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Obsidianjaerc wrote:

Will D&D Insider be marketed as 'necessary' for the play and enjoyment of the game? Will it in fact be necessary, having within it's digital folds important rules referenced no where else?

It had better not; that kind of tactic is a massive barrier to entry. Since day one, the game has only required the Core set and no other pre-purchased material.

The WoTC "standard" stat blocks are all well and good, but after running my own games for decades I find them lacking in many ways - not the least of which is readability.

What I would love to see is a character generator with a user-definable output that can create stock NPCs, supporting NPCs, and major players with equal ease. Export functionality to HTML, Word, Excel, and even OneNote would be heavenly. This tool would ideally have the ability to "batch process" characters based on a variety of criteria, including but not limited to race, class (or multiclass), character level, wealth, alignment, and general purpose. Pre-designed "template" characters for common NPCs like merchants, blacksmiths, servants, nobles, etc would also be nice. Automatic name generation is a must.

In terms of adventure generation, I'd rather have a tool that makes it easier to track the process than one which actually generates adventures. Possible items for inclusion:

• Something that gives a visual representation of various plot lines, major plot points of each plot line, and the intersection of different plots.
  
• A library of easily-editable stock maps for everything from a campsite to a merchant caravel to castles to continents would be wonderful.
  
• "Drag and drop" interfacing with the character generator. That is, the ability to create NPCs with the generator and easily place them into my adventure or campaign in a variety of ways.
  
• A shop generator able to create lists of goods both normal and magical based on town size and shop type. The ability to tie this list to an edited map and applicable NPCs.
  

I want to see a CD come with the DM guide that has useful programs for dungeon building and NPC building. For instance the Random barrel generator that Wizards released a couple months ago.

The Dungeon tools would be great, and I have gone through too many crappy DM Dungeon tools that not only take a degree in computer science to use properly but also suck something aweful.