Pre-Order DLC comes to D&D with Xanathar's Guide to Everything

Anyone who plays videos games knows pre-order bonuses for those willing to pay in advance of product launch. WotC's official toolset, D&D Beyond, is adopting this practice with 16 bonus feats exclusive to those who pre-order Xanathar's Guide to Everything on D&D Beyond.

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Here's what they're offering:

We're excited to announce the bonuses you will receive for pre-ordering Xanathar's Guide to Everything on D&D Beyond:
[h=4]Expanded Racial Feats[/h]You'll get access to 16 new racial feats for all the races available on D&D Beyond outside the Player's Handbook - from the aaracokra to the yuan-ti pureblood. Created by the D&D Beyond team, these feats can be used in your home games or as inspiration for your own upcoming homebrew racial feats.
[h=4]Digital Character Sheet Customization[/h]Get access to new digital character sheet image backgrounds and portrait frame options from artwork in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
[h=4]Alpha Access to the D&D Beyond Mobile App[/h]Get early alpha access to the D&D Beyond mobile app release later this year, which will include compendium/reader offline access for all the sources you've unlocked on D&D Beyond. Be among the first to help us test an exciting part of D&D Beyond's future!

The book comes out on 10th November, 2017.
[h=3][/h]

 

[ssvegeta555]

Pre-order bonuses. Not of fan of them. If the bonus is a cosmetic (for games btw) I don't care if I miss out. But for actual content for the game? That's just wrong tying that up and being inaccessible for people who get the game at later date.

But for this particular instance it's not even official content. It's 3rd party. It's like offering a fan mod to a game as a preorder DLC. Uhm... Yay?

Eh, whatever, nothing to get worked up about.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using EN World mobile app

 

[ArwensDaughter]

I can certainly understand the arguments against pre-order bonuses, at least the kind that potentially shut people out of content containing mechanics/crunch. At the same time, I am aware that when the option to preorder XGtE on DDB was first announced, there were a number of posts in their forums that decried the lack of any reason/incentive to preorder. So it is possible that the bonuses were a response to a certain segment of their user base.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World

 

[Uchawi]

I would prefer pre-bonus content, i.e. extra maps, adventures or PDF production. Pre-bonus mechanics probably is needed for some classes and not so much for others, and in that sense 5E does not need more class division.

 

[JeffB]

Curiosity- similar conundrum from 2 editions past.

Kingdoms of Kalamar 3.0/3.5 products. Third Party or Official?

 

[HapticGoupil]

So you have to pay for the same thing twice, the physical book and the electronic data...What a ripoff!...and the price for the numeric bit is way to high ! again, a ripoff !

 

[Dualazi]

What, exactly, is scummy about it? Please actually define what is wrong with what they've done.

Well, if you'd actually read my earlier post, you would know that it's scummy because it encourages the consumer to act against their own best interest in purchasing a product that is a complete unknown. It's the same vein of psychological trick as 'freemium' apps that give a user a small reward for a task, and then notes that the user could spend a small amount of money to unlock the full value of what they 'earned'. It's proven to be depressingly effective and pre-order bonuses operate on the same impulses by convincing people they're getting a better deal when the quality of the product remains unknown.

Furthermore, if they prove particularly lucrative then there's the risk it spreads further, possibly even to wizards themselves. After all, I'm sure in their design process there are feats or options that don't make the cut; so why not re-bundle some of those into pre-order bonuses or separate content? We've definitely seen this happen in the video game industry, no reason it couldn't proliferate here as well. In short, there are zero upsides to this. It is the absolute worst way of receiving content from the consumer's perspective and in my opinion has no place in the hobby whatsoever.

 

[fantasmamore]

I am not 100% sure but I think that if you buy Curse of Strahd from Roll20 they give you 2d battlemaps of the castle designed for Roll20. I own Cos from FG and also the physical book and I don't have these maps. Isn't this the same thing? The various companies that are selling official dnd products are just trying to be competitive, that's all...

Edit: Yes, I was right. From their page: "Included in the Roll20 version of Curse of Strahd: [...] Original Castle Ravenloft maps in top-down format, exclusive to the Roll20 version for easier use with the virtual tabletop. These maps are also sold separately as an addon."

 

[Jester David]

It's basically just third party crap.

Yes it is third party content.
No, that doesn't make it crap.

There's a wealth of fantastic stuff for 5e out there by third parties.
WotC doesn't have special magical game design powers that makes their content automatically superiour.

I don't think people will be wanting the Critical Role Campaign Guide to be AL legal or consider it core, and this is basically the same thing.

Where does it say this is AL legal?

This is just like if the DMsGuild included a free promo PDF with a ore-order of an official PDF. It's more content for the game being done by a license partner.

I'm sure that this won't be the only time the team at D&D Beyond makes or even sells their own content. Why wouldn't they sell all much as possible?

 

[Remathilis]

Exactly, as this person said. If a company offers goods with limitations you disagree with just take the content illegally.

PDFs for everyone.

(poes law demands I explain that I am being sarcastic here)

Seriously though, if it is official content I will be angry but outside of that I don't care.
I buy books because they are far better for my eyes and quicker to flip through/reference. I also had no choice early on and wish to collect the books.

I run games on fantasy grounds mainly now and enjoy it the most for how it organises content (this includes for in person games and non published content)

So if I were wanting these feats and didn't want to purchase this book for a third time I would need to pirate r_r. And all of this before I even know how good the book is, at least with the other two options I can wait and see what the content/reviews are like before making the purchase.

With this I have to gamble or just not get the feats.

My point is that Curse has to know such content won't remain exclusive for long. If they're smart, they put the feats up on D&D Beyond and DM's Guild (in PDF format) for $5 and then give it free to the pre-orders. Its not like a video game where they can lock it to a specific system or retailer (and in my experiences, such pre-order bonuses are rarely unobtainable after the fact; most often they're just free early-access to DLC anyway).

If they don't they'll quickly find their feats spread across the net. Hell, Fathom's exclusive adventure from Acquisitions Inc PAX is easily obtainable all over the net, both legally (via Ebay) and not.

 

[Jester David]

Okay, I'm super not a fan of most video game pre-order bonuses. Because I'm a collector at heart and missing out on content because I can't buy two or three copies of the game is total BS. I have not puchased games because I couldn't get everything.

But... if the pre-order bonuses are just free access to the DLC I'm more okay with that. If I can snag the extra skin or costume pieces in a store for a couple bucks, that eases the annoyance.

The same applies here.
If the feats are *only* available for pre-order then that's crap. Screw D&D Beyond: I probably won't buy their services now or in the future for putting content behind a wall like that. Especially for people who might not financially be able to afford the content now, or were unware of the service/ content until too late. That's just a dick move. Period.
But... if those feats are available for purchase later, and this is just free access to bonus content for pre-ordering. I'm okay with that. Because it's not exclusive content, it's just a bonus. As long as people have access to that material at a later date I'm totally okay with this move.