The majority of the complaints are coming from people who have purchased the physical and/or digital products already and are not pleased about purchasing it all again. Comments like "You don't have to buy it" are spot on, but you'll have to forgive those of us who can see how great a tool D&D Beyond could be. It's eating many of us up to possibly miss out on making use of the promise of D&D Beyond.
Exactly this. And the thing is, businesses stay in business not by gaining customers but by gaining repeat customers. Curse is going to earn most of its money on this application from subscribers. Charging owners of the hardcopy books an additional 40 to 60 percent per book to use the content in them with D&D Beyond is enough of a hurdle that many of those owners will never become subscribers.
Considering that it will mostly be DMs buying the rules, and the Master Tier subscription is $6 per month, surely there's some breakpoint at which additional subscriptions make up for more reasonably priced rules unlocks.
If Curse has determined that its existing prices are already at (or below) that breakpoint, then that's that, I suppose. But as it stands, I personally can't justify the expense and won't be subscribing, since without rulebook integration, D&D Beyond doesn't offer me as much functionality as I already get from Obsidian Portal, yet costs twice as much.
Ok, my only question, is if I buy a Digital sourcebook how do I use it? I have a Kindle Fire, if I can read the book off line on the fire, I'll buy (save a ton of carrying books around) if not. no deal I just use roll 20 for on line play and keep carrying books. For $20-$30 bucks off line viewing on a tablet is the only feature to get me to pay again for books I have... or twice for new books.... or new adventures....
if it requires and internet connection for me to read the book I bought, no sale.....
Ok, my only question, is if I buy a Digital sourcebook how do I use it? I have a Kindle Fire, if I can read the book off line on the fire, I'll buy (save a ton of carrying books around) if not. no deal I just use roll 20 for on line play and keep carrying books. For $20-$30 bucks off line viewing on a tablet is the only feature to get me to pay again for books I have... or twice for new books.... or new adventures....
if it requires and internet connection for me to read the book I bought, no sale.....
There will be he offline app. But a release date for that is still to be announced.
Can't be looking at 2mil words. There aren't that many in the English language needed for the game. I know because I am conlanging my own languages for each of my major cultures (plus the deital good and bad guys). A little over 7k words needed, and that was going through the books I have. Even expanding to specific monster names instead of types (ie. giants) would only add a few hundred more.
It is cross checking for bugs that will have been the greatest hassle and cull of time.
Exactly this. And the thing is, businesses stay in business not by gaining customers but by gaining repeat customers. Curse is going to earn most of its money on this application from subscribers. Charging owners of the hardcopy books an additional 40 to 60 percent per book to use the content in them with D&D Beyond is enough of a hurdle that many of those owners will never become subscribers.
I'm not so sure that we can actually say that most of the money Curse will be getting will be from the subscription portion of sales. If I am an example of the typical customer, a much larger portion would be coming from the digital book sales - for specifics, I intend to buy the "core three" books, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to everything (once it comes out), and will in general be buying my D&D books digitally on D&D Beyond rather than physically in the future (because lower price + superior functionality = no contest which option is a smarter buy), but will only be subscribing during months that I am actually running a D&D 5th edition campaign. This means that over the next 3 years or so, Curse is likely to get roughly $180 from me for book purchases (all the above listed, plus probably another one that comes out later), and only $60 for subscription purchases (10 months of master tier so all my players can make their characters and keep them updated over the time actually spent playing D&D rather than some other of the many games we enjoy playing).
And you seem to have phrased things in such a way that you've not counted "I'll be back to buy the next rule book that comes out" as the repeat customership that it is.
Catbus: Considering that it will mostly be DMs buying the rules, and the Master Tier subscription is $6 per month, surely there's some breakpoint at which additional subscriptions make up for more reasonably priced rules unlocks.
The DM's buying the rules and the sub covers their players. The price could be mitigated by the DM's being crass enough to ask their players for compensation, or charge them for access. There is a limit to the number of players covered by the DM's purchases (I think 12). Frankly, I have never physically seen a game with that many players and it would take a master chess player used to playing multiple games blind folded to have the kind of mind needed to track that. Which means, on top of hours spent preparing for everyone else's fun, the DM will be hit with the majority of the cash cost.
Can't be looking at 2mil words. There aren't that many in the English language needed for the game. I know because I am conlanging my own languages for each of my major cultures (plus the deital good and bad guys). A little over 7k words needed, and that was going through the books I have. Even expanding to specific monster names instead of types (ie. giants) would only add a few hundred more.
It is cross checking for bugs that will have been the greatest hassle and cull of time.
I'm not really in the mood to count out the number of words on a page in the PHB, but I would say that an average 12 point Times New Roman font is about 700 words, based on the pages I write. If we want to be conservative, to include pictures, we'll say that each page averages 500 words. The PHB alone is around 300 pages, so using that nice round number, that's 150k words in the just the PHB. The DMG is another 300 pages, so we're at 300k words, and we'll say 300 words for the MM's 350 pages, to add another 105k, making it a over 400k words for just the core books. Volo's is about 200 pages, the SCAG is another 150 pages, and EE is 20 pages, so that's another 185k, bringing us up to about 490k words. About a half a million words for the core books and ones with player options. The only adventure book I have is Yawning Portal, so I don't know what the average one of those looks like, and am therefore not going to wager a guess. Even if I go super conservative, and drop it down 100 words per page, that's still nearly 450k words for the core books, plus all the adventures.
