Hi fellow GMs,

We are working on a product that will enhance the tabletop RPG experience. I'd like to get your feedback on it.

www.questkick.com

It strikes me as a mashup between an MMO guild site and a wiki.

It isn't the sort of thing I would go looking for, personally. I would typically just bend a non-RPG specific resource towards this task.

I can see right now it would be mostly useless for me. I don't do dungeons, I don't use tokens/minis, the calender might have nothing to do with Earth's, the phase of the moon depends on what moon you are talking about - hell, you very well may be on a moon! - weather will vary far too much depending on the world - ammonia rain in a methane atmosphere - lightning storms in an argon atmosphere where the sky glows purple - airless moons with weather defines as the amount of radiation you get - etc., and I can use whatever dice I want now.

I expected this. It's really set up for D&D, and games like it, on a world much like our earth, and with years and seasons much like northern hemisphere temperate earth. You should advertise it like that instead of saying it's for all games.

Utterly uninterested.

I don't use a computer for gaming, I don't allow them at the table, and the idea of "theme music" is, to me, farcically bad.

But I'm a curmudgeon anyway and probably not your primary market.

Now git offa my lawn.  And bring me a beer.

Quote from: flyingmice;692017I can see right now it would be mostly useless for me. I don't do dungeons, I don't use tokens/minis, the calender might have nothing to do with Earth's, the phase of the moon depends on what moon you are talking about - hell, you very well may be on a moon! - weather will vary far too much depending on the world - ammonia rain in a methane atmosphere - lightning storms in an argon atmosphere where the sky glows purple - airless moons with weather defines as the amount of radiation you get - etc., and I can use whatever dice I want now.

I expected this. It's really set up for D&D, and games like it, on a world much like our earth, and with years and seasons much like northern hemisphere temperate earth. You should advertise it like that instead of saying it's for all games.

Not sure where you got the idea it had to be an earth calendar and weather.  That would all be customizable actually.

Quote from: Old Geezer;692038Utterly uninterested.

I don't use a computer for gaming, I don't allow them at the table, and the idea of "theme music" is, to me, farcically bad.

But I'm a curmudgeon anyway and probably not your primary market.

Now git offa my lawn.  And bring me a beer.

Thanks for the feedback.  Theme music actually helps set the mood in our games a lot.  Same reason they use it in movies and video games.  But good to know some people aren't interested in that.

Quote from: questkick;692043Thanks for the feedback.  Theme music actually helps set the mood in our games a lot.  Same reason they use it in movies and video games.  But good to know some people aren't interested in that.

This is another one of those things that I wouldn't go looking for a website to do.

I can see it being useful once familiarity with it has been achieved.

I would use the calendar, and to track initiative and hit points; roll dice.

It is a little hard to judge on a screen shot but my bigissue with these sorts of things is the structure is usually 1) one size fits all and 2) not well suited to how people actually run games and what they genuinely need during play. Nothing I am seeing here suggests this is any different than the other GM software programs that promised the moon and just ended up being more trouble than they were worth.

My suggestion is to start with the three ring binder as the base. Every GM organizes and structures play differently. Being able to customize tabs and organization is key to making something like this work. This service looks like it might be great for certain styles of play online, perhaps not that good for a live game at the table. I hate using three ring binders, but I have yet to find a software progam that replaces the flexibility and utlity they provide.

Again, just going on the one screen shot. Perhaps there is more to the program that I am not seeing.

As someone who plays purely on Roll20, here are my thoughts:

The UI mockup looks nice enough.

Phone play will be nice for people who are busy and would otherwise miss a session, though that might make more combat-heavy games slow to a crawl.

Playing music is always a contentious point. People would generally rather listen to their own music, if they're at their personal computer, in my experience. I know how it feels to WANT to play the right song at the right moment, but usually linking a youtube that people can click if they want works better (and lets players pick songs too!)

I'm curious what you intend to offer over Roll20, Obsidian Portal, etc.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Shauncat:

Obsidian is geared more towards organizing and looking up notes, it's a little clunky to get around and the GM usually has to bribe the players to use it.  Roll20 is a virtual tabletop for remote games.

Unlike those tools, Quest Kick is designed to be used by the whole group at the table, and every feature is designed to be as simple and quick as possible.  Just off the top of my head, some features that set it apart are weather, music, in-game calendar, and dice.  In addition there will be player tools as well.


BedrockBrendan:

I agree the current tools end up being more trouble than their worth, and there's no point in making another one of those.  We're really focused on making it usable in-game, not just as a planning tool.

Looks pretty cool. I need to try it to find out how it handles combat and positioning in various systems that are not D&D but I'm hopeful.

