Time to change the supplement-driven business model for D&D (and other RPGs)?

[TrippyHippy]

By 'supplement-driven' I mean supported by lot of supplemental releases - additional rules and 'crunch' books.

To my mind, it's been the major model of all rpgs since the hobby began, but I'd really consider changing it. Why?

I actually think it may actually be detrimental to the hobby, as it conflates the appeal of the hobby with the hobby of collecting. By doing this you are going to limit yourself to a diminishing number of enthusiasts with each new release whilst alienating the broader market. Over the years there has been a continuous concern raised about the diminishing and aging group of hobbyists supporting the hobby. As these hobbyists have got older and their expendable income has increased, the hobby has relied on these individuals to spend more and more - sometimes by buying luxuriously packaged books and sometimes by heavy supplemental releases. There is a sense, in recent years that a number of games may have reached a point of saturation.

I'm less concerned about adventure modules and setting books - as these are either expendable items (once you've played them), or are new creative applications (in the case of setting book). It's the 'buy more crunch' that concerne. Certainly, in the case of adventure modules, they can be easily distributed in pdf - possibly even for free - and in my view this is where the creative aspect of the hobby should be anyway. It's the 'buy more crunch' that concerns me.

Is there an alternative? Well, in my view RPGs should be seen as a division of tabletop gaming these days, rather than their own hobby (in splendid isolation!). If we look at most tabletop games, the expansions are usually limited unless they a CCGs and miniatures. It's the unit sales of the core rules that count. The question is, how does a game like Monopoly, Settlers of Catan or Dixit keep their profits high in the face of high competition? What can the RPG hobby learn from them?

Thoughts? Or am I just spouting gush?

 

[Hussar]

I think you're a bit off when you look at table top gaming. After all, expansions for table top games are pretty common. Catan, as a perfect example, has what, 8, or 9 expansions? And many other board games are following this tradition.

Personally, I do think that Paizo has the right of things here - a strong focus on content rather than mechanics. I mean, there's a LOT of material for Golarian now. Far more than Pathfinder really has content for new rules. And it's the Adventure Paths which is driving the show. Appeal to the reader, rather than the player.

 

[MerricB]

You've missed out a vital difference between a boardgame and a RPG:

Boardgames can be played in a couple of hours. RPGs take months. Even in the case of single-session or mini-campaigns, the amount of preparation the DM and players require is significantly higher than for almost any boardgame. Learning a new boardgame is easy. Learning a new RPG is hard except for the most trivial.

It should be noted that the most popular boardgames tend to have a steady stream of expansions - Carcassonne and Settelrs of Catan in particular. Games that get played over and over and over again tend to get expanded.

Cheers!

 

[delericho]

Is there an alternative? Well, in my view RPGs should be seen as a division of tabletop gaming these days, rather than their own hobby (in splendid isolation!). If we look at most tabletop games, the expansions are usually limited unless they a CCGs and miniatures. It's the unit sales of the core rules that count.

That was actually the basis of 3.0e/OGL strategy - use every other product to push sales of the PHB. It seemed to work well enough for a couple of years... and then WotC felt the need to release 3.5e.

Anyway, the business model for both D&D and Pathfinder has actually changed already - WotC with the subscription-based DDI, and Paizo with their subscriptions to their various product lines. (And it is really subscriptions to the Adventure Path product, and not just the AP itself, that is the key to what they do. Because of their X,000 subscribers, they know that they can safely publish almost whatever they want, safe in the knowledge that it will be profitable. All they need to do is not drive away their subscribers in large numbers.)

 

[dm4hire]

I think a better approach would be to limit the core material, which is where everyone tends to break down as they continue to push new core products out and it becomes overwhelming to new players. Companies really need to make either just a core book or at most three core books and leave it at that. Then tie all accessories and expansions to the settings. Diehard fans will buy everything whether they are collectors or just after the material, but you don't lose the new players who suddenly face a wall of intimidation when looking at it.

I've worked in two game stores now and I see it all the time when someone new looks at D&D or Pathfinder. I can explain it to them until I'm blue in the face that they only need the core three, but they see all the other books and you know they are still feeling overwhelmed. It’s in their eyes! Who can blame them when you see “Advanced Title” or “Title XX”; where Title is a book like the Bestiary now on book 4. By separating the core books completely and then focusing expansion materials on the settings you can then in effect color code the books; which is to say have the core products distinctly different than any other books that are usable with the game (They do this to some extent already). Then list the settings and their various supplements as “usable with game x” and follow up by teaching stores to market them with that distinction so that new players aren’t overwhelmed before the wall of D&D or Pathfinder or whatever.
Here’s a better breakdown of what I am trying to say:
Core book(s) - includes everything you need to play the game without influence of settings and whatever else gets thought up over the years after an edition release.
Setting books - would include core campaign book, additional monster books, additional class books, NPC books, and everything else but the kitchen sink (may be included depending on setting).
Modules - this would pretty much as it already is; which you could tie to settings or make generic.

