Admittedly this comes from a place of great sodium content... because I just lost the better part of an hours work to this... but in the name of the various pantheons of the multiverse: D&D Beyond's homebrew subclass interface is one of the worst things I've ever seen. Sub-menus within sub-menus within sub-menus, redundant title elements, bits that force you to do things in a specific order without ever saying what that order is: and no way to get a clear overview of what you've already done or what anything will look like when it comes out the other end. Options to do things like embed videos, but no simple table system. I have an entire subclass in a word document here, set to go, but I've spent an hour just trying to make a Warlock's expanded spell list. As someone who studied computer science; this screams "it makes sense to someone", but unfortunately; we don't have access to your particular arcane moon-logic train.
How, did you manage to make an interface THIS awful? ... Then again: I say that, but the site STILL has the same image load error it's had for over a year at this point.
I have been trying to put my Homebrew in there... Maybe to share with everyone, but definitely to share with my players. It is definitely not made to share fun stuff.
Or is it made to discourage homebrew?
Can anyone really create a race and subraces in that thing???
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
TBF the homebrew tools we have access to are a limited access version of what the developers use and were never meant to be a LOOK AT THIS AWESOME THING WE MADE FOR OUR USERS!
And as finicky as the system is, yes you can make races and subraces with it.
TBF the homebrew tools we have access to are a limited access version of what the developers use and were never meant to be a LOOK AT THIS AWESOME THING WE MADE FOR OUR USERS!
And as finicky as the system is, yes you can make races and subraces with it.
This is a terrible and awful excuse for a tool we're paying money for. The majority of paying customers are DM so I would happily be seeing things that make my life easier.
This is a terrible and awful excuse for a tool we're paying money for. The majority of paying customers are DM so I would happily be seeing things that make my life easier.
you arent paying money for it though, the only thing your paying money for is the ability to use others homebrews outside of campaigns
I do agree its not the greatest, but lets not put false info out there
Yes we are paying money for it. Check out the subscription page, you can see that it is a perk for subscribers. (They also give it for free... but we are promised a working thing as we pay for it too.)
the wording is: "Add publicly shared homebrew content"
and second from the end of the page:
HERO MASTER Use Homebrew Content in Your Games Give your game endless possibilities! Subscribers can access the D&D Beyond community’s massive library of homebrew subclasses, races, monsters, and more.
(if it was not a promised thing, and only the ability to share was the only thing promised, it would still be a bad service.)
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
Yes we are paying money for it. Check out the subscription page, you can see that it is a perk for subscribers. (They also give it for free... but we are promised a working thing as we pay for it too.)
the wording is: "Add publicly shared homebrew content"
and second from the end of the page:
HERO MASTER Use Homebrew Content in Your Games Give your game endless possibilities! Subscribers can access the D&D Beyond community’s massive library of homebrew subclasses, races, monsters, and more.
(if it was not a promised thing, and only the ability to share was the only thing promised, it would still be a bad service.)
Nothing in that text says the subscription service is paying for the homebrew creation tool and in fact that text reinforces the fact that the subscription is for adding community created homebrew to your collection.
I 100% agree with BladeGod that the tool sucks, but you're being disingenuous when saying subscriptions are paying for the homebrew creation tool.
Yes we are paying money for it. Check out the subscription page, you can see that it is a perk for subscribers. (They also give it for free... but we are promised a working thing as we pay for it too.)
the wording is: "Add publicly shared homebrew content"
and second from the end of the page:
HERO MASTER Use Homebrew Content in Your Games Give your game endless possibilities! Subscribers can access the D&D Beyond community’s massive library of homebrew subclasses, races, monsters, and more.
(if it was not a promised thing, and only the ability to share was the only thing promised, it would still be a bad service.)
Nothing in that text says the subscription service is paying for the homebrew creation tool and in fact that text reinforces the fact that the subscription is for adding community created homebrew to your collection.
I 100% agree with BladeGod that the tool sucks, but you're being disingenuous when saying subscriptions are paying for the homebrew creation tool.
In fact, it could be argued that you're paying not to use the creator (not that it means you can't), since it gives you the ability to use other people's published creations.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
I was about to make a post asking a question as to what is causing an issue in the Homebrew pages right now and this was top of the forums so figured I'd just ask it here since it's tangentially related.
