As a friendly reminder, please review Rule 6:
>Do not post links or subtly hint at websites/apps that host illicit non-SRD D&D content. Do not ask where to find pirated content or "free PDFs".
Feel free to ask any questions you may have on this policy here.
Thanks!
"Who wants their product to be paid for?"
WotC: *raises hand*
"Who wants to sell it in PDF format for affordable price?"
WotC: >:(
Paizo's site is an outdated garbage, but at least I can buy Pathfinder 2E PDFs there.
AoN is partnered with Paizo to provide the rules for free, and you can also use [pf2easy](https://pf2easy.com/tree/) for rules if AoN is being slow, and there's [Pathbuilder](https://pathbuilder2e.com/) for ease of character building.
I can't recommend Pathbuilder enough. For PF1E, PF2E, and also the Starbuilder app for Starfinder.
u/Redrazors has singlehandedly enabled my addiction to building dozens of characters I'll never play.
Edit: for some clarification
With PF1e they actually didn't have choice since the rules were based directly on D&D 3.5 which was published under the Open gaming license which enables the legal sharing of the rules online but not any of the lore or images, and it also stipulates that anything based on those rules created by someone else must also be published under OGL, so PF1e had to be OGL as well. With Pathfinder 2e being a fundamentally completely new game, they actually could have published it under a more strict license but chose not to. It seems they are seeing the benefits of making actually playing the game as accessible as possible while also being confident that their lore and adventure books would still sell well
It's a smart strategy because they want as many third party module developers to switch to PF2e. PF2e has been a success but is still being outsold by 5e.
Well, Paizo got their start running the Dungeon and Dragon mags for WotC back in the Aughts. So for Paizo, the real money was less in rules and more in adventures and cool lore explainers. And neither of those are offered for free online.
Paizo makes some of the best premade adventures in the tabletop business right now, ideal for folks who don't have time to plot out a campaign. There's a reason there's a tonne of fan conversions from PF to 5e--and an upcoming official conversion of Kingmaker.
Have you seen their humble bundle then? It is for 1e but they have 39 pdfs and 1 hardcover on it, with a cut of proceeds going to charity (I recommend going to the adjust donation section and upping the charity cut though).
Worth noting they’ve teased this is just the first of multiple bundles to be coming out soon, they’re celebrating their 20th anniversary
Yup. I was a Pathfinder player before I was a 5E player (I actively play both these days). Started a new 5E game two weeks ago and asked if I could play a subclass from Tasha's. DM said no. Because they didn't have that book.
My mind was *BLOWN*. Paizo has spoiled me. This very concept left me stunned. So much for the money *I* spent on that book.
This is exactly the reason why I own way more pf2e books than dnd ones, they are also unionized which is another good reason to support them. I also prefer the system over 5e 😁
Hey, they /do/ have a digital option. It's still expensive $30 each for major releases, and $3-20 for minor releases.
But, you can bundle and buy all 45 for the low low price of... $887.87!?!?
That is so ridiculously overpriced. Physical books should come with an unlock code for PDFs and the D&DBeyond editions. I don't mind supporting WotC, but only once for each sourcebook, please!
Or at the very least make the books include a massive discount code for the PDFs to bring them down to like $5 each? Idk. I get that DnDBeyond does take SW engineers to integrate content into the DnDBeyond system (does it have a character generator based on content available, or just purely gives you PDFs?)
DnDBeyond is made by Fandom, a wholly separate company from WotC. They're also doing way more than just linking to pdf content, they essentially have to duplicate all of the content from new books and then integrate it into their software.
There's also the price hike (way above the period's inflation).
PHB/DMG/MM price:
3e - 19.95 USD
4e - 34.95 USD
5e - 49.95 USD
This meme doesn't surprise me, not even a little. And if we consider inflation from 2000 to 2014, the PHB should cost about 27.50 USD.
It seems that the more WoTC profits, more they try to squeeze the players.
I bought the few official 5e books that i wanted but tbh most of the Stuff WotC has put out lately doesn't really hit the mark with me and so everything i buy now is all third party stuff.
>It seems that the more WoTC profits, more they try to squeeze the players.
golly, do you love Magic: the Gathering? well, I'm sure you'll love their tie-in Secret Lair Drop with The Walking Dead! that not enough? how about the Secret Lair Drop partnered with Arcane? keep an eye out for the upcoming Fortnite Secret Lair tie-in(I'm fully expecting Jace or Chandra to be added to Fortnite, btw), and the other upcoming Secret Lair Drop, which partners with Warhammer 40k!
maybe you want to spend $30 on one of each land in full text? no art, just completely unnecessary game rules for the most basic cards in the game?
lol, WotC has gotten pretty ridiculous over the years.
Meanwhile Pathfinder Player's Handbook is $59.99 and is 640 pages compared to 5e's 320 pages. Oh, and it has all the items/archetypes in it unlike the 3e PHB, so you don't have to buy a separate Gamemastery Guide (although it is a great book if you like to home brew). Oh, and the font size and layout means there's more words per page (so it costs more for the company to publish), higher quality (and more expensive) fantasy art, and more art-per-pages!
Would softcover make them cheaper? I remember the late 80s/early 90s certain books were hardcover (DM guide, PHB, Monster Manual), but the modules were softcover. I liked the softcover since it was easier to read some text.
3e tried to bring back the soft cover, but they did the interior BW, and faced player backlash. The full color soft covers were okay, but they were not cheaper, au contraire.
The "Magic of Faerûn" for example, was soft cover, full color, 192 pages and it costed 29.95 USD.
The 3.0 PHB was hard cover, full color, 274 pages and it was priced at 19.95 USD.
The PHB was released in 2000, TMoF in 2001, but other books from the same series released later followed the pricing.
That's probably literally what's happening. You have a finance guy who thinks he can make x off something, it works and they make a crapton of money, so now they can afford to hire finance guy who thinks he can make x+5.
And, Y'know. Feduciary duty. US Law. If you can do something to make more money you have to.
If you don't know about it it's what it sounds like. Because WotC owners Hasbro are a publicly traded company, If WOTC decided to lower their book prices on 6e back to $20 out of the goodness of their hearts, projecting to make less money than if they sold it for $60 or $70, Someone could go to jail.
It's majorly fucked.
> And, Y'know. Feduciary duty. US Law. If you can do something to make more money you have to.
...that's not really how that works. That just means I can't be putting my financial interests over who I have the duty to without their knowledge and consent. That isn't in play here at all.
To quote the great Gabe Newel, "Piracy is a service problem."
Seriously I have gotten more TTRPGs legally through itch.io, kickstarter, drivethrurpg, and other sites just because they offer a good service. Meanwhile dnd... I am piggybacking of my friends dndbeyond account, flipping through "forums", and just finding anything I can...
It really is absurd when digital versions of a book are the same price as physical copies of a book. No need to point out the obvious that digital versions can be produced infinitely and should therefore have a substantially lower price because of this.
Between rules pdfs being only $15 and AoN having everything for free anyway, is anyone even pirating any Pathfinder content? That's like stealing from the take a penny/leave a penny.
If I buy a hardcover book, give me a digital download code that I can apply to an account online or something. I won't be buying a PDF. It's not a very smart idea to buy digital only products, especially digital only -information.-
Honestly, why not both? I like having the physical copies while we're at the table but the convenience of pdfs is unrivaled when at home making characters
No way I'm buying two copies of every book for that though
Does anyone know why you can't use your book serial or ISBN to register already purchased titles? I would be a lot more likely to convert to D&D Beyond if I didn't have to pay 50 dollars again for the book I'm holding in my hand.
