# [UPDATED!] D&D Beyond: An Official D&D Digital Toolset & Character Builder



## MNblockhead (Mar 12, 2017)

Source link?


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2017)

MNblockhead said:


> Source link?




Right there in the article.


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## MNblockhead (Mar 12, 2017)

https://www.dndbeyond.com/


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## The-Magic-Sword (Mar 12, 2017)

SO PUMPED FOR THIS!


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## Blackwarder (Mar 12, 2017)

Damn it looks GOOD!

Warder


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2017)

From what I can make out, Curse doesn't just do compendiums etc. - it's a large community platform. It looks like this is what WotC plans as the replacement for their forums, all integrated with the tools, character builder, etc.


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## RangerWickett (Mar 12, 2017)

Okay, this looks really good. But the thing I want that I'm not seeing yet is networking within a gaming group.

This looks like a handy app to run on your phone. Great. I've wanted an intuitive smartphone character sheet for years. But I want the GM to be able to use a tablet and have all the players at the table feed their status to his master app. Let him track the party's stats in real time. If a monster uses a special ability that is a smidge complicated to handle (like a Medusa's petrification gaze), let him select it and choose 'share with table,' so that all the PCs can see the rules. Or if one PC spots a monster, let the GM 'share with player X' the image from the monster manual.

Maybe that would clutter things. But I hope they've at least tested that sort of interface.

Also, I wonder if in the future we'll see adventures that are directly integrated into this software. The GM buys an app called "ZEITGEIST: The Gears of Revolution - adventure one" and he can read it on his tablet in pseudo-PDF form, or he can toggle to 'gameplay mode' where all the encounters are thumbnailed, and there's an easily-accessed appendix of all the stats, illos, and maps. Heck, have some of the loot available, and if the party finds the "Golden Icon of Urim," the GM can select 'share with player Y' so he immediately gets the item.

I wonder how hard it will be for third parties to work things into this app.

Still, it looks exciting.


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2017)

One thing I like about it is it says it supports home-brew stuff. I guess it had to, otherwise WotC would be crippling the DMs Guild if nobody could use its content in the official app.


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## EthanSental (Mar 12, 2017)

Looking forward to see the end product, especially if it's even better than herolabs.


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## Sands999 (Mar 12, 2017)

I cannot wait for this!


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## BrockBallingdark (Mar 12, 2017)

I want to be excited but just will remain cautiously smiling.  If this works out as advertised, then I will be thrilled with the home-brew part too!


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## MNblockhead (Mar 12, 2017)

Morrus said:


> Right there in the article.




When I first saw the post it had no text, just a single screenshot.


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## Mercule (Mar 12, 2017)

Very excited. One thing that I didn't see listed, but consider a must-have for this to be really useful, is an initiative tracker. Ideally, it would have the ability to do full encounter building, in advance, for a whole adventure. I'd take an initiative tracker.


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## Wrchylde (Mar 12, 2017)

Very nice. I can almost smell an official VTT. Both Twitch and Curse have some strong infrastructure that would be highly supportive of one.


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## MNblockhead (Mar 12, 2017)

I currently use Hero Lab. This doesn't bode well for HL getting a 5e license, so I hope D&D Beyond is a well-made app. One of the strengths of Hero Lab is the ability to create custom items and monsters. Customization is HL can, however, be a bit wonky and intimidating for the less technically adept/patient. Since D&D beyond only has to worry about one game system, it should be easier for them to create a well -tailored and user-friendly character builder that supports home brew content. if they pull it off, it may convince me to switch over. More likely, however, I would use both. I would hate to use Herolab's integration with RealmWorks.  Most likely, i would use D&D Beyond as a player and HeroLab as a DM.

Mostly, I'm just excited that there is decent competition.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Mar 12, 2017)

Morrus said:


> From what I can make out, Curse doesn't just do compendiums etc. - it's a large community platform. It looks like this is what WotC plans as the replacement for their forums, all integrated with the tools, character builder, etc.




Now I love enworld, but I'll be really happy if this is the case, I miss the WOTC forums for DND- and that level of integration sounds like it would make for a really great experience. I'll be happy to have another board to visit for general DND discussion topics, as well as this one.


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## mach1.9pants (Mar 12, 2017)

Crossing fingers for AWESOMENESS!


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## Sorcerers Apprentice (Mar 12, 2017)

Has anyone figured out what the pricing model is?


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2017)

Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> Has anyone figured out what the pricing model is?




I've asked. I suspect if they wanted us to know that yet we'd already know though.


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## Maul (Mar 12, 2017)

Is there going to be support for previous editions?


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## BrockBallingdark (Mar 12, 2017)

Maul said:


> Is there going to be support for previous editions?




I'm going to guess no.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Mar 12, 2017)

So i've been sort of looking at the video and pausing to look over the pages of the app- i can see buttons that direct you to homebrew things of various categories (the "spells" section has a "homebrew spells" button) and a "create a spell" button, so it seems like there's an in-client way to pull up an entry for homebrew, though knowing curse i do suspect that there'll be a way to import previously prepared data sets. 

That latest piece of news though: Available offline is huge, it could also imply that their pricing model isn't a subscription (as you could just sub for a bit, get everything, and then run it offline after canceling) i suspect you might have to pay fees for access to specific datasets (ergo, you have to buy a PHB pack, or a volo's pack, and what not for the content within- with luck, WOTC will put something in place to help us not have to essentially buy books multiple times)


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## Reynard (Mar 12, 2017)

No mention of Virtual Table Top was made so I wonder if they are planning on staying away from that first now. It makes sense with the relatively recent licensing deals with Fantasy Grounds and Roll20. If that is in fact the case I hope there is some tool for integration between the two.


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2017)

Reynard said:


> No mention of Virtual Table Top was made so I wonder if they are planning on staying away from that first now. It makes sense with the relatively recent licensing deals with Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.




Yeah, it would rather undermine their VTT licensees if they made one. That wouldn't be a very ethical move.


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## TerraDave (Mar 12, 2017)

If they did put out some more official player content (like a book of it) then something like this does become pretty handy.

Just hope it actually works.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Mar 12, 2017)

TerraDave said:


> If they did put out some more official player content (like a book of it) then something like this does become pretty handy.
> 
> Just hope it actually works.




Well all of those subclasses being tested in UA, according to Mike Mearls, are for them to figure out what their "First major Content Expansion" will look like, and that should be coming out at some point, ideally later this year. so yeah, big book of player oriented crunch, and this to help us keep track of it, sounds pretty toasty.


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## Remathilis (Mar 12, 2017)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> So i've been sort of looking at the video and pausing to look over the pages of the app- i can see buttons that direct you to homebrew things of various categories (the "spells" section has a "homebrew spells" button) and a "create a spell" button, so it seems like there's an in-client way to pull up an entry for homebrew, though knowing curse i do suspect that there'll be a way to import previously prepared data sets.
> 
> That latest piece of news though: Available offline is huge, it could also imply that their pricing model isn't a subscription (as you could just sub for a bit, get everything, and then run it offline after canceling) i suspect you might have to pay fees for access to specific datasets (ergo, you have to buy a PHB pack, or a volo's pack, and what not for the content within- with luck, WOTC will put something in place to help us not have to essentially buy books multiple times)



Hopefully, it won't be at full book price. Paying $50 for a physical book, $50 for the vtt version, and $50 for d&d-beyond data pack feels a bit like like gouging.


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## DLIMedia (Mar 12, 2017)

Good to see that WotC finally got their act together and decided that  trying to do this in house would have been a terrible idea.


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## Reynard (Mar 12, 2017)

Remathilis said:


> Hopefully, it won't be at full book price. Paying $50 for a physical book, $50 for the vtt version, and $50 for d&d-beyond data pack feels a bit like like gouging.




Tell me about it. Paying $100 for Volo's Guide is tough, but I run games both via FG and IRL.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Mar 12, 2017)

Remathilis said:


> Hopefully, it won't be at full book price. Paying $50 for a physical book, $50 for the vtt version, and $50 for d&d-beyond data pack feels a bit like like gouging.




Agreed, honestly I would probably just buy whatever copy i had to for the digital version, skip the physical copy and settle for my... backup digital copy. But thats sad, because i do like physical books. It would make a lot of sense if the data packs were very cheap, or were at least bundled with future releases of physical books and pdfs.


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## MarkB (Mar 12, 2017)

Morrus said:


> From what I can make out, Curse doesn't just do compendiums etc. - it's a large community platform. It looks like this is what WotC plans as the replacement for their forums, all integrated with the tools, character builder, etc.




I've mainly come across Curse through their mod-management tools for games such as World of Warcraft, which does at least give me some confidence that WotC have managed to pick a software provider with some experience this time.


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2017)

DLIMedia said:


> Good to see that WotC finally got their act together and decided that  trying to do this in house would have been a terrible idea.




They figured that out years ago with Morningstar.


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## Jester David (Mar 12, 2017)

*checks date*
Not the first of April? 
This is real?!
o.0


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## DLIMedia (Mar 12, 2017)

Morrus said:


> They figured that out years ago with Morningstar.




Well I'm not so sure about that... Let's face it; Trapdoor isn't exactly a very established company, and had nowhere near the development chops to take on such an overwhelming task. I'm reasonably sure that Morningstar went to WotC saying "hey, we have an idea! Let us do this!", not the other way around... and WotC went along with it because it wasn't costing them a dime.

Morningstar's doom was that they were choosing to effectively become the Steam of D&D: to become a publishing source, and that would never sit well with WotC. WotC already had plans along those lines with the DM's Guild - where they have much more control over what they publish - and Morningstar would have ended up being a direct competitor to that. So when they went to WotC with this idea, WotC dumped them; that they allowed them to get as far as they did is remarkable, to be honest.

Trapdoor had a staff of no more than ten people and published only one app that was hardly used by anyone on only one device (no Android support to speak of). Curse has five times the staff, has enough backing to take this on themselves without WotC's help (they're owned by Twitch, after all), has written multi-platform apps (iOS, Android and desktop), and has actual tangible experience in developing apps that have a large user base.

Of course, this is all likely a dream that will be destroyed once the absurd pricing model comes to light...


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## Morrus (Mar 12, 2017)

DLIMedia said:


> Well I'm not so sure about that... Let's face it; Trapdoor isn't exactly a very established company, and had nowhere near the development chops to take on such an overwhelming task. I'm reasonably sure that Morningstar went to WotC saying "hey, we have an idea! Let us do this!", not the other way around... and WotC went along with it because it wasn't costing them a dime.
> 
> Morningstar's doom was that they were choosing to effectively become the Steam of D&D: to become a publishing source, and that would never sit well with WotC. WotC already had plans along those lines with the DM's Guild - where they have much more control over what they publish - and Morningstar would have ended up being a direct competitor to that. So when they went to WotC with this idea, WotC dumped them; that they allowed them to get as far as they did is remarkable, to be honest.
> 
> Trapdoor had a staff of no more than ten people and published only one app that was hardly used by anyone on only one device (no Android support to speak of). Curse has five times the staff, has enough backing to take this on themselves without WotC's help (they're owned by Twitch, after all), has written multi-platform apps (iOS, Android and desktop), and has actual tangible experience in developing apps that have a large user base.




That's rather moving the goalposts. Trapdoor were not in-house.


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## DLIMedia (Mar 12, 2017)

Morrus said:


> That's rather moving the goalposts. Trapdoor were not in-house.




Yeah, you could say that... But I see a difference between (1) having a company come to WotC with an idea, and WotC stringing them along until the other company does something to conflict with WotC interests, and (2) WotC actively going out and selecting a professional company to do this work for them in an official capacity.


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## Jester David (Mar 12, 2017)

Okay, this is a surprise. 

First, they got a name company. That's good. They finally partnered with someone who know's their stuff rather than a rookie start-up. (That D&D is getting hella attention probably helps. I doubt Curse would have worked with WotC during 3e/4e.) I'm familiar with Curse from Warcraft, so that inspired confidence: they have to regularly patch and update their add-ons to work with the evolving Warcraft system and its patches. Updating for D&D content should be easy. 

That and I imagine the pricing model will probably give people sticker shock. I expect the Basic Rules will be cheap - if not free - but buying each successive book will be expensive. Expect to pay $50 for the PHB data pack. 

Still, I don't see this changing things in my game. I might get the Basic Rules so I can reference rules quickly in the event of a question. But I'm uncertain how much use I'd get out of the rest: 5e is easy to manage with paper and pencils. Characters don't need that much tracking or managing. It's not Pathfinder or 4e where you have to juggle and wade through dozens of options each level.
The DM tools might be interesting to see: if it can track initiative or hit points. But that kind of tool management is likely more of a VTT than part of this toolset.


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## Remathilis (Mar 12, 2017)

I tried to remember why I have a Curse account already.

Then it hit me, I was a member of MTGSalvation for a while. If D&DB's forums are 1/10th of that, they'll be pretty good.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 12, 2017)

EthanSental said:


> Looking forward to see the end product, especially if it's even better than herolabs.



Anything that is remotely competently made will be better than Hero Labs.



BrockBallingdark said:


> I want to be excited but just will remain cautiously smiling.



Wise move.



Mercule said:


> One thing that I didn't see listed, but consider a must-have for this to be really useful, is an initiative tracker. Ideally, it would have the ability to do full encounter building, in advance, for a whole adventure. I'd take an initiative tracker.



Then I'd need a laptop to replace the seven books, DM screen, and various and sundry other items I have to cart to games.


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 12, 2017)

Morrus said:


> Yeah, it would rather undermine their VTT licensees if they made one. That wouldn't be a very ethical move.




To be honest, I would really like for them to go back to the type of VTT they had with 4th edition because it was so easy to just log in and join up in a game right then and there. Fantasy Grounds is just way too overpriced and a hassle. 

I  want to come in from work, log in, and scroll down to see what games are waiting for players and just join in.


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## Jester David (Mar 12, 2017)

DLIMedia said:


> Yeah, you could say that... But I see a difference between (1) having a company come to WotC with an idea, and WotC stringing them along until the other company does something to conflict with WotC interests, and (2) WotC actively going out and selecting a professional company to do this work for them in an official capacity.




This presumes WotC approached Curse vs Curse approaching WotC as Trapdoor did. We don't know WotC reached out. 

The difference might literally be the type of companies approaching WotC in 2013 when 5e was still in development vs the type of company approaching WotC in 2015-17 when 5e is a huge hit and getting major media attention.


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## Jester David (Mar 12, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> To be honest, I would really like for them to go back to the type of VTT they had with 4th edition because it was so easy to just log in and join up in a game right then and there. Fantasy Grounds is just way too overpriced and a hassle.
> 
> I  want to come in from work, log in, and scroll down to see what games are waiting for players and just join in.




Try Roll20. The actual site is free. 

However, the 4e VTT did require a DDI subscription, so it was $10/month. Which, coincidentally, is also what Fantasy Grounds charges each month for it's ultimate licence. So it's the same price. Less really, since we're looking at 5+ years of inflation...


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 12, 2017)

Jester David said:


> Try Roll20. The actual site is free.
> 
> However, the 4e VTT did require a DDI subscription, so it was $10/month. Which, coincidentally, is also what Fantasy Grounds charges each month for it's ultimate licence. So it's the same price. Less really, since we're looking at 5+ years of inflation...




What I liked about the 4th edition VTT was that I could log in and actually see people waiting there live for various games. I could just choose one and start playing.


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## DnDBeyond (Mar 12, 2017)

While we are launching with the compendium content, character builder, and digital character sheet, we are committed to building the toolset out comprehensively. Intiative/ combat tracking and what you're describing here is definitely on the roadmap!



RangerWickett said:


> Okay, this looks really good. But the thing I want that I'm not seeing yet is networking within a gaming group.
> 
> This looks like a handy app to run on your phone. Great. I've wanted an intuitive smartphone character sheet for years. But I want the GM to be able to use a tablet and have all the players at the table feed their status to his master app. Let him track the party's stats in real time. If a monster uses a special ability that is a smidge complicated to handle (like a Medusa's petrification gaze), let him select it and choose 'share with table,' so that all the PCs can see the rules. Or if one PC spots a monster, let the GM 'share with player X' the image from the monster manual.
> 
> ...


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## DnDBeyond (Mar 12, 2017)

Yes, homebrew integration has always been a must-have for us!



Morrus said:


> One thing I like about it is it says it supports home-brew stuff. I guess it had to, otherwise WotC would be crippling the DMs Guild if nobody could use its content in the official app.


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## DnDBeyond (Mar 12, 2017)

D&D Beyond is intended to enhance gameplay around a table (virtual or otherwise) - we intend this to be completely complementary and have no intention of creating a VTT.



Morrus said:


> Yeah, it would rather undermine their VTT licensees if they made one. That wouldn't be a very ethical move.


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## Jester David (Mar 12, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> What I liked about the 4th edition VTT was that I could log in and actually see people waiting there live for various games. I could just choose one and start playing.



How many people are we talking about? Would there be enough people to justify adding that kind of feature? (i.e. a few hundred) 
Is there really strong demand for random pick-up groups with strangers?

If you want a "LFG lobby", it's the kind of feature you should request over on the Fantasy Grounds message boards rather than an ENworld topic unrelated to VTTs...

But, really, if you want to play online and that's your thing, wouldn't you have more luck just finding a regular group? A game with people who have a similar play style. It'd be less spontaneous but far, far more consistent.


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## DnDBeyond (Mar 12, 2017)

Adam here, product lead for DDB at Curse.

As you can imagine, it's been a busy day for us. We're heading back home tonight through tomorrow, but I have touched base with Morrus and will be happy to shine a little more light on D&D Beyond in the next couple of days.

We're terribly excited to get this into players' hands very soon with the beta. Thanks!


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## Patrick McGill (Mar 12, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> Adam here, product lead for DDB at Curse.
> 
> As you can imagine, it's been a busy day for us. We're heading back home tonight through tomorrow, but I have touched base with Morrus and will be happy to shine a little more light on D&D Beyond in the next couple of days.
> 
> We're terribly excited to get this into players' hands very soon with the beta. Thanks!




Hello Adam!

I'm sure you've been asked and have to keep Mum, but just in case: has a pricing model been set and can you speak about it at all?


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## DnDBeyond (Mar 12, 2017)

What I can say for now:

At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account.

