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News Roundup: D&D Adopts Live Service Approach With New Drops System
D&D Beyond will now release weekly "drops", new content only available to subscribers to its online platform; a decision that has received pushback online from the D&D player base.
Christopher Hutton
May 10, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
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There’s a lot of news to get through today! The big one is D&D Beyond’s new drop system, a decision that is a bit controversial. There’s two fantasy/sword-and-sorcery TTRPGs based on the same IP releasing simultaneously without any clarity as to why. There’s a bunch of crowdfunding events as well! Lots to chew on.
In This Edition
D&D Beyond Announces ‘Drops’, Weekly Content for Subscribers
Wizards of the Coast has continued to pivot toward its video game-informed format with the addition of a new “drops”-based approach to D&D content.
The company announced D&D Beyond Drops on Thursday, a new way for “subscribers to get play-ready content on D&D Beyond every single week.” This new feature will release new additions for D&D, including maps, images, player options and more. A lot of the content appears to be old monthly drops that D&D Beyond offered to subscribers, such as new dice skins and character sheet frameworks. They also added multiple spells and feats for player characters in the first official update, including some 5e adaptations of old-school spells like Sticks into Snakes.
D&D Beyond
What’s important to note is how the information is distributed. In the past, D&D Beyond players could share source texts with other players through content-sharing features enabled by its subscription service. That way, a DM could share their books with prospective players without forcing players to pay additional fees.
The new Drops appear to be exempt from this feature and require players to subscribe to the service to access them.
The inability to share the drops-based content did not make fans or D&D influencers happy. “Paywalling character options behind their subscription and not allowing content sharing is absolutely not okay when we’re paying for content sharing,” wrote Tyler of RPGBot.net on BlueSky.
DnD Beyond Drops is their new thing, and I’m not happy about it. Paywalling character options behind their subscription and not allowing content sharing is absolutely not okay when we’re paying for content sharing. #dnd #ttrpg
— RPGBOT.net (@rpgbot.bsky.social)2026-05-08T18:33:46.274473Z
“D&D is now, more than ever, a live service where you rent the game rather than own it,” wrote Wargamer’s Mollie Russell. She also notes that this approach “sets a dangerous precedent” since “D&DBeyond has a track record of stripping useful features in order to encourage sales.”
WOTC’s team frames the decision not to share the content as a way to help ensure creators are compensated.
“We need to pay the great designers, artists, and developers working on D&D Beyond Drops,” explained D&D Beyond executive producer Brian Perry in a Reddit AMA. “We also really think it's important to make the entire subscriber content library accessible to Hero Tier subscribers (as well as Master Tier). Not making Drops content eligible for content sharing was a necessary tradeoff to hit these goals.”
The approach appears to be adopting a live-service model, akin to what platforms like Fortnite and Overwatch 2 offer players. You pay a monthly fee to get regular access to new content. The choice doesn’t appear too surprising in light of WOTC’s hiring of John Hight and Dan Ayoub, both video game veterans from companies that have run live service games before. It’s also a common way to help ensure that long-running video games have a revenue source and remain open. So why does D&D need this? That remains uncertain. I would not use this as proof that D&D might be struggling financially. Rather, it seems more likely that this is part of its seasonal approach, of releasing more content in shorter form. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has placed a heavy emphasis on investing more in Hasbro's and WOTC’s digital assets, so this subscription approach makes a lot of sense within his framework. At the same time, Cocks affirmed that physical books will remain integral to D&D.
"Books will always be an important part of D&D. It will always be kind of like a special totem that you can collect. I have a big bookshelf of D&D books myself."
"But we see what's happening – almost everyone who plays D&D uses D&D Beyond, like a super high percentage uses it. A very high percentage use Foundry VTT or Roll20, and so it just makes sense that you should start to migrate your thinking about the way you play to more of a live service where you don't have to wait 18 months for us to build a book. We can start to release components or aspects of that book over time, and you don't have to buy everything all at once. You can buy chapters or segments of it over time. That makes a ton of sense to me. That said we will still have big moments. We will still have like, 'hey, ta da, here's a huge campaign.' You can expect there'll be more around that, both from us and from all the creators in the world that can leverage a platform like D&D Beyond to share their content as well."
Whether fans will support it will be the next question. The response has been mixed based on cursory scans of Reddit and Twitter. Some players love the new content, while others lament what this model will mean for the game’s future. We will have to see how the new drops play out.
