Clan, here's an interview we did with the creator of DM's Tracker, which is a great little iPhone app that can help you run D&D games on the fly. If you haven't been to www.kbarapps.com, you might want to check them out.

1) How did you get started playing D&D?

 My first memory of D&D was buying the red and blue box editions of D&D around 1983. I had no idea what these games were, I didn't know anybody who played, but I was fascinated by the cover art. I hadn't even read much traditional fantasy at that point. But when I saw hobby shops with miniature dioramas, tiny armies waiting to attack, I knew I wanted to play with these things. Finally, in Jr. High I found some guys to play D&D with. We played in the morning before school and we played while walking home from school. We didn't use dice and the whole thing would surely roll my eyes today. I would round up cousins and friends over summers and we'd play every day. I have no idea what that style of play looked like, only that it vaguely involved D&D and dice.

I also have a fond memory of getting the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons DMG, PHB and MM one year for Christmas. I remember just pouring over these books for hours and hours trying to soak it all in.

2) DM's tracker is a great iphone app that we've used quite a bit. What led you to create it?

Two things really. First was that I had just finished a contract and was looking for work and needed something to keep me busy. I had also been pretty curious about the iPhone and wanted a project to focus on. So I picked D&D and then set about trying to come up with a solution that wasn't in Wizard's IP. My friends and I get together every Saturday to play D&D. With 4e we noticed that combat was taking a really long time, even at low levels. It was taking us out of the flow of the game and I wanted a way to speed things along since we have always leaned towards narrative style play. Suddenly making an iPhone app that would help me keep track of combat data seemed like the perfect idea.

Our biggest concern was that we were focused on a subset of the D&D community (DM's and not players) and if Wizards would let it stand under section 5.5 of their GSL. I was more assured after I spoke with Andrew Reutter over at iplay4e.appspot.com. While Wizards hadn't officially blessed our project, Andrew had spoken with a few insiders and explained how projects like these were in the clear. However, there was still a lot of risk since we didn't want to infringe, but had not heard back from Wizards for permission.

3) What do you think of Wizards of the Coast's efforts to bring new technology to D&D?

I think that Character Builder is a pretty essential part of D&D at this point. Playing with Power and Equipment cards speeds play up quite a bit for everybody involved and Character Builder helps generate these cards with the greatest of ease. I think the Monster Builder is also a great idea, but I haven't used it as much. If they are able to get all the way to the "gaming table" concept we were originally told about I think it'll be a nice addition for distributed D&D players. My original vision was to simply enhance the table top experience with an overlay of tools that would allow everybody to speed up the number crunching but not turn the whole experience into a live action MMORPG.

I think MMORPG's influence on D&D is profound and mostly for the better. It makes for a very specific flavor of RPG experience, but I think that's totally worth it. I can see a day when RPGs will be released with very little in the way of physical media. Not just because physical books are going to become digitized more and more often, but because the tools we use to read the rules may just simply consume and obfuscate the rules the way MMORPG's do now. Also I think this would allow tweaking and updating of complicated combat systems to happen via updates from the publisher that are invisible to the user. I believe that what we do via table top is already slightly archaic for a lot of the younger players. I also believe that's the appeal and strength of the table top experience.

Rolling dice and moving minis around a map is still something I enjoy as part of my game play and I can't see that aspect of it ever being substituted for in a virtual space.

4) How long did it take you to put together the app once you had the concept?

Great question. Since I was learning how to write Objective-C at the time, it took me much longer than I expected. It's just me writing code and my wife helping with testing and data architecture. Since then I've met more iPhone developers and have a much bigger network to draw on if I get stuck. I'm embarrassed at how badly DM's Tracker is coded and will likely have to do a complete rewrite on the next update. But that's ok - a lot of stuff that is missing and a lot of stuff that I want for my own gaming nights will show up in that version. *cough*conditions*cough* But the short answer is that it took me about five months to learn the language and write the app and fix all the bugs I found.

The next version is coming together much more quickly and I'm really excited about the changes. I think it will really help make a huge difference on game night. Plus, we are working on the iPad version which is a really nice experience in terms of interface. It's not just that we are dealing with a bigger screen, but also that the interface elements seem nearly custom made for an application like DM's Tracker.

5) Do you have any idea how many players are using DM's Tracker? What do you think that says about "state of D&D" is?

Actual usage, no. I'm not doing any sort of tracking or "phoning home" in the app. However, just based on the feedback and sales trends I'd say that it's relatively popular and doing pretty well for itself. It isn't going to make us rich, but I never thought it would. Like I said earlier, it is a product for a subset of a subset of all iphone users. Now a player app... that could be a different story.

