D&D Beyond Pricing Released

[Anonymouswizard]

Yet I'm certain there's already people who have bought it three times. But if anyone but Wizards of the Cost did this without a significant price drop there would be rage among most of their customer base (okay, Paizo might be able to get away with it, but they already put everything on their SRD which generates goodwill). As it is most of D&D's customers don't play other RPGs, how will they know how it's done in the industry at large.

I'm not giving WotC any money until they're dragged into the 21st century, kicking and screaming if necessary. So no pdf for me.

[Easy_Lee]

Yet I'm certain there's already people who have bought it three times. But if anyone but Wizards of the Cost did this without a significant price drop there would be rage among most of their customer base (okay, Paizo might be able to get away with it, but they already put everything on their SRD which generates goodwill). As it is most of D&D's customers don't play other RPGs, how will they know how it's done in the industry at large.

I'm not giving WotC any money until they're dragged into the 21st century, kicking and screaming if necessary. So no pdf for me.

All of tabletop gaming needs to be dragged into the 21st century if you ask me. It's too difficult to find local groups for almost anything besides D&D. Roll20 and similar are good, but they don't quite match up to a physical table.

It's possible that, similar to work from home for most jobs, the technology just isn't quite there yet.

[obryn]

The idea of paying $300 up-front for a glorified character builder and SRD is comical.

[jaappleton]

The idea of paying $300 up-front for a glorified character builder and SRD is comical.

Precisely. It's a damn joke.

There's plenty of other character builders available.

[Pex]

Exactly.

It's somewhat mitigated if your table of 5 people total says, "Ok, each of us will pitch in __ and we'll all use the account", but... Yuck.

Sounds fair, but I would be reluctant due to reality. (No snark intended.) By reality I mean that life happens and gaming groups don't last forever. I have been fortunate to be in one group that lasted 12 years, but that was a glorious exception. We sort of have a reunion with my recently joining a group that has two other players from that group. Unless you're an already established group with confidence you'll remain such, it's too risky to ask this of players just forming a new group or have been in one for a couple of months when this website appears. What happens if someone has to leave for non-gaming related reasons? What if there are issues that would result in a player quitting or getting kicked out? What if the DM can't be the DM anymore for whatever reason? Who has control of the account? Who makes the subscription payments? It can get ugly fast.

[Finlam]

It can get ugly fast.

I believe that's when you roll for initiative.

[Cybren]

I hope this is the case. I really hope D&D fans don't accept this system. Expecting people to purchase the same content multiple times is unacceptable, regardless of the price.

if it was $5 a book i'd accept it quite a bit, actually. But full price or even half price is too much. I already own two copies of most of my books thanks to roll20

[Theodoxus]

Bwahahahha

They're so late to the table.... Hero Labs: for a flat $20 fee that gets you all the content WotC has produced to build as many characters as you want with. You can pay for 3rd party bundles if you're a fan of Green Ronin et al.

You can get PDFs of any book if you look hard enough online...

Cat's out of the bag, WotC... this is for either very honest folk or friends and family of WotC employees who don't want to be caught with 3rd party apps and/or pirated material.

Give me a break.

Maybe for D&D6 they can start off with a proprietary app and have everything digital which will make it hard (not impossible, but harder) to convert to PDF and generate revenue that way... I doubt they'll sacrifice their brick and mortar FLGS, but maybe...

[mgshamster]

Bwahahahha

They're so late to the table.... Hero Labs: for a flat $20 fee that gets you all the content WotC has produced to build as many characters as you want with.

Not quite. It's $35 for a new user, or $25 for a current user, and that gets you the basic rules plus SRD. From there, you can get the community content, which may be close enough to official (if identical to official, WotC may request they pull it, like they did when my Planescape conversions got pulled from the DMs Guild). Either way, HeroLab doesn't have the license to get any official content beyond the SRD.

[War_lord]

Yeah, this is pretty much nonsense. I'm a Roll20 person, that's what I do my gaming through. I own all the core books except SCAG along with CoS and I've also forked out full price for MM, Volo's and CoS digitally. Now I didn't mind paying for those three twice, because it plugs into Roll20 in a way that saves me time and makes my game look super professional. I don't feel I need a character builder, because 5e character creation is a painless process, and NPC creation uses different rules. I also pay the (optional) Roll20 subscription for enhanced features.

