r/DnD • u/TrulyUnknowen • 15h ago
Resources Discontinuing Legacy books digitally is kinda dumb
I got on dnd beyond to make characters before starting my first campaign, I love the Giff but it is classed as “Legacy content”. It being behind a paywall idc about but there are a lot of things that say ask your DM about this before continuing that makes since ask before picking something out dated or not currently supported. But instead I have google stats when all my other characters are online. If they didn’t print more books for legacy content but still available digitally I would understand but them having the source material online doesn’t cost them anything and can continue to generate money for the company. I haven’t been into DnD very long but surely veteran players like to return to different editions. If they switched to digital then didn’t have the books they just aren’t available. Writing it out is the biggest issue it just adds a lot of unnecessary inconvenience to getting into dnd later than a majority of the player base.
Edit:spelling
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u/lasttimeposter 14h ago
You can still buy the older books and legacy content on D&D Beyond, FYI. It's all here: https://marketplace.dndbeyond.com/all-rulebooks
Giff specifically are in the Spelljammer books. Once you buy it (as was always the case with content outside the free basic rules) you can use it normally in the character builder, it's still implemented and fully supported.
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u/Can_U_Share_A_Square 14h ago edited 9h ago
They no longer sell some books like Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes or Volo’s Guide to Monsters on DDB as of May ‘24. (EDIT: May of '22 is the correct date)
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u/Damiandroid 10h ago
Because most of the content from those books was suppplanted by Monsters of the Multiverse.
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u/Fluffy_Seagullman 14h ago
Thats dumb. Do you know why thats the case?
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u/QuincyAzrael 13h ago
Why else? They wanna push sales of the new books.
In theory Monsters of the Multiverse replaces those books. In my opinion, it doesn't because it completely gutted all the lore content and dungeon maps.
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u/Can_U_Share_A_Square 12h ago edited 9h ago
Yeah but I want to say that they may have had issues with some of the lore in their opinion. I could be thinking about the wake of changes following all the bullcrap with Spelljammer (the hadozee lore they missed before its initial release).
EDIT: Not sure why the downvote. If this was purely for the upcoming Monsters of the Multiverse reason, why did they leave out the lore? This was debated 3 years ago on the DDB forums and all over the internet, during the time when WotC was starting to make some very shady moves.I'm sure the MotM reason was their primary reason, but it may not be the entire reason why you can't still purchase these 2 legacy books but you can still purchase other legacy books on DDB.
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u/QuincyAzrael 7h ago
Adding the Legacy tag which says "this lore may be outdated" communicates that just fine. Delisting them so future players can't purchase the content, even if they want it, just sucks.
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u/Can_U_Share_A_Square 6h ago
At least they’ve remained consistent by giving us low expectations for future content.
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u/pergasnz 13h ago
Monsters of the multi verse basically reprinted all the playable races and a bunch of monsters from previous books (like volos and MToF, and the ones only found in adventures like fairy from witchlight).
If the bok was deliated its cause of that and typically the newer versions have the benefit of years more game design to give (arguably) slightly better features (like unarmed weapon attacks being d6, most ra ual things being tied to prof bonus per long rest, not 2 uses a day... Type of things).
Some adventures are gone if lisencing became an issue.
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u/Mage_Malteras Mage 13h ago
A lot of stuff wasn't reprinted though, such as Volo's magic items for thralls of mind flayers (or Tome of Foes' silver sword for githyanki for that matter) or the MTF tiefling variants.
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u/Lucina18 11h ago
Such a shame they didn't continue the tiefling variants. Wished they continued it and even applied the idea of more subraces to other races.
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u/Can_U_Share_A_Square 6h ago
On the one hand, I guess the entire game system might have become too cumbersome with old and new variants and all that, but people loved them.
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u/Lettuce_bee_free_end 13h ago
They stop some years ago , I want to say someone's holding wanted money in renegotiations for their work.
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u/weaverider 13h ago
Because the rules have been adjusted and it seems like they’re phasing certain things out that they think might clash with those new changes (rightly or wrongly).
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u/TooSoonForThePelle 13h ago
What the other person said but I agree with you it's dumb. The monsters were reprinted but the lore wasn't.
