I believe that modern ways of playing, like pickup campaigns on Virtual Table Tops, or Western Marches campaigns are not well supported by this product. The main flaw seems to be the arbitrary 12 player limit for campaigns.
As an IT professional, I have to believe your primary goal here is to avoid work around to enticing players to up their subscription level to allow for more campaigns, or to avoid work exploits of the Campaign Sharing function.
It would be nice to be able to flag a campaign a larger tier campaign, expecting a much higher player limit. Restrictions could be made to prevent campaign sharing if that is the major concern here. Perhaps it's a feature that only the highest tier subscribers can host.
Perhaps there is a Campaign Linking option, so that you can connect multiple 12-person campaigns in a parent/child or peer relationship.
I really like what this product has to offer, but there are aspects of it that feel needlessly restrictive, and this is one of them.
"The main flaw seems to be the arbitrary 12 player limit for campaigns"
Playing with more than 6 people in a single campaign is already a challenge. I can't think of a reason to be running a campaign with more than 12 players at all.
A better solution would be you can designate 36 people as "players" in your games that you can share materials with, and campaigns have unlimited slots. That way if one person in a campaign has their own sources, and doesn't need yours, you could share with someone else.
But tbh, even if you only have 6 people at a table at a time, managing more than 12 IRL people for a single campaign is overly cumbersome. I mean, what do those games look like? people coming in and out all the time? Split parties a lot with people napping or not at a game. If your running 3 tables at once for the same module, you can still use 3 campaigns within beyond. I have ran for 9 people and even 11, and its a horrid mess.
Anyway, you have unlimited campaigns, with 3 you can share with, each allowing 12 people to have characters (and if you are sharing content, they can make characters without being in a campaign, and campaigns can have more than 12 characters in them, some are just inactive). So that's 36 people, and assuming they are all on free accounts, 216 player characters that can be made before you really need more slots.
And 12 i not that arbitrary. Its twice what the game is geared and balanced around for a single group. 5e is built and balanced around a 6 man band (up from most previous editions being geared and balanced around 4 man band). 12 is twice that, meaning you are double the expected size for a single group. That allows you to have 6 regulars and 6 people that may have stopped coming, are interested in coming, or can only sometimes make it. All that within that 1 campaign. Then you can have 2 more campaigns, for either 2 more groups, or to have as a holding cell for 24 more players. Its not that hard to switch from campaign to campaign to look up stats (or have multiple windows open). This goes beyond the DM having unlimited character slots, and unlimited campaigns. The only limit is how many people you can share your materials with, which is 36 from a single account. That's effectively 6 groups, nearly one for each day, that can get the benefits of what you have unlocked.... for a total of 37 people.
I am not saying you shouldn't be able to just have 1 massive campaign, or 6 small ones. I am not against that idea (in which case Id make my main campaign have a number of slots for people equal to my active number of people, and then all my 'leftover slots' go into a secondary campaign for when someone i know that doesn't play in one of my games wants to test a build), but I have no problem dealing with the 3x12 setup that currently exists, and it really isn't "more work" for me to have them separated if needed. I am in the habit of having each PC's sheet open in a tab before we sit down to play on a given day.
The limit isn't arbitrary either. They picked it based on statistics.
Most campaigns (over 50%) have 6 or fewer players. And 99.99% of campaigns have less than 12.
They do make special exceptions for school clubs and similar that naturally have a lot of players. That option is not publicly available, but you can pm a mod about it.
The limit isn't arbitrary either. They picked it based on statistics.
Most campaigns (over 50%) have 6 or fewer players. And 99.99% of campaigns have less than 12.
They do make special exceptions for school clubs and similar that naturally have a lot of players. That option is not publicly available, but you can pm a mod about it.
"The main flaw seems to be the arbitrary 12 player limit for campaigns"
Playing with more than 6 people in a single campaign is already a challenge. I can't think of a reason to be running a campaign with more than 12 players at all.
Then you are not familiar with multiple, popular ways of playing. There are consistently pick-up style campaigns on Roll20. There is also a Western Marches format of play that recommends a larger player-base. These might be edge cases, but your personal preference doesn't explain them away as invalid.
If you want to do pick up games, you can deactivate characters to free up slots for newcomers.
