Ok, so the DM has to buy the whole book for one item. I fail to see how that's any better.
You are right that it is not better. But the general convention is that the GM provides for everything their players need, and GMs generally would rather buy the whole book on Beyond rather than just the piecemeal content, since they are likely to use more than just one piece of content in a book. As a GM, I foot all the hobbies' bills and I do not expect my players to spend anything. And since I myself utilize Beyond, they have will have access to everything that I have access to. However, at the same time, I am not going to give them an item that I myself do not have access to either.
Obviously not every GM can afford to provide everything their players need, but there are plenty of ways to access/utilize Beyond without paying for it. Since you need just one item, the easiest way to get it without paying is to just homebrew it. If you want to actually solve the issue and find a more permanent solution, you can ask your GM to ask the local D&D community or on various social media to help give them access to content. Plenty of GMs help each other out with access to books and content, so with the help from fellow GMs, even the brokest GM can provide for everything their players need.
It's not how it's worked for the last 6-7 years that DnDBeyond has been around. Or if you want to compare just to physical books then for 50 years you've never had to pay a subscription to share content you own.
Whichever way you look at it DnDBeyond have chosen to make the online game more expensive and much less usable, for no reason other than corporate greed, and they don't even have the decency to communicate with their customers about it.
Charging a subscription on Beyond to share content is pretty reasonable in my opinion. There is a limit to how many people you can share at a time with a physical book. On a digital platform like Beyond, if Content Sharing is free, there is no need for anyone to buy anything, since it is far easier for people who bought content to share with multiple people at the same time. And if you really do not want to pay a subscription for Content Sharing, that is totally possible too; the GM can simply make a private homebrew copy of whatever they want, and homebrew is automatically shared in a campaign without needing to turn on Content Sharing.
Beyond has signficantly lowered the barrier of entry. Sure, it is not as low as before when à la carte purchases existed, but it is still reasonably low right now. As long as a GM has an ounce of Charisma, and are willing to pay $5 or $6 a month for Master Subscription for Content Sharing, they should not have any issue getting help from fellow GMs to access all content on Beyond. If a GM is really broke, some fellow generous GMs will even turn on Content Sharing for the less fortunate. If you are friends with the right people, paying $5 or $6 a month is honestly pretty cheap given that you can access over $1,000 worth of books on Beyond.
It is a pain in the ass to jump through all those hoops. However, there is something you and your GM can do about the removal of individual purchases, and low balling Wizards with subscription is one way to do it. Alternatively, if you are really lucky, you might not even need to pay for Content Sharing.
Digital and physical platforms and methods of playing are not comparable with each other. Especially when something has been established as being the way it works for the better part of the last decade, when it then becomes restricted with no explanation and no notice with a much less functional interface, something is wrong.
It is reminiscent of video games trending towards all-digital yet still increasing in price despite no longer having to pay for distribution and manufacturing. If you buy a physical book as a DM, you can be rest assured that you will always have that book and it will function exactly how it was intended. If you buy content on D&D Beyond, if the website goes down you completely lose access to all of that. It should be cheaper and it should be more readily available, especially because the cost of integrating content within the website and keeping the servers running is bound to be less than the creation of the physical objects, especially when there are people already paying for subscriptions.
I wonder if they'd ever consider a compromise of "renting" content. Maybe instead of buying a book, you can pay a couple bucks a month for it. I hate going even further into the "you will own nothing" world, but if we're not going to be able to purchase individual items from books it would be nice to still have an economical option. It would be a good analogue to the ability to rent physical books. Heck, make it a subscription tier if you really want to. Any way that can be a bit more of an economic solution for those of us who would be pirating PDFs or playing a different game altogether would be nice.
Just want to leave my feedback and say that individual purchases were my favorite feature of dnd beyond.
For me and my friends it was THE reason we loved this service and bought plenty of single spells, items, races, subclasses etc.
None of us is even considering buying a whole book if we only want small pieces of it.
It actually is really frustrating and discouraged us in playing more dnd. I can't believe that this way is generating you more money, because you canceled an easy and catchy mechanic to let new players try out stuff.
Do you know if anyone is tracking the join date and post count of the members dissenting these changes?
It seems like a large portion of them are long time members that do not post often, many of them didn't post during the OGL issue.
that would be meeeeee~
I'm not tracking that granularly, but I do note the amount of individual commenters.
For your feedback list:
I didnt play DnD for a couple of years now and just came back to starting with a new group of old friends while noticing the changes made to individual purchases (or "a la cart") and it is a complete downer. This feature was the #1 reason I advertised DDB years ago and it was my personal starting point of DnD as it made it easy for a new player to mix and match stuff to play around your own fantasy. All of that destroyed by greed.
