I don't think I've ever done something detrimental to a player, but I have added boons in the way of items and feats to someone's character sheet. I find it really rewarding when they discover something like that during play. Usually they've been working towards a goal and I let those be mini rewards that go along with where they are taking their character.
While I certainly wouldn't complain as a player about that, my most likely reaction would be to assume it was a mistake and just quietly delete it...so I'd definitely let the player know.
If the DM is dropping it there quietly, they can also quietly include a heads up with it too.
On top of the story reasons already mentioned it's infinitely easier to walk a player through fixing something if the DM has full access to the sheet. There's a reason it's so common to ask for a link to player sheets to diagnose problems in general.
• Something could have been missed in the character builder during creation or level up. Having access to the character builder page makes this easier to track down. • A custom action could be working strangely. An item, action etc. could have been customized to add extra damage, hit or armor when it shouldn't be. • An item that isn't fully setup to work on DDB may need tweaking or a homebrew solution to fix (that the DM may have to provide)
Plenty more things like the above have come up in my games. If the player is struggling to figure it out - the DM with full access can much more easily find what's wrong then point out to the player where to fix it. It's a lot easier to walk people through things step by step when you have the exact information they are seeing in front of you.
This is not only extremely helpful for new players but veteran players miss things too. A second set of eyes always speeds up the troubleshooting even if they know the tools well. Even for someone like me who is chronically on this site tinkering with things I can't always recall a specific location, button or field name that needs to be adjusted without it in front of me.
If as a player, you do not trust the DM, or even do not like that DM's style of play, it might be better to simply find a different DM.
The DM should minimum have a copy of every PC's sheet but full edit access is far more likely to help the player than not... unless it is a bad DM, but a bad DM does not need such access to make a campaign unfun.
Not every DM or player is a native English speaker. A DM or player is a human and humans make mistakes. So, unfortunately, a DM or player can (unwillingly) mess up a character sheet because of misinterpretation. Things get messed up in translation. Some players plan levels ahead, because for some classes a choice at level x is needed for level y (eg. Warlock). For a starting Dm it can sometimes be difficult, and it is very easy to hide behind the rule that the DM always is right. Furthermore, let the player make the change if needed, because it's a learning opportunity. Always inform the player if you made changes when the story needs it. If you made a change while outside of the game session, a player that has been offline, might not know why something was changed and undo your effort as a DM. Use the Copy button, so you always have a backup. Put in your notes what choices you made at what level so you can rebuild from the info in the pdf. Notes, however, I think are private. I don't want to keep record in many places, and sometimes it is nice and fun to have a surprise for the DM. Should the need exist, you better talk to the DM or player through the Private Messages.
As a DM, I am here to help my players. Our group primarily uses this feature if someone is absent and they receive a share of loot or an item no one else claimed or something like that.
I struggle to think of something a player might have in their notes as a "surprise" for the DM. I fully support assistance from the players to build the world, but I need to be aware to assimilate it all into a consistent, coherent story. Just making stuff up on your own to "surprise" the DM is likely to cause conflicts and just generally cause way more problems than whatever benefit comes from the surprise.
I'm not sure there should even be any surprises for the DM. Especially given that they have to run the world which should be coherent with said surprise - how are they supposed to do that if they don't know what said surprise is? Surprises should be for players, not DMs.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Why is it that the DM can modify/edit all of my my sheet? I can understand the need to view it, though the part of my notes is questionable. Even when I am Signed Out, this is possible. Is that correct? Why are editing rights not blocked? I feel I should be the only one capable of full editing my character sheet.
As a Forever DM, who is always running games on DnDB, full read is an absolute must, access to inventory can be important in some games as well, ie when the group is ok with thieves possibly stealing from players (I've never done this, and would only do it for story reasons with the understanding that anything taken would be given back and/or improved) I can see several places where a DM also might need to adjust a back story to fit a setting, but this should be done with the player, and I feel the player should write their own background. So reading and making notes to a background, but not full edit, now if the character is important to a campaign and if the player drops or has an extended absence I do think the DM should be allowed to Use the sheet, or give it temporarily/permanently with permission to another player.
