they could just have the code printed on ur receipt like they did with phone top up
This requires gaming stores to use a POS (Point of Sale) system that runs just the right software to connect to the D&D Beyond servers and automatically request codes be generated on the fly on a purchase. This would require D&D Beyond create a secure code generation API that can only be accessed by authorised POS systems that can prove the validity of the transaction. This system would be expensive because it'd require gaming stores to replace their POS system, or even buy one; many gaming stores don't operate using a POS system, but using an off the shelf application (or even sheets or excel) and white label EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale) system like square, sumup or iZettle. To give you some perspective, a Square unit is about $25 + fees, and google sheets for sales logging and inventory is free. A basic POS system can be several thousand dollars.
This isn't even looking at the costs this would create for D&D Beyond trying to open up an API for their code generation system securely. So you've got gaming stores footing more costs for an upgraded, likely bespoke POS software system, D&D Beyond footing more costs for a secure API purchase callback system, and someone footing more costs (be it Wizards, D&D Beyond, or you, the consumer) for bundling the books together. Ultimately this approach would be an everyone loses type deal.
Yeah everyone loses except the customer. That is the point.
Except doing all this would drive up costs on all ends, inflating prices for the customer, who then also loses as well.
Well it doesn't have to be completely free. Maybe it could be actually a discount that will lower the money that Wizards are double, tripple, quadrupple dipping. So each platform actually gets their money, INCLUDING wizards but wizards do not get it multiple times.
they could just have the code printed on ur receipt like they did with phone top up
This requires gaming stores to use a POS (Point of Sale) system that runs just the right software to connect to the D&D Beyond servers and automatically request codes be generated on the fly on a purchase. This would require D&D Beyond create a secure code generation API that can only be accessed by authorised POS systems that can prove the validity of the transaction. This system would be expensive because it'd require gaming stores to replace their POS system, or even buy one; many gaming stores don't operate using a POS system, but using an off the shelf application (or even sheets or excel) and white label EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale) system like square, sumup or iZettle. To give you some perspective, a Square unit is about $25 + fees, and google sheets for sales logging and inventory is free. A basic POS system can be several thousand dollars.
This isn't even looking at the costs this would create for D&D Beyond trying to open up an API for their code generation system securely. So you've got gaming stores footing more costs for an upgraded, likely bespoke POS software system, D&D Beyond footing more costs for a secure API purchase callback system, and someone footing more costs (be it Wizards, D&D Beyond, or you, the consumer) for bundling the books together. Ultimately this approach would be an everyone loses type deal.
Yeah everyone loses except the customer. That is the point.
Except doing all this would drive up costs on all ends, inflating prices for the customer, who then also loses as well.
Well it doesn't have to be completely free. Maybe it could be actually a discount that will lower the money that Wizards are double, tripple, quadrupple dipping. So each platform actually gets their money, INCLUDING wizards but wizards do not get it multiple times.
The problem here though, is that while you think they are dipping multiple times to screw you out of your money, the fact is they are offering the product on multiple fronts and allowing the customer to choose what format they would like it in. If you want physical and digital editions of the books, then that's your choice and you pay for those choices. Some people only want physical books, some only want digital, and some want either all or some of both. Nothing is stopping you from taking the physical books you buy and building everything in them with the homebrew tools, and it costs you nothing but some of your time. That's the same time the people at DDB had to put in to not only add all this information in, but also to cross link it and make it work with their toolset. That's not something you can do with any other digital stores that sell D&D products that I am aware of.
they could just have the code printed on ur receipt like they did with phone top up
This requires gaming stores to use a POS (Point of Sale) system that runs just the right software to connect to the D&D Beyond servers and automatically request codes be generated on the fly on a purchase. This would require D&D Beyond create a secure code generation API that can only be accessed by authorised POS systems that can prove the validity of the transaction. This system would be expensive because it'd require gaming stores to replace their POS system, or even buy one; many gaming stores don't operate using a POS system, but using an off the shelf application (or even sheets or excel) and white label EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale) system like square, sumup or iZettle. To give you some perspective, a Square unit is about $25 + fees, and google sheets for sales logging and inventory is free. A basic POS system can be several thousand dollars.
