Candlekeep Mysteries - Outrageous Pricing

Roll20 is charging $49.99 for a book that cost $29.99? Like, really? This is the sort of greed that makes me want to jump over to a new platform.  Just ugh. 

Candlekeep is $49.95 <a href="https://dnd.wizards.com/products/candlekeep-mysteries" rel="nofollow">https://dnd.wizards.com/products/candlekeep-mysteries</a>, unless your refering to it on DnDBeyond.

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Candlekeep-Mysteries-Adventure-Book-Dungeons/dp/0786967226" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Candlekeep-Mysteries-Adventure-Book-Dungeons/dp/0786967226</a> not on amazon. hmm. weird. anyway, what will the roll20 one include? a few scraggly maps? the price is insane.

Relic said: what will the roll20 one include? a few scraggly maps? the price is insane. Did you read the description? Candlekeep Mysteries is a collection of seventeen short, stand-alone D&amp;D adventures designed for characters of levels 1-16. Each adventure begins with the discovery of a book , and each book is the key to a door behind which danger and glory await. These adventures can be run as one-shot games , plugged into an existing Forgotten Realms campaign, or adapted for other campaign settings. All book assets and information fully integrated for the VTT , including 25+ monsters and 31 maps with GM layer information and Dynamic Lighting support (requires plus / pro subscription ), rollable tokens, rollable tables, and macros. Play with Less Prep Over 25 creatures with in-app drag-and-drop , like the always observant cloud giant ghost, the grippli warrior whose head and body are that of a frog while its front extremities end in hands with fingers, and the terrifying lichen lich who are the undead remnants of powerful druids! 8 unique items with drag-and-drop support , including the Gloves of Soul Catching , the Staff of Fate , and the Watchful Helm. Character Art Pack for player characters and NPCs alike featuring the gorgeous art of Candlekeep Mysteries on pre-made tokens and handouts. Accessing Your Content Module Candlekeep Mysteries includes an adventure module . To create a new game, click on the Start New Game option from the site menu. The column on the right-hand side of the page is titled Optional: Choose a Module . Clicking on the Candlekeep Mysteries cover image will select this module as the base for your new game Compendium You can access all of the rules, items, and creatures from Candlekeep Mysteries in the in-app compendium , as well as on the Roll20 web compendium . Art Pack You can access the Character Art Pack under the Premium Assets section of the Art Library in-app. These assets are only available for in-app use. You can buy it somewhere else and take the time to set up the maps, npcs, and such yourself, or you can pay to have it integrated into Roll20.&nbsp; Totally up to you.

I know it isn't Roll20's fault for the map set that is included in the purchase as I am assuming it is the same map set that is in the published book. I was hoping WoTC got enough blow back from the ridiculous maps from Mad Mage that these would actually be decent.&nbsp; I was wrong.&nbsp; There is no reason ANY VTT content shouldn't have detail full color maps, especially from a major (i.e. THE) publisher.&nbsp; I can spend $15 a month on Patreon and get insanely good maps.&nbsp; WoTC should hire any one of those guys to produce some serious maps.&nbsp; I have no doubt that the images shown on the store front for Candlekeep only show the one B&amp;W map for a reason.&nbsp; I am hoping the written content is worth it.

Jim E. said: I know it isn't Roll20's fault for the map set that is included in the purchase as I am assuming it is the same map set that is in the published book. I was hoping WoTC got enough blow back from the ridiculous maps from Mad Mage that these would actually be decent.&nbsp; I was wrong.&nbsp; There is no reason ANY VTT content shouldn't have detail full color maps, especially from a major (i.e. THE) publisher.&nbsp; I can spend $15 a month on Patreon and get insanely good maps.&nbsp; WoTC should hire any one of those guys to produce some serious maps.&nbsp; I have no doubt that the images shown on the store front for Candlekeep only show the one B&amp;W map for a reason.&nbsp; I am hoping the written content is worth it. There is a MASSIVE difference in the costs between maps from some guy on Patreon for personal use, compared to comissioning a piece for commercial purposes. This is art that D&amp;D sells hundreds of thousands of copies of. They can't pay some guy $15 for it. They have many talented artists under contract, that's not the problem.It's the huge ammount that would add to the cost of the book.

I'm given to understand that this particular book was produced a bit differently as well. The individual adventures were all submissions from different writers and creative teams. The style of the internal maps varies widely therefor. FWIW, WotC doesn't care a fig about VTT content when they produce. (nor should they, they are not in the VTT business). Doubtless, some doughty entrepreneurs will see the desire for replacement map content and sell it through the Marketplace or other sources, as has been the case with past modules. I know this doesn't help those folks wanting different maps now, or for no extra cost, but that's life in publishing.

Also, the "guy on Patreon" isn't producing high quality maps for $15. He has multiple subscribers that pay him $15 each to produce high quality maps. Huge difference.&nbsp;

Yeah, D&amp;D Beyond also does a lot to get D&amp;D products into online shape before release and somehow manages to keep their price $20 cheaper.

D&amp;D Beyond isn't a VTT that puts the maps, tokens, etc in the game for you though.&nbsp;

They also have a different business relationship with WotC. They aren't RPGBeyond.

I see this gripe every time a new WotC book comes out and it's like people can't figure out that Roll20 doesn't just copy and paste the book into their system. So much work goes into it and we get it all on release day now as well compared to past years. Maps with Lighting, Monster Tokens, Linked Handouts and so much more.&nbsp; I'll gladly pay my extra $20 each time for the hundreds of hours I save not setting all of this up and having it automated.

Give me a break Leslie. There's no way that the labor costs of setting up some dynamic lighting and dragging some tokens onto the map should cost an extra $20 a pop when spread out over thousands of users.

Yeah Josh. A lot of work goes into D&amp;D Beyond as well. They aren't just putting out PDFs of the books either. They also have everything hyperlinked in their version. You're telling me that the cost of paying one person to set up the game in Roll20 with dynamic lighting should inflate the price of the product by $20 for every customer after that?&nbsp;

Please remember to remain civil with each other. This argument is not new. Roll20 generally charges the cover price of the print edition. This is not likely to change any time soon.

I understand the point you all are making, but this is basically a series of one shots. You are unlikely to use most of them in a campaign. There's no way im blowing 50 bucks on this so that i can play in on roll20. I'll buy it on amazon for 30 dollars, if i buy it at all.&nbsp;

Its not like this one has a lot of detailed maps either from what I have seen.&nbsp; Not like Mad Mage etc.&nbsp; Fantasy Grounds seem to manage ok doing all this and keeping the price down. Also Roll20 mark up core books as well which dont have maps, so that argument isnt particularly valid.&nbsp; I would expect 25% tops markup not 40%. On top of that, this is basically useless unless you are a pro user as the intention is to slot it into your current game. I have already seen people on the forums saying they have gotten (or going to ask for) refunds. At the end of the day, if people keep spending their money, Roll20 will keep charging these prices.&nbsp; So I guess it all works out for them, and if we dont like it we will spend our money elsewhere, which obviously alot of people are doing.&nbsp; If Roll20 want to try and minimise people moving to other platforms or even purchasing manuals and adventures elsewhere they need to provide a high level of service at a competitive price.

For perspective: this is the first module I have ever purchased on Roll20. By my rough count, there are 26 maps with dynamic lighting configured and linked tokens pre-placed (and a handful more with no DL required), 28 rollable tables, 15 preset macros, around 400 handouts (with maybe half of those that have multiple links within them), and dozens of pre-configured tokens/creatures/npcs. For me, a $20 premium for that amount of work that I don't have to do is a pretty good deal. Now, I'm still clutching to LDL until they pry it from my cold dead hands, so some conversion will be required for me but that will be relatively minimal considering I will be using these piecemeal and I have api script access to aid me. Side bonus: when you purchase the hardcover, I have read that the magic items are not indexed so you have to hunt through the text. Here, they are neatly grouped in two folders (for new and already published items) in my journal for my browsing pleasure. Is it going to be worth it for everybody? Dunno, YMMV. Just wanted to share my observations.

These adventures can be run as one-shot games , plugged into an existing Forgotten Realms campaign, or adapted for other campaign settings. Accessing Your Content Module Candlekeep Mysteries includes an adventure module . To create a new game, click on the Start New Game option from the site menu. The column on the right-hand side of the page is titled Optional: Choose a Module . Clicking on the Candlekeep Mysteries cover image will select this module as the base for your new game Those two statements don't really work well together.

<a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/9907655/candlekeep-mysteries-maps-not-add-ons/?pageforid=9908752#post-9908752" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/9907655/candlekeep-mysteries-maps-not-add-ons/?pageforid=9908752#post-9908752</a> I have a post about this very thing Brian C. said: These adventures can be run as one-shot games , plugged into an existing Forgotten Realms campaign, or adapted for other campaign settings. Accessing Your Content Module Candlekeep Mysteries includes an adventure module . To create a new game, click on the Start New Game option from the site menu. The column on the right-hand side of the page is titled Optional: Choose a Module . Clicking on the Candlekeep Mysteries cover image will select this module as the base for your new game Those two statements don't really work well together.

You can always buy the cheaper version and set it all up yourself on Roll20 if you have more time than money. I suspect you will find that converting the maps to digital (Scans or recreating), setting up the tokens, dynamic lighting, tables, journal entries, and other materials, will take you at least 4 hours. at $7.25 an hour (Fed Minimum Wage) you're looking at an additional $29 dollars of work, so an extra 20 for the work they have saved you doesn't seem particularly outrageous. We aren't comparing apples to apples here as print is static an comparatively easy/cheaper to produce.

