Anyone else find this really irritating?

[LordEntrails]

I'll ask you a related question: in today's world where you can do all those things, how do you "control distribution" if that's your preferred solution?

Controlled distribution is not my preferred solution. A moral and ethical society is. But that's not something that can be regulated, it can only be educated.

So....to get back to your question....the way you "provide sufficient incentive" is by providing an experience superior to what customers can get by downloading illicit copies.* In other words, leverage the power of technology to do something more powerful than a PDF.

*lol* you're funny. What possible solution is there that provides a superior experience that will not quickly be circumvented?

DRM? Yea, that doesn't work, that will soon be broken, just like trying to enforce copyright actions. You think people aren't already illegally distributing DDB content? They are. They are also circumventing the restrictions placed on resources like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.

Or not. You are also free to seethe angrily. It won't change anything.

LOL, I'm neither angry nor seething. But thanks for worrying about my stress level. Or were you implying I'm rabid like you said earlier in the thread? And therefore trying to imply my views are somehow less valuable than your own?

*D&DBeyond could have been that experience, except that people who already bought the books are being asked to buy them again.

This always cracks me up. So the folks who have put in all the effort to create the DDB site and have to spend all the time to convert the content from a print version to a DDB format shouldn't get paid for their work? (I have done conversions from PDF to FG, it's not clean and simple, it can take hundreds of hours to add that superior experience you say is the solution.) Or perhaps WotC should pay them? Even though they are a different companies? And then to pay them a fair wage you would have to raise the price of every hardcopy book ever sold? So even though you don't use DDB you would have to pay for it?

So, how do you think the cost and work involved in making D&D content available for DDB be paid for? Or should it be free like the grimoire because you already bought the printed book? And all those people should work for free and all the servers paid for by the big evil companies that are profiteering off of copyright laws?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Please delete this thread.

Starting a thread is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.


To stay on topic:
I like this resource for creating and printing custom spellbooks: www.dnd-spells.com
Prevents a lot of page flipping at the table. As DM, I make them for the enemies and then sometimes for the players if they spent too much time the prior session page flipping or, worse yet, scrolling on their phone to understand a spell. Smoothly flowing combats make for a better session.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Controlled distribution is not my preferred solution. A moral and ethical society is. But that's not something that can be regulated, it can only be educated.


*lol* you're funny. What possible solution is there that provides a superior experience that will not quickly be circumvented?

DRM? Yea, that doesn't work, that will soon be broken, just like trying to enforce copyright actions. You think people aren't already illegally distributing DDB content? They are. They are also circumventing the restrictions placed on resources like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.


LOL, I'm neither angry nor seething. But thanks for worrying about my stress level. Or were you implying I'm rabid like you said earlier in the thread? And therefore trying to imply my views are somehow less valuable than your own?

I was picking up an angry, strident tone from your previous posts. Guess I mis-read that. Apologies.

This always cracks me up. So the folks who have put in all the effort to create the DDB site and have to spend all the time to convert the content from a print version to a DDB format shouldn't get paid for their work? (I have done conversions from PDF to FG, it's not clean and simple, it can take hundreds of hours to add that superior experience you say is the solution.) Or perhaps WotC should pay them? Even though they are a different companies? And then to pay them a fair wage you would have to raise the price of every hardcopy book ever sold? So even though you don't use DDB you would have to pay for it?

So, how do you think the cost and work involved in making D&D content available for DDB be paid for? Or should it be free like the grimoire because you already bought the printed book? And all those people should work for free and all the servers paid for by the big evil companies that are profiteering off of copyright laws?

???

So in order for my ideas...not even my ideas, really, but just my observations about some pretty obvious things...to be valid, I have to provide all the answers to all the questions that then arise?

Sounds like a great way to encourage inquiry and discussion.

(EDIT: I mean, ffs, your solution is to educate people? And you're mocking my approach? That's rich.)

I think we've probably mined this vein as far as it's going to go. Besides, the OP is about to burst a blood vessel. (Or maybe I mis-read that, too.)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Problems like this are why good old fashioned books made out of paper were invented.

Trying to scroll up and down a PDF or Word file is more inconvenient. There isn't any way to "hold your page while you look at something else."

I find it more annoying in a physical book.

D&D Beyond.

