Things to take into consideration before publishing on DMsG

[Nylanfs]

Mike Myler articulated my thoughts on this better than I could. (https://www.facebook.com/mike.myler.adventures/posts/722201914642990)


DMs Guild, You, and what it means for D&D and RPGS:

1) You do not retain ownership of your content, when you publish it there it becomes Intellectual Property of the DMsGuild. Review the contract and identify how many rights of ownership you keep (hint: it's 2 very minor parts).

2) There is no incentive for real publishers to do stuff there because of #1 and because they take 50% of gross instead of 35%. The margins on publishing are already way too tight to give up another 15% especially when it means it can be sold nowhere else at all, which cuts out revenue from places like Open Gaming Store and Paizo.com. It is really hard to make it work for local game stores using the regular model, and this 50% stuff literally makes that mathematically impossible (and btw it's illegal because your friendly local game store is not DMsGuild).

3) Whatever value being able to use D&D art had, that's evaporated because all of DM's Guild uses it so the "wow" factor has been stripped away.

4) Because they "take writers from DMs Guild", there's a "notice me senpai!!" attitude that dropped the price floor from out of everything. Not only are your sales hit by that 50% take, you can't sell products for anything approaching a fair price (in this, your only venue).

5) There's more to this (WotC abandoning major conventions, dropping forums, having FB groups "moderate" the fan community, bumbling Adventurer's League and handing it off to a third party; the list gets upsetting) but basically Hasbro is terrified of another Paizo happening (ie: another company making a better version of D&D then outselling them for 10 years the way Pathfinder did after 4E fell on its face) and they can't NOT address it because the way US law works (you can copyright game text and terminology but not mechanics, and the d20 3.0 & 3.5 System Reference Documents make it theoretically possible to transfer material between editions under the Open Gaming License).

Their solution to that has been to point everyone to the "official D&D Marketplace" and make that marketplace as hostile as possible to anyone that could become a future competitor. Even WotC's partnering publishers have few if any products on there, I suspect as a gesture made for their work on core line adventure books.

Raising the industry with one hand and slapping at it with the other.

I'm posting this because of a logo clarification that they just made earlier today. The ONLY logo you can have on your cover is the DMsG logo.
https://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?4900-DM-s-Guild-No-Longer-Allows-Creator-Logos-On-Product-Covers

Edit: About Fantasy Grounds. "FG logo is allowed on FG titles, we’re going to add a section to the FAQ linking to the FG section of the FAQ and clarifying that."

[Bidmaron]

There is currently no effective way for a private guy to publish pathfinder material for beer money.

[LordEntrails]

I'm not sure I agree with Mike's attitude towards the DMsG, but I will say there is value in his perspective.

In short, their are benefits to using the DMsG, but there are also draw backs. I think for most cases of people or companies wanting to become a "professional" in the RPG industry it is only (at best) a temporary stepping stone. And one that should be a short step in your career path and only if you need access to specific IP that can only be used through the DMsG.

The areas or types of publishing that is the strength of the DMsG;
1) Fan type content; sure, a few bucks might be nice, but I just want to publish my self more formally than posting on a forum.
2) Content that relies upon the restricted IP that only is accessible through the Guild (such as my upcoming Undermountain adventures).
3) Fantasy Grounds modules and tools. You can only publish through the a separate license agreement, FG Store, or the DMsG. A for small independents, SW would rather you publish through the DMsG (I suspect their store is too labor intensive to accommodate small independents or fan level content).

If you don't fall into one of those three categories, then I would agree that you should consider other outlets.

[LordEntrails]

There is currently no effective way for a private guy to publish pathfinder material for beer money.
Why can't you publish through DriveThru or one of the OBS sites using the OGL?

[Bidmaron]

You have to set up your own shingle to do that. Again, I am not looking to do this myself, but just pointing out that SW won’t take individuals, and there is no DMsG for Pathfinder.

[Trenloe]

There is currently no effective way for a private guy to publish pathfinder material for beer money.
Pathfinder material for Fantasy Grounds, maybe. I know plenty of people that publish OGL Pathfinder RPG material "for beer money" on OBS.

[Bidmaron]

Sorry, Trenloe but you know I am a rock. OBS?

[Trenloe]

Sorry, Trenloe but you know I am a rock. OBS?
https://www.onebookshelf.com/

[Bidmaron]

I guess I just assumed you had to open a shingle unless you were publishing fiction, but maybe I was mistaken. I am a very frequent customer of RPGNOW, and I have never noticed personal publishing there, but I was wrong. It appears anyone can open an account and publish.

[Nylanfs]

Yep, just make sure you understand the OGL, and what is in the SRD and what other material is OGC and what isn't.

[damned]

I'm not sure I agree with Mike's attitude towards the DMsG, but I will say there is value in his perspective.

In short, their are benefits to using the DMsG, but there are also draw backs. I think for most cases of people or companies wanting to become a "professional" in the RPG industry it is only (at best) a temporary stepping stone. And one that should be a short step in your career path and only if you need access to specific IP that can only be used through the DMsG.

The areas or types of publishing that is the strength of the DMsG;
1) Fan type content; sure, a few bucks might be nice, but I just want to publish my self more formally than posting on a forum.
2) Content that relies upon the restricted IP that only is accessible through the Guild (such as my upcoming Undermountain adventures).
3) Fantasy Grounds modules and tools. You can only publish through the a separate license agreement, FG Store, or the DMsG. A for small independents, SW would rather you publish through the DMsG (I suspect their store is too labor intensive to accommodate small independents or fan level content).

If you don't fall into one of those three categories, then I would agree that you should consider other outlets.

I think that is a fairly good summation of it -
If you are new and getting started DMsGuild is probably the best place to start.
If you are established and making some money then the restrictions on DMsG would limit you.
The DMsG is not inherently bad - its just not for everyone.

[Mike Myler]

I think that is a fairly good summation of it -
If you are new and getting started DMsGuild is probably the best place to start.
If you are established and making some money then the restrictions on DMsG would limit you.
The DMsG is not inherently bad - its just not for everyone.

I respectfully disagree and will update everyone here with three addendum made to that post.


2b) ^^^^ has ripple effects. It means that not only are there zero (0) paid work-for-hire gigs for designers outside of EN5ider (email me to get on the list for the next open call), it means there's less money (often none at all) to hire developers, editors, illustrators, and layout artists.

2c) ^^^ means the death of specializations. I'm able to do all the things competently except for illustrate and it has taken me 5 years to reach that point (of 60-80 hour weeks, with less than 10 days off altogether, 24 if you count one trip out of the country). That was difficult for me to do and I don't have kids. The underlying issue is that it forces amateur material onto the marketplace (even if the design is stellar, odds are not great that the person can also pay for an artist, competently edit themselves, or do solid layout). This drops customer expectations for quality products and explains how the price ceiling on products at DMsGuild dropped to being a few inches off the floor.

2d) No crowdfunding. Burn up some capital for that DMsGuild product because you can't run a Kickstarter for it (legally, anyway).


The DMs Guild was designed to stop people from making professional RPG products while at the same time pointing all potential third party traffic to it. That is inherently a bad thing to do. There's a phrase you hear a lot in the RPG industry, "a rising tide raises all ships," but I am at a loss for how the DMsGuild does that--it cuts the legs out of every support role in the industry, dissuades people from taking on game design in a mature fashion, and (for at least 7 people that I've heard from since this started to circulate) convinced them not to attempt designing things professionally which is just godawful. It's hard enough to make this work before you can't sell anywhere but an exclusive venue with insane margins. The world didn't need it and it's having a negative effect on the next wave of game designers. :/

[damned]

DMsGuild makes lots of sense for the Wizards because they do not need to dedicate resources to handling the huge amount of unsolicited submissions they would receive - go to DMsGuild, follow license/agreement and publish away. It makes sense for wannabe publishers because now they do not need to search for elusive approval/license etc - they have it already.

If your product is going to earn you $X but you want to hire artists, layout, design etc and it will cost you $2X then dont do it unless its part of a broader scheme. The fact that you cant do everything you want to because of cost doesnt make it an unfair system - its just a reality. Start smaller, work out what to drop so you can do it for $X. Once you have a presence and a following you will start to earn $2X for your products and people start finding your back catalogue too.

There are plenty of 3PP creating content for 5E and selling them on other platforms including RPGnow/DriveThruRPG.

As to the next wave of game designers, how does this affect them? DMsG is only for 5e. I believe there are lots of high quality RPGs being published today. More or less than other times - I dont know that answer - but I do believe that many new RPGs are better mechanically and in production quality than historical indie RPGs.

The DMsG has its role. It opens up a massive channel to a lot of people with few barriers to entry. Yes you limit re-use of the material outside of the DMsG - so go in eyes wide open.

[Mike Myler]

DMsGuild makes lots of sense for the Wizards because they do not need to dedicate resources to handling the huge amount of unsolicited submissions they would receive - go to DMsGuild, follow license/agreement and publish away. It makes sense for wannabe publishers because now they do not need to search for elusive approval/license etc - they have it already.

If your product is going to earn you $X but you want to hire artists, layout, design etc and it will cost you $2X then dont do it unless its part of a broader scheme. The fact that you cant do everything you want to because of cost doesnt make it an unfair system - its just a reality. Start smaller, work out what to drop so you can do it for $X. Once you have a presence and a following you will start to earn $2X for your products and people start finding your back catalogue too.

There are plenty of 3PP creating content for 5E and selling them on other platforms including RPGnow/DriveThruRPG.

As to the next wave of game designers, how does this affect them? DMsG is only for 5e. I believe there are lots of high quality RPGs being published today. More or less than other times - I dont know that answer - but I do believe that many new RPGs are better mechanically and in production quality than historical indie RPGs.

The DMsG has its role. It opens up a massive channel to a lot of people with few barriers to entry. Yes you limit re-use of the material outside of the DMsG - so go in eyes wide open.

Oh no doubt DMs Guild makes a lot of sense for WotC (or I argue, more importantly, Hasbro). It absolutely rules out the possibility that they'll lose the market share to another publisher because it rules out the possibility of another publisher being able to establish themselves in that corner of the industry well enough to do so (lack of branding aside, the numbers make it impossible (https://worldbuilderblog.me/2017/03/30/an-update-on-dms-guild-sales/) even for people at the top of the pile).
I'm unfamiliar with any distribution market having obscure or difficult to follow compatibility licensing rules, and though it's been a long time since then, when I got my PF license I think the turnaround was less than 24 hours from submission to getting the license. What elusive approval/licenses are you referring to? The open-handed slap that was the GSL for D&D 4th Edition?

The fact I know it's an unfair system stems from Pathfinder 3PP being able to support entire publishing houses while doing so from a much, much smaller market. 5E has been (as noted in the OP) a huge boon to the RPG community in terms of the player base. Yet despite having a sea of customers compared to the pond that Paizo made, there's not enough capital to go around in their specialized marketplace. That's a reality that was manufactured to be that way.

There are people making 3PP content for 5e (*points at self*) but it's a struggle to be heard at all, and the predominant place to buy that material is hidden behind not two, not three, but four pages of clicking on OBS sites (although annoyingly that non-DMs Guild material still appears to exist on DMsGuild (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/207502/2099-Wasteland) despite several messages to WotC/OBS/WotC legal about it).

I'm just going to quote someone who I've helped get off the ground for the next bit. Bolding is my emphasis.

Would you recommend another platform to submit these larger projects? We were largely under the impression that we were beholden to WotC when it came to 5E content. Our first intentions were to publish on DrivethruRPG but upon reviewing the licensing programs available to newcomers we found no options for publishing 5E content. We did post a 5E product there for a day but it was swiftly removed somehow, and we concluded there was no option to pursue it. I still find various 5E products listed there by parties other than WotC and I'm not entirely sure what the situation is. Thus we've so far been relegated to the dismal sales on DM's guild. I would be ecstatic to learn of a better outlet for our 5E content.
That guy represents himself and one other person, and they were ready to hang up their game designer hats because the only place they thought they could publish 5E material was DMs Guild. OBS and WotC have 0 interest in fixing this perception (see above).

The DMs Guild absolutely has its role, and I'm telling you that (after five years full-time freelancing in the RPG industry) that I am 100% confident that role is to marginalize game designers and create a marketplace that is hostile to publishers.

[LordEntrails]

...(lack of branding aside, the numbers make it impossible (https://worldbuilderblog.me/2017/03/30/an-update-on-dms-guild-sales/) even for people at the top of the pile).
That blog is well over a year old. If you talk to James and others at the top of the pile (which I do, not James, but many of the others) you will find that their opinions have changed drastically, for the positive, about the Guild in that time.

You mentioned 7 people who have been discouraged from getting into the industry because of their impression of the Guild. I know dozens that have been encouraged to get into the industry because of the Guild. And several that it is one of their majority sources of support/income.


There are people making 3PP content for 5e (*points at self*) but it's a struggle to be heard at all, ...

That guy represents himself and one other person, and they were ready to hang up their game designer hats because the only place they thought they could publish 5E material was DMs Guild. OBS and WotC have 0 interest in fixing this perception (see above).

The DMs Guild absolutely has its role, and I'm telling you that (after five years full-time freelancing in the RPG industry) that I am 100% confident that role is to marginalize game designers and create a marketplace that is hostile to publishers.
And there's the crux of the matter. It appears you have an ax to grind. You have just joined this forum, and have a total of 2 posts. Both resurrecting this thread to complain about a program that really has little to do with this forum.

So, welcome to the forums, but if this complaint of the Guild is all you have to add, why don't you take it to a forum that is more related to your complaint?

[Nylanfs]

Welcome to the forums and FG Community Mike. :)

[Mike Myler]

That blog is well over a year old. If you talk to James and others at the top of the pile (which I do, not James, but many of the others) you will find that their opinions have changed drastically, for the positive, about the Guild in that time.

You mentioned 7 people who have been discouraged from getting into the industry because of their impression of the Guild. I know dozens that have been encouraged to get into the industry because of the Guild. And several that it is one of their majority sources of support/income.


And there's the crux of the matter. It appears you have an ax to grind. You have just joined this forum, and have a total of 2 posts. Both resurrecting this thread to complain about a program that really has little to do with this forum.

So, welcome to the forums, but if this complaint of the Guild is all you have to add, why don't you take it to a forum that is more related to your complaint?

I'm doing another show with James this week and before seeing this reply was just thinking about how clever the guild adepts program is at curtailing dissent about the program! :bandit: I know an entire industry of people that are having a harder time operating in the resulting markets because of DMsGuild despite the increased customer base. It's absolutely great that some of the saplings under the gigantic umbrella Hasbro has propped over the 3PP market are managing to do well, and it's a huge sadness to me because if they weren't in such a difficult place to grow they'd be in such better shape and not nearly as lonely.

Frankly I wasn't aware that Facebook post about DMsGuild was shared here and sought to share it in full. Anyone who's been in the industry since before DMsGuild has an ax to grind (even the folks that have managed to do very well outside of it) because what its done to the industry is reprehensible. My apologies for resurrecting a dead thread, but that post wasn't initially public and it deserves to be shared in its complete form wherever it appears.

[damned]

Oh no doubt DMs Guild makes a lot of sense for WotC (or I argue, more importantly, Hasbro). It absolutely rules out the possibility that they'll lose the market share to another publisher because it rules out the possibility of another publisher being able to establish themselves in that corner of the industry well enough to do so (lack of branding aside, the numbers make it impossible (https://worldbuilderblog.me/2017/03/30/an-update-on-dms-guild-sales/) even for people at the top of the pile).

All other things aside - why would any IP holder not want to make a cut from products that use their IP or leverage their IP? I cant think of many industries where this doesnt happen.


I'm unfamiliar with any distribution market having obscure or difficult to follow compatibility licensing rules, and though it's been a long time since then, when I got my PF license I think the turnaround was less than 24 hours from submission to getting the license. What elusive approval/licenses are you referring to? The open-handed slap that was the GSL for D&D 4th Edition?

Ive contacted quite a few RPG publishers about licensing and the most common response is nothing. None. Zip. Zilch. The next most common response is for it to take ages and ages to resolve the request either for or against. And then there are the publishers that reply quickly with a yay or nay. Paizo is in a pretty unique position. They are purely a RPG business and not beholden to a bigger parent and all their marketing and legal requirements. They are also the biggest (by a long shot) publisher after Wizards. The way they dealt with your request is a factor of these and is also a factor in their success. They have resources and an ability to be nimble. Most other RPG houses have one or the other.


The fact I know it's an unfair system stems from Pathfinder 3PP being able to support entire publishing houses while doing so from a much, much smaller market. 5E has been (as noted in the OP) a huge boon to the RPG community in terms of the player base. Yet despite having a sea of customers compared to the pond that Paizo made, there's not enough capital to go around in their specialized marketplace. That's a reality that was manufactured to be that way.

Pathfinder is the only game to ever knock D&D off the number one spot. For a while Paizo was the big dog. Paizo's market share is somewhere between 30-40% of the entire market after you remove the Wizards. Paizo monstrously dwarf everyone bar the Wizards. This is not a small base.


There are people making 3PP content for 5e (*points at self*) but it's a struggle to be heard at all, and the predominant place to buy that material is hidden behind not two, not three, but four pages of clicking on OBS sites (although annoyingly that non-DMs Guild material still appears to exist on DMsGuild (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/207502/2099-Wasteland) despite several messages to WotC/OBS/WotC legal about it).

Pretty much EVERYTHING is 3 or 4 clicks deep on OBS because it has sooooooooo much content. Its quite possible that OBS is more responsible for quality publishers not being able to be found. The gazillion products that are available on OBS make everything other than best sellers hard to find. Is this a good or bad thing?


I'm just going to quote someone who I've helped get off the ground for the next bit. Bolding is my emphasis.

That guy represents himself and one other person, and they were ready to hang up their game designer hats because the only place they thought they could publish 5E material was DMs Guild. OBS and WotC have 0 interest in fixing this perception (see above).

The DMs Guild absolutely has its role, and I'm telling you that (after five years full-time freelancing in the RPG industry) that I am 100% confident that role is to marginalize game designers and create a marketplace that is hostile to publishers.

There are over 2,000 5E products on RPGNow that are not on DMsG including things from high profile sources like Critical Role. Obviously there are a good number of publishers who can find their way around how to publish on the non specific platform. I really dont believe its that hard to do.

[Mike Myler]

All other things aside - why would any IP holder not want to make a cut from products that use their IP or leverage their IP? I cant think of many industries where this doesnt happen.
It makes plenty of sense for an IP holder to do that and that's why other IP-markets have appeared. Why other companies (like the golems) haven't done so is because it is obviously a bad thing for the industry as a whole. Moreover there's nothing stopping DMsGuild from being more transparent about the existence of a marketplace for 5E content that is not related directly to the IP, and the obscurement of the SRD withholding many of the games mechanics (one archetype per class from the core, no updates, the errata isn't OGL either) is an unnecessary bewilderment (made all the more confusing my legacy terminology).



Ive contacted quite a few RPG publishers about licensing and the most common response is nothing. None. Zip. Zilch. The next most common response is for it to take ages and ages to resolve the request either for or against. And then there are the publishers that reply quickly with a yay or nay. Paizo is in a pretty unique position. They are purely a RPG business and not beholden to a bigger parent and all their marketing and legal requirements. They are also the biggest (by a long shot) publisher after Wizards. The way they dealt with your request is a factor of these and is also a factor in their success. They have resources and an ability to be nimble. Most other RPG houses have one or the other.
I have had the exact opposite experience. Got to pitch for the WH40k license, first person to license Shadow of the Demon Lord. Paizo isn't just an RPG business--they do comics, and fiction, and card games, and licensing deals. They just want publishing content for their game to be easy and accessible.



Pathfinder is the only game to ever knock D&D off the number one spot. For a while Paizo was the big dog. Paizo's market share is somewhere between 30-40% of the entire market after you remove the Wizards. Paizo monstrously dwarf everyone bar the Wizards. This is not a small base.
30-40% after you remove the Wizards means the Wizards have over half the marketplace more than 2 or 3 times the next one? That's a massive volume of scale and Paizo's base is split between two systems, one of which is in limbo for the next year.



