D&D (2024) Poll on DDB about additional material for sale

[Reynard]

The number of people on EN World who objected to the recent free monsters and magic items is countless

That is a pretty gross mischaracterization of people not wanting to have to get pulled into the DnDB marketing machine in order to get those things. No one said free adventures, monsters or items were bad. They said WotC was doing typical shady corporate data collection practices in order to provide them.

 

[Parmandur]

That is a pretty gross mischaracterization of people not wanting to have to get pulled into the DnDB marketing machine in order to get those things. No one said free adventures, monsters or items were bad. They said WotC was doing typical shady corporate data collection practices in order to provide them.

The broader point is that itnis not "shady" to offer free material on their platform. Is it intended to get people on the platform? Yes. But that's neither odd nor particularly objectionable. Don't want an account, then don't get one.

 

[darjr]

That was not my experience at all. I absolutely was presented material from Dragon by players asking to use it as their DM.

Yup. I even get it nowadays. One time the player didn’t know where it came from but I remembered reading it way back when.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I have experienced the burden of players asking for options found in published books like Tasha's.

I have never felt a burden of players asking for options found in magazines or third party materials. They've asked for sure, but I never felt anything like the pressure to say yes over that sort of thing like I do from a book like Tasha's.

I think it's because the nature of a book like Tasha's is "These are official patch-like materials to address concerns raised by existing materials in the game, and we put them through professional playtesting." While Dragon magazine and third party material was more along the nature of "Were you looking for this odd optional alternative rules for more granular wilderness travel or a Jester subclass? Here you go, but fair warning we never really playtested this we just thought might be fun and cool."

I suspect these will be along the same line as that "fun and cool optional alternative stuff" that could be found in Dragon magazine and third party books, rather than "Pressure to say yes to this essentially patch-like material" stuff found in books like Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

Yeah my concern re: this material is that it's likely to be the same quality as 3PP material (i.e. wildly variable, from "better than WotC" to "did a small child write this?"), because Dragon was that way, frankly (albeit it would be a very verbose and well-spoken small child in that case! But one with equally terrible ideas!), yet by presenting it to people in this more "official" capacity, they're likely to see it as more "patch-like" material as per Tasha's, than "random 3PP stuff".

Before you dismiss this I should note that in 4E, in practice, this is how effectively worked, because the Dragon stuff just straight-up entered into the official database - so from a player perspective, it was identical to material in more serious books. And I am rather concerned the same will happen here.

Now Beyond does have an INCREDIBLY CLUNKY AND ANNOYING way to manage this with individual checkboxes next to books, but we'd be talking about dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of articles, after a few years, so I don't think that's going to be practical. I hope they put a "health warning on this", but the profit incentive says "don't put a health warning on it". Also, if you're linked to other people, you'd have to be checking/unchecking the boxes for stuff they bought too.

My other personal concern is that I think this material is likely to be extremely overpriced. $15 for the equivalent of Dungeon AND Dragon every month, in 2023? Fine. I probably won't buy it every month, but fine. $15 for like, specific articles, or even for one of Dungeon or Dragon, as it were? Um, ouch, no thanks.

 

[Parmandur]

That was not my experience at all. I absolutely was presented material from Dragon by players asking to use it as their DM.

Well, based on the numbers upthread, there were over a million Dragon subscribers at the peak in the 80's during 1E, amd there were only ever 1.5 million PHBs sold. So, that suggests that a very large percentage of players were subscribers.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That was not my experience at all. I absolutely was presented material from Dragon by players asking to use it as their DM.

That was the easiest way to tell when a new issue was out, in my experience.

"Wait, your character is a level three ... haberdasher?"

 

[MonsterEnvy]

That is a pretty gross mischaracterization of people not wanting to have to get pulled into the DnDB marketing machine in order to get those things. No one said free adventures, monsters or items were bad. They said WotC was doing typical shady corporate data collection practices in order to provide them.

Last I checked it's not shady for your website and digital resource to provide things to people who signed up for it.

Honestly I can't think of a single reason for a person interested in 5e not to get a Beyond Account. It was nothing but useful even when I was not a subscriber.

 

[overgeeked]

I think Bob World Builder did a video on this today.