DDB isn't designed for content sharing for large scale West marches campaigns, but if you want to share with more than 12 users, you could set up multiple campaigns.
If you want to do pick up games, you can deactivate characters to free up slots for newcomers.
DDB isn't designed for content sharing for large scale West marches campaigns, but if you want to share with more than 12 users, you could set up multiple campaigns.
Thanks,
I have submitted a request to DNDBeyond for club/store play. My hope is that we are able to treat the campaign as a Club, as that is ultimately what we are aiming for, with roughly 50 players involved at this point, and an assistant DM.
"The main flaw seems to be the arbitrary 12 player limit for campaigns"
Playing with more than 6 people in a single campaign is already a challenge. I can't think of a reason to be running a campaign with more than 12 players at all.
Then you are not familiar with multiple, popular ways of playing. There are consistently pick-up style campaigns on Roll20. There is also a Western Marches format of play that recommends a larger player-base. These might be edge cases, but your personal preference doesn't explain them away as invalid.
I'm not saying they are invalid based on my personal preferences, I'm saying it's unnecissary for the site because less than 0.01% of games have more than 12 people
It is precisely the desire to run a West Marches style game that brought me to this page. I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to having the numbers to be concerned about. I am wanting to use Above VTT for on-line play and allow for drop-ins and West Marches exploration style appeals to me as DM. Good question. :)
Came here looking for west marches style campaign solutions too. I can see why it wouldn't be a priority for DDB; but I just cannot fathom why some people always seem to chime in on posts like this saying certain features are unnecessary. Why do you care so much? West Marches are common on other services that actually do support them. Hell they are a common style of play to have their own name receive rules support from adventure league.
Just to update this post: I did email support as suggested, and got the following reply:
Greetings,
We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to bring your thoughts about D&D Beyond campaign limits to our attention. As of now, campaigns are limited to a maximum of 12 players and 1 Dungeon Master. We do not have the capability to increase this limit, we apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.
It's important that your voice is heard and we assure you that feedback of this nature is particularly important to our company as we strive to build a better experience for you. All feedback, requests, and suggestions are brought to the appropriate teams for consideration and will not receive a direct response; however, you can keep an eye on our websites for any official announcements as they become available.
Thank you again for your willingness to get in touch and share your thoughts with us.
I mean, that kind of answer would be what a reasonable person would expect. The support is there for things like bugs or actual site issues like orders with errors. You're trying to ask a low-level customer support person for help with something decided at the upper levels.
The ability to include more per campaign would be nice. However, with that said, I've found Westmarches are able to do fine with a rule against camping in the campaign links to the point where they fill up.
Not arguing with you or with DDB, just noting for anyone who sees this thread in the future that OP's attempted solution (contacting support) didn't work.
I'd be interested to know what OP's "clear path forward" was. Open multiple campaigns, probably?
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Hi There,
I believe that modern ways of playing, like pickup campaigns on Virtual Table Tops, or Western Marches campaigns are not well supported by this product. The main flaw seems to be the arbitrary 12 player limit for campaigns.
As an IT professional, I have to believe your primary goal here is to avoid work around to enticing players to up their subscription level to allow for more campaigns, or to avoid work exploits of the Campaign Sharing function.
It would be nice to be able to flag a campaign a larger tier campaign, expecting a much higher player limit. Restrictions could be made to prevent campaign sharing if that is the major concern here. Perhaps it's a feature that only the highest tier subscribers can host.
Perhaps there is a Campaign Linking option, so that you can connect multiple 12-person campaigns in a parent/child or peer relationship.
I really like what this product has to offer, but there are aspects of it that feel needlessly restrictive, and this is one of them.
Thanks,
-Tickingtimebob
"The main flaw seems to be the arbitrary 12 player limit for campaigns"
Playing with more than 6 people in a single campaign is already a challenge. I can't think of a reason to be running a campaign with more than 12 players at all.
A better solution would be you can designate 36 people as "players" in your games that you can share materials with, and campaigns have unlimited slots. That way if one person in a campaign has their own sources, and doesn't need yours, you could share with someone else.
