Hey, i would like to see things like multi-sheet interaction. Things like the DM can deal damage direct on your sheet when a monster attack, or you can heal a specific party member direct on beyond sheet at the time you "cast" the heal spell.
Being able to heal another player is actually quite brilliant. I have suggested live updates between player and DM sheets, so If I manipulate a players sheet it pushes the changes to the player, which would rock in itself. (easy to give stealthy inspiration or pick pocket characters)
But I really like the idea that you could heal another player (as long as the DM got a notification as well)
We would absolutely incorporate this functionality when we get to our initiative/ combat tracker some time next year.
I'm sure I'll be in the minority for this but if I was doing a online/digital campaign I would want no character sheet interaction - either as being the DM or the player. At a certain point there's too much automation of tasks and then it doesn't encourage everyone to listen and participate. "Oh, well the computer will just do it all for me"... and then we've stepped away from the core reason of why we're playing a pen & paper game.
There's also two very good reasons for not having automated interaction. The first is that on d20 rolls some interactions (bard inspiration) have to be called before the decision of a pass/fail. How exactly is this interaction going to work in an automated enviroment? How long do you give the system to wait/respond while the player decides to use said inspiration. It's a cumbersome interaction that in my opinion isn't necessary.
The second interaction is specifically around pickpocket. As a DM who uses a NPC to pickpocket a character I don't want their sheet to update the moment the pickpocket happens. Maybe I make them pass a perception check or maybe I just wait until they try to use that item. Not everything needs to be instantly updated.
I'm sure it'll be a feature you can turn on/off and in some instances it'll really be useful. I just think it's a move away from the core mechanic of the game and that's something that shouldn't be tinkered with.
I have to agree with most people here... This is not a Campaign manager... it is just a big notepad. i don't need a notepad since i have that on my tablet already. What i do need is a page like facebook, where i can actually show my players what i have done actually managed like a folder.
right now i use facebook pages to manage my campaign and what i show my players. so i have photos set in albums, that includees an album for the world they are in, so if they need info for that world or photos, they go there and get the info they need. if they dont remember the quests they are in for. blam its there in the album for that. photos, text all is there. NPC they met and need a reminder of who they are and where they saw them last. there you go, its in its own album.
This is very far from being able to call itself a campaign manager. Sorry but you are severely lacking in tools... and to be honest... 1 small feature along with books once every 6 months won't cut it for those like me who pay for subscribptions. Really love the charcater builder, use it a ton. but that's not all i require for my games. Step up your game Curse Gaming... Step up your game please !
Heres what you could create that would be a nice upgrade while we wait for better toolset... - folder like structure we can adjust the way we want to. - ability to upload photos of maps and stuff like those.
just those two things on our accounts... would make it worth the subscriptions alone !
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
I have to agree with most people here... This is not a Campaign manager... it is just a big notepad. i don't need a notepad since i have that on my tablet already. What i do need is a page like facebook, where i can actually show my players what i have done actually managed like a folder.
right now i use facebook pages to manage my campaign and what i show my players. so i have photos set in albums, that includees an album for the world they are in, so if they need info for that world or photos, they go there and get the info they need. if they dont remember the quests they are in for. blam its there in the album for that. photos, text all is there. NPC they met and need a reminder of who they are and where they saw them last. there you go, its in its own album.
This is very far from being able to call itself a campaign manager. Sorry but you are severely lacking in tools... and to be honest... 1 small feature along with books once every 6 months won't cut it for those like me who pay for subscribptions. Really love the charcater builder, use it a ton. but that's not all i require for my games. Step up your game Curse Gaming... Step up your game please !
Heres what you could create that would be a nice upgrade while we wait for better toolset... - folder like structure we can adjust the way we want to. - ability to upload photos of maps and stuff like those.
just those two things on our accounts... would make it worth the subscriptions alone !
I was about to go to bed, but I'll make a couple of comments here.
First, we will never be able to produce features, functionality, or content at the rate that everyone in the community wants - that's not a game that we'll be able to play, much less win.
Second, I feel it's quite the hyperbolic statement to say we have delivered "one small feature along with books every six months" since it has barely been six months since we started beta (and three months since launch) and we have already delivered at a minimum several small features (and I would argue several major features) in that time.
Third, I'm not sure I follow the features you have requested. A folder structure to do what more specifically? A place to hold your maps and other images? Although we do intend to allow user-created content to live in the eventual fully-realized vision of campaign management, I'm not sure we would be able to deliver something like that better than Dropbox or any other tool that is very specifically built for that reason and has been in development for many years. If you have more details, we'll happily hear and consider your feedback.
What I can say is this - even though we won't be able to ever move "fast enough" for everyone out there, we can commit to doing the best we can do with the time and resources we have. That's very important to me, and I will continue to be on top on making sure that happens.
