D&D 5E L&L Basic Dungeons & Dragons

[Nikosandros]

This move by WotC had been anticipated by several people in the past few days, but it's still great news!

That being said... I would not be surprised in the least if Wizards formulated a licensing agreement with a Print On Demand service (the same way they have an agreement with DriveThruRPG to be their PDF sales service). A company that would be their official representatives to print, bind and ship Basic games and the two magazines to those who want them. WotC has never wanted to be their own retailer and shipper (which is why they use DriveThruRPG), and I'd expect this situation to match that.

They could actually use DriveThru for this. DriveThru already has a POD service and WotC already has a business relation with them, as they are the exclusive sellers of D&D PDFs.

 

[DMZ2112]

Thaumaturge is absolutely right that the best thing about this is all the kids who are going to be able to get their hands on this PDF at no cost after picking up a D&D KRE-O set or seeing the upcoming movie-that-hopefully-will-not-suck-in-the-eyes-of-an-8-to-12-year-old.

But as a dungeon master I have my own reasons for being happy about this:

• My players don't have to buy anything.
• More importantly, nothing my players buy is "required," so I am not obligated to respect their purchases.
• I can preface all of my campaigns with, "We're playing Basic D&D, with the following rules additions."
• I can say, "If you want to use a rule from Book X, GO POUND SAND I mean, I will consider further rules carefully and fairly on a case by case basis."

I'll absolutely be buying the trinity when they arrive, but I am loving this start-from-zero construction set mentality for the game. I can't wait to start building.

 

[dm4hire]

This is amazing news. Probably one of the best decisions they've made in a while.

I think the best thing they could do once they have an initial complete basic book compiled is make it available as print on demand. If they mark it up a couple dollars over print cost they won't scare people away who want to buy it in print form and they still make a little profit off it. The other option would be to annually print it as a Free RPG Day product or World Wide D&D event product.

 

[MoonSong]

This is amazing, way better than I expected, yet I can't shake away the wish to buy it in softcover! (15% of PHB will be about 48 pages, by 3=124 pages, if we cut down that to fit a diggest size a la essentials, that's about 200 pages. I'd shill out $20 for one of these to pass around the table!!)

I keep having this recurring fantasy where Kobold Games takes charge of the the mags just like Paizo did way back when.

And then releases a 5efinder way back when WotC changes direction with 6e!!

 

[DEFCON 1]

This move by WotC had been anticipated by several people in the past few days, but it's still great news!


They could actually use DriveThru for this. DriveThru already has a POD service and WotC already has a business relation with them, as they are the exclusive sellers of D&D PDFs.

Do they? I took a quick look at DriveThruRPG's website and there wasn't a PoD notification that jumped out at me. Must not have been looking at the right section of the site I guess. But if they do... that is definitely something WotC could align on their website-- on the specific Basic D&D webpage, have a button for "Download PDF now" and a button for "Print on Demand" that links to DriveThru's PoD service at whatever cost it would be to print and ship it. And they could do the same for the two magazines if they keep up with the online PDF versions of those.

They might not get used a whole lot... but if there's no additional overhead, I'm sure DriveThru wouldn't mind the extra business.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I guess this pretty much confirms 5e won't be OGL.

Given that the OGL can be used to reverse-engineer pretty much existent edition of D&D, building a 5E-alike with the OGL wouldn't be hard at all. If WotC (inexplicably) doesn't want people using third party adventures and settings with their game -- which would be contrary to a lot of things they've said previously, but Hasbro may feel otherwise -- it wouldn't be hard for someone to hack together a "Fifth Era" OGL book using the OGL, D20 license and reverse-engineering the needed parts of 5E.

I would hope their 4E GSL misadventure -- and the rise of Pathfinder and OSR -- would have taught Hasbro that the OGL genie will never go back into the bottle and they need to work with it, not ignore it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Do they? I took a quick look at DriveThruRPG's website and there wasn't a PoD notification that jumped out at me. Must not have been looking at the right section of the site I guess.

Nik meant that DrivethruRPG is the exclusive PDF source for WotC's back catalog and (separately) also have a POD service. So far, WotC hasn't made any of their PDFs available for POD. Check out the White Wolf stuff on DrivethruRPG, and you'll see that, where it's available, it's just on the same regular page as the PDFs.

 

[DM Howard]

Do they? I took a quick look at DriveThruRPG's website and there wasn't a PoD notification that jumped out at me. Must not have been looking at the right section of the site I guess. But if they do... that is definitely something WotC could align on their website-- on the specific Basic D&D webpage, have a button for "Download PDF now" and a button for "Print on Demand" that links to DriveThru's PoD service at whatever cost it would be to print and ship it. And they could do the same for the two magazines if they keep up with the online PDF versions of those.

They might not get used a whole lot... but if there's no additional overhead, I'm sure DriveThru wouldn't mind the extra business.

It's just another option that would be next to PDF. Some RPG products have options for just the PDF or PDF + Softcover etc.

This is fantastic news! I, too, would enjoy a POD option for it, just because I like a physical copy along with my digital copy.

 

[Cybit]

OGL without the license; this way, anyone who wants to do third party work for Wizards can do so without Wizards having to license the "rules" aspect; preventing a potential Pathfinder 2.0 from happening down the road. Yet, you can easily still do third party work because you know that all players have access to the rules anyway.

Also, the adventures have been pretty fantastic so far. (This is someone who despised all non Madness of Gardmore Abbey 4E adventures speaking)

 

[Gundark]

Which brings up the question of what they intend to do with the magazines. Will they even return? God, would I love it if they came back in printed form! But so far I don't believe we've heard anything on the subject, have we?

Well for me it makes sense if you're selling a starter set and you've got the rules free online that you have a subscription for Dungeon and Dragon magazine there as well.