Several days ago I was in contact with the DM's Guild and requested information on their publication policies. For those of you unaware of what DM's Guild is, its a website that is working in cooperation with WOTC which allows the publication of 5th edition content by fans. You may post your material for free and others interested in your works may download it, they doing so for free or at a price you as the author establish. You receive a part of any funds accrued (50% I believe) from others downloading your material. Currently their policies state that any 5th edition material accepted by them must be your own work and either generic in terms of game worlds, for Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft. Sorry, they are not accepting Greyhawk content.
With this in mind, I wrote to them and asked if they would accept an Oerth Journal article I had written a few years ago providing I removed all Greyhawk content.
I am pleased to say that the response was "Yes" that if all Greyhawk references were removed they would be happy to list the work on their website. I'm passing this information along to the Canonfire community for those who have previously published Greyhawk material in Oerth Journal and would like to make it available to the entire D&D gaming community, be it free or for a price determined by you.
Here is the link for you to review their website and policies. Scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page will get you to the information you will need read in order to create an account and make your material available.
Please understand that I asked them specifically about Oerth Journal and it being a free publication. If you are interested in submitting material that you have previously published from other sources I urge you to contact the DM's Guild yourself as well as the publication that presented your material to make certain you do not violate any contractual agreement. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
The DM Guild isn't bad, but personally I find the idea of transferring more GH content to FR blasphemous. It also makes me wonder if WotC could lay claim to the original GH fan publications once they own the converted work under DM's Guild.
Somewhat related, there's a good thread discussing the pros and cons of publishing under the DM's Guild today on the HSD Facebook page and what Ernie and Benoist would do should Greyhawk become available for fan works:
Anything I post on DM's Guild will be setting neutral, meaning it is not specifically for Forgotten Realms but rather for homebrew. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
Is that possible? This group has been converting classic modules to 5e via the DM's Guild, but the only way they can do it is by converting them to FR:
Here are three examples indicating that generic D&D may be used for DM's Guild. The first and second are questions and answers taken from the DM's Guild site. The third example is an answer I received when I wrote to them asking if I could rewrite my Oerth Journal article and make it generic.
Question: I don’t see anything that would stop me from publishing a Greyhawk or Dark Sun product on DMs Guild. Can I do that?
Answer: For now, at least, DMs Guild is limited to the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft 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 or even say something like “Azuth, Mystra, or another god of magic in your setting,” but you can’t mention Boccob, Vecna, or Aureon, Lunitari, or any other god or goddess from another official D&D setting that hasn't been permitted here.
We trust that other settings will be opened up as time goes on, though!
And this is copied and pasted from the DM's Guild Ownership and License (OGL Questions)
Question: How is Dungeon Masters Guild different from the Open Game License (OGL)?
Answer: The Open Game License and the Dungeon Masters Guild are two distinct and separate things. Under the DMs Guild program, you can publish D&D material that either
1. has no setting or
2. uses the Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft setting.
Under the Open Game License, you can typically publish material that
1. has no setting or
2. uses your own original setting."
When you publish material that has no setting, then publishing under the DMs Guild program allows you to use the entire D&D 5th edition rules, not just the subset found in the SRD. It also allows you to sell the material here on the DMsGuild.com marketplace. If you’re still not sure about the distinction, check the table below to see if that helps.
Here is a response I got from DM's Guild when I wrote and asked about removing Greyhawk proper names from my Oerth Journal article and publishing it as a generic work.
Answer: Hello! Thank you for contacting us about the DMs Guild Creator Program! Yes! As long as you remove all of the Greyhawk-specific contents and update it to the 5th Edition system, we'd be happy to have you publish your revised work on DMsGuild.com.
Sooner or later, they're going to publish something Greyhawk related, and it's likely Greyhawk will come under the terms of the DMs Guild. I'd suggest having immense patience for that day, but it will come. There's a market, and sooner or later, they'll look to capitalize on that market.
The DM Guild isn't bad, but personally I find the idea of transferring more GH content to FR blasphemous. It also makes me wonder if WotC could lay claim to the original GH fan publications once they own the converted work under DM's Guild.
I'm not interested in giving them such control over anything I write, and they will take control. They always do.
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