But tbh, even if you only have 6 people at a table at a time, managing more than 12 IRL people for a single campaign is overly cumbersome. I mean, what do those games look like? people coming in and out all the time? Split parties a lot with people napping or not at a game. If your running 3 tables at once for the same module, you can still use 3 campaigns within beyond. I have ran for 9 people and even 11, and its a horrid mess.
Anyway, you have unlimited campaigns, with 3 you can share with, each allowing 12 people to have characters (and if you are sharing content, they can make characters without being in a campaign, and campaigns can have more than 12 characters in them, some are just inactive). So that's 36 people, and assuming they are all on free accounts, 216 player characters that can be made before you really need more slots.
And 12 i not that arbitrary. Its twice what the game is geared and balanced around for a single group. 5e is built and balanced around a 6 man band (up from most previous editions being geared and balanced around 4 man band). 12 is twice that, meaning you are double the expected size for a single group. That allows you to have 6 regulars and 6 people that may have stopped coming, are interested in coming, or can only sometimes make it. All that within that 1 campaign. Then you can have 2 more campaigns, for either 2 more groups, or to have as a holding cell for 24 more players. Its not that hard to switch from campaign to campaign to look up stats (or have multiple windows open). This goes beyond the DM having unlimited character slots, and unlimited campaigns. The only limit is how many people you can share your materials with, which is 36 from a single account. That's effectively 6 groups, nearly one for each day, that can get the benefits of what you have unlocked.... for a total of 37 people.
I am not saying you shouldn't be able to just have 1 massive campaign, or 6 small ones. I am not against that idea (in which case Id make my main campaign have a number of slots for people equal to my active number of people, and then all my 'leftover slots' go into a secondary campaign for when someone i know that doesn't play in one of my games wants to test a build), but I have no problem dealing with the 3x12 setup that currently exists, and it really isn't "more work" for me to have them separated if needed. I am in the habit of having each PC's sheet open in a tab before we sit down to play on a given day.
The limit isn't arbitrary either. They picked it based on statistics.
Most campaigns (over 50%) have 6 or fewer players. And 99.99% of campaigns have less than 12.
They do make special exceptions for school clubs and similar that naturally have a lot of players. That option is not publicly available, but you can pm a mod about it.
Thank you for this suggestion.
Then you are not familiar with multiple, popular ways of playing. There are consistently pick-up style campaigns on Roll20. There is also a Western Marches format of play that recommends a larger player-base. These might be edge cases, but your personal preference doesn't explain them away as invalid.
If you want to do pick up games, you can deactivate characters to free up slots for newcomers.
DDB isn't designed for content sharing for large scale West marches campaigns, but if you want to share with more than 12 users, you could set up multiple campaigns.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Thanks,
I have submitted a request to DNDBeyond for club/store play. My hope is that we are able to treat the campaign as a Club, as that is ultimately what we are aiming for, with roughly 50 players involved at this point, and an assistant DM.
Good luck, ddb is quite good in that regard
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I'm not saying they are invalid based on my personal preferences, I'm saying it's unnecissary for the site because less than 0.01% of games have more than 12 people
Revised. I have a clear path forward.
It is precisely the desire to run a West Marches style game that brought me to this page. I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to having the numbers to be concerned about. I am wanting to use Above VTT for on-line play and allow for drop-ins and West Marches exploration style appeals to me as DM. Good question. :)
Came here looking for west marches style campaign solutions too. I can see why it wouldn't be a priority for DDB; but I just cannot fathom why some people always seem to chime in on posts like this saying certain features are unnecessary. Why do you care so much? West Marches are common on other services that actually do support them. Hell they are a common style of play to have their own name receive rules support from adventure league.
Some people... jeez.
Just to update this post: I did email support as suggested, and got the following reply:
I mean, that kind of answer would be what a reasonable person would expect. The support is there for things like bugs or actual site issues like orders with errors. You're trying to ask a low-level customer support person for help with something decided at the upper levels.
The ability to include more per campaign would be nice. However, with that said, I've found Westmarches are able to do fine with a rule against camping in the campaign links to the point where they fill up.
Not arguing with you or with DDB, just noting for anyone who sees this thread in the future that OP's attempted solution (contacting support) didn't work.
I'd be interested to know what OP's "clear path forward" was. Open multiple campaigns, probably?