D&D 5E What D&D Beyond should have been.

Parmandur · Nov 13, 2017

Horwath said:
Most people know whole level in advance what they will pick when they level up.

1. add few HPs

2. Add one feature, maybe two

3. if spellcaster add a spell or two. Spellcasters are in 2 min category.

4. one in four chance that you will need to add +1/+2 to rolls that you are proficient(+15 sec)

I have no experience of anybody playing like this.

Henry · Nov 14, 2017

schnee said:
... on 'how can we screw people over as much as possible'. The current people helming D&D love the game too much for that, and they're seasoned professionals. (And, if you want that kind of money there is no way in HELL you are in pen and paper role playing games!)

I think this needs to be brought up more often to remind people in general - even a wildly successful D&D doesn’t bring in as much revenue as a moderately successful computer game title. A successful computer game will sell millions of units in a few months - a wildly successful computer game will sell TENS of millions in months. Even 5e or Pathfinder can’t touch those kinds of figures. Even though I don’t like the pricing models of things like D&D beyond or the new online Hero Lab, I’ve never thought the creators were trying to gouge me, and I don’t begrudge them a decent living - I don’t find the cost to value ratio compelling enough to use it, but if others do, then great.

schnee · Nov 14, 2017

Henry said:
I think this needs to be brought up more often to remind people in general - even a wildly successful D&D doesn’t bring in as much revenue as a moderately successful computer game title. A successful computer game will sell millions of units in a few months - a wildly successful computer game will sell TENS of millions in months. Even 5e or Pathfinder can’t touch those kinds of figures. Even though I don’t like the pricing models of things like D&D beyond or the new online Hero Lab, I’ve never thought the creators were trying to gouge me, and I don’t begrudge them a decent living - I don’t find the cost to value ratio compelling enough to use it, but if others do, then great.

If you widen it beyond gaming, then it gets even more illogical.

A friend in real estate told me 'I had a senior accountant customer, and when I checked her credit rating I didn't believe it at first. I had no idea that credit ratings could ever get that high. And she had enough liquid resources to double down on every payment and owned the house outright in less than a decade'.

Gaming is a crappy way to make money, unless you're one of the handful of beneficiaries of the power law of distribution. Even then, the game designers aren't making the lion's share - it's the suits. (Ignore Notch, he basically won the lottery.)

A lawyer once told me 'if you want to make thousands, work with tens of thousands. If you want to make millions, work with tens of millions'. I do what I love and lease a sweet, but tiny apartment. He works his butt off doing things that are challenging but not fun and owns a huge house with an ocean front view.

schnee · Nov 14, 2017

Horwath said:
because the whole gaming group has 1 set of books. Maybe 2 PHBs. you really do not need 2 of anything.

Back to this - IMO you're basically my gaming group from the 80's.

D&D Beyond is built to get a certain number of folks like you, but it's real goal is to make D&D the first choice for character-driven, face-to-face RPGs in the 'new world' of digital natives and streamers.

We are like you in our group now - we use the books, and only have a few copies floating around at one time - but we're looking into Beyond to make it easier for our group member who's basically traveling the world working remotely and joining us via Skype.

We have 10 active people. If we all chip in together, the cost of the books is minimal, and it would eliminate a lot of nonsense with PDFs and people forgetting their paper print outs and such.

BookBarbarian · Nov 14, 2017

Horwath said:
Most people know whole level in advance what they will pick when they level up.

1. add few HPs

2. Add one feature, maybe two

3. if spellcaster add a spell or two. Spellcasters are in 2 min category.

4. one in four chance that you will need to add +1/+2 to rolls that you are proficient(+15 sec)

Weighing the pros and cons of subclass choice, feature choice, new spell choice, swapping old spell choice, possible multiclassing choice, and rolling or static HP choice all take time.

In my experience this time is cut down considerably if the player has access to a good character builder. Searching multiple books, or even back and forth in the same book has never taken 2 minutes for me or any of the player's in the group I DM for.

Edit: I forgot Feat vs ASI choice, or even ASI versus other ASI choice.

Satyrn · Nov 14, 2017

lowkey13 said:
I wish that "most people" played at my table.

Your table would be mighty crowded!

DaveDash · Nov 15, 2017

I like DnDBeyond.

Living outside of the US it’s actually cheaper and quicker to get D&D content this way. I also run my games online so I’m using a computer already, so it makes sense.

Buying content multiple times sucks, but you have to do it with a lot of other gaming platforms as well (ie buying the same game on console and PC twice, depending on where you want to play it).

It would be nice having one digital license for all the different digital platforms but realistically that’s not going to happen.

Horwath · Nov 15, 2017

BookBarbarian said:
Weighing the pros and cons of subclass choice, feature choice, new spell choice, swapping old spell choice, possible multiclassing choice, and rolling or static HP choice all take time.

In my experience this time is cut down considerably if the player has access to a good character builder. Searching multiple books, or even back and forth in the same book has never taken 2 minutes for me or any of the player's in the group I DM for.

Edit: I forgot Feat vs ASI choice, or even ASI versus other ASI choice.

This looks more like you got a new player and told him to make new 6th level character on the spot. That TAKES time.

Don't you people know what your character wants to become? Sure sometimes something changes along the way, but mostly it is a written path.

Most DMs that I played with, asked to bring 2 character sheets on session if there is "level up" incoming on that session to reduce leveling time to 0.

DocMindwipe · Nov 15, 2017

I am oldschool.... I don't plan a character to lvl20 from the get go. Anyone doing so is missing the whole point, IMO.

Just roll her up, and see what happens. Nothing is written in stone, and things are bound to happen that throws your carefully planned out level planning out the window.

In the editions I still love to play, it was imppssible to get a "broken" character. That concept was introduced when WotC broke the game in 2001 with their "simplified" waste of paper

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Demetrios1453 · Nov 15, 2017

Horwath said:
Don't you people know what your character wants to become? Sure sometimes something changes along the way, but mostly it is a written path

The answer to that, from the responses here, would apparently be "no".

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