D&D (2024) New leak looks real bad

[Steel_Wind]

All I can say is that I don't trust WotC to put out $30 worth of high-quality material each and every single month.

This isn't about WotC putting out "high-quality material" in the sense of gaming books. That's what you are trying to relate it to - but that isn't what they are doing with DDB subscriptions.

This is going to be for access to rules (books) char gen (software) and, above all, a sophisticated 3d VTT designed to accompany, at a minimum, the adventures they will publish. The 3d VTT experience for 6e is the snap, crackle.pop and sizzle in what they are selling -- and this time, they are ensuring that it isn't just the DM who pays for that -- it's every player at the table, too. And their plan seems to be aimed at ensuring that no other VTT of any kind will be available in the marketplace other than theirs.

That's what you are getting for that. You need to de-couple your approach to the end product as being a "book". That's not WotC's plans for 6e.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is going to be for access to rules (books) char gen (software) and, above all, a sophisticated 3d VTT designed to accompany, at a minimum, the adventures they will publish. The 3d VTT experience for 6e is the snap, crackle.pop and sizzle in what they are selling. And their plan seems to be aimed at ensuring that no other VTT of any kind will be available in the marketplace other than theirs.

This would have been a much better plan under 4E, where theater of the mind play was harder to pull off.

 

[Steel_Wind]

This would have been a much better plan under 4E, where theater of the mind player was harder to pull off.

Given that none of us have seen 6e? Jury is out.

In any event, TotM is not what they are selling - I think that much is clear. And when it comes to selling sizzle? That isn't sizzle and it never was. There are some gamers of our generation who are partial to it, but that has never been the focus of WotC's editions of D&D. They came into 3.x coupled with AoOs, a grid and a plastic miniature line. 5e is still principally a grid based game, not TotM.

Now, they are all about digital 3d minis. Same idea, except they can tie it to a subscription and make players pay for it, too. That's their objective.

 

[Jer]

No wonder they want to kill the OGL. This is the kind of scheme that can only work if you have no competition.

This kind of scheme won't work even with no competition.

They want to charge $30/month for a game you can play online with a shared Google Doc over Discord if you need to. And you don't even really need the google doc, it's just nice to have.

This is a plan the same way that "I'm going to win millions in the lottery" is a plan. Except the odds for my plan paying out are better.

If this is a real goal for these folks they need to go back to the free-to-play video game world where whale hunting is the sport of choice.

 

[Clint_L]

This isn't about WotC putting out "high-quality material" in the sense of gaming books. That's what you are trying to relate it to - but that isn't what they are doing with DDB subscriptions.

Didn't they previously announce that going forward, when you buy a book you are getting a physical and digital copy? Or am I misremembering?

 

[Steel_Wind]

Didn't they previously announce that going forward, when you buy a book you are getting a physical and digital copy? Or am I misremembering?

I have no comment on what you may or may not have heard. I didn't hear it, FWIW, but ... ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Didn't they previously announce that going forward, when you buy a book you are getting a physical and digital copy? Or am I misremembering?

I think that was optimistic thinking. You could buy Dragonlance as a package, but it wasn't automatic.

 

[Nikosandros]

Didn't they previously announce that going forward, when you buy a book you are getting a physical and digital copy? Or am I misremembering?

I don't recall such an announcement, but it could have happened. What I know is that pre-ordering a physical copy of Dragonlace from Wizards included the DDB version (and it was in early access).

 

[Faolyn]

This isn't about WotC putting out "high-quality material" in the sense of gaming books. That's what you are trying to relate it to - but that isn't what they are doing with DDB subscriptions.

This is going to be for access to rules (books) char gen (software) and, above all, a sophisticated 3d VTT designed to accompany, at a minimum, the adventures they will publish. The 3d VTT experience for 6e is the snap, crackle.pop and sizzle in what they are selling -- and this time, they are ensuring that it isn't just the DM who pays for that -- it's every player at the table, too. And their plan seems to be aimed at ensuring that no other VTT of any kind will be available in the marketplace other than theirs.

That's what you are getting for that. You need to de-couple your approach to the end product as being a "book". That's not WotC's plans for 6e.

They said "monthly content," so that's what I'm talking about, if that's actually what they're planning on doing. If they're actually going to give $30/month subscribers extra content, I don't trust that it'll be good content, for the reasons I already stated.

But even if it's not that, that it's just the access to the rules (and, presumably, setting material), I don't necessarily trust that the rules will be good. I've only half-liked what I've seen of One, and the lack of half-species besides an aesthetic choice really turned me off--either all species should be an aesthetic choice (like in many other modern games) or there should be rules for making half-species. Such as how it's done in Level Up, where you take one heritage's traits and another heritage's Gift. Nor do I necessarily trust that the setting material will be good, again for reasons I already stated.

It literally doesn't matter if they present the material in book format (dead tree or pdf), or in a wiki-like format, or in a blog-like format. It still counts as a "book" for what I'm talking about. Based on what they're doing and what they have been doing, I see no reason to think it'll be worth $30/month.

 

[FormerLurker]

First, as others have said, social media personalities, including YouTubers, get their money from views. They're incentivized to stir up negative feelings and prolong controversy as that directs people to their videos. They're going to continue to foster negative opinions towards WotC because that gets them views and ad revenue.

Second... this sounds horrible... until you stop to break it down.
It feels pricey. Netflix's premium is $19.99 per month. World of Warcraft has always been $14.99 per month, but with inflation that should be $23.22 per month. Roll20 varies from $4.17 per month to $8.33 per month. $30 is more than those... but we also don't know what the tiers include. We're just assuming it's comparable to the current tiers. We're assuming with no evidence that WotC is just going to increase prices of the baseline by 600% with no additional content or features. That's unlikely.

Monthly content drops sounds a lot like the old magazines. So, really, this is just a return to DDI adjusted for inflation. Possibly also with a VTT. So it would be $30 for extra rules content AND a VTT AND the other perks of the current subscription. Which very much might still exist in their current form but without monthly PDFs and other perks.