Then when it comes time to make a new edition you find out what classes you added to your settings people think should be core, find out what monsters people prefer, and then make the changes and just release the new core and update the rest as needed. It pretty much still works the same other than you keep the core limited and distinct to just those one to three books that won’t scare everyone off.

 

[Morrus]

My first question would be: why? It's a model which - largely - works.

By doing this you are going to limit yourself to a diminishing number of enthusiasts with each new release

So they sell you the core rulebook. And nothing else, ever? How is no sales better than a diminishing number of sales?

Monopoly keeps going because it has broad appeal. You could - maybe - achieve the same with D&D by simplifying it to the complexity of Monopoly and watering down the thematic elements, I suppose, and hoping it catches on to mass market zeitgeist like Monopoly did. But it wouldn't be D&D any more, so I'm still not sure how that helps any.

I do agree that the phenomenon of ever-diminishing sales in ever-specialized splatbooks for a given edition exists; but I can't see an alternative. Adventures, I guess, like Paizo - that works for them. But even they still sell splatbooks, and BESTIARY 10 is not going to be a must-buy in 2025 or whenever.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There are also many variants of Monopoly (and other boardgsmes) on the market: some are thematicslly and aestheticslly tied to IP licenses, some are "updated" to include different rules, some have different physical forms (travel, deluxe, electronic, etc.)

Also, there is a certain level of "churn" in their sales due to replacement of damaged boxes and lost parts.

 

[N'raac]

By 'supplement-driven' I mean supported by lot of supplemental releases - additional rules and 'crunch' books.

To my mind, it's been the major model of all rpgs since the hobby began, but I'd really consider changing it. Why?

I don't think so. Let's look at AD&D. Three books at the outset, then a book of Deities (no change to the rules) and a lot of modules. The model for most games at this time seemed more like "Boxed set/rulebook well under 100 pages of rules; publish some scenarios; maybe publish some new rules", but I don't think "new rules" plus "core" ever exceeded the PHB/DMG total page count for many, if any, games.

Then TSR published Unearthed Arcana - a bunch of new rules, rather than a setting or an adventure. Guess what? Only GM's bought setting and scenario materials. Players bought sourcebooks with "crunch", so they sold better. So much better that the focus shifted to such books.

AD&D 2e featured both - new sourcebooks were common, but so were scenarios and similar products. By 3e, though, the publishers realized "GM only" products weren't where the bucks were made, so they got relegated to a magazine and third party publishers so WoTC could focus on the much more lucrative crunch products (with a slight nod to the occasional adventure). But those blasted 3rd parties wanted in on the big bucks and started publishing crunch too!

I don't disagree where the model ended up, but it wasn't there at the start.

I actually think it may actually be detrimental to the hobby, as it conflates the appeal of the hobby with the hobby of collecting. By doing this you are going to limit yourself to a diminishing number of enthusiasts with each new release whilst alienating the broader market. Over the years there has been a continuous concern raised about the diminishing and aging group of hobbyists supporting the hobby. As these hobbyists have got older and their expendable income has increased, the hobby has relied on these individuals to spend more and more - sometimes by buying luxuriously packaged books and sometimes by heavy supplemental releases. There is a sense, in recent years that a number of games may have reached a point of saturation.

This also leads to new editions, which allows the broader appeal products to be reprinted for the new edition.

Board games have learned the lesson in some cases, as we do see expansions now. But their other approach, just like RPG's in the 70's/early '80s, is "publish it - reprint and maybe support it if it sells; otherwise, stop publishing it!"

Top Secret, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Metamorphasis: Alpha, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers - how many other TSR RPG's appeared and vanished, with limited support? TSR also published board games (Divine Right, Dungeon ) back in the day.

We have trained them over the years - we buy more crunch products, so they make more crunch products.

 

[Morrus]

[MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] - yup; basically unsupported RPG lines usually vanish without trace. The lines we still have are still here because they're supported, not in spite of it,

 

[Umbran]

The question is, how does a game like Monopoly, Settlers of Catan or Dixit keep their profits high in the face of high competition? What can the RPG hobby learn from them?

I think the answer to that is simple - Monopoly and its ilk keep their revenue stream large by having such a large buying public, and so many new customers coming in as people become old enough to take part, that their market never really saturates. There are almost always enough new customers to keep the game in print.

The problem is that, whether *you* consider them as a "division" of board games or not is not material. The buying public doesn't think they are the same. Most of the buying public isn't interested in tabletop RPGs. The market is smaller, so it can be (and is) saturated rather quickly.

So, I don't think the current business model is one the publishers chose, so much as the one that they've found works under the market conditions in which they operate.