I'm still intrigued by the feedback that the character builder is difficult to use. From some of the earlier discussion in this thread it sounds like it's not necessarily that it's difficult to use, but different than what some people are used to/prefer. Personally, I find it the easiest character builder I've ever used, but I never used the 4E tools so I guess maybe that was better. I personally find DDB to be leagues better and easier than OrcPub (and MPMB, insofar as that's a character builder--which isn't exactly right).
I'm trying to get my players to use it. It could be because Beyond is new and different but their early impressions were... not good. Myself, as a DM, like it a great deal. We all pitched in for the year subscription to give it a shot. They complain that it is frustrating to find the information they need for reference and tracking. I'm hoping the sheet revamp will handle most of these problems and from what I've heard so far it seems that will be the case. Of course we'll see what is delievered. But until it is actually changed it the response from my players is disappointment. And the longer it goes without improvement means less and less chance of keeping them as potential customers.
In my opinion the builder is fine, but the sheet itself is the cause of frustration due to hiding away things like racial traits and class features, and only putting spells with spell attack rolls under "attacks". The new sheet should definitely solve these problems from what I've seen.
The sheet is actually OK at the table. It's about as "difficult" as using paper, although it comes with the convenience of some autocalculation, not using paper, and not having to replace it after it becomes a mess of erased graphite.
Now, having said that, there's a lot of room for improvement, but I honestly think that those who are complaining about it haven't actually used it beyond maybe one session at the table, and are grumbling more about change than the actual usability of it.
Here's another suggestion, if it hasn't been offered before: Find a way to do push notifications to the site so you can see a message has arrived without needing to refresh the page. I like to use the message function as 'whispers' during sessions, and it would help with it being less obvious if the player can just see they have a new message instead of needing to announce they should refresh their page.
D&D Beyond didn't shut anything down. It is owned by Curse, which is a 3rd party company. They actually don't have the rights to shut anything down, as they don't own the D&D IP.
In fact, the 2 most referenced services are still operational, albeit in a limited form. They just were issued Cease and Desist orders from WotC (not Curse) after opening Patreons. They existed for a long time before they tried to make money off of copyrighted material.
What more than likely happened was that the release of D&D Beyond caused these other applications to get brought up on forums and social media, where they caught the attention of WotC, who then saw they were running Patreons. So if anything, the users of the applications had more to do with getting them shut down, if WotC wasn't already aware of what they were doing.
My greatest disapointment in Beyond is that its release shut down a wide range of amazing free products the community had already built that were far superior to anything that Beyond is currently capable of. DnD Beyond claims to support the community with one hand, while binding, hindering and shutting it down with the other.
I think this community deserves better. It deserves more respect for its effort to bring free content for the benefit of all D&D players and DnD Beyond should feel comfertable competing with our amature efforts by providing a professional tool which is what DnD Beyond claims to be. Right now its not, its basically amature hour over here, the community was building better sites and content 10 years ago than what we have in Beyond and we were doing it for free.
Truth is, if Beyond actually brought something worth the price tag to the community, it would find out quickly how willing we are to spend money but to be frank, in its current form the site is worth nothing, sorry to say.
Beyond has a loooooooong way to go.
What sites / services are you talking about? Curious... As a noob.
teak
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A little bit of nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men... - Willy Wonka
I recommend you go back and read the 3 or 4 different threads about this as all of it has been covered in detail. But in short, you're basing an argument off of either incomplete or very biased information.
"The whole concept of copyrighted material is a wishy washy concept, ownership of digital material is about the equivilant (sic) of trying to tax air" "Curse is the reason piracy exists." Wow, dude, time for a reality check.
Fortunately for content creators, trademark and copyright laws are a thing that exist for their protection. WotC is following those laws to protect their rights, while the pirates continually try to circumvent or ignore them for their own gain. That's the way the world works. While OrcPub and the MPMB character sheets may have had features which made them better products to many of their users, I certainly don't see them as the ideally designed end-products that you do. Additionally, to compare the full suite of tools that Beyond offers to either of them is simply ludicrous. The simple fact of the matter is that both of them outright stole from WotC and even then, really didn't get into trouble until they tried to monetize their efforts through Patreon. If they had either A) stuck to only including the open content while allowing users to input anything else themselves (as Beyond does, and MPMB does now) or B) carried on for free as they had been doing for a long while, I expect they both would still be happily providing their services to the community
I, too, am curious to see a list of these other sites that you feel as so superior in design, functionality and content to what the apparently incompetent code-monkeys here at Curse are turning out, because I have to say, I'm pretty darn happy with what I'm getting for my money here.
