EnWorld- The Professional Society

We have to ask ourselves a question. Where will our hobby be in 10-20 years?

EnWorld controls a huge number of resources tied to Dungeons and Dragons. For every person that visits the site, another four exists that share the hobby. This means that EnWorld controls a significant amount of marketing potential. I believe that EnWorld can go where no other fan base has gone before. I work for a professional society and I have seen what a small number of members can do.

Unlike a fan site, a professional society can have a much greater influence on our hobby. The potential is staggering. However, if depends on EnWorlders willing to spend money to support the hobby. I think this is not a very far leap from us sending money to save EnWorld!

Finance: Imagine. 5000 members who pay a yearly membership fee of 200 dollars. That is 1 million dollars a year. This does not include money that could be gained by such things as publications or a EnWorld con. That type of money could go extremely far. The more we spend on marketing the hobby, the more potential members we gain.

Marketing: An EnWorld Society could use membership funds to market the hobby. A large company such as Hasbro is not interested in a game that only generates a few million a year; however, we are definitely interested in seeing the hobby grow.

Publications: A free subscription to the EnWorld Journal or EN Publishing PDFs? RW mentioned that Elements of Magic-Revised sold 200. With a membership subscriber base, that number could be far higher. Yes, it may be folded into membership, yet by selling it and including it as a part of membership, such PDFs would sell that much more. Either such books drive new membership, or enough people have them that other want to check them out. It's a win-win scenario.

Benefits: Any society that controls such a market share and has access to funds, will draw companies to pay attention to us. I can imagine some companies would offer a special EnWorld discount. Also, such things like "share the love" threads could be propagated throughout the membership base.

There has never been a professional society of fans. Even the RPGA only exists to promote games at cons. They certainly do not have the funds to market or grow the hobby. A society would show people that we care enough to band together, and (more important) that we care enough to part with some money in order to promote the game we love.

As the society grows, so would the hobby. I am not saying it would be easy, but it would be worth it!

And there's always the thought that someday Hasbro may sell D&D, and who better to buy it

While these ideas all sound good, and I hate to be picky, $200 is a lot of money for a fan who already probably spends twice that or more on books and magazine subscriptions each year. You need a lot of incentive to get that kind of money from people, and you could quickly bog down most of the money in making the benefits. Five hundred people on ENworld might be interested in putting their money in just for the sake of the hobby, but five thousand is a pretty high number. People would have to really know where their money was going, either way.

But if it could be worked out, or if I'm not understanding it correctly, it sounds like a good idea. And if it was going to happen anywhere, it would happen here.

Azazyll said:

And there's always the thought that someday Hasbro may sell D&D, and who better to buy it

While these ideas all sound good, and I hate to be picky, $200 is a lot of money for a fan who already probably spends twice that or more on books and magazine subscriptions each year. You need a lot of incentive to get that kind of money from people, and you could quickly bog down most of the money in making the benefits. Five hundred people on ENworld might be interested in putting their money in just for the sake of the hobby, but five thousand is a pretty high number. People would have to really know where their money was going, either way.

But if it could be worked out, or if I'm not understanding it correctly, it sounds like a good idea. And if it was going to happen anywhere, it would happen here.

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It does not necessarily need to be 200. It could be a 100 or 75.....I just wanted to give a highball number.

Heck, Morrus wuld not even need to worry about the business side of things if he did not want to worry about them. There are companies out there that provide business staff, financial planning etc for professional societies. One such company is Smith, Bucklin & Associates. They handle several large societies!

I know that this is a radical idea, but the possibilities are enormous!

the number is 35, and its for community supporter accounts.
how many people buy those.

BrooklynKnight said:

the number is 35, and its for community supporter accounts.
how many people buy those.

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At the moment, a community supporter account only gives you some board features. Add more benefits and more people would be willing to spend more for a membership.

For example, the private messageboards that Morrus instituted etc. A subscription to the players journal etc.

And I am not advocating changing the messageboards at all, just forming a membership that goes beyond them. Everything could stay the same. Membership and it's perks would be in addition to everything we have now. No one who did not want to join would be forced to loose what they get now for free.

BrooklynKnight said:

the number is 35, and its for community supporter accounts.
how many people buy those.

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I think it's worth it just for the access to EnWorld+. That secret errata list has really improved my game - I mean, I'd never have guessed the 3.5 Paladin was a WoTC joke?

I don't know what EnWorld_Moderator is like - but I bet its really cool.

Wow. I can hear rotors. It's some sort of a black helicopt

BelenUmeria said:

I know that this is a radical idea, but the possibilities are enormous!

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The idea sounds like a good one but at risk of painting a target on myself let me play mephit's advocate...

IMO I do think the society would have to be called something else other EnWorld X. Because in order to be truly effective for the entire industry it would need to be a complete separate entity. No hint of favoritism could exist to the outside world. Maybe I shouldn't be speaking about something I don't know too much about but don't most trade organizations/societies enjoy non-profit status. And their members come from a wide range backgrounds and often from competing companies to form something for the greater good of that industry. Correct me if I'm wrong... cause that happens alot

I've lurked here for a long time, and I've seen the comment that at its core this site caters to D&D specifically and d20 as a result. Even tho I grant that D&D makes up the majority of the RPG culture there are a number of people who spend their time rolling dice for other games/systems. My concern is that some organization that is created to promote this hobby we all love would be somewhat narrowly focused and certain people would feel left out as it were.

Or maybe this is just my 2nd cup of coffee talking... But I'm all for something that helps the game/hobby grow.

Album Cover X said:

The idea sounds like a good one but at risk of painting a target on myself let me play mephit's advocate...

IMO I do think the society would have to be called something else other EnWorld X. Because in order to be truly effective for the entire industry it would need to be a complete separate entity. No hint of favoritism could exist to the outside world. Maybe I shouldn't be speaking about something I don't know too much about but don't most trade organizations/societies enjoy non-profit status. And their members come from a wide range backgrounds and often from competing companies to form something for the greater good of that industry. Correct me if I'm wrong... cause that happens alot

I've lurked here for a long time, and I've seen the comment that at its core this site caters to D&D specifically and d20 as a result. Even tho I grant that D&D makes up the majority of the RPG culture there are a number of people who spend their time rolling dice for other games/systems. My concern is that some organization that is created to promote this hobby we all love would be somewhat narrowly focused and certain people would feel left out as it were.

Or maybe this is just my 2nd cup of coffee talking... But I'm all for something that helps the game/hobby grow.

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You are correct in assuming that most such organizations are non-profit in nature.

I understand the concern about narrow focus, but to get this thing started, we would need the more narrow focus. Creating something more inclusive in the beginning will just mean that it never gets off the ground. There would be too many politics. We can all agree here that we enjoy playing DnD and that we'd enjoying promoting it.

However, once we were established, then we could branch out to other systems and genres. We could recruit people to enjoy sf/f books etc. We just need the more narrow EnWorld focus in order to build the society.

So I agree with you in that the goal is the entire hobby, but we need to start with DnD and build upon it because if we cannot do DnD, then we're not going to be able to go farther.

I'm all for this.

I think you overestimate the generosity of people. $200 buck a year to market specifically for D&D, not even RPGs in general? I'm not trying to be stingy, but Hasbro would have to pay me if they want me to do their marketing for them. Now supporting EN World I can see, but as far as supporting the hobby, I'd rather see my $200 go towards a 5-7 game books or 80 minis, and by doing so support my local FLGS, which hopefully by it's very prescence attracts newbies to the hobby.