Let me start with saying that there definitely are benefits with using DnDbeyond. But there are also some negatives, which I am curious about if other DMs have experienced, and how they then have handled them.
The main one is that the mystery seems to be diminished: now everybody is sitting with a tablet or computer, and does only need to click two times to see all information on all available magic items or monsters. There is no division visible between reading the PHB, the DMG or the MM, as it is all just different buttons to click. Which even makes me hesitant to name the monsters in encounters, as the players can then instantly look them up. This is not an issue for all players, but a bad temptation for a power gamer, who only looks at DnD as a battle of wits and dice. I feel that it was easier to create your "own" DnD-world when everybody only had the PHB and their character sheet at the table, and nothing else. Especially if you tweak something, like an item, and then didn't had to have a discussion on why your staff of X is different from the staff of X they find in the app.
This diminished mystery is also shown in that it is only possible to show too little or too much information to your fellow players by sharing your character sheet. In the private setting not even your height, or what weapons you are carrying are visible, in the public one everything including spells and magic items. This makes it harder to have secret backgrounds, without looking suspicious. And yes, with paper character sheets there was no informations shared, but neither was there an expectation of it.
So for me going digital has lowered the barrier for players, as it is easier to keep track of all minute details of the characters, but at the same time made DnD feel more like a boardgame, and less like an RPG. Anybody else experienced something similar?
The main one is that the mystery seems to be diminished: now everybody is sitting with a tablet or computer, and does only need to click two times to see all information on all available magic items or monsters. There is no division visible between reading the PHB, the DMG or the MM, as it is all just different buttons to click. Which even makes me hesitant to name the monsters in encounters, as the players can then instantly look them up. This is not an issue for all players, but a bad temptation for a power gamer, who only looks at DnD as a battle of wits and dice.
Those types players don't care about mystery in the first place. The ones that do will still try to preserve it. All of my players could read ahead into the adventure I'm running if they wanted to, but they won't, because that'd be less fun for them. They also don't look at each other's character sheets without permission from the owner and try to separate character knowledge from in-game knowledge, because it's fun for them.
The types of adventure you run, which rules you enforce and how you balance combat with non-combat activities tend to have more of an impact on whether D&D feels more like a war game than an RPG in my experience. The tools are just there to streamline the experience.
Let me make one more example: before it was easier, as a player, to know what you were supposed to know: everything in the PHB. But now on dndbeyond it is hard to know what parts of the info under "game rules" are part of the PHB, if you have not already read it in paper form. So you might essentially stumble over things, that you would have preferred to not have seen.
Let me make one more example: before it was easier, as a player, to know what you were supposed to know: everything in the PHB. But now on dndbeyond it is hard to know what parts of the info under "game rules" are part of the PHB, if you have not already read it in paper form. So you might essentially stumble over things, that you would have preferred to not have seen.
If you just want to know what's in the PHB, you can just read the PHB under sources. If you're looking at monsters in the game rules section, you're probably not there by accident.
For me, using digital character sheets lets me spend less time figuring out what I can do and more time doing it. Having easy access to monsters and such means that when the DM is unclear about what a monster can do (relatively new DM) I can quickly look it up and help out, but I try to avoid doing so unless the monster is complicated enough to warrant my help.
As for the mystery, you can always tweak mobs if that's a problem. For the character sheets, if characters are adventuring together, most of what's on a character sheet will not be secret and the parts that may be secret can generally be left blank without being suspicious, just lazy. Having access to others' sheets has been handy for us a couple times when someone couldn't show up and it wasn't a good narrative time for them to disappear.
Having "live" Player sheets is pretty awesome, because I don't have to guess what a Character's current hit points are, what their ability scores are, etc.
Something I'm finding a problem however is distractions - even with Players who are clearly engaged in the overall story-line, when the spotlight is off them and on someone else ... well, let me just check Facebook while I have a moment ...
To that end, I'm strongly considering keeping DNDB as a "system of record" for Characters between sessions, but printing off everyone's Character sheets at the top of the session, and banishing electronics from the table ( except the laptop which I run the game out of - I'm sure no one will object :p )
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For me I like the old way. Having the actual books and writing on an actual character sheet. Sitting with an actual group at a table or all relaxing in a living room enjoying the game. But times have changed. Some of it good and some not so good depending how you take it. I still use the psychical books when I play the game. In fact my wife also prefers to have an actual hard cover players handbook. We play online in a party of 4 and the DM being myself. We use live voice chat over discord. I and my wife use actual 5e books when we play. She however uses the character creation tools here on D&D beyond. As do the others in our game. Its a nice tool and I have nothing against it in any way. I know that there are some DMs that require it because it makes it easy for them to look over the players characters if needed. I can care less and like to trust my players will play without cheating and I believe that most who play the game will play fair. No doubt it sucks when a player looks up everything you toss at them and they can do it rather quickly. I have had this happen but most of the time they still play the character as if they did not just read up on a monster. Most of the time. I have had issues with this.
