@connandy as fas as i know were on beyond... Not on realm works. If we wanted realm works... Wed not be here to begin with.
I have to agree... They already have adventures. It would be great if we could make homebrew adventures.
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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)
My point (being too much of a smart-ass, I suppose) was that all these features you ask for are essentially already part of an existing tool that WotC/Curse could truly learn from. Your feature request could have simply been stated: 'DnDBeyond, you need to do everything that Realm Works already does'.
If WotC would just license their adventures to Lone Wolf for re-publishing/re-distribution (which they have been approached to do for years) via Realm Works, like they have already done for platforms like Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, etc., they wouldn't have to develop their own tool several years behind other companies who have already put the infrastructure in place to do everything needed. To be honest, it would be a profitable and well received move that would help both companies, as well as the community.
But if WotC insists on re-inventing the wheel, Realm Works (and possibly World Anvil, and Obsidian Portal, etc.) would be some good examples to learn from. My personal opinion is that they would do better to stick to DnDBeyond as an electronic publishing, data base, and character building tool, and license their adventure content for other platforms already purpose built for campaign creation and management.
But I can see why some folks who have invested in DnDBeyond want it to do everything under the sun. It gets expensive to invest in hardback books, plus DnDBeyond, plus a campaign management tool, plus a VTT, etc. I get it. I only today jumped on the DnDBeyond bandwagon, but I mainly just wanted it to get online searchable access to all the materials, plus give my players a way to manage their characters better. I didn't see it as a potential campaign management tool, really.
Then your remark could easily be taken as an insult for DnDBeyond as your remark could also have easily just been... Hey Beyond why not just copy all of the softwares that already do the stuff you want us to pay for.
my point was, this kind of thinking doesn't really add anything to this very discussion which is about what we hope will eventually have their own ways here. as in, not copy what other does, but have their own way of doing it. which is the whole point of having this thread. Instead of asking to copy what others already do, what about trying to improve on it and get something that is their own stuff instead.
as for th elast part, its not that we want to get better stuff for our payment. obviously i paid for numerous sites. If its cool, it deserve to be promoted and helped by actually paying for it. no the reason we want it here, is much more simple then what you think. it is the simple fact that having it all int he same place is much better then having 3 different websites openned just to et the same things. its the 1 place has them all that we seek.
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
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@ DNDPaladin, respectfully, the only reason I felt the impulse to remark as flippantly I did, initially, is that DnDBeyond is, right now, light years away from anything even close to the type of tool you are asking it to be, based upon the features you requested. My providing an example of a product that actually does what you have requested, and does it well, shouldn't be taken as an insult to DNDBeyond in any way (nor to yourself).
What is the saying..."Imitation is the highest form of flattery"? If a competitor does something well, it is only smart to learn from it, but that doesn't mean you need to copy it. I actually think that providing some examples of exactly what you were requesting DOES contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way.
I did not mean to make you feel that I was demeaning your requested features, or under-valuing the value they would have (to you or to the DnDBeyond community in general). But from what I am seeing in the several hours I have spent now learning the tool that I just invested in, I just don't see DNDB becoming that level of tool for a very long time, if ever. That said, maybe there is an entire campaign management tool in development and on the cusp of a release by DNDB. That might actually explain why WotC have been such poo-poo heads about licensing their content to other providers of tools like Lone Wolf Development, etc. It would be a pleasant surprise, based upon what I see of DNDB now, to see functionality like that in the near future. Or maybe 'unpleasant surpise' if you already have hundreds of hours invested in other tools (as I already do) because WotC is so far behind the curve.
If it is, ultimately, DNDBeyond's goal to become a 1 stop place for all things related to D&D: rulebooks, character sheets, homebrew content of all types, campaign (and world) building and management (published adventures, homebrew, 3rd party), VTT, etc., then I fear a little bit for them spreading themselves too thin, as that is a lot to ask of a single tool. A rather ambitious undertaking. Especially for something like D&D where there is so much that needs to be flexible for custom creations in all of the above categories.
I, too, have not read the previous 49 pages of this thread. I suppose it would behoove me to do so to see if any official moderators have actually chimed in on the types of things that DNDB plans to accomplish. Actually, in doing that before hitting submit, I see that the nature of our conversation here has already been addressed early on by user daplunk, who is a champion for Realm Works as well (much more so than I). Suppose I'll keep reading.....
Well honestly speaking, DnDBeyond went live a little over a year ago. I would say from a character management perspective, DnDBeyond is light years beyond anything else I've seen. In another year I can only imagine how DnDBeyond could re-invent other concepts (like campaign management) and in three they could redefine the market space. 100% transparency, I am an all my eggs in one basket sort of person here. My only investment in physical books were PHB, DMG, MM, Volo's for 5e. I switched all-in to 5e (from 2nd Ed where I owned multiple copies of every physical thing they produced via used book stores, trading with other people etc) because of DnDBeyond.com. I have interest (but no financial commitment) towards other tools. However, as someone who's invested in DnDBeyond.com now (Legendary Bundle, fully up--to-date, Master Sub). I see my content monies going towards supporting WotC to keep producing cool D&D stuff. My sub monies, I expect DnDBeyond.com to spend maintaining the quality they have now, and invest in future growth of the product, into areas like Campaign Management, VTT, Twitch Integration, etc. DnDBeyond took the smart approach. They went for the segment that was weakest, searchable content and rich character management. Although, not privy to their financial position, but given their investment in articles, secondary video content, sponsorship of games like Critical Role, they are likely strong enough (if not mature enough yet) to branch in other directions. Twitch integration is another great example, a weak unsupported area, the masses may never use that (I am part of masses btw :P), but it could get them further brand recognition.
