Back in January, Wizards of the Coast started a program called What’s Your Role? whereby college gaming clubs can apply to receive a grant of $50-$1,000 directly from WotC.
Eligible clubs have to be officially registered with their college or university, and D&D has to be the “primary focus of the club’s gameplay.” WotC says that they’ll issue at least 15 grants (they have $20,000 to spend), and all you have to do to apply is answer a few questions from their online application, the main element being a 500-word statement of purpose. The deadline is May 15th, 2007.
If the timing is right for you (i.e. you’re in college right now), this would be an excellent opportunity for a GM with a regular group to expand their field of players, bring new gamers into the hobby or even just arrange a regular place for local groups to play.
I wasn’t part of an official gaming club in college, but with a shift in focus (we played all sorts of things, not just D&D) my high school RPG club would easily have met the requirements. I’m sure we could have found some cool things to do with the money.
This is a great concept all around (particularly from a community and branding standpoint), but the thing I really like about WotC’s idea is that it’s portable: $20,000 is a lot of cash, but it’s not so much as to be out of reach of other large gaming publishers. White Wolf, Mongoose and company, I’m looking at you. (Via InQuest Gamer magazine.)
I think this is a rather… insidious deal.
Let’s be frank about a few things here:
1: A lot of players spend a large chunk of the rest of their lives and gaming resources on the game that “hooked them” or that they played during “the good old days”
2: College is a time of experiementation where those who haven’t might be tempted to try RPGs (though probably a distant third to sex and booze), and those who DO play RPGs play with new people, try out new playstyles and different games.
3: DnD isn’t exactly the best game out there. It does a lot of things pretty well, but no matter WHAT floats your boat, SOMETHING out there does it better.
4: $1000 is a TON of money to a college gaming club.
So, what exactly are we looking at here? What we’re looking at is a blatant attempt by a gaming company to bribe college kids to play their game in exclusion of others and make it their game of choice for the next decade or more. This would be really impressive if it weren’t such an obvious attempt to lock in brand loyalty to the detriment of a large part of the potential market share.
The only way I could support this is if the “DnD must be primary focus of the club’s gameplay” clause were removed and they gave the clubs a set of core rulbeooks PLUS cash so that DnD was an OPTION, not a requirement.
“C’mon, all your friends are doing it. The first one’s free.”
I disagree on so many levels, Rick. Without getting overboard into it, I think this is a great idea for the hobby as a whole. After all, most of the Forgers started by playing D&D, too.
There’s nothing stopping anyone else from subsidizing gaming at the college level… IPR could offer discounts to college groups, and other game companies could follow WotC’s lead. It’s simple competition.
of course its insidious. why would wizards give anyone money to go buy DiTV or Burning Wheel? i mean, they’re still a profit-driven company.
that said, D&D is a pretty well known name, and a fine way to get people interested in RPing in general. as good as Fudge might be, put up a campus flyer for an ‘Intro to Fudge’ session and you’ll get nothing but a lot of disappointed stoners showing up.
Drow – Thank you. I’ve been so puzzled as to why my last “Intro to FUDGE” night failed miserably, but I was taught how to make a bong out of an old minatures case. Mystery solved. 🙂
WotC is only allocating $20,000 for these grants, and while the maximum is $1,000 the minimum is $50. That means you can ahve anywhere from 20 to 400 grants awarded. There are over 4,200 higher education institutes in the United States.
So if a club wants to make DnD their primary focus it is a good deal, and such a club will probably have a better chance of being awarded a higher amount.
But any club can raise a $1,000 with a little effort. Seriously, I’ve run them for various organizations and it isn’t that tough to do. On any campus you just need to offer a service that can attract 100 people at $10 a pop. Most schools will help to cover your costs if you talk to the right people and keep it reasonable. So set a price point and a target number for people to reach and you can raise a $1,000 easily on a weekend.
I just don’t see this as a great deal considering what WotC is asking for in return and the odds of your club receiving a significant amount compared to what you can potentially raise on your own. It isn’t “insidious” it is just not that enticing of an offer.
Yet WotC is trying to encourage the hobby (albeit in conjunction with their own profits, but that is what good businesses do). I’m glad to see these kinds of approaches being taken by the larger RPG providers. It will benefit those clubs that really enjoy DnD and those are win-win situations for both the clubs and WotC
The idea is good. VV_GM makes some good points about the distribution of it. So the economics may not benefit as much as one would hope, but it is also more money than you had before. If your groups main theme is DND anyways, then that is a great deal. I’m not a DND person, and my worry is that groups that are currently multi-game groups will go to DND for a little bit of money. I can see two ways to make the idea itself better.
1. Just give out books. If the books are interesting, people will be tempted to play.
2. Gaming stores could do this with old stock that isn’t selling. Systems books for WOD not doing so well, give away some cores. Gurps not flying off the shelves (and it really should, once you get over the steep learning curve), there are tons of books that a deal like this could be made for. Once you get one gurps setting, you go hmmm and look at something else.
It is a good idea to promote roleplaying among the ideal target audience (college-age people), and who could blame them for wanting to put a D&D spin on it?
Like it or not, D&D usually IS the starting point for most gamers. It’s a classic that shows you the basic of what roleplaying can be.
(Calybos) Like it or not, D&D usually IS the starting point for most gamers.
Yep. I have no moral or other objections to WotC’s grant program. Once a new player has gotten a foot into the RPG door (most likely via D&D), a whole world of other options opens up to them.
For a grant program like this to support the hobby in general, rather than a specific publisher’s RPG, it would have to be separate from publishers in some way. Some sort of charity, or an alliance of publishers who agree that supporting the hobby will also support themselves.
These grants are AVAILABLE TO ANY SPONSORED GAMING CLUB, not just college clubs. You just have to have an official sponsor such as a library or recreation center.
The grants seem like an interesting experiment. Will this provide WotC with benefits equal or greater than $20K of marketing through other channels? Pretty likely.
I would suspect that the best grant applications will:
– request no more than $500,
– demonstrate how the grant funds will support and grow the existing group,
– spend little to no money on food, and
– spend little to no money on convention travel.
Re-reading the page, I think I see where you’re looking, Jeb:
“The club must have a staff-appointed advisor overseeing the club’s activities (i.e., school faculty member, librarian, program director, etc.).”
Unfortunately, I think it’s also trumped by this, towards the top:
“Applicants must be at least 18 years of age, and must submit proof of their club’s affiliation with a college or university. Only one application per club will be considered.”
Or is there something I missed?
Your guesses about improving the likelihood of your club receiving a grant sound spot-on to me — if I was writing a proposal, I’d follow your suggestions. Good stuff!