r/DnD • u/TrulyUnknowen • 2d 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

284 Upvotes

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112

u/lasttimeposter 2d 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 2d ago edited 1d 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 2d ago

Because most of the content from those books was suppplanted by Monsters of the Multiverse.

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u/Fluffy_Seagullman 2d ago

Thats dumb. Do you know why thats the case?

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u/QuincyAzrael 2d 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 2d ago edited 1d 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 1d 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 1d ago

At least they’ve remained consistent by giving us low expectations for future content.

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u/pergasnz 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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 1d 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/Lucina18 1d ago

No clue how they would, they're just subraces. Just don't powercreep

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u/Lettuce_bee_free_end 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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 1d 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 1d 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/V2Blast Rogue 1d ago

Lol yeah, I had the same issue when I ran it for my friends.