Why no adventure paths?

Rechan · May 20, 2009

Aside from the WotC modules and the Scales of War (which are okay at best), there exists no real adventure paths in 4e.

Why?

I understand that the GSL really hamstrung things there at the beginning. But, now the revised one is out.

Adventure paths seem to be The Popular Thing, and something that is clearly missing. A market is there. So, how come no one is working on an adventure path? No third companies cooking one up, nobody wanting to work on it as a free sorta thing on the web.

It'd sell like hotcakes.

Ari? Why aren't you writing one? Goodman? C'mon guys.

Morrus · May 20, 2009

Ahem...

Rechan · May 20, 2009

Morrus said:
Ahem...

Huh; didn't realize that was getting converted.

Zaukrie · May 20, 2009

My theories:

They are hard to do. They need great production value to sell much volume. They require a great deal of planning and foresight. The GSL scared off most of those that would do them. They are risky, if it isn't going well, how do you recover all of your time/money if you are a small company, one person act?

Fiery_Dragon · May 20, 2009

Random thoughts...

I think it's just a lot of money to invest and resources to tie up over a long period of time. And now, you can take it all the way up to Level 30....

Sales needed to sustain an adventure path - one of quality - are just not there for the majority of third-party-publishers. Or, if they are there for the introductory release, there's no guarantee that they'll be there when you're releasing your adventure for Level 10-14... and are you going to abandon the property at that point, or continue investing in it, knowing that you're just losing money with each release. It's a big gamble.

Morrus · May 20, 2009

Fiery_Dragon said:
I think it's just a lot of money to invest and resources to tie up over a long period of time. And now, you can take it all the way up to Level 30....

Sales needed to sustain an adventure path - one of quality - are just not there for the majority of third-party-publishers. Or, if they are there for the introductory release, there's no guarantee that they'll be there when you're releasing your adventure for Level 10-14... and are you going to abandon the property at that point, or continue investing in it, knowing that you're just losing money with each release. It's a big gamble.

Yup. The *only* way we can sustain it is via the subscription model. If folks pay for the whole thing in advance, you know that your later adventures will be sold (or have been sold, technically).

If we were relying on people just buying the individual adventures one at a time, I don't think we could afford to do more than the first two or three at most.

kitsune9 · May 20, 2009

Rechan said:
Aside from the WotC modules and the Scales of War (which are okay at best), there exists no real adventure paths in 4e.

Why?

I understand that the GSL really hamstrung things there at the beginning. But, now the revised one is out.

Adventure paths seem to be The Popular Thing, and something that is clearly missing. A market is there. So, how come no one is working on an adventure path? No third companies cooking one up, nobody wanting to work on it as a free sorta thing on the web.

It'd sell like hotcakes.

Ari? Why aren't you writing one? Goodman? C'mon guys.

I agree with Zaukrie in that there is a lot more riding on an AP than a simple module. If a company like Goodman games put out a 15 module set of their DCC line (gain 2 levels per mod) and it completely blows chunks, they are stuck with 15 losers whereas if they put out 15 mods that stand alone, some will stink, some will be okay, and others will be cool to play.

I think once D&D 4e has been around another year or so, we'll start to see more 3PP emerge and probably we'll hear announcements for an AP.

The Ghost · May 20, 2009

Added to what Zaukrie and Fiery Dragon said - How many adventure paths can the market actually sustain? If we assume that each AP will run between one to two years to release, and one to two years to play. And each gaming group will likely try to play through the entire AP. Then how many APs is the average gaming group going to need over the life of the game? Three? Four? Five? I don't know if the market is actually big enough to support much more than what is already being produced.

Piratecat · May 20, 2009

Morrus said:
Ahem...

I'm finishing up the editing on one of the adventures now. Oh my gosh, this thing is good. I'm biased, so folks should judge for themselves, but I really like the conversion.