There are D&D references that have even more info then D&D beyond that can be found online as well. Sites with not just the official books but third party content as well. I had one player look up the info simply based on a creature description I gave in the game. It was third party content from an actual book that I have. Lucky for me this player is a good player and did not act on what he had read. I have to say I do like the fact that we can connect online to play the game with others from all over the world if we want to. Local games can be hard to get together and sometimes even harder to keep together because shit comes up. Online just works and it works well. But I agree that content is far to easy to get beyond purchasing a book. Most of it can even be had for free with the right websites. I do not agree with this but it is what it is. I still enjoy the game.
I like the personal convenience of the players having their character sheets digitally. I wonder though, in previous eras, we all basically had our abilities memorized since we had read the PHB over and over again -- we also may have had fewer things competing for time/attention.
As a DM I used to have a big binder, now I use a bit more space with a laptop + a notepad. I think the laptop is better since it helps me search, but the binder also made me more involved and thinking about the game. In a binder it's easy to make a couple of flow charts, and a host of scene outlines.
It may be nostalgia, but I do like the idea of players just having a printed character sheet that they then markup however they want. It may add an element of "ownership" where simply typing in/updating doesn't. That being said, the digital player sheet is wonderful for new players so that they can more easily see what options they have in situations.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I own a few books on Roll20 that I share with my players, but I also have physical copies of everything. I own LMoP and Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron here on DDB as well, but those aren't shared with my players.
Pros
I can drag and drop content into my games on Roll20.
I can roll for multiple things by clicking a button using macros or built-in features.
My players all have access to the books through me and can create characters in a fast, clean, standardized way.
I can see everyone's sheets and double check something in seconds.
By having access to the books, any player I have is able to double check things and get away from 3rd party websites.
By having access to the books through me, any of my players can try DMing their own games without putting any money down.
By having access to many players I can quickly fill out my games.
Cons
Players get distracted or do things in the background frequently.
By having access to the books, some players may fight you if you bend a rule to fit the situation rather than adhering to RAW.
By having access to all the books all at once some players may be tempted to "playtest" every single race and class rather than developing an actual character.
By having games online and playing with strangers(and probably due to my poor selection), I've gotten an outstanding number of flaky players, aggressive(out of character) players, power gamers, rules lawyers(but only when it benefits them), etc. People act differently online than they would in real life, in a really bad way.
I've mostly dealt with this by having talks with problem players about where the lines are and what they shouldn't do, and if that doesn't work or their behaviour is extremely bad they are quickly removed and replaced. Good players make you love the pros and don't make you worry about the cons of having all of this information available.
Paper character sheets, digitally maintained between sessions by the players if they wanna.
I use DNDB to manage my monsters, my homebrew, and my table referencing done ingame. Sadly, it's not so good as a digital logging and reference tool for my post-session note-taking and environment change management.
My players can keep their phones and tablets handy at the table--but house rules preclude any social media activity. I'd never try to separate them from their devices--personal communications from spouses or kids (yeah, there's that much of a range at the table) is too important.
Because I tweak my monsters even as they are randomly rolled on an encounter table, even if someone looked one up in their own MM tool, it wouldn't matter to me.
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Let me start with saying that there definitely are benefits with using DnDbeyond. But there are also some negatives, which I am curious about if other DMs have experienced, and how they then have handled them.
The main one is that the mystery seems to be diminished: now everybody is sitting with a tablet or computer, and does only need to click two times to see all information on all available magic items or monsters. There is no division visible between reading the PHB, the DMG or the MM, as it is all just different buttons to click. Which even makes me hesitant to name the monsters in encounters, as the players can then instantly look them up. This is not an issue for all players, but a bad temptation for a power gamer, who only looks at DnD as a battle of wits and dice. I feel that it was easier to create your "own" DnD-world when everybody only had the PHB and their character sheet at the table, and nothing else. Especially if you tweak something, like an item, and then didn't had to have a discussion on why your staff of X is different from the staff of X they find in the app.
This diminished mystery is also shown in that it is only possible to show too little or too much information to your fellow players by sharing your character sheet. In the private setting not even your height, or what weapons you are carrying are visible, in the public one everything including spells and magic items. This makes it harder to have secret backgrounds, without looking suspicious. And yes, with paper character sheets there was no informations shared, but neither was there an expectation of it.
So for me going digital has lowered the barrier for players, as it is easier to keep track of all minute details of the characters, but at the same time made DnD feel more like a boardgame, and less like an RPG. Anybody else experienced something similar?
Those types players don't care about mystery in the first place. The ones that do will still try to preserve it. All of my players could read ahead into the adventure I'm running if they wanted to, but they won't, because that'd be less fun for them. They also don't look at each other's character sheets without permission from the owner and try to separate character knowledge from in-game knowledge, because it's fun for them.