I've now had the below message come up a couple of times after opening a Homebrew creation page and waiting several seconds for it to be 'ready' for any input.
This is on a Macbook Air M2 with 24GB RAM and 512GB SSD through Safari with all the latest software updates and Extensions turned off. In other words, super ******* fast, plenty of memory and no reason I can see as to why it would be a problem on my side of the equation.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
Yes we are paying money for it. Check out the subscription page, you can see that it is a perk for subscribers. (They also give it for free... but we are promised a working thing as we pay for it too.)
the wording is: "Add publicly shared homebrew content"
and second from the end of the page:
HERO MASTER Use Homebrew Content in Your Games Give your game endless possibilities! Subscribers can access the D&D Beyond community’s massive library of homebrew subclasses, races, monsters, and more.
(if it was not a promised thing, and only the ability to share was the only thing promised, it would still be a bad service.)
again, no we are not paying for the homebrew device itself, we are paying for the ability to use others homebrews content in our games, without having to put it in ourrselves
its literally a convenience fee, its not a thing that you were promised at all, the only thing you were promised was the ability to add others shit to your stuff
mods and admin have literally gone over this in other threads
its a shitty hb system, but you arent helping the issue by lying
Yes we are paying money for it. Check out the subscription page, you can see that it is a perk for subscribers. (They also give it for free... but we are promised a working thing as we pay for it too.)
the wording is: "Add publicly shared homebrew content"
and second from the end of the page:
HERO MASTER Use Homebrew Content in Your Games Give your game endless possibilities! Subscribers can access the D&D Beyond community’s massive library of homebrew subclasses, races, monsters, and more.
(if it was not a promised thing, and only the ability to share was the only thing promised, it would still be a bad service.)
again, no we are not paying for the homebrew device itself, we are paying for the ability to use others homebrews content in our games, without having to put it in ourrselves
its literally a convenience fee, its not a thing that you were promised at all, the only thing you were promised was the ability to add others shit to your stuff
mods and admin have literally gone over this in other threads
its a shitty hb system, but you arent helping the issue by lying
We are paying for a service, this is part of said service (DnD Beyond). If a component is paid of said service, the money we as subscribes pay directly or indirectly funds the platform. And clearly this is part of said service that needs to be improved. Diverting the discussion doesn't help anyone.
On the other hand they are selling 'Use Homebrew Content in Your Games'. We the users are creating this content so we're paying for the damned thing. How can you argue against it?
We are paying for a service, this is part of said service (DnD Beyond). If a component is paid of said service, the money we as subscribes pay directly or indirectly funds the platform. And clearly this is part of said service that needs to be improved. Diverting the discussion doesn't help anyone.
On the other hand they are selling 'Use Homebrew Content in Your Games'. We the users are creating this content so we're paying for the damned thing. How can you argue against it?
We're not arguing against it, we know the tool has a lot of limitations and very poor documentation. But...
CREATING HOMEBREW IS CURRENTLY* NOT PART OF ANY SUBSCRIPTION PLAN!
If the free users of this site can use these exact same tools as any paid subscriber without any other limitation, then using the homebrew creation tool is not a subscriber feature or perk. I'm not going to assume anyone at dndbeyond reads too far into these comment threads, but pushing information that is 100% false is not going to help anyone's argument.
* Iirc this was one of the bullet points to move to one of the new subscription plans down the road. If that's the case I wouldn't consider paying money for the tool in it's current state.
The only way I've managed to figure out how things work is basing things off of existing sub-classes. Seeing how those things work and modifying/Frankensteining things together.
There doesn't seem to be any sort of guide / explanation anywhere about how things work either.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I cancelled my Hero Tier Subscription January 13th 2023 because of "OGL" 1.1
The only way I've managed to figure out how things work is basing things off of existing sub-classes. Seeing how those things work and modifying/Frankensteining things together.
There doesn't seem to be any sort of guide / explanation anywhere about how things work either.
The question was who can argue against it, not who can shout insincere and accurate things.
Increasing the size of your letters and writing in all caps is not an argument. It is trolling.