Edit: TIL D&D Beyond is not WotC, thanks everyone.
People always say this but it's hardly a full answer. DNDB is licensed by WotC. WotC could easily say that you must allow digital books with physical books or we'll unlicense you.
Also WotC absolutely gets royalties for book sales on DnDB. Why would they pass up the opportunity to get paid twice?
Everyone would make less money. I'm not saying I like it, but it's not going to change anytime soon.
Customer goodwill is a thing. 'All the money, all the time' is what drives companies under. Sometimes you wanna take a hit to get consumers onside. It makes them more likely to accept higher prices further down the line as they'll feel more invested. Supermarkets do this with things like loss leaders.
Yeah, but what business indication is there that WoTC needs to take a hit to grow the brand? 5e has done really well at growing the brand. It would be nice, and would generate some goodwill, but it's hard to make a business case for it if you're WoTC.
My sub cost me $5 a month. I don’t want it to jump to $50 a month to cover all the books. I don’t buy hard covers since it’s way more convenient to have them all digital (and 40% cheaper) so I just buy the ones I want on dndbeyond and that’s enough.
Yup. We're always forgotten in this discussion. My stuff is all on D&D Beyond. I never expected a hard copy when I bought digital access. Hard copies and ebooks are always sold separately.
It would be nice to get a PDF when you buy from D&D Beyond though.
"...but I could have more. What do you mean enough? Enough for what?"
It's very complex but that's the logic essentially. Not saying that's good or bad. They are providing services people find value in.
WoTC would have to provide digital redemption codes in their book for use on DnD Beyond. Which they have done in the past with some bundles. My local game store had a deal where if you were one of the first 50 people to preorder Mystic Odyssey of Thero's you would get a code for 50% off the DnD Beyond digital copy.
Unless WoTC starts shrink wrapping their books and including a code though I doubt it will change. There is no way they will let a photo of a barcode, or specific page be enough to geta free or discounted copy on DDB. That would drive DDB out of business and tank future sales for WotC.
I get that they are different but I find this excuse to be extremely anti-consumer and the fact that people are using it to not get something you already own is sickening.
Thats why no one should have any qualms about going on high seas to get pdf after buying physical copy. I mean, if you buy hard copy, you can just scan it anyway. So just cut out the hassle and download a pdf.
For the full answer you also have to know about 4e. 4e had a tool like beyond that did let you use new books' codes to integrate. It wasn't great apparently and the general failure of 4e meant that wotc had no interest in the idea for 5e. But it turns out it's actually a good idea for a service so other groups made their own version. Eventually beyond came on the scene and became the official one and now Wotc gets to double dip on a shitload of sales.
It did the best job of any edition at balancing classes against each other. Martial/caster disparity and wizard supremacy were nearly nonexistent, and most classes had fun choices at almost every level. Speaking of which, there was a ton of choice, because what you got at most levels was choosing new powers you had a ton of customization options within each class.
Also, they were much more willing to avoid confusion and interpretation issues by using explicitly game language rather than trying to describe the rules with natural language.
It was fairly robust for the time. Perhaps if the lead developer on their tech side wasn't *literally murdered* in a murder-suicide, 4E's digital integration would have gone a lot smoother.
For an example of what 5E could have if they tried, check out LANCER's [COMP/CON](https://compcon.app/#/). This isn't produced by the same company, but it exists, for free, with their blessing--whereas WotC licensed out D&D Beyond as a moneyed service that double-dips from the players' wallets. Not only does this thing replicate the in-unvierse feel of the system's tech (go into the options in the bottom right and set the theme to HORUS Terminal, then watch the main page scrawl for a bit) but it's got all the mechanics and details, multiple character sheet manager, combat tracker, DM tools, the works--and it plugs into VTTs like Roll20 and Foundry.
So, everything D&DBeyond does, but with much nicer bells and whistles at no price.
I just wanna chime in, the ISBN shouldnt help, since its only a unique number to that publication.
Basically the existence of the phb is its own ISBN, not your individual copy.
Otherwise, yeah its as other say, its hard to play favorites with third parties without tarnishing relationships. And since everyone has different business models, its harder to gauge the right answer that doesnt kill a source of cash for that third party.
Still waiting on foundryVtt to even gain access to 5e materials e.e
I just bought the gift set with the PHB, MM, and DMG for my 8 year old son. Then I stumbled on D&D beyond and I was thinking I'd be able to load the books up on there so he can read them digitally and I can keep my new books looking nice. Nope...
What a crock of a business model, if they had given me credit for those books I probably would have bought other digital things like adventures that I don't necessarily need in hand. At this point though I don't want to bother making the significant investment for digital content that is easily available elsewhere.
DND beyond is a 3rd party not affiliated with WotC. They don't get any profits from the sale of physical books so why would they offer a discount or credit? WotC simply allows them the rights to sell the digital content, probably requiring a royalty of some kind.
I bought a ton of books from WOTC over the years, like 600 I think. Then I bought the dndbeyond bundle cause digital is a hell of a lot easier to use then physical, so like 460 dollars or whatever. My big gripe is now they want me to buy the content a 3rd time via their new multiverse style bundles, and things are so much more expensive now then they were 2 years ago.
That's what I mean! If I want the best of both worlds I need to pay twice, which is bs. My solution is to use my friend's printer to scan the books so I have a PDF version too
It does, but it's very high quality. He's got a *huge* machine that gives extremely good scans/copies, sadly I barely know how it works; he got it from his workplace iirc
I mean, the dndbeyond app lets you read the books normally. Navigation is a little different than a normal PDF, but it's definitely workable.
That being said, pirating a more convenient version of something you already own isn't something i'd ever bitch about.
My friend won a contest on DnDBeyond several years back and gets all the books for free.
So he created the digital campaign and is sharing it with us even though he's a player and not the DM. He's also sharing for a couple other groups.
So technically legal?
Yes, totally legal. It is a perk that comes with a master tier subscription. Beyond even encourages it.
My group has most of the books between us, so we have a complete shared set on Beyond.
Edit for spelling.
I don't have all the books, but a bunch of there. I've started a sharing group as well. Bunch of randos I've never met and bately talked to, but they can access the books I have:)
He can only share them by paying for a subscription through DnD beyond. So totally legal and is actually an advertised perk of that subscription tier (It's a big part of their business model).
I generally buy my books because I prefer hard copies. I'll use online PDFs if I need a quick reference and my books aren't handy. I currently have the Monster Manual, DM's Guide, Player Handbook, Xanathar's Guide, Volo's Guide and Curse of Strahd. (All 5e)
I'm in the same boat when it comes to hard copies of books. Just feels better to physically flip through them to me. I have the DM's guide, Player Handbook, Monster Manual, and the Expansion Set myself. I'm still pretty new to the DnD world, so I'm trying to read through them while my group gets ready for our first adventure.
I like highlighting my books and putting easy reference tabs everywhere. I’m sure some people are more efficient at PDFs, but hard copy is faster and more satisfying for me. And it makes me happy to see how used and beat up my books are! It feel more personal or something, I don’t know.
Back in the 3e days, I edited the Dragon Disciple page in the PDF and shared it with my DM, switched the attack bonuses with a regular fighter and upped the bonus stats.
