It's not a case of anti consumer practices. I can't think of any real justification for cherry-picking, part from "I don't want to buy the book because it will cost me a few extra doolars". Just get the book and be done with it, they are not that expensive either. And remember, you can either homebrew or just live happily without that extra feat or subclass.
You are right, homebrew is always available. It's sort of a sweat equity, and a-la-carte piecemeal purchases cater to the other side of the coin from the player wanting to put in the work to homebrew. Yes, you and I probably agree homebrew "isn't hard" but for some, especially new players, I can see it being daunting.
The point and mutual worth to DDB and consumer of the a-la-carte model can be easily seen in this scenario, new player wants a subclass from the PHB, a race from MMM and a feat from Tasha's. A-la-carte that's "Mom/Dad/caretaker, can you pay D&D Beyond six bucks so I can play D&D with my friends?" versus "Can I have ninety bucks to play D&D with my friends?" A-la-carte purchases always seemed to me to be the "gateway purchase" into more fully buying into D&D Beyond. With a $6 purchase the consumer can see the enjoyment the player gets out of D&D and may be more amenable to a larger investment in D&D down the line. Or if the player does not enjoy D&D, they found out for less than the price of a loaf of bread. I think the thinking of a la carte as entry point may be why a-la-carte has gone away. There may well be data showing that "a la carte purchasers who stick with D&D buy into full books within 3-4 months of that a la carte purchase." In a few months DDB, or at least WotC won't want players buying into the 'legacy' of 2014 core content, they'll want them buying into the new core. Rather than buying into "old build" tools, they'd want new players playing around with the new free basic rules and building out purchases from there, maybe even seeing a la carte returning with the 2024. It's speculative, but it's a rationale I can see for them pulling it.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It's not a case of anti consumer practices. I can't think of any real justification for cherry-picking, part from "I don't want to buy the book because it will cost me a few extra doolars". Just get the book and be done with it, they are not that expensive either. And remember, you can either homebrew or just live happily without that extra feat or subclass.
You are right, homebrew is always available. It's sort of a sweat equity, and a-la-carte piecemeal purchases cater to the other side of the coin from the player wanting to put in the work to homebrew. Yes, you and I probably agree homebrew "isn't hard" but for some, especially new players, I can see it being daunting.
The point and mutual worth to DDB and consumer of the a-la-carte model can be easily seen in this scenario, new player wants a subclass from the PHB, a race from MMM and a feat from Tasha's. A-la-carte that's "Mom/Dad/caretaker, can you pay D&D Beyond six bucks so I can play D&D with my friends?" versus "Can I have ninety bucks to play D&D with my friends?" A-la-carte purchases always seemed to me to be the "gateway purchase" into more fully buying into D&D Beyond. With a $6 purchase the consumer can see the enjoyment the player gets out of D&D and may be more amenable to a larger investment in D&D down the line. Or if the player does not enjoy D&D, they found out for less than the price of a loaf of bread. I think the thinking of a la carte as entry point may be why a-la-carte has gone away. There may well be data showing that "a la carte purchasers who stick with D&D buy into full books within 3-4 months of that a la carte purchase." In a few months DDB, or at least WotC won't want players buying into the 'legacy' of 2014 core content, they'll want them buying into the new core. Rather than buying into "old build" tools, they'd want new players playing around with the new free basic rules and building out purchases from there, maybe even seeing a la carte returning with the 2024. It's speculative, but it's a rationale I can see for them pulling it.
I think you have it right there. The piecemeal option gets complicated with different (yet compatible to some extent) versions of the game. If, "I want to play with my friends, but I don't want to use the same options as they have" is the thing you will be at a loss. I would never allow such à la carte set up at my table, but I guess everyone is different.
One way to mitigate the cost is to pool resources with your friends, get a master tier subscription, buy one book for the whole group and share the contents among your group members. That's how I would go about it and it gets muck cheaper in the long run.
Hot take: a'la carte was kind of a shit deal. The cost of buying everything in a book a'la carte was dramatically higher than just buying the book, it took almost no purchases at all before it stopped making sense to buy a book piecemeal. I think I only ever a'la carte'd two things - the Verdan species from Acq Inc (which I've never actually used) and the magic items from the DMG (and eventually I just bought the DMG entirely).
Could Wizards have handled this better? Yes, absolutely they could have. It's a myopic play and a PR hit they didn't need to take.
Do I think they did it to try and forestall 'piracy' and are gonna nuke the millions of homebrew entries on DDB, alienate the millions of players who've invested themselves in those entries, to stop something they know full well has been happening ever since the service started and which has historically never really slowed or impacted their sales? Nah. The number of people who are all of: adept enough with the homebrew tools to recreate official content, spiteful enough to do exactly that instead of pay the relative pittance required for a new book, and dumb enough to brag about doing so somewhere Wotsee has to take notice is gonna be statistical-noise low.
Is it something to be wary of? Sure. But panicked fearmongering with no real purpose isn't going to help. All you're really doing is venting how much you hate Corporate People being Corporate. Which, fair,late-stage capitalism obsessed with GROWTH AT ALL COSTS is a blight on mankind. But keep it at least plausible, ne?
Nonsense. I probably saved a couple hundred GBP not buying every book and only buying character creation items. I use D&D Beyond for sheets as it's easier for new players. I have no interest in digital books and honestly would use pen & paper sheets again if the preference of virtually every D&D player, that doesn't play other RPGs, was to use this site. For me, if piece-meal items were not an option when I joined this website, I'd have never purchased anything.
