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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[rknop]

This offering is ridiculous, and is nothing like a PDF. A PDF you can use on whatever device you want, using whatever reader you want.

Also, to those who say everybody who wants a PDF has it: not me. In fact, the lack of legal (and, ideally, reasonably priced) PDFs is the reason I haven't even purchased a 5e Player's Handbook. I probably would have picked up the core three books by now IF I thought I could get a PDF. (Ideally, for free with the book as you can for so many companies nowadays. If not that, then at a reduced price, as you can from Paizo.) Since I knew I couldn't get legal PDFs, I have not even seriously looked at the 5e books.

If I thought I could get them, I would have bought the books.

And, yeah, I know that just because there's no legal way to get a D&D PDF, that doesn't mean there is no way to get a D&D PDF. But, WOTC's utter cluelessness on this matter has made me not a customer.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

So buy a physical book, buy D and D Beyond, and buy the same material a third time for the reader app. What a deal! (sarcasm)

No kidding.

Oh... you forgot ROll20 and Fantasy Grounds versions. It's a pity that there's no "s" in their abbreviation, because it's quite obviously Wizard$ of the Co$t with all the "a generous opportunity to buy things multiple times." I've already had to replace the PHB5E due to the binding coming loose. By comparison I have 2E books that are still quite functional despite being over 20 years old and seeing equally as much use for a large part of that time.

 

[Xaelvaen]

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.

 

[barasawa]

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.

Of course other countries have different rules. I forgot to account for those outside the USA. Sorry about that.

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.

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.

 

[barasawa]

IANAL either, but my understanding was that you could media shift your OWN copy only. So it's not legal to pirate a PDF even if you own the source in a different format, but it is legal to scan your own copy for your own use only. And even then there might be issues with derivative works if you add functionality like bookmarks.

Of course, taking legal advice from someone like me on the internet is worth what you pay for it.

Haven't heard anything in that mentioned about adding functionality, but as you don't share your own personal copy with anyone, I did mention that, I'd guess it's a moot point. After all, adding bookmarks or hyperlinks in it would be like writing notes, putting in page markers, and postit notes/tags in a book, so I'd think it would fall under fair use. Again, as I stated, you still can't share it with anyone.

The articles I read on it when that decision was made, didn't say anything about how YOU obtained the file. Just the legality of owning it, and that you were allowed to obtain it, even if someone else made it. The court recognized that many people that would need or use this ability, don't have the ability to do so themselves. Of course, there apparently wasn't anything to protect the person making it for you, so they are still liable for distributing, and if DRM had to be broken, something books don't have, they were up the creek for that as well.

I agree about the legal advice thing. I wouldn't go so far as to call this legal advice as ianal. On the other hand, I have been reading the news on lots of things related to this since they've started that nightmare of the DMCA. By the way, the copyright industry speads a lot of flat out lies and halftruths over what actually is legal or not, so a lot of people have been bamboozled by them. Of course, even if you do something totally legal, it doesn't stop them from throwing frivolous lawsuits at you until you crumble. Watched a case where Sony sued a software company for the exact same thing 4 or 5 times in a row, losing every single time. When they filed that last lawsuit, the guys just had to finally give up, they had no money left to mount a defense. Sony got what it wanted because our system is screwed up even though they were wrong. It happens.

 

[barasawa]

I'd probably wager a dollar or two that if successful there will eventually be a windows app available on the windows app store.

If it's successful, and they get enough requests for it, I wouldn't be surprised.
Of course the company has done some pretty boneheaded moves before when it comes to anything electronic, so who knows.
All in all, I'd like it on the PC, at a reasonable price, but that might be years, so if you must do PC, there are ways.
I'm guessing that Macs have a way of running those as well, but not being a mac person I just don't know.

 

[EthanSental]

No kidding.

Oh... you forgot ROll20 and Fantasy Grounds versions. It's a pity that there's no "s" in their abbreviation, because it's quite obviously Wizard$ of the Co$t with all the "a generous opportunity to buy things multiple times." I've already had to replace the PHB5E due to the binding coming loose. By comparison I have 2E books that are still quite functional despite being over 20 years old and seeing equally as much use for a large part of that time.

Hopefully you contacted WoTC and got the boom replaced for you. I haven't had any problems...knock on woods... with my books but my pathfinder core book ha the binding issue.

 

[lkj]

It does seem like there's a very large overlap with DDB. Well, at least eventually, when DDB release their app. It does seem like DDB will offer all of this, but with more functionality.

I can only think they might feel it appeals to a different audience. There are folks that just have no desire to sign into a service that has all these other bells and whistles. They just want their ebook and that's it.

And it's quite possible that audience is pretty large. That would explain it. To me anyway.

AD

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

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.

If you have to travel with a library of books, it's very helpful to have PDF versions for a tablet. They're not as friendly as books, but at least they're present.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Hopefully you contacted WoTC and got the boom replaced for you. I haven't had any problems...knock on woods... with my books but my pathfinder core book ha the binding issue.

Yeah they basically told me to go howl because the book fell apart at 2 years, which was past their "replace by" date. The new one's no great shakes, either, and it's only a year old. I bought it at a hefty discount online, though. I'm not really sure I should bother contacting them. Have people actually had luck getting something out of them?

I don't expect rulebooks to stay pristine but... I have a 1E DMG that's well over 30 years old and still kicking and 2E books that are 25 years old and also still kicking. So, seriously, this used to not be a thing.