D&D Has the Biggest Playerbase, So Why is it the Hardest for 3rd Party to Market Too?

[Zethnos]

For me, I wouldn't buy anything not officially released by wizards. The reason being, almost no good DM I have played with will allow homebrew unless it was highly tested and refined by an online community. Most people on here make homebrew to submit and it's grossly overpowered. How could we trust what might just be some joe shmo publishing a book of game breaking abilities?

I think 3rd parties do pretty well in other areas as someone else mentioned like minis. But to produces playable options and stories? I couldn't see it working unless they have built up a big reputation for themselves. Most of the time though, you can find anything you want on reddit or here that has been tested and trusted... If not, make it yourself. As mentioned above, it is super easy to just make things like player races and campaign stories.

The only things I could see myself looking at from a 3rd party would probably spells, random tables, and stats that don't come in 5E for like sailing adventures and other things. Just on the off chance that they add new creative spells that don't already exist in some form that might help tie your character concept together.

 

[lkj]

Kobold Press seems to do alright (couple thousand backers, not millions though). But I'd probably list these reasons:

1) It wouldn't occur to most of those millions of players to look for third party materials. First, as pointed out earlier, there's plenty of WotC material to keep you going for ages. Second, how do you find out about these kickstarters and third party materials unless you are one of us uber gamers who hang out on messageboards, obsessively follow twitter fieeds, etc.? Only one other person in my gaming group pays any attention to this stuff. The rest show up to game and are quite happy with the available options.

2) When you get down to the small slice of us that want third party materials and also pay enough attention to find them, we are further splintered by what we actually want. Some folks want more detailed campaign settings. Some want more feats. Some want more subclasses. I don't think it's a surprise that some of the most (relatively) successful kickstarters are those that fill a fairly generic and common need, like monster books.

And I also do think that it's probably not a surprise that the most successful KS to date didn't seem to have a ton to do with the subject matter (Strongholds). Strongholds are cool. But that's a niche of a niche.

In other words, probably the biggest thing is just exposure.

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[Tony Vargas]

It's not hardest for 3pp's to market to. It's the easiest, and there's a lot of it, going back to before the current come-back, too. PF has been marketed to the D&D fanbase, and more material has been published for it than for any single edition of D&D, itself. 3pp's have been churning out OSR material for almost 10 years - longer if you count Hackmaster, pretty nearly as long as D&D's been around if you count Arduin & Judges Guild. ;P

 

[CapnZapp]

The creation of the DM’s Guild was a brilliant move. It gives folks who want to produce something as a fan a way to make something that’s ‘legit’, gives a sandbox to play in that’s much bigger in many ways than the OGL provides, and

...pulled the plug from under the potential 3PP publishers conveniently easing the competitive pressure off of WotC, you mean...?

 

[CapnZapp]

For me, I wouldn't buy anything not officially released by wizards. The reason being, almost no good DM I have played with will allow homebrew unless it was highly tested and refined by an online community. Most people on here make homebrew to submit and it's grossly overpowered. How could we trust what might just be some joe shmo publishing a book of game breaking abilities?

I think 3rd parties do pretty well in other areas as someone else mentioned like minis. But to produces playable options and stories? I couldn't see it working unless they have built up a big reputation for themselves. Most of the time though, you can find anything you want on reddit or here that has been tested and trusted... If not, make it yourself. As mentioned above, it is super easy to just make things like player races and campaign stories.

The only things I could see myself looking at from a 3rd party would probably spells, random tables, and stats that don't come in 5E for like sailing adventures and other things. Just on the off chance that they add new creative spells that don't already exist in some form that might help tie your character concept together.

And monsters, don't forget monsters. Especially mid to high CR ones, since WotC's own offerings pander only to the lowest denomination (weak groups with no feats, items or mc).

I can't say I like having to do it, but I've added a few 3PP monsters to my campaign.

 

[Shardstone]

Name any other RPG which has even one million-dollar Kickstarter for a tabletop product specific to that RPG.

Are...are you arguing against me or for me?

 

[Parmandur]

All the evidence would suggest that it is the most successful market for third parties (just ask Cubicle 7 or Kobold Press), but WotC puts out more content than most tables can handle in a given year already, and have the "Big Data" resources to know what the market wants, on a scale unlike any third party company.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I suspect for them third party materials seem largely untested, and not accepted at all tables.

IME, this seems to be the key factor. I’ve been gaming since 1977 or so, in 3 different states, and in 5 different cities. I don’t know how many different groups I’ve gamed with, to say how many different D&D campaigns, not to mention different RPGs.

And in all those years, at all those different tables, I can only think of a handful of times in which 3rd party materials were allowed...and my campaigns account for the majority of the occurrences. Home brewed materials were FAR more common.

In fact, many tables I sat at didn’t even let stuff from Dragon magazine in. I was a part of one ever-shifting group of gamers* from the late 1980s to @2016 or so, and it was only in the waning days of 3Ed that more than a couple others in the group started branching out into using Dragon stuff and a few key 3P products.



* people were in and out of town due to college, grad schools, and work.

 

[Shardstone]

It's interesting you guys even say 3pp don't put out good stories.

 

[pogre]

It's interesting you guys even say 3pp don't put out good stories.

I have not seen that specific criticism. However, people are saying that a lot of 3pp is poorly thought out and poorly edited. Like it or not, it colors the entire 3pp community.