Latest / Bards and Barrels / S1 Ep.2 - First Thoughts on DnD Beyond's new VTT
Transcript
- 0:02SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Bars and Barrels, the podcast for Dungeons and Dragons players, new and old.
- 0:06SPEAKER_01: We're just a few 30-something dads who play DD on the regular.
- 0:10SPEAKER_01: I'm Ross Struess, and I'm joined by my friends and co-hosts Brett Miller and Phil Boone.
- 0:14SPEAKER_01: We'll be exploring the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons in each episode, sharing our experiences, offering tips and advice for those who play and run this classic game.
- 0:23SPEAKER_01: Don't miss out on us discussing everything from character creation to combat mechanics and even delving into some of the lore behind the game.
- 0:29SPEAKER_01: We'll also be sharing some of our funniest and most memorable moments from our own DD campaigns.
- 0:34SPEAKER_01: So whether you're a new player just starting out or a seasoned veteran looking to reminisce about your own adventures or just get a new perspective on things, Bards and Barrels has something for everyone.
- 0:44SPEAKER_01: So sit back, grab a drink, and join us as we roll for initiative and embark on this epic adventure.
- 0:52SPEAKER_02: Welcome back, fellas.
- 0:54SPEAKER_02: Hey.
- 0:55SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna jump right into it because I am excited for this one.
- 1:00SPEAKER_02: So uh we just got a recap of DD Direct 2023, which is like their um big announcements for 2023, the new things that are coming in everything DD.
- 1:11SPEAKER_02: And there was this section that I got goosebumps about.
- 1:16SPEAKER_02: I sent it to you guys right away.
- 1:18SPEAKER_02: Uh, it is a new virtual tabletop within DD Beyond.
- 1:22SPEAKER_02: This is something they've been talking about for quite a while.
- 1:25SPEAKER_02: Uh, but we watched the trailer, watched the the playthrough that they demoed of the new tabletop, and oh ooh, it looks so awesome.
- 1:36SPEAKER_02: Uh, what are your guys' first takes?
- 1:38SPEAKER_01: I I'm gonna be honest, I was I was floored at how good it looked.
- 1:43SPEAKER_01: I I was expecting not I shouldn't expect something like Roll 20 because I roll 20 is very flat, and we knew it was gonna be something better than that, but I still expected something in that ballpark, and and this knocked out the expectation I had.
- 1:58SPEAKER_00: I was honestly blown away.
- 2:00SPEAKER_00: Like I think they talked about using the Unreal Engine when they built this, and in some of the kind of trial gameplay that they were showing, and I think they're still pre-alpha, right?
- 2:09SPEAKER_00: So we're super early on in this phase, but what they were showing is very advanced compared to anything else that I've seen out there on the market at this point in time.
- 2:20SPEAKER_00: The actual fact that your tokens are more like 3D renderings of your characters, it can attach to you know anything that you've built in beyond.
- 2:29SPEAKER_00: I think one of the players mentioned, hey, I have this wizard character that I've been really wanting to play.
- 2:35SPEAKER_00: And the guy who was running the game asked, Well, hey, do you have that character built in DD Beyond?
- 2:40SPEAKER_00: She's like, Yeah, you can just import it.
- 2:43SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
- 2:44SPEAKER_00: Like being able to just bring in all that information, the fact that everything's housed in Beyond, you don't have to necessarily worry about plugins that you rely on in some of your other virtual tabletops to send your rolls, things like that.
- 2:58SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I loved was watching a character roll their dice.
- 3:02SPEAKER_00: And when you roll your dice, they interact with the terrain.
- 3:06SPEAKER_00: I think there was a table in the scene, actually, and the dice, when it rolled the D20, it actually kind of rolled up the table and landed on top of the table.
- 3:16SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of fun to see the interaction that they've built into it.
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: I think they actually did a good job spending time focusing on parts that people are really going to gravitate towards.
- 3:28SPEAKER_02: Uh, and if you haven't seen this video, we'll post it up on our Facebook page, Bards and Barrels.
