Laren

TTRPG grumbling:

While I'm not generally a fan of D&D beyond's app, one thing I rather appreciate about it is the fact that I can just... Download all the books I own for totally offline access. There is a storage price to be paid for this, naturally, but I can accept that.

Compare this to Demiplane which uses a web interface exclusively. No native app, and definitely no offline access.

I would say "I expected better of them", but apparently they were bought out around this time last year by Roll20 (fun fact: so was drivethrurpg) and Roll20 has a history of either having awful apps or no apps at all, so I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised, but it's a little frustrating.

Please don't make me say "Wizards does this better" eternally?

#ttrpg #dnd5e #roll20 #demiplane #vtm #pf2e

Jul 2, 2025 at 5:12amWeb
Show threadjellJul 2, 2025

@laren Bit of an aside... but I despise that our current best options in the VTT landscape are between:

- "overblown student project that hasn't dealt with 10+ years of techdebt"

- "literally the eudora email client, but with maps attached," and

- "Linux: The Virtual Tabletop."

And all of them are different nations with their own currency.

[roll20, fantasy grounds, foundry; respectively]

Show threadjellJul 2, 2025
@laren (I don't count D&D Beyond as 'within the best' because... lord, that's a lotta baggage. Even if it technically works /ok/.)
Show threadToekneegeeJul 2, 2025
@laren
Still, if they offered PDFs as an option when you buy your books, that would be great. But I guess then they'd have trouble getting people to pay their subscription fees
Show threadTreeVorJul 2, 2025
@toekneegee @laren if you have a Paizo account and sync your Demiplane account to it. Paizo will add downloadable PDFs of the books you’ve bought on Demiplane to your Paizo account.
Show threadToekneegeeJul 3, 2025
@TreeVor
Yeah, that's another reason why I like Pathfinder over DnD. Generally, I can download their PDFs by chapter and share with my players as needed. Between that, the Archives of Nethys and Pathbuilder, my players don't necessarily have to buy anything to play. They do, but they don't need to.
Show threadSimiraJul 2, 2025
@laren What? You can download the books now? How?