I am relatively new to D&D Beyond and I had a quick question about WOTC materials being used in D&D Beyond. Okay, so first off, I know that D&D Beyond has several of the official WOTC D&D Books to purchase in order for the content contained within them to be used on D&D Beyond.
My issue is that I already have the physical copies of the books that I want to use to create characters and such that I have already purchased, so I wanted to ask the morality, ability, or even potential legality of simply using the resources that I have already purchased that are not on D&D Beyond and using the "Homebrew Creation" section to just add those rules/classes/races into D&D Beyond for myself and players(that would not be shared with the community). I have done a trial run of trying to do that with an Order of the Scribes Wizard from TCOE, and I saw that some red text appears saying that the material is too close to licensed material. Is it okay for me to continue using pre-purchased/resources from other places than D&D Beyond and homebrewing them in for private use in D&D Beyond?
Thank you for your time everyone, and feel free to ask for clarification on any part of the question you don't understand.
Not to worry, you may create homebrew to your heart's content and it will automatically be shared with your group in your DnDbeyond campaign.
When it tells you that material is 'too close to licensed material', it means you can't publish that homebrew to the community. You still may use it for your own characters, and give access to it to your campaign.
Not to worry, you may create homebrew to your heart's content and it will automatically be shared with your group in your DnDbeyond campaign.
When it tells you that material is 'too close to licensed material', it means you can't publish that homebrew to the community. You still may use it for your own characters, and give access to it to your campaign.
Okay, Thank you so much! I just wanted to make sure that doing so wasn't illegal or against this website policy. I suppose that makes sense copyright wise - since its not being used for monetary gain. Thank you for your time!
Well, since you asked about the morality. D&Dbeyond has created a platform and service which you find valuable. It is an entirely different company from WotC, so no one is double dipping. People worked to make this service and you are proposing to use it without paying for it. Dndbeyond has added a value. If you find it, well, valuable, you should pay them for their work.
Sure, there’s a loophole you can exploit, and I imagine lots of people do it, that doesn’t make it right.
And for the record, neither I, nor anyone I know works at either company.
I have found most people on this forum encourage homebrewing your own copies of official content if you do not wish to purchase them again. If it was against the T&Cs, broke copyright law or anything similar, I would expect the mods would have come down on it hard.
They certainly come down hard on any homebrew copies of official content which members try to make publicly accessible.
I can understand the feeling that this is a loophole, but I don't think it is. Given how often it is discussed, there is tacit approval from Fandom in the fact that nothing mentions that it is wrong in any way.
That said, back to the OP: If you wish to save yourself time, you can buy individual subclasses etc. IIRC they are around $2 each. This may be a better way to go than trying to rebuild everything as homebrew.
Do note that you would have to be a master tier subscriber to share that with your campaign, but you could ask your fellow players to buy their own subclass if they needed it.
Well, since you asked about the morality. D&Dbeyond has created a platform and service which you find valuable. It is an entirely different company from WotC, so no one is double dipping. People worked to make this service and you are proposing to use it without paying for it. Dndbeyond has added a value. If you find it, well, valuable, you should pay them for their work.
Sure, there’s a loophole you can exploit, and I imagine lots of people do it, that doesn’t make it right.
And for the record, neither I, nor anyone I know works at either company.
Okay, I kind of understand what you are saying, but I have already bought the books from WOTC, and I am not using the material for monetary gain.
Well, since you asked about the morality. D&Dbeyond has created a platform and service which you find valuable. It is an entirely different company from WotC, so no one is double dipping. People worked to make this service and you are proposing to use it without paying for it. Dndbeyond has added a value. If you find it, well, valuable, you should pay them for their work.
Sure, there’s a loophole you can exploit, and I imagine lots of people do it, that doesn’t make it right.
And for the record, neither I, nor anyone I know works at either company.
I'm pretty sure it works out in the end for DnDbeyond.
I myself started out with manually entering info from the books and eventually bought the Legendary Bundle here, and keep adding pre-orders for the cosmetics, and have a Master Tier subscription on top of that...
The issue wasn't whether or not you are allowed to (if its legal), I agree it seems you are, but I'm no lawyer, so what do I know. The issue I am addressing is whether or not its right (OP specifically asked if it was moral). Let me try to put my original point another way. You are not paying dndbeyond for the content, you are paying them for the service.
