It appears that if content sharing is enabled for a campaign then any homebrew that any player has created or added to their own collection is also shared with everyone in the campaign. It does not appear to be possible to turn off content sharing from the players without also turning off all content sharing from the DM (source books and homebrew). This is not a workable situation. Is there a way to turn off homebrew sharing from players but leave on all content sharing from the DM? If not, can you add this?
I didn't know that. Thank you. I think the point still stands. It would be good to be be able to let the DM decide which homebrew is brought in instead of just everything.
I use a session 0. It just makes it cluttered and difficult for my newer players when they see dozens of races, many with duplicate names, mixed in with everything.
If people remove as many homebrews as they can from their “collections” it will reduce that. Anything they created will stay in their “creations,” and can be added back and removed again at will for their other campaigns. That should help.
Once something is on a character, it will stay there even after it has been removed from a collection. So if their character is already using it, they won’t loose anything and won’t need to switch it back to play. They would only need to add something back if they need to add it to a character, like spells for prepared spellcasters, stuff like that. Or if they are the DM, they might need to swap more, but it isn’t that big a deal.
I don’t ask either, I just let them know if they want to use a homebrewe somebody is sharing that isn’t me, then they gotta ask. It only comes up occasionally. Most of them don’t homebrew and it’s pretty easy to tell mine from the others’ because of the writing style. Although, I do share some stuff I added made by other people, so I don’t know how that gets affected, but people use some of them.
This doesn't resolve the issue. Someone running multiple campaigns may have homebrew in one and not the other. Or they DM one with their homebrews and play in another where that DM has differing homebrews. Some people have huge collections of homebrew, for example, one of my players has added all 70+ homebrew spells of a particular author for their game that clutters up spell selection for other players in my game. Asking them to remove their homebrew will mess up their game. Expecting my players to know what is legal and what isn't slows things down, and is tediously annoying.
There needs to be a way for the DM to toggle off player homebrew for their games to avoid these and likely more issues.
This doesn't resolve the issue. Someone running multiple campaigns may have homebrew in one and not the other. Or they DM one with their homebrews and play in another where that DM has differing homebrews. Some people have huge collections of homebrew, for example, one of my players has added all 70+ homebrew spells of a particular author for their game that clutters up spell selection for other players in my game. Asking them to remove their homebrew will mess up their game. Expecting my players to know what is legal and what isn't slows things down, and is tediously annoying.
There needs to be a way for the DM to toggle off player homebrew for their games to avoid these and likely more issues.
Maybe just tell the players to ensure the Homebrew toggle is off on their sheets?
If there's a homebrew item or something then they, or you as the DM, could go in, turn homebrew on, add the specific homebrew, then turn it off. The added thing stays, but all other homebrew remains gone.
Maybe just tell the players to ensure the Homebrew toggle is off on their sheets?
If there's a homebrew item or something then they, or you as the DM, could go in, turn homebrew on, add the specific homebrew, then turn it off. The added thing stays, but all other homebrew remains gone.
This isn't a good solution either. I have a lot of homebrew that I've added to my campaigns. I have a player running his own campaigns and also has a lot of homebrew specific to his game. If my players turn off homebrew on their sheets, then they can't access the allowed homebrew that I offer them - sure, for big things, like races or subclasses, turning it on, adding it, then turning it off works, but for some things it doesn't, like spells - A cleric would have to turn on homebrew, then prepare a homebrew spell, then turn off homebrew every time they wanted to prepare homebrew spells. It's not permanently on their page, because they have the full list of spells to prepare from. It's only on their sheet if it's actually prepared.
From our perspective, sure. But if you want that toggle to actually do anything on the backend it would take quite a bit of programming.
By that logic, why do anything? Just turn DNDBeyond into a notepad application. Anything more than that would require quite a bit of programming.
Sure, adding a toggle will require programming. So will adding in new functionality. So will adding in support for new books. Something like being able to control what's seen on the campaign's characters seems like a pretty basic function that should be there from the beginning. So I don't accept "it's too hard" as an excuse. There are plenty of ways for this to happen, all they need to do is pick one and do it.
From our perspective, sure. But if you want that toggle to actually do anything on the backend it would take quite a bit of programming.
By that logic, why do anything? Just turn DNDBeyond into a notepad application. Anything more than that would require quite a bit of programming.