Brian, by that reasoning, a novel should cost $15,000, or whatever a year or so's effort is worth. People specialize to produce goods for each other that are vastly cheaper than each person doing the effort themselves. Print is not easier/cheaper to produce. They had to write the book, make art assets, binding, shipping, etc. Taking text and putting it into characters and handouts manually is much easier than that (I've done it), but presumably, Roll20 has some more efficient methods of converting more reasonably supplied text and art. I wrote a converter for the monsters in the Rappan Athuk 5E bestiary, using pasted text from the PDF, and it worked okay. I'm sure Roll20 has much better methods (and if they don't, they should). The price, I think, doesn't reflect the effort, so much as the exclusivity. It's like a drink at the movies. Coke doesn't cost $5, unless you're the only one allowed to supply it in an area. I don't begrudge them making this money, but it's more about the deals, I think, than about the effort. Though, of course, there's another consideration: the much smaller market of Roll20 customers. To bother converting at all, they have to expect that enough people will purchase the product to cover the cost of developing it. Figure that there's about $0 cost per unit, once the conversion work is done (I mean aside from the amount WotC gets, but we're talking about the price difference). There is still some cost to convert it, and that cost is very dependent on how they get the data (do they get it in reasonable json format, or some other sensible method, or just in horrible text). That they did not bother to convert Age of Ashes suggests that maybe they don't get the data in a reasonable format, but it could be that legal/business costs would be the largest part of this, and that was deemed not worthwhile. Anyways, I think the $20 conversion price is a bit outrageous, but I'm willing to pay it, since, of course, it's less than the effort of my producing it. The long-term fix for such prices is having more competition. Of course, Roll20 has something going for it that other platforms don't: a large userbase. While it's difficult to find a non-paid game to join here, it's very easy to get a lot of applicants to your game. I don't even know how I'd find players for a Foundry game, except maybe through reddit.

I'm not sure how fair it is to choose the lowest possible price you can find and call the difference "markup". $49.95 is the MSRP. Amazon is like other mega retailers: They can take a hit, they have zero effort in the conversion or distribution, and they can force the manufacturer to take a hit if they want their product to be carried at all. The bottom line is that Roll20 generally charges the MSRP. If you don't think it's fair, that's absolutely fine. You are free to purchase elsewhere. If you think that the $20 difference is worth the time savings, that's fine, too.

I'll be honest I think the price is too high for what we are getting. I do agree that you should charge more, but $20 USD more is too much considering the map quality and the current discounts being offered by other services. I'm saying this as a user who is fighting his table to stay on Roll20, You guys need to be competitive compared to not only live games but also other VTT services. It's getting harder and harder to make the argument that DnD Beyond + Foundry isn't the better option or a Patron + Foundry + Amazon deal. The long and short of it is that you should be charging a smaller initial price to compete with Amazon ($10 more).&nbsp; &nbsp; I'm 100% a big fan of Roll20 (I pay for a pro-account) normally but this plus the recent update issues that happened on your backend are not good PR. You need to be smarter in your marketing/brand here.

All i can say on this issue is the fact that your Local Game Store is going to charge you full price for the book, you want the alt cover you will shell out even more.&nbsp; Other places that are selling it cheaper....book wise Amazon they always have the books discounted to around 40% off heck you can get some of the books at around $20 or wait for a 3/2 offer but that is here nor there.&nbsp; Yes you can get it online elsewhere cheaper but then go get it there spend hours sorting maps and adding monsters and making handouts heck i have done that too with other things but with the main WotC stuff ill make it easy and pay the extra

KhanKrom said: You guys Ha! This happens a lot because I am on the forums as much as I am. I am not a Roll20 employe. I started doing some contract work for them last year, but I don't speak for them, affect policy, attend board meetings, get invited to the really cool parties or anything like that. :D

I wasn't talking to you Keith. Its a general thread. If I was talking to you I would have said Keithcurtis.

Hi Everyone, To bounce off of the things Eve has already said regarding our pricing, Roll20 follows the lead of publishers and the value they assign to their work which is why we price our items right at the MSRP. This covers not just our implementation but also the illustrators, game designers, publishers, and more. We believe in upholding the value of the work added by each person contributing to the content.&nbsp; I know many of you have pointed out that the grey copy does not match the portion below on how to access your content. The grey text is from WoTC, and we’ve added a note that a module's elements can be transmogrified into existing games if you have a Pro subscription to help make this a bit more accessible and clear. For more info on the Transmogrifier, you can visit: <a href="https://help.roll20.net/hc/en-us/articles/360037774433-Transmogrifier" rel="nofollow">https://help.roll20.net/hc/en-us/articles/360037774433-Transmogrifier</a> Finally, after hearing all of your feedback, our Production team is working on setting the product up as add-ons as well. All users who have purchased Candlekeep can expect access to the new version with add ons on Friday, March 26th. This will become the standard for every Adventure Anthology style release in the future. Thanks again for all of your feedback.