Also, my expectation is that when WotC decides to move to 6e, I see DnDBeyond being a premier partner from the early stages. So in part I can see the DnDBeyond team positioning itself for mass dominance when 6e rolls out.
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Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
I will not deny that i think for a team of workers as good as DDB as, i can't believe how little they accomplished in a year. most of the features they have here, i can accomplish in a single week-end. adding databases and all the stuff that needs to be put into it, i'd say a week. of course it wouldn't be very pretty, but it would be working as intended. including bugs and all, i think it 2 months everything should be tweaked and working. they shouldn't get me wrong, i really love their work, but i think they shouldn't be passing so much time on pretty UI and actually bring the features in. its not like anything else is hard to make, its just them not having the guts to try and do them. this place should have much more then a builder at this point. They say they have a lot of things on the back burner, but every months they say the same thing and they say it for like 6 months before that one thing is done. so i have to wonder, ho wmuch is one developper able to do really. i mean... i am alone and i can develop all my stuff in one week-end... so i have to wonder, how can a bunch of people, not one, multitude of people working together to design something, could take more then 6 months to design a simple character builder ?
all that said, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt and ask ourselves why it takes so much time to do one thing. my only explanation... WotC ! after all, they are the one who always delay the internet stuff, and they are the ones taking years to accomplish anything. i wouldn't be surprised if everything they wanna do is told no by WotC. but again i am not into the company and i can only imagine what is and what is not.
as for developping... they have the developper update every months toward the end of the month where they take questions from the forum and answer them, they also give us a roadmap, they also give us insight onto whats coming. so to say they dont talk to us is prooving how little you know about the place. they have always been forth coming with us since the get go. unlike WotC who keeps everything for themselves and not care.
i also believe DDB is preparing for 6e more then anything. but i also believe 6e will be like 3.5e and will be a useless edition. if 5e is such a great edition, why would they, otherwise, start a new edition after only 2 years when 3E lasted like 7 ? it just makes no sense... based on how mike mearls told us, the 6e will be just a revamped 5E. thats as useless as 3.5 was if you ask me.
all that said... i truly believe the DDB team really should be working on tools instead of focusing on beautiful UI. look at the character sheet, yes it sucked, but we were all fine with it as long as they kept bringing in more features. no instead they decided to make us wait 6 months to get the sheet revamp, which in all honesty, brought much less to the table then the time that was placed on it. i just wish they'd focus more on the engine then the time they pass on the UI beauty.
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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)
More tools with inferior UI, instead of quality UI, is idiotic. There are already products on the market that fill the role of "decent tools with inferior UI."
No, *we* were not all fine with it. You and a vocal minority were fine with it. Curse's decisions are largely feedback-driven, and the #1 reason for the sheet revamp was the constant complaints they received about the crappy UI. Now, being two taps away from ANYTHING about my character, legible on every device I own - that's way better than what we had before.
i also believe DDB is preparing for 6e more then anything. but i also believe 6e will be like 3.5e and will be a useless edition. if 5e is such a great edition, why would they, otherwise, start a new edition after only 2 years when 3E lasted like 7 ?
What??? 5e is approaching the four-year mark with no signs of slowing down or approaching an edition change.
Finally, if you could have done all this in a weekend, you would have done all this in a weekend and not be paying for the inferior service you're complaining about.
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Eshuvenniel Kazander Ravid,Valor Bard and Acolyte of the Goddess of Luck Caradoc Langham, Halfling Rogue - Lost Magics - Epic of Pre-made Proportions! I'm not looking for heaven or hell... just someone to listen to stories I tell...
Aramalian, the whole database on the internet and its updated daily as new content is coming. as i said, i did do this in a week-end and i am just an intermediate programmer. i have my own tools when it comes to DMing, i have my own intiative tracker which works as cards with name of the monster that i can easily change, a bunch of buttons that reduce or heal hit points, an initiative on each card and even a button that auto places the cards int he right order by initiatives. i have multitude of generators that helps when it comes to generating random names, random towns, random inns. etc... i have most of the information up front that i need, like healing potions and the likes on a neet little board that i can rearrange as i want and put the information i want. campaign management is not hard to do for me, because i have facebook for my group to have th einfo and on my computer i use folders and files... as simple as that.
all that said, the database we have, coming from the IOS software, is barely any good, classes are whackos the way they done it. it could have been much better. as for design time, i am not focusing on beauty because its for my own personnal use. and thus its nowhere near this level of design. i come here for the only two reasons that warrants being here right now... the charcater builder, which i used to use the amazing fifth edition character sheet from kammerer. which is still, by the way awesome for those who just want to create builds of characters. the other reason to be here... heck i need to buy the books too you know... the database we have is not all that good when it comes to that. and i hate having numerous PDFs and thus i came here for the compendiums.
