D&D beyond and Roll 20 cross compatable?

Is there any plan to have the content you buy on dndbeyond to be available on Roll20? or do they just expect everyone to keep buying the products they have already paid for? It seems like a shameless money grab 

Jennifer you do realize that Roll20 and DnDBeyond are two separate companies, right? -Adam

I think it's less about a money grab and more about a difference in product models.  It's like buying a Novel and buying the movie Adaptation.  Setting up the contents to work on Roll20 is not an insignificant task.  Beyond that, Roll20 predates DnD Beyond, and both have grown in the direction that makes the most sense for their supplied services. I know I've seen API scripts in the past that import characters generated in DnD Beyond into Roll20, I think integrations like that are the most likely to occur.

Hi Jennifer - It sounds like you're weighing where to invest for your library of D&D products and thank you for reaching out for more insight into our process. I believe I can help with a few points of context for you: Roll20's licensing relationship with Wizards of the Coast is completely independent of D&D Beyond. Roll20 supports several game systems officially, and we do our best to do right by D&D fans—many of us are long-time fans as well! Our conversion team works hard on our converted modules because we want to bring the best, most immersive experience we can to the virtual tabletop! For many modules, this means Roll20 exclusive support such as additional maps (Curse of Strahd, Tyranny of Dragons), rollable tables/macros, and all of our licensed D&D products come with dynamic lighting. If you buy any Wizards of the Coast or any publisher's content on another platform (whether that be in print or via D&D Beyond or similar) you are welcome to convert that to the Roll20 tabletop! I hope that helps, and thanks for reaching out!

i agree with the OP, itd be great if WotC had a product key that I could register on all the different platforms. that being said, i have all of the 5e books in hardback, and all of the core books on both roll20 and dnd beyond, plus other supplemental books on both platforms. ive spent a lot of money on dnd in general.

Adam Caramon said: Jennifer you do realize that Roll20 and DnDBeyond are two separate companies, right? -Adam lame comment. you do realize that WotC is one company, allowing two other companies to sell digital versions of their books at the same price that you can buy the physical version of the book, and that they make money off of it all along the way... and that there are plenty of ways modern companies have allowed customers to access products beyond physical copies that theyve paid for... you do realize that right? (im not going to pull out the heavy hitting examples on you tho) it does feel greedy. there is a reason why there is so much extra that goes into these digital versions of books to make it come close to feeling ok about buying a product again, that you already own. WotC should be really happy that I generally love all of their dnd stuff.

I think you may not understand that different people at Roll20 and D&D Beyond must do different work to adapt the content for the different platforms. Those people must be paid for their work and their infrastructures both have costs that must be covered to maintain their service, all on top of the licensing fee to WotC. Like The Aaron said: if you buy a novel, you do not get the movie for free.

If you purchased the hard copy of the book then you have the information at your fingertips. Roll20 provides the ability to create character sheets and you can enter all of the information from your physical copy of the book into Roll20. If you think it's a hassle to convert that information into data inside Roll20, that's an example of why you are required to buy it on Roll20. They needed to employ people to integrate that information into Roll20 so you didn't have to. That's what you're paying for. If you don't want to pay for that, go ahead and input what you need -- you own the material. I know buying another copy is costly and not favorable but I do not look at it as buying another copy of the Monster Manual or Player's Handbook, I look at it as buying the integration of those tools into my game so my players can use the charactermancer and drag-in features to save us time.

Agreed with various here.  You are not JUST buying another digital copy of the same book that you purchased from WotC.  The Roll20 version is really a product of its own using the same material but including massive amounts of work to incorporate all that material into a VTT usable by us.  It will always have a cost separate from the original work until those original work companies begin doing all that integration themselves and sell it to you and then they will also charge for that additional work.

I understand the point about converting a dungeon to roll20 (maps, handouts, etc.), but what is done to convert a rule book? What integration is there for a rule book into roll20? It might be worthwhile to purchase a rule book for roll20, if there was a character generator for that rule book, but AFAIK there is no such integration. The "integration" such as it is, allows me to look at the rules in roll20 or I could not buy the book and just open another browser tab. Seems like the choice is clear.

tbudd said: I understand the point about converting a dungeon to roll20 (maps, handouts, etc.), but what is done to convert a rule book? What integration is there for a rule book into roll20? It might be worthwhile to purchase a rule book for roll20, if there was a character generator for that rule book, but AFAIK there is no such integration. The "integration" such as it is, allows me to look at the rules in roll20 or I could not buy the book and just open another browser tab. Seems like the choice is clear. Have you looked into this at all? I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. Rulebooks on Roll20 are Compendiums. Most feature drag and drop feature additions (equipment, abilities, spells, etc.) and some even use Charactermancer, the built-in character generator, which has integration with the given compendium. Sure, there are only a handful of systems that have compendiums (it's hugely labor-intensive to create), but those handful comprise 80-90 percent of the games played by the 6 million users on Roll20.

No. I haven't looked into it. But what you have described doesn't sound like much integration. Drag and drop what? onto a character sheet? Does not seem much better than cut and paste. Does Charactermancer allow me to generate a character using the rules I own like on D&D and Beyond? If not, then it doesn't seem to provide much for the $.

tbudd said: No. I haven't looked into it. But what you have described doesn't sound like much integration. Drag and drop what? onto a character sheet? Does not seem much better than cut and paste. Does Charactermancer allow me to generate a character using the rules I own like on D&D and Beyond? If not, then it doesn't seem to provide much for the $. Yes, it does. It guides you through character creation, presenting you with the legal choices and making sure you have filled in the necessary items. It integrates class and race options, and pretty much everything you would expect from a character creation app. The drag and drop I mentioned refers to things like adding equipment or spells during play. Why don't you give it a try? If you don't mind being limited to the free SRD material, it's completely free.