Present proof games While discussing the near total lack of electronic publication in the French ttrpg market, I realized one of the reasons I prefer digital documents is that they are much easier to use for virtual play. This made me notice that I know of no game that is present ready : no game that includes resources for online play. Everything still seems to be only thought out for pen and paper and table play. Did I miss the right games? Am I splitting hair? (Or even building a strawman by accident?) Or do you also see a lack there?
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You can buy Fantasy Grounds ready versions of several games, including D&D 5e. I'm pretty sure that several companies make digital resources to support their products. I know that Kobold Press has them with their kickstarted projects. (And remember, it is not low effort or effort free to make those digital resources, even when you have the pfdf ready resources to work with. Add to that the portion of a portion of a market they represent, and you have to expect the prices to be a bit high.
RépondreSupprimerSeveral online play tools have extensive collections of system specific tools and features as well (It is often a poor business choice for a company to try to create digital tools themselves. Software development is seldom their core or even a marginal competency, the specificity required to make a particular- rpg specific tool narrows their potential sales base a lot, and it draws time and effort away from what their actual competency is. And when they hire third parties, well, even the big boys have not got a big enough money coming in to spend the sort of money it takes to develop professional apps, and so end up hiring the lowest bidders who accept projects well beyond their technical competency.
Third parties are often better located to spend the time and effort that development requires, even though they seldom use the specificity that a given company would prefer.
I agree with you that it is lacking... Yet, some games are now made easier to use online. For instance, the recent Fall of Magic comes with files to use for online gaming.
RépondreSupprimerMichael Phillips I don't need any complicated, specific software support. I usualy game with only voice chat and a shared document (Google Slides being my favorite right now). Just having the building blocks - text and images in separated well organised files - would already be excellent.
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