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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Bothsidesism is gross false equivalence and unproductive in serious conversation. Calling the updated 2024 ruleset 5.5 in 2024 was a dogwhistle and it was rooted in attempts to start edition wars and some of the people driving that activity were doing it because they were upset WotC was continuing the removal of racist stereotypes that they started back with Monsters of the Multiverse. There's no pretending those facts aren't facts.
New leadership at WotC decided only recently to adopt the 5.5 language for multiple reasons (not least of which is how awkward it was referring to everything released in 2025 and 2026 as 2024 products). But notice that there weren't cheers of joy for the 5.5 naming convention folks getting what they wanted. The perpetually angry crowd just kept being perpetually angry and re-litigating old issues. Oh, and they also got mad that WotC adopted the 5.5 naming convention after not adopting it earlier. As I've said several times now, there's no winning for WotC in regards to chasing after that crowd because nothing they do will make that crowd happy. They can only dig themselves deeper into a position of being resented by that crowd. When it comes to the extremely vocal, terminally online haters, Wizards of the Coast is trapped in zugzwang.
Meanwhile, the rest of us - the majority of their customers - can be critical of the occasional fumble but are otherwise happy with the products, services, and business decisions from Wizards of the Coast. When it comes to the Drops I don't even see anything to be mad about for my own sake, because as a longtime subscriber I'm already paying and now I'm getting additional stuff without paying additional money. From my point of view it's extremely difficult to argue WotC is being greedy by giving me more stuff without charging me more money. I've got practically every streaming service upping their subscription rates, and practically every SaaS application also upping subscriptions and shoehorning AI functionality no one wants into their products. WotC adding more content without increasing prices feels a lot like a value add to me. But just because I'm copacetic with the Drops doesn't me I - and the majority of content customers like me - are going to be toxic with the people who are complaining. Mostly I'm seeing folks who are happy with the Drops content offering helpful advice like "make homebrew copies to share with your players" to the folks who are grumbling. It's more than a stretch to call that toxic just to make a tortured "both sides are bad" argument in bad faith.
Virtually every other tabletop RPG sells their books in PDF format without any issues of piracy harming them in any major scale. There's nothing special about D&D that would cause it to be different in that respect.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The fact that D&D is far and away the biggest in the industry - and the one thus most likely to be pirated - is a pretty clear difference. But let us pretend piracy is not an issue. That does not mean Wizards would be better off selling PDFs.
Other companies sell PDFs not because they think it helps the customer per se - they sell PDFs because they have to. They simply do not have the audience to justify expensive digital platforms - platforms that are expensive to both build and maintain. Even games like Pathfinder are small fish compared to D&D, so they have to do what financially makes sense for them. I feel pretty confident that many of them would abandon PDFs for a Beyond like system if it financially made sense.
Why? Even ignoring piracy, Beyond offers more value to players. Digital tools. Search systems (which, while the current systems are terrible, are still better than a PDF’s complete lacking). Homebrew systems. Etc.
From the financial perspective, the ability to sell a subscription for content sharing, pages that remind you there’s content you do not own and could purchase, and an easy marketplace all are value adds for Wizards.
I find it extremely hard to buy the “Wizards would make more money if they sold PDFs” arguments. The value add would be “folks who want a digital version, but don’t want the digital perks that come with it”. Any time you are looking at a smaller part of a population, your expected value is diminished due to smaller expected returns. Your value loss is potential subscription funds (even ignoring piracy, folks might choose a PDF and loss of tools to easily share a document with their playgroup) and upsells when folks are looking at Beyond and say “maybe I want that also.” Not to mention any incidental infrastructure costs of selling the PDFs.
I think that delta works out for a net loss if Wizards sells PDFs. Whether it might be a good thing overall for the game (and I highly doubt it would be) is not really the point of this thread.
gonna file this under "Exhibit A"
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
The reality is, PDF is a kind of cruddy electronic format, properly hyperlinked text is much better.
I'd like to point out that WotC didn't even create this digital platform. A third party did and WotC just bought it a few years later. WotC has been spectacularly unsuccessful at digital content of any kind on their own.
And regarding piracy and how protective companies have to be regarding it, decades of research has shown that there's one thing that affects piracy of product more than anything else: the ease at which consumers can get access to the product legitimately.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If my memory serves me right, I seem to recall that when streaming services like Netflix became popular, piracy rates dropped.
We know very well that producing an animated series requires time, money and a team of professionals, but on YouTube we can see TV series from Hasbro franchises, and they are financed with advertising. Producing TTRPG online content doesn't need so much, and printing, transport and storage costs are saved.
The consumer who spends her money to buy official products is loyal but to earn this loyalty demands to obey certain principles. The consumer shouldn't feel to be tricked or abused by the company.
I am not a true player but a collector and I bought a lot of titles in the 3E. If I want to collect something I would rather to buy a physicial product, or maybe digital content it can be used in off-line mode. I bought all the things from the Sims 3 but after I lost total interest into the Sims 4. I bought some things from Fortnite but I don't play anymore because my graphic-card isn't enoughly good and playing stopped to be fun when I lost conection. I don't want to spend money on something that depends on an internet connection or external servers.
I don't like to pay by online but I do it to buy content of the online videogame "Shop Titans". And if I pay with my money I would rather content in my first languange.
I wonder about Epic Games producing its own VTT for Fornite and here Hasbro arrived for different collabs, for example VTT for a new edition of Gamma World (and skins of Fortnite could be used for virtual miniatures).
As a counter point, I don't particularly like things (e.g., the updated encounter builder) being tied to maps, because I don't use maps. That said, I know it's an extremely popular feature, so I understand why they do it and good for them. I think adding additional perks for subscribers makes sense but I'm a subscriber, so of course I'm biased (and I don't mean that to be sarcastic). Whether or not we agree, saying "I don't like character content being tied to subs" is a much more nuanced argument than much of what has been happening here.
Same boat with the encounter builder. I would have preferred it continuing to be developed as its own thing because I liked how the old one worked and haven't dived into using maps with my group. But I'm not going to get upsetti spaghetti about it because a lot of people really dig Maps and broadly speaking all the changes to the platform are making things better overall.
Nuance is good and and productive. Dishonest oversimplification like those two responses to my post, less so.
Wizards actually provided a response on this recently. Per a Q&A, the encounter builder, like so much else on this site, is built on top of really bad spaghetti code. The 2014 calculations are apparently structural to the entire pile of code and Wizards realized it would take more effort to fix the 2014 encounter builder than just build a new system from scratch as part of their overhaul of the entire site.
I recall they indicated the encounter builder was likely going to be in the second round of overhauls, after some of the more commonly used player-facing options get fixed.
To keep this on topic for the thread, I would point out this demonstrates two ways Wizards is trying to value add to the game - fixing the mess that is Beyond’s code is good for everyone, and Wizards’ current efforts to keep in communication with players go a long way toward building trust with the community. At least among those who are willing to actually accept the olive branch.
To make informed suggestions, a general consensus must first be reached about the nature and collateral effects of the problem. It’s like telling someone with a peanut allergy to use a non-peanut alternative. Technically its good advise, but ignores a lot of surrounding context (ie nut oil cross contamination is extremely common in industrial scale food processing) that is of critical importance in proposing an effective solution.
Having a dominant market share in of itself is not the problem. Steam has a massive share of the PC market, but its practices has not prevented other publishers from having a much bigger impact on the state of game design and monetization. The issue is the consistent pursuit of share value over sustainable, healthy business practices. And people are revolting and becoming overly cynical, because the company has already cashed out all of its trust and reputation in multiple get rich quick schemes.
So it should surprise no one when the burden of proof has been shifted on WOTC that this will not inevitably cost the players, fans and customer base when it doesn’t result in unrealistic, unsustainable profit growth. The only thing that keeps the real power and beneficiary, the share holders, at bay
While I understand your argument, I disagree with the concept in practice. Because those who buy anything beyond the PHB are generally the DM. And sharing doesn't benefit the DM. As someone who's been involved in a lot of AL as well as multiple campaign groups of my home games, the expectation remains on the DM to provide pretty much everything. The one time I joined a group as a player, the DM took one look at all the extra content he'd gained, and didn't want me to leave the campaign ever. And if DMs don't buy, people will just play with what they've got. Because if the DM buys an item, the player doesn't need to, and if the player doesn't see the item, they won't buy it. So the players never see the items to buy them.
The number of people who will see something from the Subscribers Drops, and decide to subscribe because they want it is... likely zero. That's why there's such an uproar. Players believe they're entitled to content because their DM is paying.
To address the actual topic, I think they've done some good work in expanding D&D Beyond with things like the Class Packs. Once there's enough additional subclasses etc, they could repeat that with Class expansions too. And I've been quite happy with the expansion of third party content. That said, as a primarily in-person DM, the big things I'd pay for from WTOC extend beyond the D&D Beyond platform.
That said, D&D Beyond already gets my DM Tier subscription, and I've bought almost everything except for some of the 'other' Setting Books like Taldorei and Strixhaven (yeah yeah), so I'm probably not a good guide on what people won't buy.
Probably explains why Encounter Builder never came out of Beta after 5ish years, they probably got halfway through designing it and realised there was no way it could be finished without rebuilding half the site. I know the upcoming rebuild is starting to turn into a "jam tomorrow" situation but it will be nice once it's happened to see where we stand and what long running pain points they can actually start to fix
Maybe it is a Culture difference between online and in person that I have been totally missing.
I was thinking of trying to rebut this, but in doing so I realized all my examples are in meatspace. In person they can see the book i have, and they know they can't take it with them when they leave my table, so they buy it.
i will also admit it wasn't high percentage, but that is always kinda how it was and i chalked it up D&D being ultra niche at the time, and many people i played with didn't stick with the hobby after trying it.
it was maybe 20% of the people I played with went on to buy their own books or the supplement I was using. (At least while i was there, i have no idea what people bought did after Leaving my table.)
Less when it was Dragon magazine but that was because they didn't always have the back issue that had the thing they wanted.
Don't know what WoTC's target numbers are, but i think 20% was pretty decent.
As too "The DM not gaining anything" I would say 'half right but disagree' because I got to let people have fun and try new things. I didn't gain anything material, but I got to give people experiences.
As to your suggestions for the topic specifically, yeah i second those suggestions, they are pretty solid.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
I buy the electronic versionsof books because its just sooo much easier to build a character electronically with all the features put in and i just point and click.
And theyre cheaper. If i like what i see electronically, i may buy the paper version. So i can write in them, highlight stuff. Circle things. Make notes. My phb and dmg are an absolute mess.
I used the free version of dndbeyond until at some point i wanted to dm and i wanted everyone to use phb, tashas, and xanathars, and not everyone had a copy. So i paid the subscription so all my players had access.
Im sure the monastic scribes bemoaned the introduction of the printing press, even though guttenberg got bibles to a lot more people.
But everything is free-for-basic and subscription-for-more nowadays. Its cheaper and faster than books, right? Just like the printing press was cheaper and faster than scribes.
Anything that has an NRE or some one-time setup cost is going to be slower and more expensive than something online you can patch in minutes.
As for pdfs and piracy, i recall the first iteration of napster. It was a piracy site that just exploded. People could buy cds or pirate it off napster for free, so they pirated it. Nowadays we have online music apps that give you all the songs for a monthly fee. So some folks who would have become pirates decided 15 bucks a month was cheaper and easier than trying to download and store a bajillion songs. But pirate still gonna pirate.
The problem with dnd is that they dont have a bajillion books. They have dozens of books maybe? So it wouldnt take much to download the whole thing. And while music is much more about being a quick and easy 3 minute song and you want more music after that while your walking down the street, dnd is more of a sit down half an hour before the session starts, pull up your character sheet and the rules, so it doesnt have to be small and convenient like your phone. You cant get a bajilioon songs on your phone. Half of what the music apps are doing are not storage but making searches easy and making radio playlists and recommending new music. That isnt a thing for dnd. Some people spend a lot of time learning the rules, and then they hate change because it makes them a noob again, and knowing the rules makes them feel smart.
What you might want is a good search the rules kind of tool. I swear google can find the answer faster than dndbeyond can, and a lot of times they take me to a book they want to sell me. You want me to use your app, make it do something i need a lot: and i need to search thr rules a LOT. Middle of a game, i need answers fast.
Spotify is a flat subscription and people pay it because what they pay a month is cheaper than what their time is worth to go find songs to pirate and make lists and store everything somewhere and search for similar music.
Dnd cant use that model. Its a bunch of books, maybe dozens. So storage isnt a problem new music comes out constantly. A new dnd book comes out once every couple months? So its a bit of work to grab it and store it somewhere. There are a bajillion songs on spotify so searching and playlists and radio lists are useful to manage those numbers. But dnd has only dozens of books so just pirate, store, and you dont need any of those kinds of features.
But building charavters is a pain, so character builder is worth it for me. Thats a thing that makes my life easier. But for a lot of folks, theyd pirate a dozen pdfs and make their own charavter sheets and be done with it.
Which is a long winded way of saying dnd cant use the same model as Netflix or spotify
Not selling PDF's is not protecting WotC from piracy. All of the D&D books released are easily available on filesharing sites, as scans of the physical books and as DnDBeyond rips, as well as being recreated in digital tools. They usually become available only a few weeks after release too. Selling their own pdfs is not going to make them more available than they already are.
There's plenty of possible reasons not to sell pdfs, maybe there isn't enough demand, or maybe they don't want to eat into physical/FLGS sales, but piracy would be a pretty stupid reason considering how easily they're pirated already.
It is not particularly significant protection, but it's not zero. Honestly, I don't think WotC is particularly rational about PDFs, but I also don't think it's a significant factor.
As for the OP, the problem for me isn't what they sell, it's how the company treats it's customers.
Until a couple of years ago I was happily purchasing as many of the player options as I could, and upgrading to full books with some, and had a master sub to share that content with my players. I was excited by the new rules that were coming out, and while I wasn't ready to switch my main campaign, I'd been discussing with my players (who were also interested) about picking up the new rulebooks and running some oneshots with the 2024 rules. More recently, I think they're doing a good job with maps, although I don't use it myself. I think the starter packs are a good idea, although not a replacement for a la carte, and I think the Drops are a really positive addition (although I do agree that they should be shareable). So, to be clear, I am not against anything they're doing with the game itself.
The problems started when they removed a la carte purchasing with no notice. I'm not so bothered about it being removed, although I think it was mistake. My first issue was that they should have given us notice, so that we could make last minute purchases before it went. The bigger issue is that when a number of us complained on the forum we were told that our feedback was being passed on and listened to, but we never got a single response from DDB. They never even acknowledged our complaints. The first comment I've seen about it was in the AMA just before christmas, 18 months)ish) after it happened.
Then we had the same again with the 2024 release. WotC had been very clear that 2024 was not a new edition, and that 2014 would still be part of 5e. People had been asking for months how DDB was going to handle the two rulesets, but were completely ignored (except for the commuity manager who didn't know, and couldn't get any response from higher up). Then on release day (2 weeks before the official release due to early access) they just announced that they were deleting large parts of 2014 to replace them with 2024. Again, no warning or communication. Huge numbers of their customers told on a Friday afternoon that effective immediately you could no longer use DDB for your games. They were forced to backtrack on this soon after, but it then took months for 2014 to be properly usuable again, and even now there's bits missing or not working well. During those months I don't think there was any communication on what they were planning to fix (if anything), or what support they were planning for 2014, we just had to blindly hope that they'd fix things. Even now, when we've all been told to quietly wait for the backend rewrite, I've not been able to get an answer on whether the new engine is intended to support 2014 properly.
Now, I do acknowledge that communication has improved in some areas. Zac has been very active with maps, and the AMA's have been good (but the answers should have been reposted here on DDB for all to see). I've even chatted to the Dev manager on discord. All of which is a welcome improvement. However, they still aren't engaging with us properly. They still don't announce things until they've happened (if then, I still haven't seen any posts on the frontpage about the new starter packs), and they're still ignoring all the issues raised on the forums (I'm not quite sure why we have a community manager here, as they don't seem to be able to get us answers on anything).
As one example, there was a number of people recently asking why they couldn't buy the Ravenloft bundle in the international store. There was one response from the community manager, saying they didn't know why but would investigate, but they never came back with a response, and the threads were otherwise ignored by DDB. Eventually a mod happened to find & post a FAQ from the WotC help pages saying that the international store was being shut down and therefore the physical book was unavailable from the marketplace. I'd expect something like that to be posted on the DDB homepage, and for the community manager to be made aware so that customers can be advised. Instead they've just been ignored, and still wouldn't have an answer if the mod hadn't stumbled across it.
I cancelled my subscription when they tried to delete 2014, and haven't bought any D&D products since, digital or otherwise. For me it doesn't matter how good their products are, I will not buy another thing from them while they show such contempt for their users.