Keep Mordenkainen Busy Keeping Track of Your DM’s Guild Content

October 10, 2019

Did you know over 4,000 new products stock the Dungeon Master’s Guild digital marketplace from 2019 alone? I read this on Twitter so you know it’s legit. Best-selling DM’s Guild author and cowriter of Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus M.T. Black shared the tidbit the other day and it really got me thinking. When I was a young Dungeons & Dragons nerd, I’d haunt the single column of bookshelves at Waldenbooks, perusing the games and modules there. They numbered in the double digits at best. It’s a great time to be a D&D player and creator. The DM’s Guild offers a marketplace to share your creations with the world, and we’ve got many thousands of products to enhance our games to choose from — including many of those old classics I browsed back in the day. Here’s a small sample of some of the DM’s Guild products that crossed my desk this past week.

There have been 4,159 products released on the #dmsguild this year. That's a lot. #dnd

— M.T. Black (@MTBlack2567) October 8, 2019

If you’re a D&D player interested in creating your own products to put up in the DM’s Guild, you’re in luck! Over at D&D Beyond, longtime professional D&D creator Shawn Merwin writes a series of articles called Let’s Design an Adventure. Shawn shares his decades of insight into adventure design, so whether you’re creating content for the DM’s Guild already, running your own campaigns, thinking about taking a seat behind the DM’s screen or you’re a player who’s simply curious about the inside baseball of D&D adventure design, this series is worth reading.

Over on the RPG Writer’s Network, content creator James Introcaso shared a post from his Worldbuilder Blog about his experiences as a DM’s Guild creator, financially speaking. It’s a pretty interesting look at comparing PWYW vs. fixed price products, revenue and sales figures from his own products. There’s always a lot of discussion about the merits and value of producing content for the DM’s Guilds or elsewhere. The data and observations in this post might help guide you through your own content creation decisions.

5E D&D archmage spells D&D content creation DM's Guild D&D adventure design

The archmage Mordenkainen does a bit of scrying, getting visions of the future of his own perhaps, on the cover to Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk. [Art by Michael Komarck]

New DM’s Guild titles

- - - Mordenkainen’s Tome of Marvelous Magic. Speaking of M.T. Black, this new book is already a silver bestseller. If you want to add 200 of the most interesting and useful wondrous items ever devised to your treasure hoards, check it out here.
    - Friends, Foes and Other Fine Folks. This is a collection of NPCs representing the diverse player community from Diverse NPC Crew. A large group of creators collaborated to create 58 NPCs with personailty traits, backgrounds, histories, tips for interactions and statistics. Check it out here.
    - Wouter’s Worldly Wunderkammer. Marco Michelutto created this PWYW product with 100 magical items. New magic items are a fun way to spice up a game and players are always excited to find magic items. If you get a free copy and dig it, consider going back and repurchasing to support the creator. Check it out here.
    - Legacy of Heaven & Hell. Aasimar and tiefling fans this one is for you. There are 45 new subraces and 39 new racial feats for aasimar and tieflings, and creator Micah Watt is doing something I haven’t seen before: including stretch goal-like updates to the content. It’s a silver bestseller so additional content is already added, with more to come. Check it out here.
    - Monsters of the Old World. A multinational team of writers, artists, and editors, originating from nearly a dozen different European countries created this book of creatures inspired by European folklore. Their goal is to share a bit of their country’s history, lore, and mythology with D&D, which sounds super cool to me. Check it out here.