I hadn't done an article in a while and I figured I should, given I've been neglecting my stream in favour of my recent project turned mild life obsession.
I recently spent over $200 on D&D Beyond so that we, that is me and the gang, could have access to the wonderous power of digital reference!
March 12th marks the year anniversary of D&D Beyond's release and I wanted to get this in while I had the time to write it.
Slow and glitchy.
I have fibre optic. This is my speedtest.net score.
I am not on a slow connection. Using D&D Beyond is clunky at times, and glitchy at worst. Doesn't happen often, but can happen and when it does, it's frustrating.
Search is frustrating.
Search EVERYTHING! Oh, you don't own that, here's a whole page load to let you know. Why is it in my search results?!
I feel like if I'm searching for a spell, the system should know I want spells first when searching Fireball, or some such. How would this work? Machine learning? Crazy AI?
No. You sort those categories first.
So as a DM, I search for Fireball, I get a clunky page load, a compendium entry as the top result, and an ascii code I assume is meant to be an icon?
The compendium entries typically take me to a table of the spell entries!
If I search Orc, I get the Orc race. If I click that, I get taken to a page where I'm asked to pay $30 to buy Volos.
The upselling is strong with this platform. So many options.
What's even better is the complete lack of sign that it's about to take me to the upsell page. The result appears in search as any other material. It doesn't define which source book it's coming from and it certainly doesn't allude to whether or not I own it, because that would hurt their conversion rate.
It is lazy development, or good business? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Great Maw
Paying for D&D Beyond is shoveling money into a pit. I spent over $200 and that's on top of the books I own. Which are also several hundred dollars.
No discounts either way leaves me angry everytime I hear I have to spent another $30.
"But when you have all the books, you'll have all the books!"
True, but there's always another book, and I want to own a hard cover copy.. but I want to have a digital reference. So I need to pay $100 per reference in order to have both? Forgive me but it's not worth it.
I don't mean to sound like I don't appreciate the service, but give people who buy the hard cover a break on the price. Is subsidizing your fans really so terrible?
Am I terrible for saying this? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As a player tool?
D&D Beyond is awesome as a player tool for rich people, or when you get it for free because you're a celebrity. I'm a dick, but I seriously feel gypped.
I won't pander to the service, or Weezehards. As a player tool, D&D Beyond services player needs exceptionally. Except for Unearthed Arcana, which despite the claim that it's included, might just not be (Where's the Mystics, Lebowski!?).
I played using D&D Beyond as my character sheet and was pleased with how exceptionally intuitive the system is. It is a very powerful tool for managing your character and presents a terrific alternative to other apps if you've got a spare $400CAD sitting around gathering dust.
I paid over $200 for what I have on D&D Beyond and said enough was enough. I've since then taken up alternatives that are much more affordable and allow me to locally database my reference, thus severing the requirement for remote server interaction.
Monetizing Character Management
Weezehards and Twitch managed to monetize player character storage in a big way, but the DM side of things lacks entirely. Maybe this will change in due course, to include some DM tools, and provide that 'Twitch integration'.
Seriously though, how many characters are you limited to on Roll20? You're not. Roll20 isn't about character storage, it's about playing remote games with friends.
It's $50 for the MM on Roll20. You get the rules reference, the ability to use the reference material in the system, tokens to use on the game map, and some other stuff.
WIth D&D Beyond, they're charging a subscription to store a limited number of your character sheets, and you're unlocking reference material that you cannot do much with as a DM. It's not worth 50% the hard cover price plus a membership fee.
D&D Beyond does Not give a Dungeon Master any 'advantage' at this time in its evolution, and is a very expensive tool to get into as a player.
Cherry Picking
Let's talk fanboi logic.
D&D Beyond is expensive when bought as a whole, but you can cherry pick what you need. So everytime you make a character, you just buy the options. And there are so many options. So if I want to make a Tabaxi Paladin with a Holy Avenger you pay around $12 and then you have that material!
Eventually you'll own the book because they discount the purchase from the total cost of that book.
If you've made 8 different characters, you might spend around $80-$100 on material from different books, but you wouldn't normally have that material unless you pay a lot more for the physical books, which you can't buy ala carte.
Whatever. This isn't my real issue, and it never will be.
As a DM tool?
It sucks. Bottom line.
Let's take a good look at what it provides DMs.
That's it. Playing with advantage now bay-bee.
See the notes there? That's it. That's the extent of Dungeons & Dragons BEYOND and what they offer Dungeon Masters a year later.
I'm not going to give a play by play of what's not there, but I will say this: the roadmap isn't clear and a lot of folks are always questioning what's up.
Reference for quotes upcoming quotes
https://nerdarchy.com/dd-beyond-goes-beyond-and-beyond/
"I had a vision for the D&D Beyond toolset from the beginning that extends for 5+ years (without exaggeration). Our roadmap is very well-defined – much more so than for any other product I’ve ever worked on – and we are intentional in our development approach. As we gather feedback from the community, the priorities sometimes shift, but they are still almost always things that we have always planned to do."
Every dev update that is provided, we see a slew of the same questions abound.
- Where is Twitch integration?
- Are we going to have an encounter builder?
- etc
If the roadmap is so well defined we fans shouldn't be wondering about this stuff a year later. Oh wait..
"Twitch stream integration is a good example of the shifting of priorities that I mentioned earlier. We planned to do it earlier, but we de-prioritized it based on a large amount of community feedback that we’ve been acting on in the meantime. Things like finishing out the basics of homebrew and our in-progress major character sheet revamp. Good news is, we started meeting this week to talk about starting development on stream integration, so the ball is rolling and the community will start seeing much more on this soon."
So is it defined or isn't it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here's the most recent thread of questions for the devs Twitch stream.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/12596-d-d-beyond-live-dev-update-q-a-stream-fri-16th-feb
Whatever. I'm not interested in what is coming, or not coming. I'm interested in the complete lack of any features in the back end and the unfortunate truth the price of the material makes me upset and ultimately makes the tool a bad investment for me.
Folks can make all the statements they want about "what's to come" and god knows fanbois do loooove making statements.. but there's nothing right now. Right now, a year after beta, it's a powerful player management and content resale platform that is selling subscriptions for character storage and content sharing.
Literally that's it, and it's only doing an 'alright' job at that for the premium price you pay.
Verdict.
Not worth it for a DM, especially if you're buying physical books.
I can't let go of physical books. I still have an unreasonable need to own physical books.
If you don't need physical books, it goes from an upsetting financial burden to an affordable alternative; if you, like me, enjoy having a book shelf of the books, you're now a collector paying collectors prices.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