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.