So I know Wizards is trying to find ways to make more money and they are jumping through a ton of hoops to try to monetize players more.
All this while there is a huge shortage of Dungeon Masters. If Dungeon Masters spend the most money, and there aren't enough Dungeon Masters, wouldn't it make more sense to find ways to get more people to want to be Dungeon Masters? More DMs would also mean more players are able to play so then their monetization strategies for players would pay off even more... but it should lead with working on ways to get more people to be DMs.
Everyone I have talked to only became a DM either because they had a bad experience as a player and knew they could do better as a DM, or there was no DM so they just sucked it up and became one themselves. Shouldn't there be more stories about how cool it is to help guide a story that you and the players create and even get to the point where players want to be the next DM for their group just because it is easy and fun to be a DM? Even if it is more work...
So, even if there were more DMs...that'd just be more DMs spending money on books. Not more players spending more money.
IIRC DMs make up ~20% of the community. But ~80% of the purchases. So yes, it would increase sales, but people who *only* play, still wouldn't be contributing to the revenue, which is what they're trying to go for.
Wizards already does a lot to promote DMing - it is why they promote streams that make DMing (and the game generally) look fun and promote and post articles giving DMs advice on how to better DM or how to make DMing easier. What you suggest is something they are already doing.
The problem DMing has is the perceived difficulty and how many rules you have to know. 5e has historically been hostile to DMing - older versions of monsters referenced spell tables, so a new DM was going to be overwhelmed flipping between parts of a book or opening different tabs on their computer just to run a single monster. This led to a barrier to entry for DMing that was far more significant than lack of “cool stories” about DMing.
Fixing that problem is going to require systemic changes beyond simply Wizards telling people how cool DMing is… systemic changes they are already implementing into the game. Streamlined monsters from MMM and subsequent products are directly aimed at lowering the barrier to entry for DMing, specifically to try and increase the number of available DMs.
So, yes - Wizards should try to increase the percentage of players who DM, but that is hardly a novel idea and is something Wizards clearly knows and has been working on for quite some time already.
This is a solid idea, but I don't think that this really meshes with the design philosophy of 5e. So much is left so vague that it pushing a massive amount of prep and on-the-spot effort onto the DM. There are several 3PPs that almost exclusively produce clear DM support tools and modules. WotC doesn't seem willing or capable of doing that.
I only got to DM one campaign so far, but I really liked it. I’d like to try it again sometime. Also, a lot of people in my group buy the adventures even though they’re just players cause they find them interesting and like reading them. They know the DM will change any published adventure a lot when they run it so they’re not worried about metagaming or anything. But maybe that’s not the way most groups play.
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I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft, Exandria and the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My pronouns are she/they (genderfae).
So I know Wizards is trying to find ways to make more money and they are jumping through a ton of hoops to try to monetize players more.
All this while there is a huge shortage of Dungeon Masters. If Dungeon Masters spend the most money, and there aren't enough Dungeon Masters, wouldn't it make more sense to find ways to get more people to want to be Dungeon Masters?
"It's expensive to be a DM" is a reason to not want to be a DM. The way you reduce that burden is by... getting more money from players and using that money to subsidize products for DMs.
It's expensive to be a DM" is a reason to not want to be a DM. The way you reduce that burden is by... getting more money from players and using that money to subsidize products for DMs.
There we go, make a ***** or patreon style service to pitch in to buy your DM adventures and other material.
Wizards already does a lot to promote DMing - it is why they promote streams that make DMing (and the game generally) look fun and promote and post articles giving DMs advice on how to better DM or how to make DMing easier. What you suggest is something they are already doing.
The problem DMing has is the perceived difficulty and how many rules you have to know. 5e has historically been hostile to DMing - older versions of monsters referenced spell tables, so a new DM was going to be overwhelmed flipping between parts of a book or opening different tabs on their computer just to run a single monster. This led to a barrier to entry for DMing that was far more significant than lack of “cool stories” about DMing.
Fixing that problem is going to require systemic changes beyond simply Wizards telling people how cool DMing is… systemic changes they are already implementing into the game. Streamlined monsters from MMM and subsequent products are directly aimed at lowering the barrier to entry for DMing, specifically to try and increase the number of available DMs.