I have to agree with most people here... This is not a Campaign manager... it is just a big notepad. i don't need a notepad since i have that on my tablet already. What i do need is a page like facebook, where i can actually show my players what i have done actually managed like a folder.
right now i use facebook pages to manage my campaign and what i show my players. so i have photos set in albums, that includees an album for the world they are in, so if they need info for that world or photos, they go there and get the info they need. if they dont remember the quests they are in for. blam its there in the album for that. photos, text all is there. NPC they met and need a reminder of who they are and where they saw them last. there you go, its in its own album.
This is very far from being able to call itself a campaign manager. Sorry but you are severely lacking in tools... and to be honest... 1 small feature along with books once every 6 months won't cut it for those like me who pay for subscribptions. Really love the charcater builder, use it a ton. but that's not all i require for my games. Step up your game Curse Gaming... Step up your game please !
Heres what you could create that would be a nice upgrade while we wait for better toolset... - folder like structure we can adjust the way we want to. - ability to upload photos of maps and stuff like those.
just those two things on our accounts... would make it worth the subscriptions alone !
I was about to go to bed, but I'll make a couple of comments here.
First, we will never be able to produce features, functionality, or content at the rate that everyone in the community wants - that's not a game that we'll be able to play, much less win.
Second, I feel it's quite the hyperbolic statement to say we have delivered "one small feature along with books every six months" since it has barely been six months since we started beta (and three months since launch) and we have already delivered at a minimum several small features (and I would argue several major features) in that time.
Third, I'm not sure I follow the features you have requested. A folder structure to do what more specifically? A place to hold your maps and other images? Although we do intend to allow user-created content to live in the eventual fully-realized vision of campaign management, I'm not sure we would be able to deliver something like that better than Dropbox or any other tool that is very specifically built for that reason and has been in development for many years. If you have more details, we'll happily hear and consider your feedback.
What I can say is this - even though we won't be able to ever move "fast enough" for everyone out there, we can commit to doing the best we can do with the time and resources we have. That's very important to me, and I will continue to be on top on making sure that happens.
Thanks!
I just want to come from the other end of this and say that I think you guys are doing an amazing job, you've put out a great product, and I don't think that everyone realizes just how much work goes into what you're trying to do here. Putting content from all the rulebooks and adventure books, making sure all the mechanics line up, coming up with other features, a mobile app, allowing us to add our own content, connecting with us on a daily basis,-and that's just off the top of my head.
Seriously, thank you for this incredible product and service. I own all the books hardcopy, and I still find using D&D Beyond immensely helpful. And I think some people expect too much too quickly when, frankly, I feel spoiled. lol.
One way to address a generic ‘campaign management’ angle would be a wiki of some sort. Don’t know if there is some generic wiki engine available to embed in a website.
I will tell you the very first thing I did when I got my subscription was:
I wanted to make a bunch of random characters as NPCs. But found I could not make an intelligent randomised character. Just kept getting things like a fighter with 10 strength. What I truly want, and I have seen this in many places on the intrawebs, is to plug in some variables, smash a button and have a character that makes sense..has correct armor, weapon.. a feat..and has a couple of items maybe.
Second thing I did, continuing the theme.. try to gather together a bunch of NPCs,...just using default stats from the monster manual/volos give them new names, equipment ect. I had to copy and paste the stat block into one note and collate them there, mess about with customising...you get my drift..
If the manager had a way to collect magic items, and show/give them to a character that would be great
So , reading between the lines here , what would be great would be not just an encounter builder, but a way to mash up, customize and collectANYTHING available on the site. NPCs or monsters from a generic start. Four characters that I made with the "NEW" (see above) generic character builder that I want to use as NPCs, I gave one of them boots of spider climb. I can now give that 'card' to a player if I want. One of them has a faerie dragon..that I added two levels of monk to...and has a ring of spell storing...which contains a homebrew content spell...
Ways to use the data with agility in short.
I am sure these sorts of things have been requested many times already..but thought I would put in my two cents.
My goal was not to bash your work people. i program too, though im no expert on it. i know that under the hood most of the work is there.
but let's be honest... in 3 months, from me alone... having a day job as well that requires 40 hours of my time, my gaming habits which requires another 25 hours of my free time because i have that much of a problem with it.
i created myself an NPC maker, a monster creator, a treasure generateor, random name generator, and the whole database i needed for that to work. in th enext 2 months that followed, i added a portrait maker, and a dungeon designer.
thats in 5 months work... right now from my own view and the view of all that uses DDB. all we've seen are 3 text boxes as campaign notes, and a character builder we can't use for monster creation. I understand full well that your company is hard at work and have numerous projects on back burner. i'm not bashing, if i was i wouldn't have subscribed to the master level tier nor would i have bought any of the books in here. i'm just saying i'm surprised that up to this point we have so few things considering that everything you offer up to this point has been offered by roll20 and fantasy ground in a much wider feature wide. and sorry but to make 5e fantasy ground did it all in 3 months. pretty much the same for Roll20. Now even though you are very very far behind such programs, you continue to say use the other softwares if you want more features... to that i'll answer, then why are these people coming here then ? Roll20 and FG already offer everything you offer here. heck you even promoted fantasy generator when it comes to generating names instead of having created your own.
