Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder outselling D&D

+1 Kitty of Slaying

Theo R Cwithin said:

Ack! And I bet Gary Gygax's cat is a seriously old school cat. How many commoners and sacred cows will it slay in creating 5e?

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Well if it is truly old school then it will kill first level wizards by the dozens.

"AAAAHHHHH!!!! Stay Away, I only have 1d4 hit points!!" - Random AD&D 1e first level wizard.

On the validity of producing adventures as business model:

carmachu said:

I think that would depend though. Much of WotC's adventures were subpar in the 3.x era, or not nearly up to the quality of Paizos(something like red hand of doom, and perhaps the return to the temple of elemental evil in 3.5 as exceptions), so no I dont think wotc could survive.

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Quality issues aside, adventures your customers want should sell less than player-oriented supplements your customers want. I wouldn't estimate a 5.1 ratio based on the ratio of players to GM in a group, but even if we assume a 2:1 ratio it makes more sense to get your editors and layouters to work on the stuff you expect to sell more of.

Could focusing on adventures be a sustainable model? Maybe. Would focusing on player-oriented supplement be a stronger model? Definitely!

carmachu said:

But recall that TSR put out in its days tons of adventures, and did fairly well(their fall wasnt because of putting out adventures), many of which I think we can agree were classics.

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Tons of adventures? I don't have access to the lists right now, but how many were there? 30? 40? Over a runtime of the edition of 12 years this doesn't strike me as an ocean of modules.

And concerning the fall of TSR I think it was due to their failure to use the gold rush of the early eighties to set up a sustainable business model.

carmachu said:

So I dont think its so cut and dry as you might think. It would take serious work and effort, but it might be actually possible. Especially in 4e, which seems to have a void of really good adventures(but I'll admit that I dont have much experience with 4e advetures beyond the very beginning).

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But hey are doing exactly this with DDI. Quality aside, the electronic successor of Dungeon provides us with some 2 adventures per month.

I think the new model could work, if WotC succeeds in raising the quality and offering a wider selection in their adventures.

That their model is working for Paizo is wonderful! We now have two D&D competitors using different portfolios of products. If only people would be mature enough to acknowledge the offerings and quality of offerings of companies whose products they're not interested in and not take a fan of the other company's excitement over announcements as a personal slight.

Aberzanzorax said:

... but yes!

I remember adventures and worlds from earlier editions moreso than rules....

...the rules might matter, but the nostalgia comes from the experience - however crazy, imbalanced, wonderful or horrible it might have been.

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Except that a very high proportion of people who played D&D seem to have used homebrew settings and made their own adventures. And I suspect exactly the same thing is true for Pathfinder games, with Golarion being used by a minority of PF GMs. That it's pretty 'generic D&D setting' may mean they can reach a market of other people playing 'different generic D&D setting', but it's not like Rokugan/L5R or Logres/Pendragon where there's a strong link between playing in the world and playing with those rules.

Jan van Leyden said:

I wouldn't estimate a 5.1 ratio based on the ratio of players to GM in a group, but even if we assume a 2:1 ratio

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When I worked in the industry, the company I worked for had a 5:1 one ratio for rules vs. adventures. That was the 90's though.

/M

I just wanted to make a couple of comments about adventure sales and why it seems to be working for paizo.

1) Paizo AP's their main adventures is more than just a adventure. Each book has 1/3rd of it roughly devoted to support stuff. So even those not running will buy them sometimes for that stuff.

2) The average age of gamers are going up. When the majority where in their teens, preteens and 20's like the 80's was and to a lesser degree the 90's. Most people had a lot of free time. I know I sure did as does the guys I game with. Most of us use to mostly do homemade world settings and adventures. Now with most gamers being in their 30's or older(yes there is still a lot of young gamers but fewer percentage wise than there was). I know myself including, most people I game with, when they run just don't have the time to make their own worlds or own adventures each week. Not with the demands on their times from other sources, jobs, spouse, kids etc.

I might be wrong but I think these two things factor in. It doesn't hurt that Paizo makes outstanding adventures either. Anyways it is just my pet theory on why adventures sell better.

JoeGKushner said:

Quit making things for people to make characters and focus on things for people to play the game.

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+1

Don't give me more rules. Give me products that use the rules.

Dark Mistress said:

I just wanted to make a couple of comments about adventure sales and why it seems to be working for paizo.

1) Paizo AP's their main adventures is more than just a adventure. Each book has 1/3rd of it roughly devoted to support stuff. So even those not running will buy them sometimes for that stuff.

2) The average age of gamers are going up. When the majority where in their teens, preteens and 20's like the 80's was and to a lesser degree the 90's. Most people had a lot of free time. I know I sure did as does the guys I game with. Most of us use to mostly do homemade world settings and adventures. Now with most gamers being in their 30's or older(yes there is still a lot of young gamers but fewer percentage wise than there was). I know myself including, most people I game with, when they run just don't have the time to make their own worlds or own adventures each week. Not with the demands on their times from other sources, jobs, spouse, kids etc.

I might be wrong but I think these two things factor in. It doesn't hurt that Paizo makes outstanding adventures either. Anyways it is just my pet theory on why adventures sell better.

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These factors surely factor in, but still. I wouldn't expect a player to buy an AP module for the background stuff, so we still have different groups of target customers.

Your other point makes a lot of sense. Not only may the older GMs operate on a limited time budget, but they should tend to have more disposable income, which they gladly spent to maintain their hobby under this circumstances. Paizo adventures are beautiful to look at and read, maybe even fit to remain on the dinner table. On top of that, the subscription model is convenient for time strapped mid-lifers. No more need to travel to a shop, which is probably populated by people from a different walk of life.

So yeah, I see the attraction but I still believe in something of a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio.

Jan van Leyden said:

Tons of adventures? I don't have access to the lists right now, but how many were there? 30? 40? Over a runtime of the edition of 12 years this doesn't strike me as an ocean of modules.

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Depends on where you draw the line exactly with TSR, or what year. This link's pretty much listing everything TSR's run.....Seems like more then 40.

List of Dungeons & Dragons modules - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

carmachu said:

Depends on where you draw the line exactly with TSR, or what year. This link's pretty much listing everything TSR's run.....Seems like more then 40.

List of Dungeons & Dragons modules - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Yes, more than 40. Although this list is a bit hard to handle as it encompasses all the things over different games and editions. I was thinking about 1e AD&D only.

In terms of "we've gotta sell more splat books!"...

Why did they stop after Player's Handbook III?

Why did they stop after Martial Power 2?

Why, for all intents and purposes, is the Essential Line a reboot/streamline of the rules?

If selling to players is the golden rule and is the make all end all of gaming support, we'd be seeing PHB5 and Arcane Power 3, not WoTC scrambling to find products that people will buy (ala cancelling the 1st quarter products), in a format they enjoy (anyone remember that Heroes of Shadow and other books were supposed to be essentialized versions?)

We can say what should sell but what IS selling is apparently something different.

And once again, it Paizo is the #2 company, with setting support and massive adventure support, and their own play league, WoTC can continue to ignore it and continue to cede market share to them.