I just want Hero Lab to announce 5E support tomorrow, but sadly, those dudes are already completely swamped finishing off the iOS version of HL (much less the proposed Android version) while keeping up to date with the mountain of content Paizo is releasing every month. . .
Sucks for the Trapdoor guys. I’m sure they were trying their best, but apparently their best just wasn’t up to WotC’s needs.
Of course, this also means that I still won’t have a decent, searchable rules database/program/pdf for god knows how many more months. . .
The beta of dungeonscape was terrible. There was nothing about it that I thought would be better than a paper character sheet and a player’s handbook on the table. I’m glad the WotC team moved quickly to squash it, but I wish I knew where they were heading next.
From my perspective as an online DM, I really wish WotC would buy Roll20 and then support the hell out of it. The framework of Roll20 is just the right weight for D&D 5E.
If WotC has taught us anything, it’s that they don’t really care/want to do this. Remember, what was it called, Insider? The thing that went absolutely nowhere over the course of years? I assume they think it will cut into book sales or something somehow, or they’re just really good at doing things half-assed and then giving up.
It was supposed to be an online gaming table. To my knowledge that never, ever happened. They had a bunch of other stuff with it, but that was the endgame that never came to be.
I’m sure they made money on it, they were basically selling something they never produced.
Yeah, Insider was pretty good for 4E. I remember using it to print off monsters and traps and magic items and that would give me everything I needed to run a session in meat space. The VTT was dead almost from the very beginning. I used Fantasy Grounds for a 4E VTT and Fantasy Grounds did a great job of scraping all the Insider data and making it very functional in Fantasy Grounds. The problem with Fantasy Grounds was Fantasy Grounds. It was counter-intuitive, buggy, expensive and dated.
I’m not really interested in Wizards making adventures as digital products. I still need to read and be inspired by a physical book to run an adventure. I have to soak it in and process it, which I can’t really do by looking at Roll20 screens. But if I could then buy the maps and tokens (with macros) and handouts in Roll20, I would be elated. Thankfully, the maps are available through the artist for the Starter Box.
I’m incredibly bummed about this, especially since it means digital versions of the rulebooks are that much further out. I would personally love for Lone Wolf Development to step in with some Hero Lab/Realmworks content.
I was really excited about Dungeonscape from talking to the Trapdoor guys at GenCon. They had great plans for it including digital versions of modules. Sadly, the web beta was unusable and I think they were extremely in over their head for their team size. I also have to wonder if this is a problem of Hasbro not wanting to spend much money on a software tool. Good software is not cheap to develop; you can’t low ball it and get good results.
Looks like I’m going to be DMing my first 5e game this Saturday. The first session, we’re going to take it easy and spend some time talking about the characters and how they met up and what the players expect from the game and the world and all. Then I’ll ease into an adventure that will be partially homebrewed and partially cobbled together from existing adventures.
For you guys that have actually played 5e, do you have any rules of thumb about rewarding exploration or social interaction? The basic DM guide has the encounter building guidelines for combat, but even that talks about rewards for XP, not gold, info, or loot. Do you give XP for completion of quests (delivered Granddaughter’s note to Granny, cut off ten giant rat tails, etc.)?
The starter box has plenty of quest rewards. It is a little world of warcraft, but it keeps moving things along. These tend to be XP and they go a long way toward helping the party level up.
Social rewards in the starter box revolve around the factions. If you make friends with certain NPCs they will offer you membership to their faction. This isn’t really developed in the starter box, but I like the concept. If I were running my own game I would spend some time creating my own factions and develop rewards and story lines associated with them.
Exploration is best rewarded by seeding the world with stuff to find. The starter box does an ok job with this. There are lots of spots that require the party to look around and investigate a bit to find treasure. If they don’t look, they don’t get the reward.
The Starter Box eases you into XP, starting off by giving XP awards for surviving the goblin ambush and clearing out their hideout. It then moves into XP per combat encounter, and finally XP per creature, divided by the number of players. RAW in the PHB, this is the only way to earn XP.
They would like to use Inspiration as their other currency - for roleplay, for inventive solutions, for something just generally awesome.
I’ve been giving out XP bonuses for that kind of stuff, as well as inspiration. A flat 25 xp for now, which may change down the road.
The first official adventure, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, has two options: 1) XP for killing individual monsters and 2) Milestone XP for completing particular story beats. I’m using #2. I find it easier to keep track of, it keeps the party members at the same level, and I can make sure the players are at the appropriate level for the next set of encounters.
