Why are you here as in DDB and not off at Roll20 or some pace else?
I originally came to D&D Beyond as someone who, though I'd played D&D a long time ago (3.5e) had wanted to try and get into 5e and heard a lot about D&D Beyond from places like Critical Role. So I came to check out the website, found it easy to use, and was able to quickly create a couple of character ideas using the free SRD content.
But I quickly became interested in what my other options were, and when I finally got a chance to play 5e with a group I bought my own physical Player's Handbook and wanted to start using those options digitally to easily try out specific ideas I had.
I would not have done so had I needed to re-buy the entire book digitally.
IIRC Roll20 didn't have any officially licensed content at the time; it was a much more complex set of tools with a much steeper learning curve to using it, and I needed to add third party D&D 5e character sheets, which I still mostly had to fill in myself like I would using pen and paper. Even now I don't find Roll20 particularly easy to use, I've mostly got the hang of it through perseverance but I've never felt it was easy enough to recommend to my groups when the main difference was support for maps, which we could get more easily elsewhere (owlbear.rodeo at the time, now D&D Beyond has its own simpler Maps tools).
While I didn't specifically come to D&D Beyond because of the piecemeal purchasing option, it's a huge part of why I now own as much content as I do, because I simply wouldn't have bought any in the first place if I had to buy it all as entire books. And that's not because I can't afford to buy the books; but if I'm going to buy a full book I will do so as a physical copy from my local games store, because I just don't enjoy reading larger amounts of text in digital form so I don't see the value in compendium content most of the time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I have a question for everybody who has posted in one of the complaint threads.
Why are you here as in DDB and not off at Roll20 or some pace else?
I will not say why I am here so as not to sway any answers.
Personally, I am here because D&D Beyond offered the best, easiest character creation tools. I regularly introduce new folks to the game - simple, easy tools are important to reducing the barrier to entry for new players. I also have no interest in using a VTT - even my online campaign, I run using an overhead camera and physical miniatures and terrain. Even without piecemeal purchases, I likely would still have chosen D&D Beyond.
That said, piecemeal purchases were a big part of my initial investment in this site. While I bought a number books outright in my first couple days of purchases, I also purchased the price-equivalent of four additional books just through piecemeal purchases. Most of those came from adventures I had no intention of running, since I exclusively homebrew campaigns—I would not have bought the books just for dipping my toes into the new system, and only wanted the things I actually needed when starting out.
As I have said on this thread before, piecemeal purchases were probably not instrumental to my usage of the site - and they certainly are not all that important to me personally now, as I just preorder the full books outright. But, when I first started, they were a helpful way to get me to spend money on products I otherwise had no interest in. Admittedly, however, I expect my piecemeal purchasing was outside of the norm - I expect most people buy just what they need, rather than used piecemeal to satisfy a bit of a completionist attitude.
I have a question for everybody who has posted in one of the complaint threads.
Why are you here as in DDB and not off at Roll20 or some pace else?
I will not say why I am here so as not to sway any answers.
not a separate thread for this?
personally, after a long absence (2e, 4e, then nothing) i was looking for digital rpg books to read through for simple enjoyment. we'd just had another kid and regular boardgame night went up in smoke, replaced with regular late night diaper changes and irregular times to read. i'd used drivethruRPG and Humble Bundle before so i knew there were options, but i was looking for something closer to Kindle. with no group to tell me otherwise, i decided Roll20 looked too plastic and flimsy whereas DDB was more comfortable. after trying out the DDB app with search i was hooked. Roll20 continues to look "too plastic," which i completely admit is a comment on shallow aesthetics rather than depth of utility. it comes down to trusting that the database will be around a long time and DDB looked like it had a better prospect for that. the ogl leaked draft debacle didn't seem to threaten my DDB purchases, however removing ala carte without warning hits way closer to that investment. i'll happily go back to paper before i try to split my time between this and some other digital platform. shrug.
I got into DDB when I wasn't looking for a VTT. DDB seemed more intuitive and less buggy that Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, easier to use all round. The content sharing was also key. I was definitely one of those parents who recognized Zoom D&D as a great outlet for kids in lockdown, so when that happened, I legendary bundled and opened up content sharing for my campaigns, which were mostly the kids and their school friends and parents.
These days, I play more non D&D than D&D, and had been playing in person; but am investing in Foundry because 1.) of a really good deal I came across on Alien Day, 2.) Foundry seems to be a sort designers VTT in its ability to allow GMs to tweak and invent rules and modules and 3.) I'm six days into Covid where while I'm ok, it's a PITA and has me rethinking how often I head out to play in person (I've already had to cancel two sessions and probably a third if the progress goes the way it's gone) pending available wastewater data etc. I was on the fence about early adopting D&D 2024. I already started a Pathfinder subscription with its rules refresh (only because the cover version I prefer isn't carried by any of the FLGS I go to after the first two core books came out) and am liking it. The elimination of a la carte purchases might have been the nail in the coffin of my brand/fan loyalty. I've got a good set of 5e books, I'm reading the early access Vecna to see if I buy it myself to round it out. The new core, I'll just wait and see, maybe eventually getting a cased set once that's out, but I got enough to play with over the next year, over many years for that matter, whenever I run D&D now anyway.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I have a question for everybody who has posted in one of the complaint threads.
Why are you here as in DDB and not off at Roll20 or some pace else?
I will not say why I am here so as not to sway any answers.
VTTs like Roll20 don't really work for in-person physical play, as they're not designed for that. DDB for many (at least originally) replaced the typical paper character sheet. I am here on DDB because it's an easy to use character designer and campaign manager. It just sped up getting games going and eases leveling up, and is better for onboarding new players. I think it's still used largely for that, though some use it in VTTs now too with extensions, importers and such. I honestly would hazard a guess that many players who have gotten into the hobby in the last few years probably can't even build a character sheet anymore.
