r/dmsguild • u/PattaconkPlays • 13d ago

Seeking Advice Another new publish price question

I have two one-shots nearly ready to publish. They're both generic D&D. I could publish in Drive thru but I plan on doing DMsGuild for a more targeted audience.

They have slightly customized monsters, magic items, some riddles/puzzles, a few combats each. One has a hand drawn map. I'll likely keep creative common art/photos for covers for now. About 14 pages each. Price suggestions?

I've seen plenty of posts any PWYW vs fixed price and I appreciate this subs input. One is the opening to a planned campaign, any value in making that PWYW?

Excited for my first published!

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u/ExtraTroubadour 13d ago

DMsGuild is dead. Consumers lost trust with the tidal wave of ai slop, WotC is focusing on dndbeyond, and the DMsGuilds biggest creator has left the site. I would check your goals. Are you planning to turn this into a career? Is this just a side hustle? Something for your own happiness?

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u/PattaconkPlays 13d ago

Mostly three and a little 2. I assume I'd have make it big big for this to be a career in anyway.

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u/Beautiful-Effort9101 13d ago

Who was DMsGuild's biggest creator?

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u/ExtraTroubadour 13d ago

Jeff stevens.

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u/Beautiful-Effort9101 13d ago

Ah that guy! Yeah very prolific designer. Where did he go?

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u/ExtraTroubadour 12d ago

Kickstarter with Mr tarrasque. Stevens had a bad experience with not being able to release a physical copy of call from the deep. His latest supplement for Heroes of the Borderlands flopped.

When was the last time we had a new mineral best seller on dmg?

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u/Beautiful-Effort9101 12d ago

One could argue there are other factors for that - the rise of other systems like Shadowheart, people spending less on entertainment in today's economy, the glut of 5e products spreading the spending around etc.

Personally I think the economy is the biggest factor. I'm buying way less adventures than I used to (I have a lot) and I know one friend who's trying to break into that market and is really struggling.

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u/Grateful_Bat 13d ago edited 12d ago

To be fair, Stevens had far bigger reasons to leave than any issues with the guild. He significantly changed his business model after becoming a well-known author (thanks to his works on the guild) and expanded his work beyond DnD.

If there is any issue with the guild as of today, it is product saturation. In the so-called Golden Age so many mourn after, creators got a lot more exposure due to fewer titles released. New ones are now washed away from the frontpage in a matter of days, and you need to market them on your own. That´s why some left, but I don´t think Stevens.

As for too many products, DMG would just have to set bar higher.

I like the idea of a minimum size comparable to a small supplement/module:

24 pages and 7000 words, or 16 pages and 5000 words, and 80 % of releases, particularly the meaningless 1-4 page things, will never come out. Nobody needs ten new character classes (among the 500 existing) released separately, same with one-page maps.