Okay, right now we are all buying digital copies of the books for 5E. So what happens in 3-5 or more years when 5E becomes 6E ?
Will we loose access to all our books, will we still be able to use 5E rules for characters and so on ?
I'm asking because, I'm kinda interesting in buying more stuff here, BUT, if I loose it all in a few years, it is not so appealing to me. I know that for the time being, noone knows when 6E will be released, all we know is, that it will come, some day in the future. Just like D&D became AD&D and 2nd edition and 3rd edition and so on.
But i'm worried to spend 100's of $$ on digital stuff. Because if I bought the physical books, I'd have them forever.
No one knows because it's not happened before. This edition of D&D is the first with this level of digital support from companies like Beyond, roll20, Fantasy Grounds etc. There's no precedent or reference to go off so it'd be pure speculation and would depend entirely on how Wizards of the Coast decides to manage their license during a transition into a new edition.
I can say with no small amount of confidence that whatever does happen, D&D Beyond will do its utmost to do the best it can by the community, as it always has done.
When DDB closes down, which it almost certainly will some day, will will very likely lose everything you have here, including all the electronic versions of the books. It is very unlikely there would be any way to keep what you have here, after the site goes down forever. Which, again, it almost certainly will, and odds are sooner rather than later.
Why do I say this? Simple statistics. Dave Ramsey always used to say the following:
Half of all businesses that get started fail in the first year.
Half of those that survive the first year fail in the 2nd year. (That means only 1/4 make it past 2 years).
Half of those that make it past 2 years fail by the end of the 5th year. (That means only 1/8 make it past 5 years).
DDB started in late 2017, so that means statistically, there's only a 1/8 chance they will be around in this form after 2022. Given that they already switched hands once, it could be argued that they have already failed once, and that there is an 88% or so chance they will fail again in the next 3-4 years.
The question is whether, when they fail (again?) if we will still have access to our electronic items. The safest play is to assume you will not. If you want permanence, either find a means of purchase that gives you PDFs (which I don't think one can do with current edition D&D, but you can do with older editions), or get physical copies.
I, for one, get a physical copy of everything I buy here, just for this reason. And I also like physical books.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
If 6e comes along and DDB continue to do a good job with 5e, then they would hopefully get the rights for 6e too. If that's the case, perhaps there will be a 5e and 6e version on here. This is my hope anyway :)
If you're terribly concerned, you can always "print" your stuff as PDFs for your own personal use. It's tedious and time-consuming (since you have to do it in sections) but not particularly difficult.
When DDB closes down, which it almost certainly will some day, will will very likely lose everything you have here, including all the electronic versions of the books. It is very unlikely there would be any way to keep what you have here, after the site goes down forever. Which, again, it almost certainly will, and odds are sooner rather than later.
Why do I say this? Simple statistics. Dave Ramsey always used to say the following:
Half of all businesses that get started fail in the first year.
Half of those that survive the first year fail in the 2nd year. (That means only 1/4 make it past 2 years).
Half of those that make it past 2 years fail by the end of the 5th year. (That means only 1/8 make it past 5 years).
DDB started in late 2017, so that means statistically, there's only a 1/8 chance they will be around in this form after 2022. Given that they already switched hands once, it could be argued that they have already failed once, and that there is an 88% or so chance they will fail again in the next 3-4 years.
The question is whether, when they fail (again?) if we will still have access to our electronic items. The safest play is to assume you will not. If you want permanence, either find a means of purchase that gives you PDFs (which I don't think one can do with current edition D&D, but you can do with older editions), or get physical copies.
I, for one, get a physical copy of everything I buy here, just for this reason. And I also like physical books.
Physical books never fail you, unless the lights go out. The Net, on the other hand, depends on a whole lot of things.
Physical books never fail you, unless the lights go out. The Net, on the other hand, depends on a whole lot of things
Yup.
