One D&D

[Sable Wyvern]

Of course I would prefer we get to the point that the non-D&D rpg business is healthy and sustainable without needing D&D, the way bands and labels were able to function without major labels for many years (until the record store/tour infrastructure collapsed), but that still seems a bit off in the future although perhaps closer moreso than anytime since the 90s.

This made me wonder why I do care about a vibrant music industry, but not an RPG industry.

Some of the reasons I see them as different are:

• I see new and interesting music as valuable in it's own right.
• I see value in variety of music and volume of accessible music.
• I'm actually able to make use of all the music I have.
• I can't make my own music.

It's probably also worth noting that the music industry I care about is the bands themselves, not the publishers, and I will do my best to provide the bands that interest me with my cash via bandcamp, direct merch purchases, gig attendances and the like, rather than buying through conventional publisher channels.

 

[TristramEvans]

This made me wonder why I do care about a vibrant music industry, but not an RPG industry.

Some of the reasons I see them as different are:

• I see new and interesting music as valuable in it's own right.
• I see value in variety of music and volume of accessible music.
• I'm actually able to make use of all the music I have.
• I can't make my own music.

It's probably also worth noting that the music industry I care about is the bands themselves, not the publishers, and I will do my best to provide the bands that interest me with my cash via bandcamp, direct merch purchases, gig attendances and the like, rather than buying through conventional publisher channels.

I'd put the difference myself as: "in music/art the creativity comes from the producers, in the hobby the creativity comes from the consumers"

 

[Sable Wyvern]

I'd put the difference myself as: "in music/art the creativity comes from the producers, in the hobby the creativity comes from the consumers"

Yeah, that's pretty much my final dot point, and I very nearly said it's the main point. However, on reflection, my ability to engage with a wide variety of music, and the fact that I see value in doing so, definitely plays a part. I can't really have too much music (in theory, I could, but it would require either a massive effort to commit a huge amount of piracy, or a dramatic increase in monetary expenditure), whereas I already sometimes feel sadness that I may not get to run some of the cool games I own.

 

[robertsconley]

My issue with it being a niche hobby is that makes it harder for good designers to make a living at being designers, which means fewer good games.

I know we've got KS and a handful of designers may have been able to make it a cottage industry off of that but without a sustainable business model for rpgs outside of D&D we won't get the next Robin Laws, Ken Hite, Greg Stafford, etc. and will continue to lose talented designers like Costikyan, etc. to video games or academia.

Many of our current best designers are doing it as a day job and that is not a good thing for them or the hobby.

If anything, it is easier with crowdfunding. The problem is that to thrive in today's RPG industry requires a different skill set beyond being able to design and write. This is why you have laments about how things are not the same.

 

[EmperorNorton]

If anything, it is easier with crowdfunding. The problem is that to thrive in today's RPG industry requires a different skill set beyond being able to design and write. This is why you have laments about how things are not the same.

Different field but same kind of thing with stuff I see through my work (video game field). Tons of indy developers are plenty skilled at MAKING games, but if you suck at marketing and the online networking stuff, it will never, ever matter how good you are. Word of mouth can occasionally explode a game randomly, but you can't rely on that.

And it is HARD to be good at online marketing. Much harder than people think it is.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Sure but I think there's a middle that can be reached between those business excesses and everyone designing games off the side of their desk. Stafford, Laws, etc. started off as fans but were able to make some kind of living from game design.

Of course I would prefer we get to the point that the non-D&D rpg business is healthy and sustainable without needing D&D, the way bands and labels were able to function without major labels for many years (until the record store/tour infrastructure collapsed), but that still seems a bit off in the future although perhaps closer moreso than anytime since the 90s.

I'm not sure there actually are less people making a living from RPGs, although that's hard to tell when we don't know most designer's personal situation. Dennis Dertwiller is open about the fact he makes his primary living from RPGs. Pazio employees and what's left of WotC's employees are full time. Pundit has said he makes a living, although he has the advantage of living in a cheaper country. Pretty sure Siembada still makes enough for a living. Steve Jackson arguably doesn't count because he lives off that sweet Munchkin money. And that's without getting into the non designers making a living from the issue - publishers like Fox and Sprange, influencers like Colville and Mercer etc.

On top of which, we should remember that the old days weren't exactly financially secure either. Chasioum and TSR both had significant financial problems. Bizar might have made money from FGU but I'm not convinced any of the designers did.