now where am i coming from... i'd preffer to use DDB all in if i could, but alas im still forced to develop my own stuff just because DDB preffers to keep only the character builder and the compendium and apparently preffer to not work on other stuff right now. i have to tell you, how hard is it to develop tools ? initiative tracker is pretty basic and the guy who developped the stuff as an addon for the DDB designed them in pretty much 1 week-end too ! so to a numerous people, i'm guessing about 5 to 10. how long could it take them to create something of the sort on DDB ? it shouldn'T take them years to develop the small tools everyone wants. every single other sites did it too. why would DDB not do it ? their goal should be to try and take back the advance the other competitor have. yet no they preffer to be a one trick pony with a single thing in the arsenal. its hard to believe this is the case. yet after a full year, not much has truly been done... far worse, i'd say 2 years... because yes the program has been up for a year, but beta had been going for 6 months prior. and alpha was developped like at least 2 years ago. so look at it this way... they are advancing far slower then even WotC is. and that is including the fact that WotC has gone forward in gear with the release of 5 books this year instead of the usual 2.
i really really wish i could be in there to see where it jams... but yeah, i am here, much like any others, because of the compendiums. having a search engine that search all books is just better then having all PDF separated on my comp.
EDIT:
and no, we were all fine with it, what everyone was asking was not a nicer UI, it was a better customisation UI. which is very very different. what people asked about was not the beauty changes. it was better export to PDF, it was the ability to modify each info on the sheet. that is not about beautiful rendered UI on a desktop screen. there is a difference between beautiful graphics and actual engine !
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)
Holy jumping posts, y'all! The toolset debates cometh! Wrraaaaah!
Anywho, as someone who has been excited for the ever-nebulous "campaign management" functionality pieces to be added to D&DB, I like to think that with the character sheet revamp complete, we might see some exciting new releases in this realm of functionality within the near future.
I think the relative age of D&DB is significant. As it continues to mature, I for one am totally confident that we'll continue to see cool new releases stream out of the Curse's hard work. We all have that one killer feature we're dying to see (or that one itty-bitty, ultra-humongous list of things we're dying to see) and it's natural for us to be chomping at the bit for those releases. But hey, there's only so much development time in a week and the gang can only do so much work. I think there's a reasonable expectation (or hope, really) that Curse will keep us in the know about what's right around the corner, but let us all practice patience while these folks continue to make D&DB more and more awesome.
I would guess that having a community as engaged and thorough as this one is a bit of a double-edged sword. You get a massive amount of feedback and feature requests...but you get a massive amount of feedback and feature requests. And all the expectations that come with those. This community is afforded the privilege of pouring in its input, but wouldn't it be a reasonable guess that Curse's backlog is a decent-sized file cabinet thick at this point? Appeasing 100% of the masses is impossible at this point, so I'm sure that they're prioritizing based on return-on-investment which is a hell of a tough job given the amount of work they have to prioritize. I guess what I'm saying is that we're lucky to have Curse operating the way that they do and that within the next year, two years, etc., D&DB will continue to mature and that as it does, it will grow to rival any other product out there. I think that making the comparison current-state might elicit the conclusion that D&DB has a long way to go before it "catches up" to the mature, legacy toolsets. But I think the follow-up to that should be "yeah, but just wait." : )
EDIT: Oh and if anyone at WotC ever reads this thread, please, dear D&D gods, for the love of all that is Draconic, do not move on to 6e. At least not for a hell of a good long while. 5e is wonderful. It's great. We do not need 6e yet. There is no reason to release 6e yet. Don't do it...no.
"There is a wide world out there, my friend, full of pain, but filled with joy as well. The former keeps you on the path of growth, and the latter makes the journey tolerable." --Montolio Debrouchee
@Rainithill Just saying... DDB is already great and beyobnd others, pun all intended. the only department they are behind on, is the toolset. there is a reason why we're all here and buying here when FG and Roll20 have had the same stuff for years already. its because we think the books are better here then there. that said... compendium shouldn't be enough, charcater build is great and the best features we got during this year is definitely the support for homebrews. i expect a lot from this year, but i'm saying... there is so many little tools that would make it much better and that was prooved by the success of the browser addon that hads all those features, developped by another guy. i understand they are little tools, but they would definitely make a great impact still. because they are asked and aren't hard to do... again prooved by the lone guy who did it and how much it is used.
as for 6e... its been in development since the last 2 years. why is it ? simple, mike mearl lead designer of 5E do not like 5E as it is. he thinks bonus actions should just vanish for good, he thinks the current engine is too action centric. and he preffers a much more role play elements, and thats why i fear d&d is going to become like those RPGs where you roll successes and always go forward. which is something i really really hope wont happen. still this is all unconfirmed and only opinions... the only thing we are sure of because that was said by mike mearl and jeremy crawford and chris perkins, 6E has been in the works already and at that not much longer after 5E was released. like a year after.
