At some point in the 80’s, someone at a game company called TSR noticed that there were more players of role-playing games than game masters.

They came up with a hypothesis: If you make books for players instead of game masters, you can sell more books. That seems obvious but it turns out that this is not a very good long term strategy.

The first game book that was largely for players that I can think of is Unearthed Arcana. There were probably others that I am ignorant about. UA’s big selling point for players was the new classes and rules for weapon specializations. There are old timey DMs who still hate on that book.

During the 90’s, Player’s Options books and the Complete Fighter/Thief/Wizard books were popular. White Wolf did the same thing. They published clan books for Vampire, tribe books for Werewolf, and tradition books for Mage. Each provided some new cool powers for players. Evidently, these sold very well. They kept making more of them. These came to be called splat books.

There was an explosion of splat books in the late 90’s and early 2000s. Splat is exactly the sound some companies made when the RPG business took a big hit in the late 90’s.

Wotc Is Dum.

There is a commonly held assumption about how the product cycle of a tabletop RPG works.

The core rules come out and the books sell well. The company produces material for that edition and eventually the market gets oversaturated. Sales drop off. The players don’t need anymore stuff for the current edition and stop buying. The company creates a new edition. Some players stick with the old edition. Many, perhaps most, switch to the new edition because it is perceived as “better” even if it is merely different. The cycle repeats.

This is part of what happens but it isn’t the whole story.

A company that focuses on the right things can limit this cycle or even eliminate it.

The biggest RPG company learned the wrong lesson from the 3E splat book crash.

When 5E came out, WotC decided that the major cause of the 3rd Edition product line’s struggles late in its life was that they were putting out too much product too fast. They believed that the release rate had overwhelmed the fans and fragmented the market.

This was a problem but not the problem. It was certainly not the most important problem.

Here is how the edition cycle really works.

A new game or edition is released. Core rules sales spike, and then become a slow and steady line on the graph with a bit of a downward trend. The finance department panics. They hate slow and steady. Marketing does a study and realizes that there are 4 players for every DM. Eureka! We’ll make books for players! Management tells creative to get cracking on books for players. Creative makes the books, they make a lot of revenue and everybody is happy, for now.

The company makes more product to give players more “options.” More options means more rules bloat. More rules bloat makes it harder for DMs to keep up. DM’s learn they have to keep up or it will crush their game.

DMs get overwhelmed and frustrated. Overwhelm and frustration increases the number of DM’s dropping out. Players look at the work and expense involved, the ever expanding rules the DM has to learn and have no interest in becoming DM’s themselves.

The churn rate of DM’s dropping out and not enough new DM’s stepping up makes it hard to find a DM.

Since players can’t find a DM, they find some other form of entertainment.

Sales shrink. Finance panics. Marketing does more studies. Creative makes more player books and pours more gas on the fire until someone decides its time for a new edition.

The problem wasn’t the customers got tired of the system or the that there wasn’t enough product for the players. The problem was that TSR/WotC and others who make the same mistake were focused on the wrong customer.

If they focused on the right customer, the challenges of the edition-cycle would be a non-issue.

Who is your most important customer?

In most businesses, 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your customers. This is called the Pareto Principle.

The WotC CEO has stated that 20% of their customers are the bulk of their Dungeons & Dragons sales. That 20% are the Dungeon Masters.

What role must be filled for a traditional table top RPG game to happen?

The game master. No GM. No game.

When you release more player facing product with more feats, more classes, more species/races, more backgrounds, more gear, more “options” for players, then you make running the game harder for the game master.

If you release product for players, increasing the amount of information the GM has to keep track of and making the game more difficult to run, then you discourage players from becoming game masters and you encourage current game masters to drop out.

If there are fewer game masters, there are fewer games. Fewer games means fewer players.

Fewer players means fewer core rule books sold.

Game masters buy the most gaming stuff. Players buy the core rules, a few accessories and that’s it. Selling them an extra book or two a year creates a short term increase in revenue. Those books bloat the system and reduces the life of an edition by increasing the turnover of experienced game masters who give it up entirely or switch to a different game.

The solution to the “problem” of players who spend less than game masters is not to make more books for players.

The solution is to encourage more players to become skilled game masters.

More game masters means more games.

More games means more players.

More players means more core rule books sold.

More players leads to more game masters, IF the company focuses on serving game masters.

Breaking the cycle

If you are continuously adding more game masters by encouraging and supporting players to make the jump, the need for player facing books goes away. Maybe you don’t make as many sales in the short term but the lifetime value of the customers you keep goes up, perhaps exponentially.

Those new game masters go from being the 80% who buy one book to being the 20% who buy all the books.

New game masters, over time, will buy the product you’ve already made because the old timers tell them, “You need this. It will make game mastering easier.” The trick is keeping them in the hobby.

With POD and PDF, your back catalog continues to bring in profit for books published years or even decades ago.

I have recommended new referees pick up a PDF/POD copy of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide by Gary Gygax.

I know a few people have bought that book on my recommendation. They might have even read it. WotC probably isn’t selling a lot of Gary’s DMG’s but they are selling some. How many PDFs of the Complete Fighter’s Handbook from 1989 are they selling? I have also recommended the DMGR books from the 2E era.

Imagine if TSR and WotC had published a single DMing book as half as useful as the DMG once every 5 years since 1979. That would be 8 books. Let’s say those books were considered “must have” tomes by most veteran DM’s. Imagine if a Matt Colville or Matt Mercer recommended those 8 books.

If WotC could sell a PDF/POD copy of each one at $20 each, that would be $160. If one million DMs bought all 8 of those books…

Do you see where I’m going?

The principle is as obvious as it is simple.

Every company that publishes games should make it their first priority to aid, love, pamper, and celebrate their game masters.

If you create useful tools, resources, and materials for game masters, they will buy them. They will be excited about running games.

If you make a fuss over the game masters on your social media, reward them and celebrate them at conventions, give away game master only swag, then you make being game master a high status role among your customers. Becoming a game master will be more appealing.

Skilled game masters who have lots of tools and support will run better, more enjoyable games. Players will like those games and tell their friends. Game masters will have more players. Some players will see how cool it is to be the game master and want to try it. If there are lots of tools for new game masters to pick it up quickly, they will be less anxious about the challenges.

New game masters who are excited about running a game will recruit strangers to play your game.

Those new players will buy core books, miniatures, dice, t-shirts and whatever merch you want to sell them.

Done properly, game masters are an army of salesmen who pay YOU for the privilege of marketing and selling your game.

THE PLAYERS ARE NOT YOUR MOST IMPORTANT CUSTOMER!

NEVER SELL ANYTHING TO PLAYERS THAT MAKES THE ROLE OF GAME MASTER MORE DIFFICULT OR UNAPPEALING!

Or… you can do the opposite.

Making the game harder to run is exactly what WotC has done since 3E and that’s why there are shortages of 5E DMs.

Player focused product allows WotC to monetize the players but it also annoys and frustrates DMs.

That friction causes DMs to drop out and discourages players from replacing the DMs that step down.

Fewer DMs = fewer games. Fewer games = Fewer core rule books sold.

If you believe the standard RPG edition cycle hypothesis; the drop in sales means it’s time for a new edition but that’s not what it means at all. It means the company failed its most valuable customers.

Some companies know this.

A company that understands this concept is Chaosium. When Chaosium puts out a new edition, the base rules don’t change very much. The changes that are made make it easier for the Keeper to run the game so the veteran Keepers don’t mind buying the new book.

Most of the products Chaosium makes are scenarios…for Keepers. Ancillary products are creatures, settings, prop packs, maps, and mood music that make things easier… for Keepers. There is one players book focused on players; the Investigator’s Handbook. It teaches players how to be better players, making life easier… for Keepers.

Every product Chaosium sells makes being the Keeper easier, not harder and that’s why they are still around. CoC is a good game but it also a good product and those aren’t entirely the same thing.

The OSR

Most of the blogs, books, YouTube channels, and podcasts in the OSR space are about how to be a better referee.

Despite the haters who declare the OSR deceased every six months, the OSR is stable and growing. The mechanisms of most OSR games are more or less the same, making them the same “edition” in principle if not fact. New printings and variations keep coming and do not seem to be slowing down. Zines, modules, blogs, YouTube channels dedicated to OSR gaming continue to grow in number, quality, and audience.

Swords & Wizardry had 2,801 pledges for over $100,000 in it’s most recent KS.

The last Old School Essentials Kickstater had over 6,000 backers. If you do a search for OSE Kickstarters, there are more than 60 that have funded or currently running. Skim the descriptions. Those are almost all for referees.

The old school-ish game Shadowdark, did over $1 Million on it’s Kickstarter. If you look at what’s in that book, it’s heavy on referee tools and limited on player focused bloat. It strips the bloat out of 5E and works in OSR concepts.

Dungeon Crawl Classics is a stripped down version of 3E with Appendix N aesthetics. It’s easy for the judge to run and has a vigorous online community. Goodman Games celebrates and rewards the judges with swag and acknowledgement through the Road Crew program. The referees love them back by buying the same rule set with different covers every couple of years along with the adventure modules and special collectors products the company sells.

The Big Take Away

If you run a company that publishes role-playing games, consider the following.

Players are definitely important but they won’t grow and sustain your product over the long term the way game masters will.

Game masters are right to drop your game if you make it harder for them to run.

If you want to retain this most important part of your customer base, make it easier not harder for them to run your game. Create helpful tools. Give them good advice on how to get the most out of your game.

Celebrate them. Encourage them. Make them a valued and respected part of your community and they will reciprocate.