Instead of a video Dev Update this week, Adam Bradford has joined Reddit for an Ask Me Anything! He's answering questions related to the roadmap for D&D Beyond, his personal D&D story, and how much sweet tea he drinks in a day.
EDIT: The AMA has ended! You can read the whole thing at the link above, and all the questions Adam answered are copied below in the first two replies with source links.
Unquantifiable - he's legitimately one of the most creative souls I've ever met. He's operating on a different wavelength than most of the world, and the world benefits because of it.
I really feel like tablets are the obvious preferred platform for using any sort of online character sheet in play, but right now the DDB character sheet seems designed mostly for cell phones at one end, and laptops at the other, so I wonder if I'm the odd one out on this. Overall what's the distribution of devices that users are using to access their character sheets in play? Mostly laptops? Mostly phones?
Your feeling here is indeed false according to our data. The large majority of character sheet views comes from "desktop" resolutions (greater than 1024) and the next highest is "phone" resolutions (under 450). The current breakdown for the character sheet is right at Desktop = 60%, Mobile = 30%, Tablet = 10%.
This could mean the tablet experience isn't as good as it should be (we don't see too many complaints after some of the recent changes we've made), players view the sheet a great deal during the week while not playing (like during work - watch for your boss over your shoulder!), that our players do not have the hardware in hand, or other factors we're still exploring.
Hi Adam! Are there any plans to allow campaign and character management through the native D&D Beyond app on iOS and Android (I assume there’s an Android app, I personally use iOS) as opposed to exclusively through the web app? Thanks!
Since development for the mobile app started later in our product lifecycle (due to community feedback requesting it to exist), we have been in a "catching up" mode to this point. We want to focus on those features which can really benefit from the mobile platform as the priority. To this point, that has not included consideration of our (initial) campaign management. We'll keep an eye on feedback (such as yours here!) to see if that makes it to the roadmap in the future.
Does your team have plans to expand the capabilities of DDB to additional browsers?
I have only used DDB for 1 and a half campaigns because I was having issues with the interface. I run off Chrome OS and use Chrome browser for everything. Talking to my other players they say the system is optimized for Mozilla Firefox and after trying it out on other computers I agree. Unfortunately that is the reason I stopped using DDB because it became to difficult to focus on DMing my games while using the system
So with the new movements at a higher level can we expect to see more investments in multi-platform functionality?
This is not actually true - we prioritize optimization to Chrome first, as 64% of our traffic uses that browser. The next closest is Safari at 22%, and then Firefox at 4%.
If you're having specific issues with DDB on Chrome, we would like to see those examples so we can address them. Our forums are the best place to share that feedback: ddb.ac/forums
We don't hear of any issues from the bulk of our userbase, so there could be something going on for ChromeOS that we could explore.
I am THRILLED with the wireframe of the encounter builder and anxiously looking forward to alpha testing it. With what looked like an ability to add PCs from my campaign (DM Account) is their hope that the system will look at their abilities/items in balancing the encounters or will it strictly look at level?
I currently use Kobold to help build encounters, but regularly need to build encounters 2 levels higher at a minimum based on things I've given the players over time.
Also, will we be able to limit monsters available by content I've purchased only? I have the core books and homebrew the adventures, but sporadically purchase one off monsters from the adventure books as needed.
1) I'm glad you're thrilled. We're looking forward to the alpha approach because we believe we'll get to what the community really needs/ wants quicker. At first, it will only look at level, according to the encounter building guidelines in the DMG/ XGtE. Over time (post-monster builder), we could see some expansion of the math to be more complex.
2) Yes, there will be a variety of filters, including filtering down to monsters you have unlocked.
We've seen a lot of improvements to Beyond from the player's side in terms of improving the character sheet, what plans are there to improve things from the DM's side?
Big question that I can't answer in a single post, but I'll try to high-level it.
Your are correct, much of our effort has been centered around character management to this point. In 2019, we're moving into "challenges management" with the encounter builder and monster builder. Once we have characters and challenges in a good place, we will combine them into what we've been calling "combat automation." That's a vague term, but the gist is you can track initiative, target creatures, track temporary effects, and more.
This has been the major trajectory since Day 0 for us, and we're still marching forward with it.
As for something concrete to sink your teeth into as a DM in 2019 - we have a customizable digital DM screen that coming!
What are the implications of being acquired by a site that is illegally hosting WotC content (dnd5e dot fandom dot com)?
Will this site be taken down since it both competes with the D&D Beyond service and could jeopardize your relationship with WotC?
The internet is a big place, and no company can know every single site/ place that does things they shouldn't be doing. WotC addresses any issues with illegal content as they are made aware of it - it is their responsibility and has no impact on our agreement with them.
What kind of preparations do your writers (James Haeck, Todd, recently Michael Shea) go through to complete an article?
i.e. Internal review from you or Todd? Do they use Markdown or another type of software to format it correctly? Is there a "private test page" where they can see how it looks on the site? I am just generally interested in the process of writing articles these articles.
P.S. I met you once in a book store, and you were a delight to talk to. Keep up the good work at DDB!
Our writers typically draft an article in their word processor of choice (typically MS Word).
They then copy/ paste that content into our internally-built Content Management System (CMS) as a "post."
The post is reviewed by an editor (typically by Todd) and given the green light.
The post is published through the CMS when it's time for it to be live.
Our CMS is a pretty typical WYSIWYG that creates the post in HTML.
Hi Adam, I have a couple questions regarding Homebrew content, and two about integrations.
Is adding the ability to modify (or even create) base classes ever going to come? I recently wanted to make a Paladin sub class a spontaneous caster. I created a workaround but it was quite obtuse and isn't very maintainable.
Will there be documentation on all the different options for magic items? I wanted to add a bonus to hit (but not damage), make the weapon a 1d4 + 1d6, and have critical hits become lightning. I don't know if any of this was possible because the options weren't well explained.
Will we ever see an encounter builder? KFC is awesome, but I would love to not switch tabs when I'm checking out monsters.
Will there ever be integrations with e.g Fantasy Grounds?
Yes, I've made the decision based on community feedback that base classes will be homebrew-able at some point in the future.
Our homebrew system from the beginning has been a slightly pretty skin on the internal tools that we have used to create all the meta-information needed for DDB. It has never been considered a permanent solution, and much more work will be happening in 2019 to improve the user experience, including tutorials/ descriptions of all the various modifiers and how they work.
Yes, I've shared more details about the upcoming encounter builder in a few of the recent dev update streams. Definitely coming, and subscribers will get early alpha access.
We would love to see integrations with third-parties, but no ETA at this time.
Hi Adam! This might fall under your first bullet point, but just to ask: is there any discussion happening regarding gift cards or methods to purchase DDB content for a friend? With the holidays coming around myself and quite a few friends have realized it would be great to get some digital content as a Christmas gift for the DMs in our lives, but there's no great way to really gift that sort of thing without just telling the recipient, "Hey, I'll pitch you $30 towards DDB stuff." This would also be useful for the DnD group that wants to all pitch in for their DM to get a new adventure or supplement. I'd love to see this on the development road map in the future!
No gift cards or gifting this holiday season, but if I do ONE thing next year it will be to make sure we can have it in place for the 2019 holiday season.
Any plans for a virtual tabletop? I think we need more competition in that arena.
Our roadmap is extensive, and (without exaggeration) the bulk of it has not been publicly shared. I don't think it's a stretch to conceive that we will want to have a virtual tabletop (or rather the next generation of that) at some point in our future.
The issue with even stating that is expectations instantly twist those words into "DDB is releasing a VTT in Q1 of 2019," which is categorically false.
Can you give us any hints as to what extra services D&D Beyond will be introducing to sway those who are on the fence about it's current value for money?
I openly share about these things in our regular dev updates. A list of the short-term roadmap:
encounter builder, character sheet on native mobile, DDB discord server, content management (white/blacklisting content), additional login providers (outside of Twitch), accessibility updates, character builder overhaul, monster builder, homebrew revamp
That's just the short term, but we've talked about some others that are longer term like inventory management updates, initiative/ combat tracking, and more.
I completely understand the revenue stream of needing to buy the books in DDB, etc. I DM for my son and a few of his friends. The all have accounts and I have them added in our campaign giving them access to all the things I've purchased. I also have two other campaigns where we're adding one shot characters as each of the boys have started taking their turns behind the screen. Those are slowly becoming small campaigns that they want to continue slowly over time...then of course there are more one shots.
As a company you've got to generate revenue for sure, which means content restrictions. I guess I'm round about asking if there's any intent on extending the numbers of campaigns a DM account can share with or making it tied less to PCs and more to the actual player accounts?
