D&D Beyond 'Drops'

So folks, I'm love fellow DM feedback on a ruling I made today. I have spoke with my GM group (15 or so of us who meet regularly to test game systems and throw ideas around) and they all seem to agree on this, but curious to see what others might think.

I've banned all D&D Beyond 'Drops' from my tables. 

The reason? Fairness. Players at my tables may only use sources that everyone has access to. If someone purchased a book but won't lend it to fellow players so they can benefit from the options, then the options within that book are banned. I want to see a level playing field at my tables. D&D Beyond effectively creates feats, spells, and background that cannot be content shared and require a D&D Beyond subscription to use/access. 

Do other GMs feel that this is a fair ruling? Do you disagree? I'm curious to know what DMs specifically think here.

I believe in transparency, which is not the same as no secrets.  Other players should have some sort of access (at least in the beginning) of the campaign to each other's sheets.

I am in your corner basically.  If a person has X, it has to be shared with the DM.  If it is shared with the DM and not other players, the question is why?  Depending on that answer (which is probably not an acceptable reason) I can see banning it.  

Quote from martintheactor >>

Do other GMs feel that this is a fair ruling? Do you disagree? I'm curious to know what DMs specifically think here.

It's appropriate to forbid content that not everyone has access to. As long as drops are not eligible for content sharing (which it sounds like they might change), and the game doesn't otherwise require having a D&D Beyond account, sure, forbidding Drops is appropriate. Honestly, you might want to ban them even if they are shareable, given the apparent dev process they're likely to be about as well balanced as random classes from Dragon magazine back in the day (which is to say, hilariously unbalanced).

Quote from martintheactor >>

So folks, I'm love fellow DM feedback on a ruling I made today. I have spoke with my GM group (15 or so of us who meet regularly to test game systems and throw ideas around) and they all seem to agree on this, but curious to see what others might think.

I've banned all D&D Beyond 'Drops' from my tables. 

The reason? Fairness. Players at my tables may only use sources that everyone has access to. If someone purchased a book but won't lend it to fellow players so they can benefit from the options, then the options within that book are banned. I want to see a level playing field at my tables. D&D Beyond effectively creates feats, spells, and background that cannot be content shared and require a D&D Beyond subscription to use/access. 

Do other GMs feel that this is a fair ruling? Do you disagree? I'm curious to know what DMs specifically think here.

I agree that they should be shareable, and that all players at a table should have access to the same options. However, since it's fairly trivial for a DM to create homebrew copies of these things that all players in their campaign can automatically access, it strikes me as a non-issue in practice, and not worth issuing blanket bans on whole sections of content.

I think it is reasonable, but I personally disagree. Even if only one player has access to Drops, the entire group would if the DM would be willing to put in 5 minutes of work to make it. It just seems like this is more about making a statement than addressing player fairness. Making statements are all well and good, but I am not going to punish anyone at my table to make them.