What should the DDI Campaign Tool do?

[kenmarable]

According to the DDI survey results at WotC, and the top choice among subscribers was "Tool to create and manage campaign info". Since this is one I thought a lot about (and voted as my top choice), I'm curious what people's thoughts are on what this should entail.

Note: If you are interested in kvetching about this being more empty promises from WotC, or it being a good sign that they are listening to customers, or anywhere in that realm of "what this all says about WotC and their plans", there is a good thread here for that discussion. I'm interested in feature design for the campaign tools here.

I have no idea if they already have their plans mapped out already, but if not, I'm curious what people think "Tool to create and manage campaign info" should include.

Personally, it's yet another web that I had completely mapped out with data schemas and such, that, given the fact that I have dozens of similar ideas equally mapped out, just collected dust. But my[/b[ idea was multi-faceted with different ways of interfacing the information.

1) Maps - You could upload maps (basically any digital image, but we'd presume it's a map) and click on certain locations to be key points. So, for example, upload an overland map of the country and then click and label cities and ruins. Each of those locations could also have maps associated with them so that you could "zoom in" on a city or on ruins. The architecture would be n-level hierarchical (for the techies), so basically each map could have points labeled on them that could be zoomed into for more pictures, on and on as deep as the DM feels like inputting.

Furthermore, each location would also have information associated with it, including possible NPCs, monsters, campaign notes (from DM as well as any individual player), etc.

2) Adventures/Sessions - Basic session information could be tracked including summary of events, major NPCs and monsters encountered, in-game dates, etc.

3) Journals - The DM and each player can have their own journal (basically just a simple blog) for either in or out of character account of the campaign. Due to the relational aspects of the database, you can link in in-game dates, sessions, locations, NPCs, etc.

4) Timeline - Since eveything can be keyed with an in game date (let me tell you, it's pretty tricky coming up with a calendar schema that can handle many different fictional calendars), you can have a timeline view of major events, game sessions, locations visited, etc.

Now, this is definitely a very elaborate, robust web app (another reason why I didn't want to spend a year trying to build it myself and not work on any other side projects). It's more in scale with the Character Builder than the "Bonus Tools". So I don't know which scale they are looking at. But if it is a major tool, I'd love it if it had these sort of robust features. Plus, most of them aren't anything too fancy. The real power of it comes from interlinking all the different facets so that you can view the same information from a variety of ways. For example, with my set up, you can click on a major NPC's name and see every location they have been encountered in, every session they appeared in, who wrote a journal mentioning them, in-game dates they were encountered, etc.

Other thoughts? What else would you want a campaign info tool to do?

 

[Ktulu]

That is a good question, Ken.

Since much of that already exists out there in some format (blogs/wikis/photoshop, etc...), the best way to make this useful is to tie it heavily towards D&D.

I.e. have a built-in reference wiki so when I mention Pelor in a blog, it's automatically linked to the information about the god and followers. This would be awesome, as it would save a lot of time when creating a campaign wiki; obvious stuff would get built without work.

Adding a good house-rule system for adding magic items and spells that can be linked to the character builder (so when I build a special magic item, it calculates and adds a card, what-have-you)

Skill Challenge, Trap, and Encounter building software that houses the templates (and skill challenges/traps located in the mags and such) for editing/creating/printing.

Links through the DDI to the articles/compendium for reference (i.e. if in a forum post/private message to a player I mention the Soldier of Conquest PP, it adds a link to view the Compendium or the Dragon article on Bane.).


Those, plus the regular stuff offered by epicwords/obsidianportal, etc.. would make it a great tool for use.

 

[Badwe]

With regard to a campaign assistant tool, it’s worth clarifying weather this tool is meant to assist with creating a running application that you can use to manage your campaign or if it is meant to assist in creating printable documents, perhaps for your own reference at the table or as handouts for your players.

I would like to see more tools for expediting the math lined out in the DMG. The encounter builder is great, now I want something that’s going to generate me a fullblown document or pdf from the dropdowns I pick and the text I type into the spare boxes. Ideally it should also support me making an encounter page identical/similar to ones in published adventures, making it an easy series of dropdowns and button clicks to add segments of read aloud text for different successes on a perception check.

Of course the dungeon tile planner is out of date and a relic from 3e, I know there are some staunch anti-dungeon tile people even among the 4e loyal. I would settle for, as part of said encounter builder 2.0, the ability to upload an image and drag circled letters of varying size across it.

As part of the campaign I’d like to be able to “link” a series of encounters such that a running total of XP is kept. In addition I’d like to be able to randomly generate a master list of treasure parcels (basically what Asmor has done) and then be able to check them off in the encounter builder to add them to the “treasure” section in an encounter.