I'm curious as to your point and your views and why you ask the question..?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM subscriber since I joined this website. Ended my subscription June 2024 due to the removal of individual purchases. Was the only reason I ever bothered with this website. I use it for character building for my players and occasional referencing. I don't want digital books that can be removed whenever the company sees fit.
January 2025: seems it was a correct move. They're removing 2014 content that we paid for in lieu of their new version of the game. You only rent content on here, never own.
I had used Roll20 lightly in the past and found it a bit cumbersome. My friend brought up how nice D&D Beyond was and I was sold. The character creation and tracking is second to none. Honestly, it is really nice. Then, once I found out that you could buy more content for pretty cheap without having to buy the entire book, I was pretty sold on that. D&D had always felt a little prohibitively expensive to me, and I didn't want to even fumble around with pirated PDFs because it would be sifting through a bunch of stuff I didn't need just to get to what I did need (which is similar to the expense issue). I have no desire to run pre-written campaigns in pre-made settings, so I don't need anything beyond the actual gameplay content itself. There are a couple of books where I've just bought all of the digital content and that's it. Being able to buy a few things from one book and be immediately able to access them with the search function, in addition to the character sheet tracking and displaying all of the information you need, is PERFECT. Or, WAS perfect, I suppose.
The way it all cohesively works together and let me just buy only what I needed to made this THE best way to track characters for D&D. Now, it's only become harder, and if it's going to be harder then I may as well play either on a different website or a different game entirely. Pathbuilder for Pathfinder is also really nice, you know...
Thanks to Homebrew I was able to shim in the stuff I needed. Guess that will be the next thing that gets shutdown and then we will all just move to another platform at that point.
Time to do what fellow Helldivers did and vote with your wallets. Review bombs incoming ▲◄▼▼▼. More and more sites picking up on this and doing stories about it. Just keep posting negative reviews and giving out the info to other sites. Give other sites who are stepping up to help us, praise. Give out info to those other sites.
okay, imma say something controversial, but this seems like a good thing. to me at least this reads as people complaining about getting less over charged. if you want a feat/spell/class/race for most of the books it is cheaper to just get the whole thing or more expensive by pennies on the dollar, and if you want just one thing from one specific book the homebrew-maker is free, you can just make it. WotC did something not greedy for once, and everyone is *****ing and moaning like it's the ogl shit all over again? seriously https://dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/65453-so-i-just-realized-something-is-kinda-off-about is an old thread 2020, that spells out how overpriced individual things are, and again you can use the homebrew maker to just make feats/classes/etc anyway, so what's the big deal?
Your understanding continues to be incomplete. I know you're trying to endeavor piecemeal purchases as absurd with 30 species available in MMM, but what you're making that claim without awareness that in addition to individual races being available, a DDB user could buy all the races as a bundle for less than the price of the full book. I believing the MMM races was something like $10.99, I believe I bought the VGtR Gothic lineages for $1.99, but that might have been a sale. Same with monsters and magic items, there were bundles within books.
i brought up monsters of the multiverse and the new PHB as value for money for the new player buying a book (not a current player adding to their collection) as an alternative to buying species separately from different sources. i will admit i didnt think of the $10.99 but at that point whats the difference to buying the book considering thats half the contents (since its only 2 chapters - fantastical races and bestiary)...
the new PHB alone should have: (a potential one stop shop based of implied contents) 12-13 classes (depending on articifer) and each of those have 4 subclasses based of one of the clips posted earlier (thats 48+ options) 8+ species (taking the monsters of the multiverse approach, could be anywhere upto 30 and beyond) to me thats a book well worth the money - especially for players new to dnd
I don't know why you're using the forthcoming PHB in comparison to the present MMM, what's the point? Whatever it is, it's further muddied because you don't seem to fully understand what's in the PHB. The Artificer will not be in the PHB, that's known. Having 4 options for each of the core classes is fine, but if you're a player of 2014 expression of the rules and want say all the Wizard subclasses and only that, this isn't helpful. Not recognizing the difference between the PHB "core species" and the species present in MMM and speculate you'll have MMM numbering options in the PHB just speaks to a lack of understanding the D&D product line which undercuts any sort of credibility for the argument you're trying to make, whatever it is. Yes, WotC is trying to make the 2024 PHB a good buy by putting in arguably "more bang for your buck" than the 2014 version, because they really want existing 5e players to buy into it. No one knows how much that book's being priced at in print or digital yet. A lot of DDB users who are familiar with WotC's practice of putting old content into "legacy" (the species in MMM were consolidated with some changes from two prior books that are no longer available in the marketplace, but owners of them still maintain "legacy" access). The PHB is not such a consolidation. There are in the 2014 rules, 8-18 subclasses (excepting the Artificer's which gets short shrift and likely will in the future being left out of the core again) for each of the classes ... those won't be showing up again, if they do show up, until well after the new core is published. It seems entirely reasonable for players to want to collect those character options if they have the capacity to do so to avoid missing out on them before another unannounced closure of some books. Like, the Psi Knight and Soul Knife are both available in Tasha's, as are some other classes that won't be in the new PHB. Can we trust WotC to keep Tasha's available when the PHB comes out despite the "conflict overlap" of the old book and the new book in which WotC is invested in seeing strong sales? I don't know, but WotC has had a number of moves over the past two years where its most invested community members simply doesn't trust them.
