Does anyone have any updated info or experience with the integration options? Also does anyone know if you had purchased your books via D&D Beyond do you still need to purchase your books in Fantasy Grounds?
Ummm... I think I understand what you are asking, so I will try to answer.
Short Answer: No. They will never be compatible. They are competitors.
Super Long Answer (TL;DR) : I run a 5e game and use DDB and Roll20 together without any problem. However, I use them each as their own thing. My DDB purchases do not show up within the workings of Roll20 (or fantasy grounds) and vice versa. Also, in no shape, fashion, or form, do I need the two ecosystems to converge.
DDB: I use this for my purchased books as well as my campaign management. Although I do own the core books physically, I also own them in DBB. I create a campaign and invite my players to it. Having shared my purchases with the campaign, all my players can make characters using anything rules in my books, not just the basic rules. As the DM, when we start a session, I open each player's character sheet in a a new tab so that I can flip tabs over to their sheets when need be. Usually, I don't look at them at all, but occasionally a question arises about how to cast a spell or something. At which point, I flip to their sheet at look directly at their spell so we are looking at the same text (because its SO much faster than looking in a physical book or even search DDB myself). DDB does character sheets SO WELL that I can't imagine NOT using it (in any capacity).
Roll20: I use this for the mapping and video conferencing features (both of which it does VERY well). I set up all my maps, monster token etc, ahead of time. That's it. I do invite my players to Roll20 Game I created so we can use the Video Chat feature (I'm in Hawaii, 3 are in Wisconsin, and 1 is in Ohio). Once they are in the game, I have player tokens set up for them so they can move themselves around on the map.
Encounter+: This is a combat manger for iOS. I run it on my iPad. All it does it keep track of initiative, turns, damage, etc. I only use this in combat. I highly recommend it. At least until Roll20 or DDB add such a feature.
So, we all have multiple tabs open at a time. I, the DM, have one for the Roll20 game, and one for each players DDB character sheet. Each player at minimum has the Roll20 game and a character sheet open.
Now, for me, this works great. Like stupidly, fantastically, exactly how I think it should be, GREAT. Would it be nice to not have all those tabs open? Sure. Would it be nice if ONE of these products did everything? Sure. But let's be honest, they don't and probably never will.
DDB does character sheets SO WELL and Roll20 does character sheets so POORLY that I just can't use the Roll20 character system. It's god awful. At the current moment, DDB does not offer a mapping system or a video conferencing system, so I can't even complain about them. I do not know if those are features they are considering or not, but if they did, it would probably take 5 years, but then, they'd be GREAT. I can't wait for that. So, I use the 2 systems together and it really does make remote gaming possible and fun. My group used to play together at a table, but this is what we have now, and I can honestly say, gaming is just as fun, if not more, using these tools like this.
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Tabletop D&D player, DM Neverwinter Online Witty Quote Here
Encounter+: This is a combat manger for iOS. I run it on my iPad. All it does it keep track of initiative, turns, damage, etc. I only use this in combat. I highly recommend it. At least until Roll20 or DDB add such a feature.
It looks great but how are you getting maps in to the interface? Did you also purchase Battle Map app to use with it?
I'd love to see D&D Beyond in the future have a service similar to what Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds offers that wotks together with the current features. Not sure if its even on their radar but would be cool to hsve something so streamlined all in one place.
The ability to Link my accounts across the platforms, would solve the multiple purchases of the same digital books, and make the integration of character sheets much less troublesome I would think.
I know they're technically competitors.. but wouldn't 2 companies that are competing, but in a friendly way, be a nice change?
Wizards of the Coast would have to spearhead this; each of the other companies involved has to pay licensing fees to Wizards to use their material. Wizard's would have to be willing to allow licenses to apply across different digital platforms and would need to create a way to track all of that.
You're not being 'forced' to buy the same digital book twice over:
You can easily buy a digital book on Beyond and use it in conjunction with Roll20 or FG, that's what many do, much in the same way you can use the physical books
They're not the same digital book; the work that goes into integrating the content into Roll20, Fantasy Grounds and DDB is entirely different with different end goals.
WotC is simply licensing their content to be sold by other companies to give the consumer more options to buy, which is hardly greedy. You don't need to own every instance of the Player's Handbook to play. Hell, you don't even need to buy the PHB at all, you can play for free.
I think you're making false equivalencies because you don't need to buy content on roll20 or FG or whatever unless you want to save time. That's it, you don't even need to enter it into the site. You can play using a physical character sheet, or a pdf or whatever. You're paying not a 'price of entry' but for convenience. That's it.
They are in fact the same books, the developers of the sites just integrated different implementations of the physical book's rules.
It's that integration you're paying for as much as the content. Just like when you buy a physical book, you're paying for the materials and binding as much as the rules behind them.
