[UPDATED!] D&D Beyond: An Official D&D Digital Toolset & Character Builder

D&D Beyond has just been announced! Coming this summer, and billed as "Your digital D&D source", it has a compendium of official content, character builder and manager, the ability to use home-brew content, D&D forums, and is usable on any device. A 1-minute announcement trailer can be seen below. D&D Beyond is produced by a company called Curse Inc, owned by Twitch. Right now, there's a signup for the Beta version. More info as/when it becomes available! [UPDATES: The D&D Beyond folks have offered some more info, which I have included below; I will be chatting with them later this week, with luck!]

"We are excited to announce development of D&D Beyond, an official digital toolset for use with the Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition rules. We have partnered with Curse to take D&D players beyond pen and paper, providing a rules compendium, character builder, digital character sheets, and more—all populated with official D&D content. D&D Beyond aims to make game management easier for both players and Dungeon Masters by providing high-quality tools available on any device, empowering beginners and veterans alike!" goes the official description.

"D&D Beyond speaks to the way gamers are able to blend digital tools with the fun of storytelling around the table with your friends,” said Nathan Stewart, Senior Director of Dungeons & Dragons. "These tools represent a way forward for D&D, and we’re excited to get them into the hands of players soon!"

The company, Curse Inc., is owned by Twitch, and is based in San Francisco, with offices in various countries. They produce tools and communities for gamers - up until now, mainly video games. They started as a way to organise the founder's World of Warcraft add-ons about 10 years ago, and grew into a multinational company from there. The company makes a desktop app called the Curse Client, along with community driven wikis, tools, guides, and databases for games like Minecraft, Diablo, Countersrike, Overwatch, and more. In 2016, it was announced that Twitch would acquire Curse.

Features, from the website, include:

• D&D Compendium with Official Content
• Create, Browse, & Use Homebrew Content
• Manage Characters - Build, Progress, & Play
• D&D News, Articles, Forums, & More
• Access Anywhere, Anytime, on Any Device

That last item makes it sound like it'll work offline, which will be a popular move. And the home-brew content mention is also important, especially because WotC supports DMs Guild.

UPDATES: I checked with WotC's Greg Tito who confirmed "D&D Beyond will work without an internet connection. That's a big deal for the devs!"

Adam over at D&D Beyond confirmed a little about the pricing model:

"At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account.

We don’t have exact pricing nailed down, but you will also be able to buy official digital D&D content for all fifth edition products with flexible purchase options. You can pay only for the D&D content you need. If you only play fighters, for example, you’ll be able to just pick up the stuff you need to track swinging that giant two-handed sword.

A small monthly subscription will be needed to manage more than a handful of characters and to enable more advanced features, like homebrew content integration. At this time, we don’t know exactly how much the subscription will cost."

He also confirmed that the pricing structure is not about microtransactions: "I'm about to get on a plane so I've got to be brief, but I wanted to check in and make it clear that "microtransactions" were not mentioned and are not what the model is about."

And also that D&D Beyond is definitely not a Virtual Game Table (VTT): "D&D Beyond is intended to enhance gameplay around a table (virtual or otherwise) - we intend this to be completely complementary and have no intention of creating a VTT."

[video=youtube;Dn8Kpmm_aJA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8Kpmm_aJA[/video]

SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave​

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah but only because they specifically don't want to call out that they are not designing this to compete with the VTT market. You only need to ask yourself a few questions to confirm that this product is not designed for the VTT market.

Can you create characters in the VTT?
Can you manage the characters in the VTT?
Can you manage combat in the VTT?
Can you look up spells and abilities in the VTT?

and the important one...

Do you NEED to create your character and manage your character in the VTT for the combat automation to work?

The answer is yes for Fantasy Grounds and mostly yes for Roll20 with a yes to follow as soon as they can finish rolling out the 5e official content.

Which means the only reason the VTT crowd would even remotely need this application is if they want access to their characters outside of the VTT game or they are not satisfied with the ability to look up information inside of the VTT solution.

Sorry but this tool is very clearly aimed and designed for the players not using a VTT. This application will form part of the CORE tool-set that many players will use to run and manage the game where as the VTT crowd will use this to supplement the experience if they so desire but will have little need to actually use it when playing.

Well, it's clearly meant to provide those tools for people that don't use a VTT, but it is also there for VTT users, in that the VTT doesn't have a full rules Compendium, easy homebrew tools, etc, and doesn't work on a smartphone.

But it is probably more useful for non VTT users, sure.

 

[Reynard]

Lol which takes me back to this:

Why would you need another application to create and manage characters?
Why would you need another application to manage combat?
Why would you need another application to look up information?

I'm absolutely interested. I run a channel dedicated to testing various DM tools so this is a point of curiosity for me. If you are VTT player what is it you need from an application like this? From all my research the VTT tools do everything this is offering and more and has a reliance on you doing all this inside the VTT tool to enable the automation.

