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<blockquote data-quote="Xotli" data-source="post: 8366730" data-attributes="member: 6687247">Speaking as a professional software developer for the past 34 years—including running my own software development business&nbsp;&nbsp; for 12 of those years—and also speaking as someone who's been playing D&amp;D for even longer than that, and also speaking as someone who's tried to create my own versions of character builders throughout the years, I would agree with most of&nbsp; &nbsp; what [USER=18]@Ruin Explorer[/USER] has said in the thread.&nbsp; I would say they're dead wrong in describing it as: &quot;It's a database with a front-end. That's all it is.&quot; ... 'cause, let me assure you, it is not merely that.&nbsp; People have been trying to make character builders for literally decades now, and no one's ever really succeeded.&nbsp; That's not a fluke or a coincidence.&nbsp; Doing it is hard, and doing it in a way that allows for homebrew is even harder, and ignoring homebrew makes it unappealing&nbsp; to too big a chunk of the (formerly quite narrow) vertical market.&nbsp; But it is certainly possible.&nbsp; If I had the resources&nbsp; of D&amp;D Beyond, I could have done it myself a few times over by now.&nbsp; It is not easy to implement, but the initial design&nbsp;&nbsp; choices really do make a huge difference, as someone pointed out.&nbsp; And, while [USER=177]@Umbran[/USER] is correct that's it's not possible to&nbsp; create &quot;generally expandable&quot; software, you can certainly create software that would handle 90+% of homebrew, and WotC ain't doing nothing in UA that most of us here haven't tried in a homebrew context at one time or other.&nbsp; The Strixhaven example&nbsp;&nbsp; is certainly an extreme one, but, given a sufficiently open-ended design, it wouldn't have been as hard to add those things&nbsp; as it apparently was for DDB.&nbsp; And, as some in the thread have also pointed out, &quot;cheating&quot; (by making each subclass a set of subclasses, one for each class it was allowed for, which I'm sure would have been perfectly satisfactory for the majority of users) would have made it even easier.But, hey: we don't need to have 6 pages of argument about whether it's possible or not.&nbsp; [USER=6801401]@HawaiiSteveO[/USER] provided the answer&nbsp; to that question right on page 1: Shard.&nbsp; Shard has issues, sure, and maybe it couldn't have handled the Strixhaven stuff&nbsp; &nbsp; (I'm not 100% sure on that one), but it defintely handles a lot more homebrew possibilities than DDB, and it was built to&nbsp; be scalable from the ground up, and they did it with significantly fewer resources than DDB and also without official support from WotC.&nbsp; Whether it's possible or not is not a hypothetical.&nbsp; It's a thing that exists in the world already.&nbsp; If the guys who built Shard had been the ones who started D&amp;D Beyond, we'd all be a lot happier right now, and this thread&nbsp;&nbsp; would definitely not exist.(To be fair, the guys at Shard have a lot of hindsight to go on, and they were able to learn from DDB's mistakes.&nbsp; But AFAICthey definitely settle the question of whether or not it's possible, and that seems to be what the thread has mostly devolved into.)Side note: At one point [USER=6801845]@Oofta[/USER] said: &quot;If you're creating classes from scratch you are a tiny market niche for a niche&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; application.&quot;&nbsp; I don't think that's true, first of all, but I also don't think that it's 100% relevant.&nbsp; Any class that wasn't created by WotC is technically a homebrew class, and, other than a privileged few (e.g. blood hunter), even classes&nbsp;&nbsp; from major sources have to be entered as &quot;homebrew.&quot;&nbsp; Suppose I want to play a feywalker from EN World's <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/280434/The-Masterclass-Codex-Sixteen-New-Character-Classes-For-Your-Fifth-Edition-Campaign" target="_blank">Masterclass Codex</a>&nbsp;&nbsp; (which I am in fact doing in one of my games).&nbsp; Suppose I want to play an <a href="https://shop.mcdmproductions.com/products/illrigger-class" target="_blank">illrigger</a> from MCDM.&nbsp; These are very high-selling products, but a character creator that doesn't allow homebrew classes can't handle them.