This isn't even looking at the costs this would create for D&D Beyond trying to open up an API for their code generation system securely. So you've got gaming stores footing more costs for an upgraded, likely bespoke POS software system, D&D Beyond footing more costs for a secure API purchase callback system, and someone footing more costs (be it Wizards, D&D Beyond, or you, the consumer) for bundling the books together. Ultimately this approach would be an everyone loses type deal.
Yeah everyone loses except the customer. That is the point.
Except doing all this would drive up costs on all ends, inflating prices for the customer, who then also loses as well.
Well it doesn't have to be completely free. Maybe it could be actually a discount that will lower the money that Wizards are double, tripple, quadrupple dipping. So each platform actually gets their money, INCLUDING wizards but wizards do not get it multiple times.
The problem here though, is that while you think they are dipping multiple times to screw you out of your money, the fact is they are offering the product on multiple fronts and allowing the customer to choose what format they would like it in. If you want physical and digital editions of the books, then that's your choice and you pay for those choices. Some people only want physical books, some only want digital, and some want either all or some of both. Nothing is stopping you from taking the physical books you buy and building everything in them with the homebrew tools, and it costs you nothing but some of your time. That's the same time the people at DDB had to put in to not only add all this information in, but also to cross link it and make it work with their toolset. That's not something you can do with any other digital stores that sell D&D products that I am aware of.
And I do not dispute that. What is terrible is Wizards are the ones that are double dipping.
I personally would like the ability to get access online, for the physical books I own. I recognise that that is not recognising the hard work online people do (digital doesnt mean free, as someone else said)
For example. I have the physical Strixhaven book, it's in my room at university. I wanted to make a Bard (college of LoreHold) over christmas while at my parents' house....I must have spent 3 hours on here, "homebrewing" the college, using Wiki articles and memory, to eventually give up because I couldnt work out how to give my bard additional spells on top of the vanilla template (Lorehold college gives you Sacred Flame and Comprehend languages ON TOP of the spells remembered if you are Bard/Sorc, and lets you scribe them into your spellbook for no cost if you are wizard) and at one point at 3 copies of Sacred Flame as choice, but still couldnt pick more than 3 cantrips
I actually prefer physical books, to read and look stuff up, but trying to build a character when you dont have access to some of the quirks and addons that expanded universe gives you is a pain in the ass
I personally would like the ability to get access online, for the physical books I own. I recognise that that is not recognising the hard work online people do (digital doesnt mean free, as someone else said)
For example. I have the physical Strixhaven book, it's in my room at university. I wanted to make a Bard (college of LoreHold) over christmas while at my parents' house....I must have spent 3 hours on here, "homebrewing" the college, using Wiki articles and memory, to eventually give up because I couldnt work out how to give my bard additional spells on top of the vanilla template (Lorehold college gives you Sacred Flame and Comprehend languages ON TOP of the spells remembered if you are Bard/Sorc, and lets you scribe them into your spellbook for no cost if you are wizard) and at one point at 3 copies of Sacred Flame as choice, but still couldnt pick more than 3 cantrips
I actually prefer physical books, to read and look stuff up, but trying to build a character when you dont have access to some of the quirks and addons that expanded universe gives you is a pain in the ass
Keep in mind that you can purchase things piecemeal. In this case, the Lorehold Initiate background, whatever bard college you wanted (there is no Lorehold college), and potentially some spells. Or do a combo of individual purchases and spells.
voicing your preference for a different option is fine, but having been around here since the beginning of DDB, I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that being able to redeem physical books to get access to them on here is never going to happen.
Why not put the redeem code on the receipt? Like when D&D and Nerds partnered up, you bought the product at the store scan the receipt on the website and got a digital product.
This website is not owned by the game’s publisher. The publisher doesn’t want to pay for it and they charge this website money for every license they distribute. You wanna take it up with someone, take it up with WotC. But that’s only gonna raise the MSRP per book from $50 to $80 to pay for it.
just make it an activation upon purchase like a gift card is.... its that simple
Let's ignore the whole "D&D Beyond isn't WotC" bit for a minute and the ensuring "who foots the cost of these combined purchases?" and instead look at the secondary effects of a suggestion like this that a lot of people overlook
This would require the PoSS (Point of Sale System) to support connecting to D&D Beyonds API (which DDB would need to develop and ensure it's secure enough to handle remote entitlement granting).
