State of the Sterling Vermin Adventuring Company

Hello everyone!

I hope your 2023 is off to a good start! It's been very busy for me with life generally, the OGL rollercoaster specifically, and launching a new chapter of the Sterling Vermin Adventuring Company with the site store. It's been a mix of good and bad so far but I'm feeling very optimistic about the future.

Speaking of, let's talk about the future. Without getting into all the details here, 3rd party publishers have always worked under the assumption that the OGL 1.0a (the one that has allowed me to produce D&D content up to this point) was an always and forever thing. Not only is that suddenly not the case, but it seems Wizards of the Coast may be intent on ensuring that they can update whatever license they eventually replace 1.0a with. What that means for third party publishers like myself is that at any time Wizards could decide to make a change to the license that prevents me from continuing to publish. Sounds bad, right? It is!

So here's what I'm doing. Assuming the new license is even remotely fair, I'll be continuing to use this Patreon to produce regular D&D 5e content. If possible, that may extend into One D&D as well. Simultaneously I will also be developing my own original games. These original games will receive Patreon exclusive previews, although full playtests will likely be more open to the public. I'll have more to say on my first original game in the coming months.

Finally, and most importantly for all of you, as the Sterling Vermin Adventuring Company has grown, so has its needs. In order to best meet those needs, I will be updating the pledge tiers starting in March. The new tiers are:

Recruit ($3/month). At this tier, you get access to a monthly Patreon exclusive, access to the Guildhall channel on our discord, and a discord role showing your pledge tier.

Adventurer ($5/month). At this tier, you get everything from Recruit. You also get to vote on the monthly exclusives, early access to original game playtests, and monthly Design Diary updates from me.

Legend ($10/month). At this tier, you get everything from Recruit and Adventurer. In addition, you can submit monthly exclusives for Adventurers and Legends to vote on and you'll get PDFs of new site store content as it releases. Plus I'll be super grateful!

Please review these options and adjust your pledge (or not!) based on what looks most appealing to you. Those currently at the Friend tier will need to select a new tier prior to March to continue receiving Patreon exclusives. I have unpublished the tier preemptively to prevent confusion but this tier will still get the benefits through February.

As always, I appreciate the immense amount of support you all have shown me over the years. I'm very excited about the future of Sterling Vermin Adventuring Company and I hope you are too.

Thanks,

Benjamin