We are absolutely going to change content sharing to be player-based instead of character-based. No ETA, but my hope is to start working that early next year.
We could also end up having a set number of sharing slots that can be shared across any number of campaigns, but we haven't confirmed that approach yet.
Hey Adam! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. I know this question involves major long term decisions, but I wondered if I could at least get a “it’s on our minds” sort of answer.
With the encounter builder releasing, and online dnd play becoming so popular, does DnDBeyond or Wizards have any plans to implement a virtual tabletop on DnDBeyond?
On a side note, what should I make for Christmas dinner? No one can decide!
I briefly addressed the VTT question elsewhere, so I'll leave it out here to avoid too much duplication.
For Christmas dinner, I personally believe you can't go wrong with turkey, twice-baked potatoes, pan-seared brussel sprouts, and some sweet tea.
Add my complaint to the pile. I've only not used character sheets on tablet because it's a really bad experience.
I appreciate you adding the feedback for volume purposes, but it would be much more helpful to understand what makes it a "really bad experience." Since it will get lost here, our forums are the best place to share that feedback: ddb.ac/forums. Thanks!
What's on the roadmap for Master Tier subscribers?
One of the things I'd really love to see is the ability per campaign to limit which content is shared. Somewhat related would be the ability to prevent spoilers from sharing adventure modules. For example, I want to share Tomb with my Tomb campaign and Strahd with my Strahd campaign, but not vice versa. Additionally, if its shared with them, I don't want them using search to lookup something mundane like "trident" and popping up spoilers about a major quest item from Princes of Apocalypse and the major villain that wields it.
As shared in other replies, content sharing management is in progress currently.
I think this is the fear that really locked this in for me. I’ve DMd these kids to level 13 over the past year (all of our first experiences with D&D/TTRPG). The intent is to get them to level 20 for the close of the campaign.
At that point we’ll move on, but I can’t imagine losing these characters. Sure we can print out a sheet, but I want to be able to check on them.
What if 10 years from now we decide to do a level 20 out of retirement one shot?
Maybe since they’re in my campaign I could have an option to copy them to my account and then down the road assign ownership back.
Adam, how could you sleep at night if we lost Roo, Zamfir, Erik, Mornom, and Yossaryn?
Please keep in mind that any character created using content sharing elements will retain those elements even if content sharing is turned off for that campaign.
You wouldn't lose Roo, Zamfir, Erik, Mornom, or Yossaryn if you turned it off for that campaign - those characters just simply wouldn't be able to add any new, non-unlocked content.
Is there any ETA on improvements to the search engine on your site? Because of How often I can’t find What I’m looking for like rules for example opportunity attacks or jump height, i usually avoid it. So can we expect better search functionallity soon?
We are always looking at ways to improve, including search. I'm not sure what your definition of "soon" is, so I won't make that promise, but we do use search term data to help us prioritize what people are looking for and what they eventually end up on to make those changes.
With the recent purchase of Curse by Fandom, what changes do you expect in the near or far future?
I've seen a lot of trepidation floating around the community, and while I'm optimistic that things at DDB will stay awesome or even improve, it would be nice to hear a little about what effects you think this change will bring.
Also, I'm very grateful for the care put into DDB. I now no longer have to hardcode excel sheets to make and manage my characters. Thanks for that.
I couldn't be more excited about the news. DDB will be able to do bigger and better things because of it.
...I can assure everyone to the nth degree that this does not negatively impact (or change) anything that we're doing for DDB at all - save the fact that we will now have the ability to invest even more into resources to achieve the vision we have for it. No staff changes other than giving us more to work with and we're still going to be the best digital resource we can be for Dungeons & Dragons. I am personally thrilled (not a party line) that this has happened and there's nothing but win for all of us D&D fans.
And after a user (rightly so) pointed out that this sounds like what everyone ever has said about these things I shared:
Oh I know and easily sympathize. But just like I said when we announced DDB and there was so much backlash, the "proof is in the pudding." I know that skepticism is natural for something like this, but that just makes me excited to see that melt away as we move forward and continue to do bigger and better things.
Hi. Do you have quantified or estimated data that shows the impact Critical Role sponsorship has on sales/subscription that you can share with us? I am wondering just how much that relationship helped the product.
Yes, we definitely have the data. I reached out to the CR team towards the end of the first campaign knowing that working with them from the start of campaign two would be a big win for all parties, and that has proven true on all fronts.
It has had a major impact for us, and they have shared that the cast loves using DDB.
Any fun test classes or races we can expect on DDB? Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter is such a unique class, are there plans on developing more things like this for the players to test out?
We are always looking to add great content and will continue to explore ways to do so. At some point the community will be able to homebrew base classes, so we'll likely see a great deal of creativity when that time comes!
Is there any chance for players and DMs who have purchased the hardcover books to someday be able to access that content electronically on D&D Beyond without needing to re-purchase the books?
No. You are not re-purchasing books by investing in D&D Beyond - you are investing in a digital toolset and game companion that does far more than simply grant you electronic access to the books. The amount of things it will do beyond that will continue to increase as time goes on through the years.
My question is: Do you have any plans on implementing an option to give customers a discount for the digital content if they bought the physical books? I am referring to this thread:
Outside of things on the short and long term roadmap, what is something you hope to someday bring to the DDB platform that hasn't really been discussed yet?
Looking for the spoilers, nice play. :)
A way to visualize your character as a 3D model. We haven't really talked about that, but we're going to make it happen eventually.
Hey there, thanks for taking the time to do this AMA!
I just had a minor question. It was said by the @D&DBeyond twitter that there weren't going to be any ways to get the special frames and images for character sheets if you hadn't preordered Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, which is sad. My question is, aside from preordering upcoming books, will we ever get more options for customization of the character sheet like that, or the ability to upload our own backgrounds and such?
Those bonuses are intended to be a "special" limited thing, but we've seen a great deal of feedback and are considering ways to open it up to others somehow. No actual details on how yet.
Hey there, thanks for taking the time to do this AMA!
I just had a minor question. It was said by the @D&DBeyond twitter that there weren't going to be any ways to get the special frames and images for character sheets if you hadn't preordered Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, which is sad. My question is, aside from preordering upcoming books, will we ever get more options for customization of the character sheet like that, or the ability to upload our own backgrounds and such?
And I accidentally missed the "upload your own" part. We could allow this at some point in the future, but nothing to share yet.
Briv versus Avren; could you take him? Strategy, how assured is victory, and where is Briv celebrating after if he wins?
Briv believes he could best anyone (whether he's right or not). End of the day, I just don't see those two fighting, at least for any real length of time (they're too much Thor/ Loki). And Briv will always celebrate wherever there's the most meat.
Can we expect to see support for Adventurer's League rules in the Character Builder? More options to enable/disable particular sourcebooks during a build, or an indication of which sourcebooks particular features are from?
For sure - more comprehensive AL support is coming in 2019.
Are there any plans (be they way, way down the line) to integrate older versions of D&D to the D&D Beyond system? Maybe building a sibling system to what’s in place for 5e?
No current plans - the demand does not seem to be there to justify the expense. If there are major holdouts out there, let us know and we'll see over time if it makes a difference.
Hi Adam! Thanks for taking the time! I just ran my first session with D&D Beyond and had a blast. What are a few tips you would give a brand new DDB DM?
Awesome!
1) Remember search is your friend.
2) Open tabs for monsters you imagine the party could encounter in the session (this won't be needed once encounters are added next year).
3) Have the adventure you're running open to its Table of Contents in one tab, and each time you need to jump around to sections middle-mouse-click to open new tabs (always keeping the ToC there).
4) Remember that Rule 0 is to have fun! That includes the DM.
I have to say thanks for helping the /r/lfg mod team with prizes to give away over the past year. As a user of the platform I'm super happy with it and look forward to the updates to come.
So I guess my question is - you guys hiring community people? :P
We are not currently hiring anyone on the community side, but we are always looking for stellar candidates whether we have roles open or not. Check out curse.com/careers for more info.
Do you plan to add a feature to allow DM's to put homebrew items into character inventories?
A DM can already do this by accessing the player's character sheet directly, but I imagine there will be a way to do this as we cover shared/ party inventory in the future.
Y'all taking suggestions on that "challenges management" portion, or do you have what you want to see don't generally mapped out by this point?
The encounter builder is the first part of challenges management, and it will enter alpha testing - where we explicitly ask for your feedback - next year. Subscribers will get early alpha access.
