Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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The entire point of paying for a Master Tier subscription is to make sure all of my players have access to the same options.
While i could pay for all of my players to have a subscription, that would feel icky on both sides. Paying Beyond to share my content is normalized behavior int he modern culture. This has always been the way to bring in more players. Asking a new player to spend $100 to see if they like the game means no new players. that's a big part of the idea behind making the SRD free. But many new players don't feel comfortable being a DM until they've played in a game.
Some of my players already own all the D&D content on a different VTT or as physical books. They aren't going to buy all that content again on Beyond just because I like these tools. Thus I pay for a Master Tier subscription when i run games. When I play in games, I use the favorite toolset of the DM.
When I heard about D&D Drops I wanted to go brag to all my fellow gamers about this amazing new perk. Instead I had to send a message to them announcing that all shared content is banned in my games. One sentence made an amazing new feature another source of criticism.
Thank you from a 40 year fan of D&D.
Wait you are banning shared content in your game because a new subscriber perk can't be shared?
While it sucks in some ways, they need some reason for people to subscribe. That is what is keeping the lights on for this site.
...why did you do that, though?
I agree that the lack of content sharing on these new items is disappointing, but I don't understand how you got from that to banning your players from using any shared content at all.
pronouns: he/she/they
I may be misunderstanding your post, but the only thing you need to disallow if you're concerned about players not having equal access because they aren't subscribers is the Drops elements (Uncheck the 'Subscriber Content' option under sources on the 'Home' tab of the character builder). You can still use content sharing the same way you always have.
Why?
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I don't want some of my players purchasing a subscription for content that can't be shred with the full group. Thus I'm banning all the amazing new content from drops at my tables.
Why should I keep paying for a Master Tier subscription if I can't share the content I own with my players?
This new dropped content announcement should be a reason to brag about how DNDBeyond is adding value for their customers. Instead it's not being implimented correctly, and thus is unusable for many people.
Also this is a terrible precedent to et. How long until i need to read the small print on 3rd party content or even official D&D books to know if it will work with a Master Tier subscription?
I.... What? I am sooo confused
You said in your original post you're banning all shared content, but now you're saying you're just banning content from drops, which seems contradictory. Why does it matter if one player has access to stuff others don't?
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I'm sorry, I still don't understand why your inability to share these specific options means none of your players should be able to use any shared content.
You know you can still share all the other content you own, right?
pronouns: he/she/they
While I understand that you'd certainly prefer to be able to just share this content, it's also pretty easy to use the homebrew tools to add a feat or spell or whatever that will work well for your group from the Drops material.
If I didn't want all my players to have access to the same options, I wouldn't buy a Master Tier subscription. We could all just play with the SRD and spend nothing to financially support DNDBeyond. Or I could let the players with plenty of cash buy all the cool new stuff, while the financially strapped players are left playing the same few subclasses from the SRD. Either way has zero impact on my ability to run the game.
I enjoying seeing various new classes, subclasses, and feats being used at my tables. I like being able to share my hobby with people unable or unwilling to pay from the content.
Again I ask. Why pay for a Master Tier subscription if I can't share content?
This is a very odd "all or nothing" attitude. You can share your content, just not 100% of it.
And that's not even 100% accurate, because you could just make homebrew copies and share those. It's trivial:
Now every player in your campaign that has homebrew content enabled will be able to access your copies. You don't even need a Master Tier subscription for this as homebrew sharing within campaigns is free. So with less than a dozen clicks and a few presses of the keyboard (as I'm assuming you'd want to remove the COPY_OF_ text), you're golden.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Im sharing dozens of books in the campaign im dm'ing at the moment. Which is great in that it alllows all the players access some cool stuff outside the basic rules and the PHB.
But.if your concern is the rich players in your campaign will "pay to win" and the poor players will be left behind, then why not make the simple rule: "all character builds must rely on the content ive shared only" ?
If pay to win is the concern, just share the stuff that you will allow and ban content not shared by you?
I do think this content should be innately shareable since it is a player-facing option and subscriptions tend to be DM purchases.
However, anyone who thinks this is a real problem does not know how to use Beyond. This “problem” could be solved in less time than it took to write many of the posts complaining about it.
I will also point out that Wizards specifically requested feedback, and, instead of feedback that is worth listening to, they are getting a lot of hyperbolic overreactions like on display on this thread. That is not helpful and drowns out those of us who are actually trying to give constructive criticism on the topic.
The idea of hiding player options behind a high tier flies in the face of EVERY piece of feedback from the parts of the community that aren't WotC-policed.
It feels like a slap in the face to feedback that wasn't from those with a Master Tier & to those who have the power to influence customers.
It's structured like Netflix meets a Battle Pass.
& It reeks of Silicon Valley 101.
Poor & physical players are shut off from these options, creating a class system in a game that's allegedly for everyone, not just Beyond subs.
Zac claimed that they got feedback that paid subbers weren't "getting enough value" for the sub, i.e. not using Perks. Not only does he need to prove that was what was actually said, he needs to consider the quite literal lower classes of gamers that this creates. That's why I'm not unconvinced this wasn't a suit demanding this for shareholder profit, & GPyromania is the fall guy for the inevitable blowback.
If player content can't be accessed by players w/o a sub, then the game is not for everyone. It's for payers.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Anyone who has paid attention to the forums has seen people complaining about the limited utility of the perks before, and it really is not hard to see why. The near totality of subscriber perks were player facing - customizations for character sheets. Subscriptions are DM facing, who have less need for this customization. Even those who are players can only use one of each customization per character. The remainder were dice, which you can only use one set of at a time.
You say in your signature folks should sharpen their philosophical razors, but apparently do not heed your own advice. You are attempting to ascribe malice to something that can be easily explained though a basic analysis about what is being offered, how those offerings are used, and who the product is marketed to. A common sense application of pretty much any philosophical razor supports Zac, not whatever narrative you are trying to spin.
Besides, this “problem” can be solved in less time than it probably took to write your post using what Davyd already posted on this thread.
You think the suits were pressuring D&D Beyond to give away more stuff to subscribers without putting the subscription price up? Doesn’t sound like the greatest way to generate profit
There are many ways to avoid paying for D&D. That still doesn't give me a reason to pay for a subscription. i remember the conversion to 5.5 giving us less than a month to create a homebrew copy of every 5e spell. Sure we could do this, but its more work than you imply. And its bad for DNDBeyond to have 100,000 copies of cure light wounds saved on their server. So I created a forum post to have a group of dedicated players create one copy of every spell and share it for all. The Mods shut down that thread and soon after announced that 5.0 content would have the legacy tag.
I'm just making a polite request for DNDBeyond to make a similar shift in direction regarding the Drops perks for subscribers.
I understand your concerns about digital only content. I kept buying physical CDs during the Napster frenzy. This continued during the shift to MP3 stores because I wanted physical copies. I own physical copies of D&D books for a variety of reasons. One is the possibility that the company goes bankrupt and the digital tools go away. While my request doesn't help your concern, I would support a annual physical or at least PDF option for this content. Many game stores still have inconsistent internet access, and some players prefer the feel of physical books.
Holy crap. If I was in a game with someone and they tried to tell me that I wasn't allowed to purchase something because everyone in the group couldn't use it I would not be in the group anymore voluntarily. You can't tell people that they can't purchase something just because other people can't use it.