D&D 5E Dragon+ -- any reasonably accessible way to read this?

[Dire Bare]

Overstatement much? I'm not a big fan of the web app, but it's far from "unusable" or "illegible". I somehow managed to read the entire thing, if you try hard enough, you can too!

 

[alienux]

I am pretty sure some people buy physical magazines. Heck, I might be one of them if they had one. But mostly, I really don't want gaming content to be stuck in some kind of crazy proprietary thing. I want a working download I can keep and continue using in the future, or I'm not going to use it in my games, because if it goes away I'll be screwed, and I have zero confidence in WotC not to break old online content.

I'd definitely buy physical copies. I'd even subscribe if they had the option.

 

[Jer]

Overstatement much? I'm not a big fan of the web app, but it's far from "unusable" or "illegible". I somehow managed to read the entire thing, if you try hard enough, you can too!

The point is that as a gaming magazine making the gaming elements unable to be saved or printed to use at the table makes it somewhat useless to many of us. I don't use a tablet at the table, so if I'm going to use some d100 table of things found in a giant's pouch (to pick a random example) then I need to be able to print it out and use it at the table. By making it impossible to do that they make the gaming material in Dragon less usable.

What's more, there's no reason at all to do it. If they want to lock most of it down so they can collect stats on usage that's fine - break out the "at the table" articles as PDFs and post them on the website for separate download and include a link in Dragon+ to the printable article (they've done this before - the last MtG Plane Shift was done that way). Do something to acknowledge that gaming material isn't something you just read casually on a magazine app but that it actually needs to be in a format that can be used at a table or else the gaming material is not useful and the whole exercise is pointless except as a preview of new D&D tie-ins that Wizards wants to promote.

 

[seebs]

Overstatement much? I'm not a big fan of the web app, but it's far from "unusable" or "illegible". I somehow managed to read the entire thing, if you try hard enough, you can too!

I think I figured out how to get it to show me an article, and it looks like clicking on an article shows you a scrolly text thing of it I think? But this is not how web pages or PDFs or anything usually work.

 

[Morrus]

I don't use a tablet at the table, so if I'm going to use some d100 table of things found in a giant's pouch (to pick a random example) then I need to be able to print it out and use it at the table.

Alternatively, you could just use a tablet at the table. There's a difference between refusing to do something and being unable to do it. You can get one for less than the price of a D&D book.

 

[CapnZapp]

My personal advice is to give up trying to access the internet on any closed system. (Such as Apple, Android or chrome OS) At least for any deeper tasks than merely fake news, gossip, and cat videos.

Do yourself a favor and get yourself a Windows desktop. Then run Firefox on it.

You can really take control over the internet that way. Loads of obnoxious stuff I don't have to deal with at all.

Learn to say no to stupid marketers and web people who try to constrain your surfing experience in a multitude of all equally crappy ways. Popup videos. Blinking ads. Popunder redirects. Disabled right-click menus. Cookie tracking, including "flash cookies". Nag screens. Inflexible page designs. Malicious code injections. And the list doesn't end there, if you know what I mean.

All that is crap you don't have to put up with, you know. Stop complaining about it and instead be grateful there exists a much better alternative.

 

[seebs]

I am pretty sure that, post Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Windows doesn't count as letting you control stuff.

Anyway, I really do prefer tablet-like things, but I also prefer things that I can run offline.

 

[orderofthings]

do you have the snipping tool?