D&D 5E Question for folks who use D&D Beyond: How well does it work with the new rules?

[Burnside]

Unless they changed things recently, limiting something under content sharing, only precluded other participants in a campaign from reading a specific source, but all the rules options remain available for characters.

This is correct, and terrible.

The only way to limit sources in the character builder is by going into each individual players Manager and toggle sources in the first tab, repeat for every character in the campaign. This can only be done after the character already exists, of course, so it's basically impossible for a inexperienced user to create a character using only the sources the DM wants used. DM then needs to meticulously review each character sheet to weed out stuff from unwanted sources.

There is also no way whatsoever to bar 2024 classes and spells from selection. Players just have to know not to use them.

For me, the character builder was - or used to be - the biggest value in DNDBeyond. I consider it a mess now. That's not even taking into account the way that they don't even bother trying to implement all the third party books they're now selling into the character builder. If you own the Lord of the Rings book on DNDBeyond, try using DNDBeyond to make a character using the rules in it if you'd like to feel crazy.

 

[R_J_K75]

There's nothing wrong at all with voting with your wallet. Better to just stop paying for it if it isn't worth the money and time anymore than it is to keep paying for it but doing nothing but endlessly complaining about it. Why do that to yourself?

It's the same argument against people who buy a product but then get mad at what isn't in there-- whining about how "I paid for X but got Y!" Noooooooo.......... Y was there the entire time and you bought Y. If you didn't review the product enough before you bought it to see that it didn't include X and it was in fact Y... then that's your own fault. It's not anyone else's OR WotCs. Don't blame other people because (general) you didn't pay attention to what you were spending your money on.

You just made my $5 for D&DB this month so much more worth it

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is correct, and terrible.

The only way to limit sources in the character builder is by going into each individual players Manager and toggle sources in the first tab, repeat for every character in the campaign. This can only be done after the character already exists, of course, so it's basically impossible for a inexperienced user to create a character using only the sources the DM wants used. DM then needs to meticulously review each character sheet to weed out stuff from unwanted sources.

There is also no way whatsoever to bar 2024 classes and spells from selection. Players just have to know not to use them.

For me, the character builder was - or used to be - the biggest value in DNDBeyond. I consider it a mess now. That's not even taking into account the way that they don't even bother trying to implement all the third party books they're now selling into the character builder. If you own the Lord of the Rings book on DNDBeyond, try using DNDBeyond to make a character using the rules in it if you'd like to feel crazy.

I mean you're not wrong... but who are these DMs that have decided on only allowing specific products for their particular game but then letting their inexperienced players go in to make PCs under no supervision whatsoever? That just seems rather sill on the DM's part, LOL!

I will say though that there is a way to get around one of the issues you mentioned about having to go in after characters are created to turn off certain sources. A workaround is that the DM can themselves create "characters" first inside their campaign page... going in and flipping all the switches they want on the first page of the builder for what sources to be used, enable dice rolling, which way ability scores get shown, pre-requisites, ignore coin weight etc. and then just not filling in any other character details except for like a generic name like 'Character 1', 'Character 2' etc. And then leave these "characters" 'unclaimed' on the campaign page... thus allowing the players who receive the link to the campaign via email to come into the DDB campaign page and 'claim' a character... and then can go in and start making feature selections with all the applicable things the DM wanted already in place.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You just made my $5 for D&DB this month so much more worth it

I do what I can.

 

[Belen]

I mean you're not wrong... but who are these DMs that have decided on only allowing specific products for their particular game but then letting their inexperienced players go in to make PCs under no supervision whatsoever? That just seems rather sill on the DM's part, LOL!

Inexperienced GMs. DDB does not come with a great user manual. You can see that with the recent thread about maps. A do a lot of publishing software setup and testing and it requires a certain mindset and level of curiosity to figure it out on your own and I see a lot of smart people who cannot do it.

That said, for me, I create a DDB cheat sheet and I tell the players what options that they can and cannot use. I also have instructions on how to make sure you use legacy content etc.

For session zero, I will also take them through the DDB character builder to demo it live if they need additional help.

 

[Burnside]

I will say though that there is a way to get around one of the issues you mentioned about having to go in after characters are created to turn off certain sources. A workaround is that the DM can themselves create "characters" first inside their campaign page... going in and flipping all the switches they want on the first page of the builder for what sources to be used, enable dice rolling, which way ability scores get shown, pre-requisites, ignore coin weight etc. and then just not filling in any other character details except for like a generic name like 'Character 1', 'Character 2' etc. And then leave these "characters" 'unclaimed' on the campaign page... thus allowing the players who receive the link to the campaign via email to come into the DDB campaign page and 'claim' a character... and then can go in and start making feature selections with all the applicable things the DM wanted already in place.

It would just be really, really nice if the Content Sharing toggles in the Campaign Manager actually...managed content sharing in the campaign.

 

[Burnside]

It limits the players if they create under your campaign to the options you allow

No, it actually doesn't even do that.

 

[AlViking]

Seems to me that all this controversy shows is that there's no substitute for reading the rules of the game. Doesn't matter if you read a physical book or the online version. Like most software developed since Babbage and his calculating machine, no software is perfect.

Don't get me wrong I would like several changes myself. I just don't expect newbies to jump into it blindly and expect 100% success. But maybe I just spent too much time trying to fix up crappy systems with conflicting priorities.

Doesn't change that if someone is new to the game, or any moderately complex software, I sit down with them and explain how it works the first time.

 

[Burnside]

Seems to me that all this controversy shows is that there's no substitute for reading the rules of the game. Doesn't matter if you read a physical book or the online version. Like most software developed since Babbage and his calculating machine, no software is perfect.

Don't get me wrong I would like several changes myself. I just don't expect newbies to jump into it blindly and expect 100% success. But maybe I just spent too much time trying to fix up crappy systems with conflicting priorities.

Doesn't change that if someone is new to the game, or any moderately complex software, I sit down with them and explain how it works the first time.

It would just be nice to not be ambushed by design flaws. Even experienced DMs expect that when they turn off content sharing for certain sources in the campaign manager, that content won't then be available for use in creating characters inside that campaign. That one's not a question of reading the rules; it's just poor design.

 

[AlViking]

It would just be nice to not be ambushed by design flaws. Even experienced DMs expect that when they turn off content sharing for certain sources in the campaign manager, that content won't then be available for use in creating characters inside that campaign. There is no amount of advanced reading that would prevent you from finding out the hard way that that isn't the case. That one's not a question of reading the rules; it's poor design.

Not disagreeing it should have better filtering. I think I stated that above somewhere I'd like at least global filters associated to my login. But you should still have a basic understanding if the game and the fact that it supports two sets of rules.