$90 Rental

If you feel that you MUST have the latest ruleset to keep playing your fantasy RPG, Wizards of the Coast has bundled all three core books of D&D 2024 edition for $89.97.

They are not actually selling you these books.  They are granting you access to them through their D&D Beyond service.

A service which could be eliminated at any time if WotC decides it's not making enough money.  Or if your browser doesn't meet some arbitrary standard.  Or if your OS isn't on the list they support.

So you pay a one time rental fee for the rules.

I've already rejected this model.  I didn't know, at the time, I was participating.  But I have an old WinXP install that cannot play the legit copy of IL-2 I paid for because the server that authenticates the install is no longer there.  Or XP can't talk to it.  But since the game won't play on a newer version of Windows, it hardly matters which.

So I started paying attention if the game I wanted needed online authentication.

This is more of the same with a prettier web page.

Maybe it's the Gen-Xr in me, but I can recall dragging my books, dice, paper and pencils out to the woods and playing around a campfire.

You cannot do that with the digital version of the new rules.

The good news is WotC still sells physical books!  $149.97 for the three core books ($179.97 for both physical and digital).  $50 for each hardcover book is what books like this sell for.  I like paper copies of the rules.

Paper is handy when you need to flip back and forth between two paged and are WAY easier to bookmark frequently used pages.

I also like pdf versions.  They're easier to search and can be used offline.  Though they are less useful camping because of battery life.  pdf also lets me have a copy of rules that I don't really play, but want to reference.  Drive-Thru RPG is great for accumulating nostalgia rulesets!

So far, only WotC has gone subscription service access to the books you've paid for.  We should discourage others from following their example.