Do i have to purchase the Player's Handbook digital version to actually have all character options? If yes, this is ridiculous. Hero Tier doesn't add to it, right? Milking the cashcow twice.
Yes, you have to purchase the digital PHB to have the character options, or you can buy the bundles. The bundles do not give you the PHB, but they unlock the content in the toolset. Subscriptions do not unlock the content.
Do i have to purchase the Player's Handbook digital version to actually have all character options? If yes, this is ridiculous. Hero Tier doesn't add to it, right? Milking the cashcow twice.
You don't have to pay for the subscription to use the tools. But you do have to pay for the content. You can buy the bundles from the PHB or the entire PHB to get access to all character options.
Do i have to purchase the Player's Handbook digital version to actually have all character options? If yes, this is ridiculous. Hero Tier doesn't add to it, right? Milking the cashcow twice.
You don't have to pay for the subscription to use the tools. But you do have to pay for the content. You can buy the bundles from the PHB or the entire PHB to get access to all character options.
I understand, if i didnt buy a digital version of the player's handbook, i dont need it anyway (i have a real one in my hands). However, what bugs me a lot is restriction to character options. This basically makes the whole digital character management useless. Suppose, i manage my campaign over this site, each of my player needs to buy the digital phb because the SRD is too limited when it comes to class options etc. There isn't even a 'free' mode where you can just enter all of your stats, its totally guided by the system.
With the Master Tier subscription, you can share every digital content bought by you and any of your players.
Do i have to purchase the Player's Handbook digital version to actually have all character options? If yes, this is ridiculous. Hero Tier doesn't add to it, right? Milking the cashcow twice.
You don't have to pay for the subscription to use the tools. But you do have to pay for the content. You can buy the bundles from the PHB or the entire PHB to get access to all character options.
I understand, if i didnt buy a digital version of the player's handbook, i dont need it anyway (i have a real one in my hands). However, what bugs me a lot is restriction to character options. This basically makes the whole digital character management useless. Suppose, i manage my campaign over this site, each of my player needs to buy the digital phb because the SRD is too limited when it comes to class options etc. There isn't even a 'free' mode where you can just enter all of your stats, its totally guided by the system.
With the Master Tier subscription, you can share every digital content bought by you and any of your players.
This means it isn't a license issue. It is rather the best way to make the most money, because all people who bought the retail material have to buy it again. It is intellegible, that a great service like this has to get revenue in order to develop and provide high quality functions. Nevertheless, the payment model is intentionally flawed. I would pay for a subscription, if i could access all functions which are basically needed to manage just one unrestricted campaign for my players, without paying for all material again. You can only start on this site with buying atleast the PHB and Master Tier or each player buys it as well. The basic functionality of character management is with costs, therefore the entry as well. I am specifically not talking about the MM and DMG, because those aren't essential for running a game. Just leaving this here, because my friends told me the same, they aren't willing to pay again, so am i.
They don't have to pay anything if you invite them to your campaign (If you have master tier) haven't paid anything, yet since the guy that sent me the invite has, then I have all the ones he has automatically. I think you can have up to 12 people that share all the merchandise so they wouldn't have to buy anything. If you have the PHB, then they do too:)
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A player since the great Dawn War, I've seen every edition flash before my eyes. I've wandered the plateau of Mystara (before it was Mystara), had spiced elven tea with Dalamar, composed spells with Mordenkeinan, and walked the ruins of Myth Drannor with the great Elminster himself — though I believe he was a cat at the time —. The scrolls and books that I have read have filled me with intrigue and seeing all of the imaginative constructs that other people come up with give me great joy
Sorry, you failed your persuasion check (rolled a 6 on a DC10 challenge). You have FREE access to the SRD and Basic rules on PDF and DDB. You can actually run a game for free. Your complaint is that you have to pay for the more robust content, maybe multiple times. I for one am pleased to pay again for the convenience factor alone. The real loser may be your local game store as some of us will now only consider digital purchases.
Do i have to purchase the Player's Handbook digital version to actually have all character options? If yes, this is ridiculous. Hero Tier doesn't add to it, right? Milking the cashcow twice.
You don't have to pay for the subscription to use the tools. But you do have to pay for the content. You can buy the bundles from the PHB or the entire PHB to get access to all character options.
I understand, if i didnt buy a digital version of the player's handbook, i dont need it anyway (i have a real one in my hands). However, what bugs me a lot is restriction to character options. This basically makes the whole digital character management useless. Suppose, i manage my campaign over this site, each of my player needs to buy the digital phb because the SRD is too limited when it comes to class options etc. There isn't even a 'free' mode where you can just enter all of your stats, its totally guided by the system.