On the player management side, a set of drag-able windows that give pertinent player info, such as the stats/defenses card the character generator makes, to make player summary pages. Other good candidates for windows would be checks for given skills, text blurbs provided by players, portraits, etc. If this could be generated by the same .dnd4e file a player has made their character with, gravy! The next logical conclusion would be to take a party of players and see how they would stack up against a generated skill challenge (stealth highlighted in red if no player has it, for example.)

 

[wedgeski]

I already use a wiki to organise my campaign. Whenever I'm designing an encounter, or just rolling out ideas for plots/villains/NPC's, they go straight on the wiki if only for the simple reason that I can review and edit it from anywhere. It also prints out nicely, and if I ever shift to having a laptop at the table (gotta find the right device first), will make for very convenient real-time browsing.

So, Wizards' tool must offer all of that (quite easy, a heavily templated wiki) but also much more, and for the life of me I can't really think what they could value-add to make it a worthwhile investment of their time. I'm probably just not thinking hard enough.

 

[Festivus]

Character database - Be able to upload Character Builder builds and view them online. This would allow me to print out a charsheet for someone who can't make it to a session.

Dungeon Tiles Dungeon builder - Create and save maps, complete with build instructions for making them with dungeon tiles I own.

Experience and Loot log - Who got what XP and item from which adventure. For Age of Worms I created an excel spreadsheet so you could see exactly which game session and which monster provided what XP and what loot. I found it VERY helpful.

Session Log and Character Journals - As someone else mentioned, general notes about what happened in this particular session.

 

[Storminator]

I used to dream up all the cool stuff I wanted... but these days I'm much more interested in stuff I can have right away. Not complicated... quick.

I think they should make a Delve builder. Let me drag Dungeon Tiles onto a blank map and have 'em click together. Add a key by tile. Let me drag monster icons onto the tiles. Let me set difficult and hazardous terrain and place traps. Give me a section I can write some free form notes. Automatically organize and print.

Give me some summary: You need these dungeon tile sets, these monster minis/tokens, this terrain, etc.

Maybe later give me some add-ons - let me set an XP budget or theme of monsters and filter my options or store fan content and let me use it.

I don't think we need another wiki specifically organized for D&D. That seems like a lot of work for little/no return.

PS

 

[Plane Sailing]

Where are the old threads about the original conception of Mastertools when you need them?

 

[Stormtalon]

Well, anything like this involving maps and timelines must of necessity include the ability for the maps to create an Indiana Jones-esque red line showing travel from point to point for folks following along....

....complete with appropriate pulp-adventure travel music.

 

[Yergi]

That is a good question, Ken.

Since much of that already exists out there in some format (blogs/wikis/photoshop, etc...), the best way to make this useful is to tie it heavily towards D&D.

I.e. have a built-in reference wiki so when I mention Pelor in a blog, it's automatically linked to the information about the god and followers. This would be awesome, as it would save a lot of time when creating a campaign wiki; obvious stuff would get built without work.

Adding a good house-rule system for adding magic items and spells that can be linked to the character builder (so when I build a special magic item, it calculates and adds a card, what-have-you)

Skill Challenge, Trap, and Encounter building software that houses the templates (and skill challenges/traps located in the mags and such) for editing/creating/printing.

Links through the DDI to the articles/compendium for reference (i.e. if in a forum post/private message to a player I mention the Soldier of Conquest PP, it adds a link to view the Compendium or the Dragon article on Bane.).


Those, plus the regular stuff offered by epicwords/obsidianportal, etc.. would make it a great tool for use.

This.

Take what Obsidian Portal already does so well and add tight DDI integration. The reference wiki similar to what enworld does for acronyms on the forums is an awesome idea. Being able to have campaign-specific entries on the reference wiki would be even awesomer. See a name in an adventure log and forget who that is? Mouse-over and get a nice pop-up with a short description; no need to leave the page.

Tight integration with the compendium and character builder would also be a plus. Put stat blocks for monsters/items directly onto a wiki page/adventure log, and be able to upload the player's character sheets directly that they can update when they level.

Man, now I really want this.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Taking the OP's original points,

1: Maps, what you are describing here is essentially a fantasy GIS system and franckly I do not see the return as worthwhile. At least not initially. If all the other stuff is done and you have a mapmaker/VTT then a GIS tool would be nice.

2, and 3, adventure/session and player journals and blogs could be useful but are you talking about blog/wiki type thing or are talking about an intergration of the existing encounter tool and monster creation with better printing facilities tied into a wiki type application with the addition of maintining a campaign journal?

4 timeline, again here do you something like a GANTT chart for a fantasy campaing based on fantasy calanders or something that would allow the creation of timeline diagrams and 'plot flow diagrams' or some combination of all of these things. I think the latter would be pretty cool, especially if one could link documents to parts of the diagrams.