Now, if you're a small gaming shop whose PoSS is a couple of decades old till used for transaction and inventory management, or even more likely as things progress, a tablet with a wireless contactless reader and an inventory control app, this upgrade won't be possible. You'll need to be running a more robust, general purpose PoSS like the supermarkets use. Those things are expensive.
So now these local gaming stores have two options; refuse to offer point of sale activation of digital content and lose sales there, or pay through the nose to upgrade their PoSS and risk not recouping the losses.
Have you ever wondered why those activated gift cards are only carried by big stores and chains? It's because the infrastructure to use them is expensive. Smaller store still do handwritten gift cards that get signed off when you make a purchase.
It is now! What do we think this would mean for this topic, is it more likely that we'll see real book + dndb content bundled?
Still is not owned by Wizards. The sale is not finalized yet.
Most companies do not bundle their physical and digital products together, so I am extremely skeptical of Wizards bundling their physical and digital products together moving forward, and I am almost certain they are not applying any sort of discounts retroactively for past purchases either.
To be fair, Wizards is one of the rare companies that does occasionally bundle physical and digital products. I'm not sure if it was still happening, but for a while if you bought a physical pack of Magic: The Gathering cards, there would be a code inside that you could use to get a digital pack in MTG Arena.
Now, part of the reason that that worked is because MTG packs are sealed - you never have to worry about buying a pack where someone has already used your code. With DnD books (as with any book), a big part of physical marketing is the ability for a potential customer to open it and read a few pages - sealing it will absolutely cost you a non-negligible amount of sales. (source: I've worked in book sales)
If you're selling in bookstores and you want to deliver a digital add-on, you have a couple of options:
-Print the code in the book itself. Only really works if it's a reuseable code (like if you had a set of cheap dice on DnD Beyond and every code was the same, you might print that one code in every single copy of the book -- it'll say like, "go to dnd beyond and enter code FREEDICE for a set of free dice!" -- so if someone gets it without buying the book it's not a financial loss, but it does encourage book-buyers to try this other service. Could 100% see this happening post-merger, but it'll be on the level of the pre-order bonuses we see, just neat rewards that don't cost the company much - they wouldn't deliver digital books this way.)
-Put a slip of paper with a distinct, one-use code in the book itself and shrink-wrap it. This way it's obvious if tampering has occurred - back before digital game purchases were common, this was mostly how you'd see stuff like collector's edition bonuses delivered. The buyer, and ONLY the buyer, takes the book home, unwraps it, gets the code and uses it. I'd bet money that this ends up happening with Adventures to some degree, but not Sourcebooks; as I mentioned, book marketing relies quite a bit on customers being able to open the book and choose whether to buy it based on what they see inside, but adventures that come with foldout maps/handouts/etc sometimes come boxed up already.
-Partner with booksellers to deliver (or even generate) these codes when someone buys the book in question. Bad idea because of all the levels of co-ordination required: you need the bookstore to set up a system/rework their point-of-sale to do all this just for one book, you need the bookstore employees to do this properly when they need to without forgetting or giving away extra codes, you need to be able to legally sell these codes in any country you want to sell your books (and you WILL run into legal issues from country to country - see also Netflix's different catalogues), you need to make sure there's a support/verification system for customers who failed to get a code for one reason or another... It's just so many points of failure that I can't see it happening in any capacity.
The only case I can really see digital+physical working is with direct online orders. If WotC partnered with online booksellers, or sold through their own online store, they could automate a system where they give you a code on purchase at the same time that they ship the physical book. Critical Role did literally this with their Tal'Dorei Reborn supplement - order the book online, you get a PDF on the spot, and your physical piece arrives a few weeks later.
I think this is going to become way more common across the entire publishing industry in the wake of the Sanderson Kickstarter (not getting into that, but tl;dr there's recent evidence that selling ebook copies with physical books is a financially effective plan), but without knowing what proportions of WotC's sourcebook sales are from bookstores vs digital vs online stores, it's hard to say what the plan might be and whether it's a worthwhile investment for them.
College books had dvd's that were in a sealed cardstock envelope. Why can't those be used in the books. If the seal is broken, don't buy it. LGS's help promote and offer space to D&D players to play. Not offering codes in books to LGS is going to hurt their bottom line and they will eventually stop promoting the game.
