Still no SRD for 3rd party companies

[thundershot]

This is one of the reasons that I wish that WOTC had announced 4E for Summer 2009. Plenty of time to get playtesting in, 3rd parties set up, and still have some "crossover" type products to whet appetites until the game came out.

Or they could have continued the current progress, but announce it NEXT year. Now it's too late. They're locked in...


Chris

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I've done work with Dark Quest. It appears 3rd Party Publishers will recieve the new SRD no sooner than the publication of the 4.0 PHB, and probably not until later (the new SRd is unlikely to be posted the same day as the new PHB is released). Between the release of the new PHB and the SRD, everyone will simply be using the PHB.

 

[Imaro]

From a purely business perspective, I wonder if WotC new focus on modules (the bread and butter of most large 3rd party companies) may have something to do with this. It's just speculation but I'm thinking...why give 3rd parties the ability to compete with the new H series modules as soon as they hit shelves, especially with Paizo commiting itself to adventure paths and their loss of Dungeon & Dragon magazine. It just seems more profitable if, when the new edition is released, you have no choice but to turn to WotC for some start up adventures. The price point on their new adventures also makes me consider this as a possible scenario.

 

[grimslade]

Right. I think the issue is that they seemed to go to play-testing a little (or more then a little) late. (And then delayed release of the PHB by one month).

But I do expect the rules part of the PHB to be done soon. And I wouldn't be surprised if certain 3rd party publishes got something at the end of December or begining of January. I would be surprised if it was latter then that.

I figure by DDXP (late Feb/early March) at the latest for the SRD. This puts an incredible crunch on 3rd party publishers to release 4E product by GenCon. I would hope that WotC would work with 3PP to get at least a few products in the pipeline. I am not holding my breath however.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Then perhaps they shouldn't rely on one license to make their living?

Exactly. Stand on their own merits rather than riding the coattails of WotC.

Too many of the initial 3rd party 3.x releases were...how to put it in a way that Eric's Grandmother would approve....less than stellar.

 

[DocSER]

I may be way off base here having not actually worked for an RPG company but I will throw this out there anyway.

How much of the development of materials is really based on the crunch in the PHB? For example, I am currently taking a group through Paizo's Rise of the Runelords. The most interesting elements of the story are crunch-neutral. You could tell a very similar story in other systems - and it would be similarly entertaining. If this is the case, why can't publishers (of modules anyway - and its seems that is pretty much what is left of 3rd party development anyway) simply write the stories and leave the crunch for later when they actually get the SRD?

For example, if I were writing an adventure in anticipation of 4E, I would develop characters and settings and leave placeholders like ***swashbuckling fighter type*** or ***blaster mage***. This would be a larger problem (with less predictability in the types of characters available) at higher levels but the initial interest will largely be at the low level anyway.

So, you could have two or three modules ready to roll except for the mechanics of creatures. Once the SRD comes out, you could go back and add in the crunch and even make some revisions based on interesting new options (new characters or monster types, new environments, or new abilities) but most of the work will have been done already. All you need to do is slot in some predictable encounters.

Consider this. With a raise of hands... Who really thinks there won't be orcs, skeletons, zombies, giant vermin, and other predictable creatures for low-level encounters? The bulk of early modules will draw from these sources anyway.

There are some dangers in this approach, certainly. One would have to rely on the last three editions vision of what is available to low level characters. This may fail to spotlight the new features of fourth edition (like the rumored new core races and classes) or - worse yet - rely on materials not available at launch (like the yet to be identified, gnome like surprise exclusions). This does not strike me as a huge risk though. When the SRD does come out, one can substitute new material in to places where you already had encounters - now with new 4E flavor.

The larger problem is playtesting. I see this as a real concern and one that I simply don't know much about. I don't know how much play testing goes into the typical module - especially one at launch. There would not be much time for this if one has only a month or so between getting the SRD and release.

So, I see some problems with playtesting but not much in terms of module writing. I suspect I could convert the Paizo's Burnt Offering, for example, in a weekend. It has

(MINOR VAGUE SPOILER)

lots of goblins, meaner goblins, bigger meaner goblins, classes PC race enemies, and a few support creatures.

(END SPOILERS)

This would be easy to adapt to 4E.

Flame on....

 

[Keefe the Thief]

This sucks for the 3rd party companies, but finishing the game should be WotCs top priority now. There is - and should not be any kind of obligation to provide a SRD before the PHB is finished.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I may be way off base here having not actually worked for an RPG company but I will throw this out there anyway.

How much of the development of materials is really based on the crunch in the PHB? For example, I am currently taking a group through Paizo's Rise of the Runelords. The most interesting elements of the story are crunch-neutral. You could tell a very similar story in other systems - and it would be similarly entertaining. If this is the case, why can't publishers (of modules anyway - and its seems that is pretty much what is left of 3rd party development anyway) simply write the stories and leave the crunch for later when they actually get the SRD?

For example, if I were writing an adventure in anticipation of 4E, I would develop characters and settings and leave placeholders like ***swashbuckling fighter type*** or ***blaster mage***. This would be a larger problem (with less predictability in the types of characters available) at higher levels but the initial interest will largely be at the low level anyway.

