Hi, so I bought the spell Infernal Calling, because I read that you can't add spell you don't own on D&D Beyond to Homebrew items. So I bought it, but now it says I can't share the Homebrew Item itself to the public. Is there a way to fix this?
You can't publish anything that uses spells from outside of the Basic Rules, otherwise it would be skirting ownership of the material, and Infernal Calling comes from Xanathar's Guide.
But if I have a friend who is already sharing Xanathar's with me through the character creation and sourcebook availability, why not share the ability to add spells to your Homebrew items like that too, if you can't even share it properly? This whole process was tremendously misleading.
Since you purchased the spell, you're able to create your own private homebrew that includes the spell, which you can then use yourself or share with characters in the same campaign as you. If it was your friend sharing the content with your campaign, you could have them create the homebrew item for you to use in the campaign, if you didn't want to buy the spell yourself. In neither case will you be allowed to publish the homebrew, but you get the benefit of using the homebrew item for your characters or in your shared campaign.
In any case, you don't need to Publish a homebrew in order to use it or to allow fellow characters in your campaign to use it, that's just if you want to share it with the entire public.
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Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Believe me, I get it. At one point I created a homebrew weapon to serve as the weapon you get from the Shadow Blade spell. After it was working well I thought other people would find it useful, and published it, since it didn't reference the spell directly; but after a time, DDB found it was replicating the functionality of published content, and removed it from publication. I was extremely bummed about it, I'd enjoyed making this thing for other people to use and benefit from. But DDB is required to prevent publishing homebrew from getting around copyrighted material, and if they didn't, we wouldn't get to do homebrew at all, and there wouldn't be a site.
Do they really not think people buying their spells for use on their own website is not good enough to allow people to use them publicly? That's ridiculous.
Do they really not think people buying their spells for use on their own website is not good enough to allow people to use them publicly? That's ridiculous.
The problem is the system isn't designed to handle the situation that arises when somebody adds publicly shared homebrew with non-free stuff linked to it. It's something they will be working on down the line. It's a bit tricky due to licensing limitations, the contracts with WotC (who do not own D&D Beyond - separate companies, remember), and legalities, on top of y'know the coding and stuff. It's not ridiculous for D&D Beyond to be careful with all that because they don't want their licensing revoked and get bankrupted as a result, all for the sake if a very, miniscule, tiny inconvenience. They'll look into such options when they get around to it - they have other, bigger, projects and concerns on their plate at the moment.
If you want people in your campaign to have access - well, don't worry. Homebrew, regardless of what is linked, can be shared with your fellow players automatically with anyone in the same campaign as you - for free, I may add. What's the difference? Well, sharing in a campaign is limited enough to still count as 'private' use so copyright and licensing are not a concern for those.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Sigh, I figured it was legal crap. I don't have a campaign to put any of the stuff I'm making it in, I just wanted to be able to share it with other people so they could have fun with it even if I couldn't. Don't think I can get a refund for what I bought, but let's see.
Do they really not think people buying their spells for use on their own website is not good enough to allow people to use them publicly? That's ridiculous.
A couple of points:
This website is neither owned nor operated by WotC. This is a licensed vendor that has a contract with the publisher, WotC. That contract places some restrictions on what they are and are not allowed to permit us to do with the publisher’s property.
Whenever content is shared with a campaign, it is only shared with that campaign and nowhere else. So your DM isn’t Shari it with “you,” so you cannot use that content anywhere outside of that campaign, including the homebrewer.
Homebrew content is only legally allows to be distributed because the publisher, WotC, has taken a portion of their property and made it “open source,” effectively making the entire universe llegal rights to do whatever the heck we want with that portion. That can all be found in a document called the “System Reference Document,” or SRD for short. Basically, we can levy use anything in that document however we like. WotC has also published two free documents, The “Basic Rules,” and the “Elemental Evil Player’s Companion.” Technically neither of those are considered open source, but there is a fair degree of overlap between the Basic Rules and the SRD, so much in fact that WotC gave this website permission to combine the two for our convenience into the digital edition of the Basic Rules available here. That effectively allows us to legally use everything in that combined document in our homebrews and still be allowed to publish them here. And for whatever reason we can also use anything found in the EEPC as well (much of which went into other sourcebooks like Xanathar’s.) So since the publisher essentially gave away their legal propriety over that Intellectual Property, it isn’t “theirs” anymore, it’s owes. Therefore, this is the list of spells we can use in our homebrews and still legally publish them:
Any of the officially published spells that do not appear on that list I’d Intellectual Properly of which WotC has retained ownership. That means, as long as we have purchased access to those spells from a legal vendor (like this website), then we are absolutely 100% allowed to use in any way we want for our homebrewing wants or needs, but we are not legally allowed to publish those homebrews because we don’t own the rights to the IP.
I don't have a campaign to put any of the stuff I'm making it in, I just wanted to be able to share it with other people so they could have fun with it even if I couldn't.
If you are in a DDB campaign with others, your homebrews are automatically shared with your DM and the other players. That is still considered “private use.” You don’t have to “put it in” the campaign at all, simply having homebrew in your “Homebrew collection” means it is always automatically shared with the people you play D&D with.
