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RollPlay Patreon: Year Two

RollPlay: General & Archives
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#1

We just updated the entire Patreon including tiers, art, and more! Check it out now or read below to find out what has changed!

Edit: Do to everyone just being charged for the month of August, the $1 tier will still have access to the behind the scenes videos. After August 31st, the $3 tier will take effect. We apologize for this. Consider it a test trial for the new tier!

Though we’ve had countless shows, it’s still hard to believe it’s been an entire year since we’ve launched the Patreon. Thanks to everyone’s generous pledges, we’ve been able to do some amazing things with RollPlay that otherwise would not have been possible. From the bottom of our hearts: thank you.

For year two, we want to shake things up and try to offer some unique rewards fans of Rollplay can’t get anywhere else. However, with the added costs of experimenting with new things, we’re adjusting some of the tiers around to help facilitate these changes.

FEED ACCESS AND MONTHLY Q&A ($1)

We heard your feedback, so the $1 base tier will remain. You’ll still be able to access any content that was published during Year One at this tier (character creation, behind the scene videos, etc). For Year Two though, we’re changing the reward, to be RollPlay feed access (ability to preview the content before you increase your pledge) and access to the new monthly, streamed Q&A sessions thanks to Crowdcast, these Q&A sessions are one of the new things we’ll be trying with the Patreon.

BEHIND THE SCENES ($3)

The original $1 tier benefits will be moving to the $3 tier. We’ve got a new, increased dedication to producing behind the scenes content, and we feel the reflected increased cost to fans will be well worth it. If you have ideas on what you’d like to see, or find that the new pricing isn’t justified, we would love to hear your feedback so we can continue to improve.

We understand that this will obviously be a big change for a lot of people and that there will be some current Patrons for whom their budget doesn’t allow a continued to support at the new level. Our hope, though, is that we’re making enough content to encourage a continued support at the $1 tier, or enough that the $2 increase is worth the increased amount.

Regardless of being a Patron or not, we want to make it clear that we appreciate everyone who watches and supports RollPlay by being active in the community.

CHANGES TO THE MP3 TIER ($5)

In year one, we decided to feature two different tiers for the MP3s: access to current, ongoing shows and, at a higher tier, access to the entire library of RollPlay MP3s.

With our new MP3 tier, Partons will have access to both of these. For $5 a month, you have access to every RollPlay show ever produced in MP3 format to take with you wherever you want to listen (and now 2500+ hours worth of content in the library, you can listen more than ever). New RollPlay fans, we wish you good luck getting through all of it!

THE ROLLPLAY ZINE (PDF) + ROLLPLAY ROLL20 MAPS ($10)

As one of our higher tiers, we feel never quite got the PDF tier right, and it’s important to us to feel that the benefits our Patrons receive accurately reflect the cost. So, we’ve brought this benefit down by $10 and added in a little something extra for people who use Roll20 for their campaigns: monthly, handcrafted digital maps to use in your campaigns. At the launch of this tier, we currently have 10 unique maps available for download, with the expectation of featuring five new maps a month (along with our monthly RollPlay Zine).

For those looking to “demo” both of these items, we’re giving away the latest RollPlay Zine and a map for free by clicking HERE. We would love feedback on this tier especially to see what you guys think!

SIGNED MERCHANDISE ($45)

We know RollPlay fans can’t always make it to our convention panels or meet and greets, and we’ve always wanted to figure out a way to get signed merchandise to the masses. So, now during the weekend of live shows, the cast will be signing 250 posters which we’ll ship to Patrons of this tier. Factored into this $45 cost is shipping across the entirety of the U.S (sorry, we will not be able to include international shipping in this tier). This tier is only available if you buy into this specific tier. Higher tiers will not receive the benefits of this tier, since we require and collect shipping information.

Of course, we’re always thinking about fans overseas. International shipping is very costly, especially for unusual package sizes like poster tubes. We’re going to see how it goes working with domestic shipping, and then look into international once we get feedback and learn more about this process. Stay tuned for more information on international purchases!

DM HANGOUT AND FAN GAMES W/ ADAM ($50 AND $125)

These two tiers are back but at a reduced cost. Want to hangout with Adam and get some help DM’ing your game? Or perhaps you and your friends want to jump into a one shot with Adam at the helm? Now you can, and for half of what we listed in year one.

ROLLPLAY 2017 PARTY AT PAX UNPLUGGED ($100)

We wanted to give RollPlay fans more of an opportunity to hang out, meet the cast, and have a good time. So this year at PAX Unplugged, we’re going to - and you can join us!

PAX is hosting the first ever PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia on November 17th to the 19th, which focuses on tabletop gaming. That Thursday, the 16th, from 7:00PM to 10:00PM Eastern myself, Adam Koebel, Ezekiel_III, GassyMexican, Aureylian and others - we’re still adding to the list at time of post - plan on throwing back some drinks and bowling a couple strikes at the Lucky Strike near the convention.

This one-time Patron tier includes food, drink tickets, access to reserved lane, and a few surprise benefits at the event (as well as all of the benefits of the lower Patron tiers, except the signed merchandise tier). We hope to see you there!

WELCOME TO YEAR TWO!

We hope everyone enjoys what we have planned going into our second year. The last change to be made for our Patreon is that we’ll removing the total monthly earnings from the page. Due to one-time, unique charges like the RollPlay Party at PAX Unplugged and the signed merchandise, the front facing monthly will have many highs and then perceived “lows” to be able to accurately reflect the success of RollPlay and reached stretch goals we can realistically maintain. We are dedicated to remaining transparent with the earnings, though, and will be very vocal about everything we’re planning to use Patreon funds towards.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us on Twitter or submit a question during the upcoming monthly Q&A session. We’ve experienced a lot of positive changes in the past year, and we can’t wait to get started on the next.

15 Likes
[E47 Q&A] Interview with an An Annepire
#2

Upgraded to the 3$ tier, Looking forward to all the content!

#3

Looks great to me. I hope the majority will be happy with this.

#4

Loving the look of the updated Patreon, and I’m completely cool with the new tiers. I know Jp and Adam try their hardest to put value and quality into everything they produce and I know in the long run, I’ll get my moneys worth.

Good luck guys!

Watching the new character creation videos now.

#5

My only sadness is that Blades seems to have fell to the wayside. :frowning: I really loved that system a lot. I just don’t watch the other rollplay shows. Maybe when the next one comes out.

#6

I dropped my Patreon and sub of 3 years after your last post about the price increase. I’m not gonna be renewing them. Increasing the price while not actually hitting some of the original patreon Goals is not on. I understand the reasons for not hitting those goals but that’s still what happened.

Paying out as much as I do as an Eu viewer with Exchange rates and taxes with my really limited budget. and then demanding more for the same content isn’t fair but that’s just my opinion but I’m voting with my wallet. Not that it will change anything due to the price change probably balancing out the lost people.

Also Changing what people get for their tier in august is a crappy move after they have paid for this month’s content. (this has been changed after I mentioned it on twitter so thanks for fixing that jp and crew)

Good luck with future stuff and I hope I enjoy future shows but this seems money grubby for nothing.

13 Likes
#7

I’ve already got a question about the $100 tier. As someone who lives in the Greater Philadelphia area, I’m going to PAX unplugged. Given a relatively limited budget, this is my first convention in many years, and I’m super excited about it. Thus my questions are twofold. I’m considering backing at this level, but I couldn’t possibly do $100 a month for 3 months until the convention. Do I just need to do $100 that month? I might be able to swing that. If not, is that the only Rollplay event at PAX unplugged or will there be panels as there have been in the past?

I’m excited about all the other changes and look forward to seeing whats to come!

#8

Good luck with future stuff and I hope I enjoy future shows but this seems money grubby for nothing.

Money talks. It’s how he/they make their money. I did find it a little weak being that VOD access is via sub and a Patreon grossing $14,000/mo wasn’t sufficient for a $1 tier access to creation/post content.

I’m sure in the end this change will increase revenue for the RollPlay Patreon. Hopefully that increase will result in superior quality programming. If that turns out to be the case, it isn’t really money grubbing for nothing.

I dropped the Patreon pledge because I just don’t think it’s realistic to charge $3/mo for some post-show chat and a handful of character creation videos here and there. There were thousands of people paying the $1 for a little bonus, propelling the RollPlay Patreon into the top 50 grossing Patreons. Seemed entirely reasonable to me. That $1->$3 change kind of does seem like hard milking.

But hey, if I was in a position to make more money from my content, I would almost certainly do the same thing. So it is what it is.

7 Likes
#9

It is only a single purchase, $100 ticket. If you buy it in any month (August, September, October) and then change tiers afterwards you’re all set. In the case that you get charged a second time, we will be able to issue a refund.

Great question and sorry for not clearing this up beforehand.

3 Likes
#10

I also dropped Patreon as price increase was done without any demonstration of quality increase.
It just feels money grabbing.
Also, MP3 tier feels overpriced for shows being heavily dependent on visuals and with rolls not being called out often.

Most likely if at least 1/3 of Patreons will up their tier JP and crew will see no change so any % higher will be profitable for them.
The worst thing is that people that drop now will have no idea if quality will improve because there are no demo videos that demonstrate what you get at said tier.

I’ll just continue watching shows I enjoy on YouTube.

EDIT: Also did it just happen right now because I can no longer see how much money Patreon is earning in total and how many Patreon of each tier are?

4 Likes
#11

Upgraded from the 2$ to 3$. With the lineup of one shots scheduled it was easy.

If I remember correctly we got access to some wallpapers with the 2$ tier. Will you still provide some wallpapers at the 3$ or did you decide to stop making those?

1 Like
#12

Initial thoughts:

(1) The new tiers seem an overall improvement in terms of value offered, though the $1 change, while understandable, still feels like business trumping community for those who truly can’t afford the increase. Perhaps this can be mitigated by further explanation of the need for the increase, which leads me to…

(2) Are goal updates imminent? Not only detailing where each of the old goals is at, but new goals (at reasonable increments) should spur growth if we know how much is needed for what.

(3) The tier names seem a bit strange; Voyeur, Thief, Jester … not very positive labels for supporters, and only vaguely connected to their respective rewards. Not a big thing but stood out on first glance.

Anyway, the changes benefit me and I hope they work well going forward.

5 Likes
#13

This is also a thing that i am interested in, Will anything with the current goals change?

#14

We’re looking at other ways to reward everyone, but as far as simply posting the “Title Cards” like we have in the past, it’s totally something we can do!

#15

Yeah. I was very angry with the lack of updates on Blades. They just kinda swept it under the rug and dissapointed me greatly with the quality of their PR. I can’t justify the increase for one or two videos I care about a month gone down to zero with their silent murdering of Blades.

3 Likes
#16

We felt it would be a fun change to title the tiers rather than just label them what they are. Great feedback, though, and we might change them down the line!

As of right now, we’re pretty much set to still honor everything that was their before: 4 quarterly shows, animated shorts, monthly one shots, gear for cast members who need it, etc.

We’re looking to expand this year by offering things such as the signed poster and the party at PAX Unplugged. We’re always exploring different ideas, though, and open to new things as well.

#17

Not trying to be rude, But did you see RollPlay: Blades Update 7/25 ? It explains the blades situation and what they are trying to do.

1 Like
#18

Ok can we get some info about a few things. One, what experiments exactly will or have added costs to Rollplay? Two, I don’t know anything about the way Patreon works, but is it possible to lock a tier? I understand wanting to charge more for the work your doing going forward but was it impossible to grandfather these early adopters in at that old 1$ level? It leaves a really bad taste in my mouth that 600+ people(based on the poll) who supported from the beginning look like they are getting the short end of the stick. Finally for the extra 2$ a month whats going to improve? What exactly does a “increased dedication to producing behind the scenes content” mean for us? Does that mean less cancellations and shows disappearing unexpectedly? I understand things happen and some things can’t be helped, but as you expect more from us as consumers. I think its fair if we start expecting more from the show, in what has always been its biggest area of needs improvement.

5 Likes
#19

I would be more willing to increase my pledge if we got a second full time DM running D&D once a week. The main thing the money should be used for is to hire talents GMs to produce regularly scheduled content. ~$170,000 a year is a ton of money, I wish we could use it for the more important things like shows that meet a schedule. I won’t lie the increase after half of the people in the Patreon poll voted against this puts a sour taste in my mouth.

7 Likes
#20

I totally feel you on this however I do understand the lack of blades episodes isn’t on purpose. Everyone involved loves the show but sometimes things happen outside of their control. Honestly as long as Blades gets a live live show at some point i’ll be happy.