D&D (2024) WotC Announces 3rd Party Creator Partners

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This content will be coming to the D&D Beyond marketplace--the selected publishers are The Griffon's Saddlebag, MCDM, Ghostfire Gaming, Dungeon Dudes, Hit Point Press, Kobold Press, and Free League. Generally, these are creators who have achieved million-dollar Kickstarters with 5E compatible products.

Notably, this also includes the official Lord of the Rings roleplaying game from Free League, who also produce The One Ring, the non-D&D version of the game. WotC will be selling the official D&D compatible Lord of the Rings TTRPG on its primary platform. Back in 1992, TSR (the then-owners of D&D) nearly acquired the rights to JRR Tolkien's work, and then passed on it, then-CEO Lorraine Williams saying it was "not worth our while".

 

[MichaelSomething]

Oh, what are then pray tell?

Why EnPublishing of course! For less than a coffee a day, you can have high quality 5E material sent directly to your inbox every week. Join their Patreon today and also receive direct access to hundreds of previous articles!!!

 

[Velderan]

Why EnPublishing of course! For less than a coffee a day, you can have high quality 5E material sent directly to your inbox every week. Join their Patreon today and also receive direct access to hundreds of previous articles!!!

But if I don't use the money for coffee, I am pretty sure I might die.

 

[Cergorach]

If you want an integrated character sheet, encounter builder, or other tools, eventually a full VTT, with tool tips, and a searchable compendium, at a price reflective of that additional functionality, for D&D and D&D-like games, you go to DnDBeyond.

That's not true either...

Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Foundry all sell official 5e D&D products (some more then others) and are already full VTTs. OneBookshelf sells 5e D&D compatible products for that in PDF and in VTT form. Heck, OneBookshelf also sells D&D products, from old editions and for 5e DMs Guild.

Quite a few of these publishers already sell their 5e compatible products for VTTs on their own store or Patreon. It's not as if It's the only 'game' in town, this just provides customers an option for DDB and the only way to do that is sell via the DDB store. That is of course a whole different set of issues, more akin to Apple and their iOS app store (platform linked to OS). WotC/Hasbro isn't an Apple or a Valve (Steam) with an 16-20 year good track record regarding their store/service.

 

[Blue]

That's not true either...

It was true in the context you yourself defined: One Book Shelf vs. DnDBeyond. But now you are trying to move the goalposts and trying to bring in other choices to the discussion.

As a reminder, you framed the conversation as: "If I had the choice between OneBookShelf (DTRPG) and WotC/Hasbro (DDB), I would go with OneBookShelf."

Trying to apply my answer to that to a different criteria is dirty pool. EDIT: There were no other VTTs or digital tools being discussed. Yes, of course a VTT would have things in common with another VTT, but none of that was part of what you were claiming that I was commenting on.

Keeping to the topic that was being discussed, you did have a valid point that there are 3pp for 5e on OBS. I hadn't considered those since if we are talking digital-only you still need the core rules from DnDBeyond.

 

[SlyFlourish]

[deleted]

 

[SlyFlourish]

Sounds like a problem for Future WotC.

Sounds like a problem for us when we lose access to this thing we paid for.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I will be very interested to see what happens to the DDB version when Lord of the Rings 5e's license expires. Obviously Wizards would at least be obliged to Legacy Content the material, but I wonder if they'd even be allowed to keep it available to those that bought it? Guess it'll depend on whether Wizards thinks of that while drawing up the sub-licensing agreement (or if they care what happens that far down the line).

I'm pretty sure this has happened elsewhere and the answer is your copy will go poof. I'd bet $10 it's in the EULA we sign with D&D Beyond that they can pull content any time with no recourse.

Buy the PDF.

 

[Echohawk]

I'm pretty sure this has happened elsewhere and the answer is your copy will go poof. I'd bet $10 it's in the EULA we sign with D&D Beyond that they can pull content any time with no recourse.

While I share your view that the D&D Beyond EULA I didn't read probably allows the content to be pulled without recourse, I'm less in agreement with the first part. When WotC's license for D&D vs. Rick and Morty expired, and they could no longer sell the print product they did not disable access to the D&D Beyond version; they only stopped selling access to new customers. So the precedent is that content won't vanish. Of course, precedent is not a guarantee.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sounds like a problem for us when we lose access to this thing we paid for.

Oh sure. I just don't expect it to be fixed unless fan anger demands it.

 

[SlyFlourish]

While I share your view that the D&D Beyond EULA I didn't read probably allows the content to be pulled without recourse, I'm less in agreement with the first part. When WotC's license for D&D vs. Rick and Morty expired, and they could no longer sell the print product they did not disable access to the D&D Beyond version; they only stopped selling access to new customers. So the precedent is that content won't vanish. Of course, precedent is not a guarantee.

Good point.