I think that the experience of playing D&D, at a table, face to face with your friends is without equal. Playing remotely is interesting, but ultimately substandard to the real deal. So I think while there are more and more tools available for DM's I love that I can still walk into my local gaming store (hey Rogue's Gallery!) and see plenty of gaming hardware. I think the miniatures, maps, dice and so forth are all part of the equation. They aren't just germane, they are nearly essential.
So I think the state of D&D is that it is in transition as is so much of the publishing and gaming world today. I think 4e has proven that the days of pages filled with complicated charts and creation options are slipping away into tools that help us move from conception to manifestation in a very smooth line. Some of the tools have been ugly and clunky so far, but as these tools refine I am hoping that we will have more and more casual table top players.

6) Do you think anything is lost from the gaming experience by using new technology (i.e. "diceless gaming")?  

By "diceless gaming" I'm assuming you mean using electronic rollers as opposed to diceless systems like Amber. I love it. It helps keep the bookkeeping to a minimum and lets me focus on the story in front of us. That being said I tend to prefer apps where I front load the attack modifiers and damage and then get the result in one push of one button. "Quick Roll" and "Dice EQ"  are excellent examples of this type of app. I think the dice simulators are interesting, but if I'm going to use electronics I want them to help me do something I cannot already do as easily.

That being said, I also love the drama of rolling a d20 out on the table to see if the Dragon makes her save or a d6 to refresh her devastating breath weapon. It really depends on the mood of the table and the combat that's at hand. After all, that's the thing with any tool, you still need to know when to use it. Encounters with lots of minions are when I think autorollers really shine. 

I really mix the two together, so in my experience, not much is lost when I'm using electronic dice. Plus I love not having to keep track of a billion slips of papers and notes. I love that my players can "blue book" on a wiki or we can upload their characters to iplay4e and share the information at a glance. I think that the future is all about ease of access to media, and some gaming or gamers still seems to have a scarcity mentality around gaming information.



7) Is there a new audience created for D&D (or any tabletop RPG for that matter) due to tools like iPhone Apps and the new software from Wizards, or do these efforts just to keep veteran players gaming?

I think that 4e has lowered the barrier to entry for all players. You can hand a new player a stack of cards and they can jump right in. As an experienced DM I love the ease in which I can throw together an encounter using Wizard's online Encounter Builder tool and make sure that it's not over or under powered for the party. I've actually seen experienced players have more difficulty with getting their heads around 4e because they are still bring old assumptions to the table. In particular if they are simulationist gamers it can be painful to realize that your character's attacks are not as open ended as you might get from a system like GURPS or HERO. Of course it's possible to bend the system to accomplish this, but 4e unapologetically provides this hyper narrative around your attack powers. It feels heroic and really scratches that high fantasy itch for me and my group.

I've seen the 4e electronic tools allow new players to jump right into a new game and really enjoy digging into their new powers. They want a chance to use that daily power at a key moment and it's something they get right from the beginning. It's encouraging to see it happening. I can't help but believe that for years we've assumed that the barrier of entry to play RPGs was necessarily high. I would argue that this is because part of what we liked about these systems was the complication. But with the new tools the focus instead turns to the story and exciting narrative. The more the mechanics become invisible the more we turn to the story. I can't help but believe that this is a great thing for the future of our hobby.

8) What else is left to do for DM's Tracker?

So much. I think our current punch-list has over twenty major items on it. We've got bugs to squash, we've got UX issues to tweak, and we've got tons of new features to roll in. We were also waiting to see what Apple was going to announce for their tablet. Now that we know and have the SDK loaded we have had to rethink a few things. It's the next big push for us and we hope to have the update out soon and the iPad app ready by launch day.

9) Got any other interesting projects you want to tell us about? Any word on seeing some integration between DM's Track and DDi or iplay4e?

Well we've been working on a Player's Tracker which would basically allow you to track your consumables, hit points, healing surges and daily and encounter powers. Personally I think that we'd really want players to be able to import iplay4e or Character Builder files (or both). Other projects have been getting in the way, but I really want this for myself. Andrew and I have talked in the past about making a native iphone iplay4e app and that idea still is possible. It's just a matter of getting the time to make it happen. I use iplay4e every gaming session.

Also we have a few other gaming related ideas that keep sticking in my mind. I really just need more time in my day to work on all this - right now I still have to take some contracts, so we can't develop full-time like we'd love to be, but hopefully we'll be able to transition to full-time soon. I love that I get to do this for a living and I feel blessed to have people take an interest.