What's Next For D&D? Live From Origins - D&D Beyond

D&D Beyond was covered at the What's Next For D&D? panel at Origins Game Fair. In a previous article, I covered Tomb of Annihilation, courtesy of Twitter user Kato Katonian who live-tweeted the panel. This article covers D&D Beyond, the upcoming digital tools suite for Dungeons & Dragons. Curse's Adam Bradford was on the panel to represent D&D Beyond.

• Simply provide tools for managing game easier. Not making [D&D] into a video game.
• Beta phase 2 of D&D Beyond is digital character builder. This month.
• Create characters in minutes instead of hours, is the promise. Quick build, randomized generator, or straight up full creation.
• Digital character sheet. Aiming to be useful on smartphone (as well as full PC) to use at table.
• Beta Phase 3 of D&D Beyond: Homebrew & Campaign management. E.g. DM can make custom magic item and PC can have it on their sheet.
• Home brew stuff can be made public for other users. Campaign mgmt will allow DM to see and edit player character sheets.
• Two tiers of subscriptions: Hero Tier for players (unlimited character slots)...
• Master Subscription: DMs can share any content they've bought through Beyond with their players. No price points yet.
• Future Beyond features: stream integration, pronunciation guide, native mobile app, monster progression, encounter builder, init trackr.
• Pronunciation guide done by Matt Mercer and Marisha Ray. Coming in next few months, possibly sooner.
• Native mobile app a priority.
• D&D Beyond is planning on having all 13 print products integrated at launch (no pricing yet).
• After release, content will be available in D&D Beyond same day as hobby store release.

SaveSave​

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Because every single one of their past attempts/progress on digital products were met with failure.

Referring to DDI. The locally installed one was clunky and called home to mommy a lot, though it was at least functional. The online one that used Silverlight was better in some ways (it didn't require an install and updated more quickly) but had a number of other issues. Silverlight was a product Microsoft intended to sunset before the CB's release! It couldn't print well (e.g., I had to work out a kludge to print to PDF and no way I could ever get it to print only a range of pages). It had every possible option or feat---including ones that were clearly deprecated in some way---just listed out in a long line with no straightforward way to edit. It integrated very poorly with any of the various attempts other people had at making a useful in-play front end due to its clunky password requirements. It would hang a lot, too, especially when searching or filtering. Part of that might have been the fact that I'm a Mac user. It seemed a little smoother on Windows but would still hang a lot. I wasn't sorry to cancel my subscription, that's for sure.

So, sorry new developers, at least with me you've got the weight of WotC's past kited checks and overpromising. I wish you guys the best but after the 4E character builders... yep, I'm really, really skeptical of anything digital WotC does (even with a third party developer). It'll take rave reviews and several months of track record for me to change my mind.

 

[L R Ballard]

yep, I'm really, really skeptical of anything digital WotC does (even with a third party developer). It'll take rave reviews and several months of track record for me to change my mind.

I'm skeptical but charitable. It's easy to gauge the usefulness and reliability of digital tools early on, before investing a lot, if any, money in them. For example, I passed on both the Code Monkey stuff for 3e and the Digital Initiative tools for 4e after following those products and their promises during their development.

With the free access D&D Beyond will offer to the tools, it should be easy to see whether they'll be a good investment. The free no-risk, no-obligation access makes me charitable to the upcoming offer.

 

[TheSwartz]

Yeah, to repeat [MENTION=52905]darjr[/MENTION]... why?

WotC has produced several written pronunciation guides over the years (one written by Frank Mentzer). Why is having a professional voice actor read them a problem?

I'll give an allegorical answer:

It's Father's day today. My little brother and I visited our 85 year old grandpa and a super cool, but unhealthy uncle. When I dropped off my brother afterwards, he said something like "I'm glad we got around to visiting those guys. I'm moving in a month to start post-doc training. Who knows if I'll ever get to see them again or hear that crazy ass story Grandpa always tells?" All I could say, was "Ya. Me too!"

If that doesn't make sense, then we're simply not on the same wavelength. It's really not as big a deal as I'm making it, but something just struck a nerve with me and the above is the best I can explain it.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I'm skeptical but charitable. <...> With the free access D&D Beyond will offer to the tools, it should be easy to see whether they'll be a good investment. The free no-risk, no-obligation access makes me charitable to the upcoming offer.

That's a reasonable position. The fact that they have a freemium model does help a lot because it's not too hard to know if the technical parts of the interface work first. 4E's heavy rules made DDI fairly close to necessary. Given how crummy it was the fact that it was needed was not pleasant. 5E is much lighter so it's not as necessary.

 

[L R Ballard]

That's a reasonable position. The fact that they have a freemium model does help a lot because it's not too hard to know if the technical parts of the interface work first. 4E's heavy rules made DDI fairly close to necessary. Given how crummy it was the fact that it was needed was not pleasant. 5E is much lighter so it's not as necessary.

Right. There's an opportunity cost associated with playing around with the new tool for an afternoon. We could be hanging out with family or friends, watching a movie, or whatnot. But there's no risk with the free trial. And, like you said, 5e isn't as complex a system as 3 or 4, so the tool won't be necessary. It's no biggie if it doesn't work out.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Right. There's an opportunity cost associated with playing around with the new tool for an afternoon. We could be hanging out with family or friends, watching a movie, or whatnot. But there's no risk with the free trial. And, like you said, 5e isn't as complex a system as 3 or 4, so the tool won't be necessary. It's no biggie if it doesn't work out.

That's a pretty small opportunity cost. Still I'm likely to want to wait for a while to see how buggy things are.

 

[L R Ballard]

Still I'm likely to want to wait for a while to see how buggy things are.

I agree about the bugginess--that's where my skepticism comes into play. Usually, I'm looking for a YouTube video or a discussion thread to get a sense of how well something works.

 

[A Stray Cat]

I've never used a D&D digital tool before this one, and I've played since 1981. I signed up for the beta for D&D Beyond a while back. It uses the SRD/Basic free rules. I have been most pleased with what Curse has accomplished so far. I run a 5e game every other week, and the features at D&D Beyond have proven useful both at the table and in planning. I look forward to seeing the remainder of the product.

 

[darjr]

I'll give an allegorical answer:

It's Father's day today. My little brother and I visited our 85 year old grandpa and a super cool, but unhealthy uncle. When I dropped off my brother afterwards, he said something like "I'm glad we got around to visiting those guys. I'm moving in a month to start post-doc training. Who knows if I'll ever get to see them again or hear that crazy ass story Grandpa always tells?" All I could say, was "Ya. Me too!"

If that doesn't make sense, then we're simply not on the same wavelength. It's really not as big a deal as I'm making it, but something just struck a nerve with me and the above is the best I can explain it.

My son and I were players in Tower of Gygax and had the privilege of playing for each of them at their turn DMing. We were in the first TPK of that con in the Alamo encounter. I shook both their hands and thanked them from the bottom of my heart.

I still don't understand how anyone could be annoyed. It isn't a slight to either of them. Hiring a professional voice actor to do it is a GOOD idea. Are you annoyed that they got the gig and the others didn't? Are they really butchering the pronunciation that bad? Do you think they're snubbing them somehow?

 

[Queer Venger]

I was there, super excited!