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Some good news and some shitty news (Patreon)

Published:
2017-09-29 18:52:44
Edited:
2022-06-08 12:49:10
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

The good news is that this Patreon has reached its next goal, at $700 a month. I want to sincerely thank all of you for your continued support!

The bad news is that I just (an hour ago) got the following message from the people who run the DMs Guild website:

   Greetings,   Wizards of the Coast has instructed me to remove your Fully Automated   Character and Spell sheets from DMsGuild. Within the context of the   Dungeons Masters Guild you are allowed to use fifth edition content to   create fifth edition content. Simply making fifth edition content   available in another format is not allowed.   Regards

This sadly means that MPMB's Character Record Sheet is no longer available for free on DMs Guild. People who have previously bought it on DMs Guild can still access the files via their My Library page.Scholar tier (and higher) patrons here, also still have access via the Dropbox/Google Drive shared folder.

For now I don't know what the future will hold for MPMB's Character Record Sheet. I would love to continue to improve the sheet and add new content to it, but I can't ignore this message from Wizards of the Coast and pretend everything will be okay. I honestly suspect a cease and desist is in the making for this Patreon account as well. For now I'm going to consider my options and try to get some more information from Wizards of the Coast about if (and how) the sheet is allowed to continue.

I will keep you up to date with any new developments!

If you are a patron and don't have access to the latest versions of the sheets (v12.998), either via your DMs Guild account or via the Dropbox/Google Drive share, please send me a message and I'll get them to you!

Files

Comments

Patrick

Man, that's horrible. Yours is the best sheet out there to date.

Matt DeKok

Hope everything works out. You've done an incredible job and I'm looking forward to future updates.

Anthony Kruglyak

See if they will hire you, this is literally better than anything they make for their automated character sheets

Michael

Well that stinks.

Matt DeKok

See if D&D Beyond is hiring. Their exported character sheet needs some work.

Camden Ford

That sucks for you! I hope you're able to work something out - I can't find a single character sheet that works better in terms of layout and automation. The closest thing for 5E that the character generator for 4E was. I wonder if anything specific brought it to their attention?

Adam D

This is bad news, this is the best sheet there is out there.

Patrick

D&D Beyond might be the reason for WOTC cracking down on a character sheet like this that does automation sadly.

Ross Ramsay

This sucks. I'm so sorry this project is landing legal troubles at your doorstep. I have loved this item, and really hope you can find a way to continue making it. You absolutely have my support, and while I think it will not likely help at all, I'm more than willing to express to Wizards that this is the single best piece of kit for supplementing a game that I've tried yet. And it hasn't prevented me from buying the premium package on D&D Beyond, and all the books for 5e. I'd love to see you officially added to the concept of WotC digital age supplements. God knows they need to learn to keep up.

Ben Longman

It was inevitable once dndbeyond was out. I applaud wizards for having restraint about it for as long as they did. Bet Curse would take you as a freelancer.

Shwaffle

Considering this was the #4 most popular document on DMsGuild until the Mentor program, I feel we as a community need to fight this. Your QUALITY content that you took time to create made them a lot of money I'm sure. This isn't just "Making 5e content in another form" this is helping beginners build a character for the first time by going through step by step and making sure it's done correctly. For tenured players, this allows us to quickly make characters and tinker with stats in an organized fashion. D&D Beyond does not facilitate that. Joost you know I make a similar sheet for encounter making, and this is a sad day for all of us that are trying to help out fellow players. We have taken our personal time to make something for the community, and to have it ripped away like this is unacceptable. We have to fight this.

Lance Schantz

The problem is they are forcing us to use d&d beyond. That's what this is all about.

Lance Schantz

Are you going to keep doing updates or is this the end of them?

Robert Nguyen

Disappointing that they forced you to do this, especially considering there is no alternative as good as this sheet, which is way better than D&D Beyond at present. Perhaps there'd still be a way (maybe through scripts) for those of us who already have the sheets to get fixes/updates?

Shwaffle

I really dislike the layout of D&D Beyond. It's too clunky and layout heavy. The character creation doesn't really help with actual creation it just makes you pick stuff.

Dave Reed, Book Shaman®

Sorry to hear that, amigo, but I'm surprised that it took them this long to notice. Maybe you're hurting their Fantasy Grounds sales? Who knows. We're here for you, regardless, because you do good work.

Shwaffle

Last paragraph of the post: For now I don't know what the future will hold for MPMB's Character Record Sheet. I would love to continue to improve the sheet and add new content to it, but I can't ignore this message from Wizards of the Coast and pretend everything will be okay. I honestly suspect a cease and desist is in the making for this Patreon account as well. For now I'm going to consider my options and try to get some more information from Wizards of the Coast about if (and how) the sheet is allowed to continue.

Avinash Arora

Yeah I guess it was inevitable, you have a lot more than just the OGL stuff in there. Still a real shame that WotC is like this, god forbid they support a fan made creation that far outclasses anything they've ever produced.

Mike Stempler

I'd echo most of the other comments on here. Best sheet available, DnDB sucks balls, Wizards is a steamy pile, would happily reach out to Wizards if it meant allowing you to keep doing what you do. I wonder if you might try to sell them the sheet or offer to freelance for them. Or if you want to just keep doing it once they send you the C&D, I will just send you cash in an oily envelope. Seriously. More Oily More Better.