Its not only that I wont purchase a whole sourcebook if I only want one item/feat/race/subclass/spell etc., its even more the feeling knowing that this change was made with giving no f about your customers. It feels like getting spit in the face by someone that wants to sell me a product.
DDB has kind of died for me personally with this change. I really wasnt expecting this coming back to this hobby... :(
I'm adding my voice to the choir, this is a ridiculous change. NOBODY besides Dungeon Masters want to purchase the content of an entire book. Players don't care/need to purchase monsters, treasures, compendium content. So why should people be forced to pay for something they don't want?
I won't be purchasing anything on DnDBeyond unless they revert this.
I'm adding my voice to the choir, this is a ridiculous change. NOBODY besides Dungeon Masters want to purchase the content of an entire book. Players don't care/need to purchase monsters, treasures, compendium content. So why should people be forced to pay for something they don't want?
I won't be purchasing anything on DnDBeyond unless they revert this.
Not even most DM's. Most DM's do not need every setting. Frankly, this, to me, still seems like some sort of bad reaction to low sales of settings books.
Not even most DM's. Most DM's do not need every setting. Frankly, this, to me, still seems like some sort of bad reaction to low sales of settings books.
What do setting books contain that's worth buying piecemeal to start with? The first sign of this was the Book of Many Things, which was not a setting book.
Not even most DM's. Most DM's do not need every setting. Frankly, this, to me, still seems like some sort of bad reaction to low sales of settings books.
What do setting books contain that's worth buying piecemeal to start with? The first sign of this was the Book of Many Things, which was not a setting book.
Setting specific classes, races and subclasses. Eberron is a particularly good example.
What do setting books contain that's worth buying piecemeal to start with? The first sign of this was the Book of Many Things, which was not a setting book.
It's important to understand that most DMs probably already purched the hardcover book. The digital content is only useful for crated characters online, so rebuying book digitally is a huge waste of money when you only need one item.
I buy just about every D&D book so I can read it and learn about the lore and new options. From there I see items I would like to intruduce to my campaign and purchase them on DDB for my players and/or NPCs.
What do setting books contain that's worth buying piecemeal to start with? The first sign of this was the Book of Many Things, which was not a setting book.
It's important to understand that most DMs probably already purched the hardcover book. The digital content is only useful for crated characters online, so rebuying book digitally is a huge waste of money when you only need one item.
I buy just about every D&D book so I can read it and learn about the lore and new options. From there I see items I would like to intruduce to my campaign and purchase them on DDB for my players and/or NPCs.
As a DM I reference sourcebooks I have purchased and use online. But then I play mostly online, in great part due to geography.
It's important to understand that most DMs probably already purched the hardcover book.
That's an assertion that really needs more backing. Plenty of people don't, and in any case physical purchases not transferring to digital is not a new concept.
It's important to understand that most DMs probably already purched the hardcover book.
That's an assertion that really needs more backing. Plenty of people don't, and in any case physical purchases not transferring to digital is not a new concept.
You are correct, that was an assumtion of mine becasue it applies to everyone I know. But I don't know everyone so maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't make sense to me to buy something that you never actually own, so I assume most people, especially DMs, don't. But if most people, these days, only play online and they're fine with rebuying the materials every time they change platforms, then it's logical to assume they woudl never buy a hardcover book. For instance, when WotC decides that DDB isn't profitable and shuts it down, I'll still ahve my books.
That being said, if one only buys materials from DDB, then one should be ok with always buying a full book, as that's how it works for paper books. Furthermore, if that is the norm then it is a wise business decision for DDB to make such a fundamental change to their marketplace.
at what point do we let this thread die? It's clear we're all shouting into the void....they are not going to revert this change, sadly.
No... I think it's worth it to keep shouting. It might not do anything immediately, but a combination of people not buying products + explaining exactly why they aren't buying products will hopefully get through to them eventually. Hope springs eternal.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
at what point do we let this thread die? It's clear we're all shouting into the void....they are not going to revert this change, sadly.
No... I think it's worth it to keep shouting. It might not do anything immediately, but a combination of people not buying products + explaining exactly why they aren't buying products will hopefully get through to them eventually. Hope springs eternal.
Agreed, but what will work even better is for everyone who cares about this to cancel their subscriptions. Money talks, as they say.
at what point do we let this thread die? It's clear we're all shouting into the void....they are not going to revert this change, sadly.
Opportunity for change comes with quarterly profit reports to investors... or something like that.
We keep the thread alive, new people are encountering this every day. It will snowball when everyone picks up the new PHB but then realises they want a different subclass. Until then, cancel your subscription and shop around for a different digital platform, and make that known here.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DId you know? The DDB marketplace has REMOVED the option for purchasing one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters "a la carte". Now you ALWAYS have to buy the ENTIRE book instead.