With the Master Tier subscription, you can share every digital content bought by you and any of your players.
This means it isn't a license issue. It is rather the best way to make the most money, because all people who bought the retail material have to buy it again. It is intellegible, that a great service like this has to get revenue in order to develop and provide high quality functions. Nevertheless, the payment model is intentionally flawed. I would pay for a subscription, if i could access all functions which are basically needed to manage just one unrestricted campaign for my players, without paying for all material again. You can only start on this site with buying atleast the PHB and Master Tier or each player buys it as well. The basic functionality of character management is with costs, therefore the entry as well. I am specifically not talking about the MM and DMG, because those aren't essential for running a game. Just leaving this here, because my friends told me the same, they aren't willing to pay again, so am i.
Before writing conclusions that are false, I would advise reading how this site and the payment model work.
1) You can run this site without any cost, using the SRD content. No need to pay anything or to subscribe. Things like homebrew management, campaign management, character builder are totally free.
2) Of course, there is a license issue. The Master Tier subscription grants a sharing of purchased content that is limited. A maximum of 3 campaign slots per account is allowed (each campaign has a maximum of 12 characters).
3) Becuase of the license of use and, in general, of the work necessary to create and run a service like this, the non-free content must come with a cost.
Do i have to purchase the Player's Handbook digital version to actually have all character options? If yes, this is ridiculous. Hero Tier doesn't add to it, right? Milking the cashcow twice.
You don't have to pay for the subscription to use the tools. But you do have to pay for the content. You can buy the bundles from the PHB or the entire PHB to get access to all character options.
I understand, if i didnt buy a digital version of the player's handbook, i dont need it anyway (i have a real one in my hands). However, what bugs me a lot is restriction to character options. This basically makes the whole digital character management useless. Suppose, i manage my campaign over this site, each of my player needs to buy the digital phb because the SRD is too limited when it comes to class options etc. There isn't even a 'free' mode where you can just enter all of your stats, its totally guided by the system.
With the Master Tier subscription, you can share every digital content bought by you and any of your players.
This means it isn't a license issue. It is rather the best way to make the most money, because all people who bought the retail material have to buy it again. It is intellegible, that a great service like this has to get revenue in order to develop and provide high quality functions. Nevertheless, the payment model is intentionally flawed. I would pay for a subscription, if i could access all functions which are basically needed to manage just one unrestricted campaign for my players, without paying for all material again. You can only start on this site with buying atleast the PHB and Master Tier or each player buys it as well. The basic functionality of character management is with costs, therefore the entry as well. I am specifically not talking about the MM and DMG, because those aren't essential for running a game. Just leaving this here, because my friends told me the same, they aren't willing to pay again, so am i.
People keep on seeing this as "paying again". It is not. It is paying the material in a different format, with different possibilities.
Aside from the fact that (and people still seem to fail in understanding this) DDB IS NOT DEVELOPED OR RUN BY WotC, therefore the company you are paying on DDB is not the one that made the original material and made you pay 50$ for the original hardback manuals you have in your hands, you do not even pay the content the same price as the paper version, you pay quite less, and have on top of the same content the full integration and convenience of the digital environment.
Just to make a comparison: you buy the album of a band (either digital or physical copy), would you then pretend to have free access to the live shows, because you bought the album? This is basically the same difference you have between the D&D physical books and DDB. They are two different mediums and they offer two different kinds of experience based on the same material, so you effectively have to give something for each, if you want both.
I genuinely fail to understand the "I have the physical books, I am entitled to have access to the same stuff on digital" line of thought. It would be like pretending to have the Audible version of a book that just came out because you bought the physical version of said book 3 years ago.
If you have a beef with the fact that WotC does not include a digital version of the books with the purchase of the hardback copy, go tell them, don't complain with Curse for doing what is totally in their right and it's actually a very viable business model, and one that actually offers content in a more accessible way and even discounted from the hardback version.
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I fully understand your points and i do not want to persuade anyone. Obviously, you are happy using this service and paying again for the material you already purchased in exchange for functional benefits. I just want to lay open my point of view and my reasons why i won't pay for the D&D content again in order to use the character management (a functionality of the system) which in the end leads to losing me and probably like minded people as customers and primarily as users.
Have a nice day!
What I do not really understand (and I lay bare my inability to do it as my own shortcoming) is what you would have expected from this.
