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Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

diceright.com

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Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#41

Post by bee_rider »

jncfhnb wrote: post #28
VonGuard wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big reason we do this is that being a DM, it's REALLY hard to predict what your players are going to do. I used to spend days preparing for a game, only to have the party turn around and wander out of the dungeon 10 minutes into the session, negating all my prep. This way, I can just throw up a map and have them dungeon crawl. I suppose it make a difference that we are playing Rappan Attuk and not a mainline D&D…

I don’t understand how dungeon crawling really felt fun for people. Or random encounters. It just doesn’t seem like a good system for fighting for fun. I always hear the cursed phrase “I guess I attack?” And that’s how I know the fight kind of sucks.

Nowadays we have multiple genres of combat and mechanics focused video games. (FromSoft games, to CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate, to tactics games like Xcom).

In the 70’s, that space was much less populated, so pencil and paper RPGs might have been the best small tactical games people could get their hands on (not everybody wanted to sell their houses for Warhammer miniatures).

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#42

Post by rcarr »

YakiSauce wrote: post #37
rcarr wrote: post #35

Personally, I would market this and build it out for any other TTRPG system but Dungeons & Dragons. I absolutely love Dungeons & Dragons but I think the writing is on the wall that DnD Beyond is going to get the lion's share of all digital DnD spending, especially for newer players. There's always going to be holdouts who don't like the corporate direction, but the majority are going to use DnD Beyond because of how…

Yeah, you make a good point. Definitely something I've thought about. When I started working on Diceright, DnD Beyond hadn't even been acquired by Wizards yet, so a lot has changed in relatively short time. That being said, they recently released an alpha of their 2d tabletop and there really wasn't much there. I assume it will get a lot better though. Still, it was a tough call on what to focus on as DnD really is a…

Yeah you've got to follow your passions. I reckon you could be well positioned to take advantage of an emerging market though. I'm pretty new to it all myself but I've been doing lots of reading on it the past year, and it seems the recent DnD popularity explosion mainly happened through Stranger Things bringing into the popular public conscious again and then Twitch/YouTube players like Critical Role. The latter seem to be drifting slowly away from DnD towards their own RPG systems and ecosystems. If you have a well developed product you may even be able to contact the teams behind these systems who may be interested in acquiring your product to become the base of their own DnD Beyond like system.

I'd join as many RPG reddits, forums and discord channels as you can find and then just periodically scout to see if you can spot any emerging trend and ride the wave. I personally reckon it's only a matter of time until there's some show on par with Critical Role's popularity but for detective RPGs, superheroes, sci-fi, Cthulu or whatever.

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#43

Post by bee_rider »

treyd wrote: post #7

I always thought it was bizarre that there's no serious selfhostable FOSS virtual tabletop software [1]. The overlap between the two communities is very large and passionate. Foundry is selfhostable but it's a clunky proprietary node.js application and there's a ton of janky UI issues. Roll20 is far worse. I presume that this Diceright project is better since it's actually using a canvas. But why doesn't someone just…

People who are into D&D and people who are into open source programming already both have time consuming, creative, indoor and sedentary hobbies. I think they mostly look for additional hobbies that scratch less-overlapping itches.

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#44

Post by rolph »

jncfhnb wrote: post #28
VonGuard wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big reason we do this is that being a DM, it's REALLY hard to predict what your players are going to do. I used to spend days preparing for a game, only to have the party turn around and wander out of the dungeon 10 minutes into the session, negating all my prep. This way, I can just throw up a map and have them dungeon crawl. I suppose it make a difference that we are playing Rappan Attuk and not a mainline D&D…

I don’t understand how dungeon crawling really felt fun for people. Or random encounters. It just doesn’t seem like a good system for fighting for fun. I always hear the cursed phrase “I guess I attack?” And that’s how I know the fight kind of sucks.

some people love and thrill on dice.

D&D is rooted in a dice and miniatures, wargame, light on the scenario building

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail_(game)

enough people liked it, and enough model,miniature, hobby was around that it held, and became more embellished over time.

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#45

Post by mNovak »

Very cool. I've seen a lot of these out there for DnD specifically, and am always impressed by how polished they seem, but I've long since wished there was a better way to play WH40k or other wargames online. The closest thing seems to be Tabletop Simulator, which just feels strange as a full 3D simulator.

It strikes me as slightly ironic, since games like 40k are traditionally extremely high $ investment hobbies, so seemingly a good market for the side-hustle tech crowd.

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#46

Post by noelwelsh »

I'm kinda curious, how many people play RPGs with map and minatures at the centre? We started with D&D and minatures, but quickly migrated away to more free-form systems and styles. For us it was always about making a story together, and nothing bogs that down faster than technicality.

If your game is centered around maps and minatures, is it also centered around combat? Just curious to find out how other people play.

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#47

Post by [deleted] »

miah_ wrote: post #15

This is neat, but so far every thing like this that we've used for our D&D game has been overkill. What we do currently: Take a map from a PDF, load in Paint program (paint.net/photoshop/gimp/whatever), create a layer of BLACK over it. Share the screen. The DM slowly erases BLACK as we move and discover the map. This way, the players cannot see the map. The DM can see the map. The players get to slowly discover the m…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#48

Post by [deleted] »

treyd wrote: post #7

I always thought it was bizarre that there's no serious selfhostable FOSS virtual tabletop software [1]. The overlap between the two communities is very large and passionate. Foundry is selfhostable but it's a clunky proprietary node.js application and there's a ton of janky UI issues. Roll20 is far worse. I presume that this Diceright project is better since it's actually using a canvas. But why doesn't someone just…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#49

Post by [deleted] »

Rayhem wrote: post #39

The #1 important thing I've found for collaborative online gaming (and collaborative online work in general) is *have a good mic*. Having three people in a room around one mic doing the THIS SPEAKER IS SMALL SO YOU SOUND FAR AWAY AND I'M GOING TO TALK LOUD SO YOU CAN HEAR just kills any momentum, as does "What? I...........hear.......run the........18" connection interruptions. Video, maps, everything else is pretty…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I built a virtual tabletop for playing Dungeons and Dragons

#50

Post by hansoolo »

miah_ wrote: post #15

This is neat, but so far every thing like this that we've used for our D&D game has been overkill. What we do currently: Take a map from a PDF, load in Paint program (paint.net/photoshop/gimp/whatever), create a layer of BLACK over it. Share the screen. The DM slowly erases BLACK as we move and discover the map. This way, the players cannot see the map. The DM can see the map. The players get to slowly discover the m…

When I was still playing tabletops a lot, we had the luck of having an extremely creative game leader who was a graffiti artist. So our maps were drawn during the game, which was super awesome!

So do you just play online with strangers? Or do you also play in person?

Ah, that were great times back then...

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