Where you're getting it is making it up, because that doesn't say what you're saying it says and I don't believe you if you won't bother to cite a source that actually says what you're saying.
They're not making it up, here is the exact quote from LaTia
Put simply, we (Wizards of the Coast) don't determine whether or not partnered content gets updated to the 2024 rules, our partners do. Until they come to us and say 'yes, we're going to update this', we can't do anything with it.
This is a legal matter, specifically IP law. The third party/partnered content is the intellectual property of that third party/partner and WotC does not have the legal right to modify it.
You said that "doesn't make sense" so I'll do my best to explain it. When company A grants company B permission to use their content, this is done via a license agreement. The license lays out exactly how company B can use the content—how long they can use it, where they can use, and what they can use it for/do with it. It can even go so far as telling company B things like "you can't use this content along side X or without Y or at the same time as Z" or "you can't offer this content on this device or in this country" etc.
In this case, it's stated that the agreement between Wizards of the Coast and their various partners/third parties does not allow Wizards of the Coast to modify the content, which makes sense. This is also why there is third party content on DDB with rules errors/issues that have not been changed and cannot be changed until the IP owner (the third party) issues an errata.
Think of it this way—a movie studio sends their movie to various cinemas, but the cinemas are only allowed to show the movie under certain conditions. For example it must be shown on a certain size screen or with a certain audio system. The movie studio isn't allowed to edit the movie—they couldn't crop the opening title cards down to get to the movie quicker, or move the post-credits sequence so the audience doesn't have to wait through as much credits. That's what's happening here—WotC cannot change these options to work with 2014 or 2024 rules, that is the purview of the people who made it and own the IP, as it should be.
That may all be accurate, but the quote from LaTia does not specify in any way that it's a legal matter.
Okay, if it's not a legal matter, and it's not a technical matter (because LaTia states it's on on DDB who have the technical oversight), what is it? What way can third party/partnered creators place restrictions on what DDB does if not through legal means?
Where you're getting it is making it up, because that doesn't say what you're saying it says and I don't believe you if you won't bother to cite a source that actually says what you're saying.
You seem really emotionally invested in this being something other than what it very obviously is — what the people involved are telling you it is — to the point where you can look at a post that says in very plain language exactly what it is, and still claim that it says something different. With respect, I think you might want to take a step back from this and consider why that is. Because if you're going to just insist that things don't say what they say, I don't think there's much point in discussing anything with you.
What I care about is that you are saying something clearly means something when it logically does not follow that it clearly means that. It's disingenuous.
And, for all the people acting like it's some sort of "obvious" legal issue, it's been presented multiple times that there are alternate explanations.
It's fine to believe that this is a legal reason and not, for example, a technical issue or just laziness in not wanting to spend resources to manually update the entries themselves to support 2024. But it isn't fine to say that automatically follows when that is not what is said. After all, "we need to wait on our partners to do it" doesn't mean "we need to wait on our partners to give us legal approval to do it", it means what it says, and any interpretation beyond that is just wrong.
To dismiss those other reasons as somehow not possible but of course legal reasons are the only ones are dismissive, and if you're saying something is clearly apparent when it is not that's just insulting to the other party- the implication is that someone is somehow too unintelligent to pick up that it's obviously legal reasons. Which, by the way, it isn't. I doubt WotC, in 2025, is releasing *anything* under a contract that says "Oh and by the way we can't legally release this for 2024 rules". Even if they say "we can't do anything with this" there are certainly other reasons that could be the case- not having a team to port content, not having a technical framework to transfer content so it has to be built from scratch which requires access to a partner's content management account, any number of possible infrastructure and backend issues beyond legal compliance.
And that assumes that's honest to begin with, which given WotC's track record and D&D Beyond's support for content once the books have been sold to users, I hate to say I can't entirely believe given that official content just sometimes isn't implemented because it's too much technical work to make it work well (see the spell selection portion of class features from Xanathar's, the various dragon weapon types from Fizban's, and a number of other persistent bugs and issues with content that have persisted for, at this point, years despite being fakeable using homebrew- admittedly in a less than fully satisfactory way). Given that the official answer to people saying "Why can't I add my specific weapon type and element to my sheet?" was "Just make homebrew" I don't know if the "we can't do anything" reason is because they have no possible way to do it... or don't have the resources to actually commit to do it properly.
In fact I even gave counterexamples to the legal argument- partnered content (besides subclasses) is typically available on 2024 character sheets with the toggles selected, the Obojima team is working on adapting the subclasses for 2024 (which, if it was a legal thing, they could just say "Yep, flip the switch, WotC!"), and as far as I'm aware no other platform has this particular issue (though I'm also not entirely sure how robust those implementations were to begin with- after all, if there's no real code being done just slapping a chunk of text and some dice formulas in a character sheet on, say, Roll20 that's definitely, to be fair to WotC and D&D Beyond, a lot less involved than the character builder- but there are other third party character builders that work fine with partnered content in 2024 as far as I'm aware). To keep insisting that it is a legal issue when that is not the case isn't just wrong, it's gaslighting. To sidestep positions offered and write them off as emotion isn't being helpful, it's being dismissive. And to frame the other party as emotional is the kind of condescending nonsense that people who refuse to cite sources or take a source out of context use to feel superior. I suppose it's possible that WotC/D&D Beyond (which until recently was owned by Fandom so that does potentially make things possibly complicated) just negotiated a garbage contract where one specific type of content can't legally be used with 2024 character sheets... but it doesn't pass the logical sniff test that it would be a breach of contract. Just citing a throw away line as "proof" without actually critically thinking about it isn't an answer, it's an appeal to authority and one that doesn't even say enough to concretely say what you're saying.
So, I guess, all that said, go ahead and stop discussing if you don't think there's a point to it (though I think your point is winning internet points, so I don't think you'll stop.) It's clear you're not even responding anyway, just doubling down and deflecting.
Where you're getting it is making it up, because that doesn't say what you're saying it says and I don't believe you if you won't bother to cite a source that actually says what you're saying.
Think of it this way—a movie studio sends their movie to various cinemas, but the cinemas are only allowed to show the movie under certain conditions. For example it must be shown on a certain size screen or with a certain audio system. The movie studio isn't allowed to edit the movie—they couldn't crop the opening title cards down to get to the movie quicker, or move the post-credits sequence so the audience doesn't have to wait through as much credits. That's what's happening here—WotC cannot change these options to work with 2014 or 2024 rules, that is the purview of the people who made it and own the IP, as it should be.
I don't generally disagree with your example, but I do wonder if it's actually applicable. After all, WotC isn't actually changing the content by populating it on 2024 character sheets. And those stipulations that distributors make in theaters are specifically made to satisfy those contracts, without those performative clauses in theory it shouldn't matter.
For example (and this is hypothetical, purely conjecture) if D&D Beyond's contract with a partner, with regard to partnered content, said "We reserve the right to populate content from partnered content for use with classes published in official content in the D&D Beyond Character Builder and related features..." then that wouldn't necessarily mean that they have any sort of distinction between 2014 and 2024 classes in the builder from a legal perspective. And remember- a lot of the push for 2024 was that all the rules and features are compatible with both rulesets. While players and even partners may have defined 2024 D&D 5e as a different system in how we talk about it, that is not officially the case. To quote from the 2024 PHB: "This is the 2024 version of the fifth edition Player’s Handbook. If you’ve read the 2014 version, much of this book will feel familiar, since the fundamental rules of the game are the same."
The only mechanical change is the level at which an ability is granted. But that level granting is actually part of a mechanic, and game mechanics aren't typically protected under copyright law. While WotC probably couldn't change the wording of the abilities themselves, I don't think it would be an issue for them to include a line of text that says "For content compatible with the 2014 PHB classes, abilities granted by subclasses are now granted at level 3" nor would it be an issue to grant it in the character builder at those levels instead of at the listed levels, as long as the text didn't change. That's hypothetically confusing for consumers, but I would rather take hypothetically confusing than inaccessible, and I do find that the legal arguments strain credulity a bit insofar as they assume applicability of broad copyright concepts to very specific and narrow use cases that I don't know if they naturally follow.
I do appreciate your analysis though, it does give me something to think about and is much more plausible than the "It's obvious" response that isn't particularly helpful. It would be a catastrophic blunder of a contract if that were the case, but it is a plausible explanation and given that some of these contracts were made when D&D Beyond was still owned by Fandom, I could see it happening.
Where you're getting it is making it up, because that doesn't say what you're saying it says and I don't believe you if you won't bother to cite a source that actually says what you're saying.
Think of it this way—a movie studio sends their movie to various cinemas, but the cinemas are only allowed to show the movie under certain conditions. For example it must be shown on a certain size screen or with a certain audio system. The movie studio isn't allowed to edit the movie—they couldn't crop the opening title cards down to get to the movie quicker, or move the post-credits sequence so the audience doesn't have to wait through as much credits. That's what's happening here—WotC cannot change these options to work with 2014 or 2024 rules, that is the purview of the people who made it and own the IP, as it should be.
I don't generally disagree with your example, but I do wonder if it's actually applicable. After all, WotC isn't actually changing the content by populating it on 2024 character sheets.
I'm gonna come in at this point because everything that follows operates under this false assumption. If the content was designed for the 2014 version of a class, putting it onto the 2024 version of the class is changing it and it's absurd to suggest otherwise. For some classes the subclass feature levels change. For others features that a base subclass might rely on don't exist by that name between 2014 and 2024 versions—2024 ranger loses Favored Enemy and Natural Enemy is replaced with Deft Explorer. And then there's the fact that Fighting Styles as a self contained feature are gone in 2024 rules and replaced with Fighting Style Feats. Or how Paladin Smite is now moved to a spell. Or that Monk martial arts die progression scales completely differently. It's nonsensical to say there's no change in porting a 2014 subclass to a 2024 class.
And that's ignoring the key fact that even if there was a 2024 class 100% identical to it's 2014 counterpart with the only difference being what book it's printed in. If the original creator said "I want this to be available for the 2014 version of the class", porting it to the 2024 version is changing that design intent.
It does sound likely (and make sense) that this is a legal/copyright issue. It doesn't sound like DDB are outting any effort into resolving it though. Sounds like they're happy to leave things as-is unless the 3rd party contact them with updates, whereas you'd think DDB would be actively encouraging them to update to the new rules.
I mean, the new rules weren't exactly a secret, we'd known they're coming for at least a year before release. You'd think they'd have worked with the 3rd parties during the initial 2014 implementation to have 2024 versions ready to go when the new rules came out.
This sounds like a legal technicality that could be solved either by publishers submitting a 2024 version OR by simply giving legal consent for the 2014 version to appear as a 2024 option.
Regardless WOTC, Beyond and all the third party publishers need to recognize that most of the 2024 system, especially subclasses, was marketed to us as being compatible with 2014 options. Even moreso with products like Crooked Moon.
If the 2014 Shepard Druid is allowed to appear in the 2024 character builder despite being literally incompatible with the rules changes without homebrew then so can 2014 third party content that is a little jank.
Right now this is a huge loss of utility for the character builder that probably ruins several peoples' active characters, and it needs to be fixed ASAP with lawyers from both sides shaking hands and signing deals to restore content now even if they intend to make a more thorough 2024 revision in the future.
Don't frame this as a compatibility issue because it isn't and wasn't for months. This is clearly a legal issue aka all the companies lawyers forgetting to be thorough with perms.
Also don't try to rewrite history about how products were marketed just to help cover the fact the legal mistake was made.
IP issues are easily resolved if both parties are willing. It's odd that no one is willing to update their 2014 content, though, right? Is it because they expect 5.5e to have a very short product lifespan and it's not worth a small investment? Or is it because bridges have been burned and relationships severed, so they are unwilling to do it? It would be nice if users could homebrew Invocations and had better filtering/search in the homebrew section since it's up to subscribers to make 2024 backwards compatible.
IP issues are easily resolved if both parties are willing. It's odd that no one is willing to update their 2014 content, though, right? Is it because they expect 5.5e to have a very short product lifespan and it's not worth a small investment? Or is it because bridges have been burned and relationships severed, so they are unwilling to do it? It would be nice if users could homebrew Invocations and had better filtering/search in the homebrew section since it's up to subscribers to make 2024 backwards compatible.
1. Backwards compatible means it works with the ruleset, not just Beyond-wise.
2. A Partner can have any reason they want to not update their material, as is their right.
3. Apply Occam's Razor before jumping to conclusions & trying to Cassandra.
4. The invocations are programmed in a way that requires backend access. & given the house of cards in a hurricane, programming-wise, that is the site Hasbro purchased from Fandom, it's likely not just a "edit & fix"-level easy job. Most browsers allow you to take a look under Beyond's hood...it's a mess of random coding. They SHOULD hire people, but the problem isn't Beyond's to solve.
5. My only issue with the homebrew is the well-intended but mechanically miserable lack of searchable ratings on HB Species. What's yours?
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
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They're not making it up, here is the exact quote from LaTia
This is a legal matter, specifically IP law. The third party/partnered content is the intellectual property of that third party/partner and WotC does not have the legal right to modify it.
You said that "doesn't make sense" so I'll do my best to explain it. When company A grants company B permission to use their content, this is done via a license agreement. The license lays out exactly how company B can use the content—how long they can use it, where they can use, and what they can use it for/do with it. It can even go so far as telling company B things like "you can't use this content along side X or without Y or at the same time as Z" or "you can't offer this content on this device or in this country" etc.
In this case, it's stated that the agreement between Wizards of the Coast and their various partners/third parties does not allow Wizards of the Coast to modify the content, which makes sense. This is also why there is third party content on DDB with rules errors/issues that have not been changed and cannot be changed until the IP owner (the third party) issues an errata.
Think of it this way—a movie studio sends their movie to various cinemas, but the cinemas are only allowed to show the movie under certain conditions. For example it must be shown on a certain size screen or with a certain audio system. The movie studio isn't allowed to edit the movie—they couldn't crop the opening title cards down to get to the movie quicker, or move the post-credits sequence so the audience doesn't have to wait through as much credits. That's what's happening here—WotC cannot change these options to work with 2014 or 2024 rules, that is the purview of the people who made it and own the IP, as it should be.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
That may all be accurate, but the quote from LaTia does not specify in any way that it's a legal matter.
Okay, if it's not a legal matter, and it's not a technical matter (because LaTia states it's on on DDB who have the technical oversight), what is it? What way can third party/partnered creators place restrictions on what DDB does if not through legal means?
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
You seem really emotionally invested in this being something other than what it very obviously is — what the people involved are telling you it is — to the point where you can look at a post that says in very plain language exactly what it is, and still claim that it says something different. With respect, I think you might want to take a step back from this and consider why that is. Because if you're going to just insist that things don't say what they say, I don't think there's much point in discussing anything with you.
pronouns: he/she/they
What I care about is that you are saying something clearly means something when it logically does not follow that it clearly means that. It's disingenuous.
And, for all the people acting like it's some sort of "obvious" legal issue, it's been presented multiple times that there are alternate explanations.
It's fine to believe that this is a legal reason and not, for example, a technical issue or just laziness in not wanting to spend resources to manually update the entries themselves to support 2024. But it isn't fine to say that automatically follows when that is not what is said. After all, "we need to wait on our partners to do it" doesn't mean "we need to wait on our partners to give us legal approval to do it", it means what it says, and any interpretation beyond that is just wrong.
To dismiss those other reasons as somehow not possible but of course legal reasons are the only ones are dismissive, and if you're saying something is clearly apparent when it is not that's just insulting to the other party- the implication is that someone is somehow too unintelligent to pick up that it's obviously legal reasons. Which, by the way, it isn't. I doubt WotC, in 2025, is releasing *anything* under a contract that says "Oh and by the way we can't legally release this for 2024 rules". Even if they say "we can't do anything with this" there are certainly other reasons that could be the case- not having a team to port content, not having a technical framework to transfer content so it has to be built from scratch which requires access to a partner's content management account, any number of possible infrastructure and backend issues beyond legal compliance.
And that assumes that's honest to begin with, which given WotC's track record and D&D Beyond's support for content once the books have been sold to users, I hate to say I can't entirely believe given that official content just sometimes isn't implemented because it's too much technical work to make it work well (see the spell selection portion of class features from Xanathar's, the various dragon weapon types from Fizban's, and a number of other persistent bugs and issues with content that have persisted for, at this point, years despite being fakeable using homebrew- admittedly in a less than fully satisfactory way). Given that the official answer to people saying "Why can't I add my specific weapon type and element to my sheet?" was "Just make homebrew" I don't know if the "we can't do anything" reason is because they have no possible way to do it... or don't have the resources to actually commit to do it properly.
In fact I even gave counterexamples to the legal argument- partnered content (besides subclasses) is typically available on 2024 character sheets with the toggles selected, the Obojima team is working on adapting the subclasses for 2024 (which, if it was a legal thing, they could just say "Yep, flip the switch, WotC!"), and as far as I'm aware no other platform has this particular issue (though I'm also not entirely sure how robust those implementations were to begin with- after all, if there's no real code being done just slapping a chunk of text and some dice formulas in a character sheet on, say, Roll20 that's definitely, to be fair to WotC and D&D Beyond, a lot less involved than the character builder- but there are other third party character builders that work fine with partnered content in 2024 as far as I'm aware). To keep insisting that it is a legal issue when that is not the case isn't just wrong, it's gaslighting. To sidestep positions offered and write them off as emotion isn't being helpful, it's being dismissive. And to frame the other party as emotional is the kind of condescending nonsense that people who refuse to cite sources or take a source out of context use to feel superior. I suppose it's possible that WotC/D&D Beyond (which until recently was owned by Fandom so that does potentially make things possibly complicated) just negotiated a garbage contract where one specific type of content can't legally be used with 2024 character sheets... but it doesn't pass the logical sniff test that it would be a breach of contract. Just citing a throw away line as "proof" without actually critically thinking about it isn't an answer, it's an appeal to authority and one that doesn't even say enough to concretely say what you're saying.
So, I guess, all that said, go ahead and stop discussing if you don't think there's a point to it (though I think your point is winning internet points, so I don't think you'll stop.) It's clear you're not even responding anyway, just doubling down and deflecting.
I don't generally disagree with your example, but I do wonder if it's actually applicable. After all, WotC isn't actually changing the content by populating it on 2024 character sheets. And those stipulations that distributors make in theaters are specifically made to satisfy those contracts, without those performative clauses in theory it shouldn't matter.
For example (and this is hypothetical, purely conjecture) if D&D Beyond's contract with a partner, with regard to partnered content, said "We reserve the right to populate content from partnered content for use with classes published in official content in the D&D Beyond Character Builder and related features..." then that wouldn't necessarily mean that they have any sort of distinction between 2014 and 2024 classes in the builder from a legal perspective. And remember- a lot of the push for 2024 was that all the rules and features are compatible with both rulesets. While players and even partners may have defined 2024 D&D 5e as a different system in how we talk about it, that is not officially the case. To quote from the 2024 PHB: "This is the 2024 version of the fifth edition Player’s Handbook. If you’ve read the 2014 version, much of this book will feel familiar, since the fundamental rules of the game are the same."
The only mechanical change is the level at which an ability is granted. But that level granting is actually part of a mechanic, and game mechanics aren't typically protected under copyright law. While WotC probably couldn't change the wording of the abilities themselves, I don't think it would be an issue for them to include a line of text that says "For content compatible with the 2014 PHB classes, abilities granted by subclasses are now granted at level 3" nor would it be an issue to grant it in the character builder at those levels instead of at the listed levels, as long as the text didn't change. That's hypothetically confusing for consumers, but I would rather take hypothetically confusing than inaccessible, and I do find that the legal arguments strain credulity a bit insofar as they assume applicability of broad copyright concepts to very specific and narrow use cases that I don't know if they naturally follow.