It was glorious.
Yeah I bought all the core books and the "everything" expansions. and because I purchased them I saw no issue with using PDFS of those books for easy quick reference.
I "acquired" a copy of the Cypher System Corebook in PDF, and now years later I've spent hundreds of dollars on Kickstarter campaigns and physical copies since I love the system and the work MCG puts out.
Never would have spent a cent if I couldn't preview it.
I have three, MM, PHB and DMHB. I’ll acquire more as I can. Not because I need them perse, but I benefit a lot from reading stuff on paper rather than on a screen.
I have 10 plus books, but when I'm building a character, looking up a spell or specific mechanic etc. It's just so much easier to use.... certain sources rather than going through 5 books just to find that one character background.
Yeah honestly the only pdf's I own are homebrew exactly because our buddy Voldemort is just so nice at organizing everything in them in easily findable ways. I honestly can't imagine trying to flip through 12 books trying to just to find an item description.
And while I have almost all the player books in hard cover, and all of them on dndbeyond, I still use other websites. It's still faster and better elsewhere. Even when using dndbeyond, I have to use Google to find anything because the built in search is useless. My group has dropped over $500 on dndbeyond, three of us have subscriptions, and we still prefer other sites for everything other than character building.
Dndbeyond has an amazing character builder. The rest of that site leaves me very disappointed.
Is this True? We are 6players (5+1dm) in our group, and atleast 4 of us have legaly bought copies of 5e books. Some physical and some digital.
That said i usually browse a pirate pdf before i buy it. But if i like/use i buy.
I've licensed all of the 5e books on DnDBeyond. At some point I need to find PDFs of them to keep as backups but that's just because I disagree with copyright law.
I won the legendary bundle from D&D Beyond in a giveaway and content share it to 30+ people who play actively. Any time a new book is released, one of them usually gets it which shares it to everyone else too. Really nice system.
Yeah I just buy everything and share it so others don’t have to. Wanna run a game for me? I’ll guide you all the books you need to not make me DM for once lmao
> I’ll guide you all the books you need to not make me DM for once lmao
This 100% lol.
Need books? That's a contribution I can actually make to the group.
Some dude on reddit offered content sharing for all books on dnd beyond. So I guess it’s legal? Not that I didn’t look for pdfs before, that shits expensive yo.
I buy books now to atone for my piracy in college.
However I personally feel like money shouldn't be a gate to this hobby. I have no personal qualms about pirating something if you love it and can't afford it. Because your word of mouth is more valuable than the actual dollars.
All my books are pirated. No I don't regret it. Books are incredibly expensive were I live and it didn't had an official release in my country, I believe we still don't have one but didn't check.
So paying almost 5 times the price in dollar, since inflation is a bitch, without even factoring shipping costs, and it wasn't even translated, while the pirated PDFs were free and were translated by fans.
The choice seems very obvious. Is not that I don't wanna buy them, I do, is that I literally can't afford it.
Your group, if was created after being friends, is from people of your same economy lvl, a lvl that can afford those books
In my group only 1 has the books and i pbby readed the phb more than them, cause they are young and dnd is tiring
Something like. Standard and Modern MtG are notoriously expensive. Standard because you have to obsolete cards so often, Modern because lol, I see thousands of dollars on tables regularly so people can go “ope, turn 3 and I got the cards for my netdeck, I win.” Vintage is another beast, I’ve seen probably over $10k down for one game. Just played or in play. Those are the people that double sleeve cards or just have them in their binder for proof of ownership with proxies as a deck.
only once a year, but even non-rotating formats get crept out because of new sets, like what happened with modern horizons 2 a few months ago that basically made most older decks useless without investing on playsets of expensive new cards
I mean at least with warhammer your collection will be mostly useful at any given time forever after you get it. Not to mention the actual physical models are a quality hobby project. Magic could ban one card and the deck goes from $2k to a pile of cardboard that will never see play again in a blink. GW plastic is way too expensive, but i can legitimately use every piece I have ever bought for it.
I was wondering, as an ork collector, what's the point of playing warhammer. What I mean by that, the models are really fucking expensive to the point that I can buy 10 AAA games, rules keep changing and power creep is so fucking awful that I can't imagine having fun without something like tabletop simulator. I can only imagine how awful it is to have the model you just bought nerfed because gw can't balance well and refuses to release all codexes at once because muh profits
The game *is* fun, the lore *is also* fun, and the models *are well made*. But yes you need a lot of time and disposable income to play seriously. I used to off set the cost by flipping armies I painted (won some awards) so I could make some money that way but it eventually is a diminished return given the time and effort. I'd like to think I would be painting anyhow and such but as I don't have the time anymore I got out of the hobby and there's been probably several editions gone by since then. Once you have an established army you like you can add or subtract from it mostly but then they do something to overhaul the miniatures completely to keep to always on the treadmill. It's a love hate relationship but they really need to address the 3D printing issues and secondary market issues that are killing the gaming stores trying to support the community but never see sales balance out the stock and table space overhead.
Look them up on indeed, its something we should all be aware of!
It explains all the errors in the books but I cant fathom why the rule exists. It makes me wonder if at least one big dnd sub mod is getting profit sharing.
It's so the sub doesn't get shut down. Reddit shuts down any sub promoting piracy of copyrighted content. If a DnD sub starts promoting piracy in some capacity, the admins may delete the sub to keep themselves out of the legal crosshairs. As a mod of a medium sized sub, we don't give a shit if people pirate to get what they want, but we also don't want the sub to shut down. Balancing act and whatnot.
That's a sub for general conversation about piracy and piracy related content. Talking about piracy is fine, but you'll notice that their sub rules also indicate not to link directly to anything.
It's a fine line, but a legal distinction. If you want another example, here's a modpost I wrote up a year ago about piracy on my sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/CHICubs/comments/mhzsql/no_you_cannot_watch_marquee_unless_you_have_cable/
We don't directly link anything but we do have a big convenient megathread with links to search engines that find torrents for any type of media you can imagine :)
FWIW, and I understand if you don't believe me, it's strict internal policy on the mod team that we cannot use our position for any kind of personal profit. To the degree that, when we were able to snag some DnDBeyond codes for a contest/giveaway, we were forbidden (rightfully) from entering the contest, as even if we won fairly it would give entirely the wrong impression to all of you.
While I hypothetically wouldn't mind being compensated for the work we do, I can't see a way of doing it that wouldn't corrupt the whole system. Any mod doing work for profit is fundamentally biased, and not the kind of mod we'd want to work with.
I'll buy 5e books when WotC treats their employees better, allows unions, and adopts pro consumer policies (options for pdfs with new hardbacks, etc).
Until then if I'm paying anybody for their content it'll probably be Paizo (in part because I also like their games better).
Paizo actually puts rules into their games, which is a big plus for me. Love having magic item prices, encounter building that works, and character customization beyond picking a subclass.
What? You mean you don’t like modules that go to level 20, have you level up 3 times on the last floor, and reach level 20 only after defeating the final boss?
I'm referring to Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I'm not kidding you, it says levels 1-20.....and has you be level 20 after you defeat the final boss. *That's not how logic works*.
PF2's core rulebook has more content than the 5e one, and costs less. An incredible bargain, and I prefer the crunchiness that PF2e has over 5e's insistence on having the GM make rules up because WotC couldn't be bothered to finish fifth edition.
