WotC WotC'S May Community Update Talks School Support, Accessibilty, & Creator Marketplaces

The Community Update page on D&D Beyond has a new entry which briefly covers topics such as ongoing support for schools and clubs, accessibilty of D&D Beyond for players with disabilities, early plans for the third-party creator marketplace, plans for convention attendance, and the upcoming Virtual Tabletop.

It's mainly a (very brief) recap of things which came out of the recent D&D Creator Summit (see D&D Creator Summit--VTT & One D&D, D&D Creator Summit--'D&D Beyond And Beyond', D&D Creator Summit -- Morning Sessions) but the key points include:

• One D&D reiterated again as being 5th edition, not a new edition. This is something WotC is repeating frequently, and is a message they are clearly very keen to get across.
• School and club support includes teaching kits, afterschool club kits, and free access to D&D Beyond resources for educators.
• Plans to connect with accessibility experts to ensure D&D Beyond is a tool that everybody can use.
• Migration to D&D Beyond as the 'front door' of D&D.
• Intention to eventually create a third party marketplace, but this is a long way in the future.
• A new creator summit at Gen Con in August.
• Pre-alpha tests of the VTT with small groups.

D&D Community Update

D&D Beyond - Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Tools, Rules, Races, Classes, Items, Spells, Monsters, and More

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Parmandur]

Heck, after this spring, WotC aren't even the real custodians of 5E any more. It belongs to everyone, via CC. Between Level Up, Tales of the Valiant and C7d20, it will be easy to be a 5E fan without ever touching anything belonging to WotC ever again.

It will be extremely interesting to see if those competing corebooks can make it onto D&D Beyond. The value to players and DMs will be through the roof, but that may well be seen as inviting the foxes into the henhouse.

WotC might be more down with that than the third parties, who may not want to pay a percentage or be perceived as selling out to Hasbro.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

WotC might be more down with that than the third parties, who may not want to pay a percentage or be perceived as selling out to Hasbro.

I think most of the folks worth worrying about will be happy to be on D&D Beyond if it means they can keep their lights on and pay their staff more reliably. And there's something extremely punk rock about putting your corebook up against WotC's on WotC's own platform.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think most of the folks worth worrying about will be happy to be on D&D Beyond if it means they can keep their lights on and pay their staff more reliably. And there's something extremely punk rock about putting your corebook up against WotC's on WotC's own platform.

It really depends on that exclusivity thing I was concerned about further up the thread. With KU, once enough creators were roped in, the squeeze started and keeping the lights on became way more of a challenge.

If, and I stress if, they want exclusivity, creators should steer clear as I've seen many successful creators utterly dusted by such a scheme.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If, and I stress if, they want exclusivity, creators should steer clear as I've seen many successful creators utterly dusted by such a scheme.

Yeah, if it's a DriveThruRPG situation, where WotC gets its cut, but there's no exclusivity, that's attractive to many more folks.

If it's an exclusive DMs Guild-style situation, I think we won't see any of the big players other than the equivalents of Monster Manual Expanded (which is on DMs Guild, rather than DriveThruRPG, so Nixlord can use mind flayers and the like).

 

[mamba]

For the money people, a 3rd party product on DmsGuild or Beyond is free money, since WotC gets as much money from every sale as the creators.

For DMsG Creators get 50%, OneBookshelf gets 30%, WotC gets 20%. DDB will be better for them

 

[Zaukrie]

The "problem" of too much bad content on DNDbeyond is real. Just look at some of the published homebrew stuff! They'll have to say least consider limiting what is sold there. Which for someone like me, a tiny publisher, means I'm likely out.

Someone posted earlier about what DNDbeyond selling 3pp content would mean for dmsguild..... And I think the only way the guild stays big is if they do limit what's on beyond.

Also, as the big players move to other licenses, they really should sell their old stuff on beyond, if they won't otherwise sell it. Which, frankly, I think they still will..... Do it likely doesn't happen.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The "problem" of too much bad content on DNDbeyond is real.

To be fair, plenty of stuff on D&D Beyond right now is mediocre at best. Sturgeon's Law always applies.

Discovery is always going to be an issue on any large storefront, whether it's DriveThruRPG or Amazon. It's even hard to get found on itch.io, which is much smaller but, if anything, has an even worse interface.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Some places do have an invite or staggered entrant system. Best sellers on DMGuild getting an invite to be on DDB could be a thing.

But at that point, the issue is all the people who bought it having to rebuy on DDB.

Despite it being almost 20 years old, online publishing is still in its infancy in a lot of ways because most of the people setting up the platforms have NO IDEA how to do it and/or no desire to do it in a way that is fair and worthwhile to both customers and vendors. Hell, most of them won't even admit the creators are vendors which causes a LOT of issues.

 

[codo]

Some places do have an invite or staggered entrant system. Best sellers on DMGuild getting an invite to be on DDB could be a thing.

But at that point, the issue is all the people who bought it having to rebuy on DDB.

Despite it being almost 20 years old, online publishing is still in its infancy in a lot of ways because most of the people setting up the platforms have NO IDEA how to do it and/or no desire to do it in a way that is fair and worthwhile to both customers and vendors. Hell, most of them won't even admit the creators are vendors which causes a LOT of issues.

I sure that would go over great with pissed off d&d fans. I am sure that nobody would ever be upset or complain about how WOTC was picking favorites and punishing people.

 

[Umbran]

I sure that would go over great with pissed off d&d fans. I am sure that nobody would ever be upset or complain about how WOTC was picking favorites and punishing people.

Staged rollouts are standard software practice. They'd like it less if the doors were opened to everyone on the same moment, and the thing fell over in the rush.