The only way I can see this ever working is the other way around; when you buy a book on D&D Beyond, you can also buy the physical book for a reeduced price (EG 30% off). It would be a single transaction, and then the book would be shipped to you.
As others have said, getting the content on this site for free is not going to happen because you buy the book.
...The Essentials Kit is more expensive than the Starter Kit (which does not have any codes)...
The Essentials Kit comes with a lot more than the Starters Kit. It has more dice, a DM screen and a longer adventure. Above that, it also comes with three further adventures that makes it more than twice as long as the Starter Set. In fact, it has more to it than most of the published adventures, being tied for second longest, to my recall, the only drawback is that it's paperback (and given than it comes in a boxset, I'm not convinced that it's much cheaper to make). The other adventures are instead about 50% more expensive - even the DDB ones cost more. According to your logic, does that mean that the codes make the Essentials Kit cheaper?
The price difference with the Essentials Kit and Starter Set is not because of the D&D codes - which were most likely a giveaway by DDB, not WotC - but because you're getting substantially more.
You get almost twice the dice, about a third more paper (a map and longer rule book), and about twice the amount of cardboard (GM screen and popout cards). That is just the physical stuff.
For the digital stuff that the box set includes, it has the DOIP bundle ($25.47) and 50% off code for the PHB ($14.99).
The Dungeon Master's Screen Wilderness Kit is $24.99 MSRP and a set of dice is about $10.00 (and you can generally get both these things cheaper), which should reflect extra physical material you get from the Essentials Kit not found in the Starter set.
If you pay the full price for everything, the digital content is still worth more than the physical stuff (and it is more difficult to get discounts on the digital content), so I think the digital stuff contributes more to the pricing difference than the physical stuff in the Essentials Kit.
The only one that does is the Essentials Kit. I'm sorry you were mislead or at least that there was confusion.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
well, crap. I bought the physical 5e handbook due to a friend telling me there was a code in it to unlock the content on DnD beyond.
It sounds like the issue is being misinformed by your friend, but you are not in fact damned to double a purchasing if you're keen on DDB instead of physical books. Physical books can be returned to wherever you bought it from, even Amazon (hell, some of the big ones like Amazon just refund you and don't bother with you returning the book).
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Unfortunately, there is no possibility of backwards granting access to content on D&D Beyond, for free, based on physical books you already own.
On top of other reasons, there is no way to legitimately discern who has purchased a physical book (barcodes/receipts etc are not viable).
With regards future book purchases, we are exploring options. We're not able to share what that might look like as, at this point, it's still exploratory.
Whilst probably not the answer that you wanted to read, I hope this provides the answer requested.
That's alright. I appreciate it. This is a new ballgame. I'm guessing that in the future they'll put a card with a unique one time code inside each book so you at least get a discount and don't have to pay it double. Until then I guess we'll play it like a homebrew or through another page. My friends and I have a ton of the books but now we live apart so we want to play online.
The monthly $5 gives you access to all the books. So that should help. It is called master Tier.
The Master Tier allows you to share the material you've purchased here on DDB inside a set number of campaigns (I believe it's 5). It does NOT give access to all the books.
The monthly $5 gives you access to all the books. So that should help. It is called master Tier.
The Master Tier allows you to share the material you've purchased here on DDB inside a set number of campaigns (I believe it's 5). It does NOT give access to all the books.
That's correct. Please don't get the subscription thinking that it, in and of itself, will provide access to books.