Any plans to explore any sort of campaign management solutions? That would be a super cool product that is sorely lacking in the digital arena for games. As a DM I have found the tools for tracking campaigns, handouts, and other knowledge I want my players to conveniently be able to review between sessions HORRIBLY lacking.
We have discussed "campaign management" at length with the community on the forums, and the truth is that term means many different things to different people.
I encourage you to look for some of the existing threads on the topic or create your own there to capture what it is that you would like to see. We take all of that feedback seriously. ddb.ac/forums
It's very strange how different our experiences can be. DDB = completely nonfunctional on phone for me (iPhone w/ either safari or chrome, app functions are fine but limited to lookup only), and the tablet version works pretty darn near 100% (iPad). What tablet were you attempting to use?
It's very strange how different our experiences can be.
This fact is the thing that makes prioritization hard in the first place - different strokes for different folks.
We do the best we can to do the best for the most, and then try hard to cover the gaps.
Most iPads have resolutions higher than 1024, right? I could be totally off the mark here, and there may be other things you’re tracking, but surely resolution alone doesn’t tell you much?
For the record, though, I think the character sheet is excellent on mobile, and it’s seen a lot of improvement since the launch. Keep it up!
An iPad Pro at its biggest is 1366 x 1024 (the resolution will say it's double that, but that's what gets you a retina display). Of course resolution is not the only determinant for what makes a tablet, but it is the primary for what kind of experience we deliver.
Would something like the surface pro be considered a desktop or a tablet? If you're calculating by resolution alone I feel like your numbers might be way off.
The actual type of device is not very relevant when it comes to screen layout. You can change a browser window on desktop to look like a tablet or phone for instance. Resolution is the key to how the layout is constructed and therefore the key for us.
I would 100% prefer to be able to run everything out of the app. Especially on tablets, doing everything in-browser can be frustratingly slow and clunky, and you have to deal with reloading pages if you hit the wrong button.
The app should function as more than just a really basic reader.
I personally disagree that the reader is "basic," but the mobile app is not a finished product. From the beginning we have said we are beta testing, beginning with the e-reader, expanding to the filterable listings, and then on to the character sheet. We have delivered steps one and two, and the final step is forthcoming.
Will we see popular ones like the Pugilist or the Mist Walker make it to DDB before or after homebrew becomes an option? (Like we did with the Bloodhunter.)
I understand 3rd party integration with big players is difficult due to both code and contracts, but what about newer/smaller services like Astral Tabletop? I'd imagine it's be easier to integrate with them both in terms of their code being less complex/less established, and I'm sure some of them would bend over backwards to make it happen (I know the d20 Pro developers have been looking into scraping your json code to import characters directly).
I'm glad my answer got you engaging with higher powers. :)
Nothing to share on the topic of additional third-party content because it's just not confirmed yet. As soon as we have something concrete, we'll share all the details.
I wouldn't mind a nice google-like set of search keywords/arguments I could use to narrow things down further. For example, on the site, I can search narrowed down to 'compendium' to get excerpts from specifically the books, but sometimes I know exactly what book I'm looking for a quote from and it would help to filter out other results (especially if I'm looking for a tangential reference in a book and the other sources with my search terms are way more commonly searched for). It'd be cool to be able to do something like: "in:DMG Sunlight" (arbitrary example, sorry, can't remember what my 'real' use case of this was last from the last time I needed it) to specifically search inside the DMG (unless I'm missing a way to do exactly that).
Exact quotes would also be nice, I.E., in google you can search for a block of text within quotation marks and it will return results with exactly those words in that order together. Sometimes I know a phrase in a rule but have a hard time finding the entire block of text around it.
Hello Adam! I was wondering if there was any thoughts given to providing DMs tools for managing the party. Like a page that consolidates all the players' stats, passive senses, and bonuses for quick (secret) look ups mid-adventure?
This will come as part of what we're calling a digital DM screen in 2019.
You guys have added in a ton of filter options for spells under the advanced filters which has been great!
Are there any plans to continue adding more and more niche filters? (I see subclass is coming soon, that's awesome!)
Example of niche filters:
Area of effect (fire ball), vs Multi Target (scorching ray), vs Single Target (Fire bolt)
Vision required vs vision not required
Target a creature vs target a point
Range: Self, vs Touch, vs 0ft, vs >0ft
Many many more I can't think of right now
To give a bit of context I want these filters so I can easily create a spellcaster who is blind for example, so I can check what spells are available to cast without vision (I know its not many). Or If I wanted to see what spells could interact with the Spell Sniper feat, etc.
Great suggestions and I already saw one of the devs bring this up to the teams before I even got to reading this. We intend to add more filters next year, but our current layout doesn't make that ideal. We plan to update the listings to have left-side filters that are scroll-able where we can have as many as make sense.
Is there a reason that when I type something in the search bar, then click an autofill option from the dropdown, I then have to hit Search (or Enter) to actually fire the search? I always expect it to run the search when I click the autofill option, like Google does, so I waste a couple seconds waiting for it to go before I remember I have to hit Enter.
I realize this is a breathtakingly nitpicky question! I use DDB every week and love it, I've just always wondered this. :)
EDIT: Unrelated bonus followup question-- I remember in 2015 seeing a ton of job postings for Curse on Stack Overflow. Was this when you were building the DDB team, and was I a huge fool for not applying?
To be honest I'm not sure on your first question. We'll discuss that and figure it out.
On the second question, we have grown from 5 developers to 14 this year. The plan is to grow to 25+ next year. Keep an eye on the pages and on announcements - we'll be hiring plenty more.
Collected questions and answers from the AMA Part 2:
Question:
Why can't we scan a code or something to enable Beyond access to physical books we've already purchased?
Why does the app lack any of the character information from the browser version? I feel like the app itself is a major missed opportunity because it's more of a reference than anything actionable in-game.
I'll not duplicate my answer to the first question.
As for the native mobile app, we did not start out with D&D Beyond knowing whether we would have one or not. Everything we make for the web is fully responsive, which means it works on any screen size/ device in the browser. We saw after launch that the community still wanted to see an app, so we started development in response to that.
It's not so much a missed opportunity as an unfinished opportunity. We are currently working to add character sheets to the beta, so that will happen sometime next year.
Are their plans to add content from Strongholds and Followers?
Also, I'd really like an encounter builder where I select members of my campaign and their items+level are accounted for. Kind of like Kobold Fight Club but with more information and options.
I would love to see Strongholds & Followers on D&D Beyond, but we have no details to share for that as of now.
As for the encounter builder, I've mentioned elsewhere that it is currently in development and we'll see the alpha next year.
Do you think it would be possible to offer a flat rate for creating a character in DnDBeyond?.
For some combinations I have to but race, class, subclass, spells, feats and it all adds up, I know that's the business model but sometimes it discourages me from using it for more casual characters.
I'm not sure I fully understand the question, apologies.
The pricing model is determined through our partnership with WotC - it is unlikely to change for piece-meal purchases in the near future.
Can you share any thoughts on what y'all would do if WotC decided to release an update/overhaul to the core rules, as with D&D 3.5 (a hypothetical 5.5E)? With the internet and tools like D&D Beyond it seems like the perfect environment to make incremental and precise changes to the game over time rather than committing to major revisions and print runs, though I recognize we may not be quite there in terms of the proportion of digital to physical media users to make that sort of thing viable compared to solely mirroring the existing print versions in terms of content.
I would rather not speculate since some would take that as my confirmation that "5.5" is coming or some other nonsense.
I'll say that we are going to support anything that the WotC D&D team comes up with in the future, and yes, the digital nature of D&D Beyond helps keep everything up-to-date.
One question that I've had bothering me for a while is the statistic about the most common D&D character being the human fighter. This bothered me because that race and class are both available from the SRD which anyone can get for free.
My question is: What is the most common race/class combination for users with more than just the SRD. What about those that own the Player's Handbook? And what about those who own all the books?
Human fighter on all fronts.
Many seem to balk at this, but I assure you that the human fighter has been the most-played race/ class combination since the first edition of the game.
There are several reasons for this, but one of the most-commonly cited is familiarity and straightforwardness of play.
I myself like to play fighters because I can concentrate on what makes them complex from a story perspective instead of a mechanics perspective.
Was it ever considered to have a subscription tier that includes all the content? I like DDB a lot, but I have all the books already and rebuying them isn’t going to happen.
All subscription options were considered at length. We ended up on the other side of that process with what we've got.
Any chance of a character builder mode where all official content is available but if you don't have the requisite sources you can't save it, but instead generate a list of stuff you'd need to buy to save the character? This would make it much easier for me to motivate purchases, especially so if it can optimize between buying piecemeal and buying whole books.
