[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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[doctorbadwolf]

Actually your DDI sub account doubled as your forum account, so those were in.

I remember much argument about this in partiular, culminating in sime users digging through the visible list oft DDIaccount namens to find the account some other user claimed was from a friend who had DDI and no forum account and thus would be missing in the figure

Well, the time when this could usefully be discussed is long gone, so I'll leave it at, I'm 90% sure you could absolutely have a ddi sub without having a forum account. Your ddi account could double as your forum account, if you activated a community account via ddi, which it wanted you to do, but you had to activate the forum account for it to show up.

But regardless, the point relies only on those minimum numbers, so even if the old forums existed and we could do anything more than remember past arguments at eachother, it would be tangential.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Thinking about the maximum I would pay, I've got a few thoughts.

If they were charging by packs like FG, where you'd pay 50 for the PHB, MM, DMG each and then like 30 for the other books each, I'd be willing to pay that and a small monthly sub (like 5) to access the digital tools like the encounter and monster builders, trackers, homebrewing tools, etc. However, I would dislike needing to pay the small sub to access the packs. If I'm paying 50 bucks for a digital version of the PHB (which I think is totally reasonable) I shouldn't need a sub for that.

I'd be willing to pay up to 20 a month if it meant straight access to everything as long as I am subbed without needing to purchase packs.

I wouldn't be in for buying things piecemeal (3.99 for the fighter, etc.), but I'm comfortable with that as an option for players who don't need a lot of the other features.

Lastly, if it is a matter of purchasing the app for a one time fee (20-50 bucks?) and then paying a monthly sub (10-15) to keep access to everything, I'd probably do it, but not like it.

 

[Mistwell]

Thinking about the maximum I would pay, I've got a few thoughts.

If they were charging by packs like FG, where you'd pay 50 for the PHB, MM, DMG each and then like 30 for the other books each, I'd be willing to pay that and a small monthly sub (like 5) to access the digital tools like the encounter and monster builders, trackers, homebrewing tools, etc. However, I would dislike needing to pay the small sub to access the packs. If I'm paying 50 bucks for a digital version of the PHB (which I think is totally reasonable) I shouldn't need a sub for that.

I'd be willing to pay up to 20 a month if it meant straight access to everything as long as I am subbed without needing to purchase packs.

I wouldn't be in for buying things piecemeal (3.99 for the fighter, etc.), but I'm comfortable with that as an option for players who don't need a lot of the other features.

Lastly, if it is a matter of purchasing the app for a one time fee (20-50 bucks?) and then paying a monthly sub (10-15) to keep access to everything, I'd probably do it, but not like it.

I am kinda surprised at how much you'd pay, given you can already pay roughly what you suggested for a DTT that already gives you all those things, AND the digital table top itself, AND access to official adventures. I mean, Roll20 for example has excellent character sheets now and character generation tools, and I am sure Fantasy Grounds does as well. Why would you pay the same for this, which has significantly less than those DTTs?

Am I missing something? Is there something highly useful that this proposed new system will do that those DTTs don't already do?

 

[daplunk]

I mean, Roll20 for example has excellent character sheets now and character generation tools, and I am sure Fantasy Grounds does as well. Why would you pay the same for this, which has significantly less than those DTTs?

Am I missing something? Is there something highly useful that this proposed new system will do that those DTTs don't already do?

Simply because the market they are aiming this at doesn't need or want the digital table element. It's over kill and takes away for the game for us.

 

[Morrus]

Simply because the market they are aiming this at doesn't need or want the digital table element. It's over kill and takes away for the game for us.

By "the market" do you mean "me"?

 

[daplunk]

By "the market" do you mean "me"?

The market they have said they are aiming this product at:

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."

The VTT market has different requirements and is already covered by Roll20 and Fantasy Ground.

 

[redrick]

I am kinda surprised at how much you'd pay, given you can already pay roughly what you suggested for a DTT that already gives you all those things, AND the digital table top itself, AND access to official adventures. I mean, Roll20 for example has excellent character sheets now and character generation tools, and I am sure Fantasy Grounds does as well. Why would you pay the same for this, which has significantly less than those DTTs?

Am I missing something? Is there something highly useful that this proposed new system will do that those DTTs don't already do?

I haven't used Roll20 since the updated OGL allowed it to bring in more D&D elements via the SRD, but it still seems like Roll20's features aren't very useful for tabletop play unless you plan to have Roll20 running on laptops or tablets at the table. You couldn't print out a character sheet with it (the Roll20 character sheet was a dozen tabs!), nor would I want to use it as a tool to browse and select monsters for an adventure, or print out materials in advance of a game. It's unclear from the video how much "pencil and paper" integration there will be with D&D Beyond, but it certainly existed with DDI and I hope that option continues to be a focus.

I don't want to use an app for minute-to-minute stuff at my table — marking off HP on a character sheet or tracking index on an index card works a-ok for me — but I'd love a tool that gives me better access to a digital tool that gives me access to all the monsters, spells, etc, when prepping games or characters away from the table. Also, Roll20 doesn't work on a smartphone.

That being said, I probably wouldn't sign up for $20/month either. A $10 or $15/month "all access" subscription would outpace buying all the available rulebooks in roughly a year. That's an awful lot to spend, especially seeing as splat style content is coming out very slowly, and none of it is particularly "essential." (Which I'm fine with — I love my Volo's Guide, but I think it was $30 on Amazon or something.)

 

[Reynard]

The market they have said they are aiming this product at:



The VTT market has different requirements and is already covered by Roll20 and Fantasy Ground.

Wait, the very statement you quoted indicated they intend their product to enhance play regardless of whether it is around a kitchen table or a virtual one.

 

[daplunk]

Yeah but only because they specifically don't want to call out that they are not designing this to compete with the VTT market. You only need to ask yourself a few questions to confirm that this product is not designed for the VTT market.

Can you create characters in the VTT?
Can you manage the characters in the VTT?
Can you manage combat in the VTT?
Can you look up spells and abilities in the VTT?

and the important one...

Do you NEED to create your character and manage your character in the VTT for the combat automation to work?

The answer is yes for Fantasy Grounds and mostly yes for Roll20 with a yes to follow as soon as they can finish rolling out the 5e official content.

Which means the only reason the VTT crowd would even remotely need this application is if they want access to their characters outside of the VTT game or they are not satisfied with the ability to look up information inside of the VTT solution.

Sorry but this tool is very clearly aimed and designed for the players not using a VTT. This application will form part of the CORE tool-set that many players will use to run and manage the game where as the VTT crowd will use this to supplement the experience if they so desire but will have little need to actually use it when playing.

 

[Morrus]

The market they have said they are aiming this product at:

But that's me! And I disagree with you!

One suspects you do not speak for "the market". You speak for you. Which is fine, but let's not pretend you are a personal avatar of "the market".