High Level Games
High Level Games
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures

Welcome to the High Level Games Blog, News, and other stuff to take your games to the next level!

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

3 Great Things About D&D Beyond And 2 Things That Are Less So

27/7/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
A few eons ago I wrote an article speculating about D&D Beyond. And very recently (yesterday depending on when this article gets posted) Curse and Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) revealed their release date and pricing for everything. I mean, prices are everyone's least favourite part of anything. But I digress; with all of this happening all so suddenly, there’s a lot to talk about. Talk about those prices, talk about that microtrans-- I mean versatility of content model, talk about the community and how it will develop throughout these changing times. D&D Beyond will either go down in the history books as “nailing it” or as an abysmal failure.

1) The Site Itself
God is this site ever sexy. It's got that sleek “5e” feel that I know I’ve fallen in love with along with a lot of the community. Everything from the fonts to the color to the mood just feels… right. Like it was meant to be this way. Not to mention since the last article, most of the lagging issues have been cleaned right up (it is still technically in beta after all) as a matter of fact most of all the issues have been removed. The community is quick to stomp that out and let the dev’s know. It looks great and it manages to be user friendly too.

The site’s community is not only friendly but it’s useful. Any questions you have regarding intricacies, obscure rules and even ideas can be reaped with a smile. People are out creating art maps etc. and it's all out in the open. As with everything else on the site, it's quick, it's concise, and most importantly you can change font for your comments and posts. Just a personal thing about that: I absolutely love being able to change my font for posts and comments; it creates the illusion of personality.

2) Home Of Homebrew
Since the community is so big (and because this was something the devs wanted in the whole time) you could expect that people are creating stuff like nobody's business. Spells, monsters, magic items, you name it. Most of them are even good. Clever, even. And unlike other things (which are limited in their use until you subscribe or pay too much for but that's for later) you can make an unlimited number of homebrew things and publish them to the site, or keep them private. You can even draft and get feedback on the ones that you publish to the site.

Honestly, it’s super diverse and it’s still growing very quickly. There's something like 53 pages in the magic item area alone. It’s all super interesting stuff you can add to your loot, enemies, etc. to spice up that campaign nice and quickly. The best bit is that it’s all well balanced for the most part. There's really not more to say on this matter.

3) Character Creator
Now, while they have limited classes to having just one subclass, it is important to note that they do have the races from elemental evil such as the Gensai, Aarakocra and Goliaths. For the most part this is everything you could ask for in a character creator. The first time, it walks you through very slowly with a long tutorial. As you move from subject to subject, it brings up a very verbose page explaining everything, which would be helpful to first timers and the otherwise “green,” however it’s relatively useless to someone who's played the average video game, and it becomes bothersome quickly because I’ve made three characters and the site insisted on giving me the tutorial all three times. There’s probably a way to get rid of it, but I’m just a fool in a man's body so that probably won’t be going away in my foreseeable future.

The creator is comprehensible and as said before very attractive visually. It’s even got a couple of prompts on things I hadn’t thought about keeping tabs on before, such as allies, enemies, organizations and the likes. It’s even got a nice little area to write down your backstory so it’s nice and visible. Oh, and that “limited” thing I took a shot at last article turned out to be “Limited Use” abilities. So they’ve got a thing keeping tabs on that too. However like most digital goods, this product has its flaws.

1) Limited Use
You’ve got six “character slots.” Have fun. Planning on keeping a character around for “myths and legends?” Wrong. You need the space. I know I typically only have three or four campaigns going at any given moment and I’m just on the high end to my understanding. However that’s not the only thing on this site that’s limited. As mentioned before every class only has one subclass attached to it at the moment, and it’s unlikely that will change considering the respective model that they’re planning on implementing.

However to play a little devil's advocate in the “bad” section, the site appears to be mostly open to the beta testers in the meantime. Although one thing I have noticed is that despite the site showing D&D Beyond being present as an app on phones and tablets, there hasn’t been an app version released even as a test. We’ll have to simply wait until the full release to see how well their app version works.