Yes, actually. On our "mid-term" roadmap is an overhaul of how choices appear in the builder/ sheet to include everything that's available with a clear display for what you have not unlocked. You will be able to bundle that together if desired or simply buy the full source if relevant.
Right now we have generic dropdowns in those places, but we'll end up with a better, richer experience that gives more information helpful to making those choice decisions.
I'm 100% invested in 5e, and DNDBeyond. I have my legendary bundle, and my master tier subscription has been active since the beginning.
I'm watching the dev updates live, I'm constantly homebrewing new stuff for my games using your tools, and browsing the community homebrew stuff. I'm constantly using the mobile app to re read my books and prep for adventures.
It's great. I'm all in. Running 3 campaigns, participating in 1 other, all using dndbeyond. Just wanted to say you're doing a great job.
But I'm committed to going even bigger with my hobby, and money isn't an issue.
Dndbeyond isn't giving me what I need to run even more campaigns, and I don't have enough room in a dndbeyond campaign to run a West Marches style game. Are there plans for different monetization tiers, so I can have more content sharing slots, and/or more players per campaign?
We've seen this come up a few times, and I imagine we will provide a way to add additional content sharing slots in the future.
Assuming these characters were fighting one on one to the death, and they were of equal level and equally had magic items, who would you cheer on to win in each instance?
Grog or Yasha?
Scanlan or Caleb?
Vax or Nott?
Pike or Jester?
Gilmore or The Gentleman?
I'm afraid all of my answers will end up being the Campaign 1 characters - I just don't know these Campaign 2 characters well enough yet to root for them over their predecessors.
Give it another year or two and that could change!
The lucky chance. Giving you a chance to roll again if you roll low.. almost every group I play with bans this ability. Do you think it’s over powered or are we just not using it right?
Are you referring to the Lucky feat? If so, I allow it.
In fact, I allow any and all optional rules in my games because I love variety. Lucky is powerful, but it just makes sense for some characters.
My character Briv Steelmarrow will likely end up with Lucky at some point since he's in love with the goddess of luck and is chasing her to the ends of the world. :)
As an avid D&D Beyond user I have noticed a few issues that aren't really bugs or incorrect info, but I cannot imagine they are intended (Images lining up to make text appear in one letter wide columns, images clearly not with the section they are related to, etc.)
As a general note is there a place I can go to draw attention to these sorts of issues?
Love the website, it has really upjumped my knowledge as a DM and a player!
Our forums are the absolute best place to share those: ddb.ac/forums
Can you use all of your of the acquisition investment to have more DnD cartoons produced? I know you guys have a road map and goals, and I really appreciate that. But your video and the new Crit Roll intro are amazing.
I doubt anyone would love to see D&D animation get greenlit more than me. The old 80's cartoon was my introduction to Dungeons & Dragons and I love animated entertainment.
There's no telling what could happen in the future. 15 years ago something like what Marvel has done with the MCU was a complete pipe dream.
How much input did twitch/Amazon have in your decision making process, and how much do you forsee Fandom having in the decision making process in the future?
Curse has had an incredible amount of autonomy and will continue to have that going forward. D&D Beyond has been successful and we have no intention of making changes to change that.
Is there any movement on getting the D&D Beyond app into the Amazon appstore? I know we can sideload Google Play to get DDB onto a Fire tablet, but it would be nice to have a native app available.
We want to do this and I imagine we'll see it in 2019. We'll share more as we're able.
Is there any roadmap between D&DB and WotC in terms of included Beyond licensing with future physical book releases? Included scratch-off purchase codes, and what not?
We are exploring all avenues on our side. More to share as we have things we are able to.
My player sold his soul to Dispater so that another player could have arms. The deal means Dispater could collect the soul at any time, not just after their death. I'm certain having someone on the material plane is useful and I don't want to end my player's character. How do I appropriately punish them?
Dispater rarely travels outside his Iron Tower - he's reclusive and doesn't like to take risks.
His aspects deal with mortals. You could have one of those make life terrible for the player's character, even becoming a main villain of your campaign.
What do you foresee in terms of character and party inventory management, like moving items between characters, storing items in containers which are then stored on a cart pulled by a mule, etc? Right now for example if I have a mule and a cart, my character is considered to be carrying them around which inflates my encumbrance level ridiculously.
Inventory management enhancements are on the roadmap and I believe we'll get to at least the start of it next year.
Building a character requires many, many clicks. As an advanced player who doesn't need a bunch of explanation it still feels like too much. Is there any plan for an optional more minimal interface? Something that doesn't force me to do things like click "add class" on a second window after I already clicked on the class I want to choose.
One of the major features we are going to add with the upcoming character builder overhaul is a new method for creation that will likely be called "Streamlined."
With that flow, it would be a single page where the only inputs an experienced player would give are the required choices. I'm excited for this as it will be the fastest way possible to make a new character (targeting somewhere under 30 seconds if you know what you want).
Ruling question: How do you handle Phantasmal Force? Recently it came up in a campaign I play in, and with smart application it seems like it could disable even the BBEG (neglecting legendary effects) for quite some time. I'm a fan of the spell, but with so much uo to interpretation and context, it seems difficult to avoid player feel bads.
I tend to be pretty liberal with spells like Phantasmal Force since I love creative spell uses.
Having said that, I want the player to actually be creative - it's not enough to simply say "I scare him really badly and he can't move."
I also try to meet in the middle on things like action economy. The spell might interfere with the monster's action, but not its legendary actions for that round.
I love DDB and think it's a wonderful tool that makes keeping everyone on the same page easier as well as character building for newer players easier. However, there is one thing that you're missing that was available in the 4e online tool; monster de-leveling. If you wanted to have a CR4 Mind Flayer because they're cool and your party isn't high enough level to face them, you just go to the Mind Flayer page and drop the CR and it would automatically restat the monster for you.
Any chance this is getting added to the new homebrew monster project or encounter builder?
The upcoming monster builder will do all of this and more. I've talked about it in several interviews and dev update streams, but it's the thing I'm most excited for in the next year.
In the last Dev Update you mentioned GDPR might impact us europeans. Is there anything you can share about that already?
You will see information about this on the DDB site very, very soon (possibly even today). The *completely not legally binding* short story is nothing really changes for you if you opt into the notice.
Adam, I've got a minor QoL idea: add HTML anchors or search tags to your content indicating their page in the physical book. I don't know how many times I see something reference page XX in the DMG and I have no idea where to find it since I only own books on DDB (I don't have a single hard-copy).
I imagine you will see something like this in the future, because we'll be building it for completely unrelated reasons for another new feature I can't talk about yet. :)
Hey Adam, I don't know if it's ever been talked about and it might be a pretty out-there question, but all my other questions have been answered already.
Has there ever been talk of offering some sort of monetization/incentive for DDB creators?
I'm not that familiar with it all, but I don't believe any incentives currently exist, while the same creator can list their content on dmsguild for sale.
Yes, plenty of talk and consideration. The intent would be to allow for it in the future. Nothing more to share at this time!
Hello! I love D&D Beyond and have been using it as a player and DM. It's made my life soooo much easier.
My questions:
- Will you add an option to homebrew classes? I'm playing with a player that uses Artificer from Unearthed Arcana and I can't have a copy of his sheet for backup.
-I mostly run my games using Microsoft OneNote. It lets me track campaign notes and such in a single environment. Others use Google Drive and other things. Could it be feasible to add a note-taking service to D&D beyond
1) Answered elsewhere too, but yes.
2) On the roadmap list, but not towards the top. We'll continue to gauge community interest.
u/B4Deye I understand that Campaign Management means different things to different people. As part of if, will DMs have the ability to add notes to parts of a published adventure?
Also, any checks for spells to make sure the caster has the materials, component pouch or arcane focus?
1) I would like to see this in the future and it's on the list (not near the top of it for now).
2) This is also on the list of things to do, but also further down at this time. Feedback can change that.
Okay here is one. Can we get kinetecist into 5e please haha. I love your website makes i t so easy for me and your character sheets are so clean. I do have a question , I think flanking is rather overpowered what do you think:)?
I don't use the optional flanking rules because I think there are already several ways to gain advantage in combat that are more engaging.
I make a lot of dumb homebrew stuff on paper and was wondering if you could give some concrete details on any upcoming changes to DDB’s homebrew system. I would love to be able to switch over to electronic soon!
Nothing incredibly specific I can share yet (we've started talking with the teams, but no implementation plans yet), but the goal will be to make the homebrew system have a better flow and be easier to understand.