So, yes - Wizards should try to increase the percentage of players who DM, but that is hardly a novel idea and is something Wizards clearly knows and has been working on for quite some time already.
Honestly, imo, these attempts at attracting more DMs via dumbing down- oh, ahem “streamlining”- things like monster stats honestly seem like attempts that don’t take into account the heart of the issue; there is a considerable investment of time, money, and effort into running a game, and it requires a certain personality type as well. Plus, from a logistical standpoint, even a close parity between DMs and players is simply unrealistic due to the structure of the game, and any regular group will be sharing content either physically or via D&DB’s content sharing function, so attempting to get more people DMing sounds like a fairly futile approach. As much as I’m sure people will love me saying this, it seems like if they want to get more money from the community, they need to find more things to sell to players as players, rather than trying to boost DMs.
Honestly, imo, these attempts at attracting more DMs via dumbing down- oh, ahem “streamlining”- things like monster stats honestly seem like attempts that don’t take into account the heart of the issue; there is a considerable investment of time, money, and effort into running a game, and it requires a certain personality type as well. Plus, from a logistical standpoint, even a close parity between DMs and players is simply unrealistic due to the structure of the game, and any regular group will be sharing content either physically or via D&DB’s content sharing function, so attempting to get more people DMing sounds like a fairly futile approach. As much as I’m sure people will love me saying this, it seems like if they want to get more money from the community, they need to find more things to sell to players as players, rather than trying to boost DMs.
That is Wizards’ ultimate conclusion as well—and I think it is a correct one. Right now, folks willing to DM only make up 20% of total players (which doesn’t cover the fact those 20% are not all DMing at the same time, leading to further shortages). Streamlining DMing likely will increase that figure some—but historical efforts by Wizards have shown they can only push that number by a little bit.
The only difference - they don’t see increasing the number of DMs, even if only by a few percent as futile. With their current massive player base, even switching a couple percent of players into DMs translates to several thousand new games.
And, of course, lowering the barrier to entry for DMing is not mutually exclusive with also trying to find more ways to sell to players directly. Quite the contrary—the two complement one another well and increase the profitability of the efforts to streamline DMing. After all, DMs bring in new players; more DMs leads to more players Wizards can market player-focused products to.
Well - they actually have the right idea. D&D needs to be a 'software as a service' - a subscription based platform that gives access to tools for playing, including books and adventures, character sheets, VTT, and all that jazz.
In order to succesfully do that, they need a watertight license. So we're getting that. Sooner or later, one way or another, a framework will be put in place that facilitates and protects that business model.
Now, saying they have the right idea isn't the same as saying they're executing it right. But what 'executing it right' is, precisely, I'm not going to claim to know.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
While I agree that lowering the barrier of entry to DMing is a good idea (for instance there should be more PoC and women DMs), I am wary of this so-called streamlining that WotC is doing. Most of what I've seen in Tasha's, MMotM, and what I have read about OneDND, Strixhaven, etc. tells me that WotC is shedding both creative talent of people who understand that a monster stat block is not enough to run a compelling, consistent narrative as well as people doing quality control. The lore is being excised or is badly written. A lot of stuff is copy and pasted from previous editions with some light changes to be consistent with 5E rules. Copy-editing is itself often shoddy with OP subclass abilties and lineage abilities not seen for what they are (but easily spotted by nerd commentators on the Internetz. The destruction of creative variety in OneDND proposals for Druids that will very likely soon extend to Wizards and any other class that doesn't just do stuff that is relatively simple to program into a computer.
Yes, they need to monetize, but getting rid of flavor, getting rid of quality control staff, making the work environment inhospitable to people who aren't just about the approval of their superiors (supervisors like Chris Cao)... all these things are damaging their brand in the long run. And streamlining to the point of taking the creativity out of the most diverse-in-use abilities in the game, like illusion magic and Wildshaping is a just another sign that WotC doesn't care about the health of the tabletop hobby in the long term as long as their shareholders get richer in the short term via VTTs and video game-ification of their IP. (Be to clear, I am not casting aspersions on anyone just for buying a video game with D&D IP, just that video games and tabletop are qualitatively different experiences and trying to shoehorn all the rules and abilities into some package that is easy to program will inevitably hurt the tabletop imaginative potential of the hobby and thus drive those players into other RPGs.)