so a player of 2014 expression of rules wants all the wizard stuff - lets say they get it all who knows maybe one day they get tired of being a wizard and want to be a barbarian - how does owning all the wizard stuff help you become a barbarian?? just because people want one option today doesnt mean they will always only want that option
with the removal of half races brings the potential that monstrous species from monsters of the multiverse (or other sources) will fill the gap raising the core species above the current 7 or 8 in the 2014 phb (not including current half races). this also seems possible since PHB is for the player and the player wants options for characters
with each of the 12 core classes getting 4 subclasses each, thats 48 options - not including the artificer (since i doubted and hadnt heard anything on it not being added)
since they taking from other sources to update the PHB - it is a consolidation of information, if not everything is brand new and thats even better (again good value for money)
considering tasha's has the artificer (which you say wont be in the PHB) i assume it will stay for now - well atleast another year or two, however with alot of the aspects/mechanics of tasha's potentially making it into the new PHB and DMG (based of my understanding, could be wrong), then its possible its approaching legacy status just like other books
some of the various reasons: assume with wotc taking over dndbeyond that they can no longer afford to offer piece-meal without impacting revenue for future content (quality and quantity) they were spoiling their customer base with an option found no where else, which seems to of influenced people against purchasing complete works/books
customers cherry-picking contents via piece-meal seem to be the same people suggesting: *going elsewhere - even though price is the same and that they will be purchasing books, along with less functionality and potentially throwing away their currently purchased content to start fresh *finding a free copy online - which isnt very business friendly, especially for the people who created the contents *recreate it via homebrew - they want it but still wont purchase..... atleast make some changes to it *cancelling subscriptions - if it doesnt come with a refund, your just throwing away your money spent on the subscription....
alot of this thread is just knee-jerk reactions and escalations towards mob mentality over essentially nothing but either way ive gave my last opinion on the matter and ill leave it at that
I discussed earlier in this thread, with you, that people don't know the best way to express the frustration of having an attractive menu feature taken away from them. Sometimes an effective tactic will take hold, as the subscriber walk off did during the OGL mess. Your 'analysis,' which again seems to be based on a at best "incomplete" understanding of what users of DDB feel are at stake seems invested in dismissing those community members feelings.
It would be very easy for me to say "this is no big deal" too. I'm fortunate enough that the elimination of piecemeal options won't phase my ability to grab any DDB content I want. However, what drew me to DDB, made me an advocate for DDB, over its competitors in the digital space was how the Basic Rules and piecemeal purchases increased access to the game. Rather than dismiss a community's reaction to this change on the basis of a poor conception of the matter at hand, it would have probably done you better to read the community curated https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/13989-a-buyers-guide-for-d-d-beyond and maybe through that foundation and documentation of prior community practice, you'd have understood what has been lost and is arguably being grieved here, rather than invalidate that segment of the community because you don't understand the stakes as well as you think you do.
im just giving my thoughts and opinions just like any other part of the community, yet because they are opposite to others, mine then gets dismissed as a "incomplete" or that my understanding is lacking, or that im invalidating other segments of the community, where instead as part of the community, i just see things differently. we are all making speculations based of our own interpretations of whats been put forth.
simply put if you were dndbeyond/wotc what would influence you to remove piece-meal purchases?? (personally i see two reasons, considering the change in ownership of dndbeyond,) 1. technical limitations and complexity - which would take time to overcome (if this were the case i would personally wait until the new books are released before reintroducing piece-meal, before that seems pointless to me, rather have people work on other things) 2. financial viability (cost/revenue) - this becomes a possibility that its no longer a viable option to provide to customers. now if its no longer financially viable (losing more then whats put into it) for the company to provide, then it probably wont return unless its deemed financially viable (which i doubt since people have mentioned using it so they dont have to buy the book or continue on to complete it)
so i will keep to my previous conclusion and will refrain from voicing any further opinions and thoughts in the future
I will be continuing my subscription and the purchase of full books once the new PHB, DMG and MM get released. Since I see the piece-meal purchases as nothing more then pay in installments (no real discount) that can simply be achieved by stockpiling my change for a little while (simple saving/budgeting) and getting the full book. Also think piece-meal purchases were a bad business model for various reasons.
alot of this thread is just knee-jerk reactions and escalations towards mob mentality over essentially nothing but either way ive gave my last opinion on the matter and ill leave it at that
okay, imma say something controversial, but this seems like a good thing. to me at least this reads as people complaining about getting less over charged. if you want a feat/spell/class/race for most of the books it is cheaper to just get the whole thing or more expensive by pennies on the dollar, and if you want just one thing from one specific book the homebrew-maker is free, you can just make it. WotC did something not greedy for once, and everyone is *****ing and moaning like it's the ogl shit all over again? seriously https://dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/65453-so-i-just-realized-something-is-kinda-off-about is an old thread 2020, that spells out how overpriced individual things are, and again you can use the homebrew maker to just make feats/classes/etc anyway, so what's the big deal?
If you read the responses to that thread, the totality of responses essentially boil down to "You do not understand the piecemeal system." That is the exact same problem you have - not understanding the system.
Each piecemeal purchase - whether it was an individual item or an item bundle - decreased the total cost of the book. Buy a $1.99 subclass from a $29.99 book? The entire book now costs $28.00. Buy an item bundle for 12.99? The rest of the book costs $15.01. Eventually, the cost of the remaining book would be zero and you would end up with all the contents you did not purchase. So, even if it might look like a $29.99 book had thirty $1.99 options, the total cost of that book purchased piecemeal was never $59.70--it was still just $29.99.
So, if you only needed that subclass, you could spend $1.99 instead of having to pay $29.99--netting the customer a savings of $28.00. Change your mind? You are not "out" any additional money--you just have to pay the delta between what you already purchased and the total cost. That is the reality - piecemeal provided players an additional purchase option with zero downside to the player.
And, that is why folks are upset - they had a very beneficial option taken away from them. For some, they now have to choose whether an additional $28.00 is worth it for content that used to cost them $1.99.
