One D&D - Will the New VTT Succeed Where D&D 4e's VTT Failed to Materialize?

Last year, when WotC put out their D&D survey, a limited number of survey takers were offered questions on a potential D&D VTT. 

This week, with the announcement of One D&D (or D&D 5.X, or D&D Eternal), an integrated VTT was part of the announcement.

The question of the day - Has WotC bit off more than they can actually deliver?

Remember the promised VTT for 4e? Its demo used the graphics from Fantasy Grounds for the virtual dice. It planned to sell us virtual minis via micro transactions. Oh, and it was never completed, due to a murder/suicide with two of the main programmers.

Here's the FAQ for One D&D and the accompanying announcements: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1310-faq-one-d-d-rules-d-d-digital-and-physical-digital

Here's the part about the new VTT:

Digital Play Experience

What is the D&D Digital Play Experience?

D&D Digital is in early development. It will be a virtual play space that allows Dungeon Masters to create truly immersive campaigns and players to enjoy a D&D experience where we offload a lot of the rules referencing. Our goal is to make D&D more immersive, faster, more fun, easier to play, and easier to create in.

What’s the difference between the D&D Digital Play Experience and D&D Beyond?

This is intended to be an immersive digital experience for your D&D sessions. It will be integrated with D&D Beyond, which will continue to offer tools for reference and play.

What about all the other digital tools I use today to play D&D?

Whatever tools you love using, keep using them. Our goal is to make the best digital play experience for D&D. And just like everything else in D&D, everything is optional.

When will the D&D Digital Play Experience begin playtesting?

This experience is still in early development. Everything we’ve shown is pre-alpha. We expect to start showing more to players with a closed beta later in 2023.

I have more questions about the D&D Digital Play Experience!

We know players have a lot of questions after getting an exciting first look at D&D Digital. What you saw is still a prototype and in early development. Expect us to share more details when they’re ready.

It will use Unreal Engine 5 to power it. 

Is it aiming to hit too high a bar too fast?

Tell us your thoughts.

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The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Humble Bundle - Pathfinder 2e Core Rules & More

Surpise! I bet you didn't expect another RPG Bundle from Humble Bundle while the OSE Bundle is still going strong. You'd be wrong ;)

The Pathfinder Strength of Thousands Adventure Path Bundle is live on Humble Bundle and gives you a shit ton of gaming material for 25 bucks for 28 products (or less).

Don't forget to subscribe to the Tenkar's Tavern Youtube Channel to ensure you don't miss an episode. https://www.youtube.com/c/TenkarsTavern

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Deal of the Day - ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying: The Assembled Edition

If memory serves me correctly, ICONS has been around in one form or another since 2010 or 2011. The revised, or "Assembled Edition" of ICONS came about in 2014. I've heard nothing but praise for ICONS, although I myself am not a huge fan of supers games. Love the genre in comic books and movies, less so in RPGs. Not sure why.

Until tomorrow morning, ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying: The Assembled Edition is on sale for 3 bucks in PDF (instead of its usual $15 pricing). At a $3 price point, it might be the supers game for you.

Don't forget to subscribe to the Tenkar's Tavern Youtube Channel to ensure you don't miss an episode. https://www.youtube.com/c/TenkarsTavern

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on YouTube. - Tenkar  

Kickstarter - Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland "Total Carnage Edition"

Continuing the Kickstarter streak, we now come to Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland "Total Carnage Edition".

So, what exactly is Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland "Total Carnage Edition"? We will need to go to the Kickstarter copy for this, as I don't think my wording would suffice.

A gonzo vomit-punk post apycolyptic cassette futurism table top RPG. A visceral mash-up of 80s/90s pop culture mixed in a grimdark blender and barfed onto the table! Siskel and Ebert would give Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland two big thumbs down! For fans of The Toxic Avenger and all the sleazy over the top late night sci-fi/horror you can handle! Here is the original write up from the 1st printing Kickstart:

Ultra-Violent, and style matters tabletop RPG, that builds off of the “BX” rules. Half Medieval Fantasy half Sci-Fi, neon lords of the toxic wasteland is a no-holds-barred to the max game! Oozing 80's and 90's nostalgia the game features items from Ninja Stars to Fanny packs in addition to many references to the era.

In addition to being built on top of the 'BX" rules, the core rules use an ability class points system and fortune points which grants the player some flexibility in dire rolls.

So, built on B/X means I can use this with any OSR ruleset of my choice and convenience. I missed this the first time around. I'm in on the rebound ;)

Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland Quickstart Rules

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The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on YouTube. - Tenkar  

Kickstarter - Gary's Appendix OSE

Continuing with the Kickstarter-related postings, we come to Gary's Appendix OSE. The man behind the scenes is Jeff Jones, who happens to be the layout artist for both issues of the Torchlight Zine, as well as the main man behind the new-looking and revised Continual Light digest-sized ruleset coming later this year. So yes, I'm predisposed to liking Jeff's work ;)

What is Gary's Appendix OSE?

Gary’s Appendix is a collective effort by a creative menagerie to create a memorable zine for fantasy gamers. This is a first in a series of zines that explores the curious and fascinating parts of our beloved hobby in a way that is thought-provoking and useful. 

The inspiration for this zine is the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Gary wrote and collected a vast amount of information, rules, and guidance. Its haphazard nature and perplexing subjects makes it as fresh today as when he penned the work almost fifty years ago.

