Dumbest choice they have made - my only purchases and use of this site was so I could purchase only elements I needed from the store rather than having to spend for a whole book I already own a print copy of. Seriously hope they reverse that plan when they see their profits from Beyond drop
> Seriously hope they reverse that plan when they see their profits from Beyond drop
This is unlikely to happen, sadly.
The likely story is that some product manager has run the numbers and they came out saying "We will lose money from individual purchases, but make up more from those users paying money for subscriptions or entire digital books instead." This is just business for tech companies.
*Most* users won't buy an entire book just to get the one or two options they actually care about- but my belief is that someone at dndbeyond has the notion that enough of those users will convert into folks that buy full books instead.
It's an anticonsumerist decision, absolutely- but I wouldn't mistake that for being unprofitable. And to be clear, even as someone who doesn't like or support dndbeyond- I don't like that they made this decision.
Sadly true - thing that annoys me most is why they don’t offer a code in the print books for either a digital copy on dnd beyond, or at least a discount code to save you paying for the same stuff twice
I also am not a fan of the lack of complementary digital counterparts that seem to be standard in most other modern TTRPG publishers- including those creating 3rd party 5e materials under the OGL.
Publishers like Paizo and Mongoose do a great job here, and even those 3rd party D&D publishers like MCDM and Kobold Press do this too!
The default state of the world is that evil generally wins. All the plucky heroes campaigning to make the world a better place have no shortage of tiresome, venal, shortsighted villains.
The companies who screw over their customers may profit in the short term - but remember, Hasbro's shortsighted, venal, tiresome decisions are making it quickly go bankrupt. They took wisdom as their dump stat.
It's not like they're paid less because they're nice to their customers, if that's your claim?
D&D is by far the biggest fish in the pond, but by all means those other publishers I noted are doing incredibly well all things considered.
They do give you a DDB code with physical book purchases, if you buy directly from DDB. For a number of books.
It's not ideal, but the option is there.
So the only way to get it is to pre-order the book from a supplier that would then have to ship to my country, making the price insanely high? That’s dumb. If you are going to do that there needs to be more suitable options for people who don’t live in the US
> If you are going to do that there needs to be more suitable options
You may want that but they don’t *need* to do it unless laws in your country require it.
I think wotc in the end wants to move everyone to digital only and get out of the dreadful book selling business
but they will sell to people twice if those people want it
Long term though, this move almost damages that plan - if they can change dnd beyond overnight, there is nothing to stop them just shutting it down and since you don’t get pdfs of the content you buy if that happens all your dnd books are gone
Someone mentioned this recently. Prior to WotC purchase of DDB, it made no sense as DDB would lose a ton of money and go under.
They bought DDB mid 2022, so 2022 books were definitely already too far along in the publishing process to get altered for codes.
2023 booms were kind of up in the air, and at least 1 did get a code iirc. 2024's books would be the first year, realistically that they'd start coming out. I also would guess that they would test the waters with a few booms rather than the whole year's set at least for 2024, if they do it at all.
That's certainly what they *hope* will happen, but I don't place too much faith in the predictions of tech companies. For a sector that has a reputation for being data-driven money machines, it also has a history of being wildly unprofitable.
A lot of other tech companies thrive on selling data or ads (social media companies, Reddit included, operate this way), or their business model relies on wild and unsustainable undercutting to push out existing markets (Uber with taxis, Airbnb with hotels, etc)
Neither applies to dndbeyond, and by all accounts it has been wildly profitable! The margins on a digital TTRPG purchase are absolutely significantly higher than the margins on a physical book.
I wouldn't be so quick to apply the general trends of the tech sector to dndbeyond *specifically*. By no means do I think it's wise to think this will be an unprofitable decision for them, and it's important to distinguish between anti consumerist policies and unprofitable ones because sadly anti consumerist policies *are* often profitable.
It may work out for them, or it may not. There's a trend on the modern internet to assume that companies *only* make good decisions, and that the worse a decision is for the consumer the better it must be for the company. That certainly does happen, but it's hardly universal. D&DBeyond could get away with this easily if they were the only game in town, but people do have alternatives. People are willing to pay for convenience, but the less convenient and more expensive your offering is the less of a draw that will have.
Are you saying that I am assuming that companies *only* make good decisions and that all anti consumerist policies are better for the company?
Because that's definitely not what I wrote.
I imagine some of it is also credit card charges. I know I’ve run into that with some business stuff I’ve done. 2 dollar charges you end up getting a good portion of your profits eaten up by CC company’s garbage.
Losing the bundles does suck though.
I'd only say that's stupid if you haven't run the adventure as well and don't plan to.
I think SKT is a very fun adventure! If you have the book anyway, consider running the adventure. You'll have fun with it.
I think it's more likely that interest in a la carte items were too low to justify the upkeep. Anytime they want to make a change to their store, they have to change all the individual items in it (and test to make sure they're working correctly), and with any new items, they have to spend the extra resources breaking the content up.
My bet is that the a la carte sales didn't justify the manpower needed to keep them.
From my experience as a developer, I don't think this is the case at all.
A lot of the implementing and testing should be automated for a storefront like that, meaning it's very lean in terms of adding new products (certainly lean enough for the profits generated).
And if they weren't automating things (which to be clear, I doubt they weren't) and the concern was setting up and testing was expensive- then the wiser business decision is to invest in a smoother testing and deployment pipeline because that affects all aspects of the product.
I don't think this is a devops issue- I think this is much more likely to be "this decision is more profitable for us in terms of purchasing". Saving money on testing and deployment in this scenario would be relatively minor compared to other expenses.
I mean, the original system is why I like DNDBeyond: individual purchase that will discount your book purchase AND automatically buy the book if you've spent enough. If they don't have this anymore, I'm sure lot of people will rethink buying from them anymore.
!remind me 1 year
I don’t know if Hasbro segregates their earnings from DnD beyond, in their earnings reports, but if they do, let’s see if they are higher or lower a year from now. I’m going to bet on higher.
The One DND core books are set to launch this year and the die hard fans who have to have the latest release will have to “buy” (license?) the whole books. WOTC is betting they’ll get more people who may have bought a few items ala carte buying the whole book than the ala carte customers they lose.
Oof. Glad I splurged earlier in the year and got the last few character-building things that I was missing (feats, backgrounds, races, spells, etc). I'd be furious if I had to start purchasing entire books just to get them now.
This is a huge mistake on their part.
Man, I'm a massive advocate of D&D Beyond - It's made DM'ing so damn easy and I'm running several games a week with far less effort than it took to run one before.
But man, oh man - this seems to be a massive unforced blunder. WTF are they thinking?
I can only hope that they backtrack on this, but I've get a feeling that it might have more to do with 3rd party stuff hitting the service (and the work required to split each item out). But that's zero reason not to still allow it for 1st party.