- 3:32SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't followed us, give us a follow or a like on Facebook.
- 3:36SPEAKER_02: Uh, but oh man, it looks so nice.
- 3:38SPEAKER_02: When you cast a spell, it throws down um, like if you're casting magic missile on a creature, it it fires missiles onto the creature and shows like a little splash damage of how much damage you're dealing onto it.
- 3:51SPEAKER_02: Oh, so nice.
- 3:53SPEAKER_01: I I liked how um totally with the magic missiles, I remember that was one in my brain that I was like, that was really cool.
- 3:58SPEAKER_01: Also when like the the monster that they were using, like attacked, like it did that the acid splash.
- 4:04SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
- 4:04SPEAKER_01: Oh that yes.
- 4:05SPEAKER_02: I was thinking when it erupted out of the yeah, that that too.
- 4:09SPEAKER_01: That was the first one.
- 4:09SPEAKER_01: First out of the ground.
- 4:10SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
- 4:11SPEAKER_01: And I I thought it was really cool how like when it attacked either a player or a monster, how it would like the token would like hit the other token and then the damage die would like fly out of it, kind of thing.
- 4:20SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think that's what it was anyway.
- 4:22SPEAKER_01: So that was like really cool that that all happens in one move.
- 4:25SPEAKER_01: So it's like it rolled the attack.
- 4:27SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm guessing that again, pre-alpha, so we haven't seen a lot of the things yet, but I'm guessing there was an attack roll that was made once it was passed.
- 4:35SPEAKER_01: That happened, and then since the attack was successful, it rolled the dice automatically, which was really stinking cool.
- 4:41SPEAKER_00: They definitely got me excited, right?
- 4:44SPEAKER_00: Like they hooked me.
- 4:45SPEAKER_00: I want to know.
- 4:47SPEAKER_01: It's it's good marketing for sure.
- 4:50SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, we're not gonna know for a couple months yet, or several months, depending on exactly when they drop this, what this is gonna be like.
- 4:57SPEAKER_01: But I agree 100%, Phil.
- 4:59SPEAKER_01: I first look, I'm super excited about this.
- 5:02SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to do it.
- 5:03SPEAKER_01: The one thing that I don't want to say concerns me because again, we haven't actually played this yet, is ease of use.
- 5:10SPEAKER_01: Because it's like one of the things that they talked about was like you can take X and build it for your campaign, which is great, but how easy is it to do that?
- 5:19SPEAKER_01: That's probably the one thing that I'm like, we just don't know yet.
- 5:23SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping that they kept it super easy.
- 5:27SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you my other hesitation as well, real quickly, is so I I uh have a subscription to DD Beyond.
- 5:35SPEAKER_00: Uh as a DM, it just made sense for me to have that.
- 5:38SPEAKER_00: I have most of the material and I can share it with my group.
- 5:41SPEAKER_00: One of my concerns potentially about this new feature is you know, will a party that doesn't want to purchase a subscription to DD Beyond, they just want to use a free account, will they be able to use this virtual tabletop?
- 5:58SPEAKER_00: Or is someone in that group going to have to actually commit to purchasing a subscription?
- 6:05SPEAKER_00: Um, I would hate to see it become a pay-to-play type of situation when other platforms offer a free, for the most part, option.
- 6:16SPEAKER_00: That's one of my concerns.
- 6:18SPEAKER_02: Uh well, I think at the level that they're at, it's just so far beyond any other offering with the 3D graphics.
- 6:27SPEAKER_02: The you can move around your scene.
- 6:30SPEAKER_02: Um being able to have 3D terrain built into your thing, jump up onto a table with your character.
- 6:38SPEAKER_02: It's so much beyond that I think obvious DD beyond.
- 6:42SPEAKER_02: I get it.
- 6:42SPEAKER_02: Uh I think it's just it's so far above anybody else that people are gonna pay.
- 6:50SPEAKER_02: People that want to really get immersed in the experience, in the story, I think a lot of people are gonna pay for this.
