Has there been any discussion about content sharing limits? I have two in-person campaigns, and was just about to fire up two play-by-post campaigns for my discord server, and realized that I can only content share in 3 campaigns at a time. That's a really frustrating limitation. I've spend almost $200 in dndbeyond, not to mention the top tier subscription plan, and I can't actually use the content I purchased in more than 3 games?!
At the very least I feel like there should be an option to buy more campaign slots for small amount of money, but I feel like really there shouldn't be a limit (at least not one so low) at all.
A limitation has to exist or else hundreds or even thousands of people could be getting the full range of content with a singular purchase.
The limit may seem low, but a bit of creative use can show it is actually not even kind of low - yes, 3 campaigns sounds like only 3 possible slots to use... but each campaign has 12 player slots. That means that unless you have multiple abnormally large campaigns (since most folks don't have more than, or would intentionally limit to, 4-5 players in each campaign), you can have multiple campaigns worth of characters existing within the campaign of sharing and everything will work just fine.
That's probably the silliest workaround I've ever heard. Why don't they just limit content sharing to 36 people total instead of 3 campaigns of 12? While still needlessly restrictive in my eyes, at least that makes it much more reasonable. If someone has 3 12-player games, nothing changes. But if I do a bunch of smaller, longer-term games, I still get to share with the same amount of people.
I just find the idea that hardcore users, the kind will will pay hundreds of dollars to play this game, are being restricted because they play the game more than some arbitrarily low number pretty silly. When the accepted answer is to "creatively" game the system, the system has a problem.
My current workaround is to just juggle which campaigns are active. It means my players won't get to access their characters between sessions, which is probably going to suck for them, but at least I can run more than 3 games.
From my POV, it's pretty generous that for the low monthly cost of a Master subscription, you can allow 36 people full access to the $200 worth of content you paid for so that they can also use it, all at the same time, compared to a single copy of the book you'd need to pass around the table and share.
While I admire your generosity, maybe if you really have that many players, it's time for some of them to pony up and buy some additional DDB assets and subscriptions and share them as well. So many people should easily be able to pool their money and buy another set of rule books (no need for adventures) and another master sub.
From my POV, it's pretty generous that for the low monthly cost of a Master subscription, you can allow 36 people full access to the $200 worth of content you paid for so that they can also use it, all at the same time, compared to a single copy of the book you'd need to pass around the table and share.
While I admire your generosity, maybe if you really have that many players, it's time for some of them to pony up and buy some additional DDB assets and subscriptions and share them as well. So many people should easily be able to pool their money and buy another set of rule books (no need for adventures) and another master sub.
But I've been running lots and lots of 5e games for a couple years now with one set of books, and I still am doing so. And I don't have to pay a penny of a subscription for those.There's no limit to the number of campaigns I can run with my stack of books (apart from actually having the time to do so, of course). People can consult my books and create as many characters as they want, in as many campaigns as I choose to run. With dndbeyond, there is an artificial limit imposed and pretty much every level of that. I don't think it's generous at all.
I'm perfectly happy paying a monthly subscription to use and share books in dndbeyond, which is why I do it, and I'd be willing to pay a couple more bucks if it meant I could actually run more campaigns at once. In the current state of the app, I need to create a second account, buy everything again, pay for another subscription, and then run my games across those two accounts. That's just too much. I feel like I should really either be allowed to run 6 6-player games at once (which is the same number of people as 3 12-player games), or be given the opportunity to add more campaigns to my subscription for a small increase in the sub cost. Those are both reasonable solutions for people that run lots of game, much more so than just making them double their investments for every 3 games they want to run.
Well, all I can offer is that I'd be willing to bet that the limitations aren't simply arbitrary numbers. I expect there is a technical reason behind the way it's done - at least to some degree. I can't disagree that it seems odd from the outside that it needs to be 3 campaigns of 12 rather than 36 sharable "slots," and I know others have asked for that level of freedom. Perhaps someday we'll get that, as well as the option to buy additional slots or campaigns to expand our sharing. You are aren't wrong for wanting that, nor the only one asking for it by any means.
