D&D (2024) WotC Announces 3rd Party Creator Partners

​

This content will be coming to the D&D Beyond marketplace--the selected publishers are The Griffon's Saddlebag, MCDM, Ghostfire Gaming, Dungeon Dudes, Hit Point Press, Kobold Press, and Free League. Generally, these are creators who have achieved million-dollar Kickstarters with 5E compatible products.

Notably, this also includes the official Lord of the Rings roleplaying game from Free League, who also produce The One Ring, the non-D&D version of the game. WotC will be selling the official D&D compatible Lord of the Rings TTRPG on its primary platform. Back in 1992, TSR (the then-owners of D&D) nearly acquired the rights to JRR Tolkien's work, and then passed on it, then-CEO Lorraine Williams saying it was "not worth our while".

 

[bedir than]

And publishers might have to pay for their product conversion to DDB...

There's no evidence of this.
There is evidence that Beyond staff handles the conversion.

 

[Cergorach]

This is a wildly accusation to make against hundreds of designers, many of whom -- including Morrus -- explained just how revoking the OGL could potentially put lots of RPG businesses (not just ones doing D&D-related stuff) out of business.

I don't have a problem saying your naughty word smells, when it does. And funny that you just happen to mention Morrus => EN Publishing. A5E existed well before the OGL shenanigans began. Their latest (D&D) 5e product is from the first of July this year (what I could find via DTRPG)... I'm also pretty sure that D&D is still the main topic of this site...

Let's be honest, also Morrus/EN Publishing took advantage of that news cylce with their own A5E announcements... But he certainly didn't go overboard. I'm looking at Paizo, Kobold Press, and a bunch of others for that... Whatever happened with that ORC license, how many of those signees actually stared publishing all their products under that umbrella?

There was a LOT of hot air blowing, many in the silent hope that 'their' alternative would revolutionize the industry, become the next D&D (or at least the next Pathfinder). But when the smoke settled, everyone went back to business as usual (some even published some of these 'revolutionary' products)...

Sorry to say it, when you don't run your business as a business, it's a hobby project. And more and more companies (people) are treating this as a business. While a LOT of us still view it as a hobby project that grew out of it's seams...

There's no evidence of this.
There is evidence that Beyond staff handles the conversion.

That's why I said, 'might'. And they are paying for it, one way or another. That '30%' is also an assumption, that might be lower, it might be higher And while the DDB staff might handle the conversion, they might require them to do that via the contract. Is there any evidence that the DDB staff does the conversion for 'free'?

 

[mamba]

Will they have pdfs of any of this, or is it unfortunately just integrated into D&D Beyond's architecture?

it will all be DDB, if you want PDFs, go to the different publishers directly, most / all have them

 

[Scribe]

I dont agree with everything @Cergorach is saying, but if 'monetization' is the goal, turning into the 'Steam of RPG's' certainly isnt the worst way to go about it and in 10 years I'd be shocked if that isnt where this has all ended up.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

turning into the 'Steam of RPG's' certainly isnt the worst way to go about it and in 10 years I'd be shocked if that isnt where this has all ended up.

It's certainly a better way to go than their previous approach to the rest of the industry. And yeah, likely to be both successful and lucrative. As big as OneBookShelf is, it can't really compete with Hasbro money.

 

[Velderan]

I would be laughing very hard if Tales of the Valiant will end up on D&D beyond.

So much for a Rebellion againt WotC. It was good back then to show their willingness to not bend to everything but in the end the best outcome is cooperation and friendly competition. Not war.

The blueprint for how to do that is probably there with the way DDB handles legacy content with that tag. A ToV tag and a toggle to allow ToV character options on creation... why not?

 

[DarkCrisis]

I've heard of 3 of those and have used one of those 3's products.

Cool of WotC.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've heard of 3 of those and have used one of those 3's products.

Cool of WotC.

I have heard amazing things about Griffon's Saddlebag's magic items.

 

[mamba]

Yeah. My concern is that Free League will compromise the creative vision of their game(s) to better align with WotC's current design philosophies. At least LotR RPG and AiME work hard to be a 5e version of Tolkien's world, or perhaps a 5e version of TOR (which is a great game). I worry that this deal will simply result in a Tolkien-flavored supplement for WotC 5.5.

I expect it to be the same content as the already released PDF / print book, they are showing the same cover after all

 

[Belen]

I am pretty stoked for this one but Wizards may need to hire bodyguards to protect them from my wife, Alenda.