I played RPG Stories with the Devs!

[@bravealicegames]

Now for the explanations:

[@asquirrelplays]

Thanks for the explanations and positive words! I figured a lot of things were still "up in the air" about what is and isn't going to be in the base game, and what will be available later. And even if it was planned out, who's to say it wouldn't change later down the road because of one reason or another (for better or for worse). I really dig what ya'll are doing over there. RPGS is so satisfying to build in, and again, we had an absolute blast with Hobgoblin. I'm super excited to see where RPGS goes in the future and hope it gets up there with the likes of Foundry and Roll20. 💪

[@bravealicegames]

@@asquirrelplays Cheers for everything! Keep it up!

[@ChaseOrdonis]

I like the way you explain things and your humour! Great video!

[@asquirrelplays]

Thank you! Hopefully it was useful, or at the very least, entertaining!

[@bravealicegames]

Hey, thank you for this amazing video

[@asquirrelplays]

welllllllllllllll heck

[@diegopaez3377]

This video just landed ond my feed, i watched it along some others, i love them! Keep it up dude, new sub :)

[@asquirrelplays]

woooooo! I like me some new subs. I like the ones that watch stuff even better!

[@oldgrognardsays]

Sounds promising. I think that since they are actually listening to feedback they will do well. I could see this software or something like it becoming a tool for professional DMs, and then a more casual, user friendly version maybe coming out of it after the professional types work out the bugs and figure out what the useful/ less useful parts are. I think your background with 3d engineering software makes you uniquely suited to be someone that learns the software and shows us normal folk what it can do, and can answer questions about how to get it to do stuff. A big part of if someone is able to figure out software is if they enjoy using it, and you seem to be having fun with it. I look forward to seeing how this develops.

[@asquirrelplays]

I think the entry fee might be what prevents professional DMs from taking it up. Right now they can use Foundry all they want because the GM is the only one that has to have a license. That said though, I wonder if they would consider a "Professional GM License" where they could invite X amount of people per month or something? Though I guess if a professional GM were interested, they could have grabbed the backer tier that allowed them to do that. If they had found the kickstarter in time that is. Interesting thoughts.

[@juauke]

I was looking forward to your preview of this and this is pretty cool! Definitely in my wishlist PS: my table had to end because I needed to move back to my parents since I found work next to them I also had some health issues which caused me to be hospitalized. I'd love to find a way to play with my group from my parents but it's kinda hard

[@asquirrelplays]

noooooooooooo not the table ending. Or the hospitalization. I suppose that's bad too. There's a few online tabletops to use that are free, including the dreaded Roll20, but there's other ways to play too. The Whiteboard "activity" in Discord works. Sharing a spreadsheet or powerpoint/Google Slides also works. Or just plain "theater of the mind" is always an option. That is, if you're willing to hop on internet calls to play. If you just got to play in person, I don't know what the solution is.

[@juauke]

@asquirrelplays yeah, it ended quite abruptly tbh and I even tried to start an Electric Bastionland that was started to get into a Made in Abyss abyss-like underground but it ended up quite abruptly as well since I had to move out much faster than I had predicted at first The hospitalization was also quite bad. A suspicion of Diabetes was unfortunately confirmed :/ I have FoundryVTT as well I did two online games of Sword & Wizardry Complete Revised which went quite well with Owlbear Rodeo but I don't feel like having the maps visible are my kind of GMing I'd be okay with playing online even though I prefer in-person play

[@asquirrelplays]

@@juauke Aw man, I hate to hear that. That stinks. Hopefully insurance isn't being too much of a hassle at least. Though if it's anything like mine ... 💀 You know, I'm kinda 50/50 on maps vs no maps. There's a lot of little things I like to do with the map, like dropping little hints/foreshadowing that they may or may not even pick up on, or silly visual effects. But I've also played without maps and it certainly has its own charm. Though I guess the good news is nobody said you had to pick one and stick with it!

[@juauke]

@@asquirrelplays thanks for worrying about me, that is very kind Fortunately, I am French and health insurance here is much better than in the US for sure I hope that you're okay though I think it's simpler without and I'm much more used to it But I feel like by experimenting and learning more about VTTs, I might like it as well but for now, I feel like it takes much more time to prepare but for not much gain And with experience, it might be fun to hint / foreshadow things I do think that leaving things to each imagination makes for very fun storytelling and helps people be confident in expanding the story / lore That's very true!

[@Catlord98765]

I like the part where you "rotate the instances"

[@asquirrelplays]

I see what you did there

[@TheIoPC]

Squirrels always, eventually make the workplace more awkward. 😛 ~ Adam

[@asquirrelplays]

every single time

[@windmark8040]

Keys?? Keys? ?

[@asquirrelplays]

keys! The secret is buried in the video somewhere.

[@professordey]

While this certainly seems interesting, I do have a number of concerns, some being the same as yours. Particularly the use of basic features as dlc I do feel is inappropriate, make them normal stretch goals, that way your dev time is fully funded and not just paywalling features to keep making money. As someone who's run gaming sessions on tabletop sim I'm also in agreement about not making the players buy in just to play. With a visibly quite decent map editor available you could sell the software to DMs on that alone, if you must charge, then making everyone pay essentially the full price for most indy games for a gimped version just feels wrong. Beyond that, I personally am just not a fan of promoting/supporting use of Heroforge given their awful and manipulative licensing. Just allow stl imports outright or rigged models, most game engines do have the flexibility to do that without too much headache. I do wish this project the best though, genuinely and I hope they can iron things out to be better for the players and dms out there. I am curious how well this would stand up to use in non-dnd esque settings, especially as they bring in character sheets etc, as I write and DM mostly my own settings.

[@asquirrelplays]

all fair and valid. If you haven't already, make sure to have a gander at the pinned comment. They did say some packages will be DLC and some updates will be free at a much later date, but what is what is still to be determined. I would imagine it all depends on the money they make in the meantime. And in their defense, I don't particularly feel like they WANT to sell it in pieces and would probably much rather just sell it as one thing. If anything, it'd just be easier to deal with in the long run. But, bills gotta get paid I suppose. That said, I do wonder how much it would cut into their potential earnings if you were able to drop in your own models. If they keep that closed off, they could sell models and stuff like I mentioned as a way to keep earning, and then roll the functionality out for free. I'm sure there's a lot to learn on their end, and probably no matter what they do, it's going to aggravate some people while making others happy. Not always a fun position to be in, and I can only imagine the extra layer of "fun" of having to balance that while also getting money to come in to pay your team. But that's what videos and comments can be used for! To try and navigate what's the best route. Also, on Hero Forge - I'm completely out of the loop. I've never bought anything from them and have only used the character creator for tokens and a couple silly pictures. But now that you brought it up, I do feel like I remember seeing something somewhere about them coming out with a subscription service or something, which I thought was super weird considering you pay for the models. Honestly I expect them to lock the character creator behind a paywall, or just limit you to one or something. What else am I missing on their licensing?