Pretty much EVERYTHING is 3 or 4 clicks deep on OBS because it has sooooooooo much content. Its quite possible that OBS is more responsible for quality publishers not being able to be found. The gazillion products that are available on OBS make everything other than best sellers hard to find. Is this a good or bad thing?
OBS is complicit entirely with DMsGuild and are equally responsible for it (and maybe a little more so for encouraging IP-markets). It would be fan-freaking-tastic if they wanted to and did something to make the non-IP market more accessible but there's no intention to do so that I'm aware of. The first time I told them about my non-DMsGuild products generating pages there, they tried to sell it as a feature.



There are over 2,000 5E products on RPGNow that are not on DMsG including things from high profile sources like Critical Role. Obviously there are a good number of publishers who can find their way around how to publish on the non specific platform. I really dont believe its that hard to do.
I am aware of nobody that's angry or upset at folks that have managed to succeed, but I am disappointed because the mechanisms they're made to rely on to succeed are fundamentally flawed and do everyone involved a huge discredit.

[damned]

It makes plenty of sense for an IP holder to do that and that's why other IP-markets have appeared. Why other companies (like the golems) haven't done so is because it is obviously a bad thing for the industry as a whole. Moreover there's nothing stopping DMsGuild from being more transparent about the existence of a marketplace for 5E content that is not related directly to the IP, and the obscurement of the SRD withholding many of the games mechanics (one archetype per class from the core, no updates, the errata isn't OGL either) is an unnecessary bewilderment (made all the more confusing my legacy terminology).

Let me get this right.
You think the OGL is bad because they give you enough t play with for free but they dont give you their whole product for free?


I have had the exact opposite experience. Got to pitch for the WH40k license, first person to license Shadow of the Demon Lord. Paizo isn't just an RPG business--they do comics, and fiction, and card games, and licensing deals. They just want publishing content for their game to be easy and accessible.

Paizo has branched into other products but unlike Hasbro - their RPG line is their big line - it is what drives the company.
Nonetheless - Paizo doing things well is a good thing and not in argument here.
The Wizards have created a way for every man and his dog to published licensed material and you call that bad.
They have not stopped you creating content on your own store or blog or on OBS. Except of course they will continue to protect their PI and IP as they should.
Other publishers have started similar marketplaces. The fact that we dont hear about them is mostly because 5E is the game that most people play most of the time. Most of the RPG industry is 5e.
The RPG industry gets bigger every time D&D gets bigger.
So what if D&D gets the lions share of $$. People choose what they want to spend their money on and they overwhelmingly choose to spend it on 5e.
The Wizards opened up a market for indie publishers and first timers to not only be able to easily publish content for 5e but to also have access to a huge swathe of PI and IP.
This has not in any way prevented publishers from doing their own thing.
If the DMsG proves to be more popular than 3P publishers own products and distribution channels then it probably means they are doing something right.


30-40% after you remove the Wizards means the Wizards have over half the marketplace more than 2 or 3 times the next one? That's a massive volume of scale and Paizo's base is split between two systems, one of which is in limbo for the next year.

Are you mad because people choose to buy 5E? Otherwise your first point has gone over my head. Yes D&D 5E is very popular and people both spend money on it and play it. people like it.
Paizo's share is split between 2 systems? Unlike all the other RPG publishers out there that have multiple products? What does this matter? More people still play AD&D than play most other RPGs on the market.


OBS is complicit entirely with DMsGuild and are equally responsible for it (and maybe a little more so for encouraging IP-markets). It would be fan-freaking-tastic if they wanted to and did something to make the non-IP market more accessible but there's no intention to do so that I'm aware of. The first time I told them about my non-DMsGuild products generating pages there, they tried to sell it as a feature.

So now that OBS have two channels for aspiring RPG publishers to get their stuff out there - one with higher costs but a tonne of material for you to use and a ready made licensing agreement and another more traditional channel - you think its harder for people to become successful RPG publishers.


I am aware of nobody that's angry or upset at folks that have managed to succeed, but I am disappointed because the mechanisms they're made to rely on to succeed are fundamentally flawed and do everyone involved a huge discredit.

I totally get that this is your view point and that of some others.

I cannot see how this additional channel and additional licensing arrangement is an imposition.
We all now have more opportunity to become publishers and more options about the channels and licensing that we choose.
Thats my view.

[Mike Myler]

Let me get this right.
You think the OGL is bad because they give you enough t play with for free but they dont give you their whole product for free?
I think the 5ESRD is unnecessarily contracted from the core rules and that puts people *not* publishing in THE OFFICIAL D&D MARKETPLACE (emphasis not mine) at a huge disadvantage, and that they didn't really have a choice about putting something out to address the OGL because of the way copyright functions in the United States (see original post).



Paizo has branched into other products but unlike Hasbro - their RPG line is their big line - it is what drives the company.
Nonetheless - Paizo doing things well is a good thing and not in argument here.
The Wizards have created a way for every man and his dog to published licensed material and you call that bad.
They have not stopped you creating content on your own store or blog or on OBS. Except of course they will continue to protect their PI and IP as they should.
Other publishers have started similar marketplaces. The fact that we dont hear about them is mostly because 5E is the game that most people play most of the time. Most of the RPG industry is 5e.
The RPG industry gets bigger every time D&D gets bigger.
So what if D&D gets the lions share of $$. People choose what they want to spend their money on and they overwhelmingly choose to spend it on 5e.
The Wizards opened up a market for indie publishers and first timers to not only be able to easily publish content for 5e but to also have access to a huge swathe of PI and IP.
This has not in any way prevented publishers from doing their own thing.
If the DMsG proves to be more popular than 3P publishers own products and distribution channels then it probably means they are doing something right.
Wizards created a way for every man and his dog to publish licensed material when the OGL was released with D&D 3rd edition. They tried to walk it back with the 4th Edition GSL and it blew up in their faces. What they decided to do for 5th Edition was make a marketplace as hostile as possible to any serious publishing entity, so while the marketplace itself grows larger, their fenced in area grows at equal proportion to the detriment of the industry (because their marketplace shafts layout artists, illustrators and others).
As noted earlier, this is not a good thing because it gives the impression to new people in the industry that the only way they can publish 5E material is to surrender their ideas to the DMsGuild.


Are you mad because people choose to buy 5E? Otherwise your first point has gone over my head. Yes D&D 5E is very popular and people both spend money on it and play it. people like it.
Paizo's share is split between 2 systems? Unlike all the other RPG publishers out there that have multiple products? What does this matter? More people still play AD&D than play most other RPGs on the market.
I'm upset over the fact that where there should be a flourishing garden of RPG publishers employing four times as many designers (and cartographers, and editors, and developers) there's not, and it's plain why that is. I'm mad that people that want to do this full-time have more barriers in front of them and less opportunities than I had now in this larger market than in the smaller market made by a company that cares about the industry surrounding it (a market this one has certainly taken up folks from).
FYI I still design full-time and largely for 5th Edition. I'm the editor for the EN5ider patreon and as far as I can find out, the only person anywhere in a position to just hire 5E designers off the proverbial street for hard cash. If you aren't already in the dugout for a legacy publisher (Kobold Press, Green Ronin, etc.) you're out of luck and left to fight against the wave of constant amateur content on DMs Guild all sold at rock-bottom prices. When I started there were more than a dozen publishers of what was then the most popular RPG in the world hiring out design work.



So now that OBS have two channels for aspiring RPG publishers to get their stuff out there - one with higher costs but a tonne of material for you to use and a ready made licensing agreement and another more traditional channel - you think its harder for people to become successful RPG publishers.
That's my point. There aren't really two channels. There's one massive sea over here that they point to as much as possible, and a tiny lake that's pushed into the distant background. Also the OGL is itself a licensing agreement (OGL=Open Game License) so I disagree with the assertion that DMsGuild somehow makes licensing easier aside from the mechanics omitted from the 5ESRD to make it harder to use.



I totally get that this is your view point and that of some others.

I cannot see how this additional channel and additional licensing arrangement is an imposition.
We all now have more opportunity to become publishers and more options about the channels and licensing that we choose.
Thats my view.
I respect your view, but I am doing my best to try to curtail people who want to make games for a living from getting lost in the hostile place that Hasbro has engineered to prevent them from succeeding. I'm just trying to help people here, and I hope you (or anyone else) aren't hurt or offended in the attempt. We all love gaming, we all love D&D, and I lament that the latest industry leader isn't as benevolent and forward-thinking an entity as the previous one.

[damned]

I respect your view, but I am doing my best to try to curtail people who want to make games for a living from getting lost in the hostile place that Hasbro has engineered to prevent them from succeeding. I'm just trying to help people here, and I hope you (or anyone else) aren't hurt or offended in the attempt. We all love gaming, we all love D&D, and I lament that the latest industry leader isn't as benevolent and forward-thinking an entity as the previous one.

No offense taken here.

[Myrdin Potter]

The DMS Guild has opened up the market the same way the original OGL did. Smaller "publishers" can use the whole rulebook and the key IP and publish. It also saves WoTC from dealing with thousands of specific requests to use their IP, it is all there. They just added Eberron to the list of available IP as well. The "IP" that the average person gives up is tiny compared to what they can use.

The OGL is very permissive and pretty complete. There are a handful of spells and monsters not there, but the only major thing missing is the classes and backgrounds. Many publishers just assume that their customers own the main rulebooks and go from there. Some, like Kobold Press, did a whole new world (Midgard) with classes and backgrounds.

Since WoTC is offering two paths and you are free to choose which you want, I really don't see the point. The agreements are all open as well and you get to choose.

[JohnD]

Five posts and nothing to do directly with Fantasy Grounds. Seems like you're on the wrong forum, but whatever floats your boat I suppose.

[Mike Myler]

The DMS Guild has opened up the market the same way the original OGL did. Smaller "publishers" can use the whole rulebook and the key IP and publish. It also saves WoTC from dealing with thousands of specific requests to use their IP, it is all there. They just added Eberron to the list of available IP as well. The "IP" that the average person gives up is tiny compared to what they can use.

The OGL is very permissive and pretty complete. There are a handful of spells and monsters not there, but the only major thing missing is the classes and backgrounds. Many publishers just assume that their customers own the main rulebooks and go from there. Some, like Kobold Press, did a whole new world (Midgard) with classes and backgrounds.

Since WoTC is offering two paths and you are free to choose which you want, I really don't see the point. The agreements are all open as well and you get to choose.

Sure there's lots of IP to work with from WotC. The issue is that there's no way to share your own IP on THE D&D MARKETPLACE (again emphasis not mine) on anywhere near equal footing, and if you do, you lose ownership of it. Which I find to be cruel. As mentioned elsewhere in my posts, there's not a damn thing stopping them from altering this and many people (seven that I know of means dozens if not scores or hundreds that never came into contact with me) got suckered into publishing their ideas in a place where they cannot go anywhere.
Also no requests are required to utilize anything that's OGL. What you folks keep conflating I think is compatibility licenses which have to do with branding. You can go post something for Pathfinder right now and have a good time with it (even make it naughty if you like). If you want to slap the "Pathfinder compatible" logo on there you need an agreement (which is slightly censored). There is definitely not any kind of 5E compatible logo from WotC, just their slaving brand, in that marketplace where you aren't allowed any branding of yourself.

The DMsGuild has not opened the market the same way the OGL did. The parts of the rules not included in the 3eSRD (very specific monsters) I think can be listed off with one hand. By not including most of the class archetypes, nearly all of the feats, and nearly all of the backgrounds (plus a bunch of other minor things, as you noted, like spells, magic items, all but one artifact, etc.) in the 5eSRD OGL publishers have to reword and therein de-legitimize their work (because while I might be able to refer to an eldritch knight as a legacy term protected under an earlier SRD, any class features need worded differently or it violates copyright). I'm constantly surprised (even after years of working with the material on a daily basis) by the things not included in the 5eSRD or cleverly hidden inside of other parts of the rules text that are OGL where the parent content isn't.

The point is that there are many people that believe the DMsGuild is the only place they can publish 5E material, and those people are being unfairly treated by this erroneous perception that Hasbro/OBS have no intention of correcting. These people are being injured by this practice, forced into a marketplace custom-made for them to fail inside of, and ultimately driven away from an industry that should embrace them. There shouldn't be dozens of people able to make a living off of 3PP for 5th Edition, there should be hundreds.




Five posts and nothing to do directly with Fantasy Grounds. Seems like you're on the wrong forum, but whatever floats your boat I suppose.

Here ya go John: Fantasy Grounds partnering with DMsGuild makes a bunch of sense for them. They are competing against a freaking kaiju so it's not a surprise that when the opportunity to gain some leverage opened up they took it. I'm figuring that they either didn't really consider all of the points I've been listing out here, or they just don't care beyond keeping the ship afloat.
Also I'm not the person that originally posted my (formerly) private thoughts on DMsGuild here in this public forum, and I have a responsibility to see that explained in full. Sorry it's not more FG-centric.

[LordEntrails]

I think the 5ESRD is unnecessarily contracted from the core rules and that puts people *not* publishing in THE OFFICIAL D&D MARKETPLACE (emphasis not mine) at a huge disadvantage...
You keep coming back to this. You want the 5E SRD to have everything the 3E one did. Yet, later on you practically admit that the 3E SRD was a huge business mistake from the perspective of Wizards. And if you didn't/don't, you would have a hard time arguing that it wasn't a mistake. Without it, all the shenanigans and lapse and other mistakes would not have caused the problems that WotC had after releasing the 3E SRD.

WotC has a legal and fiduciary responsibilities to not do the same thing again. For them to repeat the 3E SRD with the 5E SRD would be not only a bad business decision, but could be a legal problem.


Wizards created a way for every man and his dog to publish licensed material when the OGL was released with D&D 3rd edition.
And they have done so again with the Guild. Even easier to do so than with the 3E SRD.


.... What they decided to do for 5th Edition was make a marketplace as hostile as possible to any serious publishing entity...
As noted earlier, this is not a good thing because it gives the impression to new people in the industry that the only way they can publish 5E material is to surrender their ideas to the DMsGuild.
See, you see the Guild as hostile, because it doesn't give you want you want. It seems friendly to me. I tried to get into publishing in RPGs (as an aside, not a career) prior to the Guild. And my experience with all the publishers I contacted, including Wizards and ENSider were met with something less than friendliness. In fact, multiple emails to ENSider went unreturned after the initial response.


I'm upset over the fact that where there should be a flourishing garden of RPG publishers ... and it's plain why that is. I'm mad that people that want to do this full-time have more barriers in front of them and less opportunities than I had now in this larger market than in the smaller market made by a company that cares about the industry surrounding it (a market this one has certainly taken up folks from).
...
And in my opinion you have chosen the wrong target for your hostility.

First, why "should their be a flourishing garden"? I think we can agree we would all like one. But I don't think that the lack of one has anything to do with the Guild. Rather I think the most significant impact on the lack of growth of professional RPG careers are the customers themselves. A vast majority them want everything for free. They complain and rant when someone charges a couple dollars for an adventure, they frequent pirate sites to steal stuff. Even your own website (ENWorld) provides links to sites and programs that steal publishers content. As a publisher themselves, ENWorld is part of it's own problem in this regard.


That's my point. There aren't really two channels. There's one massive sea over here that they point to as much as possible, and a tiny lake that's pushed into the distant background. ...
Apparently you haven't published or looked into the details of publishing on the Guild. It is very easy to publish on the Guild. Really easy in fact.


I respect your view, but I am doing my best to try to curtail people who want to make games for a living from getting lost in the hostile place that Hasbro has engineered to prevent them from succeeding. I'm just trying to help people here, and I hope you (or anyone else) aren't hurt or offended in the attempt. We all love gaming, we all love D&D, and I lament that the latest industry leader isn't as benevolent and forward-thinking an entity as the previous one.
But how have you helped? You stated numerous opinions with virtually no factual support over and over again. You haven't given any useful advice on how someone can get published in the industry. You haven't clarified the differences between the Guilds CCA and the OGL. You haven't helped.


Sure there's lots of IP to work with from WotC. The issue is that there's no way to share your own IP on THE D&D MARKETPLACE (again emphasis not mine) on anywhere near equal footing, and if you do, you lose ownership of it. Which I find to be cruel. As mentioned elsewhere in my posts, there's not a damn thing stopping them from altering this and many people (seven that I know of means dozens if not scores or hundreds that never came into contact with me) got suckered into publishing their ideas in a place where they cannot go anywhere.
So somehow it's WotC's fault that 7 people did not read the license agreement they were agreeing to? And maybe that's why you think they have engineered a hostile place? If someone chooses to publish on the D&D Marketplace, then they get benefits, and they also have restrictions and costs. If they choose to publish some other way, perhaps using the OGL, then they also get benefits and they also have restrictions. Do we really have to argue over if someone should understand their legal responsibilities before entering into a legal contract?



Also no requests are required to utilize anything that's OGL. What you folks keep conflating I think is compatibility licenses which have to do with branding. You can go post something for Pathfinder right now and have a good time with it (even make it naughty if you like). If you want to slap the "Pathfinder compatible" logo on there you need an agreement (which is slightly censored). There is definitely not any kind of 5E compatible logo from WotC, just their slaving brand, in that marketplace where you aren't allowed any branding of yourself.
Which is exactly my point above. Except you assign derogatory terms to WotC ("slaving") while you highlight the choice of various licensing possibilities with Paizo. And apparently because of your preconceived notions and anger,you don't see as comparable. You are in effect complaining; "Bob is evil because he makes muffins, Kerry is great because she makes muffins."


The DMsGuild has not opened the market the same way the OGL did. The parts of the rules not included in the 3eSRD (very specific monsters) I think can be listed off with one hand. By not including most of the class archetypes, nearly all of the feats, and nearly all of the backgrounds (plus a bunch of other minor things, as you noted, like spells, magic items, all but one artifact, etc.) in the 5eSRD OGL publishers have to reword and therein de-legitimize their work (because while I might be able to refer to an eldritch knight as a legacy term protected under an earlier SRD, any class features need worded differently or it violates copyright). I'm constantly surprised (even after years of working with the material on a daily basis) by the things not included in the 5eSRD or cleverly hidden inside of other parts of the rules text that are OGL where the parent content isn't.
And as I said before, you are mad because the 5E SRD isn't what you want. But, had WotC made the 5E SRD the same way they made the 3E SRD, they would have been negligent and it could easily be argued that they had failed to uphold legal fiduciary responsibilities.


The point is that there are many people that believe the DMsGuild is the only place they can publish 5E material, and those people are being unfairly treated by this erroneous perception that Hasbro/OBS have no intention of correcting. These people are being injured by this practice, forced into a marketplace custom-made for them to fail inside of, and ultimately driven away from an industry that should embrace them. There shouldn't be dozens of people able to make a living off of 3PP for 5th Edition, there should be hundreds.
Again, you are sharpening your ax without any supporting evidence or support except for your own unsupported opinions and anger. Where is personal responsibility? If someone believe the Guild is the only place they can publish 5E material, that is their own fault for not actually finding out the facts before making their decisions. Now, why is it WotC's responsibility to educate the masses of potential RPG authors? What value does it bring to WotC to spend money on clarifying the issue for people who obviously haven't spent much time looking into?

At the end, you are once more stating an opinion as if it were fact. Sure, I would wish the job market was a thousand times larger than it is, but it's not because of the Guild, rather it's because of the customers themselves.


Here ya go John: ... and I have a responsibility to see that explained in full. Sorry it's not more FG-centric.
What? You have a responsibility to monitor the entire internet and try to clarify any post anywhere that you don't think presents your views and opinions correctly? Or is it just the ones that have to do with the RPG industry? Wow, I guess some deity gave you that responsibility? Because no one else certainly did.

[Mike Myler]

Heads up that some comments needed shortened to fit post character limit.


You keep coming back to this. You want the 5E SRD to have everything the 3E one did. Yet, later on you practically admit that the 3E SRD was a huge business mistake from the perspective of Wizards. And if you didn't/don't, you would have a hard time arguing that it wasn't a mistake. Without it, all the shenanigans and lapse and other mistakes would not have caused the problems that WotC had after releasing the 3E SRD.

WotC has a legal and fiduciary responsibilities to not do the same thing again. For them to repeat the 3E SRD with the 5E SRD would be not only a bad business decision, but could be a legal problem.