- 6:58SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think so too.
- 7:00SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I'm most curious about that they they didn't tell you anything was are they gonna have like the the pre-packaged if you're running Storm King's Thunder, are they gonna have all of those things built for you so you can just hop in and play?
- 7:16SPEAKER_01: Part of me says they have to do that, right?
- 7:18SPEAKER_01: Because that one, if you have to pay for it, it's easy money to make.
- 7:22SPEAKER_01: And then two, it's pre-built so you can just run the campaign, read through the book, run it, and have everything there for you.
- 7:28SPEAKER_00: I know they didn't touch on it, but I have an assumption there, right?
- 7:30SPEAKER_00: And my assumption is it's gonna be tied back to you know, whoever your DM is or whoever's doing the campaign sharing, that in essence they'll have access to anything that they have purchased in Beyond.
- 7:42SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm guessing they're gonna ultimately end up doing, which time will tell.
- 7:46SPEAKER_00: You know, we'll see what they actually do.
- 7:48SPEAKER_00: But that's my initial thoughts.
- 7:50SPEAKER_00: One of the other pieces that I don't necessarily think we mentioned that I really liked because sometimes it's a hassle in other um virtual tabletops, is when you pick up your character and you start moving them, it immediately tells you how far you're moving.
- 8:05SPEAKER_00: And when you hit your kind of like 25 feet or your 30 feet or whatever your movement is, you know, like immediately.
- 8:12SPEAKER_00: It shows you a circle of basically how far your movement is.
- 8:16SPEAKER_00: And sure, they mentioned in the package that you know, you if you want to move further than that, you can.
- 8:21SPEAKER_00: You're not limited to that for the sake of maybe theater of the mind or something along those lines.
- 8:27SPEAKER_00: But I think just having that automatically built in, like that's a huge win automatically, right there up front.
- 8:34SPEAKER_02: So uh I read the article that went along with the the poster in the video.
- 8:40SPEAKER_02: Um, and one of the things they touched on that they're still trying to figure out with that automatic being able to figure out things for you is the balance of by default how much automation should be in there.
- 8:53SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you roll an attack, does the does the save on the monster, or if the monster is attacking you, does that save roll automatically?
- 9:01SPEAKER_02: Or do you need to trigger that as the DM?
- 9:05SPEAKER_02: And finding that balance in there on what level of control do the players still get versus how much of it just rolls automatically as somebody you click an attack and everything rolls for you automatically.
- 9:17SPEAKER_02: Having that balance in there is gonna be really tricky, and I could see it being scalable based on who the party is, and it's gonna be really tricky to make sure that they nail that because uh an advanced table of players is gonna want that uh they're gonna want to have more control.
- 9:38SPEAKER_02: A brand new table that has never played before is probably okay having their savings throws rolled automatically.
- 9:45SPEAKER_01: I I I think you hit that on the head because I think that's the beauty of DD Beyond, is if you have your player character in there and you're not you're I I started on pen and paper DD type thing where I'm looking at the dice I need to roll and I physically roll them, it it does the math and everything for you, right?
- 10:01SPEAKER_01: I to the point they're trying to make, I think it's gonna have to be a sliding scale.
- 10:06SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be able to need to pick.
- 10:07SPEAKER_01: So it's like either it's fully automated or you have to trigger those things.
- 10:11SPEAKER_01: It it just in my mind, because of the the levels of factions that are in there, that's how it's gonna play out.
- 10:19SPEAKER_00: I think what they're ultimately gonna have to do in order to cater to all audiences is you're gonna almost have to have a beginner intermediate advance so you can almost set a mode.
- 10:29SPEAKER_00: Your beginner mode, it rolls those saves for you.
- 10:32SPEAKER_00: You're in the advanced mode, you're gonna make, you know, you can tweak every decision you want.
- 10:37SPEAKER_00: Is that at the end's discretion?
- 10:38SPEAKER_00: Is that at the player's discretion?
- 10:40SPEAKER_00: Is that gonna roll automatically?
