Virtual Tabletop/ Gameboard
Planned
Since it was mentioned that integrated streaming was a possibility, I feel the need to ask if there are plans to make a built-in gameboard at any point, similar to something like Roll20 has, or are the plans for D&D Beyond to mostly be a resource?
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Why stop there? Let's also add updates to campaign books as well, purchasing a campaign book like Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation would get you digital maps for your digital table top complete with figure tokens for NPCs and monsters. Or even better, have each map already set up with monsters in their places as described in the books.
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This is certainly something that I would very much appreciate. I am already heavily invested in DDB as this is the easiest D&D service out there. I have loved all the new content and updates that have come out, including the digital character sheets. This just sounds like the next likely step that should come to be. One of the hardest part of my D&D campaign is that I have people who live in totally different areas and its difficult to wrangle them to my house to continue our story. I already was able to convince all my players to sign up for DDB and use the character sheet and it has eased the transition of many of them into RPGTT gaming. I really hope this comes to be and would be willing to sign up for the highest tier so that I can host all my players whether subscribed or not.
Keep up the good work DDB. I truly hope this becomes a feature.
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Please consider prioritizing this for so many DMs! I mean it doesn't have to be that amazing or complicated. Just something simple and functional would be good enough. I will (yes, it's a promise) buy the legendary bundle and 1 year subscription in a heartbeat, once this gets added to the DDB, and I am sure there are more people who agrees with me. As a new DM trying to figure out how to DM online, I really want to invest in one platform and DDB will be undoubtedly the best platform to host online D&D sessions if it had VTT and many tools that it already offers.
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Making a vtt might be a stretch for ddb given some of the other Wip/planned features still missing (*cough* "General features" for dmg 264/265). I know that at least one of them uas integration with ddb on its roadmap https://arkenforge.com/2019-roadmap-the-0-3-series-of-updates/ Much like the voice chat thing that comes up every once in a while, this is probably something better left to groups who actually build vtt stuff .
edit: to be honest, having ddb roll out a VTT while I'm still listening to my most pro ddb player say things like "oh my god, ddb is never going to track that -either*-" in reference to the wild idea that death saves take a long rest to clear & you only clear one per long rest as happened at the table during last night's game might be enough to make me apologetically tell my table "ddb is NOT allowed at my table at all." Having it come out with a tabletop not compatible with the arkenforge one I use & have tons of maps already made in would shift that from might be enough to almost certainly more than enough to do that and maybe be that unhappy customer that tells ten people why.
* Other things from the "either" are honor/sanity scores & some of the darker dungeons stuff I want to use like its slot based inventory, potion flasks, ammunition dice, item decay, etc.
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I would want DBB to make a 5e specific VTT so I can stop using Roll20 as I play with people all over the world virtually. My in person group after 30 years has relocated across the country. So we can't play in person anymore.
Now I know that DBB can't and won't do everything. At the end of the day taking care of your character sheet (one way or another) is player responsibility. Same goes with how the DM wants to run the game. I'm the type that will use as much or as little of a tool I want. I would prefer to leave Roll20 behind someday. None of the existing tools entice me enough to move away. I'm also heavily invested in DBB. So I want to see them provide what I want. Of course just little old me won't be enough. Hence this feature request. Hopefully more will want it and upvote it. It's pretty high from a community feedback perspective over here.
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I'm going to put in my vote to say that I'd rather they not put in resources for this, but rather partner with existing VTTs to create a DNDBeyond overlay. There's so much work to do on this toolset to prioritize this endeavor. At the same time, I want DDB to become the *gold* standard for DND5E tools, so the ability to use it on any VTT would be amazing.
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to be honest i kind of see what you are saying but to be honest none of the existing vtt are really up to snuff either limited in functionality or not user friendly. Don't get me wrong i have seen some up and coming projects that look interesting such as https://talespire.com/ but none of these services are here and we dont know if they will actually come to the public.
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I agree with Adam. While Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are fine for now, I would like to have all my resources in one place. The other VTT's work for people because they may use different rule sets but having a D&D Beyond dedicated VTT that already has the character sheets, rules, and purchases integrated would be much more efficient for me as a DM. Right now in order to get a character sheet from D&D Beyond into Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds you either need to re-build it or use a .json file and 3rd party API script to move it.
I am heavily invested in D&D Beyond and would like it to be my one stop shop for all things D&D. I would gladly pay a higher monthly subscription for a half way decent VTT that integrates already purchased content and character sheets from your campaigns.
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Totally see where you guys are coming from, but one of the huge limitations of DNDBeyond (as it exists currently) is the lack of support for third-party compendium content. Roll20 seems to have figured that part out. If DNDBeyond provided an overlay, you could easily homebrew up races, sub-classes, and magic items, but run your 3rd-party content through Roll20.
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I agree that 3rd party compendium content can be a deal-breaker for some. Now the DnDBeyond.com team has never said no to 3rd party content. Just said that the legal stuff is more challenging around it. I'm betting once the source management controls they are building are in place they'll be in a way better position to offer 3rd party content.
