WotC WotC Adds 'Partnered Content' to DnDBeyond--Starting With Critical Role's Tal’dorei Campaign Setting

One of the promises Wizards of the Coast made in the aftermath of the Open Gaming License 'crisis' back in January was that D&D Beyond would eventually have some kind of third party marketplace. Up until now, only official D&D books from WotC have been available there.

Now, however, there is a section of 'partnered content' -- six titles, including three Critical Role sourcebooks, as well as some older licensed items like the Rick & Morty boxed set and the Minecraft monster tie-in. The latter were already on DDB, but the 'Partnered Content' home for them is new, as is the Tal-'dorei Campaign Setting.

As of now you can pick up Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, Call of the Netherdeep, and the Tal'dorei Campaign Setting Reborn.

Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn

The definitive sourcebook for bringing the locations, people, creatures, and character options of Critical Role’s Tal’Dorei continent to ...

www.dndbeyond.com

​

While this 'partnered content' is a long way yet from the third-party marketplace mentioned earlier this year (which is likely a a couple of years away), it is notable that third party content is now appearing on the site.

 

[darjr]

 

[Eyes of Nine]

My big pick is the KP setting, including the Southlands.

I was going to say Kobold's stuff too

Ed Greenwood and Alex Kammer's new FR stuff like Border Kingdoms

And my own personal desire: The Historia setting

Historia - Mana Project Studio

Welcome to merciless Vesteria Historia is a Dark Fantasy Renaissance setting for the 5th Edition of the world’s greatest roleplaying game that introduce the setting of Vesteria, a merciless land, full of intrigues and populated by anthropomorphic animals. The characters will find themselves...

manaprojectstudio.com

 

[zedturtle]

D&DB is currently a well-designed service, but . . . Demiplane is starting to eclipse it in functionality. Demiplane is the service developed by Adam "Badeye" Bradshaw, who also got D&DB rolling originally.

Once Demiplane gets their 5E Nexus up and running . . . .

Next month! (hopefully) I am very excited about opportunities to do 3rd party settings and rules, with hopefully a way to 'containerise' it, i.e. I'd want everything for a certain product to be a 1-click purchase, or maybe have a free preview, and a purchase option.

 

[OB1]

Wonder if the ultimate goal here is for DDB to become a bit like the App Store for TTRPG products running on the 5eCC license. Could see them eventually opening up a developer portal to port your own work onto the platform, taking a small cut from each sale.

 

[jgsugden]

Wonder if the ultimate goal here is for DDB to become a bit like the App Store for TTRPG products running on the 5eCC license. Could see them eventually opening up a developer portal to port your own work onto the platform, taking a small cut from each sale.

This has to be just a phase 1: They'll want all of this content to be available on their new VTT as well. I imagine the idea will be to make the VTT as attractive and inclusive as possible. Rather than trying to be the D&D they'll settle for being the original D&D and getting a percentage of the rest.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Money talks.

Corporate paranoia frequently shouts over money, unfortunately. But we shall see which is louder in this specific case, I guess. If it's not happened in 2 years it's either not going to happen or not until whoever is head of D&D (currently Dan Rawson) is replaced.

D&DB is currently a well-designed service, but . . . Demiplane is starting to eclipse it in functionality. Demiplane is the service developed by Adam "Badeye" Bradshaw, who also got D&DB rolling originally.

Once Demiplane gets their 5E Nexus up and running . . . .

Demiplane's functionality for various games definitely seems to be coming along, and honestly DDB could use some more modern competition (with no shade on various VTTs, I don't think they're really competing in the same space in the way Demiplane could).

 

[Parmandur]

Corporate paranoia frequently shouts over money, unfortunately. But we shall see which is louder in this specific case, I guess. If it's not happened in 2 years it's either not going to happen or not until whoever is head of D&D (currently Dan Rawson) is replaced.

Demiplane's functionality for various games definitely seems to be coming along, and honestly DDB could use some more modern competition (with no shade on various VTTs, I don't think they're really competing in the same space in the way Demiplane could).

