Community Copies on OBS Sites

Indie RPG creators love community copies.  We put them up all the time on itch.io.

Other creators have products on OneBookShelf (OBS) websites (which actually is owned by Roll20 now but I still think of them as OBS), like DM's Guild and DriveThruRPG.  I often see people say that they can't do community copies on those websites and it makes me sad because you can!  You can provide digital copies either for free, or for a discounted price, or you can do both.  So I am putting this together as a guide for how to do that.

The basic process is the same for any OBS site, but the exact UI steps are different whether you're publishing it yourself (DTRPG) or using a community content program (DM's Guild, Pathfinder Infinite, etc.)

For an initial proof of concept, here's what it looks like on Ilkhana's Grimoires: Beyond Necromancy on DM's Guild.

The arrow and image were created as part of the Keep Playing it Forward initiative, which long story short, a bunch of DM's Guild creators decided to do that after a 'pay it forward' weekend where we got higher than normal royalties from the site.  That part, I won't be providing, because it's not mine.  You can make your own image or no image.  Here's what it looks like on Dungeon Crossing: Dragon Home Designer on DTRPG.

So this is what it looks like as an end result.  Now here's how to create your own.

DriveThruRPG (Published by you)

1. Go to your Publisher Tools.

2. Scroll down to the Promotions section.

3. Select Special Discounts.

4. Fill out the form; select the title you want, the maximum uses of the code, the price that the link will give someone (zero is an option), the effective date and expiration date.  For a limited number of community copies, you'll usually just want to put in some max uses, zero price, no expiration date.

This will create a link for you.  You can then put that link in your product page, or wherever else you want to put it.  The link will not automatically update to users how many copies are left; if you gave it a maximum number of uses, you'll have to check the remaining uses here on the special discounts page yourself.  You can either keep that updated publicly or not bother.

Community Content Programs (DM's Guild, Pathfinder Infinite, etc.)

1. Go to your Account page.

2. Scroll down to the My Content section.

3. Select Promotion Tools.

4. Select Create/Edit Special Discounts.

5. Fill out the form as above to create your link and then do whatever you want with it.

And that's how you make community copies available with products on OBS-family websites.