Hi, so I bought the spell Infernal Calling, because I read that you can't add spell you don't own on D&D Beyond to Homebrew items. So I bought it, but now it says I can't share the Homebrew Item itself to the public. Is there a way to fix this?
You can't publish anything that uses spells from outside of the Basic Rules, otherwise it would be skirting ownership of the material, and Infernal Calling comes from Xanathar's Guide.
But if I have a friend who is already sharing Xanathar's with me through the character creation and sourcebook availability, why not share the ability to add spells to your Homebrew items like that too, if you can't even share it properly? This whole process was tremendously misleading.
Since you purchased the spell, you're able to create your own private homebrew that includes the spell, which you can then use yourself or share with characters in the same campaign as you. If it was your friend sharing the content with your campaign, you could have them create the homebrew item for you to use in the campaign, if you didn't want to buy the spell yourself. In neither case will you be allowed to publish the homebrew, but you get the benefit of using the homebrew item for your characters or in your shared campaign.
In any case, you don't need to Publish a homebrew in order to use it or to allow fellow characters in your campaign to use it, that's just if you want to share it with the entire public.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
The entire purpose of me buying it though was so I could share the homebrew for everyone and anyone to use.
Believe me, I get it. At one point I created a homebrew weapon to serve as the weapon you get from the Shadow Blade spell. After it was working well I thought other people would find it useful, and published it, since it didn't reference the spell directly; but after a time, DDB found it was replicating the functionality of published content, and removed it from publication. I was extremely bummed about it, I'd enjoyed making this thing for other people to use and benefit from. But DDB is required to prevent publishing homebrew from getting around copyrighted material, and if they didn't, we wouldn't get to do homebrew at all, and there wouldn't be a site.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Do they really not think people buying their spells for use on their own website is not good enough to allow people to use them publicly? That's ridiculous.
The problem is the system isn't designed to handle the situation that arises when somebody adds publicly shared homebrew with non-free stuff linked to it. It's something they will be working on down the line. It's a bit tricky due to licensing limitations, the contracts with WotC (who do not own D&D Beyond - separate companies, remember), and legalities, on top of y'know the coding and stuff. It's not ridiculous for D&D Beyond to be careful with all that because they don't want their licensing revoked and get bankrupted as a result, all for the sake if a very, miniscule, tiny inconvenience. They'll look into such options when they get around to it - they have other, bigger, projects and concerns on their plate at the moment.
If you want people in your campaign to have access - well, don't worry. Homebrew, regardless of what is linked, can be shared with your fellow players automatically with anyone in the same campaign as you - for free, I may add. What's the difference? Well, sharing in a campaign is limited enough to still count as 'private' use so copyright and licensing are not a concern for those.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Sigh, I figured it was legal crap. I don't have a campaign to put any of the stuff I'm making it in, I just wanted to be able to share it with other people so they could have fun with it even if I couldn't. Don't think I can get a refund for what I bought, but let's see.
A couple of points:
This website is neither owned nor operated by WotC. This is a licensed vendor that has a contract with the publisher, WotC. That contract places some restrictions on what they are and are not allowed to permit us to do with the publisher’s property.
Whenever content is shared with a campaign, it is only shared with that campaign and nowhere else. So your DM isn’t Shari it with “you,” so you cannot use that content anywhere outside of that campaign, including the homebrewer.
Homebrew content is only legally allows to be distributed because the publisher, WotC, has taken a portion of their property and made it “open source,” effectively making the entire universe llegal rights to do whatever the heck we want with that portion. That can all be found in a document called the “System Reference Document,” or SRD for short. Basically, we can levy use anything in that document however we like.
WotC has also published two free documents, The “Basic Rules,” and the “Elemental Evil Player’s Companion.” Technically neither of those are considered open source, but there is a fair degree of overlap between the Basic Rules and the SRD, so much in fact that WotC gave this website permission to combine the two for our convenience into the digital edition of the Basic Rules available here. That effectively allows us to legally use everything in that combined document in our homebrews and still be allowed to publish them here. And for whatever reason we can also use anything found in the EEPC as well (much of which went into other sourcebooks like Xanathar’s.)
So since the publisher essentially gave away their legal propriety over that Intellectual Property, it isn’t “theirs” anymore, it’s owes. Therefore, this is the list of spells we can use in our homebrews and still legally publish them:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells?filter-class=0&filter-search=&filter-verbal=&filter-somatic=&filter-material=&filter-concentration=&filter-ritual=&filter-sub-class=&filter-source=1&filter-source=4
Any of the officially published spells that do not appear on that list I’d Intellectual Properly of which WotC has retained ownership. That means, as long as we have purchased access to those spells from a legal vendor (like this website), then we are absolutely 100% allowed to use in any way we want for our homebrewing wants or needs, but we are not legally allowed to publish those homebrews because we don’t own the rights to the IP.
I hope that helps.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
If you are in a DDB campaign with others, your homebrews are automatically shared with your DM and the other players. That is still considered “private use.” You don’t have to “put it in” the campaign at all, simply having homebrew in your “Homebrew collection” means it is always automatically shared with the people you play D&D with.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting