I know PA has auctioned off a game DMed by Chris Perkins for Child's Play and it's sold for a ton.
That said, I think anyone has the skills to DM. It's more about courage to step up.
Pen & Paper Role Playing Games
- Thread starter Dei
- Start date
That said, I think anyone has the skills to DM. It's more about courage to step up.
So as long as no one yells god wills it, they can live.
Dave
Staff member
Not sure how interested anyone is in D&D 5e but for today only - until Dec 3 at 5 am EST - ALL books are $20.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace?utm_source=email&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=cyber-monday
https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace?utm_source=email&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=cyber-monday
Note that these are ONLY the digital content on dndbeyond and not the physical books or even pdfs. I use dndbeyond exclusively so I bought one book today but I don't recommend it for anyone not planning to use dndbeyond for running or participating in campaigns.
Each book. It's still a scam, but it's the best discount we've gotten in awhile.
They have bundle prices too.
Dave
Staff member
I did not see this. Damn. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.
To be fair, D&DBeyond isn't bad? Like, I use an account for making characters and they put Unearthed Arcana (beta stuff) up pretty quickly and you can set up a campaign that allows everyone in it to use access the books you've bought. If you're playing with people across the country/world, that's helpful. It's just lacking a good tabletop simulation program to make it great; MapTools and such are still better in that regard.
But you have to trust that D&DBeyond is going to be around for years to really get the most out of it.
But you have to trust that D&DBeyond is going to be around for years to really get the most out of it.
I agree this is a stupid problem, but it's sort of mandated by the actually book makers and sellers... they are afraid that if people can access all the information digitally in one place, people will stop using the books. This is part of the reason why the Beyond prices for books are outrageous; they can't directly compete against their own sellers without angering them.
This is bullshit reasoning though, because they are disregarding the people who live outside of places with good internet that NEED the books to play. They will always have a market.
Well, it isn't owned by WotC. It is an independent company that licenses the content. It was owned by Twitch at one point (and thus Amazon) but has been sold to another company (I don't recall who atm.) The point is, they don't have any way (or incentive) to give you access to their tools just for buying the books from somewhere else.
If all you need is a character generator, there are tons of free ones out there.
That's not all it is, though. As I described above.
It's irrelevant. The point is that I refuse to use it because I have no intention of buying things twice.
Not the best example, since most physical media these days also comes with a digital copy.
There's a difference between repurchasing something that's old in a new media vs. what D&D Beyond wants. It would irritate me less if they had a flat subscription model that would allow me to just jump in and use their online tools, but instead I'd have to shell out hundreds of dollars outright to use their online tools at the level of the books I have already spent hundreds of dollars on. I think it's a terrible business model.
True, the target customer is people who are willing to spend 100s of dollars just because they are told to.
Except I can more effectively share books with people than I can with D&D Beyond. And I don't have to worry about the services being shut down and everything being gone.
If you think they aren't trying to get people to buy both, you are shockingly naive. The tools they try to sell may be available free online, but that doesn't mean they don't push the shit out of the "ease of keeping track of your characters" etc etc.
The biggest advertising I see for D&D Beyond is for character generation and tracking. That is the thing I always see pushed the hardest. That tells me that they are going for the tool appeal over trying to snag people who don't already own physical books.
But we're back to the whole
I too purchased their product, but I don't have access to their "official" tools because I didn't purchase them digitally. If you are going to argue that the books are the product and the tools are just there because the books are, it's not the best way to back yourself up. I have to use fan made tools unless I want to pay twice. Yes, tools exist on the internet without D&D Beyond, and I can use them. But I am locked out of the official brand, because there is no way to access the tools without the digital content purchase to back it up.
Honestly, what this really shows is that WotC/Hasbro should be doing this in house, just to avoid the issue entirely.
They should have just made the books be their own digital market, and the tools be a flat fee, or a subscription model. (Or made them free but lololol)