Quote from Gwalxavad >>

Quote from Sedge >>

Quote from Gwalxavad >>

I *really* hope when this ends up shooting Wizards in the foot, they adjust their pricing accordingly instead of viewing DnDBeyond as a failure and scrapping it. Say $10-15 for the books, with the content being included for free in the subscription. There's a lot of good stuff here - I like the subscription pricing, and will probably take advantage of the reduced price for the books during the first week launch - but I can certainly understand people having a problem with the book pricing, as it shows complete ignorance of the current market.

 You do realize that Wizards of the Coast isn't the developer behind D&D Beyond, don't you?  Curse has zero incentive to offer their work, development, and services for free to consumers of a different retailer.  If not for the intellectual property license alone, they have transcribed, coded, and hyperlinked their way through each of the core books to provide the experience digitally.  That work alone is worth charging for.  WotC publishes physical books - Curse develops D&D Beyond.

 My apologies - I thought this was a fiat from on high via WotC as the price structuring is similar to other digital platforms Wizards works with. This makes me slightly less worried about the future viability of DnDBeyond - so long as the pricing isn't being mandated by Wizards, then Curse should be able to adjust prices accordingly.  $30 for book access is ridiculous - the $20 first week isn't as bad, given the tools incorporated. And Curse should really look into working with Wizards to offer discount codes with physical book purchases. 

I understand the need to recoup expenses, but seriously, someone screwed the pooch on this one. About the only way I see anyone paying the currently announced prices for the books is if they *only* use the site for running games. 

 

Quote from Sedge >>

Quote from Locnar >>

 

Spot on Gwalxavad!  Shows Sedge has zero clue how things in the real world work and is trying to sound like a lawyer.  I paid for the intellectual property contained in the Players Hand Book, not the form in which it came.

When I buy a CD at the store, go home and insert it into my MAC, it instantly creates digital formats of the songs on the CD.  New format does NOT require a new license.  Same for movies purchased at the store, 99% have a digital download.   This is greed in its basic form and will come back to bite them.

I like the subscription rates and seem quite reasonable to me, however after spending $50 a book (i know they are cheaper on Amazon but i try to support my local gaming/comic store) and i purchased 3 PHB's, 1 DM and 1 MM.  The idea that I have to buy them again just to have online digital access to intellectual property i already paid for??  Yea that quite frankly stinks. had you said $10, I would not be offended as all this great programming that had to be done to make D&DBeyond work costs money and it needs to come from somewhere.  But i also expect that $250 i shelled out over a year ago helped to pay for this program as well......unless they simply banked all that revenue as profit without putting any into expanding.

 

 You seem to be under the impression that Wizards of the Coast develops D&D Beyond, which is not the case.  Curse has developed, transcribed, coded, and hyperlinked all book material.  Any money you shelled out over a year ago was not gifted to Curse to embark upon this project.  This is a separate venture, which you are debating not being worthy of compensation for the work they've put forth.  As a separate retailer than WotC, how do they recoup expenses during development by issuing free licenses to everyone whom owns a physical copy, purchased elsewhere?

It doesn't take a lawyer to see that this would be an awful business practice. If the $29.99 is too pricey, players are free to transcribe the entirety of the book's contents into their private homebrew for personal usage.  For some of us, the time in which that would take justifies the price to have them provide it for us.

Will a DM be able to share their private homebrew with players in their campaign?

Anything special for Amazon Prime members, in terms of pricing?

Quote from Tazykat >>

AS I already have the books in practical form and then have purchased them again to buy them through Fantasy Grounds and pay a subscription there as well. Why must I be forced to buy the books a third time?

So... I've been really, really interested in this product. I've been looking for a solid spiritual successor to what 4e's Char Builder could have been.

That said... wow! This is insanely expensive. Our current campaign uses the 3 basic books, SCAG, and Volos. (As well as UA, but that's probably not even an option here.) The play group is about 9 people (of varying attendance), sharing books purchased by about 4 of us (though most players have the PHB). We rotate DMs, with about 4 of us in the rotation. So, if we switch over to this, here's what we have to pay:

When we rotate a DM in, they have to pay $150 immediately. The DMs have to pay $6/mo. The players all have to pay $3/mo. This product is really, really cool. It's not $600 of cool.

