Just a side note, Avrae is officially supported because it is owned by DDB: DDB purchased the Avrae bot from the original developer and brought that developer onto their team.
I don't know enough about "scraping" to offer any insight to the rest of your concern. Hopefully someone else will.
In the meantime if anyone is just looking to get at their character data, it looks like exporting to PDF as follows is the safest and best supported method :
To clarify a bit, it's against Discord's ToS for bots to respond to other bots like you suggest, and yes, gathering data into a database like you suggest doing would be considered scraping by pretty much any legal team out there. Direct interactions through the website have never been suggested to be scraping. As for things like Beyond20, the reason we state that they're not officially supported is that what they're doing is technically scraping, but they are being ignored for it. Should they cause widespread or general issues, rather than currently where they break the site for users running them only, I have no doubt they'd be told to stop it. If you want your character data just use the website or app provided and enjoy yourself.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
// I am Arenlor Developers should read This Changelog Moderator for D&D Beyond's YouTube, Twitch, and Discord, and for sister Cortex RPG.
I really appreciate your patient and careful reply, thank you. To clarify, I was not suggesting doing that. I was concerned that zealous software would ding us for behavior that resembled that, made more zealous by a feature going away, which I feel is a reasonable concern that has been borne out many times across the internet with many software providers offering downloadable content. But it sounds like there are reasonable human beings monitoring the situation and you are not leaving everything up to automation or making quick decisions where customers are concerned, and so please consider my concerns satisifed. I personally at least will sleep better at night.
Glad I read this, I was about to literally throw over 900 dollars on the complete package to use on my vtt. Horrifying that the only way to get this stuff on my vtt is by "non standard" means. Very disappointing.
I think scraping was a bad choice of words in this case.
Parsing your character sheet from HTML to a spreadsheet or JSON file for the purpose of analyzing your character does not seem to violate the user conduct rules. The rules mainly focus on prohibiting abusive behavior, illegal activities, unauthorized access to user information, and copyright infringement.
As long as you're not sharing or using the parsed data in a way that violates these rules or infringes on the rights of others, it should be fine.
Just a side note, Avrae is officially supported because it is owned by DDB: DDB purchased the Avrae bot from the original developer and brought that developer onto their team.
I don't know enough about "scraping" to offer any insight to the rest of your concern. Hopefully someone else will.
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
I really appreciate that.
In the meantime if anyone is just looking to get at their character data, it looks like exporting to PDF as follows is the safest and best supported method :
To clarify a bit, it's against Discord's ToS for bots to respond to other bots like you suggest, and yes, gathering data into a database like you suggest doing would be considered scraping by pretty much any legal team out there. Direct interactions through the website have never been suggested to be scraping. As for things like Beyond20, the reason we state that they're not officially supported is that what they're doing is technically scraping, but they are being ignored for it. Should they cause widespread or general issues, rather than currently where they break the site for users running them only, I have no doubt they'd be told to stop it. If you want your character data just use the website or app provided and enjoy yourself.
// I am Arenlor
Developers should read This Changelog
Moderator for D&D Beyond's YouTube, Twitch, and Discord, and for sister Cortex RPG.
I really appreciate your patient and careful reply, thank you. To clarify, I was not suggesting doing that. I was concerned that zealous software would ding us for behavior that resembled that, made more zealous by a feature going away, which I feel is a reasonable concern that has been borne out many times across the internet with many software providers offering downloadable content. But it sounds like there are reasonable human beings monitoring the situation and you are not leaving everything up to automation or making quick decisions where customers are concerned, and so please consider my concerns satisifed. I personally at least will sleep better at night.
Clearly I am a year out of date but wouldn't the solution to all this be for D&D Beyond to introduce a VTT?
Just imo….not their wheelhouse
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
A rather comprehensive list of free WotC D&D resources
Deck of Decks
That was then.
This is now.
Easily done with Pathfinder 2E.
Glad I read this, I was about to literally throw over 900 dollars on the complete package to use on my vtt. Horrifying that the only way to get this stuff on my vtt is by "non standard" means. Very disappointing.
Almost a year later and we see the path they decided to take. R.I.P "The Great Era of DDB"
I think scraping was a bad choice of words in this case.
Parsing your character sheet from HTML to a spreadsheet or JSON file for the purpose of analyzing your character does not seem to violate the user conduct rules. The rules mainly focus on prohibiting abusive behavior, illegal activities, unauthorized access to user information, and copyright infringement.
As long as you're not sharing or using the parsed data in a way that violates these rules or infringes on the rights of others, it should be fine.