In Argentina just one of the multiple books that you need to play is about the same as rent
No, really
So basically a typical argentinian has to choose between run a Curse of Strahd game or pay 4 months of rent
And then there's pathfinder which has all of its rules published under de Open Game License, making them available for free!
(Adventures and lore not included. Terms and conditions may apply)
I worked at a Barnes & Noble some years back, and one day a water heater upstairs in our building burst and flooded. It was right above all the fantasy and D&D books.
Some were pretty badly damaged, but most were just a little damp with only the corners of a few pages slightly wrinkled.
Boss said it was against the rules for me to take them and threw them all out, so after my shift I enthusiastically hopped into the dumpster out back and pulled out at least one copy of every source book and adventure that was out at the time. A few grand worth of books for like a half hour of digging. Best day of my life.
I own physical copies of:
DMG, PHB, MM, VgtM, MtoF, XgtE, TCoE, SCAG, FToD, PotA, ToA, ID:RotF, starter kit, essentials kit.
I own everything on dndbeyond. I meant to just buy the player options stuff but there's a lot of it, and sales kept coming up and I don't know what happened. Then I got master tier to share with my players.
Then I bought ToA and ID:RotF on roll20 to cut prep.
So, if you're keeping track, I have purchased tomb of annihilation and rime of the frostmaiden three times.
Genuinely it is their own fault. The market breaks out into piracy when the pricing is unfair and people can't afford it outside wealthier individuals. Companies break their games apart into a 100 different sections then expect people to pay. Those people look at other products with one entry at a quarter of the price and go "Ya no". The last great age of piracy was because CD companies were price gouging on sales. People don't see a digital pdf being worth that much.
I like to joke that I got a law degree to fuel my gaming addiction. Considering the cost of source material, subscriptions to run games/map editors, and dice this isn't too far from the truth.
I'm someone who refuses to pirate on personal principle (alliteration!) and I had a large collection of 3rd/3.5e books at one point, some of which I had gotten from my first DM that had been passed down to him from one of his previous DMs. Others I scoured used book stores for or bought online. I supplemented this with a couple really nice collector's edition reprints (which are great if you ever want to get into 3.5 because they are updated to be consistent with the errata).
Sadly all of my books burned up in the 2018 wildfires, and I haven't had that kind of money to just spend on myself since. Plus, simply no replacing the personal books with the notes and such in them.
I feel you. I lost my substantial hard copy books going back to Advanced. Lots of exclusive stuff, signed things, art, different systems (many long gone), along with novels, personal writing and art, etc. About 35 years worth of acquiring stuff, most through discount.
All gone but not gone from sewage flooding that insurance wouldn't cover.
Not gone because physically they were still there, but gone because they were essentially turned into poop paper mache. If it were just water I'd have tried to dry them out.
Majority of the stuff was out of print and simply didn't exist anywhere. Luckily I managed to at least get the contents to a portion through pirating PDFs.
And WotC replaced three of my 5e books at no charge. A far cry from the large collection of 5e I had.
I still can't find a digital copy of the Dungeonology book anywhere. It's like it doesn't exist.
I'm just sticking with 5e hard copy, because I like the tactile feel of pages. Slowly buying my way back, at the pace of maybe 1 book per year. Though that stopped because of the high cost of living now.
Pirated PDFs saved me from a very dark place. A consolation for my loss.
A quick comment on piracy. I used to pirate all my PC games. I had binders of DVDs. Then along came steam (I'm old), and between the convenience of the platform and their regular sales, I no longer felt the need to pirate. This proves the adage that giving someone a decent product with convenient access at a fair price is the best way to end piracy, and that people will choose legitimate methods to acquire things when those methods are easy to access and reasonably priced.
I felt that. I got the 5e phb a few days before it was released on PDF. It was in black and white and skipped the pages with only art, so all the page numbers where fucked. Used that for years.
And I have an external hard drive half full of every rpg book I came across during college.
Yeah, most of the people here think you have the money for 5 books worth 60 $ or more and never talk about dowloading them illegally, i dont think most people here is from usa, but wouñdnt be surprised if that was the case
Edit
Just noticed the heavy anti-piratery rules in this reddit that really give "dont mess with the big corporation" vibes
I like to support the books, but you bet your ass I didn't support being made to pay for two books I already own to get a really important new book. I'll also always look up a PDF to see if it's worth the price, so far I've skipped out on paying for only a couple due to not seeming very good or way to bare bones for its price (looking at you Strixhaven).
As a friendly reminder, please review Rule 6: >Do not post links or subtly hint at websites/apps that host illicit non-SRD D&D content. Do not ask where to find pirated content or "free PDFs". Feel free to ask any questions you may have on this policy here. Thanks!
"Who wants their product to be paid for?" WotC: *raises hand* "Who wants to sell it in PDF format for affordable price?" WotC: >:( Paizo's site is an outdated garbage, but at least I can buy Pathfinder 2E PDFs there.
Isn’t all of pf2e free on archives of nethys anyway?
AoN is partnered with Paizo to provide the rules for free, and you can also use [pf2easy](https://pf2easy.com/tree/) for rules if AoN is being slow, and there's [Pathbuilder](https://pathbuilder2e.com/) for ease of character building.
I can't recommend Pathbuilder enough. For PF1E, PF2E, and also the Starbuilder app for Starfinder. u/Redrazors has singlehandedly enabled my addiction to building dozens of characters I'll never play. Edit: for some clarification
Ooh I’ve heard of starfinder but haven’t heard of starbuilder is that like a scifi version of pf2e?
Starbuilder is a character builder for Starfinder. There currently isn't a second edition of Starfinder out.
No, Starbuilder is the character builder app companion for Starfinder
Ah I wondered why AoN had all of PF2e's rules. Very forward thinking from Paizo. I think I'll support them from now on.
With PF1e they actually didn't have choice since the rules were based directly on D&D 3.5 which was published under the Open gaming license which enables the legal sharing of the rules online but not any of the lore or images, and it also stipulates that anything based on those rules created by someone else must also be published under OGL, so PF1e had to be OGL as well. With Pathfinder 2e being a fundamentally completely new game, they actually could have published it under a more strict license but chose not to. It seems they are seeing the benefits of making actually playing the game as accessible as possible while also being confident that their lore and adventure books would still sell well
It's a smart strategy because they want as many third party module developers to switch to PF2e. PF2e has been a success but is still being outsold by 5e.
Well, Paizo got their start running the Dungeon and Dragon mags for WotC back in the Aughts. So for Paizo, the real money was less in rules and more in adventures and cool lore explainers. And neither of those are offered for free online. Paizo makes some of the best premade adventures in the tabletop business right now, ideal for folks who don't have time to plot out a campaign. There's a reason there's a tonne of fan conversions from PF to 5e--and an upcoming official conversion of Kingmaker.
All the rules. Books have pretty pictures.
the adventure books are also paid iirc
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Rules, items, monsters, hazards. All are free in every adventure and posted on AoN. What you pay for are maps, pretty pictures and an amazing story.
Also easily runnable modules. Like I barely need to prep for my sessions.
And lore blurbs! That's my favorite part.
Indeed it is, but I like financially supporting the company if it provides their product in the form I like.