You seem very enthusiastic about your point of view, and I respect your passion for a hobby that we both enjoy, but I will reiterate my earlier statement.
Everything you're bringing up has been discussed here ad nauseam. I don't really wish to engage in repeating the same points that have been made over and over again, but the answers are here in these boards, I assure you.
When you bought your physical books, that was the complete game. There was no promise of future digital tools included with that purchase. WotC has a right to protect their IP by any legal means they see fit, and you can still use your books to get the full D&D experience as it was promised to you upon purchase.
I can’t think of a single person I have met in the last 30 years of RPG gaming that wouldn’t drop 10 bucks or even 20 bucks a month to get D&D content online. But at 30 bucks a book?? Yeah you will get some of the people, some of the time.. but the money will run out.. its just a matter of time.
So for you (and everyone else you have met) is better to pay a high monthly fee, potentially end up paying several times the price of the content, than paying for the content you need and have the tools free? It's genuine question, because I personally don't see it as a better alternative.
Don’t get me wrong, I despise piracy, I despice the idea that someones writing and hardwork is just taken.. but in business you have to be smart, its not about what its worth to you, its about what its actually worth and D&D digital content is not worth what Curse is charging for it right now.
This is quite a generalisation. DDB might not be worth anything TO YOU, not everyone might see it the same way. Also, but I would believe you are not convinced (no foul in that), Curse is not technically charging you anything for the tools, WotC charges you for the integrated content, which is not intrinsically mandatory to use the tools.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
And while the details of the business arrangement have not been released, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a non-compete clause listed in the contract. But even then, it's probably just an agreement that WotC wouldn't sell a license to another similar service. Although even then, that doesn't really make sense since Roll20 and FG are essentially competitors with the same general product as each other, but they may be under a different agreement since they are not meant to be used exclusively with D&D. All I know is we haven't heard much about that "D&D Reader" lately.
But my point is, even a non-compete doesn't have much to do with a company fighting against pirated content. That doesn't have to be in a contract, as the competitor is already breaking the law.
People will tire of paying 29.95 every time a books comes on Beyond when they also need to pay 39.95 for the hardcopy which gamers will ALWAYS do.
You are making two flawed assumptions. The first that paying $29.95 every time a book comes out (it's actually more like $25 per rule-book or $22 per adventure, for the customers that actually want every book thanks to the legendary bundle) will be something people would tire of faster than paying $10 a month every month for equivalent access. I plan on playing D&D 5th edition for years to come, and because of that, paying for every book that comes out until the end of 5th edition's run will be far cheaper than paying $10 a month every month until then.
The second is that all, or even a majority, of people are going to also insist on buying hard copies of the books. My group's not going to - why would we? The point of buying the book is to have the info for the game, and we get that with D&D Beyond in a format that is both more affordable and more functional than the book, so it's a full-on waste of money to us to pay for any books (we might, however, get a single master subscription among the group of us so that the money I've paid on D&D Beyond becomes equivalent not to just one copy of every book plus some nifty tools, but the equivalent of 10 copies of every book since there are 10 of us). And besides just my group, I've seen plenty of people over the years complaining that WotC doesn't offer PDFs of their books specifically because those people don't want the physical books to lug around, they want digital versions for portability. I doubt those folks will "always" be buying physical copies.
People will tire of paying 29.95 every time a books comes on Beyond when they also need to pay 39.95 for the hardcopy which gamers will ALWAYS do.
Not true for me either. I stopped buying hardcopies once DDB was available. Digital is so much more useful, especially in this format as opposed to a PDF. Searchable, cross-referenced, etc, etc. I can access everything I own on my phone, PC, and multiple tablets, anytime, anywhere, and not need to carry a backpack full of books with me.
Sure, I own many of the books, but not all. Once migrating to Beyond, I repurchased all the rules books I already owned - PHB, DMG, MM, SCAG & Volos, but at the same time NOT all the adventures I owned. I've since then bought both adventures (Tales and Storm King) and rules (Xanathars) digitally only, as well as pre-ordering Mordenkainen here. With my Master subscription, I can share everything with friends and family I game with, all at the same time, unlike passing a single copy of the book around the table.
