Game Stooge

Comic Con: D&D 4th Edition to Online Space

• Scribbled on April 17th, 2008 by Jonah Falcon
• Filed in Comic Con, Interviews, RPG

The folks at Wizards of the Coast allowed yours truly to get a glimpse of the future of Dungeons & Dragons, as the 4th edition looms this coming fall. While the rule updates are significant to some degree - the game rules are being streamlined, for instance - but perhaps the most important to the venerable 33 year old pen-and-paper RPG is the official bridge to the online space.

While having online games of a pen-and-paper RPG is not new, as third party software as allowed live gaming over the internet, Wizards of the Coast is planning to take it to a new level, introducing D&D Insider, as some of the guys designing the 4th edition held a presentation for me on just what it’ll entail.

In a nutshell, D&D Insider is a subscription service that will serve both as a D&D construction tool for players and dungeon masters, and a virtual playing space for people who want to play pen-and-paper D&D online, with all the data at their fingertips.

They showed how DMs can create maps using ownloadable software that is about as basic as click-and-drag. DMs can create dungeons with map pieces, populate the map with traps and monsters, while players will only see what their player characters can see (especially if it’s dark, then they’ll need torches), in limited 3D when it comes to monsters and pit traps. The DM can simply download existing fan-made maps, or upload their own creations. The game can be played as a virtual table for DMs and players, as the game does nothing but make simple calculations, such as measuring how many movement points a player is expending when they move a character, or the rolled initiative table, and so forth - the rest of the game is controlled by the human DM.

The software also features an extensive character generator as well, with a beautiful character portrait creator that allows the player to customize their own PC’s avatar and look, and allow a complete printout. The generator can also serve as an interactive character sheet, allowing the player to choose his PC’s upgrades when they level with the computer’s help/

People who buy the sourcebooks but decline joining the D&D Insider will have limited access to the subscription service features; for instance, they’ll be able to generate a character, but will only be able to print out a blank character sheet and fill it out themselves.

Tomorrow, I’ll be checking out a session of D&D in action.