Seriously. D&D beyond. The cost for a group to use it s pretty manageable.

Spell organization by class is available completely free. You just can't view the content of spells you havne't purchased the source of, but you can look at the list of all wizard spells ever printed for 5e, for free.

And the Legendary Bundle gives you all currently published content for about 15% below amazon cost.

So....to get back to your question....the way you "provide sufficient incentive" is by providing an experience superior to what customers can get by downloading illicit copies.* In other words, leverage the power of technology to do something more powerful than a PDF. Then just stop worrying (even if it's aggravating) that people trade the PDFs. Those people probably wouldn't buy your product anyway. Staying away at night being angry at them isn't going to accomplish anything.

Or not. You are also free to seethe angrily. It won't change anything.

*D&DBeyond could have been that experience, except that people who already bought the books are being asked to buy them again.

DDB is that experience. You don't get songs free on iTunes just because you purchased the CD years ago before iTunes was made.

Also, you can input the entirety of every book you own manually, using the homebrew system, and share it with your group (if you have the subscription that lets you share your homebrew with your group, which is pretty cheap). You are explicitly allowed to do that, because you are legally allowed to do it, and they have no reason to stop you. You just can't share published content with the community as homebrew.

Also, also, the service is very useful even if you don't buy anything or input the content of the phb as "homebrew".

A great example of why DnDBeyond is like iTunes and other modern music services, is that currently the only reason to use MPMB's sheet instead of DDB is a preference for the MPMB format (and it is a superior print sheet than the DDB export pdf sheet, by far. especially for spellcasters), or because you are broke and want to tinker with character building without paying for content.

Eventually, DnDBeyond will have a export sheet that is just as good or better, and with the "vastly superior to a pdf in every way" nature of the compendium features of DDB, and the excellent character builder (also superior to any other third party builder i've seen, including MPMB's very good sheet), and the fact that you can download the content you've purchased into an offline mode via the app now, there will be so little reason to use services that infringe copyright, that vanishingly few people will do so.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Seriously, OP. DnDBeyond is great. You can sort by all kinds of filters, from class to spell level, to damage type, to key words like "control", and when an entry references something else in the rules, like a monster referencing a spell or vise versa, there is a hyperlink with a tooltip.

It's the best.

 

[jgsugden]

... DDB is that experience. You don't get songs free on iTunes just because you purchased the CD years ago before iTunes was made...

Actually, you do.

https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/import-songs-from-cds-itns2935/windows

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Once again, if you want to organize your spells, use ‘D&D 5e Spells’ app. It’s free and it even lets you create a spellbook for your characters. Also, it uploads the content to your phone so you don’t need internet service to peruse your spells. (I think it’s 7mb). As far as copyright goes, I got it legitimately in my App Store. I already own all the books but this is a convenient way to have them all organized and searchable in one place and it lets you filter by class, school, action type, level, ritual and the various types of casting components(M/S/V). My only complaint is you can’t use it to make custom spells.

Edit: and to go back to the OP: each spell listed also contains which class can cast it, including the sub-classes. So, it would list: ‘Warlock,Paladin(Oathbreaker)’ at the bottom of the spell Hellish Rebuke. How handy is that?

 

[LordEntrails]

... DDB is that experience. You don't get songs free on iTunes just because you purchased the CD years ago before iTunes was made... [\quote]Actually, you do.

https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/import-songs-from-cds-itns2935/windows

That's akin to putting in the spells from your ook yourself. The point is that you have to upload/import it yourself, you don't get the iTunes "version" itself.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

... DDB is that experience. You don't get songs free on iTunes just because you purchased the CD years ago before iTunes was made... [\quote]Actually, you do.

https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/import-songs-from-cds-itns2935/windows

No, you don’t. You can upload songs and organize them with iTunes. That isn’t the same thing. You can do the same thing with DDB.

 

[robus]

No, you don’t. You can upload songs and organize them with iTunes. That isn’t the same thing. You can do the same thing with DDB.

That seems like hair splitting.

You don’t have to buy the same music again to get it on another device via iTunes (if you purchased the original CD and you ripped it, illegally originally remember (at least in the UK: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technol...is-ripping-CDs-still-illegal-in-the-UK.html)?, and added it to your iTunes library)