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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)
@Rainithill Just saying... DDB is already great and beyobnd others, pun all intended. the only department they are behind on, is the toolset. there is a reason why we're all here and buying here when FG and Roll20 have had the same stuff for years already. its because we think the books are better here then there. that said... compendium shouldn't be enough, charcater build is great and the best features we got during this year is definitely the support for homebrews. i expect a lot from this year, but i'm saying... there is so many little tools that would make it much better and that was prooved by the success of the browser addon that hads all those features, developped by another guy. i understand they are little tools, but they would definitely make a great impact still. because they are asked and aren't hard to do... again prooved by the lone guy who did it and how much it is used.
as for 6e... its been in development since the last 2 years. why is it ? simple, mike mearl lead designer of 5E do not like 5E as it is. he thinks bonus actions should just vanish for good, he thinks the current engine is too action centric. and he preffers a much more role play elements, and thats why i fear d&d is going to become like those RPGs where you roll successes and always go forward. which is something i really really hope wont happen. still this is all unconfirmed and only opinions... the only thing we are sure of because that was said by mike mearl and jeremy crawford and chris perkins, 6E has been in the works already and at that not much longer after 5E was released. like a year after.
I think the main change I would like to see is the ability to sort through items and spells, in the character sheet, in the same manner as the Official Item and Spell pages. This would make it easier for players to look through content you are sharing with them, that they wouldn't be able to see on those pages. Like your non-public home brew items/spells for instance.
I think the saving grace is that 5e has been picked up and is popular. That in itself should be enough to prevent an early release of 6e. The best thing they can do is expand on content with new settings, adventures, races, sub-classes, items, spells, etc. Keep going for 5e for another 7-10 years :P.
You can be 100% sure that a new edition will only come out when Critical Role ends a campaign (maybe this one or the next one or the one after that) and thinks about starting a new one. Critical Role has become the single greatest source of brand development for D&D since... well.. ever.
The longer they keep 5e around the better and more comprehensive DnDBeyond.com gets.
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Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
When you create a new campaign and you have a Master tier subscription while already have three campaigns with content sharing enabled you don't get any information about that you've reached that limit in the new campaign. Maybe have a message telling you that you reached the 3 campaign limit where the 'enable content sharing' button was.
I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE for this D&D Beyond Campaign Manager to 1000% replace the disappointing Obsidian Portal campaign manager we use today.
I mean, we can't even print character sheets from Obsidian Portal! It's basic misses/mistakes like these that drive passionate fan bases and users absolutely crazy.
Look forward to the DDB CM becoming a helpful DM session, combat and campaign management tool - with built-in simplicity or complexity - as much or as little of each as each individual user and DM wants!
A true host of simple, complex, and in-between optional features for the Campaign Manager, please - thank you!
So it's been officially over 1 year since I posted the above (Aug 29, 2017) - and with a vast number of Player-enhancements done, I hope beyond hope the DMs start getting more love very soon.
We all know we need a quantum jump on DM-friendly functionality and tools on D&D Beyond to compete with all the great Player-oriented options, and we DMs have been oh-so-patiently waiting! (I confess... it hasn't been easy hehe)
Thank you, DDB devs for all the cool stuff you've done - and all the cool stuff you're (hopefully) about to do, especially for DMs and campaign management!
I would love to see something like a special DM interface that supports me while playing.(like the character sheet for players) For Example it would be nice to pic monsters that my players could encounter out in a Menu so i don't need to open up 3 extra tabs with the Monster Manual. Also General information of my Players would be nice like Passive Perception and that stuff.
All in all I think about an Virtual DM Screen that can be customized by the needs of every one with short links to special sections of the content and tables. Note pad with a todo section what my group accomplished. Some thing that makes everything not so messy with the tab bar.
Here is a busy DM's dream. To be able to go to the site, log in, purchase an adventure, have it auto populate the necessary info into my campaign manager. Just tweak and go.
I manage my campaigns mostly on paper (with session, character and some setting write-ups on Obsidian Portal, which I've never used for mechanical stuff), though I'd be bang up for transitioning to D&D Beyond for that. Having a read through some of the comments in this thread I see a lot of big picture stuff that is likely a long way off, requiring whole new systems and data structures. However there are some things that I would find super useful which I think would be simpler to implement using what's already in the system, and so might make a good start? Here they are (apologies if they're repeated elsewhere by other folk):
PCs summary page - a page showing the vitals/basics of the PCs in a campaign. This could just use all the PCs currently part of the campaign, I could easily ignore the ones who aren't there. Ideally it would show the main stats I otherwise write in my notebook: passive scores for Perception (plus any special senses - Darkvision etc), Investigation and Insight, Armour Class, current and max HP, current death save failures and successes, and any special defences (resistances, advantage on saving throws, that sort of thing).
Monster collections - referring to the monsters in D&D Beyond is great, except that I have to open up the ones I need in separate tabs and switch between them. It'd be great to be able to throw some together into a collection that I can access on a single page. The display could look just like the current Monster search results screen, only it would allow for, say, Goblin, Goblin Boss, Giant Rat and Swarm of Rats to appear together (something that's very difficult to achieve with the search parameters, for example, since they don't have all that much in common beyond CR range).
PC spells list - spells in monster stat blocks are linked, so monster spells are fine, but sometimes I need to know what a PC's spell does. Yes, I can ask them, but sometimes they need my help in working it out, meaning it's easier if I can look it up. (I DM for a lot of less experienced or otherwise less rules savvy players, so naturally part of my job is explaining or interpreting the rules for them.) Being able to see a list of the spells they currently have prepared so I can look up what they do really quickly, without having to search the Spells page or click through their individual character sheet, would be amazing. Might work similar to the Monster list above, or possibly be an addendum to the PC summary?
Encounter manager - this one I've put last since it's a level of complication higher than the above, but being able to gather the PCs and any monsters present into a single list with initiative order and seeing the same kind of stat summaries mentioned in the PC summary above, with each character or monster's entry being expandable to see their details, would be awesome. As others have mentioned I've used a few other products that do this and it's really great. Since I am using Beyond now, I have gone back to paper notes or index cards, which isn't a problem, but having everything in the system would be great!
Those are the main ones. I'd love to see the higher level campaign management features others have mentioned too, but I can honestly live without them. The ones above would make running the game so much easier though.
If there was a way to reference the full monster stat block instead of the summarised version like Beholder, then you could achieve your second bullet point in the Private DM notes as it exists at the moment.
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Here, take a pair of these frog's lips. I hear they are a delicacy around these parts.
All great stuff! But what I really need is to be able to view the profile of my players and set nicknames (or rather their actual name) so I know whose active in my campaign.
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@connandy as fas as i know were on beyond... Not on realm works. If we wanted realm works... Wed not be here to begin with.
I have to agree... They already have adventures. It would be great if we could make homebrew adventures.
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)
@DnDPaladin
My point (being too much of a smart-ass, I suppose) was that all these features you ask for are essentially already part of an existing tool that WotC/Curse could truly learn from. Your feature request could have simply been stated: 'DnDBeyond, you need to do everything that Realm Works already does'.
If WotC would just license their adventures to Lone Wolf for re-publishing/re-distribution (which they have been approached to do for years) via Realm Works, like they have already done for platforms like Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, etc., they wouldn't have to develop their own tool several years behind other companies who have already put the infrastructure in place to do everything needed. To be honest, it would be a profitable and well received move that would help both companies, as well as the community.
But if WotC insists on re-inventing the wheel, Realm Works (and possibly World Anvil, and Obsidian Portal, etc.) would be some good examples to learn from. My personal opinion is that they would do better to stick to DnDBeyond as an electronic publishing, data base, and character building tool, and license their adventure content for other platforms already purpose built for campaign creation and management.
But I can see why some folks who have invested in DnDBeyond want it to do everything under the sun. It gets expensive to invest in hardback books, plus DnDBeyond, plus a campaign management tool, plus a VTT, etc. I get it. I only today jumped on the DnDBeyond bandwagon, but I mainly just wanted it to get online searchable access to all the materials, plus give my players a way to manage their characters better. I didn't see it as a potential campaign management tool, really.
Then your remark could easily be taken as an insult for DnDBeyond as your remark could also have easily just been... Hey Beyond why not just copy all of the softwares that already do the stuff you want us to pay for.
my point was, this kind of thinking doesn't really add anything to this very discussion which is about what we hope will eventually have their own ways here. as in, not copy what other does, but have their own way of doing it. which is the whole point of having this thread. Instead of asking to copy what others already do, what about trying to improve on it and get something that is their own stuff instead.
as for th elast part, its not that we want to get better stuff for our payment. obviously i paid for numerous sites. If its cool, it deserve to be promoted and helped by actually paying for it. no the reason we want it here, is much more simple then what you think. it is the simple fact that having it all int he same place is much better then having 3 different websites openned just to et the same things. its the 1 place has them all that we seek.
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)
@ DNDPaladin, respectfully, the only reason I felt the impulse to remark as flippantly I did, initially, is that DnDBeyond is, right now, light years away from anything even close to the type of tool you are asking it to be, based upon the features you requested. My providing an example of a product that actually does what you have requested, and does it well, shouldn't be taken as an insult to DNDBeyond in any way (nor to yourself).
What is the saying..."Imitation is the highest form of flattery"? If a competitor does something well, it is only smart to learn from it, but that doesn't mean you need to copy it. I actually think that providing some examples of exactly what you were requesting DOES contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way.
I did not mean to make you feel that I was demeaning your requested features, or under-valuing the value they would have (to you or to the DnDBeyond community in general). But from what I am seeing in the several hours I have spent now learning the tool that I just invested in, I just don't see DNDB becoming that level of tool for a very long time, if ever. That said, maybe there is an entire campaign management tool in development and on the cusp of a release by DNDB. That might actually explain why WotC have been such poo-poo heads about licensing their content to other providers of tools like Lone Wolf Development, etc. It would be a pleasant surprise, based upon what I see of DNDB now, to see functionality like that in the near future. Or maybe 'unpleasant surpise' if you already have hundreds of hours invested in other tools (as I already do) because WotC is so far behind the curve.