I apologize I wasn't clear. I am not talking solving the difficulty of becoming a DM, lots of people working on that which is great. I mean more along the lines of marketing to get more people to investigate being a DM. I only see stuff around generally playing D&D. I think they could benefit a lot from marketing to people to run D&D.
I mean more along the lines of marketing to get more people to investigate being a DM. [...]I think they could benefit a lot from marketing to people to run D&D.
I guess that does make some sense, but advertising takes resources and people generally don't like propaganda campaigns, even if they are for a good reason and are accurate. Honestly, Wizards already does a lot of things to attract new DMs. Anyways, doing this costs money, and companies don't generally want to spend money on investing in solving a problem if they aren't sure the investment will work.
From my personal experience, I have never had a problem with a lack of available Dungeon Masters. So it appears to me that this problem is a bit less extreme when people play in person, or with friends that they already know. That being said, I'm not saying this isn't an issue. All I'm saying is that monetizing D&D other ways isn't necessarily bad, and this is an acceptable but not perfect method.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
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So I know Wizards is trying to find ways to make more money and they are jumping through a ton of hoops to try to monetize players more.
All this while there is a huge shortage of Dungeon Masters. If Dungeon Masters spend the most money, and there aren't enough Dungeon Masters, wouldn't it make more sense to find ways to get more people to want to be Dungeon Masters? More DMs would also mean more players are able to play so then their monetization strategies for players would pay off even more... but it should lead with working on ways to get more people to be DMs.
Everyone I have talked to only became a DM either because they had a bad experience as a player and knew they could do better as a DM, or there was no DM so they just sucked it up and became one themselves. Shouldn't there be more stories about how cool it is to help guide a story that you and the players create and even get to the point where players want to be the next DM for their group just because it is easy and fun to be a DM? Even if it is more work...
So, even if there were more DMs...that'd just be more DMs spending money on books. Not more players spending more money.
IIRC DMs make up ~20% of the community. But ~80% of the purchases. So yes, it would increase sales, but people who *only* play, still wouldn't be contributing to the revenue, which is what they're trying to go for.
Wizards already does a lot to promote DMing - it is why they promote streams that make DMing (and the game generally) look fun and promote and post articles giving DMs advice on how to better DM or how to make DMing easier. What you suggest is something they are already doing.
The problem DMing has is the perceived difficulty and how many rules you have to know. 5e has historically been hostile to DMing - older versions of monsters referenced spell tables, so a new DM was going to be overwhelmed flipping between parts of a book or opening different tabs on their computer just to run a single monster. This led to a barrier to entry for DMing that was far more significant than lack of “cool stories” about DMing.
Fixing that problem is going to require systemic changes beyond simply Wizards telling people how cool DMing is… systemic changes they are already implementing into the game. Streamlined monsters from MMM and subsequent products are directly aimed at lowering the barrier to entry for DMing, specifically to try and increase the number of available DMs.
So, yes - Wizards should try to increase the percentage of players who DM, but that is hardly a novel idea and is something Wizards clearly knows and has been working on for quite some time already.
This is a solid idea, but I don't think that this really meshes with the design philosophy of 5e. So much is left so vague that it pushing a massive amount of prep and on-the-spot effort onto the DM. There are several 3PPs that almost exclusively produce clear DM support tools and modules. WotC doesn't seem willing or capable of doing that.
I only got to DM one campaign so far, but I really liked it. I’d like to try it again sometime. Also, a lot of people in my group buy the adventures even though they’re just players cause they find them interesting and like reading them. They know the DM will change any published adventure a lot when they run it so they’re not worried about metagaming or anything. But maybe that’s not the way most groups play.
I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft, Exandria and the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My pronouns are she/they (genderfae).
"It's expensive to be a DM" is a reason to not want to be a DM. The way you reduce that burden is by... getting more money from players and using that money to subsidize products for DMs.
There we go, make a ***** or patreon style service to pitch in to buy your DM adventures and other material.
Honestly, imo, these attempts at attracting more DMs via dumbing down- oh, ahem “streamlining”- things like monster stats honestly seem like attempts that don’t take into account the heart of the issue; there is a considerable investment of time, money, and effort into running a game, and it requires a certain personality type as well. Plus, from a logistical standpoint, even a close parity between DMs and players is simply unrealistic due to the structure of the game, and any regular group will be sharing content either physically or via D&DB’s content sharing function, so attempting to get more people DMing sounds like a fairly futile approach. As much as I’m sure people will love me saying this, it seems like if they want to get more money from the community, they need to find more things to sell to players as players, rather than trying to boost DMs.
That is Wizards’ ultimate conclusion as well—and I think it is a correct one. Right now, folks willing to DM only make up 20% of total players (which doesn’t cover the fact those 20% are not all DMing at the same time, leading to further shortages). Streamlining DMing likely will increase that figure some—but historical efforts by Wizards have shown they can only push that number by a little bit.
The only difference - they don’t see increasing the number of DMs, even if only by a few percent as futile. With their current massive player base, even switching a couple percent of players into DMs translates to several thousand new games.
And, of course, lowering the barrier to entry for DMing is not mutually exclusive with also trying to find more ways to sell to players directly. Quite the contrary—the two complement one another well and increase the profitability of the efforts to streamline DMing. After all, DMs bring in new players; more DMs leads to more players Wizards can market player-focused products to.
Well - they actually have the right idea. D&D needs to be a 'software as a service' - a subscription based platform that gives access to tools for playing, including books and adventures, character sheets, VTT, and all that jazz.
In order to succesfully do that, they need a watertight license. So we're getting that. Sooner or later, one way or another, a framework will be put in place that facilitates and protects that business model.
Now, saying they have the right idea isn't the same as saying they're executing it right. But what 'executing it right' is, precisely, I'm not going to claim to know.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
While I agree that lowering the barrier of entry to DMing is a good idea (for instance there should be more PoC and women DMs), I am wary of this so-called streamlining that WotC is doing. Most of what I've seen in Tasha's, MMotM, and what I have read about OneDND, Strixhaven, etc. tells me that WotC is shedding both creative talent of people who understand that a monster stat block is not enough to run a compelling, consistent narrative as well as people doing quality control. The lore is being excised or is badly written. A lot of stuff is copy and pasted from previous editions with some light changes to be consistent with 5E rules. Copy-editing is itself often shoddy with OP subclass abilties and lineage abilities not seen for what they are (but easily spotted by nerd commentators on the Internetz. The destruction of creative variety in OneDND proposals for Druids that will very likely soon extend to Wizards and any other class that doesn't just do stuff that is relatively simple to program into a computer.
Yes, they need to monetize, but getting rid of flavor, getting rid of quality control staff, making the work environment inhospitable to people who aren't just about the approval of their superiors (supervisors like Chris Cao)... all these things are damaging their brand in the long run. And streamlining to the point of taking the creativity out of the most diverse-in-use abilities in the game, like illusion magic and Wildshaping is a just another sign that WotC doesn't care about the health of the tabletop hobby in the long term as long as their shareholders get richer in the short term via VTTs and video game-ification of their IP. (Be to clear, I am not casting aspersions on anyone just for buying a video game with D&D IP, just that video games and tabletop are qualitatively different experiences and trying to shoehorn all the rules and abilities into some package that is easy to program will inevitably hurt the tabletop imaginative potential of the hobby and thus drive those players into other RPGs.)
I apologize I wasn't clear. I am not talking solving the difficulty of becoming a DM, lots of people working on that which is great. I mean more along the lines of marketing to get more people to investigate being a DM. I only see stuff around generally playing D&D. I think they could benefit a lot from marketing to people to run D&D.
I guess that does make some sense, but advertising takes resources and people generally don't like propaganda campaigns, even if they are for a good reason and are accurate. Honestly, Wizards already does a lot of things to attract new DMs. Anyways, doing this costs money, and companies don't generally want to spend money on investing in solving a problem if they aren't sure the investment will work.
From my personal experience, I have never had a problem with a lack of available Dungeon Masters. So it appears to me that this problem is a bit less extreme when people play in person, or with friends that they already know. That being said, I'm not saying this isn't an issue. All I'm saying is that monetizing D&D other ways isn't necessarily bad, and this is an acceptable but not perfect method.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.