Before I go on, Let me make it clear that the Con Admins handled the below situation with expert grace and this post is not a negative reflection on how they handled it. (because I'm not going into detail about how they handled it.) This is simply a relation of the pertinent events in regards to how the situation came about in the first place, and how that reflects the experience here on DDB.
Let me set the scene. Strategicon Gateway- 2018.
Young girl, using DnD beyond to create a character before coming to the con. Character completely AL illegal. But she didnt' know. She didnt' have a clue because ALL the classes and races were available to her on DND beyond. Oviously she was told she couldn't play the character she brought. and perhaps because she was young, there was... a significant amount of emotional destruction. It wasn't pretty.
Now granted, she didn't know to switch off the difference sources but she still would have had trouble because even if you only click official sources, you end up with classed and races, let alone class and race combos that aren't AL legal as options, without any real obviousness to them.
I kinda feel like " the official Digital D&D toolset" should work pretty well with "the official organized play rules"
I do not mean to diminish the obvious emotional stress and negative feedback this girl had, but that's not entirely and solely fault of DDB.
DDB should indeed offer AL support, as they have been saying for the past year, but the people at the convention should have not just said "no, you can't play, please move aside" (hyperbole). They should be familiar enough with DDB as to be be able to say "ok, let's have a look here... mmmh, there are a couple of things we should modify in order for you to be able to play this character, let's go through the character idea you wanted and the options we have...". I am not saying they were not helpful, I am just going off of what you wrote.
What I mean is: sure, DDB should have been able to guide this young girl to the creation of a proper AL character, but just as much as the people at the convention should have been able to "fix" her character in order for her to play with HER character, and do that in a constructive way (in order to avoid unnecessary emotional stress and pain). Convention and AL play should be (imho) first and foremost for NEW fans of the hobby, and should be welcoming and helpful to NEW players first. DDB has been lacking in this department, but sure it is not the only part to blame in this unfortunate occurrence.
At the very least, I’d like to see the ability to swap in the Safe Haven Background Feature in section 4 “Description” in the Character Builder to replace an existing Background Feature.
Wow, I really feel like that con situation was handled badly. There's nothing that's really SO broken that the game can't tolerate an obviously new player showing up out of spec and and the table just going with it. Way to dampen people's enthusiasm for the hobby.
But that said, yes please, AL support would be nice — as new material becomes available, it gets harder and harder to keep sources straight.
And, the new advancement and treasure points systems would be nice to track online.
I do not mean to diminish the obvious emotional stress and negative feedback this girl had, but that's not entirely and solely fault of DDB.
DDB should indeed offer AL support, as they have been saying for the past year, but the people at the convention should have not just said "no, you can't play, please move aside" (hyperbole). They should be familiar enough with DDB as to be be able to say "ok, let's have a look here... mmmh, there are a couple of things we should modify in order for you to be able to play this character, let's go through the character idea you wanted and the options we have...". I am not saying they were not helpful, I am just going off of what you wrote.
What I mean is: sure, DDB should have been able to guide this young girl to the creation of a proper AL character, but just as much as the people at the convention should have been able to "fix" her character in order for her to play with HER character, and do that in a constructive way (in order to avoid unnecessary emotional stress and pain). Convention and AL play should be (imho) first and foremost for NEW fans of the hobby, and should be welcoming and helpful to NEW players first. DDB has been lacking in this department, but sure it is not the only part to blame in this unfortunate occurrence.
It's not. I was just using a RL situation that was.. delicate. As a highlight for the problem. I could also have mentioned that EVEN MYSELF, forgot that Yuanti and an undying warlock patron breaks the stupid PHB +1 rule because while you're building the character, theres no Distinct way to know you are breaking it.
Also as a note. The convention admins handled the situation expertly and with grace. This isn't any thing about them or the way they did the job.
Wow, I really feel like that con situation was handled badly. There's nothing that's really SO broken that the game can't tolerate an obviously new player showing up out of spec and and the table just going with it. Way to dampen people's enthusiasm for the hobby.
But that said, yes please, AL support would be nice — as new material becomes available, it gets harder and harder to keep sources straight.
And, the new advancement and treasure points systems would be nice to track online.
