DMs Guild and D&D Beyond offer different types of digital resources for D&D.
DMs Guild offers downloadable content (PDFs and Fantasy Grounds compatible files, mostly) that generally fall into one of the following categories
-AL (Adventurer’s League) modules and rules
-content written by independent authors, who are granted the right to use D&D IP under certain restrictions if they publish that content only to DMsGuild
-PDFs of books and modules from older editions of D&D (PDFs of 5e books are not available anywhere)
-The occasional official or semi-official product; like, for example, the Tortle Package
D&D Beyond offers content that is designed to be used on their website or via their app. It takes the official “books” of 5e and makes there content available in a number of ways:
-as “compendiums” essentially ebooks (usable as such only on this website and in the app) that reproduce the content of the books and includes lots of hyperlinks to avoid navigation and seeing related content quickly.
-in the character builder tool, letting you create characters here, include a digital character sheet and the option to export those characters to pdf
-In the “listings” of monsters, spells, magic items, etc. So, for example, I can search for any wizard spell of level 2-4 that does fire damage. Or any undead CR5-7.
-in the encounter builder which is currently in alpha and thus only available to subscribers. (Once it moves into beta, it will be available to everyone regardless of subscription status.
D&D Beyond also offers homebrew tools which DMsGuild does not.
There is a very slight overlap between the two, as the Tortle Package, the Blood Hunger and the Gunsligner are available on both platforms, but to my knowledge that’s really the only overlap.
A little puzzled.
Was under the impression that the DMs Guild was the official source to buy digital D&D supplements.
Found this site today and it *also* describes itself as the official source to buy digital D&D supplements.
Does D&D really have two, entirely independent, sources of official digital supplements? Or are the two linked somehow?
DMs Guild and D&D Beyond offer different types of digital resources for D&D.
DMs Guild offers downloadable content (PDFs and Fantasy Grounds compatible files, mostly) that generally fall into one of the following categories
-AL (Adventurer’s League) modules and rules
-content written by independent authors, who are granted the right to use D&D IP under certain restrictions if they publish that content only to DMsGuild
-PDFs of books and modules from older editions of D&D (PDFs of 5e books are not available anywhere)
-The occasional official or semi-official product; like, for example, the Tortle Package
D&D Beyond offers content that is designed to be used on their website or via their app. It takes the official “books” of 5e and makes there content available in a number of ways:
-as “compendiums” essentially ebooks (usable as such only on this website and in the app) that reproduce the content of the books and includes lots of hyperlinks to avoid navigation and seeing related content quickly.
-in the character builder tool, letting you create characters here, include a digital character sheet and the option to export those characters to pdf
-In the “listings” of monsters, spells, magic items, etc. So, for example, I can search for any wizard spell of level 2-4 that does fire damage. Or any undead CR5-7.
-in the encounter builder which is currently in alpha and thus only available to subscribers. (Once it moves into beta, it will be available to everyone regardless of subscription status.
D&D Beyond also offers homebrew tools which DMsGuild does not.
There is a very slight overlap between the two, as the Tortle Package, the Blood Hunger and the Gunsligner are available on both platforms, but to my knowledge that’s really the only overlap.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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