People will use whatever term they want/heard from certain sources, so let's not derail the subject.
The lack of clear separation of content is a problem, as is the clearly waning official support of 2014 content. Which can be understandable AND disappointing at the same time.
& the naming scheme vs fandom terminology based on pre-Hasbro micromanagement of DND patterns & social media discourse is causing people to want a more clear distinction.
But nitpicking over specific terminology won't move the discussion forward.
So, yes, I think a toggle would be nice....but it isn't happening. Investors/shareholders want the newer form of the product, & the services it entails, pushed. Sub bleed is at a contained rate.
it would take a MASSIVE scandal at this point(Say, no OGL for 2024 content, &/or forced integration of Sigil with no opt-in as well as/or low-quality/predatory MTX) to get enough subs to leave to the point where investors feel like handing a 2014/2024 toggle order would be a concession.
So I don't think it will happen barring another OGLgate-tier disaster.
Even the OGL thing a couple of years back was barely a blip. Very few outside the very invested section of the community even know what the OGL is, D&D Beyond actually saw an increase in subscribers in 2023 and even the YouTubers who were protesting the loudest have admitted that at no point did their “other games you can play instead” videos ever did the same watch numbers as the straight D&D content
When a business goes back on their word, irks their customer base do you
A) Reward them
B) Tell them to fix their product to meet the promise they made
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
People will use whatever term they want/heard from certain sources, so let's not derail the subject.
The lack of clear separation of content is a problem, as is the clearly waning official support of 2014 content. Which can be understandable AND disappointing at the same time.
& the naming scheme vs fandom terminology based on pre-Hasbro micromanagement of DND patterns & social media discourse is causing people to want a more clear distinction.
But nitpicking over specific terminology won't move the discussion forward.
So, yes, I think a toggle would be nice....but it isn't happening. Investors/shareholders want the newer form of the product, & the services it entails, pushed. Sub bleed is at a contained rate.
it would take a MASSIVE scandal at this point(Say, no OGL for 2024 content, &/or forced integration of Sigil with no opt-in as well as/or low-quality/predatory MTX) to get enough subs to leave to the point where investors feel like handing a 2014/2024 toggle order would be a concession.
So I don't think it will happen barring another OGLgate-tier disaster.
Even the OGL thing a couple of years back was barely a blip. Very few outside the very invested section of the community even know what the OGL is, D&D Beyond actually saw an increase in subscribers in 2023 and even the YouTubers who were protesting the loudest have admitted that at no point did their “other games you can play instead” videos ever did the same watch numbers as the straight D&D content
When a business goes back on their word, irks their customer base do you
A) Reward them
B) Tell them to fix their product to meet the promise they made
You’re missing the central point which is that the people complaining, even about something as seemingly huge as the OGL felt at the time, are a tiny tiny proportion of the customer base. Why try and please those who will never be happy anyway? It’s much better business to concentrate on the people who are going to carry on regardless
If I might ask what’s the difference between being steered and being railroaded, because I personally feel we have been forced into the newest edition given the way it has been done. Other change of rules never felt like it like a rocket sled aimed at a brick wall to see if the sled survives, passengers and test dummies are expendable, and that matters is did anything survive.
The ability to have made the switch of change was easier than ever, they already had/have the ability to separate 3rd party sources, why couldn’t they use the same method for this?
I appears that yet another bad business decision was made, and topped with the fact that the business has done a significant amount of damage in the last 3 years with the multitude of other bad business decisions has led to the point where the general public is now beginning to question whether the business is worth dealing with.
So are we being steered or being railroaded?, given how an already viable system and solution has been available, like many others this approach appears to be directed towards forcing the public into accepting a quick and questionable change where a slower and easier process was possible.
Don't worry. You are not required to use Beyond. If you feel as though someone is forcing you to do something against your will simple log out and spend your time amd money in a way that will make your gaming experience better for you and your group. Roll20 or maybe Pen and Paper would work better for you.
Since you have only been a user for about a day and a half, hopefully you don't have too much invested yet.
If I might ask what’s the difference between being steered and being railroaded, because I personally feel we have been forced into the newest edition given the way it has been done. Other change of rules never felt like it like a rocket sled aimed at a brick wall to see if the sled survives, passengers and test dummies are expendable, and that matters is did anything survive.
The ability to have made the switch of change was easier than ever, they already had/have the ability to separate 3rd party sources, why couldn’t they use the same method for this?
I appears that yet another bad business decision was made, and topped with the fact that the business has done a significant amount of damage in the last 3 years with the multitude of other bad business decisions has led to the point where the general public is now beginning to question whether the business is worth dealing with.