2) Pricing
The primary concern of most players and DMs will be whether or not the price is right for this particular toolset. Luckily, the character creator and most of the database will be available to all without the need for a subscription, so long as you don’t mind looking at ads (or have taken other “steps” to circumvent this issue). If you want full access to the toolset, including homebrew monsters and an ad-free experience, you will need to select one of two tiers. The first is touted as being for players and costs 2.99 USD per month. This tier gives you access to shared homebrew content and unlimited character creation slots. The next is advertised as a DM tier. This 5.99/month subscription, along with the benefits of the previous tier, provides the DM with the ability to share their unlocked digital content with their player groups so that not all need to go through the costly process of unlocking (read: purchasing) every splatbook. While gone are the days, it seems, of simply passing a book back and forth between friends at a table, at least there exists an option that allows for a digital book pass, so long as that pass is purchased each month. I can’t say I’m jazzed about this practice, but at least the functionality exists.

Finally, the site will allow you to purchase digital versions of each book available, and at a marginal discount over the physical copies, much like one would expect at sites like DriveThruRPG. What’s truly unfortunate, in my mind, is that there does not appear to be any loyalty rewards for continued membership. At the very least, you should be able to earn points each month that you hold a subscription to help pay for books that you wouldn’t otherwise purchase. Let’s face it: our hobby can get expensive if we want to support those that keep putting good work into making it better. A few loyalty discounts here or there would not only help those who want the digital books and the subscription afford both, but in the end, incentivise those of us who wouldn’t otherwise shell out for either product.

When all's said and done, this site is really something special. We criticise it only because we love our hobby and want every product to be the best it can be. Having a site that allows you to create and store monsters, spells, characters, and campaigns in a user-friendly fashion is a real boon to players in our digital age, and the fact that it is (mostly) free to use is also pretty awesome. We tried coming up with a third negative point to make about the site for symmetry’s sake, but just weren’t able to do so. It’s that cool. Whether the bells and whistles that come extra are worth it will be a choice each DM and player will make, of course. Nevertheless, D&D Beyond proves to be a bold step into the digital sphere of online roleplaying. We’ll be waiting with bated breath for the launch date (August 15th) and will report again when that time comes. ‘Til then, check out the Beta and let us know what you think: https://www.dndbeyond.com/

Jarod Lalonde is a young role-player and writer whose passion for both lead him here. He’s often sarcastic and has a +5 to insult. Dungeons and Dragons is his favorite platform. Although he’s not quite sure if it’s Call of Cthulhu whispering to him in the small hours of the night, or just persistent flashbacks to the Far Realm.

David Horwitz is a gamer and freelance writer with an obsession for exploring new forms of leisure. If you’re looking for an inquisitive mind and a deft hand, or just want to chat about gaming, contact him at www.davidhorwitzwrites.com/contact . Jarod wrote the majority of this article, David stepped in to help finish it and edit it.


Savage Worlds: Fast, Furious, and Fun! - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    All blog materials created and developed by the staff here at High Level Games 

    ​

    Picture
    Click here to support our community for as a little as $1.00 for exclusive content, free downloadable stuff, and even discounts on role-playing game items.