Nobody is saying that they are in breach of contract, but what they are doing is not cool. It is in line with an underfunded workforce with limited resources and will to accommodate the needs of the community.
They include an alpha product in their marketing for subscriptions. Quit shouting and try polite discourse. Or better yet, write a new thread on how you make a subclass. You are promoting your homebrew in your signature.... why not capture a screencast of making the things that you do.
I will tell you why not, it is near impossible to do.
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
The question was who can argue against it, not who can shout insincere and accurate things.
Increasing the size of your letters and writing in all caps is not an argument. It is trolling.
Nobody is saying that they are in breach of contract, but what they are doing is not cool. It is in line with an underfunded workforce with limited resources and will to accommodate the needs of the community.
They include an alpha product in their marketing for subscriptions. Quit shouting and try polite discourse. Or better yet, write a new thread on how you make a subclass. You are promoting your homebrew in your signature.... why not capture a screencast of making the things that you do.
I will tell you why not, it is near impossible to do.
I'm not arguing against the main theme of this thread. The homebrew tools as they currently are absolutely suck, a leftover vestige of when this site as a bit more bare bones. I totally agree that they have not invested in the manpower, resources, or expertise to give us a useful UI. I 100% agree with CaptainCorvid and each of the other comments to this thread about how much the homebrew tool sucks.
But I'm arguing with the people that continue to claim that they are paying money for such a crappy tool. I don't know how many different ways I can say "Your money is not paying for that tool you're complaining about." Your money is paying for the things listed on the subscription page, that's it. Free users can use the homebrew tool just as much as any master tier subscriber. Perpetuating false information does not help this issue at all.
As for documenting how to do things using the homebrew tool, have you even checked out some of the links in my signature?
All of these are comments or entire threads on how to do something in the homebrew tool. I don't screenshot everything I do, but I try to document it as best I can for people that are frustrated.
The only way I've managed to figure out how things work is basing things off of existing sub-classes. Seeing how those things work and modifying/Frankensteining things together.
This is currently the easiest way to see how something is done in homebrew. ArwensDaughter suggested IamSposta's homebrew faq and that is an excellent place to start.
I am sure that a person that can read those would find great value, but they are over my head. Too technical.
I am sure you know how advertising works. If you are Nike, you claim you have the best running shoes for women, but if you only sell 12s and 13s (45-47) sizes then while you did not lie, you did mislead. (iamasposta did a valuable compilation of everything that is out there, and it needs updating, it is constantly changing. Also it is still too complicated. I know it is because I taught myself to make foundry vtt and roll20 campaigns, wordress sites, and aftereffects videos, and too many things to mention, and this is too convoluted. It is not made to be used.)
The ads for the subscriptions, including the page that describes the subscription, claim you can make homebrew and share it. It does mention that any one can make it and only you can share. But the problem is that the homebrew system can not support the claim that we "can make homebrew". Share it or not, very few that are not programmers can understand what you are explaining, and your explanations are not part of the platform I am paying for.
This is clear. It is uncontested. They imply that we can make homebrew, and do not provide a way to do it. They should stop saying that they provide a way to make homebrew, or say that "with general coding knowledge and training from fellow members you will be able to make homebrew". Anything else is misleading advertizing in my opinion. And I do not see you haveing a different opinion yourself.
(I see you do not mention your shouting at us in disagreement, I imagine you understand it was trolling.)
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
I am sure that a person that can read those would find great value, but they are over my head. Too technical.
I am sure you know how advertising works. If you are Nike, you claim you have the best running shoes for women, but if you only sell 12s and 13s (45-47) sizes then while you did not lie, you did mislead. (iamasposta did a valuable compilation of everything that is out there, and it needs updating, it is constantly changing. Also it is still too complicated. I know it is because I taught myself to make foundry vtt and roll20 campaigns, wordress sites, and aftereffects videos, and too many things to mention, and this is too convoluted. It is not made to be used.)
The ads for the subscriptions, including the page that describes the subscription, claim you can make homebrew and share it. It does mention that any one can make it and only you can share. But the problem is that the homebrew system can not support the claim that we "can make homebrew". Share it or not, very few that are not programmers can understand what you are explaining, and your explanations are not part of the platform I am paying for.