So are we being steered or being railroaded?, given how an already viable system and solution has been available, like many others this approach appears to be directed towards forcing the public into accepting a quick and questionable change where a slower and easier process was possible.
if you plan to use DDB, then absolutely you are being forced to see, deal, and work around the current ruleset. Older rulesets are now no longer current — they are done.
Other changes in rule sets essentially we’re forced on folks the same exact way -- 1e to 2e, 2e to 2r, 2r to 3e, 3e to 3.5e, 3.5e to 4e, 4e to 4r, 4r to 5e, and now 5e to 2024. You could buy the new books and use them or not. With 4e you had a partial site for a while. Each of these was like a freight train smacking into the community.
There is one major difference: DDB exists.
3rd party sources do not belong to them, and are not old rules that they could have simply stopped making available as a whole.
they did not. They set it up to move folks from old rules to new rules. Rather kind of them considering they didn’t have to.
funny thing — while all of those things happened in the 3 years, the game kept gaining new people and growing. So the general public is not doing that -- only a minority of folks are. If business decisions are bad or good on the basis of growing user base, then they did good. More came than left.
it is a new edition. these arguments happen every single time. The only things that change are the specific bad things the company did and the edition number. Everything else is the same, and has been since 2e.
so, we are going through an edition change: you can stick with what you have and drop out and tune out if you want. Nobody is forcing you to stop using 2014 rules.
dDB has moved to 2024 because it is the home of D&D online — it will always have the most current, newest edition as the primary. They were nice to leave the 2014 stuff up and accessible for some, but it is strictly a thing they did to be nice.
they did not have to. They could have dropped out the 2014 stuff at any time.
they gave a gift horse. Now a bunch of upset folks are looking at its teeth.
but no one is forcing you to move to 2024 rules. DDB is not the only place to play the game or make PCs. Pen and Paper still work marvelously.
but if you want to use DDB, 2014 stuff is now legacy. Like all the other legacy stuff, it requires you hop an extra hoop. Like 3rd party stuff, in fact.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Yeah, what WotC is doing is to put it simple, stupid and a bad business decision. Furthermore, the search for D&D beyond is atrocious, we all know it. How many of us have to use Google and go to other VTT's to get the previously mentioned "conditions", I've been using Roll 20's conditions for a decade now because D&D Beyond can't return it.
Now, factor in D&D Beyond doesn't factor in Legacy Content. Go to eBay, buy a 5E PHB, take a razer to the binding and separate out the pages and clean up the edges. Go to FedEx and use their multipage scanning service with OCR so you can have the test be searchable words. Congrats you now have a PDF of the PHB that you can search the document and find exactly what you want without having to deal with D&D Beyond's search results. And you have them for 5E not 6E.
Maybe the problem is you keep searching for results in a 6e that doesn’t exist? I’ve never had any trouble with the search and book mark function on the DDB app
And how is it a bad business decision to steer (whether willingly or not) customers to the latest product that you’ve spent money creating? That seems like a pretty smart decision to me and exactly what any business tries to do
If I might ask what’s the difference between being steered and being railroaded, because I personally feel we have been forced into the newest edition given the way it has been done. Other change of rules never felt like it like a rocket sled aimed at a brick wall to see if the sled survives, passengers and test dummies are expendable, and that matters is did anything survive.
The ability to have made the switch of change was easier than ever, they already had/have the ability to separate 3rd party sources, why couldn’t they use the same method for this?
I appears that yet another bad business decision was made, and topped with the fact that the business has done a significant amount of damage in the last 3 years with the multitude of other bad business decisions has led to the point where the general public is now beginning to question whether the business is worth dealing with.
So are we being steered or being railroaded?, given how an already viable system and solution has been available, like many others this approach appears to be directed towards forcing the public into accepting a quick and questionable change where a slower and easier process was possible.
If you don’t want to do business with them creating a new account on a site where they use account numbers as a test of popularity is a strange way to start
-D&D Beyond stated they would update all content to new content
-Players said no and there was outrage
-D&D Beyond caved and said they would not replace 5E content
-Cut to 6 months later, D&D Beyond looks around with side eye to see if they can get away with replacing 5E contentkept their promise to maintain all the deprecated content on their platform, but are under no obligation to make it any easier to keep using.
dDB has moved to 2024 because it is the home of D&D online — it will always have the most current, newest edition as the primary. They were nice to leave the 2014 stuff up and accessible for some, but it is strictly a thing they did to be nice.
they did not have to. They could have dropped out the 2014 stuff at any time.
they gave a gift horse. Now a bunch of upset folks are looking at its teeth.
but no one is forcing you to move to 2024 rules. DDB is not the only place to play the game or make PCs. Pen and Paper still work marvelously.
but if you want to use DDB, 2014 stuff is now legacy. Like all the other legacy stuff, it requires you hop an extra hoop. Like 3rd party stuff, in fact.