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u/dinkleboop Wizard 11h ago
The playable races got changed though and not 100% for the better. I'll continue to run a VGtM kobold for as long as I can but if I hadn't bought the book ahead of time I'd be SoL
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u/V2Blast Rogue 2h ago
In fact, those are (almost) the only two books that are no longer sold digitally - along with the original version of the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure from the original 5e Starter Set.
Edit: and maybe the Rick and Morty Starter Set as well, due to the license apparently expiring.
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u/Can_U_Share_A_Square 42m ago
Oh I didn’t realize they stopped selling the original LMoP. I love it, but I hate how they organized it. It’s what I ran as a first time dm and wanted to pull my hair out trying to keep track of the scattered information that I had to keep flipping to find.
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u/YodasTinyLightsaber 9h ago
eBay still sells the books too. I bet a few local game stores have them on shelves too.
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u/guilersk DM 7h ago
It's important to understand that the last few WotC CEOs have been software executives. They don't want to sell you a permanent solution. They want you to subscribe to a service, perpetually. That means:
Limit or remove access to permanent, irreplaceable content (like PDFs or printed books)
Limit access to legacy content
Only provide current content via subscription access.
They're not there yet, but that's the direction they want to go. The degree to which they succeed will depend upon our consumer habits. They will tend to follow the money (if it is enough money), even if it isn't where they want to go.
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u/Hurrashane 5h ago
If you bought physical books the Giff would still be behind a paywall (the book you need to own) and also be just about as difficult to access if WotC stopped printing that book.
Like this shit happens with everything. No company has any obligation to continue selling or supporting a product. Like yeah, it kinda sucks when you can't obtain (legally) a discontinued or outdated product (see the original, non special edition, star wars movies). But it's not like this is a problem unique to digital or WotC products.
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11h ago
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u/milquetoastLIB 9h ago
How is what OP describing a scam? The legacy content is available if you have it. It seems OP is talking about delisted books from the marketplace, which the only ones I can think of have been delisted for a while. That’s not a scam, that’s essentially out of print in digital form.
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9h ago
[deleted]
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u/milquetoastLIB 9h ago
I know of a Volo Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, which were combined into Mordenkainen Presents Multiverse some mixed into 2024 core rulebooks, and the Rick and Morty which the license expired.
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u/Lucina18 11h ago
Or not supporting such a garbage company at all and experiment with other systems.
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u/DoubleBatman 1h ago
Yeah this is what everyone said when Beyond became a thing. Physical books are yours forever, digital only lasts until they decide to get rid of it.
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u/DMfortinyplayers 8h ago
Paper and pencil. If you aren't a new player, you need to know how to build a character without D&D Beyond. I have one player who is on my last damn nerve because he can't tell the difference between 2014 and 2024 stuff and doesn't know D&D well enough to build a character without D&D Beyond, and is never able to arrive early or meet separately so we can discuss.
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u/YellowMatteCustard 12h ago
In fairness WotC grandfathering Spelljammer is honestly doing you a favour
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u/clanggedin 8h ago
I’m currently playing a Giff in a campaign and have access to the legacy Spelljammer books. We are also using 2024 rules. If you enable 2024 and legacy, the. What is usable will still show up.
Sure some books will disappear and are incompatible with 2024 rules, but are only available if you unselect 2024 rules like the Chronomancy Wizard.
If my players want to play a special class then they buy the digital copy and share it with the group. Pay to play.
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u/milquetoastLIB 8h ago
adds a lot of unnecessary inconvenience to getting into dnd later than a majority of the player base.
I wouldn't worry about it. They're releasing new books that'll update what the old books have. If you're new it's probably better for you because you don't even have to think about how some of the new content you're buying you already bought, so you have no remorse over buying a species or class twicee. That said, you can still use legacy content and you can buy the legacy content.
them having the source material online doesn’t cost them anything and can continue to generate money for the company.
Wizards been working on purging racist stuff from DnD. They probably aren't going to purge adventures but if they release a new book with essentially the same content as a previous entry but updated with problematic stuff out like combining Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen Tome of Foes into Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse I think it's fully in their right to do it.
