Arkenforge Tabletop

After a year of pretty solid development, we’re ready to fully unveil the new Master’s Toolkit to you. It’s got all the great new features from the v0.4.1.0 Toolkit and more, but in a form that’s much easier for all users, new and existing, to jump in and understand. We’ve assembled a collection of some of the fanciest new features below. The full patch notes will be listed after.

We’ve also assembled some tutorials for you to get started with, which can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkNo24w-R8iIwUUOixmR3aS27NWbFcLRp

And finally, all active and expired trials have been reset. If you weren’t a fan of the last version of the Toolkit, feel free to jump in and give this one a look. You won’t be disappointed!

Ok, let’s dive in!

A New UI

We know, we know. “Arkenforge changing their UI? We’ve been down this road before.” And while yes, that’s true, as we mentioned above this time it’s 100% for the better!

The first thing you’ll notice is that there’s no main menu. We’ve moved to a similar system that virtually every other map builder and VTT uses – a side panel. Now all Toolkit functionality and content can be easily accessed from the side panel.

The side panel has two tiers, with a third tier showing the available options. This design is significantly cleaner than the old design. You can easily see what’s going on, and what options you have available to you.

We’ve chopped off the Hand

The Hand was a programmer’s dream. Any option could be added to any of the menus in seconds with a single line of code. Unfortunately, each option you selected would bring up its own popup slider. If you selected something, you had no concept of what its current state was, and you couldn’t easily adjust multiple values at once. This was one of the major issues that we’ve tried to solve with this update, and we’d like to think that we’ve succeeded.

You can now easily see the values of your selected content without needing to open up 20 different popup sliders. It’s also much easier now to see all of your available options!

The Wheel, but straightened out

As we mentioned in the post about our v0.4.0 update, the Wheel was a much beloved feature that provided an easy way to manipulate content, but became too limiting for the raft of new features that we were bringing out. We’ve now added in the Quick Access Menu, a row of buttons above your selected content that can be used for simple manipulations, and to quickly access the side panels for more advanced manipulation options.

Each button in the menu can be enabled/disabled and reordered to best fit your needs.

You’ll also notice a shortcut icon at the top of every side panel menu. Enabling this will provide a link to that menu in the ‘quick access menus’ section of the Quick Access Menu.

Widgets

Those users from the v0.3 days may remember the widgets of old. These were simple panels that could be turned on or off as needed, that provided core functionality to the Toolkit. After two years of v0.4, we’ve brought them back :)

Widgets can be found along the top of the screen. If you want to disable or recolour any, you’ll be able to to so from the Widget Settings panel. We’ve selected a small set of widgets for this initial release that should provide most of the functionality needed for the standard user. Those widgets are:

Map Functions

Fog of War

Time of Day

Map Levels

Bookmarks

Player Screen

Ping

If you’d like to learn more, we have a video available here: https://youtu.be/QldOgyG7yQ8

Layer Stack

One of our most heavily requested features over the years has been a layer stack – the ability to see all content that’s been placed on the map. We’ve held out in the past due to optimisation limitations, but with our huge new Toolkit optimisations we’ve finally been able to add it in!

On top of showing all content on your current map level, the Toolkit will even point them out for you if you hover over them! Any content here can be selected by clicking on it, and you can hold Ctrl of Shift to multi-select from the list. Finally, we’ve added a handy search bar at the top so that you can only show specific content.

New Effects System

Our Effects system in v0.4.0 was a big hit, and we’ve been really keen to expand it. The UI left quite a lot to be desired, so we’ve come up with a new system that will make managing effects on your content a breeze!

All effects active on an object will now show in a list. You can easily view and modify the properties of any effect, and enable/disable and remove them as needed.  You may have noticed that we’ve added the ability to stack multiple of the same type of effect! This can lead to some fin behaviours, especially if multiple float effects are in play.

On top of this new system, we’ve added a whole bunch of new effects for you to play with:

Blink. Makes content appear and disappear at regular intervals

Line Scroll. Tile scroll, but for lines

Pulse, Scale up and down at regular intervals

Light Flicker. The current flicker effect for lights that you know and love

Light Blink. Blinks the light on and off, like a broken halogen light.

Sound Trigger. Triggers an assigned SFX when the trigger condition is met

MP3 Support

Another of our long-awaited features. We’re incredibly happy to say that you can finally import your own mp3 files into the Toolkit! No more conversion to OGG or Wav

D&D Beyond

D&D Beyond is by far the most popular tool for character management in D&D5e. It contains a fully searchable and filterable repository of all game rules, classes, races, spells, etc. It also does character management, encounter building and dice rolls, and hosts a digital copy of all official 5e adventures. Essentially, if you’re using any official content from Wizards of the Coast, you can find it on D&D Beyond.