We look at it not so much as rebuying the books, or the same content, but rather investing in a new way to access it all - a true paradigm shift in how we play both at the table and online. No online piracy or illegal scans of the books has offered nearly as much, either paid or free. Believe me, in our case, cost as a consideration is so far down the list as to be a non-issue. It's all about the quality and usefulness of the available tools, and Beyond has been well worth the investment.
You've obviously got your axe to grind here, and none of us will be changing your opinion. I've said my peace and I'm out. Happy gaming to you.
I have to admit that, while i don't agree with all of BigKahuna stance, he does make some good arguments. Unfortunately, IMO he makes those good arguments, poorly. Copyright exists for a reason and it isn't to protect big corporate interests. It's there to protect content creators and their rights to their work. Copyright holders *deserve to get paid for their work*, full stop. My objection to D&D Beyond and why I am not re-subbing this month is because I feel like I am paying for the same content twice (or more, see below!).
The tools are fine, really good frankly. Sadly however, I will *always* buy the physical books because I find it good to have them on hand and I find an actual physical book easier to use. So anytime WotC comes out with new content, I have to pay for that content twice. That sticks in my craw (and gets really expensive, fast). This isn't Curse/Twitch/DDB's fault, they HAVE to charge for the content. I put the blame for the situation on WotC, they offer no alternative to paying for the multiple copies of content, so it snowballs quickly and stifles the industry on the whole. For example: outside of wanting the content for DDB, maybe I want to start a game using Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds...well looks like I need to pay to unlock PHB access a third (or forth!) time despite the fact that I have already purchased access to that content multiple times already. Then you tack on MM and DMG content and it quickly becomes untenable, so I give up on the idea and decide not to run the VTT game. Sure that's my choice not to do so, but having more people running a VTT game is just another avenue to attracting new players (who then go out and buy the books from the store)
I dunno, maybe I'm not explaining it very well, but for me, I had to drop DDB not because it was a bad service but because WotC made it too expensive to use.
We could go in circles about the "paying for it twice" thing, or whether BigKahuna's points were "good", but you actually made a really good point that few make on your side of the debate. You said you find the books easier to use. That's obviously your opinion, as I don't personally share it, but really, it's the most important factor in this whole issue. If you get more ease of use out of the physical books, then that's all that can be said. You should absolutely enjoy D&D in the best way you possibly can and not buy things you don't need. So in that respect, good luck and happy gaming!
Not to cause any contention, but it isn't fair to say to tell people to keep the debate centralized to one locations, but then lock the thread that you want the debate on. I know the arguments have been circular ad nausium, but you can't say you are open to hearing both sides while actively not allowing the debate to happen. It is either people can have the debate and a place be allowed for it, or it is the stance of not allowing the debate further.
Not to cause any contention, but it isn't fair to say to tell people to keep the debate centralized to one locations, but then lock the thread that you want the debate on. I know the arguments have been circular ad nausium, but you can't say you are open to hearing both sides while actively not allowing the debate to happen. It is either people can have the debate and a place be allowed for it, or it is the stance of not allowing the debate further.
I'm one of those who wish we paid for the content (electronic) once and then pay for tools like D&D Beyond and Roll20... But, I think everyone knows everything there is on this subject and maybe it should rest for a bit...
teak
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A little bit of nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men... - Willy Wonka
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm trying to get my players to use it. It could be because Beyond is new and different but their early impressions were... not good. Myself, as a DM, like it a great deal. We all pitched in for the year subscription to give it a shot. They complain that it is frustrating to find the information they need for reference and tracking. I'm hoping the sheet revamp will handle most of these problems and from what I've heard so far it seems that will be the case. Of course we'll see what is delievered. But until it is actually changed it the response from my players is disappointment. And the longer it goes without improvement means less and less chance of keeping them as potential customers.
In my opinion the builder is fine, but the sheet itself is the cause of frustration due to hiding away things like racial traits and class features, and only putting spells with spell attack rolls under "attacks". The new sheet should definitely solve these problems from what I've seen.
The sheet is actually OK at the table. It's about as "difficult" as using paper, although it comes with the convenience of some autocalculation, not using paper, and not having to replace it after it becomes a mess of erased graphite.
Now, having said that, there's a lot of room for improvement, but I honestly think that those who are complaining about it haven't actually used it beyond maybe one session at the table, and are grumbling more about change than the actual usability of it.