This is clear. It is uncontested. They imply that we can make homebrew, and do not provide a way to do it. They should stop saying that they provide a way to make homebrew, or say that "with general coding knowledge and training from fellow members you will be able to make homebrew". Anything else is misleading advertizing in my opinion. And I do not see you haveing a different opinion yourself.
(I see you do not mention your shouting at us in disagreement, I imagine you understand it was trolling.)
While I agree having better homebrew tools would be a huge boon to the site you certainly don't need to be a programmer to understand them or use at a basic level. I have players that couldn't even name a programming language that are proficient in the homebrew tools now.
Their data entry for the books (monsters, feats, items etc.) on this site use all the same tools and it's not developers making those entries. They do have access to some additional ones obviously for things like classes - which may require developers as we haven't seen them.
It's primarily dropdowns and text areas/inputs. These require no more programming knowledge then posting on these forums. It unfortunately does require time to learn as it is complex and in some cases convoluted how we need to make things work. How those dropdowns, text areas and inputs interact with the sheet can be confusing for sure.
The closest thing to needing programming knowledge is for some snippets and some roll buttons but there are tools made by the community for the roll buttons that will make the roll stuff for you. And Mariondil and others have created the snippets for us that we can just copy paste. Even those things I would consider barely dipping your toes into programming knowledge if you do them yourself.
It is also not trolling to say that it's not a paid feature of the site.
What we pay for is the ability to add other peoples homebrew that is already made to our collection which requires zero programming knowledge and zero knowledge of how to use the tools as someone else has done it for us. Essentially paying for the ability to bypass having to use the tools to create those things ourselves.
Making homebrew and using it in our own campaigns is 100% free other than our time learning and using the tools (which again I agree is rough). Regardless of what we pay for and what time investment learning the tools is I would love better homebrew tools and I'm sure the employees/the entire community using them would too.
As to the original post dndbeyond did not create the text input areas. Like these forums nearly everything on this site with text areas uses tinyMCE which is just a 'what you see is what you get' editor. Dndbeyond could however enable the table button - but my suggestion is copy and paste a table from somewhere else on the site then edit it - it should work just fine.
Example in spoiler that I just created by copying a table from a book
While I agree having better homebrew tools would be a huge boon to the site you certainly don't need to be a programmer to understand them or use at a basic level. I have players that couldn't even name a programming language that are proficient in the homebrew tools now.
True, coding might be a bit too much, but My main point is that the solutions proposed from the guy are too technical.
.... It's primarily dropdowns and text areas/inputs. These require no more programming knowledge then posting on these forums. It unfortunately does require time to learn as it is complex and in some cases convoluted how we need to make things work. How those dropdowns, text areas and inputs interact with the sheet can be confusing for sure.
If you try to use them they are not clear on what each text area does. No mouseover popups, not direction, and using an unclear connection to other things you make that are impossible for my level of teck knowledge. Ie. making a subrace for a race is impossible.
...It is also not trolling to say that it's not a paid feature of the site.
I never claimed that, what I said was that increasing the size of the letters and all caps is shouting and rude, and trolling is using this as an argument.
What we pay for is the ability to add other peoples homebrew that is already made to our collection which requires zero programming knowledge and zero knowledge of how to use the tools as someone else has done it for us. Essentially paying for the ability to bypass having to use the tools to create those things ourselves.
I am not sure about this... I tought that you can use other people can use any shared homebrew for free, but you cannot share your homebrew with others without paying.
Making homebrew and using it in our own campaigns is 100% free other than our time learning and using the tools (which again I agree is rough). Regardless of what we pay for and what time investment learning the tools is I would love better homebrew tools and I'm sure the employees/the entire community using them would too.
This is my point, I am part of the community, and I cannot really use these things. So not the entire community.
