What ‘Radiant Citadel’ & ‘Spelljammer’ Tell Us About D&D’s Digital Future
After acquiring D&D Beyond, WotC’s previews of both Radiant Citadel and Spelljammer give us a bold look at D&D’s digital future.
It has been one month since WotC acquired D&D Beyond. After parent company Hasbro spent $146.3 million — in cash no less — to acquire the online 5E toolset from Fandom. But WotC hit the ground running. A quick updated terms of service, and then bam. Two previews of upcoming books in as many months. And this is just the beginning. With Spelljammer Academy still in the works, and a new Dragonlance book on the horizon, we’ve got an interesting look at D&D’s digital future.
D&D Beyond – Previews are Just the Beginning
This feels like turning a corner for D&D. If you were around in the 4th Edition days, halcyon though they might have been, you’ve seen firsthand how WotC has handled digital delivery before.
That is to say, things got dire. Though, that’s as much to do with 4th Edition’s development cycle as anything else. It’s one of the shortest editions in D&D history and once the writing was on the wall, the game began to bloat. So much so that folks needed the D&D Insider Character Builder which stuck around until just a few years ago. Rip.
But even then, D&D and digital were like a pair of star-crossed lovers.
Enter this latest round.
D&D Beyond was developed by Curse originally, before they were acquired, as most things are, by bigger companies with more money hoping to find more value by devouring smaller enterprises for substance. It began life as a tool to make things easier for people who wanted to play D&D. It was designed by players for players.
And D&D Beyond has been a work in progress ever since, constantly striving for newer and better features. Or better layouts. From campaigns to characters, D&D Beyond makes it easy.
Which is why it seems to fit in so perfectly with Hasbro’s new CEO’s vision. Chris Cocks, formerly president of WotC, believes that the future of D&D is digital. And the latest moves on D&D Beyond show us how.
D&D’s Digital Future
Because WotC is working with a direct digital distributor they have another avenue to put out content. It puts me in mind of demos, basically. It’s all marketing, sure, but it’s marketing that comes with playable adventures and rules previews. They can, for instance, release the whole first chapter of an upcoming book ahead of launch day. Or in the case of Spelljammer, they can release a “tutorial adventure” on this specific platform without it being an ordeal under WotC’s normal publishing ethos for the rest of 5E, which up ’til now has been “we don’t make digital books, other sites do that.” But here we are.
Not only do we have these previews, but WotC basically pushed out a patch for Vecna the archlich. If you missed it, they released the Vecna Dossier which updated the lore and presented a new statblock for one of the most iconic D&D villains. And it was only available on D&D Beyond.
I expect we’ll see a lot more of this in the future. Digital exclusives, as well as free previews and adventures. I wouldn’t be surprised if they roll out new digital dice sets or start laying out more interactive Unearthed Arcana. The doors are wide open, and the possibilities seem limitless.
What do you think all this means for D&D Beyond and D&D in their brand new digital future?