So, you could have two or three modules ready to roll except for the mechanics of creatures. Once the SRD comes out, you could go back and add in the crunch and even make some revisions based on interesting new options (new characters or monster types, new environments, or new abilities) but most of the work will have been done already. All you need to do is slot in some predictable encounters.

Consider this. With a raise of hands... Who really thinks there won't be orcs, skeletons, zombies, giant vermin, and other predictable creatures for low-level encounters? The bulk of early modules will draw from these sources anyway.

There are some dangers in this approach, certainly. One would have to rely on the last three editions vision of what is available to low level characters. This may fail to spotlight the new features of fourth edition (like the rumored new core races and classes) or - worse yet - rely on materials not available at launch (like the yet to be identified, gnome like surprise exclusions). This does not strike me as a huge risk though. When the SRD does come out, one can substitute new material in to places where you already had encounters - now with new 4E flavor.

The larger problem is playtesting. I see this as a real concern and one that I simply don't know much about. I don't know how much play testing goes into the typical module - especially one at launch. There would not be much time for this if one has only a month or so between getting the SRD and release.

So, I see some problems with playtesting but not much in terms of module writing. I suspect I could convert the Paizo's Burnt Offering, for example, in a weekend. It has

(MINOR VAGUE SPOILER)

lots of goblins, meaner goblins, bigger meaner goblins, classes PC race enemies, and a few support creatures.

(END SPOILERS)

This would be easy to adapt to 4E.

Flame on....

Yeah, and lot´s of 3rd party companies are going to do it like that. The big problem is printing: it takes time to print stuff, and if your printer tells you "after Date x you won´t get your books for GenCon", that´s that. And for some companies we are already nearing Date x or have crossed over it.

 

[Piratecat]

This is one of the reasons that I wish that WOTC had announced 4E for Summer 2009.

That would do horrible things to the industry. As soon as 4e was announced, both WotC and 3rd party RPG sales dropped off dramatically. At this point, the sooner it comes out the better for 3rd party publishers and retailers.

 

[Imaro]

I may be way off base here having not actually worked for an RPG company but I will throw this out there anyway.

How much of the development of materials is really based on the crunch in the PHB? For example, I am currently taking a group through Paizo's Rise of the Runelords. The most interesting elements of the story are crunch-neutral. You could tell a very similar story in other systems - and it would be similarly entertaining. If this is the case, why can't publishers (of modules anyway - and its seems that is pretty much what is left of 3rd party development anyway) simply write the stories and leave the crunch for later when they actually get the SRD?

For example, if I were writing an adventure in anticipation of 4E, I would develop characters and settings and leave placeholders like ***swashbuckling fighter type*** or ***blaster mage***. This would be a larger problem (with less predictability in the types of characters available) at higher levels but the initial interest will largely be at the low level anyway.

So, you could have two or three modules ready to roll except for the mechanics of creatures. Once the SRD comes out, you could go back and add in the crunch and even make some revisions based on interesting new options (new characters or monster types, new environments, or new abilities) but most of the work will have been done already. All you need to do is slot in some predictable encounters.

Consider this. With a raise of hands... Who really thinks there won't be orcs, skeletons, zombies, giant vermin, and other predictable creatures for low-level encounters? The bulk of early modules will draw from these sources anyway.

There are some dangers in this approach, certainly. One would have to rely on the last three editions vision of what is available to low level characters. This may fail to spotlight the new features of fourth edition (like the rumored new core races and classes) or - worse yet - rely on materials not available at launch (like the yet to be identified, gnome like surprise exclusions). This does not strike me as a huge risk though. When the SRD does come out, one can substitute new material in to places where you already had encounters - now with new 4E flavor.

The larger problem is playtesting. I see this as a real concern and one that I simply don't know much about. I don't know how much play testing goes into the typical module - especially one at launch. There would not be much time for this if one has only a month or so between getting the SRD and release.

So, I see some problems with playtesting but not much in terms of module writing. I suspect I could convert the Paizo's Burnt Offering, for example, in a weekend. It has

(MINOR VAGUE SPOILER)

lots of goblins, meaner goblins, bigger meaner goblins, classes PC race enemies, and a few support creatures.

(END SPOILERS)

This would be easy to adapt to 4E.

Flame on....

I see a few possible problems with this approach. The first being that 90% of an adventure is usually combat and terrain/area, both areas where 4e is purported to be making very fundamental changes. If the nature of both combat and how terrain and area affect combat have been based on new paradigms...well then I think that makes it much harder to create an adventure without knowing what this paradigms are. Kind of like the Creature Collection and their often incorrect guesstimates of CR.

Another problem is that even outside of combat you are fundamentally creating challenges for characters with no yardstick for their capabilities, and without knowng that how do you even begin to construct any type of challenge.

Third...manpower and cost. It could become twice as expensive to create a module in this way if numerous corrections/rewritting/redesigning is necessary once the rules are released.

I find the claim that you could "convert" Burnt Offerings in a weekend without actually having seen the 4e rules kind of jumping the gun. Of course you don't have to deal with layout, distribution channels, expectations of your fanbase (as far as quality and balance control), etc.