I will point out again that your stack of books can still only be used by one person at a time, while the 36 slots here can be accessed by all those people at once, and it's not on your shoulders as DM to carry the entire financial burden here. If you have that many people, someone surely can afford to buy something. People can buy one book apiece, others can buy the subs. Anyone and everyone in a campaign shares what they own, not just the DM/campaign creator.
I guess we'll see if we get more options down the road!
The other option you have is getting someone else to purchase a subscription in one of the other groups, or have a group share the cost. Because it isn't just the person who turns on content sharing that had their material shared it is everyone nor does it have to be the DM. This means if someone else uses their campaign sharing slot in your campaign they will then get access to all if your books and they won't have to purchase them.
The number is neither low - as it is far higher than the average group's single campaign with four to five players - nor arbitrary - as it is based on large swathes of collected data which was specifically collected to determine what a typical group needs (i.e. game rules balanced assuming X number of players, and adventures written assuming X number of characters, where X isn't a completely off-base value for the vast majority of people playing the game).
That you, and I also, are outliers among the statistical data used to make those determinations is something we'll just have to deal with.
I'm not talking about averages though. I don't care what other people are doing. My point is that it's arbitrarily low compared to what you've been able to do with D&D books for the past 40 years. Never once have I sat down to plan out weekly/monthly game number 4 only to realize that I couldn't use my books and character sheets that I had ready to do so. But that's what has happened with dndbeyond.
Moving into the future with digital products is great. Locking those digital products down in such a way that they have limits compared to the books is not great.
Cue the Inigo Montoya quote about what a word means.
Locking those digital products down in such a way that they have limits compared to the books is not great.
They don't have limits compared to the books - they have different limitations than the books do. I.e. sure, you can run as many campaigns per week as you want to with your physical book and that might not be true with your given number of players and willingness to work-around D&D Beyond's reasoned limits... but your D&D Beyond materials can be read simultaneously by you and up to 36 other people even if they aren't in the same room (or city, or state, etc.) as you, and without you having to all stick to the same pages or pay for multiple copies, which is a thing your physical book just plain can't do.
That's probably the silliest workaround I've ever heard. Why don't they just limit content sharing to 36 people total instead of 3 campaigns of 12? While still needlessly restrictive in my eyes, at least that makes it much more reasonable. If someone has 3 12-player games, nothing changes. But if I do a bunch of smaller, longer-term games, I still get to share with the same amount of people.
It's only the same if you're the only one buying the books. It's not the same when different campaigns have different players which each contribute books.
I just find the idea that hardcore users, the kind will will pay hundreds of dollars to play this game, are being restricted because they play the game more than some arbitrarily low number pretty silly. When the accepted answer is to "creatively" game the system, the system has a problem.
The hardcore users that spend hundreds of dollars aren't being restricted. The people that don't pay any money are being restricted.
My current workaround is to just juggle which campaigns are active. It means my players won't get to access their characters between sessions, which is probably going to suck for them, but at least I can run more than 3 games.
They don't lose access to their character sheets. The purchase-only content in their sheets isn't even removed.
I'm not talking about averages though. I don't care what other people are doing. My point is that it's arbitrarily low compared to what you've been able to do with D&D books for the past 40 years. Never once have I sat down to plan out weekly/monthly game number 4 only to realize that I couldn't use my books and character sheets that I had ready to do so. But that's what has happened with dndbeyond.
And I've never been able to share one Player's Handbook with 5 new players simultaneously, but that's what I've been able to do with D&D Beyond.
Moving into the future with digital products is great. Locking those digital products down in such a way that they have limits compared to the books is not great.
A book can't do any of the things D&D Beyond does. It can't be in multiple places at once, you can't search it efficiently, and there's 0 automation when putting a new character together. You can give it to someone else, at the expense of losing access to it - D&D Beyond lets you share its content freely with other people who haven't paid Curse for it without you losing access to it.
Are that many people really DM'ing more than 3 campaigns? If you're really playing in that many games you should probably just get other people to subscribe so they're using their own campaign slots to access your books.
To be perfectly honest, I see the point of contention, and I somewhat agree that the 3x12 limitation seems a bit odd...
