Frustrations With Digital TTRPG Sourcebooks

I can’t find the exact blog post, but some time in the last few months I had a throwaway line about how I was a little frustrated in how D&D’s digital assets were handled, particularly the fact that they are tied to platforms. That is to say, if I bought the 2024 Player’s Handbook on Roll20, I wouldn’t also have access to it on DnDBeyond. I think there are really 2 reasons this hasn’t blown up more: 1) many of the platforms only require the DM to purchase content (if it was required of all the players, I think there’d be a revolt) 2) D&D is still primarily an analog, pencil and paper game. That said, this issue has started to become a bit more relevant to me, so I wanted to get some ideas out there (and maybe vent a little).

Long-time readers of this blog will know of the journey I took with ebooks. For years I wouldn’t get into the modern ebook ecosystem because I’d been burned in the past by proprietary systems disappearing and taking my purchases with them. It wasn’t until epubs (and the fact that many of the publishers I care about, like Tor, started selling DRM-free books) that I finally got on the bandwagon. The tabletop RPG space seems to be like the early digital book space, except worse because of the prices involved. The PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual are $50-ish each. Much more expensive to rebuy if your platform disappears.

However, unlike ebooks, there is a slight complication involved with virtual tabletops (VTTs) and the digital versions of the books. For a regular ebook, I have always maintained (and still believe) that a purchase of a physical book should come with a free ebook just as the music industry does with vinyl; any newly produced record will come with free MP3s or FLACs when you buy the physical album. The regular book is already created digitally. For the vast majority of books (maybe not kids’ books or illustration-heavy books like Brandon Sanderson’s) exporting to PDF, epub, or mobi should be a painless process that does not require the publisher to spend any extra money in addition to creation of the physical book. Therefore, it should be freely offered with the book. When it comes to TTRPG publishing companies like Kobold Press or Hit Point Press that will sell you a physical book and PDF, I truly believe the PDF should come free with the book. (They usually sell you a bundle at a discounted price) I know that TTRPG books are illustration-heavy and there may need to be some PDF tweaks, but I would imagine that, once again, it should mostly be a case of exporting to PDF (and also maybe some professional publishing format for the printers?) and that’s that. I should NOT have to pay more.

VTTs, however, are a different story. This is what makes the vendor lock-in maybe a bit more understandable while still being frustrating. Typically, from what I’ve seen, whether it’s Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, or DnD Beyond - there is a LOT more work involved in porting the work to the VTT. This is why I deliberately used the word porting from the video game world. Yes, nowadays, I know that Unity just exports to any console and/or PC, but back when I first started playing video games in the 1980s, programmers had to reprogram each game for each console because they were programming at the chip or assembly language level. And for a VTT, the true usefulness of purchasing an adventure or source book is that it will automate dice rolls, come with character tokens, and otherwise reduce the need to “homebrew” everything for the digital platform. So, although it irks me to potentially pay twice, I understand why Kobold Press would charge me $40-$60 for their sourcebook/pdf and then another $40 for Foundry or Roll20 or whatever VTT I chose. However, the general lack of portability across VTTs means that if I’ve sunk hundreds of dollars into any particular system, it becomes prohibitively expensive to leave. And this is great for the companies that run the VTTs, but not so great for me if the company goes bankrupt.

I think in a lot of ways, the true annoyance for me comes from the fact that the sourcebooks are mostly reference books. I don’t need, for example, the D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide with me at every session. If I’ve done a good job of preparing, I shouldn’t need to consult any of the books during a session. But any DM will know that unexpected things happen at the table and you might need to look up the cost of a sword or the stats for a city guard or something. And, in modern times I don’t care if you’re looking up the definition of a word or the stat block for a mind flayer - doing it in a regular book vs using the internet and/or a search field just plain sucks. And if you happen to be traveling to play you don’t want to lug along 3-4 (or more) encyclopedia volume weight books. So even if I’m not playing online and we don’t want to be on our phones or computer while playing (ie we’re playing with pencil/paper), there’s still a huge convenience to having the books available digitally to look stuff up.

In an ideal world 2 things would be true - 1) Wizards of the Coast would provide PDFs of their books because sometimes DnDBeyond goes down right before a game is supposed to happen (look on reddit at everyone panicking when it went down when they updated the site to work with the 2024 PHB) 2) the different VTTs would have agree to an API or standard format that would let me use my books on any VTT regardless of where I bought it. This way I could use whatever system my players want to use and/or I can take my stuff with me if the VTT goes out of business (rather than losing hundreds of dollars for content I’ve lost access to). While I’m wishing for rainbows and unicorns, I’d also love it if 3rd party creators (like those on DMsGuild or RPG Drive Thru) could just publish their content in a way that would make it all work on the different VTTs. Whenever I want to use DnDBeyond’s encounter builder for my Dungeon in a Box campaigns I have to spend a good chunk of time making Homebrew characters for the enemies they’ve created for their campaigns.

The thing that caused me to write this blog post is that I’m slowly branching away from exclusivity with D&D. (Whereas if I remain completely in the D&D world, DndBeyond is pretty sufficient as a VTT) Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere TTRPG (of which I’m a Kickstarter backer) is not D&D and, therefore, not on DnDBeyond, so I needed to pick a VTT for that TTRPG. I’ve also been eyeing Tales of the Valiant which is currently ALMOST a drop-in replacement for D&D 5e, but may eventually become to D&D 5e what Pathfinder was to D&D 3.5e. In a way, this means perhaps I should have chosen to get all my digital goods through a third party VTT, but realistically which is more likely to be around in years? D&D - owned by Hasbro (one of the largest toy companies) or Foundry (developed by one dude - or a small team)? I want my expensive books to reside somewhere where they will exist digitally for a long time - especially if they are not PDFs that I can take with me if the VTT dies.

• Ebooks
• DnD
• Tales of the Valiant
• ToV
• Kobold Press
• Wizards of the Coast
• Hasbro
• VTT
• Foundry VTT
• Roll20
• D&D