And they have done so again with the Guild. Even easier to do so than with the 3E SRD.
I do not admit or believe that the 3eSRD and OGL were a mistake. They are the single greatest gift to the RPG industry that has ever been given. Trying to walk it back is a mistake (see GSL comments). Hasbro made a bad call when they told their designers to appeal to the MMORPG market with 4th edition (which itself is a fine game, would've gone over great if it was called The Gauntlet RPG) and then fired the staff of their magazine (which became Paizo). They made it worse when they implemented a hard-handed licensing agreement. So this time they've made a cage that traps up the content via the truncated 5eSRD (pretty sure that's because the 5E rules were going to be treated as OGL by Frog God Games, the oldest 3PP publisher of D&D content and a bunch of actual attorneys that might be the only people with the expertise to do so).
The assertion that they had a legal and fiduciary responsibility to f#$% the industry is a false one unless they were planning on firing dozens of competent designers all at once a second time. This edition's release couldn't have resulted in another Paizo otherwise because those people are gainfully employed elsewhere. The conditions for another Pathfinder just aren't there, making the DMs Guild's intent all more egregious.


See, you see the Guild as hostile, because it doesn't give you want you want. It seems friendly to me. I tried to get into publishing in RPGs (as an aside, not a career) prior to the Guild. And my experience with all the publishers I contacted, including Wizards and ENSider were met with something less than friendliness. In fact, multiple emails to ENSider went unreturned after the initial response.
Here's an example of how the guild is hostile: Kobold Press, a company hired out to work on core WotC books, has a grand total of 2 items on the DMs Guild (https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=kobold%20press&test_epoch=0). That's like what, one every 3 years or so? If it was a friendly marketplace, why do they have so few things there? Why are more professional publishers working in that space?
I'm sorry that EN5ider didn't respond to you. I became editor only recently--hit me up and we'll get you on the list for the next open call. It's no surprise to me that Wizards did not send any reply (or an unfriendly one) and that should maybe be telling for you.


And in my opinion you have chosen the wrong target for your hostility.
You're welcome to your opinion, but know that mine is informed by living here in the RPG industry for five years. Not dabbling in it on weekends or grabbing the occasional book, but living here all the time every day.


First, why "should their be a flourishing garden"?.....
There should be a flourishing garden of publishers, designers, cartographers, editors, developers, layout artists, illustrators, and writers because a much smaller market supported it for Pathfinder. The single most telling thing about this situation is that despite having a far broader customer base, 5E has reduced the working industry's size dramatically. That's why. There's more sunlight, more water, more nutrients (customers) but fewer plants able to grow (industry workers). I can't reconcile how people are unable to see this disparity.
I'm unaware of ENWorld (not my website, Morrus' website) providing links to websites that pirate content. You should in all cases inform him of this and flag posts that do that. Morrus is an upstanding dude and will remove them immediately, but I'll be amazed if he or any EN World staff are at fault, and suspect what you're referring to is policing of forum posts (in which case, still, flag the posts).



Apparently you haven't published or looked into the details of publishing on the Guild. It is very easy to publish on the Guild. Really easy in fact.

But how have you helped? You stated numerous opinions with virtually no factual support over and over again. You haven't given any useful advice on how someone can get published in the industry. You haven't clarified the differences between the Guilds CCA and the OGL. You haven't helped.
I've definitely checked out the details of publishing on the Guild but would never put material there, but I do what I can to help. I've gotten the fellas mentioned in that email quote above several paid gigs, and I actively try to educate people about the situation (which is not my job, btw, but something I feel compelled to do out of a sense of responsibility for the industry that has allowed me to make RPGs for a living).
Also publishing using the OGL means including it and a chapter 15 in the product. The mechanisms for how the OGL functions are extremely simple and accessible. The 5eSRD's interactions with it are not.

Anyone interested in publishing for 5E should contact me directly (mike.myler.adventures|at|gmail.com) and I'll give you my standard list of advice, add you to the EN5ider open call list, and answer any questions you might have. I do this regularly for people, just not in a thread that stated a needed-to-be-updated summary of how the DMsGuild is injurious.



So somehow it's WotC's fault that 7 people did not read the license agreement they were agreeing to? ... Do we really have to argue over if someone should understand their legal responsibilities before entering into a legal contract?
When people are unaware that there is an option for them to publish their content and retain ownership, yes, I believe that there's an obligation by all parties to make the distinction more clear. It should be equally easy and accessible to publish under the OGL or the DMs Guild, and the idea that the latter should be easier flies in the face of the spirit of the OGL. Also again, that I (dude who just works in this part of the industry) can only identify a half dozen people means that there are many, many, many more that I don't see or are aware of. Anyone who's only published once on DMsGuild is probably somebody that was turned off from game design entirely (which makes me a sad panda).


Which is exactly my point above. Except you assign derogatory terms to WotC ("slaving") while you highlight the choice of various licensing possibilities with Paizo. And apparently because of your preconceived notions and anger,you don't see as comparable. You are in effect complaining; "Bob is evil because he makes muffins, Kerry is great because she makes muffins."
"Bob is evil because he makes muffins that can only be sold and eaten inside of his compound, a place where the economy of sale is fundamentally flawed to leave most people that go in there starving. Kerry is great because she makes muffins and just sells them wherever."



And as I said before, you are mad because the 5E SRD isn't what you want. But, had WotC made the 5E SRD the same way they made the 3E SRD, they would have been negligent and it could easily be argued that they had failed to uphold legal fiduciary responsibilities.
I'm mad because Hasbro engineered a marketplace with fewer opportunities for people to do what I did (become full-time freelance game designers). That's what I'm mad about. I've said that multiple times in this thread now.



Again, you are sharpening your ax without any supporting evidence or support except for your own unsupported opinions and anger. Where is personal responsibility? ....
The personal responsibility is to the industry. Do you think 5E would've been as successful if Paizo hadn't kept the lights on for half a decade? I'm absolutely certain it would not be. Successful of course, but not as successful. The leader of an industry--any industry--has a responsibility because what they do is going to be emulated by others. In this instance, the industry leader has created an IP-marketplace that marginalized designers and discourages professional publishing, which in turn has led to other IP-markets appearing that in many cases will do the same thing.


At the end, you are once more stating an opinion as if it were fact. Sure, I would wish the job market was a thousand times larger than it is, but it's not because of the Guild, rather it's because of the customers themselves.

What? You have a responsibility to monitor the entire internet and try to clarify any post anywhere that you don't think presents your views and opinions correctly? Or is it just the ones that have to do with the RPG industry? Wow, I guess some deity gave you that responsibility? Because no one else certainly did.
Anybody who watches others be injured while trying to create artwork has a responsibility to try and stop that person from being wounded. It's just being good to others.

[LordEntrails]

Obviously we see the world very differently.



Here's an example of how the guild is hostile: Kobold Press, a company hired out to work on core WotC books, has a grand total of 2 items on the DMs Guild (https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=kobold%20press&test_epoch=0). That's like what, one every 3 years or so? If it was a friendly marketplace, why do they have so few things there?
Because Kobold press doesn't need the Guild? Sure, they only have 2 products on the Guild, but they have 70 on their own website; https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product-category/all-products/dungeons-dragons/5th-edition/

So, since they have obviously shown that you can publish and succeed without the Guild... How does that make the Guild hostile? It means, to me, that their are some products best sold on the Guild and some products best sold using other means.

I think your views are so colored by your emotions that everything you observe, you interpret to fit your narrative.*shrugs* that's human, and where the difference between experience and irrationality falls is too difficult to determine.

Again, I will say that I don't see how this discussion has helped others. It would seem a better method would be that you could layout all of the various ways to become employed in the industry (as an author, cartographer, etc) and the unbiased pros and cons of each method, and then use that as a platform for education.

[Valyar]

Knowing Hasbro, I believe they didn’t put enough effort to make this bad enough... shame on them.

This thread is very interesting. I stopped following WotC after they released 4e and 5e didn’t manage to ignite the spark I had during the 3.5 era....

@Mike - what do you mean by legacy publishers like Greem Ronin and etc? What do you think should happen for the things to take turn for the better? What do you think will happen with PF2?

[Bidmaron]

Valyar I haven’t finished reading the PF2 playtest rules yet, and I must confess I was dubious when I heard the drive to simplify. I feared a 4e nightmare, but I have to say I like what I have read so far. Need to read some more before I reach a preliminary conclusion. And I am looking forward to play testing on Trenloe ‘s ruleset.

[Mike Myler]

Obviously we see the world very differently.


Because Kobold press doesn't need the Guild? Sure, they only have 2 products on the Guild, but they have 70 on their own website; https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product-category/all-products/dungeons-dragons/5th-edition/

So, since they have obviously shown that you can publish and succeed without the Guild... How does that make the Guild hostile? It means, to me, that their are some products best sold on the Guild and some products best sold using other means.

I think your views are so colored by your emotions that everything you observe, you interpret to fit your narrative.*shrugs* that's human, and where the difference between experience and irrationality falls is too difficult to determine.

Again, I will say that I don't see how this discussion has helped others. It would seem a better method would be that you could layout all of the various ways to become employed in the industry (as an author, cartographer, etc) and the unbiased pros and cons of each method, and then use that as a platform for education.

Being able to successfully swim upriver doesn't mean that artificially increasing the current is the right thing to do for all the fish in the stream. The fact that they (and other professional publishers) actively avoid the DMs Guild (at a ratio of 1:35 in KP's case) makes it obvious that it's a hostile place to create and sell content. You wanted an example of the DMs Guild being hostile, there ya go--a company that should be championing it (anointed with a WotC core line book for 5E) avoids it. If you can find another professional publisher (people with hardbacks in game stores) working in the DMsGuild that'd be awesome but I'm sure there aren't any because the numbers cannot support it.

You're welcome to disregard my experiences as emotional. That's your purvey. I've definitely laid out, repeatedly in this thread and in clear terms, how the DMs Guild has a negative impact on the RPG industry both for designers and ancillary workers. It is painful to me that you want to degrade that--recognizing the suffering of people that only want to make games as they find the industry that supported them suddenly shrinking in the face of Hasbro shattering it into hundreds of ineffectual fragments only able to succeed with either a blessing from on high or a mixed talent to perform in front of the camera--but I don't think you do so out of malice, I think you do it out of love for D&D and gaming which is at the very least something everyone here shares. It is the usual response to my attempts to educate people on the situation and makes it all the more tragic.

