Adventure A Week

Morrus · Feb 9, 2012

Adventureaweek.com is a new venture, seemingly inspired by Monte Cook's Dungeonaday.com, which will provide weekly adventures for the Pathfinder RPG. The site takes adventure submissions, which offers a reasonable 40% royalty to the author - although I personally think the "your gateway into the industry" line was a bit overdone by third-party-publishers ten years ago, let alone now, as were royalties-only-based contracts for freelancers, so it remains to be seen whether it's a good deal for the authors when most publishers use a flat-fee arrangement. As an aside, though, I've long advised freelancers not to accept royalty-only deals or pay attention to the "you get exposure, so might make an RPG career out of it" type deals that used to be offered by many smaller publishers, and which even I have offered in my earliest ventures into publishing. But don't let that decide anything for you - it may well be a good arrangement for you, and the set-up does look professional and elegant.

The site will include a new default campaign setting and is subscription-based ($99 per year, or $10 per month, for, presumably, 52 adventures - which certainly sounds like value for money - it's cheaper per adventure than most adventure paths out there, though most folks won't use them all) and opens on March 1st, 2012. There's a free trial adventure called Crypt of the Sun Lord. The site is spearheaded by Jonathan Nelson and ENnie-winning cartographer Todd Gamble who I can vouch for as doing excellent work.

We'll have an in-depth review right here on EN World in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

kitsune9 · Feb 9, 2012

Interesting. Here's my ideas. Make it part of a living campaign. Allow players to post their characters, earn points for bragging rights, DM's who have subscriptions can download the adventures and players can upload their records through a cheaper subscription.

Players who have a cheaper subscription can get access to magic items and/or certain treasures for the module played--very similar to the cert cards that the RPGA used to give out for players.

Also, allow for single modules to be bought for download. You can price it so that the subscription is a good deal, but at least have the option available so that you get some DM's who want a pick-up game, but don't want to spend $99 for 52 modules.

Really liked the format of the first module. I think I'll adopt that for adventures that I write in my home campaign (side treks and stuff).

Happy Gaming!

Morrus · Feb 9, 2012

kitsune9 said:
Also, allow for single modules to be bought for download. You can price it so that the subscription is a good deal, but at least have the option available so that you get some DM's who want a pick-up game, but don't want to spend $99 for 52 modules

Yeah, that's the standard adventure path model, and the one we use here at EN World. Monthly subscription gets all the adventures, or you can buy 'em individually. It works very well. I think it would work even better for adventureaday.com, though, because - I assume - there's no strict adventure path story element involved, so the "pick and mix" aspect of the individual adventures is greater.

kitsune9 · Feb 9, 2012

Morrus said:
Monthly subscription gets all the adventures, or you can buy 'em individually. It works very well.

I plan on picking up your Zeitgeist adventures. Anything Iron Kingdoms clonish is awesome-spectacular-zingy in my book.

Have you guys thought about a living campaign of sorts?

Morrus · Feb 9, 2012

kitsune9 said:
Have you guys thought about a living campaign of sorts?

No; the infrastructure needed to do that well is far beyond our resources. We could do it crappily, but that would be a disservice.

Gaming Tonic · Feb 9, 2012

I have been excited about this from the moment I heard about it a few months ago. It looks like quality adventures which are something that you can never get enough of. There are a lot of great adventures out there on the web but you have to know where to look. I can't wait for more.

The_Baldman · Feb 9, 2012

You know there are companies out there who are really really good at running large OP programs for large companies.

Morrus · Feb 9, 2012

wavester said:
You know there are companies out there who are really really good at running large OP programs for large companies.

What about large OP programs for tiny companies with no money?

Aberzanzorax · Feb 10, 2012

It's got potential, but I wish it clarified a few more boundaries.

-How long are the adventures going to be?
-Who are these people (have they any experience with adventure writing/publishing in the past)?
-Do they have at least a few weeks ahead already, or are they going to fall into the "oh crap, someone write something quick for this week!" problem.
-How "good" are the adventures going to be? I can assume, based on the publisher (Enworld, Paizo) the author (Pett, Marmell, Vaughn) or the developer (Wolfgang Baur) that an adventure is probably going to be pretty darn good. I don't feel as though this site meets any of those three "confidence elements".

I just don't want 52 "orc with pie" adventures or adventures of "fanfic" quality that I can already find on the web, and I wish they'd sell themselves a bit better to potential customers (such as myself).

EDIT: Remember Dire Kobold.com? They were a collection of dozens of adventures (I came across them because of their Midnight adventure Garden of Good and Evil). I have concerns that this new site will go the way of that one (or, hell, the way of Dungeonaday.com, from Monte Cook himself).

In addition, a print or print on demand version (at the year's end perhaps?) would be a major selling point for me as well.

Just some thoughts...it could be great, and I don't mean to naysay, but I'm left with more questions than answers after reading the OP and their own site. I'll be keeping an eye on this!

Alphastream · Feb 10, 2012

Agreed, Aberzazorax! It would be nice to know who is behind this and what experience they have.

I'm also weary (for them) of the model, because it is pretty easy to join for a month and download all you want, then unsubscribe. Or, even if you do join legitimately, to soon find you don't need more adventures. The value erodes strongly over time unless you have really good innovative authors that keep things fresh and teach you tricks, or if you find yourself really wanting to play out the story (if there even is supposed to be a central story).

Beating the existing Adventure Path options is challenging and the whole business is already a challenging one, but I certainly wish them well!