Keithcurtis is spot on with the sunken cost aspect of using DDB, but there's also some historical aspects to all of this that might explain more. And if you're seeing a lot of support for Beyond20, definitely check to see when those comments were made. There have been a lot of changes within the last year to 6 months. I have used DDB for several years (before DDB was purchased by WotC in April 2022), and my reasoning at the time was that the character sheet interface was far superior. I also anticipated an eventual DDB VTT would be released... which sort of happened (have you heard of Sigil?)... but at this point it seems like WotC/Hasbro are just using DDB for a cash grab and aren't going to invest any more money into anything other than new sourcebooks and selling third-party content. Since then, development of the DDB character sheet has massively stalled. I don't think there have been any significant updates to the DDB character sheets since containers were implemented 3 years ago. (I'm not including updates for the 2024 rule changes in that statement.) There have been minor bug fixes for specific class features along the way, but nothing overarching. And there have been some site features that have been added in that time, such as the Maps feature and Encounter Builder, but those are pretty weak compared to what you can get for free elsewhere (Roll20, Owlbear Rodeo) and can't compete at all with paid alternatives (Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds). At the time, I really didn't like the Roll20 'OGL' sheet (now called the 'D&D 5E (2014) by Roll20' character sheet) for PCs. The DDB interface was better and easier to use, and I invested my money there. DDB also had the advantage of being far more usable for in-person games, and much easier to share content digitally with my friends (caveat: requires a paid Master Tier subscription on DDB). At the time, Roll20 character sheets were notoriously slow to load and could sometimes crash, and since then Roll20 has made some great improvements with legacy sheets - features like 'lazy loading' that only loaded sheets when they were opened. I never used DDB for NPCs. The homebrew system is far too clunky to quickly add create versions of monsters and NPCs. I still prefer the D&D 5E 2014 by Roll20 sheet for its ease of use and ability to quickly copy a monster and adjust it to create a variant. Because DDB was a better interface, Kakaroto developed the Beyond20 browser extension, which simplified using DDB character sheets while playing on Roll20. It made it possible to have the best of both worlds: a better functioning interface for a character sheet, with easy buttons to press to port that information into Roll20 (or Foundry). It sidestepped the problems that Roll20 sheets had at the time. It looks like Kakaroto has now focused pretty heavily onto Foundry implementations, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Beyond20 extension stops working for Roll20 at some point in the future. It's certainly never going to work for the 'D&D 5E 2024 by Roll20' sheet. Roll20 later released the Roll20 Characters feature (still slightly confusing to use with its overlap from the Character Vault functionality), which serves the purpose of accessing character sheets outside of a game, which wasn't easily possible before. Now to today: the 'D&D 5E (2024) by Roll20' sheet is still terrible to use. It's vastly improved from when it was released 8 months ago in September, but Roll20 went hard into trying to copy the DDB interface, and that isn't doing them any favors for usability. I have a strong suspicion that they were also hamstrung by how much pre-release information they got from WotC, so some of their design decisions were made with insufficient information. There are still many glitches depending on whether you used the Character Builder or entered items manually, and many feature requests that haven't been incorporated yet. It also uses the new Beacon sheet infrastructure, which is new, so there are a lot of growing pains from that at the same time. At the same time, Roll20 released Jumpgate, which confused a lot of players because it can be hard to distinguish what is a 2024 sheet feature (or Beacon sheet feature) and what is a Jumpgate feature, and if there is a problem or bug then it's hard to figure out where to troubleshoot. Jumpgate is still not fully functional with scripts and causes issues with some player's computers... but it has allowed for some much desired and long desired features, like the Foreground layer and improved Dynamic Lighting features, so the growing pains are an unfortunate necessity to adding new features to a browser-based VTT that is well over a decade old. But because of all of the updates it feels like the character sheet interface and the VTT interface are changing almost monthly, so if you have done prep for a game and come back after some time, you may have to redo all of your prep work or refamiliarize yourself with what you've set up and how to run the game smoothly once you're actually playing. And Roll20 is still terrible for reading through adventure modules. You literally have to create a game with an adventure, and then either open the game and read through the handouts, or open the compendium from outside the game to read the handouts there, and reading through the handouts is not easy. It doesn't read like a PDF - each handout has to be manually linked to the previous or next handout to be read sequentially. Sourcebook content is not much better. DDB is much easier to use as a GM. But the benefit to owning the adventure on Roll20 is that you get all of the maps, tokens, characters, etc. created already for you, so your upfront workload is drastically reduced. DDB also has an app that is great to use for reading through sourcebook content or for tracking already created characters for in-person playing (it's not great for creating characters). Roll20 has all but abandoned their 'second-screen' companion app. In contrast, DDB has basically only updated their site for the 2024 rules. There hasn't been any new core functionality added in several years. Their two versions of a VTT have failed. People are upset with the OGL debacle from a couple years ago, and are very mistrusting of WotC/Hasbro as a corporate entity. If you want to play by 5E legacy rules on DDB, you literally can't exclude some 2024 content, and if there's ever an overlap between 2014 and 2024 content, the 2024 content will be listed first with the 2014 content listed as 'Legacy' below it. So two years ago? I would have recommended DDB with Beyond20 porting into Roll20. Today? I'm not optimistic that Hasbro is going to invest in DDB, and it's likely that Roll20 will be a more seamless experience and you'll get a better return on investment, but it still has a lot of issues. There is at least evidence that Roll20 is making updates and improving things. Using only Roll20 also has the advantage of being a single ecosystem, versus using Beyond20 which relies on DDB, Beyond20, and Roll20 all being stable enough that a change in one of those three doesn't break the whole process. Roll20 is also game-agnostic. You might start on Roll20 with D&D 5E, but decide to run Pathfinder or Call of Cthulu or any of the 100s of other games that can be played on Roll20, and you'll already be familiar with the interface. DDB is only for playing D&D 5E, and it's heavily geared towards the 2024 ruleset. Either approach requires you as GM and your players to invest time learning the interface, and deciding how much automation and fancy features you need to incorporate into your game. Dynamic Lighting is a cool feature, and it can create immersion, but it can also 'video-gamify' what is traditionally a much more imaginative theatre-of-the-mind gameplay. Mod scripts can help track hit points and resources for your players' characters, but then that can cause them to become dependent on the automation and not know how to do those calculations themselves. Just like using the Character Builder can cause them to not fully understand their characters and how they are built or what some basic D&D rules are, because they didn't have to fully read through the PHB to understand the character build process. Roll20 Pros: Game agnostic; VTT functionality; still being improved; homebrew is easier D&D Beyond Pros: Easier to use in person; easier for GMs to read through content; dedicated ecosystem Roll20 Cons: Feels unstable; interface is clunkier; can become a timesink for prep D&D Beyond Cons: Requires third-party tools to play on outside VTT; Stagnant interface & features; Supporting Hasbro
