Folks, I have been a little harsh on Dungeons & Dragons creators Wizards of the Coast—and its owner, Hasbro—for its many fusses and foibles over the past decade. And not for terrible reasons: Weird pre-order bonuses that reek of the worst of videogame DLC, the slow-motion trainwreck that was Sigil, the troubles with getting anything BG3-related off the ground (and also laying off most of the folks who made BG3 responsible).
I am delighted to report, however, that D&D Beyond is doing something unequivocally neat in its partnered content program, and looks set to continue doing neat things with it without screwing up.
While my little independent-loving heart thinks sweeping everything into one WoTC-owned platform probably isn't healthy for the hobby as a whole, this kind of cooperation is still a major improvement over… well, the entire OGL thing. You know, where WoTC put a metaphorical gun to the head of its entire creator ecosystem for basically no reason, while making headlines because Hasbro CEOs said it was under-monetised.
It's so popular, in fact, that it actually made it to an episode of Dimension 20—one of the most popular D&D actual plays out there, second only to Critical Role (and in fact so good that Critical Role got its DM to run its new campaign).
The rest of the roadmap includes an Eberron supplement by its original designer Keith Baker, a collection of first level one-shots by Beadle & Grimm’s Pandemonium Warehouse called "Faster, Purple Worm! Everybody Dies, vol. 1", Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting: Part 2 by Loot Tavern, and the first Griffon's Saddlebag book, a popular magic item supplement.
And hey, this is very much WoTC just doing what it should've been doing for years—but given we've gone from the seemingly open hostility to third-party creators via the OGL fiasco in 2023 to this, I'm more than happy to give credit where it's due.
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