So, right now, I'm choking in options, and new players are finding it harder and harder to use the product.
Here's the set of conversations I had with a new player to my campaign:
"Choose Standard. Yes on Home-brew. No on Critical Role, Magic The Gathering, and Eberron. What are those? It's... complicated. Just go with me."
"OK, for the Feat at level 1? OK, it's just a pull-down menu of names? Yeah, let's open a new tab here and you can read through the descriptions to decide what you want."
"No, you can't choose the Boros Legionairre. I know it's visible in the Feats list that your'e referencing, but it's Magic the Gathering. Oh, I know it says it's Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, but that's a Magic the Gathering thing. No, let's not explain it too much, it's not in my setting."
"Sorry, we don't have the House Agents here either. That's Eberron."
"What's that? Oh, how to filter? You have to build up a list of tags in that search box thingy at the top - here, let me do that - no don't close the tab! Oh, no problem, let me set that up again. (Sets up the page filtering AGAIN)
"So you want to be an Elf? What are the Elves of Valenar? I don't know. Oh, they're right on top of the Wood Elves, but everything is exactly the same? That's from some sourcebook I don't have. Yeah, I know, the Wood Elf contains the listing to the source in the lower right, but this doesn't. Well please don't pick the Valenar. Or the Aerini Wood Elf. Or the Aerenal."
"Oh, you want Eladrin? There are two? Hm. Oh, yeah, the Variant one and the normal one. Huh? Oh, yeah, the first one was in the DM's Guide, the second one... hm, was it Volo's? No wait, Mordy's. Yeah, we have that book. Please don't use the DMG one. Which one is which? Let me look it up... yeah, the non-variant is the one you want."
--
Need I go on?
The filtering is complicated, with lots of fidgety sorting through a long list of tags which you have to repeatedly dive down into it... and it NEVER persists beyond a page reload.
The filtering looks and works differently on each part of the site. It's a setup only a back-end developer would love in most places, with complex overlapping tags and other widgets to create overlapping inclusive and exclusive groupings, which I have to re-build dozens of times over the course of the campaign, or just keep those tabs open and hope to GOD that browser doesn't crash...
Oh yeah, in the Character menu, the content for the Elves is a long, bedraggled mess with every single half-assed sub race crammed together in one long list in one 'anchor' in the left menu, The 'Subrace' one talks about two... then in Elf Traits you have 17 different headings, which mix together groupings of Elves and individual strains of Elf, all jumbled together, with no rhyme or reason or discernible order or structure.
Seriously... it's begun to get overwhelming. So much so that I literally WANT to buy more books, especially Eberron - to see what's useful - but if I do, then there will be EVEN MORE STUFF in front of every player in my campaign, even if I personally just want to have it as a source to draw from and dole out in bits and pieces, rather than giving them every option.
I am literally not giving you money I want to give you because the interface is getting so cumbersome.
Am I alone here?
Thank you for listening. I hope this helps you understand the frustration I'm dealing with as a DM to two tables.
If you disable the toggles Critical Role, Magic the Gathering, Eberron on the builder, the character options related to those sources won't show. Races, spells, feats, backgrounds, the toggles disable all of them.
Yeah, I've just gone to make a character and unticked Eberron and MtG content and it removes it from all subsequent menus.
As for information on the background options, it's easy enough to select one that sounds interesting (as they all have fairly intuitive names) and read what it offers. I don't know what else it could display, it's a drop down menu
If you disable the toggles Critical Role, Magic the Gathering, Eberron on the builder, the character options related to those sources won't show. Races, spells, feats, backgrounds, the toggles disable all of them.
It's true that it won't show them in the character sheet, but it still shows them when you're browsing the feats, races, and classes. What we need is something that is the opposite of the "source" filter - a setting that allows us to exclude certain sources. I want to be able to browse all the feats except the ones from Eberron. In order to do that I have to go source by source and select all of the ones that I do want, rather than the one that I don't.
None of the search or filter options on DDB are exclusive, only inclusive. This is one of the changes I've been asking for for a while. Hopefully the menu revamp will fix this. Hopefully.
None of the search or filter options on DDB are exclusive, only inclusive. This is one of the changes I've been asking for for a while. Hopefully the menu revamp will fix this. Hopefully.
This is something I really would love to see as well. There's so many named NPCs in the adventure modules that searching for monsters to use when preparing a session becomes a bit of a hassle (though sometimes I do just snag a statblock off one of those pregen NPCs if they suit my needs). Being able to just switch off a few sources rather than selecting all of the ones I want would be nice.
I'm pretty sure there's already a filter that allows you to choose what source you're looking at on the overview pages already. There isn't anything that removes a certain source, but you could narrow it down.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
There's 20 sources and all of them give magic items. Most of them give monsters or named NPCs. It would be so much easier if there were just a box that said "Hide Source" rather than me having to cherry-pick the 18 sources I want when searching for an item.