Sure, adding a toggle will require programming. So will adding in new functionality. So will adding in support for new books. Something like being able to control what's seen on the campaign's characters seems like a pretty basic function that should be there from the beginning. So I don't accept "it's too hard" as an excuse. There are plenty of ways for this to happen, all they need to do is pick one and do it.
I didn’t say they shouldn’t do it, just that it it isn’t as simple as it seems. Chill out dude.
I didn’t say they shouldn’t do it, just that it it isn’t as simple as it seems.
I read over this thread before I posted. You've been pretty antagonistic to the idea that it should be fixed, instead suggesting that users should just deal with it. You may not have said "they shouldn't do it", but you've certainly made the implication that they shouldn't, and that it's a user problem, not a dev problem.
I didn’t say they shouldn’t do it, just that it it isn’t as simple as it seems.
I read over this thread before I posted. You've been pretty antagonistic to the idea that it should be fixed, instead suggesting that users should just deal with it. You may not have said "they shouldn't do it", but you've certainly made the implication that they shouldn't, and that it's a user problem, not a dev problem.
Hey, I'm just engaging in spirited, friendly debate. I may get snarky, but this isn't an attack. We're all friends here.
Well, for one thing, i have not been antagonistic to that, just stated helpful workarounds. And it is a user problem until it gets fixed, and we do have to just deal with it.
[REDACTED]
Notes: Please keep commentary on-topic and respectful.
What are you willing to not have in order for DDB to enable DMs to forbid their players from using homebrew, Oisin?
That's what Sposta was driving at. Everything DDB does is ten other things they don't do. Every functionality they add to the sheet is ten pieces of functionality they don't add.
Every DM on this website wants functionality to restrict what their players see/can take on their sheet. "I want to restrict certain books, even if the player owns them." "I want to restrict certain races/subraces, even if the player owns them." "I want to restrict certain classes/subclasses, even if the player owns them." "I want to ban ALL HOMEBREW that I didn't personally create from my campaign, and force players to follow that restriction."
It all boils down to "I want control over what my players are allowed to create." Sometimes a DM wants to impose those limits for very good reasons; there's lots of good answers for "why do this?" There's just as many bad answers, and even if the good outweighs the bad, it's a very hefty programming lift as well as a pretty severe abuse case - a DM is, in fact, denying the player the ability to use their own purchased content and permissions on this website, which is a very fraught thing to do. It's easy to give a DM editing permission on an existing, already-built character sheet. That's simply extending a handful of permissions that already exist from the player to the DM, and is simple for them to do. Allowing the DM to unilaterally turn content on or off for access to individual characters, down to the per-specific-item level is a much bigger task that there's no existing code backend for them to build off of, on top of being way too finicky for a large number of DMs. Nobody wants to have to go through and curate 500+ pieces of adventuring gear on top of their existing homebrew.
The reason Sposta, Cybermind, and many other more experienced DDB forumites recommend these do-it-yourself workarounds is because they function. They get the job done, and they allow DDB to continue working on new functionality people would like rather than an overbearing, abuse-prone DM Nanny interface. If you can't trust your players to follow the directives agreed upon in Session Zero of their own volition, you need a new gaming group. If you want to introduce newbies to the system with an uncluttered interface, run a game without any homebrew at all. If you want DDB to spend the next year abandoning all their other development projects to build an extensive suite of deeply nitpicky parental controls into the DM interface? People will fight you on that, myself included, because a lot of us see that as an exceptionally poor use of DDB's exceptionally limited time and development resources.
Ancillary note: if you're going to invoke the Loudmouth Club on us, do be prepared to defend your point with more than just the Report button. I have no intention of attacking you or breaching code of conduct, but I also think this whole idea is a stupid waste of DDB's time and I'm perfectly willing to have a good old-fashioned Internet Fight Goblin word brawl over it.
What are you willing to not have in order for DDB to enable DMs to forbid their players from using homebrew, Oisin?
I'm willing to not have to explain to my players that the random spell they see on their spell list isn't an official campaign spell, and they shouldn't take it. The only problem here is that because homebrew shows up on ALL characters in the campaign, and there's zero indication that it's a.) homebrew or b.) not added by me, it leads to some confusion for players, especially new ones.
Every DM on this website wants functionality to restrict what their players see/can take on their sheet. "I want to restrict certain books, even if the player owns them." "I want to restrict certain races/subraces, even if the player owns them." "I want to restrict certain classes/subclasses, even if the player owns them." "I want to ban ALL HOMEBREW that I didn't personally create from my campaign, and force players to follow that restriction."
