WotC WotC partners with Start Playing to connect players and DMs and form tables.

[Reynard]

Actually, I think they will. SPG runs a lot of digital ads. They try to scoop up search results if people search for “how to find a D&D game” for example they would run paid Google ads that drive to startplaying.games that show up in those results. I think this event of this adventure from WotC will trigger them to run a whole slew of those types of ads that might catch a bunch of people who were looking to start playing for the first time. In fact, while money might not have been directly exchanged between startplaying.games and wizards of the coast, they might have a deal by which SPG agrees to run X dollars of digital ads in exchange for giving them the adventure as an exclusive first release.

I just want to be clear that I understand what you are saying: you believe that people coming to SPG to hire GMs to run games for them don't know about 5E and WotC?

 

[Reynard]

Ehh…I do make up a crapton of stuff but it’s all in advance of game day. Including designing elaborate maps for my players to explore. I know they love the maps. It’s a difference in expectations too between my group and her middle-school classmates.

I am just saying that if you are impressed with how breezily she can come up with whatever on the fly -- do that. Let yourself make stuff up mid game with no regard for balance or anything besides fun. it is liberating and makes for great gaming, and not just for middle schoolers.

 

[Burnside]

Actually, not true. It happened because they were told by smarter lawyers that if it did go to court, not only was there a good chance they would lose, there was a good chance that it would turn out that the entirety of the D&D ruleset was public domain. Because some judges believe IP law does not apply to game rules. "Oh we listened to the community" just provided a convenient excuse for the climbdown.

Do you have a source for that?

I don't doubt that they feared a lawsuit, but my sense is that the PR disaster in itself was a huge factor as well, particularly so close to the release of the movie. They had to go silent on social media for two weeks during a period when they had both the movie and two book releases to promote.

Despite it's current popularity, D&D is in a very precarious position. It's become impossible to turn a profit on it's original concept: face to face tabletop gaming. The production and transport costs have risen too much to sell at prices the market is prepared to pay. But it is kept on life support because without it the IP would lose popularity. But it's only in the licencing can D&D be profitable.

That is contradicted by every earnings report we've seen for the past 10 years from WotC.

They own an immensely popular brand, and they are struggling to turn a profit, for a very simple reason: you don't have to pay to play.

That's not at all true. Hasbro is struggling to turn a profit. Wizards of the Coast as a division is very profitable due to Magic: The Gathering and to D&D, which helps offset Hasbro's losses in other areas. M:TG, D&D, and Monopoly are Hasbro's money-makers.

 

[Distracted DM]

I just think that any DDB subs+purchases that result from this will be worthwhile to WotC, while also costing them almost nothing, and getting more people to play.

And they could get valuable data that might be used for future decisions

 

[Burnside]

This seems weird to me considering how many people go on about how they absolutely refuse to run Pathfinder or 3.x D&D, especially at higher levels, and how 5E is a breath of fresh air and much easier to GM.

I totally agree. "DMing is easier when there are more rules" is certainly a take, but not one that I think is borne out at all.

I'm also not sure that "running pre-written campaign books is easier than making up your own adventures" is always actually true, either.

 

[Reynard]

That is contradicted by every earnings report we've seen for the past 10 years from WotC.

I didn't think earning reports differentiated between MtG and D&D, it was just "tabletop" division versus digital. Or am I misremembering?

 

[Reynard]

I'm also not sure that "running pre-written campaign books is easier than making up your own adventures" is always actually true, either.

For me it certainly isn't -- but that is because of presentation more than anything else (but I have ranted against walls-of-text style design elsewhere).

 

[TwoSix]

This is so true. My daughter is a co-Dungeonmaster at her middle school’s D&D club. She’s 13. Every time she tells me about what she did at her session—she’s just making crap up! And it’s pretty awesome. She usually makes up some random magical item or random monster and some random ability role that’s not even in the game, it’s all homebrew stuff, but it feels like D&D. It’s in the basic framework of it, but when she doesn’t know a rule, she just invents something for people to roll.

Today I learned I still DM like a 13 year old, lol.

 

[Burnside]

I didn't think earning reports differentiated between MtG and D&D, it was just "tabletop" division versus digital. Or am I misremembering?

They do break it down in recent years. M:TG is more profitable than D&D, but D&D has also been consistently profitable.

 

[Juxtapozbliss]

I just want to be clear that I understand what you are saying: you believe that people coming to SPG to hire GMs to run games for them don't know about 5E and WotC?

I was reacting to the statement that “no one new” would start playing because of this adventure. I interpreted “no one new” as someone who hasn’t played a role-playing game before, not someone who’s never heard of D&D5e before. “Learn to play” and “Beginners Welcome” is very common on SPG as a game-listing parameter. I know that SPG even sometimes runs Google ads specifically driving to those games. Two of the five players at my paid table had never played D&D before. One of them hadn’t played since first edition. I’m just saying that this partnership could pull in a lot of people potentially searching to play for the first time.