D&D (2024) New leak looks real bad

[TerraDave]

By way of comparison, a pro subscription on roll20 (which is one better then what I have) is 100 per year. The DM bundle plus curse of strahd is 80, and permanent. This is all per table, and half the cost.

 

[Minigiant]

$30 per month seem like max subscriber 6th level diamond patreon tier.

No way they expect to get more that 1% of base that high. Or I want some of the drugs passed out at Hasbro.

 

[Mercurius]

are we just making up numbers for subscribers here, or are these supposed to be realistic? Because I doubt anything past the first two is, not even sure about the second

I'm just providing a range, depending upon how many people subscribe. I have no idea what is realistic, but obviously WotC will be going for as many as possible. I'm not sure 5 million is unrealistic, as far as long-term plans. Again, there are supposedly 50 million players - so that's 10%. What if a few years from now there are 100 million?

 

[Alzrius]

Locking out homebrew content at the lower (lowest?) tiers just seems stupid to me. I mean, I get it; they want to incentivize people signing up for the more expensive plans, but you should do that via "here's some great stuff you get"-style options (which I suppose is what the monthly content drops are supposed to be) rather than "at this price plan, it stops sucking so much!"

Between the standardization via no homebrew content, and the AI DM, it's basically a video game. At least this time the WoW comparisons won't draw so much pushback (I hope).

 

[Remathilis]

$30 per month seem like max subscriber 6th level diamond patreon tier.

No way they expect to get more that 1% of base that high. Or I want some of the drugs passed out at Hasbro.

Thirty is more than every major MMO out there. It's more than subs to any streaming service except for Amazon Prime (and Prime gets you a boatload of other features). These are some Diablo Immortal-level prices.

I don't doubt this price point was floated at one point, but I seriously doubt that it will be offered up now.

 

[Greg Benage]

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but the new monster stat blocks seem like they’d be a lot easier for software to run than the “old” ones did.

 

[Haplo781]

You don't know that. For example, my DnDBeyond Master Tier subscription is insanely good value. At $7/month I can share access to all the materials with all my players, and I run four campaigns right now, plus sponsor two more through D&D Club, so that is almost 30 players getting access to a ton of material for my $7/month. So I pay $7/month and they all have free accounts. How do you know $30/month isn't the same thing but for the VTT?

Context is everything. I can't assess any number without seeing exactly what the offer is.

Bruh why you stealing Hasbro's money like that

 

[eyeheartawk]

I think the reason all this monetization feels so gross, grosser than in video games or even MtG is the basic fact of our particular hobby.

One of MtG's most basic truths underpinning it is artifical scarcity and blind buy randomization. I think if you start from there and you get to where you are today, you'll have unhappy people sure, but it's not quite the same "step too far" as it were.

With RPGs all you need is a book (not even your own!), a set of dice, paper and pencil and you can literally play forever without ever spending a red cent ever again.

Going from that to this? Yeah, I get all the reactions. Just shows their contempt for us and their complete lack of knowledge on what they actually make.

 

[J.Quondam]

I'm skeptical* at that number, except maybe as a premium group tier or something? But if they can pull in gamers willing to pay that, good for them, I guess. They're free to run their online business however they want, without me, no harm no foul.

I'm still much more interested in their final stance regarding the creation of new OGL1.0 materials going forward. That is the key issue that impacts the industry beyond their own office walls.


* Of course, I was also "skeptical" several weeks ago when that very first leak came out, and look where we are. So there's that.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, $30/year actually is reasonable. $360/year... that'd be a hard no from me.

And homebrew banned at base tiers? You have to pay extra to homebrew? WTF?

I was planning to boycott Wizards until they quit trying to kill the OGL. If this is where Wizards-D&D is headed... I guess that'd be the end of my boycott. It isn't boycotting if you weren't going to buy it anyway.

Homebrew banned at the Free Tier seem 10% fine to me.

You don't get server memory space to create stuff for fee.

I'm sorry. At a certain point, D&D fans have to spend money. Everything can be free. Not just for WOTC but 3rd party publishers. I mean this whole disaster happened because Hasbro finally looked at D&D, realized at a table of 5 people only 2 of them were spending money, and went "how do I snatch money out the other 3?"