As a D&D fanatic and background in computer science and engineering, what is the best option for me if I would like to become a member of the Curse team (and specifically the D&D Beyond Team)? I know that you probably receive a lot of applicants and have a amazing team already, but I am very interested in being able to put my hat in the ring.
Thanks for your time!
We're always looking for talent. Keep an eye on curse.com/careers!
Hi ! I know a lot of fellow DMs would like to know if the dndbeyond products will be localized for different languages. With the "official" translations under way, one would hope so. So, my question is as follow:
1) Do you plan to make dndbeyond translated products
2) Will the purchase be separate for each language aka do I have to buy it all again
Thanks for your hard work, I love dndbeyond as a DM, my oldschool players can't get enough of it since they (begrudgingly!) tried it and I would like to keep enjoying it in my beloved native French :)
1) Yes, we want to make this happen and are figuring out implementation details.
2) I can't share the details for this yet, but I believe the solution will be entirely reasonable for the community. I'll share more as I'm able to do so.
You may recognize me as one of the bigger skeptics in the first informal AMA you did. You quit addressing my questions about how your answers are non-answers and nothing more than promises there's no way you can keep, even contradicting a comment on another quote on the same thread where you said something to the effects of "obviously I can't know everything..."
During your D&D Beyond dev video discussing the merger, you admitted you didn't know the technical legal specifics of the merger.
Has that changed at all? Can you comment on the specifics of how much autonomy D&D Beyond will retain with this merger in order to ensure that the promises you've laid out can be fulfilled?
I can respond here the same as I did in the original post:
...nothing I can say at this stage will be able to convince some folks. As I've said elsewhere, we will prove out how good this change is for us over time.
You are right that I can't convince you if you are skeptical with any of my words (especially this early). What I can say is that I am not concerned about being able to demonstrate how good of a thing this is for the community over time. Time will tell, and I'm looking forward to time happening.
This falls pretty far outside of the scope of what DnD beyond does right now, but have you given any thoughts to a utility for throwing together battlemaps? As someone who runs primarily online that is the biggest thing I am looking for as a DM, and though there are some tools for that online right now, there are very few options.
It is on the giant list of features we plan to include over the course of the next several years. The good news (based on your interest in this post) is that it's high on that list and will start to happen in early 2019.
You can only pick one unit of measurement to evaluate how successful D&D Beyond (a la Jim Collins’ hedgehog concept). For example, a bank may use Revenue per Customer or Revenue per Employee to measure success. A grocery store chain may select Revenue per Customer or Revenue per Store or items bought per Customer.
What unit of measurement would you select, and why?
Excellent question. Our primary metric at this point in time is active Dungeon Masters. This might seem counter-intuitive since much of our initial roadmap offerings have been player-based, but we have easily confirmed our hypothesis that D&D Beyond adoption (which is what we have cared about most to this point) is predicated on DMs using the platform and evangelizing it to their players. Sometimes this happens the other way around, but that is not the norm.
In the future and with the things we have planned, we could see a shift over time to something else, but this is the primary today.
You've been asked several times about virtual tabletops, but I'd like to know about your thoughts on virtual improvements for regular tabletop play:
Sharing images such as maps
Initiative/HP tracker with linked monster profiles (I think you've been talking about this)
Party messaging/forums for communication between sessions (or for passing secret notes)
Customizable, organizable info boxes for notes/lore beyond just "public" and "private" notes boxes
Build-your-own tables for things like random encounters
A nicely formatted online dungeon maker (key-maker if not map-maker) would be nice :)
I find myself using D&D Beyond pretty regularly for looking up monsters and spells and rules and things, but then I also find I'm having to flip to other documents online and in notebooks, print things, and use two notepads. Being able to, say, create a dungeon with encounters pre-built into rooms and then click that encounter to open up the initiative tracker with the PCs and monsters already dropped in and draggable (or even an auto-roll option for the monsters!), with mouse-over monster profiles and individual HP dials for them would be without hyperbole the greatest thing anyone had ever built in human history.
I'll take each point in succession:
1) Planned
2) Definitely planned and yes, I've talked about it elsewhere.
3) Planned (further down the list)
4) I like it, and improvements are planned for sure.
5) Planned
6) Something we've got on the radar
I believe you'll be pleased with the long-term direction if you're excited about your last comments there.
I can only pile on to say in every game I play in the hope is to use a tablet - but its so hard to edit anything on them, all outside updates are done on PC cause it feels like we HAVE to do it that way.
I think if you improved the tablet experience the increase in tablet use would be astonishing. As long as it remains clunky no one is going to adopt it. Its a chicken and egg problem.
This includes helpful feedback that is actionable. The majority of early feedback we saw about the tablet mode for our character sheet changes were centered around layout - where the information was displayed and space usage.
What you mention here is different, because you bring up editing on the tablet. There are certainly challenges on that front since tablets are touch-based instead of mouse/ keyboard based, but we will continue to look for ways to adopt new types of interactions to help make editing smoother on tablets.
If you're defining 1024 or larger as desktop, you should probably know that most modern phones have much greater resolutions than that.
They don't in practical terms (unless there's a crazy phone I haven't seen out there). Retina displays might say 1024+, but the practical screen usage is halved.
brb posting "DDB releasing a VTT in Q1 of 2019" to /r/DungeonsAndDragons, /r/gaming, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Huffington Post, and my mom's refridgerator calendar /s
I'm a Legendary owner, and Master Subscriber. I know on your Stream you mentioned the ability for a DM to filter campaign sources/options is coming, this is excellent, really looking forward to that so I can say blacklist something that doesn't make sense in my world such say a drow if drows were not to exist for instance.
But when I currently send a "join my campaign" link to a player they are taken to a character creator or the ability to move one of their premade characters into the campaign. I was wonder if we could instead have the campaign join default the campaign landing page, where they could perhaps read the campaign description and any notes before diving into character creation.
Example when I send they campaign link they see this page. when I feel like them seeing this page, that has the campaign description would be more helpful.
This is solid feedback - we'll see what we can do.
A while ago video was posted announcing twitch integration. Is there a possibility that we will be getting a Twitch plug-in or OBS plug-in related to character stats soon?
First, I want to tell you that you've won my trust! Your posts on DDB forums together with the changelog convinced me of DDB being a labor of love, which is constantly improving. My experience with DDB was very positive.
I have several questions.
1) What about 3rd party content? My wildest dream is having AiME on DDB, but I understand this requires overcoming several very difficult legal hurdles.
More realistically, there's Kobold Press and so on.
But most of all, I hope for all Eberron-related content by Keith Baker (currently, two adventures from DMs Guild, but there is a document with player options planned). Also, One Grung Above.
2) On a related note, the last time I checked, the license for DDB regarding homebrew content was problematic:
I'm sure there is a quality homebrew content around which isn't published on DDB because of this. This is a potential legal headache for any author considering the possibility of selling their content in a distant future.
Is there a possibility for this problem to be fixed somewhat?
3) To expand on this with a concrete example. There's a rework for necromancer subclass by Brandes Stoddard, freely available online:
Am I correct in assuming that I'm not allowed to publish this on DDB, even with attribution? If I create my own variant of the subclass, vaguely inspired by this work -- can I publish this? What about Brandes' chassis, but with serious tweaks?
I feel like this is an important issue. DDB as a platform doesn't allow for Github-like and /r/unearthedarcana like contributing: when somebody comes up with an idea, then somebody suggests an improvement, and there's a "community consensus" version of it several iterations later, maybe not even by the original author.
Great to hear! Answers:
1) I want this too, and we're trying to work it out.
2) We'll see what happens in the future. I imagine our terms could be modified as we get into next year.
3) You are free to use anything you wish privately, without sharing it with the public. If your intent is to use the content, this solution will work in every situation. If you wish to do more than that, that's where we have to have some guidelines in place. We'll see how this evolves over time and we'll keep an eye on community feedback.
Why aren't more of the Unearthed Arcana class available? I'm pretty disappointed the Revised Ranger isn't an option, among other things.
All UA content from January of this year onward has been incorporated, and all new applicable content will be as well.
The Revised Ranger has been archived by WotC and is not going forward (at least in its previous incarnation) into a published product. Whenever that happens with content, we remove it from D&D Beyond (in this case it was never added because that happened a while back).
This has been a question that has plagued my gaming group for a long time. What specific checks does jack of all trades apply to, and which does it not? We've had the argument over initiative, skill checks, saving throws, attack rolls, and basically everything else.
Jack of All Trades should apply to all ability checks (but not saving throws or attacks). This would indeed include things like Initiative, counterspell checks, etc.