DM subscriber since I joined this website. Ended my subscription June 2024 due to the removal of individual purchases. Was the only reason I ever bothered with this website. I use it for character building for my players and occasional referencing. I don't want digital books that can be removed whenever the company sees fit.
January 2025: seems it was a correct move. They're removing 2014 content that we paid for in lieu of their new version of the game. You only rent content on here, never own.
What was WotC's motive for getting rid of A-La-Carte? If it's not costing them anything to keep it, then there must be another reason to kill it.
It is reasonable to hypothesize that they want to push ALC buyers to buy full books, and it is likely they believe that enough people will make that switch to make it more profitable (ie. they believe the number of people who will buy whole books will be greater than those who stop buying altogether).
It is also reasonable to hypothesize that they might come for homebrew, because users can then get around the ALC removal.
If they aren't going to remove homebrew, then why kill ALC, unless they believe enough people can not be bothered to use the homebrew and will buy whole books instead.
Here's another thought - If it cost them nothing extra to offer ALC (and if in fact it made money) then there seems to be no reason to kill it, unless you don't want people to buy ALC, and if you don't want people to buy ALC, it seems probable you want them to buy whole books, BUT.... in an average group, how many players will buy the same whole book when just one person can buy it and share it with a Master Tier Account?
So, if ALC cost them nothing extra to offer, and they killed ALC to induce people to buy whole books, and it's not necessary for every player in a group to buy a book because one copy can be shared, will WotC stop allowing Master Tier accounts to share books?
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"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
The idea that it wasn’t costing them anything doesn’t necessarily hold up; inflation means that the relative value of a dollar will tend to decrease as time goes on, so there’s the combination of that and the fact that the prices on past content have held steady for years here. So the relative value of a gradual purchase of $30 worth of content vs $30 here and now could be notably different. And keep in mind that there’s a slight surcharge for electronic transactions on the vendor’s end through services like credit cards and PayPal. Most retailers just absorb the cost as a business expense so we don’t see it, but it happens and incrementals might slice off larger portions since those surcharges typically have a minimum rate which could be higher than the percentage on a $2 charge. So it’s entirely possible there are both real and abstract costs that have made ALC less profitable than just offering full books.
What was WotC's motive for getting rid of A-La-Carte? If it's not costing them anything to keep it, then there must be another reason to kill it.
It is reasonable to hypothesize that they want to push ALC buyers to buy full books, and it is likely they believe that enough people will make that switch to make it more profitable (ie. they believe the number of people who will buy whole books will be greater than those who stop buying altogether).
It is also reasonable to hypothesize that they might come for homebrew, because users can then get around the ALC removal.
If they aren't going to remove homebrew, then why kill ALC, unless they believe enough people can not be bothered to use the homebrew and will buy whole books instead.
Here's another thought - If it cost them nothing extra to offer ALC (and if in fact it made money) then there seems to be no reason to kill it, unless you don't want people to buy ALC, and if you don't want people to buy ALC, it seems probable you want them to buy whole books, BUT.... in an average group, how many players will buy the same whole book when just one person can buy it and share it with a Master Tier Account?
So, if ALC cost them nothing extra to offer, and they killed ALC to induce people to buy whole books, and it's not necessary for every player in a group to buy a book because one copy can be shared, will WotC stop allowing Master Tier accounts to share books?
I pointed out my assumption for the motivation a few pages ago.
New Rulebooks. I think they don't want folks just buying the new Monk & Ranger or other classes with massive changes/improvements, as that would greatly reduce the profitability of the new edition and their report of new books sold and such.
Since they did alc for their books before, doing the change at the time the new rulebooks release would cause headlines at the time the new books release, thus distracting from any positive praise for the new edition.
So, from a CEO standpoint. Make the change now, we have several months for folks to cool down the rage levels.
I do think this doesn't really affect homebrew that much because, well, DNDBeyond has never offered full homebrew classes. Yeah, you can 'homebrew' your new Shadow Monk, subclass with seeing through your own darkness spell... but every single Monk player will still have to individually adjust how things like their damage dice are higher and their step of the wind works.
I don't think they're working off the idea that every person who bought the Plane scape backgrounds and feats would have bought the whole book, or even that enough people who bought those would have bought the whole book would make up for the difference.
I think the logic is making everyone who wants to play the improved classes have to pay for the entire book will make enough money that it makes up for the losses from the smaller purchases.
I've been thinking a similar track about this move being more to move players into adopting (sale driving) the new core books. I could even see a calculation seeing a potential of "panic buying" the existing books predicated on rumors of a legacy curtain dropping. That is, I'm presuming the 2014 core will become legacy content in short order as the new core comes out, and you already will have overlap/redundancies between Tasha's and the new PHB with the psi-classes, so I could see putting the 2014 predicated books under legacy in rapid order done as a means to further secure the 2024 PHB as a "successful" product.
The credit card theory is one I hadn't thought of either, and I could see that argument in play, though I also imagine a broader analysis that determines whether a la carte sales sufficiently translates into full book sales which may make the processing fees more of a wash. Plus, as I understand it, a marketplace like Hasbro's pays considerably less on those fees than so called mom and pop or even D&D Beyond as a start up likely scale business.
The motivation for eliminating ALC purchases could be as simple as "setting a book up for ALC purchases is a time-consuming extra headache between Wotsee releasing the book and DDB implementing the book, we're overdrawn and can't keep up as it is, almost nobody bothers with ALC purchases anyway, and disabling the system altogether is easier than explaining ten thousand times a second why we're not offering ALC on new content when it's available on old content."
People are treating this like a life-ending Ultra Crime done purely and specifically to maliciously bleed customers dry. Could they be specifically trying to maliciously jack people over? Sure. But they could also have a perfectly innocuous reason for turning ALC off and they're just categorically terrible at talking to a userbase which in turn actively goes out of its way to scourge, villify, and bully anyone who talks to them because the userbase is upset they have to pay for D&D products at all.
If I were a DDB dev not tasked with community management I wouldn't want to have anything to do with any of you either, you all are absolutely VICIOUS to anybody with a red name ever since the OGL debacle.
I play online and the DM claims he knows someone who works in Hasbro and knows they are removing homebrew from D&D Beyond. My answer was "I doubt it vut whatever."
I play online and the DM claims he knows someone who works in Hasbro and knows they are removing homebrew from D&D Beyond. My answer was "I doubt it vut whatever."
That's weird. My DM's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who overheard a Hasbro exec at 31 Flavors last night saying homebrew was, like, totally off limits. I guess it's pretty serious.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I'm assuming Foundry does because it's so under the hood friendly, but do the VTT arguably in competition with DDB for digital D&D like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, do they allow homebrew? That could be an indicator as to whether something like homebrew tools are retained or streamlined away. Whether Demiplane does too should probably be in the coversation too, I think I remember having to buy into modules for its systems; core rules rather than homebrew being where things were last when I looked into it. Anyway, since they seem to be doing well and are basically an evolution of the DDB platform freed up from exclusive relationship with WotC/5e, whatever they're doing is probably used as a rationale for whatever DDB is doing.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I play online and the DM claims he knows someone who works in Hasbro and knows they are removing homebrew from D&D Beyond. My answer was "I doubt it vut whatever."
That's weird. My DM's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who overheard a Hasbro exec at 31 Flavors last night saying homebrew was, like, totally off limits. I guess it's pretty serious.
Well, my DM's fathers brothers nephews cousin former roommate also works for Hasbro and he agrees.
He also wants to know how the hell I found him and why I'm asking him questions.
I play online and the DM claims he knows someone who works in Hasbro and knows they are removing homebrew from D&D Beyond. My answer was "I doubt it vut whatever."
I belong to a troupe of crisis actors. Every couple of weeks we're hired by Hasbro to wear D&D swag among business casual attire and hang out in the Hasbro cafeteria with WotC lanyards. We then just talk loudly as if we just left some high level D&D meeting, then huddle up and in lower but still in earshot volume spew out random chaos news about D&D. I'm not sure what Hasbro gets from these exercises, maybe they track all employees' communications to map out leaks or whatever, I do know we bill our activities under two account codes: Break Bob's World, and Immerse the Nerd.
I should probably put this here /s
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Hasbro is way too greedy, and we need to be heard. they do not care about us they only want our money from our interests. Chris Cocks made it well known he does not care about us especially the employees. he needs to realize what he's doing for financial gain no matter if it's going into his pocket or something else, is cheating us in the process. "Homebrew Is Piracy", so is over pricing everything they put out. So is taking away content from us because they added a section specifically to put out homebrew content and are getting mad about it. I personally will not stand by as a company that its very own CEO, that does not care about its fan base, is trying to destroy it from top to bottom. We need to be heard; I highly suggest to anyone who agrees, to cancel any official WOtC pre-orders to let it be known. Current ones are Eve of Vecna and Infinite Staircase. I will not spend any more money into a company I thought supported our passions and community.
Setting aside the astronomically high DC of future prediction; I don' t think that homebrew is or will be a threat in any way because of the removal of piecemeal purchasing (and hence there is no related reason that WotC would remove it). Sharing homebrew based on published content, WotC's or anyone else's, is clearly against the T&C, which means that people can't content-share homebrewed 'pieces' of official (or otherwise published) content. Also, while I'm aware that there is a lot of illegally published WotC copyrighted material floating around the internet, I suspect that the number of people that would need to track it down and the amount of homebrewing it would take to recreate it for each and every person probably doesn't pose much of a financial threat to WotC/Hasboro.
TL;DR - I don't believe homebrew is currently under threat based on any recent, observable data/information/behavior.
Giving you one free roll of future prediction of a possible future:
Players can't get elements in their game that others have told them about.
Someone creates a homebrew version of the thing, with different name, and far enough apart that it doesn't trigger the similiarity detection.
People a la carte the Homebrew copies of those abilities, subclasses and items
Book sales drop even further.
Hasbro realises what's going on and homebrew dies.
Which is to say, it's not a problem yet...
Homebrew's survival could 100% depend on players doing the right thing by WOTC, and not abusing Homebrew to get around the removal of a la carte. And even I don't think anyone will pass the DC 30 chance to believe that people will do the right thing by WOTC...
You know you can play D&D without this website? Right? They can cancel homebrew here, and we can all go back to writing things down on paper and erasing a hole in paper in the hit point box. We did it for decades. They can’t stop homebrew, even if they make it harder to do here, they can’t stop people doing it.
Yes, but they also removed a la carte sales, and "you know we can just get it from third party sites right?"