Unhappy? UNSUBSCRIBE and Let them know your thoughts!
at what point do we let this thread die? It's clear we're all shouting into the void....they are not going to revert this change, sadly.
I'll add that the forum pushes threads with the most recent comments to the top, so I'm hopeful that the continued feedback on this thread will keep it at the top of everyone's attention!
at what point do we let this thread die? It's clear we're all shouting into the void....they are not going to revert this change, sadly.
I'll add that the forum pushes threads with the most recent comments to the top, so I'm hopeful that the continued feedback on this thread will keep it at the top of everyone's attention!
Agree. IT's important to keep this going. When do quarterly results come out? Would be interesting to see what effect this has, or not.
at what point do we let this thread die? It's clear we're all shouting into the void....they are not going to revert this change, sadly.
I'll add that the forum pushes threads with the most recent comments to the top, so I'm hopeful that the continued feedback on this thread will keep it at the top of everyone's attention!
it would be nice to keep it at the top where it's simple to find, but you run the risk of 'derailing' the topic with non-feedback discussion. might be easier to get a signature that says something like "unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters? provide feedback." and then just continue posting elsewhere. you'll know if anything changes.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
at what point do we let this thread die? It's clear we're all shouting into the void....they are not going to revert this change, sadly.
I'll add that the forum pushes threads with the most recent comments to the top, so I'm hopeful that the continued feedback on this thread will keep it at the top of everyone's attention!
it would be nice to keep it at the top where it's simple to find, but you run the risk of 'derailing' the topic with non-feedback discussion. might be easier to get a signature that says something like "unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters? provide feedback." and then just continue posting elsewhere. you'll know if anything changes.
Huh... the idea of getting a signature that links to this thread is a really good idea.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
You are right that it is not better. But the general convention is that the GM provides for everything their players need, and GMs generally would rather buy the whole book on Beyond rather than just the piecemeal content, since they are likely to use more than just one piece of content in a book. As a GM, I foot all the hobbies' bills and I do not expect my players to spend anything. And since I myself utilize Beyond, they have will have access to everything that I have access to. However, at the same time, I am not going to give them an item that I myself do not have access to either.
Obviously not every GM can afford to provide everything their players need, but there are plenty of ways to access/utilize Beyond without paying for it. Since you need just one item, the easiest way to get it without paying is to just homebrew it. If you want to actually solve the issue and find a more permanent solution, you can ask your GM to ask the local D&D community or on various social media to help give them access to content. Plenty of GMs help each other out with access to books and content, so with the help from fellow GMs, even the brokest GM can provide for everything their players need.
Charging a subscription on Beyond to share content is pretty reasonable in my opinion. There is a limit to how many people you can share at a time with a physical book. On a digital platform like Beyond, if Content Sharing is free, there is no need for anyone to buy anything, since it is far easier for people who bought content to share with multiple people at the same time. And if you really do not want to pay a subscription for Content Sharing, that is totally possible too; the GM can simply make a private homebrew copy of whatever they want, and homebrew is automatically shared in a campaign without needing to turn on Content Sharing.
Beyond has signficantly lowered the barrier of entry. Sure, it is not as low as before when à la carte purchases existed, but it is still reasonably low right now. As long as a GM has an ounce of Charisma, and are willing to pay $5 or $6 a month for Master Subscription for Content Sharing, they should not have any issue getting help from fellow GMs to access all content on Beyond. If a GM is really broke, some fellow generous GMs will even turn on Content Sharing for the less fortunate. If you are friends with the right people, paying $5 or $6 a month is honestly pretty cheap given that you can access over $1,000 worth of books on Beyond.
It is a pain in the ass to jump through all those hoops. However, there is something you and your GM can do about the removal of individual purchases, and low balling Wizards with subscription is one way to do it. Alternatively, if you are really lucky, you might not even need to pay for Content Sharing.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Digital and physical platforms and methods of playing are not comparable with each other. Especially when something has been established as being the way it works for the better part of the last decade, when it then becomes restricted with no explanation and no notice with a much less functional interface, something is wrong.
It is reminiscent of video games trending towards all-digital yet still increasing in price despite no longer having to pay for distribution and manufacturing. If you buy a physical book as a DM, you can be rest assured that you will always have that book and it will function exactly how it was intended. If you buy content on D&D Beyond, if the website goes down you completely lose access to all of that. It should be cheaper and it should be more readily available, especially because the cost of integrating content within the website and keeping the servers running is bound to be less than the creation of the physical objects, especially when there are people already paying for subscriptions.
I wonder if they'd ever consider a compromise of "renting" content. Maybe instead of buying a book, you can pay a couple bucks a month for it. I hate going even further into the "you will own nothing" world, but if we're not going to be able to purchase individual items from books it would be nice to still have an economical option. It would be a good analogue to the ability to rent physical books. Heck, make it a subscription tier if you really want to. Any way that can be a bit more of an economic solution for those of us who would be pirating PDFs or playing a different game altogether would be nice.
