D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[nevin]

DDB products come as part of the web site, not as PDFs. You can of course print the page out, but it's designed to be viewed live. Personally, I find this to be much better than PDF, because as a reasonably well-designed web site it adapts to whatever screen I am using, whether that is my big desktop screen, my iPad screen, or my phone screen. It also means it can be used as a proper web site with hyperlinks that can open up in new tabs, which makes it a lot easier to keep tracks of various monsters and spells and things like that. But tastes vary.

Your subscription, if any, is separate from the products you have bought there, and have more to do with your access to the various tools on the site. So you can have a free account on the site and still have access to the things you bought, but there will probably be ads on the page, and you'll be limited in how to use the character creator and things like that.

no....... I've had dnd beyond blow up in the middle of a game and had to end the game because no one had their characters downloaded or printed. Just no..... The biggest draw for me for D&D is that we can sit down and still play it without internet, without power, without phones. And some other day we can start the conversation of everyone surfing the web between encounters when it's all online. JUST NO FREAKING WAY.

 

[Staffan]

no....... I've had dnd beyond blow up in the middle of a game and had to end the game because no one had their characters downloaded or printed. Just no..... The biggest draw for me for D&D is that we can sit down and still play it without internet, without power, without phones. And some other day we can start the conversation of everyone surfing the web between encounters when it's all online. JUST NO FREAKING WAY.

As I said, tastes vary. It's been a while since I ran 5e (our Princes of the Apocalypse campaign went on hiatus when the pandemic hit and we never got around to continuing it), but as a GM it was amazing (plus, I could bring just my Chromebook instead of half a dozen books). We didn't use it for character management as we had started the campaign pre-DDB, but as a DM tool it was great.

 

[nevin]

As long as i can download the content to my device, Fine. But no to being locked into an online tool that won't run offline.

 

[mamba]

As long as i can download the content to my device, Fine. But no to being locked into an online tool that won't run offline.

yes, that is my complaint too. If it came with offline tools or a pdf, I’d much prefer that

 

[Minigiant]

Digital would have to come with a feature to print, store offline, or screenshot.


But an incremental RPG needs the ability to update digitally.

For example WOTC needs the ability to add Cunning Strike to your rogue without you paying for it.

 

[Velderan]

As long as i can download the content to my device, Fine. But no to being locked into an online tool that won't run offline.

That's one of the main reasons Foundry is my VTT of choice. Besides it being incredibly customizable, you can install it on your computer and run games off of locally stored material for as long you like. Don't like the changes in an update? Continue to use the older version and don't worry about it. Plenty of people didn't care for the PF2e remaster changes and because they weren't forced to update the PF2e ruleset supporting their Foundry game, they can continue on with the old rules for as long as they like. It's probably as close as you can get to an ideal digital offering IMO.

 

[Velderan]

no....... I've had dnd beyond blow up in the middle of a game and had to end the game because no one had their characters downloaded or printed. Just no..... The biggest draw for me for D&D is that we can sit down and still play it without internet, without power, without phones. And some other day we can start the conversation of everyone surfing the web between encounters when it's all online. JUST NO FREAKING WAY.

The app now lets you download books and characters to be saved locally on your mobile device in case your connection drops. That doesn't solve the DM's reliance on a connection for things like encounters they've built on the platform, but it's progress. I will say to be fair I haven't used the platform in about 10 months, so maybe they've finally moved the encounter builder out of beta and implemented some offline functionality.

 

[payn]

That's one of the main reasons Foundry is my VTT of choice. Besides it being incredibly customizable, you can install it on your computer and run games off of locally stored material for as long you like. Don't like the changes in an update? Continue to use the older version and don't worry about it. Plenty of people didn't care for the PF2e remaster changes and because they weren't forced to update the PF2e ruleset supporting their Foundry game, they can continue on with the old rules for as long as they like. It's probably as close as you can get to an ideal digital offering IMO.

This is a really good point. Im not sure the D&D VTT will allow this feature. Though, I could see them having optional tiers like 2014 5E and 2024 5E.

 

[nevin]

Digital would have to come with a feature to print, store offline, or screenshot.


But an incremental RPG needs the ability to update digitally.

For example WOTC needs the ability to add Cunning Strike to your rogue without you paying for it.

what they need is the ability to add customized abilities so that DM can create custom abilities and make them available to the characters.

 

[Thomas Shey]

no....... I've had dnd beyond blow up in the middle of a game and had to end the game because no one had their characters downloaded or printed. Just no..... The biggest draw for me for D&D is that we can sit down and still play it without internet, without power, without phones. And some other day we can start the conversation of everyone surfing the web between encounters when it's all online. JUST NO FREAKING WAY.

I'm in no way hostile to people using their computers or other electronics during games, but I have to admit my desire to be dependent on a third-party website to run my game is absolutely nonexistent.