A new leak promises to reignite controversy in theDungeons & Dragonscommunity. According to sources within Wizards of the Coast, D&D Beyond plans to increase its highest-tier subscription price by more than 400 percent. Dungeon Scribe, better known as Hos,broke the news on Twitterthat WotC had plans to change D&D Beyond’s subscription tiers. Currently, the D&D tools and resource site hasthree tiersfor every level of player: a free tier that allows new players to create limited characters using the base D&D rules, a Hero tier with unlimited characters and campaigns and early access to new tools, and the DM-focused Master tier which allows content sharing across several accounts. Players can also pay for new sourcebooks such as the recent release ofSpelljammerfor access to even more character classes and monsters.Related:How Critical Role Helped Me Fall Back In Love With FantasyHowever, Hos’s sources said that Hasbro executives handed down an order to increase D&D Beyond’s monetization by raising the price of the Master tier to $30 per month. In addition, the free tier would restrict access to all homebrew content and deauthorize OGL 1.0a, raising the specter of content theft that caused Wizards to back down from a leaked draft of OGL 1.1.
The leak was later backed up byDnD ShortsandNerd Immersion, two D&D content creators that also said they had sources within WotC.
“I can confirm these changes are what @Wizards digital game VP Chris Cao has planned for the future of D&D,” wrote DnD Shorts. “The $30 per month is for the highest tier, and includes monthly content drops. Their dream is everyone paying $30 per month to play.”
According to Hos, the 400 percent increase in price is not being proposed by “rational minds.” Hasbro, the massive gaming conglomerate that owns the Dungeons & Dragons IP, “reportedly handed this down, ignoring suggestions or input from their own staff.”
News of this massive price increase comes soon after Wizards of the Coast was forced to retreat fromproposed changes to the Open Gaming License, which allows content creators to create and monetize content for Dungeons & Dragons. The changes would have required a 25 percent royalty to be paid to Wizards–and by extension Hasbro–for all sales above $750,000. It would also have required content creators to provide their content free of charge to Wizards of the Coast, who could then use it in their own official releases.
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