- 10:42SPEAKER_00: Saving throws, ability checks, damage rolls on an attack, all of that's gonna have to be customizable at the advanced level, or at the player level, if you hit, let's just roll that damage, right?
- 10:51SPEAKER_00: Don't make them think about it, just do it.
- 10:53SPEAKER_00: I think that's maybe what they're gonna have to lean into.
- 10:56SPEAKER_00: So I'll be curious to see how that develops, but I look for something probably akin to that.
- 11:02SPEAKER_02: Uh, the other thing I was really excited about uh in the the article that went along with the video was the level of um awareness or customization, just understanding the player base and how people legitimately play.
- 11:19SPEAKER_02: Uh with a lot of the virtual tabletops, it's heavily skewed to uh people are playing together in person and are just using this in person, or some of them are more based on everybody's remote.
- 11:34SPEAKER_02: DD Beyond is working on putting it so it's flexible, so that one person can be remote one week and everybody else is in person, and having a balance there so that it still fits the party's makeup, and they can just jump in and go without having a lot of extra work is one of the key things that they're focused on developing and optimizing for.
- 11:54SPEAKER_02: So you can just jump in.
- 11:55SPEAKER_02: It's not a lot of extra work for the DM, especially.
- 11:59SPEAKER_01: Totally.
- 11:59SPEAKER_01: I I I and I I don't want to get too pessimistic on this, but my my mind takes me to Wizards of the Coast had to do something that would win some players back over over the fiasco over the open gaming license.
- 12:13SPEAKER_01: And and is that is this that thing?
- 12:15SPEAKER_01: Maybe I don't know.
- 12:16SPEAKER_01: We'll see how that all ha hashes out.
- 12:18SPEAKER_01: But but that kind of goes to your point that everything they've showed so far is something that players wanted.
- 12:24SPEAKER_01: So it's like, did they do this was already in the works, but did they do this because at least in part because or they're pushing this out now in part because of some of the fiasco that happened over the last few months?
- 12:37SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
- 12:37SPEAKER_00: I think the timing, I think the timing of the delivery may have something to do with that.
- 12:42SPEAKER_00: But by looking at what they've built so far, I mean, this has been in development clearly for a good amount of time.
- 12:48SPEAKER_00: I mean, with as far as they've gotten to this point, you know, this is not just a quick fix to the OGL fiasco.
- 12:54SPEAKER_00: So timing-wise and marketing, sure, development-wise, I mean, this is something they've clearly been sinking hundreds of hours into.
- 13:02SPEAKER_01: Good PR move, if nothing else for sure.
- 13:05SPEAKER_02: You know, the shocking thing is this is coming from D D Beyond.
- 13:11SPEAKER_02: The most like interactive role-playing that we've seen from D on D D Beyond is being able to roll a dice on your character sheet.
- 13:20SPEAKER_02: What the hell?
- 13:21SPEAKER_01: Where did this come from?
- 13:23SPEAKER_01: Well, I think some of it is just just the advancement of the Unreal engine in a lot of ways.
- 13:30SPEAKER_01: What?
- 13:32SPEAKER_02: Give us some nuggets now, but holy cow, you're just jumping from like uh horse and carriage to lights light speed in just one jump.
- 13:42SPEAKER_01: Well, it's one of those things.
- 13:43SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna jump into a market and win that market immediately, you have to make a splash, and that's exactly what they're doing here.
- 13:50SPEAKER_01: This is how you pull back in all the people who are out.
- 13:53SPEAKER_01: Uh obviously DD Beyond owns Roll 20 now, but people who are out in the other VTTs that are out there, the virtual tabletops, that's how you pull those people back in because now I offer something that nobody else has.
- 14:04SPEAKER_01: And not only is it really cool, it's 3D, it's built with the Unreal Engine, so it looks fantastic, but you can build things on here too.
- 14:13SPEAKER_00: And I think that Wizard says now with this VTT, they've captured the market, right?
- 14:18SPEAKER_00: So with them combining with actual, like um, you know, they've got DD Beyond in their corner now, so then they're gonna have this virtual tabletop in their corner.