I still have my 4th edition Champions book from 1989. Yes, the binding is destroyed and half the pages are falling out, but I have every line of text in the book at my disposal if I want it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I always buy both the digital here and the physical. I also print out my character sheets and keep them in a binder whenever they level up so I have a physical copy just in case. I really wish there was an updated Forged Anvil to use for the new books as that was the best character sheet I've ever used and it's a spreadsheet that you wouldn't have to worry about losing. You can either buy the books and not use DDB, use DDB and risk losing your content, or do both.
So what happens in 3-5 or more years when 5E becomes 6E ?
5e has a lot more milage than that. There are several megathreads based around that discussion and if you look at the lifecycles of previous editions - content-wise, not years-wise - 5e is still relatively young.
DDB started in late 2017, so that means statistically, there's only a 1/8 chance they will be around in this form after 2022. Given that they already switched hands once, it could be argued that they have already failed once, and that there is an 88% or so chance they will fail again in the next 3-4 years.
Considering it passed the 2 year mark, it's disingenuous to say the chances are 1/8 when they've made it through the first two bullet points. Assuming these arbitrary numbers that take nothing into account are close to correct to begin with.
Furthermore, a company being bought by another is by no means a failure. Most startups begin with the goal of being acquired. And again, your logic is failing because you're saying that failure means we lose all our stuff but you're also saying that they already failed and... we didn't lose all our stuff.
I get it though. Digital content is not going to last forever and how it compares with physical media is an issue in several industries right now. But here as in those other industries, digital media has the huge added value of connected services. No one came to this site just to buy and read D&D books. We're here for the character builder, the lookup tools, encounter builder etc. As far as I'm concerned, that's the bulk of what we're paying for when we buy content here. And as mentioned, you are free to print out the pdfs (or save them to your own storage) to retain a physical copy of all of that content.
Physical media will always have its benefits. I love books and I will be picking up Tasha's from my local gaming store. But I'll say for my group at least, discontinuation of the 4e online character builder was the reason we finally came to 5e. I love perusing content in the books, but I don't think I will ever roll up a character on paper again. It was fun back then, but I'd rather spend my time doing other things than trying to find which subclass is in which book and what it gives me at level 7 and where is that magic item I just got, etc.
When DDB closes down, which it almost certainly will some day, will will very likely lose everything you have here, including all the electronic versions of the books. It is very unlikely there would be any way to keep what you have here, after the site goes down forever. Which, again, it almost certainly will, and odds are sooner rather than later.
Why do I say this? Simple statistics. Dave Ramsey always used to say the following:
Half of all businesses that get started fail in the first year.
Half of those that survive the first year fail in the 2nd year. (That means only 1/4 make it past 2 years).
Half of those that make it past 2 years fail by the end of the 5th year. (That means only 1/8 make it past 5 years).
DDB started in late 2017, so that means statistically, there's only a 1/8 chance they will be around in this form after 2022. Given that they already switched hands once, it could be argued that they have already failed once, and that there is an 88% or so chance they will fail again in the next 3-4 years.
The question is whether, when they fail (again?) if we will still have access to our electronic items. The safest play is to assume you will not. If you want permanence, either find a means of purchase that gives you PDFs (which I don't think one can do with current edition D&D, but you can do with older editions), or get physical copies.
I, for one, get a physical copy of everything I buy here, just for this reason. And I also like physical books.
This is my biggest concern with using ddb... I don't understand why the community is not clamoring for them to give a downloadable pdf with your purchase of a digital book. The price is high enough to warrant it in my opinion, considering there's no need to print or distribute. Hey I've seen physical books for cheaper than the 29.99 they sell almost everything
When DDB closes down, which it almost certainly will some day, will will very likely lose everything you have here, including all the electronic versions of the books. It is very unlikely there would be any way to keep what you have here, after the site goes down forever. Which, again, it almost certainly will, and odds are sooner rather than later.
Why do I say this? Simple statistics. Dave Ramsey always used to say the following:
Half of all businesses that get started fail in the first year.
Half of those that survive the first year fail in the 2nd year. (That means only 1/4 make it past 2 years).
