Ben Riggs is a D&D historiographer and author of the bookSlaying the Dragon : A secluded account of Dungeons & Dragons .
Dear Wizards of the Coast ,
Hi ! I wrotea history of your companyback when it was call TSR . I also teach seventh and 8th grade , so for the preceding 15 years , I have watched year after year as kids expose , and go ga - ga for , D&D.
Image: Wizards of the Coast
I ’m indite this letter of the alphabet because I want you to succeed . candidly , I believe all honest - hearted D&D fan want to see your companionship do well and produce fantastic products that are profitable . So I eagerly watchedyour media eventsthese past few week , namelyD&D Directand the content creator summit . There are some secure ideas there , but I need to be honest with you . In universal , I would rate them as meh . I think D&D has room for exponential growing , and none of those theme are going to fire that kind of gain .
TTRPGs are actually a titanically difficult product to make a lot of money on . send away $ 150 on rulebooks and campaigns and you could meet for twelvemonth without ever making another leverage . unearthly , right ? We D&D devotee actually have no need to ever purchase anything from you ever again . ( Yet well-nigh all of us want to ! )
I infer you ’re trying to get more money from thespian . Again , that ’s fine by me ! I ca n’t hold back for a gorgeous Atlas of Neverwinter and Edgin the Bard socks . I desire your VTT is so fantastical that I desire to use it everyday and twice on Sunday . Still , will any of that really grow the game ’s actor base exponentially ? credibly not . I sympathize a lot of you have screen background in video games , which makes mother wit . However , I would caution you here as well . D&D is not a telecasting game . The VTT will not make it a picture game .
You ask to reframe your thinking . Do not think of D&D as products . Do n’t even think of it as a brand . in spades do n’t think of it as a video biz .
D&D is the first and most famed tabletop role - play secret plan , and tabletop character - playing games are an original and revolutionary sensitive . A TTRPG is something Modern to do with paper , pencils , and the human brain that was manufacture in 1974 . Imagine acting was invent in 1974 , and that we are a mere 50 years into determine how acting will change acculturation . That is the potential of the TTRPG revolution .
One of the most astonishing feature of the TTRPG is that it is infinite . If one started a D&D campaign in 1974 with the first rules release , one might still be play that same biz today , which is to say telling that same story today . Most video recording game , by contrast , can be complete and once over require a new purchase . Video biz are finite . TTRPGs are not . They are a bottomless nursing bottle of vodka , or a railroad car that never crack down and does n’t even need accelerator .
So how do you make money off a unexampled medium which , after an initial leverage , never requires another ? It ’s tricky , but it can be done . The most successful model are sports and faith . ( I want to be readable here I am not denigrating religions , nor am I build some sort of verity claim for D&D. ) And the samara to unlocking a heavy , bright , and more profitable futurity for D&D is not at Wizards , not at Hasbro , and ironically it is n’t with the player , no .
It ’s the Dungeon Masters .
Across the human beings , hundreds of thousands if not meg of Dungeon Masters ask people to try D&D for the first time . They excuse the rule . They setup D&D nights . They figure out who ’s bringing the chips , and who ’s bring the dip . They literally sell your product for you , and they do it for free . Consider this simple maths . If there were only 10 Dungeon Masters in the whole world , but every year , each DM win over one other person to become a DM , within 20 years , you have over 20 million Dungeon Masters .
You are going to make money by radically increasing the number of people who bring D&D. And you are go to do that by making the life history of those jillion of Dungeon Masters much , much easier than they are now .
As you may know , there is a Dungeon Master shortage . citizenry are intimidated to DM . They worry about knowing the rule . They occupy about control the adventure , or write their own . That puts a brake , perhaps even a roof , on D&D growth . Someone may be a Critical Role fanatic , but if they ca n’t get hold a D&D game to toy in , they may never become a D&D fan .
So how do you make a DM ’s life easier ?
First , you are presently producing the best interpretation of D&D that has ever been in existence . moreover , having watched dozens of 12 - year - olds toy through the Starter Set , I can also tell you that mathematical product does a all right line of teaching the game . That said , you should give rise a ten to twenty page tract that would be available free on your site of the most of import D&D rules . Continue using the internet and YouTube to produce content explaining D&D and your products . perhaps even sort of audio adventure summaries so or else of reading , a DM could listen to organize ? Maybe read by an existing D&D celebrity ?
But outside the Starter Set , your other adventures and campaigns are a wildly mixed handbag . I know that uncounted droves of D&D fans will buy your book of account no matter the calibre or content , but do womb-to-tomb fans ask producing fantastic adventures . A good campaign both inspires decimeter to run it and makes their lifetime easy . I do n’t know how your books are produced , but establish on the net products I ’ve pick up , you should do the chase :
run should have one to three authors . Add more with only great caveat …
effort should be pitched by authors & designers .
You should pay your plot designers like they are work on video game , and you should give writers royal line .
There should be a logical formatting for campaigns that carries over from book to book .
Time for playtesting should be include in your production cycle . It should be measured in months .
Your books need to be brusk ! Incorporate twenty-first century RPG layout & design .
fall to the boxed set ! make release , maps , character portraits , in - biz journal , & clues to go with the secret plan . ( Also make PDFs of those goodies available . )
What else can you do ? Can you make a sort of Dungeon Mastering alumna school , with perhaps special products only available for leverage by graduates ? Can you melt down DM contests at gaming convention ? Winners get swag , trips to Renton , honor , glory , etc . Can you create some sort of Academy Awards for DMs ? There ’s an awards observance , with celebrity presenters .
That all may seem absurd . And how does it lead to profit ? Well consider in a Earth with 20 million Dungeon Masters , you belike have 100 million player . 113 million people watch the Super Bowl in 2023 . If D&D is a secret plan with a devotee infrastructure on par with that of the NFL , suppose the profits from t - shirt cut-rate sale alone . moreover , moot that these suggestions are not about replacing what you are doing now . Rather , such a re - focusing on the DM will augment your current endeavour . More diabetes mellitus and more role player make your VTT more utilitarian and more profitable , for example .
So that ’s the way it looks from where I sit down . I wish you the best of luck . The movie was awesome !
sincerely yours ,
Ben Riggs
D&D Historian Extraordinaire
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