D&D (2024) D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

[Belen]

This kind of thought process always makes me a little sad. One of the virtues of an actual book is that other people can use it. "I have paid my money and gotten my use," sure, but your friends? Your family? How many of us found D&D by poking around bookshelves or learning at the table with an older relative or friend?

With my Master Tier sub, my players get free access to all the content I own.

 

[mamba]

I'm only interested in digital content on Roll20, because that's the digital platform that I use. It looks like the R5E bundle will be $90 for four books, which I think is a fair price:

so you get the MME for free, compared to DDB pricing, nice

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I am sure they do, and so does WotC given that these are the only incentive they are offering for preordering the books

I am pretty sure the attempt at an incentive is the Gold Dragon Digital Mini and Artbook. Depending on how the VTT turns out the mini could be cool, and I always liked Artbooks.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I guess I should better explain

Capitalism is fine. Predatory Capitalism is not. What we have today is Money over Morals. If a Corp can poison a river to make a few extra $$$ they will (and concerning new US laws that's about to get worse).

What I have a problem with is exploitation. Those with money and power using it to better themselves at the expense of the plebs.

It's not a joke that we do in fact live is a dystopia and it's only going to get worse.

People will live and adapt, but people will also die because of it. And not just the US but other countries.

Greed is the issue. Pure naked barely regulated greed.

And yes WotC is a minor player in all of this but they are still out for profit over costumer. What some people see as free digital incentives that doesn't hurt anyone is just that, an incentive to get on the digital train. The fact that people can't see or believe that WotC would like to "ONE DAY" (not right now or soon) get rid of paper products and go full digital subscription to play D&D blows my mind. Yes you don't have to worry about it now. Yes you can just keep using your 5th ed books forever. But as a company who wants money, and not just the money but more money, they have to find a way to make you keep ponying up $$$ and that doesn't work as intended when you can just buy 3 books and call it a day.

Am I part of the problem? Yes. I love D&D. I've loved D&D probably longer than a lot of fans on here have been alive so I'm not going to abandoned it. But that doesn't mean I can't want it and WotC to DO BETTER (and every other corp on Earth LOL). Which I would hope we could all agree on that WotC (and any corp) can and should do better and not be only enticed by the bottom line so beloved by a few shareholders.

But yeah nothing is going to change but wishful thinking is fun.

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How dare people want to play online and how dare WotC for trying to make a system to support it that we don't even know the pricing for yet. How is this Predatory?

All you are doing is saying people should not try and enjoy what they have cause I have vague feelings it might change in the future. I don't imagine D&D physical books will go away until Print Media goes away.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Not going to apologize for wanting digital, even if it means the end of civilization.

Trust me I get it. I gave up on physical media a long time ago.

Aside from RPG books. That's weird...

 

[Vael]

I hate our current capricious and unchecked capitalism, but I find it hard to get particularly upset over this one.

We've been asking for digital/paper integration, and tbh, if I weren't in Canada, dealing with exchange rate and international shipping, this might actually get me into buying into DnD Beyond, which I don't use right now. The dice and such and "early access" are utterly irrelevant given how hard it is to actually get a campaign going right now, there's a good chance I won't try to run anything until the full set of books are out.

Ultimately, you can get the books, both digitally and on paper cheaper than buying separately and get some minor benefits for doing so.

Compared to other WotC BS and other corporations and industries doing far, far worse, I don't have the spoons to get up in arms over this.

 

[DarkCrisis]

How dare people want to play online and how dare WotC for trying to make a system to support it that we don't even know the pricing for yet.

Talk about missing the point.

 

[mamba]

It's not a PDF. They have to code that content into DDB. In fact, that is more expensive that the printer.

I doubt it is more expensive than printing however many books, and it scales much better too

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Talk about missing the point.

I am not, you are just pointlessly fear mongering.

 

[dave2008]

I am pretty sure the attempt at an incentive is the Gold Dragon Digital Mini and Artbook. Depending on how the VTT turns out the mini could be cool, and I always liked Artbooks.

I admit the art book on dragons has made me think about get the digital/ physical bundle. I'm committed to getting the physical books from a FLGS though.