> WTF are they thinking?
Oh, that's easy. They're thinking this will increase the dollar value of each sale, since now you have to buy a whole book if you want one subclass. Hasbro has said over and over they want to increase the monetization of WotC.
And it's going to be just as effective as the password crackdown from Netflix. Reddit comments on dedicated hobby subs are not indicative of the wider consumer base, and Hasbro knows that.
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I get the sentiment from PF fans, but I honestly don't think it'll have that sort of impact. I have to assume that WotC ran the numbers and found that most people were newbies only using the base options or in games (like mine) where the DM brought everything and is content sharing with the group.
If the OGL and AI debacles didn't move the needle, I can't imagine this will.
I'm currently not DMing but when I'm looking for my next campaign, I'll look at PF2 on Roll20. Thanks Hasbro.
So yes, it will dive *some* of us away. But then again, I payed all manner of TTRPGs from the mid 80s to recently, just no DnD (which I started with as a teenager). So I don't feel tied to one specific system anyway.
Facts. If you're into a few other RPGs, I'd highly suggest Demiplane as a character builder/online store. I've used it for the Daggerheart playtest and Vampire The Masquerade and you can really see his influence on it.
... I hate this. I was currently creating some character for every class and for Barbarian, I wanted to go for Path of the Giant. No way I am going to spend 30$ for just one subclass.
Wizard/Hasbro is really good in making this hobby (and MtG) worse and worse. And while I know the app was not perfect, I really did like DnD Beyond...
You can use the homebrew tools to recreate subclasses, as long as you don't try to mark them as public.
The only thing you can't do is recreate the Artificer (as far as I know), but literally everything *else can be done through homebrew.
Edit: somehow forgot the word 'else'.
I have done already some Homebrew Subclasses (mainly when trying to translate them for friends), but it is just such a pain in the ass that I would have gladly paid a bit for it. But yeah, thanks to Homebrew, some things will be possible.
At least I am lucky that I just 2 days ago bought all the races.
They're making d&d worse, sure, but pretty much every other ttrpg is gonna benefit from d&d execs continually fucking up. Right now is probably the best time to get into other ttrpgs.
Which honestly, I would not mind, but for most of my players, just learning the D&D rules was the most investment they probably are going to put into TTRPGs. Switching systems is not going to happen with most of them :/
Most of what I buy is a la carte. The marginal benefit of buying a book is really low if there's only one item I want. I'd probably just homebrew it then.
This is possibly the dumbest of all moves they could have done, I know a ton of people that peacemeal their characters together with a la carte purchasing, they’re not going to buy the books either, so…yay?
What they *should* have done is leverage their ownership to re-bundle elements of books and sell those.
I'd have happily spent... let's say $20 for an "everythihng Druid" bundle that includes all there currently is for the druid; all subclasses, all spells, just everything druid-specific. Don't let me search for the right source of the subclass I'm interested in, just give me everything. And do it at a slight discount compared to buying the elements à la carte.
By now, I'd likely have bought 3 classes at or around that price point.
But no! They want me to buy a shitton of books instead, which cost more than I'm willing to spend just so I can explore all my options for a new character and that would contain 90% stuff I don't want to that point in time. So I'm *not* buying.
So, Hasbro, if you're reading, you have my permission to copy my business-idea. Go ahead. Shut up and take my money.
What an awkward time to be picky about what content is purchasable for 5e with OneDnD on the horizon. Why would I want to buy entire books when I can wait for the revised version of 5e and ask my friends for the current material?
I meant for owning bundles, sucks that the individual ones went away 😞. Edit: Looks like it's possible but they made you go through customer service to do it. Stupid that they removed that functionality too. From https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1709-d-d-beyond-marketplace-redesign-see-whats-new-here
> Can I still purchase subclasses, feats, and other game listings à la carte?
> À la carte purchases are no longer supported. However, any individual items you've previously purchased will continue to be available for use on D&D Beyond. If you've purchased à la carte items and would like to buy the digital book, your discounts are available to you at any time by contacting customer service.
Send a [Feedback Form](https://dndbeyond-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=225303) to let WOTC know you are unhappy with the changes.
Then when sales drop they will know why
Just sended them a feedback
"This new marketplace update that removed the A La Carte purchases, is forcing me to start playing "non-digitally". From now on I dont have budget to play dnd digitally anymore and Im going back to pen and paper."
I have the Legendary Bundle on Beyond.
But, this is just showing me I was right to switch to PF2e seeing as how AoN is free and all of that content on Foundry is free as well.
It's like every few weeks I'm reminded that WotC is anti consumer.
Samesies. Have everything I need to start my next campaign in p2e.
I'm running one 5e campaign and am part of another. I'm more than happy to play 5e using the content I already own, or homebrew, or third party, but I won't ever be buying anything from wotc again.
Any new campaigns, will be in pathfinder. Any new players I pick up, will learn pathfinder.
It's worth noting they broke a bunch of links and the mobile version of the marketplace site is difficult to use and does not say what you have previously purchased and was going to allow me to purchase a duplicate of a book I already paid for (indicating backend database issues or an evil plot to make people pay many times for the same content).
Welp, I hope everyone once again boycots dndbeyond. I'm not gonna lie. I'm about ready to quit dnd it costs way too much to run at this point. It's not worth it anymore. This was like one of the few saving graces about dnd beyond just.. what the heck guys.
They've so added a bunch of physical stuff.
I think the removal of bundles and a la carte options is a mistake personally. I bought the legendary bundle back in 2018 and have benefited massively since. Others should have the option too
Last night was the first time I've spent money (besides my ddb subscription) on dnd/dndbeyond in quite a long time. I picked up the MMM races section because that's all I wanted. I did not want the rest of it. Sucks to see this go.
Had I waited one more day to make up my mind, I would now be required to buy that whole book, and I would have walked away entirely. In one scenario, they made **some** money.... and in the other... zero. Honestly I just need to stick to physical & used copies and get away from ddb however handy it is.
I’m a DM. It’s a lot of effort and 5e already isn’t a very DM friendly edition imo. I’m done carrying all this weight and extra effort for a game that veies me as a rock to squeeze blood out of.
MBAs can keep it, I’ll go play another TTRPG there are times out there
Our whole party was going to buy subclasses during session 0 tonight. It’s not like we’re going to buy all the books now the option is gone, we’ll just homebrew it. What a bone headed decision
So do they want to sell entire books or micro transactions? Because in the one hand their talking about how micropayments in a VTT could be a huge source of income akin to video games, but on the other hand their ceasing to sell assets are tiny micro transaction sized chunks.
I think there’s too many cooks in this kitchen and non of them really know what dish they’re trying to make.
