D&D (2024) D&D VTT: Nerd Immersion talks about his recent playtest.

[darjr]

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Like most of these guys, I’ve soured on his channel over the last 6 months or so (dude wotc doesn’t care about your videos “leaking” dnd stuff calm down). Anything interesting?

 

[darjr]

Anything interesting?

the interesting bits to me are
1. this is the same version that they had at the first summit.
2. he telegraphs that their NDA's have changed. Which is very interesting to me. I wonder in what way?
3. his five year old PC handled it fine after he turned off the horizon blurring.
4. no audio or video of the players.
5. no way to bring in new assets except for a 2d map, which he didn't try.
6. there was a way to link a dndbeyond character to a miniature.
7. movement of miniatures, and presumably much of any thing else, wasn't constrained by stats.
8. some cool animations attached to some miniatures, but not others, this is still alpha after all.
9. players could draw on the map and control miniatures and terrain and spawn in miniatures.
10. the animations and art that was there was nice.
11. the idea occurred to him that you could use this for any rules set.

It was a long rambling video and he looked like he was doing this rather late.

Oh and he kept stressing that it was alpha. so expect weirdisms. It seemed like there were some rough edges around the user interface, like he had to move a miniature, then toggle the dash as an action, then move it again. which didn't make sense based on his earlier comments about free form movement? But maybe that was part of the clunky ness of it all.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

can't entirely disagree.

the interesting bits to me are
1. this is the same version that they had at the first summit.
2. he telegraphs that their NDA's have changed. Which is very interesting to me. I wonder in what way?
3. his five year old PC handled it fine after he turned off the horizon blurring.
4. no audio or video of the players.
5. no way to bring in new assets except for a 2d map, which he didn't try.
6. there was a way to link a dndbeyond character to a miniature.
7. movement of miniatures, and presumably much of any thing else, wasn't constrained by stats.
8. some cool animations attached to some miniatures, but not others, this is still alpha after all.
9. players could draw on the map and control miniatures and terrain and spawn in miniatures.
10. the animations and art that was there was nice.
11. the idea occurred to him that you could use this for any rules set.

It was a long rambling video and he looked like he was doing this rather late.

Oh and he kept stressing that it was alpha. so expect weirdisms. It seemed like there were some rough edges around the user interface, like he had to move a miniature, then toggle the dash as an action, then move it again. which didn't make sense based on his earlier comments about free form movement? But maybe that was part of the clunky ness of it all.

Thanks! That is a lot of interesting info!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

can't entirely disagree.

the interesting bits to me are
1. this is the same version that they had at the first summit.
2. he telegraphs that their NDA's have changed. Which is very interesting to me. I wonder in what way?
3. his five year old PC handled it fine after he turned off the horizon blurring.
4. no audio or video of the players.
5. no way to bring in new assets except for a 2d map, which he didn't try.
6. there was a way to link a dndbeyond character to a miniature.
7. movement of miniatures, and presumably much of any thing else, wasn't constrained by stats.
8. some cool animations attached to some miniatures, but not others, this is still alpha after all.
9. players could draw on the map and control miniatures and terrain and spawn in miniatures.
10. the animations and art that was there was nice.
11. the idea occurred to him that you could use this for any rules set.

It was a long rambling video and he looked like he was doing this rather late.

Oh and he kept stressing that it was alpha. so expect weirdisms. It seemed like there were some rough edges around the user interface, like he had to move a miniature, then toggle the dash as an action, then move it again. which didn't make sense based on his earlier comments about free form movement? But maybe that was part of the clunky ness of it all.

Very rambling video (still watching). Not a good review of an alpha. However, the big things he did not mention, no show stopper bugs, no apparent issues connecting or instability of connection.
He mentions that they could assign an D&DBYond character sheet to a mini is very positive. It is not clear but I think that not all dice rolls from the beyong character sheet can be sent to the VTT. This would strike me as a negative but that really depends on what they want to support.

I think it is very significant that the map maker is 2d.

 

[Parmandur]

7. movement of miniatures, and presumably much of any thing else, wasn't constrained by stats.

11. the idea occurred to him that you could use this for any rules set.

So, I have little interest in using any VTT, so my thoughts on this are mostly academic. But this aspect of the VTT as we have heard aboit itnoso far, the sort of freewheeling amd not heavily defined nature of Innis the most fascinating. They are making a digital mini and map board, not a rigid 5E calculation machine....

 

[darjr]

So, I have little interest in using any VTT, so my thoughts on this are mostly academic. But this aspect of the VTT as we have heard aboit itnoso far, the sort of freewheeling amd not heavily defined nature of Innis the most fascinating. They are making a digital mini and map board, not a rigid 5E calculation machine....

Seems like it. I think that would be a great idea.

 

[Reynard]

Seems like it. I think that would be a great idea.

I think it is a mistake. if it isn't a dedicated 5E machine, there is too much competition out there already. Unless, of course, they are going to cut off existing partners, which seems like a bad idea.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think it is a mistake. if it isn't a dedicated 5E machine, there is too much competition out there already. Unless, of course, they are going to cut off existing partners, which seems like a bad idea.

Or they sell it on the connection to D&DBeyond. D&DBeyond already does a lot of the automation involved in running D&D. If the VTT is fairly system agnostic then it becomes not only friendly to other systems but also to homebrew.

 

[Reynard]

Or they sell it on the connection to D&DBeyond. D&DBeyond already does a lot of the automation involved in running D&D. If the VTT is fairly system agnostic then it becomes not only friendly to other systems but also to homebrew.

For most VTTs there are 3rd party/fan importers. Getting your DNDB character to Foundry or Roll20 or FGU is generally pretty trivial.

The other thing I can imagine being unique and a driver though is verticality. If the engine does end up being capably 3D and open, folks may well want to use it to get elevation. Both BG3 and Solasta improve on 5E combat by adding a 3rd dimension and I can't imagine WotC isn't paying attention to that.