I know that I've at least helped a few people stay in the game and get themselves established. Again I'm not going to turn this into an advice thread because that's never what Paul intended it to be, but anyone that's interested in getting help starting out should email me at mike.myler.adventures|at|gmail.com and I'll do my best to help out. :)

I should add that for general information there's an excellent free e-zine from Rite Publishing called Pathways (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/2373/Rite-Publishing/subcategory/4448_6624/Pathways-Free-Ezine) where "how to get started in the RPG industry" is an oft-visited topic. Still, any illustrator or designer or whatever looking for help is always welcome to poke me. Went looking for a recording of the panel I did at Gen Con 2017 but I think it got lost and mixed up with others. :/


Knowing Hasbro, I believe they didn’t put enough effort to make this bad enough... shame on them.

This thread is very interesting. I stopped following WotC after they released 4e and 5e didn’t manage to ignite the spark I had during the 3.5 era....

@Mike - what do you mean by legacy publishers like Greem Ronin and etc? What do you think should happen for the things to take turn for the better? What do you think will happen with PF2?
What I think happened (and I maintain this, particularly because of the quiet 5E schedule around the time of Starfinder's release) is that the actual WotC designers know what's up and are trying their level best to mitigate the damage Hasbro is enforcing. So if one of them comes across this thread--thank you please keep it up.

By legacy company I mean established companies that rose up during the industry's 3.0-PF era, publishers that have an infrastructure of workers with specialized roles. Most of these roles are filled and they're doing their best to make sure they keep hiring people good at their jobs to do their jobs, even if the profits aren't as good as they ought to be.
Honestly to fix this OBS needs to do a few things. For one they can stop hiding the 5E OGL stuff behind a ton of walls. Just make a 5E OGL button right beneath the Dungeons & Dragons umbrella button. They can acknowledge these things exist. Work with people to make them stronger products that enhance the entire marketplace.
For example, the Stronghold rules are going to be OGL I think. It doesn't matter which side of the fence they are on. Point is that there's a fence between them. So either the DMsGuild products that might make use of those rules can't do so directly (having to ape mechanics in the way omitted 5eSRD mechanics get aped) or the OGL crowd has to. Either way it reduces the audience of designers and customers and their accessibility to it. Because the core WotC line doesn't utilize the OGL, it means that this (what I feel we can predict to be) excellent product is not reaching as much of the viewership as it could otherwise.
WotC could do a lot of things. They could have forums again where designers can organize themselves, but those have been thrown out in favor of fan-moderated social media groups in what I think is Hasbro's end-game intent to turn D&D into a licensing stamp; see convention presence, third party handoff of organized play, burning Friendly Local Game Stores by undercutting them online (at least they're getting that exclusive covers $170 package thing though), allowing people to run Kickstarters or other crowdfunding for content on DMsGuild.
They've opened the Pandora's Box though and I don't think anyone is going to be able to walk IP-markets back for a long while.

Honestly I can't tell what's going to happen with PF2. The golems are savvy people and they genuinely care about both their customer base and third party publishers. That said the inclusion of IP-content inside of the PF2 Playtest indicates that they'll probably have some kind of IP market (it's the trend--as mentioned above, the industry leader paves the way that lesser companies are going to walk) but I suspect a far greater degree of responsibility and forthrightness to be in effect. Also probably not an additional price margin of 15%. It's worth noting that Paizo has a free magazine (included in print when you go to Paizocon) called Wayfinder that is unpaid work but included as proper IP inside of their world of Golarion (often used to farm designers). They also used to have a yearly contest where after several rounds of blind voting someone would win an Adventure Path contract, and a lot of folks from that contest were picked up for in-house work. None of my Paizo credits came from those routes but I know a lot of people who did find footing there.

[Myrdin Potter]

I have worked in the industry doing OGL conversions to 5e (various recent FGG books). It really is not hard to come up with different wording for the few abilities out there not in the SRD. Copyright on game rules is really loose. The major 3PP from the older 3e SRD days have a lot of their own IP and they have developed their own customer base. There are a few others that are more recent (Nord Press is a good example) that have stuck to the OGL/5e SRD route, but the larger publishers have been OGL. The recent Matt Colville Kickstarter is another OGL release. Now, DMS Guild does not allow release via Kickstarter, so if you want crowd funding then you need to use the OGL.

If I wanted to start up, no one knows who I am, I really have no following, and it takes a lot of effort to build the rules to replace what is missing in the 5e SRD, or I can just go to DMs Guild, get everything and my cost is an extra 20% fee versus the other One BookShelf sites. What IP am I really giving up? I am writing a D&D adventure and if I set it in the Forgotten Realms or Eberron, then all the DMs using those worlds are instant customers and WoTC advertises for people to come to the DMs Guild.

I really am failing to see your point. WoTC provides two easy ways to publish 3PP 5e content. One, they open up their IP and you give them yours (yours is vastly less valuable than theirs). Or you can use the SRD and publish. For adventures, you really do not need the PHB detail that is missing.

The only argument I can see is that it may hurt the industry longer term because the DMs Guild is so easy to use that there might not be a new Kobold Press or Frog God Games, but there are so many other ways to make money off of RPG these days, then so what? Matt Colville, a streamer without anywhere the IP and writing resume of any of the big 3PP destroyed them all in KS money. I think he raised more in one Kickstarter than all the other 5e ones that year. Not even the huge Humble Bundles (advantage of a large back catalog) is enough to catch him.

I think you are missing the point on Hasbro's responsibility - I'm a shareholder and I expect them to maximize their profits and the value of my investment.

So I, like others here, don't reach the same conclusions that you do. The agreements are open, you can read them anytime you want to and decide.

[LordEntrails]

Being able to successfully swim upriver doesn't mean that artificially increasing the current is the right thing to do for all the fish in the stream. The fact that they (and other professional publishers) actively avoid the DMs Guild (at a ratio of 1:35 in KP's case) makes it obvious that it's a hostile place to create and sell content. You wanted an example of the DMs Guild being hostile, there ya go--a company that should be championing it (anointed with a WotC core line book for 5E) avoids it. If you can find another professional publisher (people with hardbacks in game stores) working in the DMsGuild that'd be awesome but I'm sure there aren't any because the numbers cannot support it.

I draw a completely different conclusion from those facts than you do. The fact that KP uses the Guild so little is not because it is hostile, but because the Guild is not aimed at large 3PPs. Buy not using the Guild, KP is limited to the OGL and has to have the overhead of their own distribution system. Something when you have significant name recognition and sales number to support makes sense. But it would be absolutely foolish for most new publishers to try and do. The Guild gives them a complete backend and customer base. Sure, their is a price, but I suspect most new/small publishers would spend much more than 50% of their proceeds setting up and running a distribution system. And then they would have to spend a huge amount of resources to get the same number of impressions they get through the Guild.

As someone new/small/unknown to get into the business they have 4 options I'm aware of;
1) Go it alone, setup your own distribution system. Create brand new content, content not requiring a license, or use the OGL.
2) Find an existing publisher to get involved with. Tough to do, and quite honestly, $0.03 per word is... not a living wage.
3) Use OBS or a similar distributor. Give them 20-30%. Create the content same as #1.
4) Use the DMsGuild. Give them 50%, get access to THE D&D MARKETPLACE and to much of the PI & IP many people want access to.

I will concede that perhaps the Guild is hostile towards 'large' 3PP's that want things they way their were in 3E. But I will strongly argue that it makes getting into the industry much easier for those new to the industry and much easier to expand one's success. Look at MT Black, Rob Twohy, Jeremy Forbing, RP Davis, Travis Legge, Robert Adducci, Tim Bannock, etc. Probably half of them are not new to the industry, but all are successfully making the Guild a major part of their distribution systems. Most of them seem to have contributed to the Guild much of their success over the last year or so.

But rather than saying the Guild is hostile towards KP and their ilk, I believe it is more accurate to simple say the Guild is not designed for their benefit. I see no malice like you do. KP is quite capable of handling its own affairs. Same with Frog God, Baldman, etc.


You're welcome to disregard my experiences as emotional. That's your purvey.
You're the one who brought in emotions, stating you were 'mad', and 'angry'.


I've definitely laid out, repeatedly in this thread and in clear terms, how the DMs Guild has a negative impact on the RPG industry both for designers and ancillary workers.
No, you haven't. That's what I've been trying to say. You say the same thing again and again, but you have yet to do so in terms that are clear to me. Maybe to others, but I don't see them commenting. As discussed above, because KP doesn't often use the Guild doesn't mean to me that they see the Guild as "hostile".


It is painful to me that you want to degrade that--recognizing the suffering of people that only want to make games as they find the industry that supported them suddenly shrinking in the face of Hasbro shattering it into hundreds of ineffectual fragments only able to succeed with either a blessing from on high or a mixed talent to perform in front of the camera--but I don't think you do so out of malice, I think you do it out of love for D&D and gaming which is at the very least something everyone here shares. It is the usual response to my attempts to educate people on the situation and makes it all the more tragic.
'degrade' well, again with the negative innuendos. But, because I don't agree with you, and because you fail to support your views with terms that are clear to me, I see things differently. I don't see Hasbro shattering things into a hundred fragments. In fact I have no idea what fragments you are implying.

But, if my responses are typical to your attempts to educate people on the situation, then that leads more credence to my opinion that you are not making yourself clear. Don't say the same thing in the same way, figure out a new way to say what you mean. Perhaps numbers and examples, perhaps a different perspective, perhaps different vocabulary.

You obviously have a passion and willingness to help others. So [del:just] because people are [add: not] lining up behind you doesn't mean what you are trying to do isn't valuable (as I suspect you know), but try another way. To reiterate, I know you think you are making yourself and your reasons clear, but your not to me and if my response is common, then not to others as well.

(Edit: clarify, hopefully, the previous paragraph)

[damned]

Can everyone in this thread please ensure that this doesnt become personal.
As to why Mike has only posted on this thread - the thread was started by a community member here and its basically quoting Mike and so it is completely reasonable for him to be here defending his view.

[damned]

Being able to successfully swim upriver doesn't mean that artificially increasing the current is the right thing to do for all the fish in the stream. The fact that they (and other professional publishers) actively avoid the DMs Guild (at a ratio of 1:35 in KP's case) makes it obvious that it's a hostile place to create and sell content. You wanted an example of the DMs Guild being hostile, there ya go--a company that should be championing it (anointed with a WotC core line book for 5E) avoids it. If you can find another professional publisher (people with hardbacks in game stores) working in the DMsGuild that'd be awesome but I'm sure there aren't any because the numbers cannot support it.