Quite frankly, for most people here, this is probably worse than the OGL situation - the OGL issue really came down to Wizards saying "Hey, we would like to change our license so people will not use it for racism"... hardly the worst thing in the world for them to have done, especially after they just had a very real-world example of someone trying to use their game to spread hate. This is not some sympathetic harm that seems major, but in reality is really only going to hurt players who want to buy racist products--this is something that directly effects many people on this forum by eliminating of their purchase options.
I have a question for everybody who has posted in one of the complaint threads.
Why are you here as in DDB and not off at Roll20 or some pace else?
I will not say why I am here so as not to sway any answers.
I came here because the character creator was easy and quick to use. SO I could very easily create a character and start playing. I've never had any success getting a game at roll 20 and my recent game on Discord using Foundry fizzled out because my Dm didn't have the time to continue the campaign. So I bought things as I needed them for the character I wanted to create. Now if I have to buy entire books to continue playing, I'd rather just create my sheets 8ising pencil and paper,even though no-one else in my group I feel would be able to read my handwriting.
okay, imma say something controversial, but this seems like a good thing. to me at least this reads as people complaining about getting less over charged. if you want a feat/spell/class/race for most of the books it is cheaper to just get the whole thing or more expensive by pennies on the dollar, and if you want just one thing from one specific book the homebrew-maker is free, you can just make it. WotC did something not greedy for once, and everyone is *****ing and moaning like it's the ogl shit all over again? seriously https://dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/65453-so-i-just-realized-something-is-kinda-off-about is an old thread 2020, that spells out how overpriced individual things are, and again you can use the homebrew maker to just make feats/classes/etc anyway, so what's the big deal?
- the OGL issue really came down to Wizards saying "Hey, we would like to change our license so people will not use it for racism"... hardly the worst thing in the world for them to have done, especially after they just had a very real-world example of someone trying to use their game to spread hate. This is not some sympathetic harm that seems major, but in reality is really only going to hurt players who want to buy racist products--this is something that directly effects many people on this forum by eliminating of their purchase options.
Thanks for the breakdown of the piecemeal system; people seem not to get how it worked.
As far as the OGL, there's Wizards' excuse and there's reality. Had they updated the OGL to bar the use of their license for racism, etc then sure. But you don't need to take a massive chunk of every developer's pocketbook to do that. So... the goal was money, the excuse was community protection. Which honestly, I found gross.
"25 percent royalty on revenue from any OGL creator earning above $750,000 per year in sales; the right for WotC to use any content created under the license for any purpose; an apparent ban on the virtual tabletop simulators that helped kindle a tabletop gaming boom during pandemic lockdowns; and the de-authorization of anything made according to the previous OGL."
That wasn't racism driven, that was greed driven.
While the initial conversations did talk about money, saying it was “every developer” is an exaggeration - only a small handful (I believe it was seven) of developers met the financial thresholds for payment.
But, more important than that - the financial elements were the first thing dropped by Wizards. Having negotiated my share of multimillion dollar contracts, here is a pretty well known fact in the legal community - the things you drop first in your negotiations are things that are not all that important to you. Usually they are things that are there to provide leverage to try and get what you want - a thorn you can remove to make the item you are after seem more palatable. And money makes for a great thorn - it is something easy to negotiate down on and has a tangible value - sometimes the more important things are closer to an all or nothing issue and can be hard to quantify.
Wizards abandoned the “please do not be racist with our stuff” thing last - they tried really hard to get the community to buy into it and abandoned every other fight (and even offered some juicy incentives) to try and get that element enacted. It was very clearly what they cared most about - and it is not hard to see why. The entire OGL thing followed right up on the heels of someone trying to release a racist version of Wizards Intellectual Property (Star Frontiers) - Wizards managed to kill that, because the product was not licensed… but it exposed a vulnerability insofar as, had Ernie Gygax done the same racist nonsense under the OGL, Wizards would have had little legal recourse.
The fact Wizards asked for money up front certainly looks greedy, particularly to laypeople who do not really engage in high-end contract negotiation. But, when you look at the totality of circumstances and the timeline of events, you’ll see that the “greed” component evaporated long, long before the “protect our product and our players from jerks like Ernie” element.
There is a perception that the OGL was a massive attack on the community - but in terms of actual effects, removal of piecemeal purchases probably has a far greater effect on the day-to-day lives of the individuals on this forum.
D&D Beyond's recent decision to axe piecemeal purchases from source books is a blatant attempt to squeeze more money out of its users. But what they fail to realize is that they're the ones losing out in the end. This move isn't just anti-consumer; it's a clear sign that D&D Beyond is shooting itself in the foot. By alienating loyal customers and discouraging piecemeal purchases, they're essentially pushing us to seek alternatives.
Here's the thing for me, I really do like purchasing the whole source book eventually. Get a piece here and there until I see a sale going on and that now means it's only maybe $10 to get the rest. SOLD, take my money! It's a tactic to get people to spend more when they saw next to the item that it was only like $7 because of 'discounts.' Yes, that discount being while the book is 20% off the rest is because you've already spent the other amount. It felt more like a deal because I wasn't dropping it all at once, and when on sale I'd still have the discounted amount for the total I spent. It encouraged me to get more along the way, why wouldn't I just throw in those magic items from that other source while I'm at it.
But now, the situation is even worse, especially with adventure settings. As a player in a Strixhaven game, I only needed access to the Owlin race and maybe a few items. But D&D Beyond's insistence on selling the entire adventure setting for a hefty price tag is ludicrous. I'm not about to shell out $30 for what should've cost me a fraction of that. Instead of making that small amount off of me, they won't make any money at all. So really, which is worse for the company?
I was even willing to shell out extra for the alternate covers of the next-gen books and separately buy the digital content. Now it seems like D&D Beyond is actively discouraging that. The only silver lining I can see in this mess is if they start including single-use codes for digital content with physical purchases outside of direct online bundles. Shrink wrap all new books, or like with TBoMT put it in a paper cover, so that a single use digital content coupon could be included.
