Hey, wanted to provide some quick feedback on the three-campaign sharing limit. I hope this is an appropriate post - I did some cursory thread searches for this topic but didn't find much about it.
I DM a lot for both casual and veteran players. I run a game for my family. I run a monthly game for my adult friends. I run a regular game for my kids and their friends. I run one-shots with random folks all the time. I also play in a few campaigns from time to time.
At first, DNDBeyond was a godsend for me because it made character creation so easy for players of all different skill levels, and let me see their characters in one central location. I absolutely loved the tool, invested in a few rulebooks and a la carte character options, and zealously sang its praises to anyone who would listen. It helped me sell the game to new and casual players, and my player pool expanded thanks to its ease of use.
Then I hit the three campaign sharing limit, and suddenly, I found myself having second thoughts about my longterm commitment to the tool.
I presume the three-campaign sharing limit is in place to deter abuse (someone sharing content with hundreds of people or something), but for me, most of the value of the tool comes from introducing it to new / casual players, for throwing characters together quickly without having to use pen and paper. Since I've hit a wall now, I'm much more hesitant to keep supporting the product with purchases.
As a compromise, would it be possible to add additional sharing capabilities for pay? An extra $1 a month per 3 campaigns or something similar? I really love this tool and am excited by its potential, but with no options available to continue expanding my use of it, I don't know that it'll be worth my time or money.
I know it's not ideal, but you can deactivate sharing on one campaign and activate it on another.
Players can still access their characters in a campaign that has sharing deactivated, even if they are using races/classes/spells/items from content they don't own. The main restriction is that they cannot ADD anything from your books while sharing is off.
The ability to pay to add extra campaign shares would be wonderful. In our group I was the only one with enough disposable income to buy all of the books and stuff on DnDB, so I shared it with everyone in the group. Then one of the group wanted to start his own campaign, so I shared it with that group. Now they are asking me when I am planning on running a game and another player is thinking about also running a campaign. No one wants to spend the $150+ I did for all of the books again just for one person to do a campaign that will most likely be less than 10 sessions. Now that we are used to DnDB, it feels barbaric to revert to pen a paper.
Sorry this is a little disjointed, I'm at work and am writing sentences in between dealing with coworkers.
You underestimate some our reaches... as an educator I run a club with 4 games and 6-8 players, plus I run a teacher game and another with friends... I didn't realize there would be this kind of restriction. Before, I shared my physical copy of the phb, digitally, I won't be able to do that.
I understand the frustration, but at the same time what would it take to share a single, physical copy of the PHB with THIRTY-SIX people simultaneously? For the price ($12/person for a Master account + Legendary Bundle for 36 players in active, sharing campaigns), I think it's a pretty fair deal. When I was starting out, I would have found a way to dish out $12 to help fund a year worth of DnDB like that.
It would be interesting to know what the average number of campaigns and players there are per account.
It would be unreasonable to expect to be able to share paid content with an unlimited number of people though, surely?
So after looking a bit more, either the 3 campaign limit was added in recently to the tier descriptions or I totally missed it somehow when reading through what it gave. I was unaware of it until this thread started, but I think it's probably a case of me just overlooking it. So, my bad. My disappointment stands, but it really ends up being my own fault for not looking closely enough. I don't have an issue with Curse trying to make money; While I really like the toolset provided I still don't think I would have made the purchase, at this point, had I noticed that.
I can understand why this would be the way of thinking about it, but I don't think it's really an effective way of looking at it. By your own quote above, Stormknight, you point out you can actually share with unlimited people by disabling and enabling sharing as needed, so why the extra hoops? Just make it easier and intuitive. I can't imagine personally ever wanting more than 12 people to a campaign, but why is there even a limit? I can imagine it being uncommon to have even that many people, let alone more, in a game but there are definitely cases for it out there. I, personally, definitely want more than 3 campaigns. Why make it inconvenient to do that?
I disagree with the comparison of a digital medium to the limitations of a physical book, I don't think it's a useful argument. It's been discussed at length how they are different sorts of products and allow for different types of uses. Why make it more complicated? Why design limitations similar to physical books? I can imagine a fear of people sharing it too openly and abusing the platform, but wouldn't that just be able to fall under the same idea as not sharing an account (a ToS issue)? If I'm not mistaken the limit is per subscription, not per account as well, so another person could buy the sub, enable sharing in campaigns, and now one person is sharing across 60+ people? If that's true maybe the point of it is to just sell more subscriptions.
