D&D General Micro transactions, D&D and bookstores

[Bitbrain]

This is giving me EA-flashbacks. Do Not Like.

[insert off-topic, spittle-flying negative rant about EA of your choice here, which probably wouldn’t be helpful to the discussion and is already something I have voiced my opinions about on other websites. Repeatedly.]

Well, I guess this means that I am never playing D&D at a game store ever again.

And I’ll be buying my books exclusively from Amazon now, thank you very much.

 

[doctorhook]

This is an idea that needs a feather-touch, because I think it could go really well or really poorly depending on how it’s done.

“Pay to win” is a bad model, but I can also understand a struggling game store trying to boost their revenue. Maybe if these gumball-machine purchases were exclusively magical consumables?

 

[Charlaquin]

It's not a big surprise considering players (in the rare instance they bother to buy a book at all) frequent Amszon rather than their FLGS and WotC helps push DnDBeyond as an alternative to a dead tree library. You can't really blame the stores for trying to figure out how to get some revenue from their table space, especially considering Magic has a built in model for doing so.

Here's the thing: tabletop RPGs are the cheapest, best dollar to time entertainment value there is. That's awesome for the user but makes it hard to monetize. I can buy a PHB and some dice and literally be good for a decade. That's a tough pill to swallow for a store with monthly overhead.

I think stores should make good, welcoming, safe places to play and go ahead and charge a price for that space IN STORE CREDIT. One of the FLGS around here does that and it's brilliant: you can still get product for your money, but it guarantees sales.

That’s a really smart way to do it.

 

[happyhermit]

This is surely the future, the hobby needs more GMs and this is the way to encourage that, we just need Wotc to publish some official price lists for home games who don't have the time to work it out. What do I charge for advantage on a roll, for example, a buck seems a little high? The real money maker will probably be magic items though, or maybe automatic death saves, I could really tweak the game to maximize revenue there. Now I kinda wish this was core, maybe we do need a 6e.

Can't wait to run this past my players!

 

[Ancalagon]

This is surely the future, the hobby needs more GMs and this is the way to encourage that, we just need Wotc to publish some official price lists for home games who don't have the time to work it out. What do I charge for advantage on a roll, for example, a buck seems a little high? The real money maker will probably be magic items though, or maybe automatic death saves, I could really tweak the game to maximize revenue there. Now I kinda wish this was core, maybe we do need a 6e.

Can't wait to run this past my players!

If you can't beat them, join them. I'm going to charge a quarter per stat point. Want to start with a natural 18 in strength? That will be 4.50$ please.

edit: I'm thinking too small. I need a D&D stock exchange. People will be buying wisdom derivatives, options on gold and shorting wands in no time!

 

[doctorhook]

If you can't beat them, join them. I'm going to charge a quarter per stat point. Want to start with a natural 18 in strength? That will be 4.50$ please.

edit: I'm thinking too small. I need a D&D stock exchange. People will be buying wisdom derivatives, options on gold and shorting wands in no time!

If you’re playing 5e, invest in Dex!

 

[Yaarel]

I think stores should make good, welcoming, safe places to play and go ahead and charge a price for that space IN STORE CREDIT. One of the FLGS around here does that and it's brilliant: you can still get product for your money, but it guarantees sales.

So, you pay money to use the space for gaming − but then you get this money back in the form of products.

That really is a good idea.

 

[Leatherhead]

Microtansactions, especially random ones, are under heavy fire from governing bodies at the moment. I wouldn't count on this being a long term solution.

If you can't beat them, join them. I'm going to charge a quarter per stat point. Want to start with a natural 18 in strength? That will be 4.50$ please.

edit: I'm thinking too small. I need a D&D stock exchange. People will be buying wisdom derivatives, options on gold and shorting wands in no time!

If you’re playing 5e, invest in Dex!

This has me legitimately wondering about using a point buy system where the entire group has to buy stats from the same pool.

 

[Ash Mantle]

I remember reading about Wizards Play stores a while back, but back when it was advertised in Dragon magazine these were stores where you didn't just play Magic but you could also play roleplaying and board games, and I believe PC games as well. I remember the image they used had tables set aside for roleplaying and board games, as well as terminals for PC games.
I think these stores also doubled as a LFGS, where you could buy supplements, and boardgames.

It'd be excellent if Wizards could partner with the brick-and-mortar LFGS and revive their Play stores, ideally these brick-and-mortar LFGS would remain independent but also receive investment and incentives from Wizards, and ideally from other RPG companies. Wizards could discount their books and other products further for these stores, offering similar discounts to Amazon.

Ideally with this they could create more gaming spaces for people, incentivising people to visit and play in their game stores as well as spending money, and as a consequence may increase profits for the stores as well, and move the focus back to the stores and away from Amazon.

 

[Fenris-77]

Having worked at more than one FLGS in my misspent youth, I can tell you that getting people into the store is always the tough part. Having space to run games, whether minis, RPGs or card based, is a key feature. I don't have any problem with stores monetizing this up to a point - the space itself is an ongoing cost, and it's providing a valuable service for people who lack the space to run game X at home. Shifting that cost directly into store credit is a great idea.