There's been a lot of discussion of WOTC moving to microtransactions as a model for D&D. Details are now coming out as to what the possible nature of that will be.

Right now, DNDBeyond already has microtransactions. You can right now pay for an entire book of content, OR you can buy a microtransaction of things like "just the feats" or "just a subclass" from that book for a smaller fee than the entire book. That's a microtransaction.

They've already mentioned specialized digital minis and dice for their upcoming digital table top.

Here is the survey:

Quote from: WOTC SurveyThese are all of the options listed on the survey as items you should indicate your interest in for future offers:

New Playable Content (feats, spells, magic items, etc.)
Player Aids (handouts or references to share with players during the game)
Art Show (collections of art and images)
Rules (discrete chunks of new rules that are lore agnostic and can be added to any adventure or setting)
"How-To" Guides (options of things that DMs can add to their campaigns along with advice and inspiration)
Serialized Adventures
Sound Effects
Lore Drops (lore and world-building that fleshes out places of interest in D&D settings)
Single, Self Contained Adventures
Short Fiction
Bestiary
Experimental Content to Playtest

To me, a lot of this looks like optional content like you'd find in Dragon and Dungeon magazine years ago, with some added digital aspects. TSR and later WOTC would release what can fairly be described as a subclass (or prestige class in 3e or kits in 2e or alternative classes in 1e, depending on the edition) to Dragon Magazine. Those were microtransactions where you bought the magazine to gain access to the subclass for a few bucks. It wasn't digital, but it was a microtransaction to access optional rules.

Now if they didn't specifically label this stuff as optional, I'd be bothered. But if they put out optional rules for more granular wilderness travel, or an optional Jester subclass, those kinds of things I'd be fine with. If they're good enough, I'd pay for them.

I know the common argument of those who dislike 5e and/or dislike WOTC/Hasbro is to accuse them of planning to introduce microtransactions which either are required to play the game, or which give a power boost to players who buy those microtransactions. I don't think that's where this is headed at all and I've seen zero evidence that's what's planned. I also never viewed buying Dragon or Dungeon magazine to present a new option in one of those magazines to your DM to try and use that content for your PC as a microtransaction that was to gain power or required to play the game either. But if you think that's where this is headed or is already there, I welcome those thoughts. Or any other thoughts on the topic.

WotC is going to whiff so hard on the VTT, this is going to make D&D look like Joe's diaper after Taco Tuesday at Camp David.  Video game developers focus on graphics and voice acting because its EASY.  Focusing on Story and Rules are HARD.  They are going to release a good looking tool that is hollow to its core.  They'll have a year of uptick, and then unexplainably will lose users month over month.

Look at Diablo 3 and their store and what it did to Diablo 3 for player base.  Expect loot boxes using skinner box mechanics to teach 13 year old's to gamble.  We'll have parent groups coming out against D&D hard on this in a number of countries and DnD Beyond will get banned in a few EU states over loot boxes.

Why would you pay $20/mo to play a game you can go down to your hobby shop and play for free?

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on August 22, 2023, 01:55:20 PM
WotC is going to whiff so hard on the VTT, this is going to make D&D look like Joe's diaper after Taco Tuesday at Camp David.  Video game developers focus on graphics and voice acting because its EASY.  Focusing on Story and Rules are HARD.  They are going to release a good looking tool that is hollow to its core.  They'll have a year of uptick, and then unexplainably will lose users month over month.

Look at Diablo 3 and their store and what it did to Diablo 3 for player base.  Expect loot boxes using skinner box mechanics to teach 13 year old's to gamble.  We'll have parent groups coming out against D&D hard on this in a number of countries and DnD Beyond will get banned in a few EU states over loot boxes.

Why would you pay $20/mo to play a game you can go down to your hobby shop and play for free?

Agreed.  I saw a VTT being talked about on the big burple and it talked about how customizable it is but the players are all sitting around the same table.  Whats the point?