Yeah, we've easily spent $600 in books over the years. But that's exactly it... the cost was spread out over the years. If this product showed up from the get go, we'd've considered it. Digital purchases would have displaced book purchases. But the barrier to entry is too steep now.

Separate issue... we don't charge an entry fee to the game. That's on purpose. Lots of players eventually buy their own PHB eventually, but absolutely none of them do it on their first session. Requiring a fee for them to join the campaign just means people won't join the campaign.

I understand this is almost certainly the result of very long, very tense conversations with the WotC team. I understand there is probably almost nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately that means that unless some sort of sanity shows up here, I don't perceive a target market with deep enough pockets to pay the entry fee.

Quote from alficles >>

So... I've been really, really interested in this product. I've been looking for a solid spiritual successor to what 4e's Char Builder could have been.

That said... wow! This is insanely expensive. Our current campaign uses the 3 basic books, SCAG, and Volos. (As well as UA, but that's probably not even an option here.) The play group is about 9 people (of varying attendance), sharing books purchased by about 4 of us (though most players have the PHB). We rotate DMs, with about 4 of us in the rotation. So, if we switch over to this, here's what we have to pay:

When we rotate a DM in, they have to pay $150 immediately. The DMs have to pay $6/mo. The players all have to pay $3/mo. This product is really, really cool. It's not $600 of cool.

Yeah, we've easily spent $600 in books over the years. But that's exactly it... the cost was spread out over the years. If this product showed up from the get go, we'd've considered it. Digital purchases would have displaced book purchases. But the barrier to entry is too steep now.

Separate issue... we don't charge an entry fee to the game. That's on purpose. Lots of players eventually buy their own PHB eventually, but absolutely none of them do it on their first session. Requiring a fee for them to join the campaign just means people won't join the campaign.

I understand this is almost certainly the result of very long, very tense conversations with the WotC team. I understand there is probably almost nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately that means that unless some sort of sanity shows up here, I don't perceive a target market with deep enough pockets to pay the entry fee.

Quote from alficles >>

So... I've been really, really interested in this product. I've been looking for a solid spiritual successor to what 4e's Char Builder could have been.

That said... wow! This is insanely expensive. Our current campaign uses the 3 basic books, SCAG, and Volos. (As well as UA, but that's probably not even an option here.) The play group is about 9 people (of varying attendance), sharing books purchased by about 4 of us (though most players have the PHB). We rotate DMs, with about 4 of us in the rotation. So, if we switch over to this, here's what we have to pay:

When we rotate a DM in, they have to pay $150 immediately. The DMs have to pay $6/mo. The players all have to pay $3/mo. This product is really, really cool. It's not $600 of cool.

Yeah, we've easily spent $600 in books over the years. But that's exactly it... the cost was spread out over the years. If this product showed up from the get go, we'd've considered it. Digital purchases would have displaced book purchases. But the barrier to entry is too steep now.

Separate issue... we don't charge an entry fee to the game. That's on purpose. Lots of players eventually buy their own PHB eventually, but absolutely none of them do it on their first session. Requiring a fee for them to join the campaign just means people won't join the campaign.

I understand this is almost certainly the result of very long, very tense conversations with the WotC team. I understand there is probably almost nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately that means that unless some sort of sanity shows up here, I don't perceive a target market with deep enough pockets to pay the entry fee.

Quote from alficles >>

So... I've been really, really interested in this product. I've been looking for a solid spiritual successor to what 4e's Char Builder could have been.

That said... wow! This is insanely expensive. Our current campaign uses the 3 basic books, SCAG, and Volos. (As well as UA, but that's probably not even an option here.) The play group is about 9 people (of varying attendance), sharing books purchased by about 4 of us (though most players have the PHB). We rotate DMs, with about 4 of us in the rotation. So, if we switch over to this, here's what we have to pay:

When we rotate a DM in, they have to pay $150 immediately. The DMs have to pay $6/mo. The players all have to pay $3/mo. This product is really, really cool. It's not $600 of cool.

Yeah, we've easily spent $600 in books over the years. But that's exactly it... the cost was spread out over the years. If this product showed up from the get go, we'd've considered it. Digital purchases would have displaced book purchases. But the barrier to entry is too steep now.

