No. It won't work. It'll go off as well as Magic the Gathering Online did.
They'll have some people, but all the true fans are going to keep paying and playing offline.
Especially because it's cheaper.

Initially, this made my heart jump. Without the human interaction, though, I can't see this being nearly as fun as grabbing some die and your favorite miniatures.

@Polywhirl: Oh, how I hated Magic the Gathering Online.
"Hey, everyone? You know what's more fun than collecting REAL cards and paying money for them? Collecting FAKE cards and paying money!"

If this was a one time purchase like it should be, this could potentially change the world of table-top gaming forever. Unfortunately, this desperate attempt to cash in on the MMO market will fail miserably.

$10-15 for what? To play what I just paid $40 for. A Book. If I wanted to pay money for a cheap online experience from wizard I'd have played their first game. This will blow up in their face.

I also have this to add:

I have never played D&D in my life, but the basic gist of it is a bunch of friends huddled together in a room, inventing dungeons themselves and using their imaginations to immerse themselves, right?

I love video games and all, but this sounds like they're taking the true essence of what sets D&D apart from the rest of the fantasy games out there and ripping it to shreds. If you remove this part of the game, what are you left with? Just another generic RPG!

This is a sure sign that D&D is struggling. With this and some of the other milking techniques they're using with 4th edition, things can't be going well for WoTC.

Voicechat is a good step, but nothing will compare to having a bunch of people, stewn(sp) across the room, laughing at each other cause one stupid character botched his dodge check, and just got .

The interaction is what makes D&D great.

I think it could be interesting, but I'd really rather pay a one time price than a monthly one for something like this.

Yeah, i like the one time price too, It doesn't seem like you can do as much as tabletop which does take away from it. I don't know i'll give it a shot for a month and if I don't like it then it was only 10 dollars

Novel idea--but $10-$15 a month is way too much.

Cheaper prices (in the $5 range), one flat rate, or advertising support would work.

Perhaps buying a D&D book could give you the base game, and buying affiliated expansion books would add that to your account, allowing them to make the actual playing free (a lot like the Guild Wars model).

I realize that a lot of people are going to bash this idea. However, sometimes you just don't have time to meet up with your friends. Sometimes your best party members move away and it'd be ridiculous to expect 4 people living in different places to drive to someone's house and play while the DM's wife tries to ignore them.
There's nothing better than human interaction - in person. However, sometimes that's just not possible.

It's going to be fantastic for people who can't get together in person. There's a lot of groups of friends that have this scenario after, say, college.

Whatever happened to D&D Online anyway? Did it go under?

I have to pay 15.00 a month to use a character generator? after I've spent 105.00 on the core rulebooks? the fuck?

4th edition?! Didn't they JUST come out with 3.5? Hell, 2nd Edition is still damn good in my mind. Why bother upgrading?

@Polywhirl: Cheaper? Shit, those books are fucking expensive nowadays.

I don't see this working out for me. Part of the fun that comes with playing a pen and paper game is the face to face interaction you get with the people with whom you play.

I'd prefer to play a real MMORPG if I'm sitting in front of a computer.

I'm sorry, I'm too busy laughing at "Gwill" to read this article.

@TheCheese33: It's still going, and just had a new expansion come out recently. I don't know how big it's subscriber base it, but it seems to be managing...somehow.

@Channing: It's a good idea in concept, but the idea of a faceless D&D campaign probably won't sit well with a lot of people. At least at a $15 price point. People have adapted and found ways to role-play online, via e-mail or sometimes in real-time via chat programs and the like (there are even apps that function as die-rollers, etc. for this purpose), so spending $15 for something official might seem superfluous. Especially if the graphics are lackluster. I really hope the dungeon-crafting engine is robust enough to handle all the creative details that a DM can come up with.

I guess what it boils down to is this: I really doubt any program is going to offer the level of detail that DMs require and players expect. Whether its unrealistic of the consumers to expect that, or the product is just lackluster...well, that's up for debate.

I'd love this if i could pay once, or maybe even every now and again to add in a large group of new books released since the last one. Paying a monthly fee for a service i won't be using that often just doesn't do it for me.

I'd love access to online tools i have some old college buddies I'd love to get on vent with and do this with every now and again, but for 15 dollars a month I'd rather just go play wow with them.

Maybe you guys should read the article... It clearly states that there will be a free version and final pricing has not been announced. The article also rightly places the emphasis on the "game table", a sort of shared workspace/chat room allowing the DM to create an adventure for people all over the country to play the paper version of D&D online.