Let me elaborate: I do not believe there are many campaigns out there with a party of more than 8 players, as well as I do not believe there are many people running 8 campaigns a week. What I mean is there does not seem to be a simple logic behind the choice of 3 campaign and 12 players/characters per campaign. Don't get me wrong, I am super happy with the chance of sharing stuff, god knows I am, and I only have one campaign running currently, so for me it's not an issue (and probably never will be), but I definitely see the issue Rogue is finding.
My personal pinion, and humble suggestion, would be: why not give the Master tear 32 slots (so the amount of people allowed the shared content is the same) to use on any number of campaigns? This way, someone might have 6 campaigns with 5 players each, and 2 spare slots for guests or for a 7th, mini-campaign.
Again, I am not aware of the reasoning behind the choice of 3x12, as I am sure there is one, and it personally do not bother me in the least, but I can definitely see how this could be perceived as a limitation by some people.
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I dunno why people defend being locked to 3 campaigns so vehemently. I'm not looking to change anything for the people that won't use it, or the people that have 12-player games. I'm not looking to rip anyone off. I'm not looking to not continue to spend money on dndbeyond, I've already dumped $250 on this app and I'll probably end up spending even more. What I'm looking for is to be able to continue to do with the app what I've always done with my books, run lots of campaigns and short one shots all over the course of the same month, without having to continue doing the activate/deactivate dance or play player tetris and try to fit multiple groups into a single campaign slot.
The only solutions right now are to make players buy books or to make a second account of my own and buy them myself. Those are both pretty silly workarounds. At the very very very least, I should be able to buy a second copy of a book on my own account to allow it to be shared 3 more times, not have to off-load it onto a separate account. I'd still have to buy everything twice as so many of the people here seem to think is right way this should be handled, but then I'd at least get to keep the license on my actual account. But I still think that is pretty ridiculous. The much better solution for everyone involved is to either allow campaign slots be unlocked for a flat fee, or to offer higher level subscription tiers with more campaign slots. People who have more than 3 campaign get what they want for a reasonable cost that won't double the amount they have to pay just for the convenience of being able to run another campaign, and everyone here arguing that spending $250 to run 4 campaigns isn't enough money in Curse's pockets gets what they want, as I'll be spending more money. I'm not sure why that's something people are against. Everyone wins and we get to play more D&D!
To be perfectly honest, I see the point of contention, and I somewhat agree that the 3x12 limitation seems a bit odd...
Let me elaborate: I do not believe there are many campaigns out there with a party of more than 8 players, as well as I do not believe there are many people running 8 campaigns a week. What I mean is there does not seem to be a simple logic behind the choice of 3 campaign and 12 players/characters per campaign. Don't get me wrong, I am super happy with the chance of sharing stuff, god knows I am, and I only have one campaign running currently, so for me it's not an issue (and probably never will be), but I definitely see the issue Rogue is finding.
My personal pinion, and humble suggestion, would be: why not give the Master tear 32 slots (so the amount of people allowed the shared content is the same) to use on any number of campaigns? This way, someone might have 6 campaigns with 5 players each, and 2 spare slots for guests or for a 7th, mini-campaign.
Again, I am not aware of the reasoning behind the choice of 3x12, as I am sure there is one, and it personally do not bother me in the least, but I can definitely see how this could be perceived as a limitation by some people.
I know quite a few people running way more than 3 campaigns (some only a couple times a year, but still want to use the system) but I see your point. I have one campaign with over 12 people in it (west marches) and I am running several others.
Since the master tier was sold as the ability to share with your current gaming groups and splitting the costs, it should offer the option to add these slots.
However in the mean time I love the idea of just giving the slots. Even if they lower it, maybe to 24 or 30 then you can buy in lots of 6 or 10, $1 a month more for 10 slots would be fine to me.
Most of my players are in multiple campaigns as well, so it sucks that they take up a slot in 3 different campaigns. counting against the 12 in each.
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Has there been any discussion about content sharing limits? I have two in-person campaigns, and was just about to fire up two play-by-post campaigns for my discord server, and realized that I can only content share in 3 campaigns at a time. That's a really frustrating limitation. I've spend almost $200 in dndbeyond, not to mention the top tier subscription plan, and I can't actually use the content I purchased in more than 3 games?!
