It wasn't so much that Volo's got us to switch. It's just that we didn't switch until a little after it came out, as a group, because by then there were enough options out, between supplements and UA and third party, and playtested homebrew, that we felt like we could play most stuff we wanted to play.
Personally, I think it should work like 4e's DDI. You're monthly subscription gives you complete access to the service including ALL the published content (including new supplements, story modules, and Dragon magazine content as they come out). The main benefit to a subscription is you are guaranteed access to every new UA, supplement, Dragon+,story,module piece of content that comes out. I don't know if the licensing for that works, but that's how I envision it. There are so many hard cover books, it's hard to keep track of things, and I don't want to cart 20 hard cover books around everywhere I go.
How is it that after the various attempts at digital content WotC has embarked upon they didn't start putting unique codes in each book so your book can be tied to X account of Y service?
Because each try at a digital service they tried that would care about such a thing always ended in a dumpster fire of a failure before it even got off the ground in any meaningful way.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Personally, I think it should work like 4e's DDI. You're monthly subscription gives you complete access to the service including ALL the published content (including new supplements, story modules, and Dragon magazine content as they come out). The main benefit to a subscription is you are guaranteed access to every new UA, supplement, Dragon+,story,module piece of content that comes out. I don't know if the licensing for that works, but that's how I envision it. There are so many hard cover books, it's hard to keep track of things, and I don't want to cart 20 hard cover books around everywhere I go.
I agree. I think people should be able to buy things a la carte, but the master subscription should include access to all materials, but if you stop subscribing you lose access. DDI was not perfect but that aspect was good. My guess is that Hasbro is not allowing this option. I am not sure why. My guess is that they worry it will affect book sales, but I doubt it would. Also look at it this way. Very few players buy every book that comes out. A lot of the people who would subscribe would not buy the books anyway. I would be willing to pay up to $15 a month for that type of service that also included the sharing with 12 character slots.
Personally, I think it should work like 4e's DDI. You're monthly subscription gives you complete access to the service including ALL the published content (including new supplements, story modules, and Dragon magazine content as they come out). The main benefit to a subscription is you are guaranteed access to every new UA, supplement, Dragon+,story,module piece of content that comes out. I don't know if the licensing for that works, but that's how I envision it. There are so many hard cover books, it's hard to keep track of things, and I don't want to cart 20 hard cover books around everywhere I go.
I agree. I think people should be able to buy things a la carte, but the master subscription should include access to all materials, but if you stop subscribing you lose access. DDI was not perfect but that aspect was good. My guess is that Hasbro is not allowing this option. I am not sure why. My guess is that they worry it will affect book sales, but I doubt it would. Also look at it this way. Very few players buy every book that comes out. A lot of the people who would subscribe would not buy the books anyway. I would be willing to pay up to $15 a month for that type of service that also included the sharing with 12 character slots.
$15 / mo is way too much!
Think about it for a sec. $15 x 12mo = $180, you can purchase most of their published 5e books for that.
A lot of us already own physical copies and have subscribed to FG and purchased add ons, same goes for Roll20 and those add ons. My opinion is that there should be a reward system for those who buy physical books, especially from local game stores like twenty sided store in brooklyn, a voucher system is probably the best approach. If you buy a book, you get a voucher, that voucher allows you access to that material online whether it be Roll20 for a small charge, or FG for a small charge. I'd even consider paying $10 bucks more for a voucher per book to access that material across all platforms. This does two things, it perpetuates the support of game stores everywhere and limiting online purchases from big box stores like amazon! SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GAME STORE!!! .... And it gives players the opportunity to experience multi-format gaming for D&D, that is the point right, to get as many people to experience the joys of D&D from young to old! Either way, I've pumped a lot of money in to multiple systems, I think it would be good WoTC to start showing us a little bit of love since they know that the majority of us play multi-platform games and will with out a doubt spend the money to play. WoTC will be making money anyway, especially when the volume of purchases increases. Make it appealing! make it desirable, especially for kids who are to young to pay for more than one platform.
Hope this makes sense... if anyone at WoTC wants to DM, please do, I have tons of ideas to help make you all more money and make players feel like they're being treated well and not taken advantage of.
I'm curious.. everyone who has re-purchased material at either roll20 or FG, seems to be concerned about costs here. Now, I'm not 100% sure on the business models of ANYONE involved, however, when I was looking into these two services, I baulked at their prices. To pay, re-pay, the cost of the books, in full, to access the contents in either of these sources, just for data, seems bizarre. They likely pay a licensing fee for the content, as it is locked to their service, so after the first few sales, understandably also there are overheads, but they would be making a (little) bit of money.
On the flip side of that, the $15/month suggested option here is much more reasonable, the toolset is dedicated to 5e, user friendly for the new or IT challenged, and the information pool will continue to grow and be updated. You will be getting more, for less here. And this is aimed at ALL players, not just digital ones. What I am disappointed in, is that there won't be a virtual tabletop here, as I have no intention of using the other services, however with twitch, and some screen sharing, I think I'll manage.
Personally, I think it should work like 4e's DDI. You're monthly subscription gives you complete access to the service including ALL the published content (including new supplements, story modules, and Dragon magazine content as they come out). The main benefit to a subscription is you are guaranteed access to every new UA, supplement, Dragon+,story,module piece of content that comes out. I don't know if the licensing for that works, but that's how I envision it. There are so many hard cover books, it's hard to keep track of things, and I don't want to cart 20 hard cover books around everywhere I go.
I agree. I think people should be able to buy things a la carte, but the master subscription should include access to all materials, but if you stop subscribing you lose access. DDI was not perfect but that aspect was good. My guess is that Hasbro is not allowing this option. I am not sure why. My guess is that they worry it will affect book sales, but I doubt it would. Also look at it this way. Very few players buy every book that comes out. A lot of the people who would subscribe would not buy the books anyway. I would be willing to pay up to $15 a month for that type of service that also included the sharing with 12 character slots.
$15 / mo is way too much!
Think about it for a sec. $15 x 12mo = $180, you can purchase most of their published 5e books for that.
A lot of us already own physical copies and have subscribed to FG and purchased add ons, same goes for Roll20 and those add ons. My opinion is that there should be a reward system for those who buy physical books, especially from local game stores like twenty sided store in brooklyn, a voucher system is probably the best approach. If you buy a book, you get a voucher, that voucher allows you access to that material online whether it be Roll20 for a small charge, or FG for a small charge. I'd even consider paying $10 bucks more for a voucher per book to access that material across all platforms. This does two things, it perpetuates the support of game stores everywhere and limiting online purchases from big box stores like amazon! SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GAME STORE!!! .... And it gives players the opportunity to experience multi-format gaming for D&D, that is the point right, to get as many people to experience the joys of D&D from young to old! Either way, I've pumped a lot of money in to multiple systems, I think it would be good WoTC to start showing us a little bit of love since they know that the majority of us play multi-platform games and will with out a doubt spend the money to play. WoTC will be making money anyway, especially when the volume of purchases increases. Make it appealing! make it desirable, especially for kids who are to young to pay for more than one platform.
Hope this makes sense... if anyone at WoTC wants to DM, please do, I have tons of ideas to help make you all more money and make players feel like they're being treated well and not taken advantage of.
That $15 would also include all the campaign management and all future features (combat and adventure trackers and whatever else is coming) and the sharing feature with up to 12 characters, and access to public homebrew content. We already know there will be a monthly fee for the latter but it will not have any content and you will still need to purchase all the content. So let's guess that master tier without content will be in the ballpark of $10 a month so then you would be talking about getting access to the content you need for just another $5 a month ($60 a year).
I'm curious.. everyone who has re-purchased material at either roll20 or FG, seems to be concerned about costs here. Now, I'm not 100% sure on the business models of ANYONE involved, however, when I was looking into these two services, I baulked at their prices. To pay, re-pay, the cost of the books, in full, to access the contents in either of these sources, just for data, seems bizarre. They likely pay a licensing fee for the content, as it is locked to their service, so after the first few sales, understandably also there are overheads, but they would be making a (little) bit of money.
On the flip side of that, the $15/month suggested option here is much more reasonable, the toolset is dedicated to 5e, user friendly for the new or IT challenged, and the information pool will continue to grow and be updated. You will be getting more, for less here. And this is aimed at ALL players, not just digital ones. What I am disappointed in, is that there won't be a virtual tabletop here, as I have no intention of using the other services, however with twitch, and some screen sharing, I think I'll manage.
My two cents. :)
My guess is that the virtual tabletop is in their future plans but that is likely a year or two away. They have said that they have years of advancements planned if all goes well.