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
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Admittedly this comes from a place of great sodium content... because I just lost the better part of an hours work to this... but in the name of the various pantheons of the multiverse: D&D Beyond's homebrew subclass interface is one of the worst things I've ever seen. Sub-menus within sub-menus within sub-menus, redundant title elements, bits that force you to do things in a specific order without ever saying what that order is: and no way to get a clear overview of what you've already done or what anything will look like when it comes out the other end. Options to do things like embed videos, but no simple table system. I have an entire subclass in a word document here, set to go, but I've spent an hour just trying to make a Warlock's expanded spell list. As someone who studied computer science; this screams "it makes sense to someone", but unfortunately; we don't have access to your particular arcane moon-logic train.
How, did you manage to make an interface THIS awful? ... Then again: I say that, but the site STILL has the same image load error it's had for over a year at this point.
I wholeheartedly agree. The entire site's UI is legitimately awful and I question the value of anyone who says otherwise.
I have been trying to put my Homebrew in there... Maybe to share with everyone, but definitely to share with my players. It is definitely not made to share fun stuff.
Or is it made to discourage homebrew?
Can anyone really create a race and subraces in that thing???
Take a look at my homebrew world https://dnd-world.com
I am a Career Coach, with a passion for RPG! Up to supporting new ventures or renewal/rebranding, and I am setting up a free group coaching thing, open for all here.
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
TBF the homebrew tools we have access to are a limited access version of what the developers use and were never meant to be a LOOK AT THIS AWESOME THING WE MADE FOR OUR USERS!
And as finicky as the system is, yes you can make races and subraces with it.
How to: Replace DEX in AC | Jump & Suffocation stats | Spell & class effect buff system | Wild Shape effect system | Tool Proficiencies as Custom Skills | Spells at higher levels explained | Superior Fighting/Martial Adept Fix | Snippet Codes Explored - Subclasses | Snippet Math Theory | Homebrew Weapons Explained
My: FEATS | MAGIC ITEMS | MONSTERS | SUBCLASSES Artificer Specialist: Weaveblade
Dndbeyond images not loading WORKAROUND FIXED!!! (TY Jay_Lane for original instructions)
This is a terrible and awful excuse for a tool we're paying money for. The majority of paying customers are DM so I would happily be seeing things that make my life easier.
you arent paying money for it though, the only thing your paying money for is the ability to use others homebrews outside of campaigns
I do agree its not the greatest, but lets not put false info out there
Yes we are paying money for it. Check out the subscription page, you can see that it is a perk for subscribers. (They also give it for free... but we are promised a working thing as we pay for it too.)
the wording is: "Add publicly shared homebrew content"
and second from the end of the page:
Give your game endless possibilities! Subscribers can access the D&D Beyond community’s massive library of homebrew subclasses, races, monsters, and more.
(if it was not a promised thing, and only the ability to share was the only thing promised, it would still be a bad service.)
Take a look at my homebrew world https://dnd-world.com
I am a Career Coach, with a passion for RPG! Up to supporting new ventures or renewal/rebranding, and I am setting up a free group coaching thing, open for all here.
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
Nothing in that text says the subscription service is paying for the homebrew creation tool and in fact that text reinforces the fact that the subscription is for adding community created homebrew to your collection.
I 100% agree with BladeGod that the tool sucks, but you're being disingenuous when saying subscriptions are paying for the homebrew creation tool.
How to: Replace DEX in AC | Jump & Suffocation stats | Spell & class effect buff system | Wild Shape effect system | Tool Proficiencies as Custom Skills | Spells at higher levels explained | Superior Fighting/Martial Adept Fix | Snippet Codes Explored - Subclasses | Snippet Math Theory | Homebrew Weapons Explained
My: FEATS | MAGIC ITEMS | MONSTERS | SUBCLASSES Artificer Specialist: Weaveblade
Dndbeyond images not loading WORKAROUND FIXED!!! (TY Jay_Lane for original instructions)
In fact, it could be argued that you're paying not to use the creator (not that it means you can't), since it gives you the ability to use other people's published creations.
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
I was about to make a post asking a question as to what is causing an issue in the Homebrew pages right now and this was top of the forums so figured I'd just ask it here since it's tangentially related.
I've now had the below message come up a couple of times after opening a Homebrew creation page and waiting several seconds for it to be 'ready' for any input.
