Sell me on D&D Beyond

[Burnside]

I was quite skeptical and resistant. I'm now totally converted and an enthusiastic fan. Please note that I'm speaking mostly as a DM here.

It's very cost-effective, circumstantially, if you go all-in. I have the high-end subscription, which has content sharing. I DM for three groups. Most of my players do not own the books (some are students and really can't afford them). With content sharing turned on for all three campaigns, 16 people have legal, complete, free access to literally every 5E book.

I also have the "total package" for content (or whatever it's called) which not only gives you a huge discount when you initially purchase it, but also a 15% discount on all future products as they become available - a discount which stacks with other codes (such as the ones announced on Critical Role). As a result, I basically got 4 or 5 of the books completely free.

Yes, I bought digital copies of some books which I already owned in hardcover. Just as I don't expect to be issued a copy of Star Wars in every possible medium simply because I bought in on VHS in the early 90s, I also don't expect to be given a free digital copy in 2018 of the Player's Handbook I bought in hardcopy three years before this platform existed. But I own MKT and WDH only on DNDBeyond and will likely never buy them in hardcopy (same with Ravnica and UoMM). DNDBeyond is the cheapest way to legally buy the content, and you get access to it on launch day (same day as FLGS).

Ease-of-use. I DM three campaigns and play in a fourth. None are at my apartment. i now no longer have to haul half a dozen hardcover books to all of these games; just my laptop. Also, cross-referencing rules and stats is just a matter of mousing over a hotlink instead of flipping through multiple sections of multiple books. In a complicated adventure this is a huge benefit as a DM. Also, I live in an apartment in NY and it's just generally space-saving not to have to have all the books.

The character sheet. DNDBeyond's exportable printable PDF character sheet was terrible initially, but it's now much improved. It STILL doesn't have some of the virtues of the 3rd party free products it DMCA'd (MPMB's spell sheet is still much better than the DNDBeyond version, for example) but they're getting there and I find the current version quite usable at the table.

What they should do:
- Keep improving the character sheet.
- Partner with DMsGuild to sell DMsGuild adventures & other content formatted for DND Beyond
- Add a sub-based VTT component (currently, if you run games on VTT, there is really no reason to go with DNDBeyond. Just use Roll20)
- Offline support for character sheets
- Much, much better mobile app is needed

 

[MNblockhead]

First thing would be for FG to have a mobile version so I could access my books away from my desktop. Next those books would have to be indexed and searchable in a way that actually returns the intended results. Finally, my entire library would have to be globally indexed and searchable.

I like FG as a VTT and for 5E I generally prefer it over Roll20, but a digital library and database it ain't.

I haven't looked at FG recently, but this is how a remember it. I think it is a better VTT than Roll20, but now that Roll20 has the books in a readable format, I think it is a viable alternative to both FG, DDB, and the physical books. It isn't the best the VTT and it isn't the best digital-books, but have a decent VTT and e-reader in one platform may make it the more economical and convenient choice for many.

 

[MNblockhead]

[MENTION=6910340]Burnside[/MENTION] - wish I could multi-click XP for your post. You've summed up my experiences better than I did above.

What they should do:
- Keep improving the character sheet.

Yes. For the PDF export, I wish they would get away from the official format and come up with something more readable and usable. Hero Labs does a great job presenting info with checkboxes for consumables and daily / per-rest powers. They also need AL support. The fact that I create my characters in BOTH DDB and HeroLab so I can print in HL's format does not make for a good endorsement of DDB. BUT I *MUCH* prefer the new *digital* character sheet on DDB, so much so that I prefer using it during play over pen and paper, which is a huge departure from long-held preferences and prejudices regarding using electronic devices at the table.

I would also be nice if there was some panel view for the DM of all of the characters in the campaign AND if that would sync effects and hitpoints. Basically a networked combat tracker.

- Partner with DMsGuild to sell DMsGuild adventures & other content formatted for DND Beyond
[/QUOTE

Yes. And with EN5sider and with Kobold Press, Frog God Games, Critical Role, and other content creators.

- Add a sub-based VTT component (currently, if you run games on VTT, there is really no reason to go with DNDBeyond. Just use Roll20)

I might start using a VTT and I already have the material in DDB. So I don't want to buy it again with Roll20. I don't see DDB coming out with their own VTT soon. But it does look like they are working on ways to integrate it with Twitch for streaming. I would think that they would then need to partner with some VTT provider or at least have some basic VTT functionality. Streamers are going to want to display battle-maps and have some of the basic conveniences of VTT. I would hope that Curse would just buy Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds and focus development on integrating it with their content and with Twitch.

- Offline support for character sheets

Yes, at least we know that this is a priority.

- Much, much better mobile app is needed

This is the only point that I disagree with. I think that the mobile app is excellent for reading, browsing, and searching the books. Better than the Web site. But it doesn't support the character sheets yet. So from that perspective, I guess I would agree. It would be nice if the mobile app mirrored all the functionality of the Web site.

 

[lkj]

I think whether it is a good investment depends on your intended use.

I recently joined a game at work. I turned to D&D Beyond to see if I might like to use it for character management.