It's not that I don't sympathise, but the issue comes down to this.

When Stafford, Laws etc. made their careers, there were simply less games coming out. In particular, barriers to production and distribution meant that non commercially published games were unlikely to make an impact. Whereas now they're direct competition and there's plenty of high quality games made by people doing it for the sheer joy of it and maybe some pin money.

That has a downward pressure on the price of RPGs and the amount of money people can make from them.

And unless the number of people releasing games dwindles (which I'm not sure is either feasible or desirable) it's always going to be a hobby market rather than one most designers can make a living from. I do suspect that most of the people calling for RPGs to pay a living wage are under the assumption that they and their friends will be some of the lucky few doing so.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

This made me wonder why I do care about a vibrant music industry, but not an RPG industry.

Some of the reasons I see them as different are:

• I see new and interesting music as valuable in it's own right.
• I see value in variety of music and volume of accessible music.
• I'm actually able to make use of all the music I have.
• I can't make my own music.

It's probably also worth noting that the music industry I care about is the bands themselves, not the publishers, and I will do my best to provide the bands that interest me with my cash via bandcamp, direct merch purchases, gig attendances and the like, rather than buying through conventional publisher channels.

I don't care about the music industry in the sense of the big four, I care about individual bands and small labels.

 

[Baulderstone]

That has a downward pressure on the price of RPGs and the amount of money people can make from them.

And unless the number of people releasing games dwindles (which I'm not sure is either feasible or desirable) it's always going to be a hobby market rather than one most designers can make a living from. I do suspect that most of the people calling for RPGs to pay a living wage are under the assumption that they and their friends will be some of the lucky few doing so.

This reminds me of the movement a number of years ago where certain designers affiliated with the big publishers were insisting that fans making things and putting them cheaply on the internet were killing the industry. Gamers needed to stop making things as it was unfair to make the big gaming companies compete with them. We all needed to sit back and passively consume so that they could make money off of us.

 

[AsenRG]

Hobby growth is about growing gamer groups, industry growth is getting new people to buy things. Healthy D&D is good for getting new people to buy RPG materials and all the associated tie in crap like t shirts. They are different things. We care about the health of the hobby, having people in gaming groups (in the case of this forum specifically in groups that don’t play D&D) but the article is looking at the industry.

...then what you are telling me is that his concerns are irrelevant to us, right?

I can agree with that.

Edit to add we can quibble over the terms hobby and industry but hopefully I’m getting my point across. I’ll be off line the next few hours so I’m not ignoring AsenRG ’s responses

...don't worry, I don't expect anything instant, except instant coffee. And I don't expect even that from a forum!

Ben Riggs tied himself to Dungeons & Dragons. He wrote a book that was published in 2022 called Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons, and hosts a podcast that is mostly about Dungeons & Dragons. He also posted on Reddit a few months ago that he's writing a second book on Dungeons & Dragons. Now he's having a meltdown because he sees Dungeons & Dragons becoming slightly less relevant.

I read Ben Riggs' Reddit post last night, and laughed hard. It's a mess. It's clearly written by someone who doesn't know much about the hobby outside of Dungeons & Dragons. What he calls "the golden age," was actually a dark age of the hobby IMO. Just now the tabletop RPG hobby is starting to see light, and it's scaring those who tied their identity or part of their identity to Dungeons & Dragons.

Yeah, that confirms my suspicions - but I can't care any LESS about Reddit (or X, for that matter, those are my two biggest dislikes amongst social media, followed from a short distance by FB).

I think the problem here is that Ben Rigg is right, but only from how he views the RPG hobby and RPG industry. He just released a book that traces the history of TSR. So, for however long he took to write it, he was immersed in TSR's world of being the largest publisher and hitting the traditional mass market hard for their RPGs, Games, and Novels. Then, documenting the demise of TSR, a major cause of which is trouble with logistics of dealing with the mass market, specifically the return of unsold products by Random House, among other things.

If that is your viewpoint, then Matt Colville moving away from D&D to make his own is absolutely a negative factor. Why? Because the only way to take advantage of the mass market (distributors, big box stores, etc.) is if you have a volume of sales. Anything that threatens that volume is bad; if there are enough threats, the brand or product disappears from the mass market channels. Which, from Rigg's point of view, is apocalyptic.