Sword and Sorcery Icon Elric of Melniboné Gets Two TTRPGs Announced in the Same Week
Elric of Melniboné, the sword & sorcery character from Michael Moorcock, is getting two TTRPGs. On Tuesday, Dungeon Crawl Classics publisher Goodman Games announced that they are releasing The Classic Era of Elric, a series of sourcebooks, adventures and other supplements set within Moorcock’s universe. The books will come in DCC and Fifth Edition variants and will crowdfund in 2027.
A few days later, Free League sent out their own press release announcing Legends of Stormbringer, another TTRPG based on the Elric universe. This one will use the ruleset from Dragonbane and focus on the Young Kingdoms.
“This has been in the works for several months, and we’re thrilled to finally share the news,” said Tomas Härenstam, CEO of Free League Publishing in a press statement. “We are honored to bring Elric and the Young Kingdoms to the table once more.”
It’s unclear why both publishers announced games based on the same IP the same week. From what little information is available, the games appear to be set in different time periods within the long-running series of novels and will use entirely different rule sets.
TTRPG Insider reached out to both publishers for comment, but did not receive any in time for publication.
Elric of Melniboné is a fictional character featured in the Moorcock novels. The hero is an albino sorcerer, emperor, and warrior who defends his lands on an alternate earth. He was originally created in the 1961 story The Dreaming City and has appeared in multiple novels and stories since. He’s considered a major influence in fantasy fiction, and has even been featured in early editions of D&D.
Call of Cthulhu publisher Chaosium published its own series of TTRPGs based on the Stormbringer/Elric novels in 1993, but the license was pulled in 2007 over personal disagreements and later issued to Mongoose Publishing.
Other Stories from This Week
To no one’s surprise, Avantris Entertainment’s Neon Odyssey has raised more than Crooked Moon, its first horror-themed D&D 5e- supplement. Then again, Neon Odyssey is making 3 books versus Crooked Moon’s 1.
Son of Oak Publishing is hosting a special event to celebrate the physical release of Legends in the Mist, its fantasy variant on its gaming system.
The White Wizard Saruman is the focus of Free League’s two upcoming Lord of the Rings supplements.
New integrations between Roll20 and Demiplane will make it easier than ever to use the two VTT tools.
Mad Cave Studios announced that it is publishing The Last Wardens, a game built on Free League’s Year Zero Engine and based on a comic series from 2024 of the same name.
Cubicle 7 released Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound’s next set of adventures, titled Carngrad Adventures. It appears to be a campaign designed for the evil factions in AoS.
The parody news website The Onion sold themed dice, which then sold out.
TTRPG Insider @ GenCon
I can confirm that TTRPG Insider will be at GenCon again this year! GenCon is the biggest tabletop gaming convention in the United States, and it’s always where a ton of news comes out. D&D has already confirmed plans to reveal more details about what’s coming in 2026 there, so expect us to be there as well.
We’re still months away from the event, but you can expect TTRPG Insider to be your on-the-ground source for news. It’s also a great time to talk about big projects that creators are working on. So stay tuned!
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OSE Demons, Pocketopia and RPG Party: 3 Major Cross-Collab TTRPG Events This Week
Another month, another set of crowdfunding events for you to support.
First is Old School Essentials Month, a group-collab event where creators are making demon-themed supplements for Exalted Funeral/Necrotic Gnome’s Old School Essentials TTRPG. 17 supplements, each designed to epxand your game. EF/NG is releasing the Demonic Grimoire, a supplement with demon lords, monsters and tools for players who want to enjoy the very OSR-coded game.
There’s also Pocketopia, a new crowdfunding event where game designers are making “portable tabletop games.” This includes solo TTRPGs and regular TTRPGs alongside card and board games. There are 50+ projects available for your consideration.
There have been at least four TTRPG-focused crowdfunding events on Backerkit so far this year, which is indicative of how far Backerkit seems to be leaning into this approach right now. We spoke with Backerkit’s Maxwell Salzberg about this last year.
Gamefound is following a similar route with the announcement of 2026’s RPG Party, their initiative to help indie TTRPG creators to crowdfund their projects. They have expanded the number of sponsors involved to include Modiphius and Darrington Press, and are hoping to accommodate the players in a timely and appropriate manner.
Rascal has a good interview with Cam Bradley, who oversees the project
That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at [email protected].