General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
I seem to remember that for OD&D and 1E D&D that there were a few rulebooks and a plethora of different adventures, i.e. TSR was predominantly making money off the adventures rather than rulebooks.
No idea what happened with 2E as I left playing until 3E arrived but from what I've heard it seems like an initial mix of adventures and rulebook before becoming predominantly rulebooks.
With 3.xE WotC focussed mainly on rulebooks rather than adventures.
From what I can tell 4E has carried on from where 3.xE left.
However, Paizo with Pathfinder appears to be going back to the original TSR model; i.e. the rulebooks are only appearing to keep the adventures based on a living system rather than a money making enterprise.
Just wanted to ponder the question of why certain companies go in a predominantly rulebook or adventure direction? (Beyond the fact that all players can buy rulebooks whereas adventures are just for DMs.)
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Paizo's adventure paths obviously sprung from the success of their work in Dungeon Magazine, and almost incidental to the success of the first Pathfinder adventure path they have branched out into campaign gazetteers and the likes. The problem with adventures, as you suggest, is that they are bought only by the DM, but that does not need to be an insurmountable problem as the DM is generally the one that spends the most on game books anyway. The main problem is going to be, just how many adventure paths does one DM actually need? I have 4 (the 3 from Dungeon, plus Burnt Offerings). I bought the first 3 of the next Pathfinder AP, but realised I would never have enough time in my life to play them all so stopped. I do, however, but a lot of the supporting Pathfinder material, probably a half dozen books so far, with another 4 or 5 on my wish list.
2e branched out into settings in a BIG way (FR, Maztica, Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and on ...)
3e seemed to be attempting to get players to buy books, but to do so you need to allow power-creep in add on books (after all, those players need a reason to splash the cash, and what better reason than a more powerful character).
4e ... too early to tell. Subscription basis, incremental core books ..?
I seem to remember that for OD&D and 1E D&D that there were a few rulebooks and a plethora of different adventures, i.e. TSR was predominantly making money off the adventures rather than rulebooks.
TSR was, especially in it's early days, working on a random business method.
(Management by rolling on a gygaxian table?)
They published whatever they felt like and had at hand, without much regard or knowledge about what they made money on.
There seems to have been, even towards the end, very little, if any, feedback from what they sold passed on to those who wrote the stuff.
So I don't really think it's true to say that they made the most money on adventures. We don't know. Nobody knows for certain. But probably not.
But in the early days and in the eighties money was easy for them, roleplaying grew almost exponentially. You could sell almost anything (and people did, an amazing amount of crap, and a good deal of weird good stuff, was produced).
Likewise, in 2e, we know that several of the settings, including, sadly, Planescape, never earned back the money they made.
The best sellers have always been the core books for TSR/WotC. And some of the supplements.
Therefore, WotC wants to make more 'core' books, and less extraneous stuff.
They've also, inspired by White Wolf, realized that if they make a book that's mostly useful to DMs, then they can sell one book per gaming group.
If they make a book interesting to players they might sell one book per player.
Paizo has much smaller expectations, I suppose we're talking about at most a couple of percent of WotC sales, and that influences how they do it.
Just wanted to ponder the question of why certain companies go in a predominantly rulebook or adventure direction? (Beyond the fact that all players can buy rulebooks whereas adventures are just for DMs.)
It has to do with the level your market is saturate and your competition. If you compete with other rules you may want to offer more comprehensive rules -you can do this to the point of glut. If you do not compete with either rules or adventures but you need to expand you build aids such as the adventures of 1e.
Generally you need both - the rate you produce them depend on your business plan. So it is a matter of custom balance. But both are necessary and they support each other -rules are theory modules are application: you need to entertain with new ideas on both sides.
Setting development can also sell and become a source of creating another interesting product -storytelling product: novels, comics, films.
And yes, one of the most difficult parts of the question is knowing what made money and what lost it. Can't just guess form what they produced. Sadly, TSR wasn't all that good at business...
The main problem is going to be, just how many adventure paths does one DM actually need? I have 4 (the 3 from Dungeon, plus Burnt Offerings). I bought the first 3 of the next Pathfinder AP, but realised I would never have enough time in my life to play them all so stopped. I do, however, but a lot of the supporting Pathfinder material, probably a half dozen books so far, with another 4 or 5 on my wish list.
Three things: Many DMs are collectors at heart, so want ends up driving behavior more than need.
Second, just because you don't need it now, doesn't mean you don't want the option to run it later.
Finally, I buy a lot of adventures simply to cannibalize the parts for my campaigns. I don't need the APs, but I will use Rise of the Runelords 1, part of Runelords 3, The Gold Goblin from Second Darkness, and much of the plot of Curse of the Crimson Throne... all in one or two campaigns.
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Personally I didn't like the 3E model of putting out rule book after rule book. All the splat books had the power creep issue others have mentioned, but it also intimidated people who started late (imagine coming into 3E after all those books were released...a little overwhelming). I still play 3e and haven't really made the switch to 4E. But if they went back to the module driven approach, i might make the switch.
Was Dragonlance the first real adventure path? There were certainly sequential adventures before that, but was that the first full campaign series (level 1 - max) linked by a single plot?
However, Paizo with Pathfinder appears to be going back to the original TSR model; i.e. the rulebooks are only appearing to keep the adventures based on a living system rather than a money making enterprise.
The best way to guarantee a living system is by being a money making enterprise. Paizo does it smart and makes money with what they do best: adventures. Ditto Wizards.
Comparing that to TSR is simplifying complicated realties quite a bit.
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As I understand it, Paizo want to sell D&D 3.5 adventures.
All the rest of it - the Golarion campaign setting, the Pathfinder RPG - is designed to support the adventures.
On the face of it, selling only to DMs is bad business.
However, I think plenty of people are like me; they have a gaming budget and they are going to spend it, come what may. Paizo, with their subscription model, are looking to get first call on that money.
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On the face of it, selling only to DMs is bad business.
Not necessarily. It's certainly not as lucrative as selling a copy to all the players, naturally.
But Paizo can not hope for that - at least not at first.
It's natural that WotC wants to expand their sales to all the players (they already sell stuff to all the DMs), but for Paizo it is enough to sell to more DMs in order to expand their sales.
In short, for a smaller business (than WotC) it is enough to sell to the DMs.
Was Dragonlance the first real adventure path? There were certainly sequential adventures before that, but was that the first full campaign series (level 1 - max) linked by a single plot?
You may be right, although it was more a multi-part rail-road rather than a long sequence of connected adventures.
In response to roguerouge: I LOVE Paizo stuff, don't get me wrong. It is just that I can only DM over the web using the play-by-forum format due to me having 2 young kids, a manic job, and not being in a big city. As such, each part of an adventure takes a long time to play. As an example, it took my players 12 months to complete Burnt Offerings (Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords, Part 1). We are not about 2/3rds of the way through Skinsaw Murders (Part 2), with about 6 months spent so far and I guess another 3 to go.
Given that I really want to DM Age of Worms at some point ... well, I will probably be dead before I finish Rise of the Runelords, Age of Worms, Savage Tide, and Shackled City. I do think I will probably complete my collection of the second Pathfinder AP, simply because I hate incomplete collections.
Was Dragonlance the first real adventure path? There were certainly sequential adventures before that, but was that the first full campaign series (level 1 - max) linked by a single plot?
Intentionally? I think you are right, but as has been pointed out many times Temple of Elemental Evil, or The Slave lords modules, combined with the Against the Giants, Vault of the Drow, and Queen of the Demonweb pits series certainly works well as a AP.
As far as a business plan, I don't think TSR had an official one. They tried various things, saw what worked and didn't, and repeated what worked. Gary was definitely not a fan of having many splat books, he said it many times, and in several Dragon editorials.