Note while I've never had thieves steal from a player, I have slipped magic items into a player inventory without saying anything, it was a part of the story... funny thing the player never noticed the magical McGuffin. I still giggle at this, as it was a strong item perfect for their character, but they never noticed it.
DM should be able to see everything. Ours has even corrected stuff we put in wrong.
To see yes, but changing of Name, Race, Class, Alignment etc are not needed in IMHO
Not that 5th edition has these magical effects, but in 2nd/AD&D and 3rd/3.5 there were magical items and effects that could change these things permanently. And I am 100% sure some DMs include these unholy things even in 5th edition.
Two classics "Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity " <- even seen in BG1, defiantly a problematic item as it treats gender as a curse.
Then there was (Even more problematic) "polymorph other" a permanent wizards spell that could change someone against their will Until death or dispel magic. It was a level 4, 4 cast time spell... there were a series of saves after being changed, but the spell had no save against the effect. The saves were do you survive, do you keep your mind.
The saving grace back then was the 4 cast time, ie after the wizard declares intention to cast it, 4 players or monsters get their turns before the spell goes off, and if the wizard is hit with anything the spell fizzles. Being a Wizard back then was both OP and painful.
Also I accidently hit a party member with this once, it was a chaos empowered version so the alteration was completely random. They ended up a Harpy.
If you have notes that are not ready for your GM, then keep them offline. I always compose mine in a text file first. But none of my notes are secret, it's just that sometimes it takes me a minute to get them coherent.
The other reason I haven't seen mentioned is that if you are unable to play unexpectedly, your GM may need to see and decrement your inventory and spell slots to play your character home. Ours tries to not do a lot of playing player characters but sometimes a session starts or a player leaves mid combat and there the character is.
We've also had technical difficulties moments where the player was able to join by phone but was having trouble accessing the VTT for whatever reason.
It's just right that the GM has full access and edit rights to the sheets. I agree that in general the player should make or consent to changes, but mechanically, it makes no sense for the software to create a permissions block against it.
It comes down to this: the DM should rarely need write access to a PCs character sheet, so it's mostly moot, but for a good DM, there's no real downside to giving them the access, and for a bad DM, well, bad DMs have lots of ways to be bad.
If you have notes that are not ready for your GM, then keep them offline. I always compose mine in a text file first. But none of my notes are secret, it's just that sometimes it takes me a minute to get them coherent.
The other reason I haven't seen mentioned is that if you are unable to play unexpectedly, your GM may need to see and decrement your inventory and spell slots to play your character home. Ours tries to not do a lot of playing player characters but sometimes a session starts or a player leaves mid combat and there the character is.
We've also had technical difficulties moments where the player was able to join by phone but was having trouble accessing the VTT for whatever reason.
It's just right that the GM has full access and edit rights to the sheets. I agree that in general the player should make or consent to changes, but mechanically, it makes no sense for the software to create a permissions block against it.
This is good advice on additional levels. Keep notes. Don't hide that you do so from the DM, but keep notes. As a DM, I wish more players would do so. For you, as a player, it is likely a week between sessions with a lot of real life in those in between times. For your character, there are no such pauses. Heck, keeping notes in RL is also useful.
And yes, also fair game (and wise) to, as another poster said, have a backup copy of your character.
These things would be true regardless of what your DM has access to.
Why is it that the DM can modify/edit all of my my sheet? I can understand the need to view it, though the part of my notes is questionable. Even when I am Signed Out, this is possible. Is that correct? Why are editing rights not blocked? I feel I should be the only one capable of full editing my character sheet.
As a Forever DM, who is always running games on DnDB, full read is an absolute must, access to inventory can be important in some games as well, ie when the group is ok with thieves possibly stealing from players (I've never done this, and would only do it for story reasons with the understanding that anything taken would be given back and/or improved) I can see several places where a DM also might need to adjust a back story to fit a setting, but this should be done with the player, and I feel the player should write their own background. So reading and making notes to a background, but not full edit, now if the character is important to a campaign and if the player drops or has an extended absence I do think the DM should be allowed to Use the sheet, or give it temporarily/permanently with permission to another player.
