Dungeons & Dragons Historian Ben Riggs’ Open Letter to WOTC

Ben Riggs is a D&D historian and writer of the e book Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons.

Expensive Wizards of the Coast,

Hello! I wrote a history of your company again when it was known as TSR. I additionally train seventh and eighth grade, so for the previous 15 years, I’ve watched yr after yr as youngsters uncover, and go ga-ga for, D&D.

I’m penning this letter as a result of I need you to succeed. Frankly, I believe all true-hearted D&D followers need to see your organization do effectively and produce improbable merchandise which are worthwhile. So I eagerly watched your media events these previous few weeks, specifically D&D Direct and the content material creator summit. There are some good concepts there, however I need to be trustworthy with you. Basically, I might price them as meh. I believe D&D has room for exponential progress, and none of these concepts are going to gasoline that sort of improve.

TTRPGs are literally a titanically troublesome product to make some huge cash on. Drop $150 on rulebooks and campaigns and you’ll play for years with out ever making one other buy. Bizarre, proper? We D&D followers really haven’t any must ever buy something from you ever once more. (But almost all of us need to!)

I perceive you’re attempting to get extra money from gamers. Once more, that’s high quality by me! I can’t anticipate a beautiful Atlas of Neverwinter and Edgin the Bard socks. I hope your VTT is so improbable that I need to use it on a regular basis and twice on Sunday. Nonetheless, will any of that actually develop the sport’s participant base exponentially? In all probability not. I perceive numerous you may have backgrounds in video video games, which is smart. Nonetheless, I might warning you right here as effectively. D&D isn’t a online game. The VTT is not going to make it a online game.

That you must reframe your considering. Don’t consider D&D as merchandise. Don’t even consider it as a model. Positively don’t consider it as a online game.

D&D is the primary and most well-known tabletop role-playing recreation, and tabletop role-playing video games are an unique and radical medium. A TTRPG is one thing new to do with paper, pencils, and the human thoughts that was invented in 1974. Think about appearing was invented in 1974, and that we’re a mere 50 years into seeing how appearing will change tradition. That’s the potential of the TTRPG revolution.

One of the crucial superb options of the TTRPG is that it’s infinite. If one began a D&D marketing campaign in 1974 with the primary guidelines launch, one would possibly nonetheless be enjoying that very same recreation right now, which is to say telling that very same story right now. Most video video games, in contrast, may be completed and as soon as full require a brand new buy. Video video games are finite. TTRPGs are usually not. They’re a bottomless bottle of vodka, or a automobile that by no means breaks down and doesn’t even want gasoline.

So how do you generate income off a brand new medium which, after an preliminary buy, by no means requires one other? It’s tough, however it may be finished. Essentially the most profitable fashions are sports activities and faith. (I need to be clear right here I’m not denigrating religions, nor am I making some form of reality declare for D&D.) And the important thing to unlocking an even bigger, brighter, and extra worthwhile future for D&D isn’t at Wizards, not at Hasbro, and mockingly it isn’t with the gamers, no.

It’s the Dungeon Masters.

Internationally, tons of of 1000’s if not tens of millions of Dungeon Masters ask individuals to attempt D&D for the primary time. They clarify the principles. They setup D&D nights. They work out who’s bringing the chips, and who’s bringing the dip. They actually promote your product for you, they usually do it totally free. Contemplate this easy math. If there have been solely 10 Dungeon Masters in the entire world, however yearly, every DM satisfied one different particular person to grow to be a DM, inside 20 years, you may have over 20 million Dungeon Masters.

You’ll generate income by radically growing the quantity of people that play D&D. And you’ll try this by making the lives of these tens of millions of Dungeon Masters a lot, a lot simpler than they’re now.

As it’s possible you’ll know, there’s a Dungeon Grasp scarcity. Individuals are intimidated to DM. They fear about understanding the principles. They fear about mastering the journey, or writing their very own. That places a brake, even perhaps a ceiling, on D&D progress. Somebody could also be a Vital Position fanatic, but when they will’t discover a D&D recreation to play in, they could by no means grow to be a D&D fan.

So how do you make a DM’s life simpler?

First, you’re at present producing the most effective model of D&D that has ever been in existence. Moreover, having watched dozens of 12-year-olds play by means of the Starter Set, I can even inform you that product does a high quality job of instructing the sport. That mentioned, you need to produce a ten to twenty web page pamphlet that may be obtainable free in your web site of an important D&D guidelines. Proceed utilizing the web and YouTube to create content material explaining D&D and your merchandise. Possibly even form of audio journey summaries so as a substitute of studying, a DM might hear to organize? Possibly learn by an current D&D superstar?

However exterior the Starter Set, your different adventures and campaigns are a wildly combined bag. I do know that numerous droves of D&D followers will purchase your books irrespective of the standard or content material, however making lifelong followers requires producing improbable adventures. A very good marketing campaign each conjures up DMs to run it and makes their lives simpler. I don’t understand how your books are produced, however based mostly on the ultimate merchandise I’ve seen, you need to do the next:

Campaigns ought to have one to a few authors. Add extra with solely nice warning…

Campaigns needs to be pitched by authors & designers.

It’s best to pay your recreation designers like they’re engaged on video video games, and you need to give writers royalties.

There needs to be a constant format for campaigns that carries over from e book to e book.

Time for playtesting needs to be included in your manufacturing cycle. It needs to be measured in months.

Your books have to be shorter! Incorporate twenty first century RPG format & design.

Return to the boxed set! Create handouts, maps, character portraits, in-game journals, & clues to go along with the sport. (Additionally make PDFs of these goodies obtainable.)

What else are you able to do? Are you able to make a form of Dungeon Mastering graduate faculty, with maybe particular merchandise solely obtainable for buy by graduates? Are you able to run DM contests at gaming conventions? Winners get swag, journeys to Renton, honor, glory, and many others. Are you able to create some form of Academy Awards for DMs? There’s an awards ceremony, with superstar presenters.

That every one could seem absurd. And the way does it result in earnings? Nicely take into account in a world with 20 million Dungeon Masters, you in all probability have 100 million gamers. 113 million individuals watched the Tremendous Bowl in 2023. If D&D is a recreation with a fan base on par with that of the NFL, think about the earnings from t-shirt gross sales alone. Moreover, take into account that these solutions are usually not about changing what you’re doing now. Reasonably, such a re-focusing on the DM will increase your present efforts. Extra DMs and extra gamers make your VTT extra helpful and extra worthwhile, for instance.

In order that’s the best way it appears from the place I sit. I want you the most effective of luck. The film was superior!

Sincerely,

Ben Riggs

D&D Historian Extraordinaire

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