[UPDATED!] D&D Beyond: An Official D&D Digital Toolset & Character Builder

D&D Beyond has just been announced! Coming this summer, and billed as "Your digital D&D source", it has a compendium of official content, character builder and manager, the ability to use home-brew content, D&D forums, and is usable on any device. A 1-minute announcement trailer can be seen below. D&D Beyond is produced by a company called Curse Inc, owned by Twitch. Right now, there's a signup for the Beta version. More info as/when it becomes available! [UPDATES: The D&D Beyond folks have offered some more info, which I have included below; I will be chatting with them later this week, with luck!]

"We are excited to announce development of D&D Beyond, an official digital toolset for use with the Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition rules. We have partnered with Curse to take D&D players beyond pen and paper, providing a rules compendium, character builder, digital character sheets, and more—all populated with official D&D content. D&D Beyond aims to make game management easier for both players and Dungeon Masters by providing high-quality tools available on any device, empowering beginners and veterans alike!" goes the official description.

"D&D Beyond speaks to the way gamers are able to blend digital tools with the fun of storytelling around the table with your friends,” said Nathan Stewart, Senior Director of Dungeons & Dragons. "These tools represent a way forward for D&D, and we’re excited to get them into the hands of players soon!"

The company, Curse Inc., is owned by Twitch, and is based in San Francisco, with offices in various countries. They produce tools and communities for gamers - up until now, mainly video games. They started as a way to organise the founder's World of Warcraft add-ons about 10 years ago, and grew into a multinational company from there. The company makes a desktop app called the Curse Client, along with community driven wikis, tools, guides, and databases for games like Minecraft, Diablo, Countersrike, Overwatch, and more. In 2016, it was announced that Twitch would acquire Curse.

Features, from the website, include:

• D&D Compendium with Official Content
• Create, Browse, & Use Homebrew Content
• Manage Characters - Build, Progress, & Play
• D&D News, Articles, Forums, & More
• Access Anywhere, Anytime, on Any Device

That last item makes it sound like it'll work offline, which will be a popular move. And the home-brew content mention is also important, especially because WotC supports DMs Guild.

UPDATES: I checked with WotC's Greg Tito who confirmed "D&D Beyond will work without an internet connection. That's a big deal for the devs!"

Adam over at D&D Beyond confirmed a little about the pricing model:

"At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account.

We don’t have exact pricing nailed down, but you will also be able to buy official digital D&D content for all fifth edition products with flexible purchase options. You can pay only for the D&D content you need. If you only play fighters, for example, you’ll be able to just pick up the stuff you need to track swinging that giant two-handed sword.

A small monthly subscription will be needed to manage more than a handful of characters and to enable more advanced features, like homebrew content integration. At this time, we don’t know exactly how much the subscription will cost."

He also confirmed that the pricing structure is not about microtransactions: "I'm about to get on a plane so I've got to be brief, but I wanted to check in and make it clear that "microtransactions" were not mentioned and are not what the model is about."

And also that D&D Beyond is definitely not a Virtual Game Table (VTT): "D&D Beyond is intended to enhance gameplay around a table (virtual or otherwise) - we intend this to be completely complementary and have no intention of creating a VTT."

[video=youtube;Dn8Kpmm_aJA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8Kpmm_aJA[/video]

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[Maul]

Is there going to be support for previous editions?

 

[BrockBallingdark]

Is there going to be support for previous editions?

I'm going to guess no.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

So i've been sort of looking at the video and pausing to look over the pages of the app- i can see buttons that direct you to homebrew things of various categories (the "spells" section has a "homebrew spells" button) and a "create a spell" button, so it seems like there's an in-client way to pull up an entry for homebrew, though knowing curse i do suspect that there'll be a way to import previously prepared data sets.

That latest piece of news though: Available offline is huge, it could also imply that their pricing model isn't a subscription (as you could just sub for a bit, get everything, and then run it offline after canceling) i suspect you might have to pay fees for access to specific datasets (ergo, you have to buy a PHB pack, or a volo's pack, and what not for the content within- with luck, WOTC will put something in place to help us not have to essentially buy books multiple times)

 

[Reynard]

No mention of Virtual Table Top was made so I wonder if they are planning on staying away from that first now. It makes sense with the relatively recent licensing deals with Fantasy Grounds and Roll20. If that is in fact the case I hope there is some tool for integration between the two.

 

[Morrus]

No mention of Virtual Table Top was made so I wonder if they are planning on staying away from that first now. It makes sense with the relatively recent licensing deals with Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.

Yeah, it would rather undermine their VTT licensees if they made one. That wouldn't be a very ethical move.

 

[TerraDave]

If they did put out some more official player content (like a book of it) then something like this does become pretty handy.

Just hope it actually works.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

If they did put out some more official player content (like a book of it) then something like this does become pretty handy.

Just hope it actually works.

Well all of those subclasses being tested in UA, according to Mike Mearls, are for them to figure out what their "First major Content Expansion" will look like, and that should be coming out at some point, ideally later this year. so yeah, big book of player oriented crunch, and this to help us keep track of it, sounds pretty toasty.

 

[Remathilis]

So i've been sort of looking at the video and pausing to look over the pages of the app- i can see buttons that direct you to homebrew things of various categories (the "spells" section has a "homebrew spells" button) and a "create a spell" button, so it seems like there's an in-client way to pull up an entry for homebrew, though knowing curse i do suspect that there'll be a way to import previously prepared data sets.

That latest piece of news though: Available offline is huge, it could also imply that their pricing model isn't a subscription (as you could just sub for a bit, get everything, and then run it offline after canceling) i suspect you might have to pay fees for access to specific datasets (ergo, you have to buy a PHB pack, or a volo's pack, and what not for the content within- with luck, WOTC will put something in place to help us not have to essentially buy books multiple times)

Hopefully, it won't be at full book price. Paying $50 for a physical book, $50 for the vtt version, and $50 for d&d-beyond data pack feels a bit like like gouging.

 

[DLIMedia]

Good to see that WotC finally got their act together and decided that trying to do this in house would have been a terrible idea.

 

[Reynard]

Hopefully, it won't be at full book price. Paying $50 for a physical book, $50 for the vtt version, and $50 for d&d-beyond data pack feels a bit like like gouging.

Tell me about it. Paying $100 for Volo's Guide is tough, but I run games both via FG and IRL.