College books had dvd's that were in a sealed cardstock envelope. Why can't those be used in the books. If the seal is broken, don't buy it. LGS's help promote and offer space to D&D players to play. Not offering codes in books to LGS is going to hurt their bottom line and they will eventually stop promoting the game.
Because ultimately that harms the LGS because now they have stock that they paid for that they can't sell because someone has already stolen the key
Well it doesn't have to be completely free. Maybe it could be actually a discount that will lower the money that Wizards are double, tripple, quadrupple dipping. So each platform actually gets their money, INCLUDING wizards but wizards do not get it multiple times.
The problem here though, is that while you think they are dipping multiple times to screw you out of your money, the fact is they are offering the product on multiple fronts and allowing the customer to choose what format they would like it in. If you want physical and digital editions of the books, then that's your choice and you pay for those choices. Some people only want physical books, some only want digital, and some want either all or some of both. Nothing is stopping you from taking the physical books you buy and building everything in them with the homebrew tools, and it costs you nothing but some of your time. That's the same time the people at DDB had to put in to not only add all this information in, but also to cross link it and make it work with their toolset. That's not something you can do with any other digital stores that sell D&D products that I am aware of.
And I do not dispute that. What is terrible is Wizards are the ones that are double dipping.
I personally would like the ability to get access online, for the physical books I own. I recognise that that is not recognising the hard work online people do (digital doesnt mean free, as someone else said)
For example. I have the physical Strixhaven book, it's in my room at university. I wanted to make a Bard (college of LoreHold) over christmas while at my parents' house....I must have spent 3 hours on here, "homebrewing" the college, using Wiki articles and memory, to eventually give up because I couldnt work out how to give my bard additional spells on top of the vanilla template (Lorehold college gives you Sacred Flame and Comprehend languages ON TOP of the spells remembered if you are Bard/Sorc, and lets you scribe them into your spellbook for no cost if you are wizard) and at one point at 3 copies of Sacred Flame as choice, but still couldnt pick more than 3 cantrips
I actually prefer physical books, to read and look stuff up, but trying to build a character when you dont have access to some of the quirks and addons that expanded universe gives you is a pain in the ass
Keep in mind that you can purchase things piecemeal. In this case, the Lorehold Initiate background, whatever bard college you wanted (there is no Lorehold college), and potentially some spells. Or do a combo of individual purchases and spells.
voicing your preference for a different option is fine, but having been around here since the beginning of DDB, I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that being able to redeem physical books to get access to them on here is never going to happen.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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Why not put the redeem code on the receipt? Like when D&D and Nerds partnered up, you bought the product at the store scan the receipt on the website and got a digital product.
Oh I didn’t notice thanks.
just make it an activation upon purchase like a gift card is.... its that simple
This website is not owned by the game’s publisher. The publisher doesn’t want to pay for it and they charge this website money for every license they distribute. You wanna take it up with someone, take it up with WotC. But that’s only gonna raise the MSRP per book from $50 to $80 to pay for it.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
There would be fraudulent redemption if the pirates were half as motivated as those who constantly ask for this to be implemented.
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Let's ignore the whole "D&D Beyond isn't WotC" bit for a minute and the ensuring "who foots the cost of these combined purchases?" and instead look at the secondary effects of a suggestion like this that a lot of people overlook
This would require the PoSS (Point of Sale System) to support connecting to D&D Beyonds API (which DDB would need to develop and ensure it's secure enough to handle remote entitlement granting).
Now, if you're a small gaming shop whose PoSS is a couple of decades old till used for transaction and inventory management, or even more likely as things progress, a tablet with a wireless contactless reader and an inventory control app, this upgrade won't be possible. You'll need to be running a more robust, general purpose PoSS like the supermarkets use. Those things are expensive.
So now these local gaming stores have two options; refuse to offer point of sale activation of digital content and lose sales there, or pay through the nose to upgrade their PoSS and risk not recouping the losses.
Have you ever wondered why those activated gift cards are only carried by big stores and chains? It's because the infrastructure to use them is expensive. Smaller store still do handwritten gift cards that get signed off when you make a purchase.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
https://dnd.wizards.com/news/announcement_04132022
It is now! What do we think this would mean for this topic, is it more likely that we'll see real book + dndb content bundled?
