DMsguild analysis

I've taken the liberty to make an in-depth analysis of my use of DMsguild, or rather my sales records, which I'd like to share. I've looked at 4 points: Items Sold, Items Downloaded, Items Total Monthly Value, Items Total Unit Value. Before I go through each of these points, I'd like to share an overview first.

Overview

The overview shows my five adventures that I put up on DMsguild. I put one up once per month from January 2016 to May 2016. Note that Kai Dynasty was put up as a free adventure, and thus it has no value. My first adventure Elfhunt is clearly my most successful adventure so far while my latest valued adventure from April called Blackbrook Lockdown is my least successful. The most logical explanation is that I put more time and effort into Elfhunt, which became a larger and more detailed adventure while Blackbrook Lockdown was a quick and short adventure. Still, I'd like to think that it's because the hype around the DMsguild has faded, and less people are now using it.

Items Sold
Items are sold in larger quantities in the first month after they've been published. The quantity is 2 to 12 times larger the first month than the rest of the sales, and make up 67% of my sales. This shows that I need to keep publishing new adventures. Valentine Love Adventure was sold the most on its first month.


Items Downloaded
If we disregard value and also take into consideration customers who download the adventure several times, the trend remains the same. The quantity of downloads is 2.3 to 7.8 higher the first month and make up 65% of the downloads, which confirms that I need to keep publishing new adventures. Elfhunt is my most downloaded adventure in its first month, closely followed by Kai Dynasty, which is my only free adventure. There are still 3 days left for Kai Dynasty to surpass Elfhunt, and I'm certain that Kai Dynasty will break the current record.


Items Total Monthly Value
Looking at how much I've earned from an adventure each month reveals a similar trend as previously with the exception of Blackbrook Lockdown. This adventure has so few sold copies and downloads that its value is strongly dependent on the few, and these few purchases have been low themselves, revealing that this adventure has truly been unsuccessful. An interesting trend is that adventures seem to be sold in batches every other month, which has occurred with a majority of my adventures so far. Elfhunt is my highest profit adventure.

Items Total Unit Value
Every time someone buys an adventure, they get to choose the price. Thus the average unit price of my adventures change every time I sell one. Elfhunt and Valentine Love Adventure started high and has fallen in price since while A Prince's Death and Blackbrook Lockdown has grown in value. The average price for one of my adventures is $0.73. If you like my adventures you should be paying around $1 but if you dislike them then you should only be paying $0.50.

Børnecancerfonden

Weeks ago I wrote about the Smile Foundation, which I ended off with awaiting response on my presentation. They declined it and I was back to planning Extra-Life 2016.

One day, I was out getting pizza, and as I was waiting for my order to be ready I opened the local newspaper. There was an article about Børnecancerfonden, the Child's Cancer Foundation. This fit the profile of type of danish charity I was looking for. I had been declined by the Smile Foundation, so I decided to not get too excited and investigate further.

Their website was much better than the Smile Foundation and even catered to my need to have donors be able to leave a message. I contacted them, and after talking with them a few times, they approved my new pitch.

My Pitch
Since our LAN has been postponed to at least 2017, I've decided to go ahead with my charity game this year. I don't want to clash with Extra-Life, so I have moved my event to the weekend before, the last weekend of October.

I pitched the same setup that I've had at my two previous Extra-Life events with two minor changes.

1. We won't gather give-aways from sponsors, but I have decided to give-away adventures from DMsguild.

2. Last year we had enough signups for at least two groups, and I have therefore decided to possibly run with multiple gamemasters.

I have already created the donation site and have much to do. I have plans to update our poster, create a separate website that includes more information on the event (such as roster and donation effects), and start preparing the adventure on Roll20. I plan to advertise the event to shops and unions here in Denmark, and I hope you all will help me by spreading the word, participating in the event, and donating to charity.

Project Update

As I mentioned in my last post, a lot has happened, and I therefore feel that it's time to summarize my various TRPG projects as I did back in january.