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on August 22, 2023, 01:55:20 PM
Why would you pay $20/mo to play a game you can go down to your hobby shop and play for free?

Just to be clear, that's been going on already for a long time now.

For 4th edition in 2012 we had the Character Creator that came with all the content for $6.75/mo. And of course there was always Dragon and Dungeon magazine subscriptions before that.

For 5th edition my DM subscribed to the "buy everything" tier from DNDBeyond years ago, before WOTC even owned it, and has continued to add stuff to it when it's released and pay the monthly fee to share that content with all his players in multiple games. I don't even know if they offer that original "buy everything" tier right now since when I looked there was just the Hero tier (can't share with others, $2.17 mo if purchased yearly) or the Master tier (can share with your players, $4.58/mo if purchased yearly) and I don't think either gets to retroactively everything like the old tier did.

Anyway yeah, our primary DM has been paying a monthly fee for years and years now. Lots and lots of people have. I get it not being your thing and your reasons for thinking that's a bad idea for your group, but to be clear it's definitely something some meaningful number of others do think is fine.

Quote from: Mistwell on August 22, 2023, 02:23:03 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on August 22, 2023, 01:55:20 PM
Why would you pay $20/mo to play a game you can go down to your hobby shop and play for free?

Just to be clear, that's been going on already for a long time now.

For 4th edition in 2012 we had the Character Creator that came with all the content for $6.75/mo. And of course there was always Dragon and Dungeon magazine subscriptions before that.

For 5th edition my DM subscribed to the "buy everything" tier from DNDBeyond years ago, before WOTC even owned it, and has continued to add stuff to it when it's released and pay the monthly fee to share that content with all his players in multiple games. I don't even know if they offer that original "buy everything" tier right now since when I looked there was just the Hero tier (can't share with others, $2.17 mo if purchased yearly) or the Master tier (can share with your players, $4.58/mo if purchased yearly) and I don't think either gets to retroactively everything like the old tier did.

Anyway yeah, our primary DM has been paying a monthly fee for years and years now. Lots and lots of people have. I get it not being your thing and your reasons for thinking that's a bad idea for your group, but to be clear it's definitely something some meaningful number of others do think is fine.

You can buy the books on DnD Beyond, you run the encounter builder, use the search for monsters, build your own homebrew and you can even roll dice on said monsters, all without paying a yearly fee.  Your players fill out their sheets and roll dice and are happier than pressing a button and initiate a poor random number generator, because they all are inherently poor random number generators compared to regular dice.  There is literally no reason to give D&D Beyond any money beyond buying the digital PDF.   I was a subscriber, I no longer am, I notice no change.  Players can buy the books, ask for the spell list for their levels OR they go to plenty of sites and look up the spells avaialble for 5E.  Don't get me wrong if you want to pay for the subscription, I say go for it.  I'm on other VTT's now and could not be happeir.

I wish them the best of Luck but I am a pen & paper player and will remain that way. I also do not require current product to keep playing that way. If they stop producing physical products that I might have purchased if they had something I was interested in and not full of woke bullshit then oh well. Other companies are there to fill the void.

Micro-transactions for micro-brains.     

Right now I can go to Roll20 and with the books I own start playing for free.

In WotZi's walled garden I won't be able to do so, I'll have to pay 20 bucks a month plus whatever else they want to cut pout form the game so they can milk even more money from me.

The "it's optional!" excuse is how video games got to a place where they sell you full price a game that they cut out content already in it to later "release" it as an expansion and charge you even more.

But do carry on making excuses for the megacorporation.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 22, 2023, 02:50:41 PM
Right now I can go to Roll20 and with the books I own start playing for free.

In WotZi's walled garden I won't be able to do so, I'll have to pay 20 bucks a month plus whatever else they want to cut pout form the game so they can milk even more money from me.

Self imposed penury.  Only the terminally stupid will fall for it.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on August 22, 2023, 02:49:12 PM
I wish them the best of Luck but I am a pen & paper player and will remain that way. I also do not require current product to keep playing that way. If they stop producing physical products that I might have purchased if they had something I was interested in and not full of woke bullshit then oh well. Other companies are there to fill the void.