Last year D&D Beyond was purchased by Wizards of the Coast for $146.3 million. At the time of purchase they had amassed almost 10 million users (now ~13 million based on a recent investor call). We learnt recently that WotC is using D&D Beyond as the cornerstone of their new digital D&D offering. All of the content and automation that is needed to play 5e can be managed through D&D Beyond except for one key element – interactive maps. That’s where the recent announcement of Wizards’ new VTT, OneD&D, comes into the picture.

But why male models VTTs?

For those that haven’t heard of the term before, VTTs are virtual tabletops. They allow people to run their games digitally, either online or in person. VTTs tend to provide tools and/or automation to make running your games smoother and more immersive. They are also very useful for those who have party members in multiple locations.

VTT use is at its highest point ever. After two years of global isolation, players flocked to online VTTs such as Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, and Owlbear Rodeo. This led to millions of players who typically play around the table to experience digital tabletop tools for the first time, and by far the most popular game they were playing was D&D.

Playing D&D online

Right now 5e is played everywhere, and could make up as much as half of all TTRPG games played globally based on information from last year’s Orr report. This is a huge market, and right now it’s spread over every VTT out there. Wouldn’t it be great for Wizards of the Coast if everyone was playing on a platform that they fully owned and controlled? GMs could buy all their content from WotC directly, without needing to revenue share with those other VTTs. The famously under-monetised players could customise and personalise their characters with purchaseable cosmetics or character sheets that are provided by WotC directly, not by independent artists.

Wizards of the Coast certainly seems to think that this is a great idea. Enter OneD&D.

OneD&D is a new VTT being built by Wizards, slated for a 2024 release. Early footage from the announcement trailer shows it as a highly detailed 3D platform that provides all the standard VTT features. However, with everyone already using all the other VTT platforms competition would be quite fierce. That is, unless they had a way to shut out others from the market.

We think that’s one of the primary purposes of OGL v1.1 – to deliberately remove the competition for digital D&D tools, leaving WotC with the monopoly on all future D&D content through D&D Beyond and OneD&D.

Consolidating Power – OGL v1.1

The primary thing we need to worry about in the VTT space is covered by the following excerpts. We’ve bolded the important bits:

From the recent OGL post on DnDBeyond: “those materials are only ever permitted as printed media or static electronic files (like epubs and PDFs)”, and

This section from Linda’s Gizmodo article: “[The updated license] only allows for creation of roleplaying games and supplements in printed media and static electronic file formats. It does not allow for anything else, including but not limited to things like … virtual tabletops or VTT campaigns … You may engage in these activities only to the extent allowed under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy or separately agreed between You and Us.”

The mostly overlooked takeaway from OGL v1.1 is that it only covers static electronic files. That is, content that can not be altered in any way, and content that is in transferrable file form. No websites. Even if you’re putting up a single static web page, if it’s got text from a 5e book it’s illegal.

Creating a form fillable PDF? Not allowed. Building your own 5e character manager? Illegal. A 5e compendium? Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (ironically also a reference to a Hasbro product). Nothing that is both digital and interactive can be published without a special ‘custom agreement’ with WotC.

The forbidden content

Here’s a few examples of things that are both digital and interactive that OGL v1.1 forbids:

A fully searchable and filterable repository of any 5e content. If you can show or hide content based on a set of filters, it’s not static

Character management

Encounter building

I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty close to all the things that D&D Beyond does! What else could you consider digital and interactive I wonder?

Interactive maps

Automation of 5e rules and combat

That’s sounding quite a bit like the features a VTT might provide! How awfully convenient that WotC is releasing one in 2024!

“But VTTs already have agreements, so OGL v1.1 won’t affect them”

This is an argument that WotC has already made, and no doubt will continue making until the release of OneD&D. This is specifically what they’ve said:

“The top VTT platforms already have custom agreements with Wizards to do what they do.” (source). This is a handwaving a lot of issues.

Firstly, note here that the top VTT platforms are specifically Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. FoundryVTT, who at this point we would very much consider a top VTT, does not have a custom agreement with WotC. Arkenforge (who we consider a pretty great VTT) does not have an agreement with WotC. The vast majority of VTTs don’t have an agreement with WotC.

