Dungeon Master's Guild wants to steal your content, or...

K · Post by K » Sat Jul 30, 2016 1:58 am

...get you to sell it for a rate that makes the RPG industry's rates look wildly lavish.

http://kotaku.com/d-ds-dungeon-masters- ... 1784518350

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Jul 30, 2016 2:33 am

50% royalty is a level that makes the industry look lavish?

K · Post by K » Sat Jul 30, 2016 5:07 am

virgil wrote:50% royalty is a level that makes the industry look lavish?

The very best adventures are making a few hundred dollars, which is about industry standard. The rest are making much less.

Although royalty rates are only 50%, some of the more popular DMs Guild writers I spoke with have made several hundred dollars a month off their D&D adventures—below the industry standard, but not unsatisfactory for a hobby they’d do anyway.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 30, 2016 5:14 am

Pdf sales are ridiculously small. Remember that WotC made official public statements consistent with the Players Handbook II for 4th edition D&D selling less than 120 electronic copies total.

Signing up to sell your content as pdfs for a royalty rate is pretty similar to giving it away.

-Username17

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sat Jul 30, 2016 7:31 pm

Let's be honest, this is their attempt to disguise that they no longer have a D&D team or any desire to make D&D.

malak · Post by **malak** » Sat Jul 30, 2016 10:57 pm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Let's be honest, this is their attempt to disguise that they no longer have a D&D team or any desire to make D&D.

True, but it's good for DMs, and allows the people who wrote this stuff for blogs and forums to publish it with some nice D&D Art and WotC Trademarked Content.

Good for WotC customers, bad for people trying to earn a living writing for D&D.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun Jul 31, 2016 3:31 pm

K wrote:
virgil wrote:50% royalty is a level that makes the industry look lavish?
The very best adventures are making a few hundred dollars, which is about industry standard. The rest are making much less.

Although royalty rates are only 50%, some of the more popular DMs Guild writers I spoke with have made several hundred dollars a month off their D&D adventures—below the industry standard, but not unsatisfactory for a hobby they’d do anyway.

So you're suggesting that instead of paying 300 dollars a month (say) for adventures that earn 600 dollars a month, the business should pay an author 1000 dollars a month or something? That sounds like a great idea! They lose money every month, but they make it up in volume!

At any rate, this doesn't sound much different from Paizo's PDF store or RPGNow or any other PDF store that works on commission, so I'm not sure how this is a new story.

K · Post by K » Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:45 pm

hogarth wrote:
K wrote:
virgil wrote:50% royalty is a level that makes the industry look lavish?
The very best adventures are making a few hundred dollars, which is about industry standard. The rest are making much less.

Although royalty rates are only 50%, some of the more popular DMs Guild writers I spoke with have made several hundred dollars a month off their D&D adventures—below the industry standard, but not unsatisfactory for a hobby they’d do anyway.
So you're suggesting that instead of paying 300 dollars a month (say) for adventures that earn 600 dollars a month, the business should pay an author 1000 dollars a month or something? That sounds like a great idea! They lose money every month, but they make it up in volume!

At any rate, this doesn't sound much different from Paizo's PDF store or RPGNow or any other PDF store that works on commission, so I'm not sure how this is a new story.

The article is saying that people who have lots of adventures are making several hundred dollars a month, so maybe $10-15 dollars a month per adventure. That's pennies per hour of work.

Getting paid the industry standard of $300-600 in a lump sum for a single adventure that is then professionally supported with layout and art is a better deal than the $10 a month for the few months that the adventure would sell on the Dungeon Master's Guild. It's better financially and better for a writer's reputation.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:43 am

K wrote:The article is saying that people who have lots of adventures are making several hundred dollars a month, so maybe $10-15 dollars a month per adventure. That's pennies per hour of work.

Do you really believe that people should be paid based on how hard they work and not on what customers will pay for the finished product? Does the "K" in your name stand for "Karl", by any chance?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:47 am

hogarth wrote:
K wrote:The article is saying that people who have lots of adventures are making several hundred dollars a month, so maybe $10-15 dollars a month per adventure. That's pennies per hour of work.
Do you really believe that people should be paid based on how hard they work and not on what customers will pay for the finished product? Does the "K" in your name stand for "Karl", by any chance?

Can you really not understand how things can make more money if they are sold in a different way?

Adventures that are packaged together with art and maps after an editor looks them over make lots more money than some guys notes on the internet.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:40 am

Besides that, "thinking people deserve to be paid more for doing more work and putting more effort in" is apparently wild Marxism, the realms of Communism that make even regular Communists cringe?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:37 am

I thought it was facetious. Am I being too generous?

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:14 am

If people see a total surrendering of property rights "lavish"...