That said, you don't have to own the books to share it. All books owned by anyone in a campaign can be shared with everyone else in that campaign, so long as someone (anyone, can be someone else again) in that campaign has a master tier sub.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
So, WoTC fully owns dnd beyond now. When you buy a modern vinyl release of a music album these days, they typically include a key you can redeem online to download a digital FLAC file of the record. This is in an industry where the intricacies of who has what rights to the music, and the pressings, and the various editions and so on, is literally its own specialty of law, and they're giving you a FLAC file you can distribute among as many devices as you like, that you can burn on to a CD and make copies of... Yes, there's a potential for piracy, but there's also an expectation that if you're paying a premium to have a physical copy of the music, you deserve to have it on your devices as well. People don't put up with this in the music scene.., WotC could include digital keys in their books to redeem on dnd beyond, and in fact they could have worked out a way to do so even before they purchased dnd beyond. This would help local games stores, too, which would be healthy for the scene. The fact that they haven't done so yet is because their customers expect to have to buy the same product twice, period. I understand why the 5e books i bought in 2016 or something can't be grandfathered on to a site that didn't exist when i purchased them, but at this point, the only reason there isn't a dnd beyond redemption key in the player's handbook you pick up at game's workshop in 2022 is because they know people will go and pay them again when they realize their local scene has moved everything on to dnd beyond.
as for the people saying they can't include codes because they'd have to seal the books and then people couldn't read them in the store... First of all, all sorts of products use display copies. Second of all, you can find a full PDF of all of the WotC books online. And last i checked, Hasbro wasn't exactly losing money on DnD. As a matter of fact, the business was so profitable that as recently as June of this year there was an attempted coup by a hedge fund to stack Hasbro's board of directors, JUST so they could spin off WOTC into its own company without the baggage of hasbro's less successful brands. This literally just happened. But i'm sure they can't afford to include keys in their handbooks. I mean, just look at all the downsizing they've had to do lately, establishing a brand new AAA video game studio headed by a former BioWare hotshot... yeah, tough times for WotC!
So, WoTC fully owns dnd beyond now. When you buy a modern vinyl release of a music album these days, they typically include a key you can redeem online to download a digital FLAC file of the record. [...]
I also came to bump this dead thread. I love buying the physical books, and think that new books should come with codes (given to you by your friendly local game store at checkout) to unlock the content on D&D Beyond for a small fee. Possibly $5-10 per book. This is an added incentive to people like me who buy the physical books but also recognize the benefits of online tools to organize campaigns. For people who don't buy physical books, nothing changes. For people who don't use digital tools, nothing changes. For WotC, additional income and even more goodwill from the player base. For local game stores, people will possibly be even more likely to buy the physical books.
If Blu-Ray and DVD Discs can include a physical disc and a code to unlock digital version, im sure they can figure it out for books. Its not like you have to invent something new.
If Blu-Ray and DVD Discs can include a physical disc and a code to unlock digital version, im sure they can figure it out for books. Its not like you have to invent something new.
This is a point that has been oft made and there is one key detail; those products come sealed and D&D books don't. This then leads to the following typical exchange:
Why not seal D&D books then? Because people won't be able to flip through them at gaming stores Why is this a problem? Because it will discourage people from purchasing books if they can't look at what's inside them, hurting physical store sales Then can't they have one open copy for people to look through? No, not really, because if you look at your average gaming store, they have very limited shelf space and having a 'dead book' (one they can't sell) eats into that space Okay, so they keep it behind the till Well now you need to add signage that says "Please ask at the counter for the review copy" and need a pile of review copies of every book behind the counter and you now have a bottleneck at the counter where potentially non-paying customers are queueing up to ask about the preview copy, causing paying customers to maybe get frustrated and leave.
Overall, it's a no-win for physical stores and consumers.
One way they could do it moving forward is to have a key (or even a QR code) on the physical books, protected by an opaque sticker. Buy the book, peel the sticker, scan the QR code, and you get the digital copy unlocked here. Then the code becomes deactivated. If a book has the sticker already peeled off, it's been "stolen" but at least you know that and can grab another one.
That doesn't solve the issue of the books that the retailer now has that no one wants to buy due to the missing sticker/used code. Also it means fewer sales for Wizards as people are stealing "free" access to the digital content.
I don't know about your experience but most gaming stores I've been to are small enough that the owner or cashier would certainly see someone peeling off the sticker and taking a picture of the code. Worst case those books get put up by checkout.