Note while I've never had thieves steal from a player, I have slipped magic items into a player inventory without saying anything, it was a part of the story... funny thing the player never noticed the magical McGuffin. I still giggle at this, as it was a strong item perfect for their character, but they never noticed it.
Outside of looking at HP, skills, attack actions, spells, saving throws, and a few other things I don’t remember the last time I went through what was in my inventory or my notes or anything else. So if my DM snuck something in there I would have no idea. I don’t keep notes on my character sheet other than my backstory from character creation. Game notes etc go in a Word document for myself.
Why is it that the DM can modify/edit all of my my sheet? I can understand the need to view it, though the part of my notes is questionable. Even when I am Signed Out, this is possible. Is that correct? Why are editing rights not blocked? I feel I should be the only one capable of full editing my character sheet.
As a Forever DM, who is always running games on DnDB, full read is an absolute must, access to inventory can be important in some games as well, ie when the group is ok with thieves possibly stealing from players (I've never done this, and would only do it for story reasons with the understanding that anything taken would be given back and/or improved) I can see several places where a DM also might need to adjust a back story to fit a setting, but this should be done with the player, and I feel the player should write their own background. So reading and making notes to a background, but not full edit, now if the character is important to a campaign and if the player drops or has an extended absence I do think the DM should be allowed to Use the sheet, or give it temporarily/permanently with permission to another player.
Note while I've never had thieves steal from a player, I have slipped magic items into a player inventory without saying anything, it was a part of the story... funny thing the player never noticed the magical McGuffin. I still giggle at this, as it was a strong item perfect for their character, but they never noticed it.
Outside of looking at HP, skills, attack actions, spells, saving throws, and a few other things I don’t remember the last time I went through what was in my inventory or my notes or anything else. So if my DM snuck something in there I would have no idea. I don’t keep notes on my character sheet other than my backstory from character creation. Game notes etc go in a Word document for myself.
Which is why I find it funny, as I will sneak cool and good things into an inventory, first because I know most people don't check, unless I comment, and also because if they do check that adds a new story quest, who, how, and why did someone put this cool thing in my pack.
Why is it that the DM can modify/edit all of my my sheet? I can understand the need to view it, though the part of my notes is questionable. Even when I am Signed Out, this is possible. Is that correct? Why are editing rights not blocked? I feel I should be the only one capable of full editing my character sheet.
As a Forever DM, who is always running games on DnDB, full read is an absolute must, access to inventory can be important in some games as well, ie when the group is ok with thieves possibly stealing from players (I've never done this, and would only do it for story reasons with the understanding that anything taken would be given back and/or improved) I can see several places where a DM also might need to adjust a back story to fit a setting, but this should be done with the player, and I feel the player should write their own background. So reading and making notes to a background, but not full edit, now if the character is important to a campaign and if the player drops or has an extended absence I do think the DM should be allowed to Use the sheet, or give it temporarily/permanently with permission to another player.
Note while I've never had thieves steal from a player, I have slipped magic items into a player inventory without saying anything, it was a part of the story... funny thing the player never noticed the magical McGuffin. I still giggle at this, as it was a strong item perfect for their character, but they never noticed it.
Outside of looking at HP, skills, attack actions, spells, saving throws, and a few other things I don’t remember the last time I went through what was in my inventory or my notes or anything else. So if my DM snuck something in there I would have no idea. I don’t keep notes on my character sheet other than my backstory from character creation. Game notes etc go in a Word document for myself.
Which is why I find it funny, as I will sneak cool and good things into an inventory, first because I know most people don't check, unless I comment, and also because if they do check that adds a new story quest, who, how, and why did someone put this cool thing in my pack.
If it is plot significant, I'll tell them that they have this urge to check their inventory, or notice something different in their equipment or some such....