At the very least I feel like there should be an option to buy more campaign slots for small amount of money, but I feel like really there shouldn't be a limit (at least not one so low) at all.
A limitation has to exist or else hundreds or even thousands of people could be getting the full range of content with a singular purchase.
The limit may seem low, but a bit of creative use can show it is actually not even kind of low - yes, 3 campaigns sounds like only 3 possible slots to use... but each campaign has 12 player slots. That means that unless you have multiple abnormally large campaigns (since most folks don't have more than, or would intentionally limit to, 4-5 players in each campaign), you can have multiple campaigns worth of characters existing within the campaign of sharing and everything will work just fine.
That's probably the silliest workaround I've ever heard. Why don't they just limit content sharing to 36 people total instead of 3 campaigns of 12? While still needlessly restrictive in my eyes, at least that makes it much more reasonable. If someone has 3 12-player games, nothing changes. But if I do a bunch of smaller, longer-term games, I still get to share with the same amount of people.
I just find the idea that hardcore users, the kind will will pay hundreds of dollars to play this game, are being restricted because they play the game more than some arbitrarily low number pretty silly. When the accepted answer is to "creatively" game the system, the system has a problem.
My current workaround is to just juggle which campaigns are active. It means my players won't get to access their characters between sessions, which is probably going to suck for them, but at least I can run more than 3 games.
From my POV, it's pretty generous that for the low monthly cost of a Master subscription, you can allow 36 people full access to the $200 worth of content you paid for so that they can also use it, all at the same time, compared to a single copy of the book you'd need to pass around the table and share.
While I admire your generosity, maybe if you really have that many players, it's time for some of them to pony up and buy some additional DDB assets and subscriptions and share them as well. So many people should easily be able to pool their money and buy another set of rule books (no need for adventures) and another master sub.
I'm sure there's a good reason, but I don't know what it is, so, until proven wrong, I'm going to call that a good idea.
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But I've been running lots and lots of 5e games for a couple years now with one set of books, and I still am doing so. And I don't have to pay a penny of a subscription for those.There's no limit to the number of campaigns I can run with my stack of books (apart from actually having the time to do so, of course). People can consult my books and create as many characters as they want, in as many campaigns as I choose to run. With dndbeyond, there is an artificial limit imposed and pretty much every level of that. I don't think it's generous at all.
I'm perfectly happy paying a monthly subscription to use and share books in dndbeyond, which is why I do it, and I'd be willing to pay a couple more bucks if it meant I could actually run more campaigns at once. In the current state of the app, I need to create a second account, buy everything again, pay for another subscription, and then run my games across those two accounts. That's just too much. I feel like I should really either be allowed to run 6 6-player games at once (which is the same number of people as 3 12-player games), or be given the opportunity to add more campaigns to my subscription for a small increase in the sub cost. Those are both reasonable solutions for people that run lots of game, much more so than just making them double their investments for every 3 games they want to run.
Well, all I can offer is that I'd be willing to bet that the limitations aren't simply arbitrary numbers. I expect there is a technical reason behind the way it's done - at least to some degree. I can't disagree that it seems odd from the outside that it needs to be 3 campaigns of 12 rather than 36 sharable "slots," and I know others have asked for that level of freedom. Perhaps someday we'll get that, as well as the option to buy additional slots or campaigns to expand our sharing. You are aren't wrong for wanting that, nor the only one asking for it by any means.
I will point out again that your stack of books can still only be used by one person at a time, while the 36 slots here can be accessed by all those people at once, and it's not on your shoulders as DM to carry the entire financial burden here. If you have that many people, someone surely can afford to buy something. People can buy one book apiece, others can buy the subs. Anyone and everyone in a campaign shares what they own, not just the DM/campaign creator.
I guess we'll see if we get more options down the road!
The other option you have is getting someone else to purchase a subscription in one of the other groups, or have a group share the cost. Because it isn't just the person who turns on content sharing that had their material shared it is everyone nor does it have to be the DM. This means if someone else uses their campaign sharing slot in your campaign they will then get access to all if your books and they won't have to purchase them.
