D&D Beyond executives explain why subscribers can't share Drops content

D&D Beyond executives claim that content sharing isn't enabled for their new Drops material because they want to make sure designers get paid. On Friday, D&D Beyond's executive producer Brian Perry and new head of Drops content Jay Jani answered questions on Reddit about D&D Beyond Drops, a new compendium of maps, images, and rules exclusive to D&D Beyond subscribers. Unsurprisingly, the biggest question on many users' minds were why Drops content wasn't sharable via the Master tier subscription like other material. In several posts, Perry stated that the reason was monetary in nature.

"We need to pay the great designers, artists, and developers working on D&D Beyond Drops," Perry said in a comment. "We also really think it's important to make the entire subscriber content library accessible to Hero Tier subscribers (as well as Master Tier). Not making Drops content eligible for content sharing was a necessary tradeoff to hit these goals."

However, given the amount of feedback among fans about making Drops content sharable among players, Perry said they were actively looking at alternative solutions. "With that said, I hear and really appreciate the feedback on being able to share Drops content with players in your group that don't have the disposable income for a Hero Tier subscription," Perry said. "The team is taking another look at the tradeoffs and considering other solutions."

 

[Clint_L]

Just to brign this back on topic, would you be okay if all of your D&D books went away tomorrow? I mean, it's a bunch of books you've already read. So either what you are saying is relevant and you never reference them anymore, or it's not relevant to the conversation at hand about licensing RPG books.

Just trying to understand your point in the context we're talking about.

No, I'd be mad. But I'd still be way ahead in terms of the value I've already gotten from it.

But why would I worry about this hypothetical? Every investment, which is what purchases are, involves risk assessment. Is it possible, in all imaginable worlds, that there is one where all my DDB books vanish tomorrow? Sure. Is there one in which my house burns down tomorrow and my physical books, if I had them, were gone? Sure.

Is either scenario remotely likely? No. The argument for owning the physical rulebooks because of security is, IMO, a really weak argument. Preferring them because you're a collector, or you like having the tangible books, and so on, those arguments I get. But I know for sure that, back when I was hoarding books, it wasn't really for rational reasons. It was because I paid for them, dammit, and now I felt like they were some sort of investment, and it would be wasteful or something to just get rid of them. I mean, I had college textbooks that I toted around for years because they cost a small fortune (especially to a broke college student) and even though they were already outdated, I couldn't just get rid of them, could I?

It turned out I could. And it felt great. I think there's a lot of sunk cost fallacy behind why we hold onto a lot of stuff.

So the "what about if it shuts down tomorrow" argument against DDB just seems like a red herring to me. It's not gonna shut down tomorrow, or any time soon. If it did, that would suck. But it ain't. That's just a scare tactic.

 

[Clint_L]

The metaphor doesn’t work. It’s not like saying “hey, you can’t use Strixhaven in our Forgotten Realms game”. It’s like having new pages show up in the Players Handbook automatically. These aren’t options players select, they’re added automatically. So players feel like of course this stuff is allowed until a DM has to explicitly exclude it.

This is the reason so many complained about Silvery Barbs. It wasn’t because the spell itself is busted. It’s because anyone who had it didn’t even remember what book it was from and DDB didn’t have (and doesn’t have I don’t think) a good way for a DM to filter material at the book level.

So now WOtC is adding lots of new stuff and thr DM is the bad guy for saying “yeah, no”.

I’m glad you have no problem with any of this. I do and so do many others.

I've never had an issue saying "no" to a player, on official or unofficial material. I don't want to, so if I am saying no it's for good reasons. I'm happy to have a discussion, but ultimately one of us is doing 99% of the work in this relationship.

 

[SothFan]

I've never had an issue saying "no" to a player, on official or unofficial material. I don't want to, so if I am saying no it's for good reasons. I'm happy to have a discussion, but ultimately one of us is doing 99% of the work in this relationship.

Are you every DM, and are your players every player? Is everyone so understanding?

14 year old Danny has the DM seat, his parents bought it because its safer than other local options. His friends join, and one has the drops and uses them. The other 3 do not have them. What are all the possible combinations of outcomes for Danny, Mr Teacher? (Seriously, I hated that part of school. What are they?)

 

[Zaukrie]

Are you every DM, and are your players every player? Is everyone so understanding?

14 year old Danny has the DM seat, his parents bought it because its safer than other local options. His friends join, and one has the drops and uses them. The other 3 do not have them. What are all the possible combinations of outcomes for Danny, Mr Teacher? (Seriously, I hated that part of school. What are they?)

Take a breath?

 

[Clint_L]

Are you every DM, and are your players every player? Is everyone so understanding?

14 year old Danny has the DM seat, his parents bought it because its safer than other local options. His friends join, and one has the drops and uses them. The other 3 do not have them. What are all the possible combinations of outcomes for Danny, Mr Teacher? (Seriously, I hated that part of school. What are they?)

What point are you trying to make? That the world is unpredictable and we can't plan for every contingency? Hypothetical arguments go nowhere. Give me an actual example of a likely situation. Oh, and you can use my name or stop addressing me, thanks.

As it turns out, we try to teach children to be able to communicate and cope with difficult situations, and sometimes things happen that we and they don't foresee. If an argument about the use of a Drop from DDB is the worst thing that ever happens to Danny, he'll probably be okay. Not sure what makes this qualitatively different from a friend showing up with a Dragon Magazine article that no one else had and wanting to use it, which happened all the time when were kids. Somehow we survived.

 

[Junkyard Tornado]

Feels like a step towards further enshittification

 

[Selas]

Feels like a step towards further enshittification

If that were the case, then DnD has been on the path to enshittification since 1976 with Dragon Magazine subscriptions

 

[Blue]

No, I'd be mad. But I'd still be way ahead in terms of the value I've already gotten from it.

But why would I worry about this hypothetical? Every investment, which is what purchases are, involves risk assessment. Is it possible, in all imaginable worlds, that there is one where all my DDB books vanish tomorrow? Sure. Is there one in which my house burns down tomorrow and my physical books, if I had them, were gone? Sure.

Of course you shouldn't be worried about every hypothetical. However, that doesn't mean that every hypothetical is equal in risk nor chance of happening. Risk management is literally determining what hypotheticals to pay attention to, and if the cost of mitigation is worth it. Not all hypotheticals are equal in terms of risk, in terms of chance of occurance, nor in cost of mitigation. There definitely are scenarios you want to consider.

Trying to handwave that just because something is a hypothetical that no hypotheticals are worth considering isn't a true statement. Do you have smoke alarms where you live?

Is either scenario remotely likely? No.

WotC has a track record of abandoning every edition when a new one comes out. We've even seen them on DnDBeyond try to push 2024 material into campaigns marked 2014. The idea that it's "not remotely likely" is not one that is supported by facts. Quite the opposite. Not saying there weren't mitigating factors in some cases, like dropping the 4e online character creation because that part of their offering was in Silverlight. But they also did scorched earth on forums when switching to 4e. Saying it's not "remotely likely" isn't a supportable statement. If you think it is, please support it with more than just your own words.

So the "what about if it shuts down tomorrow" argument against DDB just seems like a red herring to me. It's not gonna shut down tomorrow, or any time soon. If it did, that would suck. But it ain't. That's just a scare tactic.

Okay, trying to reduce "we know they have shut down digital options every single time when they changed editions" to "what if they shut it down tomorrow?" is a logical fallacy, reductio ad absurdum. No one has claimed it's going down tomorrow, please stop the rhetoric.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Has this ever been an issue for you?

Yes.

 

[Alzrius]

Yes.

Same.