I have admittedly embraced the nerdom of being Dungeon Master for my 2 oldest boys.
We received a D&D Basic Set for Christmas and have played the heck out of it. I have
already visited the local game store once to augment our purchase.
The first thing that occurred to me as I sat and DM’ed for the boys was that this
task of running a game is so clearly something that a software application should
be doing for me. The very idea that I should actually use a pen and paper to track
all of these statistics is almost laughable as the result would be to detract from
the genuine enjoyment of the game. I should be able to set my laptop on the table
and have all of the rulebooks and characters at my disposal. This would keep the game
running smoothly and let the kids focus on the game rather than the stats and calculations.
The Impact of Real Business
Instead of pretending that I would write my own software to do this, I began researching
the stat of Game Master software out there and in doing so stumbled upon an interesting
industry void. While there is a lot of software out there, most of what I am finding
is old school (VB or something) and certainly would not qualify as modern and easy
to use. This stuff is mostly home brewed, wrote-it-in-my-spare-time, type of stuff.
The state of the licensing around D&D itself has lead to some interesting situations.
Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) licensed the rights to D&D a few years back and has essentially
rewritten the game rules in a set of publications under the moniker of thee 3.5 edition
of D&D (35e). While this rule set has been well embraced by the gaming community,
WoTC retains a license to all of the character data that they have published. This
means stuff like the monsters, their stats, the equipment, the spells, etc.
These data sets are important because while a DM could make it all up on
her own, she can spend months planning a single adventure. It is so much easier to
simply buy a fantasy adventure and play through the adventure that has already been
created for you. In my case, I certainly do not want to spend tons of time creating
these worlds. We simply want to play the game. So what kind of software is out there
to facilitate the gaming experience?
RPGXplorer
The only .Net native offering on the list, RPGXplorer is a modest first attempt to
build a modern and easy to use application for the Game Master. Using a MS Office
type interface and familar navigation paradigms, this application shows that an application
of this ilk can genuinely be professional and clean.
Role Playing Master
>
The one that I am currently using, RPM is actually software with the look and feel
of cutting edge VB, circa 1996. It is pretty hard to use, but at least it has the
data sets in it that I need. It does run the game and gen characters well, but only
with a lot of practice and a high tolerance for crashes.
http://www.roleplayingmaster.com
PCGen
The only open source option that I have run across, PCGen is a fully functioned character
generator and item reference tool. It won’t run the whole game for me, but it does
what it does very cleanly and professionally.
http://pcgen.sourceforge.net/01_news.php
Others
There are a ton more, but these are the only ones that I have gotten around to actually
installing. Personally, I am excited about the future products coming from the RPG
crew.