We don’t have exact pricing nailed down, but you will also be able to buy official digital D&D content for all fifth edition products with flexible purchase options. You can pay only for the D&D content you need. If you only play fighters, for example, you’ll be able to just pick up the stuff you need to track swinging that giant two-handed sword.

A small monthly subscription will be needed to manage more than a handful of characters and to enable more advanced features, like homebrew content integration. At this time, we don’t know exactly how much the subscription will cost, but please continue to check dndbeyond.com for the most up-to-date announcements and information!

Headed to grab dinner...it's been quite a ride to get to this point and we're going to hit a little R&R tonight. I'll be able to check back in after I fly home tomorrow!


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 12, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> D&D Beyond is intended to enhance gameplay around a table (virtual or otherwise) - we intend this to be completely complementary and have no intention of creating a VTT.




Then I'm afraid you can count me out as a customer.

Good luck!


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 12, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> A small monthly subscription will be needed to manage more than a handful of characters and to enable more advanced features, like homebrew content integration.




I mean, I get it, I understand why that's probably a necessary requirement, but... man, there are so, so, so many subscription services these days, it's becoming a headache to manage them all and they're all becoming a really significant monthly expenditure to the point that I'm not keen on adding any more and, honestly, need to drop several already.


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## chibi graz'zt (Mar 12, 2017)

Looks like the new CEO of Wizards is really committed to his promise of giving us digital-tools ;-)
I think a lot of folks will be happy.


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## Lanliss (Mar 12, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> What I can say for now:
> 
> At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account.
> 
> ...




To start, welcome and thank you. It was a surprise to me during the recent Kobold Press Kickstarter when they actually showed up on these forums to talk about their product, and am happy to see that others will do it as well. Brave move...

One thing I will mention that seems slightly odd about your "model", if it can be called that this early, is that Homebrew is going to be behind the subscription. I do not know about most, but I do not have exactly all the money I would like to throw at D&D, so I have been messing with Homebrewing rather than going on DM guild. I know that people who can pay can Homebrew as well, but for me I homebrew because I cannot pay for other people to do it for me, so not being able to enter my homebrew work would be a slightly more than a minor issue for me (though not so big as a Major issue I think), and probably would have been the main reason for me going in on any price you stuck on this.

On to the actual questions, is it too early to know some of the technical details or workings of the builder? For example, Roll20 has the option to simply click "Bard level 3", and it automatically writes in the skills and spell slots you get at that level. Would this do the same, or would I be hand-typing things like Expertise or Bardic Inspiration? 

Will there be an art compendium, or just a way to port in outside pictures for the character sheets, or both? Obviously both would be best, but either works for me, as I can either google pictures or make do with a stock of images in-app.

You mention being able to only buy the fighter stuff. Does that mean that you would be able to only buy "Purple Dragon Knight from: Sword Coast Adventurers Guide" for something like $0.99?


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## Jester David (Mar 12, 2017)

The SRD for free? Wow, that's better than I expected. 
And being able to buy class packs makes sense...


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 12, 2017)

Lanliss said:


> One thing I will mention that seems slightly odd about your "model", if it can be called that this early, is that Homebrew is going to be behind the subscription.




I hear you on that but can understand why they're going this route. You can pretty much guarantee that if they're going to allow homebrew data sets that someone will build an entire PHB/DMG/MM data set and it'll go up for free somewhere. So they at least still get coin for running the servers even if people go that route.


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## BrockBallingdark (Mar 12, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> What I can say for now:
> 
> At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account.
> 
> ...




The free SRD sounds great and buying what we need, like if I play a Wizard, I can just buy the Wizard stuff. 
The small monthly subscription made me twitch (no pun intended).   I don't play MMO's because of that, I get it, it's part of the video gaming world.  If that's your model, I'm out as well. 

If you have a one time Life-time Subscription cost, like Fantasy Grounds does with their Ultimate license, I'll do that. Pay once and not worry about it.  I know I would still have to pay for books I may want to add in the future, I just HATE monthly subscriptions, especially for RPG gaming.


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## Trenloe (Mar 12, 2017)

Jester David said:


> If you want a "LFG lobby", it's the kind of feature you should request over on the Fantasy Grounds message boards rather than an ENworld topic unrelated to VTTs...



Just as an FYI, Fantasy Grounds have a Looking for Group lobby on their official Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VKbhkSt


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## L R Ballard (Mar 12, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> What I can say for now:
> 
> At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account.




Free access to the SRD beats looking up information online and calculating and organizing by hand.



DnDBeyond said:


> Intiative/ combat tracking and what you're describing here is definitely on the roadmap!




Combat tracking is always near the top of my list for character tools. I like being able to set up NPC parties--particularly high-level enemies--and then run them through mock combats against a group of "good guys." The combat tracker becomes a playtester, and there's no need to buy a VTT like Fantasy Grounds just to have access to the combat tracker for playtesting purposes. That's why I bought DM Genie years ago. And that's why, thus far, I haven't bought a subscription to Fantasy Grounds but am writing an adventure using free online resources.

Here's a friendly suggestion for DnD Beyond: Consider pricing access to the combat tracker to make it more affordable than access to similar tools on VTTs. Perhaps make the combat tracker available after a certain dollar amount of data-set purchases. I like the restraint DnD Beyond has shown in _not doing_ a VTT. That decision also shows respect for Fantasy Grounds and Roll20. 

However, DnD Beyond will lose market share if it offers a subscription for the combat tracker that costs the same as a Fantasy Grounds subscription. In that hypothetical scenario, why not just subscribe to the VTT and all the slick content already available on Fantasy Grounds?


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## Remathilis (Mar 12, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> What I can say for now:
> 
> At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account.
> 
> ...




So basically...

1.) The SRD is Free. That grants you access to all 9 races (though 1 subrace each), all 11 classes (one subclass each), 1 background, 1 feat, a huge selection of monsters from the MM, most of the DMG magic items, and 75% of the spells. 
2.) Additional stuff from the core-rulebooks will be separate content packs. You'll probably be able to buy them by class (Fighter's pack; granting access to EK, BM, and PDK), book (PHB pack; all the missing stuff from the PHB) or bundle (Core rules pack; everything from the PHB/DMG/MM). This will live or die by the pricing model, as I'd be willing to spend $5-10 to get the data from a sourcebook (like SCAG or VGtM) but I'm not rebuying the book at $40-50 per pack. 
3.) You get a few PC slots, but if you want more (as well as homebrewing entry and other goodies) you'll need to pony up more. Again, price is key: anything more than $5/month is a dealbreaker. I mean, Microsoft will sell me MS Office, a terabyte of storage, and 60 Skype minutes for $8, I sure hope WotC isn't going to charge that much for a character builder. (Although, if you want to give me access to all the features AND all the datasets for $10/month, I'll consider that equal to a Netflix subscription)

I'm intrigued (and signed up for beta testing), but the price point is what is really going to determine if this is a must-buy or pass. (Also, remember if there is going to be a mobile app to make for both Android AND Apple; don't put us Android users on the "wait months later" plan)


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## robus (Mar 13, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> I mean, I get it, I understand why that's probably a necessary requirement, but... man, there are so, so, so many subscription services these days, it's becoming a headache to manage them all and they're all becoming a really significant monthly expenditure to the point that I'm not keen on adding any more and, honestly, need to drop several already.




As a software developer I can tell you that funding ongoing development with just new sales is hard. Especially for a niche product such as this. Subscriptions are really the only feasible way to keep the work funded. Think of it like patreon You like the stuff, you want it to continue so you give a small amount each month to support it.

It's that or clickbait and adware.


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## Zhern (Mar 13, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> What I can say for now:
> 
> At launch, players will be able to access SRD content and build and view a small number of characters with a free D&D Beyond account.
> 
> ...




 [MENTION=6874542]DnDBeyond[/MENTION] - will characters be able to be exported? In XML or JSON? It would be great if they could be exported and imported into a VTT like Fantasy Grounds.  Thanks for taking the time to answer questions and participate in an informal Q&A.


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## darjr (Mar 13, 2017)

Will there be any Adventurers League support?


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## BurntToast (Mar 13, 2017)

darjr said:


> Will there be any Adventurers League support?




If you watch the teaser video... there is a shot that says "Adventurer's League Legal" or something along those lines.

Besides, an official D&D resource without AL support and functionality would be quite stupid.


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## fjw70 (Mar 13, 2017)

Great official D&D digital rules, and with a bonifide gaming company. That's awesome. Really looking forward to seeing an online compendium. That was my favorite part of DDI. 

Will there be digital versions of the adventures? Either at launch or down the road?


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## darjr (Mar 13, 2017)

[MENTION=29132]BurntToast[/MENTION] thanks. Didn't notice that. Also I see the story made the verge.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 13, 2017)

robus said:


> As a software developer I can tell you that funding ongoing development with just new sales is hard. Especially for a niche product such as this. Subscriptions are really the only feasible way to keep the work funded. Think of it like patreon You like the stuff, you want it to continue so you give a small amount each month to support it.
> 
> It's that or clickbait and adware.




Yeah, like I said, I get it, just not really excited about dealing with yet another subscription and having to choose between and the dozen others (which I already really need to reduce to no more than 5, it's costing hella money every month).

And what's really required for ongoing development for something like this? Get it right the first time and aside from some tweaks to fix things that were missed or improve based on feedback, the only work required is in the data sets which are extra money on top of the client anyway. Hero Lab hasn't really been changed for however long it's been out... a decade? And they just increased their prices to do basically nothing to their product other than keep selling it and adding packages which they charge for.

On another note, I just installed the Curse client. Yikes. 400mb for this? And it bugged out, spamming system password requests to install, and then wouldn't recognise my Twitch password to merge accounts. All for a clumsy amalgamation of mod installer and Discord clone. Ugh, not impressed by their offerings so far.


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## Dausuul (Mar 13, 2017)

Hmm. Color me cautiously optimistic, which considering WotC's track record in the digital arena is a ringing endorsement. 

I shall be interested to see how the encounter tracker shakes out. I have yet to see the encounter tracker that I would even consider using. It's got to be faster than (or at least no slower than) pencil and paper, and (for me, at least) that's a high bar to meet. It also has to be able to gracefully handle large numbers of monsters, on the order of 15-20. If it meets those requirements, I'm on board.

As for the character builder, I'm fairly certain I'll sign up for that if it's executed reasonably well.


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## LexStarwalker (Mar 13, 2017)

This looks very promising! I'm looking forward to trying out  the beta.


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## Remathilis (Mar 13, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> And what's really required for ongoing development for something like this? Get it right the first time and aside from some tweaks to fix things that were missed or improve based on feedback, the only work required is in the data sets which are extra money on top of the client anyway. Hero Lab hasn't really been changed for however long it's been out... a decade? And they just increased their prices to do basically nothing to their product other than keep selling it and adding packages which they charge for.




The issue will be both a.) storage and b.) new rules that don't conform to the previous mold. For example, psionics doesn't use the current spell-slot system, so adding psionics/The Mystic later might require changes to the code to allow a new type of power selection. Especially in a PnP game, you can't assume for rules that have yet to be written 5 years down the road.* That's also not including ideas like the initiative/encounter tracker or whatever other interesting ideas come along. 

* Its harder than you think. I saw it during 2e with the Core Rules Expansion disc, which had a robust class generator and still couldn't mimic all the classes in 2e, or similarly the 4e Char generator, which required heavy re-writing to accommodate the Essentials classes.


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## Dragonblade (Mar 13, 2017)

If there is a subscription option that includes all content, including periodic updates with new content as WotC releases books, then that's fine. I'm on board with that, even if its $15/month, which is more than Netflix charges and more than 4e DDI charged.

But a base subscription plus additional micro-transactions for content packs? Hmm, thats a tough sell for me, unless you create a storefront where you sell me the physical book AND the digital version at once. If I'm already paying for a subscription it should be priced to automatically include new material, not just to keep the servers running.


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## Jester David (Mar 13, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> And what's really required for ongoing development for something like this?



With new rules content every six months? That means at least one full time developer at $50,000 per year. 
Just covering her salary would be 1000 people each month at $5/ month. Plus office space, servers, bandwidth, computers, benefits, etc. You'll probably want at least a few thousand subscribers. 

That's just for upkeep. You also need to recoup the initial six to twelve months of development costs.


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## Curmudjinn (Mar 13, 2017)

Jester David said:


> With new rules content every six months? That means at least one full time developer at $50,000 per year.
> Just covering her salary would be 1000 people each month at $5/ month. Plus office space, servers, bandwidth, computers, benefits, etc. You'll probably want at least a few thousand subscribers.
> 
> That's just for upkeep. You also need to recoup the initial six to twelve months of development costs.




How dare you bring real math into this, Jester! You're making it hard to make excuses and point fingers, and we don't appreciate that.


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## pming (Mar 13, 2017)

Hiya!

 Looks cool and I was on board up until the _​"...will require a monthly subscription..."_ part. I already have more than enough monthly expenses. I can't "save up" for a monthly subscription...I can save up for a one-time fee of $100. I pay $10/mo for MODO Indie, another $20/mo for Substance Live, another $40/mo for Digital Tutors, and another $10/mo for something I can't remember at this second (...game related I think..._EDIT: Obsidian Portal; I have a $50'ish/year payment to them_). So that's $80/month for subscriptions. I would have to add another $25+/mo if I was using Photoshop, which would be over $100/mo for "subscriptions". Every few months I add in Netflix for a month to binge-watch certain series or movies.

So, unless the monthly sub is RIDICULOUSLY low (like, no more than $5/mo...tops), I'm out. Now, if they give an option to buy a "full year of total access for $75"...then I'll look into it. As I said, I can save up for that. But if it's each and every month, with no bulk-time purchase...then I'm out. 

Oh, yeah, I have to be able to save EVERYTHING/ANYTHING I want to PDF, RTF or some open-file format that I have full control over. If I can only view online or Print...again, I'm out. 

But, yearly-cost and full access to print/save/modify in various non-proprietary format and...I'm in! 

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 13, 2017)

pming said:


> Obsidian Portal; I have a $50'ish/year payment to them[/I]).




There's money you could save. Never saw the value in that site even after I had a yearly sub and made a huge effort to design a nice campaign portal. I still didn't renew and ended up having 2 months left on my sub before deleting the site and using other, much better stuff, for free.


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## Ristamar (Mar 13, 2017)

BrockBallingdark said:


> If you have a one time Life-time Subscription cost, like Fantasy Grounds does with their Ultimate license, I'll do that. Pay once and not worry about it.  I know I would still have to pay for books I may want to add in the future, I just HATE monthly subscriptions, especially for RPG gaming.




I concur.  My gaming (video, tabletop, or otherwise) often is not consistent enough to justify an ongoing monthly subscription, so a one-time lump some is far more palatable.


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## Guest 6801328 (Mar 13, 2017)

I love character generators, but there's no way I'm paying a monthly sub for this.  No $%#&ing way.


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## Jester David (Mar 13, 2017)

pming said:


> Hiya!
> 
> Looks cool and I was on board up until the _​"...will require a monthly subscription..."_ part. I already have more than enough monthly expenses. I can't "save up" for a monthly subscription...I can save up for a one-time fee of $100. I pay $10/mo for MODO Indie, another $20/mo for Substance Live, another $40/mo for Digital Tutors, and another $10/mo for something I can't remember at this second (...game related I think..._EDIT: Obsidian Portal; I have a $50'ish/year payment to them_). So that's $80/month for subscriptions. I would have to add another $25+/mo if I was using Photoshop, which would be over $100/mo for "subscriptions". Every few months I add in Netflix for a month to binge-watch certain series or movies.
> 
> ...



Reread. 
Currently, it sounds like the plan is single paymnets for content and subscriptions for more characters and being able to integrate homebrew content and "advanced" features. Sounds like basic stuff is just available for free, and you can get a class or two for a one time fee.


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## Jester David (Mar 13, 2017)

pming said:


> Hiya!
> 
> Looks cool and I was on board up until the _​"...will require a monthly subscription..."_ part. I already have more than enough monthly expenses. I can't "save up" for a monthly subscription...I can save up for a one-time fee of $100. I pay $10/mo for MODO Indie, another $20/mo for Substance Live, another $40/mo for Digital Tutors, and another $10/mo for something I can't remember at this second (...game related I think..._EDIT: Obsidian Portal; I have a $50'ish/year payment to them_). So that's $80/month for subscriptions. I would have to add another $25+/mo if I was using Photoshop, which would be over $100/mo for "subscriptions". Every few months I add in Netflix for a month to binge-watch certain series or movies.
> 
> ...



Oh, and look into EpicWord.com instead of Obsidian Portal. Much cheaper (but your players can only have a couple characters at a time).


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## Mouseferatu (Mar 13, 2017)

Oof. I really like the looks of this, and I've been eagerly awaiting 5E digital tools, but...

Look, I get the costs associated with this. RPG products are, in general, already _under_-priced for their value. I will happily pay a subscription, if the service looks worth it. Or I would be willing to pay for individual books or data packs.

But asking us to do both? Unless the costs are way lower than I'm expecting, even with my understanding of the industry, that's a non-starter for me.


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## mflayermonk (Mar 13, 2017)

Looks like they get you when you try to multiclass, so you have to buy both add-ons. If they're smart, feats will also be its own microtransaction.


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## discosoc (Mar 13, 2017)

I want to be more excited about this, but I just know it's going to drown us in microtransactions or some kind of monthly subscription.


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## Dualazi (Mar 13, 2017)

I was tentatively excited when I saw curse was involved, since despite being owned by Twitch they've been pretty reliable providers of modding support. That said, while I appreciate the information given so far by reps from the service itself, I'm less than enthused with what I'm seeing here. Microtransactions are almost always poisonous, and an ongoing subscription on top of that seems like a pretty shameless double-dip, particularly since homebrew options are gated behind it. Price for the full book options will also be suspect, because if wizards/curse thinks I'm paying another full 50$ for a digital convenience they've got another thing coming.

A lot of the features asked for or described are also provided reasonably well by roll20 for free, such as initiative tracking and character sheets/macros. The UI they've teased looks well made, but it's really going to come down to what they can offer that more established VTTs* can't.

* The reason I focus on VTTs more than apps, aside from personal preference, is that I doubt a subscription-based app is going to work well. I honestly think people will simply use paper and pencil if that's their main target audience.


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## Li Shenron (Mar 13, 2017)

Mumble, mumble...

The sneak peak looks nice, but I am not sure how this product would _really _enhance the way I play D&D.