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I'm not talking about averages though. I don't care what other people are doing. My point is that it's arbitrarily low compared to what you've been able to do with D&D books for the past 40 years. Never once have I sat down to plan out weekly/monthly game number 4 only to realize that I couldn't use my books and character sheets that I had ready to do so. But that's what has happened with dndbeyond.
Moving into the future with digital products is great. Locking those digital products down in such a way that they have limits compared to the books is not great.
Cue the Inigo Montoya quote about what a word means.
They don't have limits compared to the books - they have different limitations than the books do. I.e. sure, you can run as many campaigns per week as you want to with your physical book and that might not be true with your given number of players and willingness to work-around D&D Beyond's reasoned limits... but your D&D Beyond materials can be read simultaneously by you and up to 36 other people even if they aren't in the same room (or city, or state, etc.) as you, and without you having to all stick to the same pages or pay for multiple copies, which is a thing your physical book just plain can't do.It's only the same if you're the only one buying the books. It's not the same when different campaigns have different players which each contribute books.
The hardcore users that spend hundreds of dollars aren't being restricted. The people that don't pay any money are being restricted.
And I've never been able to share one Player's Handbook with 5 new players simultaneously, but that's what I've been able to do with D&D Beyond.
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I just want to hear if there is going to be some sort of buy tier to get more campaigns sharing?
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Are that many people really DM'ing more than 3 campaigns? If you're really playing in that many games you should probably just get other people to subscribe so they're using their own campaign slots to access your books.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
To be perfectly honest, I see the point of contention, and I somewhat agree that the 3x12 limitation seems a bit odd...
Let me elaborate: I do not believe there are many campaigns out there with a party of more than 8 players, as well as I do not believe there are many people running 8 campaigns a week. What I mean is there does not seem to be a simple logic behind the choice of 3 campaign and 12 players/characters per campaign.
Don't get me wrong, I am super happy with the chance of sharing stuff, god knows I am, and I only have one campaign running currently, so for me it's not an issue (and probably never will be), but I definitely see the issue Rogue is finding.
My personal pinion, and humble suggestion, would be: why not give the Master tear 32 slots (so the amount of people allowed the shared content is the same) to use on any number of campaigns? This way, someone might have 6 campaigns with 5 players each, and 2 spare slots for guests or for a 7th, mini-campaign.
Again, I am not aware of the reasoning behind the choice of 3x12, as I am sure there is one, and it personally do not bother me in the least, but I can definitely see how this could be perceived as a limitation by some people.
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The most memorable stories always begin with failure.
I dunno why people defend being locked to 3 campaigns so vehemently. I'm not looking to change anything for the people that won't use it, or the people that have 12-player games. I'm not looking to rip anyone off. I'm not looking to not continue to spend money on dndbeyond, I've already dumped $250 on this app and I'll probably end up spending even more. What I'm looking for is to be able to continue to do with the app what I've always done with my books, run lots of campaigns and short one shots all over the course of the same month, without having to continue doing the activate/deactivate dance or play player tetris and try to fit multiple groups into a single campaign slot.
The only solutions right now are to make players buy books or to make a second account of my own and buy them myself. Those are both pretty silly workarounds. At the very very very least, I should be able to buy a second copy of a book on my own account to allow it to be shared 3 more times, not have to off-load it onto a separate account. I'd still have to buy everything twice as so many of the people here seem to think is right way this should be handled, but then I'd at least get to keep the license on my actual account. But I still think that is pretty ridiculous. The much better solution for everyone involved is to either allow campaign slots be unlocked for a flat fee, or to offer higher level subscription tiers with more campaign slots. People who have more than 3 campaign get what they want for a reasonable cost that won't double the amount they have to pay just for the convenience of being able to run another campaign, and everyone here arguing that spending $250 to run 4 campaigns isn't enough money in Curse's pockets gets what they want, as I'll be spending more money. I'm not sure why that's something people are against. Everyone wins and we get to play more D&D!
Since the master tier was sold as the ability to share with your current gaming groups and splitting the costs, it should offer the option to add these slots.
Most of my players are in multiple campaigns as well, so it sucks that they take up a slot in 3 different campaigns. counting against the 12 in each.
The most memorable stories always begin with failure.