D&D Beyond Changes

[Sparky McDibben]

Boy, the hits just keep on comin'!

https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1615097747983695872?cxt=HHwWgIDQoYe2_eksAAAA


These are unconfirmed as of yet, but seem unrelated (or only tangentially related) to the OGL debacle. More details available Wednesday.

[Kane0]

If @Wizards tried to squeeze more money from you with these @DnD_Beyond changes, how would you feel?

- $30/month per player
- Deauthorized OGL 1.0a
- Homebrew banned at Base Tiers
- Stripped down gameplay for AI-DMs

Well, I wasn't doing any subscription crap anyways but even so if this is true that third bullet point is a killer even before you factor it operating under the second.

I think I would have much preferred their monetisation coming from turning DnDBeyond into Steam-for-tabletop. I'm still going to make and use my own stuff regardless of their paywalls anyways.

[Particle_Man]

Is that one sourced officially? It sounds over the top enough that it could be a hoax.

[Sparky McDibben]

Is that one sourced officially? It sounds over the top enough that it could be a hoax.

Anything's possible, but this one's been verified by DnD Shorts (a YouTuber with relationships at WotC who's leaks were widely confirmed by Linda Codega's reporting), and Nerd Immersion (who's about as close to TTRPG CNN as we're likely to get).

That's what I figured made it worth the forum's time.

[Witty Username]

Don't you already have to buy each book separately on Beyond? Is this in addition to that?

[Sparky McDibben]

Don't you already have to buy each book separately on Beyond? Is this in addition to that?

That's my guess.

[Bohandas]

At this point it's like they're trying to destory the brand on purpose. Like someone at the company is trying to pull a version of the scam from The Producers or something

[Witty Username]

At this point it's like they're trying to destory the brand on purpose. Like someone at the company is trying to pull a version of the scam from The Producers or something

I think that assumes D&D beyond was ever good in the first place.

[Sparky McDibben]

I think that assumes D&D beyond was ever good in the first place.

The good news is that I might get my players to stop using DDB. We ain't needed no d*mn app for the last 50 years of this d*mn game, DAN.

[Leon]

At this point it's like they're trying to destory the brand on purpose. Like someone at the company is trying to pull a version of the scam from The Producers or something

A article i read that some of the same info seemed to suggest it came from very close to the top

[Kane0]

Ironic considering the simplicity of the current ruleset. Its not like its arcane knowledge what you add to a d20 roll or that most of your special abilities come back on one of two varieties of rest. Its almost the easiest system to computerize so far, its just they havent bothered to.

[Bohandas]

The good news is that I might get my players to stop using DDB. We ain't needed no d*mn app for the last 50 years of this d*mn game, DAN.

Preach brother!

[Mastikator]

I think that assumes D&D beyond was ever good in the first place.

For me it was hugely convenient.

Was.

I aint paying 30$/month

[Hael]

ChatGPT was released in November. Lets be charitable to the higher ups and say they are faster at adapting to new tech than any executives in history.

So this idea originated in December??

Moreover, I don’t think they have thought this through. Training a large language model takes years and tens of millions of dollars of investment in compute/storage. It would further need to be finetuned on the specific content/context/UI that is presented (so add in many more millions scraping and preprocessing the data from old adventure modules/fan creations).

OpenAI and deepmind Google have absolutely zero public plans on how they are willing to license their technologies. All we have is an API from openAI that includes their older language models (at rather prohibitive pricing for mass usage).

So I don’t buy this, unless its some pie in the sky idea that is casually spoken at some business meeting by an analyst. Its not the sort of thing that could be concrete yet.

[Psyren]

If they add those other planned features like AI DMing feature and their own VTT it might be worth that much, but I don't see a benefit to them raising the price that much before having those kinds of benefits ready.

The 1.0a stuff I won't touch other than to say, no one should be surprised by that.

Adding other folks' homebrew was always part of the sub tiers.

[Sandeman]

30$ a month??
Back to pen and paper it is.

[Dork_Forge]

Unless that $30 comes with access to all official content, I don't see this happening.

$30 a month is something you'd expect from a cloud streaming service... Maybe, and that would be delivering you an entire game experience.

This kind of pricing would kill D&D Beyonds subscriber count, growth, and make what subscribers they do have at that price far more susceptible to cancelling for IRL problems.

After all, when you hit a rough patch if something is $5 but good value it might survive a budget. But $30? That's multiple meals or a phone plan etc.

[Hael]

AI Dungeon with collaboration from OpenAI has been around now for going on almost 3 years now.
I don't think it's all that far fetched. The technology is advancing rapidly.

Those were not very good. I don't think WoTC would base a business model on that level of performance. Even Chatgpt is just barely borderline passable (and that was at least an order of magnitude improvement compared to what was publicly available). Even now, it will generate some logical absurdities every once and awhile, which would kill the session.

Next year we are seeing a 100 fold increase in the data training set for GPT4 or whatever its called, and that's finally something that you could plausibly consider as being commercially viable (assuming you finetuned it for DnD).

Still you are talking a major investment that is likely worth millions, and basically going all in on a strategy that is easily one of the riskiest things you could imagine.

[EggKookoo]

For me it was hugely convenient.

Was.

I aint paying 30$/month

What are some alternatives? The main values of DnDB for me are 1) convenient character sheets, 2) homebrewing items and monsters, and 3) point-and-click reference for spell descriptions and such (mostly for the players). A 4) would be the combat tracker but that's relatively new.

I pay for the top tier at the moment but that's not even $5/mo. I get it a year at a time so I guess I'm safe until September.

