Dungeons & Dragons 5e players are outraged following changes made to D&D Beyond that removed a la carte purchases for individual content.
D&D Beyond is the official app & digital service for the game. Those who don’t want to use pencil and paper can do pretty much everything associated with the game using their phone, including maintaining character sheets and rolling dice.
In the past, players could purchase individual pieces of content from official sourcebooks and add them to their D&D Beyond account for cheaper than buying the whole book. That way, if you only wanted one subclass or Feat, then you could get it on its own without paying full price.
However, a new D&D Beyond update (as explained on its FAQ page) has revealed that a la carte purchases are gone, and players will have to buy the full book if they want the content. Those who have already purchased individual content will keep it, as it’s not a retroactive change.
Naturally, fans are furious at the change, citing it as another example of Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast’s greed and anti-consumer sentiment, especially following the 2023 OGL leak disaster.
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D&D books often contain a mixture of player and DM content. This means players would only purchase the aspects of the book that they could use, such as new subclasses or spells, and then use them with their D&D Beyond account.
Fans are pointing out that their most common purchases on D&D Beyond are individual pieces of books. Now that option is gone, they won’t be buying anything else, as they’re not going to pay full price for one thing they’ll use.
Hopefully, like the OGL incident, these changes to D&D Beyond will be reversed. It could either come from fan backlash or a drop in profits, but the latter is more likely to prompt the response, especially considering why these changes were made in the first place.
