I have the original books and just pulled that info to fill in the blanks and so many blanks how they can publish a world book that is both adventure and campaign with such little information for the price is trash. But you are correct what they have been producing is garbage compared to what was done in the past.
I have the original books and just pulled that info to fill in the blanks and so many blanks how they can publish a world book that is both adventure and campaign with such little information for the price is trash. But you are correct what they have been producing is garbage compared to what was done in the past.
Which book? Are you talking about Dragonlance?
I haven't bought the adventure book + campaign yet, but I know some people that really liked it. One setting book can't cover anything if it's mostly just an adventure, and the fact that Wizards was even able to please people with that model is quite impressive. When you have a setting that has been in the game for what feels like eternity, you aren't going to please all the die-hard fans that have been waiting for an opportunity to play in Dragonlance for years.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
Dragonlance... the first one they put out was short and gave little information or outline to the world. They should have done a world book first and a short adventure. Then released the follow up adventures. Most of the material they release is hard to use for new DM's. If you release a campaign book the new DM should be able to run it by just reading it and they should give examples how to play each encounter as well as the NPC and Villain's.
Let me guess, this is based on another anonymous yet totally credible "leak."
You guessed correctly. D&D Shorts had his last two unconfirmed leaks get disproved, and he suddenly had one ready in his back pocket about how evil Chris Cao was planning to shut down D&D Beyond in favor of a Virtual Table Top with cool animations.
A large portion of the D&D community has responded to this (unverified rumor) by suggesting we boycott D&D Beyond. According to them, decreasing DDB's revenue will somehow show Wizards of the Coast that D&D Beyond makes too much money to dispose of.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
If you kill D&D beyond without compensation or moving our bought for digital books you will face a class action lawsuit for sure.
Let me guess, this is based on another anonymous yet totally credible "leak."
You say that like there's some other kind. People don't typically leak things non-anonymously, and leaks constantly turn out to be reliable after the fact.
Its unverified, and you can argue that the source is unreliable... but it definitely seems credible that DnD Beyond may be replaced at some point, and there's no guarantee materials will migrate to the replacement at not cost.
You say that like there's some other kind. People don't typically leak things non-anonymously, and leaks constantly turn out to be reliable after the fact.
Its unverified, and you can argue that the source is unreliable... but it definitely seems credible that DnD Beyond may be replaced at some point, and there's no guarantee materials will migrate to the replacement at not cost.
D&D Shorts' videos have not constantly turned out to be reliable. In fact, he messed up his last two anti Wizards "insider leaks" and had to apologize for "misunderstanding" his sources for some of the information he gave. Also, real people publish lots of disinformation and false conspiracy theories under their real names, so long as they aren't in legal trouble for anything.
The only reason you gave to believe Shorts' information is because you think it makes sense. However, shuttering a company you spent nearly 150 million dollars on acquiring simply doesn't make sense. I've said this before and I've said this again, some people may think Wizards of the Coast is evil, but that doesn't mean the company is run by idiots who don't have to do their job.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
They don't even need to make a *better* product. They just need to make a good enough product that people want to use it. With their massively bigger marketing budget combined with being able to give players the "OFFICIAL D&D VTT" to play on, they would have no problem getting millions of people into buying into their ecosystem.
They don't have to give you one fraction of a penny if they decide to discontinue this website. This has already been done by services like Nintendo who shut down the eshops for older platforms and have advised consumers that there would be no way to retrieve their purchases after a set date.
Wizards make fairly decent products. The only book I am unsatisfied with is S:AIS, and my dissatisfaction with that book has to do with the lack of content rather than the quality of content. Everything in S:AIS is fine, I just wish there was more of it, specifically Spelljammers and magic items, and a little more monsters would not hurt either.
As for the product line as a whole, my only complaint is that the content is in an absolute disorganized mess. I prefer my adventure books to be about adventures, monster books to be about monsters, player option books to be about player options, and so on (we need a magic item book, especially about ones that are cursed, since you do not want players to know a magic item is cursed by default). This is generally a relatively minor issue for me since I use Beyond, but if had to use physical books and I wanted to browse for monsters, going through monster books AND player option books AND adventure books would be an absolute pain in the ass. Or if you are a player and you do not want spoil yourself with GM content, well, good luck with that since almost every book has player content. I mean, I get that it is a good for sales for a book to cater to both GMs and players to have a little bit of everything, but if I did not use Beyond's database, I would be banging my head against the wall trying to reorganize all that information.
Let’s take a look at the past two years of products:
I do not play adventures, but I have only heard good things about Dragonlance, Witchlight, and the new starter set.
Radiant Citadel and Candlekeep are both great, providing DMs an excellent additional side missions for campings.
I heard good things about Netherdeep as well, and, while helmed by a third party, remains an official book.
Strixhaven, as an adventure, has some flaws, but as a sourcebook is a whole lot of fun.
MMM was the single most customer friendly product in years, consolidating a lot of things folks would have to spend a lot of money on, and drastically reducing the barrier to entry for DMing (and thus reducing the single largest barrier to entry for the entire game—finding a DM).
Fizban’s was a lot of fun with some great new monsters for the Dragons part of Dungeons and Dragons.
Van Richten’s was delightful, with great world building and some wonderfully horrific new monsters.
Really, over the past two years, the only product widely seen as a flop was Spelljammer, and that was largely a disappointment because it had been hyped up for decades and folks thought it underdelivered for its price. Overall, however, D&D has consistently been churning out some solid content for a while now.
You don't really seem to be in tune with the broader community. They couldn't give Strixhaven away and MMM was just a giant middle finger to everyone who had already purchased that content. Dragonlance sounds good but we both know the setting won't get any further support from WotC so what's the point??
And of course nothing you've said even addresses the fact that the 3PP are doing it all better. Soon, they'll be doing it all for other systems and D&D will be left with the B-team.
So, let’s assume you are right on Strixhaven (I think it’s failings had less to do with its quality and more the fact it was a Magic book for a brand new plane that hadn’t developed a cult following), and let’s casually accept the selfish argument of “I had to pay more money for stuff, therefore Wizards should not be allowed to make something that benefits future purchasers” as something other than completely ridiculous (speaking as someone who had purchased all the other books prior to MMM).
That still leaves a solid eight out of eleven is still a solid ratio. Might there be better third party content out there? Sure, probably. And that content will assuredly continue to exist, despite what all the folks who seem to think third party publishers will be happy sharing a minnow instead of a piece of a tuna might think.
But Wizards has been consistently delivering products that fit what numerous surveys indicate the majority of players actually want—a consistent baseline they can take and use in their homebrew worlds.
8 out of 11?? No!! Give me a break! I said Dragonlance sounded decent. Sounded.
The new starter set is just a big step back from the Essentials kit, the anthologies are all tied to a specific location; Fizban's was fine but let's be honest, half of that should have been in the MM; Van Richten's was fine but needed more focus on fewer locations. It's all just fine.
But I can get better than fine from 3PP. Because the 3PP don't have a brand name that people will buy regardless. This is the root of the problem. Thier product is in decline because their focus is shifting away from making a game, to monetizing an IP. And now they won't even have the 3PP support. Have fun with that.
I honestly don't think WoTC/Hasbro want to make a better product. I mean, they certainly don't want to create quality content - I imagine they do want a first grade VTT and whatever else they feel would motivate us to pay a subscription. But quality content never has been, and never will be produced by faceless, soulless corporations, and I think it shows an impressive level self-awareness to realise that that's not their forte.
It's my impression that WoTC/Hasbro (henceforth referred to as W/H) want a vibrant, active, creative community to pump out quality content and ideas to grow the fanbase - and then provide a platform for said community to show off their stuff, play games and so on. Read rules, store character sheets, bla bla.
The business model is then: Subscription for the platform, and license income from movies and computer games and whatever else they can get their dirty little mitts on. But not, crucially, the fan based (and to a certain degree, professional) quality content.
Tighten the screw too much, and you cut off the flow of content from those really talentet enough to make it. You really want some dedicated fan to make all the good stuff - adventures, monsters, classes, whatever - but you really don't want that guy or girl on your payroll, because making RPG stuff takes for absolute ever. It takes waayyy too long, and on a steady salary that just isn't profitable. Also, faceless, soulless corporations tend to kill off that dedication with deadlines, meeting and e-mails, editors and regular work hours.
On the other hand, leave the screw too loose, and all those VTT's, computer games and movies end up finding loopholes to publish their stuff without sharing with W/H.
But putting those intentions into contract language ... isn't easy. However, I'm active on a number of forums*, and I think I can put everyone's minds at ease: The outrage is really limited to a fraction of a fraction of all the fandom out there - if I had to guess, I'd say less than one in a thousand players or GM's have any clue that the OGL is. So while some may quit and find other games, the vast majority will go blissfully on, and most of the dedicated fans will actually stay and adapt.
After all, consider: If you don't like facebook, or twitter or instagram, there are plenty of alternatives - but really, we all want to be where the audience is the greatest. And DND really is the only game in town. All the others are out in the sububs, in a rundown garage.
* Point being, the discussion really is a lot more level-headed everywhere else I've seen it. Only here is it hotter than the center of the sun =)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Let’s take a look at the past two years of products:
I do not play adventures, but I have only heard good things about Dragonlance, Witchlight, and the new starter set.
Radiant Citadel and Candlekeep are both great, providing DMs an excellent additional side missions for campings.
I heard good things about Netherdeep as well, and, while helmed by a third party, remains an official book.
Strixhaven, as an adventure, has some flaws, but as a sourcebook is a whole lot of fun.
MMM was the single most customer friendly product in years, consolidating a lot of things folks would have to spend a lot of money on, and drastically reducing the barrier to entry for DMing (and thus reducing the single largest barrier to entry for the entire game—finding a DM).
Fizban’s was a lot of fun with some great new monsters for the Dragons part of Dungeons and Dragons.
Van Richten’s was delightful, with great world building and some wonderfully horrific new monsters.
Really, over the past two years, the only product widely seen as a flop was Spelljammer, and that was largely a disappointment because it had been hyped up for decades and folks thought it underdelivered for its price. Overall, however, D&D has consistently been churning out some solid content for a while now.
I couldn't disagree with you more. I think all of that was junk and mostly unusable for me. Can't say much about the starter set though.
I have the original books and just pulled that info to fill in the blanks and so many blanks how they can publish a world book that is both adventure and campaign with such little information for the price is trash. But you are correct what they have been producing is garbage compared to what was done in the past.
Exactly. I feel that a lot of people that defend this content were not around during the true golden era of resource material that was almost completely published in house. There was so much great stuff back then. Box set after box set, whole campaigns that were so detailed and fleshed out that you didn't need to fill in any blanks (you could add and customize to your heart's content, but you didn't need to). Monster manuals that actually had lore, ecology, sociology, how they fit into the world and ecosystem, tactics driving desires etc... I can't tell you how much I despise the simplistic bland monster manuals of 5E. Wotc puts out anemic content when it comes to magical items. I remember when TSR published a 4 tome set of every magical item with randomization charts to roll for. I still use those today. They did the same thing with the cleric and wizard spells. Those book sets saw more use than any other books I've ever owned. Their monstrous arcana series was the pinnacle of lore and atmosphere driven monster content. You had a whole book detailing an iconic monster (like illithid, beholder, or sahuagin) with all their lore, civilization, and history. Even dissected anatomy of the creatures. Then they went on to release a 3 module series for each that you could drop down into any generic fantasy world. They were beautiful.
Have the said DnD Beyond will be 100% compatible with the OndDnD? No.
Can we trust them even if they say it would be? No.
I don't need to trust them, I can just look at their actions. Have we heard from the D&D Beyond Devs lately? I used to remember weekly updates about that they were working on. No more so I expect Beyond is in maintenance mode as they prepare to move us to the VTT where only OneD&D stuff will be publish.
Here what I expect. OneD&D comes out and you are told to move to the VTT. Those who want to keep using 5e can but the forums here are turned off, features will be retired, servers less maintained so the site becomes slower and harder to use, slowly driving everyone to the VTT.
It's going to be a slow boiling of the frogs, not like a sudden turn site off.