If it is, ultimately, DNDBeyond's goal to become a 1 stop place for all things related to D&D: rulebooks, character sheets, homebrew content of all types, campaign (and world) building and management (published adventures, homebrew, 3rd party), VTT, etc., then I fear a little bit for them spreading themselves too thin, as that is a lot to ask of a single tool. A rather ambitious undertaking. Especially for something like D&D where there is so much that needs to be flexible for custom creations in all of the above categories.
I, too, have not read the previous 49 pages of this thread. I suppose it would behoove me to do so to see if any official moderators have actually chimed in on the types of things that DNDB plans to accomplish. Actually, in doing that before hitting submit, I see that the nature of our conversation here has already been addressed early on by user daplunk, who is a champion for Realm Works as well (much more so than I). Suppose I'll keep reading.....
Happy gaming!
Well honestly speaking, DnDBeyond went live a little over a year ago. I would say from a character management perspective, DnDBeyond is light years beyond anything else I've seen. In another year I can only imagine how DnDBeyond could re-invent other concepts (like campaign management) and in three they could redefine the market space. 100% transparency, I am an all my eggs in one basket sort of person here. My only investment in physical books were PHB, DMG, MM, Volo's for 5e. I switched all-in to 5e (from 2nd Ed where I owned multiple copies of every physical thing they produced via used book stores, trading with other people etc) because of DnDBeyond.com. I have interest (but no financial commitment) towards other tools. However, as someone who's invested in DnDBeyond.com now (Legendary Bundle, fully up--to-date, Master Sub). I see my content monies going towards supporting WotC to keep producing cool D&D stuff. My sub monies, I expect DnDBeyond.com to spend maintaining the quality they have now, and invest in future growth of the product, into areas like Campaign Management, VTT, Twitch Integration, etc. DnDBeyond took the smart approach. They went for the segment that was weakest, searchable content and rich character management. Although, not privy to their financial position, but given their investment in articles, secondary video content, sponsorship of games like Critical Role, they are likely strong enough (if not mature enough yet) to branch in other directions. Twitch integration is another great example, a weak unsupported area, the masses may never use that (I am part of masses btw :P), but it could get them further brand recognition.
Also, my expectation is that when WotC decides to move to 6e, I see DnDBeyond being a premier partner from the early stages. So in part I can see the DnDBeyond team positioning itself for mass dominance when 6e rolls out.
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008597088-Virtual-Tabletop-Gameboard
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
I will not deny that i think for a team of workers as good as DDB as, i can't believe how little they accomplished in a year. most of the features they have here, i can accomplish in a single week-end. adding databases and all the stuff that needs to be put into it, i'd say a week. of course it wouldn't be very pretty, but it would be working as intended. including bugs and all, i think it 2 months everything should be tweaked and working. they shouldn't get me wrong, i really love their work, but i think they shouldn't be passing so much time on pretty UI and actually bring the features in. its not like anything else is hard to make, its just them not having the guts to try and do them. this place should have much more then a builder at this point. They say they have a lot of things on the back burner, but every months they say the same thing and they say it for like 6 months before that one thing is done. so i have to wonder, ho wmuch is one developper able to do really. i mean... i am alone and i can develop all my stuff in one week-end... so i have to wonder, how can a bunch of people, not one, multitude of people working together to design something, could take more then 6 months to design a simple character builder ?
all that said, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt and ask ourselves why it takes so much time to do one thing. my only explanation... WotC ! after all, they are the one who always delay the internet stuff, and they are the ones taking years to accomplish anything. i wouldn't be surprised if everything they wanna do is told no by WotC. but again i am not into the company and i can only imagine what is and what is not.
as for developping... they have the developper update every months toward the end of the month where they take questions from the forum and answer them, they also give us a roadmap, they also give us insight onto whats coming. so to say they dont talk to us is prooving how little you know about the place. they have always been forth coming with us since the get go. unlike WotC who keeps everything for themselves and not care.
i also believe DDB is preparing for 6e more then anything.
but i also believe 6e will be like 3.5e and will be a useless edition.
if 5e is such a great edition, why would they, otherwise, start a new edition after only 2 years when 3E lasted like 7 ?
it just makes no sense... based on how mike mearls told us, the 6e will be just a revamped 5E.
thats as useless as 3.5 was if you ask me.
all that said... i truly believe the DDB team really should be working on tools instead of focusing on beautiful UI.
look at the character sheet, yes it sucked, but we were all fine with it as long as they kept bringing in more features.
no instead they decided to make us wait 6 months to get the sheet revamp, which in all honesty, brought much less to the table then the time that was placed on it.
i just wish they'd focus more on the engine then the time they pass on the UI beauty.
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)
More tools with inferior UI, instead of quality UI, is idiotic. There are already products on the market that fill the role of "decent tools with inferior UI."
No, *we* were not all fine with it. You and a vocal minority were fine with it. Curse's decisions are largely feedback-driven, and the #1 reason for the sheet revamp was the constant complaints they received about the crappy UI. Now, being two taps away from ANYTHING about my character, legible on every device I own - that's way better than what we had before.
