Some people find it more immersive with books, others with electronic devices. I think that if you can't see that, then you need to broaden your horizons. Personally as a DM I go hybrid. I run the game from a book but I have a tablet set up that has a slides how set up for every scripted encounter that has all the enemy stat blocks on. I find it much easier to find what in looming for that way.
In terms of players, I'm hesitant. The problem is distractions - they see an email or FB message or a news article and get distracted. I'd like to let them choose, but it's human to be distracted. Then, because they aren't as immersed, they won't enjoy themselves, and people will rarely look to their own behaviour for blame. In terms of only banning it if it becomes a problem, I'll run through a made up example. I'm DMing with Alex, Bob, Charlie and Dave as players. I've let them choose, but Bob keeps looking at his phone and getting sidetracked. I could let it go, but that.not only ruins his game (and he'll probably blame me for being a bad DM or the module for being boring), or I could ban electronic devices. If I ban them though, it becomes rather obvious that I'm rebuking Bob.
My current rules for players are:
No electronic devices out. If you get a text or a call, that you need to respond to, that's fine, but normally it's in your pocket. If you're expecting to be contacted and can't afford to miss it, you can have it on the table, but the screen is off and you don't touch it except to respond to messages etc thst can't wait until afterwards.
Books such as PHB are only out during key periods such as character creation, levelling up or I ask a player to help out by looking something up. I expect most of the information required for standard stuff to be on the character sheet. For example, my spells have a brief description of their requirements and effects on the spell sheet for my character. Only if something strange, unexpected or uncommon happens would I need to look it up.
I will make exceptions for things like digital character sheets, but since I'm explicitly trusting them and making an exception for them, I hope that'll be enough to keep them mindful of what they're doing. PHB still shouldn't be accessed outside of circumstances mentioned before.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Sure, digital is easier to look up at the game table, but otherwise its more difficult to learn.
It could be, but in the versions we're getting now it really isn't. It's convenient that everything is in one big source, but that rarely matters to me at the game table: I have my character's mechanics in my charsheet as a player and my monster's/NPC's in their statblocks and that's where I'll reference them. The stuff I may need to look up during the game is things that aren't specific to anything so they likely aren't on any sheet, and DDB's search function isn't half as good for that as the index the books have. This digital implementation is at least in part based on WotC's requirements (no .pdfs) so I'm not pointing fingers to this site, just saying that for me the practical side isn't as clear-cut as that.
But if you're working off your sheet in DDB, most of the stuff you're looking for you get the compendium description just by clicking for the feature or spell description via the sheet. In other words, it puts what you should know from the books for your character right there in the sheet.
In some cases it does (it's nice that I've been able to clear the condition list from my DM screen, for instance), in others it doesn't (can't pull up the grapple rules that way for instance, or the DCs for survival checks). Most of the stuff that can be found that way will be duplicated on a player's paper or other non-DDB charsheet though, and while that had to be looked up in order to duplicate it that didn't have to happen at the table or at least not during the game. For the 'can't remember how that works and the info isn't in front of me' moments during play, a physical book isn't any less practical than DDB for me.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I'm confident all things can be quickly accessed if you are a thorough DM. Here is my DM screen I created and it has all the details needed to quickly assess the situation (I personally hate interrupting the story or players because of a rule): Dungeon Master Screen PS images on DM screen changes per adventure. Twitter Post of DM Screen
Some people find it more immersive with books, others with electronic devices. I think that if you can't see that, then you need to broaden your horizons. Personally as a DM I go hybrid. I run the game from a book but I have a tablet set up that has a slides how set up for every scripted encounter that has all the enemy stat blocks on. I find it much easier to find what in looming for that way.
In terms of players, I'm hesitant. The problem is distractions - they see an email or FB message or a news article and get distracted. I'd like to let them choose, but it's human to be distracted. Then, because they aren't as immersed, they won't enjoy themselves, and people will rarely look to their own behaviour for blame. In terms of only banning it if it becomes a problem, I'll run through a made up example. I'm DMing with Alex, Bob, Charlie and Dave as players. I've let them choose, but Bob keeps looking at his phone and getting sidetracked. I could let it go, but that.not only ruins his game (and he'll probably blame me for being a bad DM or the module for being boring), or I could ban electronic devices. If I ban them though, it becomes rather obvious that I'm rebuking Bob.
My current rules for players are:
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
In some cases it does (it's nice that I've been able to clear the condition list from my DM screen, for instance), in others it doesn't (can't pull up the grapple rules that way for instance, or the DCs for survival checks). Most of the stuff that can be found that way will be duplicated on a player's paper or other non-DDB charsheet though, and while that had to be looked up in order to duplicate it that didn't have to happen at the table or at least not during the game. For the 'can't remember how that works and the info isn't in front of me' moments during play, a physical book isn't any less practical than DDB for me.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I'm confident all things can be quickly accessed if you are a thorough DM. Here is my DM screen I created and it has all the details needed to quickly assess the situation (I personally hate interrupting the story or players because of a rule): Dungeon Master Screen PS images on DM screen changes per adventure. Twitter Post of DM Screen
Change images per adventure to reflect story....