What I mean is: would you have wanted a digital character sheet? would you have wanted a repository of all the manuals of D&D 5ed accessible through a subscription? would you have wanted a campaign management system with access to all the above?
I do not mean to come through as harsh or unnecessarily strong, but for the first point, there are several other option for customisable digital character sheets around, and in any case the exported version of the character sheet you can create here on DDB is fully customisable outside of DDB, so you could technically create the base character here, and then just add by hand the missing bits, without the need to buy a single book or subscription for anyone; the second point is quite a dream, but unfortunately not really a realistic one I am afraid; the third one is also quite unrealisable, imho.
So, again, my question is: what would you have wanted to use DDB for, exactly?
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I too just can't wrap my head around how this free access to content is supposed to work.
Let's say for the sake of simple math that the Player's Handbook costs $40 in stores and $20 on Beyond, with half going to WOTC and half to Curse. Let's assume that half of WOTC's $40 price on the physical PHB is profit, meaning they make $20 for a physical sale and $10 for a digital sale. Let's ignore the fact that there are millions of unverifiable purchases of the Player's Handbook already out there, for which there is absolutely zero reliable method of granting previous purchasers access, and focus solely on new sales of the PHB.
If every new copy of the PHB comes with a coupon for Beyond access for free, WOTC makes $40 instead of $50, which they may be fine with. But Curse loses $10 for each book WOTC sells, and it's a very real cost -- developing and maintaining the site is not free, and each additional user increases costs by some measurable amount. Moreover, because physical purchases would include digital content, there will be far fewer digital-only sales, because physical purchases are now much more attractive. In that system, Curse has no reason to do this at all. Sure, subscriptions, ads, and the remaining digital-only content sales might cover the service costs, but every time WOTC releases something new, Curse has to spend time and money adding it to the service, for which they see no added benefit from physical purchasers beyond their subscription/ad revenue. They have a disincentive to add new features and new content; if they even bothered to continue with the site under such a system, you can bet the pace of development would slow to a crawl.
Let's say instead that WOTC just decides to forego their cut and includes a $10 off coupon in the PHB, which you can now buy on Beyond for $10 when you buy a PHB. At first blush, this seems fairly reasonable: Curse still makes money when new content is added, and WOTC makes no less money than they would if there weren't digital tools. But of course the cost of printing and inserting unique coupons, as well as replacing copies in bookstores that have had their coupons stolen, is not zero. Also, their partnership with Beyond is overall less profitable for them, meaning that sales they lose to Beyond (i.e. people who purchase on Beyond but not physically) are no longer being offset by people who purchase both a physical copy and a digital copy. Beyond becomes something much less like a partner and something much more like a competitor, with each $10 digital-only sale now representing a $10 lost sale on the book, with no offsetting license revenue from those who purchase both physically and digitally. In this system (and also in the $20 coupon system, actually), WOTC has little incentive to license digital tools at all.
So what is WOTC -- who is in control of the licensing costs, after all -- losing out on by not offering digital coupons? Nothing. If you aren't going to purchase a digital copy for $20, they get $40 for the physical copy they sell you, the same as they'd get if they offered either a $10 or $20 coupon, but without the costs of the coupon program. In other words, if you would only use Beyond if it were free or subsidized, it's in WOTC's best interest for you not to use it. From WOTC's perspective, if they aren't going to produce digital tools in-house, there are two viable strategies: digital tools licensed as they are now, or no digital tools.
Curse, in the meantime, is somewhat along for the ride; it's WOTC's license, they're the only company Curse can license that content from, and there's no product without that license, so Curse more or less has to accept the terms offered. Even if an all-subscription no-purchase model would work for Curse, it's off the table. Even if Curse would be no worse off with half-off coupons in the books, it's off the table. Besides, the revenue streams they have make a great deal of sense: their cut from selling content covers the cost of developing content, and their revenue from subscriptions and ads covers the costs of maintaining the service. Each is directly tied to the costs it covers; if they get a million new users overnight, the increased subscription revenue covers the added cost. If WOTC goes nuts and releases ten books in one year, the increased content sales revenue covers the costs of digitizing them. It's a very flexible model.
I understand that "I already bought this so I should have access to it" certainly sounds appealing in terms of fairness, but it makes no economic sense for either company. If you aren't willing to pay for digital content, then you're not really a lost sale (you can't lose a $0 sale). WOTC will gladly sell you a physical copy and Curse will gladly sell you a subscription if you want to use free or shared content, but neither one really loses out if you were never willing to pay in the first place.
I am not going to say that new PHB should automatically come with a free copy for online access. But here is the complaint:
Hardcover books have a very high per unit cost before profit. So of the $30 they cost at Amazon, ~$20 of that isn''t going to Wizards or Amazon.
Data access has a much lower cost before profit. So of the $30 it costs at DnD Beyond, ~$5 of it isn't going to Wizards or Curse.
Add in the cost that to access your content without advertising costs another $30 a year.
Some of the frustration is being aimed at Curse as they are the first official digital means of access to content, when a PDF being included with the hardcovers would have cost less than a dollar and granted immense value for the end customer. This is 100% not Curse's decision or fault, but they are catching it because they are who Wizards are pointing customers to when customers ask "How can I access this content digitally?".
Hardcover books have a very high per unit cost before profit. So of the $30 they cost at Amazon, ~$20 of that isn''t going to Wizards or Amazon.
Data access has a much lower cost before profit. So of the $30 it costs at DnD Beyond, ~$5 of it isn't going to Wizards or Curse.
This is actually less of a factor than you might think; the cost of making and distributing hardcover books is only something like 10% of the sale price. (reference)
It does seem a bit weird that the subscription doesn't include any content. It's not really my place to consider your business model, but I wonder what it'd do if you would include the PHB with the basic subscription (while subscription is active) and the DMG and Monster Manual with the DM tier.
As someone "buying" digital goods, I'm acutely aware that my "purchases" don't really buy me anything permanent; I'm just paying for what I hope to be a long rental period before the service vanishes.
I am going to go ahead and tell you that there is zero percent chance that a book like the PHB 300+ pages roughly letter sized, full color (100% coverage, every page is brownish colors, not white) is $3. A regular novel? with 5% coverage per page (standard text layout) Yeah probably.
This stuff has been hashed over so many times I’m suprised that the mods don’t have a default link to post when a new one of these threads pops up every two or three days.
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GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links. https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole @BonusRole
Sure, probably more than 10% — but not necessarily a lot more. Meanwhile, don't underestimate the ongoing costs of providing digital content in the way it's being done here.
This stuff has been hashed over so many times I’m suprised that the mods don’t have a default link to post when a new one of these threads pops up every two or three days.
It has, but if people want to discuss it again, that's fine and entirely up to them.
I moved this entire conversation out of the Character Sheet feedback thread, as it was off-topic there.
A player since the great Dawn War, I've seen every edition flash before my eyes. I've wandered the plateau of Mystara (before it was Mystara), had spiced elven tea with Dalamar, composed spells with Mordenkeinan, and walked the ruins of Myth Drannor with the great Elminster himself — though I believe he was a cat at the time —. The scrolls and books that I have read have filled me with intrigue and seeing all of the imaginative constructs that other people come up with give me great joy
Sorry, you failed your persuasion check (rolled a 6 on a DC10 challenge). You have FREE access to the SRD and Basic rules on PDF and DDB. You can actually run a game for free. Your complaint is that you have to pay for the more robust content, maybe multiple times. I for one am pleased to pay again for the convenience factor alone. The real loser may be your local game store as some of us will now only consider digital purchases.
MadCar_1
It would be like pretending to have the Audible version of a book that just came out because you bought the physical version of said book 3 years ago.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I too just can't wrap my head around how this free access to content is supposed to work.
Let's say for the sake of simple math that the Player's Handbook costs $40 in stores and $20 on Beyond, with half going to WOTC and half to Curse. Let's assume that half of WOTC's $40 price on the physical PHB is profit, meaning they make $20 for a physical sale and $10 for a digital sale. Let's ignore the fact that there are millions of unverifiable purchases of the Player's Handbook already out there, for which there is absolutely zero reliable method of granting previous purchasers access, and focus solely on new sales of the PHB.
If every new copy of the PHB comes with a coupon for Beyond access for free, WOTC makes $40 instead of $50, which they may be fine with. But Curse loses $10 for each book WOTC sells, and it's a very real cost -- developing and maintaining the site is not free, and each additional user increases costs by some measurable amount. Moreover, because physical purchases would include digital content, there will be far fewer digital-only sales, because physical purchases are now much more attractive. In that system, Curse has no reason to do this at all. Sure, subscriptions, ads, and the remaining digital-only content sales might cover the service costs, but every time WOTC releases something new, Curse has to spend time and money adding it to the service, for which they see no added benefit from physical purchasers beyond their subscription/ad revenue. They have a disincentive to add new features and new content; if they even bothered to continue with the site under such a system, you can bet the pace of development would slow to a crawl.
Let's say instead that WOTC just decides to forego their cut and includes a $10 off coupon in the PHB, which you can now buy on Beyond for $10 when you buy a PHB. At first blush, this seems fairly reasonable: Curse still makes money when new content is added, and WOTC makes no less money than they would if there weren't digital tools. But of course the cost of printing and inserting unique coupons, as well as replacing copies in bookstores that have had their coupons stolen, is not zero. Also, their partnership with Beyond is overall less profitable for them, meaning that sales they lose to Beyond (i.e. people who purchase on Beyond but not physically) are no longer being offset by people who purchase both a physical copy and a digital copy. Beyond becomes something much less like a partner and something much more like a competitor, with each $10 digital-only sale now representing a $10 lost sale on the book, with no offsetting license revenue from those who purchase both physically and digitally. In this system (and also in the $20 coupon system, actually), WOTC has little incentive to license digital tools at all.
So what is WOTC -- who is in control of the licensing costs, after all -- losing out on by not offering digital coupons? Nothing. If you aren't going to purchase a digital copy for $20, they get $40 for the physical copy they sell you, the same as they'd get if they offered either a $10 or $20 coupon, but without the costs of the coupon program. In other words, if you would only use Beyond if it were free or subsidized, it's in WOTC's best interest for you not to use it. From WOTC's perspective, if they aren't going to produce digital tools in-house, there are two viable strategies: digital tools licensed as they are now, or no digital tools.
Curse, in the meantime, is somewhat along for the ride; it's WOTC's license, they're the only company Curse can license that content from, and there's no product without that license, so Curse more or less has to accept the terms offered. Even if an all-subscription no-purchase model would work for Curse, it's off the table. Even if Curse would be no worse off with half-off coupons in the books, it's off the table. Besides, the revenue streams they have make a great deal of sense: their cut from selling content covers the cost of developing content, and their revenue from subscriptions and ads covers the costs of maintaining the service. Each is directly tied to the costs it covers; if they get a million new users overnight, the increased subscription revenue covers the added cost. If WOTC goes nuts and releases ten books in one year, the increased content sales revenue covers the costs of digitizing them. It's a very flexible model.
I understand that "I already bought this so I should have access to it" certainly sounds appealing in terms of fairness, but it makes no economic sense for either company. If you aren't willing to pay for digital content, then you're not really a lost sale (you can't lose a $0 sale). WOTC will gladly sell you a physical copy and Curse will gladly sell you a subscription if you want to use free or shared content, but neither one really loses out if you were never willing to pay in the first place.
Dave
I am not going to say that new PHB should automatically come with a free copy for online access. But here is the complaint:
Hardcover books have a very high per unit cost before profit. So of the $30 they cost at Amazon, ~$20 of that isn''t going to Wizards or Amazon.
Data access has a much lower cost before profit. So of the $30 it costs at DnD Beyond, ~$5 of it isn't going to Wizards or Curse.
Add in the cost that to access your content without advertising costs another $30 a year.
Some of the frustration is being aimed at Curse as they are the first official digital means of access to content, when a PDF being included with the hardcovers would have cost less than a dollar and granted immense value for the end customer. This is 100% not Curse's decision or fault, but they are catching it because they are who Wizards are pointing customers to when customers ask "How can I access this content digitally?".
It does seem a bit weird that the subscription doesn't include any content. It's not really my place to consider your business model, but I wonder what it'd do if you would include the PHB with the basic subscription (while subscription is active) and the DMG and Monster Manual with the DM tier.
As someone "buying" digital goods, I'm acutely aware that my "purchases" don't really buy me anything permanent; I'm just paying for what I hope to be a long rental period before the service vanishes.
I am going to go ahead and tell you that there is zero percent chance that a book like the PHB 300+ pages roughly letter sized, full color (100% coverage, every page is brownish colors, not white) is $3. A regular novel? with 5% coverage per page (standard text layout) Yeah probably.
This stuff has been hashed over so many times I’m suprised that the mods don’t have a default link to post when a new one of these threads pops up every two or three days.
GM of The Bonus Role - We are playing a 5E game set in my homebrew world of Audra check us out Sunday's at 10 AM CST and follow us at the following social media links.
https://www.twitch.tv/thebonusrole
@BonusRole
Sure, probably more than 10% — but not necessarily a lot more. Meanwhile, don't underestimate the ongoing costs of providing digital content in the way it's being done here.
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