Beyond would cost me just as much, if not more then Roll20, with a fraction of the features. They're 5 years behind the curve with this thing. The only real trump card they seem to have is the Homebrew database, and that's weaksauce. There's plenty of free homebrew out there, and any uncurated database is going to have a serious Sturgeon's law problem at best, just look at D&D wiki's reputation.

[McNinja]

Looks like they've expanded on how their subscriptions work:
http://www.dndbeyond.com/full-subscr...for-d-d-beyond

Associated thread:
http://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-...for-d-d-beyond

It seems there was some confusion in their forums on how the subs worked, so they decided to expand on it. Still disappointingly adequate.

Also, the Product Lead for DDB has outright said that they can't offer purely sub-based access. Not that they won't, or don't want do, but they can't. I don't know how to take that, because it seems... wrong. I'm sure they have some reason, but it's not clear to anyone not directly involved with their pricing.

[Gwalchavad]

Also, the Product Lead for DDB has outright said that they can't offer purely sub-based access. Not that they won't, or don't want do, but they can't. I don't know how to take that, because it seems... wrong. I'm sure they have some reason, but it's not clear to anyone not directly involved with their pricing.

It's probably because DDB is just licensing the content from Wizards and Wizards (or even more likely Hasbro) won't let them. DDB isn't a Wizards-run project, it's being published by an outside developer (Curse) who managed to make a pitch that WotC/Hasbro liked. Wizards has been throwing more marketing money at it and assoiciating their name with it more than they have for things like their partnerships with FantasyGrounds and Roll20, but at the end of the day, it's pretty much the same type of deal as those.

[Kane0]

Hahahahaha

No. I'm happy with what I've got now. Thanks for the beta though!

[Susano-wo]

This is insane to me, but then again, I haven't looked at Paizos pricing of digital content either. But ****! $2 for a spell? but I can get the PHB spells for $5? why not just eliminate individual spell buying?

Can someone tell me what compendium is in this context? like the PHB compendium content is only $20 vs the ludicrous $30 they want for the whole thing. whats missing in compendium?

[Gwalchavad]

Can someone tell me what compendium is in this context? like the PHB compendium content is only $20 vs the ludicrous $30 they want for the whole thing. whats missing in compendium?

The ability to use that content in the digital tools like the character builder and spell/item/monster creators.

[Susano-wo]

The ability to use that content in the digital tools like the character builder and spell/item/monster creators.

Ah, so they want to charge me $10 for every book I want to actually use in their application. wooooow (thanks for explaining that)

[Ugganaut]

Hard pass. $30 per book I already own. Welcome to Nopeville.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

Maybe they're all still living back in the eighties when online-anything was expensive and fantasy gamers took what they could get and were grateful for it.

I've got news for you, there was no "online" in the eighties.

[Mortheim]

So, to use others homebrew content i will pay to WotC? Well...

And those prices are killing me. Paying for hardbacks was pretty harsh (cause i live in poor region), but now i need to buy them again.

[Anonymouswizard]

There's plenty of free homebrew out there, and any uncurated database is going to have a serious Sturgeon's law problem at best, just look at D&D wiki's reputation.

Plus looking at this forum's reaction, I suspect most competent homebrewers won't bother with D&DB. I mean, of they want it officialish not like DMsGuild is going away, if I'm not going to use this why should I add my homebrew?

[Ruebin Rybnik]

Ok so biggest thing that jumps out to me is that Wizards doesn't know basic math. If you add up all the e source books full prices you get $299.87, %15 off would come out to $254.89 not $279.99. So already i don't agree with any of their pricing.

Ok so if you can get past their math problems, then you have to deal with them slamming the door on current customers. If i purchased the hard copy of the book and can show proof, why are you going to make me pay full price again. How about if i can show proof of purchase why not give me a reduced cost. Say $9.99 for the PHB. This way you're still making money and appealing to current customers. Actually they would probably make more money as there would be 5 times more current customers purchasing the e sources.