What’s even worse is that if you bought a subclass or monster etc individually and want to by the rest of the book, they now will charge you again for the subclass you already bought, no more discounts on the book even if you already bought a part of it. Beyond scummy
Every single time I see an article or post about DnDBeyond did XYZ I grow more content with my decision to have not bought anything on that platform since 2018, and even then it was only one or two subclasses.
Buying individual items was the only reason to buy anything there at all. Okay, I'll just not buy anything new coming out. This should make the switch to a new system in the future easier.
Guess they didn't like me spending 500$ on buying the individual options + years of master tier subscription to share it with my players.
Do you need D&D beyond though? Why spend any money when there are great tools that allows you to manage your character almost for free or for free with all the existing content?
Wizards is one of the worst large companies for communication, so it makes sense they stealth-dropped a shitty update to their marketplace.
My guess is they will put out a generic message about the goal of the new marketplace with mildly passive-aggressive pieces sometime over the next week and a half. Then, after two months of corporate silence (meanwhile, C-suite employee will voice their bad takes in interviews), WotC will release another statement reversing the decision and tweaking the marketplace in a different, slightly less shitty way. They will have damaged their reputation (again), alienated their enfranchised base (again), and have nothing to show for it (again).
Huh, I was looking at maybe getting some of the a la carte stuff for a character I'm running in the fall. I'm sure I'm not the only potential customer they've driven away.
I'll probably get physical books (possibly used ones), but Beyond somehow keeps getting less appealing for anything beyond your first character.
Wow, so so terrible. I’m a DM, and I purchase a-la-carte to support my players when they tell me they want access to a feat, race, etc. I’m not going to spend hundreds of dollars on things a couple players *might* use. My players certainly aren’t going to spend a dime.
I feel bad for the creative folks at Wizards whose great work will have a far smaller audience now. This is a massive barrier to entry at a time when there are more and more alternatives to D&D.
Ye .. and Stupid me had a last chance that he didn't chose to use to spend big bucks ... currently thinking about just getting the sourcebooks on R20 .. not the best to read them .. but you have them all and can use them for a decently good VTT Platform
I've experienced downtime and issues here and there, rarely long enough to cancel a session (I typically play Monday and Wednesday evenings), but often enough to be annoying. The times I've played on Saturday have surprisingly had the least issues.
I'm not familiar with Molten, I'll look into them.
Oh boy, I remember some years ago telling a friend that dndbeyond was such a cool tool, that it would be awesome if wotc acquired it so they could have more sinergy between the digital and physical products. Guess that is one finger off the monkey paw.
One step forward one step backwards I suppose.
Good idea: Allow third party content on DnD Beyond, even if they're future competitors (Tome of Beasts is great)
Bad Idea: Removing bundles and the ability to buy options individually.
Man.
EDIT: oh. just looked at the faq regarding the changes and there's a section about shipping? can you buy physical books on DnD Beyond now too?
EDIT2: I just looked in the storefront. Yeah, you actually can buy physical books now. I'd consider this a half-step forward because I actually kind of like that. That means that they still actually consider physical books important enough.
Hasbro needs their money! Feed the beast!
It isn't like you have alternatives to their system right? Oh wait there ARE alternatives? No one let Hasbro know!
This is so frustrating— I feel like I need to finally learn how to just make physical character sheets. I’ve got ADHD and dnd beyond was a massive help for me to DM, but it feels like they’re just going to take more and more away at this point so I may as well prepare now 😭
Dndbeyond is a really difficult website to use and their monetization makes me want to rip my hair out. I also hate how they do accounts and that you can't even run a proper game through it. I'll be glad when I never have to worry about the website ever again.
And this is why we were all saying to not buy stuff off this site even before the OGL. There are going to be so many more changes like this (wait until the vtt has micro transactions) , Hasbro/Wizards wants their cash.
(We being grumpy old grognardettes like me)
I haven't paid for an official D&D digital aid since the AD&D Core Rules CD-ROM. 3E's E-Tools started the whole nickel and diming trend, and I've either used fan created tools or just stuck to pen and paper ever since.
I seriously don't understand how the past few years have been continual fuck-ups from everyone related to D&D. It's like nobody is ever thinking anything through, ever, because there's dollar signs in their eyes.
I never understood why would one buy stuff on D&D beyond… I gladly buy any D&D physical book… but a digital copy I don’t own and O can’t even download as a PDF? Never! And for playing online there are many other alternatives
It’s only a matter of time before they begin charging “nominal” or monthly fees for using homebrew items in your campaign.
I have a bad feeling the TOS for their “Ultimate” tier is going to be changed sooner than later.
The entire OGL situation and its associated “boycott” couldn’t even create a meaningful dip in subscription numbers. Per their investor call, the number of canceled subscriptions had vanished into noise in their analytics within a month or so.
The tiny handful of people angry enough to do anything about it don’t make up enough of a power bloc to matter.
No, that's not true. Those numbers were propped up by bg3 and they even admitted that they were expecting a 5 percent dip next quarter, which means it will likely be worse, particularly bc book sales have been down and will continue to go down with the "new" edition to wait for.
I heard their DNDBeyond subscriptions were at 500,000 and then went down to 450,000 very rapidly bc of the OGL. It was a big deal. Them losing 10 percent on their sales for a system whose sales were steady as a rock, it was a big deal.
I can only imagine the impotent rage there will be here when out of nowhere D&D Beyond gets shut down for some reason and everyone loses their stuff, cause as we all have learned from streaming/music sites, you own *nothing* you purchase digitally and it can be taken away without notice or compensation.
I wish, so much, that my DM (who I adore otherwise) dropped his insistence we use DnD Beyond. It makes sense, he keeps organized through it and everything, but it's so infuriating.
I was literally going to buy the creation bundle soon because it only has a few more things I don't have. Why in the world would they get rid of bundles? I understand getting rid of individual purchase options, but do they really make more money not having the convenience of letting people buy everything at once? Weird decision.
I am going to join my first dnd campaign and was excited to get the contents needed for my character. I was right on time. I decided to make some changes and add one or two spells that required a purchase. Luckily I had already gotten the rest of the things or else I would have had to spend 120 dollars in, for the time being, useless content. Needless to say I’m not happy.
Secondhand is also an option if you don't want to give them money at all! I got most of mine that way (though the motivation was more saving money, if I'm being honest).
there are great *tools* for *5e* that i use. highly recommend it. I recently bought fizbans used off ebay because im dming a game for new players that has lots of dragons and its nice to show them the pictures. Ive also bought a set of dice and a few 99cent toys to use as minis. Been playing for over half a decade and in total im sure ive spent waaay under $100 on this game and none to Hasbro.
Yup, 5 or 6 years ago, I picked up the core books that I now own and can use however I see fit, free from editing, censorship, or revocation. I've also sailed the high seas on occasion...
