D&D General DnDbeyond AMA tomorrow (Tues, Dec 9)

[Distracted DM]

I don't think its unreasonable for a DM to expect control over what sources they allow into their DnDB campaign, it doesn't seem like a crazy feature to expect and it makes it a little easier for the DM, buuut considering the pushback I must be the odd one out.

 

[darjr]

I don't think its unreasonable for a DM to expect control over what sources they allow into their DnDB campaign, it doesn't seem like a crazy feature to expect and it makes it a little easier for the DM, buuut considering the pushback I must be the odd one out.

I don’t think so. The whole idea of dndbeyond is computerized assistance and optimization of the process of running D&D, including making characters. Which in my mind includes campaign constraints.

I do see the complaint often enough even from experienced DMs

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

You'll have to . . . trust your players! It's a "new-school" concept, but works pretty well in most cases.

I don't think its unreasonable for a DM to expect control over what sources they allow into their DnDB campaign, it doesn't seem like a crazy feature to expect and it makes it a little easier for the DM, buuut considering the pushback I must be the odd one out.

It's not an issue of a DM trusting the players so much as one of convenience/making the software less clunky I think is the point being made. If a DM sets up a campaign with certain restrictions for flavour/world-building/whatever reasons, being able to set those restrictions at the campaign level so that players don't have to remember them when creating their characters saves some work, which is the point of software really.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I don’t think so. The whole idea of dndbeyond is computerized assistance and optimization of the process of running D&D, including making characters. Which in my mind includes campaign constraints.

I do see the complaint often enough even from experienced DMs

ninja-ed...

 

[Dire Bare]

I don't think its unreasonable for a DM to expect control over what sources they allow into their DnDB campaign, it doesn't seem like a crazy feature to expect and it makes it a little easier for the DM, buuut considering the pushback I must be the odd one out.

How much control should a DM exert over player options for games they run? Different DMs are comfortable with different degrees of control, of course. From highly restrictive to anything goes!

But how do you exercise the level of control of character creation you are comfortable with? For me, the easiest way is to let my players know what options I'd like them to use, and then trust them to stick within those boundaries. I trust my players.

Sure, every once in a while I have a player who "cheats" in some way . . . and if I even notice it, I reflect on how much it is impacting the game and everybody's fun, and then address it with that player. If the player's cheating is having a significant impact and I've learned I cannot trust them . . . they are no longer invited to my game. This has happened only rarely, and has never gotten to the point where I felt I needed to boot someone.

But I didn't really start DMing in earnest until college, so perhaps I've been blessed with mature players.

I do run an afterschool game for middle-schoolers . . . and yeah, some of them cheat. On their homework and on their characters! It's usually pretty obvious, and we have a chat about playing fair. Still haven't had to boot anybody.

Still, it would be nice if D&D Beyond had an option on the DM's side to restrict sources and options. Not because I don't trust my players, but it would make character creation easier for them if they can only see the options we agreed upon on Session Zero. But, DDB has a long list of feature updates they are working on, so I'll be patient. It's not high on my priority list.

 

[Distracted DM]

Still, it would be nice if D&D Beyond had an option on the DM's side to restrict sources and options.

but it would make character creation easier for them if they can only see the options we agreed upon on Session Zero.

Yes, this is the entirety of it. It just saves time and headaches; it makes the DM's life a little easier, because it sucks to have a player make a character with a bunch of content because they misunderstood something, and now I have to take all those toys away. Not a great feeling, and it can happen with some frequency.
It's a feature that's been requested for years now, so when I was told it was added I got excited that they finally did so- but they were just talking about being able to turn stuff off/on from the character creation screen, on the DM campaign-side screen.

edit: I'm gonna check the AMA in case anyone else asked about it, that's the whole point of my original post about it, I regret not asking about it in the AMA 'cuz I thought it was implemented!

edit2: Yup. Two similar questions, two similar answers:

• This is definitely something we’re aware of and thinking about with future campaign features.
• I love it and this is something we are indeed looking at. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how simple or advanced you would like the filtering feature to be?

Sounds like it might make it in one day, possibly, maybe.. but especially considering they're talking about rebuilding the whole backend at some point.. this feature's not coming anytime soon.

 

[GarrettKP]

The new Beyond Homepage is live. It will take some getting used to for me but I’m glad they seem to be separating things into neater categories.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't think its unreasonable for a DM to expect control over what sources they allow into their DnDB campaign, it doesn't seem like a crazy feature to expect and it makes it a little easier for the DM, buuut considering the pushback I must be the odd one out.

I don't think it's unreasonable at all but, aside from streamlining the toggling, I'm not sure what more you want DDB to do about it.

They can't stop your players from buying their own books on DDB, anymore than the FLGS can stop players from buying books for your pen and paper games. The toggles allow you to control what content you share, and access to the character sheets lets you check to make sure your campaign restrictions are being followed, both of which features offer a leg up on pen and paper games, but beyond that I think you just gotta have a conversation with your players.

