D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[MNblockhead]

no....... I've had dnd beyond blow up in the middle of a game and had to end the game because no one had their characters downloaded or printed. Just no..... The biggest draw for me for D&D is that we can sit down and still play it without internet, without power, without phones. And some other day we can start the conversation of everyone surfing the web between encounters when it's all online. JUST NO FREAKING WAY.

Fair enough. Though with the DDB app on a smart phone or tablet, the site can go down or internet can go down and you'll still have access to your books and characters. For convention play, I still find it easier to have a high-capacity charging brick to keep my phone/tablet charged than to lug around a bunch of books. For my "home" game, I have to run it remotely with a VTT. So even if I had the physical books, loss of internet would mean no Discord and no Foundry, so DDB is the least of my worries.

The best of both worlds is to run games from my home, where I have my bookshelves, battlemaps, and minis easily accessible. DDB and Foundry (with a community mod) both allow printing character sheets to PDF for printing to paper. So there would be no reason for me not to avail myself of the conveniences provided by digital tools as I would have analog backups at the ready. Unfortunately, my work situation makes running games regularly from my home impossible. I've never had a game cancelled because of DDB going down though. The issue has always been a player having a computer or internet issues, but so long as they have a phone I can switch to Google Meet so that they can call into a telephone number. If the internet and all mobile telephone services are down--well, I think there are bigger issues that warrant cancelling the session.

 

[MNblockhead]

As long as i can download the content to my device, Fine. But no to being locked into an online tool that won't run offline.

DDB, using the app, allows you to have the content offline. But you are still locked in in a sense. Eventually, DDB could go away and support for the app could end. But the cost is still worth it to me and I've already gotten sufficient value from my DDB and, for that matter, my VTT spend, from the 100s of hours of play I've enjoyed using these tools. I still, however, buy the physical books for my favorite rules and adventures. Yesterday, my friends son ran a Warhammer Fantasy one-shot using the rules from a 30+ year old first-edition rulebook. So there is magic in good old physical books that even PDFs don't capture.

 

[MNblockhead]

yes, that is my complaint too. If it came with offline tools or a pdf, I’d much prefer that

Many do. DDB can run offline with the app. It isn't good for archiving like a PDF is, but you can access the rules and character sheets offline. You can also print your character sheets. Some VTTs like Foundry and Fantasy Grounds can be run offline and locally from your computer. A lot of people run in person games with VTTs using external displays.

 

[LordEntrails]

For convention play, I still find it easier to have a high-capacity charging brick to keep my phone/tablet charged than to lug around a bunch of books. For my "home" game, I have to run it remotely with a VTT. So even if I had the physical books, loss of internet would mean no Discord and no Foundry, so DDB is the least of my worries.

This. Some years back (2015) I wanted to get back into D&D, but I was travelling for a living, in a different hotel every week. Carrying around just the core 3 books was a PITA and I had to find a FLGS with an AL (or whatever it was called then) game I could get in on. Very quickly I went digital (Fantasy Grounds). Now I can carry dozens of books, thousands of maps and tokens and they all weigh nothing. Sure, I'm dependent on electricity, but so is most everything else in my life. And with internet I can play with the same people regardless of where in the world I am, or they are.

Yes it is not the same experience as sitting around a table with mini's et al. But it is still a good and enjoyable experience (some better, some worse) if you are willing to adapt.

 

[Clint_L]

no....... I've had dnd beyond blow up in the middle of a game and had to end the game because no one had their characters downloaded or printed.

I've used it for years now, at least once and as often as three times per week. And not had that happen. But if it did, it wouldn't be a problem. It's not like it stops you from going analogue; the players know their characters (and I know their characters), I know the rules (and have physical rulebooks for much of 5e as I like flipping through them), and it's not hard to get out some paper and pencils.

Or if you are really worried about it, you could just ask players to have their characters downloaded or printed (DDB character sheets are available as PDFs). This just doesn't seem like a problem. Worst case is switching to analogue.

Just no..... The biggest draw for me for D&D is that we can sit down and still play it without internet, without power, without phones. And some other day we can start the conversation of everyone surfing the web between encounters when it's all online. JUST NO FREAKING WAY.

Yeah, if you hate digital then it's not for you. That's a valid choice. I don't understand the objection about people surfing the web or being on the phone during the game because in my considerable experience, that doesn't often happen, aside from some occasional texting. People choose to be at the game and are engaged with it and each other. And I work with teenagers.

If someone was consistently doing that, I would ask them to stop. But it doesn't really happen.