That's the thing - this is exactly what I don't want to do. I WANT to allow homebrew, I just don't want to confuse the issue with the other players. Here's a specific situation. I run a game, in which I have a lot of homebrew. Spells, magic items, subclasses, you name it. One of the players in that campaign has another game that also uses a lot of homebrew. A second player, who is not in the first player's campaign and knows nothing about it, now has several spells on her spell list that she doesn't understand, so she asked me about it. Those are spells from the second player's campaign. Now, I don't know how many spells he's added - his campaign is sci-fi based, so he's done a pretty extensive rebuild of the system, and has effectively flooded my cleric's spell list with a bunch of nonsense. The solution to just turn off homebrew doesn't work, because that removes my homebrew from her system, and it's not a matter of adding what she wants and then turning it off, because of the nature of cleric spells. (She should be able to see the full cleric list she has available.)
Now, I'm not concerned with the players that added the homebrew. If they want to add homebrew of their own, they should be able to see said homebrew and be able to recognize that it's one of their own. I don't even care about restricting it, really. There are lots of ways to fix this issue.
You could:
Make homebrew clearer in the various lists they appear, either by giving them a different color, or even just adding an asterisk to it.
Make who shared the homebrew clearer. Then, when a player sees a spell they don't recognize, they can say, "oh, that's shared by Oisin, so it's fine, this one's shared by randomplayer, so it's not."
Allow DM homebrew to be available to the campaign, but restrict player homebrew to be available to only that person's content. So in this case, player1 would see their homebrew, know it was added by them, but player2 wouldn't, and so wouldn't have any issues with trying to figure out if a random spell is legal or not.
It's not a matter of wanting control over what my players create. It's a matter of cleaning up stuff that shouldn't be there in the first place. That's why it's not just a session zero issue. Sure, you could say no to the subclasses and races in session zero, but how do you say no to the random 5th level spell player 3 added that even I'm unaware of? And yes, I could also say "if you don't recognize a spell, please ask me if it's *really* available before you take it, but then I'm in the position of policing what spells are and aren't available, and that defeats the purpose of the system.
Yes, I get that workarounds are nice to have, and it's good to have them. But Sposta's attitude was "well, you should just suck it up and deal with it." even before I got here. That's not helpful. These forums are for discussing general bugs and bug support, and this IS a bug. And yes, I certainly would LOVE a lot of new functionality, I don't want it at the expense of ignoring legitimate bugs.
Ancillary note: if you're going to invoke the Loudmouth Club on us, do be prepared to defend your point with more than just the Report button. I have no intention of attacking you or breaching code of conduct, but I also think this whole idea is a stupid waste of DDB's time and I'm perfectly willing to have a good old-fashioned Internet Fight Goblin word brawl over it.
FIrst of all, I didn't report him, although maybe that's how I should've handled it when he started attacking me. (and despite your "Loudmouth Club" disclaimer, that's exactly what he did.) I explained my point, and why I felt it was necessary. He lost his temper. Next time, I won't bother, and I will just use the report button.
I didn’t attack anyone in this thread. And anyone (🤨) who thinks I did has obviously never witnessed me attacking someone in one of these threads. I get… creative… and often use rude verbs and make references to immediate family members.
You say no to random fifth-level spells by asking players to familiarize themselves with the publicly available Official Cleric Spell List and to double-check any spells they don't see on it against a list you give them of spells beyond the Official List that have been authorized for use in your game. Trust me - your cleric player is smart enough to pick up on the fact that all the sci-fi themed stuff she keeps finding is probably No Bueno after one decent chat and a quick trip to the Official List. I have faith in your cleric player's powers of pattern recognition.
Would it be super neat if homebrew identified its creator in the character sheet? Yes. Absolutely. I'd be willing to back that feature request, because that feels like it's a simple matter of getting homebrew to populate the 'Source' field normally reserved for book titles with the name of the homebrew's creator. That field doesn't normally show on the character sheet even for books, which is annoying and may require some extra lifting, but that could be a cool notion for helping ameliorate this issue.
Am I willing to give up progress on Bags and Containers, implementation of existing variant rules such as Slow Natural Healing, and an overhaul of the homebrew editor to accommodate a DM Nanny system? You can bet your bottom dollar the answer is no. Would other folks be willing to let DDB grind to a complete halt on the Encounter Builder to switch their focus to a DM Nanny system? I'm pretty sure the answer is also no.