It is a PHB-only game. I have a hill dwarf cleric, War domain. Simple stuff, really. And I find... I have to pay $30 bucks for the PHB content when all I really need is the War domain? No, thanks. Not worth it. I have working pencils and a PHB.

In general, that's my problem with it. I've got dead tree versions of the stuff I want. I am not on board with rebuying it in a different format unless I'm going to use the heck out of that format.

Couple of things here:

1) As someone else pointed out, you can just buy the war domain for a couple bucks. And that cost will be deducted against the total price of the book for you if you ever decide you want to buy the whole thing. (In other words, you'll never pay more than the full price of the book to get all the book's content, even if you've bought things piecemeal to start with)

2) This doesn't take into account the content sharing if you buy a subscription. For a few bucks a month, everyone in the campaign has access to everything that has been bought by anyone in the campaign. So, only one person has to buy the PH to make it available to everyone. Etc.

Note: Not knocking your decision. Whether it's worth it really depends on your particular situation and preferences. Just thought it was worth pointing out that the pricing is more flexible than everyone having to 're-buy' all their books digitally. There's a nice thread on their forum which breaks it down.

My two cents-- The rules reference capability (looking things up during the games) is awesome. I use it all the time. It's fast. I can use it on my phone, desktop, or tablet and it's much more capable than a physical book or pdf. Since the character sheet revamp, the character sheets are very useful. When we tried them out with my group, everyone became an enthusiastic convert.

AD

 

[lkj]

Global Search Lacks Filtering: the Global Search is TOO Global. The inability to search ONLY WITHIN, say, the Curse of Strahd book really decreases the utility of the DDB version of the APs during play. Even looking up a rule can be annoying. If I look up, say falling, it will pull up every instance of the word "falling" appearing in any book AND ALSO in the DDB FORUMS. Usually, I want to limit my rule search to the PHP and DMG. DDB really needs the ability to limit a search to a specific book. And I really hate having forum hits cluttering my search results.
.

Actually, once you do a global search, you can filter the results by category by clicking on the big buttons (monster, character, compendium, etc.). It's not a fine tuned filter but it's pretty good for getting where you want.

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[Swarmkeeper]

My core problem with D&D Beyond is that both the DM and players are online and browsing a website. It is distracting, and players (and the DM too) will browse and click and scroll all the time. And it's a pretty small step to open up a Facebook or Whatsapp, or quickly check the news. No matter how good the contents of D&D Beyond, it's on a screen, which draws attention. I prefer paper character sheets, and the printed books (which are beautiful, btw) when I am sitting around the table with my friends.

Playing an online game is entirely different, and I guess that D&D Beyond is great then, but I have only done that once.

Very much this. While I would consider D&D Beyond for campaign planning and character generation, I'm a pencil and paper DM. Two players use laptops at our table right now and it is almost like they have their own DM screens which take up table real estate and then they're getting dragged into who knows what when not their turn. Next campaign, session 0 will include a rule that players need to bring paper character sheets. One player at our table does use D&D Beyond, but so far he has been bringing printouts of the character sheet so it is not used real-time at the table.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Used it to make up a druid for a game. Not really needing it for much other than a PC generator. You can't just buy all the stuff for an individual class outside of digging though and selecting all the individual elements or am I missing something? I've got the books and PDF copies for my tablet but this looks like a good PC tool. We will see how it works.

 

[Mistwell]

Very much this. While I would consider D&D Beyond for campaign planning and character generation, I'm a pencil and paper DM. Two players use laptops at our table right now and it is almost like they have their own DM screens which take up table real estate and then they're getting dragged into who knows what when not their turn. Next campaign, session 0 will include a rule that players need to bring paper character sheets. One player at our table does use D&D Beyond, but so far he has been bringing printouts of the character sheet so it is not used real-time at the table.

yeah I use D&D Beyond but I print my character sheet and prepared spells out in advance and bring just the print outs.

 

[MNblockhead]

Actually, once you do a global search, you can filter the results by category by clicking on the big buttons (monster, character, compendium, etc.). It's not a fine tuned filter but it's pretty good for getting where you want.

AD

Doh!

Is this newer or have I just been abtuse? Looking at it now it is freaking obvious. Actually, this is fine for me. Better to search and tap a circle than have to select a source from a search form or something clunky list that.

Now the only thing I would like is the ability to limit a search to the book that I am currently looking at, though now I worry you'll tell me I can already do that.

I would also like a better way to access the table of contents of a book in the Web site. I find it easier to browse a book in the app because I can bring up the TOC and jump to a section in two taps, instead of clicking "go to top" and then clicking on the books top level link in the breadcrumb trail, and then clicking on the section in the TOC I want to go to.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Ever since I downloaded the Class specific character sheets from DMsguild I find my use for a character builder is greatly diminished.

I'm sure it's still very helpful, and I guess it could track encumbrance for me, but at this point I prefer to save the money.

As far as PDFs go they are nice but not nearly as nice as a cross-correlated library with good search functionality.

If I can search Uthgardt and get information from SCAG and SKT than D&D Beyond is already superior to PDFs.