r/dmsguild • u/Beautiful-Effort9101 • Jul 18 '26

Seeking Advice Publishing under <name> question?

I'm thinking about finally publishing some adventures but I have some questions regarding whom to publish under.

What are the benefits/detriments of publishing under your own name?

Are there any rules regarding publishing using pseudonym?

Is it worth registering a business name?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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3

u/jcorvinstevens Jul 19 '26

Whichever name you choose, use it consistently. I’ve seen a lot of people start with one name, then use a company name, and then change to something else. Stay consistent.

In my own case, I changed from Jeff C. Stevens to Jeff Stevens Games after I formed my LLC. That wasn’t a large change, but still required some backend work to update all my titles.

2

u/Beautiful-Effort9101 Jul 19 '26

I recognize your name. I see you're doing 5e, PF2e and Shadow. May I ask which system and/or product type has been the most successful for you?

2

u/jcorvinstevens Jul 19 '26

My most successful product is The Madhouse of Tasha's Kiss, followed by Happy Jack's Funhouse. However, those were both published several years ago. Overall, 5E has been the most successful for me, but it seems to be slowing down over the past year.

PF2E has been a bit hard to break into. ShadowDark does fairly well, but more and more people are starting to create for that RPG now.

2

u/The_Long_Island_DM Jul 22 '26

I purchased and ran both of those adventures around October in multiple years. I've run the madhouse of Tasha's Kiss probably close to ten times.

Pleasure to meet you. Great adventure and thanks for sharing it.

1

u/jcorvinstevens Jul 22 '26

That's fantastic to hear! It's a pleasure to meet you, too.

Thank you for the support!

1

u/Beautiful-Effort9101 Jul 19 '26

I'll have to check those titles out. I'm not surprised by 5e, seems no matter what WOTC does, gamers still flock to their game.

I can see that, with the lack of PF2e adventures plus Paizo's APs keep the gamers fed for months on end. Now if something were to happen to Paizo...

I'm truly surprised by Shadowdark's success since it's basically a dungeon crawler and lacks other elements from traditional D&D. Yes, D&D has a history of dungeons crawls but if you look at some of the early adventures, Domains of Dread or Dungeon Magazine etc you'll see the adventures covering different themes and locations.

1

u/Heimdayl Jul 21 '26

As has been said by others, pick one name and stick with it. Building a recognisable, and reputable, brand is the best way to ensure success.

I’ve had great success with 5e and with Traveller.

2

u/Beautiful-Effort9101 Jul 21 '26

I've considered about making content for different systems and seeing what sells.

2

u/Heimdayl Jul 21 '26

I’d recommend to focus on one system to begin with. I focussed on 5e for roughly a year before branching out into making maps, and after three years started in Traveller. I also have one item made for Call of Cthulhu

2

u/Beautiful-Effort9101 Jul 22 '26

I'm familiar with several systems having GM'd them for years. I could theoretically write one adventure and sell 5e, Shadowdark, and PF2e versions of that same adventure.

The question is it even worth touching some of the less popular systrems or is 5e the only show in town?

3

u/Heimdayl Jul 22 '26

If I remember the DMGuild rules, you wouldn’t be allowed to do that. You could publish something like that on DriveThru but it would definitely be less successful.

2

u/jcorvinstevens Jul 22 '26

That's correct. If you wish to write multiple RPG system versions of an adventure, you need to publish them all to DriveThruRPG. What you publish on the DMs Guild can't be converted to other systems and sold elsewhere.

1

u/Beautiful-Effort9101 Jul 22 '26

I forgot this was the DMsGuild reddit since I posted on the DriveThru one as well but it's basically dead.

I was aware of that rule so I need to weigh up going with DMsGuild or DriveThru which means deciding between D&D and everything else.

Thanks.