Wizards of the Coast’s official online Dungeons & Dragons marketplace just made a very unpopular decision. D&D Beyond is the premier online store for DnD products. Through it, players can purchase physical or digital copies of DnD core rulebooks, sourcebooks, campaign settings, and just about anything else they might need to run a game. What sets D&D Beyond apart from other online shopping outlets, besides its direct connection to WotC, is its integration with gameplay tools. In short, anything players buy on D&D Beyond, they can use in its character creation and mapping software.
But D&D Beyond just got a huge redesign. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself, but due to some changes around how purchasing works, DnD finds itself mired in controversy yet again. The new changes are unfair to players, and will almost certainly affect many individual games – and the wider community – in a negative way.
With the new site changes, players are no longer able to buy bundles or à la carte items from D&D Beyond – they’ll have to buy entire books instead. Previous versions of D&D Beyond allowed players to purchase only those parts of a sourcebook they were interested in. They could buy a single race, class, feat, background, or monster stat block, or in some cases, bundle a few together for a slight discount. Now, though, if a player wants even one element of a sourcebook, they’ll have to pay full price to download the entire thing.
For example, say a player wanted to give their character the Rune Shaper feat from Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, but didn’t care for anything else in the sourcebook, found it irrelevant to the rest of their campaign, or didn’t want to spend too much money on it. D&D Beyond would previously let them purchase just the Rune Shaper feat for a fraction of the price, at which point they’d be able to use it on any character sheets they’d made through D&D Beyond, or simply read the rules and apply them elsewhere.
This would cost them roughly $2 USD, and if they were interested in a couple of other elements from different sourcebooks, they might be able to bundle a few together for a discount on all of them. In short, they’d be able to get a plethora of new character options for less than $10, and even if they decided not to use one in the end, it wouldn’t be a huge loss. Since the recent changes, though, the same player would have to buy the entirety of Glory of the Giants at $29.99, even if they only want access to half of a page.
The D&D Beyond changes are incredibly unfair to players, greatly restricting the customizability of their characters. Instead of having the ability to freely and inexpensively create their characters and settings for only a few dollars a pop, players now have to choose between limiting their options and spending tons of money. Players who want to take different character features from a wide variety of sourcebooks will have to purchase them all individually, instead of buying them individually or bundling them together.
As a result, anyone who can’t afford, or simply doesn’t want to buy, the almost 50 books that have been published for DnD’s Fifth Edition will likely limit themselves to character options from the Player’s Handbook, and maybe one or two preferred expansions they’ve collected over time. This will also pose another barrier to prevent new players from getting into the game. Prospective players who aren’t even sure if they like DnD yet will be even more reluctant to explore the wide variety of character options available if they need to spend so much money to see them.
The D&D Beyond changes will also do away with the practice of buying a sourcebook in installments. Before the update, if a player was building a dragonborn based on the content of Fizban‘s Treasury of Dragons, they could start with just one of the draconic ancestries at first level. Over time, they could purchase more of the book as they leveled up – a couple of spells here, a feat there – until they owned practically the entire thing. Eventually, they’d be able to credit these smaller transactions toward their purchase of the entire sourcebook, receiving an equivalent discount.
These changes seem geared at making WotC more money, but they may have the opposite effect. There’s always been a subsection of hardcore DnD fans willing to buy entire sourcebooks even if they’re not going to use everything that’s contained inside. The D&D Beyond changes shouldn’t affect their purchasing patterns, but will disincentivize all other kinds of marketplace shopping.
Most other players will be less willing to spend money on entire sourcebooks if they just want individual character options. Without the ability to purchase them separately, they’re likely to look elsewhere, choosing character options they can get for free instead. As a result, the total number of purchases from the D&D Beyond marketplace could go down, ultimately cutting into WotC’s bottom line.
These D&D Beyond changes are the latest in a long line of scandals related to the tabletop RPG, which have had varying results for the game and its community. This latest development has already provoked an uproar, with players on social media and the official D&D Beyond forum airing their grievances. Thankfully, WotC has demonstrated some willingness to listen to feedback, especially with last year’s DnD OGL fiasco. Hopefully, it’ll do the same for the marketplace changes before they permanently impact the Dungeons & Dragons landscape.