I don't know anyone who went and bought a physical copy for use with miniatures and scenery from one store, then went to another store to buy the same book again to play a game that's mostly theater of the mind.. So yeah it kind of is greedy on the side of WotC.
It's not 'greedy' because you don't need to buy any digital products to play on roll20. Many people, including myself originally, don't. They have their character sheet and physical rules in front of them, physical dice, and just use the VTTs as that, virtual tabletops. But if you want the added convenience, you can pay for it, but that's not used as a bar to entry which is what you seem to be implying.
Encounter + was just updated in a major way, making it even closer to a full campaign manager. Save campaigns, encounters with preset token locations on maps, etc. Check it out, it's really great.
If sharing servers is a great deal for both nintendo and its direct competitor microsoft... The why are they doing it for their games ?
Were in a world where sharing is a must for pretty much everything. Its not far fetched to think that wotc is just too focused on the past to realise the future in front of them.
But hey... Their choice !
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no i'm not. i was answering you about why they would actually "share" their content from one designer to another. because you said they wouldn'T because they are rivals, well, then answer me this one ? why did nintendo and microsoft accept to merge servers when it came to minecraft and many other games, like diablo 3 ? if the goal is to keep the enemy at bay, then why share servers ?
the same logic applies here, both company would benefit greatly by having each other share the content, allow one to do one thing while the other do it too from his side. now, i'm not stupid enough to think that both companies have the same code bases. but i am willing to bet that it would be much easier then you think to have such "sharing". now i also get your point as to why WotC do not do it, but let's be honest... WotC has always lived in the past and probably will take another few years to understand the concept of "Everything at the same place !" proof, they preffer to just liscense it instead of doing it themselves.
another thing... Hasbro has WotC under its wings, stop pretending WotC is a small company, they have all the budget they need to be retailer as well as producer, but somehow they still refuse to sell anything on their own website. somehow they preffer to stay producer only, even if it means far less cost to sell it as well. there is a reason why everybody does it that way and drops the merchants third party in the equation. yet WotC, aka Hasbro still do it the old fassion way and lose much money doing that.
in the end, changing their product to incorporate a serial key inside the books would be a very easy thing to do. sure it wouldn'T be retro compatible, but the next generation of books would all have the new system.
after all that, one has to wonder... why is it still going on as is ? and your whole argument falls flat as well.
in the end the only answer i can produce from all this, is that somehow WotC preffer it this way for unknown reasons that are theres alone.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
@DaveDamon: I'm going to have to disagree with you on the greed aspect. WoTC has the ability to set a price that is not most of the cost of the entire product when a company is creating a value added tool for their customers. However, WoTC is choosing not to prorate in a way that considers the amount of content being utilized or the likely use cases. While I do appreciate the convenience, the amount that they are charging is definitely greed. Curse is, unfortunately, just the messenger on this. I would be willing to bet that they do not make a mint of the sale of each WoTC product. But WoTC has no unit production, warehousing, or shipping costs for what they are selling here. They are making huge profit on products that the bulk of the consumers here have already purchased in physical form. Multiply that by multiple tools, all paying a significant portion of the cost of physical merchandise, and the math adds up to ... let's see, carry the 4.... yes, greed.
I'm not saying companies should not make money. Far from it. But I am not going to excuse a greed based business model (How about those ISPs, huh?) and I'm not going to let anyone white knight for that kind of company without being challenged.
@DndPaladin - Sorry, it seemed like your response was a non-sequitur as there was no way to tell you were replying to my earlier comments and not my most recent one.
Here's the problem with your minecraft analogy; you still have to buy the game on Xbox and Switch and whatever platform you want to play it on, even though it's 'basically' the same game (it's not, it has to be rebuilt for each platform). That's similar to D&D; Beyond is one platform, Roll20 is a another, Fantasy Grounds is a third and retail is a fourth.
You can 'share' content between the platforms as it stands in the fact that there's nothing stopping you playing on roll20 using D&D beyond. That's what I do and many others do.
The minecraft analogy really doesn't work for D&D.
As for the rest of your argument, I know Hasbro owns WotC and isn't a small company, but they're still a smaller division. The most profitable, but still smaller than Hasbros other toy divisions. WotC avoids being distributor and sticks to producing because they have a long history of supporting local stores. That's how D&D started and the fact they have the Wizards Play Network and WotC sanctioned stores, Adventurers League, Friday Night Magic, Partner Store exclusive covers etc. That's how WotC does things. They've expanded into more digital market fronts recently with roll20 and beyond and even amazon for physical, but they're still loyal to their roots.
As for the general idea of allowing cross platform purchasing, who absorbs the cost? Let's say you buy a physical book with a code, who's paying for that code? WotC doesn't own beyond, they can absorb the cost into their bottom line because it's not their cost to absorb. DDB has prices and bottom lines. Same with roll20; you're going to reach a point where you'd be doubling the price just to be able to say the thing works in two places, but not everyone wants to use it in those places.