I'll also add that everybody on this platform agreed that they had the ability to switch us over to 2024 (or any other change really) when we signed up.
As a fan of 4e, they shut off our online tools completely. All they had to do was pay the server costs to keep it running, but they chose not to.
But damn me if it didn't work. There was too much to keep track of across all the books to really enjoy character building/management without it, so our group moved to 5e. It's fun, but even now I'd switch back if I could and my group would get on board with it.
An integral, inevitable part of every new edition is the "soft push" to get people to upgrade. They can't stop you from playing the old edition, but they can make it inconvenient enough that a large percentage of folks will make the switch.
All that being said, 5e has still been far less expensive in $$$ per hour of fun than any other hobby of mine, and the company needs to stay afloat. There are far greater injustices in this world to be upset about.
I joined to see if this site was worth using, but given i’m a newcomer asking questions and giving feedback about issues that are relevant, and after the not so welcoming and almost flaming trollable responses from people who are asked simple questions, why should I stick around anad have to defend any of the responses to a legitimate discussion?
If the ability to have a discussion that is sensitive to some is impossible, then why the feeling of being targeted is anow currently a problem I seem to have found myself in, and even though the account is new, it doesn’t mean I am here just to gripe, but to understand if choosing to spend good money is worth the risk of having that money going to waste.
I shall wait longer and see if the hesitation is the smarter option, as currently the tepid atmosphere of this platform is palatable to walking into a starving wolf den wearing a blood soaked meat suit.
Have a nice evening.
Some of us in this community are short and prickly because we have to deal with a vocal minority who make unreasonable demands of Beyond or just stirring trouble in general.
As for the topic at hand, I agree with many others that there should be a toggle to turn off 2024 content. Where I differ is in the expectation of whether they will implement it (I do not think they will), the expectation in degree of separation (having a toggle just for the drop down menus in the character builder is enough in my opinion; others call for more separation in overall terminology, tool tips, and other digital tools, which I think is unreasonable due to the difficulty and work in doing so), and implementation (some call for duplication of every item, even if there is only a minor difference in wording, which is excessive in my opinion, and makes the already bloated drop down menu worse for users like me who uses both old and new rules).
I am going to tell you straight to not spend money on Beyond, and you are better off with a different digital toolset. I think you are looking for more than just plain convenience, and Beyond will not offer you anything more than just the barest of conveniences. However, it does not hurt to still give Beyond a try, and it will give you something to compare to when you check out other digital tools. Ask your D&D community for help to give you access to Beyond's digital content, and after you have secured someone who is willing to help you, then you activate the free trial of the Master Tier subscription, and you can experience all that Beyond has to offer. If you are just a casual hobbyist, Beyond's convenience is more than enough. However, if you want to do anything even remotely slightly advanced, Beyond is not the tool for you. Beyond does not even have full implementation of RAW in the character builder (many slightly more obscure rules and optional rules are not supported, such as temporary effects, Dark Gifts, Spell Points, etc.). Beyond's homebrew tool is extremely limited in capability. Beyond's third party support is absolutely atrocious. Beyond's/Hasbro's shipping and handling is also inconsistent and subpar, so do not order physical books from here. And since we are in this particular thread, Beyond does not do a good job of separating 2014 and 2024 content.
For official digital tools, your best options are Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. I have dabbled in Roll20's character builder a tiny bit, but I have not used much of the rest of the platform to give you a solid review. I have not tried Fantasy Grounds, but it seems comparable to Roll20. Foundry is another official digital tool set comparable to Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, but it only supports a tiny handful of D&D books since their partnership with Wizards is relatively new, so it is severely lacking in convenience.
When a business goes back on their word, irks their customer base do you
A) Reward them
B) Tell them to fix their product to meet the promise they made
C) Carry on and Keep Calm.
which is what most people do.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
You’re missing the central point which is that the people complaining, even about something as seemingly huge as the OGL felt at the time, are a tiny tiny proportion of the customer base. Why try and please those who will never be happy anyway? It’s much better business to concentrate on the people who are going to carry on regardless
Don't worry. You are not required to use Beyond. If you feel as though someone is forcing you to do something against your will simple log out and spend your time amd money in a way that will make your gaming experience better for you and your group. Roll20 or maybe Pen and Paper would work better for you.
Since you have only been a user for about a day and a half, hopefully you don't have too much invested yet.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
if you plan to use DDB, then absolutely you are being forced to see, deal, and work around the current ruleset. Older rulesets are now no longer current — they are done.