What??? 5e is approaching the four-year mark with no signs of slowing down or approaching an edition change.
Finally, if you could have done all this in a weekend, you would have done all this in a weekend and not be paying for the inferior service you're complaining about.
Eshuvenniel Kazander Ravid, Valor Bard and Acolyte of the Goddess of Luck
Caradoc Langham, Halfling Rogue - Lost Magics - Epic of Pre-made Proportions!
I'm not looking for heaven or hell... just someone to listen to stories I tell...
Aramalian, the whole database on the internet and its updated daily as new content is coming. as i said, i did do this in a week-end and i am just an intermediate programmer.
i have my own tools when it comes to DMing, i have my own intiative tracker which works as cards with name of the monster that i can easily change, a bunch of buttons that reduce or heal hit points, an initiative on each card and even a button that auto places the cards int he right order by initiatives. i have multitude of generators that helps when it comes to generating random names, random towns, random inns. etc... i have most of the information up front that i need, like healing potions and the likes on a neet little board that i can rearrange as i want and put the information i want. campaign management is not hard to do for me, because i have facebook for my group to have th einfo and on my computer i use folders and files... as simple as that.
all that said, the database we have, coming from the IOS software, is barely any good, classes are whackos the way they done it. it could have been much better. as for design time, i am not focusing on beauty because its for my own personnal use. and thus its nowhere near this level of design. i come here for the only two reasons that warrants being here right now... the charcater builder, which i used to use the amazing fifth edition character sheet from kammerer. which is still, by the way awesome for those who just want to create builds of characters. the other reason to be here... heck i need to buy the books too you know... the database we have is not all that good when it comes to that. and i hate having numerous PDFs and thus i came here for the compendiums.
now where am i coming from... i'd preffer to use DDB all in if i could, but alas im still forced to develop my own stuff just because DDB preffers to keep only the character builder and the compendium and apparently preffer to not work on other stuff right now. i have to tell you, how hard is it to develop tools ? initiative tracker is pretty basic and the guy who developped the stuff as an addon for the DDB designed them in pretty much 1 week-end too ! so to a numerous people, i'm guessing about 5 to 10. how long could it take them to create something of the sort on DDB ? it shouldn'T take them years to develop the small tools everyone wants. every single other sites did it too. why would DDB not do it ? their goal should be to try and take back the advance the other competitor have. yet no they preffer to be a one trick pony with a single thing in the arsenal. its hard to believe this is the case. yet after a full year, not much has truly been done... far worse, i'd say 2 years... because yes the program has been up for a year, but beta had been going for 6 months prior. and alpha was developped like at least 2 years ago. so look at it this way... they are advancing far slower then even WotC is. and that is including the fact that WotC has gone forward in gear with the release of 5 books this year instead of the usual 2.
i really really wish i could be in there to see where it jams...
but yeah, i am here, much like any others, because of the compendiums. having a search engine that search all books is just better then having all PDF separated on my comp.
EDIT:
and no, we were all fine with it, what everyone was asking was not a nicer UI, it was a better customisation UI. which is very very different. what people asked about was not the beauty changes. it was better export to PDF, it was the ability to modify each info on the sheet. that is not about beautiful rendered UI on a desktop screen. there is a difference between beautiful graphics and actual engine !
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)
Holy jumping posts, y'all! The toolset debates cometh! Wrraaaaah!
Anywho, as someone who has been excited for the ever-nebulous "campaign management" functionality pieces to be added to D&DB, I like to think that with the character sheet revamp complete, we might see some exciting new releases in this realm of functionality within the near future.
I think the relative age of D&DB is significant. As it continues to mature, I for one am totally confident that we'll continue to see cool new releases stream out of the Curse's hard work. We all have that one killer feature we're dying to see (or that one itty-bitty, ultra-humongous list of things we're dying to see) and it's natural for us to be chomping at the bit for those releases. But hey, there's only so much development time in a week and the gang can only do so much work. I think there's a reasonable expectation (or hope, really) that Curse will keep us in the know about what's right around the corner, but let us all practice patience while these folks continue to make D&DB more and more awesome.
I would guess that having a community as engaged and thorough as this one is a bit of a double-edged sword. You get a massive amount of feedback and feature requests...but you get a massive amount of feedback and feature requests. And all the expectations that come with those. This community is afforded the privilege of pouring in its input, but wouldn't it be a reasonable guess that Curse's backlog is a decent-sized file cabinet thick at this point? Appeasing 100% of the masses is impossible at this point, so I'm sure that they're prioritizing based on return-on-investment which is a hell of a tough job given the amount of work they have to prioritize. I guess what I'm saying is that we're lucky to have Curse operating the way that they do and that within the next year, two years, etc., D&DB will continue to mature and that as it does, it will grow to rival any other product out there. I think that making the comparison current-state might elicit the conclusion that D&DB has a long way to go before it "catches up" to the mature, legacy toolsets. But I think the follow-up to that should be "yeah, but just wait." : )
EDIT: Oh and if anyone at WotC ever reads this thread, please, dear D&D gods, for the love of all that is Draconic, do not move on to 6e. At least not for a hell of a good long while. 5e is wonderful. It's great. We do not need 6e yet. There is no reason to release 6e yet. Don't do it...no.