I wouldn't be interested myself.  I *used* to do background music, but as I get older I find I have trouble picking voices out of a lot of background clutter.

But as far as anything else goes?  I can't imagine why I'd want to pay for an app to do things I already do low-tech and on the cheap.  If I want to roll custom dice combinations, I grab those dice, and I roll them.  If I want to send a player a private message, I get out my pen, scribble on the pad of sticky notes I have to hand for such things, and hand it over.  We all know the game date and season, I've got a chart for moon phases, and I've got a chart for the weather.  And so on.  All in neat, clean, black-and-white, and devoid of busy and distracting graphics.

Mind you, the 20-somethings who've been indoctrinated in the Everything Is Better If You Use Electronics credo becoming so prevalent in our culture would likely eat it up, and I expect you'd have a market there.

Let's see.

Quote from: Quest Kick Website

• Easily create & streamline your campaign in one beautifully designed system unlike any other.
•    Run any tabletop RPG more easily from any computer or mobile device with a web browser.
•    Enhance the mood with a soundtrack tied to events, characters, or places in your game.
•    Snag new adventures, settings, soundtracks, and more from the Add-on Store.

1. Unlike any other? huh? Realm Works by Lone Wolf Development? Inferno? Obsidian Portal? roll20? d20Pro? Fantasy Grounds? OpenRPG? Table Top Connect? 3d Virtual Table top...

2. See above.

3. Any MP3 player can do this.

4. Will this be like the market place in OpenRPG and others? Will it support 3PP?

Okay. I'm suspicious of the kitschy name with "kick" in it. I imagine this is going to be pitched on Kickstarter? You weren't concerned that the blatant product name was going to raise some red flags?

The site needs more info and more screenshots. It needs less hyperbole and more "this is what we're trying to do, this is the need we're addressing, this is what we're excited about". The name has fuck all to do with a tabletop tool and more to do with a desire to score the big bucks on Kickstarter which comes off as sleazy salesman vs. exciting product name (or just mildly naive and uninformed...).

Also, this is theRPGsite where I don't have to be diplomatic and can just dispense with the tough love, so here's some more where that came from.

You have ten posts. You roll up in here and jam a 400lb weekly advert up our unsuspecting pucker-holes before we could blink, drop or run for our lives. In summary, who the fuck are you and what do you like about RPGs? Have you GM'ed a game? Your forum name is the same as your company name and there's NOTHING on your website about who you are! (<- also ringing some alarm bells over here...)

Look. I'm sure your a nice guy. Or gal. OK. I'm lying. I'm pretty sure you're a polished scam artist who rolled up in here to pillage our women and rape our forums, but I've been wrong in the past so perhaps I'm just overly suspicious.

Let's do one of those online RPG play-by-post things as a test. I'll start.

The well-dressed well-spoken stranger (this is you) rolls up in the dark (probably seedy) tavern somewhere in an impossibly cold dark northern place full of trees, snow and death (this is theRPGsite), pulls up a chair at the bar, immediately turns to the crowd and bellows "I love me some cold hard tundra! Huh? You know what I'm talking about? Right!?!? I just so happen to have me some premium grade-A Russian military trucks out front just waiting for a savvy buyer to drive off into the sunset with! What say you? These are the BEST way to conquer the cold north!!"

The bar falls silent. Without so much as a breeze or a pin drop, every man, woman and animal has armed or shouldered some kind of deadly, cold-steeled firearm, pointing right at the shiny-white-smiled stranger. A stalwart gentleman who bears a striking resemblance to Daniel Day Lewis steps forward smoking a pipe, casts a wry smile at the interloper and says...

"We have dog sleds that get us cross the tundra just fine. We don't appreciate lots of nonsense hollering in our resting place and we never. ever. buy shit from a stranger. We have on occasion however, shipped a couple folks like you back to whence they came, as is our tradition, in a simple pinewood box. For convenience, you know, so as his or her loved ones can dispense with trying to put 'em back together and get straight to a proper service."

"Since you're obviously new to town, it would be less neighborly of us to riddle you with bullets without so much as a decent chance to explain oneself, so let's figure out where you stand, shall we?"

"Tell us three things you love about the Tundra (RPGs). Be genuine. You have several dozen guns pointed at you, and since this town is a freedom loving place, any one of my fellows who don't like what your saying gets to put one in ya."

Your turn.

Looks usable.  We recently added all sorts of tech to the game table - laptops and smartphones and all that hoopla.  I was against it at first, but once you get used to it, it's no different than having another pile of books.

The real issue for me is going to be:  how much are you going to charge for it?  How many free maps do we get before you start charging micro-fees for every icon?

Is that the model?  Or do you have something else planned?

I'm interested.