It took 2 years for the OGL and DMsGuils to come out. Sometimes, things move slowly. However, I think this might be a bit faster than other things once the ball is rolling.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Wonder if the ultimate goal here is for DDB to become a bit like the App Store for TTRPG products running on the 5eCC license. Could see them eventually opening up a developer portal to port your own work onto the platform, taking a small cut from each sale.

This will depend on their product leader staying with the organization for a few years. Not a short term plan...

 

[Clint_L]

D&DB is currently a well-designed service, but . . . Demiplane is starting to eclipse it in functionality. Demiplane is the service developed by Adam "Badeye" Bradshaw, who also got D&DB rolling originally.

Once Demiplane gets their 5E Nexus up and running . . . .

That's pretty cool! Fortunately, I don't have to choose between them, I can use both! I imagine I'll try out Demiplane once they get games like Dread, Monster Hearts, and Dungeon World on there. Ever since I started using DDB, I'm addicted to the functionality and reluctant to go analog for my prep and play, so a similar service for other RPGs makes me much more likely to use them. Though I still enjoy reading through the physical books.

It'll be cool if there's DDB for, well, D&D, and Demiplane for everything else. It will also allow all those smaller companies to compete on a more level playing field.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I seem to be one of the few who doesn't view D&D Beyond expanding out to other publishers as necessarily a good thing for the hobby. Instead, it adds further power to a single company and a single tool that already dominates 5e play online (Roll20 being the only strong competitor).

In particular WOTC has several big advantages over third party publishers publishing on D&D Beyond.

• WOTC would have a much more favorable revenue split than third party publishers on D&D Beyond since WOTC doesn't have to pay a % fee to publish on the platform.
• WOTC is able to advertise on D&D Beyond for free and choose the ranking of any advertisements including their own in relation to third party advertisements.
• WOTC would have access to all sales metrics and customer data for all products on the site – both theirs and third party products. Other publishers on the same platform have no such metrics.
• WOTC products are already much more popular than third party products.

For me, if WOTC wants to build themselves back up as good stewards of D&D and good partners in the 5e RPG hobby, here's what I'd like to see them do with regards to opening D&D Beyond to other publishers:

1. Products published on the store must not require an exclusive license. Publishers should be able to publish these products on other platforms as well.
2. Publishers should receive an industry competitive revenue split.
3. The storefront must have an open and transparent process for choosing which products can be published there and which products can not. WOTC should offer clear standards and guidelines for publication.
4. The store should have no “DM Guild Adept”-like inner ring of publishers. Such systems can become corrupt and unfair – putting more importance on “who you know” than the quality of your work.
5. WOTC should continue to publish D&D products on other storefronts such as DriveThruRPG, Roll20, and Fantasy Grounds. WOTC should begin selling D&D products on additional platforms such as Foundry, Shard Tabletop, and Demiplane.
6. The storefront should let third party publishers email customers with offers on other products, sales, and promotions when customers opt-in to such marketing.
7. The D&D Beyond storefront should let publishers include outbound links to their own homepages on storefront pages and emails.
8. Publishers should be able to use crowdfunding (like Kickstarter) for products intended to be published and fulfilled on the D&D Beyond storefront.
9. Publishers should have options for regional pricing to sell products at reasonable prices in countries with a significant income disparity from North American and European countries.
10. The D&D Beyond storefront should offer some way for customers to download their digital products – ideally PDFs – of both third party and WOTC-published products.
11. Players and DMs should be able to filter options in the D&D Beyond character builder so they can select which sources can be used in the character builder for a campaign. For example, a DM should be able to limit characters to only using options from the Player’s Handbook and Xanathar’s Guide but not other sources, even if players own other books online. The existing filter on sources doesn’t limit what options a player can choose when building a character from the sources they’ve purchased.
12. D&D Beyond should offer an authenticated application program interface (API) so DMs and players can use material they purchased on D&D Beyond in external tools or services. The Avrae Discord bot is an existing example of such a third-party integration.

Time will tell, but I think the idea that D&D Beyond opens its doors to other publishers isn't universally a good step forward for the strength of this hobby overall. Instead, the strength of this hobby comes from fair competition and numerous companies providing several different solutions for us to play and enjoy 5e material from many different publishers.