I do appreciate your analysis though, it does give me something to think about and is much more plausible than the "It's obvious" response that isn't particularly helpful. It would be a catastrophic blunder of a contract if that were the case, but it is a plausible explanation and given that some of these contracts were made when D&D Beyond was still owned by Fandom, I could see it happening.
I'm gonna come in at this point because everything that follows operates under this false assumption. If the content was designed for the 2014 version of a class, putting it onto the 2024 version of the class is changing it and it's absurd to suggest otherwise. For some classes the subclass feature levels change. For others features that a base subclass might rely on don't exist by that name between 2014 and 2024 versions—2024 ranger loses Favored Enemy and Natural Enemy is replaced with Deft Explorer. And then there's the fact that Fighting Styles as a self contained feature are gone in 2024 rules and replaced with Fighting Style Feats. Or how Paladin Smite is now moved to a spell. Or that Monk martial arts die progression scales completely differently. It's nonsensical to say there's no change in porting a 2014 subclass to a 2024 class.
And that's ignoring the key fact that even if there was a 2024 class 100% identical to it's 2014 counterpart with the only difference being what book it's printed in. If the original creator said "I want this to be available for the 2014 version of the class", porting it to the 2024 version is changing that design intent.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
It does sound likely (and make sense) that this is a legal/copyright issue. It doesn't sound like DDB are outting any effort into resolving it though. Sounds like they're happy to leave things as-is unless the 3rd party contact them with updates, whereas you'd think DDB would be actively encouraging them to update to the new rules.
I mean, the new rules weren't exactly a secret, we'd known they're coming for at least a year before release. You'd think they'd have worked with the 3rd parties during the initial 2014 implementation to have 2024 versions ready to go when the new rules came out.
This sounds like a legal technicality that could be solved either by publishers submitting a 2024 version OR by simply giving legal consent for the 2014 version to appear as a 2024 option.
Regardless WOTC, Beyond and all the third party publishers need to recognize that most of the 2024 system, especially subclasses, was marketed to us as being compatible with 2014 options. Even moreso with products like Crooked Moon.
If the 2014 Shepard Druid is allowed to appear in the 2024 character builder despite being literally incompatible with the rules changes without homebrew then so can 2014 third party content that is a little jank.
Right now this is a huge loss of utility for the character builder that probably ruins several peoples' active characters, and it needs to be fixed ASAP with lawyers from both sides shaking hands and signing deals to restore content now even if they intend to make a more thorough 2024 revision in the future.
Don't frame this as a compatibility issue because it isn't and wasn't for months. This is clearly a legal issue aka all the companies lawyers forgetting to be thorough with perms.
Also don't try to rewrite history about how products were marketed just to help cover the fact the legal mistake was made.
IP issues are easily resolved if both parties are willing. It's odd that no one is willing to update their 2014 content, though, right? Is it because they expect 5.5e to have a very short product lifespan and it's not worth a small investment? Or is it because bridges have been burned and relationships severed, so they are unwilling to do it? It would be nice if users could homebrew Invocations and had better filtering/search in the homebrew section since it's up to subscribers to make 2024 backwards compatible.
1. Backwards compatible means it works with the ruleset, not just Beyond-wise.
2. A Partner can have any reason they want to not update their material, as is their right.
3. Apply Occam's Razor before jumping to conclusions & trying to Cassandra.
4. The invocations are programmed in a way that requires backend access. & given the house of cards in a hurricane, programming-wise, that is the site Hasbro purchased from Fandom, it's likely not just a "edit & fix"-level easy job. Most browsers allow you to take a look under Beyond's hood...it's a mess of random coding. They SHOULD hire people, but the problem isn't Beyond's to solve.
5. My only issue with the homebrew is the well-intended but mechanically miserable lack of searchable ratings on HB Species. What's yours?
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.