Lastly i can somewhat understand them not wanting to allow PDF download. So as a compromise why not have a offline version of DNDB that you can download to x number of laptops/mobile devices with all you source material you have purchased. This way you can use it offline with out too much worry of mass duplication.

Their only saving grace is the feature where the GM with the master subscription can share content with their players. But that still requires a big purchase on the GM's part.

[Anonymouswizard]

The sad thing is, many people who'd love to pay for a pdf of the book's can't, and PDFs can be incredibly easy to browse and search. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want the rules in some sort of wiki, just a legal PDF with bookmarks and a search bar. Releasing one wouldn't increase piracy, people who want to pursue a pdf can (and likely have been able to since about two hours after launch).

While no pdf does make sense in a 'drive people to our latest project' theme, it's just giving me no reason to change my 'until there's a pdf' boycott of D&D. I have the PhB, I'm unlikely to run 5e, so I have no reason to buy their books.

EDIT: my reading is that a GM can share anybody's content, as long as they're in the campaign.

[Beelzebubba]

Their only saving grace is the feature where the GM with the master subscription can share content with their players. But that still requires a big purchase on the GM's part.

"Hey everyone, want to chip in equally on this? It's much cheaper divided by five."

"Ok"
"Sure"
"Yeah"
"No problem"

[DanyBallon]

Ok so if you can get past their math problems, then you have to deal with them slamming the door on current customers. If i purchased the hard copy of the book and can show proof, why are you going to make me pay full price again. How about if i can show proof of purchase why not give me a reduced cost. Say $9.99 for the PHB. This way you're still making money and appealing to current customers. Actually they would probably make more money as there would be 5 times more current customers purchasing the e sources.


Lastly i can somewhat understand them not wanting to allow PDF download. So as a compromise why not have a offline version of DNDB that you can download to x number of laptops/mobile devices with all you source material you have purchased. This way you can use it offline with out too much worry of mass duplication.

Their only saving grace is the feature where the GM with the master subscription can share content with their players. But that still requires a big purchase on the GM's part.

To be fair, if you put yourself in WotC shoes, how would you make sure that the person that request a discount for owning the physical copy isn't cheating you? Picture of the book with bar code? can easily done in a retail store. Picture of you with the book in your hand? Can be done in a store or a single copy of the book can be used for many person. Picture of the store receipt with the book? Could be a better solution, but honestly do you still have the proof of purchase of all your books? and still it can be switch around between people, unless WotC thoroughly investigate every picture sent so that there's no proof of purchase that are use more than once, which would be quite expensive to implement.

The best way would be that in every new purchase there is a unique redeem code that could be used only once, but that won't let owner of previously released book any mean for a discount.

[Pex]

"Hey everyone, want to chip in equally on this? It's much cheaper divided by five."

"Ok"
"Sure"
"Yeah"
"No problem"

"My wife had the baby. I can't DM anymore, sorry."

"I got a new job with a new schedule. I can't play."

"You're being unfair. I quit and am not paying the subscriptions anymore."

[Anonymouswizard]

To be fair, if you put yourself in WotC shoes, how would you make sure that the person that request a discount for owning the physical copy isn't cheating you? Picture of the book with bar code? can easily done in a retail store. Picture of you with the book in your hand? Can be done in a store or a single copy of the book can be used for many person. Picture of the store receipt with the book? Could be a better solution, but honestly do you still have the proof of purchase of all your books? and still it can be switch around between people, unless WotC thoroughly investigate every picture sent so that there's no proof of purchase that are use more than once, which would be quite expensive to implement.

The best way would be that in every new purchase there is a unique redeem code that could be used only once, but that won't let owner of previously released book any mean for a discount.

I mean, I'd offer a steeper discount initially, like $10-15 (the standard price of a digital book), so people who already have the book don't have to shell out another $30 (if you have a physical copy and roll20 copy you've already dropped $100 on each corebook, so maybe $300 in total, and now you have to pay another $30 to use it on D&DB), I don't begrudge the timescale they have here only the actual price drop. I'd then do some sort of Bits and Mortar* style scheme, where buying a digital copy of the rules is $30, but if you buy a physical copy you get a code to buy a digital copy for less or potentially free.

