D&D General Is D&D Beyond Exclusivity Bad for D&D?

AlViking said:

How much errata should change is open to debate - but some people found parts of the original version of the books offensive. If I really cared that they might change something I'd buy the book. I never looked at the Eberron book since while I find the setting interesting I run a homebrew campaign so I didn't need it. But yeah, it would have been better to give you a heads up.

You can see what they changed if you look up the errata. They did remove a whole 2 paragraphs from Volo's on half-orcs. I don't see anything to get particularly upset about. If I happened to buy a printing of the book after the errata you would also be missing the original text. Should they have left the text and imagery for the Hadozee in the book as well?

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My understanding is that it wasn’t so much that the content was problematic (the beholder stuff was hard to see that way) but that they decided to change what was world specific versus whole game. This was also one of the reasons to stop selling Volos and Mordenkainens tome of foes completely which not only has some awesome lore but that lore made it into Baldurs Gate 3.

Regardless, you don’t get to decide what you want to keep or toss aside. They do. For any reason they want. It’s right there in the Terms of Service.

I'm definitely against the changing of books to take out lore and such. If they were just correcting things like stats because they'd messed up a calculation somewhere, not a problem, but to edit out sections for no real reason, not a fan. I don't think I'll be buying anything on DnDBeyond anyway, but if I was thinking of returning to 5e, I'd definitely be reconsidering buying additional books on the platform.

DEFCON 1 said:

I do not recall that personally. All I remember is approximately 2 dozen printer pages of errata people would talk about having stuck in their books because of how often WotC did make errata. So if there was indeed a gap between Character Builder fixes and it getting written down in an errata document for the first time, it wasn't much of one to be rememberable.

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Ruin Explorer said:

Yeah I don't remember there being a noticeable delay there either. If there was a delay, it was single-digit days, and so I think unless you played D&D like, most days, you probably wouldn't have noticed it. Certainly we were playing almost weekly at times in 4E and using the DDI, and I don't remember ever like, booting up the DDI and seeing a change that I didn't see in the errata document until later.

It was definitely a problem that they were updating pretty often, and making both huge changes to how abilities worked, and ton of minor fiddly changes, because it caused players to be having to double-check their abilities and so on, or I was having to pour over the errata and see if any PCs would be impacted and so on.

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No noticeable delay; single-digit days?
Short memories, is all I'll say.

September 2024 is when the unannounced changes (stealth patching) started.
April 2025 is when they posted errata, and you can see folk in this thread saying how it would've been helpful for them to list the changes so DMs/players didn't have to hunt for them.

There were reddit threads trying to keep track of all the unannounced changes and when they were rolled out.

SlyFlourish said:

My understanding is that it wasn’t so much that the content was problematic (the beholder stuff was hard to see that way) but that they decided to change what was world specific versus whole game. This was also one of the reasons to stop selling Volos and Mordenkainens tome of foes completely which not only has some awesome lore but that lore made it into Baldurs Gate 3.

Regardless, you don’t get to decide what you want to keep or toss aside. They do. For any reason they want. It’s right there in the Terms of Service.

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Books go out of print as well but I can still access my book online, even if they did apply errata. As far as lore, I get to decide what the lore is or is not for my home campaign. They've always decided what errata to apply or not, if I was concerned about it I'd make a backup.

SlyFlourish said:

My understanding is that it wasn’t so much that the content was problematic (the beholder stuff was hard to see that way) but that they decided to change what was world specific versus whole game.

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It wasn't an either or situation, but both. In the act of removing problematic content, they shifted from giving world-specific lore to a more game-wide style.

Releases since then have clarified that shift further, with world-specific releases having world-specific lore.

MToF and VGtM were world specific, but were ground zero for the changes, while the replacement MPMotM was game-wide.

AlViking said:

The only one who knows is WOTC, but 1-4 years? A new release by 2027? Nah. I think even 2030 is pushing it. They have a very different sales model now and don't need to release a new edition to get new revenue because they have subscriptions and a storefront with DDB.

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So you think 2024 will do like 10 years? Because that's what you're saying. I mean I think a lot of people here are not doing the math. Are not looking at 3E, 3.5E, 4E, 5E and how long those lasted. But like, I guess I'll get to be very smug for a while lol.

FitzTheRuke said:

I'd not have argued if you'd started at your high-end of four and moved upward. 4-6 seems possible to me.

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4-6 to be announced is ridiculous. 6 to be available is very unlikely. It's as you put it "nuts". There's no way 2024 makes it 8 years man.

1 year would be for announced, note.

saviirkad said:

I think it's safe to say we'll see a 5.75 and probably more increments beyond before we see a 6e.

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Why on do you think that specifically? I don't think you have any basis for that assumption.

They can't really do another "backwards compatible" iteration that meaningfully improves 5E and sells copies, I'd suggest.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

It'll be 2034 for the 60th anniversary, although it'll be like 5.5 and a tweaked chassis, rather than a whole new edition.

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Nah. That's silly.

10 years of 2024? And then they try and sell us 5.5 again? Nah. And 5.5 already looks deeply dated, it'll look absolutely ancient by 2034, and yeah will that actually will filter through to the greater RPG-playing public, and people who played 5E in 2014 at 25 will be grogs of 45. D&D, if it just keeps going with 5.5, will actually be losing serious ground by then, if not to other TTRPGs, then other adjacent hobbies in general (but make no mistake, other TTRPGs will be increasingly beginning to make it look foolish). I guess if WotC want to gradually wind the D&D brand down to being like, a minor side-gig, rather than something capable of making serious money, that's the right approach, but do they?

I think the real question is what aspect of D&D is most profitable? If we know that, we can make some guesses about future editions and future formats. But even then they are still just guesses.

I doubt physical books are the most profitable thing in D&D for WotC. Books bought on beyond probably are. That suggests that the toe-dipping they are doing to Beyond exclusivity may eventually lead to a shift in format where books are just premium items and D&D as a game and brand is something that lives mostly on your phone/tablet.

As far as the whole 6E thing... if DDB becomes WotC's personally-owned hardcover book version of DMs Guild-- selling other companies' products for them on their online storefront and taking some cash off the top-- I don't foresee any true change into a 6th Edition (one that truly changes most of the foundational mechanics of the game). Because at that point whatever new monies they would get from a Core Three book new edition book sale would be offset by the loss of monies that they would no longer receive for all the 5E product they were selling on DDB as the bottom would drop out of that market.

If D&D's cash flow mainly came from selling Core Three books like it has always done in the past (plus the subsequent splatbooks)... then yeah, resetting the market every 5 to 10 years with a new edition would make sense. But if their new cash flow in the 2020s and beyond comes from being a storefront for 3rd party sellers... I personally think they would do everything in their power to keep that version of the game alive and well. Which means sticking with the 5E foundational mechanics and just iterating on them a second time for like a 5E30 version (as they did with 5E24). It means all previous 5E books are able to more easily get adapted into current games and thus remain viable sellers.

DEFCON 1 said:

As far as the whole 6E thing... if DDB becomes WotC's personally-owned hardcover book version of DMs Guild-- selling other companies' products for them on their online storefront and taking some cash off the top-- I don't foresee any true change into a 6th Edition (one that truly changes most of the foundational mechanics of the game). Because at that point whatever new monies they would get from a Core Three book new edition book sale would be offset by the loss of monies that they would no longer receive for all the 5E product they were selling on DDB as the bottom would drop out of that market.

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It will be just like Steam and we will be waiting for Half life 3 er 6E for EVER.