Does anyone have any updated info or experience with the integration options? Also does anyone know if you had purchased your books via D&D Beyond do you still need to purchase your books in Fantasy Grounds?
Thanks
Christopher
Ummm... I think I understand what you are asking, so I will try to answer.
Short Answer: No. They will never be compatible. They are competitors.
Super Long Answer (TL;DR) : I run a 5e game and use DDB and Roll20 together without any problem. However, I use them each as their own thing. My DDB purchases do not show up within the workings of Roll20 (or fantasy grounds) and vice versa. Also, in no shape, fashion, or form, do I need the two ecosystems to converge.
DDB: I use this for my purchased books as well as my campaign management. Although I do own the core books physically, I also own them in DBB. I create a campaign and invite my players to it. Having shared my purchases with the campaign, all my players can make characters using anything rules in my books, not just the basic rules. As the DM, when we start a session, I open each player's character sheet in a a new tab so that I can flip tabs over to their sheets when need be. Usually, I don't look at them at all, but occasionally a question arises about how to cast a spell or something. At which point, I flip to their sheet at look directly at their spell so we are looking at the same text (because its SO much faster than looking in a physical book or even search DDB myself). DDB does character sheets SO WELL that I can't imagine NOT using it (in any capacity).
Roll20: I use this for the mapping and video conferencing features (both of which it does VERY well). I set up all my maps, monster token etc, ahead of time. That's it. I do invite my players to Roll20 Game I created so we can use the Video Chat feature (I'm in Hawaii, 3 are in Wisconsin, and 1 is in Ohio). Once they are in the game, I have player tokens set up for them so they can move themselves around on the map.
Encounter+: This is a combat manger for iOS. I run it on my iPad. All it does it keep track of initiative, turns, damage, etc. I only use this in combat. I highly recommend it. At least until Roll20 or DDB add such a feature.
So, we all have multiple tabs open at a time. I, the DM, have one for the Roll20 game, and one for each players DDB character sheet. Each player at minimum has the Roll20 game and a character sheet open.
Now, for me, this works great. Like stupidly, fantastically, exactly how I think it should be, GREAT. Would it be nice to not have all those tabs open? Sure. Would it be nice if ONE of these products did everything? Sure. But let's be honest, they don't and probably never will.
DDB does character sheets SO WELL and Roll20 does character sheets so POORLY that I just can't use the Roll20 character system. It's god awful. At the current moment, DDB does not offer a mapping system or a video conferencing system, so I can't even complain about them. I do not know if those are features they are considering or not, but if they did, it would probably take 5 years, but then, they'd be GREAT. I can't wait for that. So, I use the 2 systems together and it really does make remote gaming possible and fun. My group used to play together at a table, but this is what we have now, and I can honestly say, gaming is just as fun, if not more, using these tools like this.
Tabletop D&D player, DM
Neverwinter Online
Witty Quote Here
Thanks for a full walk through of your DM system.
I just use Encounter+ simply to keep track of Initiative and damage. The map is in Roll20 with tokens representing each player and monster.
Tabletop D&D player, DM
Neverwinter Online
Witty Quote Here
I'd love to see D&D Beyond in the future have a service similar to what Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds offers that wotks together with the current features. Not sure if its even on their radar but would be cool to hsve something so streamlined all in one place.
so can you use the tactical maps package on roll20?
The tactical maps product allows you to download the maps as jpeg files.
As far as I am aware, this means you can upload them to Roll20 for personal use.
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You can do that, just download them from the product page (something required to use them either which way) and then upload to roll20
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thanks
Wizards of the Coast would have to spearhead this; each of the other companies involved has to pay licensing fees to Wizards to use their material. Wizard's would have to be willing to allow licenses to apply across different digital platforms and would need to create a way to track all of that.
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
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You're not being 'forced' to buy the same digital book twice over:
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I think you're making false equivalencies because you don't need to buy content on roll20 or FG or whatever unless you want to save time. That's it, you don't even need to enter it into the site. You can play using a physical character sheet, or a pdf or whatever. You're paying not a 'price of entry' but for convenience. That's it.
It's that integration you're paying for as much as the content. Just like when you buy a physical book, you're paying for the materials and binding as much as the rules behind them.
It's not 'greedy' because you don't need to buy any digital products to play on roll20. Many people, including myself originally, don't. They have their character sheet and physical rules in front of them, physical dice, and just use the VTTs as that, virtual tabletops. But if you want the added convenience, you can pay for it, but that's not used as a bar to entry which is what you seem to be implying.