We do not have the audacity to believe that we can produce a work that matches that evergreen classic. Indeed, we draw inspiration from the past works of the gaming giants with no attempt to reproduce it. Gary's Appendix about our love for the past and our excitement for the future. 

At three bucks for the PDF, or 15 plus shipping for print plus PDF, Gary's Appendix OSE really is an easy buy-in. 

Don't forget to subscribe to the Tenkar's Tavern Youtube Channel to ensure you don't miss an episode. https://www.youtube.com/c/TenkarsTavern

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on YouTube. - Tenkar  

Kickstarter - Folio #29 The Ogre Arena Gaming Adventure! (for 1e & 5e)

I've been remiss on covering a number of Kickstarters that are currently funding that I find myself backing (or about to back). Expect to see Kickstarters covered here and on The Tavern's YouTube Channel over the next few days.

So, today I'm covering the latest release in the Folio Series. I've always enjoyed the various Folio releases, of which I have a nearly complete collection between print and PDF. The detachable covers on the print version just make my heart yearn for the gaming days of my youth in the 80s.

The current Kickstarter is Folio #29 The Ogre Arena Gaming Adventure! (for 1e & 5e). It's 5 bucks in PDF, 25 in Print plus PDF, and 15 bucks for the 4 parts currently released in PDF. If you want ALL of the Folio releases as of right now, which is 29 PDFs of the main run and 7 from the Folio's Black Label selection, it's 70 bucks in PDF. That is a Holy Shit level bargain! 

Join the adventure as Art of the Genre  continues to add content to its first new mega-dungeon in over three  years!  This forth part of a six phase mega-campaign is based around  2nd-4th level characters  in a completely revolutionary setting.  I've specially designed the  dungeon to breathe new life into  those adventuring levels while allowing the DM the ability to create   incredible story arcs with old favorite monsters like lizardmen, giant serpents, huge toads, and even early fantasy RPG video game monsters inspired from classic crawls like Wizardry and Bard's Tale!

The Virgin Mine setting  revolves around an adventuring company moving into the wild jungles  ruins  around  the Imperial Capital city of Nextyaria. Here, they will  match wits against other treasure-seeking adventuring companies as well as the intelligent dungeon that hosts relic treasures with nearly unlimited  power.

Folio #29  will introduce characters to the next section of the massive Virgin Mine Dungeon,  the Ogre Arena!.   Unlike normal dungeons, this one carries  various mysteries and  wrinkles that 'bend' the rules of character  advancement, and strategy will need to be employed as  the party learns  the ropes within the Virgin Mine Dungeon setting.  Dungeon details include 2D standard hex maps as  well as fully 3D renderings of The Howling Dungeon section of The Virgin Mine.     A gazetteer section will give background on the new rules and the  exterior camps and companies. Several new monsters lurk within as well as new magical treasure.  It also features a fully removable and stand-alone cover in perfect OSR tradition that acts as a DM Screen!

Don't forget to subscribe to the Tenkar's Tavern Youtube Channel to ensure you don't miss an episode. https://www.youtube.com/c/TenkarsTavern

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on YouTube. - Tenkar  

End of the Game Year 2022 (Long Live 2023!)

Now I do not know about your neck of the woods, but where I am school started last week. GenCon was last weekend (quick aside, I really haven't seen any post GenCon drama this year...am I blind, or was it all just front-loaded this time?) which, to me, means that this year's Convention Season is officially over for 2022.

Yes, we do have gaming conventions still for this calendar year (Long Con anyone?), but I relate the gaming calendar a lot like the school year or the government's fiscal year in that they don't line up with the calendar year.....any convention happening for the rest of the calendar year occurs in next year's gaming year.

OK, so opinions and semantics aside, the end of the year should require end of the year type...."stuff". Last year I posted about post-convention letdown. Last year I was an unemployed "bum" who had been hired for the job I'd been fired from before I'd been fired and I was just waiting to start (same job, new employer and the old employer was fighting the handover......long, not-a-Tavern-story). Now that I'm gainfully employed, and into an appropriate, if not fully-set-up-space, it is time to do my personal end of year gaming review and start my plans for next, er this, gaming year.

Right now I'm only planning on attending one convention next year, North Texas RPG Con (link to the FB group). I might be able to squeeze in Long Con, but it's not something I can plan for yet until my work calendar has been finalized, which won't happen until October. I've already got my vacation request in for that con and I have my ticket purchased....so it's a done-deal in my book.

Right now my big plans for NTRPG is to remake my Whiskey Tasting Kits because I gave my old boxes away last year. I have my plans drawn out and *almost* all my components secured (I need to purchase new vials still) and I'm way ahead of schedule on purchasing the whiskey already. I have my 6 bottles already acquired, but until the kits are produced, I don't know if I can squeeze in a couple more bottles. My goal is to hopefully add another 1 or 2 vials and another kit or three to my larger tasting kit box. Last year the event was more popular than the first year's tasting and if I can make it a little bigger & better, well that's my goal.

I also have a few more projects planned, but most of those are not something I want to share 'cause I don't want to spoil the possible surprises. Some are personal pet projects and some are.... "professional"? 

Although I'm keeping most of these projects secret, I will probably share as they come along...within reason. I'm not going to post the Whiskey/Whisky being tasted next year because that'd ruin things. Also, I have a special work trip to another country coming up and if I manage to find enough "drink" from said country I might do a last minute swap....

Anyway, it's the end of the gaming year and I'm encouraging YOU to take stock of the last year and at least make some loose plans for next year. Remember the 6P's: prior proper planning prevents poor performance.