This is on a Macbook Air M2 with 24GB RAM and 512GB SSD through Safari with all the latest software updates and Extensions turned off. In other words, super ******* fast, plenty of memory and no reason I can see as to why it would be a problem on my side of the equation.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
again, no we are not paying for the homebrew device itself, we are paying for the ability to use others homebrews content in our games, without having to put it in ourrselves
its literally a convenience fee, its not a thing that you were promised at all, the only thing you were promised was the ability to add others shit to your stuff
mods and admin have literally gone over this in other threads
its a shitty hb system, but you arent helping the issue by lying
We are paying for a service, this is part of said service (DnD Beyond). If a component is paid of said service, the money we as subscribes pay directly or indirectly funds the platform. And clearly this is part of said service that needs to be improved. Diverting the discussion doesn't help anyone.
On the other hand they are selling 'Use Homebrew Content in Your Games'. We the users are creating this content so we're paying for the damned thing. How can you argue against it?
We're not arguing against it, we know the tool has a lot of limitations and very poor documentation. But...
CREATING HOMEBREW IS CURRENTLY* NOT PART OF ANY SUBSCRIPTION PLAN!
If the free users of this site can use these exact same tools as any paid subscriber without any other limitation, then using the homebrew creation tool is not a subscriber feature or perk. I'm not going to assume anyone at dndbeyond reads too far into these comment threads, but pushing information that is 100% false is not going to help anyone's argument.
* Iirc this was one of the bullet points to move to one of the new subscription plans down the road. If that's the case I wouldn't consider paying money for the tool in it's current state.
How to: Replace DEX in AC | Jump & Suffocation stats | Spell & class effect buff system | Wild Shape effect system | Tool Proficiencies as Custom Skills | Spells at higher levels explained | Superior Fighting/Martial Adept Fix | Snippet Codes Explored - Subclasses | Snippet Math Theory | Homebrew Weapons Explained
My: FEATS | MAGIC ITEMS | MONSTERS | SUBCLASSES Artificer Specialist: Weaveblade
Dndbeyond images not loading WORKAROUND FIXED!!! (TY Jay_Lane for original instructions)
The only way I've managed to figure out how things work is basing things off of existing sub-classes. Seeing how those things work and modifying/Frankensteining things together.
There doesn't seem to be any sort of guide / explanation anywhere about how things work either.
I cancelled my Hero Tier Subscription January 13th 2023 because of "OGL" 1.1
You might findSposta’s homebrew FAQ helpful
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
The question was who can argue against it, not who can shout insincere and accurate things.
Increasing the size of your letters and writing in all caps is not an argument. It is trolling.
Nobody is saying that they are in breach of contract, but what they are doing is not cool. It is in line with an underfunded workforce with limited resources and will to accommodate the needs of the community.
They include an alpha product in their marketing for subscriptions. Quit shouting and try polite discourse. Or better yet, write a new thread on how you make a subclass. You are promoting your homebrew in your signature.... why not capture a screencast of making the things that you do.
I will tell you why not, it is near impossible to do.
Take a look at my homebrew world https://dnd-world.com
I am a Career Coach, with a passion for RPG! Up to supporting new ventures or renewal/rebranding, and I am setting up a free group coaching thing, open for all here.
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
I'm not arguing against the main theme of this thread. The homebrew tools as they currently are absolutely suck, a leftover vestige of when this site as a bit more bare bones. I totally agree that they have not invested in the manpower, resources, or expertise to give us a useful UI. I 100% agree with CaptainCorvid and each of the other comments to this thread about how much the homebrew tool sucks.
But I'm arguing with the people that continue to claim that they are paying money for such a crappy tool. I don't know how many different ways I can say "Your money is not paying for that tool you're complaining about." Your money is paying for the things listed on the subscription page, that's it. Free users can use the homebrew tool just as much as any master tier subscriber. Perpetuating false information does not help this issue at all.
As for documenting how to do things using the homebrew tool, have you even checked out some of the links in my signature?
How to:
All of these are comments or entire threads on how to do something in the homebrew tool. I don't screenshot everything I do, but I try to document it as best I can for people that are frustrated.
This is currently the easiest way to see how something is done in homebrew. ArwensDaughter suggested IamSposta's homebrew faq and that is an excellent place to start.