That's what I'm trying to tell you, Oisin. That's the question I'm posing to you. DDB has a thousand things everybody's screaming at them to do all the time and they can only ever work on maybe three at once. What are you willing to not get, not have, in order to get your DM Nanny system?
Go for more realistic and achievable goals instead. Inherent labeling of homebrew is a good one. I try to label all mine in the text box anyways, but that's a workaround too, and a lot of players are indiscriminate when trawling the Sea of Decay that is DDB's public homebrew. I know it's annoying. But as the DM using DDB as your sheet tool, it's kinda your job to resolve sheet discrepancies. It's part of what you signed up for, and why so many DMs are flat-out banning homebrew altogether. They take the easy road and just opt out altogether. You could ask your players to trim their collections, you could ask them to double-check their selections. You could create a curated list, at least until the players all recognize all the official stuff on sight. There's plenty of ways around this issue, and resolving it would detract from solving things there aren't ways around, or where the workarounds are far less clean and viable.
It appears that if content sharing is enabled for a campaign then any homebrew that any player has created or added to their own collection is also shared with everyone in the campaign. It does not appear to be possible to turn off content sharing from the players without also turning off all content sharing from the DM (source books and homebrew). This is not a workable situation. Is there a way to turn off homebrew sharing from players but leave on all content sharing from the DM? If not, can you add this?
Content Sharing has nothing to do with it. All homebrews are automatically shared with everyone in a campaign, even if content sharing is not enabled.
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
I didn't know that. Thank you. I think the point still stands. It would be good to be be able to let the DM decide which homebrew is brought in instead of just everything.
That’s what Session 0 is for, exactly those sorts of conversations.
You’re right, it would be simpler. But it is something that can be addressed with the players.
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
I use a session 0. It just makes it cluttered and difficult for my newer players when they see dozens of races, many with duplicate names, mixed in with everything.
If people remove as many homebrews as they can from their “collections” it will reduce that. Anything they created will stay in their “creations,” and can be added back and removed again at will for their other campaigns. That should help.
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
Thank you for the engagement. I did ask the players to do that but I hate imposing on them like that.
Once something is on a character, it will stay there even after it has been removed from a collection. So if their character is already using it, they won’t loose anything and won’t need to switch it back to play. They would only need to add something back if they need to add it to a character, like spells for prepared spellcasters, stuff like that. Or if they are the DM, they might need to swap more, but it isn’t that big a deal.
I don’t ask either, I just let them know if they want to use a homebrewe somebody is sharing that isn’t me, then they gotta ask. It only comes up occasionally. Most of them don’t homebrew and it’s pretty easy to tell mine from the others’ because of the writing style. Although, I do share some stuff I added made by other people, so I don’t know how that gets affected, but people use some of them.
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
This doesn't resolve the issue. Someone running multiple campaigns may have homebrew in one and not the other. Or they DM one with their homebrews and play in another where that DM has differing homebrews. Some people have huge collections of homebrew, for example, one of my players has added all 70+ homebrew spells of a particular author for their game that clutters up spell selection for other players in my game. Asking them to remove their homebrew will mess up their game. Expecting my players to know what is legal and what isn't slows things down, and is tediously annoying.
There needs to be a way for the DM to toggle off player homebrew for their games to avoid these and likely more issues.
Maybe just tell the players to ensure the Homebrew toggle is off on their sheets?
If there's a homebrew item or something then they, or you as the DM, could go in, turn homebrew on, add the specific homebrew, then turn it off. The added thing stays, but all other homebrew remains gone.
Seems simple enough.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
This isn't a good solution either. I have a lot of homebrew that I've added to my campaigns. I have a player running his own campaigns and also has a lot of homebrew specific to his game. If my players turn off homebrew on their sheets, then they can't access the allowed homebrew that I offer them - sure, for big things, like races or subclasses, turning it on, adding it, then turning it off works, but for some things it doesn't, like spells - A cleric would have to turn on homebrew, then prepare a homebrew spell, then turn off homebrew every time they wanted to prepare homebrew spells. It's not permanently on their page, because they have the full list of spells to prepare from. It's only on their sheet if it's actually prepared.
Just add a toggle at the campaign level that says "don't allow homebrew from other players". Seems simple enough.
From our perspective, sure. But if you want that toggle to actually do anything on the backend it would take quite a bit of programming.
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
By that logic, why do anything? Just turn DNDBeyond into a notepad application. Anything more than that would require quite a bit of programming.