Half of those that make it past 2 years fail by the end of the 5th year. (That means only 1/8 make it past 5 years).
DDB started in late 2017, so that means statistically, there's only a 1/8 chance they will be around in this form after 2022. Given that they already switched hands once, it could be argued that they have already failed once, and that there is an 88% or so chance they will fail again in the next 3-4 years.
The question is whether, when they fail (again?) if we will still have access to our electronic items. The safest play is to assume you will not. If you want permanence, either find a means of purchase that gives you PDFs (which I don't think one can do with current edition D&D, but you can do with older editions), or get physical copies.
I, for one, get a physical copy of everything I buy here, just for this reason. And I also like physical books.
This is my biggest concern with using ddb... I don't understand why the community is not clamoring for them to give a downloadable pdf with your purchase of a digital book. The price is high enough to warrant it in my opinion, considering there's no need to print or distribute. Hey I've seen physical books for cheaper than the 29.99 they sell almost everything
You're not buying digital books. You're paying for a service - access to content, and the implementation of that content in digital tools like character sheets. Please note you can't buy .pdfs of official WotC D&D books period. This is not DDB's call to make. WotC doesn't allow it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
But hopefully 5e will last for long long years to come. And because DDB has a business model for subscribers in addition to the sale of the books, it might go on for a while after WotC switches to a new edition, if ever.
That will be up to WOTC and the terms of the licensing deal.
Historically WOTC has chosen to shut down support of earlier editions when a new one comes out, I believe. It is possible they might not want support to continue for an older edition here, which would slow down adoption of 6e, when/if it comes out.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Support for D&D 4th edition only really ended on January 4th 2020 when WotC shut down D&D Insider (the digital compendium and amazing toolset). And this was only because Microsoft was discontinuing support for Silverlight, the framework that DDI was built upon as an offline client.
Support over five years into the subsequent edition which only ended due to factors out of their hands. I suspect if Silverlight hadn't died a dead, it might still be going.
I'm sure if they are on the verge of extinction they will at least enable allow full pdf downloads of everything you own
Per the terms of sale, you don't own anything. Highlights are my own.
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You own literally nothing.
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Okay, right now we are all buying digital copies of the books for 5E. So what happens in 3-5 or more years when 5E becomes 6E ?
Will we loose access to all our books, will we still be able to use 5E rules for characters and so on ?
I'm asking because, I'm kinda interesting in buying more stuff here, BUT, if I loose it all in a few years, it is not so appealing to me.
I know that for the time being, noone knows when 6E will be released, all we know is, that it will come, some day in the future. Just like D&D became AD&D and 2nd edition and 3rd edition and so on.
But i'm worried to spend 100's of $$ on digital stuff. Because if I bought the physical books, I'd have them forever.
No one knows because it's not happened before. This edition of D&D is the first with this level of digital support from companies like Beyond, roll20, Fantasy Grounds etc. There's no precedent or reference to go off so it'd be pure speculation and would depend entirely on how Wizards of the Coast decides to manage their license during a transition into a new edition.
I can say with no small amount of confidence that whatever does happen, D&D Beyond will do its utmost to do the best it can by the community, as it always has done.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
The bigger concern is what happens when D&DBeyond goes bankrupt, or closes down or gets sold to a new owner or any of a myriad of other issues.
When DDB closes down, which it almost certainly will some day, will will very likely lose everything you have here, including all the electronic versions of the books. It is very unlikely there would be any way to keep what you have here, after the site goes down forever. Which, again, it almost certainly will, and odds are sooner rather than later.
Why do I say this? Simple statistics. Dave Ramsey always used to say the following:
DDB started in late 2017, so that means statistically, there's only a 1/8 chance they will be around in this form after 2022. Given that they already switched hands once, it could be argued that they have already failed once, and that there is an 88% or so chance they will fail again in the next 3-4 years.