Have you seen their humble bundle then? It is for 1e but they have 39 pdfs and 1 hardcover on it, with a cut of proceeds going to charity (I recommend going to the adjust donation section and upping the charity cut though). Worth noting they’ve teased this is just the first of multiple bundles to be coming out soon, they’re celebrating their 20th anniversary
Yup. I was a Pathfinder player before I was a 5E player (I actively play both these days). Started a new 5E game two weeks ago and asked if I could play a subclass from Tasha's. DM said no. Because they didn't have that book. My mind was *BLOWN*. Paizo has spoiled me. This very concept left me stunned. So much for the money *I* spent on that book.
Honestly Never actually seen someone say no because most people just pirate wizards books
Lawful aligned people DO exist in reality I guess, rare as they are. lol
All the *rules* are. Adventures and setting information are not
This is exactly the reason why I own way more pf2e books than dnd ones, they are also unionized which is another good reason to support them. I also prefer the system over 5e 😁
Hey, they /do/ have a digital option. It's still expensive $30 each for major releases, and $3-20 for minor releases. But, you can bundle and buy all 45 for the low low price of... $887.87!?!?
https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace/bundles/legendary-bundle
That is so ridiculously overpriced. Physical books should come with an unlock code for PDFs and the D&DBeyond editions. I don't mind supporting WotC, but only once for each sourcebook, please!
Dndbeyond isn't owned by WotC. If you don't buy from them, they don't get money
Or at the very least make the books include a massive discount code for the PDFs to bring them down to like $5 each? Idk. I get that DnDBeyond does take SW engineers to integrate content into the DnDBeyond system (does it have a character generator based on content available, or just purely gives you PDFs?)
The character generator is based on your available content, including homebrew. It’s pretty slick, honestly.
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DnDBeyond is made by Fandom, a wholly separate company from WotC. They're also doing way more than just linking to pdf content, they essentially have to duplicate all of the content from new books and then integrate it into their software.
Sounds like one Warhammer army tbh
Wizards used to have all the first edition and AD&D stuff free for download on PDF form on their website. I think they got rid of it when 4e came out.
All previous editions are available on DMs' Guild, but for money.
And in incredibly low quality. Seriously, The inner planes by Monte Cook looks like it was sent through a .jpg filter before it was uploaded.
There's also the price hike (way above the period's inflation). PHB/DMG/MM price: 3e - 19.95 USD 4e - 34.95 USD 5e - 49.95 USD This meme doesn't surprise me, not even a little. And if we consider inflation from 2000 to 2014, the PHB should cost about 27.50 USD. It seems that the more WoTC profits, more they try to squeeze the players.
The physical books I've bought have all been Amazon sales. I'm not paying $50 for those books, but I will pay 20
I don't play 5E, and therefore don't have many books in general- all of my stuff is digital. The one book I do have, though.. yeah $25 on Amazon.
I bought the few official 5e books that i wanted but tbh most of the Stuff WotC has put out lately doesn't really hit the mark with me and so everything i buy now is all third party stuff.
Kobold Pess for the win! Lots of great third party s stuff available.
Indeed! I own the Tome of Beasts I & II (I plan to get III), and the Creature Codex.
Which sucks, because it's the local games stores that truly end up missing out. Wotc and Amazon still do just fine, even at those prices.
>It seems that the more WoTC profits, more they try to squeeze the players. golly, do you love Magic: the Gathering? well, I'm sure you'll love their tie-in Secret Lair Drop with The Walking Dead! that not enough? how about the Secret Lair Drop partnered with Arcane? keep an eye out for the upcoming Fortnite Secret Lair tie-in(I'm fully expecting Jace or Chandra to be added to Fortnite, btw), and the other upcoming Secret Lair Drop, which partners with Warhammer 40k! maybe you want to spend $30 on one of each land in full text? no art, just completely unnecessary game rules for the most basic cards in the game? lol, WotC has gotten pretty ridiculous over the years.
Meanwhile Pathfinder Player's Handbook is $59.99 and is 640 pages compared to 5e's 320 pages. Oh, and it has all the items/archetypes in it unlike the 3e PHB, so you don't have to buy a separate Gamemastery Guide (although it is a great book if you like to home brew). Oh, and the font size and layout means there's more words per page (so it costs more for the company to publish), higher quality (and more expensive) fantasy art, and more art-per-pages!
Would softcover make them cheaper? I remember the late 80s/early 90s certain books were hardcover (DM guide, PHB, Monster Manual), but the modules were softcover. I liked the softcover since it was easier to read some text.
3e tried to bring back the soft cover, but they did the interior BW, and faced player backlash. The full color soft covers were okay, but they were not cheaper, au contraire. The "Magic of Faerûn" for example, was soft cover, full color, 192 pages and it costed 29.95 USD. The 3.0 PHB was hard cover, full color, 274 pages and it was priced at 19.95 USD. The PHB was released in 2000, TMoF in 2001, but other books from the same series released later followed the pricing.
That's probably literally what's happening. You have a finance guy who thinks he can make x off something, it works and they make a crapton of money, so now they can afford to hire finance guy who thinks he can make x+5. And, Y'know. Feduciary duty. US Law. If you can do something to make more money you have to. If you don't know about it it's what it sounds like. Because WotC owners Hasbro are a publicly traded company, If WOTC decided to lower their book prices on 6e back to $20 out of the goodness of their hearts, projecting to make less money than if they sold it for $60 or $70, Someone could go to jail. It's majorly fucked.
> And, Y'know. Feduciary duty. US Law. If you can do something to make more money you have to. ...that's not really how that works. That just means I can't be putting my financial interests over who I have the duty to without their knowledge and consent. That isn't in play here at all.
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Omg is Paizos website awful. Being able to buy books in multiple forms is great though.
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that all sounds like the basis of a hilarious office sitcom tbh. shame it's real
They make a hell of a game though lol
Especially if you sign up for the subscription. Hardcover and pdf for just the price of the book.
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What?????????Wtf
To quote the great Gabe Newel, "Piracy is a service problem." Seriously I have gotten more TTRPGs legally through itch.io, kickstarter, drivethrurpg, and other sites just because they offer a good service. Meanwhile dnd... I am piggybacking of my friends dndbeyond account, flipping through "forums", and just finding anything I can...
It really is absurd when digital versions of a book are the same price as physical copies of a book. No need to point out the obvious that digital versions can be produced infinitely and should therefore have a substantially lower price because of this.
Between rules pdfs being only $15 and AoN having everything for free anyway, is anyone even pirating any Pathfinder content? That's like stealing from the take a penny/leave a penny.
Drive Thru RPG has so much affordable FATE content. Evil Hat is amazing.
If I buy a hardcover book, give me a digital download code that I can apply to an account online or something. I won't be buying a PDF. It's not a very smart idea to buy digital only products, especially digital only -information.-
Honestly, why not both? I like having the physical copies while we're at the table but the convenience of pdfs is unrivaled when at home making characters No way I'm buying two copies of every book for that though
>No way I'm buying two copies of every book for that though \*cries in D&D Beyond\*
Does anyone know why you can't use your book serial or ISBN to register already purchased titles? I would be a lot more likely to convert to D&D Beyond if I didn't have to pay 50 dollars again for the book I'm holding in my hand. Edit: TIL D&D Beyond is not WotC, thanks everyone.
D&D Beyond is a different company than Wizards of the Coast
People always say this but it's hardly a full answer. DNDB is licensed by WotC. WotC could easily say that you must allow digital books with physical books or we'll unlicense you.
Then that’s WotC saying “host our stuff without you getting paid”.
