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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[Morrus]

Different options are for different people. Nobody is asking you to buy D&D Beyond AND this D&D Reader app.

When George RR Martin's latest book comes out in hardcover, and then in softcover, you're not being forced to buy the same content twice. You buy it once in the format you prefer. And if you want it in two formats, cool.

It's better that these options exist than that these options do not exist. What are people suggesting? That the product not be allowed to exist because they personally don't want it?

The very existence of a product you do not want is not an evil. I don't want a Mini Cooper, but I'm not on BMW's forums (is it them who make them now?) chastising them for creating the thing. I also have the audiobook versions of some novels I own. And I have DVDs of some old VHS tapes, and for some reason own Aliens in four(!) formats.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Then don't buy them multiple times. I buy one copy of the media type I want it. If people want it in multiple forms, more power to them. It's nice to have options.

Oh I don't intend to, but it's not at all unlikely that, as gaming moves more online, that I'll be forced to.

But saying "hey WotC this is why I'm not buying" is perfectly legit. I'm not super happy with many of the decisions they've been taking in 5E more broadly with books that seem to heavily mix player and DM content and the pile of adventure paths that seem to be all they release. It's pretty much like WotC sees cable TV style bundling as the way to go. If I felt I had an alternative game I could play---realistically given the nature of gaming groups, not theoretically as in "yes I realize there are a lot of other games out there"---I'd probably drop 5E.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Different options are for different people. Nobody is asking you to buy D&D Beyond AND this D&D Reader app.

When George RR Martin's latest book comes out in hardcover, and then in softcover, you're not being forced to buy the same content twice. You buy it once in the format you prefer. And if you want it in two formats, cool.

Certainly true. I guess rules content is rather different than a novel IMO. I don't actually need to read George RR Martin's novel to play a group-oriented game.

It's better that these options exist than that these options do not exist. What are people suggesting? That the product not be allowed to exist because they personally don't want it?

I think the issue is that there doesn't seem to be an appreciable discount for owning in one format or transportability across platforms. I mean, if you play two games, one on Fantasy Grounds and the other on Roll20, you're pretty much likely locked into having to buy twice. That feels very exploitative.

 

[mrm1138]

I would only consider using this if, add others have suggested, the app is tied to the same marketplace as D&D Beyond. If so, it would be useful to be able to go back and forth between the two once DDB's encounter tools have been implemented. That way, I wouldn't need to navigate away from the encounter I'm running to look up a rule.

 

[mrpopstar]

Thanks lowkey13, but the articles I saw said specifically "media shifting" as they were talking about changing it from one form of media to another. After all, format shifting would included various different file types, and I suspect pull in some other meanings that lawyers like to use.
I'm not talking backups, I'm specifically talking about making things you own that you need to use on some different type of media. For instance, an audio recording into braille, or the reverse of that - a physical book into audio, a cd into a computer file for an ipod or other portable device, etc. Most of the examples they used were obviously intended for those with disabilities, but they weren't restricted to that and included a lot of others. It's part of what was considered "fair use" by the court. Backups are a whole different discussion.

In actuality, the "media shifting" that you're referring to is largely intended for those with physical access issues, but it does afford some wiggle room for educators and the like.

The laws don't prevent you from converting it to a different media, though they do prevent you from breaking any DRM except in some vary restrictive cases, but books don't have DRM. They do however prevent you from sharing those personal media shifted copies with anyone else. Though there is nothing legally wrong with you having it, and the law doesn't make a distinction as to who made it, just who 'distributed' it.

The laws do prevent you from converting it to a different media, they just allow for special use cases in which litigation would be unsavory (as in the case of suing a blind man for having a book "media shifted" to a braille copy).

The American Library Association is quite active on this front in terms of shaping policy.

In simplest terms: Making a copy without having copyrights is a crime. Distribution is normally where you see litigation because there is money involved (makes criminality and damages clear cut).

Wow, you have an ISP that spies on what you do on the net? Get a new ISP. Sure, that won't help you if the cops are after you, but damn, they should keep their nose out of your business if there's no legal warrant involved.

The MPAA and RIAA teamed up with all of the major Internet Service Providers in the United States almost a decade ago and launched the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which involves anti-piracy monitoring and notification of rights holders.

 

[Morrus]

Distribution is normally where you see litigation because there is money involved

And because it can be detected (because by definition it's visible), whereas you copying stuff yourself generally cannot.

 

[Azzy]

This is obviously a false flag operation intended to divert people into buying D&D Beyond.

Am I doing it right?

 

[Charles Rampant]

I wonder if the company doing this takes the same view as a small store also selling books in the same neighbourhood as a Waterstones; sure, the big name in the market will take most of the sales, but you don't need all of the sales to justify opening, you just need enough sales to turn a profit.

On the licensing front, I once read that Marvel at one point had sold the license to make models smaller than 6" tall to one company, and licences to make models more than 6" tall to another company... only to turn around and sell a licence to another company to make models exactly 6" tall! If true, then it suggests how the IP licensing departments work for these companies...

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

Curse has stated that they have a team, in house, working in parallel on the mobile/tablet app. Dialect is not associated with Curse, ergo, it is not going to be the D&D Beyond app.

 

[gyor]

This should have been released BEFORE not after the core books were released I'm not paying for my books twice.