Is it just me or does it seems like Beyond is trying to shove Play by Post further and further into a corner until everyone forgets about it or gives up on it?
First it's placement was moved way down on the list of the forums, now the forums themselves are hidden behind a Community tag you need to click through. Small things but for a place that seems to want to claim they want to make playing D&D easier no matter how you play they sure seem to push Play by Post aside. Hell they can't even be bothered to fix the in post dice roller which has been unreliable since... forever?
I can understand your frustration, but I think it's extremely unlikely that their decision to move the "Forums" link into a "Community" menu was motivated by a desire to deliberately obscure the Play by Post forums specifically.
Perhaps I am assigning too much intention to the matter... It could indeed just be that they are giving play by post no consideration at all. It was mentioned several times on the latest GhostfireGaming podcast by Beyond workers that they want to encourage play no matter how people play but they certainly don't seem to be trying to encourage Play by Post. You are right, they may not be trying to discourage it... But they are certainly doing nothing to encourage it either.
I, too, have had this... feeling. There's no fire, and maybe I'm just seeing smoke that isn't there. But.
Asynchronous play is incredibly important to me, I just don't have time to spend playing live games, but I love the game, and DDB's Play-By-Post forum has been a lifesaver in this regard over the years. I've played and DM'ed, both, in the forums. I understand the pitfalls: games take a long time to resolve, player attrition is high, you have to feel comfortable writing, etc., but I love it.
But the Play-By-Post forum, and playing by post on DDB, has suffered from neglect. The dice roller in the forum is always the prime example, and for good reason. It was originated by a fan, and inserted into the forums by staff long ago, and rarely touched since. It could be so much better in many ways that have been expressed before. Tying it to character sheets would be cool, too. Being able to use the VTT to support asynchronous play would be even better! Imagine how cool that would be? Maybe that's in the roadmap (not the Roadmap, I'm pretty sure it's not in there.) What about some subforujms in Play-By-Post? A section dedicated to talking *about* PBP. A section solely for game threads. A section for Discord support/recruiting? I don't know, but I'm sure there are people who have great ideas.
Maybe the plan, such as it is, is to spend energy on Discord as an asynchronous play option? Which I guess, fine? There are other places to discuss how well or not Discord works, so not here: Avrae works, but is byzantine to use, etc.
Anyway, my two cents.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
she/her Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Is it just me or does it seems like Beyond is trying to shove Play by Post further and further into a corner until everyone forgets about it or gives up on it?
First it's placement was moved way down on the list of the forums, now the forums themselves are hidden behind a Community tag you need to click through. Small things but for a place that seems to want to claim they want to make playing D&D easier no matter how you play they sure seem to push Play by Post aside. Hell they can't even be bothered to fix the in post dice roller which has been unreliable since... forever?
I can understand your frustration, but I think it's extremely unlikely that their decision to move the "Forums" link into a "Community" menu was motivated by a desire to deliberately obscure the Play by Post forums specifically.
pronouns: he/she/they
Perhaps I am assigning too much intention to the matter... It could indeed just be that they are giving play by post no consideration at all. It was mentioned several times on the latest GhostfireGaming podcast by Beyond workers that they want to encourage play no matter how people play but they certainly don't seem to be trying to encourage Play by Post. You are right, they may not be trying to discourage it... But they are certainly doing nothing to encourage it either.
I, too, have had this... feeling. There's no fire, and maybe I'm just seeing smoke that isn't there. But.
Asynchronous play is incredibly important to me, I just don't have time to spend playing live games, but I love the game, and DDB's Play-By-Post forum has been a lifesaver in this regard over the years. I've played and DM'ed, both, in the forums. I understand the pitfalls: games take a long time to resolve, player attrition is high, you have to feel comfortable writing, etc., but I love it.
But the Play-By-Post forum, and playing by post on DDB, has suffered from neglect. The dice roller in the forum is always the prime example, and for good reason. It was originated by a fan, and inserted into the forums by staff long ago, and rarely touched since. It could be so much better in many ways that have been expressed before. Tying it to character sheets would be cool, too. Being able to use the VTT to support asynchronous play would be even better! Imagine how cool that would be? Maybe that's in the roadmap (not the Roadmap, I'm pretty sure it's not in there.) What about some subforujms in Play-By-Post? A section dedicated to talking *about* PBP. A section solely for game threads. A section for Discord support/recruiting? I don't know, but I'm sure there are people who have great ideas.
Maybe the plan, such as it is, is to spend energy on Discord as an asynchronous play option? Which I guess, fine? There are other places to discuss how well or not Discord works, so not here: Avrae works, but is byzantine to use, etc.
Anyway, my two cents.
she/her
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands.