I have previously purchased character customisation content from within books individually. I do not purchase full books, only the customisation options so that my players have access to everything on their character sheets (books are expensive). However, the most recent addition to the store, The Book of Many Things, does not seem to have this option. Is this going to be a running theme from now on? Am I perhaps missing the individual content section (i.e. the feat, spells and backgrounds) from this particular book? Will this be added in later? Potential bug?
Doesn't seem like an oversight to me, it's made quite clear that the reference book is separate to the "content" book. I assume WOTC think that people won't want the reference book without the cards and see the product as two parts, the content book as one part and the cards + the reference book for the cards as the other parthttps://19216811.cam/https://1921681001.id/.
There are a quite a few things in there that work perfectly well without their special version of the cards though. There's no reason why this book specifically shouldn't get individual options that I can see.
I suspect it's a bug or oversight. It's possible they're changing their ways of doing things going forward...but I hope not.
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It's possible, but given that Planescape released just a couple of weeks prior and had the individual purchase options, I'm more inclined to think "bug" for now.
Doesn't seem like an oversight to me, it's made quite clear that the reference book is separate to the "content" book. I assume WOTC think that people won't want the reference book without the cards and see the product as two parts, the content book as one part and the cards + the reference book for the cards as the other part.
This thread is about character options in the Book of Many Things being made available for individual purposes on DDB, as is DDB's practice to date when a new book is released, not whatever you're trying to articulate about (I think) the yet to release physical product.
I will say the book is structured differently from D&D Books to date, individual content is more "scattered" along the card themes. It's possible that may have led to some production hiccup in getting what are usually piecemeal options bundled together or the book's organization made a sort of bug in that production process possible.
I'd be very surprised if what's usually available as piecemeal content on DDB is being intentionally withheld for this book.
Eh. We've known where this company has been going for a while now. I'll continue to not buy things until the option is returned. Heh. I may start selling the things I have to homebrew on the 3rd party market.
Sounds ominous, though. Also sounds like it's intentional.
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It is a shame, the first book I would actually buy a part of and it is an all or nothing. Eh. at least they know their Customers! I will likely cave LOL!!!
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Sounds like an experiment to encourage "under monetized players" to buy in more. I think it reality they'll find the opposite. Piecemeal a la carte purchases are probably a sale driver for folks who would otherwise not buy into DDB at all. 1 Feat, two backgrounds and 3 spells is a weak product on the player side to test the hypothesis that players may buy into whole book purchases if they were cut off from the character options, which is what I think we're seeing here. I can't see any other reason they'd do so.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Sounds like an experiment to encourage "under monetized players" to buy in more. I think it reality they'll find the opposite. Piecemeal a la carte purchases are probably a sale driver for folks who would otherwise not buy into DDB at all. 1 Feat, two backgrounds and 3 spells is a weak product on the player side to test the hypothesis that players may buy into whole book purchases if they were cut off from the character options, which is what I think we're seeing here. I can't see any other reason they'd do so.
Yeah. I was literally going to get a bunch of books in the sale and start moving to digital ready for 1D&D. Unfortunately, part of the motivation was the ability to buy piecemeal. Now that's in doubt, without any clarification as to whether this feature is coming back (perhaps if it's a glitch or just a strange one-off), that's really put the breaks on my plans. Short of this being reversed or at least clarified, they've lost my money until the next sale at least.
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There are issues with the real-world sale of the book, namely that it is not shipping. That creates a number of problems for Wizards--it means they are not going to get much in the way of sales on that product during this fiscal quarter and it means they could seriously jeopardize future sales (and thus also harm their partner Local Game Stores) if the digital product sells too well and in a manner which too greatly disincentivizes physical purchasers to buy once the product actually hits shelves. They are in a position where they want to make the most from each sale (for their fiscal reporting) but they also do not want to sell too much to folks who would normally buy the paper product.
There is also the fact that a number of the items are decks of cards where the individual card effects are not programed into D&D Beyond--folks generally get pretty annoyed when they pay for an item and not have the item work in full, so that provides another reason why they might not want to sell certain not-fully-supported things. As far as I am aware, there is no other book where they list some of the items piecemeal and exclude others--so it is possible the system is not really set up to do that presently.
All told, this creates an abnormal data point, one surrounded by uncertainty on Wizards' part and by technical limitations of Beyond's current system. Clutching your pearls over the possibility of Wizards changing their extremely successful piecemeal sales model from this single data point when there exist relatively mundane reasons for this book being treated differently? Bad data analysis--the kind of bad data analysis far too common on this forum.
Now, if we start seeing this become a trend (excluding books like Tal'Dorei reborn where there are licensing issues likely preventing piecemeal sales)? Sure, that might indicate something for the future--two data points form a line, and a line can be used to extrapolate future information. But a single blurry data point in a vacuum, like we presently have? You cannot intelligently extrapolate from that.
No, we can't extrapolate from a single point. It's a bad assessment strategy to attempt it - either way. Does this definitely mean that no books will ever have individual options? No, it doesn't. It also doesn't indicate that it isn't what's happening. As so emphatically pointed out - you can't intelligently extrapolate from a data point.
I'd love to see this data as well as the analysis that shows that the piecemeal model is "extremely successful" (and let's define success as being the only form that WotC, naturally as a company, would be interested in, and that's profits) and would definitely be more profitable than trying to leverage people into just buying the whole book. No, DDB is more than just being able to buy things piecemeal, so DDB doing well doesn't show anything. What we have is a second instance where they've removed this feature (and quite close together in terms of corporate decisions). We currently, to my knowledge, have only one communication that acknowledges the situation, but while it reassures people that existing products aren't affected by this... condition, whatever it is (decision, strategy change, glitch, etc)...it also meticulously and seemingly intentionally avoids mentioning future products or intentions for them.
Let's be honest, kayakingpoodle is not alone in being on the side of "well, if they don't offer piecemeal, then I'll just buy the whole thing!". The question is whether there are enough people to make it more profitable to insist on all-or-nothing. Or rather, whether the powers-that-be think there are enough to make it worth trying.
The programming argument holds no water. The entire system is based on modularity, the coding has baked into it by necessity the ability to give one part but not another. The odds that the code was done so that they can't take one piece off of sale while leaving others on is rather low. That ability is baked in and already works to an extent. I can't buy certain parts of certain books because they have that kind of coding - which would be a necessity on a site that sells bits and pieces like that. It's not impossible that they can't opt for that...but it's pretty darn unlikely.
Is the lack of options indicative of the feature being removed? I don't know. I think that it would be a bad business move, but as we've seen on the forums, just because a few individuals think a given decision is a bad business move, that doesn't mean that it actually is - and I have the humility (or rather, at least enough of it) to recognise that I could be wrong. Even if it is a bad business move, that doesn't mean they wouldn't try it in search of finding better models, as we've seen before. Pretending that because we think a model is the best that that means that WotC etc would never try to change it is folly.
We have one solid datapoint plus two other soft ones that may or may not mean anything. It's bad data analysis to assume it means one way or the other. Even if the chances are, say, 10% that this is the first step in removing the feature, then that's enough for me to pause before risking hundreds of bucks on a venture that could turn out to be a dead end.
If they turn around and say that it's not the plan for this to be the case going forward, then I'm happy to go ahead with my purchases. However, it's not pearl clutching or bad data analysis to put a halt on that until it's clarified. To the contrary, it's the rational and logical course of action - the condescending attitudes of some notwithstanding.
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Hasbro has outright said that Beyond is extremely successful - it is how their incredibly cash strapped company justified a huge cash expenditure on acquiring Beyond. Despite all the “Hasbro is a big evil company, they can do what they want” nonsense that always swirls around the forums, Hasbro is in an incredibly dangerous position right now. Their company is bleeding money, they have has to fight off revolts from their own investors, they had (an incredibly ignorant and ill-informed) set of news articles recommending against buying their stock, and they have grim prospects for moving forward due to their industry being hit especially hard by inflation, economic downturns in China, and continued supply chain issues.
Could they try to mix up Beyond to make more money? Sure—but until there is a second meaningful data point, the more likely option is that Hasbro is going to try and avoid killing their golden goose. After all, changing something that is working - and which you spent a lot of effort justifying to your investors - and having those changes fail is an invitation for lawsuits and another investor revolt.
And, of course, your “soft data points” are exactly that - incredibly soft. A book they do not even own, and thus cannot really control the distribution model of? Meaningless to this conversation. A statement which says very little? It is no secret Wizards is terrible at PR—they consistently underestimate how conspiratorial their players are, how quick their players are to jump to negative conclusions, and how bad their players are at exhibiting common sense.
I get it. It is easy to be scared, especially when Wizards’ PR is so bad at making folks less afraid. But that doesn’t change the fact your conspiracies are premature, and only justified by lack of knowledge and a readiness to jump to “Wizards is bad” conspiracies—rather than actual data capable of extrapolation.
Apparently you don't understand the concept that DDB doing well doesn't mean that selling piecemeal is a profitable method nor that the decision makers wouldn't think they'd be better off without it. I'll wait for the data that you must have for your claims - that piecemeal selling, specifically, is an extremely successful model. I mean, you call it the golden goose and they'd never do anything to upset that...and of course Hasbro/WotC has never shown any inclination to change things up, try different things, do things that are risky in the hopes of improving their financial standing.
Their behaviour isn't necessarily an evil thing, unlike what you seemingly insist, it's them doing what they exist to do - to make profit. Most of the time that means they do things that align with my goals as a customer, and we're all happy. Other times it means our goals don't align and they do stuff that isn't optimal for me. That's fine, but I'm not going to invest hundreds of dollars on a product if that product isn't necessarily going to provide what I want. I'm not entirely sure why you're getting worked up about me not buying something until I'm confident that it'll do what I want it to. There's no evil intent on either my part nor WotC's (so far as I'm aware), it's just business.
Would you bet hundreds of dollars that you're right? That so far you've mostly just made claims without data, strawmen and ad hominems (rather than responding in good faith and openness) kind of suggests that you don't have a substantial enough basis to do anything more substantial than vent on forums.
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You have engaged in an extremely common mistake that perpetuates discussions on this forum--confusing "hey, there is not enough data right now to support the theory that X might occur" for "X could never occur." I am not sure why folks on these forums seem particular inclined toward making this mistake, but that just seems to be the way it is. I suppose it falls on me then, to be as simplistic in my writing as possible, since it is pretty clear folks are not inclined to critically read anything they see as antithetical to their wild conjecture.
1. I am not saying Wizards will never remove piecemeal sales. In fact, I have now acknowledged in both my posts that is a possibility.
2. I am saying that we do not have enough data one way or another.
3. I am saying that there exists reason to believe they might not rock the boat, and that those reasons are equally meritorious to any reasons they might rock the boat.
4. I am saying that there are some unique situations surrounding this data point which make it uniquely difficult to use as a point of extrapolation.
5. I am saying that, in light of us only having one data point with known unique properties, you cannot extrapolate the future in light of too many unknown variables.
6. I am saying that anyone who is nervous, frightened, concerned by what this unique data point might mean for the future is ignoring the pretty obvious unique and unknown factors at play, and is thus engaging in unhelpful speculation and getting worked up over nothing but conjecture.
So, to answer your question, would I put a hundred bucks that I am right in saying "It is possible Wizards might remove piecemeal purchasing, but it also is possible they might not, and, until we have a second tangible data point, it is too early to speculate because we lack information in either direction and one can just as easily predict either outcome might occur?"
Sure I will, and I feel fairly confident I can win that bet. After all, "you cannot use a data point to extrapolate a line, especially if you have reason to question the usefulness of the only data you have" is a fairly universal truth taught in elementary school math and science classes.
I have previously purchased character customisation content from within books individually. I do not purchase full books, only the customisation options so that my players have access to everything on their character sheets (books are expensive). However, the most recent addition to the store, The Book of Many Things, does not seem to have this option. Is this going to be a running theme from now on? Am I perhaps missing the individual content section (i.e. the feat, spells and backgrounds) from this particular book? Will this be added in later? Potential bug?
Cheers
Zyzz
I asked about it last night. No reply. It sucks if they're discontinuing it. I'll spend a lot less.
This is my question as well. Not interested in most of it, just some individual pieces.
Doesn't seem like an oversight to me, it's made quite clear that the reference book is separate to the "content" book. I assume WOTC think that people won't want the reference book without the cards and see the product as two parts, the content book as one part and the cards + the reference book for the cards as the other part https://19216811.cam/ https://1921681001.id/ .
There are a quite a few things in there that work perfectly well without their special version of the cards though. There's no reason why this book specifically shouldn't get individual options that I can see.
I suspect it's a bug or oversight. It's possible they're changing their ways of doing things going forward...but I hope not.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It's possible, but given that Planescape released just a couple of weeks prior and had the individual purchase options, I'm more inclined to think "bug" for now.
This thread is about character options in the Book of Many Things being made available for individual purposes on DDB, as is DDB's practice to date when a new book is released, not whatever you're trying to articulate about (I think) the yet to release physical product.
I will say the book is structured differently from D&D Books to date, individual content is more "scattered" along the card themes. It's possible that may have led to some production hiccup in getting what are usually piecemeal options bundled together or the book's organization made a sort of bug in that production process possible.
I'd be very surprised if what's usually available as piecemeal content on DDB is being intentionally withheld for this book.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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Eh. We've known where this company has been going for a while now. I'll continue to not buy things until the option is returned.
Heh. I may start selling the things I have to homebrew on the 3rd party market.
There is official word on this change:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/bugs-support/183978-the-book-of-many-things-issues-and-support-thread?comment=131
Anything beyond that is speculative.
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Sounds ominous, though. Also sounds like it's intentional.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Yep. Sounds very Intentional and very Sad.
It is a shame, the first book I would actually buy a part of and it is an all or nothing. Eh. at least they know their Customers! I will likely cave LOL!!!
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Sounds like an experiment to encourage "under monetized players" to buy in more. I think it reality they'll find the opposite. Piecemeal a la carte purchases are probably a sale driver for folks who would otherwise not buy into DDB at all. 1 Feat, two backgrounds and 3 spells is a weak product on the player side to test the hypothesis that players may buy into whole book purchases if they were cut off from the character options, which is what I think we're seeing here. I can't see any other reason they'd do so.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Yeah. I was literally going to get a bunch of books in the sale and start moving to digital ready for 1D&D. Unfortunately, part of the motivation was the ability to buy piecemeal. Now that's in doubt, without any clarification as to whether this feature is coming back (perhaps if it's a glitch or just a strange one-off), that's really put the breaks on my plans. Short of this being reversed or at least clarified, they've lost my money until the next sale at least.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
There are issues with the real-world sale of the book, namely that it is not shipping. That creates a number of problems for Wizards--it means they are not going to get much in the way of sales on that product during this fiscal quarter and it means they could seriously jeopardize future sales (and thus also harm their partner Local Game Stores) if the digital product sells too well and in a manner which too greatly disincentivizes physical purchasers to buy once the product actually hits shelves. They are in a position where they want to make the most from each sale (for their fiscal reporting) but they also do not want to sell too much to folks who would normally buy the paper product.
There is also the fact that a number of the items are decks of cards where the individual card effects are not programed into D&D Beyond--folks generally get pretty annoyed when they pay for an item and not have the item work in full, so that provides another reason why they might not want to sell certain not-fully-supported things. As far as I am aware, there is no other book where they list some of the items piecemeal and exclude others--so it is possible the system is not really set up to do that presently.
All told, this creates an abnormal data point, one surrounded by uncertainty on Wizards' part and by technical limitations of Beyond's current system. Clutching your pearls over the possibility of Wizards changing their extremely successful piecemeal sales model from this single data point when there exist relatively mundane reasons for this book being treated differently? Bad data analysis--the kind of bad data analysis far too common on this forum.
Now, if we start seeing this become a trend (excluding books like Tal'Dorei reborn where there are licensing issues likely preventing piecemeal sales)? Sure, that might indicate something for the future--two data points form a line, and a line can be used to extrapolate future information. But a single blurry data point in a vacuum, like we presently have? You cannot intelligently extrapolate from that.
No, we can't extrapolate from a single point. It's a bad assessment strategy to attempt it - either way. Does this definitely mean that no books will ever have individual options? No, it doesn't. It also doesn't indicate that it isn't what's happening. As so emphatically pointed out - you can't intelligently extrapolate from a data point.
I'd love to see this data as well as the analysis that shows that the piecemeal model is "extremely successful" (and let's define success as being the only form that WotC, naturally as a company, would be interested in, and that's profits) and would definitely be more profitable than trying to leverage people into just buying the whole book. No, DDB is more than just being able to buy things piecemeal, so DDB doing well doesn't show anything. What we have is a second instance where they've removed this feature (and quite close together in terms of corporate decisions). We currently, to my knowledge, have only one communication that acknowledges the situation, but while it reassures people that existing products aren't affected by this... condition, whatever it is (decision, strategy change, glitch, etc)...it also meticulously and seemingly intentionally avoids mentioning future products or intentions for them.
Let's be honest, kayakingpoodle is not alone in being on the side of "well, if they don't offer piecemeal, then I'll just buy the whole thing!". The question is whether there are enough people to make it more profitable to insist on all-or-nothing. Or rather, whether the powers-that-be think there are enough to make it worth trying.
The programming argument holds no water. The entire system is based on modularity, the coding has baked into it by necessity the ability to give one part but not another. The odds that the code was done so that they can't take one piece off of sale while leaving others on is rather low. That ability is baked in and already works to an extent. I can't buy certain parts of certain books because they have that kind of coding - which would be a necessity on a site that sells bits and pieces like that. It's not impossible that they can't opt for that...but it's pretty darn unlikely.
Is the lack of options indicative of the feature being removed? I don't know. I think that it would be a bad business move, but as we've seen on the forums, just because a few individuals think a given decision is a bad business move, that doesn't mean that it actually is - and I have the humility (or rather, at least enough of it) to recognise that I could be wrong. Even if it is a bad business move, that doesn't mean they wouldn't try it in search of finding better models, as we've seen before. Pretending that because we think a model is the best that that means that WotC etc would never try to change it is folly.
We have one solid datapoint plus two other soft ones that may or may not mean anything. It's bad data analysis to assume it means one way or the other. Even if the chances are, say, 10% that this is the first step in removing the feature, then that's enough for me to pause before risking hundreds of bucks on a venture that could turn out to be a dead end.
If they turn around and say that it's not the plan for this to be the case going forward, then I'm happy to go ahead with my purchases. However, it's not pearl clutching or bad data analysis to put a halt on that until it's clarified. To the contrary, it's the rational and logical course of action - the condescending attitudes of some notwithstanding.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Hasbro has outright said that Beyond is extremely successful - it is how their incredibly cash strapped company justified a huge cash expenditure on acquiring Beyond. Despite all the “Hasbro is a big evil company, they can do what they want” nonsense that always swirls around the forums, Hasbro is in an incredibly dangerous position right now. Their company is bleeding money, they have has to fight off revolts from their own investors, they had (an incredibly ignorant and ill-informed) set of news articles recommending against buying their stock, and they have grim prospects for moving forward due to their industry being hit especially hard by inflation, economic downturns in China, and continued supply chain issues.