- 14:29SPEAKER_00: Now, all of a sudden, a fully digital player with no access to any physical books whatsoever, or physical tabletop, or even a physical group to play with, you've completely eliminated that barrier of entry now.
- 14:43SPEAKER_00: You can have a player who's never played before meet up with a virtual group, build their players completely digitally in the DD Beyond tool, and then turn right around and use the tabletop to play a fully immersive game without ever even necessarily meeting their party in person, period.
- 15:00SPEAKER_01: Which I think goes back to your point earlier, Brett, is the the only real roadblock that we don't know about yet is is this gonna cost them more money?
- 15:09SPEAKER_01: And and so if you're a new player and you're just getting into this and you may not want to drop the money or have a party that has access to it, are you gonna be able to do this or drop the money to do this?
- 15:20SPEAKER_01: That's what we don't know yet, for sure.
- 15:22SPEAKER_02: You know, the other interesting thing is some of the other things that were going on at this presentation of DD Direct.
- 15:30SPEAKER_02: Uh so some of the other things were uh at local game stores, there's gonna be local play events.
- 15:36SPEAKER_02: That's something that's really cool.
- 15:37SPEAKER_02: If you can go in as I know a lot of stores already have this setup where they have like open DD nights, uh, but if you can formalize that and get a a more robust open open door policy so that you can start a campaign, develop new people, connect people in getting into a game, more is the better.
- 15:57SPEAKER_01: Well, I think I think what this lends itself to is if you want to stream your your party playing DD, it's not just a video camera on people sitting around a table anymore.
- 16:08SPEAKER_01: You can actually stream beyond and see these things happening with your characters.
- 16:13SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's really cool.
- 16:15SPEAKER_01: And and in game at game stores, it's the same kind of thing.
- 16:17SPEAKER_01: It's no longer people standing around a table listening to people chat, right?
- 16:21SPEAKER_01: It's like you can actually sit there and look at a screen.
- 16:23SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're still sitting in front of you, but you can look at that screen and actually see what they're playing out, and that changes the game entirely.
- 16:31SPEAKER_02: The the DD Twitch category is gonna explode flipping like that.
- 16:39SPEAKER_02: That whole category within within Twitch is gonna re be revolutionized on this one update.
- 16:44SPEAKER_02: Totally.
- 16:44SPEAKER_01: If it works, and it immediately makes me think is it do other real play groups like Dungeons and Daddies or Critical Role adopt something like this so you can actually see those characters and do cool things?
- 16:58SPEAKER_01: Do they need to?
- 16:59SPEAKER_01: No.
- 16:59SPEAKER_01: Will they?
- 17:00SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
- 17:01SPEAKER_01: I think it'd be really cool.
- 17:03SPEAKER_02: It's extra complicated with it's officially DD now.
- 17:08SPEAKER_01: True.
- 17:08SPEAKER_01: But but one of the things that they try to sell on you is that your ability to create your campaign, not necessarily DD or Wizards of the Coast works.
- 17:18SPEAKER_01: You can take your campaign homebrew and build it in a couple of years.
- 17:21SPEAKER_02: I know, but like with the poster child critical role, but they are basically the ambassadors for DD.
- 17:30SPEAKER_02: If they can step in and use this official DD product now, whoo, that is a big endorsement.
- 17:38SPEAKER_01: I think they do.
- 17:39SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know.
- 17:40SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of question there.
- 17:41SPEAKER_01: I think they they will end up doing that at some point.
- 17:43SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
- 17:44SPEAKER_01: I love it'll be interesting.
- 17:46SPEAKER_02: He likes his minis.
- 17:49SPEAKER_00: I love to, I'm I'm really hopeful to see you know that kind of initiative to move to some of these, like in your friendly local game store type of movement, to do the same thing for DD and the game stores that it kind of did for Magic the Gathering, right?
- 18:04SPEAKER_00: You start having those Friday night magics where people can come and they can play freely.
