D&D General D&D Book Prices Are Going Up

WotC announced today that D&D books will be increasing in price this year.

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants will be $59.99 as a preorder and $69.99 thereafter. These will apparently come as physical and digital bundles, so you won’t need to buy the D&D Beyond version separately.

This space is dedicated to communicating clearly and transparently with our players- even when the topic isn’t particularly fun. Since the release of the 2014 D&D core rulebooks, we’ve kept book prices stable. Unfortunately, with the cost of goods and shipping continually increasing, we’ve finally had to make the decision to increase the price of our new release print books. We're committed to creating high-quality products that deliver great value to our players and must increase our prices to accomplish that.

This will go into effect starting with Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants and new releases after Glory of the Giants. Digital pricing is unaffected by this MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) increase, as digital products don’t need to be printed or shipped. The increase also doesn’t impact backlist titles. While we can’t promise that there will never be a change to the prices of digital products and backlist titles, we have no plans to increase either.

Players who purchase the Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants digital-physical bundle through Dungeons & Dragons store can get the bundle for $59.95 for the entire preorder window, which is consistent with our current digital-physical bundle pricing. After the preorder window closes, digital-physical bundle prices will go to $69.95.

 

[Retreater]

* Untested encounters sound likes the Irontooth encounter from Keep on the Shadowfell, but that was a 4E issue.

Oh yeah?
I humbly submit for your consideration this opening encounter from Rime of the Frostmaiden.
Only difference was Irontooth was in a very early product in the 4e line, and this one is from a product after 6 years in 5e.
The entirety of Rime is constructed as if the writing teams had no purpose, no indication of what the others were writing, or any sense of internal logic.
Our standards are so low for 5e products that it normally comes up as "one of the best." Even if anecdotally, I don't personally know a group that enjoyed it. And Mike Shea (Sly Flourish's Lazy GM) rated it the worst adventure.

 

[Stormonu]

Oh yeah?
I humbly submit for your consideration this opening encounter from Rime of the Frostmaiden.
Only difference was Irontooth was in a very early product in the 4e line, and this one is from a product after 6 years in 5e.
The entirety of Rime is constructed as if the writing teams had no purpose, no indication of what the others were writing, or any sense of internal logic.
Our standards are so low for 5e products that it normally comes up as "one of the best." Even if anecdotally, I don't personally know a group that enjoyed it. And Mike Shea (Sly Flourish's Lazy GM) rated it the worst adventure.

What's the problem with the encounter? I've played a bit of Frostmaiden, and our first quest was to track this guy down. We defeated him without too much trouble. As for Frostmaiden, it strikes me as a hybrid story/hexcrawl collection of adventures. Ghosts and Tomb have a similar structure - fleshing out the important story points and being open enough to insert your own content inbetween if you so desire.

 

[mamba]

What's the problem with the encounter? I've played a bit of Frostmaiden, and our first quest was to track this guy down. We defeated him without too much trouble.

was he your first encounter or did the tracking level you up a couple of times first? Because why a CR 3 is a bad first encounter design is pretty self-explanatory

 

[Henadic Theologian]

No, inflation is an inevitable phenomenon with a fiat currency system, and it's not even necessarily bad, when the pace is steady. But no individual or corporation can stop the rising of costs as the money loses value.

If this was normal inflation it'd have effected Corporate profits, which would be getting squeezed as well, instead most corporations are making record profits, with CEO's bragging about piggybacking backing higher then real inflation price hikes on investor calls.

Hasbro made massive profits on WotC last year (once again), while laying people off at Hasbro.

Chris Cocks was happy to just give himself a massive multimillion dollar raise, after having layed off thousands, price hiking things insanely, and sending Pinkertons after people. Its greed and evil.

And partly beyond price increasing company profits, its WotC being used as a piggy bank to make up for most of the rest of Hasbro failing.

The Activist Investors warned us this would happen and was coming, most of you ignored them.

I may or may not get Planescape: Adventure Across the Multiverse (an ironically misleading name it seems), but afterwards I'm unlikely to buy anything if this keeps up.

More money for less quality is a bad deal.

 

[nevin]

Here's a quick shot from one on my shelf. The DMG I've looked at twice is also doing it. Same as the PHB I gave away to my teenaged nephew.

why would anyone doubt this in a world where every business division is freaking out trying to squeeze every penny out of whatever they are doing. Guaranteed a significant percentage of the books were sent to a cheaper printer and someone probably got promoted before they started falling apart.

 

[Parmandur]

If this was normal inflation it'd have effected Corporate profits, which would be getting squeezed as well, instead most corporations are making record profits, with CEO's bragging about piggybacking backing higher then real inflation price hikes on investor calls.

Hasbro made massive profits on WotC last year (once again), while laying people off at Hasbro.

Chris Cocks was happy to just give himself a massive multimillion dollar raise, after having layed off thousands, price hiking things insanely, and sending Pinkertons after people. Its greed and evil.

And partly beyond price increasing company profits, its WotC being used as a piggy bank to make up for most of the rest of Hasbro failing.

The Activist Investors warned us this would happen and was coming, most of you ignored them.

I may or may not get Planescape: Adventure Across the Multiverse (an ironically misleading name it seems), but afterwards I'm unlikely to buy anything if this keeps up.

More money for less quality is a bad deal.

Yes, corporations do need to make a profit. With the books, their profit margin has been steadily shrinking for 9 years, rapidly shrinking this past year. Price increases are inevitable, when they are behind inflation they are more than fair.

Lol at lecturing about corporate greed and then singing thenpriases of "activist investors." Those jackels would have bled the game dry shortly.

 

[mamba]

Lol at lecturing about corporate greed and then singing thenpriases of "activist investors." Those jackels would have bled the game dry shortly.

the modern day version of the pillaging barbarian hordes

 

[Oofta]

Here's a quick shot from one on my shelf. The DMG I've looked at twice is also doing it. Same as the PHB I gave away to my teenaged nephew.

You can get them replaced at no cost. Finding the link https://dnd-support.wizards.com/hc/...geons-Dragons-5th-Edition-Product-Replacement took me about 30 seconds.

Unless of course you'd rather just have something to complain about.

 

[Oofta]

What's the problem with the encounter? I've played a bit of Frostmaiden, and our first quest was to track this guy down. We defeated him without too much trouble. As for Frostmaiden, it strikes me as a hybrid story/hexcrawl collection of adventures. Ghosts and Tomb have a similar structure - fleshing out the important story points and being open enough to insert your own content inbetween if you so desire.

New adventures are being designed with more open structure and flexibility based on customer feedback. I happened to just read an article on this D&D’s next adventures are being designed to come apart at the seams

 

[Retreater]

You can get them replaced at no cost. Finding the link https://dnd-support.wizards.com/hc/...geons-Dragons-5th-Edition-Product-Replacement took me about 30 seconds.

Unless of course you'd rather just have something to complain about.

According to the site, it requires a sales receipt. That's why I've never done it.