There are some really good 'older edition' spells I would love to add, Think of glass steel or bone steel to help an artificer build their construct, magic items etc - possibly using fabricate. Rituals such as create Homonculous that could be included. I am probably Jumping the gun but will I be able to add these using the Homebrew feature?

Thanks for the explanation.  It saved me a lot of unnecessary feedback.  And, uh, you were channeling Descartes, not Socrates.  Not enough questions for Socrates...

SobekRe,

I've done pen and paper with some friends as well as Rolz and Roll20. As a personal experience, I created excel character sheets for 3.5 and 5e that could create a randomized character by rolling for (or selecting) a race and class. It was complicated but in the end, in 5-10 seconds I could create a random character at level 1; only requiring to select where skill points are applied and equipment. Unfortunately that HDD crashed before I could transfer it. The initial creation took a few days, but afterwards character creation would take about a minute. I even worked both versions to appear similar to the fillable PDFs you can find, thus making it that much easier to read. 

Note, age doesn't matter. I tried tabletop D&D for the first time at 25 years old, and then several years later was able to join other groups. Looking to start again when time permits.

Quote from SobekRe >>

Quote from RandomThanatos >>

my friends and i HAD to get a dnd insider account simply so we woudln't mess up our leveling and could understand how different armor and weapons affected our characters

Don't take this wrong, but I genuinely don't understand this mindset. I'll reveal my age, but I started with BECMI and quickly moved into AD&D 1E. It was a big deal when TSR released official character record sheets (they were kinda ugly and not free, so I kept using college-ruled notebook paper until the 1990s, when someone in the group created a Word or Excel-based sheet). Yes, we messed up some rules, but we still had fun and it worked.

Now, I'm far from a Luddite. I'm a professional developer and use tools, when they're available or build my own. It drives me nuts when people at work can't seem to get rid of their physical file folders. I love a pretty character sheet, and even my old characters have been scanned in and pushed to my cloud storage. Given a nice mobile app, I'd happily ditch a physical sheet altogether. But, any sort of computer tool for the game should be viewed as an extra or "nice to have". D&D is not, and should never be made to be, too complex to play with a notepad and some physical books.

Quote from Avmorket >>

SobekRe,

I've done pen and paper with some friends as well as Rolz and Roll20. As a personal experience, I created excel character sheets for 3.5 and 5e that could create a randomized character by rolling for (or selecting) a race and class. It was complicated but in the end, in 5-10 seconds I could create a random character at level 1; only requiring to select where skill points are applied and equipment. Unfortunately that HDD crashed before I could transfer it. The initial creation took a few days, but afterwards character creation would take about a minute. I even worked both versions to appear similar to the fillable PDFs you can find, thus making it that much easier to read. 

Note, age doesn't matter. I tried tabletop D&D for the first time at 25 years old, and then several years later was able to join other groups. Looking to start again when time permits.

Hello Folks! I agree on the $5 to $10 dollar range to unlock certain features.  Also, consider those who have purchased Fantasy Grounds and Roll 20 material.  Allow access to that content as well.  This app would become the place for offline campaign building.  DM's could then import their stories and encounters into the virtual desktops for play.  Cheers!

It was kind of clear thou right? I mean we get character creator for free with a few slots. Subscription for advanced tools. And one time purchase of source material type options. I believe that was in the first clarification post. We don't know how much or what exact tools but it sounds like maybe you can access any basic materials for free and everything else is subscription or one time fee. 

Quote from Stormknight >>

Quote from Melech >>

It's this type of attitude that leads to consumers being raked over the coals.

I think we're better off discussing what we know DNDB actually does.

At the moment, I've read many posts from people saying what they think the product or subscription might do, and then we're all expending time discussing how that makes us feel, when it's not even based on any information from the DNDB team.

It can be healthy to discuss what other sites are doing well, or poorly though!

Quote from SobekRe >>

Quote from Avmorket >>

SobekRe,

I've done pen and paper with some friends as well as Rolz and Roll20. As a personal experience, I created excel character sheets for 3.5 and 5e that could create a randomized character by rolling for (or selecting) a race and class. It was complicated but in the end, in 5-10 seconds I could create a random character at level 1; only requiring to select where skill points are applied and equipment. Unfortunately that HDD crashed before I could transfer it. The initial creation took a few days, but afterwards character creation would take about a minute. I even worked both versions to appear similar to the fillable PDFs you can find, thus making it that much easier to read. 

Note, age doesn't matter. I tried tabletop D&D for the first time at 25 years old, and then several years later was able to join other groups. Looking to start again when time permits.

 I don't think we're disagreeing. But, just to be sure I didn't inadvertently say something inflammatory:

I'm all for digital tools and character sheets. I've just always thought that one of the beautify things about D&D is that it's simple enough to use pen and paper without being cumbersome. My real concern is that, since I started with BECMI, way back in the dark ages, I've missed some sort of slow boil and D&D is no longer so easy for a newbie to pick up and go. This would make me incredibly sad.

I'm also not saying that digital tools aren't hard to build for D&D. As I once heard it phrased, "D&D manages rules by exception" (meaning every spell, feat, class ability, etc. is really an exception to the base rules). That's a royal pain to code.

One of things I loved about P&p dnd was to start playing was free and when/ if you wanted to get more envolved you could then start buying in. I hope the new DNDB promotes this at a reasonable price point. I hope DNDB promoted this model. It looks like this will be the case. But with the limited support online tools have received sofar I can see why people are hesitant to buy into something new. 5e is the first time since 2e where I have been excited to change editions,   The core rules 2.0 is a high bar and DNDB has a lot to prove before it replaces that as most useful dnd software. 

If you already spent money on books would it be a fair trade to turn in your book for a digital version. Not sure if this is at all possible but makes sense to me. Also books are more valuable in my opinion. Can't access a digital copie in a power outage or when your phone or laptop is dead and you forgot the charger. Then again digital can't be lost in a fire or flood. There is benefits to both. So pick your poison.

Blyster:

I'm on the same mindset as you.

and the pizza delivery app would actually be a good idea.

Note: I have all the books released up to now and welcome not being forced to lug them around when I DM a game somewhere else besides at home. So paying a Netflix inspired fee would be ok. As long as we're not, as you said, plastered with ads.....I hate ads. grrrrrr

Well said!

:/

i dunno. my last two DM'ed campaigns didn't go too well. In the first, they played evil characters and i tried to adapt to their preferences and it didn't work well at all. In the second, there was a That Guy who managed to derail every plot and once managed to die five times in a single four-hour game session. (He tried to swim through a black pudding. Seriously. And tried to leap off a dock and catch up to a boat in banded mail armor. And tried to set fire to a fireworks display while he was in the building. And I forget the other two times, I think I was just facepalming and requesting he come up with backup characters or try a different game even though he was everyone else's friend.)

Not sure how much I'd put down for playing a game if it went South to that extent anymore.

As a player I ran into the same problem, being the only Neutral or Good-align when everyone else is playing "for the evulz lol" doesn't work too well. Neither did a game session where my introduction to the party had my character killed by the other members (for being an unknown talking to them and therefore a spy) less than a minute into the session.

The last good game I got into was back in the 80s... lord that makes me feel old.

Quote from Nimodes >>

Neither did a game session where my introduction to the party had my character killed by the other members (for being an unknown talking to them and therefore a spy) less than a minute into the session.

You need to find a different group.