- I have used a laptop in the past as a DM screen, to look at a hyperlinked SRD while playing 3e. But one of my favourite features of 5e is that I don't actually need to look at the rules that often. I still like my D&D to be very "pen & paper" in nature, it's what makes it complementary to videogames.

- Similarly, I don't get all these people having difficulties with the math, so that they need a digital aid. The math of 5e is so simple that you could avoid the traditional character sheet full of precalculated stuff. The small math required is also part of the fun for me.

- A general problem I have with digital tools, is that they seem to need a lot of stuff to look attractive and thus sell well. They aim at having lots of information + gorgeous artwork on the same page, to look worth their price. However this works against usability. For my preferences, the less the information, the smoother the game. 

- I think the price model makes sense from the producer's point of view: the SRD is already free and so asking to pay for it would require the tool to be REALLY a major improvement to the management of the game; allowing custom material for free however would open up the possibility for gamers to copy official supplements material into the tool (and maybe even share it online), so requiring a subscription for this makes sure that at least some revenue is generated. However, this means you need the subscription to incorporate even small house rules and additions, or be forced to apply them "off the tool". I think part of the attractiveness of the digital tool is to have everything at hand, otherwise it'll always feel an insufficient tool... so the choice is between increased & recurring costs, or just forget about the whole thing.

- I tend to buy RPG books as long-term resources with a broad scope. I would never buy "just what I need" because what I need is the idea of a complete game at my hand for a very long time. Not interested in purchasing small bits.

- If you have a subscription, you'd better have time to keep up with it. Unfortunately, I don't usually know if I'm even going to play the game next month. Not interested in subscription either.

- So that leaves me off with either buying the digital version of the full PHB+MM (I could skip the DMG) one-time, or just avoid the digital tool altogether. But I already bought the books, so it's going to be hard for them to provide a cheap enough offer and substantial reasons to use the tool to win me over.

It's not that it doesn't look cool, it's that it doesn't seem it would truly make me play or run the game better.


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## Hastati (Mar 13, 2017)

Li Shenron said:


> It's not that it doesn't look cool, it's that it doesn't seem it would truly make me play or run the game better.




I agree with you.  I either play face to face or use Fantasy Grounds.  I don't see how this will enhance my FG experience and I don't see how it enhances having a PHB and my character in hard copy at the table.  It does look "gee whiz awesome", but it doesn't look "must have" to me (but I do get that others will love it, and that's totally cool).


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## Ricochet (Mar 13, 2017)

Looks great and I can't wait to read more!

And of course it'll cost something.


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## DnDBeyond (Mar 13, 2017)

Dualazi said:


> I was tentatively excited when I saw curse was involved, since despite being owned by Twitch they've been pretty reliable providers of modding support. That said, while I appreciate the information given so far by reps from the service itself, I'm less than enthused with what I'm seeing here. Microtransactions are almost always poisonous, and an ongoing subscription on top of that seems like a pretty shameless double-dip, particularly since homebrew options are gated behind it. Price for the full book options will also be suspect, because if wizards/curse thinks I'm paying another full 50$ for a digital convenience they've got another thing coming.




I'm about to get on a plane so I've got to be brief, but I wanted to check in and make it clear that "microtransactions" were not mentioned and are not what the model is about. "Flexibility" was definitely mentioned.

I know we will never succeed at making everyone on the internet happy, but I do assure you as a 20+-year D&D player and fan, I have expressed most everything I've seen in this thread to one degree or another over the course of the development of the product.

Of course we've got to make money - there's a truly incredible amount of work that goes into crafting something like what we're building and we intend to build out the entirety of our huge roadmap with ongoing updates/ enhancements. I'm looking forward to sharing more about the pricing model soon - I really do think many folks will be pleasantly surprised.

Thanks!


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## speculart (Mar 13, 2017)

The massive good will that would be engendered by giving these tools for free. Unlocked with each purchase of each hardcover..or online equivalent, would be immense. 
This should be  a tool that makes the game easier to play...across the country, the world, or across the street! Imagine kids using these tools to hook up with their friends in the evenings. 

You should be thinking of a google hangouts/ skype like equivalent, with rules and content.  Easy play, for theater of the mind.


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## raleel (Mar 13, 2017)

Jester David said:


> With new rules content every six months? That means at least one full time developer at $50,000 per year.
> Just covering her salary would be 1000 people each month at $5/ month. Plus office space, servers, bandwidth, computers, benefits, etc. You'll probably want at least a few thousand subscribers.
> 
> That's just for upkeep. You also need to recoup the initial six to twelve months of development costs.




You are underpaying your developers! I hire new guys out of school for more than that, with benefits.


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## Morrus (Mar 13, 2017)

speculart said:


> The massive good will that would be engendered by giving these tools for free.




I'm not entirely sure that starving developers doing indentured labour counts as "goodwill"!


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## Jester David (Mar 13, 2017)

speculart said:


> The massive good will that would be engendered by giving these tools for free. Unlocked with each purchase of each hardcover..or online equivalent, would be immense.
> This should be  a tool that makes the game easier to play...across the country, the world, or across the street! Imagine kids using these tools to hook up with their friends in the evenings.
> 
> You should be thinking of a google hangouts/ skype like equivalent, with rules and content.  Easy play, for theater of the mind.



Sadly, programmers and software developers can't support themselves and their families on "goodwill."



raleel said:


> You are underpaying your developers! I hire new guys out of school for more than that, with benefits.



But if I went with the high salary rather than the lowball, it would have seemed unrealistic. Especially when even the low figures make the point...


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## Koloth (Mar 13, 2017)

I know its early in the announcement process but a few questions:
What quits working if you let a subscription lapse?
Can you pause a subscription and resume later?  (If your game goes on hiatus, be nice if you can pause the subscription costs)
What doesn't work if you don't have an internet connection? (They say it doesn't require a always on connection to work but is that all features?)
Any guarantees on how long it will be supported after V5 is no longer the current version?
Will they offer some kind of "Wrap Up" release to allow offline working after support ends?


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## Lord_Blacksteel (Mar 13, 2017)

speculart said:


> The massive good will that would be engendered by giving these tools for free. Unlocked with each purchase of each hardcover..or online equivalent, would be immense.
> This should be  a tool that makes the game easier to play...across the country, the world, or across the street! Imagine kids using these tools to hook up with their friends in the evenings.
> 
> You should be thinking of a google hangouts/ skype like equivalent, with rules and content.  Easy play, for theater of the mind.




They've said though that this isn't a VTT - it's to enhance table play. So I don't think it's a goal  to let kids play with their friends across the country or the world. If they're across the street they can walk over to each other's house and play in person - which this does seemed to be aimed at helping. 

There are already VTTs out there, some of them fairly inexpensive. Not free, but close.


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## Mercule (Mar 13, 2017)

raleel said:


> You are underpaying your developers! I hire new guys out of school for more than that, with benefits.



Agreed. I made $50K/yr as a developer fresh out of school with a degree in Political Science. Over 20 years ago. In Iowa, which isn't exactly on the Seattle pay scale. 

Even in the Midwest, if you aren't paying your leads $90K/year, you aren't going to attract the talent necessary to actually put together a prime-time product. Doing cross-platform development, you're either going to have multiple leads at that level or one or two principles/architects at a significantly higher rate, in addition to some general developers.


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## Nylanfs (Mar 13, 2017)

Having been involved in this corner of the industry since shortly after 3e launched, I'll wait and see if this crashes and burns. I'm interested to seeing how this will be integrated with third party source material, not homebrewed. If it's the same level as the 4e (ie None) then Hero Lab and PCGen will be getting more users.


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## Oofta (Mar 13, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> I know we will never succeed at making everyone on the internet happy





And the award for understatement of the year goes to ...  DnDBeyond!!! 

I'm looking forward to the product, from what little you've shown so far it looks pretty amazing.  As a developer myself who has done some small applications to implement this kind of stuff (and I guarantee I cost more than 50k per year, especially when you count in benefits and overhead) I know how much work it is.

I'm always amazed that people seem to think you can crank out this stuff for free, maintain it, add new features, keep up with errata, keep up with new rules and classes, etc.  How are you supposed to make a living?

Anyway, good luck and I look forward to trying out the application.


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## Zaukrie (Mar 13, 2017)

Pay for the book. Pay for the book again on fantasy grounds. Pay for the book again on these tools. Ugh. 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


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## Erik Westmarch (Mar 13, 2017)

DnDBeyond said:


> We don’t have exact pricing nailed down, but you will also be able to buy official digital D&D content for all fifth edition products with flexible purchase options. You can pay only for the D&D content you need. If you only play fighters, for example, you’ll be able to just pick up the stuff you need to track swinging that giant two-handed sword.



Does this work out to more, less, or the same as buying a book? I can see this adding up to "more". But buying what you use makes sense, as long as the price is right.



DnDBeyond said:


> A small monthly subscription will be needed to manage more than a handful of characters and to enable more advanced features, like homebrew content integration.



Are you kidding me? I have to subscribe to my own characters and my own house rules? Content that I'm doing the work of creating I have to pay to access?

No, sorry. Deal breaker. I can continue to save my character sheets and home brew rules doc right where they are. I don't have to worry they'll get locked away from me if I can't make a monthly payment. I could see subscribing to new rules or buying the new rules in "packs"; either one of those is fine. Subscribing to my own campaign isn't viable.


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## Osgood (Mar 13, 2017)

I really hope this works out, but given past attempts, I'll believe it when I see it. Unfortunately, they start out in the hole because there are so many varying opinions about a) what the product should be and b) how much it should cost. They'll never be able to please everyone. Maybe they can do UA surveys and at least shoot for something that satisfies a majority.

For myself, simplicity to use is key. Personally I wouldn't touch something like Fantasy Grounds or Hero Lab with a standard issue 10-foot pole...  I know plenty of folks love them, but I find them overly complex and unwieldy (screenshots looks simple enough, but I'm not sure about some of the formatting). As far as the pay model goes, maintenance and further development isn't cheap, and I don't begrudge anyone making a profit. I figure it'll cost what it costs, and some will be able to afford it, while others won't... they are luxuries for those with the resources, not requirements to play.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 13, 2017)

I just want to say that if the program ends up being useful to me, I will happily pay for it in whatever format is required.

- I don't care how many other subscriptions I currently have, because if this saves me time and energy and is useful to me right now, then it's worth the money.

- I don't care if I've already bought the products in book form, because if this saves me time and energy and is useful to me right now, then it's worth the money.

- I don't care if I don't "own" this stuff and it potentially goes away at some future point once the game has moved onto 6E, because if this saves me time and energy and is useful to me right now, then it's worth the money.

Long story short... if it helps me run my games and the price is less than what I think my time and energy is worth if I had to do all of that work myself... then I'll pay for it happily.  Same exact reason why I'd buy a WotC hardcover or a product off of DMs Guild.


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## Oofta (Mar 13, 2017)

I could also see scenarios where this could save some people money.  Get the free basic rules, pay for the class or two you actually want to play and you have all you need.  Buying a book is optional.  Paying for another service like Fantasy Grounds is optional.

I'll still buy the books (and whine that there's no official PDF version) but I really don't see what kind of pricing model people think could be implemented.  

Should WOTC pay the developers?  To do that they'd have to dramatically increase the price of books.  

Support ongoing maintenance and development with advertising? That would be popular.  

One time fee?  Interesting idea, but how do you work out how much to charge?  If you charge enough to to cover your ongoing costs and make a reasonable profit off of the interest from the payment (even assuming your company is set up to do that), wouldn't it be cheaper for people to pay an ongoing fee?

On top of that, WOTC still needs to make a profit (see the option above about downloading the free rules) so there's probably ongoing licensing fees they need to cover.


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## Zaukrie (Mar 13, 2017)

And the poor DM, who needs all the rules? Look, I am not arguing they shouldn't make money. I am arguing that for people with other hobbies, who play some remotely, this is no cheap hobby. 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


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## Valdier (Mar 13, 2017)

In the modern software development world, and noting they are using Curse as the development provider, much of the work is likely off-shored. $50,000k for an offshore developer is pretty reasonable (if not high) in the current market. Additionally maintaining and enhancing this app isn't likely something that would require a team of developers to be working full time.

If WoTC is working off a "licensing" model with Curse, its very easy to see them taking a percentage of the subscription cost and Curse worries about the cost of development. Even at $5 a month, WoTC could take $1 from each subscriber and have an intern handle pushing data files for an offshore developer to integrate. 

Modern business


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## Valdier (Mar 13, 2017)

Zaukrie said:


> And the poor DM, who needs all the rules? Look, I am not arguing they shouldn't make money. I am arguing that for people with other hobbies, who play some remotely, this is no cheap hobby.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk




I think this is still one of the cheapest hobbies you can participate in.


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## Pauper (Mar 13, 2017)

Color me cautiously optimistic.

Here are the things I'll be keeping an eye on:

- "D&D Beyond will work without an internet connection."

What's the definition of 'work' here? I can tell you right off the top that you won't be able to buy or download content without an internet connection. With the app being described as 'web-based', it would seem that there's little need for a local repository -- except to facilitate 'offline' play, which wouldn't be possible without one. In other words, unless you can download and store data to your device in a way that the app can access without needing to 'phone home' to make sure you actually own the material you're using, your ability to 'use' the app without an internet connection will be limited at best.

This also leads into the next point:

"high quality tools available on any device"

Again, sounds good. In practice, though, this is either a web portal of some kind (which would still require some massaging to work with the various mobile vs desktop browsers out there -- recall that the 4E Character Builder couldn't be used on mobile devices because of its reliance on Microsoft Silverlight), or a 'custom' shell for each OS -- one for iOS, one for Android, etc., downloadable from the various app stores.

But if this is the route you're going, where is your local repository of data that allows you to do offline play? Perhaps the modules are implemented as JavaScript or similar 'plug-ins', similar to how Curse's existing apps work, but managing plug-ins written by other developers (and thus not being responsible for how those plug-ins interact with the OS or the original application they're written for) is a big difference from writing your own plug-ins that you are responsible for. Curse may have a dev team, but I don't know that they've ever tackled writing their own third-party plug ins rather than simply providing the 'shell' used to manage other devs' plug-ins.

And if you do decide to go 'native', producing an iOS app, an Android app, etc., that increases the overhead and the dev staff you'll need to keep up with the underlying game system. Some posters seem excited at the possibility of new books coming out with more class/feat options and the like, but having to wait until weeks after the book release for the 'D&D Beyond' implementation of those releases would not be nearly as exciting.

"flexible purchase options"

I guess 'microtransactions' is a dirty word now? If the purchase options are really going to be flexible enough so that you can buy just one class out of the PH, it doesn't seem like there's all that much difference between that and 'microtransactions'.

I wouldn't be surprised if the subscription is offered as the 'simple' option -- as long as you're a subscriber, you get access to everything, and when your sub ends, you lose access to anything you haven't paid for in a separate transaction. Sounds like there's a fair amount of resistance to that idea, though, especially given...

"A small monthly subscription will be needed to manage more than a handful of characters and to enable more advanced features"

Do the 'flexible purchase options' include the ability to buy additional 'character slots'? The downside is obvious -- if the app only allows non-subscribers to create and track a limited number of characters (hopefully using the carrot of unlimited characters as a way of enticing more people to subscribe), that's going to seriously cramp some folks' styles, especially in Adventurer's League. (I've got nearly a dozen AL characters in my own stable, and mine isn't nearly the most extensive character collection I'm aware of.)

There is a possible upside to this, though -- if the reason for limiting the number of trackable characters is that these characters are considered 'content' that's stored on Curse's servers as well as in a local repository, then that suggests it might be possible to implement a 'character vault' feature that would be very useful for AL play and similar campaigns that want to make use of data validation -- an AL vault that only allows for officially released additions to a character would make things much easier for AL DMs who don't have the time or resources to keep track of every magical item released in every AL-legal adventure.

So much of what's written is basically speculation and promises, though, that I can't fault anybody for withholding judgment until we see an actual working version of the app. Cautiously optimistic seems the way to go, for now.

--
Pauper


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## Oofta (Mar 13, 2017)

Zaukrie said:


> And the poor DM, who needs all the rules? Look, I am not arguing they shouldn't make money. I am arguing that for people with other hobbies, who play some remotely, this is no cheap hobby.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk




Do they?  If people are using the app, the characters will be accurate.  They can use the application for monsters.  Magic items are optional or they can just make up stuff that makes sense.  

At the worst a DM may need to buy a DMG.

If you choose to buy the books, have subscriptions to other services, it's up to you.  All you really need to run a game online is skype, from what I'm seeing all you need to run a game will be a subscription to this service.  

I get that people have a limited budget to spend on hobbies.  I'm just saying that expecting a company to give you something for free because you already paid other companies money is silly.


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## EthanSental (Mar 13, 2017)

Much like Defcon 1 said - if this saves me time and energy running the campaign, I'm in.  Obsidian Portal at 4.99 a month is worth it to me and I probably have more fun posting adventure session, tavern rumors than my players have time to read.   so 4.99 a month for D&D beyond falls in line with that and I'm OK with paying it, even upwards of 9.99 a month as a DM.  Now of the players don't like it or that limits the use, I'l re-examine down the line but as of right now I'm excited to see this coming and only think positively about it's potential.


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## Nylanfs (Mar 13, 2017)

Pauper said:


> "flexible purchase options"
> 
> I guess 'microtransactions' is a dirty word now? If the purchase options are really going to be flexible enough so that you can buy just one class out of the PH, it doesn't seem like there's all that much difference between that and 'microtransactions'.
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised if the subscription is offered as the 'simple' option -- as long as you're a subscriber, you get access to everything, and when your sub ends, you lose access to anything you haven't paid for in a separate transaction. Sounds like there's a fair amount of resistance to that idea, though, especially given...




I'm guessing that they are looking at how FG is working, you can buy just the class, or the PHB stuff.


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## speculart (Mar 13, 2017)

Morrus said:


> I'm not entirely sure that starving developers doing indentured labour counts as "goodwill"!




 Of course I was not suggesting devs do not get paid.  I was suggesting that Wizards pick up the bill..in return for a smart way to make it easier to play the game...and buy content through the platform. I was suggesting being smart about things in the same way that roll20 do things.


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## speculart (Mar 13, 2017)

Jester David said:


> Sadly, programmers and software developers can't support themselves and their families on "goodwill."