D&D Beyond moderator across forums, Discord, Twitch and YouTube. Always happy to help and willing to answer questions (or at least try). (he/him/his)
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I've also wanted integration with Roll20 so I made an extension for it. It doesn't support FantasyGround (I don't plan on doing that) though.
I've just created a thread announcing the release of the extension here : https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/38455-beyond20-integrating-d-d-beyond-with-roll20
Encounter + was just updated in a major way, making it even closer to a full campaign manager. Save campaigns, encounters with preset token locations on maps, etc. Check it out, it's really great.
Quick question...
If sharing servers is a great deal for both nintendo and its direct competitor microsoft... The why are they doing it for their games ?
Were in a world where sharing is a must for pretty much everything. Its not far fetched to think that wotc is just too focused on the past to realise the future in front of them.
But hey... Their choice !
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
I think you're in the wrong subforum
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no i'm not. i was answering you about why they would actually "share" their content from one designer to another.
because you said they wouldn'T because they are rivals, well, then answer me this one ? why did nintendo and microsoft accept to merge servers when it came to minecraft and many other games, like diablo 3 ? if the goal is to keep the enemy at bay, then why share servers ?
the same logic applies here, both company would benefit greatly by having each other share the content, allow one to do one thing while the other do it too from his side.
now, i'm not stupid enough to think that both companies have the same code bases. but i am willing to bet that it would be much easier then you think to have such "sharing". now i also get your point as to why WotC do not do it, but let's be honest... WotC has always lived in the past and probably will take another few years to understand the concept of "Everything at the same place !" proof, they preffer to just liscense it instead of doing it themselves.
another thing... Hasbro has WotC under its wings, stop pretending WotC is a small company, they have all the budget they need to be retailer as well as producer, but somehow they still refuse to sell anything on their own website. somehow they preffer to stay producer only, even if it means far less cost to sell it as well. there is a reason why everybody does it that way and drops the merchants third party in the equation. yet WotC, aka Hasbro still do it the old fassion way and lose much money doing that.
in the end, changing their product to incorporate a serial key inside the books would be a very easy thing to do. sure it wouldn'T be retro compatible, but the next generation of books would all have the new system.
after all that, one has to wonder... why is it still going on as is ?
and your whole argument falls flat as well.
in the end the only answer i can produce from all this, is that somehow WotC preffer it this way for unknown reasons that are theres alone.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
@DaveDamon: I'm going to have to disagree with you on the greed aspect. WoTC has the ability to set a price that is not most of the cost of the entire product when a company is creating a value added tool for their customers. However, WoTC is choosing not to prorate in a way that considers the amount of content being utilized or the likely use cases. While I do appreciate the convenience, the amount that they are charging is definitely greed. Curse is, unfortunately, just the messenger on this. I would be willing to bet that they do not make a mint of the sale of each WoTC product. But WoTC has no unit production, warehousing, or shipping costs for what they are selling here. They are making huge profit on products that the bulk of the consumers here have already purchased in physical form. Multiply that by multiple tools, all paying a significant portion of the cost of physical merchandise, and the math adds up to ... let's see, carry the 4.... yes, greed.
I'm not saying companies should not make money. Far from it. But I am not going to excuse a greed based business model (How about those ISPs, huh?) and I'm not going to let anyone white knight for that kind of company without being challenged.
@DndPaladin - Sorry, it seemed like your response was a non-sequitur as there was no way to tell you were replying to my earlier comments and not my most recent one.
Here's the problem with your minecraft analogy; you still have to buy the game on Xbox and Switch and whatever platform you want to play it on, even though it's 'basically' the same game (it's not, it has to be rebuilt for each platform). That's similar to D&D; Beyond is one platform, Roll20 is a another, Fantasy Grounds is a third and retail is a fourth.
You can 'share' content between the platforms as it stands in the fact that there's nothing stopping you playing on roll20 using D&D beyond. That's what I do and many others do.
The minecraft analogy really doesn't work for D&D.
As for the rest of your argument, I know Hasbro owns WotC and isn't a small company, but they're still a smaller division. The most profitable, but still smaller than Hasbros other toy divisions. WotC avoids being distributor and sticks to producing because they have a long history of supporting local stores. That's how D&D started and the fact they have the Wizards Play Network and WotC sanctioned stores, Adventurers League, Friday Night Magic, Partner Store exclusive covers etc. That's how WotC does things. They've expanded into more digital market fronts recently with roll20 and beyond and even amazon for physical, but they're still loyal to their roots.
As for the general idea of allowing cross platform purchasing, who absorbs the cost? Let's say you buy a physical book with a code, who's paying for that code? WotC doesn't own beyond, they can absorb the cost into their bottom line because it's not their cost to absorb. DDB has prices and bottom lines. Same with roll20; you're going to reach a point where you'd be doubling the price just to be able to say the thing works in two places, but not everyone wants to use it in those places.
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