D&D 5E So what's the scoop on D&D in PDF Format?

AK81 · Apr 5, 2024

mamba said:
what content did they remove?

Are you talking about minor things like changing the Hadozee backstory or swapping out AI art in Bigby’s, or did they actually remove some pages or a chapter?

I’d be surprised by the latter

No I was referring to removing part of older lore from books like Volvo's. But what they removed isn't really the point.

I may or may not agree with their reasoning for removing something, but the fact that they can just do it without anything the customer can do about it, makes me weary to buy their products.

Because that means that anytime from now and forward they may decide to remove something that I love. And I will lose that part of my game. That means that my enjoyment of the game is tied directly to what Wotc thinks it's suitable for me to like at that moment. And trends change all the time.

pukunui · Apr 5, 2024

Wolfpack48 said:
Yep, but I like to scribble on maps and put notes on paper. I appreciate the thought but I like a mix of digital and paper. The reason I started the thread was looking for ways to read digitally and also print select items from the books.

While the text parts of the books don't look the same on DDB as they do in print, the advantage of the digital DDB version is that you can access a larger, downloadable (and printable) version of every image and map in the book. The maps usually come with a more player friendly version as well.

As for statblocks, those look the same in DDB except there are usually a bunch of hyperlinks in them, so if you don't mind having a bunch of things underlined or in a slightly different color, you can just take a screenshot or whatever and print that. (You can't just download an image of the statblock like you can with the pictures and maps, though.)

Distracted DM · Apr 5, 2024

AK81 said:
No I was referring to removing part of older lore from books like Volvo's. But what they removed isn't really the point.

I may or may not agree with their reasoning for removing something, but the fact that they can just do it without anything the customer can do about it, makes me weary to buy their products.

Because that means that anytime from now and forward they may decide to remove something that I love. And I will lose that part of my game. That means that my enjoyment of the game is tied directly to what Wotc thinks it's suitable for me to like at that moment. And trends change all the time.

Yes, this is all possible. I'd say it's unlikely but it's happened before. It sounds like you're already voting with your wallet, which is probably the only thing you can do.

mamba said:
what content did they remove?

Are you talking about minor things like changing the Hadozee backstory or swapping out AI art in Bigby’s, or did they actually remove some pages or a chapter?

I’d be surprised by the latter

They're referring to this:

Lore and other cut content - General Discussion - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

I have the physical books for Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. I know most of the races have migrated over so I'm not as conce...

www.dndbeyond.com

DarkCrisis · Apr 5, 2024

Distracted DM said:
Yes, this is all possible. I'd say it's unlikely but it's happened before. It sounds like you're already voting with your wallet, which is probably the only thing you can do.

They're referring to this:

Lore and other cut content - General Discussion - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

I have the physical books for Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. I know most of the races have migrated over so I'm not as conce...

www.dndbeyond.com

Well that fudging dumb

Wolfpack48 · Apr 5, 2024

LordEntrails said:
shrug you do you. But many of the digital proponents are not young. I'm in my mid-50's and have been playing since the late 70's.

I used to travel for a living, paper is damned heavy. And hard to search and sort and store and wears out. I used to have to keep notebooks for work. More than a decade ago I decided to go digital for work. It soon followed in the rest of my life. My laptop and NAS means I don't have to worry about loss. Finding and re-use is simple. And the bits never wear out or get old (not really).

You can make the switch if you want, but you don't have to. As I said, there are plenty of digital tools and all of them you can print out the parts you want. It's just not going to look like a page torn from the print version. And that can be good or bad. I'm not a DDB fan, but it's easy to get a free account, pick up one or two of the free assets and see if you like it. You can also try FG for free and play with the free SRD and see what you think. I'm sure you can do the same with Roll20 and Foundry.

I get what you're saying, and actually the reason I'd like the pdfs as supplement is for the very reason you describe -- ease to carry and read when traveling or just casual reading or research, and never lost or worn out. If I want to study up on a specific adventure, or have monster stats nearby, or maps, however, I like to print off the subset of pages I'll be using and mark them up and use them at the table. I like to have paper to reference, and easy scribbling - best of both worlds.

Poking around DDB now, yeah looks like web page versions of content, which is fine, as long as it contains the same material.

Wolfpack48 · Apr 5, 2024

Micah Sweet said:
My experience as well. I've taken to making Word docs out of the material for offline use on the very few occasions I've interacted with D&D Beyond. I don't want to "rent" gaming material.

Apple went through all this with iTunes years ago and managed to figure out that people actually like to own record albums.

Wolfpack48 · Apr 5, 2024

Distracted DM said:
As for the OP, the DnDB questions seemed odd to me, because there's a lot of stuff available for free on DnDB and you can answer a lot of the questions by looking at it there. You can make a free account and look yourself, you don't have to ask your friend that has a DnDB account! But no, it's not the exact same format as the books.

As far as PDFs go, no, WotC does not seem to be a fan of selling PDFs of their current editions DESPITE the fact that you can find them easily online.

I don't typically like to sign up on websites, even if they bill themselves as free, as you opt in for a bunch of marketing junk. But I went ahead and poked around and it looks like it's a web based copy of the print, which is fine, as long as I can print off the bit of content needed. It would actually be easier maintenance-wise for WoTC to simply provide the pdf, but I am guessing they want to really drive the marketing.

I don't plan to purchase all these books again, however, just for digital copies. Maybe the new books, but meh.

Wolfpack48 · Apr 5, 2024

pukunui said:
While the text parts of the books don't look the same on DDB as they do in print, the advantage of the digital DDB version is that you can access a larger, downloadable (and printable) version of every image and map in the book. The maps usually come with a more player friendly version as well.

As for statblocks, those look the same in DDB except there are usually a bunch of hyperlinks in them, so if you don't mind having a bunch of things underlined or in a slightly different color, you can just take a screenshot or whatever and print that. (You can't just download an image of the statblock like you can with the pictures and maps, though.)

Thanks, this is just what I was looking for. But sad that WotC is losing a sales opportunity by not offering the digital material separately. Maybe they'll make 5e stuff available as digital only once 6e is out.

R_J_K75 · Apr 5, 2024

Distracted DM said:
This was for their digital releases (PDFs) of older editions that are now available through DTRPG-DMsGuild. Did that really happen in 2000/1? It seems like it was more recent, but time keeps on slippin'...

My memory is muddy on this but I'm going to say it was 2000 or 2001, couldn't have been any later than 2003. I think I was still on the FR email list at that point, and that croaked around the same time. It's probably on the Wayback machine but I'm not going to bother looking for it, although it would be funny for a laugh to read the article. They were looking for AD&D 2E books and back, nothing after 3E, I think at that point they were probably creating books digitally so there probably wasn't a need to scan them afterwards.

Nikosandros · Apr 5, 2024

I bought my first AD&D PDFs in 2001. I don't remember if it was first directly from WotC and then from a company called SV Games or if it was the other way around.

D&D 5E So what's the scoop on D&D in PDF Format?

AK81

Explorer

pukunui

Legend

Distracted DM

Distracted DM

Lore and other cut content - General Discussion - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

DarkCrisis

Reeks of Jedi

Lore and other cut content - General Discussion - D&D Beyond General - D&D Beyond Forums - D&D Beyond

Wolfpack48

Adventurer

Wolfpack48

Adventurer

Wolfpack48

Adventurer

Wolfpack48

Adventurer

R_J_K75

Legend

Nikosandros

Golden Procrastinator

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