Has lack of an insider account kept you from playing 4E?

[Dykstrav]

I've had a situation in looking for a 4E group and I'm wondering how common it is.

I've been trying to get into some 4E games on and off for the past few months. Two local games match up with my schedule and I was invited to play. Two or three other games, I might be able to sit in on every once in a while. But the majority of the invitations to play were rescinded after the DMs learned that I don't have a D&D Insider account and that I'm not using the character builder.

I asked the DMs in question about the situation. The DM of the first game I could do regularly basically evaded my line of questioning and told me that I was required to have an Insider account to play in his campaign. The DM of the second game I could do regularly told me that he didn't want to worry about whether or not my character is up-to-date with the latest errata and whether or not I know about any rules updates--he apparently feels that I won't be able to keep up with rules updates unless I let the character builder do it for me. The other DMs had mixed reactions, ranging from surprise that I don't have an Insider account to passive-aggressive insinuations. Of the five different DMs, only one seemed reasonable about me not having an Insider account, and is still willing to let me play as our scheduling allows.

Is this sort of thing common?

 

[Piratecat]

That's just weird. About half my players don't have ddi accounts, but everyone lets the non-subscribing players occasionally use their character builder if they want to. I can't imagine booting a player who didn't subscribe.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That seems extreme to me.

Our group hasn't played 4Ed because nobody in the group likes it enough to run it. That will be changing in about a month because the new guy wants to give it a go.

The DM and I are the only ones with any of the books, and understandably, nobody has a ddi account...with the possible exception of the DM, that is. Its not like this is a CRPG.

 

[IronWolf]

Definitely sounds like the extreme side to me. Our group doesn't play 4e, but I would think if this was a more common issue we would hear more about it here.

 

[fba827]

our group is about half insider accounts, half not. it really hasn't been an issue at all.

 

[redboxrazor]

Nobody in my group has an insider account. A year ago, we were all sharing one and splitting the cost, but now we just use the books.

 

[knightofround]

Yeah I think that's way extreme. Any DM worth their salt would nerf down a powergamer exploit irregardless of the errata. Even if a DM was obsessive about people needing DDI, they could always let you use their account purely for the chargen.

If the DMs are really hedging either 1. they're elitist jerks, who you probably don't want to play with anyway or 2. they're not really interested in adding another player to the game, and they're using the DDI to passively-agress away the casual gamers.

 

[Siberys]

In my group, only I have an Insider account. It helps that I'm the GM, of course. Except that I tell my players NOT to use the CB; I house rule too much and love 3PP stuff. I get it entirely for Dragon articles.

Do your GMs realize that one account allows up to 5 separate computers to have the CB? As long as at least one person in the group has the sub, most of the others should be covered.

 

[Victim]

Nope. It's not really that hard to remember the bits of errata most relevant to your own character. And if it is, you can just print out those sections of the updates.

 

[BrokeAndDrive]

Here's to hoping I, nor anyone else, never encounter such "DDI elitism".