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I am on my knees begging for a super patron option

W

WatersLethe

Well-known member
I spend hours on Herolab Online as a GM reviewing characters, checking stats, planning adventures, building NPCs. It makes it easy to check what the players are doing during a game, help them find stuff on their web apps, or take control of a player's character while they're gone.

From my players' perspective, they show up ~once a month forget their login, and feel kind of hassled by trying to work through the interface whose design has never been within 100 feet of a UX designer. They see a notice that they're going to have to renew soon, but feel like they paid $5 just recently even though it's been months ago. They're not seeing all the value I get out of it, just a kind of handy character sheet, but "things like Pathbuilder are free, why don't we use that?" as they switch between taking notes on their old character sheet printouts and wondering why their online character isn't up to date.

In the end, some of them are under the impression that I'm forcing them to use this software that they have to pay for for no good reason, and lug electronics around to use.

I've literally bought two tablets so that I don't have to watch two players struggle through using their old, slow phones. Did I mention several of my players are on tight budgets and even though it's $5 every few months they're psychologically predisposed to resisting fees?

So please, I am begging you. Let me pay so that they can access the software. Let me take away one of the barriers keeping them from fully engaging with the software. Heck, charge me a premium now while you figure out the business plan.
 
I'm still trying to understand why there is a fee for a user to access a character from a campaign that its GM is paying a subscription for and has purchased the content to.
 
Yes please! I offered to pay my players subs too, but luckily they were all OK with it. Nobody would have adopted at all though if it wasn't for GM content sharing.
 
I got most of my players using the content sharing but would pay whatever to be able to just assign a character/campaign via email invite.

Just a thought but not sure if I'm correct.
In the future, if HLO implements the ability to create homebrew material, was there a concern about the legality of sharing it among the community? I thought I saw something like that on a thread which mentioned how HLClassic vs HLO works hosting data. If there was this model of a GM sharing content via invite and not sending it to other accounts, would that no longer be an issue since its all contained to one account?
Not sure if this is an actual hurdle that would have to be overcome for future user created material
 
I too have the same problem, my players don't complain as they're polite, but every renewal of their account the subject is at least politely raised. I know they see this as a payment they are having to make in order to make my job smoother rather than seeing any benefit from it themselves. There are definitely tools out there that do a similar job for free, for a player at least.
 
So much this! I could hardly get my group to make accounts to try it out at the 1st level no subscription tier. Asking them to pay for it themselves to play an actual campaign is unlikely to ever succeed, regardless of how low the subscription is. I would jump on a higher tier so my players don't have to pay.
 
Honestly I just make everyone's characters and then send them the PDF. They mostly play off that, and they send me updates. Getting all of them to pay is not terribly realistic, and in the case of 2e, it's so much easier to run at the table that most of them don't need to be in it all the time anyway.

Having them able to use it without paying while using my material is exactly what I wanted out of a web based version in the first place, and it's pretty frustrating that we still don't have that. The current model isn't all that workable.
 
As Tridus pointed out, I have one player who doesn't have something for their character. And for that person, amazing, what a stream this browser on Discord and work with that person to make options for leveling up and then sending them the PDF once done.

Everything else is handled in the VTT.
 
I’m confused. I thought if I had a Patron level account (as a GM), the players in my game had free accounts that they could use to access their characters. Is that not correct?
 
Using a free account with a Patron account, the free account player can play their character but not edit or advance it; the GM or another non-free player has to do that (transfer character to GM, edit/advance, transfer back to player). I had a player who did that at first, but they decided to go ahead and make it an Apprentice account after a few sessions.
 
We haven't migrated to the online version yet, because we heavily use 3pp stuff that is made in the editor.

I have the full license (for almost everything available in HLC), and build the "official" versions of the characters.

When it's time for a level up, the players message or call me and make their choices, and then I query them until all of the red boxes are happy again.

If they're face to face players, I'd print a character sheet for the next session and bring it to play.
If they're digital players, then export a PDF for them, which they can view or print as they see fit.

One of my players bought HLC, and dumped several hundred into it to have all the sources that his character had used when building it on my system.
Another of my players has inquired several times as to Hero Lab, but doesn't want a partial copy and also isn't (so far) willing to buy the whole thing.
A third player has bought HLC-Pathfinder system, along with a few of the hard cover books with classes, and then all of the Sphere related stuff that has HL files from Drive Thru.

The rest of the group likely won't buy HLC/HLO themselves, but I "build" and maintain the official versions.
During play, if they "rage" or whatever, I check the appropriate boxes and relay how something may have changed from their print/PDF copy.

A Patron level for HLO would be welcome, once we can have 3pp (Dreamscarred Press content from the Community Package and Drop Dead Studio content for Spheres).
 
Hi, me again. Just wanted to let you all know I've introduced another person to Hero Lab and had to go through the whole "It's $5 per four months" thing again. Immediate negative reaction that could have been avoided if I could, you know, just pay for them.

Also, last session with Starfinder got quite a few bugs in the middle of play (values not changing for me, UI being difficult to navigate) that led to my players questioning why we're using the software. I would say it's my call, but I can't because I wasn't the one who paid their $5.
 
@WatersLethe there's nothing stopping you from just creating (and paying for) an extra Apprentice account yourself, and then giving your player the username & password.

i agree that an "official" way to do this would be nice, but the result you want is already simple to achieve.
 
Last edited:
dacoobob said:
@WatersLethe there's nothing stopping you from just creating (and paying for) an extra Apprentice account yourself, and then giving your player the username & password.

i agree that an "official" way to do this would be nice, but the result you want is already simple to achieve.
Click to expand...

I have 12 players right now, another two hovering around looking for a game to join. I don't want to have to handle 14 different accounts, plus my own. Keeping track of who is using which account will also be annoying.

Also, according to Lone Wolf Development's terms of service, "you agree not to disclose your password to any third party" and "You are responsible for any activity using your account, whether or not you authorized that activity".
 
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