Personally, I think it should work like 4e's DDI. You're monthly subscription gives you complete access to the service including ALL the published content (including new supplements, story modules, and Dragon magazine content as they come out). The main benefit to a subscription is you are guaranteed access to every new UA, supplement, Dragon+,story,module piece of content that comes out. I don't know if the licensing for that works, but that's how I envision it. There are so many hard cover books, it's hard to keep track of things, and I don't want to cart 20 hard cover books around everywhere I go.
I agree. I think people should be able to buy things a la carte, but the master subscription should include access to all materials, but if you stop subscribing you lose access. DDI was not perfect but that aspect was good. My guess is that Hasbro is not allowing this option. I am not sure why. My guess is that they worry it will affect book sales, but I doubt it would. Also look at it this way. Very few players buy every book that comes out. A lot of the people who would subscribe would not buy the books anyway. I would be willing to pay up to $15 a month for that type of service that also included the sharing with 12 character slots.
$15 / mo is way too much!
Think about it for a sec. $15 x 12mo = $180, you can purchase most of their published 5e books for that.
A lot of us already own physical copies and have subscribed to FG and purchased add ons, same goes for Roll20 and those add ons. My opinion is that there should be a reward system for those who buy physical books, especially from local game stores like twenty sided store in brooklyn, a voucher system is probably the best approach. If you buy a book, you get a voucher, that voucher allows you access to that material online whether it be Roll20 for a small charge, or FG for a small charge. I'd even consider paying $10 bucks more for a voucher per book to access that material across all platforms. This does two things, it perpetuates the support of game stores everywhere and limiting online purchases from big box stores like amazon! SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GAME STORE!!! .... And it gives players the opportunity to experience multi-format gaming for D&D, that is the point right, to get as many people to experience the joys of D&D from young to old! Either way, I've pumped a lot of money in to multiple systems, I think it would be good WoTC to start showing us a little bit of love since they know that the majority of us play multi-platform games and will with out a doubt spend the money to play. WoTC will be making money anyway, especially when the volume of purchases increases. Make it appealing! make it desirable, especially for kids who are to young to pay for more than one platform.
Hope this makes sense... if anyone at WoTC wants to DM, please do, I have tons of ideas to help make you all more money and make players feel like they're being treated well and not taken advantage of.
That $15 would also include all the campaign management and all future features (combat and adventure trackers and whatever else is coming) and the sharing feature with up to 12 characters, and access to public homebrew content. We already know there will be a monthly fee for the latter but it will not have any content and you will still need to purchase all the content. So let's guess that master tier without content will be in the ballpark of $10 a month so then you would be talking about getting access to the content you need for just another $5 a month ($60 a year).
I'm curious.. everyone who has re-purchased material at either roll20 or FG, seems to be concerned about costs here. Now, I'm not 100% sure on the business models of ANYONE involved, however, when I was looking into these two services, I baulked at their prices. To pay, re-pay, the cost of the books, in full, to access the contents in either of these sources, just for data, seems bizarre. They likely pay a licensing fee for the content, as it is locked to their service, so after the first few sales, understandably also there are overheads, but they would be making a (little) bit of money.
On the flip side of that, the $15/month suggested option here is much more reasonable, the toolset is dedicated to 5e, user friendly for the new or IT challenged, and the information pool will continue to grow and be updated. You will be getting more, for less here. And this is aimed at ALL players, not just digital ones. What I am disappointed in, is that there won't be a virtual tabletop here, as I have no intention of using the other services, however with twitch, and some screen sharing, I think I'll manage.
My two cents. :)
My guess is that the virtual tabletop is in their future plans but that is likely a year or two away. They have said that they have years of advancements planned if all goes well.
Kryzsko,
I totally hear ya, it doesn't seem like a lot to have access to information and a system online for $10 subscription. I'm into that, quit when i want, jump in when i want it back. my issue is how WoTC or Hasbro is handling licensing to 3rd party VTT's like FG and Roll20. I not only pay for subscriptions on both platforms, but i've purchased modules on FG. Its upsetting (... and i say this as light as possibly cause lets be real i'll spend the money anyway) because as DragoD pointed out its very frustrating paying and repaying. There needs to be a way that anyone who buys the physical books can gain access to online portals such as this, or FG or roll20 with out having to spend the same amount as the books. I so badly want this to work, and I want to encourage more people to join, but I've had issues personally wanting to spend the same money for modules that i already have copies of. I guess my point is, that I play pen and paper, on FG and Roll twenty. If I want access to this bad ass resource I'm going to have to potentially pay more for modules that I've already paid for. It seems like a lot of people not just myself would potentially be discouraged from adding this to their arsenal of resources? Have any admins or badeye or anyone from WoTC comment on this yet?
