D&D 5E Are You Planning on Subscribing to D&D Beyond

[Flexor the Mighty!]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-...se-date-august-15th-pricing-details-announced

There is some good discussion, but a lot of the same things being asked over and over and over no matter how many times answered. Along with a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

 

[SkidAce]

I... don't think so. I'd buy PDFs. I'm not inclined to subscription services for books.

I get confused when folks say this.

The books are a one time purchase of the ones you want. You never need to subscribe.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-...se-date-august-15th-pricing-details-announced

There is some good discussion, but a lot of the same things being asked over and over and over no matter how many times answered. Along with a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I pity the mods there. I'm actually starting to think there might be a concerted trolling effort going on because of the sheer amount of 1 post new accounts asking, "Why isn't X in there? THIS SUCKS!" and the mods having to explain, like, I'd guess, 20 odd times a day, that it's a beta and only the SRD/EE/Basic Rules are included.

And then there's the other 100 times a day that similar stupid questions are asked and the same answers have to be repeated over and over and over.

 

[cbwjm]

Wouldn't they just provide a FAQ to answer all of the common questions? It would be crazy not to as it is a waste of time to answer the same questions over and over again.

 

[Darkness]

... Just shut the hell up. ... All of you sound like idiots ...

Keep it civil, please. Always attack the argument - not your fellow posters.

 

[LordEntrails]

Wouldn't they just provide a FAQ to answer all of the common questions? It would be crazy not to as it is a waste of time to answer the same questions over and over again.

An FAQ is not as "friendly" or customer facing as an actual response. I suspect they probably have a text file with scripted responses, or at least that is what I would do.

 

[fjw70]

19 days to go.

 

[epithet]

Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Twitch, and WotC are all seperate companies. If we go to the theatre to see a movie we don't expect to also get it free on iTunes and also be able to watch it on HBO without a subscription.

The Compendium and the virtual table top versions are not just PDFs of the books we've bought. They take programing time and other resources to produce and maintain.

But we're not going to the theatre, are we? No, we're buying the movie on blu-ray disc, which typically comes with a "digital copy" which is platform agnostic. That's a great analogy, actually, because what WotC should be selling is a hardcover with a digital license included that would accommodate Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, or their new platform.

The argument that this is somehow a different product from one platform to the next is asinine. Sure, some programming is involved in the delivery of the content--and I stipulated in my original post that I was quite willing to pay an additional fee to cover that. $5 might cover basic link functionality, while robust tools and functionality like Fantasy Grounds offers with their DMG module might would easily be worth $10 or more. Insisting that paying the MSRP all over again is reasonable, however, is ridiculous. They aren't drawing new maps or balancing new encounters.

No version includes an air conditioned theatre in which to play the game, though. We're still just talking about old school books and their modern digital equivalents.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Heck - why not just rob a bookstore and steal all of them if we're going to go about and make false equivalences!

I don't advocate using violence to get what I want. At least not in RL. In game however...

 

[LordEntrails]

But we're not going to the theatre, are we? No, we're buying the movie on blu-ray disc, which typically comes with a "digital copy" which is platform agnostic. That's a great analogy, actually, because what WotC should be selling is a hardcover with a digital license included that would accommodate Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, or their new platform.

The argument that this is somehow a different product from one platform to the next is asinine. ...

So when you buy the Blu-Ray you should get the hardcover book as well?

Both your analogy and the early one have massive shortcomings.

One problem with yours is that WotC does NOT own the digital products (at least as far as I can tell from the little that is actually know about the contract legalities). They have licensed their content to be used in new digital products.

We get what you are willing to pay. And maybe one day platform will be that insiginficant. But not today and not this decade. Maybe one day when it becomes cost effective to implement and use a multi-platform content management system for the development of RPG content. But are you willing to invest $2-3mil USD to do so? WotC isn't. (And I don't blame them give how notoriously cheap their customer are.)

Don't want to buy the content twice at full price? Then don't. I bought only the FG version and have no problems or complaints not having a hardcover. I just read the FG reference manual format which is close enough to a PDF that I'm happy.