Jacob

I sent Wizards an email about this, I doubt it will make any difference, but if enough of us point out that this is not only ill-conceived but anti-consumer and that it not only nakedly looks like a grab to get people to use D&D Beyond, but also pretty much ensures that we'll be annoyed enough that we never will use Beyond, and may reduce our purchases of other Wizards products (I hesitate to say that we'll stop buying their products, since they probably know as much as we do that it isn't believable) then maybe they'll reconsider, or at least stop at taking this off dmsguild and not take further actions to shut down MPMB. It's still pretty devastating, but hopefully if they stop with dmsguild, the sheets can survive.

Avinash Arora

No, we are not allowed to use ANYTHING, there's specific stuff we're allowed to use.

Munkey

That is horrible news, this character sheet got me back into playing D&D which I gave up on with 3.5. (And I started in 1976) Now I remember why I don’t like WotC. How do I access Google Drive or Dropbox for 12.998?

Joshua Cusack

That seems unfair and I hope there is a way to get around it. For what it's worth I tweeted at WotC, I see some of you did too.

Shwaffle

Am I reading this incorrectly? "When you publish material that has no setting, then publishing under the DMs Guild program allows you to use the entire D&D 5th edition rules, not just the subset found in the SRD. It also allows you to sell the material here on the DMsGuild.com marketplace." I understand the SRD, but under the DMsGuild license it seems like this sheet isn't actually breaking any rules(And my content on DMsGuild would not then as well). WotC is just salty that it's a competitor to their new character creator on DnDB

Avinash Arora

yes, you are. The key being "no setting" but MPMB uses stuff directly from the existing supplements, PHB etc. As an example, the only background that is OGL is the Acolyte, but things like Urchin are in there. That's the issue, but also that's what we all love so much about this sheet is it takes all of the annoying referencing and guesswork out of the equation. You can use the rules and everything to develop whatever you want, but this is more than that.

Shwaffle

Hmm. Strange that his is the only thing that got removed then. My work is similar to his. I even began my work because Joost inspired me to do it. Hopefully this gets reversed and WotC supports the community. 5e has brought a lot of new players and if making people pay hundreds to get the digital content on DnDB is what they want, I feel like people will just step away or continue to pirate the material.

Avinash Arora

I'm just really fucking pissed at Wizards. I really thought they might have turned over a new leaf with this DMCA bullshit, but I guess they've just gotten better at hiding it. There's also a real possibility that Wizards has no idea that this is happening, a lot of larger companies just have legal gremlins that send out notices far and wide for stuff like this and none of the creators are actually privy to it.

Lance Schantz

Thanks, I am a little slow sometimes.

Lance Schantz

I have not looked at it since it went live, I was very excited about it until I learned I would have to re-buy all the books I had already bought. I hope it works out for you because I really like your sheets.

Shwaffle

Sorry if I made it seem like I was MorePurpleMoreBetter! I'm just being active in the conversations!

Bright&Bubbly

Yep. Especially because a oh-so-clever blogger when reviewing dnd beyond linked directly to this sheet as a "free better version" which I knew immediately would lead to this :(

Dungeon Momster

Psh, they ought to hire you. You're obviously passionate and brilliant

Amy Cheuka

This is stupid. I looked at their rules, and there's nothing I can find that backs this claim up. Maybe they were just mad that a character sheet was one of their most popular items? Still, I can't see why they would do a cease and desist for the whole thing. Perhaps it's ok with the OGL?

Chris Crowther

Oh ffs. This is one of the reasons why I dislike WoTC: they stifle community efforts so they can push their objectively inferior alternatives.

Jonathan Schmidt

I hope you can continue to distribute this character builder tool on Patreon at least. If not, I am not buying any other content from WotC! It is really annoying that they remove such a great tool when they have no other good alternative to compensate with!

Carole Oliver

Wizards is so short-sighted. They don't make any product nearly as good as your sheet available (D&D Beyond is awful to use, not intuitive in the least) and seem to try to do everything they can to make it difficult for people to play their game. I get that they don't want people just sharing stuff for free, and they need to make money as a business *gag* but hearing stories like this just makes me so angry. I buy every new sourcebook and adventure, I buy minis, I run 5 D&D groups and have introduced 5th ed to a dozen new players. A tool like this is invaluable to doing so, to expanding the reach of D&D to bring more people into the hobby and expand WotC's reach. Just like Games Workshop, it's like they want to kill everything good about the community.

Carole Oliver

Wow that guy was an idiot. I'm also in the Beta and I've tried to be constructive but D&D Beyond is just so bad in it's current form.

Matt DeKok

I'm an idiot? 1) D&D Beyond is not in beta anymore. 2) They're constantly working on new features. Including a much greater digital character sheet. Part of that is a new exported PDF character sheet, and I simply suggested an option that's win/win for everyone. 3) There is a saying, "if you can't beat them, join them".

Bright&Bubbly

He was referring to the blogger I mentioned not you

AtomicStraw

Yup, agreed to all of the other comments. I use this sheet extensively, even when creating my NPCs. It's by far my favorite method of character creation I've ever used. And I have personally introduced several players to D&D using this, some of which then went out and bought three or four source books. Short sighted indeed WoTC.

Miles Peterson

WotC should be buying the IP for the character sheet from him, instead of stifling creativity, angering the community, and blocking the development of a better tool than they appear to have the ability to create.

Bart's RPG Stuff

Absolutely. They could just work with MPMB instead of doing this. =/

Wandering Knight

This is in direct conflict with "DnD Beyond". Beyond wants to reinvent the wheel, and they have the money to do it. After I saw how they made their version of the wheel, I pulled all my content and stopped visiting the site. Talk about absconding with someones IP... Good luck with this. I signed up for the Patreon level to keep receiving the updates, and look forward to next installment.