It’s a big day over at Wizards of the Coast and for the D&D community. There’s now an Systems Reference Document (PDF Link) for D&D 5e. This means you can professionally design your own content using fifth edition rules, you can publish your own campaign world and sell it provided you stick within the rules.
That’s part one. Some sort of OGL had been expected.
In partnership with OneBookshelf, the people behind RPGNow, DrivethruRPG and DrivethruComics, there’s also the DMs Guild. The GMs Guild is a marketplace for you to sell your creations to the D&D community providing you meet other guidelines. To get into the GMs Guild your content has to be Forgotten Realms. Some parts of the official campaign setting are offlimits but for the most part you write for Forgotten Realms, sell Forgotten Realms material and help build the world then you might also tap into the marketing machine over at Wizards of the Coast and might even appear in digital games.
The launch is off to a strong start – probably because WotC wisely had partners lined up in advance. Let’s take a look at some of the top-selling supplements already.
DMs Guild launch successes
The following four titles are in the top sellers list on day one and have been called out by Wizards of the Coast as early successes. Have you made a DMs Guild purchase? Let us know what you made of it in the comments below.
Gunslinger Martial Archetype of Fighters
The three page supplement from Matthew Mercer, art by Nick Robles, looks at what it takes to become a distance force of death on the battlefield.
Price: Pay what you want – $1 suggested.
Life and Moon
A 21 page adventure from Shawn Merwin and Christopher Sniezak. Life and Moon is suitable for characters level 1 to 3 and deals with a quest on the Island of Alaron and a quest to re-awaken the temples of an ancient god.
Price: $7.95
Blood Hunter Class
An 8 paged supplement from Matthew Mercer that examples a character class that’s between the martial skills of a warrior and the secrets of blood magic. This sect of hunters surrender their own health and humanity in order to protect the realms.
Price: Pay what you want – $1 suggested.
Savage Heroes – New Races and Backgrounds
12 pages of new heroes for D&D. Want to play a minotaur, gnoll or lizardfolk? Fancy being a raider or corsair? Savage Heroes is for you. This early addition to the DMs Guild is written by Kobold Press’ Rich Howard, Rodrigo Garcia Carmona and Dan Dillion.
Price: $3.99.
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Well, I guess that is one way to solve the “we are not getting enough options” complaining people do. Give them rules and guidelines to make what they want and support it officially. Good business sense.
Savage Heroes no longer seems to be available through the DM’s guild, and I can’t find it on Kobold Press’ site either. Am I missing it, and if not does anyone know what happened?