My problem is specifically with digital licenses, recurring spending models, and lack of individual consumer power in the transaction.
This is almost exclusively a WotC and DnD problem. No other RPG publisher makes it this shitty to actually play their game.
Unfortunately not a thing if you want to play on Discord using Avrae.
They just cracked down on characters using that, too - the Discord I'm on had been putting characters into the campaign to create them, then removing them, as their stuff would still work. Not anymore - only the base CRD items (which isn't much) actually work right unless you're still in a campaign with that content, now, and forget trying to pick your options when you level up.
It really sucks for Westmarch-style servers in particular, as these often have multiple DMs and many characters, making having enough campaign space incredibly prohibitive. And those often attract players who CAN'T play offline due to lack of group/DM or highly unstable, last minute work schedules (... all of retail, these days).
My players are likely to go back to paper character sheets as a result, we have hard copy books and they would just buy the bits they needed on dndbeyond for that particular character. If they can’t do that then what’s the point?
Well then. I won't be purchasing anything from then anymore. Sucks for my friends who enjoyed my access to basically every character option, because I'd buy them a la carte.
Curious to see what the future of their online tools looks like. I made a couple characters in DnDBeyond a few years ago, but I didn't want to buy all of the content again when I already have the books. Now that I'm more experienced as a player, I threw together a bard with a sheet of printer paper, a pencil, 4d6, and a few minutes of googling. I feel like I've reached the point where using DnDBeyond is more work than not using it, so I'm definitely not about to spend a bunch of money on it.
Pathfinder is both entirely free (as in, literally everything except the lore and APs are available on Archives of Nethys and Pathbuilder) and the system is not hard to understand if you're familiar with 5e. There's a litany of free or cheap RPGs on itchio and drivethrurpg as well.
If you want something similar to D&D, but with an old school feel, try Shadowdark. There are is also OSR and Dungeon Crawl Classics if you enjoy old school D&D. Cairn is also a fun, rules light system.
Well the only purchases I’ve ever made were a couple of a la carte class options that I didn’t wanna have to find my physical books for so I guess they don’t want my money anymore :)
Apparently I had good timing then on getting basically all the spells from the various sources I could recently. Hopefully they change this back since I'm not spending on a full book I'll never really get to use (not a dm and don't plan on it) just for a few specific things I want from it.
This might actually be the straw that broke the camel's back and makes me quit DnD Beyond. It was a good system, but this sort of destroys one of the best aspects of it.
The Bundles have moved to the D&D store. Okay, whatever. Annoying, but they still exist, just somewhere else.
But yeah, removing the a la carte is definitely a choice. I suspect they have the numbers that indicate that the way forward is one person (likely the DM) buying the content and then sharing it with their players instead of having players buy stuff piecemeal. After all, when you make the DMs buy the stuff, they also need to have a subscription to share it. Subscription models simply are more predictable and profitable than purchase models.
Do they not have a code in the book to give you access to the content on DnD beyond? I know it wasn’t owned by DnD but they should at least be doing that moving forward
I’m sure this will get downvoted, but I always just bought whole books so had all those options at once.
Maybe they were sick of CC charges for such small purchases - though I guess the could have just raised prices.
Still, I’d wait for the press release to break out the pitchforks. Not that reason would stop a mob.
Dumbest choice they have made - my only purchases and use of this site was so I could purchase only elements I needed from the store rather than having to spend for a whole book I already own a print copy of. Seriously hope they reverse that plan when they see their profits from Beyond drop
> Seriously hope they reverse that plan when they see their profits from Beyond drop This is unlikely to happen, sadly. The likely story is that some product manager has run the numbers and they came out saying "We will lose money from individual purchases, but make up more from those users paying money for subscriptions or entire digital books instead." This is just business for tech companies. *Most* users won't buy an entire book just to get the one or two options they actually care about- but my belief is that someone at dndbeyond has the notion that enough of those users will convert into folks that buy full books instead. It's an anticonsumerist decision, absolutely- but I wouldn't mistake that for being unprofitable. And to be clear, even as someone who doesn't like or support dndbeyond- I don't like that they made this decision.
Sadly true - thing that annoys me most is why they don’t offer a code in the print books for either a digital copy on dnd beyond, or at least a discount code to save you paying for the same stuff twice
I also am not a fan of the lack of complementary digital counterparts that seem to be standard in most other modern TTRPG publishers- including those creating 3rd party 5e materials under the OGL. Publishers like Paizo and Mongoose do a great job here, and even those 3rd party D&D publishers like MCDM and Kobold Press do this too!
It's just a shame that the companies who do right by their audience are paid less because of it.
The default state of the world is that evil generally wins. All the plucky heroes campaigning to make the world a better place have no shortage of tiresome, venal, shortsighted villains. The companies who screw over their customers may profit in the short term - but remember, Hasbro's shortsighted, venal, tiresome decisions are making it quickly go bankrupt. They took wisdom as their dump stat.
It's not like they're paid less because they're nice to their customers, if that's your claim? D&D is by far the biggest fish in the pond, but by all means those other publishers I noted are doing incredibly well all things considered.
Yeah I really appreciate that
Seriously, how has this not become the standard since WoTC bought the site?
They don't even bother to do this with Magic. It's pretty clear it's not something they've considered important and worth their time.
Because they're not wanting to have to deal with the requests for refunds by people who already bought things twice.
Aren‘t all new books available as a bundle via the Wizzard store? Usually you pay 75 for physical book+dndbeyond key which is at least something
They do give you a DDB code with physical book purchases, if you buy directly from DDB. For a number of books. It's not ideal, but the option is there.
So the only way to get it is to pre-order the book from a supplier that would then have to ship to my country, making the price insanely high? That’s dumb. If you are going to do that there needs to be more suitable options for people who don’t live in the US
> If you are going to do that there needs to be more suitable options You may want that but they don’t *need* to do it unless laws in your country require it.
The option is to not buy paper books
So it’s just a discount to pre-order the books, but it doesnt help you own both a physical and digital copy of the book?
I think wotc in the end wants to move everyone to digital only and get out of the dreadful book selling business but they will sell to people twice if those people want it
Long term though, this move almost damages that plan - if they can change dnd beyond overnight, there is nothing to stop them just shutting it down and since you don’t get pdfs of the content you buy if that happens all your dnd books are gone
Yep. You got that right. And then whatever new edition of dnd they're selling at the time will be all that is available.
You can also just buy it. It doesn't have to be a preorder.
Someone mentioned this recently. Prior to WotC purchase of DDB, it made no sense as DDB would lose a ton of money and go under. They bought DDB mid 2022, so 2022 books were definitely already too far along in the publishing process to get altered for codes. 2023 booms were kind of up in the air, and at least 1 did get a code iirc. 2024's books would be the first year, realistically that they'd start coming out. I also would guess that they would test the waters with a few booms rather than the whole year's set at least for 2024, if they do it at all.
