Is there any plans to implement allowing a DM to restrict the sources players can build from?

Currently we are trying to run a simple PHB only campaign for new players but someone owns a lot of books and someone else has the master subscription. Even though the sources aren't shared everyone still has class and spell options they shouldn't have.

It is a lot of extra work for us to go over every character for compliance, and annoying for the players to re-cross reference each choice with the PHB. It doubles the busywork.

Quote from Phate4596 >>

Is there any plans to implement allowing a DM to restrict the sources players can build from?

Currently we are trying to run a simple PHB only campaign for new players but someone owns a lot of books and someone else has the master subscription. Even though the sources aren't shared everyone still has class and spell options they shouldn't have.

It is a lot of extra work for us to go over every character for compliance, and annoying for the players to re-cross reference each choice with the PHB. It doubles the busywork.

Go to your campaign page. Below the campaign's name, there will be a blue box that says <CONTENT MANAGEMENT>, and click on that.

After you do that, have the players create a character IN the campaign, NOT OUTSIDE the campaign.

That didn't work, which is why I posted. Players are still reporting options from Xanthars (a book they don't own) which is disabled in the Content Management.

EDIT: The header on the Content Management even specifically says, "Blocking a source will hide compendium to prevent players from reading it unless they own it. No options or content will be removed from other tools such as the CHARACTER BUILDER, CHARACTER SHEET, or encounter builder."

Quote from Phate4596 >>

That didn't work, which is why I posted. Players are still reporting options from Xanthars (a book they don't own) which is disabled in the Content Management.

EDIT: The header on the Content Management even specifically says, "Blocking a source will hide compendium to prevent players from reading it unless they own it. No options or content will be removed from other tools such as the CHARACTER BUILDER, CHARACTER SHEET, or encounter builder."

Hm... That is tricky.

The only work around I can think of is to have everyone make a new account, and if there is anyone that has an account that only owns the PHB, they do not need to make a new account, but they need to use private homebrew to copy all the races, subclasses, and feats (you do not need subscription's content sharing feature if you are just sharing your own private homebrew). If no one has an account that only owns the PHB, then someone will need to recreate those things manually on a new account.

Yeah, Which is why I asked about the implementation plans. It isn't really a feasible solution in a long term campaign.

Its crazy to be looking for a solution to this 2 years later.

Yeah, I completely forgot about this. We ditched D&DBeyond because micro-managing players' choices just became too much work on top of running a campaign. Every level up was so much work vetting spells and feats.

Not to mention portability to Foundry sucked (at the time, may have gotten better).

We just waited until COVID subsided and went back to in person gaming.

I wish I hadn't spent money on books here, I could have bought more real books.

I think there actually IS a solution... It looks like if you run a campaign you are already sharing your books with all the players as the Game Master.

It is misleading, but I think Content Sharing shares ALL the books EVERYONE has... but disabling it allows for only YOUR BOOKS as GAME MASTER.

I think.

That may work, though in our case the main GM has multiple books. :/

Quote from WRIGGLEMANIA >>

I think there actually IS a solution... It looks like if you run a campaign you are already sharing your books with all the players as the Game Master.

It is misleading, but I think Content Sharing shares ALL the books EVERYONE has... but disabling it allows for only YOUR BOOKS as GAME MASTER.

I think.

That is not how it works. Disabling content sharing means that no one in the campaign has access to paid content anyone else in the campaign owns.

I feared this was true. A friend and I tested it then realised it was because we both owned content.

This is a "bug" in my mind... or at least a big missing feature.

As a DM in a Master Tier account with the Legendary Bundle, I was able to set up a campaign, share content, and limit the content to a few sourcebooks (PHB,SCAG, and EGtW). A regular free player account, without any purchased content, is restricted to the sourcebooks listed. However.

The regular player account is still able to select any races and backgrounds from other sourcebooks which are not shared.

The regular player account can select any of the races from "Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Universe", and the background "Witchlight Hand" from The Wild Beyond the Witchlight" for example. There's no pop-up that tells you "you could have this if you purchased the content". You'd think this is a missed business opportunity for D&D Beyond. :)

For me, I'd like to select which sources are available to manage the players. I am doing this manually, but it would make campaign management much more smooth if the content sharing as part of a campaign actually affected the character sheets... not just the access to the "Sources" sources and adventure book pages.

I actually forgot about this issue.

We've abandoned D&D Beyond to go back to physical games and physical books. This was one of the reasons. In a campaign with 5 casting characters vetting spells became a chore.

The awful search function was one of the other major reasons. It is often faster to leave D&D beyond and google things, and sometimes even faster to use the index in the back of the physical books.

The last reason was laptops took up too much table space and made for an impersonal environment.

Hopefully it gets fixed for you all.

Having the same issue. This campaign has only a selection of source books available (despite owning all of them). However, in character creation, everyone has access to all the races and spells from Acquisitions Incorporated. This is as OP said, a massive issue as it then becomes a task to vet spells manually from the list. Any word from DNDB team on this and why this is? 

Thank you GuiltyTroll.

I am still having this issue with a campaign I’m about to start. It is a bug that my source-book sharing selections do not translate to restrictions in races.

I’m ok with DDB prompting players to view and be asked to pay for the extra book.

Can someone from D&D Beyond Staff recognize this as a missing feature or a bug? Then it can be addressed in time.

@ WRIGGLEMANIA -- Even more crazy is the more than 5 + years the development team has ignored requests for a hide feature so that you can have NPC's in the campaign and so that players can role play their characters without everyone having to metagame (pretend they don't know class, level, race of so called "private" characters when they shouldn't).

Bizarre indeed. I was looking for how to do this, expecting it surely would be part of Campaign Settings, but instead came out here!

Do the devs read these?

Based on the fact this is still a massive issue. I would say no, which is a real shame. 2 years on from my post and still so many little bugs. 

Almost 4 years from my original request. We still haven't come back to D&D Beyond because of this issue and I still regret the money spent here.

The "All or nothing" approach is stupid and goes against the whole ideal of a DM being able to manage and customize their campaign. Every DM should be able to control the content of their campaign to the microscopic level if they desire.

It feels half-assed.