Possibility of a "Read-Only" PDF for purchased books?
The inspiration behind it is that, whether you know how to find information based on what page its on or that you just like flipping through the pages of the source books and reading or admiring the artwork, it is difficult to get the same experience from the web-based organization compared to having the actual book. It also helps to have everything in a single document rather than having to jump from site page to site page looking for information.
I understand that the problem with having a downloadable PDF is that they are very easy to distribute illegally, so its all around easier to just avoid it all together.
The proposed solution is having the PDF that is accessible online through the D&D Beyond webpage, that is read-only. The user would be unable to print the document or save the document to their computer and could only access it through the D&D Beyond webpage. As a college student, this was a common solution for many textbook distributors that offered Ebooks, but didn't want them to be copied and distributed. Another example is how Google Books allows previews that can be viewed, but not copied or saved.
I really enjoy the interface of D&D Beyond and the usability of the many tools they offer. The only drawback I have when considering purchasing the book digitally verses the physical copy, is that I will only ever see it chopped up and not in 1 document that I can read through when preparing for a game, in the middle of a game, or just browsing for general interest.
TL;DR: A read-only PDF that is only accessible from the D&D Beyond site and can't be downloaded.
I have the app and use it, however the app breaks down the books into sections still. For example, the Player's Handbook is broken down into Races, Classes, Backgrounds, Feats, and Spells. From these you click on what you are looking for and it gives you just that. Which is very useful for when you want specific information! However, if you don't know what you're looking for or you're just browsing through, its nicer to have a book-like format to read and look through.
Sorry - I wasn't paying attention to what was happening with DnD during the 4e era (didn't have time and money for DnD back then), so would you clarify what you mean by Wizards selling PDFs being "a huge failure"? From what I can see, they are still selling content on dmsguild and other companies sell their digital rpg content as pdfs as well. What was it that didn't work then?
Oh I assumed that there would be issues with a downloadable PDF, but I didn't know there were problems with protected ones too. I guess they'd need another way to encrypt it if they wanted to make it a single document.
It's actually really hard to secure PDFs. The best you can do is watermark at point of sale so you can identify who is distributing a pdf (this is what sites like the DMs Guild do)
Possibility of a "Read-Only" PDF for purchased books?
The inspiration behind it is that, whether you know how to find information based on what page its on or that you just like flipping through the pages of the source books and reading or admiring the artwork, it is difficult to get the same experience from the web-based organization compared to having the actual book. It also helps to have everything in a single document rather than having to jump from site page to site page looking for information.
I understand that the problem with having a downloadable PDF is that they are very easy to distribute illegally, so its all around easier to just avoid it all together.
The proposed solution is having the PDF that is accessible online through the D&D Beyond webpage, that is read-only. The user would be unable to print the document or save the document to their computer and could only access it through the D&D Beyond webpage. As a college student, this was a common solution for many textbook distributors that offered Ebooks, but didn't want them to be copied and distributed. Another example is how Google Books allows previews that can be viewed, but not copied or saved.
I really enjoy the interface of D&D Beyond and the usability of the many tools they offer. The only drawback I have when considering purchasing the book digitally verses the physical copy, is that I will only ever see it chopped up and not in 1 document that I can read through when preparing for a game, in the middle of a game, or just browsing for general interest.
TL;DR: A read-only PDF that is only accessible from the D&D Beyond site and can't be downloaded.
Maybe you would like the app.
I have the app and use it, however the app breaks down the books into sections still. For example, the Player's Handbook is broken down into Races, Classes, Backgrounds, Feats, and Spells. From these you click on what you are looking for and it gives you just that. Which is very useful for when you want specific information! However, if you don't know what you're looking for or you're just browsing through, its nicer to have a book-like format to read and look through.
You can swipe left and right through the sections, which is not too dissimilar to using a PDF.
WotC has done PDFs in the past and it was a huge failure, so I don't see them going back to that any time soon.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Sorry - I wasn't paying attention to what was happening with DnD during the 4e era (didn't have time and money for DnD back then), so would you clarify what you mean by Wizards selling PDFs being "a huge failure"? From what I can see, they are still selling content on dmsguild and other companies sell their digital rpg content as pdfs as well. What was it that didn't work then?
There was massively rife piracy of official PDFs, even secured and read only ones
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Oh I assumed that there would be issues with a downloadable PDF, but I didn't know there were problems with protected ones too. I guess they'd need another way to encrypt it if they wanted to make it a single document.
It's actually really hard to secure PDFs. The best you can do is watermark at point of sale so you can identify who is distributing a pdf (this is what sites like the DMs Guild do)
Find my D&D Beyond articles here