So, while D&D Beyond may think they're being clever by forcing users into buying more than they need, the reality is they're only driving us away. And until they wise up and revert this decision, they'll continue to lose out on potential sales.
The reality of a la carte purchasing is that a $1.99 purchase is not a big deal; Wizards probably looked at the amount of money they were getting off of a la carte purchase and the price to implement them in their new store and went "nah".
- the OGL issue really came down to Wizards saying "Hey, we would like to change our license so people will not use it for racism"... hardly the worst thing in the world for them to have done, especially after they just had a very real-world example of someone trying to use their game to spread hate. This is not some sympathetic harm that seems major, but in reality is really only going to hurt players who want to buy racist products--this is something that directly effects many people on this forum by eliminating of their purchase options.
Thanks for the breakdown of the piecemeal system; people seem not to get how it worked.
As far as the OGL, there's Wizards' excuse and there's reality. Had they updated the OGL to bar the use of their license for racism, etc then sure. But you don't need to take a massive chunk of every developer's pocketbook to do that. So... the goal was money, the excuse was community protection. Which honestly, I found gross.
"25 percent royalty on revenue from any OGL creator earning above $750,000 per year in sales; the right for WotC to use any content created under the license for any purpose; an apparent ban on the virtual tabletop simulators that helped kindle a tabletop gaming boom during pandemic lockdowns; and the de-authorization of anything made according to the previous OGL."
That wasn't racism driven, that was greed driven.
Seems just as easy to argue that the 3pp’s were the ones being greedy. They get to profit off work derived from someone else and piggyback on 50 years of brand recognition without paying for the privilege. WotC deciding they shouldn’t get a free ride seems, well, not greedy, but asking them to pay their way seems fair.
And it wasn’t every 3pp. There’s only a handful who hit that 750k cut off.
With the ogl and this, everyone keeps calling it greed, but seriously, they aren’t running a charity here. It’s a for-profit, publicly traded business. They have a legal obligation to produce value for their shareholders, and what’s more, they have bills and salaries to pay. And those expenses keep going up. Why are people shocked that they want, actually no, they need, to make money? I don’t like losing piecemeal options, but it’s not greedy; it’s just running a business.
You say this as if whatever it would cost to implement it wouldn't pay for itself almost immediately. Clearly there's a market for this, look at the level of outcry when they took it away.
- the OGL issue really came down to Wizards saying "Hey, we would like to change our license so people will not use it for racism"... hardly the worst thing in the world for them to have done, especially after they just had a very real-world example of someone trying to use their game to spread hate. This is not some sympathetic harm that seems major, but in reality is really only going to hurt players who want to buy racist products--this is something that directly effects many people on this forum by eliminating of their purchase options.
Thanks for the breakdown of the piecemeal system; people seem not to get how it worked.
As far as the OGL, there's Wizards' excuse and there's reality. Had they updated the OGL to bar the use of their license for racism, etc then sure. But you don't need to take a massive chunk of every developer's pocketbook to do that. So... the goal was money, the excuse was community protection. Which honestly, I found gross.
"25 percent royalty on revenue from any OGL creator earning above $750,000 per year in sales; the right for WotC to use any content created under the license for any purpose; an apparent ban on the virtual tabletop simulators that helped kindle a tabletop gaming boom during pandemic lockdowns; and the de-authorization of anything made according to the previous OGL."
That wasn't racism driven, that was greed driven.
Seems just as easy to argue that the 3pp’s were the ones being greedy. They get to profit off work derived from someone else and piggyback on 50 years of brand recognition without paying for the privilege. WotC deciding they shouldn’t get a free ride seems, well, not greedy, but asking them to pay their way seems fair.
And it wasn’t every 3pp. There’s only a handful who hit that 750k cut off.
With the ogl and this, everyone keeps calling it greed, but seriously, they aren’t running a charity here. It’s a for-profit, publicly traded business. They have a legal obligation to produce value for their shareholders, and what’s more, they have bills and salaries to pay. And those expenses keep going up. Why are people shocked that they want, actually no, they need, to make money? I don’t like losing piecemeal options, but it’s not greedy; it’s just running a business.
A business that wants to keep making money for it's shareholders needs to continue to be the best option for what they're providing. If you eat too much of your own tail in the process of trying to make the number go up you can end up losing more money than the stunt gains.
The fact of the matter is that a book-driven system is one of the easiest things in the world to pirate. Not only that, this is a game you can play entirely agnostic of any kind of system if you really wanted to. This is a property that needs more than ever to be the most attractive and flexible version of what it's trying to do.
I cannot afford to buy whole books. I really dislike this idea of getting rid of a la carte purchases. It will see less money from me.
It would be a compromise I think if they charged for specific elements according to demand. For example, Eberron is $30, but it's the artificer class that is arguably the most popular thing, but the class itself was super cheap. They could easily charge $20 just for the class itself, which in turn would incentivize people to justify "oh well it's just $10 more for all this other stuff, I think I'll buy the whole book".
But getting rid of a la carte purchases forces people to buy whole books, which I often cannot afford. Incentivizing people to buy the book/bundle is so much better than forcing people to buy it.
You say this as if whatever it would cost to implement it wouldn't pay for itself almost immediately. Clearly there's a market for this, look at the level of outcry when they took it away.
It takes a lot of small purchases to be significant, and it's not actually a small cost. Let's say that 95% of the people currently paying $1.99 for a single item instead buy nothing, and 5% will pay $29.99. That's a net loss of $0.50 per. Now, assume it takes $5,000 in developer time to add the feature. They need 10,000 sales to break even.
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I originally came to D&D Beyond as someone who, though I'd played D&D a long time ago (3.5e) had wanted to try and get into 5e and heard a lot about D&D Beyond from places like Critical Role. So I came to check out the website, found it easy to use, and was able to quickly create a couple of character ideas using the free SRD content.
