I love the Character Designer because it allows me to make a character of any class and race quickly and effectively without me having to actually own something like 9 hardback books (PHBs and Power Source Books) and every Dragon Magazine article. For my tastes, the rules are spread too thinly among multiple sources.

Of course, that being said I could play a perfectly fun game of D&D using only the PHB, but I do not think I am an atypical in delighting at having all the various bells and whistles at my disposal.

The only problem I can forsee is that when you have a full group of all your players at the game, you have a rather crowded party when they each have a backup companion along for the ride.

The Greg Bilsland Ally Card link I thought was also very interesting. My concern there is that while the presence of Allies makes for some interesting Tactical options, I could imagine a Warlord style Leader class feeling a bit put out that there were Hirelings available that could provide some awesome buffs and were kind of like breathing magic items.

I suppose that could be another option… Magic items a la Figurines of Wonderous Power that wind up being unavailable except when you have a need to leave a PC out of action due to non-attendance :-p

In my own personal experience, I usually simply removed the PC from play via a contrivance and had them re-introduced when the player returned. this was of course easiest when the PCs were in town or not in a dungeon, but the old “Goblins drag your friend through a wall that seals shut” trick was always available as well.

Of course in my last 3.5 game I did not have a regular Cleric/Healer PC present so I wound up introducing a pacifist priest NPC so he could provide some healing but contributed nothing to offense.

It’s easy to think everything is focused around digital products when we’re all conversing in digital space, but plenty of people out there just pick up books and dice and pencils and play.

We are easily spoiled, and stuff the the Character Generator just make the process SO much easier that we quickly take it for granted. Of course I would also argue that perhaps because of the existence of such tools, the designers feel free to make the rules that much more complicated and intricate. I would wager that the amount of materials you need to consult for an average 4E PC is significantly more than in previous editions.

While I think that the “Uber Internet Battle Interactive” idea you outlined would be awesome, it would still only be a rare one-off. The core D&D experience I think will always be one table, on their own time. If the game ever does evolve to a persistent online world, then I think it won’t be a TT RPG any more, but rather some kind of MMORPG/LARP hybrid.

So, no, I do not think that the core game will ever be entirely dependent on electronic tools or Internet connection, but those tools may become so convenient and tempting that we reach a stage where we decide that we would rather do something else than play without them.

I myself drool over the idea of using a projector and some kind of map tools/virtual desktop software to manage the map (while still using minis). And if a few years down the road we can do 3D holographic minis, I’ll want to use that too :-p