I am advocating innovation instead of the subscription method.  Obviously not underpaying developers.  

Modernising and changing the way kids can play this wonderful game. In a way that is affordable to kids.


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## Zaukrie (Mar 13, 2017)

Oofta said:


> Do they?  If people are using the app, the characters will be accurate.  They can use the application for monsters.  Magic items are optional or they can just make up stuff that makes sense.
> 
> At the worst a DM may need to buy a DMG.
> 
> ...



Ya, that's totally the opposite of what I typed. I said they should make money. Sigh.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


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## Patrick McGill (Mar 13, 2017)

I'm not sure I can agree that buying something on FG or this program (if that is how content is distributed) is akin to buying a book twice or three times. You're getting new utility out of it; you're buying it to convenience yourself.

I'm not paying for the PHB twice when I buy all of the Spellbook Cards from Gale Force 9, am I? I already own these spells, why should I pay a second time to get them in a different (more convenient) form?

I'd be willing to pay a pretty penny for a subscription, something like this would be of great use to me. I already use a laptop to help me run since I use a lot of PDF products from Drive Thru RPG. I know my players would love to have a player character builder. I'm pretty sure it's the first thing on all of our wish lists for 5e right now.

And a compendium? My kingdom for a well-hyperlinked 5e rules compendium!


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## Salamandyr (Mar 13, 2017)

Well, signed up.   If this can replace my books and let me add custom art, it'll be a day one purchase.


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## shamurai7 (Mar 13, 2017)

This is awful..... I currently have zero problems creating and managing characters.  
You know I was just sitting on my couch wishing I had another monthly subscription bill.
Please....
Fans make krap like this all the time FOR FREE.  I myself have already made digital sortable searchable forms of all the monsters from every official book. Also made digital sortable searchable spell compilation with every spell.
EZ....and I have never asked for a dime.


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## Morrus (Mar 13, 2017)

shamurai7 said:


> This is awful..... I currently have zero problems creating and managing characters.
> You know I was just sitting on my couch wishing I had another monthly subscription bill.
> Please....




So don't. What's the problem?


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## DM Magic (Mar 13, 2017)

shamurai7 said:


> EZ....and I have never asked for a dime.




You wouldn't be able to ask for a dime. It's not your content.


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## R P Davis (Mar 13, 2017)

Valdier said:


> I think this is still one of the cheapest hobbies you can participate in.




It absolutely is. People who think TTRPGs are expensive make me shake my head at how indescribably parsimonious some people can be. They clearly have no other hobbies. At all. Except maybe reading library books. 

Every single hobby has a cost-of-entry as well as maintenance costs. TTRPGs have a very low maintenance cost and a relatively low cost of entry. $50 to $150 to get started, for books and dice (and a few minis if you want them), and practically zilch to maintain, unless you count pop and Chee-tos. If you want/need to play online, you can play on Roll20 for free - I run a weekly game there and haven't paid a cent. 

That's fantastically inexpensive for a hobby. If you (not you, Valdier, the colloquial "you," the people you and I are sternly talking to) think it is expensive, just look at what other hobbies cost.

I'll show you. Let me break down one of my others: Music. I'm a percussionist. I'm classically trained, but we'll leave the cost of my education out of it, since I'm not doing it professionally. Just for the essential gear I'll need, I need: Drum kit: $800; Cymbals: ~$1000; Hardware: ~$500; Sticks, heads, etc: ~$300.

That's just to let me play in my basement with an instrument that's worth picking up the sticks in the first place. If I want to play out with a band, add in a set of gig bags (~$200). Maybe I'll need to add a set of mics for gigs - those run about $600 for a set of mics worth using, plus cables and all. Okay, now it's really loud, and I care about my hearing, so I need a set of in-ear monitors and the system to make them work. There's another $400.

Now add in lessons, travel expenses, etc. All to play, what? Three gigs a month for $100 a toss? Yeah, *that'll *pay me back in never.

Add it all up, and the cost of entry for having the hobby of playing drums in a rock-and-roll band, to *start*, is upwards of $3000, probably pushing $4000 once you start figuring in the different odds and sods you need once you've figured out that the first stuff you bought isn't exactly what you required.

Ah, I hear you cry, but that's exceptional. Okay. Let me give you another: Swords. I used to practice historical European martial arts. You know, the guys who complained about why the D&D longsword, well, wasn't?  Anyway, a high-quality weapon from a reputable supplier like Darkwood Armory is between $400 and $500. Protective gear will run at least another $200, probably closer to $300 if you do it right. And that's about half of what something like Kendo will cost you. Just to start. Not to do, which means weekly lessons and sparring at about $50 a pop. Just to _start_.

Yeah, you're still saying, but that's also exceptional! Okay. Let me give you another, for a thing I wouldn't do if you threatened to behead me: Golf. An entry-level set of golf bats is $200 at my local Dick's Sporting Goods. Shoes, another $50. A couple dozen balls? $15. A round of 18 at the nearest public course to me? $20. That's $300 just to start, with crappy gear at that.

Imagine in this space a picture of a middle-aged guy looking from that cost list to a free PDF he downloaded from Wizards, plus a free dice app, both of which are on his phone, plus the character sheet he wrote out on the back of a piece of scrap paper using a pencil that cost him a quarter.

Now whine about how expensive TTRPGing is. That middle-aged guy? He makes this face.






So yeah, cry me a river about how $pendy TTRPGing is. It's the least-expensive hobby I've ever had.

Cheers,

Bob

www.r-p-davis.com


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## Zaukrie (Mar 13, 2017)

R P Davis said:


> It absolutely is. People who think TTRPGs are expensive make me shake my head at how indescribably parsimonious some people can be. They clearly have no other hobbies. At all. Except maybe reading library books.
> 
> Every single hobby has a cost-of-entry as well as maintenance costs. TTRPGs have a very low maintenance cost and a relatively low cost of entry. $50 to $150 to get started, for books and dice (and a few minis if you want them), and practically zilch to maintain, unless you count pop and Chee-tos. If you want/need to play online, you can play on Roll20 for free - I run a weekly game there and haven't paid a cent.
> 
> ...



What a condescending post.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


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## Oofta (Mar 13, 2017)

shamurai7 said:


> This is awful..... I currently have zero problems creating and managing characters.
> You know I was just sitting on my couch wishing I had another monthly subscription bill.
> Please....
> Fans make krap like this all the time FOR FREE.  I myself have already made digital sortable searchable forms of all the monsters from every official book. Also made digital sortable searchable spell compilation with every spell.
> EZ....and I have never asked for a dime.




And ... so what?  Afraid the DDRS* is going to come knocking on your door?  Those tools are not going to disappear.


_*D&D Revenue Service_


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## Oofta (Mar 13, 2017)

Zaukrie said:


> Ya, that's totally the opposite of what I typed. I said they should make money. Sigh.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk




Your original statement ...



Zaukrie said:


> And the poor DM, who needs all the rules? Look, I am not arguing they shouldn't make money. I am arguing that for people with other hobbies, who play some remotely, this is no cheap hobby.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk




My response is that if you don't want (or don't have) the money to spend you will have to decide where to put your cash.  Nobody is disagreeing with that.

You may have to decide what is more important: books, a full featured remote tool (vs skype), an electronic version of the rules you can access offline.  I would say that this product may give some people a cheaper option.  Don't buy the 3 big books (PHB, MM, DMG), just subscribe to what you need.  We won't know for certain until the pricing model comes out.

Both WOTC and the folks behind D&D Beyond need to make a reasonable profit. If they offer a product you don't find useful or can't afford, don't purchase them.  If you can't afford a product, don't buy it and run a campaign off the free basic rules and free content you can find online.

IMHO, there has never been a better time for a cash-strapped folks who want to play official D&D.


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## robus (Mar 13, 2017)

Everybody has different levels of disposable income. What's cheap to someone could be expensive to someone else.

An ongoing subscription can be too much of a burden for some people - whereas a one-off purchase might be manageable (and of course everyone loves free!)

Let's try to be a bit more considerate?


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 13, 2017)

Unless, overall, this tool system turns out to be really cheap, I don't see it really succeeding. I couldn't see people who are using Fantasy Grounds using this tool because it would be something else to have to purchase which this on top of Fantasy Grounds would cost you a fortune. Being a DM would get very expensive to the point where it would put people off.

I see what they are doing here by trying not to make the same mistake with the 4th edition character builder but I just don't see people really sinking money into this thing unless they have absolutely nothing else they purchase.


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## R P Davis (Mar 13, 2017)

Zaukrie said:


> What a condescending post.




But apparently not demonstrably false. If you'd like to address the facts of that post, I encourage you to do so. 

You're right that my judgment was, well, judgy. It was meant to be. So much of this hobby is already free or ridiculously underpriced. This breeds an unreasonable expectation that exacerbates the problem. Look at DM's Guild - tons of people kvetch about how it's all dreck, then complain, sometimes in the same sentence, about how $1.95 is too much for an adventure. Then they get stroppy when they're confronted with statements about how you get what you pay for.

Every time someone comes out with a new product, there's a demographic which chimes in with doom and woe about how expensive it is. That demographic needs to be firmly told that they already pay less for their hobby than virtually every other hobby in the modern age, and that good "stuff" for any hobby costs money.



robus said:


> Everybody has different levels of disposable income. What's cheap to someone could be expensive to someone else.
> 
> An ongoing subscription can be too much of a burden for some people - whereas a one-off purchase might be manageable (and of course everyone loves free!)




True! I was merely trying to point out the inherent falseness of claiming that TTRPGs are expensive. They're not. 

A person whose budget is so tight that a subscription or one-time purchase is that sweat-worthy can easily decide not to purchase something which isn't necessary to enjoy their favorite TTRPG. It's a complete no-brainer. As I pointed out, if you're that strapped, you can enjoy D&D 5e _without spending a single penny_. To complain about the product, especially before knowing the pricing structure, therefore presents itself as whiny. 



> Let's try to be a bit more considerate?




You're right about that. For my part, I'm sorry that I let my dudgeon get the better of me. I've said my piece.


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## robus (Mar 13, 2017)

As a DM if it lets me quickly pull together the resources I expect to need for a session, maps, monsters, spells etc that would be great. I'm doing a lot of data entry at the mo trying to provide myself with quick reference sheets for those things.

And certainly cost is always a question.


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## redrick (Mar 13, 2017)

The Monster Builder for the 4e tools was worth the subscription alone. Being able to quickly hop onto my computer and print out an index card for each monster (pulling straight from the complete set of official monsters) I planned to have on deck for an adventure saved thumbing through books at the table or having to copy a bunch of monster abilities down every week. Plus, I could quickly modify monsters to fit my particular needs. A tool like that for 5e would be worth the price of admission for me.

Character generators are less essential for 5e than 4e, as there are far fewer feats to copy down and fiddly modifiers to calculate, but, hey, if a digital tool makes it easier to copy down the full text of feats and features when making characters, this could be useful for the right kind of table. And, again, thinking of the DM, character generators are a great tool when you want to come up with a bunch of pre-gens for a one-shot game with new players. I know there are other tools out there making use of the SRD, but if this one works well and comes with the more essential monster tools, I'm all over it.

I look forward to the beta. Though, sure, cautiously optimistic. Fortunately, we've been doing fine with the tools we (don't) have for however long 5e has been on the market, so if this doesn't live up to expectations, we'll still be in pretty good shape.


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## DM Magic (Mar 14, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> Unless, overall, this tool system turns out to be really cheap, I don't see it really succeeding. I couldn't see people who are using Fantasy Grounds using this tool because it would be something else to have to purchase which this on top of Fantasy Grounds would cost you a fortune. Being a DM would get very expensive to the point where it would put people off.
> 
> I see what they are doing here by trying not to make the same mistake with the 4th edition character builder but I just don't see people really sinking money into this thing unless they have absolutely nothing else they purchase.




Just once it would be interesting to see what a positive post from you would look like.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 14, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> Unless, overall, this tool system turns out to be really cheap, I don't see it really succeeding. I couldn't see people who are using Fantasy Grounds using this tool because it would be something else to have to purchase which this on top of Fantasy Grounds would cost you a fortune.



That makes no sense. I have no interest in FG or Roll 20. Neither do most players, I'd be willing to bet. That puts the majority of players in the basket of potential customers. I know that, if it is a good tool that is well made and at a reasonable price, I'll be encouraging my players to use it. I can't get them to use Hero Lab for this because, well, it's not a very well made tool and it's pricey for what you get, considering all you get is the SRD for $35 US.



redrick said:


> The Monster Builder for the 4e tools was worth the subscription alone. Being able to quickly hop onto my computer and print out an index card for each monster (pulling straight from the complete set of official monsters) I planned to have on deck for an adventure saved thumbing through books at the table or having to copy a bunch of monster abilities down every week. Plus, I could quickly modify monsters to fit my particular needs. A tool like that for 5e would be worth the price of admission for me.



Oh man, if I could print out a monster stat block, or access them on a laptop at the table, wow, that would be a game-changer.

Currently I use Valloric's statblocks that I make my own versions of monsters with. It's not difficult, but it's time-consuming and an extra step in the prep process. I'd love a statblock that I could print out like with Valloric's.


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## fantasmamore (Mar 14, 2017)

*@ Curse Inc.*

I am a graphic & web designer and every month I have to pay subscriptions for my work (servers, photo banks, domain names and other stuff). On top of that I have to pay other bills as everyone else (rent, transportation, internet etc). Even as a gamer I have a roll20 subscription. The last thing that I need is another monthly fee even if it's as low as 1 dollar per month. I just can't. My income is not steady and there are months (August and September) that are really bad while others (December, May) that I can spend more. 
Plus, I was a subscriber during the DDi era and I paid hundreds of dollars until the day that I couldn't even level up my characters or renew my subscription. So to me, a subscription plan means that I only *borrow* stuff and that the publisher will *remove my access whenever they want*.
On the other hand I will pay for content that I can use whenever I want, even if it costs a little bit more.
So, please, do whatever is best for your company and the publisher but give me the *alternative* to buy things that I can own. I will never go back to the DDi model, ever again. 
Thank you and good luck!


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## wedgeski (Mar 14, 2017)

redrick said:


> The Monster Builder for the 4e tools was worth the subscription alone. Being able to quickly hop onto my computer and print out an index card for each monster (pulling straight from the complete set of official monsters) I planned to have on deck for an adventure saved thumbing through books at the table or having to copy a bunch of monster abilities down every week. Plus, I could quickly modify monsters to fit my particular needs. A tool like that for 5e would be worth the price of admission for me.



Couldn't agree more. When I left 4E behind, the Monster Builder and Compendium were difficult losses.


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## Nylanfs (Mar 14, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> Oh man, if I could print out a monster stat block, or access them on a laptop at the table, wow, that would be a game-changer.
> 
> Currently I use Valloric's statblocks that I make my own versions of monsters with. It's not difficult, but it's time-consuming and an extra step in the prep process. I'd love a statblock that I could print out like with Valloric's.




Have you seen PCGen's output?


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 14, 2017)

If you don't want to pay for a subscription because you already pay other subscriptions... then don't.  Nobody cares.

But you can be darn sure that if it makes the most sense for Curse to use the subscription model, and they are fairly certain there are enough people in the hundreds of thousands out there playing D&D that *are* willing to pay a monthly subscription... then they're going to do it happily.

If that means you get left out... too bad.  Play the game as you always have.  It's your choice.  But it's not their job to make your life easier, its their job to make their product profitable for them.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 14, 2017)

And let us also never forget that if you own a pencil, some pieces of paper, and either some dice or you have a way of downloading a dice app... this hobby is literally free of charge.  It's only if you want the extra bells and whistles that it starts costing more money.  Whether or not you wish to spend that money for those bells and whistles is up to you, but none of the makers are obligated to offer them to you cheaply or easily.  You have to decide how far down the aisle you wish to go.


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## BoldItalic (Mar 14, 2017)

I'll happily participate in the beta (I've signed up) to help these guys make a good product better. Good luck to them, I hope the project succeeds.

I'm not too worried about the pricing model - market forces will sort that out fairly rapidly - what matters at this stage is that it functions well as a product, is easy and fun to use, is relatively easy to maintain behind the scenes and actually delivers something that people need (or, at least, want).


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## Nylanfs (Mar 14, 2017)

DEFCON 1 said:


> And let us also never forget that if you own a pencil, some pieces of paper, and either some dice or you have a way of downloading a dice app... this hobby is literally free of charge.  It's only if you want the extra bells and whistles that it starts costing more money.  Whether or not you wish to spend that money for those bells and whistles is up to you, but none of the makers are obligated to offer them to you cheaply or easily.  You have to decide how far down the aisle you wish to go.




And there's always the option of PCGen...


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## Satyrn (Mar 14, 2017)

BoldItalic said:


> I'll happily participate in the beta (I've signed up) to help these guys make a good product better. Good luck to them, I hope the project succeeds.
> 
> I'm not too worried about the pricing model - market forces will sort that out fairly rapidly - what matters at this stage is that it functions well as a product, is easy and fun to use, is relatively easy to maintain behind the scenes and actually delivers something that people need (or, at least, want).




Easy to use - specifically "quick to use while playing" - is what I want. Something unobtrusive that speeds up the ordinary tasks of tracking hit points, ticking off a use of superiority dice or a spell slot, and the like. That is the important feature for me.

I have not yet found any tool that is actually quicker at that than using pencil and paper. I wonder if this one will be, and if I can help them make it so. That's why I'm looking forward to participating in the Beta.


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## fantasmamore (Mar 14, 2017)

Defcon 1, I am not sure if you are responding to me. If that's the case then...



DEFCON 1 said:


> If you don't want to pay for a subscription because you already pay other subscriptions... then don't. Nobody cares.



That's not very kind of you. You know that I can respond "nobody cares" to anything you say about... anything, right? But that's not the point. We "gather" here to talk about our hobby and, sure, if you don't care about something, move on, forget about it! That's what I do when I don't care. 



DEFCON 1 said:


> But it's not their job to make your life easier, its their job to make their product profitable for them.




And I quote myself "So, please, do whatever is best for your company and the publisher but give me the *alternative* to buy things that I can own. I will never go back to the DDi model, ever again."
So,what I say is that they can do whatever is best for them but also give the alternative to buy stuff. Which they actually did. We will be able to buy stuff, we will be able to use it offline. That's all I wanted. 