I also see this as being supporting the fact that other publishers can standalone.
The fact that new publishers may find it hard to achieve this position may also be due to changes in market attitudes from buyers, or not long enough in the pool, or not producing the content that customers want or other things too.

OBS could out a D&D OGL button right on the front page. Right next to the Pathfinder one. And the Call of Cthulhu one. And all the RPGs that they put one there for.

[LordEntrails]

Can everyone in this thread please ensure that this doesnt become personal.
I think Mike and I are understanding that we are not attacking one another, and that the discussion is only personal in regards that we are discussing personal opinions. That's at least the way I interpret his posts and the way I intend my to be taken. But, it's always good to be reminded since forums are such a poor way to understand another's intentions.


As to why Mike has only posted on this thread - the thread was started by a community member here and its basically quoting Mike and so it is completely reasonable for him to be here defending his view.
Thanks for the reminder, I did not remember that.

[Myrdin Potter]

If I go to the two OBS sites that are not the DMs Guild, I can easily filter selections to find 5e D&D that is OGL:

https://www.rpgnow.com/browse.php?filters=45326_0_0_0_0&affiliate_id=229540

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=45326_0_0_0_0&affiliate_id=229540

Is there something that I am missing?

Heck, if you want VTT content, much of which is predone for FG, just filter DMS Guild and you get this:

https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_0_0_0_0_45545_0&affiliate_id=229540

The people uploading content need to tag it right, but it is all there.

[Mike Myler]

It's all good @Damned--after the vitriol thrown at me for making an anti-nazi charity product I can handle some folks being passionate about the place where they share their gaming designs, trying to make it in an arena I'm convinced is rigged. That's a difficult spot to be in and the urge to defend ground is strong (not unreasonably, I'd add).

@Myrdin Potter Yes. If you go to somewhere other than THE OFFICIAL D&D MARKETPLACE and click through three menus, you reach the 5E OGL material. Finding material for any other system is much faster, despite 5E being the worlds most popular RPG right now. Surely you can recognize that there's something awry in that? Wouldn't it serve OBS' interests more to plainly display where to find 5E OGL material?

To address whether or not I've clearly stated the fundamental problems here: earlier today OBS started looking for a Community Content Manager specifically for DMsGuild (https://www.facebook.com/DriveThruRPG/posts/10160645544175521), so hopefully whoever they hire for that can make a positive difference.

[Myrdin Potter]

It is on the left. Systems. No harder to find 5e D&D than Pathfinder except that is is newer and the way the layering seems to start of OGL 3.0 and then you add to it. Which is how their site started.

If you use the search systems smaller box (which would classify as hidden), you can find it in one click on the drop down.

No other system has a one button find it and even Drafonlock and Scarred Lands has their own “communities” now.

If I want an easy license, Swords and Wizadry seems about the simplest.

I agree that warning people to actually read what they are agreeing to is good. I just think that the deal they offer is very reasonable.

And, btw, RPG pays like crap in general. Artists, per word (only Raging Swan Press impressed me on that), layout. It is all really terrible.

[Mike Myler]

It is on the left. Systems. No harder to find 5e D&D than Pathfinder except that is is newer and the way the layering seems to start of OGL 3.0 and then you add to it. Which is how their site started.

If you use the search systems smaller box (which would classify as hidden), you can find it in one click on the drop down.

No other system has a one button find it and even Drafonlock and Scarred Lands has their own “communities” now.

If I want an easy license, Swords and Wizadry seems about the simplest.

I agree that warning people to actually read what they are agreeing to is good. I just think that the deal they offer is very reasonable.

And, btw, RPG pays like crap in general. Artists, per word (only Raging Swan Press impressed me on that), layout. It is all really terrible.

So we're all on the same page:

24313

24314

24315

and finally there
24316

or via this drop down
24317

is, according to you sir (Myrdin Potter), to be on equal representation/footing/accessibility as this (https://mikemylerdotcom1.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/example-uhhuh.jpg) (sorry can only include 5 images per post).

That's preposterous and plainly untrue. Thirteen other less popular game systems are right there with their own buttons. Swords & Wizardry's license looks exactly like the OGL (Open Gaming License) included at the back of the 3eSRD and 5eSRD (and the WOIN RPG and others).

I don't know if you're actually reading the thread, but my sole source of income for the last half decade has been from freelance RPG material. The pay for all roles in the process absolutely needs to go up--I'm not sure how that can happen when the DMs Guild is gutting the world's post popular RPG's third party support into rock-bottom prices in an environment where there's no margin for hiring ancillary workers (like developers, editors, etc.) that increase the quality of the product to merit higher price points.

[damned]

Mike - that was hardly a fair comparison... your first 5 screen grabs were from DriveThru and the last was from the DMsG itself...
Im looking at both DriveThru and RPGNow and neither have an ad for DMsG until I page down twice.
Before that I see plenty of other stuff.
The Wizards having been around longer (well - in various incarnations) and have more systems so you gotta go thru more menus to get there.
If they lumped all the D&D stuff in straight under D&D then no one would find the stuff for the version they wanna play.

I cant see the conspiracy - I really cant.

[Mike Myler]

Mike - that was hardly a fair comparison... your first 5 screen grabs were from DriveThru and the last was from the DMsG itself...
Im looking at both DriveThru and RPGNow and neither have an ad for DMsG until I page down twice.
Before that I see plenty of other stuff.
The Wizards having been around longer (well - in various incarnations) and have more systems so you gotta go thru more menus to get there.
If they lumped all the D&D stuff in straight under D&D then no one would find the stuff for the version they wanna play.

I cant see the conspiracy - I really cant.

It's what it is but I agree that it's unfair. The world's biggest RPG system--the most popular one today, the one which OBS stands to make the most profit from--is buried under a de-legitimizing tag (Unofficial by virtue of the Official counterpart, nevermind not being on THE OFFICIAL D&D MARKETPLACE aside from generated pages that OBS has to my knowledge ignored requests to fix on four separate occasions from three different entities) three pages past all other game systems.
Of all the RPGs in the world, you have to do more clicking and waiting here to get to that content (for the currently most popular RPG in the world) than for any other system. That's not weird or odd or awry to you? This is the most they can reasonably to do obfuscate the presence of 5E OGL material aside from just not making it available. If you really think that it's not strange, I challenge you to suggest how else they could make it more difficult to access.

[damned]

Step back.
We already established the 5E alone is like 2/3rds of the whole RPG industry.
Not to mention all of their other older versions still making some money - eg leaving less pie for everyone else.

So you want to make the other systems, the ones that really need the exposure, less prominent so that D&D can have more screen space?
You really lost me there.

[Mike Myler]

Step back.
We already established the 5E alone is like 2/3rds of the whole RPG industry.
Not to mention all of their other older versions still making some money - eg leaving less pie for everyone else.

So you want to make the other systems, the ones that really need the exposure, less prominent so that D&D can have more screen space?
You really lost me there.

I don't know what imagined harm is going to be done by having a 5E OGL button near the others. There's plenty of space there. We know it's a huge share of the market. It's strange that it doesn't get representation right out of the gate.

There's no way they could further obscure 5E OGL material while still selling it, is there?

[damned]

I don't know what imagined harm is going to be done by having a 5E OGL button near the others. There's plenty of space there. We know it's a huge share of the market. It's strange that it doesn't get representation right out of the gate.

There's no way they could further obscure 5E OGL material while still selling it, is there?

Im sorry for being obtuse - but where do you want this button?
I dont see a single game system being linked directly in the default view.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24321

24321

[Mike Myler]

Anywhere in here (where people would go looking for RPG systems) would make sense and be great :p
24322

[damned]

What happens if you click on:
Apocalypse World?
BRP?
Storyteller?
Shadowrun?
Traveller?

They all need more clicks again because there are more categories, editions, versions, games beneath.
Being that D&D has such a massive volume of material published for it I really think that the many menus are simply to try and create some semblance of order... conspiracy - I dont see...

[Nylanfs]

I'm seeing what Mike is talking about, the fact that D&D isn't listed when you click on Rules system is a perception at a first glance that there isn't any D&D material on OBS (although anyone that has been purchasing PDF's anytime during the 3e-35e-PF time period knows there is more). And that with 5e being the bulk of the market it logically should be there, and if new publishers don't see it there, and very misinformed people tell them that the only place to publish 5e material is on the DMsG they may to put their first efforts on the DMsG instead of using the OGL. And if they put it on the DMsG they lose the ability to build upon it unless they keep using the DMsG. Because even though they may or may not be using actual D&D IP info (FR, Eberron, Greyhawk, etc.).

[damned]

Dungeons & Dragons is listed there alphabetically with the rest of them.
If you were going to list 5E OGL there do you also list all the other D&Ds that outsell all those other systems?
hint: most of the D&D versions probably outsell most of the other systems

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24323

24323

[Mike Myler]

I'm seeing what Mike is talking about, the fact that D&D isn't listed when you click on Rules system is a perception at a first glance that there isn't any D&D material on OBS (although anyone that has been purchasing PDF's anytime during the 3e-35e-PF time period knows there is more). And that with 5e being the bulk of the market it logically should be there, and if new publishers don't see it there, and very misinformed people tell them that the only place to publish 5e material is on the DMsG they may to put their first efforts on the DMsG instead of using the OGL. And if they put it on the DMsG they lose the ability to build upon it unless they keep using the DMsG. Because even though they may or may not be using actual D&D IP info (FR, Eberron, Greyhawk, etc.).

^^^


conspiracy - I dont see...

I don't appreciate the implication of a conspiracy (which itself feels like an attempt to discredit this because you hit a logic wall--again, please tell us any way that they could make the 5E OGL content less accessible). You don't see a conspiracy because there is no conspiracy. Conspiracy requires unknown actors, hidden motives, and moving parts we can't see--none of that is going on here, it's all extremely plain. If it were not so obvious, I doubt that OBS would have started looking for a PR person to take care of DMsGuild all of 12 hours ago.