To be fair, i didn't describe the situation in detail. So your opinion is ignorantly biased. I understand and thats my fault. Please understand that the Admins did a fantastic job with the situation and handled it appropriately.
And, the new advancement and treasure points systems would be nice to track online.
Try adventurersleaguelog.com
Thats a great resource. thanks for sharing it!
But also, it would be cool if there was an experience/treasure point tracker in DDB since AL is the Official organized play ruleset, and DDB is the official Digital toolset.
BadEye said they hope to implement them by Season 9. And after seeing the reception that the changes to Season 8 is getting, that's probably a good call. It seems like there will be even more changes (and maybe some backtracking) for the next season, so adding a new feature now that will ultimately become obsolete sounds like a lower priority than other requested features.
Btw, I'm just guessing about S8 being temporary, but I'm seeing more rage about it than I did with DDB's launch, and virtually no one defending it.
I am glad things where handled as best they could given the situation, by your initial post it sounded like they might have given a stern "NO" to the girl. Happy to be proven wrong :)
In any case I agree DDB should provide a clear and simple way to build AL-viable characters, even though I do not play in AL myself.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
BadEye said they hope to implement them by Season 9. And after seeing the reception that the changes to Season 8 is getting, that's probably a good call. It seems like there will be even more changes (and maybe some backtracking) for the next season, so adding a new feature now that will ultimately become obsolete sounds like a lower priority than other requested features.
Btw, I'm just guessing about S8 being temporary, but I'm seeing more rage about it than I did with DDB's launch, and virtually no one defending it.
All fair points. But, there was "rage" when DDB launched? lol what a waste of energy.
The whole AL rules are weird and arbitrary and overly-strong. It's really all an honor system anyway. The treasure points system seems weird if you're in a long-running campaign that happens to be Adventurer's League, but makes total sense for drop-in and con play — it's basically a way to say "yeah, by this level it's totally reasonable for you to have appropriate magical loot for your character". And the advancement points vs. XP helps keep things consistent and way less arbitrary — it's basically the "milestone" system broken up into finer grain.
Lets not have this degrade into yet another argument about the pros and cons of the new system. We've *****ed. We've moaned. Now it's here. All we can do is either live with them, or not play AL.
I am glad things where handled as best they could given the situation, by your initial post it sounded like they might have given a stern "NO" to the girl. Happy to be proven wrong :)
In any case I agree DDB should provide a clear and simple way to build AL-viable characters, even though I do not play in AL myself.
I think you are reading too much from what I wrote. :)
I would love to see dndbeyond have an AL option you could turn on that would guide you through legal AL character creation. Perhaps you could select your +1 on the character builder home screen which could "turn on" those options while keeping other source books "turned off". (Admittedly, I know very little about programming, but my imagination thinks that would work.)
I would love to see dndbeyond have an AL option you could turn on that would guide you through legal AL character creation. Perhaps you could select your +1 on the character builder home screen which could "turn on" those options while keeping other source books "turned off". (Admittedly, I know very little about programming, but my imagination thinks that would work.)
I want a random character builder that works where you pick the PHB and your +1 to generate an AL legal character.
I would love to see dndbeyond have an AL option you could turn on that would guide you through legal AL character creation. Perhaps you could select your +1 on the character builder home screen which could "turn on" those options while keeping other source books "turned off". (Admittedly, I know very little about programming, but my imagination thinks that would work.)
And, y'know, this would be a perfectly natural place for the site to gently encourage you to purchase content you haven't yet. :)
It would be so easy if the first page of character builder had a switch for "AL legal", then lets you select a source book and enforces the PHB+1 rule (which is outdated imao, but that's another story) regarding race, class, feats, spells, forbidden magic items etc.
Then with this selection maybe it can even help you with the advancement points, downtime, renown, points for magic items etc.
That would be something, but no, we only get fancy design changes and Eberron and Magic the Gathering content, so they can sell more cross franchise products. But I tell you what, I will not buy Magic the Gathering now. The "apply D&D rules to any setting" idea that marketing had at some point there won't pay off. Support your base please.
If at least the spells were filerable... I often ended up with something illegal because I missed that one of the spells is from another source book. You always have to have a second window open with the spell database filtered. A newbie just wants to click click click get a legal char without so much effort.
