What's Next For D&D? Live From Origins - D&D Beyond

D&D Beyond was covered at the What's Next For D&D? panel at Origins Game Fair. In a previous article, I covered Tomb of Annihilation, courtesy of Twitter user Kato Katonian who live-tweeted the panel. This article covers D&D Beyond, the upcoming digital tools suite for Dungeons & Dragons. Curse's Adam Bradford was on the panel to represent D&D Beyond.

• Simply provide tools for managing game easier. Not making [D&D] into a video game.
• Beta phase 2 of D&D Beyond is digital character builder. This month.
• Create characters in minutes instead of hours, is the promise. Quick build, randomized generator, or straight up full creation.
• Digital character sheet. Aiming to be useful on smartphone (as well as full PC) to use at table.
• Beta Phase 3 of D&D Beyond: Homebrew & Campaign management. E.g. DM can make custom magic item and PC can have it on their sheet.
• Home brew stuff can be made public for other users. Campaign mgmt will allow DM to see and edit player character sheets.
• Two tiers of subscriptions: Hero Tier for players (unlimited character slots)...
• Master Subscription: DMs can share any content they've bought through Beyond with their players. No price points yet.
• Future Beyond features: stream integration, pronunciation guide, native mobile app, monster progression, encounter builder, init trackr.
• Pronunciation guide done by Matt Mercer and Marisha Ray. Coming in next few months, possibly sooner.
• Native mobile app a priority.
• D&D Beyond is planning on having all 13 print products integrated at launch (no pricing yet).
• After release, content will be available in D&D Beyond same day as hobby store release.

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[Erdric Dragin]

Hard to believe the whining and complaining about news of progress on a digitial product.

Because every single one of their past attempts/progress on digital products were met with failure.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Because every single one of their past attempts/progress on digital products were met with failure.

I'm not sure what that has to do with this product, which is a third party development, and hasn't gotten the chance to prove itself.

I enjoyed the first phase, even if it is the least needed part of it for me.

 

[fjw70]

I really like phase one as well. It's very useful for me to be able to look monster up quickly. Once all the material is in then even phase one will be great. Not as excited about phase two but still looking forward to it. I am very much looking forward you phase three.

 

[SigmaOne]

Hard to believe the whining and complaining about news of progress on a digitial product.

Sadly, it's not at all hard to believe. In fact, this being an RPG web forum, it is completely expected.

(No offense intended here to the administrators and moderators here; you all do a great job keeping this place civil. RPG players, and people in general, just love nothing more than complaining about things.)

Edit: I realize after the fact that might have been sarcasm on Mistwell's part.

 

[Shasarak]

Because every single one of their past attempts/progress on digital products were met with failure.

The 4th edition character builder was pretty good.

 

[Sands999]

I think you might be confused. When companies create free content, they still pay their employees. Loss-leaders are a fairly common practice in not only tabletop gaming but pretty much every industry. The free D&D Starter Kit is an excellent example of one.

What I mean is that I do not expect a company to solely produce free content without something they can profit off of to keep their business alive. I.e. The free d&d rules. The limited rules are free and this helps draw interest. Employees are paid to create something that has a free component to it, but still allows the company to profit when interested people playing the free stuff want more and purchase the books. I think is a great business model.

This all to say that you can still play d&d and make characters for free, which has not ever been an option prior to 5th edition.

 

[Mephista]

Meh. I'll worry about digital products when there's enough mechanics I need to reference on a digital device. I don't really need it to reference player material when we only have core+1 generally.

 

[Rellott]

The 4th edition character builder was pretty good.

Are you talking about the offline one, or the online one? The online one had all the same stuff but was a major pain to load and navigate through. I was sorely disappointed when they discontinued official support for the offline character builder. Both were tough to implement homebrew into (which might be a small part of the reason I didn't notice as much 4e 3rd party material... or maybe I just failed my perception check), but it was possible. A good official character builder was practically necessary in a game with so many customization options spread out over so many splat books.

 

[Jester David]

WotC hasn't has a lot of success with past efforts.
But they haven't worked with an established company that has a history of producing software. They have a better chance than ever of producing something that works.
And they last couple editions have had a hell of a lot of moving parts to manage and build around.

An advantage of working on things when you have an established and well selling product (that also isn't in flux) rather than between editions when you're not attracting any attention.

 

[Mistwell]

Because every single one of their past attempts/progress on digital products were met with failure.

That's false (4e's did quite well) but even if true this is from a third party company with a proven track record, and it's not cause for whining and complaining concerning news about their latest attempt.