One way they could do it moving forward is to have a key (or even a QR code) on the physical books, protected by an opaque sticker. Buy the book, peel the sticker, scan the QR code, and you get the digital copy unlocked here. Then the code becomes deactivated. If a book has the sticker already peeled off, it's been "stolen" but at least you know that and can grab another one.
And what about the inventory that's been defaced or already "stolen"? Moreover QR codes don't work with the level of security you're presuming they'd have to prevent the theft and piracy concerns that WotC seems to treat as a risk.
I don't know about your experience but most gaming stores I've been to are small enough that the owner or cashier would certainly see someone peeling off the sticker and taking a picture of the code. Worst case those books get put up by checkout.
That may be in your experience, and I can't tell whether this is just your impression or actually based on provided prospective from the stores from you're claiming; but with "most retail" environments you're asking a lot more effort staff utilization and or technological investment in loss prevention, for one product area in their store. Between this and your mistaken sense of QR code workings in modern retail, I don't think you're helping game shops or proposing a realistic possibility here with any of your thinking.
The only way I can see this ever working is the other way around; when you buy a book on D&D Beyond, you can also buy the physical book for a reeduced price (EG 30% off). It would be a single transaction, and then the book would be shipped to you.
As others have said, getting the content on this site for free is not going to happen because you buy the book.
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You get almost twice the dice, about a third more paper (a map and longer rule book), and about twice the amount of cardboard (GM screen and popout cards). That is just the physical stuff.
For the digital stuff that the box set includes, it has the DOIP bundle ($25.47) and 50% off code for the PHB ($14.99).
The Dungeon Master's Screen Wilderness Kit is $24.99 MSRP and a set of dice is about $10.00 (and you can generally get both these things cheaper), which should reflect extra physical material you get from the Essentials Kit not found in the Starter set.
If you pay the full price for everything, the digital content is still worth more than the physical stuff (and it is more difficult to get discounts on the digital content), so I think the digital stuff contributes more to the pricing difference than the physical stuff in the Essentials Kit.
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well, crap. I bought the physical 5e handbook due to a friend telling me there was a code in it to unlock the content on DnD beyond.
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someone help me
The only one that does is the Essentials Kit. I'm sorry you were mislead or at least that there was confusion.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
It sounds like the issue is being misinformed by your friend, but you are not in fact damned to double a purchasing if you're keen on DDB instead of physical books. Physical books can be returned to wherever you bought it from, even Amazon (hell, some of the big ones like Amazon just refund you and don't bother with you returning the book).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This is not longer the case, Right? Now they run both. Has anything changed?
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That's alright. I appreciate it. This is a new ballgame. I'm guessing that in the future they'll put a card with a unique one time code inside each book so you at least get a discount and don't have to pay it double. Until then I guess we'll play it like a homebrew or through another page. My friends and I have a ton of the books but now we live apart so we want to play online.
The monthly $5 gives you access to all the books. So that should help. It is called master Tier.
The Master Tier allows you to share the material you've purchased here on DDB inside a set number of campaigns (I believe it's 5). It does NOT give access to all the books.
That's correct. Please don't get the subscription thinking that it, in and of itself, will provide access to books.
That said, you don't have to own the books to share it. All books owned by anyone in a campaign can be shared with everyone else in that campaign, so long as someone (anyone, can be someone else again) in that campaign has a master tier sub.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
So, WoTC fully owns dnd beyond now. When you buy a modern vinyl release of a music album these days, they typically include a key you can redeem online to download a digital FLAC file of the record. This is in an industry where the intricacies of who has what rights to the music, and the pressings, and the various editions and so on, is literally its own specialty of law, and they're giving you a FLAC file you can distribute among as many devices as you like, that you can burn on to a CD and make copies of... Yes, there's a potential for piracy, but there's also an expectation that if you're paying a premium to have a physical copy of the music, you deserve to have it on your devices as well. People don't put up with this in the music scene.., WotC could include digital keys in their books to redeem on dnd beyond, and in fact they could have worked out a way to do so even before they purchased dnd beyond. This would help local games stores, too, which would be healthy for the scene. The fact that they haven't done so yet is because their customers expect to have to buy the same product twice, period. I understand why the 5e books i bought in 2016 or something can't be grandfathered on to a site that didn't exist when i purchased them, but at this point, the only reason there isn't a dnd beyond redemption key in the player's handbook you pick up at game's workshop in 2022 is because they know people will go and pay them again when they realize their local scene has moved everything on to dnd beyond.