He is undoubtedly aware of the social network effect and its importance to RPGs, which explains why the RPG industry traditionally had a market leader that is several orders of magnitude larger than anybody else. So, to him, not only is D&D being pushed out of the mass market bad, but it logically to him cripples the hobby as a whole.

To us here, and to many other people who responded negatively, including myself, we know that there has been an upheaval in the hobby industry for the past twenty years. Alongside the growth in sales volume and money on the mass market side, there has been a huge explosion in the number of titles and publishers. Despite two major downturns in the industry (the d20 Bust and the D&D 4e debacle), this growth has not abated but continues to accelerate.

The aggregate sales volume, total money, and number of hobbyists involved do not approach the mass market RPG publishers, especially WOTC, but they still continue to grow and grow. For the past 20 years, even RPGs that were long out of print have had revivals and now sustain their own niche of the hobby, and I am not talking about just the OSR.

Interestingly, RPG publishers, titles, and small publishers continue to grow and diversify despite what happens to the mass market.

Ben Riggs fails to consider that the moment hobbyists step away from the market leader, they face an uphill social battle to find people to play whatever game they like. It doesn't matter if the game has an audience in the hundreds or thousands. Yet again, this side of the industry and hobby continues to grow.

Why? Because digital technology and the internet have completely upended the social equation for niche interests. What one does to play in the mass market still demands many of the same things now as it did back in the day, namely volume. The amount of effort, capital, and resources one needs to sustain a niche hobby (and industry) has dramatically dropped.

So, while the other side of the hobby/industry may never achieve the numbers and money of the mass market RPG publishers, they are not going away and will continue to thrive. And this will continue the Golden Age of RPGs.

I've been saying this for...OMG, was it decades by now?!?

Anyway, yes, that's what I expect - and want - to see happening. A huge leader isn't IMO "good for the hobby", it's the other way around, and at worst we should have several leaders. But a host of different games with local appeal would still be preferred in my book.

I think the more important question is, with the (likely very overblown) "end of the golden age", where are the new folks going to get their easy to step into fix?

Internet. And what do you get when you google "buying RPGs"?

Drivethru. With everything that entails.

So I'm pretty sure those people shall be fine...

This reminds me of the movement a number of years ago where certain designers affiliated with the big publishers were insisting that fans making things and putting them cheaply on the internet were killing the industry. Gamers needed to stop making things as it was unfair to make the big gaming companies compete with them. We all needed to sit back and passively consume that they could make money off of us.

Yes. That's exactly how I see that clip's assertions as well!

 

[Tulpa Girl]

This reminds me of the movement a number of years ago where certain designers affiliated with the big publishers were insisting that fans making things and putting them cheaply on the internet were killing the industry. Gamers needed to stop making things as it was unfair to make the big gaming companies compete with them. We all needed to sit back and passively consume so that they could make money off of us.

I hope the response was "if you can't make content better than random Joe Schmoe on the Internet, then why the hell should we be giving you money?"

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

This reminds me of the movement a number of years ago where certain designers affiliated with the big publishers were insisting that fans making things and putting them cheaply on the internet were killing the industry. Gamers needed to stop making things as it was unfair to make the big gaming companies compete with them. We all needed to sit back and passively consume so that they could make money off of us.

Yeah. I'm sympathetic to some of the arguments about AI (which I'll go into in that thread instead).

But I did have one artist online get very indignant about the fact I hired an art student off Fivvr and paid her what she was asking rather than what he thought the going rate for art should be, Apparently paying her without haggling was me being "exploitative".

The fact he was essentially complaining about a competitor whose work was at least as good as his and who was outcompeting him on price did not escape me.

(I actually paid her a healthy tip for going above and beyond, but I didn't feel like telling him that).

 

[Baulderstone]

Yeah. I'm sympathetic to some of the arguments about AI (which I'll go into in that thread instead).

But I did have one artist online get very indignant about the fact I hired an art student off Fivvr and paid her what she was asking rather than what he thought the going rate for art should be, Apparently paying her without haggling was me being "exploitative".

The fact he was essentially complaining about a competitor whose work was at least as good as his and who was outcompeting him on price did not escape me.

(I actually paid her a healthy tip for going above and beyond, but I didn't feel like telling him that).

It's an elitist position, saying that anybody who isn't make the money Hasbro makes and paying the rates Hasbro pays is immoral. It's gatekeeping.

The fact is that if you decide to go into a creative field, whether it is game design, art or acting, you decided to do something for a living that people also do for fun. Most people entering these fields will make nothing or close to it. You either need to be so damn good that people will pay you the price you demand, or you need a a day job and do it as sideline. Or be well-enough connected so that you can take up one of positions that pays well despite being mediocre.

If someone thinks they can enter a creative field and demand a steady, living wage, they are delusional.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

It's an elitist position, saying that anybody who isn't make the money Hasbro makes and paying the rates Hasbro pays is immoral. It's gatekeeping.

The fact is that if you decide to go into a creative field, whether it is game design, art or acting, you decided to do something for a living that people also do for fun. Most people entering these fields will make nothing or close to it. You either need to be so damn good that people will pay you the price you demand, or you need a a day job and do it as sideline. Or be well-enough connected so that you can take up one of positions that pays well despite being mediocre.

If someone thinks they can enter a creative field and demand a steady, living wage, they are delusional.

And even in creative fields where there are guilds or unions to regulate pay, they typically still acknowledge that different sized productions/employers have varying abilities to pay people. A regional theater production isn't expected to pay what a Broadway show does, for example. I'm sure there are times where an RPG publisher could pay people more, but that's still going to be contingent on how much demand there is for the product in the (increasingly crowded) marketplace.

As has been mentioned, it's easier than it's ever been to make RPGs for money as an independent, but for most people, making significant money is not going to happen overnight, and it will require putting some serious work in before one can do it full-time (and even then, can and should may be different things based on individual situations).

I've known several people IRL who have worked professionally in the RPG industry, and they all either were doing it as a fun side gig or had a spouse/partner with good employment and thus had a solid foundation to build from.

 

[Endless Flight]

In any case, Greg Stolze gave the best advice on how to make a living as a game designer. "I married a doctor."

I must have learned something from Greg. She’s not a doctor but my wife says she’s my “sugar mama”.

 

[Ladybird]

Internet. And what do you get when you google "buying RPGs"?

Drivethru. With everything that entails.

Sure, a new player will get exposed to DTRPG's worst sin - shitty web design - straight away, but if layout alone is enough to convince someone to miss the hobby, then honestly the first book they bought would do the same.

 

[Turkey Lurkie]

And unless the number of people releasing games dwindles (which I'm not sure is either feasible or desirable) it's always going to be a hobby market rather than one most designers can make a living from. I do suspect that most of the people calling for RPGs to pay a living wage are under the assumption that they and their friends will be some of the lucky few doing so.

Most people who write books can't make a living doing that. If you aren't good enough you can't make a living at it. Same with any person trying to have their own business. Most fail. Nothing at all unique to being a wanna be game publisher and success or failure.

 

[Fenris-77]

Much as with musicians there are lots of people who are talented enough writers but still can't/don't/won't make a living at it. Opportunity and luck (and desire) play an important role in addition to talent.

 

[Baulderstone]

There being a large number of people making and selling gaming products despite the fact they don't make much money at it is a sign the hobby is healthy. It's much more of an indication that people genuinely love RPGs than whether Hasbro gets good sales numbers on the new core books.

 

[Voros]

I'm not sure there actually are less people making a living from RPGs, although that's hard to tell when we don't know most designer's personal situation. Dennis Dertwiller is open about the fact he makes his primary living from RPGs. Pazio employees and what's left of WotC's employees are full time. Pundit has said he makes a living, although he has the advantage of living in a cheaper country. Pretty sure Siembada still makes enough for a living. Steve Jackson arguably doesn't count because he lives off that sweet Munchkin money. And that's without getting into the non designers making a living from the issue - publishers like Fox and Sprange, influencers like Colville and Mercer etc.

On top of which, we should remember that the old days weren't exactly financially secure either. Chasioum and TSR both had significant financial problems. Bizar might have made money from FGU but I'm not convinced any of the designers did.

It's not that I don't sympathise, but the issue comes down to this.

When Stafford, Laws etc. made their careers, there were simply less games coming out. In particular, barriers to production and distribution meant that non commercially published games were unlikely to make an impact. Whereas now they're direct competition and there's plenty of high quality games made by people doing it for the sheer joy of it and maybe some pin money.

That has a downward pressure on the price of RPGs and the amount of money people can make from them.