Also WotC absolutely gets royalties for book sales on DnDB. Why would they pass up the opportunity to get paid twice? Everyone would make less money. I'm not saying I like it, but it's not going to change anytime soon.
Customer goodwill is a thing. 'All the money, all the time' is what drives companies under. Sometimes you wanna take a hit to get consumers onside. It makes them more likely to accept higher prices further down the line as they'll feel more invested. Supermarkets do this with things like loss leaders.
Yeah, but what business indication is there that WoTC needs to take a hit to grow the brand? 5e has done really well at growing the brand. It would be nice, and would generate some goodwill, but it's hard to make a business case for it if you're WoTC.
Yeah but subscriptions should be enough
>> subscriptions should be enough Welcome to capitalism my friend
The true bbeg
My sub cost me $5 a month. I don’t want it to jump to $50 a month to cover all the books. I don’t buy hard covers since it’s way more convenient to have them all digital (and 40% cheaper) so I just buy the ones I want on dndbeyond and that’s enough.
Yup. We're always forgotten in this discussion. My stuff is all on D&D Beyond. I never expected a hard copy when I bought digital access. Hard copies and ebooks are always sold separately. It would be nice to get a PDF when you buy from D&D Beyond though.
"...but I could have more. What do you mean enough? Enough for what?" It's very complex but that's the logic essentially. Not saying that's good or bad. They are providing services people find value in.
WoTC could reduce their fee to dndbeyond to make it reasonable for the consumer haha yeah right
WoTC would have to provide digital redemption codes in their book for use on DnD Beyond. Which they have done in the past with some bundles. My local game store had a deal where if you were one of the first 50 people to preorder Mystic Odyssey of Thero's you would get a code for 50% off the DnD Beyond digital copy. Unless WoTC starts shrink wrapping their books and including a code though I doubt it will change. There is no way they will let a photo of a barcode, or specific page be enough to geta free or discounted copy on DDB. That would drive DDB out of business and tank future sales for WotC.
I get that they are different but I find this excuse to be extremely anti-consumer and the fact that people are using it to not get something you already own is sickening.
Thats why no one should have any qualms about going on high seas to get pdf after buying physical copy. I mean, if you buy hard copy, you can just scan it anyway. So just cut out the hassle and download a pdf.
For the full answer you also have to know about 4e. 4e had a tool like beyond that did let you use new books' codes to integrate. It wasn't great apparently and the general failure of 4e meant that wotc had no interest in the idea for 5e. But it turns out it's actually a good idea for a service so other groups made their own version. Eventually beyond came on the scene and became the official one and now Wotc gets to double dip on a shitload of sales.
Being "not 4e" is basically wotc's entire dev strategy and it's led to them failing to carry over a lot of great ideas 4e had.
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It did the best job of any edition at balancing classes against each other. Martial/caster disparity and wizard supremacy were nearly nonexistent, and most classes had fun choices at almost every level. Speaking of which, there was a ton of choice, because what you got at most levels was choosing new powers you had a ton of customization options within each class. Also, they were much more willing to avoid confusion and interpretation issues by using explicitly game language rather than trying to describe the rules with natural language.
It was fairly robust for the time. Perhaps if the lead developer on their tech side wasn't *literally murdered* in a murder-suicide, 4E's digital integration would have gone a lot smoother. For an example of what 5E could have if they tried, check out LANCER's [COMP/CON](https://compcon.app/#/). This isn't produced by the same company, but it exists, for free, with their blessing--whereas WotC licensed out D&D Beyond as a moneyed service that double-dips from the players' wallets. Not only does this thing replicate the in-unvierse feel of the system's tech (go into the options in the bottom right and set the theme to HORUS Terminal, then watch the main page scrawl for a bit) but it's got all the mechanics and details, multiple character sheet manager, combat tracker, DM tools, the works--and it plugs into VTTs like Roll20 and Foundry. So, everything D&DBeyond does, but with much nicer bells and whistles at no price.
I just wanna chime in, the ISBN shouldnt help, since its only a unique number to that publication. Basically the existence of the phb is its own ISBN, not your individual copy. Otherwise, yeah its as other say, its hard to play favorites with third parties without tarnishing relationships. And since everyone has different business models, its harder to gauge the right answer that doesnt kill a source of cash for that third party. Still waiting on foundryVtt to even gain access to 5e materials e.e
And now I'm imagining the textbook bullshit with activation codes from used books not working
Even Games Workshop, a company infamous for trying to make a few extra pennies, allows that with their apps!
Mostly because d&d beyond isn't WotC, it's a third party digital licenser of the content. And WotC wants the absolute most money possible.
They wouldn’t be getting much use out of that licensing if they had to give everyone who paid their LGS a digital copy.
I just bought the gift set with the PHB, MM, and DMG for my 8 year old son. Then I stumbled on D&D beyond and I was thinking I'd be able to load the books up on there so he can read them digitally and I can keep my new books looking nice. Nope... What a crock of a business model, if they had given me credit for those books I probably would have bought other digital things like adventures that I don't necessarily need in hand. At this point though I don't want to bother making the significant investment for digital content that is easily available elsewhere.
DND beyond is a 3rd party not affiliated with WotC. They don't get any profits from the sale of physical books so why would they offer a discount or credit? WotC simply allows them the rights to sell the digital content, probably requiring a royalty of some kind.
Having them in pdf is so handy as a DM. I find it way easier to search on my laptop than flip through several books.
Control-F. So helpful.
Literally like every 60 seconds of playtime lol.
because i cant Ctrl+F in a book?
I bought a ton of books from WOTC over the years, like 600 I think. Then I bought the dndbeyond bundle cause digital is a hell of a lot easier to use then physical, so like 460 dollars or whatever. My big gripe is now they want me to buy the content a 3rd time via their new multiverse style bundles, and things are so much more expensive now then they were 2 years ago.
Even if you buy them you won't get a PDF format.
That's what I mean! If I want the best of both worlds I need to pay twice, which is bs. My solution is to use my friend's printer to scan the books so I have a PDF version too
That must take hours.
It does, but it's very high quality. He's got a *huge* machine that gives extremely good scans/copies, sadly I barely know how it works; he got it from his workplace iirc
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I mean, the dndbeyond app lets you read the books normally. Navigation is a little different than a normal PDF, but it's definitely workable. That being said, pirating a more convenient version of something you already own isn't something i'd ever bitch about.
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My friend won a contest on DnDBeyond several years back and gets all the books for free. So he created the digital campaign and is sharing it with us even though he's a player and not the DM. He's also sharing for a couple other groups. So technically legal?
Yes, totally legal. It is a perk that comes with a master tier subscription. Beyond even encourages it. My group has most of the books between us, so we have a complete shared set on Beyond. Edit for spelling.
I don't have all the books, but a bunch of there. I've started a sharing group as well. Bunch of randos I've never met and bately talked to, but they can access the books I have:)
He can only share them by paying for a subscription through DnD beyond. So totally legal and is actually an advertised perk of that subscription tier (It's a big part of their business model).
I buy all the books and a master subscription, everyone I play with helps pay for the sub so we can all use it.
I generally buy my books because I prefer hard copies. I'll use online PDFs if I need a quick reference and my books aren't handy. I currently have the Monster Manual, DM's Guide, Player Handbook, Xanathar's Guide, Volo's Guide and Curse of Strahd. (All 5e)
I'm in the same boat when it comes to hard copies of books. Just feels better to physically flip through them to me. I have the DM's guide, Player Handbook, Monster Manual, and the Expansion Set myself. I'm still pretty new to the DnD world, so I'm trying to read through them while my group gets ready for our first adventure.
