Let's say I have a Hero level account.  But I haven't paid for any of the source books.  So I only have access to the bare bones free stuff.  And then I join a campaign from a person who has a DM level account.  When they share their content with me (all the books they've paid for) I'm only going to have access to those books for the character I made for their game, right?  Not for any and all characters I have made/will make?  Essentially, you're not just giving access to an entire account?

Like, if I have two campaigns going with the same group of 5 friends and I want to share my content with them for both campaigns, that's 10 of my sharing slots, right?

Oh, I see that players with subscriptions don't take up slots.  (Duh, I already knew that, I just spaced)  So let's use the same question but with free players instead of Hero tier players.

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 there be a discount price for buy multiple months of the subscription service?

Quote from Glumalon >>

Quote from Designbot >>

Do I understand this correctly?

For a regular party running a standard campaign, the DM would pay $29.99 each for the three main rule books, plus $24.99 for an adventure, plus $5.99/month for a subscription. (So ~$115 upfront, plus $72 a year.)

On top of that, each player would be expected to pay $2.99/month.

So that's a total of $115 upfront, plus $252/year for a 5-player party and a DM. Plus $30 when new rule books come out and $25 when new adventures come out. Plus, for many, the cost of physical books as well. That… seems like a lot.

 You've misunderstood a couple things.

Neither subscription is required to use D&D Beyond, so those costs are strictly optional. If you do want to go that route, the Master Tier subscription allows a DM to add several players, essentially giving them access equivalent to the Heroic Tier subscription. You don't need and probably shouldn't get both.

And while these costs do seem to fall on the DM, the developers have encouraged groups to work out their own methods for splitting the costs. For a group of 6 with a DM subscription, purchasing the existing 5 rulebooks (PHB, MM, DMG, SCAG, and VGtM) plus 1 adventure, you have a monthly cost of $1 per player, with a one time purchase of $175 split 6 ways at $29-30 per person (or $145 with the founder discount split to $24-25 per person), with a future yearly cost of $80 or less (two adventures and one rules supplement) split to $13-14.

• If a DM pays for a Master Tier subscription, I assume that players in that campaign can access all materials purchased by the DM for free. Do they still need to pay for individual Hero Tier subscriptions to remove ads, create multiple characters, or access public homebrew content?
• What is the cost for one-time purchases, such as the examples of the barbarian class or Tomb of Horrors?

If players don't need individual subscriptions, and you get the initial discount, it could be a more manageable $60 upfront + $25 for an adventure, plus $5.99/month. I could probably swing that. I don't think I could get most of the players to sign up for individual subscriptions.

The comparison done by @Sedge was referring to different types of format. A book is different from a digital version. When you buy a video-game (D&D is not a video-game), hardcopy or Steam key do not differ in the type of product.

you should get a discount for owning the books, if there's not that, I'm out.

Quote from Sillvva >>

Quote from Sillvva >>

 Will adventurers league settings for character creation and management be available at launch? 

 Bumping this question 

Quote from S0lman_Grundy >>

 Your argument makes sense, but does not account for a lot of player's budgets. For many paying a smaller monthly fee is doable, while larger sum purchases are not. Most have to account for bills and other life expenses before any frivolous purchases and a modest subscription model is a better alternative. The downside of not having the material permanently is acceptable in that case.

Huh, that is not the Netflix functionality I thought you were alluding to.

Quote from JollyClaret >>

Quote from Sedge >>

One is not 'gaining electronic access' to their previously-owned physical copies.  One is purchasing a new license for intellectual property offered in a different medium.

One does not receive a free DVD because they purchased the VHS years prior.  We all choose which medium to purchase our entertainment, knowing it can be outdated as technology advances.  :D

 One receives a steam code for the game when one purchases a hardcopy of a video game. Unless of course it is Origin or Uplay. It's also perfectly legal to rip a DVD or VHS onto your PC for personal usage. So really the comparison is false equivalence.

What is the player limit on a campaign?

Quote from JLGold >>

What is the player limit on a campaign?

So I keep seeing this whole debate regarding buying DVD doesn't mean getting the bluray free later. If you go to any retailer right now and look at buying a bluray you generally have 2 options pay 19.99 for a bluray (let's call this the hard copy of a d&d book) or paying 24.99 for a package that contains that same bluray copy a 3d bluray copy and a digital version of the movie as well. 

All this said I wouldn't expect a discount for already owning the bluray and wanting to buy the 3d and digital versions. However going forward it would be nice if they offered a package deal for these products similar to what we see in bluray sales. 

As someone who has been using the previously offered curse provided programs which they by the way offer at absolutely 0 cost to the user. These per book prices to be honest have caused quite a bit of sticker shock for me. I've been talking up everything that's been being added for months now. Seeing that it was dropping right before we start our new campaign had us really excited. Now to see that price point we know we can spend that kind of money. Everyone in my group us grown with a mortgage and babies to take care of. Now that said that's our blessing to deal with and not curses or WotC.

Maybe my ship of gold will come in before release and I can afford to make the purchases.