Sure, adding a toggle will require programming. So will adding in new functionality. So will adding in support for new books. Something like being able to control what's seen on the campaign's characters seems like a pretty basic function that should be there from the beginning. So I don't accept "it's too hard" as an excuse. There are plenty of ways for this to happen, all they need to do is pick one and do it.
I didn’t say they shouldn’t do it, just that it it isn’t as simple as it seems. Chill out dude.
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
I read over this thread before I posted. You've been pretty antagonistic to the idea that it should be fixed, instead suggesting that users should just deal with it. You may not have said "they shouldn't do it", but you've certainly made the implication that they shouldn't, and that it's a user problem, not a dev problem.
Hey, I'm just engaging in spirited, friendly debate. I may get snarky, but this isn't an attack. We're all friends here.
Well, for one thing, i have not been antagonistic to that, just stated helpful workarounds. And it is a user problem until it gets fixed, and we do have to just deal with it.
[REDACTED]
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
What are you willing to not have in order for DDB to enable DMs to forbid their players from using homebrew, Oisin?
That's what Sposta was driving at. Everything DDB does is ten other things they don't do. Every functionality they add to the sheet is ten pieces of functionality they don't add.
Every DM on this website wants functionality to restrict what their players see/can take on their sheet. "I want to restrict certain books, even if the player owns them." "I want to restrict certain races/subraces, even if the player owns them." "I want to restrict certain classes/subclasses, even if the player owns them." "I want to ban ALL HOMEBREW that I didn't personally create from my campaign, and force players to follow that restriction."
It all boils down to "I want control over what my players are allowed to create." Sometimes a DM wants to impose those limits for very good reasons; there's lots of good answers for "why do this?" There's just as many bad answers, and even if the good outweighs the bad, it's a very hefty programming lift as well as a pretty severe abuse case - a DM is, in fact, denying the player the ability to use their own purchased content and permissions on this website, which is a very fraught thing to do. It's easy to give a DM editing permission on an existing, already-built character sheet. That's simply extending a handful of permissions that already exist from the player to the DM, and is simple for them to do. Allowing the DM to unilaterally turn content on or off for access to individual characters, down to the per-specific-item level is a much bigger task that there's no existing code backend for them to build off of, on top of being way too finicky for a large number of DMs. Nobody wants to have to go through and curate 500+ pieces of adventuring gear on top of their existing homebrew.
The reason Sposta, Cybermind, and many other more experienced DDB forumites recommend these do-it-yourself workarounds is because they function. They get the job done, and they allow DDB to continue working on new functionality people would like rather than an overbearing, abuse-prone DM Nanny interface. If you can't trust your players to follow the directives agreed upon in Session Zero of their own volition, you need a new gaming group. If you want to introduce newbies to the system with an uncluttered interface, run a game without any homebrew at all. If you want DDB to spend the next year abandoning all their other development projects to build an extensive suite of deeply nitpicky parental controls into the DM interface? People will fight you on that, myself included, because a lot of us see that as an exceptionally poor use of DDB's exceptionally limited time and development resources.
Ancillary note: if you're going to invoke the Loudmouth Club on us, do be prepared to defend your point with more than just the Report button. I have no intention of attacking you or breaching code of conduct, but I also think this whole idea is a stupid waste of DDB's time and I'm perfectly willing to have a good old-fashioned Internet Fight Goblin word brawl over it.
Why you shouldn't start ANOTHER thread about DDB not giving away free redeems on your hardcopy book purchases.
Thinking of starting ANOTHER thread asking why Epic Boons haven't been implemented? Read this first to learn why you shouldn't!
I'm willing to not have to explain to my players that the random spell they see on their spell list isn't an official campaign spell, and they shouldn't take it. The only problem here is that because homebrew shows up on ALL characters in the campaign, and there's zero indication that it's a.) homebrew or b.) not added by me, it leads to some confusion for players, especially new ones.
That's the thing - this is exactly what I don't want to do. I WANT to allow homebrew, I just don't want to confuse the issue with the other players. Here's a specific situation. I run a game, in which I have a lot of homebrew. Spells, magic items, subclasses, you name it. One of the players in that campaign has another game that also uses a lot of homebrew. A second player, who is not in the first player's campaign and knows nothing about it, now has several spells on her spell list that she doesn't understand, so she asked me about it. Those are spells from the second player's campaign. Now, I don't know how many spells he's added - his campaign is sci-fi based, so he's done a pretty extensive rebuild of the system, and has effectively flooded my cleric's spell list with a bunch of nonsense. The solution to just turn off homebrew doesn't work, because that removes my homebrew from her system, and it's not a matter of adding what she wants and then turning it off, because of the nature of cleric spells. (She should be able to see the full cleric list she has available.)