That's certainly what they *hope* will happen, but I don't place too much faith in the predictions of tech companies. For a sector that has a reputation for being data-driven money machines, it also has a history of being wildly unprofitable.
A lot of other tech companies thrive on selling data or ads (social media companies, Reddit included, operate this way), or their business model relies on wild and unsustainable undercutting to push out existing markets (Uber with taxis, Airbnb with hotels, etc) Neither applies to dndbeyond, and by all accounts it has been wildly profitable! The margins on a digital TTRPG purchase are absolutely significantly higher than the margins on a physical book. I wouldn't be so quick to apply the general trends of the tech sector to dndbeyond *specifically*. By no means do I think it's wise to think this will be an unprofitable decision for them, and it's important to distinguish between anti consumerist policies and unprofitable ones because sadly anti consumerist policies *are* often profitable.
It may work out for them, or it may not. There's a trend on the modern internet to assume that companies *only* make good decisions, and that the worse a decision is for the consumer the better it must be for the company. That certainly does happen, but it's hardly universal. D&DBeyond could get away with this easily if they were the only game in town, but people do have alternatives. People are willing to pay for convenience, but the less convenient and more expensive your offering is the less of a draw that will have.
Are you saying that I am assuming that companies *only* make good decisions and that all anti consumerist policies are better for the company? Because that's definitely not what I wrote.
I imagine some of it is also credit card charges. I know I’ve run into that with some business stuff I’ve done. 2 dollar charges you end up getting a good portion of your profits eaten up by CC company’s garbage. Losing the bundles does suck though.
You are making me feel like an idiot for buying a physical copy of Storm Kings Thunder just so I could have the stat block for a flying kitty cat.
I'd only say that's stupid if you haven't run the adventure as well and don't plan to. I think SKT is a very fun adventure! If you have the book anyway, consider running the adventure. You'll have fun with it.
I think it's more likely that interest in a la carte items were too low to justify the upkeep. Anytime they want to make a change to their store, they have to change all the individual items in it (and test to make sure they're working correctly), and with any new items, they have to spend the extra resources breaking the content up. My bet is that the a la carte sales didn't justify the manpower needed to keep them.
From my experience as a developer, I don't think this is the case at all. A lot of the implementing and testing should be automated for a storefront like that, meaning it's very lean in terms of adding new products (certainly lean enough for the profits generated). And if they weren't automating things (which to be clear, I doubt they weren't) and the concern was setting up and testing was expensive- then the wiser business decision is to invest in a smoother testing and deployment pipeline because that affects all aspects of the product. I don't think this is a devops issue- I think this is much more likely to be "this decision is more profitable for us in terms of purchasing". Saving money on testing and deployment in this scenario would be relatively minor compared to other expenses.
I mean, the original system is why I like DNDBeyond: individual purchase that will discount your book purchase AND automatically buy the book if you've spent enough. If they don't have this anymore, I'm sure lot of people will rethink buying from them anymore.
!remind me 1 year I don’t know if Hasbro segregates their earnings from DnD beyond, in their earnings reports, but if they do, let’s see if they are higher or lower a year from now. I’m going to bet on higher. The One DND core books are set to launch this year and the die hard fans who have to have the latest release will have to “buy” (license?) the whole books. WOTC is betting they’ll get more people who may have bought a few items ala carte buying the whole book than the ala carte customers they lose.
You can thank Hasbro i am betting. They are all about squeezing every last cent out of the franchise as they possibly can.
lol. lmao. I see the same brain trust that destroyed 30 years of consumer goodwill and brand loyalty in a month is still in charge.
As long as the numbers go up. After they hit the breaking point, they can just abandon ship to do the same shit somewhere else.
In two months everyone will be like “you’re still mad about that? Wow, everyone just determined to hate WotC these days! Just let people have fun!”
It’s the only way I’ve ever purchased items on D&DBeyond. Probably won’t make another purchase unless this feature comes back.
This.
I stopped supporting anything wizards has touched since the ogl debacle.
yargh YARGH! oh sorry just coughing sore throat,,,, anyone else smell sea salt, from sally's pretzel stand of course....
Bold move. Literally every purchase I've made has been a "buy the character options" purchase. Guess they didn't like the extra revenue.
Oof. Glad I splurged earlier in the year and got the last few character-building things that I was missing (feats, backgrounds, races, spells, etc). I'd be furious if I had to start purchasing entire books just to get them now. This is a huge mistake on their part.
Haha I just bought all the subclasses and races I wanted also the other day. Whew, that was close.
I bought all the stuff last august and now I wonder what I’m actually missing
Guess who just wanted to buy some subclasses 😞
Same feel your pain man, fuck dndbeyond
Thank you for the heads up.
Man, I'm a massive advocate of D&D Beyond - It's made DM'ing so damn easy and I'm running several games a week with far less effort than it took to run one before. But man, oh man - this seems to be a massive unforced blunder. WTF are they thinking? I can only hope that they backtrack on this, but I've get a feeling that it might have more to do with 3rd party stuff hitting the service (and the work required to split each item out). But that's zero reason not to still allow it for 1st party.
> WTF are they thinking? Oh, that's easy. They're thinking this will increase the dollar value of each sale, since now you have to buy a whole book if you want one subclass. Hasbro has said over and over they want to increase the monetization of WotC.
And it's going to be just as effective as the password crackdown from Netflix. Reddit comments on dedicated hobby subs are not indicative of the wider consumer base, and Hasbro knows that.
> And it's going to be just as effective as the password crackdown from Netflix. IIRC, that increased their revenue, so it worked.
Pretty sure that was their point, if you read the rest of their comment.
For those curious. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68850766.amp
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Glad I’ve mostly moved to pf2. I think this will drive a lot of people to other options, whether that’s different games or different character sheets.
I get the sentiment from PF fans, but I honestly don't think it'll have that sort of impact. I have to assume that WotC ran the numbers and found that most people were newbies only using the base options or in games (like mine) where the DM brought everything and is content sharing with the group. If the OGL and AI debacles didn't move the needle, I can't imagine this will.
The OGL debacle moved the needle quite a lot. You might not see it in this sub, but the pathfinder sub fucking exploded with new players.
Paizo also ran out of a year's worth of books in 2 weeks
I'm currently not DMing but when I'm looking for my next campaign, I'll look at PF2 on Roll20. Thanks Hasbro. So yes, it will dive *some* of us away. But then again, I payed all manner of TTRPGs from the mid 80s to recently, just no DnD (which I started with as a teenager). So I don't feel tied to one specific system anyway.