[Mike Myler]

also lol I love that my forum title is Crusader :rv:

[Mike Myler]

To address the "this is just policy" fallacy here's an old screenshot from OBS

24324

[damned]

Step back.
We already established the 5E alone is like 2/3rds of the whole RPG industry.
Not to mention all of their other older versions still making some money - eg leaving less pie for everyone else.

So you want to make the other systems, the ones that really need the exposure, less prominent so that D&D can have more screen space?
You really lost me there.


I don't appreciate the implication of a conspiracy (which itself feels like an attempt to discredit this because you hit a logic wall--again, please tell us any way that they could make the 5E OGL content less accessible). You don't see a conspiracy because there is no conspiracy. Conspiracy requires unknown actors, hidden motives, and moving parts we can't see--none of that is going on here, it's all extremely plain. If it were not so obvious, I doubt that OBS would have started looking for a PR person to take care of DMsGuild all of 12 hours ago.

I refer you back to my post above.
You bemoan the dominance of D&D but want to give it more prominence.
Logic wall?

The only way to put 5E in a more obvious spot is to do it at another systems expense.
What is your justification for putting 5E there? Because it sells more?
So put 4E, 3.5E, 2E, 1E, 0E and B/X+BECMI+RC there too in that case.
Just make OBS a site for D&D.
Logic wall?

Maybe the choice of number of systems is based on supporting the very common laptop screen size of 1366*768 and adding more entries mean they no longer fit on the screen without scrolling? I dunno. Your suggestion that it is to hide their best selling product is more fun.

Why do you focus on the letters PR? Perhaps because you are inferring that they need to spin something? Perhaps OBS are looking for a social media-savvy employee is responsible for all communications, PR, social media, and content creation, among other things and not someone to spin something? Perhaps DMsG is doing great things business-wise and needs more help in communicating faster.

Fantasy Grounds employed Social Media people a few years ago too. Many companies do.

[Mike Myler]

I refer you back to my post above.
You bemoan the dominance of D&D but want to give it more prominence.
Logic wall?

The only way to put 5E in a more obvious spot is to do it at another systems expense.
What is your justification for putting 5E there? Because it sells more?
So put 4E, 3.5E, 2E, 1E, 0E and B/X+BECMI+RC there too in that case.
Just make OBS a site for D&D.
Logic wall?

Maybe the choice of number of systems is based on supporting the very common laptop screen size of 1366*768 and adding more entries mean they no longer fit on the screen without scrolling? I dunno. Your suggestion that it is to hide their best selling product is more fun.

Why do you focus on the letters PR? Perhaps because you are inferring that they need to spin something? Perhaps OBS are looking for a social media-savvy employee is responsible for all communications, PR, social media, and content creation, among other things and not someone to spin something? Perhaps DMsG is doing great things business-wise and needs more help in communicating faster.

Fantasy Grounds employed Social Media people a few years ago too. Many companies do.

I don't bemoan the dominance of D&D at any point. I bemoan the irresponsibly hostile marketplace they've engineered for D&D 5E at the expense of the RPG industry at large and the blatant obscuring of the 5E OGL market.
Can you address why there used to be a "current D&D" and "older D&D" buttons, and why they are no longer there? If it's a spacing thing, have laptop screens gotten smaller in the past decade? They used to have a larger number of entries under RPG systems.

Can you provide any way that they could make the 5E OGL market less accessible?

[damned]

I don't bemoan the dominance of D&D at any point. I bemoan the irresponsibly hostile marketplace they've engineered for D&D 5E at the expense of the RPG industry at large and the blatant obscuring of the 5E OGL market.
Can you address why there used to be a "current D&D" and "older D&D" buttons, and why they are no longer there? If it's a spacing thing, have laptop screens gotten smaller in the past decade? They used to have a larger number of entries under RPG systems.

Can you provide any way that they could make the 5E OGL market less accessible?

You assert they hid this option because of the DMsGuild?

[Valyar]

It might be conspiracy, bad turn of events, pure ignorance or incompetency to arrange a constantly expanding marketplace portal.

But the truth is that DMs Guild is hard to navigate and impossible to sort out the good from the bad material. There is no curation, lack of reviews (both on reputable sites or in comment sections) and in the end with that amount of choice - there is no choice.

[Mike Myler]

You assert they hid this option because of the DMsGuild?

I'm not a psychic so I can't tell you with certainty that's why, but here's a screenshot of DTRPG just prior to DMsGuild
24325

Here's what is now
24326

While I sympathize with your desire not to acknowledge this, I know you're able to count.

Can you either give us a suggestion for how they could further marginalize the 5E OGL market at this point or admit that you can't think of one?

[damned]

You posted a screen shot in post #52 to show that they changed stuff for DMsGuild - its from 2011.
Nice example considering that the DMsGuild launched in 2016.

Even in your judiciously selected example from 2011 there were over 5,000 D&D products.
Funnily enough that number has grown.
Funnily enough the best way to sort the many thousands of items is to put them in categories.
As the numbers grow it makes sense to create more refined categories.

The categories have been refined multiple times between your pic and what they show today.
I daresay they will change again in the future.

But I think you are probably right.
Lets put them all on the front page so that they dont get missed.

[Mike Myler]

You posted a screen shot in post #52 to show that they changed stuff for DMsGuild - its from 2011.
Nice example considering that the DMsGuild launched in 2016.

Even in your judiciously selected example from 2011 there were over 5,000 D&D products.
Funnily enough that number has grown.
Funnily enough the best way to sort the many thousands of items is to put them in categories.
As the numbers grow it makes sense to create more refined categories.

The categories have been refined multiple times between your pic and what they show today.
I daresay they will change again in the future.

But I think you are probably right.
Lets put them all on the front page so that they dont get missed.

In the 2011 screenshot there was a "D&D current edition" and "D&D older editions" button (frankly what makes the most sense as noted by other folks in the thread).
In the 2015 screenshot (from just a few months before DMsGuild rolled out) there are more barriers to OGL content than there were before, yet fewer still than those in front of 5E OGL content today.

OBS changes the categories for their umbrella menu all the time. Owen Stephens frequently watches them to see when Rogue Genius Games is a top publisher, for example. There is evidence here that they've gradually pushed 5E OGL content further and further into the background.

At this point I think the trolling isn't something I can rationalize to be something else so to anyone that finds this thread: there is a serious problem with DMsGuild marginalizing game designers while simultaneously drawing away any profits that could allow it to support a healthy RPG industry (which means hiring workers to do layout, editing, development, cartography, illustrations, and any other things a publisher needs) by way of increased margins (50% of the money from sales on DMsGuild go to OBS/WotC), a bottomed out price floor (because of amateur content, a problem intermingled with the engineered anti-publisher hostility of DMsGuild), and the inability to crowdfund projects published there (because it is an exclusive venue, further detracting the ability for folks putting products there to do so and make a reasonable profit).

If you are trying to get started in the RPG industry, regardless of your skill set or level of experience, please email me at mike.myler.adventures|at|gmail.com and I will do my level best to help you get established.

[LordEntrails]

Hmm, I thought Jason Bolte was the OBS employee who is/was the Community Content Manager for the DMsGuild... So far I've been happy with what I've seen him do.

There are a hundred possible reasons for why 5E OGL material may not be as easy to find now as it was at some time in the past. Perhaps it's just my nature to assume that most people are good and try to do the right thing. That until someone releases an email etc, I choose to think that any differences between what one person thinks should be done and what another actually does it not done with any malice or subversive agenda. Though I admit such is certainly possible.

And I will state one more time, that I think by far the biggest driver of poor salaries and few opportunities in the RPG industry are the customers. RPG gamers are notorious cheapskates. This is demonstrated all the time. Look at how Reddit responds to commercial postings. Look at the commonality of pirate sites. Note how often FG struggles to compete with Roll20 because of the (incorrect) perception of cost. A correlation to this was already mentioned by Valyar, customers also don't rate and review, which exacerbates the differentiation of material, which helps to keep prices low because if people can't differentiate quality, they won't pay to take a chance on something new.

[LordEntrails]

Hmm, I thought Jason Bolte was the OBS employee who is/was the Community Content Manager for the DMsGuild... So far I've been happy with what I've seen him do.
So yes, this is not a new position. Jason just confirmed on FB that this is a replacement for him. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1977612149124315/permalink/2269298793288981

[Mike Myler]

So yes, this is not a new position. Jason just confirmed on FB that this is a replacement for him. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1977612149124315/permalink/2269298793288981

Best of luck to his replacement then. :)

[damned]

Mike - my intention was not to Troll you - my apologies - Im out - keep up the great work.

[Myrdin Potter]

But there have been many new systems introduced since 2011 as well, and that side menu is how to find them. They have a search field with a drop down that is even faster.

But let me be more direct. They have an entire site dedicated to D&D will all the past editions there as well. It is called DMS Guild.

You want 0E, AD&D, Basic in all the flavours, 3.0, 3.5, 4 and 5e? All there. It is the official and WoTC blessed 5e site.

Want to be independent and use the SRD/OGL for your 5e material? Compete with all the rest of the systems out there. At least you can use Kickstarter.

The pay for RPG is frightfully bad. Like I make more for an hour of consulting (I am an extreme example) than most make with a solid week of work.

Charge a higher price for bigger books and higher quality and include a pdf? Get constant complaints about the book cost. See FGG kickstarters and social media comments.

And there are really good people out there that can write really exceptional books.

And lots of unwashed masses offering material for free.

I am working on my first independent release and I spent $300 on nice artwork and that was with a Thai artist. My daughter is studying art in school now and I shudder about her trying to make a living.

I think the heart of your argument is that you want to make more money. Well, I make more from OBS affiliate links than I do from the material I have for sale on the store here (and Smiteworks is about the classiest there is for paying and being professional). Creators think that the layout work for FG is not even worth paying for.

WoTC makes zero money from OGL releases. There is no way they should promote it. The SRD/OGL for 5e is a pure gift from them.

[LordEntrails]

Creators think that the layout work for FG is not even worth paying for.
I think it's more that they know there is so little money to make that they don't want to split/share what there is :)

[Myrdin Potter]

I think it's more that they know there is so little money to make that they don't want to split/share what there is :)

DMs Guild forces them to have just one listing for AL content. They have absolutely nothing that tells them how many additional sales offering FG gives them so it is a sunk cost with no way to track the benefit.

Many people here do not even know about how much content is available on DMs Guild for Fantasy GroundsZ