Big fan of DNDB, but I feel like the app is almost completely useless. Searching (for example) is terrible. Are there any plans to beef that up and offer more of a compendium approach similar to the web experience or apps like Fight Club 5E?
Our mobile app is in beta as of now and is definitely an unfinished product. We focused initially on e-reader style access to books on the go and have since added our advanced filter-able listings. The next phase will introduce the character sheet.
1) Did you post the monster made at GameHoleCon? If so, I missed our giant manta ray getting tweeted
2) 3rd party monsters (Kobold Press, Frog God Games, and the like) purchasable through D&D Beyond is my dream. You don't have to tell me who, but are any looking likely?
3) Is there a particular stumbling block for getting the Plane Shift material on D&D Beyond? Who do I need to petition to change their mind.
Are there any plans for DDB to offer the localizations of the various books, to expand your international customer base? Anyone been in contact yet with Gale Force Nine?
Yes, definitely been in contact and had many, many discussions. The problem for now is not access to the translations themselves, but figuring out how to implement their availability without confusion/ UI issues in DDB. We expect to see the first translated content to arrive in 2019.
I love hobgoblins and think they are underrated and underutilized. I love what Eberron did with them, and even the Realms has room for interesting stories for these highly-structured, militarized goblinoids.
I love DnDBeyond. I got it literally right after I finished DMing the Starter Set.
Are there any plans to make site-wide appendices? Sometimes it's very difficult to find tables and rules using the search bar. For example: Major/Minor Beneficial Properties. Those tables can be found in the DMG, in the Treasure section, under Artifacts. However, if I search for that in the search bar, nothing like that shows up.
A listing of all the various tables and such in the DMG/XGtE and other books would be really nice. They're often hard to find, unless you already know where they are.
Yeah, this kind of thing is on the list and we want to not only collect these, but allow folks to create/ share their own.
Interesting, how do you qualify a DM, simply by whether they've created a campaign or not? Bought the DMG or an adventure module? Just curious if you can separate out players who created a campaign simply to try the feature out from the real DMs. Maybe it's as simple as DMs with campaigns with active players.
Very good questions, and the current metric is based around campaigns. It's not an ideal measurement, but it still indicates trending for us. In the future, we will have far more criteria to consider to identify a DM, and we'll use that as we have it.
Maybe at the very least, Fandom could issue a statement regarding their intentions about Beyond? (I haven't found anything related to the acquisition on their site, including their Press section).
I missed this back last year, apologies. Good news is I can comment now more clearly since the deal has closed.
This deal was a merger, not an acquisition - in other words, D&D Beyond management (i.e. me and others) is now Fandom management. So me making a statement is Fandom making a statement.
We're in a great place, and now that the company transition work has died down, we're getting to work on some incredible things that I can't wait to share with everyone!
Instead of a video Dev Update this week, Adam Bradford has joined Reddit for an Ask Me Anything! He's answering questions related to the roadmap for D&D Beyond, his personal D&D story, and how much sweet tea he drinks in a day.
Join the fun here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/a71bv9/ama_adam_bradford_dd_beyond_cofounder_product/
EDIT: The AMA has ended! You can read the whole thing at the link above, and all the questions Adam answered are copied below in the first two replies with source links.
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Collected questions and answers from the AMA Part 1:
Too much. Most days it's a glass or two. Some days it's a gallon. If sweet tea didn't exist, I'd be jacked.
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Unquantifiable - he's legitimately one of the most creative souls I've ever met. He's operating on a different wavelength than most of the world, and the world benefits because of it.
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Fold for sure - too hard to ensure coverage otherwise.
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Your feeling here is indeed false according to our data. The large majority of character sheet views comes from "desktop" resolutions (greater than 1024) and the next highest is "phone" resolutions (under 450). The current breakdown for the character sheet is right at Desktop = 60%, Mobile = 30%, Tablet = 10%.
This could mean the tablet experience isn't as good as it should be (we don't see too many complaints after some of the recent changes we've made), players view the sheet a great deal during the week while not playing (like during work - watch for your boss over your shoulder!), that our players do not have the hardware in hand, or other factors we're still exploring.
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Since development for the mobile app started later in our product lifecycle (due to community feedback requesting it to exist), we have been in a "catching up" mode to this point. We want to focus on those features which can really benefit from the mobile platform as the priority. To this point, that has not included consideration of our (initial) campaign management. We'll keep an eye on feedback (such as yours here!) to see if that makes it to the roadmap in the future.
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This is not actually true - we prioritize optimization to Chrome first, as 64% of our traffic uses that browser. The next closest is Safari at 22%, and then Firefox at 4%.
If you're having specific issues with DDB on Chrome, we would like to see those examples so we can address them. Our forums are the best place to share that feedback: ddb.ac/forums
We don't hear of any issues from the bulk of our userbase, so there could be something going on for ChromeOS that we could explore.
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1) I'm glad you're thrilled. We're looking forward to the alpha approach because we believe we'll get to what the community really needs/ wants quicker. At first, it will only look at level, according to the encounter building guidelines in the DMG/ XGtE. Over time (post-monster builder), we could see some expansion of the math to be more complex.
2) Yes, there will be a variety of filters, including filtering down to monsters you have unlocked.
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Big question that I can't answer in a single post, but I'll try to high-level it.
Your are correct, much of our effort has been centered around character management to this point. In 2019, we're moving into "challenges management" with the encounter builder and monster builder. Once we have characters and challenges in a good place, we will combine them into what we've been calling "combat automation." That's a vague term, but the gist is you can track initiative, target creatures, track temporary effects, and more.
This has been the major trajectory since Day 0 for us, and we're still marching forward with it.
As for something concrete to sink your teeth into as a DM in 2019 - we have a customizable digital DM screen that coming!
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The internet is a big place, and no company can know every single site/ place that does things they shouldn't be doing. WotC addresses any issues with illegal content as they are made aware of it - it is their responsibility and has no impact on our agreement with them.
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Minor illusion has to be the winner for me based on amount of use - I never have a spellcaster without it.
Vicious mockery is also a big one for me for the built-in opportunity it grants.
I am also a big fan of counterspell, shield, misty step, and forcecage for their utility.
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Our CMS is a pretty typical WYSIWYG that creates the post in HTML.
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Give players more opportunities to customize and connect with their characters.
Give Dungeon Masters more convenience.
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No gift cards or gifting this holiday season, but if I do ONE thing next year it will be to make sure we can have it in place for the 2019 holiday season.
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Our roadmap is extensive, and (without exaggeration) the bulk of it has not been publicly shared. I don't think it's a stretch to conceive that we will want to have a virtual tabletop (or rather the next generation of that) at some point in our future.
The issue with even stating that is expectations instantly twist those words into "DDB is releasing a VTT in Q1 of 2019," which is categorically false.
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I openly share about these things in our regular dev updates. A list of the short-term roadmap:
That's just the short term, but we've talked about some others that are longer term like inventory management updates, initiative/ combat tracking, and more.
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We are absolutely going to change content sharing to be player-based instead of character-based. No ETA, but my hope is to start working that early next year.
We could also end up having a set number of sharing slots that can be shared across any number of campaigns, but we haven't confirmed that approach yet.
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Content sharing isn't going anywhere - it's something I pushed hard to have to simulate the "around the table" experience with purchasing content.
Content management (whitelisting and blacklisting sources) is in progress currently and should be available in its initial form early next year.
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I briefly addressed the VTT question elsewhere, so I'll leave it out here to avoid too much duplication.
For Christmas dinner, I personally believe you can't go wrong with turkey, twice-baked potatoes, pan-seared brussel sprouts, and some sweet tea.
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As I shared elsewhere, content management with white/ blacklisting is in progress.
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I appreciate you adding the feedback for volume purposes, but it would be much more helpful to understand what makes it a "really bad experience." Since it will get lost here, our forums are the best place to share that feedback: ddb.ac/forums. Thanks!
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Yes, that's a big priority for us right now.
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As shared in other replies, content sharing management is in progress currently.
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Please keep in mind that any character created using content sharing elements will retain those elements even if content sharing is turned off for that campaign.
You wouldn't lose Roo, Zamfir, Erik, Mornom, or Yossaryn if you turned it off for that campaign - those characters just simply wouldn't be able to add any new, non-unlocked content.
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I'm not going to give you what you're looking for here since it's folly - they'll be in the app when they're ready.
Answering anything else other than "2019" would just offer up disappointment either for you or for me. :)
I can say it's a big priority for us and we're working on it.
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I encourage you to share your specific issue with us on our forums: ddb.ac/forums
We'll be able to investigate and address it with some additional information.