3.5 D&D mid-level campaign
I have created a massive campaign for my 3.5 game that's starting on June 1st. We'll be having a session 0 and then get the game running at a live session at the end of June. For the session 0 I've prepared an interactive map. If you click on the map, icons pop up, which you can move over and even click on to get information on that specific quest. This map is dynamic and will change through-out the course of the adventure. It is dependent on the choices the players make, and those they don't. I still need to set up a few last things for session 0, such as Roll20 and a check-list, but apart from that we should be ready to play.

1-on-1 5th D&D campaign
Our 1-on-1 game has progressed slightly since January with additional sessions having been uploaded to our youtube channel. My wife has gathered the ingredients for a Dispel Magic Potion, learned magic as an Arcane Trickster, and joined the local Thieves' Guild. I always look forward to playing with her, especially because she's not shy in describing her cool moves when she plays alone. The next plan is to investigate a mysterious note she found in the local tavern and retrieve the potion from the healer when she's done brewing it.


5th D&D campaign
Our gamemasters project has failed, as it has so many times in the past. Half the party wanted to play with internal conflict where we would spend most of our sessions verbally fighting ingame. The other half wanted to play a game together instead of against one another. The group has therefore split in two, and my half has found three new players. We have decided to start over at level 1 and then stick with 1 gamemaster. We still have a lot to sort out at session 0 before we launch this new campaign, and I'm hoping it will be a success, though I have my doubts about our young gamemaster.

LAN / Fundraiser 2016
The current status of the LAN is that it's been postponed. Recently, it was postponed indefinitely since the local athletics hall didn't actually have internet. They need to budget in new internet in their yearly finances, and this is something the board needs to approve. Until they do, the LAN is postponed. Even if they approve it tomorrow, though, the delay means that we won't be running our 2016 fundraiser at the LAN, although the 2017 will probably fit into the schedule. I have been thinking about running a more danish fundraiser than Extra-Life, but the Smile Foundation has declined our pitch. I have contacted the Childrens' Cancer Foundation, and we'll see if they may want us to host a TRPG fundraiser some time late autumn 2016.

Session 0

Much has happened. The Smile Foundation wasn't interested in having us gather money for them through D&D. We played a session of our Gamemasters game, which ended with half the group leaving, which has led us to start up a new group with only a single DM. I've almost completed my latest adventure called the Kai Monastery, and we're getting close to starting up our 3.5 campaign again, which will begin on June 1st. This week, however, I want to talk about Session 0, since we're starting two new games within the next month.

Source
We ran a session 0 with the Gamemasters group, but it wasn't very successful. I often run session 0 to ensure a certain coherence within the group. For our new 5th edition game, our DM has linked us a youtube video about running a session 0. This guy presents the session 0 in a simple comprehensive manner and even provides a checklist, which I half expect our DM to use.


Checklist
The checklist is divided into four sections: Group Creation, Campaign Creation, Character Creation, Party Creation. I'm quickly going to go through these points noting what we did at our Gamemasters Session 0 and what I expect to do at my own session 0 for my 3.5 game.

Group Creation
Expectations - We agreed that we'd be running a 5th edition D&D game with changing DMs where each DM would run a 2-4 session long adventure. Our adventuring party would be tied together by an adventuring guild called the Order of the Black Phoenix. I'm sure we'll have a few things to discuss about our expectations for our 3.5 game.

Location - Everyone agreed that we'd be playing at our place since we have a child that needs caring and attention. For our 3.5 game we'll most likely agree to play at one of the player's place and through Roll20.

Time - We agreed to meet at 12:00 and eat lunch, provided by the hosts. We'd then play until 18:00 whereafter dinner would be served, again provided by the hosts. People would then head home latest 20:00. For our 3.5 game we're looking at playing a live game once per month that will go from 15:00 - 2:00 and then Roll20 games every other week from 20:00 - 23:00, but we haven't found a specific day of the week yet.

Campaign Creation
System - We agreed beforehand to run 5th edition D&D for our gamemasters campaign, and our 3.5 D&D campaign is a continuation of a previous campaign we ran.

Theme - Our gamemasters campaign would be a series of small adventures. Unfortunately, we didn't discuss what aspects we would like to focus on. Many players preferred to play games about internal conflict and drama while others wanted to play puzzles and mind games. This is also a point we'll discuss a bit at our 3.5 game. I've created the adventure, but what are the players' expectations to the theme of the campaign?

Setting - Our gamemasters campaign would have a varied setting that each DM would choose, but all of it would tie into the same world. The 3.5 game will be set during the end of the 3rd Age of my homebrew setting of Aspenta.

Levelling - We agreed that in our 5th edition game we would use milestones and level according to the adventures we played. The 3.5 game still needs to be agreed upon, but I expect that we will run with the XP system I set into the adventure.

Books - Apparently a majority of our gamemasters group disliked that we had books at the table, but it was never discussed. For our 3.5 game I expect that we'll run with heavy mechanics and books available.

Grid - Each gamemaster would run his game as he wanted, while our 3.5 game will be using grids in Roll20 and live sessions.

Length - For our gamemasters group we decided to run until each player had a chance to be a gamemaster, which would result in 6 adventures spanning 12-24 sessions, giving us enough material for 1 - 2 years. We also need to discuss our 3.5 length, but I expect it to last ½-1 year spanning 4-5 levels.

Character Creation
Starting level - Our gamemasters game started at level 1, which our new 5th edition campaign also will do. The players for our 3.5 game already have characters, which they will simply continue to play with. Their average level is 11.

Alignment - In both cases we decided to play without alignment. I'm looking forward to what our new session 0s will reveal on this point.

Attributes - This was one of the points we went into depth with and wrote down our process. For our 3.5 game I mentioned that the players already have characters, so there won't be any rolling.

Starting gear - We decided to run with standard starting equipment in our gamemasters game.

Character concept - We talked about character concept at our Gamemasters session 0. I'm looking forward to going through character concept for our 3.5 game to get them refreshed.

Party Creation
Party concept - Our concept was adventurers of the Order of the Black Phoenix, but half the players stopped playing with this concept a few sessions into the project. For our 3.5 game the concept is a group of adventurers who have crafted weapons that can defeat powerful elementals. All four characters are needed to defeat all four elementals (the fourth is an NPC).

Background - Only my wife and I created a common background. None of the players for the 3.5 game have a common background. They don't even all come from the same world. They do have many adventures behind them though.

Integration - It was each DMs job to integrate the characters into the world. For our 3.5 game, integrating the characters happened quite smoothly.

Transciption - This is simply writing each character down on paper.

Party & Player Roles - We never discussed this in any of our session 0s



 

The Smile Foundation (SmilFonden)

Years ago I wanted to run a 24 hour D&D session. When Wizards of the Coast mentioned Extra-Life, I jumped on the project since it required players to run a 24 hour session. Furthermore, I had lost my son years earlier, so this was a way to help other families through the toughest times in their lives.

Last year I was wondering why I was running an American charity. I decided to make more out of it by including sponsors and give-aways to the event, but it wasn't as much of a success as I had hoped.

This year I decided to combine it with a project I was asked to run, where we would set up a LAN event in our local community. The event has been moved away from gameday and I therefore revised my plans for this year's large D&D event.

I decided to run another charity instead of Extra-Life and I therefore contacted the Smile Foundation (SmilFonden) here in Denmark, which is a foundation that hosts events at danish hospitals to give ill children a smile during their hospitalized stay.

My Presentation
I decided to present our setup to the Smile Foundation. I started out by presenting what we had done previous years for Extra-Life and what he had planned for our event at our local community. I then explained that we would host the charity event in the same format as Extra-Life and at the event at our local community, which has been moved to the beginning of 2017.

We would thus run a live session that we would stream over the internet so that both players and viewers could donate. We would set up teams of max 6 players that would run 4 hour games. Only voices would be recorded and we would then have someone run graphics on Twitch to give viewers a visual cue.

This event would thus gather donations through players and viewers. Players would have to pay to participate, and able to pay to create their own characters, gain more gold or magical items, extra rolls, and other such things. Viewers would be able to donate to charity and thus get shout-outs, the ability to insert monsters and encounters, help players through extra rolls or bonuses, or help foes by giving them extra rolls, health, bonuses, etc.

Now we're just waiting for a feedback from the Smile Foundation.