i understand the idea of focusing on the right stuff, so its normal you dont want generators here. but reality is, up to this point and you've been told numerous times during beta... what you offer right now can easily be found elsewhere and has much much more features. am i right to guess you were working on this way before the beta ever hapenned ? if yes look at what you did int he time you did it,. if you were alone programming this shit i would understand, but there is a team behind you isn't it ?
all this makes the answer you gave kind of a whack answer... because after all... everything we have here on DDB. is on FG and Roll20 already. so the answer of dropbox can do it so use that... is ridiculous as an answer...
to me the fun of being here is... i preffer this ui and the books are like much much lower priced then FG and Roll20 which actually makes you pay for the free stuff. yes we have to pay on those site to get SRD stuff. that's why i preffer this place. i think i'm not asking much when i say its easy to make those 3 text boxes a much better system. we don't need much for it to be something better then 3 boxes.
think about it, how long did it takes you to make that equipment and background update since the beta ? one has to wonder with that long of a haul for simple features... how many of you are actually working on this thing ? if you are alone i can easily understand that, even if you were just 3 i would. but if you are 10+ like i suppose you are, then i dont understand why it takes so long to get new stuff. now i also understand that the new book has a ton of stuff that needs to be done and right now iyou probably have been working on that for like 3 months now or so. So its fine for now and i understand that much. For now i just can't wait the next 2 days to receive my xanathars guide from you and be going in deep in it. so i'll say continu the good work. but i really hope there is much more coming up after that one.
and again i understand if you are 1-3 people working on this. but i think you are a whole group working on it and if thats the case i dont see why we dont have more feature right now.
you have to put yourself into our place as well.... after 10 years asking WotC to give us some tools, they tell us here you go, but all this company does is work on the UI and the graphical aspect. of course we were expecting much more then this. i just think we'd like more features instead of a better UI, the UI is already one of the best so i dont think you need to work on it anymore.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
My goal was not to bash your work people. i program too, though im no expert on it. i know that under the hood most of the work is there. ..............
you have to put yourself into our place as well.... after 10 years asking WotC to give us some tools, they tell us here you go, but all this company does is work on the UI and the graphical aspect. of course we were expecting much more then this. i just think we'd like more features instead of a better UI, the UI is already one of the best so i dont think you need to work on it anymore.
I'll drop in one more time to note that I believe you are making several unqualified statements and assumptions here without the benefit of knowing the full picture.
Trying to read what you've said, I still hear "you're not moving as fast as I want you to" - I sympathize with that, but I can assure you we're doing our best and will continue to do so.
Plus, what incentive does the Curse team have to stall any longer than they have to? Putting out a fully functional finished product right now would probably be a dream come true for them. Once the work is done, they just get to sit back and cash those sweet "books people already bought once" checks. But I'd rather they take their time and get it as close to right as they can with each update, rather than rush out something that will need to be reworked again later, which would likely push back the date of where we all want to be even further.
Don't get me wrong, I want my cool stuff now too. But I trust in common sense that they're working to get something that will blow our minds out as soon as they can.
BadEye, that's the thing with people, reguardless of what i will say, you will interpret it the way "you" want to. that's why its so hard to communicate with people.
of course though i am expecting you guys to rlease stuff faster then a single guy in his basement. Its like expecting hollywood to release a movie every 10 years when we know they have thousands of people working on the project. don't know how much you are on that prject, but i believe you are not alone, and i do believe you are more then 5.
as for assumptions... they are not baseless, they are based on the fact that you guys are not the only programmers out there and even intermediate programmers knows how fast one can go if he is not alone in doing the task.
all that said, isn't this a thread about campaign management ? my feedback is... 3 textbox is very very very far from campaign management worthy. and as for your feedback, you said to me, literally, that i should use something else then your own software which is to me a ridiculous answer considering your goal is to make people use your software, not go elsewhere.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
My goal was not to bash your work people. i program too, though im no expert on it. i know that under the hood most of the work is there.
but let's be honest... in 3 months, from me alone... having a day job as well that requires 40 hours of my time, my gaming habits which requires another 25 hours of my free time because i have that much of a problem with it.
i created myself an NPC maker, a monster creator, a treasure generateor, random name generator, and the whole database i needed for that to work. in th enext 2 months that followed, i added a portrait maker, and a dungeon designer.
