SCAG and missing player content from the "main" book

[pollux]

I'm a DM, and if I load "D&D Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide" (the "main" or DM version), it lacks sections for Backgrounds, Classes, Equipment, Feats, and Races... it does contain a Spells section however. I can get the missing sections by loading the ""D&D Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide - Players" module... though I then have duplicate spells in my listings. It surprised me that the DM version doesn't have everything, I had thought that the DM version was always complete. So I searched the forums and found folks suggesting that this is pretty normal and expected (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?38319-Why-is-the-Fantasy-Grounds-version-of-the-Sword-Coast-Advenventurers-Guide-terrible&p=338089&viewfull=1#post338089).

However, none of the other 5e sourcebooks appear to behave this way. Xanathar's DM book is appears to be a strict superset of the players variant. And indeed, here in another thread someone is complaining about duplicate entries when they load both and the advice is not to do that because "The GM modules always contain everything." (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?46675-Xanathar-s-Guide-to-Everything&p=415472&viewfull=1#post415472)

After a quick review, all the other 5e books I have seem to follow the Xanathar model:


The evil subclasses for the Paladin and Cleric are contained in the DM copy of the DMG.
The playable races and feats from Volos are in the DM copy.
The playable races and feats from Mordenkainen's are in the DM's copy.


Is SCAG an outlier here? Is it the ONLY such outlier? Or is this a bug in SCAG that can be corrected? Auditing the DM editions of 5e source books for missing content is pretty hard work and I'd really like to have a universally applicable rule of thumb of "you need to load the player books because they contain unique things" (in which case it would be really nice if they didn't also contain tons of dupe things) or "you should always load the DM copy because it's a strict superset of the player copies" (which is what I had always thought to be the case until I was flummoxed by missing content today).

[Scuba72]

If I remember correctly I had this same issue with Volo's. Also had the issue with the Tortle package. Loading the DM's version didnt actually load the stat block for a PC Tortle. I had to load the players version to be able to build a pc for my player.

[esmdev]

It seems that a decision was made at some point to totally separate the two sides and requiring us to load both parts to have the complete information.

I don't recall this ever being specifically stated as a specific policy and am not really sure who made the decision and if it is even being applied consistently across all of the currently released products.

I would really like it if the developers are going to do this that they make it clear in some way which require you to load both and which contain the full information. If there is already some way to know this that they tell us what it is.

[damned]

This is the current methodology.
It results in less memory usage and less duplication of data which creates less issues later on for example if the GM builds a PC and uses GM source data and the player doesnt have access to it.

[pollux]

This is the current methodology.
It results in less memory usage and less duplication of data which creates less issues later on for example if the GM builds a PC and uses GM source data and the player doesnt have access to it.

I fervently hope at some point soon it's possible to go back and delete the extra data from the old DM modules to make them consistent with the current model (for which the reasons you describe sound sensible). Having a half and half situation is maximally confusing. You might go many months missing content if you:


... don't know what to expect in a book, or what to expect from an FG adaptation.
... are used to the old way.
... observe consistency from a plurality of 5e books that happen to be older and assume that represents a standard.
... observe what appears to be missing material and chalk it up to a shoddy adaptation, as already happened in the thread I linked above.


I had no idea the material were missing until I went looking for something specific, but many times I would have unconsciously missed options when I was browsing around.

In the meantime it might be nice to update the store page descriptions with instructions about what to load since it varies on a per-product basis and there's really know way to know what you're missing other than experience.

[Zacchaeus]

The Sword Coast Adventures Guide was developed some time ago and the author decided to split it into a DM and player module. When I did Volo, Xanathar and Mordenkainen I included everything in the DM module and repeated the player facing stuff in a player only module. Originally the DMG did not have a players module for the Paladin, Cleric and subraces that are contained in it. A player facing module was created relatively recently.

Now the problem is that there have been complaints about too much duplication. If you have everything open then you can have multiple copies of the same class or race. Of course the DM does not need to have the player modules open - at all - since the players can access the content as long as it's shared.

In the Unearthed Arcana module I have started to not duplicate things in both the DM and players modules. The DM module will contain the classes and races in reference manual format only - they won't be able to use the DM module to create a character, Only the player module will have that availability. If there are any future similar books I will do the same.

So in many ways SCAG is actually the method that I should probably have followed in Volo, Xanathar and Mordenkainen and so it can be argued that it is they that are out of step. Having said that SCAG should probably have the information in reference format, but when it was developed reference manuals were pretty plain and boring affairs compared to what they can be today.

So, in summary there are 5 or 6 years of material now and there has been more than one author and each brings their own ideas to the table and in addition what can be done with the software has not stood still and new and more elegant methods of doing things have come along.

[esmdev]

Zacchaeus, thanks for the history lesson. Based on that, any official 5E book after Mordenkainen's should be split and both should be loaded on the DM side. Volo's, Xanathar's and Mordenkainen's should have everything in the DM mod but we should use the player's is were interacting with the PC sheet so that they will be able to see links. That should be easy enough to remember. :)

[Zacchaeus]

Unless the DM is creating characters they have no need at all under any circumstances to have the player's module open really.

[esmdev]

Unless the DM is creating characters they have no need at all under any circumstances to have the player's module open really.

I sometimes need to make adjustments to PC sheets from time to time, for instance when I am running a PC as an NPC when the player is unable to make it for this reason or that. I can use the DM version but then when the player gets back they have a bunch of links that don't work for them.

Another reason I can think of, if I want to use the link on the character sheet to read the power/spell/ability being used it will error if I don't have the module loaded it was taken from.

[pollux]

So, in summary there are 5 or 6 years of material now and there has been more than one author and each brings their own ideas to the table and in addition what can be done with the software has not stood still and new and more elegant methods of doing things have come along.

This is helpful historical context, thanks. I still hope that it's possible to circle possible back and update the older books to be consistent in terms of how player/dm content is split. Without your context (which shouldn't be something the average user needs to learn), the current scenario where BOTH models are used makes no sense at all. Many people already struggle to understand what modules to enable to load the content they want, how duplicate entries occur, and how to use duplicate entries effectively. Having an additional invisible convention that results in large numbers of unnecessary dupes, or in missing content is going to confuse things further for users with a weak mental model of the system. And not just for novice users, multiple helpful folks in discord were giving flatly incorrect advice about how various modules are structured... showing that even folks who DO know a fair bit about FG and try to help others are confused on this point.

If updating the older books is too difficult soon, maybe the store pages can be updated to state the loading convention for each book, but this is a much much less intuitive experience than making them consistent


...any official 5E book after Mordenkainen's should be split and both should be loaded on the DM side. Volo's, Xanathar's and Mordenkainen's should have everything in the DM mod but we should use the player's is were interacting with the PC sheet so that they will be able to see links. That should be easy enough to remember.

It's only easy to remember if:


you know the released order of the books
you know that both conventions for splitting content exist
you know when the change in conventions happened
the convention doesn't change again


There's no reasonable way to learn about the last 3 items other than to discover this particular forum thread.

[Zacchaeus]

I am very reluctant (in fact I don't think it is even something I would consider at all) to go back and remove content from the DM books since by doing so it will break any characters created with those books. The fallout from that I believe would be far greater than the fallout from people wanting the player material not being in the DM modules.

It would be great if we all had crystal balls to be able to see what might happen in the future but we don't; so I think we need to live with what has gone in the past. Having said that who knows how characters will be built in the future and whether the current way of doing things will change sufficiently for this kind of issue to not be - well - an issue.

[pollux]

I am very reluctant (in fact I don't think it is even something I would consider at all) to go back and remove content from the DM books since by doing so it will break any characters created with those books. The fallout from that I believe would be far greater than the fallout from people wanting the player material not being in the DM modules.

I hadn't realized this would cause character breakage, which is certainly worse than the status quo. It does make it doubly unfortunate that there are now published books using both models since it's not possible to bring them into alignment and this is surely a case where either is better than both. I'd still advocate to at least document the variation in loading patterns in the store page since it's so difficult to discover independently.

[Milmoor]

Moving the source of information could be a simple conversion of the character sheet. There is already some conversion while going to FGU. That way the characters won’t break. One would only have to:
- edit all content
- write a conversion script
- solve the bugs
Mmm, maybe not worth the hassle.