Note that you can already directly access the character sheets yourself and change toggles, as well as add/remove/edit whatever you want. Though here I would again recommend a conversation.

Again, aside from making toggling features on and off a bit simpler, like having a set of master toggles for the campaign, which I agree with you about, I'm not understanding what more you are asking for.

I don't think you should be able to toggle off a book that the player has bought independently (would that even be legal?). That would be like searching a players backpack and taking away their copy of the Monster Manual or something. In that sort of situation I think you've just gotta explain what your rules for the campaign are.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Thanks for these quotes

Here's a few answers I noticed from this:

1. Will mechanics from the 14/24 rulesets that don't currently work in Beyond (2024 Warlock Eldritch Invocations, 2024 Ritual Caster, Sorcerer Clockwork Soul, etc) ever be fixed?
   The core underlying issue here is a backend for game data and game rules we have started to rebuild. Getting through that work will take time. But its what will unlock the ability to support many more D&D rules* not currently supported on D&D Beyond.
   ---
   We have begun work on rebuilding D&D Beyond’s backend. Basically, its brains for game data and game rules. That is what is holding us back from supporting more class and mechanical functionality.
   ---
   ...our biggest work effort that has begun behind-the-scenes is rebuilding the entire game data and game rules architecture of D&D Beyond. The main reason for this is to expand the coverage of rules supported on D&D Beyond. I can say our support for rules will grow once we are through this critical rebuild.
   ---
   I wish I could say ASAP. But the reality is we have started the process of rebuilding our backend architecture to support more rules and playstyles like this. That is going to take time. Once we are through it, we’ll be able to better support rules like eldritch invocations.

I have long been of the opinion that technical debt was holding back DnDBeyond and that they needed to rebuild the back end to properly support the game and addition of new data. I wonder how much this impacted the development of new features in the game itself.

1. 
   
   my note: I interpret "many more D&D rules" in the first response as rules that currently exist in 14/24 that are not supported, rather than previous rulesets such as 3.5. I think he would have specified if it meant something like that.

You are probably correct but if they get the resources to do it well, then it should, in principle be able to support any game.

1. 
   
   
2. Will we be able to use the Maps Encounter Builder outside Maps?
   This work is planned. No ETA.
   ---
   We currently have, and sorry I know this is confusing, two encounter builders. There’s the one that has been in beta for years that you are referring to. There’s a new one currently within the Maps VTT. This new one we will continue to add functionality to and make it more accessible across the site to suit your needs. How we merge the streams in the future is still under discussion.
   
   
3. Will we be able to add DM notes to Maps?
   Also yes! This is part of our work to improve the DM experience.
   
   
4. What aspect of the homebrewing system is being improved first?
   Our first priority is easing the player and DM experience (tech is all about tradeoffs). We’re not happy with the current homebrewing experience on the site and we’ll make progress towards improving that over time. Right now, the team is talking about starting with Monsters, which is where homebrewing is used most often day-to-day.
   ---
   We do plan to make improvements to the Homebrew tools, likely starting with Monsters. But honestly, homebrewing your own class is probably one the last homebrew features we’d tackle.
   
   
5. Why did a la carte purchases disappear?
   First, we know that a la carte disappeared without much notice, and we apologize for the way it was handled. Things like this AMA help create the level of transparency the community deserves. We are going to be working on ways to give players access to smaller packages of content based on what character they want to build. A la carte exactly like before is unlikely. What was starting to happen with tens of thousands of items needed to be individually checked for entitlements by our services. This was impacting site speed and stability.

Further confirmation that a lot of content update was being hand done or massaged to fit the existing data structures. There will probably a nice data conversion job at the end of the back-end development. This is beginning to sound like a substantial job, and I would not expect anything soon but a pretty radical change when it gets rolled out.

1. 
   
   
2. Can we expect new character sheet features such as better spell management (specifically, "When can we expect all spell lists on a character sheet to show what we already have on our character while choosing new ones so I don't have to jump back and forth?") and a better text editor for notes?
   This is on our list as we work on rebuilds of the Character Builder and Character Sheets.
   ---
   We plan to rebuild our character sheet experience. [Also asked for follow-up with more details on what people would like for formatting and text editor.]
   
   
3. When will the next roadmap for Beyond be shown?
   My next post in the new year will share a roadmap.
   
   
4. Can we have more filter controls for the character options and spells available in campaigns?
   I love [this idea] and this is something we are indeed looking at. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how simple or advanced you would like the filtering feature to be?
   
   
   
5. Is AI going to be used on Beyond?
   I stand by and am totally aligned with our statement that you can find here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1642-updated-statement-on-ai

 

[SkidAce]

I don't think its unreasonable for a DM to expect control over what sources they allow into their DnDB campaign, it doesn't seem like a crazy feature to expect and it makes it a little easier for the DM, buuut considering the pushback I must be the odd one out.

Both sides are correct.

Players could always find stuff in books or internet...nothing has changed.

However, Beyond is a tool and has campaigns. As a tool, being able to indicate/limit what options are available to build characters is a great asset and helps streamline things for the DM, as a tool should.