thats in 5 months work... right now from my own view and the view of all that uses DDB. all we've seen are 3 text boxes as campaign notes, and a character builder we can't use for monster creation. I understand full well that your company is hard at work and have numerous projects on back burner. i'm not bashing, if i was i wouldn't have subscribed to the master level tier nor would i have bought any of the books in here. i'm just saying i'm surprised that up to this point we have so few things considering that everything you offer up to this point has been offered by roll20 and fantasy ground in a much wider feature wide. and sorry but to make 5e fantasy ground did it all in 3 months. pretty much the same for Roll20. Now even though you are very very far behind such programs, you continue to say use the other softwares if you want more features... to that i'll answer, then why are these people coming here then ? Roll20 and FG already offer everything you offer here. heck you even promoted fantasy generator when it comes to generating names instead of having created your own.
i understand the idea of focusing on the right stuff, so its normal you dont want generators here. but reality is, up to this point and you've been told numerous times during beta... what you offer right now can easily be found elsewhere and has much much more features. am i right to guess you were working on this way before the beta ever hapenned ? if yes look at what you did int he time you did it,. if you were alone programming this shit i would understand, but there is a team behind you isn't it ?
all this makes the answer you gave kind of a whack answer... because after all... everything we have here on DDB. is on FG and Roll20 already. so the answer of dropbox can do it so use that... is ridiculous as an answer...
to me the fun of being here is... i preffer this ui and the books are like much much lower priced then FG and Roll20 which actually makes you pay for the free stuff. yes we have to pay on those site to get SRD stuff. that's why i preffer this place. i think i'm not asking much when i say its easy to make those 3 text boxes a much better system. we don't need much for it to be something better then 3 boxes.
think about it, how long did it takes you to make that equipment and background update since the beta ? one has to wonder with that long of a haul for simple features... how many of you are actually working on this thing ? if you are alone i can easily understand that, even if you were just 3 i would. but if you are 10+ like i suppose you are, then i dont understand why it takes so long to get new stuff. now i also understand that the new book has a ton of stuff that needs to be done and right now iyou probably have been working on that for like 3 months now or so. So its fine for now and i understand that much. For now i just can't wait the next 2 days to receive my xanathars guide from you and be going in deep in it. so i'll say continu the good work. but i really hope there is much more coming up after that one.
and again i understand if you are 1-3 people working on this. but i think you are a whole group working on it and if thats the case i dont see why we dont have more feature right now.
you have to put yourself into our place as well.... after 10 years asking WotC to give us some tools, they tell us here you go, but all this company does is work on the UI and the graphical aspect. of course we were expecting much more then this. i just think we'd like more features instead of a better UI, the UI is already one of the best so i dont think you need to work on it anymore.
I feel like you're woefully over-simplifying what D&D Beyond actually is and does. It's great that you can create all that stuff on your own in that short of an amount of time, but I'd argue that chances are it's nowhere near as polished. You also don't have to deal with WOTC and make sure that everything you're doing is allowed/up to their standards every step of the way.
You can create homebrew monsters already so I don't get what the need to make them through the character creator is. For campaign management, I can see and modify all of my players' character sheets. Would I like more? Sure! But are the basics there that make it manageable to run a campaign at the moment? Yes!
Lastly, you keep saying you're "not bashing" their work but then go on to spend the rest of your posts doing just that. Telling them "all this company does is work on the UI and the graphical aspect" and "even though you are very very far behind such programs" is pretty much bashing them and quite frankly BS as well. Being a developer you should know that things take time and even once something seems complete, it still has to go through multiple rounds of testing (which can sometimes take longer than the initial development). I'm a software developer too, and quite frankly, I'm impressed with how much they've been able to get out in such a short period of time.
There was one for a campaign manager wish list not too long ago, but the campaign manager isn’t ever mentioned when talking about things coming down the pipeline or on the “roadmap” that is frequently mentioned, so I don’t find this thread turning to that too surprising.
having a notepad and calling it a campaign manager is pretty laughable regardless of how awesome the rest of the site is, and I think honestly that’s what gets most people going. If this section was just never released (until it was close to being something more tham a notepad, in like a beta test style) they likely wouldn’t have nearly as many complaints about it.
i think some people may even purchase something thinking “there has to be more to campaign management than this, maybe that changes once I subscribe or buy a module” but then are disappointed when it doesn’t.