There was some talk of the service using a microtransaction model, where a certain number of pre-made dungeon tiles, monsters. etc. came with each paper book purchased and more were available at a cost. Hopefully that makes it in as an option to a fixed monthly fee...

@aka Bitter: Article author here: there will be microtransactions, but all they spoke about was the idea of paying small blurbs for, say, a 24-hour access to the Game Table. So if you don't want to pay the monthly fee, but still want to game with buddies on occasion, you'd have to cough up.

As it stands, I believe the Character Generator is free (albeit limited and lacking the full, book-based support) and the dungeon maker is free. Game Table will cost you.

@Acererak: Die, Lich King!

But seriously, thanks for the clarification.

It kind of defeats the purpose of playing D&D imo. I love seeing the faces of my fellow dungeoneers that also have no chance of getting laid that night. Anything else is simply impersonal.

In all honesty, I quit playing after I cast Magic Missle a few years back. It killed not only the darkness, but all of my friends and their relatives in one hit. The scary thing is I only rolled a 2 that turn.

@Captain Impulse: Oh, believe me. It took a bit of restraint to resist the urge to ask about any potential ports of, say, a certain Tomb of Horrors to said Fourth Edition digital setting. ;)

Here's hoping Wizards doesn't destroy the fun of new content with a crazy microtransaction model, however. We have EA for that.

I'll say it, I'm a Pen and Paper RPG dork. And I was keeping abreast of the new changes in 4th edition, and I was actually excited. But, while I MIGHT have been talked into re-buying a whole slew of books if I got to make use of that 3D tabletop program to streamline my sessions, there is no way in HELL I'm paying $15 a month for a game where I provide almost all the content myself.

Get real, Wizard. I know you're trying to compete with World of Warcraft, but jumping up to a similar pay structure is not the way to do it.

@Acererak: Ain't that the truth.

I guess my whole opinion on this program is a bit biased. I'm frighteningly close to 30, married, work full time and still manage to get together with all my friends once a week and game. There isn't really anything that a PC program like this can offer our group, other than a GUI to interact with, that we can't already do ourselves.

Granted, we'd have a lot more space without piles of books, dice and miniatures laying around all over the place, but that's part of the experience. We've even come up with some crafty ways of mapping out and exploring dungeons. We're thinking of buying a projector, and mounting it face down from the ceiling in the game room. The DM draws his dungeon map, scans it to a laptop, project it onto our gaming mat. Then the DM uses a filter to only show the parts of the map the PCs can see. We've playtested a similar set up and it works awesome.

Granted, we'd probably spend a lot less money using this program and achieve a similar result, but our worst fear is the level of constraint. D&D prides itself on being flexible, and I don't know a single DM who doesn't have a house rule or two that really tweaks the way the game plays. Will this program allow for that? How much detail can these dungeons really render?

It'll take more info, and a really robust system, to convince most DMs that this is a worthy investment.

@Siegeman:
Second edition sucked. Really badly. Really *really* badly. I played a bit of Second Ed., before 3e came out. I switched and haven't looked back except recently... And, wow, what the hell was I smoking when I at first resisted the change to 3e?

3e is FAR from perfect - I like the look of a lot of the simplification in 43. But... When you look at THAC0, the obscene amount of percentile dice, the lack of real skills, the stupid arbitrary race restrictions, how TERRIBLE wizards were until at least 5th level... Yeah. 2e was far good.

4th ed is basically WoW: The Tabletop Version so this is the next logical step.

I'm sticking with 3.5 thank you very much. The books for it will be dirt cheap soon too.

I'm going to be a PnP snob and say that True20 is better than what 4e d20 is going to be :p

@Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.: Pretty much. It's painfully obvious that WoTC is tweaking their rules set to appeal to the MMO crowd, as well as the power-gamers. They have some great ideas in 4.0, but there are plenty of other ideas that have a lot of my gamers friends saying, "Really? Why?".

Of course, this is not a new development. Ever since they broke the Power Attack feat when they moved from 3.0 to 3.5, a lot of us saw this coming.

@rekenner: Yes, 2E was terrible, but it was all we had. In retrospect, 3E is vastly superior, but far from perfect.

And have always started kicking ass at 5th level. That's because 3rd level spells kick more ass than any other level of spells, comparative to the character's power.

You loose so much without being in the same room. Things I love to do as a DM don't translate well without the facial expressions and my physical actions.

A great example is when a PC wants to act in a way I don't want them too. I say "You try to climb out of the pit", and roll the dice but don't look at them behind my screen, and say "You failed to climb out of the pit".

Probably one of the lines you use the most is lost "Let me see that sheet."