And as for the second message, I know that playing RPG is free if you have pencils etc... But what does it have to do with the app? I never said that if the app is expensive I will not play DnD. If the app is expensive I will not buy/ subscribe to the app.


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 14, 2017)

DM Magic said:


> Just once it would be interesting to see what a positive post from you would look like.



  Sorry to disappoint you but I'm not a Wizards fanboy who does positive just for the sake of positive.   My parents taught me to always be honest so I'm just calling it as I see it.


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## DM Magic (Mar 14, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> Sorry to disappoint you but I'm not a Wizards fanboy who does positive just for the sake of positive.   My parents taught me to always be honest so I'm just calling it as I see it.




You must be fun at parties.


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## DM Magic (Mar 14, 2017)

BoldItalic said:


> I'll happily participate in the beta (I've signed up) to help these guys make a good product better. Good luck to them, I hope the project succeeds.
> 
> I'm not too worried about the pricing model - market forces will sort that out fairly rapidly - what matters at this stage is that it functions well as a product, is easy and fun to use, is relatively easy to maintain behind the scenes and actually delivers something that people need (or, at least, want).




Well said!


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 14, 2017)

DEFCON 1 said:


> If you don't want to pay for a subscription because you already pay other subscriptions... then don't.  Nobody cares.
> 
> But you can be darn sure that if it makes the most sense for Curse to use the subscription model, and they are fairly certain there are enough people in the hundreds of thousands out there playing D&D that *are* willing to pay a monthly subscription... then they're going to do it happily.
> 
> If that means you get left out... too bad.  Play the game as you always have.  It's your choice.  But it's not their job to make your life easier, its their job to make their product profitable for them.




You do realize that in order to be profitable, people have to actually buy your product? If people don't like the price you're selling it at then they will not buy it which in turn means you won't turn a profit. 

A business should care about these even if you don't.


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 14, 2017)

DM Magic said:


> You must be fun at parties.




Why exactly do you enjoy trying to make these types of trolling and baiting comments? 

You do understand they aren't constructive in any way shape or form?


----------



## Valdier (Mar 14, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> Why exactly do you enjoy trying to make these types of trolling and baiting comments?
> 
> You do understand they aren't constructive in any way shape or form?



To be honest, neither of your posted back and forth are contributing much. The fan boy comments and constant negativity, is not useful. Nor is the sniping at your grognardian stances 

That said, its kinda fun to read...


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 14, 2017)

Valdier said:


> To be honest, neither of your posted back and forth are contributing much. The fan boy comments and constant negativity, is not useful. Nor is the sniping at your grognardian stances
> 
> That said, its kinda fun to read...




What is useful or not is subjective.


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## Morrus (Mar 14, 2017)

Drop the childishness, please, folks.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 14, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> You do realize that in order to be profitable, people have to actually buy your product? If people don't like the price you're selling it at then they will not buy it which in turn means you won't turn a profit.
> 
> A business should care about these even if you don't.




Well let's see... how about you name the product that you were SURE no one was going to buy, and then you ended up being right?  Cause I'd be very curious if your doomsaying of anything WotC has done or licensed to others has actually crapped the bed like you seem to think they always will.  Because right now, your uneducated opinion that not enough people are going to sign up for D&D Beyond to make it profitable for Curse is not exactly a strong one for WotC and Curse to worry about if you ask me.  Heh heh!


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## Satyrn (Mar 14, 2017)

*tosses out the baby with the bathwater*

. . .oh, the childishness, not the child.


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## darjr (Mar 14, 2017)

I am starting to turn around on this. If cp thinks so badly of it it's worth at least a second look.


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## Patrick McGill (Mar 14, 2017)

I wonder if, similar to Fantasy Grounds, there will be an option to input information yourself. I'm not THAT familiar with the process, but someone I know didn't buy the FG "Monster Pack" or what have you and just inputs the monsters that he needs and it seems to work well.

Honestly I'm not even sure if that's a congruous enough example, however.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 14, 2017)

DLIMedia said:


> Good to see that WotC finally got their act together and decided that  trying to do this in house would have been a terrible idea.




AFAIK, they've always tried to do it by paying a company of experts. They've just had the worst luck imaginable doing it. I mean, the 4e one had the head of the company building it die before completion! And the rest of the company didn't really know what exactly he was doing, and couldn't just smoothly finish his work! Hardly a result of anyone not having their act together. 

Seems like they only go in house when crap hits the fan and it's that or abandon the whole project after making promises.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 14, 2017)

Jester David said:


> That and I imagine the pricing model will probably give people sticker shock. I expect the Basic Rules will be cheap - if not free - but buying each successive book will be expensive. Expect to pay $50 for the PHB data pack.





Unless they have a way of stopping folks from using the "create x" feature to effectively copy and paste phb options into the program, I rather doubt it. 




Corpsetaker said:


> To be honest, I would really like for them to go back to the type of VTT they had with 4th edition because it was so easy to just log in and join up in a game right then and there. Fantasy Grounds is just way too overpriced and a hassle.
> 
> I  want to come in from work, log in, and scroll down to see what games are waiting for players and just join in.





I _really_ liked the 4e VTT. I feel like they could have dominated the VTT market if they'd found someone to finish it and make it compatible with other systems. 

At this point, I don't use a VTT, because none of them are as convenient and easy as the DDI one, and I'd have to pay extra for modules to plug official DnD content into them, which I'm not all about. 


For me, without the full suite of integrated tools, I'd rather use a webcam and Google hangout or skype or something to play over video chat, with the DM's camera viewing the table from above. 



Jester David said:


> How many people are we talking about? Would there be enough people to justify adding that kind of feature? (i.e. a few hundred)
> Is there really strong demand for random pick-up groups with strangers?




Enough that I literally never logged on during normal hours to see an empty lobby. Ie, I always found a group or players. 

Sometimes I would play with a group for a few hours just to test out a new character idea I'd just built in the CB, or gather players to play a 2 hour adventure to test out some concepts for an adventure I was going to run later for my regular group. 

I'm lucky enough that a VTT is, for me, purely a bonus, so it doesn't hurt my game to not have it, but I completely get CT's desire to return to the integrated simplicity and convenience of the 4e tools, and disappointment that to get the full set of features and services with the 5e tools, he has to use multiple suites of tools. 

I mean, seriously, if I'm paying for Beyond, I'm sure as _hell_ not going to also pay for roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, and none of the free VTTs, IMO, are worth the time investment to master the use of. Especially since the main appeal to me, is to import from a CB and encounter builder, rather than having to input the info manually, or track it outside the VTT. 

I get why wotc is going this way, but I would rather they buyout fantasy grounds or something, or get FG to integrate with Curse's tools so that users can pay a subscription that covers both, buy content packs _once_, and import/export seamlessly between the vtt, character builder, and encounter builder tools, all connected to a virtual lobby that is tied to the official community service(s) for the game. 

For me, at least, a VTT by itself, without any of that, or even without most of that, just isn't worth any money, ever. 


about dev costs and subscriptions: When the 5e playtest was fairly new, and the last final decline of DDI subs hadn't happened yet, DDI had around 80k subscribers. 

Even if we assume most 5e users won't sub, there are enough that it should be fairly easy to get around that number. At 10$/mo, that's 800k a month. 9.6 million a year. 

Even if they make the baseline 10$, and let you do a year sub for less per month, I doubt Beyond subs will be as low as DDI subs were in the early days of the Next playtest, so this should be a very profitable venture. As long as they don't screw it up somehow. 

What I'd like to see is something like how Dungeons and Dragons Online works. You can sub for 15$/mo, getting access to all content and most of the major account upgrades, plus some free turbine points. Or you can purchase specific content and account upgrades individually, and there are often sales and bundles, and if you play for free, it's still a pretty full featured game, you just don't get all races and classes, but there is plenty of content for months of free play, and the upgrades that don't come free aren't particularly necessary. 

the equivalent here would be 10/mo for all content, and all features, then a la carte purchasing of content packs and account feature upgrades, and finally a free version that works fine, and has the important features built in.

Edit: oh, and DDO has a yearly sub that works out to like 10$/mo, rather than the normal 15. I'd like to see something like that. DDI had the same deal, IIRC.


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## daplunk (Mar 14, 2017)

R P Davis said:


> It absolutely is. People who think TTRPGs are expensive make me shake my head at how indescribably parsimonious some people can be. They clearly have no other hobbies. At all. Except maybe reading library books.




Core Books: PHB, DMG, MM, Volo's Guide To Monsters, Sword Coasts Guide, Adventures
3rd Party Books: Tome of Beasts, Fifth Edition Foes, Book of Lost Spells
Extras: Pencils, Erasers, Dice, More Dice
Minis: Bones I, Bones II, Bones III, Bones IV (Its coming!), Conan Board Game, D&D Board Games, 
Mini Storage: Shelving + Mirrors
DM Software: Realm Works, Hero Lab, Campaign Cartographer +3 (+addons)
Table: Projector + Mirror
3d Terrain: Bucket loads of Hirst Molds, Hydrastone, paint, paint brushes

Now obviously not all of this is necessary. But this hobby can absolutely be be expensive for those that want it to be.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 14, 2017)

R P Davis said:


> It absolutely is. People who think TTRPGs are expensive make me shake my head at how indescribably parsimonious some people can be. They clearly have no other hobbies. At all. Except maybe reading library books.
> 
> It's the least-expensive hobby I've ever had.
> 
> ...




I get your point, and agree, but here are some counter examples and arguments: 

The music example doesn't have to be that expensive. Second hand gear usually works fine, and drums are pretty expensive compared to other rock instruments. You can get a perfectly good guitar for a couple hundred, and a lot of the other equipment can be gotten second hand or cheaper than that, as well. Most hobby drummers I know don't spend near that much on most of their gear. Pretty only the guys I know who are touring regularly due to decent regional success, and they spent that money over the course of years, upgrading their gear bit by bit. 

Sports, you also chose expensive examples. Any jackhole can play soccer for less than it costs to get started with DnD. 

Baseball is a bit more, but most of the additional cost is easily spread out over more people. Basketball is just as cheap as soccer. Football depends on what level you're playing at, but if it is truly hobby level, we're talking touch/flag, which is gonna be cheaper than DND, again. 

Sword-fighting is a good example, but when I was doing the SCA, in a group that took it a lot more seriously than many do, and practiced 3+ times a week for 3-4 hours at a time, the most expensive gear were your helmet, and the shield, unless someone you know has a good source of materials for the shield, or you don't fight with one. 

So, ignoring loaner gear, and getting right into the point where you buy your own stuff, you're talking maybe twice the startup cost of DnD? Sure, you can spend a lot more, but I have friends who spend _easily_ 1k$ or more on any given edition of DnD, not to mention the minis and stuff that get used for all our games. I can name a friend who has probably spent 2 grand or more on TTRPGs over the last ten years, and that isn't counting the huge suitcase/tacklebox thing the height of a 8 year old he has full of minis for DnD and Star Wars. And he doesn't even get into indie games. 

I know I've spent more on TTRPGs than anything else except maybe books, in my lifetime.


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 14, 2017)

If you gave me a CB, Encounter Builder, and a VTT all rolled into one, I would gladly pay 20.00 per month. I don't even want anything fancy, I just want the tools to play and a lobby that allows me to do quick pick up games.


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 14, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Core Books: PHB, DMG, MM, Volo's Guide To Monsters, Sword Coasts Guide, Adventures
> 3rd Party Books: Tome of Beasts, Fifth Edition Foes, Book of Lost Spells
> Extras: Pencils, Erasers, Dice, More Dice
> Minis: Bones I, Bones II, Bones III, Bones IV (Its coming!), Conan Board Game, D&D Board Games,
> ...




Not to mention Fantasy Grounds plus all the extras packs you may need to buy and now this D&D Beyond.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 14, 2017)

DEFCON 1 said:


> But you can be darn sure that if it makes the most sense for Curse to use the subscription model, and they are fairly certain there are enough people in the hundreds of thousands out there playing D&D that *are* willing to pay a monthly subscription... then they're going to do it happily.



Since WotC have stats on just how many people are willing to pay a subscription fee, and I'm fairly certain it was never in the hundreds of thousands, the price they ask for and the quality of the product, is very much a concern for both them and for consumers. IIRC, there was something like 10,000 subscribers to DDI at its height. The figures are out there but it's been long enough that I can't remember the details and can't be bothered to look. But I'm sure it wasn't anywhere close to even a 100,000, let alone hundreds of thousands.

Point is, I think people do care. I think they care very much. And I think you're the outlier in this instance, not the majority.



doctorbadwolf said:


> AFAIK, they've always tried to do it by paying a company of experts. They've just had the worst luck imaginable doing it. I mean, the 4e one had the head of the company building it die before completion! And the rest of the company didn't really know what exactly he was doing, and couldn't just smoothly finish his work! Hardly a result of anyone not having their act together.



I wouldn't call it bad luck, I would call it bad management on the part of Hasbro. They put people into roles who have no understanding of the things they're in charge of. They expect one person to know everything about everything and pay them diddly to do it. So you get people who know nothing about project management of a digital product, initiating tenders and projects for digital products. And so in turn you get companies who take on projects that are far beyond their capabilities. Trapdoor quite obviously bit off far more than they could chew, and the same happened for the 3D virtual table program during 4e.

As for the guy who died, I think that was actually a suicide and he wasn't the head of the company but rather a project lead or other programming position within the company. I can't recall exactly.



doctorbadwolf said:


> Unless they have a way of stopping folks from using the "create x" feature to effectively copy and paste phb options into the program, I rather doubt it.



If they allow homebrew at all, then you can absolutely guarantee that there will be PHB clone files out in the wild. I think this is why they're putting homebrew behind the paywall.



doctorbadwolf said:


> about dev costs and subscriptions: When the 5e playtest was fairly new, and the last final decline of DDI subs hadn't happened yet, DDI had around 80k subscribers.



Are you sure about that? I thought it was much lower than that.


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## Corpsetaker (Mar 14, 2017)

R P Davis said:


> It absolutely is. People who think TTRPGs are expensive make me shake my head at how indescribably parsimonious some people can be. They clearly have no other hobbies. At all. Except maybe reading library books.




Here's the main issue.

I've been a gamer for many years and I have spent tons of money on gaming products. Someone who says RPG's aren't expensive make it clearly obvious they don't know what they are talking about.

Anyway, that's beside the point. 

I can bet you here and now that people would gladly spend more money for products they can actually hold in their hand versus a product they will never truly own. Gaming books are a one time investment that can be used for years to come, digital stuff doesn't always get that far. Just look at Sword Coast Legends, that game was supposed to be big and was supposed to see support for years to come. Well the game actually caused the company (N-Space) to go bust and the company that moved in to pick up the pieces has stopped giving any support to the game so it's basically dead in the water. 

Micro-transactions add up when stacked on to other things such as household bills, your physical book collection, minis, etc.... To be honest, I don't enjoy having to deal with multiple companies either, I want everything all in one nice package which I will gladly pay good money for.


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## daplunk (Mar 14, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> Not to mention Fantasy Grounds plus all the extras packs you may need to buy and now this D&D Beyond.




See i don't get this. I keep seeing the VTT crowd posting with "why doesn't this do anything for me". 

If you are playing via FG or Roll20 then this tool is not designed for you. 

You can do this on FG or Roll20. You're meant to do this on FG or Roll20. If you are playing via the internet via either of these tools there is no need to buy this all again unless its your personal preference to have access to your character when you are away from your PC.

This is a competitor for Hero Lab / OrcPub / ForgedAnvil / Fifth Edition Character Sheet right now and from what I've seen they want to take on Realm Works / Obsidian Portal as well. 

This is a tool for the many thousands of us who use digital tools at the table to make the management of our games easier. This is not intended to replicate the whole process, which is what Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are doing. There are many thousands of us who would never consider using FG or Roll20 simply because it is a VTT. We already have tables and don't need that extra functionality. 

We do however want character creators, combat managers, npc generators, monster generators, ability to manage PC sheets across the cloud. 

I have almost everything I need in Realm Works and Hero Labs. Except, it doesn't have a 5e license, it doesn't support android and it doesn't have the ability to view my characters sheets via the cloud. 

I tell you what though. I will be watching Lone Wolf Development & D&D Beyond very closely. 

I doubt D&D Beyond will be able to compete with Realm Works in the short or medium term. And for me Realm Works is looking to be the tool that will drive my other decisions.


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## R P Davis (Mar 14, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Core Books: PHB, DMG, MM, Volo's Guide To Monsters, Sword Coasts Guide, Adventures
> 3rd Party Books: Tome of Beasts, Fifth Edition Foes, Book of Lost Spells
> Extras: Pencils, Erasers, Dice, More Dice
> Minis: Bones I, Bones II, Bones III, Bones IV (Its coming!), Conan Board Game, D&D Board Games,
> ...






doctorbadwolf said:


> I get your point, and agree, but here are some counter examples and arguments:
> 
> The music example doesn't have to be that expensive. Second hand gear usually works fine, and drums are pretty expensive compared to other rock instruments. You can get a perfectly good guitar for a couple hundred, and a lot of the other equipment can be gotten second hand or cheaper than that, as well. Most hobby drummers I know don't spend near that much on most of their gear. Pretty only the guys I know who are touring regularly due to decent regional success, and they spent that money over the course of years, upgrading their gear bit by bit.
> 
> ...




You guys are both missing the point. 

Nobody *needs *to spend a single, shiny (or dull) coppery cent to play D&D. Not. One. Cent. 

Sure, you can buy all that stuff for 5e. But you don't *have *to. I was running D&D Next for the playtest, then with with the free PDFs from Wizards, long before I bought the PHB and DMG. I _still _don't have a MM, because I have the SRD. It's not as though you must have all of that folderol before you can play. That is simply not true. As both of you have noted, D&D can be expensive, but only if you want it to be. When one complains about pricing of impulse-buy stuff one doesn't at all need in order to do enjoy the game, I can't help but say, "Dude, really? Don't want it, don't buy it. You don't _need _it, so what's your beef?" 

In order to participate in any of the hobbies I can bring to mind or that Dr Bad Wolf lists, you *must *- *MUST*, there is no option - spend _something _to do _anything _with the activity, to even _begin_.

That is the point. You can play D&D for FREE for EVER, for the rest of your life, after never having spent a single penny on it to begin with. There is no other game-based hobby I'm aware of where you can do that.