But I quickly became interested in what my other options were, and when I finally got a chance to play 5e with a group I bought my own physical Player's Handbook and wanted to start using those options digitally to easily try out specific ideas I had.
I would not have done so had I needed to re-buy the entire book digitally.
IIRC Roll20 didn't have any officially licensed content at the time; it was a much more complex set of tools with a much steeper learning curve to using it, and I needed to add third party D&D 5e character sheets, which I still mostly had to fill in myself like I would using pen and paper. Even now I don't find Roll20 particularly easy to use, I've mostly got the hang of it through perseverance but I've never felt it was easy enough to recommend to my groups when the main difference was support for maps, which we could get more easily elsewhere (owlbear.rodeo at the time, now D&D Beyond has its own simpler Maps tools).
While I didn't specifically come to D&D Beyond because of the piecemeal purchasing option, it's a huge part of why I now own as much content as I do, because I simply wouldn't have bought any in the first place if I had to buy it all as entire books. And that's not because I can't afford to buy the books; but if I'm going to buy a full book I will do so as a physical copy from my local games store, because I just don't enjoy reading larger amounts of text in digital form so I don't see the value in compendium content most of the time.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Personally, I am here because D&D Beyond offered the best, easiest character creation tools. I regularly introduce new folks to the game - simple, easy tools are important to reducing the barrier to entry for new players. I also have no interest in using a VTT - even my online campaign, I run using an overhead camera and physical miniatures and terrain. Even without piecemeal purchases, I likely would still have chosen D&D Beyond.
That said, piecemeal purchases were a big part of my initial investment in this site. While I bought a number books outright in my first couple days of purchases, I also purchased the price-equivalent of four additional books just through piecemeal purchases. Most of those came from adventures I had no intention of running, since I exclusively homebrew campaigns—I would not have bought the books just for dipping my toes into the new system, and only wanted the things I actually needed when starting out.
As I have said on this thread before, piecemeal purchases were probably not instrumental to my usage of the site - and they certainly are not all that important to me personally now, as I just preorder the full books outright. But, when I first started, they were a helpful way to get me to spend money on products I otherwise had no interest in. Admittedly, however, I expect my piecemeal purchasing was outside of the norm - I expect most people buy just what they need, rather than used piecemeal to satisfy a bit of a completionist attitude.
not a separate thread for this?
personally, after a long absence (2e, 4e, then nothing) i was looking for digital rpg books to read through for simple enjoyment. we'd just had another kid and regular boardgame night went up in smoke, replaced with regular late night diaper changes and irregular times to read. i'd used drivethruRPG and Humble Bundle before so i knew there were options, but i was looking for something closer to Kindle. with no group to tell me otherwise, i decided Roll20 looked too plastic and flimsy whereas DDB was more comfortable. after trying out the DDB app with search i was hooked. Roll20 continues to look "too plastic," which i completely admit is a comment on shallow aesthetics rather than depth of utility. it comes down to trusting that the database will be around a long time and DDB looked like it had a better prospect for that. the ogl leaked draft debacle didn't seem to threaten my DDB purchases, however removing ala carte without warning hits way closer to that investment. i'll happily go back to paper before i try to split my time between this and some other digital platform. shrug.
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!
I got into DDB when I wasn't looking for a VTT. DDB seemed more intuitive and less buggy that Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, easier to use all round. The content sharing was also key. I was definitely one of those parents who recognized Zoom D&D as a great outlet for kids in lockdown, so when that happened, I legendary bundled and opened up content sharing for my campaigns, which were mostly the kids and their school friends and parents.
These days, I play more non D&D than D&D, and had been playing in person; but am investing in Foundry because 1.) of a really good deal I came across on Alien Day, 2.) Foundry seems to be a sort designers VTT in its ability to allow GMs to tweak and invent rules and modules and 3.) I'm six days into Covid where while I'm ok, it's a PITA and has me rethinking how often I head out to play in person (I've already had to cancel two sessions and probably a third if the progress goes the way it's gone) pending available wastewater data etc. I was on the fence about early adopting D&D 2024. I already started a Pathfinder subscription with its rules refresh (only because the cover version I prefer isn't carried by any of the FLGS I go to after the first two core books came out) and am liking it. The elimination of a la carte purchases might have been the nail in the coffin of my brand/fan loyalty. I've got a good set of 5e books, I'm reading the early access Vecna to see if I buy it myself to round it out. The new core, I'll just wait and see, maybe eventually getting a cased set once that's out, but I got enough to play with over the next year, over many years for that matter, whenever I run D&D now anyway.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
VTTs like Roll20 don't really work for in-person physical play, as they're not designed for that. DDB for many (at least originally) replaced the typical paper character sheet. I am here on DDB because it's an easy to use character designer and campaign manager. It just sped up getting games going and eases leveling up, and is better for onboarding new players. I think it's still used largely for that, though some use it in VTTs now too with extensions, importers and such. I honestly would hazard a guess that many players who have gotten into the hobby in the last few years probably can't even build a character sheet anymore.
I'm curious as to your point and your views and why you ask the question..?
DM subscriber since I joined this website. Ended my subscription June 2024 due to the removal of individual purchases. Was the only reason I ever bothered with this website. I use it for character building for my players and occasional referencing. I don't want digital books that can be removed whenever the company sees fit.
January 2025: seems it was a correct move. They're removing 2014 content that we paid for in lieu of their new version of the game. You only rent content on here, never own.
