D&D Reader App Coming This Fall? [UPDATED]

Many people have been asking for official D&D PDFs, and WotC has been addressing the need for electronic reference materials at the table in various ways. According to Mashable, WotC is releasing a D&D Reader App this fall. It's not a PDF, but it's basically a D&D-specific Kindle-esque app for iOS and Android. Mashable reports that "Each book is broken up into different sections. So with, say, the Player's Handbook, you can tap on little thumbnails in your library to check out the introduction, a step-by-step guide to character creation, a rundown of races, individual sections for each character class, equipment, and all the other pieces that, together, form the D&D Player's Handbook."

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It's possible they are just referring to D&D Beyond (some of the details below correspond very closely with that), but it may be that a separate D&D Reader is in the pipeline.

UPDATE -- EN World member TDarien asked Adam Rosenburg (the author of the article) whether this was different to D&D Beyond, who replied "Yup. Beyond is more activity-oriented, so it can handle stuff like dice rolls. Reader is basically Kindle, with good, clear chapter divides."

UPDATE 2 -- EN World member kenmarable has spotted that Polygon also has an article about this. It is a separate app called D&D Reader - not D&D Beyond - being made by Dialect, the company which does Dragon+ for WotC. They tried a beta version, although it wasn't complete at the time.

Other items from the report include:

• You can favourite specific pages.
• Some of it is free, and the rparts of books are paywalled. "If, for example, you'll only ever care about rolling a bard, you can just buy that. Prices for individual sections are $3 or $5 (depending on what you buy) and the three full rulebooks — Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide — are $30 apiece for everything."
• If you buy parts of a book then buy the full thing, the cost is pro-rated.The free sections include "character creation, basic classes, gear, ability scores, combat, spellcasting, and all the other sort of ground-level features that everyone needs to understand in order to play."

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[Chaderick]

I hope seebs doesn't mind, but this captures it perfectly for me: They've made a thing that doesn't remotely address any of my reasons for wanting PDFs.

I just prefer having a pdf copy of a book. I'm capable of navigating to different sections of a pdf all by myself.

In fact, I'm quite good at it. As complex as it might sound, I got the hang of it rather quickly.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Wrathamon]

I think it is going to be Read all the Non-crunch for Free App ... with a buy the Crunch if you want (but it's better to get that on D&D beyond but you dont get the fluff for free)

I dont know why people want PDF's to be honest. I find they just take up memory on my device and are not as usable at the table for quick reference as the various D&D compendium tools have been.

I get if that is the only format to get it in ... but I rather have a interactive referenced tool and never have to buy a book or a pdf

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I think it is going to be Read all the Non-crunch for Free App ... with a buy the Crunch if you want (but it's better to get that on D&D beyond but you dont get the fluff for free)

I dont know why people want PDF's to be honest. I find they just take up memory on my device and are not as usable at the table for quick reference as the various D&D compendium tools have been.

I get if that is the only format to get it in ... but I rather have a interactive referenced tool and never have to buy a book or a pdf

Portability. Many don't want to pay for something that is tied to a device or application. I want to be able to read my PDF on my PC or phone, or tablet. I want to pay once and then use that file on any device I own.

 

[HippyCraig]

The iOS and Android Apps are supposed to have off line capability for DnD Beyond, why would they try to make another app that will have the same features and why would I pay for yet another digital copy. If they did put this out it should compliment what is already bought on DnD Beyond since they can track who has a licence. They are really late to the game. Beside that why would you pay for just a PDF when you get the same material from DnD Beyond and get a character generator. It not like the prices will be any cheaper. Just doesn't make sense!

 

[kenmarable]

"Yup. Beyond is more activity-oriented, so it can handle stuff like dice rolls. Reader is basically Kindle, with good, clear chapter divides." is actually completely wrong.

A) D&D Beyond actually does not handle any dice rolling. At all. Someone even went ahead and made a Chrome extension to do that because it's not there (but Curse does have it on their list, but there's lots of things on their list).

B) D&D Beyond compendium is very broken up by clear chapter divides. (Which I like, but I know others do not.)

In fact, everything the author says D&D Beyond does, it actually does NOT do. Everything the author says the new Reader app will do, actually D&D Beyond already does.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

"Yup. Beyond is more activity-oriented, so it can handle stuff like dice rolls. Reader is basically Kindle, with good, clear chapter divides." is actually completely wrong.

A) D&D Beyond actually does not handle any dice rolling. At all. Someone even went ahead and made a Chrome extension to do that because it's not there (but Curse does have it on their list, but there's lots of things on their list).

B) D&D Beyond compendium is very broken up by clear chapter divides. (Which I like, but I know others do not.)

In fact, everything the author says D&D Beyond does, it actually does NOT do. Everything the author says the new Reader app will do, actually D&D Beyond already does.

Where did you find the author's comments on DnD Beyond? Did I miss a link?

DDB does have a dice roller in the forums, but not in the character creator or on the character sheet. Maybe that's what the author is thinking of?


Sent from my iPad using EN World mobile app

 

[Morrus]

Where did you find the author's comments on DnD Beyond? Did I miss a link?

In the article up there ^.

 

[kenmarable]

Looking around some more, Polygon has a slightly better article on it, with details including it being built by Dialect that does Dragon+ and that the Polygon author tried a (buggy) beta.

So, you get:

- You can swipe to turn pages (so actually doesn't flow like Kindle)
- You can bookmark stuff

Whereas with D&D Beyond and Fantasy Grounds, for the same exact price you get:

- Character builders
- Community homebrewed content (not familiar with FG, but DDB handles monsters, spells, and magic items with more on the way)
- FG is a full VTT with all maps fog of war'ed and NPCs/Monsters tokened
- DDB has filterable and advanced searches
- FG can be used on any desktop or laptop
- DDB can be used on any device with a web browser (!)
- All web browsers can handle their own bookmarking
- etc.

So really, for apparently the same price you can get far fewer features that you can only use on mobile devices but at least you can swipe to turn pages??? I can really only see this working because it takes very little effort from Dialect to make this, so they need very few sales to be profitable. But unless there's some really amazing features they are going to add to their Beta before "sometime this Fall", I can't see this getting much more than very few sales.

If you are considering this because you want to spend money on an electronic version of the books (and don't want a VTT), spend the same amount at DDB and get far more for your money.

 

[Charles Rampant]

I have to say that if Wizards are bringing out a new app - rather than this being confused chat about DDB - they're going to sink like a stone. They've already covered the entire market with their collaborators.