At least the feat prerequisites are implemented that's a nice advancement. =)
Edit: Yes has mostly been said already, but I wanted to say it again. I bought the online content because I can use it with the character builder easily. For me personally it was the number one reason vs. books. Or even additional to the books.
I don't see a reason to defend it. Any rage I have seen has been someone who hadn't read or played or used it in reality and had all kinds of weird and wildly incorrect beliefs about what it would do. It was all at the beginning. And the biggest thing I have heard now is that some of the things are still too powerful or didn't fix what they said were issues like some of the evergreen unlocks still being too powerful in Tier3-4. And the magic item table breakdown being unnecessarily obtuse and hard to figure out. I can see why they did it so that you didn't need some other set of tables and could use the normal books and it does provide some synergy for trading with things being on multiple tables. I have heard a bit of "some of my favorite characters were because I got stuck with some item and developed around using it and it ended up fun" but massively outweighed by the "I can predictably make a character concept and not rely on running certain adventures to unlock certain loot".
I would just like to chime in here that I agree that this WotC provided/sanctioned tool (DnDBeyond) should absolutely have a checkbox at the starter page for Character Creation that allows one to check "Adventurer's League Legal". Period. This seems like a very fundamental aspect of what this tool should provide. With that box checked, as soon as character options are selected that tie the character to their "PHB +1", then they need to stop being offered character options outside of those references. This should be simple to do, I would think.
I myself just now logged on to create an AL character, and was dumbfounded that there is not a checkbox for this.
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Before I go on, Let me make it clear that the Con Admins handled the below situation with expert grace and this post is not a negative reflection on how they handled it. (because I'm not going into detail about how they handled it.) This is simply a relation of the pertinent events in regards to how the situation came about in the first place, and how that reflects the experience here on DDB.
Let me set the scene.
Strategicon Gateway- 2018.
Young girl, using DnD beyond to create a character before coming to the con. Character completely AL illegal. But she didnt' know. She didnt' have a clue because ALL the classes and races were available to her on DND beyond.
Oviously she was told she couldn't play the character she brought. and perhaps because she was young, there was... a significant amount of emotional destruction. It wasn't pretty.
Now granted, she didn't know to switch off the difference sources but she still would have had trouble because even if you only click official sources, you end up with classed and races, let alone class and race combos that aren't AL legal as options, without any real obviousness to them.
I kinda feel like " the official Digital D&D toolset" should work pretty well with "the official organized play rules"
I do not mean to diminish the obvious emotional stress and negative feedback this girl had, but that's not entirely and solely fault of DDB.
DDB should indeed offer AL support, as they have been saying for the past year, but the people at the convention should have not just said "no, you can't play, please move aside" (hyperbole). They should be familiar enough with DDB as to be be able to say "ok, let's have a look here... mmmh, there are a couple of things we should modify in order for you to be able to play this character, let's go through the character idea you wanted and the options we have...".
I am not saying they were not helpful, I am just going off of what you wrote.
What I mean is: sure, DDB should have been able to guide this young girl to the creation of a proper AL character, but just as much as the people at the convention should have been able to "fix" her character in order for her to play with HER character, and do that in a constructive way (in order to avoid unnecessary emotional stress and pain). Convention and AL play should be (imho) first and foremost for NEW fans of the hobby, and should be welcoming and helpful to NEW players first.
DDB has been lacking in this department, but sure it is not the only part to blame in this unfortunate occurrence.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
At the very least, I’d like to see the ability to swap in the Safe Haven Background Feature in section 4 “Description” in the Character Builder to replace an existing Background Feature.
Wow, I really feel like that con situation was handled badly. There's nothing that's really SO broken that the game can't tolerate an obviously new player showing up out of spec and and the table just going with it. Way to dampen people's enthusiasm for the hobby.
But that said, yes please, AL support would be nice — as new material becomes available, it gets harder and harder to keep sources straight.
And, the new advancement and treasure points systems would be nice to track online.
Try adventurersleaguelog.com
Cool — thanks for the suggestion. It'd still be nice to have it here, though!
It's not. I was just using a RL situation that was.. delicate. As a highlight for the problem. I could also have mentioned that EVEN MYSELF, forgot that Yuanti and an undying warlock patron breaks the stupid PHB +1 rule because while you're building the character, theres no Distinct way to know you are breaking it.