And unless the number of people releasing games dwindles (which I'm not sure is either feasible or desirable) it's always going to be a hobby market rather than one most designers can make a living from. I do suspect that most of the people calling for RPGs to pay a living wage are under the assumption that they and their friends will be some of the lucky few doing so.

I would hazard a guess that similar to the music industry it is less about the number of products and more that in the 80s/90s that there was a more robust infrastructure of FLGS/music stores. That infrastructure (and the tour circuit connected to it) can't be underestimated and its loss really hurt non-major label musicians' ability to make a living far more than the number of records being released per se.

I doubt electronic sales of pdfs is fully compensating for the loss of physical sales. Although unlike in music it does seem that the rpg audience is more enthusiastic about purchasing material legally online, I certainly own far more rpg pdfs that I would ever be capable of owning physically.

That is probably a benefit of the rpg industry still selling to those who are actively interested in rpgs.

Whereas in music and other publishing the real money is in the casual/non-music and even non-reader market (which may sound counterintuitive but books on the history of the music industry like Hitmen makes clear was a conscious strategy in the 80s and beyond).

That extremely casual audience is no doubt who the suits at Hasbro want to reach but I suspect the active nature of rpgs limits its ability to break out in that manner. Even time consuming board games are a more passive experience imo than rpgs.

I think it's hard to determine the current state of the rpg market and compare it to the past as there are so few concrete numbers to refer to, I'll look into interviews with some of the top designers of the 80s/90s and see what they say about today vs. past in terms of profitability.

Publishing has never been a big profit (or any profit beyond cook books according to one writer I know who worked in publishing for decades) industry compared to music so there are limitations to comparing it to music of course and that may be a much, much closer point of comparison as the vast majority of rpgs are books.

In publishing the mid-list author has pretty much disappeared and even formerly profitable genres like sf are struggling and even many writers of fantasy seem to be having a hard time making a living. YA, much of it sorta sf and fantasy, does well although the overall quality is atrocious.

It seems something similar may have happened in rpgs where 'mid-list' game designers have more trouble making a living.

Course there's a lot of activity and much of it is good so it's not a dire situation.

But I think in terms of sustainability a growing audience is a good thing.

I'd prefer it was CoC or another game growing the audience but I can live with it being D&D.

 

[Voros]

It's an elitist position, saying that anybody who isn't make the money Hasbro makes and paying the rates Hasbro pays is immoral. It's gatekeeping.

The fact is that if you decide to go into a creative field, whether it is game design, art or acting, you decided to do something for a living that people also do for fun. Most people entering these fields will make nothing or close to it. You either need to be so damn good that people will pay you the price you demand, or you need a a day job and do it as sideline. Or be well-enough connected so that you can take up one of positions that pays well despite being mediocre.

If someone thinks they can enter a creative field and demand a steady, living wage, they are delusional.

I saw some of that online and it was very odd, I think it was the usual small but vocal minority.

The rpg industry is small enough and barriers low enough that a DIY approach, similar to the musicians of the 70s and 80s, makes far more sense than empty calls for higher rates.

But that requires hard work, organization and some business acumen.

Different field but same kind of thing with stuff I see through my work (video game field). Tons of indy developers are plenty skilled at MAKING games, but if you suck at marketing and the online networking stuff, it will never, ever matter how good you are. Word of mouth can occasionally explode a game randomly, but you can't rely on that.

And it is HARD to be good at online marketing. Much harder than people think it is.

Yeah, I'm more familiar with music and the issue with the idea that musicians can now sell online, etc. directly themselves is that most musicians suck at the skillset that a band manager, tour manager and running a record label requires. And that leaves questions of time and resources to the side.

The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Led Zep and The Clash would have probably gotten no where in the music industry without an Epstein, Loog Oldham, Grossman, Grant and Rhodes as their infamously ruthless managers.

 

[Bunch]

I saw some of that online and it was very odd, I think it was the usual small but vocal minority.

The rpg industry is small enough and barriers low enough that a DIY approach, similar to the musicians of the 70s and 80s, makes far more sense than empty calls for higher rates.

But that requires hard work, organization and some business acumen.



Yeah, I'm more familiar with music and the issue with the idea that musicians can now sell online, etc. directly themselves is that most musicians suck at the skillset that a band manager, tour manager and running a record label requires. And that leaves questions of time and resources to the side.

