How to make tabletop rpg more profitable?

Sell advertising space on the clothes of gamers.
Since so many gamers are obese, there is more space that can be sold for ads than on some skinny athlete!

>usually if a big company doesn't pick you up, writing RPG's is a hobby, at least
That goes practically for anything, though, in this day and age. Single writers will never be able to compete with companies, because they don't have the power of a company.

Create custom dice that only your game uses

Make them playable on computers and games consoles, with cool graphics and a built in DM doing most of the work

Get more consumers.

Microtransactions

Cool graphic would not be necessary.

Most expansive RPGs won't ever be profitable because they aren't mainstream and even those that are mainstream aren't super profitable on account of how easy it is to get .pdfs of books these days.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3E had the best way to combat the piracy heavy industry by releasing a shit load of bits and bobs with their title that weren't technically necessary but greatly enhanced and streamlined a game to the point they were much preferred rather than being without them. That bombed because it wasn't very friendly to internet play (which a good deal of RPG gaming has turned into at this point).

The best way to be profitable as a new system? Maybe take Fate's route? Release the .pdf as a 'pay as much as you want' model for the product and if people want more you can sell them more at a fair price allowing you to take a hit for the core, but make up for it in the accessories and penetrate the market more easily.

Shame the Fate system is pretty much bullshit unless you get a group of people that can play on the same page in terms of power and story telling (damn hard to do).

make it digital-only with its own exclusive virtual tabletop and mapmaking software, hide all rolls and special mechanics in the background only vaguely alluding to players what their class and race's exact bonuses are and charging extra for expansions and bonus class dlcs that only work for the one who bought it, so one guy can run a dlc class while his friends can only play from the default list, maybe even make it so different tokens and icons for players cost real money since people love to doll up and personalize their stuff.

of course that's profit at the cost of all else and should be avoided like the plague.

Kickstarter/Crowdsourcing

People would have to actually want the product first in order for any of these ideas to actually work.

Bring back Gary Gygax since he's the only one who actually managed to get Walmart and similar places to stock it.
>exclusively sold in hobby shops and online
>little to no compability between systems outside of old D&D
>why is [insert game] so niché? I can't understand it!

If you mean personally then release good adventure modules and sandboxes that can be used in people's own games. Chances are good that you won't make even a buck, but one or two people who are actually decent at it have made a living off their stuff.

I've seeing pathfinder at Barnes and Nobles so you're not completely right.

Add waifus.

If you think pathfinder isn't literally OGL D&D you're unforgivably retarded

Is a large bookstore and stock other RPGs as times as well.
There's a huge difference between being available there and being available at Walmart, in customers, in size of chain, in availability everywhere. Hell even in Revenue, B&N yearly gets about 6 billion vs Walmart's 480 billion.

your argument was pen and paper was exclusively sold in hobby shops and online. I gave you an example where it wasn't. Fuck off.

>Bring back Gary Gygax since he's the only one who actually managed to get Walmart and similar places to stock it
When and where did this happen?

When I was a kid it was impossible to find any AD&D stuff outside of hobby and comic shops.

Split everything you need to play your game among different books, then charge full price for each.

>When and where did this happen?
Late 70s/Early 80s America. Basic Boxsets among other things were being sold there. TV Shows, talk of a Movie (not the shitty one), showing up in E.T. the highest grossing selling movie until 20 years later etc etc.

one of the major problems re:proifitability is that one set of books can fuel 4x players. there is no reason to buy more.

That movie was Krull.

Nope, Krull never had anything to do with TSR.
Gygax was in talks with some hollywood people about the movie around the time the Blumes sabotaged TSR.

So I'm guessing the satanic scare made it so I'd get yelled at by a store clerk for asking about "satanic books" in a major chain store by the late 80s/early 90s?

>reading isn't a hobby
The place is a literal hobbystore

They sold the 4e red box when that was a thing when I was in college.
Hell, the whole thing with Gamesworkshop was to try start selling in big box stores.

Nah, it helped sales if anything.
The issue was the Blooms backstabbing Gygax by more or less throwing away the companies resources while he was working outside of the county, fouling up trade deals with "work locally or not at all" nonsense and finally handing over their shares and ultimately his company to Williams, who sank it into debt then sold it to WotC.

A fundamental weakness in the RPG business model as I see it is that at its baseline, it generates a staggeringly low amount of sales that does not reflect the actual amount of people in the hobby.

To elaborate, let us take a group of 5. 4 players. 1 gm. They will be playing DnD 5e. Now in an ideal world, each player will own their own PHB and the GM will own the Monster Manual and DMG. But more like than not the group will share a PHB or two and split the cost for a Monster Manual and DMG between the rest of them.

Let's take the case study a little further. The players now have everything they need to run a baseline game. They now have very little incentive to get anything else. If they want more content, they can homebrew it, be it classes, adventures, etc so supplement sales will also suffer further (and is a likely reason why supplements are less likely to come out unless it's from a major company/line and even then).