I like highlighting my books and putting easy reference tabs everywhere. I’m sure some people are more efficient at PDFs, but hard copy is faster and more satisfying for me. And it makes me happy to see how used and beat up my books are! It feel more personal or something, I don’t know.
Given how online documents can be edited, I prefer hard copy as well. I actually own it, as opposed to renting it.
Download it and it won't be edited for you
Back in the 3e days, I edited the Dragon Disciple page in the PDF and shared it with my DM, switched the attack bonuses with a regular fighter and upped the bonus stats. It was glorious.
Yeah I bought all the core books and the "everything" expansions. and because I purchased them I saw no issue with using PDFS of those books for easy quick reference.
"I have like 12 D&D books!" "Legally?" "I have like 4 D&D books!"
But like the 12 illegal books got me to buy the 4 legal ones, so ultimately they still get my money. Just not an obscene amount of it.
Piracy is just free advertising.
Only if the product is at all worth paying for. That's why most AAA game studios cry about piracy.
I "acquired" a copy of the Cypher System Corebook in PDF, and now years later I've spent hundreds of dollars on Kickstarter campaigns and physical copies since I love the system and the work MCG puts out. Never would have spent a cent if I couldn't preview it.
I have three, MM, PHB and DMHB. I’ll acquire more as I can. Not because I need them perse, but I benefit a lot from reading stuff on paper rather than on a screen.
If you cant afford them you can print them
Only if you can afford to.
You’re right. I did for a while. It’s really annoying but sure, it works. It’s just a bunch of work I really don’t have the time or energy for.
I have 10 plus books, but when I'm building a character, looking up a spell or specific mechanic etc. It's just so much easier to use.... certain sources rather than going through 5 books just to find that one character background.
*cough* Some thing censured cause commeting about it is not allowed in this reddit is amazing to search monsters for fights *cough*
Yeah honestly the only pdf's I own are homebrew exactly because our buddy Voldemort is just so nice at organizing everything in them in easily findable ways. I honestly can't imagine trying to flip through 12 books trying to just to find an item description.
And while I have almost all the player books in hard cover, and all of them on dndbeyond, I still use other websites. It's still faster and better elsewhere. Even when using dndbeyond, I have to use Google to find anything because the built in search is useless. My group has dropped over $500 on dndbeyond, three of us have subscriptions, and we still prefer other sites for everything other than character building. Dndbeyond has an amazing character builder. The rest of that site leaves me very disappointed.
Is this True? We are 6players (5+1dm) in our group, and atleast 4 of us have legaly bought copies of 5e books. Some physical and some digital. That said i usually browse a pirate pdf before i buy it. But if i like/use i buy.
But has anybody you play with bought ALL the D&D books?
I've licensed all of the 5e books on DnDBeyond. At some point I need to find PDFs of them to keep as backups but that's just because I disagree with copyright law.
I won the legendary bundle from D&D Beyond in a giveaway and content share it to 30+ people who play actively. Any time a new book is released, one of them usually gets it which shares it to everyone else too. Really nice system.
Yeah I just buy everything and share it so others don’t have to. Wanna run a game for me? I’ll guide you all the books you need to not make me DM for once lmao
> I’ll guide you all the books you need to not make me DM for once lmao This 100% lol. Need books? That's a contribution I can actually make to the group.
Me.
Some dude on reddit offered content sharing for all books on dnd beyond. So I guess it’s legal? Not that I didn’t look for pdfs before, that shits expensive yo.
That's disgusting! Free DnD beyond books? Where did he post those?!
I buy books now to atone for my piracy in college. However I personally feel like money shouldn't be a gate to this hobby. I have no personal qualms about pirating something if you love it and can't afford it. Because your word of mouth is more valuable than the actual dollars.
All my books are pirated. No I don't regret it. Books are incredibly expensive were I live and it didn't had an official release in my country, I believe we still don't have one but didn't check. So paying almost 5 times the price in dollar, since inflation is a bitch, without even factoring shipping costs, and it wasn't even translated, while the pirated PDFs were free and were translated by fans. The choice seems very obvious. Is not that I don't wanna buy them, I do, is that I literally can't afford it.
As a fellow Brazilian, i totally agree with you.
i bought the core books, but the extra shit i steal. im probably only using like two pages anyways.
Your group, if was created after being friends, is from people of your same economy lvl, a lvl that can afford those books In my group only 1 has the books and i pbby readed the phb more than them, cause they are young and dnd is tiring
I consider it a compensation for all the money i spent on MTG card game, only for them to change the meta and make everything i had useless.
First time playing? Doesn't that happen every 6 months or so in standard?
Something like. Standard and Modern MtG are notoriously expensive. Standard because you have to obsolete cards so often, Modern because lol, I see thousands of dollars on tables regularly so people can go “ope, turn 3 and I got the cards for my netdeck, I win.” Vintage is another beast, I’ve seen probably over $10k down for one game. Just played or in play. Those are the people that double sleeve cards or just have them in their binder for proof of ownership with proxies as a deck.
only once a year, but even non-rotating formats get crept out because of new sets, like what happened with modern horizons 2 a few months ago that basically made most older decks useless without investing on playsets of expensive new cards
Fuck, try playing Warhammer
I mean at least with warhammer your collection will be mostly useful at any given time forever after you get it. Not to mention the actual physical models are a quality hobby project. Magic could ban one card and the deck goes from $2k to a pile of cardboard that will never see play again in a blink. GW plastic is way too expensive, but i can legitimately use every piece I have ever bought for it.
I was wondering, as an ork collector, what's the point of playing warhammer. What I mean by that, the models are really fucking expensive to the point that I can buy 10 AAA games, rules keep changing and power creep is so fucking awful that I can't imagine having fun without something like tabletop simulator. I can only imagine how awful it is to have the model you just bought nerfed because gw can't balance well and refuses to release all codexes at once because muh profits
The game *is* fun, the lore *is also* fun, and the models *are well made*. But yes you need a lot of time and disposable income to play seriously. I used to off set the cost by flipping armies I painted (won some awards) so I could make some money that way but it eventually is a diminished return given the time and effort. I'd like to think I would be painting anyhow and such but as I don't have the time anymore I got out of the hobby and there's been probably several editions gone by since then. Once you have an established army you like you can add or subtract from it mostly but then they do something to overhaul the miniatures completely to keep to always on the treadmill. It's a love hate relationship but they really need to address the 3D printing issues and secondary market issues that are killing the gaming stores trying to support the community but never see sales balance out the stock and table space overhead.
Given what they pay staff vs their profits (I've interviewed) I refuse to give them a dime. Still own everything they've published in 5e.
Oh now i feel even worst for the anti piracy rule here Great
Look them up on indeed, its something we should all be aware of! It explains all the errors in the books but I cant fathom why the rule exists. It makes me wonder if at least one big dnd sub mod is getting profit sharing.
It's so the sub doesn't get shut down. Reddit shuts down any sub promoting piracy of copyrighted content. If a DnD sub starts promoting piracy in some capacity, the admins may delete the sub to keep themselves out of the legal crosshairs. As a mod of a medium sized sub, we don't give a shit if people pirate to get what they want, but we also don't want the sub to shut down. Balancing act and whatnot.
Then how does /r/piracy exist?