As Foundry founder and developer Atropos himself said recently: “We’ve been actively monitoring this situation and we’re going to be proactively working on a path forward that will cover our use case and allow us to support One D&D. We are not, however, in a position to do so already under the terms of today’s post. There is work to do“.

This isn’t a surprise

We alluded to this in our previous article about the D&D Beyond purchase: “The bigger implication here though is the continuation of ‘unofficial’ D&D Beyond support. …there are a large number of tools out there that are currently skirting an incredibly grey area of licensing. Neither D&D Beyond or WotC have approved these tools…. Knowing WotC, it’s incredibly likely that as the release of the VTT draws near, the creators of these tools will start receiving Cease and Desist letters and takedown notices”. It’s why we’ve deliberately shied away for putting anything even remotely close to 5e into our software. We’d love to have functionality that allows us to pull D&D Beyond data, but it’s a dangerous area.

There’s a very long list of VTTs that have appeared in the last few years that primarily serve 5e content. Too many to list here. All of these VTTs are risking cease and desists under OGL v1.1. Tools that pull content from Beyond, or even tools that allow for easy browsing of the 5e ruleset are also illegal under OGL v1.1.

Independent releases on VTTs

The other elephant in the room with Wizards’ statement is that this agreement is with VTT platforms that release their own versions of 5e books. VTTs are also an excellent marketplace for independent creators. They can publish their content for people to play directly without needing to worry about printing and distribution. Many Patreons also offer VTT content for their higher tier patrons.

Content that independent creators create and sell on these platforms is not part of the VTT agreement. Most likely the OGL v1.1 will prevent them from creating interactive digital versions of their products to sell on VTT marketplaces. This is going to force anyone wanting to create online D&D content to OneD&D, who will more than likely provide plentiful tools to publish your content through their own platform.

The ability for WotC to revoke any license with only 30 days’ warning can put a strain on those VTTs with marketplaces. We could very well have a message from Wizards that we need to remove a certain product at once. Not only does this put stress on our the people managing our marketplace, it can also annoy users who could see any D&D-related purchased content vanish from their libraries with no warning.

OGL v1.1 overreach

As you read above, we expected the heavy-handed crackdown on 5e content.  It’s only natural that WotC would try to reduce competition and move as many players as possible to their own platform. What we didn’t expect however, were the changes to OGL publishing.

Wizards is trying very hard to have OGL 1.1 be the only publishable license available. They’re already trying to claim that the existing OGL is now unauthorized, which would prevent anyone from publishing under it.

If you think this will only affect D&D, here’s just some of the popular Publishers and TTRPGs that are published under the previous OGL.

Paizo – Pathfinder, Starfinder

Evil Hat Productions – Fate, The Dresden Files RPG

Pinnacle Entertainment – Pathfinder for Savage Worlds

Green Ronin Publishing – Mutants and Masterminds

This leads to one big question for publishers and VTTs alike. Can these publishers publish VTT versions of their systems and adventures? The new OGL says no.

A digital graveyard

Under the new licensing, Mutants and Masterminds can’t decide to put their content on any VTT without consulting WotC first. We likely can’t get official Pathfinder or Starfinder content on our own Arkenforge store because those new products may violate OGL v1.1’s ‘no interactive digital content’ terms. Despite a publisher already having a deep library of content, converting an existing adventure module for a VTT can easily be classified as a ‘new product’ that OGL v1.1 covers. No third parties could create digital content for these systems either. Many people will likely try to continue releasing content for open VTTs such as Foundry under the Fan Content Policy, but that’s treading into an incredibly grey area and will most likely be forbidden.

If this interpretation is correct (and all signs so far point to WotC trying to push this as the correct interpretation) then there’s a lot more than D&D that will be affected by this change in the digital space. Several independent creators will be unable to keep up releases with new VTTs unless Wizards allows them to. This simple change in the OGL gives Wizards of the Coast complete control of the digital future of several popular roleplaying games. We sincerely hope that this isn’t the interpretation that they end up going with.

Conclusion

Wizards of the Coast strongly believes that online, digital tools are the future of tabletop roleplaying. They’ve structured OGL v1.1 to try and monopolise this space for all future D&D content. Both large and independent publishers can only release digital content on Wizards’ terms. These terms will likely come with either OneD&D exclusivity requirements or some level of royalties. They can also choose to shut people out of the digital market entirely. OGL v1.1 gives WotC the ability to stop Paizo releasing any future Starfinder content on any VTT. There’s a couple of other tricks that they have up their sleeve that we unfortunately can’t discuss for legal reasons.