"There is a wide world out there, my friend, full of pain, but filled with joy as well. The former keeps you on the path of growth, and the latter makes the journey tolerable." --Montolio Debrouchee
@Rainithill Just saying... DDB is already great and beyobnd others, pun all intended. the only department they are behind on, is the toolset. there is a reason why we're all here and buying here when FG and Roll20 have had the same stuff for years already. its because we think the books are better here then there. that said... compendium shouldn't be enough, charcater build is great and the best features we got during this year is definitely the support for homebrews. i expect a lot from this year, but i'm saying... there is so many little tools that would make it much better and that was prooved by the success of the browser addon that hads all those features, developped by another guy. i understand they are little tools, but they would definitely make a great impact still. because they are asked and aren't hard to do... again prooved by the lone guy who did it and how much it is used.
as for 6e...
its been in development since the last 2 years. why is it ? simple, mike mearl lead designer of 5E do not like 5E as it is. he thinks bonus actions should just vanish for good, he thinks the current engine is too action centric. and he preffers a much more role play elements, and thats why i fear d&d is going to become like those RPGs where you roll successes and always go forward. which is something i really really hope wont happen. still this is all unconfirmed and only opinions... the only thing we are sure of because that was said by mike mearl and jeremy crawford and chris perkins, 6E has been in the works already and at that not much longer after 5E was released. like a year after.
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 the main change I would like to see is the ability to sort through items and spells, in the character sheet, in the same manner as the Official Item and Spell pages. This would make it easier for players to look through content you are sharing with them, that they wouldn't be able to see on those pages. Like your non-public home brew items/spells for instance.
I think the saving grace is that 5e has been picked up and is popular. That in itself should be enough to prevent an early release of 6e. The best thing they can do is expand on content with new settings, adventures, races, sub-classes, items, spells, etc. Keep going for 5e for another 7-10 years :P.
You can be 100% sure that a new edition will only come out when Critical Role ends a campaign (maybe this one or the next one or the one after that) and thinks about starting a new one. Critical Role has become the single greatest source of brand development for D&D since... well.. ever.
The longer they keep 5e around the better and more comprehensive DnDBeyond.com gets.
Want to see Virtual Table Top like no other before it built within DnDBeyond.com? Upvote the feature request. It's 2nd highest voted so far:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008597088-Virtual-Tabletop-Gameboard
NOTE: You will need to setup a zendesk account (which is not your DnDBeyond.com account, the team uses this 3rd party software). It's easy to do and your votes are needed!
When you create a new campaign and you have a Master tier subscription while already have three campaigns with content sharing enabled you don't get any information about that you've reached that limit in the new campaign. Maybe have a message telling you that you reached the 3 campaign limit where the 'enable content sharing' button was.
–Hangikjet
So it's been officially over 1 year since I posted the above (Aug 29, 2017) - and with a vast number of Player-enhancements done, I hope beyond hope the DMs start getting more love very soon.
We all know we need a quantum jump on DM-friendly functionality and tools on D&D Beyond to compete with all the great Player-oriented options, and we DMs have been oh-so-patiently waiting! (I confess... it hasn't been easy hehe)
Thank you, DDB devs for all the cool stuff you've done - and all the cool stuff you're (hopefully) about to do, especially for DMs and campaign management!
I would love to see something like a special DM interface that supports me while playing.(like the character sheet for players)
For Example it would be nice to pic monsters that my players could encounter out in a Menu so i don't need to open up 3 extra tabs with the Monster Manual.
Also General information of my Players would be nice like Passive Perception and that stuff.
All in all I think about an Virtual DM Screen that can be customized by the needs of every one with short links to special sections of the content and tables.
Note pad with a todo section what my group accomplished.
Some thing that makes everything not so messy with the tab bar.
Here is a busy DM's dream. To be able to go to the site, log in, purchase an adventure, have it auto populate the necessary info into my campaign manager. Just tweak and go.
I manage my campaigns mostly on paper (with session, character and some setting write-ups on Obsidian Portal, which I've never used for mechanical stuff), though I'd be bang up for transitioning to D&D Beyond for that. Having a read through some of the comments in this thread I see a lot of big picture stuff that is likely a long way off, requiring whole new systems and data structures. However there are some things that I would find super useful which I think would be simpler to implement using what's already in the system, and so might make a good start? Here they are (apologies if they're repeated elsewhere by other folk):
Those are the main ones. I'd love to see the higher level campaign management features others have mentioned too, but I can honestly live without them. The ones above would make running the game so much easier though.
If there was a way to reference the full monster stat block instead of the summarised version like Beholder, then you could achieve your second bullet point in the Private DM notes as it exists at the moment.
Here, take a pair of these frog's lips. I hear they are a delicacy around these parts.
All great stuff! But what I really need is to be able to view the profile of my players and set nicknames (or rather their actual name) so I know whose active in my campaign.