In their 2E days there definitely was not a business plan, or if there was it sucked or was not followed. If anything it was, "Lets throw tons of stuff out there, and see if it makes us a profit." Apparently it did, for a few years at least, but it did eventually bite them back.
WOTC, in their 3E years, did a cost benefit analysis, and apparently saw that the most consistent selling, and therefore profitable, products were the rule books, and source setting books. Modules were either a loss, or not enough of a profit margin to be worth producing. I would suspect the latter, because modules can always be marketed at a profit at WOTC's scale of business.
For 4E they still saw that the "rule" books sell the best, so they came up with their new model of new core books every year, that expand upon what hasn't been covered yet, and adding in new stuff based on the new rules sets. However, they also realized that modules not only can be done profitably, but also help drive sales of the rule books. So they started off 4E with modules, and unlike in 3E, will continue with modules to not only drive sales of the original core books, but to drive sales of their successive rule books, with the new rules, classes, etc... added in.
Obviously much more than this goes into true business plans/models, but I think that I have covered the basics of what their business plan built on.
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Well I can see that you have a big problem or fault in your comparison here- only two of the companies there are international. Its really an apples-to-oranges problem.
Piazo, for all its allusions to greatness- such as hiring (in)famous D&D designers and unleashing fat and impressive rulebooks full of product- is a small, boutique printing company.
TSR and WotC (and Hasbro) are international companies. I have yet to hear any words about full-product support for, say, Dutch from the Piazo camp. With that full-product support comes language translation, international bureaucracy, and legal support in every individual country/language. That is beyond the scale of our "little company that could".
Well I can see that you have a big problem or fault in your comparison here- only two of the companies there are international. Its really an apples-to-oranges problem.
Piazo, for all its allusions to greatness- such as hiring (in)famous D&D designers and unleashing fat and impressive rulebooks full of product- is a small, boutique printing company.
TSR and WotC (and Hasbro) are international companies. I have yet to hear any words about full-product support for, say, Dutch from the Piazo camp. With that full-product support comes language translation, international bureaucracy, and legal support in every individual country/language. That is beyond the scale of our "little company that could".
True. Paizo probably sells in the thousands, to tens of thousands of units, where as, at least with their core rule book set, WTOC sells hundreds of thousands of sets.
__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
According to the WotC market research posted by SKR, DMs spend much more money than players do. "Just" selling to the DMs is actually viable, because you're selling to a big chunk of the market.
__________________ All role playing advice is given without knowledge of you and your group. Only you and your group knows what is fun for you. What you are doing is not badwrongfun. My advice is offered based on what I think might be fun for you to try.
"Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary." - Amedee Ozenfant, Foundations of Modern Art
"I already have a place where I can get little recognition for my accomplishments, advance at a very slow pace, and have to work hard to eke out minimum rewards for my efforts. It's called work." - toberane.
Was Dragonlance the first real adventure path? There were certainly sequential adventures before that, but was that the first full campaign series (level 1 - max) linked by a single plot?
Well, the GDQ series were all linked and also loosely tied to T1-4 and I believe the Tharizdun module or Tomb of Horrors. But they didn't come out in that order or anything. So kinda, sorta and not really but yes...
I imagine the "DMs buy, Players borrow" problem is why WotC is:
1) Making some books more DM focused.
2) Making DMing easier so more people do it.
3) Removing Player rewards in RPGA and only having DM awards.
4) Moving more towards DM tools in DDI.
Was Dragonlance the first real adventure path? There were certainly sequential adventures before that, but was that the first full campaign series (level 1 - max) linked by a single plot?
By that definition, no, since it didn't start at level 1.
But it's better to just think in terms of long series with a single linked plotline. DL was the first such entity of anything like its length, but I tend to think of the GDQ series as D&D's first serious epic, not DL.
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