The SCA, for example, has gotten a lot better about its armor requirements. You can't get a helm for $100 anymore, at least one that a responsible marshal will approve. Besides, you're still talking about all the other armor as well as the helmet. That's a couple hundred bucks before you can even authorize, because you can't use loaner gear forever. And since authorization is the beginning, you have to spend money. What we're talking about here is someone who has everything he needs to fight, like one of the Paul Chen monstrosities, bitching because he can't afford a Windrose bascinet, implying or outright saying that Windrose's pricing is somehow out of whack.

That's a second point - "I can't afford it" is not a legitimate criticism of a product's price, especially when your explanation of _why _you can't afford it shows you can't really afford to do much at all. I'm sorry for you, because I've been there, and it sucks. But it by no means proves that access to the app in question on a subscription basis is somehow objectionable.

When you add it up, it makes bitching about expense petty and whiny, an exercise of "O! Alas! Look at poor lil' ol' me, too poor to afford this luxury item I don't really need to enjoy my hobby!" I find that a little preposterous. 

Cheers,

Bob


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## daplunk (Mar 14, 2017)

R P Davis said:


> You guys are both missing the point.
> 
> Nobody *needs *to spend a single, shiny (or dull) coppery cent to play D&D. Not. One. Cent.
> 
> Sure, you can buy all that stuff for 5e. But you don't *have *to.




Pretty sure I covered it actually with 



> Now obviously not all of this is necessary. But this hobby can absolutely be be expensive for those that want it to be.





The point being that it's a choice, it can be a bloody expensive hobby, or not, up to the individual.


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## freeWeemsy (Mar 14, 2017)

I really hope the pricing structure here isn't terrible. As a DM who uses digital means to track everything this could be invaluable.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 14, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> Since WotC have stats on just how many people are willing to pay a subscription fee, and I'm fairly certain it was never in the hundreds of thousands, the price they ask for and the quality of the product, is very much a concern for both them and for consumers. IIRC, there was something like 10,000 subscribers to DDI at its height. The figures are out there but it's been long enough that I can't remember the details and can't be bothered to look. But I'm sure it wasn't anywhere close to even a 100,000, let alone hundreds of thousands.
> 
> Point is, I think people do care. I think they care very much. And I think you're the outlier in this instance, not the majority.
> 
> ...




I doubt I could prove it, because the old wotc forums are gone, but there was a feature of DDI that let you see, indirectly but very accurately, how many subs there were. This was a topic of much debate at one point, but we all agreed that the number of subs was correct. we simply disagreed on what it meant, and how it compared to phb sales, and if it was enough to make up for lower phb sales, and whether high subs contributed to loss of print book sales, etc. 

but the sub numbers were rarely disputed. I was able to find a post with no source link claiming that the verified minimum number of subs was about 66k, in 2012, but I very clearly remember 80k being the agreed upon number by the time the playtest was happening. And both figures are minimums, because it only includes DDI subscribers with active subscriptions AND forum accounts, which not all DDI subs had. 

But even if we assume that 66k is the right number, and ignore the possibility of significantly more subs who didn't make forum accounts, that is, _bare minimum, _which means assuming every single sub was a yearly sub at an effective rate of 70$/year, 4.6 million a year. Sadly we will never know what percentage paid yearly, every three months, or monthly, and how common it was to sub for a few months, lapse, sub again a few months later, etc. 

And again, that 66 was in 2012, not when 4e was at it's height, and 5e seems to be much, much more popular. 

If they include support for older editions in the Beyond tools, I think we can easily expect a million subs or more. But even if we only get, say, twice what we know to be a minimum for 4e, ie 132k, and assume that you can do a year at the same price as before, ie 70$/yr, that is a yearly income of 9.2 million per year. 

If they also put out a new printing of the core books, either in paperback like the 4e essentials books, or just a glossy reprint with errata and a better index, and keep putting out books that are worth buying for the fluff, like Volo's, and successful adventure modules, and spell cards, and minis, and those things remain close to as popular as they are, they'll be in better shape than they've been since the TTRPG golden days. If they aren't already.


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## R P Davis (Mar 14, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> Here's the main issue.
> 
> I've been a gamer for many years and I have spent tons of money on gaming products. Someone who says RPG's aren't expensive make it clearly obvious they don't know what they are talking about.




Speaking of not knowing what they're talking about: 

I said they don't _have _to be expensive, that D&D 5e is essentially free to play. I also said that every other hobby I can think of is _more _expensive to start. Then I proved it.



> Anyway, that's beside the point.




Yer durn tootin' it is.



> I can bet you here and now that people would gladly spend more money for products they can actually hold in their hand versus a product they will never truly own. Gaming books are a one time investment that can be used for years to come, digital stuff doesn't always get that far.




There I think you have a point. I own the Pathfinder app on my iPad, which gives me everything. I don't know who actually owns that material. Is it all on my iPad, or on a cloud somewhere and my iPad pulls information into it? I _think _it's local, because it was a pretty large download and it's all text, no pretty. It cost me all of five bucks and is worth every penny. If it's _not _local, I'll be irritated if it goes away, because I also own the Pathfinder core rulebooks in PDF form. They're somewhat cross-referenced, but clunky to use. They're full-art, gorgeous. Those are on multiple drives as backup.

If Wizards or a licensee came out with a PDF of each of the core rulebooks, cross-referenced with links, I'd buy it and house it on a tablet for easier transport than the books. But I'm not sure I want an app like Beyond either, because I like to download all the data I've paid for. I totally share that concern.

Cheers,

Bob


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## R P Davis (Mar 14, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Pretty sure I covered it actually with
> 
> 
> 
> ...




You're absolutely right. You did. I misrepresented you.

What I _should _have said is that what you pointed out is true but irrelevant to my point. 

Cheers,

Bob


----------



## Jester David (Mar 14, 2017)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Unless they have a way of stopping folks from using the "create x" feature to effectively copy and paste phb options into the program, I rather doubt it.



The same could be said for HeroLabs. You don't need to buy the Pathfinder packs for each book, but people do. It's a time saver. You're paying for the convenience.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 14, 2017)

R P Davis said:


> You guys are both missing the point.
> 
> 
> The SCA, for example, has gotten a lot better about its armor requirements. You can't get a helm for $100 anymore, at least one that a responsible marshal will approve. Besides, you're still talking about all the other armor as well as the helmet. That's a couple hundred bucks before you can even authorize, because you can't use loaner gear forever.
> Bob




I don't care about, and wasn't commenting on the discussion of, how expensive dnd is. At all.


That said, to play dnd without spending money is the same as doing the SCA without spending money, or playing soccer without spending money. You can, but you're going to want to have your own stuff at some point, and it will cost money. 

There are specific activities within a hobby that cost more money, like playing dnd at conventions, or going to SCA wars and fighting officially, or playing soccer in a league, but the actual activity itself can be done with nothing by borrowed gear. I was in the SCA for nearly a year before I spent a dime on anything other than the beer and food I brought to the parties after practice. At then I spent less than 200$, over the course of a few months, with most of that being the damn helmet. And yes, that 100$ helmet authorizes just fine. 

Later I spent more on stuff like better garb, a set of rattan swords, a rattan glaive, hockey gloves for using the glaive safely, a shield I liked more than the loaners, a drinking horn, camp gear, etc. But for that first year, I didn't spend a dime on anything but entrance to events, and food and drink. Same as DND. 

As for soccer, not a cent. Ever. Basketball I did have to buy a new ball, twice, because of bad luck, but I got 2 soccer balls from friends/relatives, and wore the same clothes I work out in, and went to a park with my friends. 

I also like that in your first post you quote the starting price of playing dnd as the cost of the core books, and then once there are examples of hobbies that are just as cheap or cheaper, you changed it to the claim that you can play for free, "unlike any other hobby". 

I'm sure you'll quote the cost of pencils and paper as a cost for drawing as a hobby that dnd doesn't share, even though they are easy to get for free and you need them for dnd as well. 

Also whittling, found object sculpting, martial arts (whether this has a cost depends on whether you have friends or family that can teach you), singing, the fact that most musicians I know got second hand instruments for free, or less than the cost of two dnd core books, and played for _years_ with those. 

I have a few musician friends who still primarily play with their first instrument, though they have replaced strings and the like. 

The point is, you made a silly claim about the cost of hobbies in general. Ie, that they are all more expensive than DnD. The claim is false. 

I don't care about the context that lead to you making the claim, I'm just calling out the absurd claim. 

As _I literally started my last post by saying,_ I agree with the general point you were making, that DnD isn't expensive.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 14, 2017)

doctorbadwolf said:


> If they include support for older editions in the Beyond tools, I think we can easily expect a million subs or more. But even if we only get, say, twice what we know to be a minimum for 4e, ie 132k, and assume that you can do a year at the same price as before, ie 70$/yr, that is a yearly income of 9.2 million per year.




I'll be happy to be proven wrong. Despite my negativity, I would dearly love for this to be a great and successful product. I really loathe all the current options. But if this is true, then they are far better off charging a lower amount for more subscribers rather than a high amount that acts to turn people off the product entirely.

Take the Netflix example. Every other competitor charged far more for their product because they were operating off an old paradigm of controlling access to limited markets. Netflix came along and charged a much lower rate, and now they're a $60 billion dollar, global megalith. I pay $11.99 per month for a huge array of on demand video and an increasing library of original content. I would not, however, pay $11.99 per month for a campaign management and character creation tool. That level of subscription cost simply isn't justifiable in this day and age. Honestly, I would start to hesitate if it was more than $2 per month, unless it was a seriously great product that I decided I simply must have, then I might be able to justify up to $5 p/m. But it would have to really blow me away for that and be D&D equivalent, in my mind, to getting Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, etc.


----------



## R P Davis (Mar 15, 2017)

doctorbadwolf said:


> As _I literally started my last post by saying,_ I agree with the general point you were making, that DnD isn't expensive.




That's fair. I did move the goalposts. I like to think I did so after I realized/remembered that you really don't have to pay anything at all to have a full-fledged D&D experience. But you're right that there are a number of different hobbies and games which can be realized on the cheap, if not totally free.

No hard feelings?

Bob


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 15, 2017)

R P Davis said:


> That's fair. I did move the goalposts. I like to think I did so after I realized/remembered that you really don't have to pay anything at all to have a full-fledged D&D experience. But you're right that there are a number of different hobbies and games which can be realized on the cheap, if not totally free.
> 
> No hard feelings?
> 
> Bob




Works for me.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 15, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> I'll be happy to be proven wrong. Despite my negativity, I would dearly love for this to be a great and successful product. I really loathe all the current options. But if this is true, then they are far better off charging a lower amount for more subscribers rather than a high amount that acts to turn people off the product entirely.
> 
> Take the Netflix example. Every other competitor charged far more for their product because they were operating off an old paradigm of controlling access to limited markets. Netflix came along and charged a much lower rate, and now they're a $60 billion dollar, global megalith. I pay $11.99 per month for a huge array of on demand video and an increasing library of original content. I would not, however, pay $11.99 per month for a campaign management and character creation tool. That level of subscription cost simply isn't justifiable in this day and age. Honestly, I would start to hesitate if it was more than $2 per month, unless it was a seriously great product that I decided I simply must have, then I might be able to justify up to $5 p/m. But it would have to really blow me away for that and be D&D equivalent, in my mind, to getting Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, etc.




I think most people would pay at least 5$/mo for the suite of tools they've said will be included, especially if the combat tracker is any good, and you can access other people's homebrew material, create your own, build custom monsters, etc. if it gives you Compendium, CB, and encounter builder access to all the official content? I'll pay 70$ a year for that.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 15, 2017)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I think most people would pay at least 5$/mo for the suite of tools they've said will be included, especially if the combat tracker is any good, and you can access other people's homebrew material, create your own, build custom monsters, etc. if it gives you Compendium, CB, and encounter builder access to all the official content? I'll pay 70$ a year for that.




It all boils down to how good it is. For instance, I regret buying Hero Lab. I don't think it's worth the price tag. I wouldn't pay $5 a month for something at that level of usability, functionality and support. I wouldn't pay for OrcPub either and think Fantasy Grounds is a rip-off. Roll20 is almost about right but it's also not what I'm interested in. So sure, if it's a suite of tools that I find worth $5 p/m, I'll pay for it. But it better be, in my estimation, worth $5 a month.

Now, that may sound cheap to some people but like I've pointed out, this is competing with my other interests from a limited pool of resources. And everyone is going to be making that same decision. In a global market, companies need to realise that it's better to have more customers paying less, than less customers paying more.


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## Mistwell (Mar 15, 2017)

I'd pay $5-$10/month for access to everything.

I'd pay a one-time $50 charge for access to everything.

But I won't likely pay a one-time charge and a monthly subscription fee for everything (regardless of what prices those are set to, unless the one-time is ridiculously small). 

I know from a numbers perspective that doesn't make sense.  If it were $20 up front and $3/month instead of $50 up front for example, it would be essentially the same price.  But psychologically, I just don't like the idea of paying both a flat-fee for content/features AND a subscription fee.  I feel like I should be able to choose to do one or the other, but not both, to get access to all content and features.


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## Lanliss (Mar 15, 2017)

well, hopefully all this discussion of doom and gloom has not scared off Mr. Adam-from-Curse, and we might actually get some answers. Anyone else think the majority of the complaints should be saved for after we actually know anything about it?


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## Mirtek (Mar 15, 2017)

doctorbadwolf said:


> . And both figures are minimums, because it only includes DDI subscribers with active subscriptions AND forum accounts, which not all DDI subs had..



Actually your DDI sub account doubled as your forum account, so those were in.

I remember much argument about this in partiular, culminating in sime users digging through the visible list oft DDIaccount namens to find the account some other user claimed was from a friend who had DDI and no forum account and thus would be missing in the figure


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## Mirtek (Mar 15, 2017)

Lanliss said:


> well, hopefully all this discussion of doom and gloom has not scared off Mr. Adam-from-Curse, and we might actually get some answers. Anyone else think the majority of the complaints should be saved for after we actually know anything about it?



 they're used to the wow community, nothing should scare Them off anymore


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## reelo (Mar 15, 2017)

Mirtek said:


> they're used to the wow community, nothing should scare Them off anymore



Very true, kek!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using EN World mobile app


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## Nylanfs (Mar 15, 2017)

People disagreeing civilly on the internet? What alternate universe am I in???


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## Reynard (Mar 15, 2017)

The value of a subscription of any kind is simply a function of utility versus expense (not just cost, since people have different degrees of disposable income, but how big of a chunk of that disposable income the cost is). For some people $5 a month is a lot, but if that person is going to get a lot of utility out of the product they are going to be willing to shoulder the expense. For others, $5 would be a negligible expense but it just isn't something they would use so it is a "rip off." The fact is, any given person won't know the balance of that relationship until the product is launched -- and, chances are, that balance will change over time.

One thing I think is a legitimate concern is those people who don't like subscription models because they have unreliable finances. Most places that have subscription models allow customers to buy chunks of subscription time (usually at a minor discount).


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## Warmaster Horus (Mar 15, 2017)

Everything is a subscription now a days.  Revenue streams FTW!  The product has to be worth it, though, or people will drop it like a hot potato.


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## Azzy (Mar 15, 2017)

Lanliss said:


> well, hopefully all this discussion of doom and gloom has not scared off Mr. Adam-from-Curse, and we might actually get some answers. Anyone else think the majority of the complaints should be saved for after we actually know anything about it?



Oh, come on! We can't be sensible or civil here! Torches! Pitchforks!


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 15, 2017)

Mirtek said:


> Actually your DDI sub account doubled as your forum account, so those were in.
> 
> I remember much argument about this in partiular, culminating in sime users digging through the visible list oft DDIaccount namens to find the account some other user claimed was from a friend who had DDI and no forum account and thus would be missing in the figure




Well, the time when this could usefully be discussed is long gone, so I'll leave it at, I'm 90% sure you could absolutely have a ddi sub without having a forum account. Your ddi account could double as your forum account, if you activated a community account via ddi, which it wanted you to do, but you had to activate the forum account for it to show up. 

But regardless, the point relies only on those minimum numbers, so even if the old forums existed and we could do anything more than remember past arguments at eachother, it would be tangential.


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## Patrick McGill (Mar 15, 2017)

Thinking about the maximum I would pay, I've got a few thoughts.

If they were charging by packs like FG, where you'd pay 50 for the PHB, MM, DMG each and then like 30 for the other books each, I'd be willing to pay that and a small monthly sub (like 5) to access the digital tools like the encounter and monster builders, trackers, homebrewing tools, etc. However, I would dislike needing to pay the small sub to access the packs. If I'm paying 50 bucks for a digital version of the PHB (which I think is totally reasonable) I shouldn't need a sub for that.

I'd be willing to pay up to 20 a month if it meant straight access to everything as long as I am subbed without needing to purchase packs.

I wouldn't be in for buying things piecemeal (3.99 for the fighter, etc.), but I'm comfortable with that as an option for players who don't need a lot of the other features.

Lastly, if it is a matter of purchasing the app for a one time fee (20-50 bucks?) and then paying a monthly sub (10-15) to keep access to everything, I'd probably do it, but not like it.


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## Mistwell (Mar 15, 2017)

Patrick McGill said:


> Thinking about the maximum I would pay, I've got a few thoughts.
> 
> If they were charging by packs like FG, where you'd pay 50 for the PHB, MM, DMG each and then like 30 for the other books each, I'd be willing to pay that and a small monthly sub (like 5) to access the digital tools like the encounter and monster builders, trackers, homebrewing tools, etc. However, I would dislike needing to pay the small sub to access the packs. If I'm paying 50 bucks for a digital version of the PHB (which I think is totally reasonable) I shouldn't need a sub for that.
> 
> ...




I am kinda surprised at how much you'd pay, given you can already pay roughly what you suggested for a DTT that already gives you all those things, AND the digital table top itself, AND access to official adventures.  I mean, Roll20 for example has excellent character sheets now and character generation tools, and I am sure Fantasy Grounds does as well.  Why would you pay the same for this, which has significantly less than those DTTs?

Am I missing something? Is there something highly useful that this proposed new system will do that those DTTs don't already do?


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## daplunk (Mar 15, 2017)

Mistwell said:


> I mean, Roll20 for example has excellent character sheets now and character generation tools, and I am sure Fantasy Grounds does as well.  Why would you pay the same for this, which has significantly less than those DTTs?
> 
> Am I missing something? Is there something highly useful that this proposed new system will do that those DTTs don't already do?