No staff or WotC have commented on physical products being integrated (or not being integrated) with locked content. Honestly it would be the silence on that subject that would make me believe (at least initially) this will not happen.
I so badly want this to work, and I want to encourage more people to join, but I've had issues personally wanting to spend the same money for modules that i already have copies of. I guess my point is, that I play pen and paper, on FG and Roll twenty. If I want access to this bad ass resource I'm going to have to potentially pay more for modules that I've already paid for.
My hope is that this works well enough that I'll just buy the adventures here, instead of in physical form. There are very few modules, over the years, that I've wanted to run more than once. Even then, I should still have access to my DDB content without a subscription. And, if the adventure really rocks that much (I'm kind of a sucker for every re-imagining of I6), I'll get the hardcover, as well, just for collector's purposes.
It's pretty much the same logic I use on whether to buy the Kindle version or the print version of a book. If I care enough to display it and collect it (Dresden Files), I splurge and get the hardcover. Otherwise, I generally get the Kindle version. I still only pay paperback price for digital content, if you catch what I'm saying. There are a few hardcovers that I have only because they were the same cost as the Kindle version.
Now, what the real value proposition on the adventures is if they come as a sort of pre-populated wiki that can be edited but also restored to its original format. So, if I decide to move PotA to Eberron (true story), I can come in and replace all the town names, tweak some NPC races to include a changeling and warforged, etc. rather than having to either keep checking my notes or just remember everything. Someone converted the free "Death House" chapter of CoS to a OneNote notebook. It was pretty awesome and really opened my eyes to what could be done with a digital adventure format for use at the table.
That probably has me more interested/excited than the character manager -- I really don't care how my players record their PCs unless/until it feeds into an encounter tracker. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to pull up a copy of their character when they're absent (or whatever reason), but it's a nice-to-have, as a DM. As a player, I'd probably be more than happy to just use my phone, at the table. But I'm not a player.
Calling BadEye or any Mods that might have an answer...
I'm about to start getting into Adventure League and I'd love to be able to offer my drop in players access to Beyond. Will there be a way for DM's of Adventure League to offer Temporary Access for drop-in players?
My idea is this would be in addition to the DM's 12 slots for a Master Subscription (or whatever it ends up being). My 12 accounts will most likely be used by my homegroup so I wouldn't want to take those away to give to total strangers at a League game night. I imagine this working only for registered DM's in Adventure League (is that a thing? Do DM's Register?) where they can give out temporary accounts to drop in players of Adventure League. These accounts would expire after 24 or 48 hours but in that time it would give that player the option to continue/take over the account keeping any characters they made or print/save a copy of their character sheet.
Not only would this help brand new players greatly it could also be a very good way to get more people to use D&D Beyond (which translates into $$$). The DM isn't forced to choose who can and can't use one of his precious accounts (if he even has any free). The DM also doesn't have to worry about giving access and taking access away to give to someone else the next week if the first person doesn't show up.
makes sense to me. And I'm sure there has to be a way to figure out the logistics of such a thing. Maybe rather than the DM, it's the store that has the account and access is given to whoever runs the Adventure league games at that store.
makes sense to me. And I'm sure there has to be a way to figure out the logistics of such a thing. Maybe rather than the DM, it's the store that has the account and access is given to whoever runs the Adventure league games at that store.
Not only will it promote game stores to using D&D Beyond, it'll allow all AL games to be ran on a level playing field. I'm going to pass this on to the staff.
This, added with the global search that's in the works, will be a godsend.
It wasn't so much that Volo's got us to switch. It's just that we didn't switch until a little after it came out, as a group, because by then there were enough options out, between supplements and UA and third party, and playtested homebrew, that we felt like we could play most stuff we wanted to play.
We do bones, motherf***ker!
I don't care what they do. I want something device independent that's DRM free or that has enough cross platform support that DRM is less of an issue.
Will the rule books be offline and on Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android on tablet and phone?
Personally, I think it should work like 4e's DDI. You're monthly subscription gives you complete access to the service including ALL the published content (including new supplements, story modules, and Dragon magazine content as they come out). The main benefit to a subscription is you are guaranteed access to every new UA, supplement, Dragon+,story,module piece of content that comes out. I don't know if the licensing for that works, but that's how I envision it. There are so many hard cover books, it's hard to keep track of things, and I don't want to cart 20 hard cover books around everywhere I go.