Other changes in rule sets essentially we’re forced on folks the same exact way -- 1e to 2e, 2e to 2r, 2r to 3e, 3e to 3.5e, 3.5e to 4e, 4e to 4r, 4r to 5e, and now 5e to 2024. You could buy the new books and use them or not. With 4e you had a partial site for a while. Each of these was like a freight train smacking into the community.
There is one major difference: DDB exists.
3rd party sources do not belong to them, and are not old rules that they could have simply stopped making available as a whole.
they did not. They set it up to move folks from old rules to new rules. Rather kind of them considering they didn’t have to.
funny thing — while all of those things happened in the 3 years, the game kept gaining new people and growing. So the general public is not doing that -- only a minority of folks are. If business decisions are bad or good on the basis of growing user base, then they did good. More came than left.
it is a new edition. these arguments happen every single time. The only things that change are the specific bad things the company did and the edition number. Everything else is the same, and has been since 2e.
so, we are going through an edition change: you can stick with what you have and drop out and tune out if you want. Nobody is forcing you to stop using 2014 rules.
dDB has moved to 2024 because it is the home of D&D online — it will always have the most current, newest edition as the primary. They were nice to leave the 2014 stuff up and accessible for some, but it is strictly a thing they did to be nice.
they did not have to. They could have dropped out the 2014 stuff at any time.
they gave a gift horse. Now a bunch of upset folks are looking at its teeth.
but no one is forcing you to move to 2024 rules. DDB is not the only place to play the game or make PCs. Pen and Paper still work marvelously.
but if you want to use DDB, 2014 stuff is now legacy. Like all the other legacy stuff, it requires you hop an extra hoop. Like 3rd party stuff, in fact.
Edit for spelling and emphasis.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
If you don’t want to do business with them creating a new account on a site where they use account numbers as a test of popularity is a strange way to start
Fixed that last part for you
I'll also add that everybody on this platform agreed that they had the ability to switch us over to 2024 (or any other change really) when we signed up.
As a fan of 4e, they shut off our online tools completely. All they had to do was pay the server costs to keep it running, but they chose not to.
But damn me if it didn't work. There was too much to keep track of across all the books to really enjoy character building/management without it, so our group moved to 5e. It's fun, but even now I'd switch back if I could and my group would get on board with it.
An integral, inevitable part of every new edition is the "soft push" to get people to upgrade. They can't stop you from playing the old edition, but they can make it inconvenient enough that a large percentage of folks will make the switch.
All that being said, 5e has still been far less expensive in $$$ per hour of fun than any other hobby of mine, and the company needs to stay afloat. There are far greater injustices in this world to be upset about.
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
Some of us in this community are short and prickly because we have to deal with a vocal minority who make unreasonable demands of Beyond or just stirring trouble in general.
As for the topic at hand, I agree with many others that there should be a toggle to turn off 2024 content. Where I differ is in the expectation of whether they will implement it (I do not think they will), the expectation in degree of separation (having a toggle just for the drop down menus in the character builder is enough in my opinion; others call for more separation in overall terminology, tool tips, and other digital tools, which I think is unreasonable due to the difficulty and work in doing so), and implementation (some call for duplication of every item, even if there is only a minor difference in wording, which is excessive in my opinion, and makes the already bloated drop down menu worse for users like me who uses both old and new rules).
I am going to tell you straight to not spend money on Beyond, and you are better off with a different digital toolset. I think you are looking for more than just plain convenience, and Beyond will not offer you anything more than just the barest of conveniences. However, it does not hurt to still give Beyond a try, and it will give you something to compare to when you check out other digital tools. Ask your D&D community for help to give you access to Beyond's digital content, and after you have secured someone who is willing to help you, then you activate the free trial of the Master Tier subscription, and you can experience all that Beyond has to offer. If you are just a casual hobbyist, Beyond's convenience is more than enough. However, if you want to do anything even remotely slightly advanced, Beyond is not the tool for you. Beyond does not even have full implementation of RAW in the character builder (many slightly more obscure rules and optional rules are not supported, such as temporary effects, Dark Gifts, Spell Points, etc.). Beyond's homebrew tool is extremely limited in capability. Beyond's third party support is absolutely atrocious. Beyond's/Hasbro's shipping and handling is also inconsistent and subpar, so do not order physical books from here. And since we are in this particular thread, Beyond does not do a good job of separating 2014 and 2024 content.
For official digital tools, your best options are Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. I have dabbled in Roll20's character builder a tiny bit, but I have not used much of the rest of the platform to give you a solid review. I have not tried Fantasy Grounds, but it seems comparable to Roll20. Foundry is another official digital tool set comparable to Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, but it only supports a tiny handful of D&D books since their partnership with Wizards is relatively new, so it is severely lacking in convenience.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >