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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They. Give. The. Game. Away. For. Free.
Never happened in the 1e days. You couldn’t walk into the hobby shop or waldenbooks at the mall and find a (stripped down, granted) version of the PHB sitting on the shelf for free. Then, as now, the DM bought the books and everyone else shared them. Someone was paying. Now, you can play without anyone giving WotC a penny.
Also now on beyond, you can share a book with I think it’s 60 people, all over the world. In practice the sharing digitally is much more generous than it ever was in person. Only one person can read a book at a time, but all 60 of those people can be reading the same page of the PHB at once — and all in different time zones. It is far more useful and functional, and I for one, am happy to pay a couple bucks a month for the service.
And, lordy, the monetize comment again. First, the person who said that is no longer with the company. Second, it was always about monetizing the brand, not the game. It’s why there’s stuffed toy displacer beasts and D&D Lego sets and I recall something like a D&D branded slot machine in development they licensed not too long ago.
The nut they’ve always been trying to crack as a company is that 20% of the players (DMs) make 80% of the purchases. They’ve always, even in the benighted days before digital tools, been looking for ways to expand that number.
And, as someone who’s been playing since the early 80’s and definitely has enough gray in my beard to qualify as “old guard,” we are a small and shrinking share of the player base. We’re not forcing anyone to do anything.
I'm amazed by the rewriting of history. TSR was notoriously litigious. The idea of third party publishers producing stuff for D&D was an innovation from 3e; the whole reason the OGL got written is because they'd acquired such a toxic relationship with their fanbase that something drastic needed to be done.
Well, sort of. There were definitely third-party publishers making D&D products in the 1e days. (Role Aids, Judge's Guild) I believe their relationship with TSR was a lot more fraught than the OGL era, and I don't know if the ecosystem persisted into 2e.
But yes, the WotC era is still qualitatively different in attitude toward third-party publishers and fan work. This is probably true even for the 4e era -- they still had a license, even if it was more restrictive than the OGL.
Well, there were companies with licenses that were negotiated individually with TSR. What 3e added was a license that didn't require those negotiations.
As a member of the "old Guard" a lot of us did and still do want to beat TSR and its business practices with a bag of bricks and leave it whimpering in a ditch.
This romanticism for the company specifically is not a generational thing, it is a.... well i don't know where it comes from.
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
Well, it might be a generational thing, but if so it's Gen Z or something; people too young to have actually ever experienced TSR.
There was at least one (Mayfair/Role Aids) who had no license. There may have been more, but there's a limit to how much I'm willing to go digging.
I think it's rooted in the older folks hearkening back to an idealized version of the good old days. The bad of WotC and modern D&D is recent and present, while the bad of TSR and old D&D is distant and fuzzy. It's the nostalgia instinct; if you remember your youthful/college days fondly, things associated with those days gain by connection. And the D&D we played back then probably was better in some sense -- when you have an easily-available group of friends who have the free time and stamina to play for 6-8 hours every week, you really were having more fun than you likely are now, when time, responsibilities, and the general problems of the world make it harder.
(Also, if you didn't have a connection to the industry news, TSR's bad behavior was unlikely to enter your awareness. I certainly heard about none of it until I got on Usenet.)
I have warm and fuzzy memories of playing D&D back in the day (mostly fuzzy, human memory is notorious for being selective and wildly inaccurate). But I also remember that the only way to play back then was with friends I managed to rope in to trying it or people I might meet at a game store, both of which were far more likely to flop than succeed. Now, there are so many ways to find games that I've found games to play and/or run without issue two or three times a week for the last 7 years (using at least 5 ways that I can think of off the top of my head). All but one of those methods required digital means/tools, even for the in-person games, and which is why I have many great memories of playing as recently as a few days ago.
WotC is going to try and find ways (sometimes new ways) to make a profit, just like every other for-profit company or business out there. The same way TSR did (Well, aside from WotC making the SRD available for free.) Different people will have different levels of access to different parts of the game for reasons other than just financial ones, and that has nothing to with WotC. (Like me not being able to afford The Dragon magazine back in the day, and not knowing anyone who had it to lend.) D&D is not worse now because of some sort of predatory practices of the evil empire or because "it used to be that..." D&D is better or worse depending on each individual player and his/her/their preferences, values and beliefs.
They could, at least, reduce prices on thinner books, & not have a flat 60/30 regardless of content and/or reception.
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.
Um..... the thinner books were less money? I'm confused by this comment.
I'm not upset about anything. I was answering a very specific question. What can WotC do to get my money, the short answer is, it's probably too late for that, the new direction has been chosen, I don't agree with it, I'm moving on. I'm mostly indifferent to it at this point.
It is, it's actually why I'm more vocal about it when they are now screwing it up. TSR was always a crappy company from the first day to the last, they made a great product, but they were never a good company. As you point out, the folk traditions where community driven, not company-driven. WotC understood that and made great strides to bring game and community together. That is why I don't understand why they more recently abandoned this approach and are now simply trying to sell out. They are, in fact, acting now more like TSR always had and that is the troubling part.
[Redacted]
I didn't say I was quitting, I'm saying I'm not going to give WotC money for their digital adaptation of the game. I'm simply playing other, more traditional versions of D&D and using existing books I have. I'm not going to support a company when they are doing stuff I don't like. So, no, I won't be buying 5e content anymore, not until they give up on this "renting D&D" concept, which I think at this point we are in the army with. They are starting small but it's only a matter of time before most of what D&D is a game you can rent through D&D Beyond.
I'm not stroking a generational divide, nore gatekeeping. I'm simply pointing out that there is one. If you don't believe me, go to the Dragonfoot forums or.. Really, anywhere outside of this echo chamber and ask people how they feel about Wizards of the Coast and the state of D&D. I think it's objectively and irrefutably true that the D&D community is more divided today than at any point in the history of the franchise by a considerable margin. The DnDbeyond forums are the last place on the internet that sings the "Wizards of the Coast is great, D&D is doing great" song and dance. If that makes me sound divisive, it's not really my intention to be; I actually don't really care, it's mostly a very obvious observation I gave as part of my ansewr to the OP. I play what I want and I buy what I like. I was simply answering the question, what can WotC to get my money with some why questions built in, so I answered them. [Redacted]
I have no problem with digital tools; digital tools are great, I have been using them going all the way back to the 1e days. But digital tools and digital D&D are not the same thing and there is a huge difference between buying something D&D, like a book and renting it. My issue is with renting content and now we are getting into the "some content is online only" era which is the first step to a much larger leap that we know with 100% certaintity, regardless of anything Wizards of the Coasts says is exactly the plan. I know people are in denial about it and that's fine, but a few years from now, if you want to read a D&D book, you will have to have a subscription to a service like this. This is where its all going and I don't want to support that.
I never even brought up TSR in my post so I'm not sure why you think I'm defending them or somehow reminiscing about how great TSR was back in the day. Nothing in my post even suggests anything of the sort. TSR was a crap company from start to finish, we are not talking about them we are talking about WotC. Exactly what you're saying is my problem with what they are doing now. They created the OGL, built the DM Guild, created the infrastructure that made 5e possible, easily one of the most popular versions of the game of all time... and now they are selling out. They are abandoning all of the work upon which their success was built by steering the ship into a digital future that will almost certainly erase the very nature of D&D as we know it.
I don't want to rent D&D content, but as much as I hate that, the idea of paying for a service so that I can get access to D&D content not available in any other way is unbearable... that is a future I don't want any part of. There is no positive outcomes. And before you say "WotC promised...X or Y", remember who we are talking about here. Think about the stuff WotC has promised over the years and didn't deliver and in most cases did the exact opposite of what they said they would do. Have a peek at Magic: The Gathering and see what is going on over there. Nothing that WotC says publicly has any meaningful value, a precedent they set themselves; what they do matters and what they are doing is turning D&D into a service you rent, not a game you buy. They have taken the first steps and ... this community is not fighting it.
Which to me means that its an inevitable future so, again to answer the OPS question, its not something I want to participate in and I'm not going to support it partially by buying books so that they can have revenue to make everything digital in the future. Homie don't play that!
[Redacted]
I recall writing a program in BASIC on my Commodore VIC-20 to crank out sets of stat rolls for D&D characters. In the early 80s
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
PIPA - Planar Interception/Protection Aeormaton, warforged bodyguard and ex-wizard hunter (Warrior of the Elements monk/Cartographer artificer)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Translation: Only the echo chamber which i agrees with holds the truth.
You continue to demonstrate your complete lack of knowledge of the actual history of the hobby. D&D is clearly more divided than it was in, say, 2020, but it's hilarious to call it the peak in divisions.
Old timer radio broadcast: The community is not in my opinion, more divide than in the past just divided over different things. It is also so much bigger that the divides seem bigger when they are just bigger groups opposing bigger groups.
The community never fully got along, even in the "glory days."
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 would like it if they stopped doing this kind of thing.
https://bsky.app/profile/valentineirl.bsky.social/post/3mnd7jzawn22o
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 posted about that earlier.
It's apparently contained to the Magic:The Gathering:Arena management, but still, cut off the infected managers if you want to survive the bad PR, Chris, geez...
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.
Good.
Must have missed it in the thread. I only found out about it today.
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 panicked when I made the thread, but the concern was genuine.
Boycotting Magic:The Gathering:Arena is easy enough.
Not spending on DND until the management of the area where the union is forming is fired, & the union is recognized respected, heeded, & obeyed, as well as compensating trans & enby union members for emotional damages, is a harder sell.
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.
As this whole conversation started in part in response to the new Drops content, I thought people should see the update about them posted yesterday.
Short version: they are not committing to any sharing changes, but do realize they made mistakes in the way they chose to release the stuff and are looking at it. And they plan to make an annual package of what they release available for non subscribers for purchase.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2187-d-d-beyond-drops-update-on-the-program