It depends entirely on the degree of integration between the two. Given that it is not a VERY it won't poach subscriptions from VTTs even if it has utility. Plus, you are operating under the assumption that it is binary -- you are either a VTT player or a tabletop player. That's just not true. Lots of folks are both. In fact, with VTT supported organized play, there are characters that are both, too.

tl;dr You are making assertions not only based on personal preferences and assumptions, but also in direct contradiction to statements by the designers. It's probably best to give them the benefit of the doubt rather than presume too much.

 

[daplunk]

But it is probably more useful for non VTT users, sure.

Yup which is where we start to define the D&D5e crowd into two different markets. Even 3.

* people who play at a real table only
* people who play via a VTT only
* people who do both

Now when you are sitting down and designing and setting up a pricing structure for a tool such as this you would have already taken all this into consideration.

For the people who play at a real table who will use the combat management aspect they have hinted at this product has more value. That crowd are more likely to deem the product as having more worth. They will likely be the crowd who are happier to pay for a subscription as the product will product very real benefit to their games and they will have a reliance on more network features.

For the people who play at a VTT they are likely not going to need all of the automation. They will likely want this just for creating characters and looking up information. For them they are less likely to want to pay a subscription as the benefit they are getting is easily replaced by other free offerings and they derive no value from the application's advanced features that likely have a network reliance and thus the cost of the product will likely not match the value they see in the product.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

Size isn't, and never has been, the barometer of success - small companies can do incredible things.

Err, yes it is, and yes it always has been. What a silly thing to say. That big companies can fail at things doesn't determine their likelihood of success in comparison to a smaller company. These things are not equal. A bigger company with more resources is far more likely and able to complete a project than a smaller company. I don't even see how that can even be argued against. Trapdoor didn't have the resources, planning, experience or expertise to complete the project. That was self-evident throughout the entire process and through the information that came to light after it was abandoned.

There is no guarantee that Curse can make a good product or that it will be successful and profitable for them. But to say that it isn't much more likely that they can do it, in comparison to Trapdoor, is a little absurd.

None of us know why Trapdoor and WotC parted ways. Let's not just make stuff up to fill the gaps.

I wasn't making anything up. Most of what I said was reported on this very site.

 

[Reynard]

For the people who play at a VTT they are likely not going to need all of the automation. They will likely want this just for creating characters and looking up information. For them they are less likely to want to pay a subscription as the benefit they are getting is easily replaced by other free offerings and they derive no value from the application's advanced features that likely have a network reliance and thus the cost of the product will likely not match the value they see in the product.

Except we don't know what the pricing structure is. If the combat tracking does not add any cost -- that is, it is a basic feature regardless of subscription level -- then it is irrelevant next to the potential utility of character tracking, creation and so on.

Among my 10 core Fantasy Grounds players, only 2 have subscriptions (I have an Ultimate license). That means that if they want to do any fiddling with their characters, I have to log on so they can access the PHB etc. If there is some degree of integration, even if it is just xml file import and export, then that hurdle is gone.

Again, there are a number of ways they could make such a thing palatable to VTT players, depending on the details. It seems a little early to be so dismissive.

 

[Morrus]

Err, yes it is, and yes it always has been. What a silly thing to say.

That isn't debate. It's just contradiction followed by insults. We can do better than that, eh?

That big companies can fail at things doesn't determine their likelihood of success in comparison to a smaller company. These things are not equal. A bigger company with more resources is far more likely and able to complete a project than a smaller company. I don't even see how that can even be argued against.

That wasn't the argument, though, was it?

I wasn't making anything up. Most of what I said was reported on this very site.

I didn't report that, and I do the reporting. The only thing I reported was that Trapdoor and WotC disagreed over a pricing issue, and even that was vague. We do not know what happened.

Well, maybe you do. If so, please elucidate! But I certainly don't.

 

[Mouseferatu]

One suspects you do not speak for "the market". You speak for you. Which is fine, but let's not pretend you are a personal avatar of "the market".

So it would be a prestige class in 3E and an epic destiny in 4E, but how would we represent "avatar of the market" as a character in 5E?

 

[Remathilis]

So it would be a prestige class in 3E and an epic destiny in 4E, but how would we represent "avatar of the market" as a character in 5E?

Psionic oath, obviously.

 

[SkidAce]

But that's me! And I disagree with you!

One suspects you do not speak for "the market". You speak for you. Which is fine, but let's not pretend you are a personal avatar of "the market".

I don't think they meant to.

I understood what they were implying, that they didn't think the product is geared towards integration with a VTT.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

That isn't debate. It's just contradiction followed by insults. We can do better than that, eh?

I didn't mean for it to come across as insulting, I thought I was attacking the argument, not the arguer. I just thought it silly to say that bigger companies aren't more likely to be successful at something than smaller companies.

That wasn't the argument, though, was it?

Well, what you quoted me saying was me saying that Curse has advantages over Trapdoor because they have more resources. The implication being that they're more likely to succeed at the project. It seemed you disagreed with that assertion.