D&D 5E D&D Beyond: No More À La Carte Purchases But US Customers Can Buy Physical Books

WotC has announced some changes to D&D Beyond's marketplace. These include physical products (for US customers), the removal of à la carte purchases, and various navigational changes.

You can no longer buy individual feats, subclasses, etc. -- you'll need to buy the whole book. The full list of changes includes:

• US shoppers can now buy physical books
• More info on product listings, including previews
• UI improvements to makee finding your purchased content and redeeming keys easier
• No more à la carte purchases (though your previous ones still count)

 

[Parmandur]

You're ignoring the core bit about how it is a part of another product that you are purchasing individually instead of the full product. I don't understand this take; nobody has this line of thinking when ordering a la carte anywhere else. Why is it so prevalent in this instance? Nobody says I'd like a side of a single chicken tender; they ask for a chicken tender a la carte. They even labeled it as a la carte purchases officially. It being called a microtransaction has always been a people thing; mostly from those that seem to think if you buy them it ends up being more than just paying for the full book or those that compare it to what microtransactions are today in gaming.

Like I said; I understand that at it's core it is a micro transaction, but I still feel its disingenuous to label it as a microtransaction. Context matters and an a la carte purchase does not come to mind when people discuss microtransactions or are ever mentioned. It has become a negative word socially to entail an additional product you pay for on top of a base that are generally predatory or cosmetic.

To use the video game analogy if the SRD is the base game and the books are DLCs/Expansions then buying part of the DLC wouldn't be a microtransaction; it'd just be called buying part of the DLC. The dice however would be labeled as a microtransactions for instance.

Calling it a microtransaction rather than a la carte has led to so much needless discourse online about people misunderstanding what it actually is and has led to people lumping it in to asking for it be removed because "microtransaction bad".

DLC are also microtransactions, yes. Microfransactions are neither good nor bad, just small snd piecemeal. The a la carte purchases were microtransactions, even though they were not predatory.

 

[cbwjm]

I don't think I've ever bothered with the small transactions since in those cases where I might want a couple of spells I can instead plug them into the home-brew spell builder instead.

 

[Mistwell]

Sure, but honestly the part I find interesting and worth talking about to me is the removed option, because that potentially affects me.

Yeah I get that.

 

[Mistwell]

Dang McDonald’s and their micro transactions… Asking me if I want a drink with my fries.

Is it a digital fries?

 

[Mistwell]

It has been possible to buy bundles from SotDQ onward.

In pre-orders, and not with physical books though from them, right?

 

[Mistwell]

so it was only for preorders then? because that is what I was asking…


no, and I told you why, it’s basic math


you do understand that my issues with it are universal, right?

They are not.

Discussion pretty much ends there if you think your issues are universal and others are limited. They're not. There isn't really any discussion to be had once you think your issues are everyones.

 

[Stormonu]

It depends on how big your phone screen is. It'd be a lot of paging through the book for how most of their content is laid out.

It's certainly nowhere good of an experience as being able to get a title as a PDF and printing it out or using that on a tablet.

Nowadays, everyone I know just uses the DDB app to manage their characters or to look up rules. Doing lots of reading or running full content, no.

Yeah, I use the DDB app on my iPad for my character. Don't really like using it to try and read the books, I like my PDFs or the few ePuBs I have much better (easier to search/view). Haven't tried it on a phone.

At home, my books tend to stay on the shelves these days and I use my PC/laptop for looking anything up on the DDB web site when I'm building my D&D adventures and such.

 

[Mistwell]

You're ignoring the core bit about how it is a part of another product that you are purchasing individually instead of the full product. I don't understand this take; nobody has this line of thinking when ordering a la carte anywhere else.

Because general parts of books are not sold separately, and a la carte isn't normally a term applied to buying a part of a chapter of a book? I mean, the most common usage of a la carte is for food. You buy fries to go with your burger. You don't ask for 1/8th of a burger. That's not what a la carte means.

Why is it so prevalent in this instance? Nobody says I'd like a side of a single chicken tender; they ask for a chicken tender a la carte.

Do they ask for 1/8th of a chicken tender? A subclass is not normally sold as a product. A book is sold as a product. You're asking for a tiny portion of a product.

To use the video game analogy if the SRD is the base game and the books are DLCs/Expansions then buying part of the DLC wouldn't be a microtransaction; it'd just be called buying part of the DLC. The dice however would be labeled as a microtransactions for instance.

If you want to add the music from an expansion video game to the base game, or some character or weapon or clothing skins from an expansion, without buying the expansion game itself (which is rare but sometimes offered) that's called a microtransaction in video games...not a la carte.

 

[mamba]

Discussion pretty much ends there if you think your issues are universal and others are limited. They're not. There isn't really any discussion to be had once you think your issues are everyones.

I gave you my points, the bundle costs about as much as getting the digital and the Amazon book, except the Amazon book frequently arrives earlier, and that is with new books, after a few weeks (e.g. because you waited for reviews) going with Amazon over the bundle is actually cheaper.

And that is the bundle, the book by itself is simply not competitive.

How exactly is this something that applies to me only rather than being universal?

If your case is that not everyone will object to paying more for an inferior service, so WotC is generating some sales, then fine I guess, I just do not find this a compelling argument or an exiting announcement

 

[Mistwell]

I gave you my points, the bundle costs about as much as getting the digital and the Amazon book, except the Amazon book frequently arrives earlier, and that is with new books, after a few weeks (e.g. because you waited for reviews) going with Amazon over the bundle is actually cheaper.

And that is the bundle, the book by itself is simply not competitive.

How exactly is this something that applies to me only rather than being universal?

If your case is that not everyone will object to paying more for an inferior service, so WotC is generating some sales, then fine I guess, I just do not find this a compelling argument or an exiting announcement

When I tell you the discussion ends, and you reply repeating yourself, do I just need to block you? Please stop. I am no longer trying to persuade you with a compelling argument - you've told me you think how you think is universal and there isn't any discussion to be had with someone who thinks that. If you think everyone likes buying from Amazon and that's a universal belief, fine, that's your belief.