A year or so ago, when the character sheet revamp went live, I was livid.
I hated it, and I hated the move away from the old design to one reminiscent of the paper character sheet. I was quite vocal about it, and far from polite in my tone.
Despite my tone, Adam took the time to give some perspective, and genuinely engage with my criticisms. At the end, in response to my question of "Why are you trying to recreate the pen and paper experience, when you should be designing a modern, interactive web tool?", he said:
In all seriousness, we are trying to walk that line. We might not always succeed, but we are going to be earnest in the attempt, course correct where needed, and relentlessly work towards making this better and better. Sure, we are trying to make a modern, interactive tool, but we are supporting a pen and paper game (not a video game).
Well, I'm here a year on to say a few things.
First, sorry for being a prick.
Second, congratulations, because you've done something I didn't think was possible: you've successfully captured the pen and paper experience with a modern interactive tool, and done a damn good job of it.
All the crap I complained about has either been addressed by the constant usability updates, or are cases where I've come around to the benefits of the new design and am now happy to admit I was wrong. In fact, the only thing I haven't enjoyed has been the pang of guilt I've felt with every tweak, improvement, feature, or dev update, for having been so harshly critical of the hard work and passion others had poured in.
So, for the record, because I think the praise sometimes gets buried under the complaints: I think the tools and features you've developed are so good, and make D&D so easily accessible, that I genuinely struggle to imagine playing D&D without them. They're so good that other than a set of dice, D&D Beyond is the first thing I recommend to people interested in picking up D&D.
I may have been a harsh critic, but I am now a very happy user, so thank you for all the hard work that's gone in to building such fantastic tools; can't wait for the features in the pipeline!
So, for the record, because I think the praise sometimes gets buried under the complaints: I think the tools and features you've developed are so good, and make D&D so easily accessible, that I genuinely struggle to imagine playing D&D without them. They're so good that other than a set of dice, D&D Beyond is the first thing I recommend to people interested in picking up D&D.
I may have been a harsh critic, but I am now a very happy user, so thank you for all the hard work that's gone in to building such fantastic tools; can't wait for the features in the pipeline!
I want to second that, we shared the cost of the Master sub with my experienced players, and we offered dndbeyond to the new players at my table, and it made the experience that much smoother. Not that 5e is extremely complicated to get in initially, but everything is just readily available, with explanation a click away. I'm also completely in love with the tool as a DM, and the recent encounter builder just makes me even happier.
I'll just add: the interactive tools this site provides are, as far as I'm conserved, the best available for D&D out there. More than once have I thought about making an unconventional change to a character, wondering if the ability to do so had been coded in, and lo and behold, found the designers had thought of it and already implemented it.
I can only imagine the amount of work involved in implementing every little rule and option from the books. DDB's design and IT side does an excellent job of handling it though, and it shows.
Every last person I show Beyond to, instantly loves it. I have shown them how I can optimally create characters of lvl 5, in 5 minutes, while discussing who that character is, and how I would play them (backstory, quirks, etc).
I have shown Pathfinder players these tools, and they drool over how clean and easy they are to use.
I have ran a table of 9 players, and if it wasn't for all the features on the character sheets here, how it tracks everything, how easy it is to find anything, That group would have been a nightmare to manage.
What I am saying is, I agree with the OP when they said that praise often gets buried. So I am here to send some praise to the devs too.
As an aside, I want to also give a small pat on the back for the OP swallowing their pride, admitting fault, and starting a thread like this. It reminded me I should speak up too, and send some good feelings to the devs also.
you guys are lucky... while i do love beyond and show it to everyone... most of my players are still taking other third party softwares instead. the main point being, even if i can share the content, most of my players are like, but i still have to pump a ton of cash onto it if i want to get my own stuff on it and i still have to subscribe to have more characters. thats a no go for them, as they can literally have third party softwares for free that does exactly that.
most of them have fifth edition character sheet on android and are loving it, sure it needs to change things, but its free and has everything except spells. but you get the jist of it, the fact that this place is requiring a ton of money usually discourage people from buying anything.
so you guys are lucky, but i do have 2 players who uses it a lot. they love it and always use it and the new 99 characters on a player is to them a very big boon !
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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)
Hopefully, with an interactive dice roller on the sheet, even the dice will be redundant. 😜
Oh please don't! No mater how they try, random number generators do not work, and dice rollers suck. Give me real dice any day.
Though the same argument about dice rollers not working can be said about real dice too.
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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)
Hopefully, with an interactive dice roller on the sheet, even the dice will be redundant. 😜
Oh please don't! No mater how they try, random number generators do not work, and dice rollers suck. Give me real dice any day.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say random number generators don't work. For trivial ranges (such as anything below 100) they work perfectly fine, especially considering some of the amazing RNG and PRNG sources out they're. I have just as much faith in RNG based dice as real ones. Not sure why you wouldn't.
I run at my house. I tend to provide food for the group. They give me money to cover food, which I then put into unlocking content.
