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]

Hopefully they'll give us both when they start to ramp things up, since they are both Q3 books.

Nope, Deck of Many Things got pushed to Q4 after Planescape, per the Direct schedule.

 

[Oofta]

I lived through both. Not a blind fanboy, but I have a lot more respect for WotC (ogl gaffe excepted) than I did TSR.

Here's hoping that comitting experts to improve DDB doesn't mean they are just starting.
Like others, I "hope" they have been working behind the scenes on its infrastructure.

I want then to eventually open up to custom classes, but I really don't think it will ever happen.

I think it kind of depends in part on how much they're going to support 3PP. If it were done right, which is tricky because D&D has a lot of bits and fobs that interact in strange ways, then there would be a build-your-class/monster/spell/item set of forms that anyone could use. Then we could purchase something like Kobold Press Tome of Monsters and use them just like any monster from the MM. At least that's my dream. The model for building this stuff seems superficially simple, and on the range of difficulty of 1 to designing a rocket that doesn't explode on launch it's not that high up on the scale. But it's still complex and QA is going to be a PitA.

Time will tell, but a lot of promising software development fails or takes far longer than expected because people (even, or perhaps especially, developers) underestimate how hard software development can be.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I just hope this third party marketplace doesn't they to Kindle Unlimited people into exclusivity and unfavorable profit splits.

 

[mamba]

Should we make a separate thread for people to complain about people complaining about WotC? Almost half of this thread is now a meta discussion once again.

didn’t we just have that one for like 12 hours before it got closed?

 

[Demetrios1453]

Nope, Deck of Many Things got pushed to Q4 after Planescape, per the Direct schedule.

I got the dates for it and Phandelver mixed up.

 

[mamba]

I understand being tired of it, but obviously people are still pretty angry. Sometimes not expressing that anger when given the opportunity can feel like forgiveness.

some are, others seem to just trash it out of habit though, ie they are not playing 5e but trashing WotC and 1DD changes anyway.

Apparently that exists on the PF side too though, now that the 2e remastered is on the way. There just are fewer because PF is smaller.

 

[mamba]

If you are tired of threads being full of people bashing WotC, STOP HIJACKING THE THREAD TO DEBATE THE ISSUE. Just send a note to a moderator instead.

are you saying the moderator will stop them from expressing their opinion when there is otherwise nothing wrong with the post (eg not personal, etc.)?

 

[Oofta]

some are, others seem to just trash it out of habit though, ie they are not playing 5e but trashing WotC and 1DD changes anyway.

Apparently that exists on the PF side too though, now that the 2e remastered is on the way. There just are fewer because PF is smaller.

Yeah, I really don't get the people that post saying they don't play 5E, have no plan on playing the 2024 edition, but D&D and WOTC are terrible. I don't go on web sites dedicated to modern art and tell people it's garbage, no matter what my opinions on the topic are. Don't like WOTC? Will never buy anything from them ever again no matter what they do? Think [insert game X] is so stupendously better that you have to remind us on a regular basis? Go to the general RPG site or find something dedicated to your game.

I'm not a huge fan of any corporation, much less WOTC. But I come here to discuss their products, give advice to people who never seem to listen and are really only looking for validation (another thing I don't really understand), not listen to someone complain. That and make bad jokes for fake internet points. Everybody has to have a hobby.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, I really don't get the people that post saying they don't play 5E, have no plan on playing the 2024 edition, but D&D and WOTC are terrible. I don't go on web sites dedicated to modern art and tell people it's garbage, no matter what my opinions on the topic are. Don't like WOTC? Will never buy anything from them ever again no matter what they do? Think [insert game X] is so stupendously better that you have to remind us on a regular basis? Go to the general RPG site or find something dedicated to your game.

I'm not a huge fan of any corporation, much less WOTC. But I come here to discuss their products, give advice to people who never seem to listen and are really only looking for validation (another thing I don't really understand), not listen to someone complain. That and make bad jokes for fake internet points. Everybody has to have a hobby.

At a certain point, you just gotta tune it out. Someone looking to be relentlessly negative isn't going to change their mind because of reason.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

are you saying the moderator will stop them from expressing their opinion when there is otherwise nothing wrong with the post (eg not personal, etc.)?

I'm saying that intentionally threadcrapping, whatever the subject, tends to be frowned on by the moderators.