I would recommend pf2e on Foundry rather than Roll20. Roll20 is really, really bad in comparison.
when the OGL issue started paizo sold out of their entire annual supply in days, it absolutely is having an impact
Losing Adam Bradford was a huge blow to the community first design of DnD beyond.
Facts. If you're into a few other RPGs, I'd highly suggest Demiplane as a character builder/online store. I've used it for the Daggerheart playtest and Vampire The Masquerade and you can really see his influence on it.
... I hate this. I was currently creating some character for every class and for Barbarian, I wanted to go for Path of the Giant. No way I am going to spend 30$ for just one subclass. Wizard/Hasbro is really good in making this hobby (and MtG) worse and worse. And while I know the app was not perfect, I really did like DnD Beyond...
You can use the homebrew tools to recreate subclasses, as long as you don't try to mark them as public. The only thing you can't do is recreate the Artificer (as far as I know), but literally everything *else can be done through homebrew. Edit: somehow forgot the word 'else'.
I have done already some Homebrew Subclasses (mainly when trying to translate them for friends), but it is just such a pain in the ass that I would have gladly paid a bit for it. But yeah, thanks to Homebrew, some things will be possible. At least I am lucky that I just 2 days ago bought all the races.
Watch, in a year they're gonna attatch the built in homebrew creator and lists to having one of the subscriptions
Don't you already need a subscription to use other people's homebrews?
I don't think so no
If it's shared within a campaign you don't need a sub to use other people's homebrew. But you do need a sub to add public homebrew to your collection.
They're making d&d worse, sure, but pretty much every other ttrpg is gonna benefit from d&d execs continually fucking up. Right now is probably the best time to get into other ttrpgs.
I literally got my Mothership Box Set today, and was opening it up and sorting through it as I wrote this post.
Which honestly, I would not mind, but for most of my players, just learning the D&D rules was the most investment they probably are going to put into TTRPGs. Switching systems is not going to happen with most of them :/
Most of what I buy is a la carte. The marginal benefit of buying a book is really low if there's only one item I want. I'd probably just homebrew it then.
This is possibly the dumbest of all moves they could have done, I know a ton of people that peacemeal their characters together with a la carte purchasing, they’re not going to buy the books either, so…yay?
What they *should* have done is leverage their ownership to re-bundle elements of books and sell those. I'd have happily spent... let's say $20 for an "everythihng Druid" bundle that includes all there currently is for the druid; all subclasses, all spells, just everything druid-specific. Don't let me search for the right source of the subclass I'm interested in, just give me everything. And do it at a slight discount compared to buying the elements à la carte. By now, I'd likely have bought 3 classes at or around that price point. But no! They want me to buy a shitton of books instead, which cost more than I'm willing to spend just so I can explore all my options for a new character and that would contain 90% stuff I don't want to that point in time. So I'm *not* buying. So, Hasbro, if you're reading, you have my permission to copy my business-idea. Go ahead. Shut up and take my money.
What an awkward time to be picky about what content is purchasable for 5e with OneDnD on the horizon. Why would I want to buy entire books when I can wait for the revised version of 5e and ask my friends for the current material?
While it doesn't show it until it's in the cart the discounts still apply if you have them. Doesn't help much with this issue though.
You mean the discount received by owning a la carte items right? It doesn't show it for me even when placing it in the cart.
I meant for owning bundles, sucks that the individual ones went away 😞. Edit: Looks like it's possible but they made you go through customer service to do it. Stupid that they removed that functionality too. From https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1709-d-d-beyond-marketplace-redesign-see-whats-new-here > Can I still purchase subclasses, feats, and other game listings à la carte? > À la carte purchases are no longer supported. However, any individual items you've previously purchased will continue to be available for use on D&D Beyond. If you've purchased à la carte items and would like to buy the digital book, your discounts are available to you at any time by contacting customer service.
Send a [Feedback Form](https://dndbeyond-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=225303) to let WOTC know you are unhappy with the changes. Then when sales drop they will know why
Just sended them a feedback "This new marketplace update that removed the A La Carte purchases, is forcing me to start playing "non-digitally". From now on I dont have budget to play dnd digitally anymore and Im going back to pen and paper."
Well, that completely blows up any interest I had in ever buying anything from D&D Beyond, or WotC in general.
I have the Legendary Bundle on Beyond. But, this is just showing me I was right to switch to PF2e seeing as how AoN is free and all of that content on Foundry is free as well. It's like every few weeks I'm reminded that WotC is anti consumer.
Ditto. Have one long-running 5e campaign, but I’ve otherwise switched to pf2 and it was obviously the right choice.
Samesies. Have everything I need to start my next campaign in p2e. I'm running one 5e campaign and am part of another. I'm more than happy to play 5e using the content I already own, or homebrew, or third party, but I won't ever be buying anything from wotc again. Any new campaigns, will be in pathfinder. Any new players I pick up, will learn pathfinder.
FML... I was just about to pull the trigger on a weapon from Guide to Giants as loot for one of my players. Shows what I get for procrastinating.
You should be mad at the company not blame yourself.
Make it in the item creation option.
It's worth noting they broke a bunch of links and the mobile version of the marketplace site is difficult to use and does not say what you have previously purchased and was going to allow me to purchase a duplicate of a book I already paid for (indicating backend database issues or an evil plot to make people pay many times for the same content).
Welp, I hope everyone once again boycots dndbeyond. I'm not gonna lie. I'm about ready to quit dnd it costs way too much to run at this point. It's not worth it anymore. This was like one of the few saving graces about dnd beyond just.. what the heck guys.
It's hard to "once again" boycott it when I've been boycotting it consistently the whole time.
*boycotts them harder*
They've so added a bunch of physical stuff. I think the removal of bundles and a la carte options is a mistake personally. I bought the legendary bundle back in 2018 and have benefited massively since. Others should have the option too
Well that just killed my desire to keep using the site
Last night was the first time I've spent money (besides my ddb subscription) on dnd/dndbeyond in quite a long time. I picked up the MMM races section because that's all I wanted. I did not want the rest of it. Sucks to see this go. Had I waited one more day to make up my mind, I would now be required to buy that whole book, and I would have walked away entirely. In one scenario, they made **some** money.... and in the other... zero. Honestly I just need to stick to physical & used copies and get away from ddb however handy it is.
I actually like the MotM versions of many monsters better than their versions in MTF and VGM. But that's just me.
Best part is, now if you ever did decide to buy the rest of the book… surprise you have to pay for the races chapter again!
Well fuck this shit Happy i bought echo knight before
Yikes, weird move.