If it is plot significant, I'll tell them that they have this urge to check their inventory, or notice something different in their equipment or some such....
I tend to be a Sand Box DM, I drop plot hooks everywhere, and see which ones the players snag. Well unless I'm following an Official Adventure, then I try and keep to the book until it gets boring for me, and I then scatter some additional plot hooks.
Example, doing Avernus, the players are nearing the end, I'm already adding hooks for Planescape and Vecna.
to be fair, the notes section is not useful at all to take notes for a campaign. you are better off using a word doc or something like OneNote or just a simple notebook.
But as a DM I want full access. There have been times where i have removed items or money, and even made temp stat/skill adjustments from a player due to story reasons, and it makes for fun saturations that the player doesn't know until they go to use that item, money or even skill/stat.
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If the DM is dropping it there quietly, they can also quietly include a heads up with it too.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
On top of the story reasons already mentioned it's infinitely easier to walk a player through fixing something if the DM has full access to the sheet. There's a reason it's so common to ask for a link to player sheets to diagnose problems in general.
• Something could have been missed in the character builder during creation or level up. Having access to the character builder page makes this easier to track down.
• A custom action could be working strangely. An item, action etc. could have been customized to add extra damage, hit or armor when it shouldn't be.
• An item that isn't fully setup to work on DDB may need tweaking or a homebrew solution to fix (that the DM may have to provide)
Plenty more things like the above have come up in my games. If the player is struggling to figure it out - the DM with full access can much more easily find what's wrong then point out to the player where to fix it. It's a lot easier to walk people through things step by step when you have the exact information they are seeing in front of you.
This is not only extremely helpful for new players but veteran players miss things too. A second set of eyes always speeds up the troubleshooting even if they know the tools well. Even for someone like me who is chronically on this site tinkering with things I can't always recall a specific location, button or field name that needs to be adjusted without it in front of me.
If as a player, you do not trust the DM, or even do not like that DM's style of play, it might be better to simply find a different DM.
The DM should minimum have a copy of every PC's sheet but full edit access is far more likely to help the player than not... unless it is a bad DM, but a bad DM does not need such access to make a campaign unfun.
Not every DM or player is a native English speaker. A DM or player is a human and humans make mistakes. So, unfortunately, a DM or player can (unwillingly) mess up a character sheet because of misinterpretation. Things get messed up in translation. Some players plan levels ahead, because for some classes a choice at level x is needed for level y (eg. Warlock).
For a starting Dm it can sometimes be difficult, and it is very easy to hide behind the rule that the DM always is right.
Furthermore, let the player make the change if needed, because it's a learning opportunity. Always inform the player if you made changes when the story needs it. If you made a change while outside of the game session, a player that has been offline, might not know why something was changed and undo your effort as a DM.
Use the Copy button, so you always have a backup. Put in your notes what choices you made at what level so you can rebuild from the info in the pdf. Notes, however, I think are private. I don't want to keep record in many places, and sometimes it is nice and fun to have a surprise for the DM.
Should the need exist, you better talk to the DM or player through the Private Messages.
edit: typo
playing since 1986
As a DM, I am here to help my players. Our group primarily uses this feature if someone is absent and they receive a share of loot or an item no one else claimed or something like that.
I struggle to think of something a player might have in their notes as a "surprise" for the DM. I fully support assistance from the players to build the world, but I need to be aware to assimilate it all into a consistent, coherent story. Just making stuff up on your own to "surprise" the DM is likely to cause conflicts and just generally cause way more problems than whatever benefit comes from the surprise.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I'm not sure there should even be any surprises for the DM. Especially given that they have to run the world which should be coherent with said surprise - how are they supposed to do that if they don't know what said surprise is? Surprises should be for players, not DMs.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
As a Forever DM, who is always running games on DnDB, full read is an absolute must, access to inventory can be important in some games as well, ie when the group is ok with thieves possibly stealing from players (I've never done this, and would only do it for story reasons with the understanding that anything taken would be given back and/or improved) I can see several places where a DM also might need to adjust a back story to fit a setting, but this should be done with the player, and I feel the player should write their own background. So reading and making notes to a background, but not full edit, now if the character is important to a campaign and if the player drops or has an extended absence I do think the DM should be allowed to Use the sheet, or give it temporarily/permanently with permission to another player.
