Charles Ryan on Adventures

[Banshee16]

The player base has changed considerably too. My games are online now, so book sharing is no longer possible.

They created the OGL and SRD for publishers, they put it online for everyone. To believe that the SRD is only for publishers is a bit self centered. It is a resource that WotC has made available to everyone that wants it.

And again, to say I want material for free is simply misrepresenting what I said throughout. If you want to debate whether an SRD can fall under product support, fine, but to say I want free material is just an invention of those who don't want to understand what I'm saying.

This is true....WotC even pointed out that those who were against the inclusion of 3.5 could use the SRD. I personally refused to purchase the 3 new core books, in order to "vote with my wallet". I have used the SRD for those updates that I wanted to include in my game.

Banshee

 

[Vigilance]

I'll go a step further, (and this goes under #1 too I guess) but it seems like companies don't even build on their own products.

The reason books tend not to require more than the core rules is simple economics- if a book requires the core rules, your potential audience is everyone who plays. If your book requires the core rules plus the Psionics Handbook (a subset of those who own the Core Rules), your potential audience is a subset of that subset.

In effect you're narrowing your market share with each additional book built upon.

Even if you have a strong brand loyalty this eventually catches up with you.

Look at AEG's Shadowforce Archer line.

A great line to be sure, and well supported by any measure. But at some point you reach a level of diminishing returns where you pull the plug on the setting and reboot with Spycraft 2.0 (in fact you could argue that Spycraft 1.0 and the SFA setting got a "lifespan boost" by having the Modern gaming genre to themselves for so long but that's another comment for another thread )

This is a business model that White Wolf more or less perfected and has been used by some of the more savvy d20 companies such as AEG and Green Ronin.

Chuck

 

[Vocenoctum]

The reason books tend not to require more than the core rules is simple economics- if a book requires the core rules, your potential audience is everyone who plays. If your book requires the core rules plus the Psionics Handbook (a subset of those who own the Core Rules), your potential audience is a subset of that subset.

In effect you're narrowing your market share with each additional book built upon.

Even if you have a strong brand loyalty this eventually catches up with you.

Right, but I think the current tendency is the other end of the spectrum. I'd think there's a happy medium somewhere in there, but the time span and investment of products probably isn't Tinkering Friendly.

I could see how not burning out the market by requiring a lot of books would prolong things between edition resets, but then we end up with 10 versions of the same thing, and limited advancement, to an extent.

Though it is funny to imagine a meeting "Hey, lets do a book on naval combat!"
"We probably shouldn't, there's already 5 systems out there..."
"and one of them is ours..."

 

[Hussar]

Though it is funny to imagine a meeting "Hey, lets do a book on naval combat!"
"We probably shouldn't, there's already 5 systems out there..."
"and one of them is ours..."

LOL

I think the point has been made though. Without a central storehouse for basic alternative rules, you cannot get past the idea that you are presenting alternatives, rather than additions. IMHO, Mythusmage hit the nail on the head quite well. What he outlines does not entail a great amount of extra work for publishers and yet provides a pretty solid method for an expanding SRD.

Heck, most products on the market today already provide free previews in the form of downloadable pdf's. It's not like what Mythusmage has said is all that much different. Instead of being a free download on a company website, make it a free part of the SRD.

 

[Hussar]

SOrry for the threadomancy, but, I thought this was interesting.

We've known that the modules are coming for almost a year before they hit the shelves. And they hit pretty well IMO. Funnily enough, many of the predictions in the thread did not materialize. WOTC made modules profitable, not by tying them to DDM, but by actually innovating the module and making them easier to run.

A little blast from the past.

 

[Krug]

Isn't there an overload of adventures already? I mean Dungeon puts out 3-4 adventures a magazine.

 

[Numion]

Funnily enough, many of the predictions in the thread did not materialize. WOTC made modules profitable, not by tying them to DDM, but by actually innovating the module and making them easier to run.

What a surprise. ENWorld is usually very accurate in predictions.









NOT!

 

[Sir Elton]

Charles Ryan said:

"My hat is off to those companies that have made unique product lines and found a place for themselves. But for every one of them, there are twenty that didn't. (Remember, from where I sit, I see the entire d20 spectrum--not just the companies that do well enough to develop a vocal following on EN World.) Those twenty have choked the RPG supply chain with product that doesn't move because it doesn't address a need or do anything better than what we do."

Still, I'd like to see Wizards of the Coast try to do something far off left field as a one shot. Then, maybe I can consider Wizards doing it better than a d20 company.

 

[Hussar]

Charles Ryan said:

"My hat is off to those companies that have made unique product lines and found a place for themselves. But for every one of them, there are twenty that didn't. (Remember, from where I sit, I see the entire d20 spectrum--not just the companies that do well enough to develop a vocal following on EN World.) Those twenty have choked the RPG supply chain with product that doesn't move because it doesn't address a need or do anything better than what we do."

Still, I'd like to see Wizards of the Coast try to do something far off left field as a one shot. Then, maybe I can consider Wizards doing it better than a d20 company.

Tome of Magic fits that bill pretty nicely. Three completely original caster mechanics.

 

[Imaro]

Are the adventures really profitable for WotC or is it that they had to fill a particular vaccum in support for their own product and didn't really have any other options but to publish them?

And wasn't it WotC that originally claimed adventures weren't profitable?

The only modules I've heard real buzz about are the revisits of classics they are doing like Expedition to Ravenloft.

The same copies of Red Hand of Doom, Gates of Slaughtergarde, and the "Fantastic Locations" modules have been sitting in the Borders and FLGS around where I work for a while. You may be right though since I don't have any hard evidence to the contrary as well.

I know the only one I'm picking up is the Greyhawk revisit, the rest just don't interest me. The funny thing is when I first started playing 3.5 I would have been all over some good modules by WotC. Now I've got Dungeon magazine, C&C and TLG's modules, and I have no real interest or need for the WotC modules anymore. I guess in my case they're coming out a little too late for me to feel any "need" for them.