Edit: Sorry, that was needlessly aggressive. I'm going to leave the text up, but I want to apologize for it. I couldn't sleep last night, so I'm cranky, and (as a writer) I found that statement a little offensive. I perhaps overreacted in my tone, but I still don't appreciate the dismissive attitude towards other people's words, or other people's work.
Can't be looking at 2mil words. There aren't that many in the English language needed for the game. I know because I am conlanging my own languages for each of my major cultures (plus the deital good and bad guys). A little over 7k words needed, and that was going through the books I have. Even expanding to specific monster names instead of types (ie. giants) would only add a few hundred more.
It is cross checking for bugs that will have been the greatest hassle and cull of time.
It is not 2 million UNIQUE terms. It's not a matter of storage space. I was referring to probably in the neighborhood of 2 million words of text in the sourcebooks and adventures that they need to go through to copy the rules elements out and input into the database, as well as to format for online presentation. But either way, the main point is that there is a lot of work involved turning all of the books published so far into computer data and online text. I'm glad they are doing it and not me. :)
Edit: Sorry, I should have refreshed the page before submitting. Ninja'd by Rubahak. :) Also, from my days of freelancing, the number that gets thrown around is usually about 750 words per page on average (or actually 24,000 per 32 pages - from the days of 32 page modules and rulebooks being planned out in 32 page blocks). Some pages will have more art and have fewer words, other pages will have less art and more words, but it often averages out to that. Now, different layout styles with newer editions can change that, so I don't know what the 5e typical is. Also there's things like MM stat blocks will be more page space with fewer words, and I didn't check the page counts, so 2 million is probably high, but it's at least in the right order of magnitude. ;)
The price could be mitigated by the DM's being crass enough to ask their players for compensation, or charge them for access.[/quote]
If anyone thinks "Hey, group of friends who share in the enjoyment of this activity with me, can we all pitch-in some to afford the things which enable and enhance our shared enjoyment?" is actually fitting of the word "crass", they are not the kind of person worth keeping association with. There is nothing crass about splitting movie ticket costs when viewing a film as a group. Nothing crass about having your buddy pay for lunch because you paid the golf course fees. And having players pitch in to buy gaming materials is in the same category as those things.
... it would take a master chess player used to playing multiple games blind folded to have the kind of mind needed to track that.
No, it really doesn't. I should know because I've had more than a few campaigns over the years with 12+ other people at the table for most sessions, and I've never even tried playing multiple games of chess or chess while blindfolded, and really am not actually all that good at chess in the first place (which is fine because the skills needed to play chess are completely different from the skills needed to run D&D).
...hours spent preparing for everyone else's fun...
If you really mean "everyone else's" and not "everyone's", the more important issue might be with how you are approaching the task of DMing, rather than who is being hit with what portion of the cash costs.
Can't be looking at 2mil words. There aren't that many in the English language needed for the game. I know because I am conlanging my own languages for each of my major cultures (plus the deital good and bad guys). A little over 7k words needed, and that was going through the books I have. Even expanding to specific monster names instead of types (ie. giants) would only add a few hundred more.
It is cross checking for bugs that will have been the greatest hassle and cull of time.
I'm not really in the mood to count out the number of words on a page in the PHB, but I would say that an average 12 point Times New Roman font is about 700 words, based on the pages I write. If we want to be conservative, to include pictures, we'll say that each page averages 500 words. The PHB alone is around 300 pages, so using that nice round number, that's 150k words in the just the PHB. The DMG is another 300 pages, so we're at 300k words, and we'll say 300 words for the MM's 350 pages, to add another 105k, making it a over 400k words for just the core books. Volo's is about 200 pages, the SCAG is another 150 pages, and EE is 20 pages, so that's another 185k, bringing us up to about 490k words. About a half a million words for the core books and ones with player options. The only adventure book I have is Yawning Portal, so I don't know what the average one of those looks like, and am therefore not going to wager a guess. Even if I go super conservative, and drop it down 100 words per page, that's still nearly 450k words for the core books, plus all the adventures.
Your figures are actually very conservative. My earlier 750 words per page average was arrived at by copying a page of text from the basic rules PDF into a word processor that would count the words, then figuring that between pages with art that only about 80% of a page on average is devoted to text, and then just dropped pages off the count like you did to arrive at 300 pages (specifically page 6 of the player's basic rules has just over 900 words on the page)
Can't be looking at 2mil words. There aren't that many in the English language needed for the game. I know because I am conlanging my own languages for each of my major cultures (plus the deital good and bad guys). A little over 7k words needed, and that was going through the books I have. Even expanding to specific monster names instead of types (ie. giants) would only add a few hundred more.
