GeneralGames.ca

While it was promised with the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition the reality of an online tabletop never came to be. With video games taking over much of the co-op RPG experiences and groups getting ever distant as we all seclude in to our homes the fate of pen and paper RPGs does not look good. d20 Pro looks to alleviate all the issues of gathering a group together and taking over the kitchen table by providing a legitimate virtual tabletop for d20 games, letting players around the world replicate the clattering of dice with friends online.

For those too young to know what all the fuss about D&D is; back in in the mid 1970’s a man named Gary Gygax and his friend Dave Arneson wrote and published a game called Dungeons and Dragons. This game was unlike any other before it, instead of having all the players compete for 1st place they each played a role within a group and worked together and instead of a traditional gameboard with paths and cards the game was played mostly in the mind. The concept was that players created characters using the game’s rules and one player (called the GM) would dictate scenarios to the rest of the players who would then respond with actions resolved based on stats on their character sheets. The result was a phenomenon in gaming, a revolution that changed the scope of what games were, single handedly inventing both the RPG genre and the concept of co-operative play in one fell swoop.

What’s always made the game special is the social aspect of it, the fun that comes from sitting around with friends and joking around while telling a story together. Other virtual tabletop programs have come long before d20 Pro, but none of them have ever succeeded in capturing the magic that comes from a real life gathering. While d20 Pro is strictly a game platform, when combined with a VOIP program like Skype, the experience is almost the same.

At first glance d20 Pro’s interface is a confusing mashup of windows and boxes that the untrained eye can’t really comprehend. The mechanical aspects of the game easily overshadow the function when you first step in to things. However, as players become more familiar with not just how to do things in the software, but how the software works it becomes apparent that d20 Pro is a very sophisticated machine.

Almost any aspect of an average d20 encounter is tracked and handled automatically by the game’s engine. From calculating attacks and initiatives to keeping track of hit points and movement the game does a great job of taking out a lot of the mundanity that comes from regular Dungeons and Dragons, letting players focus more time on tactics and strategy than keeping track of numbers. This means that large-scale battles take a lot less time with the only stalling coming from player choices. Because every aspect of your character is loaded in to the game skill checks, saving throws and any other special rolls are handled with ease. There is a fully loaded digital dice bag but it rarely comes in to use, save for a few moments where there are weird bonuses or special abilities d20 Pro is not equipped to handle.

The GM experience is a well organized experience. The drag-and-drop nature of the software allows for quick and easy dungeon crafting while broadcasting tools like fog of war and hidden miniatures makes surprising players more possible than tabletop. The game has an image importer allowing GMs to broadcast custom maps, items and creatures to the players for truly unique campaigns.

d20 Pro doesn’t use a lot of system resources, so ambiance music and dozens of reference PDFs can easily be kept open along with Skype making rules verification possible without crashing the system. What makes d20 Pro great from a GM’s perspective is that it doesn’t hinder the ability to tell a story through the combat. Dice rolls and traps are still able to be hidden from players, letting the flow of combat run at an amicable pace.

For all the help d20 Pro gives to both players and GMs it does struggle with a few elements still. There’s no easy way to apply markers or counters to characters making certain effects hard to manage. The magic system also struggles greatly, requiring player created, but GM controlled templates for area effect spells. It’s possible and probable these issues will get fixes in the future, but for the time being they stand in the way of a smooth experience.

d20 Pro is a great option for Dungeons and Dragons fans who want to play the game online. Compared to other software options in the category, d20 Pro stands leaps and bounds ahead of the rest for it’s cohesiveness and completion. By no means is it a perfect program, and by no means is it for the average user. However, those who put the time in to learning it’s tricks will be paid back with a solution that finally bridges the gap that divides players. Wizards of the Coast would do well to buy developer MindGene and release d20 Pro as an officially licensed product.

d20 Pro v2.0.3 was released on December 15 2009 for the PC, Mac & Linux.