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Yep - I recently made that decision and added it to the roadmap. No ETA, but it will come.
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We are always looking at ways to improve, including search. I'm not sure what your definition of "soon" is, so I won't make that promise, but we do use search term data to help us prioritize what people are looking for and what they eventually end up on to make those changes.
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So locally a place called "Steak-Out" is the best/ my favorite. Between CFA and Bo, I'd go with CFA.
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More info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/a5p5e0/fandom_formerly_known_as_wikia_just_bought_curse/
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I couldn't be more excited about the news. DDB will be able to do bigger and better things because of it.
I shared a good bit more in this thread last week: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/a5p5e0/fandom_formerly_known_as_wikia_just_bought_curse/
I'll paste part of it here for convenience:
...I can assure everyone to the nth degree that this does not negatively impact (or change) anything that we're doing for DDB at all - save the fact that we will now have the ability to invest even more into resources to achieve the vision we have for it. No staff changes other than giving us more to work with and we're still going to be the best digital resource we can be for Dungeons & Dragons. I am personally thrilled (not a party line) that this has happened and there's nothing but win for all of us D&D fans.
And after a user (rightly so) pointed out that this sounds like what everyone ever has said about these things I shared:
Oh I know and easily sympathize. But just like I said when we announced DDB and there was so much backlash, the "proof is in the pudding." I know that skepticism is natural for something like this, but that just makes me excited to see that melt away as we move forward and continue to do bigger and better things.
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Yes, we definitely have the data. I reached out to the CR team towards the end of the first campaign knowing that working with them from the start of campaign two would be a big win for all parties, and that has proven true on all fronts.
It has had a major impact for us, and they have shared that the cast loves using DDB.
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I typically like melee fighters, so Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian are favorites.
I also like Bards because I like to talk and sing.
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We are always looking to add great content and will continue to explore ways to do so. At some point the community will be able to homebrew base classes, so we'll likely see a great deal of creativity when that time comes!
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No. You are not re-purchasing books by investing in D&D Beyond - you are investing in a digital toolset and game companion that does far more than simply grant you electronic access to the books. The amount of things it will do beyond that will continue to increase as time goes on through the years.
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As I have shared many times before, this is not possible for many reasons. This thread on our forums has a pretty comprehensive explanation: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/13989-a-buyers-guide-for-dnd-beyond
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Looking for the spoilers, nice play. :)
A way to visualize your character as a 3D model. We haven't really talked about that, but we're going to make it happen eventually.
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If that has been shared on our forums and acknowledged, then it's on the list.
If that hasn't happened, then I encourage you to share your specific issue there to help us out: ddb.ac/forums/d-d-beyond-general/bugs-support
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Those bonuses are intended to be a "special" limited thing, but we've seen a great deal of feedback and are considering ways to open it up to others somehow. No actual details on how yet.
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And I accidentally missed the "upload your own" part. We could allow this at some point in the future, but nothing to share yet.
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This is all planned, but will be through DDB itself (no need for a Chrome extension).
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Briv believes he could best anyone (whether he's right or not). End of the day, I just don't see those two fighting, at least for any real length of time (they're too much Thor/ Loki). And Briv will always celebrate wherever there's the most meat.
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Shared resources - yes, on the list.
The encounter builder will alleviate any need for a "Creatures" tab for DMs.
DMs Guild - We are working on some ideas for that. No other details to share yet.
Sharing slots - we're working on that possibility, but nothing I can share yet.
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For sure - more comprehensive AL support is coming in 2019.
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We plan to provide an API at some point, but it will not be in the near future. Other priorities are higher on our list.
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Question: What is your favorite entertainment franchise (outside of D&D)?
Answer: Star Wars has been most of my life, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe has strongly secured the top spot for me in the last few years.
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No current plans - the demand does not seem to be there to justify the expense. If there are major holdouts out there, let us know and we'll see over time if it makes a difference.
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Awesome!
1) Remember search is your friend.
2) Open tabs for monsters you imagine the party could encounter in the session (this won't be needed once encounters are added next year).
3) Have the adventure you're running open to its Table of Contents in one tab, and each time you need to jump around to sections middle-mouse-click to open new tabs (always keeping the ToC there).
4) Remember that Rule 0 is to have fun! That includes the DM.
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We are not currently hiring anyone on the community side, but we are always looking for stellar candidates whether we have roles open or not. Check out curse.com/careers for more info.
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A DM can already do this by accessing the player's character sheet directly, but I imagine there will be a way to do this as we cover shared/ party inventory in the future.
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The encounter builder is the first part of challenges management, and it will enter alpha testing - where we explicitly ask for your feedback - next year. Subscribers will get early alpha access.
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We have discussed "campaign management" at length with the community on the forums, and the truth is that term means many different things to different people.
I encourage you to look for some of the existing threads on the topic or create your own there to capture what it is that you would like to see. We take all of that feedback seriously. ddb.ac/forums
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It's very strange how different our experiences can be.
This fact is the thing that makes prioritization hard in the first place - different strokes for different folks.
We do the best we can to do the best for the most, and then try hard to cover the gaps.
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An iPad Pro at its biggest is 1366 x 1024 (the resolution will say it's double that, but that's what gets you a retina display). Of course resolution is not the only determinant for what makes a tablet, but it is the primary for what kind of experience we deliver.
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The actual type of device is not very relevant when it comes to screen layout. You can change a browser window on desktop to look like a tablet or phone for instance. Resolution is the key to how the layout is constructed and therefore the key for us.
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I personally disagree that the reader is "basic," but the mobile app is not a finished product. From the beginning we have said we are beta testing, beginning with the e-reader, expanding to the filterable listings, and then on to the character sheet. We have delivered steps one and two, and the final step is forthcoming.
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I'm glad my answer got you engaging with higher powers. :)
Nothing to share on the topic of additional third-party content because it's just not confirmed yet. As soon as we have something concrete, we'll share all the details.
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It scales incredibly well for me:
Lower levels - "You nut-hook."
Mid Levels - "You poxy, full-gorged dewberry."
Higher Levels - "You defeated, gleeking, smeg-headed mouth-breather."
(randomly generated via the Fantasy Insult Generator from Google Play)
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Solid suggestions - we'll add them to the list.
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This will come as part of what we're calling a digital DM screen in 2019.
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Oh I have!
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Great suggestions and I already saw one of the devs bring this up to the teams before I even got to reading this. We intend to add more filters next year, but our current layout doesn't make that ideal. We plan to update the listings to have left-side filters that are scroll-able where we can have as many as make sense.
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To be honest I'm not sure on your first question. We'll discuss that and figure it out.
On the second question, we have grown from 5 developers to 14 this year. The plan is to grow to 25+ next year. Keep an eye on the pages and on announcements - we'll be hiring plenty more.
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I am assuming you mean export as something other than a PDF character sheet?
We have not seen much demand for this functionality, so it is not currently on the list. That could change based on feedback if we see a change.
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Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Collected questions and answers from the AMA Part 2:
I'll not duplicate my answer to the first question.
As for the native mobile app, we did not start out with D&D Beyond knowing whether we would have one or not. Everything we make for the web is fully responsive, which means it works on any screen size/ device in the browser. We saw after launch that the community still wanted to see an app, so we started development in response to that.
It's not so much a missed opportunity as an unfinished opportunity. We are currently working to add character sheets to the beta, so that will happen sometime next year.
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I would love to see Strongholds & Followers on D&D Beyond, but we have no details to share for that as of now.
As for the encounter builder, I've mentioned elsewhere that it is currently in development and we'll see the alpha next year.
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I'm not sure I fully understand the question, apologies.
The pricing model is determined through our partnership with WotC - it is unlikely to change for piece-meal purchases in the near future.
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I would rather not speculate since some would take that as my confirmation that "5.5" is coming or some other nonsense.
I'll say that we are going to support anything that the WotC D&D team comes up with in the future, and yes, the digital nature of D&D Beyond helps keep everything up-to-date.
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Human fighter on all fronts.
Many seem to balk at this, but I assure you that the human fighter has been the most-played race/ class combination since the first edition of the game.
There are several reasons for this, but one of the most-commonly cited is familiarity and straightforwardness of play.
I myself like to play fighters because I can concentrate on what makes them complex from a story perspective instead of a mechanics perspective.
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I love this question. I'll focus on folks I don't already get to play with. Here we go:
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All subscription options were considered at length. We ended up on the other side of that process with what we've got.