Over Simplifying what dnd beyond is ? i wanna know your definition of what it is now ?
to me... - database of stuff 5e. - Character Generator
let's be honest... any database can provide informations, like monsters, feats, races and the likes... so basically that database is doing all the heavy lifting. don't get me wrong, again.. i paid for it and will and think of probably buying the rest of the monsters and options from the adventures. so i am willing to pay for this system they created. But let's be honest here... aside from creating a database which is already a huge job considering they had to transcribe everything from scratch. i'm not bashing that, i'm not bashing the work they did as of now... i'm just saying that beatuy of a thing is far less impressive when you consider the features its lacking. and that people, at least all those i spoke to on the net and my friends who i promote DDB yet they dont wanna use it cause its lacking severely to them. up to this point... out of about 50 people i talked to, pretty much 95% of them have told me its way too basic yet, but has incredible UI.
as i said, you can't expect people to give you feedback on things and then just tell them to go out elsewhere if they are not satisfyed by your work. which up to this point, they been telling us to do for a while now.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
My goal was not to bash your work people. i program too, though im no expert on it. i know that under the hood most of the work is there. ..............
you have to put yourself into our place as well.... after 10 years asking WotC to give us some tools, they tell us here you go, but all this company does is work on the UI and the graphical aspect. of course we were expecting much more then this. i just think we'd like more features instead of a better UI, the UI is already one of the best so i dont think you need to work on it anymore.
I'll drop in one more time to note that I believe you are making several unqualified statements and assumptions here without the benefit of knowing the full picture.
Trying to read what you've said, I still hear "you're not moving as fast as I want you to" - I sympathize with that, but I can assure you we're doing our best and will continue to do so.
Jumping on the bandwagon here. Move faster, do more, get it done yesterday :). Having said that, as long as DnDBeyond moves faster than the competition I'm happy. Just don't let anyone get the drop on you and all will be well (if it can happen to BlackBerry it can happen to anyone :P)
Lastly, I've made numerous suggestions about Campaign Management. But I also respect that there other priorities. My players appreciate the work being done towards making character creation easier, and character management overall. But I wonder if the player:DM ratio is considered when posts are made and priorities determined? Campaign Management is a topic near and dear to the DM. And players expect their DM to voice those needs on behalf of the group. My thought would be although less busy as a forum, every post here may well be the equivalent of 5-6 posts in the character management forum.
Just some thoughts!
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Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
I work as a web developer for 7 years (not senior yet). And I can say the results DDB have already in not even 1 year of work are amazing, specially considering a small team.
What we see on the site it's only the tip of the iceberg. And even considering they did not start from scratch (probably using some curse internal frameworks) the background work is way bigger. Also to spend more time working on a robust platform that will allow adding more features easily and fluidly on the future is way better on the long term than adding a bunch of features and fixing design errors later (possibly even compromising user data).
Considering all of this what would we rather choose, wait 4 years to have a full suit that for sure will not please everybody or go for the start from beginning with few features, get feedback, make them better and then adding more and more?
DDB seems to be the oficial digital way of DND and I am sure all of we (the community) want it to the most amazing tool. At the end if we still think that it is not enough (at least for now) why don't we unity and try to help it? So I ask for the developers, is there a way to help you guys?
For my part I've done a small chrome extension with features that maybe is not even planned for DDB. If only one person start using DDB due too that is already enough to make me happy. If the devs say that some feature like monster encounter builder will take some time to come, I would be more than happy to work on one for the community to use before it is ready.
----
"After the speech I cast heroism on the community"
I suspect they thought this was going to be easier than it is which is why they were so excited and vocal about the coming soon features around launch. They put the character creator together quickly (from what I've read they only started this in 2016) and coded it up in a way that it works and then they opened the gates and the players started asking how about this and how about that. I suspect this is where they sat down and started to think beyond the core books and how they were going to deliver all of the random and adhoc stuff that players and DMs do when playing this game.
I suspect they realized at this point some of the core foundation would need to be changed in order to support what the community want to do with the tool. So they are fixing the foundation. Making sure it will support not just what they are doing now but what they want to do in the future and once the foundation is poured and dry they will start building upon it.
I see. This topic is just for bashing or defending curse. Great.
There was one for a campaign manager wish list not too long ago, but the campaign manager isn’t ever mentioned when talking about things coming down the pipeline or on the “roadmap” that is frequently mentioned, so I don’t find this thread turning to that too surprising.
having a notepad and calling it a campaign manager is pretty laughable regardless of how awesome the rest of the site is, and I think honestly that’s what gets most people going. If this section was just never released (until it was close to being something more tham a notepad, in like a beta test style) they likely wouldn’t have nearly as many complaints about it.
i think some people may even purchase something thinking “there has to be more to campaign management than this, maybe that changes once I subscribe or buy a module” but then are disappointed when it doesn’t.
Campaign management as currently released was communicated all along to be a starting point. We had to implement it in its basic form to allow for one of the coolest (and well-received) features for DDB - campaign content sharing with unlocked purchases.
Deciding between holding back "campaign management" from the public in order to release it only when it is "fully featured" (the definition of which would be hard to pin down, depending on who you ask) and implementing it in its nascent state in order to provide the boon of content sharing was an easy decision for me.
As for campaign management timelines and the lack of mentions, we are taking the exact same approach to campaign management that we have been taking with character management. We have compiled several months and thousands of points of feedback to conceptualize something awesome for the builder and sheet. This is what we're currently developing that we've been calling the "revamp."
A similar process will happen for campaign management - we have received plenty of feedback (although far less than with character management, to be clear) and we are digesting it and making the best choices we can make to do it right. We're not going to jump into this halfheartedly, just like we haven't done that for the builder and sheet.
So, I imagine everyone will start hearing a good bit more about campaign management and where that falls in the roadmap in the next few months.
As for campaign management timelines and the lack of mentions, we are taking the exact same approach to campaign management that we have been taking with character management. We have compiled several months and thousands of points of feedback to conceptualize something awesome for the builder and sheet.
Which is how it should be. The vocal minority are the exact same people who would complain if it were released early and without community input.
Pretty sure the silent majority understand this and are just too busy with their own work lives and lack of interest in arguing with people online to post about it.
Alternatively, you could always build a space-time warping device, create a pocket dimension, do all the work in it for several years, then come back seconds later in real time and implement it. Why haven't you done that yet?
Please stay on topic when posting in these mega-threads. This thread is intended for suggestions on ways to improve campaign management. As a reminder:
We want to hear all your feedback on what you love and how you feel it could be better. Please note: Basic Rules/SRD limitations remain in place. Please refrain from including copyrighted material in any created campaign.
Have you the mind to create adventures of mystery and danger of epic proportions? Try your hand at creating a campaign and invite wary travelers to take part in your hand-crafted journey. Assist beginning players with managing their character sheets - configure weapons, currency, XP, and damage taken. View player skills and the status of spells/items. Most of all, have fun as you develop a story with the players immersed in your world. Please bring all constructive feedback and help us understand what aspects work great, and what may need improvement. These tools are here for you - help us make them the best they can be.
Create your world, begin your campaign, and lead the community through your vision of D&D!
This is the foundation of campaign management as envisioned by D&D Beyond. It is meant to support content sharing at this time and will be expanded on in the future. If you have an issue with the time it is taking to get your features programmed into the site, express your opinion in another thread. If you have genuine feedback about the system as it exists now or suggestions on how to improve it, please let us know.
We will be removing any posts that have strayed from the topic.
I'm sure I'll be in the minority for this but if I was doing a online/digital campaign I would want no character sheet interaction - either as being the DM or the player. At a certain point there's too much automation of tasks and then it doesn't encourage everyone to listen and participate. "Oh, well the computer will just do it all for me"... and then we've stepped away from the core reason of why we're playing a pen & paper game.
There's also two very good reasons for not having automated interaction. The first is that on d20 rolls some interactions (bard inspiration) have to be called before the decision of a pass/fail. How exactly is this interaction going to work in an automated enviroment? How long do you give the system to wait/respond while the player decides to use said inspiration. It's a cumbersome interaction that in my opinion isn't necessary.
The second interaction is specifically around pickpocket. As a DM who uses a NPC to pickpocket a character I don't want their sheet to update the moment the pickpocket happens. Maybe I make them pass a perception check or maybe I just wait until they try to use that item. Not everything needs to be instantly updated.
I'm sure it'll be a feature you can turn on/off and in some instances it'll really be useful. I just think it's a move away from the core mechanic of the game and that's something that shouldn't be tinkered with.
I have to agree with most people here...
This is not a Campaign manager... it is just a big notepad. i don't need a notepad since i have that on my tablet already.
What i do need is a page like facebook, where i can actually show my players what i have done actually managed like a folder.
right now i use facebook pages to manage my campaign and what i show my players.
so i have photos set in albums, that includees an album for the world they are in, so if they need info for that world or photos, they go there and get the info they need. if they dont remember the quests they are in for. blam its there in the album for that. photos, text all is there. NPC they met and need a reminder of who they are and where they saw them last. there you go, its in its own album.
This is very far from being able to call itself a campaign manager. Sorry but you are severely lacking in tools... and to be honest... 1 small feature along with books once every 6 months won't cut it for those like me who pay for subscribptions. Really love the charcater builder, use it a ton. but that's not all i require for my games. Step up your game Curse Gaming... Step up your game please !
Heres what you could create that would be a nice upgrade while we wait for better toolset...
- folder like structure we can adjust the way we want to.
- ability to upload photos of maps and stuff like those.
just those two things on our accounts... would make it worth the subscriptions alone !
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
-Dresden White
One way to address a generic ‘campaign management’ angle would be a wiki of some sort. Don’t know if there is some generic wiki engine available to embed in a website.
I will tell you the very first thing I did when I got my subscription was:
I wanted to make a bunch of random characters as NPCs. But found I could not make an intelligent randomised character. Just kept getting things like a fighter with 10 strength. What I truly want, and I have seen this in many places on the intrawebs, is to plug in some variables, smash a button and have a character that makes sense..has correct armor, weapon.. a feat..and has a couple of items maybe.
