D&D (2024) Wizards of the Coast Backtracks on D&D Beyond and 2014 Content

Wizards of the Coast posted an overnight update stating that they are not going forward with previously released plans to require those wishing to use some 2014 content on D&D Beyond to use the Homebrew function to manually enter it. Instead, all the content including spells and magic items will be included. From the update:

D&D (2024) - How D&D Beyond Will Handle Access To 2014 Rules

D&D Beyond has announced how the transition to the new 2024 edition will work on the platform, and how legacy access to the 2014 version of D&D will be implemented. You will still be able to access the 2014 Basic Rules and core rulebooks. You will still be able to make characters using the 2014...

www.enworld.org

Last week we released a Changelog detailing how players would experience the 2024 Core Rulebooks on D&D Beyond. We heard your feedback loud and clear and thank you for speaking up.

Our excitement around the 2024 Core Rulebooks led us to view these planned updates as welcome improvements and free upgrades to existing content. We misjudged the impact of this change, and we agree that you should be free to choose your own way to play. Taking your feedback to heart, here’s what we’re going to do:

Players who only have access to the 2014 Player’s Handbook will maintain their character options, spells, and magical items in their character sheets. Players with access to the 2024 and 2014 digital Player’s Handbooks can select from both sources when creating new characters. Players will not need to rely on Homebrew to use their 2014 player options, including spells and magic items, as recommended in previous changelogs.

Please Note:

Players will continue to have access to their free, shared, and purchased items on D&D Beyond, with the ability to use previously acquired player options when creating characters and using character sheets.

We are not changing players’ current character sheets, except for relabeling and renaming. Examples include Races to Species, Inspiration to Heroic Inspiration, and Cast Spell to Magic.

We’re dedicated to making D&D Beyond the ultimate digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons, continuously enhancing the platform to ensure you can create, customize, and play your game just as you envision it. From your first one-shot to multi-year campaigns and everything in between, we're grateful to be on this journey with you.

- The D&D Studio

 

[Gammadoodler]

People will often say that companies that make mistakes are playing 4D chess.

However, in my experience, the companies are usually stumped just trying to get the checkers on the board.

Yeah, one of the great surprises in my professional adult life was the realization that there isn't a necessary correlation between a business being successful, and the competence of the people running it.

 

[Imaro]

That's a legal requirement that the user acknowledge. You know they don't actually care if anyone actually reads them. It's in their best interest if you don't, actually.

Deleted double post

 

[Imaro]

That's a legal requirement that the user acknowledge. You know they don't actually care if anyone actually reads them. It's in their best interest if you don't, actually.

Yes a legal requirement that they disclose the information you are saying they should disclose. It's your choice to read it (and be informed about the subscription you are choosing) or to skip it and well... Or is the argument that WotC has a responsibility to force people to read the ToS? I'll ask again... what company does this?

 

[mamba]

This has implications. What if taxes dried up? Rights are, supposedly, always present.

given how much taxes we spend on BS, they will never dry up to the point where clean water is in question

 

[Mr. Lahey]

For the sake of the discussion, this is the quote from the former CEO of Nestlé, in response to the suggestion that water should be a human right. I think it’s bad, and it’s no surprise that he walked back on this statement:

"Water is, of course, the most important raw material we have today in the world. It’s a question of whether we should privatize the normal water supply for the population. And there are two different opinions on the matter. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution. The other view says that water is a foodstuff like any other, and like any other foodstuff it should have a market value. Personally, I believe it's better to give a foodstuff a value so that we're all aware it has its price, and then that one should take specific measures for the part of the population that has no access to this water, and there are many different possibilities there."

 

[Hussar]

Well how many years can we expect this to get brought up in every single conversation about WotC?

 

[occam]

For the sake of the discussion, this is the quote from the former CEO of Nestlé, in response to the suggestion that water should be a human right. I think it’s bad, and it’s no surprise that he walked back on this statement:

"Water is, of course, the most important raw material we have today in the world. It’s a question of whether we should privatize the normal water supply for the population. And there are two different opinions on the matter. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution. The other view says that water is a foodstuff like any other, and like any other foodstuff it should have a market value. Personally, I believe it's better to give a foodstuff a value so that we're all aware it has its price, and then that one should take specific measures for the part of the population that has no access to this water, and there are many different possibilities there."

Try reading this quote substituting "life" for "water", as they are effectively the same thing.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Yeah, one of the great surprises in my professional adult life was the realization that there isn't a necessary correlation between a business being successful, and the competence of the people running it.

Wow you can learn this in spades by listening to When We Were Wizards. I had no idea how much of a mess TSR was for pretty much its whole existence.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But let's use actual numbers instead of made up ones several orders of magnitude too low.

Wizards of the Coast claims that over 50 million people have played dungeons and dragons worldwide. There are currently an estimated 13.7 million active tabletop D&D players worldwide. Since the inception of D&D in 1974, that number has continued to grow.
Source: How Many D&D Players Are There Worldwide?

So using your numbers, that's $274 million dollars at $20 a pop. And a movie's success or failure absolutely does hinge on $274 million dollars.

I hope that seeing real numbers applied to your argument you will be a big person and reverse your position, and not be petty and try to disregard your own criteria to argue it another way.

What if I don't?

* fingers in ears * LA-LA-LA-LA NOT LISTENING!!!

But fair enough. Let's go through it. 50 million is all-time count for D&D, but the question was those who were affected by the OGL debacle not wanting to go to the theater, so we can't use that number for our start because most of those people had no connection to the OGL. So we would have to go with the 13.7 million "current" tabletop D&D players number to begin with since they would be the ones who'd possibly be aware of the OGL thing.

Now the question comes down to how many of these 13.7 million current D&D players were of the following...

• Was intending on seeing the Dungeons & Dragons movie altogether.
• Knew what the OGL was.
• Cared that the OGL was possibly going away and were upset about that.
• Was angry enough about Wizards of the Coast stating they were going to revoke the OGL that it would inspire them to not go see a D&D movie made by an entirely different company in protest.
• Was still mad enough even after WotC reversed their decision and kept the OGL in place that they maintained their stance on not going to the movie.
• Actually did not go see the Dungeons & Dragons movie in protest of the OGL in late March of 2023, rather than just saying they weren't.

What does our number end up at then? How many of these 13.7 million players fall into this bucket? I don't know, but it certainly isn't 13.7 million. But I'm fairly certain no one actually knows. Even with whatever the number of people was who actually did boycott the movie... I am willing to say that in my personal, unknowledgeable opinion that for a Hollywood movie to do really well (both domestic and abroad) that it has to cross over from just being popular with the genre's fandom to being a film that every quadrant of the movie-going populace wishes to see. And if D&D:HAT did not become a huge box office hit, it was because most of the "non-D&D" public did not care to see it rather than a certain number of D&D players boycotting it.

Yes, it helps sustain the anger of those people who are still bent out of shape with WotC over the OGL to insinuate that the company's stupidity ruined the release of Paramount Picture's film... but I still do not think those people actually made any real dent. Those numbers just aren't that important when we are talking Hollywood domestic box office.

 

[MerricB]

Wow you can learn this in spades by listening to When We Were Wizards. I had no idea how much of a mess TSR was for pretty much its whole existence.

Yeah, even the "good" years - which I put at a maximum of three years - it was just laying the groundwork for future disasters.

There's a real art from moving from a growing business to a stable (non-growing) business... and more and more you see people not understand that.

Cheers,
Merric