The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Led Zep and The Clash would have probably gotten no where in the music industry without an Epstein, Loog Oldham, Grossman, Grant and Rhodes as their infamously ruthless managers.

Wait are you saying management has actual value to content makers?

 

[Skarg]

1980

 

[AsenRG]

Sure, a new player will get exposed to DTRPG's worst sin - shitty web design - straight away, but if layout alone is enough to convince someone to miss the hobby, then honestly the first book they bought would do the same.

I'm not sure how to understand this post, frankly.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm not sure how to understand this post, frankly.

RPG books tend to be no better organized than Drivethru.

 

[Fenris-77]

RPG books tend to be no better organized than Drivethru.

Would anyone like to sample a badly organized 500 page PDF with little in the way of links or bookmarks? Takes the wind out of your sails that does.

 

[TJS]

Honestly, even a good PDF is really not how games should be organised. They're a pain to use at the table, being books by other means, rather than true digital products.

This fan site for a 5e conversion for Star Wars does a better job than any PDF I've ever bought.

 

[Voros]

1980

Wish the reissues had been able to retain the original covers that have such great 70s fantasy flavour.

If I had discovered TFT back when my interest in D&D first started to wane in the early 90s I would have definitely chosen it over D&D as a ruleset.

 

[Brand55]

Honestly, even a good PDF is really not how games should be organised. They're a pain to use at the table, being books by other means, rather than true digital products.

This fan site for a 5e conversion for Star Wars does a better job than any PDF I've ever bought.

You can make a PDF that's just about as useful as a book at the table, but it takes some work and nobody seems interested in putting in that much effort. Personally, the best PDFs I've seen were the "augmented" PDFs that Void Star Studios used to put out. You can pretty much get to any page in the book with a few quick taps of a tablet screen. You can see a demonstration of their Nova Praxis PDF on YouTube.

 

[TJS]

You can make a PDF that's just about as useful as a book at the table, but it takes some work and nobody seems interested in putting in that much effort. Personally, the best PDFs I've seen were the "augmented" PDFs that Void Star Studios used to put out. You can pretty much get to any page in the book with a few quick taps of a tablet screen. You can see a demonstration of their Nova Praxis PDF on YouTube.

It may be possible. Some are better than others. A frequent issue though is how slow they seem to be, no matter how fast the laptop I'm using to view them.

It's possible some kind of optimisation can overcome that.

 

[Telok]

Re:pdfs

Hyperlink the fuck out of them, put in margins for scrolling on touch screens, and have a set of nested (but not too nested 1-2 sublevels max) bookmarks that fits well on a reader. Stick some random generators in there while you're at it.

I've seen pdfs with bad bookmarks. Like, it would be better without them type bookmarks. Usually because they put the chapter number & title in every bookmark, if not the book's title. But the good ones, short & at important spots, are a blessing.

Hyperlinks are a godsend if you put the table of contents in the very front, like no more than the 3rd page, and the glossary & index in the back back, literally as or right before the back cover. You know you can scroll to the front or back, poke your subject in the toc or alphabetical index, and go straight there.

Done right on a large book a pdf is awesome. Done badly, like anything, and its trash. I would expect WotC to do them badly.

 

[TJS]

I'm not a subscriber but surely D&D Beyond is better than any PDF?

If it's done right, it should be fast, easily searchable and all the rules will be in one place, meaning you don't have to open multiple PDFs.

If that's the case, releasing PDFs would be a step backward.

Even on Roll20 having the WFRP rules on the VTT means I never bother to open the PDF - even Roll20's crappy interface is superior.

 

[Ladybird]

It may be possible. Some are better than others. A frequent issue though is how slow they seem to be, no matter how fast the laptop I'm using to view them.

It's possible some kind of optimisation can overcome that.

Typically that's because they use massive amounts of layers for the page backgrounds, so the files are huge and slow to render. If you hack those out then they're much smaller and faster.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm not a subscriber but surely D&D Beyond is better than any PDF?

If it's done right, it should be fast, easily searchable and all the rules will be in one place, meaning you don't have to open multiple PDFs.

If that's the case, releasing PDFs would be a step backward.

Even on Roll20 having the WFRP rules on the VTT means I never bother to open the PDF - even Roll20's crappy interface is superior.

I’ve used D&D Beyond a bit. I don’t pay for it at all, but one buddy buys most of the books that come out, so we label him the GM and all the participants in the campaign get access to the books.

The character sheets are well organized and easily navigated. You can look things up with a click or touch. Clicking on an attack will automatically roll dice if you like, same with damage or skills and saves. It’s much better than a typical pdf.

I’m not a fan of pdfs at the table… I prefer physical books. I find them much easier to reference than a pdf. D&D Beyond, though, or something similar to it, would potentially make me rethink what I use at the table when I run a game. Too bad (?) I don’t run 5e at this point.

 

[carpocratian]

Publishing has never been a big profit (or any profit beyond cook books according to one writer I know who worked in publishing for decades) industry compared to music so there are limitations to comparing it to music of course and that may be a much, much closer point of comparison as the vast majority of rpgs are books.

In publishing the mid-list author has pretty much disappeared and even formerly profitable genres like sf are struggling and even many writers of fantasy seem to be having a hard time making a living. YA, much of it sorta sf and fantasy, does well although the overall quality is atrocious.

Between being a librarian, having worked in bookstores, knowing some authors (RPG and otherwise), and various other side pursuits, I have interacted with a lot of writers and publishers over time, both online and in person. I have kept a pretty close eye on the publishing world for the past few decades. From my perspective and experience (get ready for a long ramble and thread drift)...

There was a time when any decent fiction writer could make a passable living, with enough motivation, a willingness to write the types of stories that the public wanted, and the ability to churn things out fairly quickly. The magazine market for short fiction in particular was pretty robust for a century or so, and paid much better than it does today, often in real per-word rates (not even adjusting for inflation and such).

These days writers who want to write fiction full time and be able to pay the bills generally gravitate towards Romance. In fact, a lot of "full time" authors in other genres write Romance on the side (under pen names) to supplement their income. A lot of money flows through that side of publishing, and the easy availability of the books (ex. in grocery stores), relatively low price, predictability, and short lengths make them the adult equivalent of comic books, at least during the height of the golden age of comic newsstand sales. They tend to be highly formulaic, of course, and some companies (particularly Harlequin) have very detailed point-by-point plot instructions that writers are required to follow. Some of the more prolific Romance authors pump out one or two books a month. You don't get much in terms of backlist sales with those, since they are treated as disposable fiction, but you can make a decent living if you can write a book following a specific formula every few weeks. A lot of the books are essentially just rewritten versions of other books the authors have put out, with a few character name changes. The amount of money flowing through that side of the fiction publishing industry is why the parties at the Romance Writers of America annual convention often feature champagne and caviar refreshments (literally) instead of cheap hotel catering.

Mystery writers can do fairly well if they are smart and carve out a good niche in one or more of the various subcategories of the genre. The books tend to be a step up from Romance in terms of complexity, but a lot of the readers like a certain degree of predictability in the writing style, repeat characters, and relative brevity in the size of the books. Successful Mystery writers tend to develop loyal followings and can do okay financially (paying the bills, at least) if they put out a few books every year and put some serious effort into building their reader base. It isn't uncommon for the full-time ones to write under different pen names, though, with each devoted to a different sub-sub-category of the genre (ex. "cozy mysteries"). That way each pen name has its own "brand identity." Chances are that a lot of them are writing Romance on the side, too, at least on occasion.

Young Adult books tend to do well in the market, mainly because people in their early 20s still read them, rather than moving solely to adult books in late high school and early college (as they did in the past). It is a different market category than it was 20+ years ago, though, and the books are longer than they used to be. Even so, most YA authors aren't making a full time living doing it. The books tend to be more complex and detailed than Romance and Mystery ones, so they take longer to write and don't sell in the same quantities. The reader base also tends to "age out" of the category, so it can be difficult to build a long-term devoted reader base.

Outside of those genres, though, things get much, much tougher. Most full-time writers who make a steady livable income - even ones known for their fiction - devote the bulk of their time and effort to non-fiction of some sort. Very few are making more than a middle-middle-class or lower-middle-class income, and those that do often write for a number of different types of outlets (books, magazines, corporate publications, online stuff, etc.). Even very "big names" in genre fiction often keep their day jobs.

Tabletop RPG work is much more akin to writing something like Horror short stories than Romance books. As we all know, it is very, very unlikely that you are going to make a full-time living doing it. Some people do, but they are few and far between. If a publisher buys your work, the per-word pay rate is likely to be closer to what you get for short genre fiction these days (8-10 cents a word at the very high end). Most publishers can't afford to keep buying things every month or two, though, and there is a limit to how much you can sell for a given game, so even very prolific writers are going to have a hard time selling everything they write. There are ways to make a better average per-word rate with long tail sales on DriveThruRPG or via Kickstarters, but you generally have to be pretty savvy about marketing, be able and willing to develop layout and other skills, know how to keep a tight reign on art expenses, do most of the work yourself, spend a lot of time courting "influencers," and be willing to do a lot of unpaid supplemental writing (on blogs and elsewhere) to make a real go of it. I know a few people who have pulled that off, but they aren't living the high life, have to put in a lot more effort on the backend than most people realize, and generally spent many years getting to the point where they could drop the day job.

 

[Telok]

I'm not a subscriber but surely D&D Beyond is better than any PDF?

My experience is about 4 months out of date but I haven't heard of any major upgrades. The character sheet is decent, although you have to hack in some sub-class modifications to base objects.

Had a celestial warlock who gets +cha to radiant damage spells and had to build my own sacred flame cantrip to get the save dc & damage right. Two +# things will stack, so said warlock getting two different +2 hit & save dc items was terrible and you can't disable it unless you want to go making your own magic items to use those instead (the items had different secondary effects that were quite good for the character but +4 save dc is a bit nuts).

The search & filter function is shit. I've seen better string searching & sorting written by 4th year college students. The guy GMing complained bitterly about the encounter builder & magic item builder. You need to open mounts, pets, etc., in a separate tab. There's no good way to manage allied npcs in any form. I don't recall it telling you if something was in a book you didn't "own" until after you tried to open it up. So you had to open a monster or item to see if it was accessibile to you.

Basically if all you have is baseline characters using the default rules, magic items, phb classes, and monsters... then it looks great and probably won't have any serious problems. We were unimpressed because its a prettied up online spreadsheet character with a dice roller add on. And the search & filter functions truely sucked.

 

[AsenRG]

My experience is about 4 months out of date but I haven't heard of any major upgrades. The character sheet is decent, although you have to hack in some sub-class modifications to base objects.

Had a celestial warlock who gets +cha to radiant damage spells and had to build my own sacred flame cantrip to get the save dc & damage right. Two +# things will stack, so said warlock getting two different +2 hit & save dc items was terrible and you can't disable it unless you want to go making your own magic items to use those instead (the items had different secondary effects that were quite good for the character but +4 save dc is a bit nuts).

The search & filter function is shit. I've seen better string searching & sorting written by 4th year college students. The guy GMing complained bitterly about the encounter builder & magic item builder. You need to open mounts, pets, etc., in a separate tab. There's no good way to manage allied npcs in any form. I don't recall it telling you if something was in a book you didn't "own" until after you tried to open it up. So you had to open a monster or item to see if it was accessibile to you.

Basically if all you have is baseline characters using the default rules, magic items, phb classes, and monsters... then it looks great and probably won't have any serious problems. We were unimpressed because its a prettied up online spreadsheet character with a dice roller add on. And the search & filter functions truely sucked.

...that's about what I'd expected, sadly!

 

[Dyrnwyn]

Basically if all you have is baseline characters using the default rules, magic items, phb classes, and monsters... then it looks great and probably won't have any serious problems. We were unimpressed because its a prettied up online spreadsheet character with a dice roller add on. And the search & filter functions truely sucked.

Yep, same experience my D&D group has had with it. I've always stuck with the books and paper as a result.

 

[Turkey Lurkie]

I'm not a subscriber but surely D&D Beyond is better than any PDF?

No, I can read my PDFs when not online and don't require perpetual monthly payments to read a PDF I already paid for. Pretty simple

 

[Bunch]

No, I can read my PDFs when not online and don't require perpetual monthly payments to read a PDF I already paid for. Pretty simple

Have you used it?

 

[Jacob Rodgers]

No, I can read my PDFs when not online and don't require perpetual monthly payments to read a PDF I already paid for. Pretty simple

I am much more a fan of Demiplane and avoid DnD Beyond these days, but this is FUD. You do not need to subscribe to DnD Beyond to read a book you've bought on the platform. Neither is that true for Demiplane, and, of course, Demiplane supports many games and many publishers, not just one.