I have the original books and just pulled that info to fill in the blanks and so many blanks how they can publish a world book that is both adventure and campaign with such little information for the price is trash. But you are correct what they have been producing is garbage compared to what was done in the past.
Which book? Are you talking about Dragonlance?
I haven't bought the adventure book + campaign yet, but I know some people that really liked it. One setting book can't cover anything if it's mostly just an adventure, and the fact that Wizards was even able to please people with that model is quite impressive. When you have a setting that has been in the game for what feels like eternity, you aren't going to please all the die-hard fans that have been waiting for an opportunity to play in Dragonlance for years.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Dragonlance... the first one they put out was short and gave little information or outline to the world. They should have done a world book first and a short adventure. Then released the follow up adventures. Most of the material they release is hard to use for new DM's. If you release a campaign book the new DM should be able to run it by just reading it and they should give examples how to play each encounter as well as the NPC and Villain's.
Let me guess, this is based on another anonymous yet totally credible "leak."
You guessed correctly. D&D Shorts had his last two unconfirmed leaks get disproved, and he suddenly had one ready in his back pocket about how evil Chris Cao was planning to shut down D&D Beyond in favor of a Virtual Table Top with cool animations.
A large portion of the D&D community has responded to this (unverified rumor) by suggesting we boycott D&D Beyond. According to them, decreasing DDB's revenue will somehow show Wizards of the Coast that D&D Beyond makes too much money to dispose of.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.You say that like there's some other kind. People don't typically leak things non-anonymously, and leaks constantly turn out to be reliable after the fact.
Its unverified, and you can argue that the source is unreliable... but it definitely seems credible that DnD Beyond may be replaced at some point, and there's no guarantee materials will migrate to the replacement at not cost.
D&D Shorts' videos have not constantly turned out to be reliable. In fact, he messed up his last two anti Wizards "insider leaks" and had to apologize for "misunderstanding" his sources for some of the information he gave. Also, real people publish lots of disinformation and false conspiracy theories under their real names, so long as they aren't in legal trouble for anything.
The only reason you gave to believe Shorts' information is because you think it makes sense. However, shuttering a company you spent nearly 150 million dollars on acquiring simply doesn't make sense. I've said this before and I've said this again, some people may think Wizards of the Coast is evil, but that doesn't mean the company is run by idiots who don't have to do their job.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.They don't even need to make a *better* product. They just need to make a good enough product that people want to use it. With their massively bigger marketing budget combined with being able to give players the "OFFICIAL D&D VTT" to play on, they would have no problem getting millions of people into buying into their ecosystem.
Sylnache Ashrain - 7th Sojourn
Have the said DnD Beyond will be 100% compatible with the OndDnD? No.
Can we trust them even if they say it would be? No.
They don't have to give you one fraction of a penny if they decide to discontinue this website. This has already been done by services like Nintendo who shut down the eshops for older platforms and have advised consumers that there would be no way to retrieve their purchases after a set date.
It's not even fully compatible with 5th edition.
Wizards make fairly decent products. The only book I am unsatisfied with is S:AIS, and my dissatisfaction with that book has to do with the lack of content rather than the quality of content. Everything in S:AIS is fine, I just wish there was more of it, specifically Spelljammers and magic items, and a little more monsters would not hurt either.
As for the product line as a whole, my only complaint is that the content is in an absolute disorganized mess. I prefer my adventure books to be about adventures, monster books to be about monsters, player option books to be about player options, and so on (we need a magic item book, especially about ones that are cursed, since you do not want players to know a magic item is cursed by default). This is generally a relatively minor issue for me since I use Beyond, but if had to use physical books and I wanted to browse for monsters, going through monster books AND player option books AND adventure books would be an absolute pain in the ass. Or if you are a player and you do not want spoil yourself with GM content, well, good luck with that since almost every book has player content. I mean, I get that it is a good for sales for a book to cater to both GMs and players to have a little bit of everything, but if I did not use Beyond's database, I would be banging my head against the wall trying to reorganize all that information.
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 >
8 out of 11?? No!! Give me a break! I said Dragonlance sounded decent. Sounded.
The new starter set is just a big step back from the Essentials kit, the anthologies are all tied to a specific location; Fizban's was fine but let's be honest, half of that should have been in the MM; Van Richten's was fine but needed more focus on fewer locations. It's all just fine.