I have 3 campaigns I share. 1 for my active game. 2 for them to make any character they want for other games and their other groups to make characters with. They make characters in those secondary campaigns, remove the character from the campaign, and re-enter if they need to update. they love it, and I have every background, spell, race, feat, magic item, etc available for them.
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Dear D&D Beyond team,
A year or so ago, when the character sheet revamp went live, I was livid.
I hated it, and I hated the move away from the old design to one reminiscent of the paper character sheet. I was quite vocal about it, and far from polite in my tone.
Despite my tone, Adam took the time to give some perspective, and genuinely engage with my criticisms. At the end, in response to my question of "Why are you trying to recreate the pen and paper experience, when you should be designing a modern, interactive web tool?", he said:
Well, I'm here a year on to say a few things.
First, sorry for being a prick.
Second, congratulations, because you've done something I didn't think was possible: you've successfully captured the pen and paper experience with a modern interactive tool, and done a damn good job of it.
All the crap I complained about has either been addressed by the constant usability updates, or are cases where I've come around to the benefits of the new design and am now happy to admit I was wrong. In fact, the only thing I haven't enjoyed has been the pang of guilt I've felt with every tweak, improvement, feature, or dev update, for having been so harshly critical of the hard work and passion others had poured in.
So, for the record, because I think the praise sometimes gets buried under the complaints: I think the tools and features you've developed are so good, and make D&D so easily accessible, that I genuinely struggle to imagine playing D&D without them. They're so good that other than a set of dice, D&D Beyond is the first thing I recommend to people interested in picking up D&D.
I may have been a harsh critic, but I am now a very happy user, so thank you for all the hard work that's gone in to building such fantastic tools; can't wait for the features in the pipeline!
All the best,
QQMcLessRage
via GIPHY
Hopefully, with an interactive dice roller on the sheet, even the dice will be redundant. 😜
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I want to second that, we shared the cost of the Master sub with my experienced players, and we offered dndbeyond to the new players at my table, and it made the experience that much smoother. Not that 5e is extremely complicated to get in initially, but everything is just readily available, with explanation a click away. I'm also completely in love with the tool as a DM, and the recent encounter builder just makes me even happier.
Click to learn to put cool-looking tooltips in your messages!
Good form, sir.
I'll just add: the interactive tools this site provides are, as far as I'm conserved, the best available for D&D out there. More than once have I thought about making an unconventional change to a character, wondering if the ability to do so had been coded in, and lo and behold, found the designers had thought of it and already implemented it.
I can only imagine the amount of work involved in implementing every little rule and option from the books. DDB's design and IT side does an excellent job of handling it though, and it shows.
Whistler
Titus - V. Human Battle Master Fighter 3 - [Pic] - [Pic2] - [Traits] - in Shadowglass
Locke - V. Human Shadow Monk 3 / Undead Warlock 2 - [Pic] - [Traits] - in FOW - DMless West Marches
Flèche - V. Human Swords Bard 10 - [Pic] - [Traits] - in The Scarlet Mist
Sterling - V. Human Bard 1 - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Every last person I show Beyond to, instantly loves it. I have shown them how I can optimally create characters of lvl 5, in 5 minutes, while discussing who that character is, and how I would play them (backstory, quirks, etc).
I have shown Pathfinder players these tools, and they drool over how clean and easy they are to use.
I have ran a table of 9 players, and if it wasn't for all the features on the character sheets here, how it tracks everything, how easy it is to find anything, That group would have been a nightmare to manage.
What I am saying is, I agree with the OP when they said that praise often gets buried. So I am here to send some praise to the devs too.
As an aside, I want to also give a small pat on the back for the OP swallowing their pride, admitting fault, and starting a thread like this. It reminded me I should speak up too, and send some good feelings to the devs also.
you guys are lucky... while i do love beyond and show it to everyone... most of my players are still taking other third party softwares instead. the main point being, even if i can share the content, most of my players are like, but i still have to pump a ton of cash onto it if i want to get my own stuff on it and i still have to subscribe to have more characters. thats a no go for them, as they can literally have third party softwares for free that does exactly that.
most of them have fifth edition character sheet on android and are loving it, sure it needs to change things, but its free and has everything except spells.
but you get the jist of it, the fact that this place is requiring a ton of money usually discourage people from buying anything.
so you guys are lucky, but i do have 2 players who uses it a lot. they love it and always use it and the new 99 characters on a player is to them a very big boon !
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)
Oh please don't! No mater how they try, random number generators do not work, and dice rollers suck. Give me real dice any day.
Though the same argument about dice rollers not working can be said about real dice too.
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'm not sure what you mean when you say random number generators don't work. For trivial ranges (such as anything below 100) they work perfectly fine, especially considering some of the amazing RNG and PRNG sources out they're. I have just as much faith in RNG based dice as real ones. Not sure why you wouldn't.
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 run at my house. I tend to provide food for the group. They give me money to cover food, which I then put into unlocking content.
I have 3 campaigns I share. 1 for my active game. 2 for them to make any character they want for other games and their other groups to make characters with. They make characters in those secondary campaigns, remove the character from the campaign, and re-enter if they need to update. they love it, and I have every background, spell, race, feat, magic item, etc available for them.