D&D 5E D&D Beyond Announcement?

[Prakriti]

This is totally true. And I totally use Roll20. However-- for me-- long term, I'd rather shift my operations over to DDB entirely. I find (--my opinion--) that the rules reference, the character sheet, the character building, the encounter building are all far better experiences in DDB than in Roll20. So I tend to spend my money on DDB. And lately, since they added the encounter tracking and we mostly use theater of the mind, I almost only use Roll20 to roll dice except for the rare combat when I need a grid.

Once they add dice rolling and finish fleshing out the combat tracker, I'll have almost everything I need to run the vast majority of my games all in one place. Just the fact that my entire group much prefers building their characters in DDB over Roll20 has been enough to move me over. And as they start adding more DM tools and a battle map . . . well, as per my post above, I think you can see their long term strategy . . .

I have limited experience with DBB and a lot of experience with Roll20, and I will say that DDB looks a lot slicker and more polished. And DDB has an aura of officialness that Roll20 lacks (which is odd, since they're both license-holders, as far as I know, with neither being more closely connected to WotC than the other).

Anyway, it's rare to hear from people who have ample experience with both DBB and Roll20, so thanks for your input. I can definitely see a future where DDB gobbles up the VTT market.

 

[Raunalyn]

Cool, never used either, just happy that DDB is adding this. I've been using a separate program for initiative tracking but having it together with DDB means that for me, I can run everything in one program at the table. It's gonna make running combat much, much easier for me.

Fantasy Ground's Combat Tracker is very automated. Tracks effects, concentration, etc. You're concentrating on a Bless spell and get smacked? FG will auto-roll concentration and will kill the effects of the Bless if you fail your check. Drop to zero hitpoints? FG will roll your death save when your turn rolls around, and will even give you a hitpoint of you roll a 20 on your save.

Like I said, very robust.

 

[lkj]

I have limited experience with DBB and a lot of experience with Roll20, and I will say that DDB looks a lot slicker and more polished. And DDB has an aura of officialness that Roll20 lacks (which is odd, since they're both license-holders, as far as I know, with neither being more closely connected to WotC than the other).

Anyway, it's rare to hear from people who have ample experience with both DBB and Roll20, so thanks for your input. I can definitely see a future where DDB gobbles up the VTT market.

Absolutely. I think their strategy has been to build polished, easy to use, blocks at each stage rather than try to get all the functionality in all at once. And they pointedly never promise features before they are actively working on them. And this strategy has completely worked on me for two reasons:

1) The rules reference (while definitely not perfect) has been so slick, I basically even run my tabletop games with a tablet or a phone handy to look up rules. I barely open up the books anymore.

2) My gaming group who are not all 1000% nerds like me, immediately liked building characters in DDB. And they also liked how the character sheet has all the rules for everything with a simple hover or click right off the sheet. (Of course, they also liked that once I bought a digital version of a book, through campaign sharing they immediately had access to it without having to buy it themselves). For Roll20, I was always porting their characters in and having to do all the work myself because the interface was just hard enough that they wouldn't bother. (casual gamers won't take the time to learn it)

I've also used FG and I like it. It is also way more functional for running a digital game right now. But getting the server set up and trying to teach my group to use it proved enough of a hassle that we just used Roll20.

Shrug. YMMV. I know other groups will not see why we had trouble with FG and Roll20. But you'd be surprised just how much a learning curve it is for some.

AD

 

[Oofta]

Don't discount ease of use and built in rules as a selling point of DDB. They may not have some features others tools have, but other tools don't have the built-in integration that DDB does either.

If the tool doesn't do what you need, don't use it. Personally I'm quite happy with it even if I would like more options to print out stuff like monster sheets because my tablet is called a "laptop" and my battery gets pretty iffy by the end of a session.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Does someone have the announcement somewhere? I don't see it on their site.