Now, I'm not concerned with the players that added the homebrew. If they want to add homebrew of their own, they should be able to see said homebrew and be able to recognize that it's one of their own. I don't even care about restricting it, really. There are lots of ways to fix this issue.
You could:
It's not a matter of wanting control over what my players create. It's a matter of cleaning up stuff that shouldn't be there in the first place. That's why it's not just a session zero issue. Sure, you could say no to the subclasses and races in session zero, but how do you say no to the random 5th level spell player 3 added that even I'm unaware of? And yes, I could also say "if you don't recognize a spell, please ask me if it's *really* available before you take it, but then I'm in the position of policing what spells are and aren't available, and that defeats the purpose of the system.
Yes, I get that workarounds are nice to have, and it's good to have them. But Sposta's attitude was "well, you should just suck it up and deal with it." even before I got here. That's not helpful. These forums are for discussing general bugs and bug support, and this IS a bug. And yes, I certainly would LOVE a lot of new functionality, I don't want it at the expense of ignoring legitimate bugs.
Ancillary note: if you're going to invoke the Loudmouth Club on us, do be prepared to defend your point with more than just the Report button. I have no intention of attacking you or breaching code of conduct, but I also think this whole idea is a stupid waste of DDB's time and I'm perfectly willing to have a good old-fashioned Internet Fight Goblin word brawl over it.
FIrst of all, I didn't report him, although maybe that's how I should've handled it when he started attacking me. (and despite your "Loudmouth Club" disclaimer, that's exactly what he did.) I explained my point, and why I felt it was necessary. He lost his temper. Next time, I won't bother, and I will just use the report button.
I didn’t attack anyone in this thread. And anyone (🤨) who thinks I did has obviously never witnessed me attacking someone in one of these threads. I get… creative… and often use rude verbs and make references to immediate family members.
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
You say no to random fifth-level spells by asking players to familiarize themselves with the publicly available Official Cleric Spell List and to double-check any spells they don't see on it against a list you give them of spells beyond the Official List that have been authorized for use in your game. Trust me - your cleric player is smart enough to pick up on the fact that all the sci-fi themed stuff she keeps finding is probably No Bueno after one decent chat and a quick trip to the Official List. I have faith in your cleric player's powers of pattern recognition.
Would it be super neat if homebrew identified its creator in the character sheet? Yes. Absolutely. I'd be willing to back that feature request, because that feels like it's a simple matter of getting homebrew to populate the 'Source' field normally reserved for book titles with the name of the homebrew's creator. That field doesn't normally show on the character sheet even for books, which is annoying and may require some extra lifting, but that could be a cool notion for helping ameliorate this issue.
Am I willing to give up progress on Bags and Containers, implementation of existing variant rules such as Slow Natural Healing, and an overhaul of the homebrew editor to accommodate a DM Nanny system? You can bet your bottom dollar the answer is no. Would other folks be willing to let DDB grind to a complete halt on the Encounter Builder to switch their focus to a DM Nanny system? I'm pretty sure the answer is also no.
That's what I'm trying to tell you, Oisin. That's the question I'm posing to you. DDB has a thousand things everybody's screaming at them to do all the time and they can only ever work on maybe three at once. What are you willing to not get, not have, in order to get your DM Nanny system?
Go for more realistic and achievable goals instead. Inherent labeling of homebrew is a good one. I try to label all mine in the text box anyways, but that's a workaround too, and a lot of players are indiscriminate when trawling the Sea of Decay that is DDB's public homebrew. I know it's annoying. But as the DM using DDB as your sheet tool, it's kinda your job to resolve sheet discrepancies. It's part of what you signed up for, and why so many DMs are flat-out banning homebrew altogether. They take the easy road and just opt out altogether. You could ask your players to trim their collections, you could ask them to double-check their selections. You could create a curated list, at least until the players all recognize all the official stuff on sight. There's plenty of ways around this issue, and resolving it would detract from solving things there aren't ways around, or where the workarounds are far less clean and viable.
Why you shouldn't start ANOTHER thread about DDB not giving away free redeems on your hardcopy book purchases.
Thinking of starting ANOTHER thread asking why Epic Boons haven't been implemented? Read this first to learn why you shouldn't!