Exactly.  With the OSR there are so many other choices, who needs WOTC?

I run with Maptools, but my players use actual dice and pencil/paper (ironically, I do use PDF character sheets, but they're stored on my computer, not WotC's or anyone else's).

Quote from: Mistwell on August 22, 2023, 01:49:12 PM
I know the common argument of those who dislike 5e and/or dislike WOTC/Hasbro is to accuse them of planning to introduce microtransactions which either are required to play the game, or which give a power boost to players who buy those microtransactions. I don't think that's where this is headed at all and I've seen zero evidence that's what's planned. I also never viewed buying Dragon or Dungeon magazine to present a new option in one of those magazines to your DM to try and use that content for your PC as a microtransaction that was to gain power or required to play the game either. But if you think that's where this is headed or is already there, I welcome those thoughts. Or any other thoughts on the topic.

This comes off as disingenuous to me. I don't know about after the magazines went digital, but people were paying for a whole magazine, not just a small part of the magazine. The fact of the matter is that you couldn't just buy a small portion of the magazine like a page or two on a class or skill, so I would hardly count the magazines as micro transactions. Also factor in that just because you had a class, skill or adventure that you liked didn't mean it was officially part of the game it was optional. Now everything that is put into print, weather digital or physical is all official and there is a push to make it all available in every game.

Quote from: Alden on August 22, 2023, 09:35:54 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on August 22, 2023, 01:49:12 PM
I know the common argument of those who dislike 5e and/or dislike WOTC/Hasbro is to accuse them of planning to introduce microtransactions which either are required to play the game, or which give a power boost to players who buy those microtransactions. I don't think that's where this is headed at all and I've seen zero evidence that's what's planned. I also never viewed buying Dragon or Dungeon magazine to present a new option in one of those magazines to your DM to try and use that content for your PC as a microtransaction that was to gain power or required to play the game either. But if you think that's where this is headed or is already there, I welcome those thoughts. Or any other thoughts on the topic.

Also factor in that just because you had a class, skill or adventure that you liked didn't mean it was officially part of the game it was optional. Now everything that is put into print, weather digital or physical is all official and there is a push to make it all available in every game.

Like I said, "Now if they didn't specifically label this stuff as optional, I'd be bothered. But if they put out optional rules for more granular wilderness travel, or an optional Jester subclass, those kinds of things I'd be fine with. If they're good enough, I'd pay for them."  I've never seen a push to make everything on DNDBeyond available in every game. I don't know many who allow all the setting book stuff, do you?

Hopefully 6e will flop so badly that the entire economy of China and France will collapse.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on August 22, 2023, 01:55:20 PM
WotC is going to whiff so hard on the VTT, this is going to make D&D look like Joe's diaper after Taco Tuesday at Camp David.  Video game developers focus on graphics and voice acting because its EASY.  Focusing on Story and Rules are HARD.  They are going to release a good looking tool that is hollow to its core.  They'll have a year of uptick, and then unexplainably will lose users month over month.

Look at Diablo 3 and their store and what it did to Diablo 3 for player base.  Expect loot boxes using skinner box mechanics to teach 13 year old's to gamble.  We'll have parent groups coming out against D&D hard on this in a number of countries and DnD Beyond will get banned in a few EU states over loot boxes.

Why would you pay $20/mo to play a game you can go down to your hobby shop and play for free?

They'll have different monetary tiers based on how much material you want probably. $4.99/mo. foot-in-the-door fee all the way up to $19.99/mo. for the powergamers who want it all. This'll take shopping for gear to another level with gamers dishing out real $$$ for masterwork and magic items. Compared to the trickle of money WoTC's making off selling books, selling a video game that drains gamers of their money is just great business.

You have gamers spending thousands a year (individually) on video game micro-transactions in order to get an edge. WoTC'd be stupid for missing out on this and the shift would revitalize the company.