The types of adventure you run, which rules you enforce and how you balance combat with non-combat activities tend to have more of an impact on whether D&D feels more like a war game than an RPG in my experience. The tools are just there to streamline the experience.
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Let me make one more example: before it was easier, as a player, to know what you were supposed to know: everything in the PHB. But now on dndbeyond it is hard to know what parts of the info under "game rules" are part of the PHB, if you have not already read it in paper form. So you might essentially stumble over things, that you would have preferred to not have seen.
If you just want to know what's in the PHB, you can just read the PHB under sources. If you're looking at monsters in the game rules section, you're probably not there by accident.
For me, using digital character sheets lets me spend less time figuring out what I can do and more time doing it. Having easy access to monsters and such means that when the DM is unclear about what a monster can do (relatively new DM) I can quickly look it up and help out, but I try to avoid doing so unless the monster is complicated enough to warrant my help.
As for the mystery, you can always tweak mobs if that's a problem. For the character sheets, if characters are adventuring together, most of what's on a character sheet will not be secret and the parts that may be secret can generally be left blank without being suspicious, just lazy. Having access to others' sheets has been handy for us a couple times when someone couldn't show up and it wasn't a good narrative time for them to disappear.
Digital is a great resource for me as a DM.
Having "live" Player sheets is pretty awesome, because I don't have to guess what a Character's current hit points are, what their ability scores are, etc.
Something I'm finding a problem however is distractions - even with Players who are clearly engaged in the overall story-line, when the spotlight is off them and on someone else ... well, let me just check Facebook while I have a moment ...
To that end, I'm strongly considering keeping DNDB as a "system of record" for Characters between sessions, but printing off everyone's Character sheets at the top of the session, and banishing electronics from the table ( except the laptop which I run the game out of - I'm sure no one will object :p )
I don't need "live" character sheets that badly.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
For me I like the old way. Having the actual books and writing on an actual character sheet. Sitting with an actual group at a table or all relaxing in a living room enjoying the game. But times have changed. Some of it good and some not so good depending how you take it. I still use the psychical books when I play the game. In fact my wife also prefers to have an actual hard cover players handbook. We play online in a party of 4 and the DM being myself. We use live voice chat over discord. I and my wife use actual 5e books when we play. She however uses the character creation tools here on D&D beyond. As do the others in our game. Its a nice tool and I have nothing against it in any way. I know that there are some DMs that require it because it makes it easy for them to look over the players characters if needed. I can care less and like to trust my players will play without cheating and I believe that most who play the game will play fair. No doubt it sucks when a player looks up everything you toss at them and they can do it rather quickly. I have had this happen but most of the time they still play the character as if they did not just read up on a monster. Most of the time. I have had issues with this.
There are D&D references that have even more info then D&D beyond that can be found online as well. Sites with not just the official books but third party content as well. I had one player look up the info simply based on a creature description I gave in the game. It was third party content from an actual book that I have. Lucky for me this player is a good player and did not act on what he had read. I have to say I do like the fact that we can connect online to play the game with others from all over the world if we want to. Local games can be hard to get together and sometimes even harder to keep together because shit comes up. Online just works and it works well. But I agree that content is far to easy to get beyond purchasing a book. Most of it can even be had for free with the right websites. I do not agree with this but it is what it is. I still enjoy the game.
I like the personal convenience of the players having their character sheets digitally. I wonder though, in previous eras, we all basically had our abilities memorized since we had read the PHB over and over again -- we also may have had fewer things competing for time/attention.
As a DM I used to have a big binder, now I use a bit more space with a laptop + a notepad. I think the laptop is better since it helps me search, but the binder also made me more involved and thinking about the game. In a binder it's easy to make a couple of flow charts, and a host of scene outlines.
It may be nostalgia, but I do like the idea of players just having a printed character sheet that they then markup however they want. It may add an element of "ownership" where simply typing in/updating doesn't. That being said, the digital player sheet is wonderful for new players so that they can more easily see what options they have in situations.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I own a few books on Roll20 that I share with my players, but I also have physical copies of everything. I own LMoP and Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron here on DDB as well, but those aren't shared with my players.
Pros
Cons
I've mostly dealt with this by having talks with problem players about where the lines are and what they shouldn't do, and if that doesn't work or their behaviour is extremely bad they are quickly removed and replaced. Good players make you love the pros and don't make you worry about the cons of having all of this information available.
Paper character sheets, digitally maintained between sessions by the players if they wanna.
I use DNDB to manage my monsters, my homebrew, and my table referencing done ingame. Sadly, it's not so good as a digital logging and reference tool for my post-session note-taking and environment change management.
My players can keep their phones and tablets handy at the table--but house rules preclude any social media activity. I'd never try to separate them from their devices--personal communications from spouses or kids (yeah, there's that much of a range at the table) is too important.
Because I tweak my monsters even as they are randomly rolled on an encounter table, even if someone looked one up in their own MM tool, it wouldn't matter to me.