People with physical books aren't adverse to dropping $10-15 on a pdf copy of the rules, sure we might grumble about how we wish they used Bits and Mortar so we'd get them for free, but we'll still stump up the cash for the convenience. It's just the pricing that's annoying.

$20 is about the limit on what I'll pay for a nice searchable pdf I can carry around with me (ideally with layers so I can turn off the background), not some wiki-thing that's annoying to navigate and has a bunch of annoying visuals. I 100% understand the 'subscription or ads' model, it makes perfect sense, it's all the other unnecessary visuals that annoy me. Just give me a pdf that I can read in a pdf viewer, it'll be so much nicer.

* Which frankly is a great name for the 'free pdf with physical purchases' scheme, which makes me like Bits and Mortar all the more. Actually do have some free pdfs from it.

[Lombra]

By the look of things it seems like the target are the players who don't already own the books. It's pricey but less than buying the actual books. I don't understand the monthly subscription fee tho.

[Anonymouswizard]

By the look of things it seems like the target are the players who don't already own the books. It's pricey but less than buying the actual books. I don't understand the monthly subscription fee tho.

For the basic level it removes some restrictions and stops you from seeing ads. Either you let WotC (or Curse, the guys that make this) make ad revenue from the parts you haven't paid for, or you pay them a fee to use it. Because there are costs for running this (including server maintenance and likely continued development).

For the 'target players that don't own the books', maybe but it's not the vibe I'm getting. I'm getting a 'put money towards this because it's easier to character create' vibe. Not to say that you're wrong, but it feels a lot more like 'pay again for content you already own'.

Then again I think very different to WotC, I'd certainly have put out pdfs by now, and potentially done some sort of 'free/PWYW/$1 PhB pdf sale' as a promotion. It's probably obvious why I'm not working on 5e for Hasbro/WotC, half my ideas would likely help and the other half would lose too much money (that and really not being the right age or in the right profession).

[DanyBallon]

I mean, I'd offer a steeper discount initially, like $10-15 (the standard price of a digital book), so people who already have the book don't have to shell out another $30 (if you have a physical copy and roll20 copy you've already dropped $100 on each corebook, so maybe $300 in total, and now you have to pay another $30 to use it on D&DB), I don't begrudge the timescale they have here only the actual price drop. I'd then do some sort of Bits and Mortar* style scheme, where buying a digital copy of the rules is $30, but if you buy a physical copy you get a code to buy a digital copy for less or potentially free.

People with physical books aren't adverse to dropping $10-15 on a pdf copy of the rules, sure we might grumble about how we wish they used Bits and Mortar so we'd get them for free, but we'll still stump up the cash for the convenience. It's just the pricing that's annoying.

$20 is about the limit on what I'll pay for a nice searchable pdf I can carry around with me (ideally with layers so I can turn off the background), not some wiki-thing that's annoying to navigate and has a bunch of annoying visuals. I 100% understand the 'subscription or ads' model, it makes perfect sense, it's all the other unnecessary visuals that annoy me. Just give me a pdf that I can read in a pdf viewer, it'll be so much nicer.

* Which frankly is a great name for the 'free pdf with physical purchases' scheme, which makes me like Bits and Mortar all the more. Actually do have some free pdfs from it.

Then you're definitely not the target audience, D&D beyond is not a pdf. From what I understand (I haven't tried it yet), it's an integrate database that let you as a player and/or a DM have access to your owned material, and homebrew, on a digital device. As for you spending money on roll20 books, it's sad to say but they don't really care as the company behind D&D Beyond is not related to roll20 and is in part in competition with them. They would prefer that you spend that 30$ on their product instead of on the competition.

As for myself, I'm not the target audience either as I like to own physical copies of books I buy and music albums as well. Actually I'm considering buying a second PHB just to have at leave one copy up to date with the errata.

[Lombra]

Beyond can find it's spot in the local game store that wants to host games, with a master tier suscription and all the content bought by the shop, anyone can go there and play with the digital sourcebooks on their devices. It will be more comfortable and economic for the shop to keep everything digital, and it will be more comfortable for the players that don't have to constantly look through a physical PHB.

I think that the general consensus that came up here saying that it is bad happened because none of us are the target of the product. Most of us have physical books or are in a group where the books are shared, so there's no need to pay for them again in digital version.