1 suggestion.... my friends and I prefer to support our local gaming store over purchasing on Amazon or other online sources. Would it be possible to put out cards redeemable cards for he different books or a set dollar amount? Similar to what say blizzard does with game time cards? That way those of us loyal to our FLGS can continue to support them if we decide to go all digital and not buy hard copies. After all the community and what it represents to all of us over our lives is half yhe reason play in the 1st place

Quote from Designbot >>

Quote from Glumalon >>

Quote from Designbot >>

Do I understand this correctly?

For a regular party running a standard campaign, the DM would pay $29.99 each for the three main rule books, plus $24.99 for an adventure, plus $5.99/month for a subscription. (So ~$115 upfront, plus $72 a year.)

On top of that, each player would be expected to pay $2.99/month.

So that's a total of $115 upfront, plus $252/year for a 5-player party and a DM. Plus $30 when new rule books come out and $25 when new adventures come out. Plus, for many, the cost of physical books as well. That… seems like a lot.

 You've misunderstood a couple things.

Neither subscription is required to use D&D Beyond, so those costs are strictly optional. If you do want to go that route, the Master Tier subscription allows a DM to add several players, essentially giving them access equivalent to the Heroic Tier subscription. You don't need and probably shouldn't get both.

And while these costs do seem to fall on the DM, the developers have encouraged groups to work out their own methods for splitting the costs. For a group of 6 with a DM subscription, purchasing the existing 5 rulebooks (PHB, MM, DMG, SCAG, and VGtM) plus 1 adventure, you have a monthly cost of $1 per player, with a one time purchase of $175 split 6 ways at $29-30 per person (or $145 with the founder discount split to $24-25 per person), with a future yearly cost of $80 or less (two adventures and one rules supplement) split to $13-14.

There are still some unanswered questions here:

• If a DM pays for a Master Tier subscription, I assume that players in that campaign can access all materials purchased by the DM for free. Do they still need to pay for individual Hero Tier subscriptions to remove ads, create multiple characters, or access public homebrew content?
• What is the cost for one-time purchases, such as the examples of the barbarian class or Tomb of Horrors?

If players don't need individual subscriptions, and you get the initial discount, it could be a more manageable $60 upfront + $25 for an adventure, plus $5.99/month. I could probably swing that. I don't think I could get most of the players to sign up for individual subscriptions.

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?

Quote from Halfacreofun >>

So I keep seeing this whole debate regarding buying DVD doesn't mean getting the bluray free later. If you go to any retailer right now and look at buying a bluray you generally have 2 options pay 19.99 for a bluray (let's call this the hard copy of a d&d book) or paying 24.99 for a package that contains that same bluray copy a 3d bluray copy and a digital version of the movie as well. 

All this said I wouldn't expect a discount for already owning the bluray and wanting to buy the 3d and digital versions. However going forward it would be nice if they offered a package deal for these products similar to what we see in bluray sales. 

As someone who has been using the previously offered curse provided programs which they by the way offer at absolutely 0 cost to the user. These per book prices to be honest have caused quite a bit of sticker shock for me. I've been talking up everything that's been being added for months now. Seeing that it was dropping right before we start our new campaign had us really excited. Now to see that price point we know we can spend that kind of money. Everyone in my group us grown with a mortgage and babies to take care of. Now that said that's our blessing to deal with and not curses or WotC.

Maybe my ship of gold will come in before release and I can afford to make the purchases.

1 suggestion.... my friends and I prefer to support our local gaming store over purchasing on Amazon or other online sources. Would it be possible to put out cards redeemable cards for he different books or a set dollar amount? Similar to what say blizzard does with game time cards? That way those of us loyal to our FLGS can continue to support them if we decide to go all digital and not buy hard copies. After all the community and what it represents to all of us over our lives is half yhe reason play in the 1st place

 

Quote from Designbot >

There are still some unanswered questions here:

• If a DM pays for a Master Tier subscription, I assume that players in that campaign can access all materials purchased by the DM for free. Do they still need to pay for individual Hero Tier subscriptions to remove ads, create multiple characters, or access public homebrew content?
• What is the cost for one-time purchases, such as the examples of the barbarian class or Tomb of Horrors?

If players don't need individual subscriptions, and you get the initial discount, it could be a more manageable $60 upfront + $25 for an adventure, plus $5.99/month. I could probably swing that. I don't think I could get most of the players to sign up for individual subscriptions.

Quote from Locnar >>

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.

 Actually i'm looking at it from a family of 5 that play, plus the groups i play with, I will go the Master Tier route more than likely, but almost every scanner on the market will convert text into a searchable PDF.  Don't get me wrong, I understanding not only are they coding the tools around the data, and making it pretty and they need to make a profit  

If i had felt like destroying one of my 3 copies of PHB to put in my scanner i would have a long time ago, but i value my hard covers and would prefer them anyway.  But you have to admit you are saying suck it up and buy the book twice, 30 for a hardcover and 30 a digital copy.

Digital copies cost zero to produce.  The cost to produce 100,000 books compared to 1 digital copy and then charging the same price is pure greed.  It's why apple got nailed or price fixing digital book prices.  A digital book should never cost as much as a physical product, period.  

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?