It is cross checking for bugs that will have been the greatest hassle and cull of time.
I'm not really in the mood to count out the number of words on a page in the PHB, but I would say that an average 12 point Times New Roman font is about 700 words, based on the pages I write. If we want to be conservative, to include pictures, we'll say that each page averages 500 words. The PHB alone is around 300 pages, so using that nice round number, that's 150k words in the just the PHB. The DMG is another 300 pages, so we're at 300k words, and we'll say 300 words for the MM's 350 pages, to add another 105k, making it a over 400k words for just the core books. Volo's is about 200 pages, the SCAG is another 150 pages, and EE is 20 pages, so that's another 185k, bringing us up to about 490k words. About a half a million words for the core books and ones with player options. The only adventure book I have is Yawning Portal, so I don't know what the average one of those looks like, and am therefore not going to wager a guess. Even if I go super conservative, and drop it down 100 words per page, that's still nearly 450k words for the core books, plus all the adventures.
Your figures are actually very conservative. My earlier 750 words per page average was arrived at by copying a page of text from the basic rules PDF into a word processor that would count the words, then figuring that between pages with art that only about 80% of a page on average is devoted to text, and then just dropped pages off the count like you did to arrive at 300 pages (specifically page 6 of the player's basic rules has just over 900 words on the page)
I'm not surprised. I wanted to be super conservative to ensure that we wouldn't have a knock-down, dragged-out fight over word count estimations when proving a point, especially when conservative estimates are still impressive. But, eyeballing it, around 750 words isn't an unreasonable estimate. Thanks for the more accurate estimation, though, because that brings us closer to 875k for player option books only, and even more to the point.
Thanks for the more accurate number. I wasn't in the mood to do the legwork, as little as exists. So, over 2 million words isn't unreasonable after all.
Exactly what I'm asking for, one amount paid (with all 3 core books and the Homebrewing) and done. I don't want a monthly ANYTHING cost. I won't mind buying adventures I may want in the future, at my leisure.
Original sourcebooks $50 apiece. Electronic access to the data they contain, an additional $20 to $30 apiece. I can't afford to take this hobby into the 21st century. Gonna have to play it 20th-century-style.
I've purchased all the books and would think I should get a substantial discount to double the same content
Original sourcebooks $50 apiece. Electronic access to the data they contain, an additional $20 to $30 apiece. I can't afford to take this hobby into the 21st century. Gonna have to play it 20th-century-style.
I've purchased all the books and would think I should get a substantial discount to double the same content
You are. About $20-30 off the MSRP. Otherwise, no. You are not entitled to a discount. You don't get a discount for buying a 2nd book because you already bought one. Same thing basically, except this digital format also comes with many useful tools to go along with it.
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Ok, my only question, is if I buy a Digital sourcebook how do I use it? I have a Kindle Fire, if I can read the book off line on the fire, I'll buy (save a ton of carrying books around) if not. no deal I just use roll 20 for on line play and keep carrying books. For $20-$30 bucks off line viewing on a tablet is the only feature to get me to pay again for books I have... or twice for new books.... or new adventures....
if it requires and internet connection for me to read the book I bought, no sale.....
Can't be looking at 2mil words. There aren't that many in the English language needed for the game. I know because I am conlanging my own languages for each of my major cultures (plus the deital good and bad guys). A little over 7k words needed, and that was going through the books I have. Even expanding to specific monster names instead of types (ie. giants) would only add a few hundred more.
It is cross checking for bugs that will have been the greatest hassle and cull of time.
The DM's buying the rules and the sub covers their players. The price could be mitigated by the DM's being crass enough to ask their players for compensation, or charge them for access. There is a limit to the number of players covered by the DM's purchases (I think 12). Frankly, I have never physically seen a game with that many players and it would take a master chess player used to playing multiple games blind folded to have the kind of mind needed to track that. Which means, on top of hours spent preparing for everyone else's fun, the DM will be hit with the majority of the cash cost.
I know a fair few DM's, who run multiple games with different players (like a game on Monday night and another on Saturday).
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
If anyone thinks "Hey, group of friends who share in the enjoyment of this activity with me, can we all pitch-in some to afford the things which enable and enhance our shared enjoyment?" is actually fitting of the word "crass", they are not the kind of person worth keeping association with. There is nothing crass about splitting movie ticket costs when viewing a film as a group. Nothing crass about having your buddy pay for lunch because you paid the golf course fees. And having players pitch in to buy gaming materials is in the same category as those things.
No, it really doesn't. I should know because I've had more than a few campaigns over the years with 12+ other people at the table for most sessions, and I've never even tried playing multiple games of chess or chess while blindfolded, and really am not actually all that good at chess in the first place (which is fine because the skills needed to play chess are completely different from the skills needed to run D&D).Approx 230k words for the PHB.
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Exactly what I'm asking for, one amount paid (with all 3 core books and the Homebrewing) and done. I don't want a monthly ANYTHING cost. I won't mind buying adventures I may want in the future, at my leisure.
22 days left to go.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
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