as for the people saying they can't include codes because they'd have to seal the books and then people couldn't read them in the store... First of all, all sorts of products use display copies. Second of all, you can find a full PDF of all of the WotC books online. And last i checked, Hasbro wasn't exactly losing money on DnD. As a matter of fact, the business was so profitable that as recently as June of this year there was an attempted coup by a hedge fund to stack Hasbro's board of directors, JUST so they could spin off WOTC into its own company without the baggage of hasbro's less successful brands. This literally just happened. But i'm sure they can't afford to include keys in their handbooks. I mean, just look at all the downsizing they've had to do lately, establishing a brand new AAA video game studio headed by a former BioWare hotshot... yeah, tough times for WotC!
they/them
I also came to bump this dead thread. I love buying the physical books, and think that new books should come with codes (given to you by your friendly local game store at checkout) to unlock the content on D&D Beyond for a small fee. Possibly $5-10 per book. This is an added incentive to people like me who buy the physical books but also recognize the benefits of online tools to organize campaigns. For people who don't buy physical books, nothing changes. For people who don't use digital tools, nothing changes. For WotC, additional income and even more goodwill from the player base. For local game stores, people will possibly be even more likely to buy the physical books.
If Blu-Ray and DVD Discs can include a physical disc and a code to unlock digital version, im sure they can figure it out for books. Its not like you have to invent something new.
This is a point that has been oft made and there is one key detail; those products come sealed and D&D books don't. This then leads to the following typical exchange:
Why not seal D&D books then?
Because people won't be able to flip through them at gaming stores
Why is this a problem?
Because it will discourage people from purchasing books if they can't look at what's inside them, hurting physical store sales
Then can't they have one open copy for people to look through?
No, not really, because if you look at your average gaming store, they have very limited shelf space and having a 'dead book' (one they can't sell) eats into that space
Okay, so they keep it behind the till
Well now you need to add signage that says "Please ask at the counter for the review copy" and need a pile of review copies of every book behind the counter and you now have a bottleneck at the counter where potentially non-paying customers are queueing up to ask about the preview copy, causing paying customers to maybe get frustrated and leave.
Overall, it's a no-win for physical stores and consumers.
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One way they could do it moving forward is to have a key (or even a QR code) on the physical books, protected by an opaque sticker. Buy the book, peel the sticker, scan the QR code, and you get the digital copy unlocked here. Then the code becomes deactivated. If a book has the sticker already peeled off, it's been "stolen" but at least you know that and can grab another one.
That doesn't solve the issue of the books that the retailer now has that no one wants to buy due to the missing sticker/used code. Also it means fewer sales for Wizards as people are stealing "free" access to the digital content.
I don't know about your experience but most gaming stores I've been to are small enough that the owner or cashier would certainly see someone peeling off the sticker and taking a picture of the code. Worst case those books get put up by checkout.
And what about the inventory that's been defaced or already "stolen"? Moreover QR codes don't work with the level of security you're presuming they'd have to prevent the theft and piracy concerns that WotC seems to treat as a risk.
That may be in your experience, and I can't tell whether this is just your impression or actually based on provided prospective from the stores from you're claiming; but with "most retail" environments you're asking a lot more effort staff utilization and or technological investment in loss prevention, for one product area in their store. Between this and your mistaken sense of QR code workings in modern retail, I don't think you're helping game shops or proposing a realistic possibility here with any of your thinking.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
No, I think this would mostly work with online sales like Amazon. But that's no worse than digital-only in terms of benefiting small shops.