WotC Names 10 "Adepts" On Their DMs Guild Store

WotC's Dungeon Masters Guild store launched 18-months ago, and was a vehicle for D&D fans to produce material and sell it to other fans in one convenient online mega-store; WotC's version of the App Store, essentially. WotC's Chris Lindsay comments that the store now has thousands of new publishers on the store - something which is both bug and feature. One of the problems with such a large body of content is that it can be tough to find the really good stuff, and WotC has tried to address this is in past with columns highlighting certain products (and, indeed, there are websites which do that very well too, including the ENnie-nominated Loot the Room which posts a monthly Best of the DM's Guild column).

WotC has just launched a new initiative. They have picked ten DMs Guild creators, who they are calling "Adepts", and will be highlighting them in their podcasts and other media going forward, as well as giving them early copies of adventures like the upcoming Tomb of Annihilation so that they can produce content to go with that product on launch day. They even get a special gold badge so you can spot them on the store!

So who are WotC's first Adepts? They are:

• Lysa Chen
• Will Doyle
• Claire Hoffman
• James Introcaso
• Rich Lescouflair
• Shawn Merwin
• Cindy Moore
• Satine Phoenix
• Ruty Rutenberg
• Monica Valentinelli

I did a quick search at DMs Guild and linked to those authors I could find, though I failed my search-fu on three of them. But you can check out the ones which did work.

From what WotC is saying, it looks like this group will change periodically -- "It won’t always be the same group, and the group won’t always be the same number of folks, but it will be fun and exciting to see what wonders they create." There's more information in WotC's announcement.

One of the important take-aways for most is that there will be third-party content for new adventures on launch day.

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[doctorhook]

True story!

Since my internet handle has like a bazillion posts across ENWorld and RPGnet, as well as a blog at neuronphaser.com, I figured it best to just name my publishing company the same thing ;-)

I hope you enjoy the Old School Hacks series! I'm already gathering material to improve the handouts and stuff in Player Roles, and Hexcrawling is undergoing a major rewrite/expansion. Both products will be updated with these things, not invalidated or whatever. So buy now, get the updates for free later!

Awesome! It looks like some promising stuff already!

Do you plan to write any follow up entries in that series? If I can make a thinly veiled suggestion, I'm looking for some solid rules for feudal-style domain management.

 

[Von Ether]

A huge problem that Guild creators are facing is getting a reasonable volume of reviews, and IMHO, halfway intelligible ones.

I've got products that have sold upper hundreds, and one or two even thousands of units. I don't have anything with more than 3 or 4 reviews, tops, and most of them haven't even be rated, much less reviewed. I see other authors' works that I know have TONS of downloads and have even less than that.

I know I'm part of the problem, to a degree, because I buy and don't review until I've read the thing fully, which...doesn't happen quickly, or all at once. But I do make efforts to leave reviews when I get to it.

TL;DR: More ratings & reviews will help people judge content better.

I have a product with a one-star rating, but that's not what drives me crazy.

It's that it came with no review. I have no idea if ...

• The sales copy gave the customer the wrong impression of the product
• There was something I could change to improve the product (It is a digital release after all), or do better next time.
• Something that was unrelated to the PDF upset them and they took it out on me
• A armchair game designer wanted to let people know how they would have written my product.

It's still very nice to get praise along with a 4 or 5 star review, but without feedback, I am blind as to what I can do to improve. (Or at least confirm that whatever happened was beyond my control.)

 

[Uchawi]

Except all it does it take people who are already known and have something of an "IN" and give them a higher profile rather than actually finding and raising up new talent.

That is the rub. It is my experience with other open source projects that people in the know or demonstrate loyalty get first dibs. Whether that stops other talent from rising I do not know.

 

[timbannock]

Awesome! It looks like some promising stuff already!

Do you plan to write any follow up entries in that series? If I can make a thinly veiled suggestion, I'm looking for some solid rules for feudal-style domain management.

I think there's at least one kingdom management product on DMsGuild already, though I forget the name of it at the moment.

That said, my update for Hexcrawling will have some downtime activities that may scratch part of that itch.

And I do have a follow-up in the works: Urbancrawling. Beyond that, no other plans at the moment for that series.

 

[Paul3]

So, out of curiosity, what is the standard of stage presence that you require from all D&D creators you buy from? I assume your collection is very small. This comment came across really poorly. I can't imagine anybody saying the same thing about a male D&D creator.

For the record, I watched her during the Stream of Annihilation as well as 3-4 other times on Twitch and I was not impressed at all. To avoid being sexist, I was not impressed with Rutenberg either.

I give both great kudos for helping to promote the game, but to me, they were curious choices when talking about creative content, as I am not aware of anything they have done (and if they have put out things on the guild or elsewhere, I would love to see it...seriously.)

 

[Morrus]

WotC Names 10 "Adepts" On Their DMs Guild Store

For the record, I watched her during the Stream of Annihilation as well as 3-4 other times on Twitch and I was not impressed at all. To avoid being sexist, I was not impressed with Rutenberg either.

I give both great kudos for helping to promote the game, but to me, they were curious choices when talking about creative content, as I am not aware of anything they have done (and if they have put out things on the guild or elsewhere, I would love to see it...seriously.)

I’m sure Mike Mearls isn’t the worlds most accomplished screen presence, either (as, I’m sure, are either you or I, or, I bet, Gary Gygax). That has nothing to do with his game design. There’s a reason Steven Spielberg doesn’t star in his own films. The concept that a D&D designer has to have screen presence is nonsensical.

 

[Paul3]

I’m sure Mike Mearls isn’t the worlds most accomplished screen presence, either (as, I’m sure, are either you or I, or, I bet, Gary Gygax). That has nothing to do with his game design. There’s a reason Steven Spielberg doesn’t star in his own films. The concept that a D&D designer has to have screen presence is nonsensical.

Not referring to their presence. I was referring to how they ran their games. Is is possible that someone isn't a very good DM and is terrific at design? Sure. But, when that is all I have to go on, it is going to temper my opinion. As I said, if they have lots of great design work on the Internet, I would love to see it. I have no problem admitting my first impression was wrong. I was just noting that people are entitled to reactions/opinions without being sexist.

 

[rchiang]

The three missing authors show up in the Adventurers League announcement for the Tomb of Annihilation season http://dndadventurersleague.org/storyline-seasons/tomb-of-annihilation/

 

[doctorhook]

I think there's at least one kingdom management product on DMsGuild already, though I forget the name of it at the moment.

That said, my update for Hexcrawling will have some downtime activities that may scratch part of that itch.

And I do have a follow-up in the works: Urbancrawling. Beyond that, no other plans at the moment for that series.

I look forward to it!

 

[timbannock]

Not referring to their presence. I was referring to how they ran their games. Is is possible that someone isn't a very good DM and is terrific at design? Sure. But, when that is all I have to go on, it is going to temper my opinion. As I said, if they have lots of great design work on the Internet, I would love to see it. I have no problem admitting my first impression was wrong. I was just noting that people are entitled to reactions/opinions without being sexist.

You're absolutely right, and your stated reasons sound completely...er, reasonable.

Others didn't, so they got called out for it.

Another difference was pre-judging someone's content based on their previous lifestyle choices, which have zero to do with anything. On top of that, saying someone doesn't know about a thing when they've been spearheading a resurgence of that thing for years. Successfully. You're not doing any of that, so cool!