How to: Replace DEX in AC | Jump & Suffocation stats | Spell & class effect buff system | Wild Shape effect system | Tool Proficiencies as Custom Skills | Spells at higher levels explained | Superior Fighting/Martial Adept Fix | Snippet Codes Explored - Subclasses | Snippet Math Theory | Homebrew Weapons Explained
My: FEATS | MAGIC ITEMS | MONSTERS | SUBCLASSES Artificer Specialist: Weaveblade
Dndbeyond images not loading WORKAROUND FIXED!!! (TY Jay_Lane for original instructions)
I am sure that a person that can read those would find great value, but they are over my head. Too technical.
I am sure you know how advertising works. If you are Nike, you claim you have the best running shoes for women, but if you only sell 12s and 13s (45-47) sizes then while you did not lie, you did mislead.
(iamasposta did a valuable compilation of everything that is out there, and it needs updating, it is constantly changing. Also it is still too complicated. I know it is because I taught myself to make foundry vtt and roll20 campaigns, wordress sites, and aftereffects videos, and too many things to mention, and this is too convoluted. It is not made to be used.)
The ads for the subscriptions, including the page that describes the subscription, claim you can make homebrew and share it. It does mention that any one can make it and only you can share. But the problem is that the homebrew system can not support the claim that we "can make homebrew". Share it or not, very few that are not programmers can understand what you are explaining, and your explanations are not part of the platform I am paying for.
This is clear. It is uncontested. They imply that we can make homebrew, and do not provide a way to do it. They should stop saying that they provide a way to make homebrew, or say that "with general coding knowledge and training from fellow members you will be able to make homebrew". Anything else is misleading advertizing in my opinion. And I do not see you haveing a different opinion yourself.
(I see you do not mention your shouting at us in disagreement, I imagine you understand it was trolling.)
Take a look at my homebrew world https://dnd-world.com
I am a Career Coach, with a passion for RPG! Up to supporting new ventures or renewal/rebranding, and I am setting up a free group coaching thing, open for all here.
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)
While I agree having better homebrew tools would be a huge boon to the site you certainly don't need to be a programmer to understand them or use at a basic level. I have players that couldn't even name a programming language that are proficient in the homebrew tools now.
Their data entry for the books (monsters, feats, items etc.) on this site use all the same tools and it's not developers making those entries. They do have access to some additional ones obviously for things like classes - which may require developers as we haven't seen them.
It's primarily dropdowns and text areas/inputs. These require no more programming knowledge then posting on these forums. It unfortunately does require time to learn as it is complex and in some cases convoluted how we need to make things work. How those dropdowns, text areas and inputs interact with the sheet can be confusing for sure.
The closest thing to needing programming knowledge is for some snippets and some roll buttons but there are tools made by the community for the roll buttons that will make the roll stuff for you. And Mariondil and others have created the snippets for us that we can just copy paste. Even those things I would consider barely dipping your toes into programming knowledge if you do them yourself.
It is also not trolling to say that it's not a paid feature of the site.
What we pay for is the ability to add other peoples homebrew that is already made to our collection which requires zero programming knowledge and zero knowledge of how to use the tools as someone else has done it for us. Essentially paying for the ability to bypass having to use the tools to create those things ourselves.
Making homebrew and using it in our own campaigns is 100% free other than our time learning and using the tools (which again I agree is rough). Regardless of what we pay for and what time investment learning the tools is I would love better homebrew tools and I'm sure the employees/the entire community using them would too.
As to the original post dndbeyond did not create the text input areas. Like these forums nearly everything on this site with text areas uses tinyMCE which is just a 'what you see is what you get' editor. Dndbeyond could however enable the table button - but my suggestion is copy and paste a table from somewhere else on the site then edit it - it should work just fine.
Example in spoiler that I just created by copying a table from a book
Take a look at my homebrew world https://dnd-world.com
I am a Career Coach, with a passion for RPG! Up to supporting new ventures or renewal/rebranding, and I am setting up a free group coaching thing, open for all here.
(I canceled my Master subscription after 3 annual payments. If WotC makes luxurious amends, I will renew, otherwise, maybe the DNDBeyond devs can get my money in a side-gig of theirs?)