Just want to leave my feedback and say that individual purchases were my favorite feature of dnd beyond.
For me and my friends it was THE reason we loved this service and bought plenty of single spells, items, races, subclasses etc.
None of us is even considering buying a whole book if we only want small pieces of it.
It actually is really frustrating and discouraged us in playing more dnd. I can't believe that this way is generating you more money, because you canceled an easy and catchy mechanic to let new players try out stuff.
Huge L-move from this site.
For your feedback list:
I didnt play DnD for a couple of years now and just came back to starting with a new group of old friends while noticing the changes made to individual purchases (or "a la cart") and it is a complete downer.
This feature was the #1 reason I advertised DDB years ago and it was my personal starting point of DnD as it made it easy for a new player to mix and match stuff to play around your own fantasy. All of that destroyed by greed.
Its not only that I wont purchase a whole sourcebook if I only want one item/feat/race/subclass/spell etc., its even more the feeling knowing that this change was made with giving no f about your customers. It feels like getting spit in the face by someone that wants to sell me a product.
DDB has kind of died for me personally with this change. I really wasnt expecting this coming back to this hobby... :(
I'm adding my voice to the choir, this is a ridiculous change. NOBODY besides Dungeon Masters want to purchase the content of an entire book. Players don't care/need to purchase monsters, treasures, compendium content. So why should people be forced to pay for something they don't want?
I won't be purchasing anything on DnDBeyond unless they revert this.
Not even most DM's. Most DM's do not need every setting. Frankly, this, to me, still seems like some sort of bad reaction to low sales of settings books.
What do setting books contain that's worth buying piecemeal to start with? The first sign of this was the Book of Many Things, which was not a setting book.
Setting specific classes, races and subclasses. Eberron is a particularly good example.
It's important to understand that most DMs probably already purched the hardcover book. The digital content is only useful for crated characters online, so rebuying book digitally is a huge waste of money when you only need one item.
I buy just about every D&D book so I can read it and learn about the lore and new options. From there I see items I would like to intruduce to my campaign and purchase them on DDB for my players and/or NPCs.
As a DM I reference sourcebooks I have purchased and use online. But then I play mostly online, in great part due to geography.
That's an assertion that really needs more backing. Plenty of people don't, and in any case physical purchases not transferring to digital is not a new concept.
You are correct, that was an assumtion of mine becasue it applies to everyone I know. But I don't know everyone so maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't make sense to me to buy something that you never actually own, so I assume most people, especially DMs, don't. But if most people, these days, only play online and they're fine with rebuying the materials every time they change platforms, then it's logical to assume they woudl never buy a hardcover book. For instance, when WotC decides that DDB isn't profitable and shuts it down, I'll still ahve my books.
That being said, if one only buys materials from DDB, then one should be ok with always buying a full book, as that's how it works for paper books. Furthermore, if that is the norm then it is a wise business decision for DDB to make such a fundamental change to their marketplace.
at what point do we let this thread die? It's clear we're all shouting into the void....they are not going to revert this change, sadly.
No... I think it's worth it to keep shouting. It might not do anything immediately, but a combination of people not buying products + explaining exactly why they aren't buying products will hopefully get through to them eventually. Hope springs eternal.
Unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
Provide feedback!
Agreed, but what will work even better is for everyone who cares about this to cancel their subscriptions. Money talks, as they say.
Unless we can sustain this protest and keep voting with closed wallets, they will not take us seriously.
Opportunity for change comes with quarterly profit reports to investors... or something like that.
We keep the thread alive, new people are encountering this every day. It will snowball when everyone picks up the new PHB but then realises they want a different subclass.
Until then, cancel your subscription and shop around for a different digital platform, and make that known here.
DId you know?
The DDB marketplace has REMOVED the option for purchasing one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters "a la carte".
Now you ALWAYS have to buy the ENTIRE book instead.
Unhappy? UNSUBSCRIBE and
Let them know your thoughts!
I'll add that the forum pushes threads with the most recent comments to the top, so I'm hopeful that the continued feedback on this thread will keep it at the top of everyone's attention!
Agree. IT's important to keep this going. When do quarterly results come out? Would be interesting to see what effect this has, or not.
it would be nice to keep it at the top where it's simple to find, but you run the risk of 'derailing' the topic with non-feedback discussion. might be easier to get a signature that says something like "unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters? provide feedback." and then just continue posting elsewhere. you'll know if anything changes.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Huh... the idea of getting a signature that links to this thread is a really good idea.
Unhappy that the market got rid of individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
Provide feedback!