Design Specification

Design Specification

Problem:

For an experienced Dungeons & Dragons player, leveling up a character is easy, but for novice players, it can be a confusing mess of information. This process is outlined in The Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, which is large, heavy, and costs over $30 (Amazon). For what is actually meant to be a simple process containing 2-4 specific steps, each individual player must sift through hundreds of pages of new attributes for their character’s specific class, the new spells available, and the spell index in order to get the information necessary to complete those steps. Most groups, or campaigns, only have one of these books between the 4 to 7 people, so when everyone levels up, it is a time inefficient and difficult-to-learn activity. All in all, it can be very frustrating to new players, and inconvenient to the experienced.

While the Wizards of the Coast - the makers of Dungeons and Dragons - have made books that do a wonderful job of easing players into the game mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons and are particularly detailed with the process of leveling up, the information in these books are not an accessible resource to everyone due to the cost and the size of the books, which may be intimidating and inefficient to novice players.

Although there are apps that allow players to store character sheets and automate the leveling up process, these apps do not provide sufficient information to give insight into the choices, or help them with spell decisions, and these players often end up have to use the handbook. Furthermore, these apps require you to use their entire character sheet, they are inflexible for different play styles. Players are forced to copy over information that may already be tracked in other campaign management tools like Roll20 or on the standard paper character sheet. Copying over every datapoint just for the leveling systems on these apps that poorly automate the process is not efficient.

Through our design, we hope to automate the leveling up process for Dungeons & Dragons by providing a simple, convenient and quick way for all players to access the information to level up without needing to use books. Additionally, our solution will have the flexibility to accommodate users who track their character on paper, other D&D apps, or digitally on Roll20 and be learnable enough for novice players to use easily without inconveniencing veteran players.

Solution:

Level gives a simple, easy step by step process to level up for both beginners and experts.

Beginners will love the simple walk through, with easy access to extra information and where to find all elements on the Character Sheet

Experts will enjoy not having to open their Player Handbook and find and flip between 3 or more pages at the same time.