Orcus of Necromancer Games says "You were right, I was wrong"

[SSquirrel]

My guess (and only IMHO) is that the reason NG isn't producing 4e adventures is that neither the owners of NG nor their stable of writers like 4e sufficiently to produce material for it. Since the release of 4e, their boards have been pretty slow, with few people talking about 4e games they are playing.

If the Demon Lords of NG and their writers were stoked about 4e, I think nothing would stop them from writing kick @ss adventures for 4e.

Well Clark is both the mouthpiece and co-owner of Necromancer Games, as well as an author of various bits of material for them over the years. He was also the biggest cheerleader on all of ENWorld for 4E and especially for 4E being opened up to 3rd party mor than it was originally set to be. I really don't expect to hear that lack of enthusiasm for the edition is the problem, at least not for Clark.

 

[Jack99]

@Jack99 From a publishing view I'm wondering - since you've probably read them all - are there any differences between say ENP's War of the Burning Sky or GGs DCCs? I mean, related to their choice of license?

The differences seem very small, mostly layout-wise although of course there are a few things you can not do with the OGL, primarily in the reference department.

Well Clark is both the mouthpiece and co-owner of Necromancer Games, as well as an author of various bits of material for them over the years. He was also the biggest cheerleader on all of ENWorld for 4E and especially for 4E being opened up to 3rd party mor than it was originally set to be. I really don't expect to hear that lack of enthusiasm for the edition is the problem, at least not for Clark.

Yeah, but the other half is (seems) less than enthusiastic about it, which doesn't push things forward. Although I do not think that is what has kept them from doing 4e products. If I am to hazard a guess, it's tied to the IP-problems that can arise, but your guess is as good as mine.

 

[DaveMage]

IIRC, Clark had some minor issues with the 4E rules, but still very much wanted (wants?) to do products for it.

The licensing fiasco rained on that parade, and current market conditions do not seem to favor 3PP 4E products to the sales level Clark desires. Will that change? I doubt it, unless some integration with DDI for 3PP comes in the future - such as when they get that virtual tabletop thing working. Playing your 4E Necromancer adventure on the VTT would be cool, eh? (Well, to 4E players anyway. )

WRT Pathfinder, Necromancer would essentially be competing with Paizo for adventures. Good luck with that. (I would certainly buy adventures from both companies, but the current market might not produce significant enough sales to the level NG desires.) The problem is, the entire back-catalogue of Necro products is *already* compatible with Pathfinder. It may be best to simply market/re-release that back catalogue to Pathfinder players rather than create new stuff. (Or, perhaps update/convert the 3.0 modules like "Demons and Devils" to "Pathfinder-compatible".)

 

[SSquirrel]

I believe in a previous Clark update for NG he had talked about the icy reception 3rd party companies were getting from distributors due to the current economic climate plus rembering the d20 glut. A few less than popular products used to level out with the winners, but if everyone is buying less anyway and then people stick to the main system instead of the 3rd parties, stores and distributors get stuck with a lot of product, again.

 

[Greg V]

I don't take this as "they can't do 4E", I take it as, "these were already finished and we want to be paid for the work we've already done on them, not totally re-write and re-design these specific 3 products, thus doing the work twice but only profiting once."

The encounter design from 3E to 4E would mean major re-writes of these already finished modules. It's most likely more trouble than it would be worth.

That's the impression I get at least.

I can't speak for Clark, but this hits the nail on the head for me and Slumbering Tsar. Not only would be the update have been a near-total rewrite, but it would have drastically changed the feel and balance of the adventure as intended. I'm not bashing 4e here, I write for 3.5, 4e, and PF. I'm just saying there is a very real difference in the technique of making them and the feel of what they produce, and ST is very much an atmospheric adventure. The more frenetic style I have seen and written for 4e did not fit as well. Now certainly 4e is continuing to develop and may already be to that point, but what I'm saying is that it was beyond my personal abilities at the time (there's my mea culpa ) to capture what I was trying to capture with the adventures and to do it in a 4e format. Plus the trilogy clocks in at near 500,000 words (ST1 represents about 20% of the total), and converting all of that would have been far more than my schedule could have handled.

So there it is from the angle of ST1 for what it's worth...

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm not bashing 4e here, I write for 3.5, 4e, and PF. I'm just saying there is a very real difference in the technique of making them and the feel of what they produce ... Now certainly 4e is continuing to develop and may already be to that point, but what I'm saying is that it was beyond my personal abilities at the time (there's my mea culpa ) to capture what I was trying to capture with the adventures and to do it in a 4e format.

I can second this, from my own personal experience, with my Dungeon adventure "The Last Breaths of Ashenport." I wrote it for 3.5, and then rewrote it for 4E--and honestly, I think a lot of the encounters suffered in the transition. It's not that 4E is incapable of handling the adventure, it's just that, at the time I was assigned to write the conversion, I wasn't as well versed in 4E as I am now. If I had to do it over again now, I'd make a lot more changes to the encounters--which would make the conversion better, yes, but also a lot harder to write.

All of which is a long way of saying that even if the adventure could be rewritten for 4E, it's not an easy thing to do, and I can absolutely understand why Greg--or anyone else--might not want to do it, or be comfortable trying.

 

[ggroy]

The problem is, the entire back-catalogue of Necro products is *already* compatible with Pathfinder. It may be best to simply market/re-release that back catalogue to Pathfinder players rather than create new stuff. (Or, perhaps update/convert the 3.0 modules like "Demons and Devils" to "Pathfinder-compatible".)

I would certainly buy the older Necromancer modules updated to be Pathfinder-compatible. I missed most of the older ones that were released through the Sword & Sorcery imprint during the 3E era. By the time I found out about them, they were largely gone already (even from the bargain bins).

Better yet, some of the series of older modules repackaged as books updated to be Pathfinder-compatible. (ie. Similar to what Expeditious Retreat Press is doing with their older 1-on-1 adventures modules).

 

[dystmesis]

When is somebody going to make adventures that are Trailblazer compatible?

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I told you so.

Still a fluffy bunny.

 

[catsclaw227]

I can't speak for Clark, but this hits the nail on the head for me and Slumbering Tsar. Not only would be the update have been a near-total rewrite, but it would have drastically changed the feel and balance of the adventure as intended. I'm not bashing 4e here, I write for 3.5, 4e, and PF. I'm just saying there is a very real difference in the technique of making them and the feel of what they produce, and ST is very much an atmospheric adventure. The more frenetic style I have seen and written for 4e did not fit as well. Now certainly 4e is continuing to develop and may already be to that point, but what I'm saying is that it was beyond my personal abilities at the time (there's my mea culpa ) to capture what I was trying to capture with the adventures and to do it in a 4e format. Plus the trilogy clocks in at near 500,000 words (ST1 represents about 20% of the total), and converting all of that would have been far more than my schedule could have handled.

So there it is from the angle of ST1 for what it's worth...

So, here you go, right from the horse's mouth, so to speak. (OK, and it's always cool when the writer pops in and states the facts. Thanks, Greg.)

This makes a lot of sense to me and with the adventure/scenario work I've done for my own game, I can faithfully claim that I had to have a paradigm shift when it came to designing a scene or encounter. D&D 4e has a different feel to design than D&D 3.x, not necessarily better or worse. (Though I must admit 4e is much easier with all the tools available from WOTC and the DDI.)