Not yet. The announcement is that WotC “is buying” DDB, not “has bought” DDB. The sale won’t be finalized for another 3-6 months.
As to your question:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/138274-now-that-ddb-is-joining-wotc-will-ddb-honor-new
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Still is not owned by Wizards. The sale is not finalized yet.
Most companies do not bundle their physical and digital products together, so I am extremely skeptical of Wizards bundling their physical and digital products together moving forward, and I am almost certain they are not applying any sort of discounts retroactively for past purchases either.
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 >
To be fair, Wizards is one of the rare companies that does occasionally bundle physical and digital products. I'm not sure if it was still happening, but for a while if you bought a physical pack of Magic: The Gathering cards, there would be a code inside that you could use to get a digital pack in MTG Arena.
Now, part of the reason that that worked is because MTG packs are sealed - you never have to worry about buying a pack where someone has already used your code. With DnD books (as with any book), a big part of physical marketing is the ability for a potential customer to open it and read a few pages - sealing it will absolutely cost you a non-negligible amount of sales. (source: I've worked in book sales)
If you're selling in bookstores and you want to deliver a digital add-on, you have a couple of options:
-Print the code in the book itself. Only really works if it's a reuseable code (like if you had a set of cheap dice on DnD Beyond and every code was the same, you might print that one code in every single copy of the book -- it'll say like, "go to dnd beyond and enter code FREEDICE for a set of free dice!" -- so if someone gets it without buying the book it's not a financial loss, but it does encourage book-buyers to try this other service. Could 100% see this happening post-merger, but it'll be on the level of the pre-order bonuses we see, just neat rewards that don't cost the company much - they wouldn't deliver digital books this way.)
-Put a slip of paper with a distinct, one-use code in the book itself and shrink-wrap it. This way it's obvious if tampering has occurred - back before digital game purchases were common, this was mostly how you'd see stuff like collector's edition bonuses delivered. The buyer, and ONLY the buyer, takes the book home, unwraps it, gets the code and uses it. I'd bet money that this ends up happening with Adventures to some degree, but not Sourcebooks; as I mentioned, book marketing relies quite a bit on customers being able to open the book and choose whether to buy it based on what they see inside, but adventures that come with foldout maps/handouts/etc sometimes come boxed up already.
-Partner with booksellers to deliver (or even generate) these codes when someone buys the book in question. Bad idea because of all the levels of co-ordination required: you need the bookstore to set up a system/rework their point-of-sale to do all this just for one book, you need the bookstore employees to do this properly when they need to without forgetting or giving away extra codes, you need to be able to legally sell these codes in any country you want to sell your books (and you WILL run into legal issues from country to country - see also Netflix's different catalogues), you need to make sure there's a support/verification system for customers who failed to get a code for one reason or another... It's just so many points of failure that I can't see it happening in any capacity.
The only case I can really see digital+physical working is with direct online orders. If WotC partnered with online booksellers, or sold through their own online store, they could automate a system where they give you a code on purchase at the same time that they ship the physical book. Critical Role did literally this with their Tal'Dorei Reborn supplement - order the book online, you get a PDF on the spot, and your physical piece arrives a few weeks later.
I think this is going to become way more common across the entire publishing industry in the wake of the Sanderson Kickstarter (not getting into that, but tl;dr there's recent evidence that selling ebook copies with physical books is a financially effective plan), but without knowing what proportions of WotC's sourcebook sales are from bookstores vs digital vs online stores, it's hard to say what the plan might be and whether it's a worthwhile investment for them.
Is the essential kit the one with the Lost Mine Of Phandelver?
It pronounced Den Sake. It is not Japanese.
Website character sheet not working fix (Hopefully)
Semi-Expert at homebrew, just ask for my help.
No. The Starter Kit is the one with Lost Mines of Phandelver. The Essentials Kit is the one with Dragon of Icespire Peak.
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 >
College books had dvd's that were in a sealed cardstock envelope. Why can't those be used in the books. If the seal is broken, don't buy it. LGS's help promote and offer space to D&D players to play. Not offering codes in books to LGS is going to hurt their bottom line and they will eventually stop promoting the game.
Because ultimately that harms the LGS because now they have stock that they paid for that they can't sell because someone has already stolen the key
Find my D&D Beyond articles here