So got a group of players and DMs I play with want to use this place for characters world building etc. and we run a system of myself and a few others DM for a group of about 20. It was voted for everything to be done here but I cant look at monster stats build characters or anything I was told would be useful by using beyond without having to buy all my shit again. I pay for my shit I should be aloud to use it on a site the wotc promotes
So got a group of players and DMs I play with want to use this place for characters world building etc. and we run a system of myself and a few others DM for a group of about 20. It was voted for everything to be done here but I cant look at monster stats build characters or anything I was told would be useful by using beyond without having to buy all my shit again. I pay for my shit I should be aloud to use it on a site the wotc promotes
Beyond is a separate company from WotC that is licensed to sell digital sourcebooks. You can still use all of your published stuff by adding it via the homebrew tools.
Demanding to get the digital stuff for free just because you own the physical is like buying a Playstation disc and demanding Xbox gives you a digital copy for free. Two unrelated companies.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
It's a set of free to use digital tools; character builder, encounter builder, combat tracker, shared digital dice roller, homebrew editor, discord bot, and twitch overlay. All these features a free to use (with the exception of tools in alpha, which require a subscription to access. But all tools eventually become free to access)
A digital marketplace for all official content for D&D 5th edition. You can purchase digital versions of all officially released books that not only can be read online in any mobile or desktop browser in their as-close-to-book format as possible, but also in the D&D Beyond offline access app. Additionally D&D Beyond is the only place where you make 'piecemeal' purchases of subclasses, spells, magic items etc without purchasing the full book.
A content sharing platform. By getting a master tier subscription, you can share access to your books with up to normally 36 other people, but currently 60 through our content sharing system. This doesn't just share your content, but everyone's, meaning it's possible for multiple people to contribute to a 'pool' of books that every can access at all times.
D&D Beyond is not:
Owned, managed, or run by Wizards of the Coast. DDB is a separate company owned by Fandom.
Funded through sales of physical books. No percentage of the price of a physical book, or a book bought on other digital platforms such as roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, is received by D&D Beyond. As such, D&D Beyond needs its own revenue stream in order to pay for licenses, keep servers running, and pay the team to develop new tools and features.
A platform where purchases are required. All the tools are free to use and you are actually fully permitted to use the homebrew tools to copy content from your physical book into your homebrew collection for personal use only. You can even share this homebrewed content with your players via a campaign without needing a subscription.
yes but Sony isn't telling me to buy a game then advertising the series x. The fact that they are being advertised by wotc on their website makes them far from unrelated
yes but Sony isn't telling me to buy a game then advertising the series x. The fact that they are being advertised by wotc on their website makes them far from unrelated
I would like to highlight that when you view the product page for a D&D book on the WotC site, say Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Wizards of the Coast is promoting that you can get the book from not just D&D Beyond but also:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
Fantasy Grounds
Roll20
The last two of which are also digital platforms.
The fact you have purchased a copy from your local gaming store would no more entitle you to a second copy from Amazon, B&N or Fantasy Grounds than it does from D&D Beyond.
I would personally disagree that this is a 'garbage and useless site', I know countless people get a lot of use out of it, either because they only buy the digital versions, like to buy both digital and physical, or just make use of the free tools. You're 100% entitled to and welcome to your opinion, but I think it's only appropriate to give things a fair rep.
so all I got is this is a garbage and useless site unless you feel like getting ripped off wotc who is clearly working with them
Except DDB is still not WotC. They are licensed to operate and distribute content, they are still not the same company.
You can take the time to put in your physical book into the homebrew tools, or you can write it off completely if you want. But the point is that they are still DIFFERENT COMPANIES that do not share revenue streams.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
D&D Beyond is a different version of the same product, with added options and tools. The most obviously useful part is the character generator, which speeds up the process (especially for new players) by organizing everything into drop down menus to select your abilities, equipment, etc from and then it gives you a neatly organized and completed character sheet that you can print out or save as a pdf to share/archive digitally. You have to buy the "books" in digital form to use the content from them, and you can browse through them more handily with search tools and such than most people are comfortable doing flipping back and forth with a hardcopy book. It takes time, effort, and resources to put all of that information into digital format and write the programming code that puts it all into the convenient user interface. Nobody is telling you that you can't or shouldn't play D&D without it. It's up to you, as a consumer, to decide if the price they charge for it is worth the convenience. When you buy D&D Beyond content, you are paying for an optional convenience. That's it.
So got a group of players and DMs I play with want to use this place for characters world building etc. and we run a system of myself and a few others DM for a group of about 20. It was voted for everything to be done here but I cant look at monster stats build characters or anything I was told would be useful by using beyond without having to buy all my shit again. I pay for my shit I should be aloud to use it on a site the wotc promotes
Please note that you are allowed to use your content "on a site the wotc promotes". You are welcome, even encouraged, to build the content you use from your hard copy books using the homebrew tools. People on these forums will even gladly offer help in doing so if you ask them in a polite manner.
Just out of curiosity, if you bought a hard cover book from Amazon, would you expect them to give you the Kindle version for free? What if you bought the hard cover version from your local book store, should Amazon give you that content for free (maybe because the publisher says that their book is available on Amazon on their website)?
Fandom, the owners of DDB, put massive amounts of development effort into this site. That costs a lot of money (believe me, I know, I'm a software developer myself and my services do not come cheap). Every new book which comes out requires them to develop all the new features therein, regardless of how different they may be from the original rules. That is all on top of the license fees they have to pay WotC and the hosting costs of the site, and all the other business expenses.
But seriously, I struggled with paying for stuff on DnDB that I already owned. It was the barrier for me for a long time, to the point where I was putting in time to recreate my own content digitally using tools like OneNote (and sharing them with my players). After copying yet another set of spells from my PHB to my own files and dealing with yet another issue with getting the OneNote stuff to sync properly, I realized that eating up my own time was much more painful than just buying the digital books again and letting this site do all the work. So I bit the plunge, took the bullet, triggered the trigger, etc.
Now I have a lot more time to spend planning encounters and sessions and stuff. And I know not to buy physical copies of things (like Tasha's) if I'm going to just get them here. And honestly, the ability to quickly search for an obscure spell or rule is worth that price by itself.
DnDBeyond is far from flawless, don't misunderstand. It frustrates the hell out of me at times. But I did have to learn to stop worrying and love the fireball.
I agree! And about your second paragraph - I love physical books and have been a completionist with WotC 5e material. But starting with Candlekeep I've decided to only buy rules (Xanathar, Tasha etc) in physical form. Adventurers and such I will only buy on Beyond. Except if and when we get Spelljammer material. Then I will buy everything, everywhere!
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So got a group of players and DMs I play with want to use this place for characters world building etc. and we run a system of myself and a few others DM for a group of about 20. It was voted for everything to be done here but I cant look at monster stats build characters or anything I was told would be useful by using beyond without having to buy all my shit again. I pay for my shit I should be aloud to use it on a site the wotc promotes
Beyond is a separate company from WotC that is licensed to sell digital sourcebooks. You can still use all of your published stuff by adding it via the homebrew tools.
Demanding to get the digital stuff for free just because you own the physical is like buying a Playstation disc and demanding Xbox gives you a digital copy for free. Two unrelated companies.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
D&D Beyond is three things:
D&D Beyond is not:
I hope this helps clarify a few things.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
yes but Sony isn't telling me to buy a game then advertising the series x. The fact that they are being advertised by wotc on their website makes them far from unrelated
so all I got is this is a garbage and useless site unless you feel like getting ripped off wotc who is clearly working with them
I would like to highlight that when you view the product page for a D&D book on the WotC site, say Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, Wizards of the Coast is promoting that you can get the book from not just D&D Beyond but also:
The last two of which are also digital platforms.
The fact you have purchased a copy from your local gaming store would no more entitle you to a second copy from Amazon, B&N or Fantasy Grounds than it does from D&D Beyond.
I would personally disagree that this is a 'garbage and useless site', I know countless people get a lot of use out of it, either because they only buy the digital versions, like to buy both digital and physical, or just make use of the free tools. You're 100% entitled to and welcome to your opinion, but I think it's only appropriate to give things a fair rep.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Except DDB is still not WotC. They are licensed to operate and distribute content, they are still not the same company.
You can take the time to put in your physical book into the homebrew tools, or you can write it off completely if you want. But the point is that they are still DIFFERENT COMPANIES that do not share revenue streams.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I strongly recommend you read the following threads carefully; I've supplied the links for your convenience:
Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
A Buyer's Guide for D&D Beyond
D&D Beyond - Pricing & Purchase FAQ & Discussion
#Open D&D
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
D&D Beyond is a different version of the same product, with added options and tools. The most obviously useful part is the character generator, which speeds up the process (especially for new players) by organizing everything into drop down menus to select your abilities, equipment, etc from and then it gives you a neatly organized and completed character sheet that you can print out or save as a pdf to share/archive digitally. You have to buy the "books" in digital form to use the content from them, and you can browse through them more handily with search tools and such than most people are comfortable doing flipping back and forth with a hardcopy book. It takes time, effort, and resources to put all of that information into digital format and write the programming code that puts it all into the convenient user interface. Nobody is telling you that you can't or shouldn't play D&D without it. It's up to you, as a consumer, to decide if the price they charge for it is worth the convenience. When you buy D&D Beyond content, you are paying for an optional convenience. That's it.
Well, one person in your group could buy a Master Tier subscription and enable content sharing.
Also, it's really not hard to figure any of this out by putting in a little effort.
Please note that you are allowed to use your content "on a site the wotc promotes". You are welcome, even encouraged, to build the content you use from your hard copy books using the homebrew tools. People on these forums will even gladly offer help in doing so if you ask them in a polite manner.
Just out of curiosity, if you bought a hard cover book from Amazon, would you expect them to give you the Kindle version for free? What if you bought the hard cover version from your local book store, should Amazon give you that content for free (maybe because the publisher says that their book is available on Amazon on their website)?
Fandom, the owners of DDB, put massive amounts of development effort into this site. That costs a lot of money (believe me, I know, I'm a software developer myself and my services do not come cheap). Every new book which comes out requires them to develop all the new features therein, regardless of how different they may be from the original rules. That is all on top of the license fees they have to pay WotC and the hosting costs of the site, and all the other business expenses.
Much anger in you.
But seriously, I struggled with paying for stuff on DnDB that I already owned. It was the barrier for me for a long time, to the point where I was putting in time to recreate my own content digitally using tools like OneNote (and sharing them with my players). After copying yet another set of spells from my PHB to my own files and dealing with yet another issue with getting the OneNote stuff to sync properly, I realized that eating up my own time was much more painful than just buying the digital books again and letting this site do all the work. So I bit the plunge, took the bullet, triggered the trigger, etc.
Now I have a lot more time to spend planning encounters and sessions and stuff. And I know not to buy physical copies of things (like Tasha's) if I'm going to just get them here. And honestly, the ability to quickly search for an obscure spell or rule is worth that price by itself.
DnDBeyond is far from flawless, don't misunderstand. It frustrates the hell out of me at times. But I did have to learn to stop worrying and love the fireball.
I agree! And about your second paragraph - I love physical books and have been a completionist with WotC 5e material. But starting with Candlekeep I've decided to only buy rules (Xanathar, Tasha etc) in physical form. Adventurers and such I will only buy on Beyond. Except if and when we get Spelljammer material. Then I will buy everything, everywhere!