D&D 5E DM's Guild: The Advice You Didn't Ask For

[I'm A Banana]

So I've been skimming through the Dungeon Master's Guild, looking to see if anything interests me, and I've picked up a few PDFs. But...

Oy.

Okay, folks, look. The Dungeon Master's Guild market/license for D&D stuff is a great opportunity and a lot of fun. I get why so many of you are eager to get material up there ASAP. But I hope you'll accept a bit of free advice from someone who's not just a fan, but a professional.

Appearance matters, and editing matters.

You need to know how to put a sentence together, and you need to have your work read over by other people who know how to put a sentence together. I promise you--promise--that if you have obvious typos or overtly poor grammar in your product description, a lot of people are never going to even look at the product itself, let alone spend any money on it. There are several people who have already lost me as a potential customer based on a single sentence of their product entry, because it was so poorly written that I don't trust them to be able to deliver a usable product.

Take your time and do it right. You're not getting a leg-up on the competition by rushing things; you're shooting yourself in the foot.

It's also worth noting that this is why you should RATE AND COMMENT ON PRODUCTS YOU BUY.

If you got burned by something awful on a product, let everyone else who looks at that product know, and by the same (perhaps even more important) token, if the thing is really solid, bump it above the cruft.

 

[Azurewraith]

I LOL'd hard enough to get weird looks from my coworkers.

Been there done that!

I don't mind bad grammar as well if you need a , or a . to make you breath there are some issues that you need to address, mainly wtf do you do run around with grammar flash cards all day just to keep you alive? I can tolerate bad spelling as long as it makes sense.

well anyway Proof read it again and again get someone else to do it.

 

[iserith]

For any thing that any one person creates, we have two other people proofing/editing. I'm confident it will be nice and polished before publication.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It's also worth noting that this is why you should RATE AND COMMENT ON PRODUCTS YOU BUY.

Yes, please. It also helps the publisher know what things went well, and what to improve on going forward. But please make it a constructive review. I recently got a 1 star review on a free product I had because the person didn't like the general genre, and nothing to do with my product at all. That can be frustrating.

Speaking of proofing, on my day job, I am a software analyst. A tester on the last phase before it gets rolled out to production. So it goes through several steps before it gets to me. About an hour ago, I pull up a requirement and it has "for example" as "Ex:" and not "E.g.", and uses "e.g." in all other areas.

 

[Bawylie]

"Hire an artist"
"Hire a graphic designer"
"Make your product good"
"Better"
"I said better, n00b"
"Hire an editor"
"A better editor"
"A BETTER editor"
"Don't expect any money from me, I home brew and won't use your stuff anyway!"

Don't want much, do you?

Sheesh.

How about constructive reviews that help a DM improve a product? These guys aren't pros. Expecting pro-level from the word go is a bit much.

"Proper spelling and grammar aren't pro-level" But yes, they are. Because that's the kind of thing the pros worry about. A lot.

Let's manage our expectations a little better for a couple weeks and BUILD up.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Speaking of proofing, on my day job, I am a software analyst. A tester on the last phase before it gets rolled out to production. So it goes through several steps before it gets to me. About an hour ago, I pull up a requirement and it has "for example" as "Ex:" and not "E.g.", and uses "e.g." in all other areas.

I hear you like examples, so here's an example with "for example" as my example.

 

[Miladoon]

I tried to load up DMsG but I am having a problem loading the page.

Anyone else?

 

[Sir Brennen]

"Hire an artist"
"Hire a graphic designer"
"Make your product good"
"Better"
"I said better, n00b"
"Hire an editor"
"A better editor"
"A BETTER editor"
"Don't expect any money from me, I home brew and won't use your stuff anyway!"

Don't want much, do you?

Sheesh.

How about constructive reviews that help a DM improve a product? These guys aren't pros. Expecting pro-level from the word go is a bit much.

"Proper spelling and grammar aren't pro-level" But yes, they are. Because that's the kind of thing the pros worry about. A lot.

Let's manage our expectations a little better for a couple weeks and BUILD up.

I'm not sure who the "you" refers to in the "do you" sentence, but I'm guessing from context you mean reviewers of products, not necessarily the people in this thread. But really, on most RPG product sites, I find most reviews, if critical, are more considerate than what you paint here. It's not like a YouTube comments section. It's more often I find positive reviews less helpful, with the authors being less specific about why they liked something. That said, I think this thread also has good advice for we, the consumers, regarding doing constructive reviews to help promote products.

I'm not expecting every new author on the Guild to have an entire team of editors and artists for their first $1.00 product, and I don't think that's what the posters here are saying. But it really is as simple as use a spell-checker, do some proof reading, and have a friend who's grasp of language you trust look it over as well. As gamers, I think we all have a higher than average chance of having such a friend

Yes, well done art and layout eye-candy will draw me in to give a product a look, but it's secondary if the description is well written to explain what's inside. If the content is written well enough, it could be a text file and I give it a review, and a note for myself to look for future products from this author/publisher.

 

[Bawylie]

I'm not sure who the "you" refers to in the "do you" sentence, but I'm guessing from context you mean reviewers of products, not necessarily the people in this thread. But really, on most RPG product sites, I find most reviews, if critical, are more considerate than what you paint here. It's not like a YouTube comments section. It's more often I find positive reviews less helpful, with the authors being less specific about why they liked something. That said, I think this thread also has good advice for we, the consumers, regarding doing constructive reviews to help promote products.

I'm not expecting every new author on the Guild to have an entire team of editors and artists for their first $1.00 product, and I don't think that's what the posters here are saying. But it really is as simple as use a spell-checker, do some proof reading, and have a friend who's grasp of language you trust look it over as well. As gamers, I think we all have a higher than average chance of having such a friend

Yes, well done art and layout eye-candy will draw me in to give a product a look, but it's secondary if the description is well written to explain what's inside. If the content is written well enough, it could be a text file and I give it a review, and a note for myself to look for future products from this author/publisher.

I think that's a better attitude to have. But there are people out there who have sky high expectations from what are essentially amateur efforts. And that's a touch on the unfair side, to me.

 

[BoldItalic]

I tried to load up DMsG but I am having a problem loading the page.

Anyone else?

Yes, the whole of rpgnow seems to be down.

(TWE = Time-Warp Edit: quoting a later post that will have been going to have had quoted this one)

Appears to be Up