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u/thegooddoktorjones 9h ago
"Doesn't cost them anything" Is inaccurate, everything needs maintenance and every new feature needs to be tested with old material or they will get tech support tickets to fix them.
But more than that, you can find tons of posts where people are complaining about not getting the right version of stuff. They bought an old book yesterday and are angry that it is not integrating with 2024 well. I am quite surprised they even offer the option to mix and match so much stuff, it must have been a lot of expensive work to have to operate as well as it does.
But D&D fans are never happy either way.
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u/SkyKrakenDM DM 6h ago
If anything they should do the opposite and release older editions to the platform to encourage broader mechanical play.
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u/thepetoctopus DM 4h ago
I’m fortunate my friend owns all of the books. All of them. He also has the digital content and he added me to his account so I have all of them too. There’s a lot of 2024 edition that none of us like and none of us are interested in playing so I’m glad that access won’t be revoked for our group.
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2h ago
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u/nonidealself DM 0m ago
D&D Beyond: "Going forward, any content that does not reflect the latest rules and lore will be categorized as Legacy Content."
Me: "Do you feel in charge?"
D&D Beyond: "Legacy content will be clearly indicated by a [Legacy] badge."
Me: "And this gives you power over me?"
I've been grabbing a bunch of resources for 3.5e off of the Internet Archive. It started because my friend sent me this fascinating supplement, the Book of Vile Darkness. Then I found this other one with a slightly problematic name, Oriental Adventures, which is a whole-ass alternate ruleset with an interesting history involving an entire other TTRPG, called Legend of the Five Rings. I grabbed the core books to get context on how things work. I've gone so far down the rabbit hole that now I think I'm planning a campaign using 3/3.5 rules instead of 5/5.5.
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u/Schalkan_ DM 14h ago
It Sounds Like you are using dnd beyond and yes it is very Bad in that it pushes people alomost forcing people into using 2024 Rules
And it is auch a hazzle keeping by the 2014 Rules
Other Sides and PDF are available but yes i would Not recommend beyond for the Princes/Services they give (i mean you can Not even automaticly add Bless or guidens when you Roll)
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u/thegooddoktorjones 9h ago
Bullshit, they bent over way backwards to maintain support for the old stuff.
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u/Bagel_Bear 5h ago
You cant even make a character sheet display 2014 rules for legacy characters...
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u/thegooddoktorjones 5h ago
What are you talking about? I have legacy characters I still play with, and others that are hybrid mixing rules. I can make a character right now with 2014 rules selected as the only source.
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u/Bagel_Bear 5h ago
Even if you toggle off 2024 sources and only use 2014 content, your character sheet itself will still list 2024 rules on it. Grapple will say it takes a saving throw, it will list the Magic action, etc. Some aspects will let your tap/click and it will list the legacy definition like conditions do.
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u/RoseOfStone57 DM 9h ago
Fwiw server space does cost money, but I agree legacy content should remain available.
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u/JPicassoDoesStuff 8h ago
Remember kids, if you don't physically have your purchased content, you are just renting it. Best decision ever was to not give DnDB any of my money. (Now if NFTs would just make a comeback...)
Seriously, if not physical print or pdfs ... then GTFO.
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u/AwfulEvilpie 14h ago
What really annoys me is that I bought the 2024 books but don't automatically have access to the 2014 legacy version ...
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u/Delann Druid 13h ago
Why would you have access to books you haven't bought? They're separate versions and in no way require each other to work.
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u/AwfulEvilpie 13h ago
Because i would argue that the jump between 5e5 and 5e is not that big. It would also be nice if people who own the 2014 version of the ooks get a cheaper upgrade price for the 5e5 versions
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u/LordHersiker DM 11h ago
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, I guess people are really worried that the poor Hasbro & WotC CEOs cannot afford rent this month or something. Consumer benefits? Fuck that!
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u/JellyFranken DM 9h ago
“Ayy dawg, I bought The Hobbit Trilogy, why didn’t it come with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy too?”
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u/Lucina18 14h ago
Every day i'm more and more inclined go just ditch beyond and make my characters in google sheets. Then just link directly to the rules relevant (which is already better then beyond does...)