The question is whether, when they fail (again?) if we will still have access to our electronic items. The safest play is to assume you will not. If you want permanence, either find a means of purchase that gives you PDFs (which I don't think one can do with current edition D&D, but you can do with older editions), or get physical copies.
I, for one, get a physical copy of everything I buy here, just for this reason. And I also like physical books.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
If 6e comes along and DDB continue to do a good job with 5e, then they would hopefully get the rights for 6e too. If that's the case, perhaps there will be a 5e and 6e version on here. This is my hope anyway :)
If you're terribly concerned, you can always "print" your stuff as PDFs for your own personal use. It's tedious and time-consuming (since you have to do it in sections) but not particularly difficult.
Physical books never fail you, unless the lights go out. The Net, on the other hand, depends on a whole lot of things.
Yup.
I still have my 4th edition Champions book from 1989. Yes, the binding is destroyed and half the pages are falling out, but I have every line of text in the book at my disposal if I want it.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I always buy both the digital here and the physical. I also print out my character sheets and keep them in a binder whenever they level up so I have a physical copy just in case. I really wish there was an updated Forged Anvil to use for the new books as that was the best character sheet I've ever used and it's a spreadsheet that you wouldn't have to worry about losing. You can either buy the books and not use DDB, use DDB and risk losing your content, or do both.
5e has a lot more milage than that. There are several megathreads based around that discussion and if you look at the lifecycles of previous editions - content-wise, not years-wise - 5e is still relatively young.
Considering it passed the 2 year mark, it's disingenuous to say the chances are 1/8 when they've made it through the first two bullet points. Assuming these arbitrary numbers that take nothing into account are close to correct to begin with.
Furthermore, a company being bought by another is by no means a failure. Most startups begin with the goal of being acquired. And again, your logic is failing because you're saying that failure means we lose all our stuff but you're also saying that they already failed and... we didn't lose all our stuff.
I get it though. Digital content is not going to last forever and how it compares with physical media is an issue in several industries right now. But here as in those other industries, digital media has the huge added value of connected services. No one came to this site just to buy and read D&D books. We're here for the character builder, the lookup tools, encounter builder etc. As far as I'm concerned, that's the bulk of what we're paying for when we buy content here. And as mentioned, you are free to print out the pdfs (or save them to your own storage) to retain a physical copy of all of that content.
Physical media will always have its benefits. I love books and I will be picking up Tasha's from my local gaming store. But I'll say for my group at least, discontinuation of the 4e online character builder was the reason we finally came to 5e. I love perusing content in the books, but I don't think I will ever roll up a character on paper again. It was fun back then, but I'd rather spend my time doing other things than trying to find which subclass is in which book and what it gives me at level 7 and where is that magic item I just got, etc.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
This is my biggest concern with using ddb... I don't understand why the community is not clamoring for them to give a downloadable pdf with your purchase of a digital book. The price is high enough to warrant it in my opinion, considering there's no need to print or distribute. Hey I've seen physical books for cheaper than the 29.99 they sell almost everything
You're not buying digital books. You're paying for a service - access to content, and the implementation of that content in digital tools like character sheets. Please note you can't buy .pdfs of official WotC D&D books period. This is not DDB's call to make. WotC doesn't allow it.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
That will be up to WOTC and the terms of the licensing deal.
Historically WOTC has chosen to shut down support of earlier editions when a new one comes out, I believe. It is possible they might not want support to continue for an older edition here, which would slow down adoption of 6e, when/if it comes out.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Support for D&D 4th edition only really ended on January 4th 2020 when WotC shut down D&D Insider (the digital compendium and amazing toolset). And this was only because Microsoft was discontinuing support for Silverlight, the framework that DDI was built upon as an offline client.
Support over five years into the subsequent edition which only ended due to factors out of their hands. I suspect if Silverlight hadn't died a dead, it might still be going.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I'm sure if they are on the verge of extinction they will at least enable allow full pdf downloads of everything you own
Per the terms of sale, you don't own anything. Highlights are my own.
You own literally nothing.