 

[MNblockhead]

Just keep in mind, everyone, that this is an alpha and a lot of features aren't finished yet. You wouldn't believe the number of people who complain on the Alpha feedback threads complaining about how "unfinished" the feature is, apparently completely unaware what alpha means.

Which is why it should be opt in. But the effort to manage an opt-in alpha program take more resources than just making a prominent notice that it is alpha. And they do make it obvious that it is alpha, but people get excited and entitlement mentality sets in immediately. As long as the alpha features doesn't break any stable feature I don't think folks have grounds to complain.

 

[MNblockhead]

Glad to see this, but the little I was able to see before they took it down makes it clear that I'll be sticking with Improved Initiative for the time being. No condition tracking, doesn't seem to have a separate player view that players can follow along with live. I don't need the full VM treatment, but it is too basic even for me at this point. Also, if you use a lot of third-party published monsters or homebrew monsters, creating them in DDB is time consuming, where as I can quick create a new opponent in improved initiative with just the stats I need to track/reference in the tool. Can pretty much do it on the fly.

With a few more features, however, the DDB combat tracker will be very nice to use with official adventures if it is integrated so that you can launch an encounter from the adventure.

In any event, I'm glad to see this and will be following its development.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

@Urriak Urak:

It's several places in the forums, this thread gives the most info.
Videa announcement was done on twitch.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

I guess it's something. But Roll20 has had this capability for years.

Fantasy Grounds, too. And quite robust, as well.

Keen in mind that when D&D Beyond (aka DDB) was first pitched/announced/advertised, they mostly emphasized its use in face to face games. In the beginning they were careful to say that they weren't looking to develop a VTT toolset, since there were several out there already; they were looking to provide digital tools for other users. Now, that has since changed, and a digital gaming space IS part of their plans eventually, in part because their users have requested it (along with a zillion other requested features). But they didn't start out to take on Roll20 or Fantasy grounds, and the improvements they are doing at the moment are still mostly aligned with their initial vision, although heavily influenced by user feedback.

As an example, I don't use Roll20, Fantasy grounds or anything like them. The only online game I play in is play by post. But I do use DDB extensively for my face to face games.

 

[MNblockhead]

Unless you want to run a VTT, Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are not worth the learning curve. DDB, both the website and the app are the most pleasant to read and useful digital versions of the books I've seen and I really enjoy using DDB as a digital library for D&D and as a tool for looking up rules, monsters, magic items, etc.

The character sheet is also very good. Again, among the best digital character sheets for D&D that I've seen.

The encounter builder and initiative tracker are not even close to being something that I would use yet. I like the design aesthetic and it is nice how it can pull in any published monster and the characters from your campaign. But I'm spoiled from years of Hero Lab, and more recently, Improved Initiative.

There are a number of things that are missing from DDB's combat tracker, but the main dealbreakers for me are:

1. Only monsters from official WotC books. I use too many third-party publisher materials, esp. Kobold Press and Frog God Games. Having to create homebrew monsters in DDB for all my encounters is laborious. Yes, you can enter basic stats for some monsters on the fly, but I find Improved Initiative to be much easier to get information into Roll20, FG, and Hero Lab support many third-party materials, so if I'm using those materials they make more sense for me. Because DDB only supports official WotC content, I don't have much use for any tools they release beyond the character sheet and ebook functionality.

2. Doesn't track conditions. This is also one reason I stopped using Hero Lab's combat tracker. Improved Initiative makes this so easy. Tracking conditions is one the of the things that makes a combat tracker helpful. Just tracking initiative and HP doesn't need a tool. A sheet of paper is generally the best initiative tracker outside of large numbers of diverse combatants.

3. Limited Player Interaction. The DM still has to do most of the work. I don't see how it makes my life as a DM much easier. With Improved Initiative, players can add and remove conditions and apply healing to themselves and other players (although it is a setting the DM controls, it can be set up so that the DM has to approve the changes before they go into effect).

Improved initiative has really spoiled me. I have not patience for other tools any more. It is either a sheet of paper or Improved Initiative.