Question: can I sell commercially a campaign or world I create for D&D 5e?

[Miele]

The title says it all.

Several (don't ask!) years ago, I created a full RPG system with a friend, which was in retrospect fairly complicated. We used to play with BECMI and later AD&D, but it didn't satisfy our need for complexity, so we made an extremely convoluted and full of reference tables, book of rules.
It was definitely borderline unplayable, too many things to be looked up and way too often. It was abandoned of course!

We also started working on a world for our RPG, it was very anti-cliché from most fantasy worlds. I still have some papers with a lot of notes and thought I could pick it up and give it a go, mostly for fun, but if the final result is good enough, why not try to monetize it? Having access to artists, local publishers, distributors, etc. it's something that has been bouncing inside my head for quite a while.

First question: can I do that?
Second: is there an exclusive channel when I can do this or can I go on my own, creating kickstarters, youtube channels and the like?
Third and last: would I owe WotC anything in royalties or rights to use their product names?

Sorry if these questions have been answered elsewhere, I couldn't find anything official except several mentions to the DM Guild.

Thank you.

[kebusmaximus]

Of course you can. There are just some restrictions, and at a certain level of complexity, you should talk to an IP lawyer.

The main thing, though, is whether or not you will using any d&d branding, or anything else that's intellectual property of WotC. If you are, you must publish on the DM's guild (which means giving them 50% of every sale). For example, if you want to reference mind flayers, or Mordenkainen, you need to go this route. If not, though, you can publish wherever you want, because there is no connection to dungeons and dragons the intellectual property. You can still publish wherever you want and make some reference to game mechanics, though, if you use the open gaming license.

[J-H]

Yep. Publishing on the DM's Guild is pretty easy, although getting visibility there is hard. Castle Dracula (Castlevania) has been up for close to 2 years and I have about 80 sales and NO reviews except from one of my players. Marketing was pretty much just "I'll link to it at the end of the campaign log I posted," though.
I've made about $400 from it, which is mostly sitting in my account, with some of it being spent as account credit to buy modules for one of my campaigns so I don't have to do a ton of prep work.

My real life job is in sales, but I don't have much interest in being on social media or spending a ton of time on marketing. You can do more, if you can get the market penetration and reach. Those $100k and $500k and $1M Kickstarters? Those are from people who have reach and reputations and prior work that takes years, like Matt Colville or the Enworld team.

For me, this is a hobby. I'll publish stuff because I'm writing it anyway and editing and formatting is not too much work (especially if I format it as I write!), but I wouldn't want to try to make it a full time job.

[EggKookoo]

I believe another restriction for DM's Guild is that you can't use that to sell your custom setting. Anything you put there must be set in FR (or maybe one of the other official settings?). At least that's what I've read, I haven't put anything there myself.

I've been thinking about turning my custom setting into a product of some kind, but it's not really fleshed out enough as I've been building it mostly in response to what they players do rather than thinking of it as something for a general player population. But I wouldn't be able to use DM's Guild as it's a new setting, and I'm wondering if I would even need the OGL as I'm not really creating custom subclasses and such, and I would only include monsters and races that are purely my own creation or are public domain. But it does seem like the OGL is fairly painless, so I might go that route just to be safe (if I even do it at all).

[Zhorn]

Just be vary wary about selling any of your content through publishers such as DMs Guild, you don't want to accidently loose the rights to your work
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/fkoeco/why_didnt_mercer_include_the_blood_hunter_in_the/

[J-H]

I believe another restriction for DM's Guild is that you can't use that to sell your custom setting. Anything you put there must be set in FR (or maybe one of the other official settings?). At least that's what I've read, I haven't put anything there myself.

https://support.dmsguild.com/hc/en-us/articles/217029298-Content-and-Format-Questions


For now, DMs Guild is limited to the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Eberron, Ravnica, Theros, and Arcavios(Strixhaven) settings only, although you can also publish anything for 5th Edition that (i) is generic enough to be used in a permitted setting without effort and (ii) doesn’t explicitly use anything related to another official Wizards setting.

For example, you can mention Forgotten Realms deities such as Azuth or Mystra, but you can’t mention Boccob, Lunitari, or any other deity from another official D&D setting that hasn't been permitted here. Some deities or characters (such as Vecna or Lord Soth) appear in several settings; they can be mentioned only in the context of approved settings.

I wouldn't be surprised if Spelljammer and Dragonlance get opened up soon as well. I'm not sure why they excluded Greyhawk.

You can have it be a setting within a setting, like a newly discovered continent east of Kara-Tur, or a mythal-protected island that just met the rest of the world for the first time in 3,000 years.
If you're making an entire planet, that's harder to fit in.

[Jervis]

I hope no one minds me hijacking the thread for my own related questions but does anyone know what the rules are exactly for using art from WotC in DMs guild products? I know you can use the art from the packs but can you use any art from previous editions or just those? Or is it wider than that expanding to other art WotC holds the rights to? I’m a smol brain when it comes to legalese.

The main reason I want to use DMs guild is because I’m in college and don’t have the cash to commission art.

[J-H]

They have a page in their Creator FAQ for that:
https://support.dmsguild.com/hc/en-us/articles/217029188-Logo-and-Artwork-Questions

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Ogre: This is, unfortunately, counted as legal advice (WRT to copyright and licensing issues). I would suggest taking this up with Wizards of the Coast, and looking at their licensing documents.