Forgotten Realms Books to Have Several Digital DLCs, Including One Featuring Asterion

Wizards of the Coast plans to release several "digital DLCs" alongside the upcoming Forgotten Realms rulebooks. This week, Game Informer released a pair of articles about the upcoming Forgotten Realms rulebooks. Tucked away in the article is the announcement that the upcoming releases will include several "digital DLCs" that expand on the new setting. One example was Asterion's Book of Hungers, which focuses on urban vampire adventures featuring the character from Baldur's Gate 3.

No other details were made available about the upcoming releases, such as whether the new supplements will be paid DLC or free to D&D Beyond subscribers. Wizards has released several digital-only supplements alongside their various books, ranging from mini-bestiaries to supplementary adventures, but all were free to D&D Beyond subscribers or available as pre-order bonuses.

Since the Forgotten Realms books aren't currently available for pre-order, it's hard to say whether this is a new strategy or simply a continuation of current works. The fact that Wizards commissioned art specifically for Asterion's Book of Hungers and the usage of the phrase "digital DLC" suggests that this might be a new monetization scheme for the company, albeit one that makes sense given the growing use of D&D Beyond's marketplace.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Again, we are all collectively one frog.

Being a collective frog sounds charming until you find out what's happening to frogs right now.

 

[GrammarPolice]

How are you going to spell Astarion's name wrong in the title, but get it right 3 paragraphs later?

 

[GrammarPolice]

How are you going to spell Astarion's name wrong in the title, but get it right 3 paragraphs later?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Again, we are all collectively one frog

There are much more serious dooms facing us than not being able to access some stuff we got for free in a few years. I put it to you that you are the frog, to busy worrying about the water temperature to notice the stork.

 

[Remathilis]

Again, we are all collectively one frog. If we don’t collectively decide to get out of the water, none of us will get out of it. That’s why I think this is an important issue; it’s not just about what we as individuals will tolerate, it’s about what is good or bad for consumers as a whole demographic. And losing access to physical goods is not good for us as a whole demographic. But the only way to do anything about it is collectively. So here I am, pointing out to my fellow consumers that this is a change for the worse, hoping enough of us will recognize that to contribute that we can use our collective power to resist this change for the worse.

I know you would vastly prefer a physical release, but assuming that's not economically feasible for WotC to do, would you prefer this type of material to be digital only or not released at all? Because that's your Sophie's choice.

 

[Charlaquin]

Let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time, my father was a science fiction writer. He won some awards, even. But that was long ago, and today he's dead and all his books have been out of print for decades. But my frail old mother still gets a small deposit every month, because it's super easy to put digital copies of his old books up for sale. No publisher is going to offer a contract to republish obscure 45 year old novels, but the barrier to entry for digital sales is so much lower. This way she keeps getting a little money, and anyone discovering (or rediscovering) my father's works has an easier option than scouring used book stores.

Again, this is a very, very different situation that WotC deciding to sell a portion of the content for their upcoming Forgotten Realms sourcebooks as “DLC.”

So no, I don't consider having a physical release a requirement.

A requirement for what though? Of course it shouldn’t be essential for any and all written media. I’ve already said I’m ok with some small releases being digital only. That’s not what this product looks like to me. It looks like a move towards gating access to some significant rules content, such as updates to pre-2024 subclasses, to their digital ecosystem.

Even print-on-demand is nice but not required. What's scummy and immortal is the schemes where your digital purchase isn't really a purchase, but a long term rental than can be revoked at any point when they take the servers down. That failure state is not an inherent feature of digital only releases and should not invalidate the entire thing.

And this “DLC” for official sourcebooks looks to me like a similar failure state.

 

[Charlaquin]

Being a collective frog sounds charming until you find out what's happening to frogs right now.

I’m quite happy with the chemicals in the water turning me gay, thank you very much

 

[Charlaquin]

There are much more serious dooms facing us than not being able to access some stuff we got for free in a few years. I put it to you that you are the frog, too busy worrying about the water temperature to notice the stork.

Believe it or not, it’s possible to care about more than one thing at a time. I am also very concerned about the stork and trying to get more of my fellow frog nerves involved in using our collective power to try and escape it.

 

[Charlaquin]

I know you would vastly prefer a physical release, but assuming that's not economically feasible for WotC to do, would you prefer this type of material to be digital only or not released at all? Because that's your Sophie's choice.

I’m not convinced those are the only options. Even assuming it’s not economically feasible for WotC to offer this material in print right now, the worst case scenario would be that they save it for a future release. And I would rather wait longer for this material to come out in another book than get it as “DLC” for this book.

 

[Nikosandros]

I've got nothing against digital products, but I dislike those I can only license, even though with DDB that's what I had to accept. PDFs.