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So, right now, I'm choking in options, and new players are finding it harder and harder to use the product.
Here's the set of conversations I had with a new player to my campaign:
"Choose Standard. Yes on Home-brew. No on Critical Role, Magic The Gathering, and Eberron. What are those? It's... complicated. Just go with me."
"OK, for the Feat at level 1? OK, it's just a pull-down menu of names? Yeah, let's open a new tab here and you can read through the descriptions to decide what you want."
"No, you can't choose the Boros Legionairre. I know it's visible in the Feats list that your'e referencing, but it's Magic the Gathering. Oh, I know it says it's Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, but that's a Magic the Gathering thing. No, let's not explain it too much, it's not in my setting."
"Sorry, we don't have the House Agents here either. That's Eberron."
"What's that? Oh, how to filter? You have to build up a list of tags in that search box thingy at the top - here, let me do that - no don't close the tab!
Oh, no problem, let me set that up again. (Sets up the page filtering AGAIN)
"So you want to be an Elf? What are the Elves of Valenar? I don't know. Oh, they're right on top of the Wood Elves, but everything is exactly the same? That's from some sourcebook I don't have. Yeah, I know, the Wood Elf contains the listing to the source in the lower right, but this doesn't. Well please don't pick the Valenar. Or the Aerini Wood Elf. Or the Aerenal."
"Oh, you want Eladrin? There are two? Hm. Oh, yeah, the Variant one and the normal one. Huh? Oh, yeah, the first one was in the DM's Guide, the second one... hm, was it Volo's? No wait, Mordy's. Yeah, we have that book. Please don't use the DMG one. Which one is which? Let me look it up... yeah, the non-variant is the one you want."
--
Need I go on?
The filtering is complicated, with lots of fidgety sorting through a long list of tags which you have to repeatedly dive down into it... and it NEVER persists beyond a page reload.
The filtering looks and works differently on each part of the site. It's a setup only a back-end developer would love in most places, with complex overlapping tags and other widgets to create overlapping inclusive and exclusive groupings, which I have to re-build dozens of times over the course of the campaign, or just keep those tabs open and hope to GOD that browser doesn't crash...
Oh yeah, in the Character menu, the content for the Elves is a long, bedraggled mess with every single half-assed sub race crammed together in one long list in one 'anchor' in the left menu, The 'Subrace' one talks about two... then in Elf Traits you have 17 different headings, which mix together groupings of Elves and individual strains of Elf, all jumbled together, with no rhyme or reason or discernible order or structure.
Seriously... it's begun to get overwhelming. So much so that I literally WANT to buy more books, especially Eberron - to see what's useful - but if I do, then there will be EVEN MORE STUFF in front of every player in my campaign, even if I personally just want to have it as a source to draw from and dole out in bits and pieces, rather than giving them every option.
I am literally not giving you money I want to give you because the interface is getting so cumbersome.
Am I alone here?
Thank you for listening. I hope this helps you understand the frustration I'm dealing with as a DM to two tables.
Old school knowledge / without all the baggage
If you disable the toggles Critical Role, Magic the Gathering, Eberron on the builder, the character options related to those sources won't show. Races, spells, feats, backgrounds, the toggles disable all of them.
Yeah, I've just gone to make a character and unticked Eberron and MtG content and it removes it from all subsequent menus.
As for information on the background options, it's easy enough to select one that sounds interesting (as they all have fairly intuitive names) and read what it offers. I don't know what else it could display, it's a drop down menu
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It's true that it won't show them in the character sheet, but it still shows them when you're browsing the feats, races, and classes. What we need is something that is the opposite of the "source" filter - a setting that allows us to exclude certain sources. I want to be able to browse all the feats except the ones from Eberron. In order to do that I have to go source by source and select all of the ones that I do want, rather than the one that I don't.
None of the search or filter options on DDB are exclusive, only inclusive. This is one of the changes I've been asking for for a while. Hopefully the menu revamp will fix this. Hopefully.
This is something I really would love to see as well. There's so many named NPCs in the adventure modules that searching for monsters to use when preparing a session becomes a bit of a hassle (though sometimes I do just snag a statblock off one of those pregen NPCs if they suit my needs). Being able to just switch off a few sources rather than selecting all of the ones I want would be nice.
I'm pretty sure there's already a filter that allows you to choose what source you're looking at on the overview pages already. There isn't anything that removes a certain source, but you could narrow it down.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
There's 20 sources and all of them give magic items. Most of them give monsters or named NPCs. It would be so much easier if there were just a box that said "Hide Source" rather than me having to cherry-pick the 18 sources I want when searching for an item.