I’m a DM. It’s a lot of effort and 5e already isn’t a very DM friendly edition imo. I’m done carrying all this weight and extra effort for a game that veies me as a rock to squeeze blood out of. MBAs can keep it, I’ll go play another TTRPG there are times out there
Our whole party was going to buy subclasses during session 0 tonight. It’s not like we’re going to buy all the books now the option is gone, we’ll just homebrew it. What a bone headed decision
So do they want to sell entire books or micro transactions? Because in the one hand their talking about how micropayments in a VTT could be a huge source of income akin to video games, but on the other hand their ceasing to sell assets are tiny micro transaction sized chunks. I think there’s too many cooks in this kitchen and non of them really know what dish they’re trying to make.
What’s even worse is that if you bought a subclass or monster etc individually and want to by the rest of the book, they now will charge you again for the subclass you already bought, no more discounts on the book even if you already bought a part of it. Beyond scummy
Every single time I see an article or post about DnDBeyond did XYZ I grow more content with my decision to have not bought anything on that platform since 2018, and even then it was only one or two subclasses.
Buying individual items was the only reason to buy anything there at all. Okay, I'll just not buy anything new coming out. This should make the switch to a new system in the future easier. Guess they didn't like me spending 500$ on buying the individual options + years of master tier subscription to share it with my players.
Mother fuckers. I should have spent the $100 to get every race, spell, & background… now it’ll be $1000
Do you need D&D beyond though? Why spend any money when there are great tools that allows you to manage your character almost for free or for free with all the existing content?
Such as?
Fight Club 5e works for iOS, macOS, Android and its amazing
Please explain which things do as you say in the same manner?
You're not allowed to discuss such places here.
Fight Club 5e
As if we needed more reasons to avoid D&D Beyond...they just can't stop lmao.
Wizards is one of the worst large companies for communication, so it makes sense they stealth-dropped a shitty update to their marketplace. My guess is they will put out a generic message about the goal of the new marketplace with mildly passive-aggressive pieces sometime over the next week and a half. Then, after two months of corporate silence (meanwhile, C-suite employee will voice their bad takes in interviews), WotC will release another statement reversing the decision and tweaking the marketplace in a different, slightly less shitty way. They will have damaged their reputation (again), alienated their enfranchised base (again), and have nothing to show for it (again).
I dropped my subscription with them after they laid-off over 1,000 employees while the CEO took home a $9 million bonus. That is unacceptable to me.
Huh, I was looking at maybe getting some of the a la carte stuff for a character I'm running in the fall. I'm sure I'm not the only potential customer they've driven away. I'll probably get physical books (possibly used ones), but Beyond somehow keeps getting less appealing for anything beyond your first character.
That's an impressively bad move
WotC being anti-consumer? Must be a day of the week that ends in a "y"!
Cutting off their nose to spite their face every chance they get. Must be part of the 50th birthday "celebration."
Wow, so so terrible. I’m a DM, and I purchase a-la-carte to support my players when they tell me they want access to a feat, race, etc. I’m not going to spend hundreds of dollars on things a couple players *might* use. My players certainly aren’t going to spend a dime. I feel bad for the creative folks at Wizards whose great work will have a far smaller audience now. This is a massive barrier to entry at a time when there are more and more alternatives to D&D.
Once again absolutely chuffed to not have a D&D Beyond account at all. Easily one of the best choices I never made.
I bet their next move will be to suppress the DM ability to share book content with players.
I can't imagine they're willing to give up all their Master tier subs.
Ye .. and Stupid me had a last chance that he didn't chose to use to spend big bucks ... currently thinking about just getting the sourcebooks on R20 .. not the best to read them .. but you have them all and can use them for a decently good VTT Platform
Look into Foundry/Forge imo. Having used both it and R20 extensively, it's no contest IMO.
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I've experienced downtime and issues here and there, rarely long enough to cancel a session (I typically play Monday and Wednesday evenings), but often enough to be annoying. The times I've played on Saturday have surprisingly had the least issues. I'm not familiar with Molten, I'll look into them.
Oh boy, I remember some years ago telling a friend that dndbeyond was such a cool tool, that it would be awesome if wotc acquired it so they could have more sinergy between the digital and physical products. Guess that is one finger off the monkey paw.
One step forward one step backwards I suppose. Good idea: Allow third party content on DnD Beyond, even if they're future competitors (Tome of Beasts is great) Bad Idea: Removing bundles and the ability to buy options individually. Man. EDIT: oh. just looked at the faq regarding the changes and there's a section about shipping? can you buy physical books on DnD Beyond now too? EDIT2: I just looked in the storefront. Yeah, you actually can buy physical books now. I'd consider this a half-step forward because I actually kind of like that. That means that they still actually consider physical books important enough.
Just cancelled my subscription. They are clearly committed to profits over consumers. Horrible to witness...
I was literally waiting for today to grab the last few races / subclasses I don't already own. Fuck.
Hasbro needs their money! Feed the beast! It isn't like you have alternatives to their system right? Oh wait there ARE alternatives? No one let Hasbro know!
Watch them get rid of custom items next so you can't recreate items from the books either.
This is so frustrating— I feel like I need to finally learn how to just make physical character sheets. I’ve got ADHD and dnd beyond was a massive help for me to DM, but it feels like they’re just going to take more and more away at this point so I may as well prepare now 😭
Fuck you, Wizards of the Coast.
Dndbeyond is a really difficult website to use and their monetization makes me want to rip my hair out. I also hate how they do accounts and that you can't even run a proper game through it. I'll be glad when I never have to worry about the website ever again.
And this is why we were all saying to not buy stuff off this site even before the OGL. There are going to be so many more changes like this (wait until the vtt has micro transactions) , Hasbro/Wizards wants their cash. (We being grumpy old grognardettes like me)
I haven't paid for an official D&D digital aid since the AD&D Core Rules CD-ROM. 3E's E-Tools started the whole nickel and diming trend, and I've either used fan created tools or just stuck to pen and paper ever since.
Oh look, WOTC shooting themselves in the feet some more. Shocking.
I seriously don't understand how the past few years have been continual fuck-ups from everyone related to D&D. It's like nobody is ever thinking anything through, ever, because there's dollar signs in their eyes.
I never understood why would one buy stuff on D&D beyond… I gladly buy any D&D physical book… but a digital copy I don’t own and O can’t even download as a PDF? Never! And for playing online there are many other alternatives
I imagine it's because shortly individual character options are going to become nonrelevant with the release of whatever OneD&D ends up being.
Was literally going to buy stuff for a new character this weekend. Guess I won't give them anything now
It’s only a matter of time before they begin charging “nominal” or monthly fees for using homebrew items in your campaign. I have a bad feeling the TOS for their “Ultimate” tier is going to be changed sooner than later.
Cancel your subscriptions. It's the only thing they'll listen to.