[Mastikator]

What are some alternatives? The main values of DnDB for me are 1) convenient character sheets, 2) homebrewing items and monsters, and 3) point-and-click reference for spell descriptions and such (mostly for the players). A 4) would be the combat tracker but that's relatively new.

I pay for the top tier at the moment but that's not even $5/mo. I get it a year at a time so I guess I'm safe until September.

I pay the master sub so that I can share the content I bought with my players, and they can benefit from 1, & 2, & 3. It also allows me to see and edit their character sheet if need be (mostly add items). I think $5/month is a fair price for that. I have no interest in VTTs or AI DMs. If the price was raised to 30 I'd cancel and go back to pen and paper, and spell cards and what not. But it would be a huge inconvenience to do everything on an analog basis in D&D. I may even switch to a different game.

There are tons of options for TTRPG, but AFAIK none offer the convenience of dndbeyond which is why these kind of news make me sad and disappointed. I see others take glee in the self destruction of the evil corporation, but I see my hobby being flushed down the drain to satisfy a greedy jerk.

[Dork_Forge]

What are some alternatives? The main values of DnDB for me are 1) convenient character sheets, 2) homebrewing items and monsters, and 3) point-and-click reference for spell descriptions and such (mostly for the players). A 4) would be the combat tracker but that's relatively new.

I pay for the top tier at the moment but that's not even $5/mo. I get it a year at a time so I guess I'm safe until September.

Personally I prefer to make character sheets in Roll 20:

- unlimited character sheets for free
- able to print them if you want
- Accessible from the app

Then all the stuff you get from it being attached to a VTT (including a searchbar for SRD content).

[stoutstien]

At this point it's like they're trying to destory the brand on purpose. Like someone at the company is trying to pull a version of the scam from The Producers or something

Nah. They are attempting a walled garden. Worst part is it will likely be successful enough that it will become a festering cancer much like what modern organized play.

[EggKookoo]

I pay the master sub so that I can share the content I bought with my players, and they can benefit from 1, & 2, & 3. It also allows me to see and edit their character sheet if need be (mostly add items). I think $5/month is a fair price for that. I have no interest in VTTs or AI DMs. If the price was raised to 30 I'd cancel and go back to pen and paper, and spell cards and what not. But it would be a huge inconvenience to do everything on an analog basis in D&D. I may even switch to a different game.

Right. For that amount of money it's starting to look sensible for me to write my own system for my table. It's a lot of work, though.

There are tons of options for TTRPG, but AFAIK none offer the convenience of dndbeyond which is why these kind of news make me sad and disappointed. I see others take glee in the self destruction of the evil corporation, but I see my hobby being flushed down the drain to satisfy a greedy jerk.

I agree. I want WotC to feel pain for its behavior but ultimately this is depressing.

Personally I prefer to make character sheets in Roll 20:

- unlimited character sheets for free
- able to print them if you want
- Accessible from the app

Then all the stuff you get from it being attached to a VTT (including a searchbar for SRD content).

I looked into Roll 20 way back when but it wasn't quite what I wanted. I'll take another look. Thanks!

Like Mastikator I have no real use for the VTT part, but if the character sheets are halfway competent that's half the battle.

[Sigreid]

Before I was gifted a vtt lifetime subscription, I did what you guys are saying you get from DDB with relatively simple Excel workbooks for character bundles.

[Aimeryan]

More interested in what happens to other vitual tabletops. I think worst case scenario they would have to strip all D&D content, so still usable, just way more incovenient. If they allow you to personally import bulk data for your own use, then we could see databases passed around to do that sort of thing. As is currently, non-SRD stuff you have to personally add - so, not untread ground.

[Oramac]

At this point it's like they're trying to destory the brand on purpose. Like someone at the company is trying to pull a version of the scam from The Producers or something

I can't find the tweet at the moment (still looking; will update), but there was some speculation that all of this is due to investors wanting to split WOTC off into its own publicly traded company, instead of a subsidiary of Hasbro. On top of that, it was quoted that "WOTC is 70% of Hasbro's revenue". Obviously I can't confirm that number, but if true it would make sense that Hasbro would focus a lot of effort on keeping it in-house. Finally, it alleges that the D&D movie Honor Among Thieves is the thing investors are looking at, even more so than DDB subs.

[Sigreid]

More interested in what happens to other tabletops. I think worst case scenario they would have to strip all D&D content, so still usable, just way more incovenient. If they allow you to personally import bulk data for your own use, then we could see databases passed around to do that sort of thing. As is currently, non-SRD stuff you have to personally add - so, not untread ground.

Since I bought licensed 5e content for my VTT, I think they can't take that away.

[EggKookoo]

Before I was gifted a vtt lifetime subscription, I did what you guys are saying you get from DDB with relatively simple Excel workbooks for character bundles.

Yup. I was using a combination of Excel and OneNote. Clunky, but it got the job done.

I'm assuming SRD 5 is not going away? Or is that still an unknown?

[Sigreid]

Yup. I was using a combination of Excel and OneNote. Clunky, but it got the job done.

I'm assuming SRD 5 is not going away? Or is that still an unknown?

I don't think it matters. Personal use is typically fair use. Money has to be changing hands to claim financial damages if I understand correctly.

[ProsecutorGodot]

For me it was hugely convenient.

Was.

I aint paying 30$/month

Same, and from the sounds of it they want my friends who only use the site once a week at most to be paying the same cost rather than allowing a campaign share as it exists now.

If I'm not going to pay that cost, there's no way you're getting them on board for that cost either.