D&D (2024) The Very Real Possibility and Impact of Microtransactions in One D&D

[UngeheuerLich]

My opinion?
Made up nonsense.

 

[overgeeked]

Buying piles of extra and, often, useless books with additional rules, classes and feats was, essentially, micro transactions of the past. I never felt the need to buy extra books and I’ll never need to buy whatever they offer in the new iteration of D&D. I’m more concerned about my hobby being locked behind a subscription pay wall. I’m happy to move to a different system instead.

Exactly. But not all that "micro".

This will be a real inflection point for D&D. Official D&D will spin off into this digital "walled garden" that WotC has complete control over while the rest of the hobby keeps on trucking with it's "old-fashioned" paper books. With the release of the 5.1 SRD into CC-BY, this will also be an inflection point for official vs folk D&D. Official D&D will be an increasingly insular group with its walled garden and digital-first approach, customers will be increasingly tied to WotC's exclusive ecosystem, and be hit hard with the sunk-cost fallacy if they ever think of jumping ship. While folk D&D will get a massive shot in the arm with the CC release. I see a bright future ahead for folk D&D and I care less and less about what WotC says or does with their IP.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I assume D&D Beyond and whatever mediocre VTT Wizards eventually unveils will have some content sales methods that people complain about.

So long as I can keep buying things in dead tree form that has zero impact on my life. And if WotC wants to play hardball and stop supporting my playing the hobby in a conventional pencil and paper way, then they can lose my business. They just creative commons-ed a better version of D&D than OneD&D is likely to be, and there will be other companies supporting conventional play of it and its many forthcoming clones roughly forever.

 

[Malmuria]

TSR made good money putting out small, cheap "complete" books.

TSR failed in the same decade that it adopted this strategy...

 

[Malmuria]

The idea of a "virtual table top" is that you can use a computer to replicate some of the aspects of being physically around a table. The more sophisticated "VTTs" get, however, the less they simply replicate the table top experience and the more they are their own form of media, a mix of "tt" and "c" rpg.

To me this all reflects the longstanding desire to create simulated realities, as we see in everything from cyberpunk fiction to the holodeck. Where videogames have been trying to create more sophisticated AI and an open-world scale--things more easily accomplished in ttrpgs with an actual person playing the world--it seems there is desire for ttrpgs to add graphical immersiveness. I am reminded of the part in Ready Player One (terrible author, terrible book, did not see the movie) where the protagonist virtually goes into the Tomb of Horrors. There's something to that idea that people will keep trying to chase.

But to the question I think this sort of experience is increasingly and fundamentally quite different from the actual table top experience. It's not just that structurally wotc has a walled garden, and thus you have official and folk dnd depending on whether you are in that walled garden, but that the expectation of what playing a "ttrpg" will be quite different to people in various parts of the hobby.

Consider this section from the Mentzer basic set (p. 2). How much of this will still be relevant for Onednd?

What is "role playing"?
This is a role-playing game. That means that you will be like an actor, imagining that you are someone else, and pretending to be that character. You won't need a stage, though, and you won't need costumes or scripts. You only need to imagine.

This game doesn't have a board, because you won't need one. Besides, no board could have all the dungeons, dragons, monsters, and characters you will need!

For now, while you are learning, you will play a role in your imagination. Later, when you play the game with others, you will all be playing different roles and talking together as if you were the characters. It will be easy, but first you need to get ready.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Microtransactions around minis, tiles, and other 3D VTT only stuff won't necessarily impact the game at all.

However I think there is a real potential concern here which may impact people offline and on, which is if WotC decides to sell some rules products solely via microtransactions (on Beyond/3D VTT, which I will treat as the same thing for now).

Specifically:

Subclasses
Species
Feats
Spells
Magic items
Monsters

These are already available as microtransactions on D&D Beyond, but are priced in a way which discourages people from purchasing them, and rather pushes you towards purchasing the whole product. I'm not hugely impressed with this, but because there's still the option to buy the full products, it's not a major issue.

The big concern would be if WotC starts releasing the above just as microtransactions, not in boxes. And unfortunately I do think that may happen. Beyond's pricing has typically been $1.99 per item except subclasses which are $2.99. Often there's a bulk deal which is highly favourable (though still awful next to the book), but that might not be relevant here. With existing books, you get money off equal to the amount spent on the microtransactions, but if something is a pure microtransaction that wouldn't apply. It might or might not apply to a future book, however.

The issue I think it will create is a bit of a digital divide, and also a slightly greater level of balkanization than already exists (which is not insignificant). It some cool or liked subclass is only available digitally for months or even years before print (not that unlikely), that could certain cause friction.

Further, WotC may be tempted into marketing this stuff more at players than DMs. This could create a couple issues - firstly, players are unlikely to buy anything that seems underpowered, so WotC may be tempted to lean towards the powerful, and secondly, it may encourage WotC to keep this stuff digital, especially if they can convince a player that they need a Master-tier sub in order to share this stuff.

And this is looking at them keeping the D&D Beyond approach. If they abandon that, it's likely to be for a sharper practice.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't see micro-transactions as "sheer ridiculousness," so I'm already at odds with the OP.

Can they be abused? Yes! Will they be? Maybe! This isn't Fortnite, so it's a lot harder to just build micro-transactions into the fabric of the game. You will still always be able to play it with dice, paper, and pencil, which would make for a lousy Fortnite game. So players aren't over the barrel in the same way.

And I also don't want to assume that someone else's choice that I disagree with is them being exploited. Different folks value different things, and if someone wants to pay money for access to a cool pet animation for their virtual character, well, it's their money.

Then there's the fact that some micro-transactions are great because they actually increase value to the consumer by allowing us to buy only what we want. DDB currently does this very well by letting you buy only the aspects of new releases that you need. So maybe you love the new Echo Knight sub-class in Explorer's Guide to Wildmount but are otherwise uninterested in the setting. Maybe you're not a Critter. DDB let's you buy just that sub-class for a few dollars rather than paying for the whole book. And if you later change your mind and do want the rest of the book, they discount the money you already paid for the sub-class.

That kind of micro-transaction increases consumer power and saves money. I think we can all get behind that. So let's be alert to Hasbro abusing micro-transactions, but not turn the term itself into a kind of bogeyman. It's just another sales tool, one that is particularly suited to digital environments.

Edit: one of the big ways that micro-transactions get abused is if they become a part of a "pay to win" scheme. But D&D leaves power in the hands of the DM, and it is very hard for me to imagine a version of the game that tells DMs they have to let a player have, say, a holy avenger because the player paid for it. I think that would be obviously game breaking and DMs would just laugh and ignore such a "rule" were it to happen.

The type of micro-transaction that I do fear is if Hasbro can create collectibles for the VTT, and then manipulate rarity to jack up prices [cough Magic cough]. That can be used to exploit psychology and turn some players into whales. Their money, their choice...but that doesn't mean a games designer can't and won't manipulate them.

 

[Faolyn]

Isn’t that what buying books is!

Not really, because you get to keep the book (or pdf). If it's digital, it can get yanked at any time.

 

[Malmuria]

In terms of microtransactions, will there be a way to spend $10,000 on the game? Will children be able to put their parents into debt, even accidentally? That's the kind of stuff we see in video games that is predatory in my opinion.

 

[John Lloyd1]

From my experience it has been nice to buy a single monster or subclass I wanted rather than having to buy the whole book.