You could quite easily download a blank character sheet from the Internet, or even just use a piece of scrap paper and write down everything your character does, just like we used to do in the old days. Dndbeyond provides a service that makes it easier. If you have a hard copy of the PHB, you already know how cure wounds works; you're not paying for dndbeyond for that. You're paying them for being able to put in your ability scores, make a choice from a drop down menu, and have cure wounds pop up on your character sheet with all of the relevant modifiers included (not to mention the full text of the spell, in case you need a reminder on how it works), and even populate what happens if you want to cast it at higher levels. You're paying to be able to click a button to record how many times you cast it (and roll the dice, and do all the math for you if you like). To click a button to spend hit die on a short rest. To track if you used your channel divinity. To remember how many of those limited resources you've used when you start the next session a week or two later, sometimes mid-combat, and don't remember yourself. To click a different button take a long rest, and have everything refreshed for you. To track your inventory and add the relevant modifiers when you use magical gear. Etc., etc.
Someone made this service that lets you do all those things. If you find it valuable, I believe you should pay for it.
To the OP, in all degrees of "righteousness," you are in fact free to use the homebrew access to load up stuff from your physical books for personal use (if you have a content sharing tier, folks in your campaigns can access them too). You just can't press that "publish" button that would make your homebrew publicly searchable and adoptable. I"m a legendary bundle owner and master tier subscriber myself, but I'm actually thinking of trying out home brewing what I want from the new Ravensloft book, largely as a way to get me more adept at home brewing.
One caveat. You can't homebrew the Artificer, so if that's a class you want in your game, you'll have to at least buy one Artificer subclass, and then you can homebrew the remaining. Another thing, I'm not too certain on and maybe others could speak to is spell access. I believe you'll only have access to the spells in the basic rules, which I don't believe are inclusive of all spells in the PHB, let alone Xanathar's and Tasha's. Same for magic items but DMB, X and T. My guess is that would probably be the most tedious aspect of going homebrew everything, but if you're willing to put in the time, there's nothing within the policy or design of the system that will prevent you. There is a very active homebrew subforum on this site and there are quite a few active posters who do tutor new home brewers, so you'll have community support I believe if you hit any bumps.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well, since you asked about the morality. D&Dbeyond has created a platform and service which you find valuable. It is an entirely different company from WotC, so no one is double dipping. People worked to make this service and you are proposing to use it without paying for it. Dndbeyond has added a value. If you find it, well, valuable, you should pay them for their work.
Sure, there’s a loophole you can exploit, and I imagine lots of people do it, that doesn’t make it right.
And for the record, neither I, nor anyone I know works at either company.
Okay, I kind of understand what you are saying, but I have already bought the books from WOTC, and I am not using the material for monetary gain.
WotC and DnDbeyond are not the same company, and DnDbeyond is not selling the books, but a digital way to access the content.
That being said, DnDbeyond is trying their best to include the community, they produce articles and guides, and this forum is hosted and moderated by them.
They are also a business, and offer their services and products for monetary gain.
Considering that they are able to determine when homebrew is a copy or similar to official rules, and them allowing you to continue to use it for your own games and even share it in your campaigns, means they are purposefully permitting you to do so.
Regarding morality, I judge this as amoral, meaning neither moral, nor immoral.
If you are enjoying the product/service, and you are able to afford it, consider purchasing. I think it is a very smart thing for DnDbeyond to offer, as it generates good-will towards the company, and fosters brand loyalty. That worked for me.
I also think that the smart people in finance have crunched the numbers, and taken the 'free' drain on the resources and balanced it with the rest of the running costs, added a healthy profit margin and folded it into the sales price.
Well, since you asked about the morality. D&Dbeyond has created a platform and service which you find valuable. It is an entirely different company from WotC, so no one is double dipping. People worked to make this service and you are proposing to use it without paying for it. Dndbeyond has added a value. If you find it, well, valuable, you should pay them for their work.
Sure, there’s a loophole you can exploit, and I imagine lots of people do it, that doesn’t make it right.
And for the record, neither I, nor anyone I know works at either company.
Okay, I kind of understand what you are saying, but I have already bought the books from WOTC, and I am not using the material for monetary gain.