Note while I've never had thieves steal from a player, I have slipped magic items into a player inventory without saying anything, it was a part of the story... funny thing the player never noticed the magical McGuffin. I still giggle at this, as it was a strong item perfect for their character, but they never noticed it.
Not that 5th edition has these magical effects, but in 2nd/AD&D and 3rd/3.5 there were magical items and effects that could change these things permanently. And I am 100% sure some DMs include these unholy things even in 5th edition.
Two classics "Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity " <- even seen in BG1, defiantly a problematic item as it treats gender as a curse.
Then there was (Even more problematic) "polymorph other" a permanent wizards spell that could change someone against their will Until death or dispel magic. It was a level 4, 4 cast time spell... there were a series of saves after being changed, but the spell had no save against the effect. The saves were do you survive, do you keep your mind.
The saving grace back then was the 4 cast time, ie after the wizard declares intention to cast it, 4 players or monsters get their turns before the spell goes off, and if the wizard is hit with anything the spell fizzles. Being a Wizard back then was both OP and painful.
Also I accidently hit a party member with this once, it was a chaos empowered version so the alteration was completely random. They ended up a Harpy.
If you have notes that are not ready for your GM, then keep them offline. I always compose mine in a text file first. But none of my notes are secret, it's just that sometimes it takes me a minute to get them coherent.
The other reason I haven't seen mentioned is that if you are unable to play unexpectedly, your GM may need to see and decrement your inventory and spell slots to play your character home. Ours tries to not do a lot of playing player characters but sometimes a session starts or a player leaves mid combat and there the character is.
We've also had technical difficulties moments where the player was able to join by phone but was having trouble accessing the VTT for whatever reason.
It's just right that the GM has full access and edit rights to the sheets. I agree that in general the player should make or consent to changes, but mechanically, it makes no sense for the software to create a permissions block against it.
It comes down to this: the DM should rarely need write access to a PCs character sheet, so it's mostly moot, but for a good DM, there's no real downside to giving them the access, and for a bad DM, well, bad DMs have lots of ways to be bad.
This is good advice on additional levels. Keep notes. Don't hide that you do so from the DM, but keep notes. As a DM, I wish more players would do so. For you, as a player, it is likely a week between sessions with a lot of real life in those in between times. For your character, there are no such pauses. Heck, keeping notes in RL is also useful.
And yes, also fair game (and wise) to, as another poster said, have a backup copy of your character.
These things would be true regardless of what your DM has access to.
Outside of looking at HP, skills, attack actions, spells, saving throws, and a few other things I don’t remember the last time I went through what was in my inventory or my notes or anything else. So if my DM snuck something in there I would have no idea. I don’t keep notes on my character sheet other than my backstory from character creation. Game notes etc go in a Word document for myself.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Which is why I find it funny, as I will sneak cool and good things into an inventory, first because I know most people don't check, unless I comment, and also because if they do check that adds a new story quest, who, how, and why did someone put this cool thing in my pack.
If it is plot significant, I'll tell them that they have this urge to check their inventory, or notice something different in their equipment or some such....
I tend to be a Sand Box DM, I drop plot hooks everywhere, and see which ones the players snag. Well unless I'm following an Official Adventure, then I try and keep to the book until it gets boring for me, and I then scatter some additional plot hooks.
Example, doing Avernus, the players are nearing the end, I'm already adding hooks for Planescape and Vecna.
to be fair, the notes section is not useful at all to take notes for a campaign. you are better off using a word doc or something like OneNote or just a simple notebook.
But as a DM I want full access. There have been times where i have removed items or money, and even made temp stat/skill adjustments from a player due to story reasons, and it makes for fun saturations that the player doesn't know until they go to use that item, money or even skill/stat.