- 18:08SPEAKER_00: I'm interested to see what that does for the game store as well.
- 18:12SPEAKER_00: One of the other things that I um saw in that wrap-up as well was that they're going to release kind of this new uh Minecraft pack.
- 18:21SPEAKER_00: So there is this collaborate collaboration now between DD and Minecraft.
- 18:27SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you guys took a look at it or not, but one of the things that really caught my eye in there was seeing a beholder, like in the Minecraft block style of rendering, is fantastic.
- 18:39SPEAKER_00: And I think they mentioned in there too they're gonna have like mimics, and there's mentions even of dragons.
- 18:45SPEAKER_00: Um, but from what I read, it's gonna be a standalone adventure, like 10 hours worth of play that exists inside of Minecraft already.
- 18:53SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I didn't know that part.
- 18:54SPEAKER_01: But what what came to mind just now, wouldn't that be an epic song, the 8-bit beholder?
- 19:02SPEAKER_02: Okay, so uh a couple weeks ago, you guys brought up your you showed your nerdum with talking about your magic cards.
- 19:09SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna show my nerdum here.
- 19:11SPEAKER_02: Uh having a a Minecraft like long form thing DD combo.
- 19:19SPEAKER_02: You know what I think about?
- 19:21SPEAKER_02: Or like in my head, I'm comparing it to RuneScape.
- 19:24SPEAKER_02: Did you ever play that?
- 19:26SPEAKER_02: Growing up?
- 19:27SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course.
- 19:28SPEAKER_02: Oh, like even the VTT or the very virtual tabletop where it's like splashing the the roll of the dice and it's like popping up and with your like the amount of damage you dealt to a character, like that's that's just ripping off uh RuneScape.
- 19:46SPEAKER_01: So small sidebar here.
- 19:49SPEAKER_01: Brett Brett and I actually have a Minecraft realm that we play in together.
- 19:53SPEAKER_01: So just extending the further nerdoms that we can we can associate with.
- 19:57SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we we like found an area to like build a city finally, and immediately we probably weren't even like an hour into the build.
- 20:05SPEAKER_01: We were like, this place is totally gonna be like Baldur's Gate.
- 20:10SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
- 20:11SPEAKER_02: We had a lower city with an upper city with a temple on the top.
- 20:14SPEAKER_02: Yes.
- 20:15unknown: Oh man.
- 20:16SPEAKER_00: Was it a temple to God?
- 20:17SPEAKER_00: I must know.
- 20:18SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's going to be.
- 20:19SPEAKER_02: Well, it already stinks.
- 20:23SPEAKER_02: Uh so yeah, it's been a a really exciting DD Direct 2023.
- 20:28SPEAKER_02: Uh, final thoughts from either of you guys.
- 20:31SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just think it's fun that all of a sudden, I mean D D D had already become more mainstream in the last year, but now with the movie coming out, the announcement of the VTT, getting involved in Minecraft, just those other nerddoms, I it's just an exciting time to be a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, and I'm super stoked for the rest of this year.
- 20:51SPEAKER_00: I can't wait for the Dungeons and Dragons slash Minecraft Funko pops that are gonna come out that are gonna be like block versions of a Beholder because you know it's coming.
- 21:02SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get one more nerdom in there, and it's gonna be fantastic.
- 21:06SPEAKER_02: Yes.
- 21:07SPEAKER_02: I will say I think this is like the the coming out of COVID.
- 21:12SPEAKER_02: They've had time to uh jump into getting all these things fully developed, and now they're starting to come to fruition, and we're gonna ramp up even more as DD is exploding in popularity, especially with the DD movie coming out.
- 21:28SPEAKER_02: Um more is more exciting things are on the horizon, and I'm excited for it.
- 21:33SPEAKER_02: Uh, but with all that, we're gonna wrap up here.
- 21:35SPEAKER_02: Uh, make sure if you haven't already, follow us on Facebook.
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- 21:42SPEAKER_02: Share it with your friends, uh, and we'll catch you on the next episode.