Second thing I did, continuing the theme.. try to gather together a bunch of NPCs,...just using default stats from the monster manual/volos give them new names, equipment ect. I had to copy and paste the stat block into one note and collate them there, mess about with customising...you get my drift..
If the manager had a way to collect magic items, and show/give them to a character that would be great
So , reading between the lines here , what would be great would be not just an encounter builder, but a way to mash up, customize and collect ANYTHING available on the site. NPCs or monsters from a generic start. Four characters that I made with the "NEW" (see above) generic character builder that I want to use as NPCs, I gave one of them boots of spider climb. I can now give that 'card' to a player if I want. One of them has a faerie dragon..that I added two levels of monk to...and has a ring of spell storing...which contains a homebrew content spell...
Ways to use the data with agility in short.
I am sure these sorts of things have been requested many times already..but thought I would put in my two cents.
My goal was not to bash your work people. i program too, though im no expert on it. i know that under the hood most of the work is there.
but let's be honest...
in 3 months, from me alone... having a day job as well that requires 40 hours of my time, my gaming habits which requires another 25 hours of my free time because i have that much of a problem with it.
i created myself an NPC maker, a monster creator, a treasure generateor, random name generator, and the whole database i needed for that to work. in th enext 2 months that followed, i added a portrait maker, and a dungeon designer.
thats in 5 months work... right now from my own view and the view of all that uses DDB. all we've seen are 3 text boxes as campaign notes, and a character builder we can't use for monster creation. I understand full well that your company is hard at work and have numerous projects on back burner. i'm not bashing, if i was i wouldn't have subscribed to the master level tier nor would i have bought any of the books in here. i'm just saying i'm surprised that up to this point we have so few things considering that everything you offer up to this point has been offered by roll20 and fantasy ground in a much wider feature wide. and sorry but to make 5e fantasy ground did it all in 3 months. pretty much the same for Roll20. Now even though you are very very far behind such programs, you continue to say use the other softwares if you want more features... to that i'll answer, then why are these people coming here then ? Roll20 and FG already offer everything you offer here. heck you even promoted fantasy generator when it comes to generating names instead of having created your own.
i understand the idea of focusing on the right stuff, so its normal you dont want generators here.
but reality is, up to this point and you've been told numerous times during beta... what you offer right now can easily be found elsewhere and has much much more features.
am i right to guess you were working on this way before the beta ever hapenned ? if yes look at what you did int he time you did it,. if you were alone programming this shit i would understand, but there is a team behind you isn't it ?
all this makes the answer you gave kind of a whack answer... because after all... everything we have here on DDB. is on FG and Roll20 already. so the answer of dropbox can do it so use that... is ridiculous as an answer...
to me the fun of being here is... i preffer this ui and the books are like much much lower priced then FG and Roll20 which actually makes you pay for the free stuff. yes we have to pay on those site to get SRD stuff. that's why i preffer this place. i think i'm not asking much when i say its easy to make those 3 text boxes a much better system. we don't need much for it to be something better then 3 boxes.
think about it, how long did it takes you to make that equipment and background update since the beta ?
one has to wonder with that long of a haul for simple features... how many of you are actually working on this thing ?
if you are alone i can easily understand that, even if you were just 3 i would. but if you are 10+ like i suppose you are, then i dont understand why it takes so long to get new stuff.
now i also understand that the new book has a ton of stuff that needs to be done and right now iyou probably have been working on that for like 3 months now or so. So its fine for now and i understand that much. For now i just can't wait the next 2 days to receive my xanathars guide from you and be going in deep in it. so i'll say continu the good work. but i really hope there is much more coming up after that one.
and again i understand if you are 1-3 people working on this. but i think you are a whole group working on it and if thats the case i dont see why we dont have more feature right now.
you have to put yourself into our place as well....
after 10 years asking WotC to give us some tools, they tell us here you go, but all this company does is work on the UI and the graphical aspect. of course we were expecting much more then this. i just think we'd like more features instead of a better UI, the UI is already one of the best so i dont think you need to work on it anymore.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Plus, what incentive does the Curse team have to stall any longer than they have to? Putting out a fully functional finished product right now would probably be a dream come true for them. Once the work is done, they just get to sit back and cash those sweet "books people already bought once" checks. But I'd rather they take their time and get it as close to right as they can with each update, rather than rush out something that will need to be reworked again later, which would likely push back the date of where we all want to be even further.
Don't get me wrong, I want my cool stuff now too. But I trust in common sense that they're working to get something that will blow our minds out as soon as they can.
BadEye, that's the thing with people, reguardless of what i will say, you will interpret it the way "you" want to. that's why its so hard to communicate with people.
of course though i am expecting you guys to rlease stuff faster then a single guy in his basement.