How is it that after the various attempts at digital content WotC has embarked upon they didn't start putting unique codes in each book so your book can be tied to X account of Y service?
Because each try at a digital service they tried that would care about such a thing always ended in a dumpster fire of a failure before it even got off the ground in any meaningful way.
I'm curious.. everyone who has re-purchased material at either roll20 or FG, seems to be concerned about costs here. Now, I'm not 100% sure on the business models of ANYONE involved, however, when I was looking into these two services, I baulked at their prices. To pay, re-pay, the cost of the books, in full, to access the contents in either of these sources, just for data, seems bizarre. They likely pay a licensing fee for the content, as it is locked to their service, so after the first few sales, understandably also there are overheads, but they would be making a (little) bit of money.
On the flip side of that, the $15/month suggested option here is much more reasonable, the toolset is dedicated to 5e, user friendly for the new or IT challenged, and the information pool will continue to grow and be updated. You will be getting more, for less here. And this is aimed at ALL players, not just digital ones. What I am disappointed in, is that there won't be a virtual tabletop here, as I have no intention of using the other services, however with twitch, and some screen sharing, I think I'll manage.
My two cents. :)
- Stu
#6321 on Discord.
No staff or WotC have commented on physical products being integrated (or not being integrated) with locked content. Honestly it would be the silence on that subject that would make me believe (at least initially) this will not happen.
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My hope is that this works well enough that I'll just buy the adventures here, instead of in physical form. There are very few modules, over the years, that I've wanted to run more than once. Even then, I should still have access to my DDB content without a subscription. And, if the adventure really rocks that much (I'm kind of a sucker for every re-imagining of I6), I'll get the hardcover, as well, just for collector's purposes.
It's pretty much the same logic I use on whether to buy the Kindle version or the print version of a book. If I care enough to display it and collect it (Dresden Files), I splurge and get the hardcover. Otherwise, I generally get the Kindle version. I still only pay paperback price for digital content, if you catch what I'm saying. There are a few hardcovers that I have only because they were the same cost as the Kindle version.
Now, what the real value proposition on the adventures is if they come as a sort of pre-populated wiki that can be edited but also restored to its original format. So, if I decide to move PotA to Eberron (true story), I can come in and replace all the town names, tweak some NPC races to include a changeling and warforged, etc. rather than having to either keep checking my notes or just remember everything. Someone converted the free "Death House" chapter of CoS to a OneNote notebook. It was pretty awesome and really opened my eyes to what could be done with a digital adventure format for use at the table.
That probably has me more interested/excited than the character manager -- I really don't care how my players record their PCs unless/until it feeds into an encounter tracker. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to pull up a copy of their character when they're absent (or whatever reason), but it's a nice-to-have, as a DM. As a player, I'd probably be more than happy to just use my phone, at the table. But I'm not a player.
Calling BadEye or any Mods that might have an answer...
I'm about to start getting into Adventure League and I'd love to be able to offer my drop in players access to Beyond. Will there be a way for DM's of Adventure League to offer Temporary Access for drop-in players?
My idea is this would be in addition to the DM's 12 slots for a Master Subscription (or whatever it ends up being). My 12 accounts will most likely be used by my homegroup so I wouldn't want to take those away to give to total strangers at a League game night. I imagine this working only for registered DM's in Adventure League (is that a thing? Do DM's Register?) where they can give out temporary accounts to drop in players of Adventure League. These accounts would expire after 24 or 48 hours but in that time it would give that player the option to continue/take over the account keeping any characters they made or print/save a copy of their character sheet.
Not only would this help brand new players greatly it could also be a very good way to get more people to use D&D Beyond (which translates into $$$). The DM isn't forced to choose who can and can't use one of his precious accounts (if he even has any free). The DM also doesn't have to worry about giving access and taking access away to give to someone else the next week if the first person doesn't show up.
Hopefully, that makes sense...
makes sense to me. And I'm sure there has to be a way to figure out the logistics of such a thing. Maybe rather than the DM, it's the store that has the account and access is given to whoever runs the Adventure league games at that store.
That is a clever solution, Uncle_Mickey.
Not only will it promote game stores to using D&D Beyond, it'll allow all AL games to be ran on a level playing field. I'm going to pass this on to the staff.
Site Rules & Guidelines --- Focused Feedback Mega Threads --- Staff Quotes --- Homebrew Tutorial --- Pricing FAQ
Please feel free to message either Sorce or another moderator if you have any concerns.