Separate issue... we don't charge an entry fee to the game. That's on purpose. Lots of players eventually buy their own PHB eventually, but absolutely none of them do it on their first session. Requiring a fee for them to join the campaign just means people won't join the campaign.

I understand this is almost certainly the result of very long, very tense conversations with the WotC team. I understand there is probably almost nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately that means that unless some sort of sanity shows up here, I don't perceive a target market with deep enough pockets to pay the entry fee.

The $20 book price for the first week is nice, but is there a possibility of bundles being released further on down the road? Perhaps at Christmas time have a 'budding DM' bundle with the PHB, DMG, & MM for $50-70? Personally, I think that would be a good idea. 

I think I'm most excited to hear about any progress that has been made on the app side of things, I think that will be the more useful tool, with the availability to be used quickly while playing, to check a spell, pull up a monster's stats, etc. 

And my personal opinion on the pricing of things: I'm a bit sad that it'll be so expensive to re-purchase previously owned content. Yes, I understand it is technically purchasing a separate license for use of the IP in a different format and that it's curse receiving the money, not WotC; but I do hope that WotC and Curse can share the profits for upcoming adventures (i.e. Tomb of Annihilation) and include a code in physical copies (or a digital coupon with digital purchases) to get either a free or reduced cost complement. I probably will eventually buy all the books (again), because it does seem useful and it seems like a relatively good investment; but I will do so a bit grudgingly. 

Overall, the quality of things seems rather good, the subscription prices (what I was most worried about) seem reasonable, but the digital content prices seem a bit high (even with the understanding mentioned above). 

Quote from Sirdigbychknczr >>

 

You only buy the books once, and rotate DMs.

Each player can have a free account.

You pay one time, then split the DM tier among the group, so $1-2 a month.  The cost of a soda and bag of cheetos.

I was really hoping for a new version of the WoTC 4e Character builder were I paid them a monthly few and got access to build characters with all the content available. I very excited for this product to be released and was more than eager to pay a monthly subscription for it. I feel like a fast one has been pulled on me I have to pay a monthly fee and buy a bunch or books just to build characters with all the options. This is both very frustrating and disappointing. If Wizards was going to partner with someone for digital content would have been nice to have something more player friendly. I went from being all in on this product to now not interested at all. 

Quote from adas >>

Quote from alficles >>

So... I've been really, really interested in this product. I've been looking for a solid spiritual successor to what 4e's Char Builder could have been.

That said... wow! This is insanely expensive. Our current campaign uses the 3 basic books, SCAG, and Volos. (As well as UA, but that's probably not even an option here.) The play group is about 9 people (of varying attendance), sharing books purchased by about 4 of us (though most players have the PHB). We rotate DMs, with about 4 of us in the rotation. So, if we switch over to this, here's what we have to pay:

When we rotate a DM in, they have to pay $150 immediately. The DMs have to pay $6/mo. The players all have to pay $3/mo. This product is really, really cool. It's not $600 of cool.

Yeah, we've easily spent $600 in books over the years. But that's exactly it... the cost was spread out over the years. If this product showed up from the get go, we'd've considered it. Digital purchases would have displaced book purchases. But the barrier to entry is too steep now.

Separate issue... we don't charge an entry fee to the game. That's on purpose. Lots of players eventually buy their own PHB eventually, but absolutely none of them do it on their first session. Requiring a fee for them to join the campaign just means people won't join the campaign.

I understand this is almost certainly the result of very long, very tense conversations with the WotC team. I understand there is probably almost nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately that means that unless some sort of sanity shows up here, I don't perceive a target market with deep enough pockets to pay the entry fee.

 

Knowing whether we can rotate DM's is question I have as well.  Though most of the time it won't matter since I'm usually the DM (and this might be true of a lot of groups). But it might affect how many of the sourcebooks we 'group fund'.

AD

Quote from alficles >>

 

When we rotate a DM in, they have to pay $150 immediately. The DMs have to pay $6/mo. The players all have to pay $3/mo. This product is really, really cool. It's not $600 of cool.

 

Quote from alficles >>

Quote from Sirdigbychknczr >>

 

You only buy the books once, and rotate DMs.

Each player can have a free account.

You pay one time, then split the DM tier among the group, so $1-2 a month.  The cost of a soda and bag of cheetos.