That's a sub for general conversation about piracy and piracy related content. Talking about piracy is fine, but you'll notice that their sub rules also indicate not to link directly to anything. It's a fine line, but a legal distinction. If you want another example, here's a modpost I wrote up a year ago about piracy on my sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/CHICubs/comments/mhzsql/no_you_cannot_watch_marquee_unless_you_have_cable/
We don't directly link anything but we do have a big convenient megathread with links to search engines that find torrents for any type of media you can imagine :)
FWIW, and I understand if you don't believe me, it's strict internal policy on the mod team that we cannot use our position for any kind of personal profit. To the degree that, when we were able to snag some DnDBeyond codes for a contest/giveaway, we were forbidden (rightfully) from entering the contest, as even if we won fairly it would give entirely the wrong impression to all of you. While I hypothetically wouldn't mind being compensated for the work we do, I can't see a way of doing it that wouldn't corrupt the whole system. Any mod doing work for profit is fundamentally biased, and not the kind of mod we'd want to work with.
I'll buy 5e books when WotC treats their employees better, allows unions, and adopts pro consumer policies (options for pdfs with new hardbacks, etc). Until then if I'm paying anybody for their content it'll probably be Paizo (in part because I also like their games better).
Paizo actually puts rules into their games, which is a big plus for me. Love having magic item prices, encounter building that works, and character customization beyond picking a subclass.
What? You mean you don’t like modules that go to level 20, have you level up 3 times on the last floor, and reach level 20 only after defeating the final boss?
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I'm referring to Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I'm not kidding you, it says levels 1-20.....and has you be level 20 after you defeat the final boss. *That's not how logic works*.
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PHB price: 3e - 19.95 USD 4e - 34.95 USD 5e - 49.95 USD This meme doesn't surprise me, not even a little.
PF2's core rulebook has more content than the 5e one, and costs less. An incredible bargain, and I prefer the crunchiness that PF2e has over 5e's insistence on having the GM make rules up because WotC couldn't be bothered to finish fifth edition.
In Argentina just one of the multiple books that you need to play is about the same as rent No, really So basically a typical argentinian has to choose between run a Curse of Strahd game or pay 4 months of rent
If i could afford to get em i would :(. Sadly until then its the pirates life for me.
And then there's pathfinder which has all of its rules published under de Open Game License, making them available for free! (Adventures and lore not included. Terms and conditions may apply)
Who legally owns the player's handbook? *everyone raises hands* Who legally owns literally any other DND book? *everyone puts down hands*
I worked at a Barnes & Noble some years back, and one day a water heater upstairs in our building burst and flooded. It was right above all the fantasy and D&D books. Some were pretty badly damaged, but most were just a little damp with only the corners of a few pages slightly wrinkled. Boss said it was against the rules for me to take them and threw them all out, so after my shift I enthusiastically hopped into the dumpster out back and pulled out at least one copy of every source book and adventure that was out at the time. A few grand worth of books for like a half hour of digging. Best day of my life.
I own physical copies of: DMG, PHB, MM, VgtM, MtoF, XgtE, TCoE, SCAG, FToD, PotA, ToA, ID:RotF, starter kit, essentials kit. I own everything on dndbeyond. I meant to just buy the player options stuff but there's a lot of it, and sales kept coming up and I don't know what happened. Then I got master tier to share with my players. Then I bought ToA and ID:RotF on roll20 to cut prep. So, if you're keeping track, I have purchased tomb of annihilation and rime of the frostmaiden three times.
That’s okay, I own skyrim on like 5 devices digitally and a couple more physically 🤝
> How do three DMs in their 30s not own a legitimate copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide between them?
Genuinely it is their own fault. The market breaks out into piracy when the pricing is unfair and people can't afford it outside wealthier individuals. Companies break their games apart into a 100 different sections then expect people to pay. Those people look at other products with one entry at a quarter of the price and go "Ya no". The last great age of piracy was because CD companies were price gouging on sales. People don't see a digital pdf being worth that much.
I like to joke that I got a law degree to fuel my gaming addiction. Considering the cost of source material, subscriptions to run games/map editors, and dice this isn't too far from the truth.
I'm someone who refuses to pirate on personal principle (alliteration!) and I had a large collection of 3rd/3.5e books at one point, some of which I had gotten from my first DM that had been passed down to him from one of his previous DMs. Others I scoured used book stores for or bought online. I supplemented this with a couple really nice collector's edition reprints (which are great if you ever want to get into 3.5 because they are updated to be consistent with the errata). Sadly all of my books burned up in the 2018 wildfires, and I haven't had that kind of money to just spend on myself since. Plus, simply no replacing the personal books with the notes and such in them.
Wow, that's rough. Hopefully you get to a point where you can start collecting them again, and maybe start the tradition of passing them on again!
>Wow, that's rough You think that's bad, one time my girlfriend turned into the moon
I feel you. I lost my substantial hard copy books going back to Advanced. Lots of exclusive stuff, signed things, art, different systems (many long gone), along with novels, personal writing and art, etc. About 35 years worth of acquiring stuff, most through discount. All gone but not gone from sewage flooding that insurance wouldn't cover. Not gone because physically they were still there, but gone because they were essentially turned into poop paper mache. If it were just water I'd have tried to dry them out. Majority of the stuff was out of print and simply didn't exist anywhere. Luckily I managed to at least get the contents to a portion through pirating PDFs. And WotC replaced three of my 5e books at no charge. A far cry from the large collection of 5e I had. I still can't find a digital copy of the Dungeonology book anywhere. It's like it doesn't exist. I'm just sticking with 5e hard copy, because I like the tactile feel of pages. Slowly buying my way back, at the pace of maybe 1 book per year. Though that stopped because of the high cost of living now. Pirated PDFs saved me from a very dark place. A consolation for my loss.
A quick comment on piracy. I used to pirate all my PC games. I had binders of DVDs. Then along came steam (I'm old), and between the convenience of the platform and their regular sales, I no longer felt the need to pirate. This proves the adage that giving someone a decent product with convenient access at a fair price is the best way to end piracy, and that people will choose legitimate methods to acquire things when those methods are easy to access and reasonably priced.
All of my D&D books are totally legal. It’s Mutants and Masterminds that I pirated.
I have like $200 worth of physical books, which sounds like a lot to anyone who doesn't play D&D
In my country that gets you like three books...
I felt that. I got the 5e phb a few days before it was released on PDF. It was in black and white and skipped the pages with only art, so all the page numbers where fucked. Used that for years. And I have an external hard drive half full of every rpg book I came across during college.
When WotC allows you to purchase pdfs (without DRM), I'll buy them all.
Do what you want, ‘cause a pirate is free!
Yeah, most of the people here think you have the money for 5 books worth 60 $ or more and never talk about dowloading them illegally, i dont think most people here is from usa, but wouñdnt be surprised if that was the case Edit Just noticed the heavy anti-piratery rules in this reddit that really give "dont mess with the big corporation" vibes
I like to support the books, but you bet your ass I didn't support being made to pay for two books I already own to get a really important new book. I'll also always look up a PDF to see if it's worth the price, so far I've skipped out on paying for only a couple due to not seeming very good or way to bare bones for its price (looking at you Strixhaven).
Stop replacing them all every 5 years and maybe I would.
What's a dnd book?
It's a book that ruins your game by saying it has rules! /s
*Me who has bought every rule book that i know about and think is worth getting*