Deluxe Gaming Products - Lessons from Ptolus

Now that Ptlous has been released (excellent product by the way), and we see what features a "deluxe" gaming product can have, it brings to mind this question...

What features would you like to see in a product that would increase the value for you?

One thing I REALLY like is the idea of a seperate players guide (available as a low cost print or free PDF). I can't count how many times I 've seen a thread asking for a Player's Primer to Eberron or some other setting. It's nice to have something to give your players to fill them in on all the basic information of the setting without worrying about them reading spoilers.

The indexing is top notch, but what really puts this product over the top is the sturdy binding that lies flat on any page and seems like it will hold up to frequent use.

Another nice touch is the CD containing lots of player handouts and so forth.

So, what would make you pay $100+ for a gaming product? What sorts of features would make it worth more to you? What is your idea of the ultimate "deluxe" product?

Just wondering...

So, what would make you pay $100+ for a gaming product? What sorts of features would make it worth more to you? What is your idea of the ultimate "deluxe" product?

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Well, that's Ptolus really.

There are several reasons in fact that make me pay $100 for an RPG product. I want to have loads of game material, the complete package in one buy, so to speak. I want to have something extremely well organized, since there is a load of information to read. And I want something that lasts in time. When you've got these three things combined, provided the subject of the product itself interests me, I'm sold.

The durability of a product becomes a prime worry for me when I buy something. I look at the book, the way it is bound, the way it opens. I've had some books not survive the first few months or years of use, and that's REALLY disappointing and unacceptable to me. I'm taking great care of my books, because I want to have a personal gaming library that survives decades and more. No less. So the quality of the physical object and the craft that's been put into its realization is really important to me for very practical reasons.

Then, after this is taken care of, you can add any handouts, cool add-ons, gadgets you want, and I'll be really happy with them. But these points before are critical for my satisfaction with the product, no matter how cool it may be.

Adding to Odhanan's requirements I would ad: Art. Exquisite art. beautiful illustrations etc.

Definately a must. Full color pages.

Any RPG product that expensive had better be painfully detailed and extraordinarily indexed. Glossary should also be included.

Player's primers I think should be a given for a setting. Without one, you either expect the players to know near nothing about the world or have to purchase an expensive book to learn way too much about the world. Separate player's primers would be ideal for characters of differing backgrounds (if it's free at least, otherwise should all be in one; but at these prices the primer serves as an elaborate advertisement so should be free).

Maps should be extensive with anything of this cost. 2 poster sized at the very least.

Over the first few months of production, I would expect to see a free three-part adventure or some such thing to familiarize the DM and players with how the world is intended to be used.

It should also support a myriad of play styles. I should be able to run a pirate campaign followed up by political intrigue, and finally dungeon crawling. If it doesn't support almost every genre, it's too pricey.

I suppose there's other things, but that's a start.

Depends on the product.

Adventures: This is probably the category where I'm most likely to spend the money. I would pay $100 for an adventure the size of, say, "Red Hand of Doom" that was also packaged with an almost complete set of minis to go with it (I can excuse missing some common minis like standard Orcs or whatever, but the 'specials' better all be present and correct. But complete would be better, and a set of PC minis as well would be better still.), and also a bunch of poster-size battlemats for use with key encounters.

However, from a marketing point of view, I think they might perhaps be better selling this as two products - the adventure, and a boxed set of everything except the adventure.

Settings: See Ptolus. I didn't buy that book because it didn't really grab me, but the product itself looks exceptional. The major thing I would be looking for in a setting book is for it to be 'complete'. If I'm paying that much money, I don't want to then have to spend additional money on region supplements, "Races of...", or anything other than adventures.

Rules: I absolutely would not buy a supplement to the rules for any system at that cost. What I would spend money on is a mega-deluxe PHB which contained all the material from the PHB, Spell Compendium, Psionics, Complete X, Races of..., and so forth. Or, at least, the vast majority of the crunch. Again, I would be looking for completeness rather than anything else - this needs to be THE rulebook, or I'm not interested.

I have a single Deluxe product, which is the 25th anniversary edition of Call of Cthulhu. No color, but an exquisite layout and beautiful monochrome illustrations (which is more suitable to CoC than paintings) and a really good hardcover. Although I like very much to have it, fact is, I need to buy a standard copy to play, as there is no way to convince me to place this book in a table full of players and their crackers, soda or beer.

It is not necessary to be completely new. Chaosium gave me a great new layout and a few new illustrations in a nice package, which was enough to me.

MojoGM said:

So, what would make you pay $100+ for a gaming product?

Just wondering...

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If it came with free beer for a month, I MIGHT pay that. Or if it was delivered by Heidi Klum. Maybe if Monte came over and DM'd the damn thing himself.

I think the lesson of ptolus is that the primary indicator for the success of an enormous gaming product is a large fan base. If this had been produced by somebody who wasn't Monte Cook, it wouldn't have sold nearly as well. You have to have a track record of useful, well-written gaming products to get people interested in something like this.

MojoGM said:

So, what would make you pay $100+ for a gaming product? What sorts of features would make it worth more to you? What is your idea of the ultimate "deluxe" product?

Click to expand...

I think Ptolus has set the bar wonderfully high. The idea of a CD with loads of player handouts is great and I think it should be a standard in deluxe products.

Adventures that came standard with player maps & illustrations on the CD would be a great boon.

I wish we'd see more of this, but I have a feeling that the number of truly deluxe products like Ptolus will be very limited. In fact, I doubt we'll see anything else like it for D&D unless WotC decides to put out such a product.

DaveMage said:

I wish we'd see more of this, but I have a feeling that the number of truly deluxe products like Ptolus will be very limited. In fact, I doubt we'll see anything else like it for D&D unless WotC decides to put out such a product.

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C'mon, Sigilian Gazeteer!

*wishful thinking*