D&D 5E I Found an RPG Book at the Grocery Store

[Parmandur]

So, this morning I went to Safeway (one of the big regional grocery stores in Northern California) for some milk and chicken. When I got in the checkout line, I saw something on the magazine rack that I had to get:

A 96 page magazine style sourcebook written by Jeff Ashworth and illustrated by Jasmine Kalle, full of tables for generating encounters with fully illustrated maps.

I just had to get it, to reward these folks for getting a glossy magazine full of 5E content inside a grocery store of all places. It looks like these folks have a good number of products for sale on Amazon as well, anybody have experience with this line?

 

[Nikosandros]

That's cool, but also a bit weird, if they don't carry any other D&D stuff.

 

[Parmandur]

That's cool, but also a bit weird, if they don't carry any other D&D stuff.

Extremely weird: these magaIne racks normally carry gossip rags about monarchs & movie stars, or puzzles for kids.

 

[Parmandur]

So, it seems this adapted from a larger book released in 2020, which was an OGL product...but this magazine version is not OGL, it is using Creative Commons:

 

[Dire Bare]

I haven't picked any of these books yet, but I've seen them on Amazon, on DriveThruRPG, and in my local Barnes & Noble. They managed pretty decent market penetration . . . .

Each book gets a little more slick with the quality of the cover and all . . . they seem to be popular and are probably pretty decent.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Extremely weird: these magaIne racks normally carry gossip rags about monarchs & movie stars, or puzzles for kids.

Every once in a while something strange will show up in those racks. A month or two ago, I went by the magazines in a Publix and saw an issue of White Dwarf!

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

That is pretty cool! I would like WOTC experiment with this format for stuff that might add value to the game as a whole but doesn't quite fit into their vision of the big hardback books.

 

[darjr]

the books seem to do well on Amazon.

 

[Parmandur]

I haven't picked any of these books yet, but I've seen them on Amazon, on DriveThruRPG, and in my local Barnes & Noble. They managed pretty decent market penetration . . . .

Each book gets a little more slick with the quality of the cover and all . . . they seem to be popular and are probably pretty decent.

Yeah, having rewarded them for getting their product into a standard grocery store and having been going through it this afternoon...I would recommend!

 

[Parmandur]

That is pretty cool! I would like WOTC experiment with this format for stuff that might add value to the game as a whole but doesn't quite fit into their vision of the big hardback books.

Honestly, the content of the hardcovers isn't much different from being a Dyngeon Magazine Annual, so it would fit being broken out like this..