So you have two compounding issues - 1, a group doesn't need a ton of books to get started and 2, a group doesn't really need the supplements to continue. It is my opinion then that until we address these two issues, this hobby/business will never really grow.

make the core rules free

charge for the supplements

We're not talking about that relative time period.

Curious how it helped sales yet this was the time period where you couldn't find D&D outside of hobby shops anymore.

Rather than (or concurrently with) printing fancy hardcover instruction books and selling them for 50 dollars, sell boxed sets with everything you need to physically play the game. A cheap paper abridged version of the rules with a small but workable bestiary (with code for PDF download of complete versions), some blank and some prefilled grid maps, some character sheets, a couple sets of appropriate dice, and some 20 mm monochrome minis. You could separately sell better or more diverse miniatures, or even map grid/character sheet refill packs for the extra stupid or lazy consumer.

Another, non mutually exclusive option would be to sell software which allows the game to be played more conveniently or with more features than free or less system specific programs or websites, such as roll20, allow. Freely distribute a program which allows people to join campaigns, then sell a program which allows GMs to make campaigns and invite player users. Provide tools for creating worlds, characters, monsters, towns, dungeons and the like piecemeal from a prefabricated library or make their own bit by bit. Could offer multiple options for the degree to which coded objects automatically do whatever it is they are going to, versus just manually adjusting values (for example, whether or not a trap the player interacts with hurts them and automatically lowers their HP, or if you wanted to roll for it yourself and just enter the value), to accommodate different levels of simulation of actual PnP gaming

Collectible ability card booster packs.

You could buy D&D through Sears catalog.

TSR stuff was widely available through the book trade at all the big chain bookstores in USA same with WoTC D&D and Pathfinder now.

Go and stay go, EA. No one likes you.
4.13/10 made me reply

The problem with monetizing tabletop RPGs is nearly everything accessory wise is optional.

You only need so much Dice, minis, stationary and source books.

This is why board games are selling well. Lots of shit and you need more. Not 3 books and make up the rest.

Also you can literally type in DnD 5e player handbook, Monster Manual and DM's guide and get full pdf's which you can view on your ipads and laptops. I DM behind my laptop mostly now anyway.

So, I count three big barriers to RPG profit-making.

First, it's a niche product. Not many people in the hobby. So the way around that is, of course, encouraging the hobby, including more people, reaching out. You should never expect a customer to come to you, you should always send your message out to the customer. PDF distribution has been pretty successful in getting people to word-of-mouth a game, look at Eclipse Phase.

Next, the current customer expectation on product quality is extremely high. Books need to be high quality, with full colour art and good glossy paper, all of which costs money and prohibits smaller operations from being able to play on the same field as the big boys. PDFs have been levelling this playing field somewhat and nerds are pretty entitled as is (piracy and such) so it's unlikely any reasoned arguments are going to convince them to settle for cheaper paper and B&W art on a new purchase.

Finally, the buying behaviour is most commonly "one book per group of people". So whereas most products are bought and used by one person, this is one product bought and used by many people, meaning those others dont buy the books themselves. In other words, a GM buys a book, but their players USE it. The way around this might be to increase the number of purchases out there that a PLAYER can make to enrich their play experience rather than just depending on the purchasing of a GM. This is where you have things like miniatures or "power cards" ala 4e.

It's brilliant and cruel

release creative ideas under the Free Culture license. we'll all refine and put our personal spins on the ideas, eventually moving our homebrews into something more playable. use the improved homebrews to repackage adventure ideas into selfcontained playable vehicles. they can be sold, but even if they are not, we've all been enriched.

>reduce expenses
Penny wise, pound foolish my friend. Get that DnD5e banner up in Times Square right quick.

It's kind of how D&D does it. You arguably need at least two of the three core (PHB and MM) but probably all three (including DMG) to run a full campaign. Leaving aside setting books, campaign books etc.

I've seen the Red Box release thing WotC did not that long ago in Walmarts tucked with your standard board games.

>release your game for free
>create 'official' supplements that are just the most popular homebrews

Did you even think about what your posted or did some kind of ghost of asperger's past possess you?

There's always money in furries.

Sad but true. They'll buy anything so long as it caters to them.

Increase marketing and awareness. Put the books on multiple store shelves. Introduce figure sets and even blind bags for miniatures. Put boxed sets right in with the board games. In the case of D&D, advertise it like you would a board game and try to get rid of the nerdy stigma it carries.

Stop piracy

It's bullshit that Wizards' hasn't produced software already. It'd be cheaper and more convenient than some shitty MMO. Just make a digital rulebook with a built-in glossary so you can right click for info on something; a character builder that lets you save, upload and print off multiple characters from some database; downloadable adventures; all the fucking calculator bullshit; chatrooms or voice channels; map-maker or whatever. Basically all the shit Roll20 has but in a client you can run on your computer.

They were working on one with 5e, with a company called Trapdoor Technologies. Turns out the company had shit designers and programmers and produced a buggy piece of shit way behind schedule, going off what some beta testers said anyway. The development fell through.

Wizards recouped their losses by licensing 5e out to Fantasy Grounds (and potentially other services in the future, I have my fingers crossed for official Roll20 support for it).

>online rpg apparently the next big thing for rpg.
>Nearly all RPG companies ignore it.

Their products are more or less the same whether they are being played online or offline, though, and it's an entirely different product (online services) that requires a different skillset. Most of these companies already just scrape by by underpaying freelancers, outsourcing printing, etc... The idea that every RPG should suddenly launch its own online play service is absurd.

Or maybe some kind of mandatory, useless accessory... Like a dice box!

Krull had such a dank setting

Play them on Casinos. Pay to make a character. Get rewards if you beat the croupier adventire. You can buy "metacurrencies" with cash.

So if I make a halfway decent rpg maker like game woth some history and characters that arent cringy or are the right amount of cringy and make everything anthro, I get money? Jewing overwhelming.

One-time-use character kits that go with organized tourny-style competitive nationwide gameplay.

Basically esports.

For a while I thought of the money being left on the table if only someone made a cartoon furry game with a sonic-recolor tier character creator.

Kids love iterating templates.

Waifus in a social setting won't pick up steam.

That is closet fetish stuff.

I would absolutely fuck a bendy big tittied centaur who calls me master, but do you think I am going to have that kind of shit out there in a public setting?

Do think most gamers would have that out there in a public setting?

The absolute biggest waifu related thing I have ever had in a public setting is that one of my characters is basically married to a kobold that he fucks silly in his downtime to figure out to best pleasure a cloaca as a bargaining chip if he ever gets captured by a dragon. The kobold was used as bait for more than one adventure that the DM was running 'Your bitch is missing, time to go find her.' type thing.

The plus side to that is that she also sold pies for extra coin on the side and was never represented as anything more than a kobold. She was violent, had a bad habit of making traps I had to roll against when I got home, and was constantly burning through firewood to keep warm.

She was down to do anything in the sack though. Shame I botched a roll to resist disease (I had to make one every time I put my dick in her) and caught a wicked case of salmonella poisoning before one adventure that almost resulted in a TPK.

That was the most magical realm shit we had and we never elaborated on what exactly we did sexually or made it out to be normal. I had a terrible reputation as a 'lizard fucker' in the main town and it wrecked a lot of social situations to the point my guy had to sit out any kind of negotiations for anything. Unless violence was needed. The guy who routinely sticks his dick in a murder lizard is prone to do anything afterall.

...

I would a Ribbon.

>halfway decent
You don't even have to do that. Just do the bare minimum to make it function, put some animal fucking in it, and start up a patreon. So long as you make up some bullshit about your house burning down or something every once in a while, they will pay you for absolutely nothing. You don't even need to finish that bitch!

they were in the process of doing something like this for 4e but the single developer was either the perp or the victim in a literal murder/suicide

it's inexcusable for wizards/paizo to ignore it because they actually have money but i understand this from the other publishers because most of them are cottage industry companies or they're incredibly old, awful ones like palladium

>fishing is a hobby
>Walmart is a hobby store because they sell tackle

Well hopefully ttrpg's will take the same route as video games before too long and go from being these weird niche things to being a little more mainstream. There are ups and downs associated with that but at least it would be easier to find people to play with.

Some RPGs DID do that (and I assume some still do). I know CoC and DnD used to have tournaments.

tomb of horrors was originally a tournament module, that's why it's so bullshit

That's already happening. Actually playing them is far from mainstream at this point, but it's becoming a lot more social acceptable to admit to playing them
>Shame the Fate system is pretty much bullshit unless you get a group of people that can play on the same page in terms of power and story telling (damn hard to do).
Speaking as a Fate player, I can't imagine what a shitshow trying to run the system through an online gamefinder would be

Hate all you want, but she's literally the cutest mascot in a grand history of mascots.

>esports

UGH.

her closest competition is a total butterface

Boxed sets. Package with play aids geared toward actually improving play.

- Develop bug-free-100%-functional digital tools for your game and release them at the same time.

- Make a combat tracker with all monsters premade.

- Base tools rules are free, updates are paid.

- Make it a tool box, but include templates for common types and genres of games.

- Have quality video instruction of the rules.

- Try to invest in organized play.

- Don't comission art from Wayne Reynolds.

tl;dr save money on physical products, go digital.

Spotted the Berniefag

>the real answer is cute mascots

Advertising is considered an asset, not an expense.

You know he's dead, right?

>- Base tools rules are free, updates are paid.
I can see this working but, who pays for the updates?
Just the DM who needs to see the rule books or everyone else as well?

What an adolescent thing to say

It worked for Japan, it'll work here.

Accessories, and mechandise.
Books can be pirated, quite easily mind you.
But that stuff can't be.

She is

>it's inexcusable for wizards/paizo to ignore it because they actually have money

youtube.com/watch?v=EWNgyGwMk7U

That's 50% of the pathfinder general.

>proprietary dice
>the cancer killing HIV-positive Ebola

too bad the actor is too stuck up to even give the fans a hand shake.

Sell them to businesses as "team building exercises" and "performance predictors and enhancers"

>>the cancer killing HIV-positive Ebola
Doesn't that make proprietary dice a good thing?