Simply because the market they are aiming this at doesn't need or want the digital table element. It's over kill and takes away for the game for us.


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## Morrus (Mar 15, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Simply because the market they are aiming this at doesn't need or want the digital table element. It's over kill and takes away for the game for us.




 By "the market" do you mean "me"?


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## daplunk (Mar 15, 2017)

Morrus said:


> By "the market" do you mean "me"?




The market they have said they are aiming this product at:



> And also that D&D Beyond is definitely not a Virtual Game Table (VTT): "D&D Beyond is intended to enhance gameplay around a table (virtual or otherwise) - we intend this to be completely complementary and have no intention of creating a VTT."




The VTT market has different requirements and is already covered by Roll20 and Fantasy Ground.


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## redrick (Mar 15, 2017)

Mistwell said:


> I am kinda surprised at how much you'd pay, given you can already pay roughly what you suggested for a DTT that already gives you all those things, AND the digital table top itself, AND access to official adventures.  I mean, Roll20 for example has excellent character sheets now and character generation tools, and I am sure Fantasy Grounds does as well.  Why would you pay the same for this, which has significantly less than those DTTs?
> 
> Am I missing something? Is there something highly useful that this proposed new system will do that those DTTs don't already do?




I haven't used Roll20 since the updated OGL allowed it to bring in more D&D elements via the SRD, but it still seems like Roll20's features aren't very useful for tabletop play unless you plan to have Roll20 running on laptops or tablets at the table. You couldn't print out a character sheet with it (the Roll20 character sheet was a dozen tabs!), nor would I want to use it as a tool to browse and select monsters for an adventure, or print out materials in advance of a game. It's unclear from the video how much "pencil and paper" integration there will be with D&D Beyond, but it certainly existed with DDI and I hope that option continues to be a focus.

I don't want to use an app for minute-to-minute stuff at my table — marking off HP on a character sheet or tracking index on an index card works a-ok for me — but I'd love a tool that gives me better access to a digital tool that gives me access to all the monsters, spells, etc, when prepping games or characters away from the table. Also, Roll20 doesn't work on a smartphone.

That being said, I probably wouldn't sign up for $20/month either. A $10 or $15/month "all access" subscription would outpace buying all the available rulebooks in roughly a year. That's an awful lot to spend, especially seeing as splat style content is coming out very slowly, and none of it is particularly "essential." (Which I'm fine with — I love my Volo's Guide, but I think it was $30 on Amazon or something.)


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## Reynard (Mar 15, 2017)

daplunk said:


> The market they have said they are aiming this product at:
> 
> 
> 
> The VTT market has different requirements and is already covered by Roll20 and Fantasy Ground.




Wait, the very statement you quoted indicated they intend their product to enhance play regardless of whether it is around a kitchen table or a virtual one.


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## daplunk (Mar 15, 2017)

Yeah but only because they specifically don't want to call out that they are not designing this to compete with the VTT market. You only need to ask yourself a few questions to confirm that this product is not designed for the VTT market. 

Can you create characters in the VTT?
Can you manage the characters in the VTT?
Can you manage combat in the VTT?
Can you look up spells and abilities in the VTT?

and the important one...

Do you NEED to create your character and manage your character in the VTT for the combat automation to work?

The answer is yes for Fantasy Grounds and mostly yes for Roll20 with a yes to follow as soon as they can finish rolling out the 5e official content. 

Which means the only reason the VTT crowd would even remotely need this application is if they want access to their characters outside of the VTT game or they are not satisfied with the ability to look up information inside of the VTT solution. 

Sorry but this tool is very clearly aimed and designed for the players not using a VTT. This application will form part of the CORE tool-set that many players will use to run and manage the game where as the VTT crowd will use this to supplement the experience if they so desire but will have little need to actually use it when playing.


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## Morrus (Mar 15, 2017)

daplunk said:


> The market they have said they are aiming this product at:




But that's _me_! And I disagree with you! 

One suspects you do not speak for "the market". You speak for you. Which is fine, but let's not pretend you are a personal avatar of  "the market".


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## daplunk (Mar 15, 2017)

Morrus said:


> But that's _me_! And I disagree with you!




Why would you need another application to create and manage characters?
Why would you need another application to manage combat?
Why would you need another application to look up information?


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## Morrus (Mar 15, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Why would you need another application to create and manage characters?
> Why would you need another application to manage combat?
> Why would you need another application to look up information?




You've got a bit in your teeth, and a point to make, clearly. I don't understand what that point is. I mean, nobody _needs_ an application to do anything. 

Let's start again. What's your point (other than "I personally don't want this" which isn't interesting to anybody but you)? What is it you're trying to say?


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## BookBarbarian (Mar 16, 2017)

Nylanfs said:


> People disagreeing civilly on the internet? What alternate universe am I in???




I must stop this! But how?!

Uh... Warlords! 

Spellless Rangers!

um what else...

This edition doesn't do things exactly the way my favorite editions(s) did!


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## daplunk (Mar 16, 2017)

Mate just having discussion. 

Personally I've seen lots of FG and Roll20 users posting negative feedback on this tool because it doesn't cater specifically to their needs. Which is confusing to me because it's quite clear just by looking at what it offers that it's not designed for the VTT crowd. This is where this conversation started. VTT users asking why they would pick this tool up when the VTT's over the same and increased functionality to this tool. 

My point being this is not intended to offer them anything that they don't already have. There should be absolutely no reason for them to need this application short of wanting to have access (and therefore the requirement to manage the character sheet in multiple places) to the character sheet outside of their game sessions. 

Personally I am absolutely the core market this product is designed for. I'm a Hero Lab user which offers exactly what this tool is stating it is going to offer just with official licensed content.


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## Morrus (Mar 16, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Mate just having discussion.




Sure. Don't mistake disagreement for persecution. 



> Personally I am absolutely the core market this product is designed for.




And so am I. But I disagree with you. The point being, you don't speak for all of us.


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## Shasarak (Mar 16, 2017)

DEFCON 1 said:


> Well let's see... how about you name the product that you were SURE no one was going to buy, and then you ended up being right?  Cause I'd be very curious if your doomsaying of anything WotC has done or licensed to others has actually crapped the bed like you seem to think they always will.  Because right now, your uneducated opinion that not enough people are going to sign up for D&D Beyond to make it profitable for Curse is not exactly a strong one for WotC and Curse to worry about if you ask me.  Heh heh!




A lot of people said that Project: Morningstar would fail and unfortunately they were right.

Hopefully this new one does better.


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## daplunk (Mar 16, 2017)

Morrus said:


> And so am I. But I disagree with you. The point being, you don't speak for all of us.




Lol which takes me back to this:

Why would you need another application to create and manage characters?
Why would you need another application to manage combat?
Why would you need another application to look up information?

I'm absolutely interested. I run a channel dedicated to testing various DM tools so  this is a point of curiosity for me. If you are VTT player what is it you need from an application like this? From all my research the VTT tools do everything this is offering and more and has a reliance on you doing all this inside the VTT tool to enable the automation.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 16, 2017)

Shasarak said:


> A lot of people said that Project: Morningstar would fail and unfortunately they were right.
> 
> Hopefully this new one does better.



Curse has a few significant and important advantages over the Trapdoor crew, though. Firstly is that they're obviously experienced in creating things in the same conceptual space that this product requires, Trapdoor were most definitely not. They're also backed by bigger money and have greater access to more and variable skilled employees than Trapdoor did. Trapdoor, for instance, hired a web designer at the last minute to work on the UI. One person. After the project was already well under way and close to deadline. Curse also don't seem to want to step on WotC's toes in the marketplace whereas Trapdoor seemed to want it all.

Lastly and most importantly, I don't think Curse are promising something that they can't deliver.


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## Morrus (Mar 16, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> Curse has a few significant and important advantages over the Trapdoor crew, though. Firstly is that they're obviously experienced in creating things in the same conceptual space that this product requires, Trapdoor were most definitely not. They're also backed by bigger money and have greater access to more and variable skilled employees than Trapdoor did.




Even Google screws up. Apple does, too. who uses a Nintendo Wii? Samsung fails in big public ways. Governments do. Entire countries fall. Rome is just a town now. Size isn't, and never has been, the barometer of success - small companies can do incredible things. We don't know what will happen.



> Curse also don't seem to want to step on WotC's toes in the marketplace whereas Trapdoor seemed to want it all.




None of us know why Trapdoor and WotC parted ways. Let's not just make stuff up to fill the gaps.


----------



## Shasarak (Mar 16, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> Lastly and most importantly, I don't think Curse are promising something that they can't deliver.




Curse has not delivered on anything yet so who can say what is vaporware or not?


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 16, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Yeah but only because they specifically don't want to call out that they are not designing this to compete with the VTT market. You only need to ask yourself a few questions to confirm that this product is not designed for the VTT market.
> 
> Can you create characters in the VTT?
> Can you manage the characters in the VTT?
> ...




Well, it's clearly meant to provide those tools for people that don't use a VTT, but it is also there for VTT users, in that the VTT doesn't have a full rules Compendium, easy homebrew tools, etc, and doesn't work on a smartphone. 

But it is probably more useful for non VTT users, sure.


----------



## Reynard (Mar 16, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Lol which takes me back to this:
> 
> Why would you need another application to create and manage characters?
> Why would you need another application to manage combat?
> ...




It depends entirely on the degree of integration between the two. Given that it is not a VERY it won't poach subscriptions from VTTs even if it has utility. Plus, you are operating under the assumption that it is binary -- you are either a VTT player or a tabletop player. That's just not true. Lots of folks are both. In fact, with VTT supported organized play, there are characters that are both, too.

tl;dr You are making assertions not only based on personal preferences and assumptions, but also in direct contradiction to statements by the designers. It's probably best to give them the benefit of the doubt rather than presume too much.


----------



## daplunk (Mar 16, 2017)

doctorbadwolf said:


> But it is probably more useful for non VTT users, sure.




Yup which is where we start to define the D&D5e crowd into two different markets. Even 3. 

* people who play at a real table only
* people who play via a VTT only
* people who do both

Now when you are sitting down and designing and setting up a pricing structure for a tool such as this you would have already taken all this into consideration. 

For the people who play at a real table who will use the combat management aspect they have hinted at this product has more value. That crowd are more likely to deem the product as having more worth. They will likely be the crowd who are happier to pay for a subscription as the product will product very real benefit to their games and they will have a reliance on more network features.  

For the people who play at a VTT they are likely not going to need all of the automation. They will likely want this just for creating characters and looking up information. For them they are less likely to want to pay a subscription as the benefit they are getting is easily replaced by other free offerings and they derive no value from the application's advanced features that likely have a network reliance and thus the cost of the product will likely not match the value they see in the product.


----------



## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 16, 2017)

Morrus said:


> Size isn't, and never has been, the barometer of success - small companies can do incredible things.



Err, yes it is, and yes it always has been. What a silly thing to say. That big companies can fail at things doesn't determine their likelihood of success in comparison to a smaller company. These things are not equal. A bigger company with more resources is _far_ more likely and able to complete a project than a smaller company. I don't even see how that can even be argued against. Trapdoor didn't have the resources, planning, experience or expertise to complete the project. That was self-evident throughout the entire process and through the information that came to light after it was abandoned.

There is no guarantee that Curse can make a good product or that it will be successful and profitable for them. But to say that it isn't _much_ more likely that they can do it, in comparison to Trapdoor, is a little absurd.



Morrus said:


> None of us know why Trapdoor and WotC parted ways. Let's not just make stuff up to fill the gaps.



I wasn't making anything up. Most of what I said was reported on this very site.


----------



## Reynard (Mar 16, 2017)

daplunk said:


> For the people who play at a VTT they are likely not going to need all of the automation. They will likely want this just for creating characters and looking up information. For them they are less likely to want to pay a subscription as the benefit they are getting is easily replaced by other free offerings and they derive no value from the application's advanced features that likely have a network reliance and thus the cost of the product will likely not match the value they see in the product.




Except we don't know what the pricing structure is. If the combat tracking does not add any cost -- that is, it is a basic feature regardless of subscription level -- then it is irrelevant next to the potential utility of character tracking, creation and so on.

Among my 10 core Fantasy Grounds players, only 2 have subscriptions (I have an Ultimate license). That means that if they want to do any fiddling with their characters, I have to log on so they can access the PHB etc. If there is some degree of integration, even if it is just xml file import and export, then that hurdle is gone.

Again, there are a number of ways they could make such a thing palatable to VTT players, depending on the details. It seems a little early to be so dismissive.


----------



## Morrus (Mar 16, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> Err, yes it is, and yes it always has been. What a silly thing to say.




That isn't debate. It's just contradiction followed by insults. We can do better than that, eh?



> That big companies can fail at things doesn't determine their likelihood of success in comparison to a smaller company. These things are not equal. A bigger company with more resources is _far_ more likely and able to complete a project than a smaller company. I don't even see how that can even be argued against.




That wasn't the argument, though, was it? 



> I wasn't making anything up. Most of what I said was reported on this very site.




I didn't report that, and I do the reporting. The only thing I reported was that Trapdoor and WotC disagreed over a pricing issue, and even that was vague. We do not know what happened.

Well, maybe you do. If so, please elucidate! But I certainly don't.


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## Mouseferatu (Mar 16, 2017)

Morrus said:


> One suspects you do not speak for "the market". You speak for you. Which is fine, but let's not pretend you are a personal avatar of  "the market".




So it would be a prestige class in 3E and an epic destiny in 4E, but how would we represent "avatar of the market" as a character in 5E?


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## Remathilis (Mar 16, 2017)

Mouseferatu said:


> So it would be a prestige class in 3E and an epic destiny in 4E, but how would we represent "avatar of the market" as a character in 5E?



Psionic oath, obviously.


----------



## SkidAce (Mar 16, 2017)

Morrus said:


> But that's _me_! And I disagree with you!
> 
> One suspects you do not speak for "the market". You speak for you. Which is fine, but let's not pretend you are a personal avatar of  "the market".




I don't think they meant to.

I understood what they were implying, that they didn't think the product is geared towards integration with a VTT.


----------



## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 16, 2017)

Morrus said:


> That isn't debate. It's just contradiction followed by insults. We can do better than that, eh?



I didn't mean for it to come across as insulting, I thought I was attacking the argument, not the arguer. I just thought it silly to say that bigger companies aren't more likely to be successful at something than smaller companies.



Morrus said:


> That wasn't the argument, though, was it?



Well, what you quoted me saying was me saying that Curse has advantages over Trapdoor because they have more resources. The implication being that they're more likely to succeed at the project. It seemed you disagreed with that assertion.


----------



## Mistwell (Mar 16, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Simply because the market they are aiming this at doesn't need or want the digital table element. It's over kill and takes away for the game for us.




Sure I get that. But...why would it cost MORE than something that does the same thing and also supports a DTT (for dozens of RPGs) and adventures, including all the avatars and maps and monsters and npcs etc...?

I mean, at $20/month PLUS $50 per product, we're talking way more than any other product offering out there - digital or paper.  I was just saying I was surprised someone would want to pay what would amount to $340 a year for this product.  To me, that just seems off the chart way beyond what I could conceive of paying.


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## daplunk (Mar 16, 2017)

Mistwell said:


> Sure I get that. But...why would it cost MORE than something that does the same thing and also supports a DTT (for dozens of RPGs) and adventures, including all the avatars and maps and monsters and npcs etc...?




I wasn't aware anyone was discussing price yet since its an unknown.


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## BoldItalic (Mar 16, 2017)

daplunk said:


> I wasn't aware anyone was discussing price yet since its an unknown.




But, but, if enough people complain that it costs too much even before they know how much it's going to cost, they will make it free, won't they?

Won't they?

Oh.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 16, 2017)

Shasarak said:


> A lot of people said that Project: Morningstar would fail and unfortunately they were right.
> 
> Hopefully this new one does better.




True.  But I will point out that it failed because the company couldn't deliver the product, not that nobody sign up for it.  Which was Corpsetaker's contention-- that Curse wouldn't make any money because no one would subscribe to the service.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 16, 2017)

I just stumbled on this and hadn't seen it in this thread. Sorry if it's already been posted or old news:

http://www.tribality.com/2017/03/15/dd-beyond-qa-with-curses-senior-product-manager-adam-bradford/


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## Reynard (Mar 16, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> I just stumbled on this and hadn't seen it in this thread. Sorry if it's already been posted or old news:
> 
> http://www.tribality.com/2017/03/15/dd-beyond-qa-with-curses-senior-product-manager-adam-bradford/




Interesting interview.

The vibe is definitely a player first utility, intended so that everyone around the table is using the app not just the DM. I wonder what that means for DM specific capabilities (the interview mentions encounter builder in the future) and whether DM utilities will be more expensive -- which is fairly typical for the hobby in general and certainly electronic utilities (I pay A LOT to be able to run 5E on FG for my players, most of whom spend $0).


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## Mistwell (Mar 16, 2017)

daplunk said:


> I wasn't aware anyone was discussing price yet since its an unknown.






BoldItalic said:


> But, but, if enough people complain that it costs too much even before they know how much it's going to cost, they will make it free, won't they?
> 
> Won't they?
> 
> Oh.




I was replying to someone who specified the price they were willing to pay, saying I was surprised he'd be willing to pay that much given it's more than other products that also offer more things for that money, and that's how we got here.  If you guys were not aware of the discussion of price, I am not sure how you ended up quoting me to begin with


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## BoldItalic (Mar 16, 2017)

Mistwell said:


> I was replying to someone who specified the price they were willing to pay, saying I was surprised he'd be willing to pay that much given it's more than other products that also offer more things for that money, and that's how we got here.  If you guys were not aware of the discussion of price, I am not sure how you ended up quoting me to begin with




Sorry, [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION], my reply wasn't directed at you. I shouldn't have quoted [MENTION=6778883]daplunk[/MENTION] out of context. My bad.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Mar 16, 2017)

https://twitter.com/dndbeyond/status/842436498251255810

Looks like we won't have long to find out what it's like.


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## chibi graz'zt (Mar 17, 2017)

For my part Im glad there will be no VTT, I think that is not what we need. Also happy that this is only for 5e; I can imagine the burdensome behemoth of crap that supporting previous editions would result in.


