Yeah, me too. It's amazing I ever found time to work when I worked! Busy as ever in retirement. We had my son, DIL and grandson up for the week. I thought I would have time to post but playing with toddlers is tiring
Interesting news coming out of Wizards of the Coast. I bring it up here because of the only constant in this multiverse: change. They've partnered with Foundry VTT. I don't know exactly what the implications are but I'm sure that it's not good for Roll20 and there seems to be a disconnection now with DnDBeyond.
The announcement is here: Foundry VTT and Wizards of the Coast. I'm not sure what it means but software and business partnerships evolve. The impact on our game should be insignificant.
Yeah, I think Wizards have wanted to politely usher Roll20 out of their party for a while. When D&D 6e comes out, with its new restrictive licence, I don't think Roll20 will have nearly as much integration.
Well ... unless I missed something (certainly possible) ... it doesn't sound like 'they' can change the past, so Roll20 should probably be able to continue working for the current and past versions.
Wizards (Hasbro( underwent some major layoffs recently and money is everything in the corporate world. The real nasty of all this is access to the books on Foundry. What they said last year may not apply next year.
I can understand the move away from Roll20 as it's inferior to Foundry. OTOH, it's actually easier to use Roll20 at this time. What yesterday's release does is integrate the excellent foundry tech that has to be cobbled together by quasi-programmer DMs into an encapsulated solution for D&D. My brother and I are running games on Foundry and it's great when it works but we're both highly technical and can handle it. We're giving the new versions of the modules on Foundry a lot of time to iron out the bugs and get a sense of how other DMs feel about it before leaping forward.
The problem is we have technical issues practically every time we play, and some take a very long time to work out or can't be worked out at all. At least Roll20 has fewer of those, some, but fewer. Foundry seems so complex that there are glitches everywhere.
Zeim, My brother is too focused on the tech issues. When I encounter them we move ahead without some of the tech. As with anything tech there can be many points of failure. One tech issue that did stop play in his game was a client-side misconfiguration that didn't allow use of the GPU. So the player got a black screen instead of seeing the map.
I'll try to explain the tech difference between Roll20 and Foundry.
Roll20 allow tech bolt-on enhancements and automations vi APIs to those who pay for premium service. Otherwise it's pretty vanilla. I have (still have) the pro-level premium service which allows me to. Pulling and syncing character data from DnDBeyond to Roll20 requires that premium level. And even with these APIs, there is little that lets the geek affect the environment in a major way. If you recall, we had to, as players, write macros to do that (Doug did that for us).
Foundry facilitates the building of modules that enhance the experience. So if I am a programmer and want to write software that automates a function, I can. And they have. While the ability to draw walls that prevent movement, handle lighting of all sorts, doors of all sorts (locked, invisible, transparent, one-way, etc.) that work are built into the base software. But there are modules that automate complex sequences and apply complex rules. And these modules work together to provide a really amazing experience. For instance, a barbarian that rages has a lot of things. Here's what it does:
Quote
In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action.
While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren’t wearing heavy armor:
You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws. When you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table. You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. If you are able to cast spells, you can’t cast them or concentrate on them while raging.
Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven’t attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.
Once you have raged the number of times shown for your barbarian level in the Rages column of the Barbarian table, you must finish a long rest before you can rage again.
So, taken all together that's a lot to track. Roll20 doesn't do that. The DM and player have to. In Foundry that's taken care of by a combination of several modules that are designed to work together.
Some of these modules cost money. Take a look at this video to see what's possible and understand why WOTC wants to partner with thee guys and their open-source developer teams.
I thought Hasbro gave up on the restrictive license after serious pushback from players?
Yes, so they decided not to retroactively change the licence that 5th Ed was released under. In theory it'll stay the same. But D&D 6th Ed or One D&D or whatever they call it, will have a new licence that will be more restrictive and do what Hasbro want it to do. That's my understanding of the situation anyway.
And man, if anyone ever uses Foundry to throw a grenade in Shadowrun it'll probably break the internet!
AquaDyne, sorry for the delay btw. I'm cramming in a lot at the moment prior to being stuck on jury service for the next two weeks minimum.
.... I was notified that my mom (who passed away 2 years ago) was just called for Jury Duty. I am debating whether to bother to tell them or let them send more and more stringent notices and threaten her with arrest.......
Actually ... at least in the US ... your employer can 'petition' to have them let you off the hook because it would cause problems for the business. Won't work all the time, but depending on who the company is ... maybe <wink>
I live in a rural area, so when our time comes, we serve a bit more than other places. Last time I was called up, I served on three different juries in a two-week span. But never anything like that...
Well I start my second week tomorrow and I have to say it's the most tedious and frustrating experience I think I've ever had. There's more waiting around than on an international flight!
It's been three days since this post. I figure we can wait another day and if necessary ghost.
If needed I might ask Nep or Zeim to ghost, as I'm in the awkward spot of playing both the NPCs before and a PC after Davroar's turn and would prefer an unbiased move selection.
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There's more waiting around than on an international flight!