Its like expecting hollywood to release a movie every 10 years when we know they have thousands of people working on the project.
don't know how much you are on that prject, but i believe you are not alone, and i do believe you are more then 5.
as for assumptions... they are not baseless, they are based on the fact that you guys are not the only programmers out there and even intermediate programmers knows how fast one can go if he is not alone in doing the task.
all that said, isn't this a thread about campaign management ?
my feedback is... 3 textbox is very very very far from campaign management worthy.
and as for your feedback, you said to me, literally, that i should use something else then your own software which is to me a ridiculous answer considering your goal is to make people use your software, not go elsewhere.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
You can create homebrew monsters already so I don't get what the need to make them through the character creator is. For campaign management, I can see and modify all of my players' character sheets. Would I like more? Sure! But are the basics there that make it manageable to run a campaign at the moment? Yes!
Lastly, you keep saying you're "not bashing" their work but then go on to spend the rest of your posts doing just that. Telling them "all this company does is work on the UI and the graphical aspect" and "even though you are very very far behind such programs" is pretty much bashing them and quite frankly BS as well. Being a developer you should know that things take time and even once something seems complete, it still has to go through multiple rounds of testing (which can sometimes take longer than the initial development). I'm a software developer too, and quite frankly, I'm impressed with how much they've been able to get out in such a short period of time.
How do you get a one-armed goblin out of a tree?
Wave!
Over Simplifying what dnd beyond is ?
i wanna know your definition of what it is now ?
to me...
- database of stuff 5e.
- Character Generator
let's be honest... any database can provide informations, like monsters, feats, races and the likes... so basically that database is doing all the heavy lifting.
don't get me wrong, again.. i paid for it and will and think of probably buying the rest of the monsters and options from the adventures. so i am willing to pay for this system they created. But let's be honest here... aside from creating a database which is already a huge job considering they had to transcribe everything from scratch. i'm not bashing that, i'm not bashing the work they did as of now... i'm just saying that beatuy of a thing is far less impressive when you consider the features its lacking. and that people, at least all those i spoke to on the net and my friends who i promote DDB yet they dont wanna use it cause its lacking severely to them. up to this point... out of about 50 people i talked to, pretty much 95% of them have told me its way too basic yet, but has incredible UI.
as i said, you can't expect people to give you feedback on things and then just tell them to go out elsewhere if they are not satisfyed by your work.
which up to this point, they been telling us to do for a while now.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008597088-Virtual-Tabletop-Gameboard
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
I work as a web developer for 7 years (not senior yet). And I can say the results DDB have already in not even 1 year of work are amazing, specially considering a small team.
What we see on the site it's only the tip of the iceberg. And even considering they did not start from scratch (probably using some curse internal frameworks) the background work is way bigger. Also to spend more time working on a robust platform that will allow adding more features easily and fluidly on the future is way better on the long term than adding a bunch of features and fixing design errors later (possibly even compromising user data).
Considering all of this what would we rather choose, wait 4 years to have a full suit that for sure will not please everybody or go for the start from beginning with few features, get feedback, make them better and then adding more and more?
DDB seems to be the oficial digital way of DND and I am sure all of we (the community) want it to the most amazing tool. At the end if we still think that it is not enough (at least for now) why don't we unity and try to help it? So I ask for the developers, is there a way to help you guys?
For my part I've done a small chrome extension with features that maybe is not even planned for DDB. If only one person start using DDB due too that is already enough to make me happy. If the devs say that some feature like monster encounter builder will take some time to come, I would be more than happy to work on one for the community to use before it is ready.
----
"After the speech I cast heroism on the community"
And I cast Heroism on the community.
I suspect they are getting the foundation right.
I suspect they thought this was going to be easier than it is which is why they were so excited and vocal about the coming soon features around launch. They put the character creator together quickly (from what I've read they only started this in 2016) and coded it up in a way that it works and then they opened the gates and the players started asking how about this and how about that. I suspect this is where they sat down and started to think beyond the core books and how they were going to deliver all of the random and adhoc stuff that players and DMs do when playing this game.
I suspect they realized at this point some of the core foundation would need to be changed in order to support what the community want to do with the tool. So they are fixing the foundation. Making sure it will support not just what they are doing now but what they want to do in the future and once the foundation is poured and dry they will start building upon it.
Daplunk's YouTube Channel: Realm Works and Hero Lab Videos / Campaign Cartographer 3+ Videos
Realm Works Facebook User Group
Pretty sure the silent majority understand this and are just too busy with their own work lives and lack of interest in arguing with people online to post about it.
Please stay on topic when posting in these mega-threads. This thread is intended for suggestions on ways to improve campaign management. As a reminder:
This is the foundation of campaign management as envisioned by D&D Beyond. It is meant to support content sharing at this time and will be expanded on in the future. If you have an issue with the time it is taking to get your features programmed into the site, express your opinion in another thread. If you have genuine feedback about the system as it exists now or suggestions on how to improve it, please let us know.
We will be removing any posts that have strayed from the topic.
Thanks!
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