D&D Classics Merging Into DM's Guild

The front page of WotC's (and DTRPG's) D&D Classics storefront, which currently serves older official (pre-5E) D&D products in PDF format, bears a notice indicating that the ship is being merged with Dungeon Master's Guild, the recently launched storefront for selling your home-brew material. All links to DndClassics.com will be redirected to the newer store. Of course, DM's Guild already has all this material on it; it, DnDClassics, DriveThruRPG, and RPGNow are all the same storefront skinned for different purposes and with different items highlighted on their front pages, so nothing changes from the customer's point of view other than the appearance of the store.

The front page of WotC's (and DTRPG's) D&D Classics storefront, which currently serves older official (pre-5E) D&D products in PDF format, bears a notice indicating that the ship is being merged with Dungeon Master's Guild, the recently launched storefront for selling your home-brew material. All links to DndClassics.com will be redirected to the newer store. Of course, DM's Guild already has all this material on it; it, DnDClassics, DriveThruRPG, and RPGNow are all the same storefront skinned for different purposes and with different items highlighted on their front pages, so nothing changes from the customer's point of view other than the appearance of the store.

Screen Shot 2016-01-27 at 17.04.23.png​

Here's the full announcement:

"With the launch of the new Dungeon Masters Guild marketplace, which combines D&D classics with 5th edition content from the community, we will soon reset all links for DnDClassics.com to redirect automatically to DMsGuild.com.

Your customer account and your library all stay with you and can be used freely at DMsGuild, DriveThruRPG, and RPGNow.

This is not the end of classic D&D titles added to our store weekly! We will continue to release more classic titles every week at DMsGuild.com and DriveThruRPG.com (until we have every last one of those gems available to you)."

Find D&D Classics here (for now, at least!)
 
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Morrus

Morrus is the owner of EN World and EN Publishing, creator of the ENnies, creator of the What's OLD is NEW (WOIN), Simply6, and Awfully Cheerful Engine game systems, publisher of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and co-host of the weekly Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast. He has been a game publisher and RPG community administrator for over 20 years, and has been reporting on TTRPG and D&D news for over two decades. He is also on the socials.
S

Sword of Spirit

Legend
The question is whether DM's Guild guidelines/rules will apply to a subset of the material, or to all of the material, which has serious consequences regarding using the OGL.

Seeing as applying it to all of the material would actually drive traffic away from the site (since OGL stuff would need to be sold somewhere else, and you bet they'd advertise), I'm guessing that the current team is smart enough to avoid that blunder as long as they have anything to say about it.
 

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Morrus

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Sword of Spirit said:
The question is whether DM's Guild guidelines/rules will apply to a subset of the material, or to all of the material, which has serious consequences regarding using the OGL.

Seeing as applying it to all of the material would actually drive traffic away from the site (since OGL stuff would need to be sold somewhere else, and you bet they'd advertise), I'm guessing that the current team is smart enough to avoid that blunder as long as they have anything to say about it.
Click to expand...

I bet someone will create a storefront just for 5E OGL products. I'd probably sign up to one, as long as it promised only to stock those products and not bury them in a list of categories.
 
Last edited by a moderator:


Big Mac

Big Mac

Explorer
Sword of Spirit said:
The question is whether DM's Guild guidelines/rules will apply to a subset of the material, or to all of the material, which has serious consequences regarding using the OGL.

Seeing as applying it to all of the material would actually drive traffic away from the site (since OGL stuff would need to be sold somewhere else, and you bet they'd advertise), I'm guessing that the current team is smart enough to avoid that blunder as long as they have anything to say about it.
Click to expand...

Dungeon Masters Guild has no connection to the Open Game Licence. The OGL is a non-revokable licence. So nothing in the DMs Guild terms and conditions can ever effect the OGL or any documents released under it (including the 5e SRD).

You are not going to see non-D&D content on Dungeon Masters Guild, as it is a separate stream. Essentially, if you want to publish via Dungeon Masters Guild, you are entering into a separate agreement (from the OGL) that allows you greater access to D&D (including Forgotten Realms...and perhaps later other campaign settings) but you are not allowed to publish that content anywhere else except via the DMs Guild website.

I would think that this move is more likely to chew away at Pathfinder's 3rd Party Publisher market share than it is to chew away at DriveThru RPG's/RPG Now's 3rd Party Publisher market share. If people have an account with DMs Guild, they have an account with all the other websites.

DriveThru RPG provides Print on Demand (and because they use Lightning Source) they have printers in the European Union and can sell PoD products to people in the UK for less money than it costs them to import printed products from US companies that ship to the UK via USPS Priority Mail.

To me, this seems like WotC and DriveThru teaming up to take on Paizo. It's D&D and friends vs Pathfinder and friends. Both sides need to roll for initiative. ;)
 

S

Sword of Spirit

Legend
Big Mac said:
Dungeon Masters Guild has no connection to the Open Game Licence. The OGL is a non-revokable licence. So nothing in the DMs Guild terms and conditions can ever effect the OGL or any documents released under it (including the 5e SRD).

You are not going to see non-D&D content on Dungeon Masters Guild, as it is a separate stream. Essentially, if you want to publish via Dungeon Masters Guild, you are entering into a separate agreement (from the OGL) that allows you greater access to D&D (including Forgotten Realms...and perhaps later other campaign settings) but you are not allowed to publish that content anywhere else except via the DMs Guild website.

I would think that this move is more likely to chew away at Pathfinder's 3rd Party Publisher market share than it is to chew away at DriveThru RPG's/RPG Now's 3rd Party Publisher market share. If people have an account with DMs Guild, they have an account with all the other websites.

DriveThru RPG provides Print on Demand (and because they use Lightning Source) they have printers in the European Union and can sell PoD products to people in the UK for less money than it costs them to import printed products from US companies that ship to the UK via USPS Priority Mail.

To me, this seems like WotC and DriveThru teaming up to take on Paizo. It's D&D and friends vs Pathfinder and friends. Both sides need to roll for initiative. ;)
Click to expand...

I was referring to the issue of whether or not other materials on the overall site (including DriveThruRPG, etc) would be affected by the changes.
 

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