3D VTTs and Maps - I have some concerns!

I still think OSR's is the future of TTRPG's.

Really salient thoughts. My concerns: what happens to the theatre of the mind and how much more prep to do? Who has the time to set these complex dungeons up on top of what they're doing already?

These are exactly my thoughts. A 3D tabletop will never be as fantastic as your own imagination.

No reason to worry! DnD figured out how to make us pay for stuff forever without ever actually owning it.

There is also the concern, for me anyway, is how those heighten expectations of graphical fidelity could intimidate new GMs. For that matter even experienced GMs like me who prefer mostly 2d game assets might get some tension in their play group. This could further exacerbate the GM to player ratio the hobby already has. ~ Adam

I fully agree. I think Wizards of the Coast have taken a big mis-step. In fact, when they announced it, I was wondering if the people making the decisions have ever played their product?

Yea i definitely feel like the more detailed your art style is, the harder it is to make something look good. I usually prefer simplistic black and white 2d maps where I can maybe put stuff down to represent things in a top down view, but at the end of the day i prefer to just write a room description. That being said, if this tool gets a large following of modders (note we already have such people on other map making tools, so this could bring modders across disparate tools to one central platform) then it could be modified to suit all of our needs, which is my hope for the tool.

Yes, this mentions something I am very interested about too! I am working on a video covering the topic of the decreasingly clear separation between a VTT and Videogames.

Personally, I always liked the way Critical Role does it where it's mainly theater of the mind aside from situations like combat where having something more visual can help quite a bit. In such a case I can see these 3D table tops coming in handy, especially if you want that kind of thing but can't afford getting a bunch of miniature buildings, dungeon pieces, and all that. It can also just be fun to have, even if you just use it as a reference and ideas.

There was a quote in Afterthoughts' video, How Games Create New Languages (fantastic video btw): "In a sport, you can do anything that is not expressly forbidden by the rules. In a video game, you can't do anything except what is expressly allowed by the system." I think this sums up my biggest concerns about 3d VTTs. People will work in the confines of the system if the system emulates too much, without emulating the free form reality of, well, reality.

Theatre of the mind will always be my favorite 😅

this is a great point.

I'm a tabletop miniature game designer, and I like the idea of some of these 3D VTT's...just not for role-playing games. To me, a role-playing game "is" theatre of the mind. It's one of many reasons I don't play D&D (a self-described "tabletop rpg"). Give me Dungeon World some dice and a notebook and I'm 100% set. So, having said that, I can see these 3D VTT's actually being better for tabletop wargames, skirmish games, etc. To me, role-playing games have always been solely about the imagination, the cooperative creativity, the absolute opposite of anything permanent/3D/rendered/drawn/modeled. That is the absolute strength of an RPG. It's also why I don't understand people being limited to what WOTC "says" you can do/run/make/use, etc. That's just low-key Games Workshop styled player manipulation.

I, personally with my group, use props, crafts, minis, and theater of the mind, and probably still will.... but as for the new stuff... it's just a collaborative virtual MMO video game, for people with disposable income in playing DnD. There's being a respectful 'purist' to the original, but there's also being a snob... The #1 (and only real) rule in DnD is: "Make the game fun and your own."- G. Gygax It doesn't matter HOW you play, it's all good... Just play!

Before 3d maps we already had fully automatic characters sheets, automatic damage calculation, encounter calculators, animated maps, tokens and even spells. So where do you draw the line of "too videogamey"?

For me, it is hard enough to ask my players to invest in books or time (reading from my dndnbeyond shared content). Now, I’ll have to ask my players to have competent computers, which most of them don’t. That sucks.

I can make a simple representation of a chatacter or draw a piece of furniture on a map or something pretty much in real time in a 2d environment. I'd need a 3d artist to have done the job beforehand in a 3d vtt. Using 2d maps seems to be a nice middle ground between just having wall outlines and making a garrys mod level every session

I think one of the best upgrades a VTT or especially a fully 3D environment gives to ttrpgs is easy handling of complex geometry. I'm thinking in terms of line of sight, distance calculations, light levels, etc. Those can be difficult and time consuming to figure out on a real tabletop or especially in theater of the mind. A VTT can really speed that up and give way to some really cool complex arenas. So, my idea is to take the fully 3D VTT and purposely simplify the graphics and make everything sort of impressionist or super simplified to leave it up to he imagination, basically just using it for the 3D geometric space, distance, vision, light, and area of effect calculations and visuals. I would totally go for that.

I develop video games and I prefer old simple pixel art style games. Why? Because the imagination fill the gaps. Same here, I agree on everything you said. - Time consumption for learn how to use the tool and prepare every scene - No much chance to improvise something of the same quality you offer as the ones you have prepared ahead for weeks - Death of imagination exercise - Cost. Not only in subscription, but also on having an updated PC to run the program smoothly The list is quite long, but I can see a positive thing here. Bring video games players to tabletop games, little by little. Teaching them on how to start to use their imagination. Next step would be then move away from 3d VTT, and If possible, from VTT in general.

My biggest worries are the tilesets available restricting the settings and themes gms want to tackle. The other huge one is limiting outside of the box thinking - think about punching a hole in a wooden building. In 2d or even minis the degree of abstraction makes that fine. But how do you handle that on a 3d app with very concrete rules that you cant draw line of sight through that wall or place a mini half way through it and the high visual fidelity is going to make your players constantly forget that there's supposed to be a hole in the wall. Thats just one example but there are a lot of potential common situation the app will actively harm your ability to portray.