I had used Roll20 lightly in the past and found it a bit cumbersome. My friend brought up how nice D&D Beyond was and I was sold. The character creation and tracking is second to none. Honestly, it is really nice. Then, once I found out that you could buy more content for pretty cheap without having to buy the entire book, I was pretty sold on that. D&D had always felt a little prohibitively expensive to me, and I didn't want to even fumble around with pirated PDFs because it would be sifting through a bunch of stuff I didn't need just to get to what I did need (which is similar to the expense issue). I have no desire to run pre-written campaigns in pre-made settings, so I don't need anything beyond the actual gameplay content itself. There are a couple of books where I've just bought all of the digital content and that's it. Being able to buy a few things from one book and be immediately able to access them with the search function, in addition to the character sheet tracking and displaying all of the information you need, is PERFECT. Or, WAS perfect, I suppose.
The way it all cohesively works together and let me just buy only what I needed to made this THE best way to track characters for D&D. Now, it's only become harder, and if it's going to be harder then I may as well play either on a different website or a different game entirely. Pathbuilder for Pathfinder is also really nice, you know...
Thanks to Homebrew I was able to shim in the stuff I needed. Guess that will be the next thing that gets shutdown and then we will all just move to another platform at that point.
Time to do what fellow Helldivers did and vote with your wallets. Review bombs incoming ▲◄▼▼▼. More and more sites picking up on this and doing stories about it. Just keep posting negative reviews and giving out the info to other sites. Give other sites who are stepping up to help us, praise. Give out info to those other sites.
okay, imma say something controversial, but this seems like a good thing. to me at least this reads as people complaining about getting less over charged. if you want a feat/spell/class/race for most of the books it is cheaper to just get the whole thing or more expensive by pennies on the dollar, and if you want just one thing from one specific book the homebrew-maker is free, you can just make it. WotC did something not greedy for once, and everyone is *****ing and moaning like it's the ogl shit all over again? seriously https://dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/65453-so-i-just-realized-something-is-kinda-off-about is an old thread 2020, that spells out how overpriced individual things are, and again you can use the homebrew maker to just make feats/classes/etc anyway, so what's the big deal?
i brought up monsters of the multiverse and the new PHB as value for money for the new player buying a book (not a current player adding to their collection) as an alternative to buying species separately from different sources. i will admit i didnt think of the $10.99 but at that point whats the difference to buying the book considering thats half the contents (since its only 2 chapters - fantastical races and bestiary)...
so a player of 2014 expression of rules wants all the wizard stuff - lets say they get it all
who knows maybe one day they get tired of being a wizard and want to be a barbarian - how does owning all the wizard stuff help you become a barbarian?? just because people want one option today doesnt mean they will always only want that option
with the removal of half races brings the potential that monstrous species from monsters of the multiverse (or other sources) will fill the gap raising the core species above the current 7 or 8 in the 2014 phb (not including current half races). this also seems possible since PHB is for the player and the player wants options for characters
with each of the 12 core classes getting 4 subclasses each, thats 48 options - not including the artificer (since i doubted and hadnt heard anything on it not being added)
since they taking from other sources to update the PHB - it is a consolidation of information, if not everything is brand new and thats even better (again good value for money)
considering tasha's has the artificer (which you say wont be in the PHB) i assume it will stay for now - well atleast another year or two, however with alot of the aspects/mechanics of tasha's potentially making it into the new PHB and DMG (based of my understanding, could be wrong), then its possible its approaching legacy status just like other books
im just giving my thoughts and opinions just like any other part of the community, yet because they are opposite to others, mine then gets dismissed as a "incomplete" or that my understanding is lacking, or that im invalidating other segments of the community, where instead as part of the community, i just see things differently. we are all making speculations based of our own interpretations of whats been put forth.
simply put if you were dndbeyond/wotc what would influence you to remove piece-meal purchases?? (personally i see two reasons, considering the change in ownership of dndbeyond,)
1. technical limitations and complexity - which would take time to overcome (if this were the case i would personally wait until the new books are released before reintroducing piece-meal, before that seems pointless to me, rather have people work on other things)
2. financial viability (cost/revenue) - this becomes a possibility that its no longer a viable option to provide to customers. now if its no longer financially viable (losing more then whats put into it) for the company to provide, then it probably wont return unless its deemed financially viable (which i doubt since people have mentioned using it so they dont have to buy the book or continue on to complete it)
so i will keep to my previous conclusion and will refrain from voicing any further opinions and thoughts in the future
If you read the responses to that thread, the totality of responses essentially boil down to "You do not understand the piecemeal system." That is the exact same problem you have - not understanding the system.
Each piecemeal purchase - whether it was an individual item or an item bundle - decreased the total cost of the book. Buy a $1.99 subclass from a $29.99 book? The entire book now costs $28.00. Buy an item bundle for 12.99? The rest of the book costs $15.01. Eventually, the cost of the remaining book would be zero and you would end up with all the contents you did not purchase. So, even if it might look like a $29.99 book had thirty $1.99 options, the total cost of that book purchased piecemeal was never $59.70--it was still just $29.99.
So, if you only needed that subclass, you could spend $1.99 instead of having to pay $29.99--netting the customer a savings of $28.00. Change your mind? You are not "out" any additional money--you just have to pay the delta between what you already purchased and the total cost. That is the reality - piecemeal provided players an additional purchase option with zero downside to the player.
And, that is why folks are upset - they had a very beneficial option taken away from them. For some, they now have to choose whether an additional $28.00 is worth it for content that used to cost them $1.99.
Quite frankly, for most people here, this is probably worse than the OGL situation - the OGL issue really came down to Wizards saying "Hey, we would like to change our license so people will not use it for racism"... hardly the worst thing in the world for them to have done, especially after they just had a very real-world example of someone trying to use their game to spread hate. This is not some sympathetic harm that seems major, but in reality is really only going to hurt players who want to buy racist products--this is something that directly effects many people on this forum by eliminating of their purchase options.
While the initial conversations did talk about money, saying it was “every developer” is an exaggeration - only a small handful (I believe it was seven) of developers met the financial thresholds for payment.