WotC and DnDbeyond are not the same company, and DnDbeyond is not selling the books, but a digital way to access the content.
That being said, DnDbeyond is trying their best to include the community, they produce articles and guides, and this forum is hosted and moderated by them.
They are also a business, and offer their services and products for monetary gain.
Considering that they are able to determine when homebrew is a copy or similar to official rules, and them allowing you to continue to use it for your own games and even share it in your campaigns, means they are purposefully permitting you to do so.
Regarding morality, I judge this as amoral, meaning neither moral, nor immoral.
If you are enjoying the product/service, and you are able to afford it, consider purchasing. I think it is a very smart thing for DnDbeyond to offer, as it generates good-will towards the company, and fosters brand loyalty. That worked for me.
I also think that the smart people in finance have crunched the numbers, and taken the 'free' drain on the resources and balanced it with the rest of the running costs, added a healthy profit margin and folded it into the sales price.
Okay. I believe I will go forth and homebrew the things that I need then, since I'm fine with such actions being amoral. If I ever do have enough money to purchase the content on D&D Beyond, I will. But for now, I've drained all my monetary resources on the physical copies. I feel like I've given everyone(including the mods)time to say their peice, so if they aren't okay with it, then they really should have said something. Thank you all for your help!
Dear Forum Users,
I am relatively new to D&D Beyond and I had a quick question about WOTC materials being used in D&D Beyond. Okay, so first off, I know that D&D Beyond has several of the official WOTC D&D Books to purchase in order for the content contained within them to be used on D&D Beyond.
My issue is that I already have the physical copies of the books that I want to use to create characters and such that I have already purchased, so I wanted to ask the morality, ability, or even potential legality of simply using the resources that I have already purchased that are not on D&D Beyond and using the "Homebrew Creation" section to just add those rules/classes/races into D&D Beyond for myself and players(that would not be shared with the community). I have done a trial run of trying to do that with an Order of the Scribes Wizard from TCOE, and I saw that some red text appears saying that the material is too close to licensed material. Is it okay for me to continue using pre-purchased/resources from other places than D&D Beyond and homebrewing them in for private use in D&D Beyond?
Thank you for your time everyone, and feel free to ask for clarification on any part of the question you don't understand.
View my Homebrew Here:
Spells | Monsters | Magic Items | Races
Not to worry, you may create homebrew to your heart's content and it will automatically be shared with your group in your DnDbeyond campaign.
When it tells you that material is 'too close to licensed material', it means you can't publish that homebrew to the community. You still may use it for your own characters, and give access to it to your campaign.
More Interesting Lock Picking Rules
Okay, Thank you so much! I just wanted to make sure that doing so wasn't illegal or against this website policy. I suppose that makes sense copyright wise - since its not being used for monetary gain. Thank you for your time!
View my Homebrew Here:
Spells | Monsters | Magic Items | Races
Well, since you asked about the morality. D&Dbeyond has created a platform and service which you find valuable. It is an entirely different company from WotC, so no one is double dipping. People worked to make this service and you are proposing to use it without paying for it.
Dndbeyond has added a value. If you find it, well, valuable, you should pay them for their work.
Sure, there’s a loophole you can exploit, and I imagine lots of people do it, that doesn’t make it right.
And for the record, neither I, nor anyone I know works at either company.
I have found most people on this forum encourage homebrewing your own copies of official content if you do not wish to purchase them again. If it was against the T&Cs, broke copyright law or anything similar, I would expect the mods would have come down on it hard.
They certainly come down hard on any homebrew copies of official content which members try to make publicly accessible.
I can understand the feeling that this is a loophole, but I don't think it is. Given how often it is discussed, there is tacit approval from Fandom in the fact that nothing mentions that it is wrong in any way.
That said, back to the OP: If you wish to save yourself time, you can buy individual subclasses etc. IIRC they are around $2 each. This may be a better way to go than trying to rebuild everything as homebrew.
Do note that you would have to be a master tier subscriber to share that with your campaign, but you could ask your fellow players to buy their own subclass if they needed it.
Okay, I kind of understand what you are saying, but I have already bought the books from WOTC, and I am not using the material for monetary gain.
View my Homebrew Here:
Spells | Monsters | Magic Items | Races
I'm pretty sure it works out in the end for DnDbeyond.
I myself started out with manually entering info from the books and eventually bought the Legendary Bundle here, and keep adding pre-orders for the cosmetics, and have a Master Tier subscription on top of that...
More Interesting Lock Picking Rules
The issue wasn't whether or not you are allowed to (if its legal), I agree it seems you are, but I'm no lawyer, so what do I know. The issue I am addressing is whether or not its right (OP specifically asked if it was moral). Let me try to put my original point another way. You are not paying dndbeyond for the content, you are paying them for the service.
You could quite easily download a blank character sheet from the Internet, or even just use a piece of scrap paper and write down everything your character does, just like we used to do in the old days. Dndbeyond provides a service that makes it easier. If you have a hard copy of the PHB, you already know how cure wounds works; you're not paying for dndbeyond for that. You're paying them for being able to put in your ability scores, make a choice from a drop down menu, and have cure wounds pop up on your character sheet with all of the relevant modifiers included (not to mention the full text of the spell, in case you need a reminder on how it works), and even populate what happens if you want to cast it at higher levels. You're paying to be able to click a button to record how many times you cast it (and roll the dice, and do all the math for you if you like). To click a button to spend hit die on a short rest. To track if you used your channel divinity. To remember how many of those limited resources you've used when you start the next session a week or two later, sometimes mid-combat, and don't remember yourself. To click a different button take a long rest, and have everything refreshed for you. To track your inventory and add the relevant modifiers when you use magical gear. Etc., etc.
Someone made this service that lets you do all those things. If you find it valuable, I believe you should pay for it.
To the OP, in all degrees of "righteousness," you are in fact free to use the homebrew access to load up stuff from your physical books for personal use (if you have a content sharing tier, folks in your campaigns can access them too). You just can't press that "publish" button that would make your homebrew publicly searchable and adoptable. I"m a legendary bundle owner and master tier subscriber myself, but I'm actually thinking of trying out home brewing what I want from the new Ravensloft book, largely as a way to get me more adept at home brewing.
One caveat. You can't homebrew the Artificer, so if that's a class you want in your game, you'll have to at least buy one Artificer subclass, and then you can homebrew the remaining. Another thing, I'm not too certain on and maybe others could speak to is spell access. I believe you'll only have access to the spells in the basic rules, which I don't believe are inclusive of all spells in the PHB, let alone Xanathar's and Tasha's. Same for magic items but DMB, X and T. My guess is that would probably be the most tedious aspect of going homebrew everything, but if you're willing to put in the time, there's nothing within the policy or design of the system that will prevent you. There is a very active homebrew subforum on this site and there are quite a few active posters who do tutor new home brewers, so you'll have community support I believe if you hit any bumps.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I’ve seen mods saying that homebrewing things is ok (I’m pretty sure it was Stormknight?), so you’re fine.
WotC and DnDbeyond are not the same company, and DnDbeyond is not selling the books, but a digital way to access the content.
That being said, DnDbeyond is trying their best to include the community, they produce articles and guides, and this forum is hosted and moderated by them.
They are also a business, and offer their services and products for monetary gain.
Considering that they are able to determine when homebrew is a copy or similar to official rules, and them allowing you to continue to use it for your own games and even share it in your campaigns, means they are purposefully permitting you to do so.
Regarding morality, I judge this as amoral, meaning neither moral, nor immoral.
If you are enjoying the product/service, and you are able to afford it, consider purchasing. I think it is a very smart thing for DnDbeyond to offer, as it generates good-will towards the company, and fosters brand loyalty. That worked for me.
I also think that the smart people in finance have crunched the numbers, and taken the 'free' drain on the resources and balanced it with the rest of the running costs, added a healthy profit margin and folded it into the sales price.
More Interesting Lock Picking Rules
Okay. I believe I will go forth and homebrew the things that I need then, since I'm fine with such actions being amoral. If I ever do have enough money to purchase the content on D&D Beyond, I will. But for now, I've drained all my monetary resources on the physical copies. I feel like I've given everyone(including the mods)time to say their peice, so if they aren't okay with it, then they really should have said something. Thank you all for your help!
View my Homebrew Here:
Spells | Monsters | Magic Items | Races