So rather than all complaints, perhaps a solution.. since I could 'technically' share with 36 unique people without many hoops to jump through, why not just give that ability per Master subscription? Add them as 'content sharing' rather than having the content sharing toggle on the campaigns. Set a limit to the number of people that you can share with and remove the limitations from the campaign system. I'd be happier with that than the current system, personally.
Keep in mind that the master tier subscription doesn't have to belong to the DM, and that the resources of everyone in the campaign are shared. So for those of you with several regular groups, if someone else in the group is willing to get a Master Tier subscription, they can turn on sharing, saving you a "slot," but your material Still gets shared.
I think your solution is quite good. Being able to pay for extra slots also seems quite reasonable. Our problem as users is that we don't know, and are unlikely to find out, what licensing agreement Curse has with WOTC. Hopefully they can work something out in the future. Education seems an especially important case both as a social good and also, I would have thought, for getting more people into the hobby in the future.
You think simultaneously sharing all your books to 36 people is not good enough?
Ok.
FWIW, I find this number very generous and expected much less. I would have thought that only one campaign with 8 people or so could be shared. I was very surprised and happy to find that it's much more, of course!
You can replicate the book style sharing by kicking and adding people for each session. Then you can have an infinite number of 36 people groups using everything with each book bought only once and one subscription.
Seriously though, P&P roleplaying is one of the cheapest hobbies there is and DDB makes it much cheaper than all alternatives. If that's not good enough than I don't know what is.
The ability to purchase more slots is a no brainer for both sides. I would happily spend a bit more on this to be honest. I heard a rumor that they may be swapping the 12 character limit in exchange for 12 Players limit. This would be a welcom change as many of the players have multiple characters. A big problem I have is that people used to be able to make a character and leave the campaign, now when they do that it removes all their unpurchased stuff. I don’t understand but some of this stuff is getting frustrating considering the amount of money involved here. The limits on sharing and wait times between publishing are just getting hard to ignore. DDB needs to hire some extra hands here, or at least pay the amazing mods they have a wage. The mods are the superheroes of this site and without them this would be a baren wasteland. Pay them and get some more to help with the growing popularity of this community!
Keep in mind that the master tier subscription doesn't have to belong to the DM, and that the resources of everyone in the campaign are shared. So for those of you with several regular groups, if someone else in the group is willing to get a Master Tier subscription, they can turn on sharing, saving you a "slot," but your material Still gets shared.
I think ArwensDaughter's post is worth sharing again, for those who missed it. I'd also add that while I don't have a link, I'm pretty sure I have read somewhere here that the 3 campaign/36 character limit is indeed imposed by WotC, not a decision strictly from Curse.
I don't find it unreasonable at all to limit one individual like this and thereby encourage others to at least spend the cost of a Master subscription here on the site. As long as you, the primary DM,throw one dummy character into a campaign someone else set up and turned on content sharing for, all the other players still get free access to your purchased content. That's still just one person spending a max of $400 on ALL the paid content, and another player just having to pony up for a sub. A pretty good deal, I'd say. Surely, across these large groups, clubs or whatever, someone can afford a subscription, or at the very least they could all pitch in for one or two other people to pay for one and open up all that content for the group via sharing.
Finally, FWIW, I'll add that I think the comparison between a physical copy of the PHB and the digital content here is a VERY valid one when you are discussing sharing. You've bought the content in both cases, and the advantages of digital allow you to easily share it with many more people. It still stands however, that a book can only be used by one or two people at once. Here, WotC is allowing you to bump that figure to 36. I know people disagree, but it's pretty hard to convincingly argue that's somehow unfair of them.
Note that I'm NOT arguing that the ability to purchase additional slots is a bad idea - it's a very good one, I think. Just trying to point out how the current limits aren't unreasonable.
I would love to add a voice that would love to purchase more slots. Right now I run 6 campaigns a week, each with 5-6 players. Ideally for me I'd love to see:
Extra campaign/character/player slots available for purchase
De-coupling the amount of campaigns with the characters. For instance, let me have six campaigns and split up my 36 character limit between those, instead of being stuck with just three campaigns of 12 characters each.
BONUS: Let me hide certain content from players. This is my biggest issue - I run a lot of the written adventures, and giving my players full access to the entire text of an adventure isn't something I want to do. I still want them to have any character options (backgrounds, spells, etc.) but be able to hide the adventure text from them.
You underestimate some our reaches... as an educator I run a club with 4 games and 6-8 players, plus I run a teacher game and another with friends... I didn't realize there would be this kind of restriction. Before, I shared my physical copy of the phb, digitally, I won't be able to do that.
I feel it is worth noting some schools groups have gotten in contact with DnDBeyond and been able to sort out stuff to help specifically with the issue. I saw it on a response to a post somewhere it may be worth going to the contact us section and explaining the case if your using it in an education based environment.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Loex - A Lizardfolk Lvl 4/6/4 Hexblade Profane Blood Hunter/ Battlesmith Artificer/ Cleric of the Forge Arborea - A Warforged Lvl 1 Hexblade Warlock
I would love to add a voice that would love to purchase more slots. Right now I run 6 campaigns a week, each with 5-6 players. Ideally for me I'd love to see:
Extra campaign/character/player slots available for purchase
De-coupling the amount of campaigns with the characters. For instance, let me have six campaigns and split up my 36 character limit between those, instead of being stuck with just three campaigns of 12 characters each.
BONUS: Let me hide certain content from players. This is my biggest issue - I run a lot of the written adventures, and giving my players full access to the entire text of an adventure isn't something I want to do. I still want them to have any character options (backgrounds, spells, etc.) but be able to hide the adventure text from them.
I agree that would be awesome that if that was the case.
I realized that most people are complaining about the organizational way dndbeyond is limiting to 3 campaigns. I think it would be good to have the player or character limit be 36 and you can organize those in campaigns the way you needs rather than limit the number of campaigns you get. I think this would be a great compromise for those of us that have lots of small groups of d&d games. It also helps the DM be able to see who or what campaign they are running. I love Dndbeyond and will continue to use it regardless, but it would be nice if they used this feature differently.
I realized that most people are complaining about the organizational way dndbeyond is limiting to 3 campaigns. I think it would be good to have the player or character limit be 36 and you can organize those in campaigns the way you needs rather than limit the number of campaigns you get. I think this would be a great compromise for those of us that have lots of small groups of d&d games. It also helps the DM be able to see who or what campaign they are running. I love Dndbeyond and will continue to use it regardless, but it would be nice if they used this feature differently.
Check out the changelog. They just tweaked the campaigns in the past few days to allow more characters per player. Not sure if it solves your problem, but it did solve mine.
Hey, wanted to provide some quick feedback on the three-campaign sharing limit. I hope this is an appropriate post - I did some cursory thread searches for this topic but didn't find much about it.
I DM a lot for both casual and veteran players. I run a game for my family. I run a monthly game for my adult friends. I run a regular game for my kids and their friends. I run one-shots with random folks all the time. I also play in a few campaigns from time to time.
At first, DNDBeyond was a godsend for me because it made character creation so easy for players of all different skill levels, and let me see their characters in one central location. I absolutely loved the tool, invested in a few rulebooks and a la carte character options, and zealously sang its praises to anyone who would listen. It helped me sell the game to new and casual players, and my player pool expanded thanks to its ease of use.
Then I hit the three campaign sharing limit, and suddenly, I found myself having second thoughts about my longterm commitment to the tool.
I presume the three-campaign sharing limit is in place to deter abuse (someone sharing content with hundreds of people or something), but for me, most of the value of the tool comes from introducing it to new / casual players, for throwing characters together quickly without having to use pen and paper. Since I've hit a wall now, I'm much more hesitant to keep supporting the product with purchases.
As a compromise, would it be possible to add additional sharing capabilities for pay? An extra $1 a month per 3 campaigns or something similar? I really love this tool and am excited by its potential, but with no options available to continue expanding my use of it, I don't know that it'll be worth my time or money.
Thanks so much for listening!
Hi there Orphicblue,
I know it's not ideal, but you can deactivate sharing on one campaign and activate it on another.
Players can still access their characters in a campaign that has sharing deactivated, even if they are using races/classes/spells/items from content they don't own. The main restriction is that they cannot ADD anything from your books while sharing is off.
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Good to know - was not aware of that. It helps. Thanks so much for the reply!
The ability to pay to add extra campaign shares would be wonderful. In our group I was the only one with enough disposable income to buy all of the books and stuff on DnDB, so I shared it with everyone in the group. Then one of the group wanted to start his own campaign, so I shared it with that group. Now they are asking me when I am planning on running a game and another player is thinking about also running a campaign. No one wants to spend the $150+ I did for all of the books again just for one person to do a campaign that will most likely be less than 10 sessions. Now that we are used to DnDB, it feels barbaric to revert to pen a paper.
Sorry this is a little disjointed, I'm at work and am writing sentences in between dealing with coworkers.
Whoa.
What? Campaign sharing limit?
Oh no.
It would be unreasonable to expect to be able to share paid content with an unlimited number of people though, surely?
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
You underestimate some our reaches... as an educator I run a club with 4 games and 6-8 players, plus I run a teacher game and another with friends... I didn't realize there would be this kind of restriction. Before, I shared my physical copy of the phb, digitally, I won't be able to do that.
I understand the frustration, but at the same time what would it take to share a single, physical copy of the PHB with THIRTY-SIX people simultaneously? For the price ($12/person for a Master account + Legendary Bundle for 36 players in active, sharing campaigns), I think it's a pretty fair deal. When I was starting out, I would have found a way to dish out $12 to help fund a year worth of DnDB like that.
It would be interesting to know what the average number of campaigns and players there are per account.
Keep in mind that the master tier subscription doesn't have to belong to the DM, and that the resources of everyone in the campaign are shared. So for those of you with several regular groups, if someone else in the group is willing to get a Master Tier subscription, they can turn on sharing, saving you a "slot," but your material Still gets shared.
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 think your solution is quite good. Being able to pay for extra slots also seems quite reasonable. Our problem as users is that we don't know, and are unlikely to find out, what licensing agreement Curse has with WOTC. Hopefully they can work something out in the future. Education seems an especially important case both as a social good and also, I would have thought, for getting more people into the hobby in the future.
You think simultaneously sharing all your books to 36 people is not good enough?
Ok.
FWIW, I find this number very generous and expected much less. I would have thought that only one campaign with 8 people or so could be shared. I was very surprised and happy to find that it's much more, of course!
You can replicate the book style sharing by kicking and adding people for each session. Then you can have an infinite number of 36 people groups using everything with each book bought only once and one subscription.
Seriously though, P&P roleplaying is one of the cheapest hobbies there is and DDB makes it much cheaper than all alternatives. If that's not good enough than I don't know what is.
The ability to purchase more slots is a no brainer for both sides. I would happily spend a bit more on this to be honest. I heard a rumor that they may be swapping the 12 character limit in exchange for 12 Players limit. This would be a welcom change as many of the players have multiple characters. A big problem I have is that people used to be able to make a character and leave the campaign, now when they do that it removes all their unpurchased stuff. I don’t understand but some of this stuff is getting frustrating considering the amount of money involved here. The limits on sharing and wait times between publishing are just getting hard to ignore. DDB needs to hire some extra hands here, or at least pay the amazing mods they have a wage. The mods are the superheroes of this site and without them this would be a baren wasteland. Pay them and get some more to help with the growing popularity of this community!
Dungeon Master for Heroes of Agarra
I have a growing library of Homebrew: Subclasses | Races | Feats | Items
You check out my newest Homebrew: Doctor - The Survey Corps - Order of the Shadow Master
I would love to add a voice that would love to purchase more slots. Right now I run 6 campaigns a week, each with 5-6 players. Ideally for me I'd love to see:
Loex - A Lizardfolk Lvl 4/6/4 Hexblade Profane Blood Hunter/ Battlesmith Artificer/ Cleric of the Forge
Arborea - A Warforged Lvl 1 Hexblade Warlock
DM - "Malign Intelligence"
I agree that would be awesome that if that was the case.
I realized that most people are complaining about the organizational way dndbeyond is limiting to 3 campaigns. I think it would be good to have the player or character limit be 36 and you can organize those in campaigns the way you needs rather than limit the number of campaigns you get. I think this would be a great compromise for those of us that have lots of small groups of d&d games. It also helps the DM be able to see who or what campaign they are running. I love Dndbeyond and will continue to use it regardless, but it would be nice if they used this feature differently.
Check out the changelog. They just tweaked the campaigns in the past few days to allow more characters per player. Not sure if it solves your problem, but it did solve mine.