Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for the 11th of February, 2023, and the episode title is “Roll20 and DriveThruRPG; can we call it a merger now?”.
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #183]
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Random Rambling Press is in the Spotlight this month, as voted for by Patreons.
I’ve tried to get in touch with Random, I swear there was an email address on their site, but I can’t find it now. I’ve sent an Instagram message, but they’ve not had long to get back to me. However, if you know the publisher, please give them a nudge.
The goal is to have an email-based Q&A and shine a bit of light on the indie publisher.
Now, go back to July 2022, which, for me, seems like a lifetime ago, and the news came out that OneBookShelf would form a joint venture with Roll20. OneBookShelf own DMsGuild, DriveThruRPG and that set of sites.
The press was steered away from the word “merger” in favour of “Joint venture”, and I assume this was for financial reasons. A merger means one tax bill, for example, although I’m far from an expert.
There was confusion, though, because it looked like a merger.
Now, in a blog post from Meredith, who looks after publishers, we have confirmation that Roll20 and DriveThruRPG are acting as one company.
Perhaps this means they’ve got the paperwork sorted out.
There are a few things to unpack here, and the first, of course, is the future of D&D.
Wizards have done three things of note in this respect.
- They’ve bought D&D Beyond which has tools and a virtual store but not a VTT.
- They’ve announced a playspace for One D&D, which is a hybrid between a computer game and a traditional VTT.
- They pushed many gamers elsewhere with the OGL drama. Paizo, Chaosium, Pinnacle and others have been having a sales boom.
The first two are bad news for OneBookShelf because it casts some doubt on DMsGuild. Only some, and that’s much reduced now. The community content for D&D lives on DMsGuild because WotC didn’t have experience running an e-commerce store or scanning documents. It made more sense to outsource it and take a cut, leaving OBS to make it a success.
I think we were always a few years away, if ever, from WotC trying to take that in-house.
The OGL backlash has firmed up DMsGuild’s position because WotC has had to promise to back the heck off.
Roll20 might be uncomfortable about Hasbro pushing into digital, but the fewer eggs there are in the D&D basket, the better off they are. Once again, the OGL drama will have suited them, and you’ll have noticed they kept their head down during the bickering. However, Roll20 and several other VTTs are Black Flag partners. That’s Kobold Press’s new initiative to make an open and 5e-compatible system.
I think Roll20, aka The Orr Group, and DriveThruRPG, aka OneBookShelf, are in a stronger position now. Getting a marketplace running that feels like a community and integrates with a sticky virtual tabletop should be their priority. By sticky, I mean hard to move away from or undesirable to do so. I’ll be impressed with their ethics if they make it easier to take your Roll20 purchases and go elsewhere should you choose.
A challenge they face is speed. It’s taken OBS years to get the new DriveThruRPG site ready. That’s called Phoenix, spelt P H N X, and I think essentially pushed by one full-stack dev until The Orr Group put more resources into it. Those new resources are in place and happened quickly during the pre-merger phase of the merger.
In the OBS post, we’re told in about six months, some effort will move from getting the front end of the site ready to supporting the publisher end. That suggests we’re at least six months away from Phoenix rising, and I’m confident the world will be a different place by then.
Phoenix needs to integrate Roll20 wonderfully and perhaps do it without upsetting Fantasy Grounds. Fantasy Grounds are an earlier VTT partner, and DMsGuild products for that desktop software tend to be ten times more expensive than PDFs. That’s an attractive margin for OBS, who take a percentage commission.
Astral Tabletop has been retired.
DMsGuild isn’t even on the Phoenix program.
As an affiliate, I worry that tracking essentials will be forgotten, broken or removed entirely by the Orr Group’s leadership. The upside is that Roll20 might join the affiliate program, and blogs like Geek Native could make a few pennies when people buy Roll20 modules after clicking through to the site.
All this brings me back to another news story from this week. Kobold has announced the first publishing partners for Black Flag. How many of these names do you know?
- Ghostfire Gaming
- Steamforged Games
- Nord Games
- Frog God Games
- The Griffon’s Saddlebag
- Hit Point Press
- The Vineyard RPG
- The Word Refinery
- Dungeon Scribe
- Mage Hand Press
I don’t know what you get when you overlap the VTT partners with the publishers. Does that mean Steamforged Games Black Flag content will be available on Shard?
A world with a host of publishers for which you can easily find VTTs with their content might not be the future Roll20 wants. In fairness, I think it’s a massive ask for a team of indies, no matter how talented and well-motivated.
That may be an ambitious world, but it might be a better world.
Speaking of which, Make-A-Wish. For the second time, the charity is running The World Streams For The Wish.
Bandai Namco is the game’s partner, but if you make game stuff, even tabletop, I imagine you can raise money for the charity that looks after kids in awful situations.
The event is in April, and the sign-up form is open now.
On the other end of the money scale, how much would you pay for a 24K gold-plated d20 ring?
There’s a Kickstarter brewing for one such item from Paris, France and from a team of gamers who work in high fashion. The BackerKit page is live.
I’ve exclusive pics on the blog and have been trying to guess the price. On Etsy, FallacyDice, have a 14k gold-plated cast metal d20 for $120, and I suspect the extra 10k of gold will make a big difference on the price.
Additionally, the d20 ring is in two parts – yeah, I’d be scared of losing a part – and the small d20 comes out and can be rolled.
As we move into the outro, and just to let you know, tomorrow I’m off to the charity-supporting Capital Sci-fi con here in Edinburgh. Expect pics on Instagram and Discord.
Now, let’s finish with freebies and bundles.
Loculus Games has promised the Kickstarter for Chrono-Rogue for a while, and if it’s happened, I missed it. However, the Starter Set is out and free.
Conversely, the SCP RPG from 26 Letter Publishing has been out for a while, but the free Quick Start Guide is just out now.
On bundles there are two in the Bunde of Holding. The first is a flash sale that ends on the 15th and is for Delver with lost tomes. These are dungeon assets like maps and tables.
The second is notable. It’s the Worlds of 2d20. If you want Dishonored, Infinity, John Carter for Mars, Dune, Star Trek Adventures, Fallout and Achtung! Cthulhu, then this is one for you.
So, let’s finish there; enjoy your week and keep safe.
What do you think? Sound off in the comment section below.