But, more important than that - the financial elements were the first thing dropped by Wizards. Having negotiated my share of multimillion dollar contracts, here is a pretty well known fact in the legal community - the things you drop first in your negotiations are things that are not all that important to you. Usually they are things that are there to provide leverage to try and get what you want - a thorn you can remove to make the item you are after seem more palatable. And money makes for a great thorn - it is something easy to negotiate down on and has a tangible value - sometimes the more important things are closer to an all or nothing issue and can be hard to quantify.
Wizards abandoned the “please do not be racist with our stuff” thing last - they tried really hard to get the community to buy into it and abandoned every other fight (and even offered some juicy incentives) to try and get that element enacted. It was very clearly what they cared most about - and it is not hard to see why. The entire OGL thing followed right up on the heels of someone trying to release a racist version of Wizards Intellectual Property (Star Frontiers) - Wizards managed to kill that, because the product was not licensed… but it exposed a vulnerability insofar as, had Ernie Gygax done the same racist nonsense under the OGL, Wizards would have had little legal recourse.
The fact Wizards asked for money up front certainly looks greedy, particularly to laypeople who do not really engage in high-end contract negotiation. But, when you look at the totality of circumstances and the timeline of events, you’ll see that the “greed” component evaporated long, long before the “protect our product and our players from jerks like Ernie” element.
There is a perception that the OGL was a massive attack on the community - but in terms of actual effects, removal of piecemeal purchases probably has a far greater effect on the day-to-day lives of the individuals on this forum.
D&D Beyond's recent decision to axe piecemeal purchases from source books is a blatant attempt to squeeze more money out of its users. But what they fail to realize is that they're the ones losing out in the end. This move isn't just anti-consumer; it's a clear sign that D&D Beyond is shooting itself in the foot. By alienating loyal customers and discouraging piecemeal purchases, they're essentially pushing us to seek alternatives.
Here's the thing for me, I really do like purchasing the whole source book eventually. Get a piece here and there until I see a sale going on and that now means it's only maybe $10 to get the rest. SOLD, take my money! It's a tactic to get people to spend more when they saw next to the item that it was only like $7 because of 'discounts.' Yes, that discount being while the book is 20% off the rest is because you've already spent the other amount. It felt more like a deal because I wasn't dropping it all at once, and when on sale I'd still have the discounted amount for the total I spent. It encouraged me to get more along the way, why wouldn't I just throw in those magic items from that other source while I'm at it.
But now, the situation is even worse, especially with adventure settings. As a player in a Strixhaven game, I only needed access to the Owlin race and maybe a few items. But D&D Beyond's insistence on selling the entire adventure setting for a hefty price tag is ludicrous. I'm not about to shell out $30 for what should've cost me a fraction of that. Instead of making that small amount off of me, they won't make any money at all. So really, which is worse for the company?
I was even willing to shell out extra for the alternate covers of the next-gen books and separately buy the digital content. Now it seems like D&D Beyond is actively discouraging that. The only silver lining I can see in this mess is if they start including single-use codes for digital content with physical purchases outside of direct online bundles. Shrink wrap all new books, or like with TBoMT put it in a paper cover, so that a single use digital content coupon could be included.
So, while D&D Beyond may think they're being clever by forcing users into buying more than they need, the reality is they're only driving us away. And until they wise up and revert this decision, they'll continue to lose out on potential sales.
Because if you just leave every time a situation becomes disagreeable you'll never be able to improve anything.
The reality of a la carte purchasing is that a $1.99 purchase is not a big deal; Wizards probably looked at the amount of money they were getting off of a la carte purchase and the price to implement them in their new store and went "nah".
Seems just as easy to argue that the 3pp’s were the ones being greedy. They get to profit off work derived from someone else and piggyback on 50 years of brand recognition without paying for the privilege. WotC deciding they shouldn’t get a free ride seems, well, not greedy, but asking them to pay their way seems fair.
And it wasn’t every 3pp. There’s only a handful who hit that 750k cut off.
With the ogl and this, everyone keeps calling it greed, but seriously, they aren’t running a charity here. It’s a for-profit, publicly traded business. They have a legal obligation to produce value for their shareholders, and what’s more, they have bills and salaries to pay. And those expenses keep going up. Why are people shocked that they want, actually no, they need, to make money? I don’t like losing piecemeal options, but it’s not greedy; it’s just running a business.
You say this as if whatever it would cost to implement it wouldn't pay for itself almost immediately. Clearly there's a market for this, look at the level of outcry when they took it away.
A business that wants to keep making money for it's shareholders needs to continue to be the best option for what they're providing. If you eat too much of your own tail in the process of trying to make the number go up you can end up losing more money than the stunt gains.
The fact of the matter is that a book-driven system is one of the easiest things in the world to pirate. Not only that, this is a game you can play entirely agnostic of any kind of system if you really wanted to. This is a property that needs more than ever to be the most attractive and flexible version of what it's trying to do.
I cannot afford to buy whole books. I really dislike this idea of getting rid of a la carte purchases. It will see less money from me.
It would be a compromise I think if they charged for specific elements according to demand. For example, Eberron is $30, but it's the artificer class that is arguably the most popular thing, but the class itself was super cheap. They could easily charge $20 just for the class itself, which in turn would incentivize people to justify "oh well it's just $10 more for all this other stuff, I think I'll buy the whole book".
But getting rid of a la carte purchases forces people to buy whole books, which I often cannot afford. Incentivizing people to buy the book/bundle is so much better than forcing people to buy it.
It takes a lot of small purchases to be significant, and it's not actually a small cost. Let's say that 95% of the people currently paying $1.99 for a single item instead buy nothing, and 5% will pay $29.99. That's a net loss of $0.50 per. Now, assume it takes $5,000 in developer time to add the feature. They need 10,000 sales to break even.