Although thinking more about it I can see that a set of tools for talking and dice rolling(cept DM rolls) would be great for people who played together often and might not be able to because they have moved away. Cander with a group of good friends would carry through on Voicechat.

Guess I'lll have to give it a go myself.

On the one hand my original and favorite group from high school is scattered all over the country. We still try to play on holidays if we're all home for a day but it's rough and not the same. From that perspective this is kinda neat...

On the other hand I've always likened D&D to going to a bar or bowling or some other social activity. You and a group of your friends get together, drink beer, eat cake, and shoot the shit. You just do it while pretending to be a Ranger or a Wizard and rolling the dice. For me it's that social aspect of the game that makes it. so ultimately? I think it's a useful tool but it takes away from the experience and therefore I'm less likely to pay for it.

On the other hand.... Kotaku D&D anyone?

@Impurethinker I dig what I've seen of True20. For a really interesting system, check out Dogs in the Vineyard if you haven't already.

What with the increased prices on the core books, I'm not sure about investing in a monthly subscription to a premium version of Insider.

I don't blame WotC for trying something new with their IP. They had a CD for 3rd edition as well. If it's a service you want, you'll get it, and odds are that it'll add another dimension to your game sessions.

If not, don't get it. Consumer dollars will ultimately determine whether this is success or fail.

I simply can't find anyone to play these sorts of things locally with, so this would actually be pretty sweet.

The only two problems I see are the fact that they're charging for a lobby system, rather than offering a peer to peer system for the cost of the software. Also, I'm doubting this thing is overly customizable, so for those of us who run altered campaigns or other systems entirely can't easily have some of the less fanciful things in life, like a shotgun and clean corporate office space. :P

I'm actually fairly intrigued myself. But for now I recomend any people who want to give DnD a try online with a group of people should give Fantasy Grounds 2 a look.

[www.fantasygrounds.com]

Nifty, but what really matters is that in 4.0 YOU CAN PUNCH A GODDAMN GHOST.

It seems like with D&D 4 they're taking all of the complicated rules and rather than streamlining them in any way shape or form they're just cutting them out all together.

This, plus the MMO-ization of it makes it goddamn terrible.

It's unfortunate that Mr. Gygax had to die relatively recently.

All that rolling must be uncomfortable.

@TheCheese33: The great thing about online games is that you can always find someone to play against. It can be a bit tricky IRL with work, spouses, kids etc.

Whats really awful about this new D&D insider thing is they changed/removed any rule that does not translate well to their online tabletop. So its just like Neverwinter Nights, but with worse graphics.

Seriously. 3E was basically stealing ideas from Fallout, 4E is basically stealing everything from WoW, or MMOs in general. (Of course, 2E was patching in all the best of the best homerules over the years, and 1E was broken (and rather baroque) because of it's fixation on its miniature's past).

But 4E goes way over the top. I'm sorry, a concept like aggro and tanking shouldn't be used in a tabletop setting, even an electronic one. It defies even game logic.

This had potential to get my old gaming group back together. We all live far away from each other now and regularly scheduled gaming is pretty much impossible. However, the monthly fee will be a tough/impossible sell to most of us. We're not poor, by any means, it's just not worth a monthly fee imp.

Think about what you pay $15/mo for and the comparative value. Netflix. World of Warcraft. Will D&D Insider compare to these services?

I wish they would just sell the software in a Player/DM package where the DM is able to host private servers and store character and adventure data. Charge $5-$10 for updates, or package a disc with the rulebook that allows you to update the software.

D&D still has the potential that MMOs and other online gaming doesn't offer. If a player has to go walk a dog or feed his kids, or an emergency comes up, you can just stop for a while without losing the adventure. It's impossible for most people my age to commit 2-5 hours to something without interruption regularly, which makes MMOs impossible. (Believe me I've tried, after a couple interruptions you find you're not wanted on the raids anymore for being unreliable.)

I think I'll stick with my offline 2E collection, thanks.

I liked the concept, but way too overpriced. An online magazine? Errata/updates that used to be free? A GUI virtual table where the payers have to provide all the content?

Not for the price of full game subscriptions. 10-15 bucks a year, maybe but not a monthly fee especially when there are plenty of websites and work-arounds to on-line tabletop games. Haven't these people heard of Skype, Chatrooms and Web Cams?

Sounds a lot like NWN so far. Except with MMO fees for a game you can play face to face. I was wondering how they'd charge hundreds for an editor.

@Slatz_Grobnik:
Fallout is mostly GURPS.

Might be worth it.