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Covered in more detail here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/a71bv9/ama_adam_bradford_dd_beyond_cofounder_product/ebzof7g
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Yes, actually. On our "mid-term" roadmap is an overhaul of how choices appear in the builder/ sheet to include everything that's available with a clear display for what you have not unlocked. You will be able to bundle that together if desired or simply buy the full source if relevant.
Right now we have generic dropdowns in those places, but we'll end up with a better, richer experience that gives more information helpful to making those choice decisions.
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We've seen this come up a few times, and I imagine we will provide a way to add additional content sharing slots in the future.
And thanks for the support all along the way!
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I'm afraid all of my answers will end up being the Campaign 1 characters - I just don't know these Campaign 2 characters well enough yet to root for them over their predecessors.
Give it another year or two and that could change!
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Are you referring to the Lucky feat? If so, I allow it.
In fact, I allow any and all optional rules in my games because I love variety. Lucky is powerful, but it just makes sense for some characters.
My character Briv Steelmarrow will likely end up with Lucky at some point since he's in love with the goddess of luck and is chasing her to the ends of the world. :)
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What do you mean? An African or a European projectile?
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We are always looking for stellar talent. Keep an eye on curse.com/careers to see as they open up.
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Our forums are the absolute best place to share those: ddb.ac/forums
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Boxer briefs.
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I doubt anyone would love to see D&D animation get greenlit more than me. The old 80's cartoon was my introduction to Dungeons & Dragons and I love animated entertainment.
There's no telling what could happen in the future. 15 years ago something like what Marvel has done with the MCU was a complete pipe dream.
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Curse has had an incredible amount of autonomy and will continue to have that going forward. D&D Beyond has been successful and we have no intention of making changes to change that.
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"Soon" is a relative term. The optional spell points mechanic is on our radar, but not in the short-term future.
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We want to do this and I imagine we'll see it in 2019. We'll share more as we're able.
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We are exploring all avenues on our side. More to share as we have things we are able to.
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Dispater rarely travels outside his Iron Tower - he's reclusive and doesn't like to take risks.
His aspects deal with mortals. You could have one of those make life terrible for the player's character, even becoming a main villain of your campaign.
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Inventory management enhancements are on the roadmap and I believe we'll get to at least the start of it next year.
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One of the major features we are going to add with the upcoming character builder overhaul is a new method for creation that will likely be called "Streamlined."
With that flow, it would be a single page where the only inputs an experienced player would give are the required choices. I'm excited for this as it will be the fastest way possible to make a new character (targeting somewhere under 30 seconds if you know what you want).
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I tend to be pretty liberal with spells like Phantasmal Force since I love creative spell uses.
Having said that, I want the player to actually be creative - it's not enough to simply say "I scare him really badly and he can't move."
I also try to meet in the middle on things like action economy. The spell might interfere with the monster's action, but not its legendary actions for that round.
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The upcoming monster builder will do all of this and more. I've talked about it in several interviews and dev update streams, but it's the thing I'm most excited for in the next year.
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You will see information about this on the DDB site very, very soon (possibly even today). The *completely not legally binding* short story is nothing really changes for you if you opt into the notice.
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I imagine you will see something like this in the future, because we'll be building it for completely unrelated reasons for another new feature I can't talk about yet. :)
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Yes, plenty of talk and consideration. The intent would be to allow for it in the future. Nothing more to share at this time!
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1) Answered elsewhere too, but yes.
2) On the roadmap list, but not towards the top. We'll continue to gauge community interest.
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1) I would like to see this in the future and it's on the list (not near the top of it for now).
2) This is also on the list of things to do, but also further down at this time. Feedback can change that.
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I don't use the optional flanking rules because I think there are already several ways to gain advantage in combat that are more engaging.
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Nothing incredibly specific I can share yet (we've started talking with the teams, but no implementation plans yet), but the goal will be to make the homebrew system have a better flow and be easier to understand.
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We're always looking for talent. Keep an eye on curse.com/careers!
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Yes, on the list.
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1) Yes, we want to make this happen and are figuring out implementation details.
2) I can't share the details for this yet, but I believe the solution will be entirely reasonable for the community. I'll share more as I'm able to do so.
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I can respond here the same as I did in the original post:
...nothing I can say at this stage will be able to convince some folks. As I've said elsewhere, we will prove out how good this change is for us over time.
You are right that I can't convince you if you are skeptical with any of my words (especially this early). What I can say is that I am not concerned about being able to demonstrate how good of a thing this is for the community over time. Time will tell, and I'm looking forward to time happening.
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Yes, thoughts, nothing beyond that at this point.
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It is on the giant list of features we plan to include over the course of the next several years. The good news (based on your interest in this post) is that it's high on that list and will start to happen in early 2019.
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Excellent question. Our primary metric at this point in time is active Dungeon Masters. This might seem counter-intuitive since much of our initial roadmap offerings have been player-based, but we have easily confirmed our hypothesis that D&D Beyond adoption (which is what we have cared about most to this point) is predicated on DMs using the platform and evangelizing it to their players. Sometimes this happens the other way around, but that is not the norm.
In the future and with the things we have planned, we could see a shift over time to something else, but this is the primary today.
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I'll take each point in succession:
1) Planned
2) Definitely planned and yes, I've talked about it elsewhere.
3) Planned (further down the list)
4) I like it, and improvements are planned for sure.
5) Planned
6) Something we've got on the radar
I believe you'll be pleased with the long-term direction if you're excited about your last comments there.
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This includes helpful feedback that is actionable. The majority of early feedback we saw about the tablet mode for our character sheet changes were centered around layout - where the information was displayed and space usage.
What you mention here is different, because you bring up editing on the tablet. There are certainly challenges on that front since tablets are touch-based instead of mouse/ keyboard based, but we will continue to look for ways to adopt new types of interactions to help make editing smoother on tablets.
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You are absolutely right, but most of the feedback we receive is layout-based (hence my focus on that).
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They don't in practical terms (unless there's a crazy phone I haven't seen out there). Retina displays might say 1024+, but the practical screen usage is halved.
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-_-
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This is solid feedback - we'll see what we can do.
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ICYMI: https://www.twitch.tv/ext/p17vkz1192uj33tam553eej11sxv3x
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Great to hear! Answers:
1) I want this too, and we're trying to work it out.
2) We'll see what happens in the future. I imagine our terms could be modified as we get into next year.
3) You are free to use anything you wish privately, without sharing it with the public. If your intent is to use the content, this solution will work in every situation. If you wish to do more than that, that's where we have to have some guidelines in place. We'll see how this evolves over time and we'll keep an eye on community feedback.
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Yes, dice roller is going to happen for sure!
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All UA content from January of this year onward has been incorporated, and all new applicable content will be as well.
The Revised Ranger has been archived by WotC and is not going forward (at least in its previous incarnation) into a published product. Whenever that happens with content, we remove it from D&D Beyond (in this case it was never added because that happened a while back).
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Jack of All Trades should apply to all ability checks (but not saving throws or attacks). This would indeed include things like Initiative, counterspell checks, etc.
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Our mobile app is in beta as of now and is definitely an unfinished product. We focused initially on e-reader style access to books on the go and have since added our advanced filter-able listings. The next phase will introduce the character sheet.
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1) Yep, was shared a few weeks ago: dndbeyond.com/monsters/201368-giant-flying-manta-ray-sea-monster
2) Nothing to share other than I'd love to see it too!
3) We could explore that. The goal was to introduce the worlds of Magic through Ravnica, but we could potentially open that up now.
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Yes, definitely been in contact and had many, many discussions. The problem for now is not access to the translations themselves, but figuring out how to implement their availability without confusion/ UI issues in DDB. We expect to see the first translated content to arrive in 2019.
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I love hobgoblins and think they are underrated and underutilized. I love what Eberron did with them, and even the Realms has room for interesting stories for these highly-structured, militarized goblinoids.
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Yeah, this kind of thing is on the list and we want to not only collect these, but allow folks to create/ share their own.
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Very good questions, and the current metric is based around campaigns. It's not an ideal measurement, but it still indicates trending for us. In the future, we will have far more criteria to consider to identify a DM, and we'll use that as we have it.
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Food. I love visiting interesting restaurants, well-cooked meat, and shared experiences with family and friends above most things.
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Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Thanks to Adam for his time, and wow thank you to Oboe for formatting that nightmare of a couple of posts. Great AMA.
I missed this back last year, apologies. Good news is I can comment now more clearly since the deal has closed.
This deal was a merger, not an acquisition - in other words, D&D Beyond management (i.e. me and others) is now Fandom management. So me making a statement is Fandom making a statement.
We're in a great place, and now that the company transition work has died down, we're getting to work on some incredible things that I can't wait to share with everyone!