But I can get better than fine from 3PP. Because the 3PP don't have a brand name that people will buy regardless. This is the root of the problem. Thier product is in decline because their focus is shifting away from making a game, to monetizing an IP. And now they won't even have the 3PP support. Have fun with that.
I honestly don't think WoTC/Hasbro want to make a better product. I mean, they certainly don't want to create quality content - I imagine they do want a first grade VTT and whatever else they feel would motivate us to pay a subscription. But quality content never has been, and never will be produced by faceless, soulless corporations, and I think it shows an impressive level self-awareness to realise that that's not their forte.
It's my impression that WoTC/Hasbro (henceforth referred to as W/H) want a vibrant, active, creative community to pump out quality content and ideas to grow the fanbase - and then provide a platform for said community to show off their stuff, play games and so on. Read rules, store character sheets, bla bla.
The business model is then: Subscription for the platform, and license income from movies and computer games and whatever else they can get their dirty little mitts on. But not, crucially, the fan based (and to a certain degree, professional) quality content.
Tighten the screw too much, and you cut off the flow of content from those really talentet enough to make it. You really want some dedicated fan to make all the good stuff - adventures, monsters, classes, whatever - but you really don't want that guy or girl on your payroll, because making RPG stuff takes for absolute ever. It takes waayyy too long, and on a steady salary that just isn't profitable. Also, faceless, soulless corporations tend to kill off that dedication with deadlines, meeting and e-mails, editors and regular work hours.
On the other hand, leave the screw too loose, and all those VTT's, computer games and movies end up finding loopholes to publish their stuff without sharing with W/H.
But putting those intentions into contract language ... isn't easy. However, I'm active on a number of forums*, and I think I can put everyone's minds at ease: The outrage is really limited to a fraction of a fraction of all the fandom out there - if I had to guess, I'd say less than one in a thousand players or GM's have any clue that the OGL is. So while some may quit and find other games, the vast majority will go blissfully on, and most of the dedicated fans will actually stay and adapt.
After all, consider: If you don't like facebook, or twitter or instagram, there are plenty of alternatives - but really, we all want to be where the audience is the greatest. And DND really is the only game in town. All the others are out in the sububs, in a rundown garage.
* Point being, the discussion really is a lot more level-headed everywhere else I've seen it. Only here is it hotter than the center of the sun =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I couldn't disagree with you more. I think all of that was junk and mostly unusable for me. Can't say much about the starter set though.
Exactly. I feel that a lot of people that defend this content were not around during the true golden era of resource material that was almost completely published in house. There was so much great stuff back then. Box set after box set, whole campaigns that were so detailed and fleshed out that you didn't need to fill in any blanks (you could add and customize to your heart's content, but you didn't need to). Monster manuals that actually had lore, ecology, sociology, how they fit into the world and ecosystem, tactics driving desires etc... I can't tell you how much I despise the simplistic bland monster manuals of 5E. Wotc puts out anemic content when it comes to magical items. I remember when TSR published a 4 tome set of every magical item with randomization charts to roll for. I still use those today. They did the same thing with the cleric and wizard spells. Those book sets saw more use than any other books I've ever owned. Their monstrous arcana series was the pinnacle of lore and atmosphere driven monster content. You had a whole book detailing an iconic monster (like illithid, beholder, or sahuagin) with all their lore, civilization, and history. Even dissected anatomy of the creatures. Then they went on to release a 3 module series for each that you could drop down into any generic fantasy world. They were beautiful.
I don't need to trust them, I can just look at their actions. Have we heard from the D&D Beyond Devs lately? I used to remember weekly updates about that they were working on. No more so I expect Beyond is in maintenance mode as they prepare to move us to the VTT where only OneD&D stuff will be publish.
Here what I expect. OneD&D comes out and you are told to move to the VTT. Those who want to keep using 5e can but the forums here are turned off, features will be retired, servers less maintained so the site becomes slower and harder to use, slowly driving everyone to the VTT.
It's going to be a slow boiling of the frogs, not like a sudden turn site off.
Human greed knows no bounds, it’s truly fascinating to witness.