Thing is for the uninitiated it needs to be super simple when making purchases knowing what is and isn't 3rd party content. Look at Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter. Just that one class cause considerable confusion. + Programming in 3rd party content rules? That's no small feat either. They'd need a dedicated "3rd party content integration team" to go one at a time connect 3rd party content in.
Not impossible, worthwhile? For sure. Likely, they need more building blocks before they can do that. But VTT that's pure official 5e. I'd happily switch my Roll20 Pro Sub money to DBB if they got it working!
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I would love to see them at least offer integrations to the virtual tabletop. If they don't build one and just integrate (or if they can build one with full 3D playable battle maps in both digital and in-person maps that would fantastic.
I've been drooling over the talespire kickstarter and thought that would be amazing if DnD beyond integrated with that.
If the ruleset, books, character sheets could all be integrated into the tabletop (both a GM and a player perspective) with a player map able to be split to a second monitor for in-person gaming would just be perfect. (Think of fantasy grounds, merged with talespire, merged with DnD beyond.
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I see that this is planned, but is on the long term development column with no notes accounting for progress. Considering the amount of upvotes on this, should this become a higher priority for the developers? I know that the business analysis portion of this would take a long time and even finding the LOE can't be established until you really understand what people are wanting from a VTT, but any kind of official updates regarding priorities on these highly voted topics would go far for showing that the Dev team has heard our pleas.
To everyone seeing this post,
something that would help the dev team move forward on this would be to make sure that you aren't just saying "yeah, this would be great", but rather saying what you would like to see. Give some examples of things that you like from other VTTs like Roll20 or FG and then give some things that you don't like. Even providing ideas for functionality that you would like to see could do wonders for the progression of this effort.I personally would like to see line-of-sight functionality with fog of war in such a way that players can move their characters around a corner and it will reveal the room, but also keep shown what they have already explored. But if they leave a room with a monster, they are unable to see that monster until it is in line of sight again. I hope I explained that well.
Thanks!
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I think in terms of virtual tabletop, the most I can ask for is a good line of sight and fog of war. One issue I've had with roll20's line of sight and fog of war is I have to input the settings for line of sight distance and angle on every player token on every map, all separately, which becomes a tedious process.
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I would be happy with a basic alpha or beta build from them similar to the Encounter Builder they just released. Something to show they are working on it and a way to provide feedback on it as they tweak it to the needs of the community. A few things off the top of my head that would be ideal for a basic build just to get it started would be the following:
- Maps and Tokens that can be unlocked via Source Book purchases in the Market Place.
- Basic Fog of war to start with, a manual reveal instead of line of sight. While I know this is something we all want I would like to just have something in our hands first while they work on added LOS functionality for later on down the road.
- I believe they are already working on an initiative tracker through the website, having that interface seamlessly with the basic build would be a necessity.
- Ability to roll digital dice in the VTT via the character sheets by clicking on the Save or Skill similar to Fantasy Grounds.
- Ability to upload our own files/maps/tokens for homebrew content. Just a way to store JPG/PNG files in a database similar to Roll20.
Other Features I would like to see down the road after the basic needs are met, a wishlist of sorts:
- Music integration
- LOS reveal for characters moving through the dungeon as mentioned above.
- High quality video maps, there are a lot of Patreon's that make mp4 animated maps.
- Encounter Dropper, once you build an encounter ability to link to that encounter in the VTT and automatically import the tokens from it into the map.
- Easy quick links in the token information to the monster stat pages.
- Condition icons, possibly with the option to add your own PNG versions to incorporate community made options.
- Custom LOS lines, ability to draw in your own LOS walls/doors/etc similar to Roll20 and FGU
- Possibly a basic map maker function?
To any DnDB employees that might read this! Know that we absolutely love your site and everything you provide. Understand that these requests and excitement surrounding the VTT concept is because we enjoy using your site so much that we can't wait to see your version of this. A lot of us are heavily invested in DnD Beyond because we love and care about this community so much.
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I think that a DDB public API makes sense to have as a higher priority than a VTT. This would allow easier integration into third party tools that are already working on VTTs . So I can import in my ddb content into these third party table top systems.
This would allow more time to before DDB create their own VTT. Collect more data and be more inclusive of the larger dnd community to use what already exists today. -
I would pay good money to have a campaign/encounter/story management platform in the same place as d&d beyond. Honestly, the number 1 reason that I don't purchase content on Beyond is because I'll just have to reintegrate it into Roll20 later and do all the work. Beyond has more polished and nicer tools than roll20, but roll20 exists as a campaign platform.
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On top of that, Roll20 is ALOT more than just D&D. I could see a collaboration (maybe?) But likely they will build their own system. That's what all of the various updates are leaning towards. Everything is linked and easily found within its own system. The liklihood is that they are building and testing out the smaller things before integrating the rest.
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