I have been running a DnD 5e 2014 game and trying to maintain the campaign (at least encounters and in session mechanics) using DnD Beyond. There is one major frustration with this though; it seems to work well for the players, but as a DM I have a lot of issues with the DnD Beyond web interface not being geared towards an in-session interface. I('ll try and describe some of the issues in the list below, but a general comment would be that you lose your place too easily.
1. There seems to be no way to 'lock' your session into a particular campaign (and the ruleset / sources selected for it). This makes looking up information (rules, spells, monsters, basically everything) quite cumbersome. This really should be able to be restricted during aa campaign session.
2. The campaign should be the 'home page' during a session, and all pages then be a new window from that. The number of times I have to go back to my list of campaigns and reopen them every session because the current page is finished with gets quite disruptive.
3. During combat / encounters I frequently refer to the monster stat block, character stat blocks and things like spell and action specifics. The issue is that unless the information is in directly in the stat block you have to navigate away from the encounter to other pages and this often results in losing not just the encounter page but the campaign focus also. You can get back going through the menus etc, but I would love to be able to 'lock' a page so that all links open in a new window rather than in the current one.
I see the requests for a DM Screen or Layout, and while this would be good (a bit like Fantasy Grounds), I am suggesting an interim step; DnD Beyond has all the pieces already, we just need to be able to 'Pin' certain pages to no get closed or replaced but open new windows instead. This is something well within the current browser capability and would require minimal effort to implement. As it currently stands I find myself less and less inclined to actively use DnD Beyond 'in session' as re-finding my key pages is an additional frustration I don't need as aa DM.
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DM since Edition 1, Circa 1987
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I have been running a DnD 5e 2014 game and trying to maintain the campaign (at least encounters and in session mechanics) using DnD Beyond. There is one major frustration with this though; it seems to work well for the players, but as a DM I have a lot of issues with the DnD Beyond web interface not being geared towards an in-session interface. I('ll try and describe some of the issues in the list below, but a general comment would be that you lose your place too easily.
1. There seems to be no way to 'lock' your session into a particular campaign (and the ruleset / sources selected for it). This makes looking up information (rules, spells, monsters, basically everything) quite cumbersome. This really should be able to be restricted during aa campaign session.
2. The campaign should be the 'home page' during a session, and all pages then be a new window from that. The number of times I have to go back to my list of campaigns and reopen them every session because the current page is finished with gets quite disruptive.
3. During combat / encounters I frequently refer to the monster stat block, character stat blocks and things like spell and action specifics. The issue is that unless the information is in directly in the stat block you have to navigate away from the encounter to other pages and this often results in losing not just the encounter page but the campaign focus also. You can get back going through the menus etc, but I would love to be able to 'lock' a page so that all links open in a new window rather than in the current one.
I see the requests for a DM Screen or Layout, and while this would be good (a bit like Fantasy Grounds), I am suggesting an interim step; DnD Beyond has all the pieces already, we just need to be able to 'Pin' certain pages to no get closed or replaced but open new windows instead. This is something well within the current browser capability and would require minimal effort to implement. As it currently stands I find myself less and less inclined to actively use DnD Beyond 'in session' as re-finding my key pages is an additional frustration I don't need as aa DM.
DM since Edition 1, Circa 1987