&nbsp; That seems problematic if DDB wants to &quot;win&quot; the market in the long run.EDIT: FIxed typo, added links.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Xotli, post: 8366730, member: 6687247"] Speaking as a professional software developer for the past 34 years—including running my own software development business for 12 of those years—[I]and[/I] also speaking as someone who's been playing D&D for even longer than that, [I]and[/I] also speaking as someone who's tried to create my own versions of character builders throughout the years, I would agree with [I]most[/I] of what [USER=18]@Ruin Explorer[/USER] has said in the thread. I would say they're dead wrong in describing it as: "It's a database with a front-end. That's all it is." ... 'cause, let me assure you, it is [I]not[/I] merely that. People have been trying to make character builders for literally decades now, and no one's ever really succeeded. That's not a fluke or a coincidence. Doing it is hard, and doing it in a way that allows for homebrew is even harder, and ignoring homebrew makes it unappealing to too big a chunk of the (formerly quite narrow) vertical market. [I]But[/I] it is certainly possible. If I had the resources of D&D Beyond, I could have done it myself a few times over by now. It is [I]not[/I] easy to implement, but the initial design choices really do make a huge difference, as someone pointed out. And, while [USER=177]@Umbran[/USER] is correct that's it's not possible to create "generally expandable" software, you can certainly create software that would handle 90+% of homebrew, and WotC ain't doing nothing in UA that most of us here haven't tried in a homebrew context at one time or other. The Strixhaven example is certainly an extreme one, but, given a sufficiently open-ended design, it wouldn't have been as hard to add those things as it apparently was for DDB. And, as some in the thread have also pointed out, "cheating" (by making each subclass a set of subclasses, one for each class it was allowed for, which I'm sure would have been perfectly satisfactory for the majority of users) would have made it even easier. But, hey: we don't need to have 6 pages of argument about whether it's [I]possible[/I] or not. [USER=6801401]@HawaiiSteveO[/USER] provided the answer to that question right on page 1: Shard. Shard has issues, sure, and maybe it couldn't have handled the Strixhaven stuff (I'm not 100% sure on that one), but it defintely handles a [I]lot[/I] more homebrew possibilities than DDB, and it was built to be scalable from the ground up, and they did it with significantly fewer resources than DDB and also without official support from WotC. Whether it's possible or not is [I]not[/I] a hypothetical. It's a thing that exists in the world already. If the guys who built Shard had been the ones who started D&D Beyond, we'd all be a lot happier right now, and this thread would definitely not exist. (To be fair, the guys at Shard have a lot of hindsight to go on, and they were able to learn from DDB's mistakes. But AFAIC they definitely settle the question of whether or not it's possible, and that seems to be what the thread has mostly devolved into.) Side note: At one point [USER=6801845]@Oofta[/USER] said: "If you're creating classes from scratch you are a tiny market niche for a niche application." I don't think that's true, first of all, but I also don't think that it's 100% relevant. Any class that wasn't created by WotC is technically a homebrew class, and, other than a privileged few (e.g. blood hunter), even classes from major sources have to be entered as "homebrew." Suppose I want to play a feywalker from EN World's [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/280434/The-Masterclass-Codex-Sixteen-New-Character-Classes-For-Your-Fifth-Edition-Campaign']Masterclass Codex[/URL] (which I am in fact doing in one of my games). Suppose I want to play an [URL='https://shop.mcdmproductions.com/products/illrigger-class']illrigger[/URL] from MCDM. These are very high-selling products, but a character creator that doesn't allow homebrew classes can't handle them. That seems problematic if DDB wants to "win" the market in the long run. [SIZE=1][I]EDIT:[/I] FIxed typo, added links.[/SIZE] [/QUOTE]

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