Homebrew and a la carte are all about easy access. Being able to incorporate other people's ideas, both official and homebrew, on a website that helps automate character creation, encounter tracking, and combat maps, is a big advantage.
Other options we "also have, you know" are:
Not roleplaying.
Buying the books offline and homebrewing whatever we want.
Playing Pathfinder or that Critical Role system etc.
But D&D Beyond is a complete system that people want to use. My point, which apparently got lost in the "You're wrong! They won't do that!" responses, is that they will do that if we mistreat Homebrew, because Hasbro is more concerned with money than a well rounded D&D Beyond website. They are not holding our best interests at heart. They are holding their shareholders in the forefront, or at least they think they are.
We need to ensure that we show them this is a decision that will drive people away, and at the same time, we need to, as a Community, not abuse Homebrew to try and recreate items that we would otherwise have gotten access to in a book.
Because Hasbro is not looking at it as "Oh, they're homebrewing our own options, because we made a mistake removing a la carte."
The suits in the C-Suite are going to say: "This homebrew thing is losing us sales, kill it".
Whether homebrew survives is largely how the players use it. So don't abuse it.
Yes, but they also removed a la carte sales, and "you know we can just get it from third party sites right?"
Homebrew and a la carte are all about easy access. Being able to incorporate other people's ideas, both official and homebrew, on a website that helps automate character creation, encounter tracking, and combat maps, is a big advantage.
Other options we "also have, you know" are:
Not roleplaying.
Buying the books offline and homebrewing whatever we want.
Playing Pathfinder or that Critical Role system etc.
But D&D Beyond is a complete system that people want to use. My point, which apparently got lost in the "You're wrong! They won't do that!" responses, is that they will do that if we mistreat Homebrew, because Hasbro is more concerned with money than a well rounded D&D Beyond website. They are not holding our best interests at heart. They are holding their shareholders in the forefront, or at least they think they are.
We need to ensure that we show them this is a decision that will drive people away, and at the same time, we need to, as a Community, not abuse Homebrew to try and recreate items that we would otherwise have gotten access to in a book.
Because Hasbro is not looking at it as "Oh, they're homebrewing our own options, because we made a mistake removing a la carte."
The suits in the C-Suite are going to say: "This homebrew thing is losing us sales, kill it".
Whether homebrew survives is largely how the players use it. So don't abuse it.
You're imploring practices regarding a system you don't seem to understand.
In your fear-mongering above, you demonstrate very little experience with the Homebrew tools and their clear rules (and automated system policing those rules, on top of human monitoring/reproting) that prevent your nightmare scenario of "abusing" the tools. Anyone who has worked with the homebrew tools for any significant period of time knows that it's entirely appropriate and proper use of the tools to generate official or third party content for personal use (don't push the publish button, it then stays in your collection and can be shared within your campaigns with the master tier, don't believe me, check the homebrew forums or really look at the tools). D&D Beyond allowed and encouraged that practice even before DDB was acquired by WotC, and WotC never cried foul. If that policy were to change, it would be communicated, and it has not.
Your "logic," so to speak, is predicated on presumptions as to why the a la carte option was not reproduced in the Marketplace redesign. There has been no reason given by WotC. All the "business" rationales, and the revenue maximization theory you're leaning on are based on flailing conjecture, at best loosely tied to the comments a former employee said over a year ago. The truth is there is no public explanation as to why. You are extrapolating, and weirdly moralizing, based on conjecture over a tool whose rules you can't even properly articulate and I doubt you actually understand based on your proclamations so far.
Yes, but they also removed a la carte sales, and "you know we can just get it from third party sites right?"
Homebrew and a la carte are all about easy access. Being able to incorporate other people's ideas, both official and homebrew, on a website that helps automate character creation, encounter tracking, and combat maps, is a big advantage.
Other options we "also have, you know" are:
Not roleplaying.
Buying the books offline and homebrewing whatever we want.
Playing Pathfinder or that Critical Role system etc.
But D&D Beyond is a complete system that people want to use. My point, which apparently got lost in the "You're wrong! They won't do that!" responses, is that they will do that if we mistreat Homebrew, because Hasbro is more concerned with money than a well rounded D&D Beyond website. They are not holding our best interests at heart. They are holding their shareholders in the forefront, or at least they think they are.
We need to ensure that we show them this is a decision that will drive people away, and at the same time, we need to, as a Community, not abuse Homebrew to try and recreate items that we would otherwise have gotten access to in a book.
Because Hasbro is not looking at it as "Oh, they're homebrewing our own options, because we made a mistake removing a la carte."
The suits in the C-Suite are going to say: "This homebrew thing is losing us sales, kill it".
Whether homebrew survives is largely how the players use it. So don't abuse it.
... If that policy were to change, it would be communicated, and it has not.
This is what worries me. Given how utterly abysmal WotC/Hasboro's communication has been and continues to be, I'm not sure that's at all true. They could nip so much of the fear mongering and handwringing in the bud by simply communicating with the community, but they continue not to. Whether or not there are business or practical reasons for the radio silence and their continued practice of "just doing stuff" (Good morning, MCDM's Flee Mortals) without any advance communication and without explaining how or why they made changes (nixing ALC purchases, bundles and ownership filtering in the Marketplace) seems at best disrespectful and at worst is destroying goodwill and driving away business.
Whether homebrew survives is largely how the players use it. So don't abuse it.
... If that policy were to change, it would be communicated, and it has not.
This is what worries me. Given how utterly abysmal WotC/Hasboro's communication has been and continues to be, I'm not sure that's at all true. They could nip so much of the fear mongering and handwringing in the bud by simply communicating with the community, but they continue not to. Whether or not there are business or practical reasons for the radio silence and their continued practice of "just doing stuff" (Good morning, MCDM's Flee Mortals) without any advance communication and without explaining how or why they made changes (nixing ALC purchases, bundles and ownership filtering in the Marketplace) seems at best disrespectful and at worst is destroying goodwill and driving away business.
I mean, it's possible DDB could remove home brewing. It's also possible DDB puts everything in the 2014 edition into Legacy tomorrow and leaving non owners of that content a Basic Rules predicated under the 2024 refresh to work off of until the new core is published.
My point is to pretend if "behaving really really good" by curtailing use of the homebrew tools, and castigating users as "abusers" when those users use those tools precisely as DDB has encouraged homebrew use under both owners is just absurd, predicated on the further absurd logic that a la carte options were being "abused". I mean we can all chicken little ourselves into curtailing our use of content sharing because if we "abuse" it, we could lose that too. It's just not a sensible reaction, and again, is articulated from a perspective that clearly didn't understand what acceptable use is (predicated on unsubstantiated.
As for the MCDM surprise, that was interesting, and cool. I'm curious what the Product thread looks like, as I was toying with home brewing Flee Mortals as it seemed sort of challenging. As for the timing, I feel more people are going to be impressed by the addition of Flee Mortals to DDB than the removal of a la carte. I think the timing is also a two way street. MCDM didn't announce the books on their discord till a couple of hours after DDB did, if my pre coffee perusing clocked things right. I think announcements of which third party is developing a deal with DDB for which product are quiet till we see it because my guess is it allows DDB and the 3pp to explore a relationship, and test the product prior to release while also giving both parties a walk away right. I don't think it's nefarious or frustrating.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Whether homebrew survives is largely how the players use it. So don't abuse it.
... If that policy were to change, it would be communicated, and it has not.
This is what worries me. Given how utterly abysmal WotC/Hasboro's communication has been and continues to be, I'm not sure that's at all true. They could nip so much of the fear mongering and handwringing in the bud by simply communicating with the community, but they continue not to. Whether or not there are business or practical reasons for the radio silence and their continued practice of "just doing stuff" (Good morning, MCDM's Flee Mortals) without any advance communication and without explaining how or why they made changes (nixing ALC purchases, bundles and ownership filtering in the Marketplace) seems at best disrespectful and at worst is destroying goodwill and driving away business.
I mean, it's possible DDB could remove home brewing. It's also possible DDB puts everything in the 2014 edition into Legacy tomorrow and leaving non owners of that content a Basic Rules predicated under the 2024 refresh to work off of until the new core is published.
My point is to pretend if "behaving really really good" by curtailing use of the homebrew tools, and castigating users as "abusers" when those users use those tools precisely as DDB has encouraged homebrew use under both owners is just absurd, predicated on the further absurd logic that a la carte options were being "abused". I mean we can all chicken little ourselves into curtailing our use of content sharing because if we "abuse" it, we could lose that too. It's just not a sensible reaction, and again, is articulated from a perspective that clearly didn't understand what acceptable use is (predicated on unsubstantiated.
As for the MCDM surprise, that was interesting, and cool. I'm curious what the Product thread looks like, as I was toying with home brewing Flee Mortals as it seemed sort of challenging. As for the timing, I feel more people are going to be impressed by the addition of Flee Mortals to DDB than the removal of a la carte. I think the timing is also a two way street. MCDM didn't announce the books on their discord till a couple of hours after DDB did, if my pre coffee perusing clocked things right. I think announcements of which third party is developing a deal with DDB for which product are quiet till we see it because my guess is it allows DDB and the 3pp to explore a relationship, and test the product prior to release while also giving both parties a walk away right. I don't think it's nefarious or frustrating.
To clarify, I wasn't arguing your points on the purpose/possible future of homebrew, and nowhere have I 'chicken littled' anything, so that seems a bit disingenuous. Nor did I say, or even imply that WotC/Hasboro's terrible communication practices were 'nefarious'. I was simply expressing frustration at what I believe is the lack of respectful communication. I'm thrilled about MCDM coming to DDB, but I also think it would have made sense to announce it beforehand. There are certainly people who, due to budget or other limitations, might have benefitted in planning their D&D/DDB expenditures given the upcoming 2 official releases. (As for the timing of Matt's announcement, for all we know that could be down to contractual reasons.)
I agree the A La Carte removal should have been communicated with better notice and with better care. The fact they didn't I think gives some air to my thinking that cutting off a product that may distract consumers from the tent pole products of the core refresh may be in play.
Similarly, I think the surprised drops of 3rd party content may part DDB's insistance/strategy or a mutual shrug between WotC and 3pp. That is, DDB is not dedicated any marketing billable hours to hyping 3pp at the expense of hyping the WotC produced books.
Another possibility is that these things may be released on a "when we get it done, we get it out, and announce it then" timetable. That is, the parties may not necessarily know when 3pp books will drop. My guess is 3pp adaptations may still be too experimental a process for anyone to commit to a release timetable, so instead we got the surprise system. Does DDB bring it online in house? Do they give James Introscaso the API? How long does it take to get all the artists who didn't realize their works are going to be published on DDB sign releases (if those are necessary)? I don't think they have it all worked out yet, so rather than providing release dates, they drop books out when they're done.
I can see the frustration regarding planning purchases. I think, for better or worse, between now and the new core we're just going to be seeing a very spammy chaotic marketplace. This summer is D&D's sort of "lame duck" season, there won't be a lot of new buyers, new buyers waiting out the arrival of new core books, so they're going to double down on the existing player base of the 2014 rules and flood the market with 3pp.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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You are right, homebrew is always available. It's sort of a sweat equity, and a-la-carte piecemeal purchases cater to the other side of the coin from the player wanting to put in the work to homebrew. Yes, you and I probably agree homebrew "isn't hard" but for some, especially new players, I can see it being daunting.
The point and mutual worth to DDB and consumer of the a-la-carte model can be easily seen in this scenario, new player wants a subclass from the PHB, a race from MMM and a feat from Tasha's. A-la-carte that's "Mom/Dad/caretaker, can you pay D&D Beyond six bucks so I can play D&D with my friends?" versus "Can I have ninety bucks to play D&D with my friends?" A-la-carte purchases always seemed to me to be the "gateway purchase" into more fully buying into D&D Beyond. With a $6 purchase the consumer can see the enjoyment the player gets out of D&D and may be more amenable to a larger investment in D&D down the line. Or if the player does not enjoy D&D, they found out for less than the price of a loaf of bread. I think the thinking of a la carte as entry point may be why a-la-carte has gone away. There may well be data showing that "a la carte purchasers who stick with D&D buy into full books within 3-4 months of that a la carte purchase." In a few months DDB, or at least WotC won't want players buying into the 'legacy' of 2014 core content, they'll want them buying into the new core. Rather than buying into "old build" tools, they'd want new players playing around with the new free basic rules and building out purchases from there, maybe even seeing a la carte returning with the 2024. It's speculative, but it's a rationale I can see for them pulling it.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think you have it right there. The piecemeal option gets complicated with different (yet compatible to some extent) versions of the game. If, "I want to play with my friends, but I don't want to use the same options as they have" is the thing you will be at a loss. I would never allow such à la carte set up at my table, but I guess everyone is different.
One way to mitigate the cost is to pool resources with your friends, get a master tier subscription, buy one book for the whole group and share the contents among your group members. That's how I would go about it and it gets muck cheaper in the long run.
Nonsense. I probably saved a couple hundred GBP not buying every book and only buying character creation items. I use D&D Beyond for sheets as it's easier for new players. I have no interest in digital books and honestly would use pen & paper sheets again if the preference of virtually every D&D player, that doesn't play other RPGs, was to use this site. For me, if piece-meal items were not an option when I joined this website, I'd have never purchased anything.
DM subscriber since I joined this website. Ended my subscription June 2024 due to the removal of individual purchases. Was the only reason I ever bothered with this website. I use it for character building for my players and occasional referencing. I don't want digital books that can be removed whenever the company sees fit.
January 2025: seems it was a correct move. They're removing 2014 content that we paid for in lieu of their new version of the game. You only rent content on here, never own.
What was WotC's motive for getting rid of A-La-Carte? If it's not costing them anything to keep it, then there must be another reason to kill it.
It is reasonable to hypothesize that they want to push ALC buyers to buy full books, and it is likely they believe that enough people will make that switch to make it more profitable (ie. they believe the number of people who will buy whole books will be greater than those who stop buying altogether).
It is also reasonable to hypothesize that they might come for homebrew, because users can then get around the ALC removal.
If they aren't going to remove homebrew, then why kill ALC, unless they believe enough people can not be bothered to use the homebrew and will buy whole books instead.
Here's another thought - If it cost them nothing extra to offer ALC (and if in fact it made money) then there seems to be no reason to kill it, unless you don't want people to buy ALC, and if you don't want people to buy ALC, it seems probable you want them to buy whole books, BUT.... in an average group, how many players will buy the same whole book when just one person can buy it and share it with a Master Tier Account?
So, if ALC cost them nothing extra to offer, and they killed ALC to induce people to buy whole books, and it's not necessary for every player in a group to buy a book because one copy can be shared, will WotC stop allowing Master Tier accounts to share books?
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
The idea that it wasn’t costing them anything doesn’t necessarily hold up; inflation means that the relative value of a dollar will tend to decrease as time goes on, so there’s the combination of that and the fact that the prices on past content have held steady for years here. So the relative value of a gradual purchase of $30 worth of content vs $30 here and now could be notably different. And keep in mind that there’s a slight surcharge for electronic transactions on the vendor’s end through services like credit cards and PayPal. Most retailers just absorb the cost as a business expense so we don’t see it, but it happens and incrementals might slice off larger portions since those surcharges typically have a minimum rate which could be higher than the percentage on a $2 charge. So it’s entirely possible there are both real and abstract costs that have made ALC less profitable than just offering full books.
I pointed out my assumption for the motivation a few pages ago.
New Rulebooks.
I think they don't want folks just buying the new Monk & Ranger or other classes with massive changes/improvements, as that would greatly reduce the profitability of the new edition and their report of new books sold and such.
Since they did alc for their books before, doing the change at the time the new rulebooks release would cause headlines at the time the new books release, thus distracting from any positive praise for the new edition.
So, from a CEO standpoint.
Make the change now, we have several months for folks to cool down the rage levels.
I do think this doesn't really affect homebrew that much because, well, DNDBeyond has never offered full homebrew classes.
Yeah, you can 'homebrew' your new Shadow Monk, subclass with seeing through your own darkness spell... but every single Monk player will still have to individually adjust how things like their damage dice are higher and their step of the wind works.
I don't think they're working off the idea that every person who bought the Plane scape backgrounds and feats would have bought the whole book, or even that enough people who bought those would have bought the whole book would make up for the difference.
I think the logic is making everyone who wants to play the improved classes have to pay for the entire book will make enough money that it makes up for the losses from the smaller purchases.
I've been thinking a similar track about this move being more to move players into adopting (sale driving) the new core books. I could even see a calculation seeing a potential of "panic buying" the existing books predicated on rumors of a legacy curtain dropping. That is, I'm presuming the 2014 core will become legacy content in short order as the new core comes out, and you already will have overlap/redundancies between Tasha's and the new PHB with the psi-classes, so I could see putting the 2014 predicated books under legacy in rapid order done as a means to further secure the 2024 PHB as a "successful" product.
The credit card theory is one I hadn't thought of either, and I could see that argument in play, though I also imagine a broader analysis that determines whether a la carte sales sufficiently translates into full book sales which may make the processing fees more of a wash. Plus, as I understand it, a marketplace like Hasbro's pays considerably less on those fees than so called mom and pop or even D&D Beyond as a start up likely scale business.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The motivation for eliminating ALC purchases could be as simple as "setting a book up for ALC purchases is a time-consuming extra headache between Wotsee releasing the book and DDB implementing the book, we're overdrawn and can't keep up as it is, almost nobody bothers with ALC purchases anyway, and disabling the system altogether is easier than explaining ten thousand times a second why we're not offering ALC on new content when it's available on old content."
People are treating this like a life-ending Ultra Crime done purely and specifically to maliciously bleed customers dry. Could they be specifically trying to maliciously jack people over? Sure. But they could also have a perfectly innocuous reason for turning ALC off and they're just categorically terrible at talking to a userbase which in turn actively goes out of its way to scourge, villify, and bully anyone who talks to them because the userbase is upset they have to pay for D&D products at all.
If I were a DDB dev not tasked with community management I wouldn't want to have anything to do with any of you either, you all are absolutely VICIOUS to anybody with a red name ever since the OGL debacle.
Please do not contact or message me.
I play online and the DM claims he knows someone who works in Hasbro and knows they are removing homebrew from D&D Beyond. My answer was "I doubt it vut whatever."
That's weird. My DM's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who overheard a Hasbro exec at 31 Flavors last night saying homebrew was, like, totally off limits. I guess it's pretty serious.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I'm assuming Foundry does because it's so under the hood friendly, but do the VTT arguably in competition with DDB for digital D&D like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, do they allow homebrew? That could be an indicator as to whether something like homebrew tools are retained or streamlined away. Whether Demiplane does too should probably be in the coversation too, I think I remember having to buy into modules for its systems; core rules rather than homebrew being where things were last when I looked into it. Anyway, since they seem to be doing well and are basically an evolution of the DDB platform freed up from exclusive relationship with WotC/5e, whatever they're doing is probably used as a rationale for whatever DDB is doing.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well, my DM's fathers brothers nephews cousin former roommate also works for Hasbro and he agrees.
He also wants to know how the hell I found him and why I'm asking him questions.
I belong to a troupe of crisis actors. Every couple of weeks we're hired by Hasbro to wear D&D swag among business casual attire and hang out in the Hasbro cafeteria with WotC lanyards. We then just talk loudly as if we just left some high level D&D meeting, then huddle up and in lower but still in earshot volume spew out random chaos news about D&D. I'm not sure what Hasbro gets from these exercises, maybe they track all employees' communications to map out leaks or whatever, I do know we bill our activities under two account codes: Break Bob's World, and Immerse the Nerd.
I should probably put this here /s
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Hasbro is way too greedy, and we need to be heard. they do not care about us they only want our money from our interests. Chris Cocks made it well known he does not care about us especially the employees. he needs to realize what he's doing for financial gain no matter if it's going into his pocket or something else, is cheating us in the process. "Homebrew Is Piracy", so is over pricing everything they put out. So is taking away content from us because they added a section specifically to put out homebrew content and are getting mad about it. I personally will not stand by as a company that its very own CEO, that does not care about its fan base, is trying to destroy it from top to bottom. We need to be heard; I highly suggest to anyone who agrees, to cancel any official WOtC pre-orders to let it be known. Current ones are Eve of Vecna and Infinite Staircase. I will not spend any more money into a company I thought supported our passions and community.
Yes, but they also removed a la carte sales, and "you know we can just get it from third party sites right?"
Homebrew and a la carte are all about easy access. Being able to incorporate other people's ideas, both official and homebrew, on a website that helps automate character creation, encounter tracking, and combat maps, is a big advantage.
Other options we "also have, you know" are:
But D&D Beyond is a complete system that people want to use. My point, which apparently got lost in the "You're wrong! They won't do that!" responses, is that they will do that if we mistreat Homebrew, because Hasbro is more concerned with money than a well rounded D&D Beyond website. They are not holding our best interests at heart. They are holding their shareholders in the forefront, or at least they think they are.
We need to ensure that we show them this is a decision that will drive people away, and at the same time, we need to, as a Community, not abuse Homebrew to try and recreate items that we would otherwise have gotten access to in a book.
Because Hasbro is not looking at it as "Oh, they're homebrewing our own options, because we made a mistake removing a la carte."
The suits in the C-Suite are going to say: "This homebrew thing is losing us sales, kill it".
Whether homebrew survives is largely how the players use it. So don't abuse it.
You're imploring practices regarding a system you don't seem to understand.
In your fear-mongering above, you demonstrate very little experience with the Homebrew tools and their clear rules (and automated system policing those rules, on top of human monitoring/reproting) that prevent your nightmare scenario of "abusing" the tools. Anyone who has worked with the homebrew tools for any significant period of time knows that it's entirely appropriate and proper use of the tools to generate official or third party content for personal use (don't push the publish button, it then stays in your collection and can be shared within your campaigns with the master tier, don't believe me, check the homebrew forums or really look at the tools). D&D Beyond allowed and encouraged that practice even before DDB was acquired by WotC, and WotC never cried foul. If that policy were to change, it would be communicated, and it has not.
Your "logic," so to speak, is predicated on presumptions as to why the a la carte option was not reproduced in the Marketplace redesign. There has been no reason given by WotC. All the "business" rationales, and the revenue maximization theory you're leaning on are based on flailing conjecture, at best loosely tied to the comments a former employee said over a year ago. The truth is there is no public explanation as to why. You are extrapolating, and weirdly moralizing, based on conjecture over a tool whose rules you can't even properly articulate and I doubt you actually understand based on your proclamations so far.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This is what worries me. Given how utterly abysmal WotC/Hasboro's communication has been and continues to be, I'm not sure that's at all true. They could nip so much of the fear mongering and handwringing in the bud by simply communicating with the community, but they continue not to. Whether or not there are business or practical reasons for the radio silence and their continued practice of "just doing stuff" (Good morning, MCDM's Flee Mortals) without any advance communication and without explaining how or why they made changes (nixing ALC purchases, bundles and ownership filtering in the Marketplace) seems at best disrespectful and at worst is destroying goodwill and driving away business.
I mean, it's possible DDB could remove home brewing. It's also possible DDB puts everything in the 2014 edition into Legacy tomorrow and leaving non owners of that content a Basic Rules predicated under the 2024 refresh to work off of until the new core is published.
My point is to pretend if "behaving really really good" by curtailing use of the homebrew tools, and castigating users as "abusers" when those users use those tools precisely as DDB has encouraged homebrew use under both owners is just absurd, predicated on the further absurd logic that a la carte options were being "abused". I mean we can all chicken little ourselves into curtailing our use of content sharing because if we "abuse" it, we could lose that too. It's just not a sensible reaction, and again, is articulated from a perspective that clearly didn't understand what acceptable use is (predicated on unsubstantiated.
As for the MCDM surprise, that was interesting, and cool. I'm curious what the Product thread looks like, as I was toying with home brewing Flee Mortals as it seemed sort of challenging. As for the timing, I feel more people are going to be impressed by the addition of Flee Mortals to DDB than the removal of a la carte. I think the timing is also a two way street. MCDM didn't announce the books on their discord till a couple of hours after DDB did, if my pre coffee perusing clocked things right. I think announcements of which third party is developing a deal with DDB for which product are quiet till we see it because my guess is it allows DDB and the 3pp to explore a relationship, and test the product prior to release while also giving both parties a walk away right. I don't think it's nefarious or frustrating.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
To clarify, I wasn't arguing your points on the purpose/possible future of homebrew, and nowhere have I 'chicken littled' anything, so that seems a bit disingenuous. Nor did I say, or even imply that WotC/Hasboro's terrible communication practices were 'nefarious'. I was simply expressing frustration at what I believe is the lack of respectful communication. I'm thrilled about MCDM coming to DDB, but I also think it would have made sense to announce it beforehand. There are certainly people who, due to budget or other limitations, might have benefitted in planning their D&D/DDB expenditures given the upcoming 2 official releases. (As for the timing of Matt's announcement, for all we know that could be down to contractual reasons.)
I agree the A La Carte removal should have been communicated with better notice and with better care. The fact they didn't I think gives some air to my thinking that cutting off a product that may distract consumers from the tent pole products of the core refresh may be in play.
Similarly, I think the surprised drops of 3rd party content may part DDB's insistance/strategy or a mutual shrug between WotC and 3pp. That is, DDB is not dedicated any marketing billable hours to hyping 3pp at the expense of hyping the WotC produced books.
Another possibility is that these things may be released on a "when we get it done, we get it out, and announce it then" timetable. That is, the parties may not necessarily know when 3pp books will drop. My guess is 3pp adaptations may still be too experimental a process for anyone to commit to a release timetable, so instead we got the surprise system. Does DDB bring it online in house? Do they give James Introscaso the API? How long does it take to get all the artists who didn't realize their works are going to be published on DDB sign releases (if those are necessary)? I don't think they have it all worked out yet, so rather than providing release dates, they drop books out when they're done.
I can see the frustration regarding planning purchases. I think, for better or worse, between now and the new core we're just going to be seeing a very spammy chaotic marketplace. This summer is D&D's sort of "lame duck" season, there won't be a lot of new buyers, new buyers waiting out the arrival of new core books, so they're going to double down on the existing player base of the 2014 rules and flood the market with 3pp.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.