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## epithet (Mar 17, 2017)

daplunk said:


> Lol which takes me back to this:
> 
> Why would you need another application to create and manage characters?
> Why would you need another application to manage combat?
> ...




There are two areas where I would find this useful, as someone who already uses Fantasy Grounds as a VTT.

First, I would enjoy a character creator/manager with a slick UI and the option to seamlessly integrate the Unearthed Arcana options. Yes, FG has a character creator, but it has its limitations, including the inability to undo your changes without going in and manually changing everything the automated tools just did, which offers a lot of opportunity to screw something up (speaking from experience.) Yes, the ForgedAnvil character tool is awesome and free, but it doesn't accommodate Unearthed Arcana options or gracefully incorporate homebrewed content. There is definitely a niche yet to be filled for a user friendly, feature rich character creation and management tool. That said, if it won't export characters in a format (xml) that Fantasy Grounds can import, the tool will be of limited utility for me personally. I get very annoyed when digital tools do not work together.

The second and more exciting possibility for me as a DM would be a monster/npc generator. I want to be able to drag and drop weapons, armor, traits, and spells and have the tool auto-calculate a reasonably accurate challenge rating. I know that's a heavy lift, but this is the one area where there is (to the best of my knowledge) no existing tool that comes close.

That said, I have some very real skepticism about the pricing model. I get that there is no real way to check for someone's purchase of the hardcover books, but that does not apply to the purchase of content from the Fantasy Grounds store, or from Steam, or from Roll 20. I think WotC has an ethical obligation to unlock within D&DB whatever content we've already purchased on another digital platform. They have, so far, been entirely too eager to encourage us to buy their products several times over. I get that they're motivated by profit like any other company, but the simple truth is that the only thing protecting their intellectual property is the good will of their customers. All of their products are easily obtained for free, so the phenomenal success of this edition is the direct result of our desire to pay them for the product and the guilt we would feel over ripping them off. In other words, they depend very heavily on the good will of their customer base. I hope that they do the right thing and maintain that good will, because I personally want to see them continue to enjoy great success and fund development of products for this edition of D&D.


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## daplunk (Mar 22, 2017)

epithet said:


> There are two areas where I would find this useful, as someone who already uses Fantasy Grounds as a VTT.
> 
> First, I would enjoy a character creator/manager with a slick UI and the option to seamlessly integrate the Unearthed Arcana options. Yes, FG has a character creator, but it has its limitations, including the inability to undo your changes without going in and manually changing everything the automated tools just did, which offers a lot of opportunity to screw something up (speaking from experience.) Yes, the ForgedAnvil character tool is awesome and free, but it doesn't accommodate Unearthed Arcana options or gracefully incorporate homebrewed content. There is definitely a niche yet to be filled for a user friendly, feature rich character creation and management tool. That said, if it won't export characters in a format (xml) that Fantasy Grounds can import, the tool will be of limited utility for me personally. I get very annoyed when digital tools do not work together.
> 
> The second and more exciting possibility for me as a DM would be a monster/npc generator. I want to be able to drag and drop weapons, armor, traits, and spells and have the tool auto-calculate a reasonably accurate challenge rating. I know that's a heavy lift, but this is the one area where there is (to the best of my knowledge) no existing tool that comes close.




Sounds like you want Hero Lab. The 5e Community Pack already has 90% of the Unearthed Arcana. Just the mechanics but it's functional. You can reverse changes simply by undoing what ever you just did. I've heard FG has a way to import from HL also. 

Hero Lab 5e also has a custom monster race where you can set the CR rating and apply all your spells, armor, weapons, etc and it gives you a calculation on whether the damage needs to decrease or increase to match the desired CR. The hole thing auto-calculates everything. 

The down-side to this is it's not user friendly to enter content. But we have a community team of volunteers who fill that void and share their work.


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## daplunk (Mar 22, 2017)

epithet said:


> That said, I have some very real skepticism about the pricing model. I get that there is no real way to check for someone's purchase of the hardcover books, but that does not apply to the purchase of content from the Fantasy Grounds store, or from Steam, or from Roll 20. I think WotC has an ethical obligation to unlock within D&DB whatever content we've already purchased on another digital platform. They have, so far, been entirely too eager to encourage us to buy their products several times over. I get that they're motivated by profit like any other company, but the simple truth is that the only thing protecting their intellectual property is the good will of their customers. All of their products are easily obtained for free, so the phenomenal success of this edition is the direct result of our desire to pay them for the product and the guilt we would feel over ripping them off. In other words, they depend very heavily on the good will of their customer base. I hope that they do the right thing and maintain that good will, because I personally want to see them continue to enjoy great success and fund development of products for this edition of D&D.




It's not a matter of checking for the purchase. The profit from the books never benefited Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, Curse in anyway. They are separate companies offering software tools via a licensed model. They have to pay for that license AND they have to cover their costs of building and maintaining the tool, improving the tool and entering the data. 

Unless WOTC start build their own application we will never see free content. Why would the 3rd party companies do all this work for free?


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## Nylanfs (Mar 22, 2017)

Well we do.


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## shamurai7 (Apr 12, 2017)

Sure.....kinda like how you pay for cable or satellite tv even though it's not their content.
It is called a 'service'......
ha-derp a derp....derpy derp derp

Haters gunna hate I guess.
I did have my spell catalog on DM's Guild and charged 20 dollars a pop for it.....After making nearly 1000 dollars in a week I was personally contacted by WOTC and they asked me to please take it down even though it was in their TOS because it was more successful than they anticipated and a 3rd party they contracted with was butt-hurt about it. (Gale Force Nine)


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## Morrus (Apr 12, 2017)

shamurai7 said:


> I did have my spell catalog on DM's Guild and charged 20 dollars a pop for it.....After making nearly 1000 dollars in a week I was personally contacted by WOTC and they asked me to please take it down even though it was in their TOS because it was more successful than they anticipated and a 3rd party they contracted with was butt-hurt about it. (Gale Force Nine)




Could you share the actual email? Sounds newsworthy.


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## shamurai7 (Apr 12, 2017)

Morrus said:


> Could you share the actual email? Sounds newsworthy.






Morrus said:


> Could you share the actual email? Sounds newsworthy.




They specifically revised the TOS for DM's guild because of my product a week after they asked me to take it down. Really doubt I could track down the email. This was from July-Aug of last year.
I got to keep all my profits though!
The biggest loser was the community because the cards are amazeballs. You can keep them digital for reference, or print the ones you need. Full errata, full sourcebook coverage.
Considering it took me 3 months to make the ~11, 12 hundo was honestly chump change but over the course of a few more months of sales it could have been very nice.

The GF9 cards are ugly, full of errors, illegible with small type fonts, missing supplement book spells and WAY overpriced. So dropping 20 for my product was a great option for folks.

Their original TOS was far more lenient allowing you to publish anything including any content that was in their books. Whereas third parties were constrained by the (very) limited SRD for physical products DM's guild releases were not bound by SRD. This gave me free reign. It only applied to DM's guild though and not the sister sites.


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## Morrus (Apr 12, 2017)

shamurai7 said:


> They specifically revised the TOS for DM's guild because of my product a week after they asked me to take it down. Really doubt I could track down the email. This was from July-Aug of last year.
> I got to keep all my profits though!
> The biggest loser was the community because the cards are amazeballs. You can keep them digital for reference, or print the ones you need. Full errata, full sourcebook coverage.
> Considering it took me 3 months to make the ~11, 12 hundo was honestly chump change but over the course of a few more months of sales it could have been very nice.
> ...




What change did they make to the TOS in response to your product?


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## Corpsetaker (Apr 12, 2017)

shamurai7 said:


> I did have my spell catalog on DM's Guild and charged 20 dollars a pop for it.....After making nearly 1000 dollars in a week I was personally contacted by WOTC and they asked me to please take it down even though it was in their TOS because it was more successful than they anticipated and a 3rd party they contracted with was butt-hurt about it. (Gale Force Nine)




So basically you have to be careful how good a product you make because Wizards could be afraid someone on the internet makes some good money, to normal people, while their company makes millions? 

Thanks Wizards!!!! Your true colours really do shine through.


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## shamurai7 (Apr 12, 2017)

Corpsetaker said:


> So basically you have to be careful how good a product you make because Wizards could be afraid someone on the internet makes some good money, to normal people, while their company makes millions?
> 
> Thanks Wizards!!!! Your true colours really do shine through.



Well it did stand out....if you hop over to DM's Guild you will notice most user content is free, or under 2 dollars. They might be lucky to make 30 or 40 dollars profit in a year.
I charged 20 dollars and was in the most popular files spot pushing aside Matt Mercers file before they asked me to take it down.
They are just shady and noticed a clear demand for a certain digital product. Of course a few months later they announce their own digital toolset (not as nice as mine lolz) and want a monthly access fee.
I _had_ intended to further create more compendiums in a sortable, printable format but lost motivation considering the time it takes me to transcribe all the data.
I still maintain and update all the spells and 'spell-like' abilities in a file as well as a monster compendium file.


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## shamurai7 (Apr 12, 2017)

Morrus said:


> What change did they make to the TOS in response to your product?




http://www.dmsguild.com/whatisdmsguild.php
Pretty much the entire 4th paragraph of their content guideline was not there....they added it afterward, or at least heavily revised it.  They gave themselves a much more open-ended ability to say "We don't like your file because reasons..."

Originally all their published 5e books were at our disposal for data use and reference.
Maybe they didn't expect someone to actually type up all the spells into a user friendly format? hah hah

ALSO look on that same page under 'What can I publish' just above 'other questions'
They added that because of me..... lolz


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## dropbear8mybaby (Apr 13, 2017)

https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/races

It's happpennning!

Slowly but surely, they're getting to the point where Phase 2 will begin. Not yet, but getting there. Nice to see some progress. Was getting antsy there for awhile. Needs my fix.


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## Nylanfs (Apr 13, 2017)

<COUGH>PCGen</cough>


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## wedgeski (Apr 13, 2017)

shamurai7 said:


> http://www.dmsguild.com/whatisdmsguild.php
> Pretty much the entire 4th paragraph of their content guideline was not there....they added it afterward, or at least heavily revised it.  They gave themselves a much more open-ended ability to say "We don't like your file because reasons..."
> 
> Originally all their published 5e books were at our disposal for data use and reference.
> Maybe they didn't expect someone to actually type up all the spells into a user friendly format? hah hah



IIRC the original guidelines did say something about "Create, don't copy."


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## dropbear8mybaby (Apr 14, 2017)

Nylanfs said:


> <COUGH>PCGen</cough>




Piece of crap. No coughs needed.


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## Jester David (Apr 14, 2017)

shamurai7 said:


> They specifically revised the TOS for DM's guild





shamurai7 said:


> http://www.dmsguild.com/whatisdmsguild.php
> Pretty much the entire 4th paragraph of their content guideline was not there....they added it afterward, or at least heavily revised it.  They gave themselves a much more open-ended ability to say "We don't like your file because reasons..."




Um.... that's _not_ the Terms of Service. That's basically an layman's FAQ on their Terms of Service and some content guidelines. The actual Terms of Service would be the Community Content Agreement you sign when you add a new title. 
The CCA is pretty vague on what products are and are not "acceptable" but does make it pretty clear the DMsGuild isn't obligated to sell your work. And the intent of the Guild as a place to create content (adventures, new rules options, adventure updates, alternate classes/races) was pretty clear from the beginning.


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## Nylanfs (Apr 14, 2017)

dropbear8mybaby said:


> Piece of crap. No coughs needed.



Gee, tell us how you really feel.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk


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## lkj (Apr 25, 2017)

So one of the developers at D&D Beyond just posted the following in response to a question about digital rulebooks:

"Eh, we're close enough that I can at least confirm this - you will absolutely be able to buy all the digital rulebooks, adventures, and any other published WotC content on D&D Beyond for a one-time purchase. A subscription is not required to be able to have full access to those materials.
Subscriptions will be used for other purposes, which will be revealed "soon.""

Link: http://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d...thoughts-subscriptions-costs-and?page=19#c378


AD


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## SkidAce (Apr 26, 2017)

lkj said:


> So one of the developers at D&D Beyond just posted the following in response to a question about digital rulebooks:
> 
> "Eh, we're close enough that I can at least confirm this - you will absolutely be able to buy all the digital rulebooks, adventures, and any other published WotC content on D&D Beyond for a one-time purchase. A subscription is not required to be able to have full access to those materials.
> Subscriptions will be used for other purposes, which will be revealed "soon.""
> ...




Scarily, our custom or homebrew is not in that list...


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## lkj (Apr 26, 2017)

SkidAce said:


> Scarily, our custom or homebrew is not in that list...




Not really. They've mentioned that you'd be able to enter your own stuff in other responses and I'm pretty sure it was without subscription. I can try to dig up the quote.

AD


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## lkj (Apr 26, 2017)

Here you go:

"No one (including me) has said that adding homebrew will require a subscription. I can confirm players will be able to create their own content at no cost.
Now, the full picture (that I can't confirm quite yet) is probably needed before anyone freaks out one way or the other, but what I said above stands."

Link: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-...71-developer-quotes-features-fixes-updates#c8


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## Lanliss (Apr 26, 2017)

lkj said:


> Not really. They've mentioned that you'd be able to enter your own stuff in other responses and I'm pretty sure it was without subscription. I can try to dig up the quote.
> 
> AD




The last quote I remember actually said the opposite, that Homebrew would be behind a subscription. Most people made the (logical) argument that, if Homebrew was free, it wouldn't be long before someone had written out all the PHB content as a "Homebrew" doc, giving everyone free access to content that should be paid for.


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## Lanliss (Apr 26, 2017)

lkj said:


> Here you go:
> 
> "No one (including me) has said that adding homebrew will require a subscription. I can confirm players will be able to create their own content at no cost.
> Now, the full picture (that I can't confirm quite yet) is probably needed before anyone freaks out one way or the other, but what I said above stands."
> ...




ah, but I stand corrected. Apologies.


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## Remathilis (Apr 28, 2017)

Update from Dragon+



> Such a wealth of features and convenience naturally comes at a price, but Bradford is keen to let fans know that D&D Beyond has something for everyone. A number of different subscription options are available, including a free version. “Players who don’t subscribe can create and manage up to six characters, create private homebrew content, and view and use any of their unlocked content throughout D&D Beyond—including any digital purchases of official material.”
> 
> “Players will also have flexibility when purchasing official digital content. You can buy the content at the sourcebook level for a discount, but some content will also be bundled in smaller packages, including down to individual elements. If you want to use the tabaxi race but don’t want to buy the entire Volo’s Guide to Monsters, you will be able to purchase the tabaxi by itself.”
> 
> ...


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## darjr (Apr 28, 2017)

Is any of this a change? I can't tell. It sounds cool.

I love the DM option. Though I'd like an option geared toward tabletop players/DM's and or AL DM's. I really don't have a need for players to keep their characters in my place or online really.


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## speculart (Apr 28, 2017)

Remathilis said:


> Update from Dragon+



Yeah that sounds pretty great! 
I was hoping that they took a leaf out of Roll20s book and offer free admission to players on the back of the dms master sub..and it looks like they are looking in that direction.  
This gives me confidence that they are on target.


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## Gardens & Goblins (Apr 28, 2017)

darjr said:


> Is any of this a change? I can't tell. It sounds cool.
> 
> I love the DM option. Though I'd like an option geared toward tabletop players/DM's and or AL DM's. I really don't have a need for players to keep their characters in my place or online really.




This will be the challenge - how to make a resource essential, when so much is available for free. If it's not essential, then it'll remain a novelty. 

Ideally it should be as boring and useful as a hammer


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## lkj (Apr 28, 2017)

I think this post has a lot of information of interest to people here:

http://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d...thoughts-subscriptions-costs-and?page=20#c396


AD


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## Patrick McGill (Apr 28, 2017)

I might be being obtuse, but the way I'm reading it I'll need to purchase content and have a subscription in order to access stuff as a DM?

Or will paying for, say, the Master tier sub give me access to PHB/MM/DMG content as long as I subscribe?


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## lkj (Apr 28, 2017)

Patrick McGill said:


> I might be being obtuse, but the way I'm reading it I'll need to purchase content and have a subscription in order to access stuff as a DM?
> 
> Or will paying for, say, the Master tier sub give me access to PHB/MM/DMG content as long as I subscribe?




No. The subscriptions serve an entirely different purpose. You can buy official content. Those are one time purchases. You always have access to them. Also you can make your own homebrew content for free and you'll always have access to that. The subscriptions basically allow you to share content and get access to other people's content (in addition to giving you more character slots).  So the Hero Tier gives your more character slots, access to other people's homebrew content, and the ability to share your own homebrew content. The Master tier lets you share all of your purchased content with up to 12 other players (who don't have to pay a thing). 

AD


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## Patrick McGill (Apr 28, 2017)

lkj said:


> No. The subscriptions serve an entirely different purpose. You can buy official content. Those are one time purchases. You always have access to them. Also you can make your own homebrew content for free and you'll always have access to that. The subscriptions basically allow you to share content and get access to other people's content (in addition to giving you more character slots).  So the Hero Tier gives your more character slots, access to other people's homebrew content, and the ability to share your own homebrew content. The Master tier lets you share all of your purchased content with up to 12 other players (who don't have to pay a thing).
> 
> AD




Ah, so I was being obtuse! Thank you for clarifying.

I think my preference would be to pay a sub to get access to the data ala 4e's Insider, but I suppose it depends on how much they are charging for the content.


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## lkj (Apr 28, 2017)

Patrick McGill said:


> Ah, so I was being obtuse! Thank you for clarifying.
> 
> I think my preference would be to pay a sub to get access to the data ala 4e's Insider, but I suppose it depends on how much they are charging for the content.




And, I should say, that the article doesn't rule out getting access to official content with another kind of subscription. They just don't mention it.  So I have a feeling that option won't be there. But who knows. In the end, I'm guessing-- especially with allowing offline access-- that one time purchases will be simpler to manage. 

AD


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## GreatInca (Jun 20, 2017)

I'll stick with Hero Lab's D&D 5E & its community packs.


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## dropbear8mybaby (Jun 21, 2017)

GreatInca said:


> I'll stick with Hero Lab's D&D 5E & its community packs.




Sado-masochism is a fine hobby.


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## Zaukrie (Jun 29, 2017)

Isn't phase two starting in June?


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## SkidAce (Jun 29, 2017)

I believe thats what they said.


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