Now, dungeon masters won’t have to clean their house or purchase snacks for their friends in order to run a game of Dungeons & Dragons.
That is, as long as everyone in the group has a virtual reality headset.
Tabletop game publisher Wizards of the Coast is collaborating with social virtual-reality platform developer AltspaceVR to allow individuals to run a Dungeons & Dragons session using virtual reality.
AltspaceVR is a free social service that supports the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Perception Neuron, Leap Motion, and Microsoft Kinect. Think of the service like a virtual-reality hybrid of Skype and IRC in that people can create rooms and invite friends to private sessions. When in a room, users can hold a conversation, watch videos, and run presentations in a low-fi, yet technologically practical, virtual-reality environment.
This makes AltspaceVR perfect for activities involving groups that might not be able to meet in the same place in the real world. Like, say, a crew playing through a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
Eric Romo, CEO of AltspaceVR, explains, “D&D is extremely social, which is why we are so excited to offer it in AltspaceVR. Players love it! We’ve seen them hang out together for sessions lasting six hours — previously only developers spent that long in VR.”
As of today, AltspaceVR users will have access to official Dungeons & Dragons game items in order to run a session. These will include character sheets, monster figures, and environmental tiles to help build out the adventure.