Here's another suggestion, if it hasn't been offered before: Find a way to do push notifications to the site so you can see a message has arrived without needing to refresh the page. I like to use the message function as 'whispers' during sessions, and it would help with it being less obvious if the player can just see they have a new message instead of needing to announce they should refresh their page.
D&D Beyond didn't shut anything down. It is owned by Curse, which is a 3rd party company. They actually don't have the rights to shut anything down, as they don't own the D&D IP.
In fact, the 2 most referenced services are still operational, albeit in a limited form. They just were issued Cease and Desist orders from WotC (not Curse) after opening Patreons. They existed for a long time before they tried to make money off of copyrighted material.
What more than likely happened was that the release of D&D Beyond caused these other applications to get brought up on forums and social media, where they caught the attention of WotC, who then saw they were running Patreons. So if anything, the users of the applications had more to do with getting them shut down, if WotC wasn't already aware of what they were doing.
A little bit of nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men...
- Willy Wonka
I recommend you go back and read the 3 or 4 different threads about this as all of it has been covered in detail. But in short, you're basing an argument off of either incomplete or very biased information.
"The whole concept of copyrighted material is a wishy washy concept, ownership of digital material is about the equivilant (sic) of trying to tax air"
"Curse is the reason piracy exists."
Wow, dude, time for a reality check.
Fortunately for content creators, trademark and copyright laws are a thing that exist for their protection. WotC is following those laws to protect their rights, while the pirates continually try to circumvent or ignore them for their own gain. That's the way the world works. While OrcPub and the MPMB character sheets may have had features which made them better products to many of their users, I certainly don't see them as the ideally designed end-products that you do. Additionally, to compare the full suite of tools that Beyond offers to either of them is simply ludicrous. The simple fact of the matter is that both of them outright stole from WotC and even then, really didn't get into trouble until they tried to monetize their efforts through Patreon. If they had either A) stuck to only including the open content while allowing users to input anything else themselves (as Beyond does, and MPMB does now) or B) carried on for free as they had been doing for a long while, I expect they both would still be happily providing their services to the community
I, too, am curious to see a list of these other sites that you feel as so superior in design, functionality and content to what the apparently incompetent code-monkeys here at Curse are turning out, because I have to say, I'm pretty darn happy with what I'm getting for my money here.
You seem very enthusiastic about your point of view, and I respect your passion for a hobby that we both enjoy, but I will reiterate my earlier statement.
Everything you're bringing up has been discussed here ad nauseam. I don't really wish to engage in repeating the same points that have been made over and over again, but the answers are here in these boards, I assure you.
When you bought your physical books, that was the complete game. There was no promise of future digital tools included with that purchase. WotC has a right to protect their IP by any legal means they see fit, and you can still use your books to get the full D&D experience as it was promised to you upon purchase.
So for you (and everyone else you have met) is better to pay a high monthly fee, potentially end up paying several times the price of the content, than paying for the content you need and have the tools free? It's genuine question, because I personally don't see it as a better alternative.
This is quite a generalisation. DDB might not be worth anything TO YOU, not everyone might see it the same way. Also, but I would believe you are not convinced (no foul in that), Curse is not technically charging you anything for the tools, WotC charges you for the integrated content, which is not intrinsically mandatory to use the tools.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
And while the details of the business arrangement have not been released, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a non-compete clause listed in the contract. But even then, it's probably just an agreement that WotC wouldn't sell a license to another similar service. Although even then, that doesn't really make sense since Roll20 and FG are essentially competitors with the same general product as each other, but they may be under a different agreement since they are not meant to be used exclusively with D&D. All I know is we haven't heard much about that "D&D Reader" lately.
But my point is, even a non-compete doesn't have much to do with a company fighting against pirated content. That doesn't have to be in a contract, as the competitor is already breaking the law.
You are making two flawed assumptions. The first that paying $29.95 every time a book comes out (it's actually more like $25 per rule-book or $22 per adventure, for the customers that actually want every book thanks to the legendary bundle) will be something people would tire of faster than paying $10 a month every month for equivalent access. I plan on playing D&D 5th edition for years to come, and because of that, paying for every book that comes out until the end of 5th edition's run will be far cheaper than paying $10 a month every month until then.