    Archives

    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All
    13th Age
    2d20
    2nd Edition
    3.5 Edition
    3Deep
    4th Edition
    5th Edition
    7th Sea
    Acquisitions Inc
    Actual Play
    AD&D
    AdventureLookUp.com
    Adventurers!
    Aether Sea
    A+ Fantasy
    After Collapse
    Alignment
    Amazing Tales
    Amazon
    Anima: Beyond Fantasy
    Anime
    Apocalypse World
    Atomic Robo
    Australian
    Award Winning
    Basic Fantasy
    Belly Of The Beast
    Big Eyes Small Mouth
    Black Lives Matter
    Black Void
    Blades In The Dark
    Blood Pangea
    Board Games
    Book Of Exalted Darkness
    BrigadeCon
    Burning Wheel RPG
    Call Of Cthulhu
    Capers RPG
    Casual Roleplaying
    Changeling: The Dreaming
    Chaosium
    Character Arcs
    Character Creation
    Chris Spivey
    Cinematic RP
    Classics
    Comic-books
    Conventions
    Corvus Belli: Infinity
    Crawl
    Creators
    Critical Role
    Cthulhutech
    D100 Dungeon
    D20
    D&D
    D&D Beyond
    Deadlands
    Defenders Of Tokyo
    Degenesis
    Detako Saga
    Discord
    DMsGuild.com
    Dnd
    Dndbeyond
    Doctor-who
    Double-cross
    Dread
    Dresden-files
    DriveThruRPG.com
    Dr. Who
    Dungeon Crawl Classics
    Dungeons
    Dungeons And Dragons
    Dungeon Slayers
    Dungeon World
    Dystopia Rising
    Encounters
    Era: The Consortium
    Era: The Empowered
    Esper Genesis
    Evil Hat
    Exalted
    Faith RPG
    Fandom
    Fantasy-age
    Fantasy-flight
    Fantasy Grounds
    FATE
    Fate Accelerated Edition
    Fate Core
    Fate Rpg
    Fate-rpg
    Final Fantasy
    Forgotten Realms
    Fragged Empire
    Free League Publishing
    Furries
    Game Design
    Game Lore
    Gencon
    Ghosts Of NPCs Past
    GMTips
    Golden-sky-stories
    GoodmanGames.com
    Grognards
    GUMSHOE
    GURPS
    GURPS Lite
    Halloween
    Harlem Unbound
    Harry-potter
    Hero Builder
    Heroes Against Darkness
    Heroes-unlimited
    HERO System
    High Level Games
    Historical Fantasy
    HLG Con 2018
    HLG Reviews
    Homebrew
    Humble Bundle
    Indie
    Interface Zero 2.0
    Interview
    Invisible Suns
    Japanese RPGs
    JRR Tolkien
    Kickstarter
    KoboldPress.com
    KULT
    L5R
    Lankhmar
    LARP
    Lasers And Feelings
    Legendlore
    Legend Of The Five Rings
    LexOccultum
    LOTR
    Low Magic
    Mage
    Mage: The Awakening
    Magic And Steel
    MAID
    Mayhem
    Mazes And Minotaurs
    Meikyuu Kingdom
    Mekton Zero
    Mental Health
    Middle Earth
    Mighty Narwhal
    Mini Six
    Modern Adventures RPG
    Modiphius
    Monarchies Of Mau
    Monsterhearts
    Monte Cook Games
    Morra
    Mummy: The Curse
    Mutants And Masterminds
    Mythender
    Narrative Games
    Nechronica
    Night's Black Agents
    Novel
    NPC
    Numenara
    Odyssey Of The Dragonlords
    One Shot
    Online Gaming
    Orun
    OSCRIC
    Osr
    OVA
    Palladium
    Pathfinder
    Pathfinder 2.0
    PbtA
    PDQ
    Pire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
    Play By Post
    Player Tips
    Podcast
    Powered By Apocalypse
    Power Outage RPG
    Preview
    Promethean: The Created
    Pugmire
    Pulp
    Puzzles
    Questlings
    Ravenloft
    Ravnica
    Red Markets: A Game Of Economic Horror
    Research
    Review
    Review Article
    Rifts
    Risus
    Role Play
    Roll20
    Romance Of The Perilous Land
    Ryuutama
    Satanic Panic
    Savage Rifts
    Savage Tokusatsu
    Savage Worlds
    Seeds Of Wars
    Setting
    Settings
    Settlement Building
    Shadowrun
    SIGMATA
    Snowhaven
    Social Combat
    Social Systems
    Solo Play
    Standard Roleplay System
    Star Trek Adventures
    Star Wars
    Storytellers Vault
    Suited RPG
    Summerland
    Supplements
    System Design
    Table Top
    Tabletop Simulator
    Tales From The Loop
    Tales Of Equestria
    Talislanta
    Tariffs
    Teenagers From Outerspace
    Ten Candles
    Tenra Bansho Zero
    The Dark Eye
    The End Of The World RPG
    The Great Long Dark
    The One Ring
    The Very Important Task
    Titan Effect
    To The Temple Of Doom
    Trial Of Cthulhu
    Trinity Continuum
    TSR Marvel Super Heroes
    Ttrpg
    Twitch
    USTR
    Va
    Valiant Rpg
    Vampire: The Masquerade
    Video Games
    Villian
    Volo
    Vs Ghosts
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Werewolf: The Apocalypse
    Westbound RPG
    Wild West
    World Building
    World Of Darkness
    Writing Tips
    Year Zero
    Zweihander

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly