Leviatham
Explorer
I largely disagree with this...
Though splatbooks are okay (in my book... heh) and give many options I rarely buy them.
What I NEVER buy is published adventures... because with the exception of 2 maybe 3 throughout my gaming history they all share one common thing... THEY SUCK.
From the 1st/2nd edition -crappy- dungeon crawlers to the 3rd/3.5/pathfinder uninspired plotlines.
Seriously I have not ONCE run a pregenerated campaign and not thought I could have done it so much better... I do not need pre-drawn maps and random rooms filled with monsters, crazy loot and random traps...
The 2 shining exceptions (there to confirm the rule) are the Crown of Shadows (for Midnight campaign setting) and the Red Hand of Doom.
Sure, I hear you preparing to say 'but adventure books can just serve to give you ideas, you dont have to follow all the adventure it describes or you can make it better yourself. Sure, but the same then applies for splatbooks! I once run an epic game solely focused on the entry of the super secret society on the Epic level handbook... we had a 6 month campaign inspired from 1 thing in a single -splatbook-. Same applies for other books... the 'Completes' and 'Races of' series had alot of info at the end of the books with ideas of how to use them and how to structure plots based on that!
Often enough I introduced a plotline via an NPC having a fancy class or prestige class given that in my group we were mostly doing core.
There is ONE category that I would like companies to make more off...
CAMPAIGN SETTINGs and Material.
The one thing I do buy is stuff like Forgotten Realms campaign setting stuff for example. Because I like to have a fully developed world in which to put my adventures... so I have bought quite a few of the setting books (and had done so also in 2nd where the boxed sets were really cool) set in different areas of Faerun.
I would do the same if they did a 3.5 Birthright and 3.5 Planescape for example but NOT that horrible Manual of Planes stuff...
So yea, campaign settings = yes, splatbooks = maybe, published adventures = never!
PS>
To those that have not tried it, seek out Midnight Campaign Setting... its truly a revolutionary concept (imagine a Lord of The Ring World if Sauron had won!)
Have you considered submitting your adventures for publication?
If there is such amount of crappy material out there, surely we could do with them to keep things fresh!