D&D General Hey, are we all cool with having to buy the same book twice, or what?

[LordEntrails]

I'm not. It's the only real conclusion to draw. It's strange how they sell PDFs of their older editions for which there is no DDB or VTT integration. Easily accessible official PDFs would make those services less appealing.

Sorry, wrong, AD&D (1E/2E) has licensed content available on FG; Fantasy Grounds : The Virtual Tabletop for Pen & Paper Roleplaying Games

Whoever is responsible for the Player's Handbook official PDF did a godawful job by messing with the headline characters in the Player's Handbook PDF which won't allow you to search for a majority of Feats, Spells etc...

What official PDF version of the PHB? There isn't one.

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Those of you who keep saying you have to buy two or more copies are poorly informed. You do not need to buy the FG or Roll20 version of the PHB or LMoP etc. You can if you bought the printed version and the time savings is worth the cost to you. Or you can enter what you need manually and have all the capabilities of the digital platform if you want.

What's more important to you? The time to enter the PHB manually? Or $30 (or less when on sale on FG) for everything done and maintained for you? The great thing is, you get to chose. You get to chose if you want a hard copy. You get to chose if you want a DDB, Roll20 or FG version. Choice is not anti-consumerism.

 

[jgsugden]

...Now to be clear, I don't know why anyone would get both copies..

They have different use cases.

Beyond is about functionality during play. It gives me a solid self managing character sheet I can share over great distances, a die roller (new), and quick access to spells, magic items, monsters, rules... faster than going through the books. It saves me time, and provides a smoother play experience.

The books are there for when I am not at the table. I hold them. I read them. I'll keep them for that once in 10 years revisit to a prior edition, or as a reference down the road when I argue with someone about the differences between 5E, 6E, 7E, 8E, 9E and XE.

I now buy on Beyond at release for things I want. However, I buy physical books when the price makes sense - often at used book prices. There are a few I buy at release if I think I will spend 4 or more hours enjoying it. Wildemount was such a book - I sat down and read through parts of it a few times. I enjoy the book feel more than Beyond, although I could have made do with just the virtual version.

In the end, there is nothing in 5E I have to buy. I could very easily have run games in 5E using only the free materials for decades - especially if I augmented it with my own additions. It just comes down to what makes sense for each of us.

 

[Nikosandros]

People bandy the piracy thing, but Stewart on a Spoilers & Swag said it was about user experience primarily. When looking at the user experience of using Beyond versus the frankly awful experience of reading PDFs, it rings true. Again,Genius Scan is a thing, so piracy is not something they can really even mitigate in 2020, except by providing a superior experience through nice book quality or an app.

Let the users decide for themselves, I say. I use PDFs extensively and I don't find it an awful experience at all.

Now, D&D Beyond offers something different and it is a useful service. I use it extensively. But since they don't have an exclusivity agreement, WotC could easily provide PDFs in addition to D&D Beyond (and FG and Roll20, etc...). People who hate PDF, like you, could simply ignore them, while I would buy them

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nathan Stewart has said that they don't do PDFs for their main products because they want something more convenient for newer players.

Yeah but unfortunately he said that back when their products were still incredibly inconvenient to use (or if not him, some other person said exactly that), when the app was only in beta and only on iOS. So I think it was fair at the time to disbelieve him. Even the character sheet was pretty rubbish at that time.

However, once the app actually started working and it to the Android market, and their site improved drastically, what he was saying became true. Now, I definitely don't want to go back to PDFs. I just feel like they'd have got my trust earlier, if instead of saying "Our product is better than PDFs!" (which it really, I would say, was not, at the time), they'd said "Our product will become far better than PDFs!".

Either way it's a good product now.

EDIT - That said, the lack of the certainty PDFs provide is hurting them in sense. I would have spent a huge amount more with them if they also gave me PDFs (or even just said "If we shut down, all the stuff you've bought will be provided to you as PDFs"). I would have happily gone for the "everything" package (including the adventures) and basically just mindlessly bought everything that came out like a proper consumer, if I had that certainty, because I really like their product. But because I don't, and I trust them, but I don't have certainty, I hold back on what is several hundred dollars of purchases.

 

[jasper]

It's been three years since D&D Beyond launched and I see many people, here and elsewhere, gladly pay for the physical copy of a release and then again for the virtual copy.

There are companies 1/100th the size of WotC that will gladly provide a virtual copy of the physical book you bought for free, and have been doing it for years (Not to mention they're generally normal PDFs that aren't tied to a service).

My question is this: is the consensus that this is fine and normal and the other publishers are wrong or should we be banging a drum about how this is a anti-consumer practice?

Yes, we all cool with having to buy the same book twice. And quit banging the drum! It is giving me a headache.
Signed
Rotten DM, Me, Myself, and I. Ruler of the Internet. Beloved King of Earth. Feeder of kittens. Ruler of cats.

 

[ccs]

I'm not bothered by how they charge for Beyond. And I don't really care if WoTC chooses to not provide PDFs.
1st, I don't use Beyond.
2nd, Beyond is more than just a PDF, so that's what I'd be paying for.
3rd, If I want a PDF of some 5e book getting one isn't a problem.

 

[Parmandur]

Let the users decide for themselves, I say. I use PDFs extensively and I don't find it an awful experience at all.

Now, D&D Beyond offers something different and it is a useful service. I use it extensively. But since they don't have an exclusivity agreement, WotC could easily provide PDFs in addition to D&D Beyond (and FG and Roll20, etc...). People who hate PDF, like you, could simply ignore them, while I would buy them

They could put it out and let users decide. They don't want to, and that's cool.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah but unfortunately he said that back when their products were still incredibly inconvenient to use (or if not him, some other person said exactly that), when the app was only in beta and only on iOS. So I think it was fair at the time to disbelieve him. Even the character sheet was pretty rubbish at that time.

However, once the app actually started working and it to the Android market, and their site improved drastically, what he was saying became true. Now, I definitely don't want to go back to PDFs. I just feel like they'd have got my trust earlier, if instead of saying "Our product is better than PDFs!" (which it really, I would say, was not, at the time), they'd said "Our product will become far better than PDFs!".

Either way it's a good product now.

EDIT - That said, the lack of the certainty PDFs provide is hurting them in sense. I would have spent a huge amount more with them if they also gave me PDFs (or even just said "If we shut down, all the stuff you've bought will be provided to you as PDFs"). I would have happily gone for the "everything" package (including the adventures) and basically just mindlessly bought everything that came out like a proper consumer, if I had that certainty, because I really like their product. But because I don't, and I trust them, but I don't have certainty, I hold back on what is several hundred dollars of purchases.

All fair. I wonder how much of their approach is based on demographics, too: the primary under-24 crowd uses Apps more than PDFs, from everything I've ever seen.

WotC isn't entirely PDF averse, see the DMsGuild, the Basic Rules, and their recent flurry of free PDF material.

 

[Nikosandros]

They could put it out and let users decide. They don't want to, and that's cool.

It is certainly their privilege, but it doesn't seem to me that it is about the user experience.

 

[Parmandur]

It is certainly their privilege, but it doesn't seem to me that it is about the user experience.

It matches my experience of wrestling with PDFs, so it passes the smell test.