D&D 5E Buying Adventures

[delericho]

Yes, I'd count Pathfinder subscriptions. Why not? You're buying the adventures, you just have a plan for buying them. As far as DDI and Dungeon are concerned, I wouldn't count those for the purpose of the poll simply because they aren't purely adventure products.

Well... for most of its history in print, Dungeon was at least as much of an "adventure product" as the Pathfinder Adventure Paths are. But fair enough.

The big flaw I see in seeing adventures as a "safe bet due to the market segment that Paizo serves with their adventure paths" is actually precisely due to those subscriptions. For three reasons:

- By tying so many people into a subscription, Paizo don't need to go to the trouble of selling us on each individual volume. The same isn't true in the FLGS (or Amazon), even with exactly the same products - WotC will have to pursuade people to buy "Rise of Tiamat" separately to "Hoard of the Dragon Queen".

- Related to the above, by tying us into a subscription Paizo have made buying the modules the easy option - in order to opt out, we need to take the action of cancelling. Again, this isn't true in the FLGS (or Amazon) - if I happen not to go to the store on a given month, that may well be a sale lost permanently.

- Perhaps the biggest factor, though, is one of control: Paizo know ahead of time that their next AP volume will sell well enough to be worth producing, and further they know pretty accurately just how many copies it will sell. This means that they don't need to guess when ordering their print runs - they can place an order to get the best volume savings while also not getting stuck with lots of unsold copies.

I've been convinced that it's less adventures that have been the key to Paizo's rise, but rather subscriptions to adventures.

 

[Redbadge]

I've had an ongoing Pathfinder AP subscription for quite some time (including buying those first few I missed, excluding Second Darkness), subscribed for both 4e Scales of War and ENWorld's own Zeitgeist, own all of 4e's H,P, and E series, bought every hardback adventure from 3.0 on (i.e. Revenge of the Giants, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, Red Hand of Doom, etc.), bought some old classics (Island of Dread), etc. I also have some stray adventures, like most of the 3.0 soft backs (Forge of Fury, etc.), as well as the Eberron softbacks.

I've probably bought 3 dozen adventures this year alone (12 AP volumes, all the new D&D Next/Edition Neutral products, Tears at Bitter Manor, Dragon's Demand, To Slay a Dragon, Warden of the Reborn Forge, and several other third party products I haven't even had a chance to really dive into yet).


I read all of these, but with playing once a week in person and three nights a week on Maptools, I've actually finished quite a lot as well.

 

[DM Howard]

I've been convinced that it's less adventures that have been the key to Paizo's rise, but rather subscriptions to adventures.

That's actually extremely insightful and I'd have to agree now that you've said it. What do you think the odds are that WotC initiates some sort of subscription service for their adventures. Just by the marketing jargon being thrown around about a continuing story I find it very likely.

 

[delericho]

That's actually extremely insightful and I'd have to agree now that you've said it. What do you think the odds are that WotC initiates some sort of subscription service for their adventures. Just by the marketing jargon being thrown around about a continuing story I find it very likely.

Not sure.

I would be surprised if they set up a subscription service for in-print materials, largely because they just don't do direct sales (even with DDI subs the money side is handled by others). Besides, they've only announced two big adventures, where a subscription probably works with smaller, more regular offerings. (Indeed, the Pathfinder Adventure Path is probably the model to follow, in terms of size, regularity, and price.)

I wouldn't be surprised, though, to see them offering electronic products through DriveThruRPG, and offering a subscription to those. And I also wouldn't be surprised to see eDungeon coming back, either as part of a revamped DDI or as a standalone product (or, just maybe, rolled up with eDragon into a single electronic magazine), available on a subscription basis.

So, I'm expecting some subscription offerings, but probably not everything being available that way. Which shouldn't be a surprise - you need the right product at the right time, after all!

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I voted 0. Published adventures with their single use (at least per player group) utility have just never appealed to me as much as books that contain permanent utility.

However, if you count Dungeon magazine back in the TSR era (which was 100% adventures) I had a subscription to that, so I suppose you could say I bought a lot of adventures under that framework.

Seems weird that I'm not interested in individual adventure or adventure path purchases, but I'd jump at the opportunity to pick up a print subscription to a 5e era Dungeon. I guess it's the number of adventures of all different themes and lengths that you get that appeals to me. Even if I never use most of them, they are entertaining just to read and mine possibilities from.

 

[TerraDave]

There is a few things going on.

On the one hand, this is ENWorld. Posters here tend to buy a lot of stuff, and many of them have played for a long, long time. Say you only buy 1 adventure a year, but have played for 30 years. It adds up.

On the other hand, its true that a little adventure goes a long way. In my single, slow moving, long running 4E campaign, levels 1-21, I used the equivalent of about 6 32 page modules....transitions between adventures and stuff that an adventure just didn't work with made up the rest.

For fifth edition, I plan on using modules at a faster rate, but it will still be a fraction of my total collection.

In any case, 11 is still too low.

 

[DM Howard]

In any case, 11 is still too low.

It's 11+ I don't understand the mental block here. The poll is designed to see if there are others, like myself, who don't really buy that many adventures. Yes, of course it's anecdotal because it's EN World, but it's anecdotal anyway because it's a poll with no real sample size or confidence level metrics occurring.

 

[TerraDave]

It's 11+ I don't understand the mental block here.

Mental block?

Look at your results.

 

[DM Howard]

Mental block?

Look at your results.

I see them, what's your point?

 

[TerraDave]

I see them, what's your point?

Is a multichoice pole interesting where all the answers bunch up at one spot?

I guess I, and several other posters, are too mentally blocked to realize your very subtle and nuanced point.