Also as a note. The convention admins handled the situation expertly and with grace. This isn't any thing about them or the way they did the job.
To be fair, i didn't describe the situation in detail. So your opinion is ignorantly biased. I understand and thats my fault. Please understand that the Admins did a fantastic job with the situation and handled it appropriately.
Thats a great resource. thanks for sharing it!
But also, it would be cool if there was an experience/treasure point tracker in DDB since AL is the Official organized play ruleset, and DDB is the official Digital toolset.
BadEye said they hope to implement them by Season 9. And after seeing the reception that the changes to Season 8 is getting, that's probably a good call. It seems like there will be even more changes (and maybe some backtracking) for the next season, so adding a new feature now that will ultimately become obsolete sounds like a lower priority than other requested features.
Btw, I'm just guessing about S8 being temporary, but I'm seeing more rage about it than I did with DDB's launch, and virtually no one defending it.
I am glad things where handled as best they could given the situation, by your initial post it sounded like they might have given a stern "NO" to the girl. Happy to be proven wrong :)
In any case I agree DDB should provide a clear and simple way to build AL-viable characters, even though I do not play in AL myself.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
All fair points. But, there was "rage" when DDB launched? lol what a waste of energy.
Lets not have this degrade into yet another argument about the pros and cons of the new system. We've *****ed. We've moaned. Now it's here. All we can do is either live with them, or not play AL.
I think you are reading too much from what I wrote. :)
I would love to see dndbeyond have an AL option you could turn on that would guide you through legal AL character creation. Perhaps you could select your +1 on the character builder home screen which could "turn on" those options while keeping other source books "turned off". (Admittedly, I know very little about programming, but my imagination thinks that would work.)
I want a random character builder that works where you pick the PHB and your +1 to generate an AL legal character.
And, y'know, this would be a perfectly natural place for the site to gently encourage you to purchase content you haven't yet. :)
It would be so easy if the first page of character builder had a switch for "AL legal", then lets you select a source book and enforces the PHB+1 rule (which is outdated imao, but that's another story) regarding race, class, feats, spells, forbidden magic items etc.
Then with this selection maybe it can even help you with the advancement points, downtime, renown, points for magic items etc.
That would be something, but no, we only get fancy design changes and Eberron and Magic the Gathering content, so they can sell more cross franchise products. But I tell you what, I will not buy Magic the Gathering now. The "apply D&D rules to any setting" idea that marketing had at some point there won't pay off. Support your base please.
If at least the spells were filerable... I often ended up with something illegal because I missed that one of the spells is from another source book. You always have to have a second window open with the spell database filtered. A newbie just wants to click click click get a legal char without so much effort.
At least the feat prerequisites are implemented that's a nice advancement. =)
Edit: Yes has mostly been said already, but I wanted to say it again. I bought the online content because I can use it with the character builder easily. For me personally it was the number one reason vs. books. Or even additional to the books.
I don't see a reason to defend it. Any rage I have seen has been someone who hadn't read or played or used it in reality and had all kinds of weird and wildly incorrect beliefs about what it would do. It was all at the beginning. And the biggest thing I have heard now is that some of the things are still too powerful or didn't fix what they said were issues like some of the evergreen unlocks still being too powerful in Tier3-4. And the magic item table breakdown being unnecessarily obtuse and hard to figure out. I can see why they did it so that you didn't need some other set of tables and could use the normal books and it does provide some synergy for trading with things being on multiple tables.
I have heard a bit of "some of my favorite characters were because I got stuck with some item and developed around using it and it ended up fun" but massively outweighed by the "I can predictably make a character concept and not rely on running certain adventures to unlock certain loot".
I would just like to chime in here that I agree that this WotC provided/sanctioned tool (DnDBeyond) should absolutely have a checkbox at the starter page for Character Creation that allows one to check "Adventurer's League Legal". Period. This seems like a very fundamental aspect of what this tool should provide. With that box checked, as soon as character options are selected that tie the character to their "PHB +1", then they need to stop being offered character options outside of those references. This should be simple to do, I would think.
I myself just now logged on to create an AL character, and was dumbfounded that there is not a checkbox for this.