While a review of this forum does appear to suggest that the character sheet is working as intended I do wish to point out to the Powers That Be that the way character sheets are shared is precisely backwards of how I and others need it to be shared if one half must be private and the other must be public. It would be very convenient, if I intended to run a campaign with secret information, to have the option to keep character stats and abilities private to the GM and individual player but allow them to share description and backstory. That makes far more sense to me than the alternative you currently have in place. Failing that, please do not be afraid to add more complication to an already complicated setup and give us the powerful tool that is a checkbox to allow sharing character details with the campaign the character is in.
The reason stats and abilities are visible and background is hidden is because stats and abilities represent abstractions of physical attributes and skills that would be visible to an outside observer. You could look at an half-orc and, assuming you've spent time adventuring with them or seen them fight, guestimate that they're maybe a 15/20 in terms of strength, for example. You could watch a warlock talk to someone and rate their charisma as 16/20, and so on.
Backgrounds are things things that aren't immediately visible as they're stories you learn about the character.
Obviously yes, description is outwardly visible, but due to the way its set up, it bundles in non-visible things too. You could tell a characters hair colour at a glance, but maybe not their faith, alignment or ideals and bonds.
Generally speaking concealing ability scores and other mechanical attributes from other players is uncommon, but you can always set it to private and then only the DM and the owning player can see anything.
Thanks for the move to the correct forum - thought I had gotten this in the right place.
I am glad to hear this system works for other people but ultimately my point wasn't "I believe X, change my mind."
My point was that I and my group have a standard of wanting to share information for devising mutually-coherent backstories, notes about our characters for each other to use when describing a scene or making a plan and yet wanting to keep the specific contents of our feats, spell selections, and class abilities private, perhaps even our classes themselves. D&D Beyond, as it stands, makes that specifically impossible on both counts and yet does so for no good reason that I can see, given that the existence of private and public tabs is already coded into the design. Since the previous threads I found on the subject made it seem that the Powers That Be had heard from users that they wanted it this way and no other, I believe it to be important to present the existence of different opinions.
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While a review of this forum does appear to suggest that the character sheet is working as intended I do wish to point out to the Powers That Be that the way character sheets are shared is precisely backwards of how I and others need it to be shared if one half must be private and the other must be public. It would be very convenient, if I intended to run a campaign with secret information, to have the option to keep character stats and abilities private to the GM and individual player but allow them to share description and backstory. That makes far more sense to me than the alternative you currently have in place. Failing that, please do not be afraid to add more complication to an already complicated setup and give us the powerful tool that is a checkbox to allow sharing character details with the campaign the character is in.
The reason stats and abilities are visible and background is hidden is because stats and abilities represent abstractions of physical attributes and skills that would be visible to an outside observer. You could look at an half-orc and, assuming you've spent time adventuring with them or seen them fight, guestimate that they're maybe a 15/20 in terms of strength, for example. You could watch a warlock talk to someone and rate their charisma as 16/20, and so on.
Backgrounds are things things that aren't immediately visible as they're stories you learn about the character.
Obviously yes, description is outwardly visible, but due to the way its set up, it bundles in non-visible things too. You could tell a characters hair colour at a glance, but maybe not their faith, alignment or ideals and bonds.
Generally speaking concealing ability scores and other mechanical attributes from other players is uncommon, but you can always set it to private and then only the DM and the owning player can see anything.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Thanks for the move to the correct forum - thought I had gotten this in the right place.
I am glad to hear this system works for other people but ultimately my point wasn't "I believe X, change my mind."
My point was that I and my group have a standard of wanting to share information for devising mutually-coherent backstories, notes about our characters for each other to use when describing a scene or making a plan and yet wanting to keep the specific contents of our feats, spell selections, and class abilities private, perhaps even our classes themselves. D&D Beyond, as it stands, makes that specifically impossible on both counts and yet does so for no good reason that I can see, given that the existence of private and public tabs is already coded into the design. Since the previous threads I found on the subject made it seem that the Powers That Be had heard from users that they wanted it this way and no other, I believe it to be important to present the existence of different opinions.