaningful and productive banter to ensue we also need it to be polite and considerate of others.     Thank you for your time and support as we continue to try and make a great community for everyone.
#11 pukunui Oct 30, 2014 16:39:03	MonsterEnvy wrote:
#12 talsharien Oct 30, 2014 16:59:48	blake_marlowe wrote:
#13 Timborama Oct 31, 2014 10:11:14	To be honest, I've found 5th ed to be much LESS electronically inclined/necessary than 4E and 3.x/PF, and at least the latter was simple enough if you weren't a spellcaster! A character builder would be cool so I don't have to loan my book to friends and have them struggle to find where/how to make characters on their own, if they're new-ish, sure. But it's hardly necessary! Honestly, 5th is great for just going Pencil+Paper or, at the very least, adjustable character sheet PDF that I THEN use pencil on has been the best thing for us so far (and Spell Cards would do wonders). If we'd have to pay for a character builder, we probably won't even buy it as a group.   Yet. Because once options go crazy in 2 years, yeah, it'll be nice so we can have all the feats in one place. Until then? It's not hard to just use ONE book (maybe 2-3 within a year) or just get a person to help you...   (also, to everyone complaining about WotC not saying what they're gonna do now? C'mon guys, they JUST severed ties with their planned online support. They don't want to release anything until it's finalized, or officially "underway". Give it a week? At least? Please?)
#14 MechaPilot Oct 31, 2014 18:35:14	I've never understood the desire for a character builder from a player perspective.  As a DM, I could see it being beneficial for creating villains and NPCs in systems where you have to build them as you would build PCs.  However, as a player and a DM, no character builder has ever really been worth it for me because none of them have been flexible enough to accommodate homebrew material and houserules without having to insert that crap myself at the end.  And if I'm doing that already then what's the point of the digital builder?  To waste my printer's toner?   I have never seen any edition of D&D that is so complex or unwieldly that I couldn't easily handle character creation with a pencil and a printed blank character sheet.
#15 blake_marlowe Oct 31, 2014 18:45:49	talsharien: you brits have been making your presence felt in gaming generally and D&D specifically ever since the AD&D1 fiend folio, mate. :>   mechapilot: honestly, i prefer having something computer-generated because paper has a tendency to get damaged/lost/forgotten. electronic tools trump pen & paper for those reasons for players like me. unfortunately, there are apparently a lot of us.   ed
#16 MechaPilot Oct 31, 2014 19:12:51	blake_marlowe wrote:
#17 The_Jester Oct 31, 2014 20:11:54	AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
#18 smartboyathome Oct 31, 2014 20:56:47	MechaPilot wrote:
#19 Shasarak Oct 31, 2014 21:03:41	The_Jester wrote:
(Reply to #19) AaronOfBarbaria	I should probably have been clearer before: I am counting PDF as being different from digital support. I completely agree that PDF is, in numerous ways, superior to hard-copy format (which is in turn superior in very few ways), and I wish that WotC hadn't gotten burned how and when they did in regards to PDF so that they were not currently in a very reserved position with providing PDF versions of their products. (I should note, however, that I think game designers should be asking as much or more for PDF products than they do for hard-copy because of the products being so vastly superior and still containing the entire game materials, which I know that most people think is just ridiculous of me to think.) In regards to Hero Lab, I do see possibly a half-dozen options that are actually the modern iteration of the game system in question, and that is nice... but 6 RPGs is, as I said earlier, a dramatic minority if you go and look at the number of RPGs that are available (even if you exclude not currently growing and supported game lines). Outside those 6-ish RPGs, most of the digital support offered is fan-made. And in the majority of cases, I find the digital support options offered for games that I actually play to be more of a hindrance than a help - whether because the design is too limited and I don't possess the knowledge or time to fix it, or manages to actually take me longer than just doing it with paper and pencil would. I think only certain types of games - for example, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, and other games that have extremely fine-detail customization and resource allocation/management with laundry lists of options at every point - are actually worth bothering with a digital tool over, and even then I find myself skipping out on the system entirely in favor of something simpler, or lamenting the digital tool not actually working for me because it doesn't come pre-set-up with my sanity saving house-rules included.
#21 Shasarak Oct 31, 2014 22:06:47	AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
#22 RCanine Oct 31, 2014 23:47:48	AaronOfBarbaria wrote: