The Future of the Patreon Workshops

Since I first started this Patreon, I've also offered (near) monthly patron-exclusive Discord workshops focused on an assorted grab-bag of topics related to DMing theory, game/narrative design, and table management. These workshops began as lectures-plus-Q&A, but starting in January, I began experimenting with a "hands-on" approach, in which I sent out a handout covering an aspect of DMing theory and used the workshop itself for case studies and group exercises.

The good news: This new, practical approach greatly increased attendee satisfaction and retention!

The bad news: Attendance increased only a little bit, and still wasn't incredibly reliable.

Unfortunately, for about as long as the workshops have been around, attendance hasn't been incredibly high. When I first started them, I struggled to attract more than ten live attendees; sometimes, I held workshops for as few as two, or even one. Even today, with the Patreon greatly increased in size following the launch of RRL, the workshops' Discord events don't attract more than ten to fifteen RSVPs; of these, no more than two-thirds usually attend.

It's true, of course, that people have lives—I totally get that not everyone can come to the scheduled timeslots! (Then again, the workshop timeslots I use are reliably the highest vote-getters when I host scheduling polls, which suggests that all of the alternative slots are worse.) But even so, it's hard not to look at these numbers and get the feeling that only a small number of patrons are able to take advantage of these workshops, and that something else would work better for the large majority of others—especially given the new hands-on experience is great for people who attend live, but far worse than the lectures for people who can't.

Today, I'd like to gauge your thoughts on where to go from here. I've got three main possibilities in mind:

• I could go back to the old free-talking, lecture-style workshops on ad-hoc topics, but instead of holding them live, just pre-record them, YouTube style, and release them as patron-exclusive video/podcast material.

• I could cancel the workshops altogether and instead publish monthly handouts (as I have been for the hands-on workshops) focusing on fundamental DMing skills and narrative/game design theory. (These "handouts" would be, in effect, the rough draft of The Dungeon Master's Guide: Reloaded, a textbook to DMing I've been hoping to publish post-Reloaded.)

• I could do something else.

(I don't think I would want to do both #1 and #2—part of the draw of the "lectures" is that I could mostly wing it from a set of bullet points and a rough outline, instead of a script. Meanwhile, a big attraction of the handouts is not needing to spend the time to read them aloud and record myself, which is generally a hassle.)

I don't want to do anything unilaterally, though, so I'd like to gauge your thoughts on where to go from here. Let me know in the poll and comments below what you think, and I'll make a formal announcement later this week.

Thank you as always for your feedback and support!

Cheers,
Dragna