Ben Riggs is a D&D historian and creator of the e book Slaying the Dragon: A Secret Historical past of Dungeons & Dragons.
Expensive Wizards of the Coast,
Hello! I wrote a historical past of your organization again when it was referred to as TSR. I additionally train seventh and eighth grade, so for the previous 15 years, I’ve watched 12 months after 12 months as youngsters uncover, and go ga-ga for, D&D.
I’m penning this letter as a result of I need you to succeed. Frankly, I feel all true-hearted D&D followers need to see your organization do effectively and produce unbelievable merchandise which are worthwhile. So I eagerly watched your media occasions these previous few weeks, specifically D&D Direct and the content material creator summit. There are some good concepts there, however I need to be sincere with you. On the whole, I might fee them as meh. I feel D&D has room for exponential development, and none of these concepts are going to gas that form of enhance.
TTRPGs are literally a titanically tough product to make some huge cash on. Drop $150 on rulebooks and campaigns and you’ll play for years with out ever making one other buy. Bizarre, proper? We D&D followers really don’t have any must ever buy something from you ever once more. (But almost all of us need to!)
I perceive you’re making an attempt to get more cash from gamers. Once more, that’s positive by me! I can’t anticipate a beautiful Atlas of Neverwinter and Edgin the Bard socks. I hope your VTT is so unbelievable that I need to use it on a regular basis and twice on Sunday. Nonetheless, will any of that actually develop the sport’s participant base exponentially? Most likely not. I perceive a number of you will have backgrounds in video video games, which is smart. Nevertheless, I might warning you right here as effectively. D&D just isn’t a online game. The VTT won’t make it a online game.
It’s essential to reframe your pondering. Don’t consider D&D as merchandise. Don’t even consider it as a model. Undoubtedly don’t consider it as a online game.
D&D is the primary and most well-known tabletop role-playing recreation, and tabletop role-playing video games are an authentic and radical medium. A TTRPG is one thing new to do with paper, pencils, and the human thoughts that was invented in 1974. Think about performing was invented in 1974, and that we’re a mere 50 years into seeing how performing will change tradition. That’s the potential of the TTRPG revolution.
One of the vital superb options of the TTRPG is that it’s infinite. If one began a D&D marketing campaign in 1974 with the primary guidelines launch, one may nonetheless be enjoying that very same recreation in the present day, which is to say telling that very same story in the present day. Most video video games, in contrast, might be completed and as soon as full require a brand new buy. Video video games are finite. TTRPGs aren’t. They’re a bottomless bottle of vodka, or a automobile that by no means breaks down and doesn’t even want gasoline.
So how do you make cash off a brand new medium which, after an preliminary buy, by no means requires one other? It’s tough, however it may be performed. Essentially the most profitable fashions are sports activities and faith. (I need to be clear right here I’m not denigrating religions, nor am I making some type of reality declare for D&D.) And the important thing to unlocking an even bigger, brighter, and extra worthwhile future for D&D just isn’t at Wizards, not at Hasbro, and mockingly it isn’t with the gamers, no.
It’s the Dungeon Masters.
Internationally, tons of of hundreds if not thousands and thousands of Dungeon Masters ask folks to strive D&D for the primary time. They clarify the foundations. They setup D&D nights. They determine who’s bringing the chips, and who’s bringing the dip. They actually promote your product for you, they usually do it totally free. Think about this straightforward math. If there have been solely 10 Dungeon Masters in the entire world, however yearly, every DM satisfied one different individual to develop into a DM, inside 20 years, you will have over 20 million Dungeon Masters.
You will make cash by radically rising the quantity of people that play D&D. And you’ll do this by making the lives of these thousands and thousands of Dungeon Masters a lot, a lot simpler than they’re now.
As you could know, there’s a Dungeon Grasp scarcity. Persons are intimidated to DM. They fear about understanding the foundations. They fear about mastering the journey, or writing their very own. That places a brake, maybe even a ceiling, on D&D development. Somebody could also be a Vital Function fanatic, but when they will’t discover a D&D recreation to play in, they might by no means develop into a D&D fan.
So how do you make a DM’s life simpler?
First, you might be at present producing the very best model of D&D that has ever been in existence. Moreover, having watched dozens of 12-year-olds play via the Starter Set, I may inform you that product does a positive job of instructing the sport. That stated, it is best to produce a ten to twenty web page pamphlet that will be accessible free in your web site of a very powerful D&D guidelines. Proceed utilizing the web and YouTube to create content material explaining D&D and your merchandise. Possibly even type of audio journey summaries so as an alternative of studying, a DM might hear to organize? Possibly learn by an current D&D superstar?
However outdoors the Starter Set, your different adventures and campaigns are a wildly combined bag. I do know that numerous droves of D&D followers will purchase your books irrespective of the standard or content material, however making lifelong followers requires producing unbelievable adventures. marketing campaign each conjures up DMs to run it and makes their lives simpler. I don’t know the way your books are produced, however primarily based on the ultimate merchandise I’ve seen, it is best to do the next:
Campaigns ought to have one to a few authors. Add extra with solely nice warning…
Campaigns ought to be pitched by authors & designers.
It is best to pay your recreation designers like they’re engaged on video video games, and it is best to give writers royalties.
There ought to be a constant format for campaigns that carries over from e book to e book.
Time for playtesting ought to be included in your manufacturing cycle. It ought to be measured in months.
Your books have to be shorter! Incorporate twenty first century RPG format & design.
Return to the boxed set! Create handouts, maps, character portraits, in-game journals, & clues to go along with the sport. (Additionally make PDFs of these goodies accessible.)
What else are you able to do? Are you able to make a type of Dungeon Mastering graduate college, with maybe particular merchandise solely accessible for buy by graduates? Are you able to run DM contests at gaming conventions? Winners get swag, journeys to Renton, honor, glory, and so on. Are you able to create some type of Academy Awards for DMs? There’s an awards ceremony, with superstar presenters.
That each one could seem absurd. And the way does it result in income? Nicely think about in a world with 20 million Dungeon Masters, you in all probability have 100 million gamers. 113 million folks watched the Tremendous Bowl in 2023. If D&D is a recreation with a fan base on par with that of the NFL, think about the income from t-shirt gross sales alone. Moreover, think about that these recommendations aren’t about changing what you might be doing now. Fairly, such a re-focusing on the DM will increase your present efforts. Extra DMs and extra gamers make your VTT extra helpful and extra worthwhile, for instance.
In order that’s the way in which it seems to be from the place I sit. I want you the very best of luck. The film was superior!
Sincerely,
Ben Riggs
D&D Historian Extraordinaire
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