Could they try to mix up Beyond to make more money? Sure—but until there is a second meaningful data point, the more likely option is that Hasbro is going to try and avoid killing their golden goose. After all, changing something that is working - and which you spent a lot of effort justifying to your investors - and having those changes fail is an invitation for lawsuits and another investor revolt.
And, of course, your “soft data points” are exactly that - incredibly soft. A book they do not even own, and thus cannot really control the distribution model of? Meaningless to this conversation. A statement which says very little? It is no secret Wizards is terrible at PR—they consistently underestimate how conspiratorial their players are, how quick their players are to jump to negative conclusions, and how bad their players are at exhibiting common sense.
I get it. It is easy to be scared, especially when Wizards’ PR is so bad at making folks less afraid. But that doesn’t change the fact your conspiracies are premature, and only justified by lack of knowledge and a readiness to jump to “Wizards is bad” conspiracies—rather than actual data capable of extrapolation.
Apparently you don't understand the concept that DDB doing well doesn't mean that selling piecemeal is a profitable method nor that the decision makers wouldn't think they'd be better off without it. I'll wait for the data that you must have for your claims - that piecemeal selling, specifically, is an extremely successful model. I mean, you call it the golden goose and they'd never do anything to upset that...and of course Hasbro/WotC has never shown any inclination to change things up, try different things, do things that are risky in the hopes of improving their financial standing.
Their behaviour isn't necessarily an evil thing, unlike what you seemingly insist, it's them doing what they exist to do - to make profit. Most of the time that means they do things that align with my goals as a customer, and we're all happy. Other times it means our goals don't align and they do stuff that isn't optimal for me. That's fine, but I'm not going to invest hundreds of dollars on a product if that product isn't necessarily going to provide what I want. I'm not entirely sure why you're getting worked up about me not buying something until I'm confident that it'll do what I want it to. There's no evil intent on either my part nor WotC's (so far as I'm aware), it's just business.
Would you bet hundreds of dollars that you're right? That so far you've mostly just made claims without data, strawmen and ad hominems (rather than responding in good faith and openness) kind of suggests that you don't have a substantial enough basis to do anything more substantial than vent on forums.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
You have engaged in an extremely common mistake that perpetuates discussions on this forum--confusing "hey, there is not enough data right now to support the theory that X might occur" for "X could never occur." I am not sure why folks on these forums seem particular inclined toward making this mistake, but that just seems to be the way it is. I suppose it falls on me then, to be as simplistic in my writing as possible, since it is pretty clear folks are not inclined to critically read anything they see as antithetical to their wild conjecture.
1. I am not saying Wizards will never remove piecemeal sales. In fact, I have now acknowledged in both my posts that is a possibility.
2. I am saying that we do not have enough data one way or another.
3. I am saying that there exists reason to believe they might not rock the boat, and that those reasons are equally meritorious to any reasons they might rock the boat.
4. I am saying that there are some unique situations surrounding this data point which make it uniquely difficult to use as a point of extrapolation.
5. I am saying that, in light of us only having one data point with known unique properties, you cannot extrapolate the future in light of too many unknown variables.
6. I am saying that anyone who is nervous, frightened, concerned by what this unique data point might mean for the future is ignoring the pretty obvious unique and unknown factors at play, and is thus engaging in unhelpful speculation and getting worked up over nothing but conjecture.
So, to answer your question, would I put a hundred bucks that I am right in saying "It is possible Wizards might remove piecemeal purchasing, but it also is possible they might not, and, until we have a second tangible data point, it is too early to speculate because we lack information in either direction and one can just as easily predict either outcome might occur?"
Sure I will, and I feel fairly confident I can win that bet. After all, "you cannot use a data point to extrapolate a line, especially if you have reason to question the usefulness of the only data you have" is a fairly universal truth taught in elementary school math and science classes.