 

The free account can't use content created by others, according to the post. Without paying, they can't use the content the DM provides. I had read it to include the paid content, but even requiring it for homebrew makes it mandatory. Any non-stock campaign is going to have some relevant homebrew options. Backgrounds, at the very least.

The options don't let "players" in a group share their books with other players or the DM. So if you rotate the DM out for a new one, you have to shell out for the entire load of content again. Am I misreading it?

The issue I have with DnDB isn't its price or structure. The problem I have is this disconnection between what I was told of DnDB and what Curse is selling.

When I first saw DnDB it felt like a supplement, a tool to make rapid searches and manage things without loosing the pace of an adventure. To use DnDB in parallel with the printed books. Curse is selling a whole new medium, different from the books, but instead of saying so outright, DnDB is sold as an "official digital tool set for DnD 5e". If it's a tool set, why must I buy the materials again to make use of the tools? It's like selling a new saw to a carpenter, but he can't use the wood he already has.

One copy of each book is more than enough for a whole group, and Curse realizes this with the Master tier, but it eludes me why they ignore the printed copies of said books. Sure, we can add the already owned books as home-brew, but it just doesn't feel right. Curse and WotC aren't the same company, and it's understandable why we would need to buy it again, but unlike other digital tools, this is the "official digital tool set for DnD 5e", so if I have the official material I should be able to use the official tools regardless if it's physical or digital. Having to use sketchy means to be able to use the tools and the content together doesn't feel right.

If I must buy everything again to be able to use DnDB to it's fullest extent without playing around the rules, if DnDB is a whole new medium unrelated to the books, why call it the "official digital tool set for DnD 5e" instead of what it truly is? DnD 5.5e or DnD 5e Digital.

Quote from Aramalian >>

Set up ONE account for (for example) AlficlesGroupDM. Subscribe to the Master Tier with that account. Rotate that account between the DMs. Players don't have to subscribe at all. Books can be purchased and shared within a campaign with only one Master Tier subscription.

Quote from alficles >>

Quote from Sirdigbychknczr >>

 

You only buy the books once, and rotate DMs.

Each player can have a free account.

You pay one time, then split the DM tier among the group, so $1-2 a month.  The cost of a soda and bag of cheetos.

 

The free account can't use content created by others, according to the post. Without paying, they can't use the content the DM provides. I had read it to include the paid content, but even requiring it for homebrew makes it mandatory. Any non-stock campaign is going to have some relevant homebrew options. Backgrounds, at the very least.

The options don't let "players" in a group share their books with other players or the DM. So if you rotate the DM out for a new one, you have to shell out for the entire load of content again. Am I misreading it?

Quote from Josef >>

Quote from alficles >>

Quote from Sirdigbychknczr >>

 

You only buy the books once, and rotate DMs.

Each player can have a free account.

You pay one time, then split the DM tier among the group, so $1-2 a month.  The cost of a soda and bag of cheetos.

 

The free account can't use content created by others, according to the post. Without paying, they can't use the content the DM provides. I had read it to include the paid content, but even requiring it for homebrew makes it mandatory. Any non-stock campaign is going to have some relevant homebrew options. Backgrounds, at the very least.

The options don't let "players" in a group share their books with other players or the DM. So if you rotate the DM out for a new one, you have to shell out for the entire load of content again. Am I misreading it?

 That isn't true, the paid DM sub can invite up to 12 free accounts to a campaign, and while in that campaign can use all materials paid for in that sub, not sure if it is the same for the homebrew, but I would assume so.  They only get to use while a member of the campaign.  As subbing DMs the easiest thing is to share the Master tier sub, and whoever is the DM uses that sub during their turn to DM, this prevents having to buy it all over again but can bring up ownership issues if the group disbands.

Quote from alficles >>

Quote from Aramalian >>

Set up ONE account for (for example) AlficlesGroupDM. Subscribe to the Master Tier with that account. Rotate that account between the DMs. Players don't have to subscribe at all. Books can be purchased and shared within a campaign with only one Master Tier subscription.

 Hrm. I had assumed that account sharing would be prohibited by the Terms of Service. I'm actually not seeing that prohibition though. So... what prevents me from creating a single group account and just letting everyone use it?