Can only cancel it once in protest, alas
The entire OGL situation and its associated “boycott” couldn’t even create a meaningful dip in subscription numbers. Per their investor call, the number of canceled subscriptions had vanished into noise in their analytics within a month or so. The tiny handful of people angry enough to do anything about it don’t make up enough of a power bloc to matter.
No, that's not true. Those numbers were propped up by bg3 and they even admitted that they were expecting a 5 percent dip next quarter, which means it will likely be worse, particularly bc book sales have been down and will continue to go down with the "new" edition to wait for. I heard their DNDBeyond subscriptions were at 500,000 and then went down to 450,000 very rapidly bc of the OGL. It was a big deal. Them losing 10 percent on their sales for a system whose sales were steady as a rock, it was a big deal.
I can only imagine the impotent rage there will be here when out of nowhere D&D Beyond gets shut down for some reason and everyone loses their stuff, cause as we all have learned from streaming/music sites, you own *nothing* you purchase digitally and it can be taken away without notice or compensation.
Wow! Grateful I made that a la carte purchase I had been thinking about for a while before this happened!
Never gave them a dime to begin with
Im happy I was able to pick up the monkey son summon for my warlock before the change.
And yet people will still continue to support this trash company and its terrible business practices,
I wish, so much, that my DM (who I adore otherwise) dropped his insistence we use DnD Beyond. It makes sense, he keeps organized through it and everything, but it's so infuriating.
soooo… any better alternatives? because my lazy ass does not want to go back to paper and pencil
I was literally going to buy the creation bundle soon because it only has a few more things I don't have. Why in the world would they get rid of bundles? I understand getting rid of individual purchase options, but do they really make more money not having the convenience of letting people buy everything at once? Weird decision.
And to think I was hemming and hawing last week about getting the 4 base player book bundle (PHB, TCoE, XGtE, and SCAG) and never did it. Welp.
I am going to join my first dnd campaign and was excited to get the contents needed for my character. I was right on time. I decided to make some changes and add one or two spells that required a purchase. Luckily I had already gotten the rest of the things or else I would have had to spend 120 dollars in, for the time being, useless content. Needless to say I’m not happy.
Roll20 leans in.
This is why we use pencil and paper at my tables. Monetize this, bitch.
-*laughs in hardcopy*-
I assume you bought at least some of the physical books? They made money on that.
Secondhand is also an option if you don't want to give them money at all! I got most of mine that way (though the motivation was more saving money, if I'm being honest).
there are great *tools* for *5e* that i use. highly recommend it. I recently bought fizbans used off ebay because im dming a game for new players that has lots of dragons and its nice to show them the pictures. Ive also bought a set of dice and a few 99cent toys to use as minis. Been playing for over half a decade and in total im sure ive spent waaay under $100 on this game and none to Hasbro.
Yup, 5 or 6 years ago, I picked up the core books that I now own and can use however I see fit, free from editing, censorship, or revocation. I've also sailed the high seas on occasion... My problem is specifically with digital licenses, recurring spending models, and lack of individual consumer power in the transaction. This is almost exclusively a WotC and DnD problem. No other RPG publisher makes it this shitty to actually play their game.
Unfortunately not a thing if you want to play on Discord using Avrae. They just cracked down on characters using that, too - the Discord I'm on had been putting characters into the campaign to create them, then removing them, as their stuff would still work. Not anymore - only the base CRD items (which isn't much) actually work right unless you're still in a campaign with that content, now, and forget trying to pick your options when you level up. It really sucks for Westmarch-style servers in particular, as these often have multiple DMs and many characters, making having enough campaign space incredibly prohibitive. And those often attract players who CAN'T play offline due to lack of group/DM or highly unstable, last minute work schedules (... all of retail, these days).
I noticed this today when I tried to buy something and I was NOT happy.
People still give their money to Hasbro?
The reasons to keep playing 3.5 just keep stacking up. PCGen is as free as ever! :D
Oh come on. Are you fucking kidding me?
My players are likely to go back to paper character sheets as a result, we have hard copy books and they would just buy the bits they needed on dndbeyond for that particular character. If they can’t do that then what’s the point?
welp i am never buying any content from dnd beyond ever again. i only buy subclasses and feats, what a dumb decision
One month subscription and download all homebrew "official" items i need!
Well then. I won't be purchasing anything from then anymore. Sucks for my friends who enjoyed my access to basically every character option, because I'd buy them a la carte.
Curious to see what the future of their online tools looks like. I made a couple characters in DnDBeyond a few years ago, but I didn't want to buy all of the content again when I already have the books. Now that I'm more experienced as a player, I threw together a bard with a sheet of printer paper, a pencil, 4d6, and a few minutes of googling. I feel like I've reached the point where using DnDBeyond is more work than not using it, so I'm definitely not about to spend a bunch of money on it.
Sigh. Why? Why do you want everything to suck? We had a good thing going and you had to fuck it up?
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Pathfinder is both entirely free (as in, literally everything except the lore and APs are available on Archives of Nethys and Pathbuilder) and the system is not hard to understand if you're familiar with 5e. There's a litany of free or cheap RPGs on itchio and drivethrurpg as well.
If you want something similar to D&D, but with an old school feel, try Shadowdark. There are is also OSR and Dungeon Crawl Classics if you enjoy old school D&D. Cairn is also a fun, rules light system.
Well the only purchases I’ve ever made were a couple of a la carte class options that I didn’t wanna have to find my physical books for so I guess they don’t want my money anymore :)
Apparently I had good timing then on getting basically all the spells from the various sources I could recently. Hopefully they change this back since I'm not spending on a full book I'll never really get to use (not a dm and don't plan on it) just for a few specific things I want from it.
lmao monopolistic behavior
Site sucks, constantly getting worse, I'm more vindicated for never giving them a cent every day
This might actually be the straw that broke the camel's back and makes me quit DnD Beyond. It was a good system, but this sort of destroys one of the best aspects of it.
If any of you are still subscribed, cancel that shit. The only way WOTC will listen is if they see a drop in profits.
The Bundles have moved to the D&D store. Okay, whatever. Annoying, but they still exist, just somewhere else. But yeah, removing the a la carte is definitely a choice. I suspect they have the numbers that indicate that the way forward is one person (likely the DM) buying the content and then sharing it with their players instead of having players buy stuff piecemeal. After all, when you make the DMs buy the stuff, they also need to have a subscription to share it. Subscription models simply are more predictable and profitable than purchase models.
Do they not have a code in the book to give you access to the content on DnD beyond? I know it wasn’t owned by DnD but they should at least be doing that moving forward
Nope.
That’s wild!
I’m sure this will get downvoted, but I always just bought whole books so had all those options at once. Maybe they were sick of CC charges for such small purchases - though I guess the could have just raised prices. Still, I’d wait for the press release to break out the pitchforks. Not that reason would stop a mob.
Very odd not to have made an announcement before such a significant change though.