The second is that all, or even a majority, of people are going to also insist on buying hard copies of the books. My group's not going to - why would we? The point of buying the book is to have the info for the game, and we get that with D&D Beyond in a format that is both more affordable and more functional than the book, so it's a full-on waste of money to us to pay for any books (we might, however, get a single master subscription among the group of us so that the money I've paid on D&D Beyond becomes equivalent not to just one copy of every book plus some nifty tools, but the equivalent of 10 copies of every book since there are 10 of us). And besides just my group, I've seen plenty of people over the years complaining that WotC doesn't offer PDFs of their books specifically because those people don't want the physical books to lug around, they want digital versions for portability. I doubt those folks will "always" be buying physical copies.
Not true for me either. I stopped buying hardcopies once DDB was available. Digital is so much more useful, especially in this format as opposed to a PDF. Searchable, cross-referenced, etc, etc. I can access everything I own on my phone, PC, and multiple tablets, anytime, anywhere, and not need to carry a backpack full of books with me.
Sure, I own many of the books, but not all. Once migrating to Beyond, I repurchased all the rules books I already owned - PHB, DMG, MM, SCAG & Volos, but at the same time NOT all the adventures I owned. I've since then bought both adventures (Tales and Storm King) and rules (Xanathars) digitally only, as well as pre-ordering Mordenkainen here. With my Master subscription, I can share everything with friends and family I game with, all at the same time, unlike passing a single copy of the book around the table.
We look at it not so much as rebuying the books, or the same content, but rather investing in a new way to access it all - a true paradigm shift in how we play both at the table and online. No online piracy or illegal scans of the books has offered nearly as much, either paid or free. Believe me, in our case, cost as a consideration is so far down the list as to be a non-issue. It's all about the quality and usefulness of the available tools, and Beyond has been well worth the investment.
You've obviously got your axe to grind here, and none of us will be changing your opinion. I've said my peace and I'm out. Happy gaming to you.
I have to admit that, while i don't agree with all of BigKahuna stance, he does make some good arguments. Unfortunately, IMO he makes those good arguments, poorly. Copyright exists for a reason and it isn't to protect big corporate interests. It's there to protect content creators and their rights to their work. Copyright holders *deserve to get paid for their work*, full stop. My objection to D&D Beyond and why I am not re-subbing this month is because I feel like I am paying for the same content twice (or more, see below!).
The tools are fine, really good frankly. Sadly however, I will *always* buy the physical books because I find it good to have them on hand and I find an actual physical book easier to use. So anytime WotC comes out with new content, I have to pay for that content twice. That sticks in my craw (and gets really expensive, fast). This isn't Curse/Twitch/DDB's fault, they HAVE to charge for the content. I put the blame for the situation on WotC, they offer no alternative to paying for the multiple copies of content, so it snowballs quickly and stifles the industry on the whole. For example: outside of wanting the content for DDB, maybe I want to start a game using Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds...well looks like I need to pay to unlock PHB access a third (or forth!) time despite the fact that I have already purchased access to that content multiple times already. Then you tack on MM and DMG content and it quickly becomes untenable, so I give up on the idea and decide not to run the VTT game. Sure that's my choice not to do so, but having more people running a VTT game is just another avenue to attracting new players (who then go out and buy the books from the store)
I dunno, maybe I'm not explaining it very well, but for me, I had to drop DDB not because it was a bad service but because WotC made it too expensive to use.
We could go in circles about the "paying for it twice" thing, or whether BigKahuna's points were "good", but you actually made a really good point that few make on your side of the debate. You said you find the books easier to use. That's obviously your opinion, as I don't personally share it, but really, it's the most important factor in this whole issue. If you get more ease of use out of the physical books, then that's all that can be said. You should absolutely enjoy D&D in the best way you possibly can and not buy things you don't need. So in that respect, good luck and happy gaming!
Wasn't this being debated on another thread already..? Ack!
teak
A little bit of nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men...
- Willy Wonka
[ Site Rules & Guidelines ] --- [ Homebrew Rules & Guidelines ]
Send me a message with any questions or concerns
Not to cause any contention, but it isn't fair to say to tell people to keep the debate centralized to one locations, but then lock the thread that you want the debate on. I know the arguments have been circular ad nausium, but you can't say you are open to hearing both sides while actively not allowing the debate to happen. It is either people can have the debate and a place be allowed for it, or it is the stance of not allowing the debate further.
A little bit of nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men...
- Willy Wonka