WotC No new DMs Guild Adept titles since mid-December?

[Parmandur]

Well, I noticed. I've been keeping an eye on it for weeks -- I regularly check both DMs Guild and DriveThruRPG -- with increasing puzzlement.

I can't imagine they've shut down the program, given that Rime of the Frost Maiden is basically a big DMs Guild Adepts team-up adventure. Especially with WotC being given the mandate to produce more products, a pipeline for good, reliable creators seems worth maintaining.

It could be that the DMsGuild has outgrown the program, and WotC doesn't need to proactively develop talent. Many of the Candlekeep writers are published on the DMsGuild or DriveThruRPG without being Adepts.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I was shocked not to see Adept work for Candlekeep. I hope that means us smaller publishers get more sales......

I am not. It is a set of small adventures, not a big adventure path that could use some add-ons or extra adventures to flesh it out. The Adept program is supposed to be for adding to the big adventures and crunch books. Did the Adepts even do anything for Saltmarsh? Besides, I do not think there is anything stopping the next 100 adventure writers to come up with a book connection to hook it to Candlekeep and throw it up on DMs Guild.

 

[JEB]

Did the Adepts even do anything for Saltmarsh?

One single product, yeah. But even Saltmarsh had more setting material to work with than Candlekeep.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Aside from the type of book Candlekeep is, was there much Adept stuff to go with Tasha's? With the changes they are making to races and alignment and all that, maybe the program is just on a pause until they make sure everyone is on the same page with how content should be presented going forward.

 

[JEB]

Aside from the type of book Candlekeep is, was there much Adept stuff to go with Tasha's?

The last Adept product to formally connect to an official product was Encounters in the Far North, for Icewind Dale. However, Puzzle Master was released just after Tasha's and focuses on puzzles, so it may be meant as a Tasha's tie-in.

With the changes they are making to races and alignment and all that, maybe the program is just on a pause until they make sure everyone is on the same page with how content should be presented going forward.

That's possible; certainly there seemed to be some inconsistency in Candlekeep that could reflect policies in transition.

I'd personally bet on big plans to support Ravenloft, though.

 

[Jaspor]

The Adept program has been pretty stagnant for some time now. Since it was first introduced in August 2017, there has only been one update to its lineup in January 2020. What was initially advertised as a regularly rotating team highlighting people who publish stuff on the DMs Guild, has actually been the same 6 people since its inception 3 and a half years ago, plus 4 replacements over a year ago. At least 3 current Adepts have publicly moved on and their spots have not been backfilled.

And their output last year wasn't very prolific: 10 Adepts put out a combined 12 titles in 2020. Six of those were solo projects by M.T. Black or James Introcaso, both of whom have moved on. Which means the other 8 Adepts produced 6 books all year. Three Adepts had their name appear on just 2 titles, and 3 of them had their name appear on just 1 title.

Long story short (too late) - don't expect to see regular Adept releases (if any) unless they reload the team.

 

[Jaspor]

Who are the current adepts?

"Stacey Allan, Celeste Conowitch, Ashley Michaela “Navigator” Lawson, and Hannah Rose join veteran members M.T. Black, James Haeck, James Introcaso, Rich Lescouflair, Ginny Loveday, and Ashley Warren."

From this update in January 2020:
Dungeon Masters Guild Adepts | Dungeons & Dragons

 

[Burnside]

The majority of the products released in 2020 were by MT Black (who I believe has since left the Adepts program) and James Introcaso (who has said that his My Dad's Monster Manual book was his final Adept product).

The other creators weren't as prolific. With those two gone, it's more stark how much of the Adept content was coming from two people, and thus far nobody is filling that gap.

No Adept products in 2021 at all does seem surprising. The Guild market has become VERY saturated in the past couple of years, and at the same time the arms race in terms of polished visual design and production values has gotten, imo, kinda out of control. I think some creators are re-evaluating the financial viability of creating products.

EDIT: Sorry - just repeated a bunch of stuff Jaspor already said.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would love to hear a publisher compare how sales in DMs Guild and in the larger Drive Thru RPG ecosystems compare. I would assume there's a fair number of people who only buy from DMs Guild, so in theory, there could be more customers, but I don't know that giving WotC a cut in return for being able to say the magic words "Forgotten Realms" is necessarily a great deal. I find that many of the best 5E third party products are actually on Drive Thru RPG.

I'm curious to see if the former Adepts are continuing their output there.

 

[Morrus]

I would love to hear a publisher compare how sales in DMs Guild and in the larger Drive Thru RPG ecosystems compare.

I've been told a couple of times by DTRPG staff that DMsG sellers sell more than regular DTRPG publishers on the platform. I've never sold anything on DMsG so I can't compare. But many of us non-DMsG folk make the bulk of our sales on Kickstarter these days, not DTRPG, and DMsG creators aren't allowed to use Kickstarter, so there's no real way to compare them directly.