I Caved or: How I Learned to Stop Caring and Sign Up for D&Di

drstrangeinsider

After a year of dragging my feet, using friend’s accounts, and messing with the trial information, I’ve finally caved in and paid money for D&D Insider. In fact, I went all in, spending $70+ on the one year account, instead of messing around with going month-to-month. Right now, I’m downloading all of the tools and preparing for my next campaign, exporting PDFs instead of scribbling notes in a binder. I’m making folders instead of, well, buying actual folders. No post-it notes, no highlighters, just lots of megabits and binary nonsense. Why? There are a three main reasons, and they’re reasons that just about anyone who plays 4th Edition should do the same.

  1. Making characters is easier. Not only is it much easier to make a character (and harder to forget to add a modifier here or there), but it also makes NPCs much more fleshed out. In the past, it was serious business when the DM pulled out a character sheet for an enemy. The players knew that the opponent was crazy hard based solely on that action. Now? It’s on the laptop screen and took ten seconds to make, meaning a hard battle with a well-made opponent.
  2. Encounter builder means better encounters. Yeah, it sounds simple, but it’s true. No more, “Shit! Um, there are goblins in there, I guess” and more “It’s a kruthik lair! Roll initiative!” It sure beats the hell out of hastily looking through the MM. It’s also, you know, more convenient, and allows for easy deleveling of monsters to make for interesting encounters. You can finally make the simple-minded Mind Flayer you’ve always wanted to.
  3. Less books. Hey, I like nostalgia as much as the next guy, but that should mean remembering the old days of D&D, not pulling a heavy backpack to History Class. With the 50lbs of books released for 4th Edition this month, you still don’t have half of the content in the tools provided on the site. It also costs less, so that’s an added bonus.
  4. I need a reason to buy a netbook. I know that I said three reasons, but, seriously, I’ve been looking for an excuse. Asus, here I come!

4 comments

  1. Scott says:

    A netbook is a 4e DM’s best friend. You absolutely will not regret hiding an EEE PC behind your DM screen.

    November 29th, 2009 at 7:25 am

  2. S says:

    The compendium is my best friend when DMing. If I need to make an instant encounter, I just search for monsters in my players’ level range, maybe with a keyword like “construct” or “aquatic”, pick out a few that look nice, and pull them out on separate windows so I have it all up at once. I can even track their initiative and HP/conditions on the address bar.

    Afterwards, I check my rewards sheet for what item levels they are supposed to get this level, search for something of the right type, and give it out. Really could not be easier, and it lets me concentrate on macro-planning instead of micro. I consider DDI one of the best values out there for a 4e DM.

    December 1st, 2009 at 9:12 pm

  3. Sol says:

    So whot do you do after 4th ed is not support or the new edition comes out. Is there going to be a disk with off of the content on it, other wise I’m paying $70 for something I never really own.

    December 7th, 2009 at 8:31 am

  4. FemJesse says:

    … or you pay hundreds more to own outdated source material.

    December 17th, 2009 at 6:08 pm

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