I've also played a ton of games online, both due to the pandemic and due to distance. And even there, where the game is completely digital and no one is in the same room, people are engaged with each other. It's not like they are being forced to play; we've all made time for it and it's a highlight of our week.

And if there was a power outage, we would have to postpone a distanced game, obviously. That's never happened, but it could. But being able to play with my buddies in another city is well worth it. In person, not an issue.

Given your all caps at the end, it seems like you just aren't into any aspect of digital play. At all. You don't have to be. It's great that we have new ways to play, but the old ways to play are still awesome choices, as well.

 

[Clint_L]

Here's how DDB has changed the way I play when I am running games for students after school:

1. Everything is on my laptop. Except dice; I enjoy rolling dice so I bring a bag and share them with any students who want that experience; most prefer digital dice.

So instead of carting around a huge, heavy bin, with books, terrain, miniatures and the whole 9 yards, I just have my laptop, which I have anyway. And the players can't forget their stuff because they just have to have their laptop or a phone, which they do because they are at school anyway. And even if they did, I can just bring up their characters on my laptop. Overall efficiency is much higher, which means we can start playing right away, no muss, no fuss.

2. Organization of materials is much more streamlined. Instead of a bunch of books and sheets to sort through, I just have a bunch of tabs open on my browser. Typically, I have one for the adventure, two for maps (one which only I can see, and one which is shared with the characters and shows what they can see, lets them move their characters around, etc.), one for characters, one for looking up rules as needed, and the encounter builder/manager.

3. The game runs so much faster. If a random encounter happens, for example, it takes me a moment to create it using the encounter builder, hit run, and ask everyone to roll initiative. Everything is tracked, so I know exactly whose turn it is, what the character and creature abilities are, can get more detail information by hovering over, say, a spell, and so on.

4. Everything is saved and easy to resume. Our last game ended mid-combat (parent pick-up happens when it happens). Before the Winter Break. It'll be a month between sessions. And I'll be able to open up that combat on DDB, hit "resume", and there it is. The map still has the tokens on it. We will instantly be able to continue the battle for Wave Echo Caves.

5. All of the players have access to all of my rulebooks for their own games. If they want to run their own game over the break, they can. In fact, because we are a school club DDB gifted us a copy of every single book up through Rime of the Frostmaiden when I registered with them (the new programme is not quite so generous, but does include all the core books).

School games are 90 minute sessions, once per week. Most players are learning the game as they play. Without DDB, it would be very hard to get much actual play time. I can't tell you how much time it saves during the game, and my prep time is more than halved.

My home games are pretty much the same, except I am a miniatures and Dwarven Forge guy, so we don't use the maps feature on DDB as much, and all my players prefer using actual dice. And we play for 3-4 hours.

 

[haakon1]

We'll know they've shifted focus to DDB/digital if-when significant official content starts becoming available there that you can't (legally) get in print.

I think this will happen soon. MBA’s at Hasbro like to push things. And MBA’s recurring revenue like subscriptions.

Gift Cards that most people never redeem before they expire would also make MBA’s happy - digital gift cards on DDB will happen if they haven’t already.

In general, saying stuff is “digital“ still gets a premium on the P/E ratio in the stock market, so the push to say D&D is digital will continue.

 

[Clint_L]

I just don't like when arguments are presented in black and white terms, as if, in this case, it is a battle between digital and print media, and you can't have both. You can and we do, and we will for the foreseeable future. I love the ways that DDB has made it so much easier to prep and play D&D, but I also love spending hours making elaborate sets and painting miniatures. I love flipping through the Monster Manual on my patio.

We aren't being forced to choose between one thing or the other. We get to have more options. I don't have to play online with my best friend in Vancouver...but now I can. That's a win, in my books!

 

[MockingBird]

I just don't like when arguments are presented in black and white terms, as if, in this case, it is a battle between digital and print media, and you can't have both. You can and we do, and we will for the foreseeable future.

I just wanted to second this point. We use a hybrid of DDB and pen and paper every game session. We manage character advancement in DDB and print the sheets out. It definitely helps. Encounter builder has been great. I can run an Encounter so much faster with it.

 

[LordEntrails]

We'll know they've shifted focus to DDB/digital if-when significant official content starts becoming available there that you can't (legally) get in print.

This happened a couple years ago. The Beyond Icespire trilogy of adventured is official WotC content that is only available digitally.
Somehow people conveniently ignore this set of adventures. I've mentioned it on these forums in active posts probably a dozen different times when people somehow ignore them.
They are pretty good basic adventures. Really, you should check them out.